Triangle UFO video – Schenectady, NY – 30-Jan-2020

Amazing 2020 UFO sighting of a triangular-shaped formation in the night sky above Schenectady, New York. Date: 30th January 2020.

Witness report: 

I was outside letting my dogs out when I spotted a boomerang flying towards me, what grabbed my attention was the one green light blinking on a wing and a red one blinking next to it on the same side, it flew over my head, I did not have my phone on me but my wife did, as we got video, the red and green light stopped, and it banked west and slowly dissapeard, I’ve never seen a stealth bomber, it could of been one.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

31-01-2020 om 19:41 geschreven door peter  

Humans will be happy if aliens invade Earth, scientists find

The work represents some of the first detailed research on how humans would react to meeting aliens

31-01-2020 om 00:48 geschreven door peter  

What are these strange lights floating above a Mexican volcano? UFO hunters say they could be aliens monitoring the Earth

• The lights were spotted above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico
• Alien hunters say ET may be monitoring the Earth's geothermal activity
• UFOs may be composed of plasma that glows at night and appears metallic
• These UFOs cast EM fields that some scientists say trigger hallucinations

By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

Volcanoes have been a favourite site for alien hunters over the years.

Now a strange series of lights above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico have got conspiracy theorists excited once again.

The sightings, they say, suggest aliens are studying Earth's geothermal activity so that they can understand how it works. 

Scroll down for video 

Volcanoes have been a favourite site for alien hunters over the years. Now a strange series of lights (pictured) above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico has got conspiracy theorists excited once again. The sightings, they say, suggest aliens are studying Earth's geothermal activity to understand how it works

Unusual circular orbs and a long cigar-shaped anomaly were spotted on the cameras of Webcams Mexico above the Popocatepetl volcano, according to a report in The Express.

The lights appeared at the same time as the 18,000ft volcano released four explosions which released gas vapour. 

Webcams Mexico recently uploaded the video which has become popular on social media and UFO forums.

Sceptics claim the bright lights are probably volcanic material being ejected from the volcano or an atmospheric phenomenon. 

In a more radical theory, some scientists say the material from which these UFOs are formed could trigger hallucinations, which may explain the bizarre first hand accounts of alien sightings.  

Unusual circular orbs a long cigar-shaped anomaly were spotted on the cameras of Webcams Mexico above the Popocatepetl volcano. The lights appeared at the same time as the 18,000ft volcano released 4 explosions. Acigar-UFO is seen in this image horizontally over the same volcano in February this year

'There is a combination of geophysical and geopsychological factors at work that can produce UFOs,' Nigel Watson, author of 'UFOs of the First World War', told DailyMail.com.

'In this case it might be that the proximity of fault lines volcanic activity on a fault line in the Earth's crust has helped produce a UFO composed of plasma that glows at night and appears metallic or black in daylight. 

'These type of UFOs cast out electromagnetic (EM) fields that can initiate poltergeist-like events (such as objects being thrown about) and they can even react to witnesses as if acting in an intelligent or playful manner.'

Michael Persinger, a cognitive neuroscience researcher, has experimented with the possibility that UFO EM fields can trigger hallucinations or trance states in people who get to near to them. 

This would explain the many stories of 'alien' abductions and other strange encounters that are experienced after a witness has seen a light in the sky, added Watson. 

'There is a combination of geophysical and geopsychological factors at work that can produce UFOs,' Nigel Watson, author of 'UFOs of the First World War', told DailyMail.com. 'In this case it might be that the proximity of fault lines volcanic activity on a fault line in the Earth's crust'

Popocatépetl is an active volcano, located in the states of Puebla, Mexico, and Morelos, in Central Mexico

'The UFO probably isn't an intergalactic starship, but could well be a rare atmospheric phenomenon captured on film,' he said.

UFO hunter Paul Seaburn told The Express: 'Sightings of UFOs around volcanic eruptions and earthquakes is a common occurrence.

'Why do we see so many UFOs near volcanoes, earthquakes and nuclear power plants? Are we being watched? Controlled? Cared for? Warned?' 

This isn't the first time alien hunters believe they have seen ET visiting volcanoes in Mexico.

In January, a UFO that resembled a flying horse was spotted close to one of Mexico's most active volcanoes.

The dark object appeared to have two legs and was seen hovering into view out of nowhere as volcano Colima, 300 miles west of Mexico City, spewed out smoke.

Captured on webcam after Colima erupted, the enigmatic 'equine' vanished moments later.

Witness Loyola Quintanilla Rosas, 24, said: 'When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a horse.

ET WILL 'CONQUER AND COLONISE' HUMANITY, WARNS STEPHEN HAWKING 

Professor Stephen Hawking claims that if AI doesn't conquer humanity, an advanced alien civilisation may do so instead.

Professor Stephen Hawking has previously said artificial intelligence could control humans in 100 years.

in his latest dire warning, the physicist claims that if AI doesn't conquer humanity, an advanced alien civilisation may do so instead.

'If aliens visit us, the outcome could be much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,' Professor Hawking said in a recent interview.

'Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach,' Hawking told El Pais.

Hawking is currently heading up a major search for intelligent alien life using two of the world's most powerful telescopes. 

The telescopes will scour one million of the closest stars to Earth for faint signals thrown out into space by intelligent life beyond our own world. 

'To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,' said Hawking. 'The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.'

It had a very large body and seemed to be an animal. It had a thin top, a bulging middle and two extremities at the bottom.

'But the legs weren't moving so it clearly wasn't a modern-day Pegasus.'

In 2012, a 'cigar-shaped' object was filmed flying inside Popocatepetl volcano in central Mexico by a television camera crew.

And last November, a 'blurry, white object' was caught on camera flying around the same volcano.

Alien enthusiast Eufrasio Gonzales Carrasco, 35, said: 'There has been a fair bit of activity around these volcanoes and this latest sighting just adds to the mystery.

'There must be something about volcanoes that draws extra-terrestrials to them. Perhaps they are collecting samples from our planet to take back home.'

This mysterious white light was spotted spotted hovering near Chile's erupting Calbuco volcano in April. Tens of thousands of people speculated on what the UFO could be, suggesting everything from police or emergence services helicopters, to a kind of optical illusion or even an alien craft

The dark horse-shaped object seen earlier this year appeared to have two legs and was seen coming into view out of nowhere before quickly disappearing

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

30-01-2020 om 23:50 geschreven door peter  

“We all know that it (the volcano) is an alien headquarters, they only “close” the door to scare us so that nobody goes there.”

There are two things you can count on with Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano – it will erupt frequently and there will be UFOs in video footage of the eruption. The latest incident of both occurred January 27th when the government webcams which keep Popocatepetl under constant surveillance captured the latest eruption and a mysterious UFO streaking across the sky at the same moment. (Watch the video here.) This is where you’re allowed to join the above Twitter commenter and shriek: “Aliens!” Was it?

Let’s get the facts straight first. The video shows just part (15 seconds) of the eruption which began at 23:18 (11:18 pm) local time on January 27. As of this writing, Mexico’s National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) reported there were “78 exhalations, 563 minutes of tremor, a moderate explosion, a minor explosion and a volcanotectonic earthquake” in the 24 hours following the eruption. After it was posted on the Twitter feed of Webcams de Mexico, which provides the round-the-clock video feeds, it spread across the Internet, where the UFO streaking across the viewing area was picked up by many sites.

Popocatepetl on a quiet day

Popocatepetl is Mexico’s second-highest peak (5,426 meters or 17,802 ft) and one of its most active volcanoes, with over 15 major eruptions since 1519 (when the Spanish arrived) and many more since it first erupted over 2000,000 years ago. With its high and mighty recent activities and close proximity to Mexico City, it’s no wonder the government has it under close webcam watch for signs of potential eruptions.

And aliens. The webcams see everything going on in the sky above Popocatepetl and have recorded plenty of unidentified objects flying past it or hovering over it. There were a number of sightings during a recent active period in 2017 and speculation then and now on the ‘alien spacecraft’ side tended to see them as proof that aliens or subterrestrials use volcanoes as fuel stations or entry and exit ports to underground facilities. However, this one appears to be passing by as if observing the eruptions – something that many believe is because benevolent aliens are watching out for our safety during disasters.

On the skeptical side, it’s obvious that a lot of bright objects are being spewed by Popocatepetl and the videos are generally dark due to the time of day or dense smoke. They also use time-lapse photography, so unidentified objects appear to be moving faster than they really are.

That’s the case with the latest video. It’s obvious that the stars are moving quickly as well. The elongated shape means it could be a plane or one of those ubiquitous drones – it IS a newsworthy eruption. Or, as some suggest, it could be a meteor or the ISS or a satellite. Since it seems to pass behind the smoke of the Popocatepetl eruption, a bug or bird can probably be eliminated.

So, what is it? The needle is on the skeptical side with this one – probably a plane or satellite. However, if it IS an alien craft, it might be wise to take it as one of those benevolent ones and stay away from Popocatepetl for a while.

Has anyone checked for UFOs over Wuhan, China?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

30-01-2020 om 23:25 geschreven door peter  

Britain’s Royal Air Force to Release Secret UFO Files for the First Time

Aaron Kesel, The Mind Unleashed
Waking Times

The age-old question of are we alone in the universe may not be answered any time soon, but the fact that Britain is planning on declassifying its UFO files for the first time puts us one step closer to the truth.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) ran a UFO unit for 50 years that took in public sighting reports but it was shut down in 2009 after it was determined none of the reports offered evidence of a real threat. The records from the unit were then given to the British National Archives where they were classified.

A spokesman for the RAF said that “it had been assessed that it would be better to publish these records, rather than continue sending documents to the National Archives, and so they are looking to put them on to a dedicated gov.uk web page.”

A clearance process for the documents is currently underway before publication, which is expected to take place “sometime within the first quarter of 2020,” according to the Telegraph.

“Given the massive public interest in this subject, I’m pleased that these files will be released and made available online,” said Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the country’s Ministry of Defense (MoD).

In June 2013, the MoD previously reported it was releasing the final UFO files in the UK’s possession. However, we now know that’s not true thanks to a Freedom of Information Request by PA News.

In response to the FOI, the RAF described the files it held as “comprising entirely of correspondence with members of the public.”

“The MoD has no opinion on the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life and does not investigate UFO reports.”

While the attempts to hide the truth about the existence of UFOs is dying down, disclosure is ramping up. As TMU previously reported, U.S. Navy officials have acknowledged that video footage showing UFOs flying is real.

In the video below, Lt. Col Lawrence J. Tacker and Maj Hetor Quintanilla, Jr., speak about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and Project Blue Book, which relates to the investigation of UFOs in the United States.

Just like RAF, the Blue Book commission determined that UFOs did not pose a security risk and that they were identifiable in 1966 under hearings. However, Dr. J. Allen Hynek who was the lead scientist on the Blue Book commission confessed years later that there was a cover-up.

Project Blue Book wasn’t the only investigation into UFOs—there was also Project Grudge, Project Sign, the Cometa Report, Majestic 12, Robertson Panel and more recently a whistle-blower disclosed that the U.S. claimed to have an Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The U.S.’ own interest in UFOs is obviously well documented up to the 21st century.

In fact, the very first former CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter agreed with Hynek in a 1960 New York Times article oddly titled, “AIR FORGE ORDER ON ‘SAUCERS’ CITED; Pamphlet by the Inspector General Called Objects a ‘Serious Business“ that contradicts Project Blue Book’s findings and the CIA’s own comments a few years ago. Hillenkoetter said that the Air Force called UFOs “serious business in secret.”

It’s no wonder that they were called “serious business” because years prior in 1942, the incident known as the Battle Of Los Angeles took place where the U.S. military shot at an unknown disk over California that they later called a weather balloon—just like the infamous Roswell incident in 1947 which was first reported as a saucer, later changed to a balloon filled with crash dummies.

Another high-ranking official Major Donald Keyhoe alleged in an earlier 1958 interview that the Air Force was deliberately dismissing and covering up UFOs, confirming Hillenkoetter and Hynek’s claims made years later. Major Keyhoe also exposes the CIA life that all of the UFO sightings were the agency when he says that “one pilot was killed in 48 chasing one.” He also said that if they don’t exist “why do they rush to these crash sites?” A report also exists stating that the Air Force was ordered to shoot down flying saucers in 1952.

While the RAF is prepared to disclose its UFO files, the U.S. Navy has stated the opposite—that it would be a national security threat to disclose the Nimitz incident and the release would result in “exceptionally grave damage.”

UFOs are frequently seen around missile silos causing nuclear weapon stations to go haywire and even go offline, disabling them since 1948, according to Captain Robert Salas.

The truth is out there and X-Files fans everywhere are itching for disclosure. However, if history is any guide, we are unlikely to get anything of value from the RAF reports on citizen sightings.

By Aaron Kesel | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

Source: 

• https://www.wakingtimes.com/2020/01/29/britains-royal-air-force-to-release-secret-ufo-files-for-the-first-time/

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

White Rose Bud Growing In Mars Soil In NASA Photo, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 31, 2020
Location of discovery: Mars, Sol 1448
Source photo: 

• http://gigapan.com/gigapans/219304
  

I found loads of ancient artifacts from an intelligent civilization in a Mars photo today, but one thing really caught my attention...this white rose. The white rose is in the lower left side of the photo. This white rose is actually a rose bud...thats a semi closed rose. It has a long stem and a single leaf on its right side. It even appears to have a baby one growing not far from it. I did have to take the photo which nasa put into false color (red/brown) and made it normal again. But this is amazing to me. Proof that a type of life, probably plant based still exists on Mars today, a white rose of hope.

Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 21:57 geschreven door peter  

Alien City 2km Across And Monolith Found On Earths Moon, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Jan 31, 2020
Location of discovery: Earths moon
Source photo:

•  http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/245
  

Hey everyone, I posted this on my ET DATA Base channel but forgot to put it up on this site so here it goes. I found some structures in this NASA photo from our moon. The photo is very big, 90MB in size so it does give some great detail. The city has what looks like ancient roads or collapsed tunnels leading from it to other buildings further away from it. There was also a monolith similar to the one I found on a moon of Mars. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin give me the heads up on that one so wasn't to hard to find. But this does look the same. I said in the video that the city appears to be .5km across, but on when looking at the photo measurements, I may actually be 2.0km across. That would make that monolith .5 km high. Absolutely proof that intelligent aliens did once living on the surface of our moon. 
Scott C. Waring 

{ https://www.etdatabase.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 21:51 geschreven door peter  

During a commercial flight over Medellin, Colombia, a pilot of Viva Air noticed a strange object flying towards the plane on which he decided to record it.

The UFO that looks like a cube then passes the aircraft at a safe distance.

What are these objects flying at hypersonic speed and the ability to fly with no obvious wings, tail or exhaust.

  

{  http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 21:20 geschreven door peter  

U-shaped UFO recorded over Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

U-shaped UFO recorded over Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This happened on 21st December 2020.

Witness report:

 Horseshoe object meets contrail anomaly and later disintegrates. Observed large black cube shaped object in sky from highest vantage point in my city. Immediately pulled over and started filming. Object was moving very slowly left towards long contrail type anomaly which didn’t appear to be natural. Was forced to leave the area due to frustrated residents. Crossed the road and continued filming. Object had now morphed into a sideways horseshoe shape and had made contact with the contrail anomaly. A small protrusion stuck out from the dark object into the contrail anomaly which casted a very long shadow. Had to leave to pick up a delivery. Returned approximately 20 minutes later to find a dark horseshoe shaped cloud as if the object had dematerialized. I took pictures of this as well.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

30-01-2020 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

FIRST SQUID MRI STUDY SHOWS BRAIN COMPLEXITY SIMILAR TO DOGS

With their peculiar movement, deep-sea habitat, and surprisingly huge genomes, squid have fascinated humans for centuries. And now, for the first time, scientists have put the cephalopods in an MRI to get a better look at their brains — revealing that they are much more like another animal beloved to humans than we realized.

That's right: Your calamari has a brain just about as complex as a dog.

Scientists used an MRI machine to get a good look at the brain of a juvenile reef squid. They were able to identify 145 previously unknown pathways and connections, which could help unravel the mystery behind a nifty squid skill — camouflage.

It is a big step toward building a complete guide to the squid brain’s complex neural connections — known as a connectome map — the researchers say.

"This the first time modern technology has been used to explore the brain of this amazing animal,” Chung said in a statement.

The study, led by researchers Wen-Sung Chung and Justin Marshall from the University of Queensland, was published this month in the journal iScience.

CLEVER CEPHALOPODS

Chung explained that cephalopods — the family group that include squid and octopus — have “famously complex brains, approaching that of a dog and surpassing mice and rats, at least in neuronal number.”

Some cephalopods have more than 500 million neurons — about the same as dogs, which clock in around 530 million. Rats have just 200 million. Humans, meanwhile, are blessed with somewhere around 100 billion neurons — but don't let that go to your head. Millions of neurons don't always add up to the same skillset — like changing your body color at will.

The brain power of squids like Sepioteuthis lessoniana, the species imaged in the study, is one of the reasons they’re able to change color on cue. Ironically, squids are colorblind — so they’re sadly not too adept at observing their bodies change color. But the skill is among the traits that make squid so cool — like their ability to count and solve problems.

"We can see that a lot of neural circuits are dedicated to camouflage and visual communication,” Chung said. That gives squid a “unique ability” to hide from predators, hunt, and communicate with one another.

But to do the study at all, researchers first had to get the squid in the MRI machine — something that required them first fixing the (dead) squid and then preserving their tissue for examination.

Once in the machine, the researchers were able to image their brain in detail. They also took samples of the squids' brains and performed different analyses to help trace a comprehensive picture of their neural connections.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

From the data, the researchers may be able to get more specific information on some of the squid's characteristics, like figuring out why squid show a certain color at a given time. For instance, a squid might change the color of its body if a predator is nearby, to blend into its surroundings. But if it’s being scoped out from above, the cephalopod may only change its head color.

"Our findings will hopefully provide evidence to help us understand why these fascinating creatures display such diverse behaviour and very different interactions," Chung said.

The new research marks another first for cephalopod studies, following a recent study that decoded the genome of a giant squid. As Inverse reported at the time, the research revealed that the giant squid’s genetic complexity is closing in on that of a human. Giant squid have about 2.7 billion DNA base pairs in their genome, it turns out, while humans have about 3 billion base pairs.

Understanding the brain mechanics behind how squid behave can better allow scientists to make predictions about the history of cephalopods — like when they first evolved to have these adaptations, and what other incredible skills they could be hiding.

Abstract: Using high-resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) and a suite of old and new staining techniques, the beginnings of a multi-scale connectome map of the squid brain is erected. The first of its kind for a cephalopod, this includes the confirmation of 281 known connections with the addition of 145 previously undescribed pathways. These and other features suggest a suite of functional attributes, including

• (1) retinotopic organization through the optic lobes and into other brain areas well beyond that previously recognized,
• (2) a level of complexity and sub-division in the basal lobe supporting ideas of convergence with the vertebrate basal ganglia, and
• (3) differential lobe-dependent growth rates that mirror complexity and transitions in ontogeny.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

30-01-2020 om 18:39 geschreven door peter  

DINOSAURS LITERALLY WALKED ON FIRE — STUDY

30-01-2020 om 18:12 geschreven door peter  

Which Religion Is Friendliest To The Idea Of Aliens?

Daniel Kolitz

Illustration: Benjamin Currie, Gizmodo

In the annals of most world religions, a quick walk-on from an alien would not, at least on the surface, seem particularly strange. Unusual occurrences are kind of key to the whole enterprise. And adherents of both camps—UFO-watchers and the religious—know what it means to believe in the face of long odds. Should a member of the former group decide to link up with the latter, where would they feel most at home? What religion is most amenable to the concept of life on other planets? For this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of experts in religion to find out.

---

Diana Walsh Pasulka

Professor, Philosophy and Religion, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and the author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology

Before the question can be answered, it is a good idea to consider the issue of the definition of religion. For most people in the Western tradition, religion is something that follows a set form of patterns. There is a God, there are usually sacred books, and places to go for people. Generally, when it is explained that many non-Western and indigenous cultures do not think of religion in this way, it opens their minds to the fact that they’ve had an idea of religion that is not universal across the planet. In many indigenous spiritualities, for example, extraterrestrials, often called “star people,” exist and are even ancestors of certain tribes on Earth. Even in certain Western indigenous spiritualities, such as pre-Chrisitian Irish, for example, extraterrestrials came from the clouds and provided humans with knowledge about how to live.

Even in the Western traditions—take Catholicism for example—talk of extraterrestrial life has been going on for more than one thousand years. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII established a space observatory (which was there already) to study “unexplained flying objects.” Buddhism also references the existence of other worlds. It is obvious that most religions and spiritualities have considered the existence of beings from other worlds. It is actually not new.

What is new, however, is that there are “UFO religions,” or religions today that incorporate ideas that extraterrestrials are here for various reasons. The Nation of Islam is a classic example of such a religion. Obviously religions like that found by the French man Raël is a UFO religion, as he said he had a direct experience of a flying saucer and his spirituality emerged directly from that experience. So, these religions already incorporate these ideas, as well as many indigenous religions. In my opinion, should extraterrestrials be found to exist, I don’t think most religions or their members will have an issue with it.

Karen Pechilis

Professor, Comparative Religions, Drew University

I think Buddhism is a good candidate for being the religion most friendly to the idea of life existing on other planets, especially if politics can be bracketed out. Buddhism is an ‘open-enrollment’ religion that has a method of conversion (the Triple Gem) it has used for millennia to recruit members widely from across very different populations. In so doing, it has a history of interacting with pre-existing local traditions, rather than oppressing them. Thus, it is open to difference. Also, some Buddhist texts describe various regions, not all of them earthly, in which people live simultaneously but without contact among the regions. Lastly, the universal Buddhist prayer is “may all beings be (unselfishly) happy,” which is directed towards everyone, everywhere.

Douglas Vakoch

President of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), a non-profit research organisation that creates and transmits interstellar messages to search for extraterrestrial civilizations

Once we detect ET, everything will change. Religions that have been resistant to the prospect of extraterrestrial life will be forced to take stock and re-evaluate their positions. We’ll no longer ask “Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?” but instead we will wonder, “What does the existence of extraterrestrials mean for your beliefs?”

When religious folk are asked today whether life beyond Earth is consistent with their faith, they’re put in an awkward position. They’re being expected to consider a scientific question through the lens of their religious beliefs. Do their scriptures make explicit reference to the existence of life on planets orbiting other stars? Does silence on this topic imply the absence of aliens, or simply that religious texts aren’t trying to answer scientific questions that were impossible even to ask in an earlier age?

For the world’s oldest religious traditions, many of these questions are nonsensical. Sacred texts written thousands of years ago were based on radically different cosmologies than those reflected in modern-day astronomy. It was inconceivable to ask whether there are inhabited Earths around distant stars, when no one imagined that the stars were anything like our own Sun. Attempting to extract a scientific answer from a religious scripture is doomed to failure.

Admittedly, some traditions will have an easier time than others in absorbing the news that we’re not alone in the universe. Numerous schools of Buddhism and Hinduism posit countless celestial realms, populated by beings more or less spiritually advanced than humans. News of extraterrestrial neighbours would be welcome and easily assimilated.

Within Christianity, two prominent denominations arose recently enough to be informed by nineteenth-century astronomical observations of planets in our own solar system. The founder of the Seventh-day Adventists had visions of extraterrestrials, and the Latter-day Saint scripture The Pearl of Great Price claims the existence of other inhabited worlds than Earth. In these traditions, aliens are assumed to exist, so no adaptation will be needed.

The more interesting question is whether the discovery of life beyond Earth will create an opening for a dialogue with an independently evolved species on another world. If so, which individuals or groups will initiate an enterprise that won’t come to fruition within a human lifetime? Given the distances between stars, an interstellar back-and-forth exchange could take centuries or millennia. Here on Earth, religions have been among the most successful social organisations to operate on such long timescales. Will the knowledge that a distant exoplanet is inhabited be the impetus for the launch of a multigenerational interfaith, interspecies dialogue?

Liz Wilson

Professor, Comparative Religion, Miami University of Ohio

Buddhism, hands down. No other religion offers as vivid a depiction of what life is like on planets far from ours. In Buddhist texts we learn what it feels like, phenomenologically, to be on another planet. We learn what it might be like to live in worlds inhabited by sentient beings, worlds that are imbued with sacred qualities.

Within Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhahood can take many forms. Their philosophers distinguish between the Buddha’s ineffable body—the eternal dharma-kāya (“truth-body”)—and bodies, like ours, that are subject to decay. In between these two bodies are celestial bodies of the Buddha that are associated with outer space, with universes outside our own. These “enjoyment bodies” (saṃbhoga-kāya) are built out of the vows that Buddhas made long before they became Buddhas.

Enjoyment bodies are composed of subtle energy and do not die like ordinary bodies on Earth. The realms where these enjoyment bodies preside are called Buddha fields (Buddha-kṣetra), and they are said to be countless in number. Just as every being is potentially a Buddha, all Buddhas launch themselves as volitional beings who make vows to be of benefit to sentient beings. Those vows take the forms of worlds in outer space where a being can take birth. The Buddha-fields are designed to help even the most foolish and stubborn of sentient beings to see reality as it really is. The best of the many Buddha fields that exist are described as pain-free, calmness-inducing, compassion-making pure paradises.

Pure lands are ideal places to achieve nirvana, since life there is designed to maximise opportunities for insight. For entry-level Buddhist practitioners, the goal is to achieve birth in a pure Buddha field after death. For advanced practitioners, the goal is to make your own. Since each Buddha-field is tailor-made according to the vow that one takes as a Buddha-in-the-making, the trick is to look around at what other Buddhas created with their vows. Before you come up with the blueprint for your own future Buddha field, you should travel around in meditative trace, look at other worlds, and survey the options.

Mahayana Buddhism offers a remarkably rich cosmology. For these Buddhists, life in outer space is an article of faith and a core practice.

Chris Taylor

Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Drew University Centre on Religion, Culture & Conflict (CRCC) at Drew University

Most religions historically were pretty focused on this planet, and many conceived it as the centre of the universe—if not literally, at least effectively—so the issue is not something that people spent a lot of time writing about, although I’m sure that individuals wondered about it.

Most religions are complex, so it’s not really possible to ask which one is “most friendly” to an idea like extraterrestrial life. One encounters thinkers in various traditions whose thought may not have specifically addressed this issue, but one suspects that they would have had little trouble accepting the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

In the Islamic tradition, for example, the great twelfth and thirteenth century mystical philosopher Ibn al-‘Arabi would have likely been very comfortable with contemporary theory in physical cosmology that our own universe may well be only one of multiple universes, likely occupying multiple and different dimensions of time and space. Once you can accept something as wild as that, getting your head around extraterrestrial life should be a breeze.

Most traditional religions understood that the actual cosmos is greater than the physical universe that we experience, and the actual cosmos consists of dimensions that transcend the physical. In fact, those dimensions were most often of greater interest to them than our physical cosmos, because ultimate reality, however they understood it, existed ultimately in those other dimensions and necessarily transcended our own physical cosmos, because for them ultimate reality was defined by two qualities that are impossible in the context of our physical cosmos: (1) it must be eternal; and (2) it must be unchanging.

They understood that everything of this cosmos cannot meet either criteria that they understood defines ultimate reality. So for many traditional religions, ultimate reality, however defined, might in some sense be found in this cosmos, but was necessarily not of this cosmos. When you think about that for a moment, it’s far more mind blowing than the possibility of other life in this cosmos.

Thus, traditional religions typically had much greater humility, I suspect, than most 21st century secular people do about what’s ultimately possible—both in this cosmos and beyond it.

Christian Weidemann

Lecturer, Protestant Theology, University of Muenster; recent papers include ‘Did Jesus Die for Klingons, too?’ and ‘Is the Origin of Life a Fluke? Why the Chance Hypothesis Should Not be Dismissed Too Quickly’

Every major religion on Earth could easily accommodate the discovery of (intelligent) alien life, with one exception: Christianity.

Christians maintain that persons who have committed moral wrongs are in desperate need of divine salvation. The good news is that, out of grace, God will save many (according to universalism, all) human sinners. Christians also believe that Jesus Christ plays an essential part in God’s terrestrial work of salvation: Jesus was a divine incarnation whose atonement (suffering, teaching, good example…) will ultimately reconcile many (or all) human sinners to God.

Now imagine the universe is teeming with other intelligent civilizations. What is a Christian believer supposed to say? Claiming that Christ died only for us, while the rest of the universe is screwed, would be incompatible with God’s love. If, however, earthly Jesus died for the whole universe, myriads of extraterrestrial sinners included, we would have to accept a geocentrism even more preposterous than the spatial variant. Neither is there a way out by suggesting that other intelligent species may not have been “fallen.” This proposal amounts to a negative human exceptionalism that is totally unbelievable, given that alien species are subject to the same general evolutionary mechanisms as we are. Natural selection favours “selfish” traits.

What about multiple incarnations? Here another difficulty of traditional Christian doctrine comes into play: Christ has two natures—he is “truly God and truly man.” But how are members of completely different biological species (“truly man” and “truly Klingon,” let’s say) supposed to stand in a relationship of personal identity? Even worse, if the number of sinful species in the universe exceeds a certain threshold, God would be forced to incarnate himself simultaneously. However, no single person who is an embodied being with a finite nature, i.e. a “truly” biological organism, can be more than one such being at the same time. If, on the other hand, the incarnations were not personally identical, many different persons with a divine nature would result—too many even for a Christian. Finally: May extraterrestrial sinners have been reconciled to God by means different from a divine incarnation? Perhaps, but even if the Christian believer concedes alternative means of salvation she is stuck with the highly implausible geocentric claim that the incarnation, i.e. one of the most remarkable events in the history of the cosmos, happens just 2000 years ago on our planet, although myriads of other inhabited planets were also available.

Therefore, I conclude, the traditional Christian believer can’t make theological sense of extraterrestrial intelligent life.

Kelly Eileen Hayes

Associate Professor, Women’s Studies, Indiana University

While it might sound like the plot of a sci-fi novel, the idea that benevolent and highly advanced beings from other planets are secretly facilitating human evolution is common to a number of religions. Members of the Brazilian religion called the Valley of the Dawn (Vale do Amanhecer), for example, claim to be the spiritual descendants of a race of beings from the distant star Capella, sent by God to jumpstart Earth’s evolution. According to Valley teachings, the elaborate pyramids built by various ancient peoples were actually technologically sophisticated structures for maintaining communications with Capella. On the North American continent, a related idea is central to Unarius, whose charismatic leader Ruth Norman, aka the Archangel Uriel, claimed to be in contact with the “Space Brothers”—highly evolved intelligences inhabiting other galaxies. Uriel promised her followers that the Space Brothers will touch down on Earth in their massive starships to usher in a new era of peace and unity, but only when human beings are ready to understand their message. Whether expressed in science fiction or religious mythology, our fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial beings is a venerable one. Long before we developed the technology to explore the universe outside the Earth’s atmosphere, Enlightenment thinkers like Kant and Swedenborg and organised groups of Spiritists and Theosophists avowed the existence of advanced life forms on other planets. And so the answer to the question of which religion is friendliest to the idea of life existing on other planets is: a great many!

{ https://www.gizmodo.com.au/ }

30-01-2020 om 01:20 geschreven door peter  

The interior of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is geochemically complex, making its subsurface ocean quite habitable for possible life, according to a new study from Southwest Research Institute.

The geysers of Enceladus: huge plumes of water vapor erupting through cracks at the south pole of this moon of Saturn. The plumes contain water vapor, ice, salts, methane and both simple and complex organic molecules, the kind of molecules normally found in living systems. The geysers must come from somewhere. Scientists think there’s an ocean below Enceladus’ icy crust. Now a new study shows that the interior of Enceladus is more geochemically complex than once thought, boosting the prospects for life.

Image via NASA’s Cassini spacecraft/ Space Science Institute.

The interior of Enceladus – the ocean moon of Saturn that might support life – is even more complex than previously thought, according to a new study from scientists at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). These researchers have developed a new geochemical model of the moon. It’s based on an analysis of material in the moon’s water vapor plumes. The analysis suggests that carbon dioxide is being controlled by chemical reactions on the seafloor of Enceladus’ interior ocean. The findings open up intriguing new possibilities for life in Enceladus’ subsurface watery abyss.

The new peer-reviewed results were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on January 22, 2020.

Lead author Christopher Glein of SwRI said in a statement:

By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive. We came up with a new technique for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved CO2 in the ocean. This enabled modeling to probe deeper interior processes.

From the new paper:

Enceladus, an ocean-harboring moon of Saturn, erupts a plume that contains gases and frozen sea spray into space. By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way, and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive. This study presents a new perspective for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean. We find that the derived range based on two different data sets is intriguingly similar to what would be expected from the dissolution and formation of certain mixtures of silicon and carbon-bearing minerals at the seafloor. The deduced combination of minerals may be indicative of a fundamental process that has sequestered a large amount of Enceladus’ initial inventory of carbon dioxide into the rocky core. This inference echoes an emerging vision of a complex interior that hosts geochemically diverse environments. The dynamic interface of such complexity is where energy sources for possible life may arise.

View of Saturn’s moon Enceladus via the Cassini spacecraft. You can see the bluish tiger stripes on the moon’s left side. This image is tilted; the tiger stripes are at the moon’s south pole. Active geysers are erupting from the stripes even as we speak!

Image via NASA/ ESA/ JPL/ SSI/ Cassini Imaging Team/ Carnegie Science.

The researchers were able to come to these conclusions based on continued analysis of spectrometry data sent back by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The Cassini mission ended in late 2017, and the last close flyby of Enceladus was on October 28, 2015. According to the analysis, the best way to explain the abundant amount of carbon dioxide below the moon’s surface is by geochemical reactions between the rocky core and the water in the ocean.

Cassini had also previously detected silica (SiO2) and molecular hydrogen (H2) in the ocean, by analyzing the composition of geyser-like plumes of water vapor erupting from the icy surface. This water originates in the ocean below, and makes its way to the surface through large cracks at the south pole, called tiger stripes, finally erupting into space as water vapor. According to Glein:

Based on our findings, Enceladus appears to demonstrate a massive carbon sequestration experiment. On Earth, climate scientists are exploring whether a similar process can be utilized to mitigate industrial emissions of CO2. Using two different data sets, we derived CO2 concentration ranges that are intriguingly similar to what would be expected from the dissolution and formation of certain mixtures of silicon- and carbon-bearing minerals at the seafloor.

Distinct sources of observed CO2, silica and H2 imply mineralogically and thermally diverse environments in a heterogeneous rocky core. We suggest that the core is composed of a carbonated upper layer and a serpentinized interior.

Diagram depicting the interior of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, with its rocky core, subsurface ocean and plumes of water vapor.

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SwRI.

But this evidence also points to even more complex activity, involving hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Cassini had previously found evidence for them, and now this new study adds to that. Both silica and molecular hydrogen are considered to be markers of hydrothermal activity.

Active hydrothermal vents would be an exciting discovery in an alien ocean such as the one on Enceladus. Why? They emit hot fluids rich in minerals and energy into the surrounding colder water. On Earth, they are central to ecosystems where a wide variety of life thrives. Could the same be true for Enceladus? According to Hunter Waite of SwRI and principal investigator of Cassini’s Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS):

The dynamic interface of a complex core and seawater could potentially create energy sources that might support life. While we have not found evidence of the presence of microbial life in the ocean of Enceladus, the growing evidence for chemical disequilibrium offers a tantalizing hint that habitable conditions could exist beneath the moon’s icy crust.

The Cassini mission found evidence for hydrothermal activity – hydrothermal vents – on the bottom of Enceladus’ ocean. Could they help sustain life as they do on Earth?

Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SwRI.

The scenario proposed by the researchers is that hydrothermal oxidation of reduced iron deep in the core creates H2, while hydrothermal activity intersecting quartz-bearing carbonated rocks produces silica-rich fluids. Such an environment could be quite habitable by earthly standards. Glein said:

The implications for possible life enabled by a heterogeneous core structure are intriguing. This model could explain how planetary differentiation and alteration processes create chemical (energy) gradients needed by subsurface life.

Cassini had previously found other tantalizing hints about the conditions in Enceladus’ ocean. When the spacecraft analyzed the water vapor from the plumes – that it flew through directly – it found water vapor, ice particles, salts, methane, and a variety of simple and complex organic molecules.

Another recent study by scientists at the Carnegie Institute for Science has also helped explain how the tiger stripes formed, and how they remain active, due to deformation of the ice crust by Saturn’s powerful gravitational pull. Another study from last summer found that Enceladus’ ocean is just the right age to support life.

Christopher Glein, lead author of the new study.

Image via NASA Astrobiology Institute.

All of these discoveries, and now this new study, are painting a picture of Enceladus as a potentially quite habitable world. But further research and return missions – now on the drawing boards – will be needed to finally answer the question of whether that deep, dark ocean is actually inhabited by any kind of alien lifeforms.

The newest findings don’t prove that there is life on, or rather in, Enceladus, but they do add to the growing evidence that the subsurface ocean is probably quite habitable. Along with Jupiter’s moon Europa, and possibly another moon of Saturn, Titan, Enceladus is looking more and more like one of the best places in the solar system to look for life beyond Earth.

• Bottom line: A new study from Southwest Research Institute shows that the interior of Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus is more geochemically complex that previously thought, making the ocean quite habitable for possible life.
• Source: The carbonate geochemistry of Enceladus’ ocean
• Via SwRI

{ https://earthsky.org/ }

30-01-2020 om 01:00 geschreven door peter  

Scientists drill into Antarctic ‘doomsday glacier’ to see if it will collapse and flood the world

Jasper Hamill

A view of the ice front of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica

(Image: David Vaughan)

A team of scientists has dug down into a huge ice sheet known as the ‘doomsday glacier’ for the first time.

The Thwaites Glacier is located in ‘one of the most remote and hostile areas of West Antarctica’.

This huge chunk of frozen water was given its ominous apocalyptic nickname because of the risk it will break apart and dump so much freshwater into the ocean that sea levels rise by 65cm – more than two feet.

If this disaster came to pass, it could render coastal and low-lying cities totally uninhabitable and cause chaos around the planet.

Researchers used hot water to drill to a depth of 700 metres and are now carrying out tests to discover if the glacier will fall apart in the coming decades.

Dr Keith Nicholls, an oceanographer from the British Antarctic Survey, said: ‘We know that warmer ocean waters are eroding many of West Antarctica’s glaciers, but we’re particularly concerned about Thwaites.

‘This new data will provide a new perspective of the processes taking place so we can predict future change with more certainty.’

Instruments including a small robot called Icefin were lowered deep into the borehole.

View of a borehole cut into the glacier 

(Image: British Antarctic Survey)

This exploration machine is now swimming about beneath the ice to examine how it interacts with the ocean and study its melting behaviour.

Dr Paul Cutler, who manages the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) at the US National Science Foundation, said: ‘Thwaites Glacier is extremely remote, with only a handful of people setting foot on it until this year.

‘This has been our first season of land-based fieldwork to get a deeper understanding of this important yet under-studied glacier. It’s amazing to think we’ve only now drilled in this remote region some 200 years after the continent was first sighted.’

Our planet could be teetering on the edge of catastrophe

(Image: Getty)

Humanity is about to reach the climate change ‘point of no return’ and our attempts to save the planet have been ‘utterly inadequate’, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last year.

Speaking before the start of a two-week international climate conference in Madrid, the UN chief said rising temperatures are already causing chaos around the world and suggested we’re approaching the moment when it’s too late to halt the progress of global warming.

He also said the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical ability to tackle global warming, but ‘what is lacking is political will.’

‘The point of no return is no longer over the horizon,’ Guterres told reporters in the Spanish capital.

‘ It is in sight and hurtling toward us.’

Guterres said there was mounting scientific evidence showing the impact man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are already having on the planet, including record temperatures and melting polar ice.

But he insisted that his message was ‘one of hope, not of despair’.

He added: ‘Our war against nature must stop and we know that that is possible.’

‘What is still lacking is political will,’ he added.

‘Political will to put a price on carbon. Political will to stop subsidies on fossil fuels. Political will to stop building coal power plants from 2020 onwards. Political will to shift taxation from income to carbon. Taxing pollution instead of people.’

Global warming ‘threatens the existence of human civilisations’ and we need to cut emissions immediately, researchers warned

(Picture: Getty)

Before the UN leader’s statement, scientists said nine climate change ‘tipping points’ have now been crossed and the ‘cascade of changes’ could spell doom for humanity.

µThey called for the establishment of a ‘state of planetary emergency’ and urged governments to take urgent action to stop the production of greenhouse gases and said global warming risked creating a ‘hothouse Earth’ that ‘could threaten the existence of human civilisations’.

‘A decade ago we identified a suite of potential tipping points in the Earth system, now we see evidence that over half of them have been activated,’ said Professor Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and lead author of a new paper in the respected journal Nature.

‘The growing threat of rapid, irreversible changes means it is no longer responsible to wait and see. The situation is urgent and we need an emergency response.

‘We might already have crossed the threshold for a cascade of inter-related tipping points.

‘However, the rate at which they progress, and therefore the risk they pose, can be reduced by cutting our emissions.’

Countdown to doomsday:

1. If these nine natural Melting of Arctic sea ice.
2. Loss of Greenland ice sheet.
3. The disappearance of boreal forests.
4. Thawing of Permafrost.
5. Loss of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (currents which carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic)
6. Death of the Amazon rainforest.
7. The demise of warm-water corals.
8. Melting of West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
9. Loss of parts of East Antarctica.

The collapse of major ice sheets on Greenland, West Antarctica and part of East Antarctica would cause roughly 10 metres of irreversible sea-level rise.

If rainforests, permafrost and boreal forests die off, huge amounts of greenhouse gases will be released into the air and amplify global warming.

We could stave off this disaster by reducing emissions, but this would only ‘allow more time for low-lying populations to move’ to another part of the world.

And once we’ve reached several tipping points, a cataclysmic ‘cascade’ could begin which accelerates climate change to terrifying proportions.

‘If damaging tipping cascades can occur and a global tipping cannot be ruled out, then this is an existential threat to civilization,’ the scientists wrote.

‘No amount of economic cost-benefit analysis is going to help us. We need to change our approach to the climate problem.’

Co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: ‘It is not only human pressures on Earth that continue rising to unprecedented levels.

‘It is also that as science advances, we must admit that we have underestimated the risks of unleashing irreversible changes, where the planet self-amplifies global warming.

‘This is what we now start seeing, already at 1°C global warming.

‘Scientifically, this provides strong evidence for declaring a state of planetary emergency, to unleash world action that accelerates the path towards a world that can continue evolving on a stable planet.’

{ https://metro.co.uk/ }

29-01-2020 om 23:27 geschreven door peter  

NASA spacecraft breaks its own record with another swing by the sun

By Meghan Bartels

An artist's depiction of NASA's Parker Solar Probe at work observing the sun.

(Image: © NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

NASA's Parker Solar Probe took one step closer to the sun Wednesday (Jan. 29) when it executed its fourth flyby of our star.

This is the first such maneuver, called a perihelion, that the spacecraft has completed since swinging past Venus in December, a move that shrank the probe's orbit. That so-called gravity assist means Parker Solar Probe broke its own record today for the closest a spacecraft has come to the sun, as the probe will continue to do repeatedly over the course of its seven-year mission.

At about 4:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT), Parker Solar Probe's trajectory carried the spacecraft within about 11.6 million miles (18.6 million kilometers) of the sun, more than 3 million miles (5 million km) closer than previous flybys. Before Parker Solar Probe's launch, no spacecraft had come within 26.5 million miles (43 million kilometers) of the sun, a record set by the Helios 2 mission in 1976.

• Related: Hello, Venus! Parker Solar Probe Makes Second Planetary Flyby.

Parker Solar Probe won't have competition for its records anytime soon. But it will have some company in its work studying our star. The European Space Agency and NASA's joint mission to the sun, dubbed Solar Orbiter, is currently scheduled to launch on Feb. 7.

Augmenting the observations Parker Solar Probe is taking, Solar Orbiter will study the poles of the sun, which are out of view of the NASA probe. Solar Orbiter carries more instruments than Parker Solar Probe does, but the two spacecraft share a few tools, so scientists will be able to easily compare the data the probes gather from different locations around the sun.

• Related: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission to the Sun in Pictures

In particular, scientists want to better understand why the sun's outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the star's visible surface and how the solar wind material that streams off the sun reaches such high speeds.

If all goes well with the Solar Orbiter launch next month, some of that probe's instruments will be turned on by the time Parker Solar Probe makes its next perihelion, on June 7. Parker Solar Probe is making a series of 24 close flybys of the sun through 2025 in order to help scientists understand how the sun works. 

The first three flybys, conducted in 2018 and 2019, already introduced solar scientists to newfound phenomena. In a first batch of scientific papers from the mission, published in December 2019, researchers started pinning down new ideas about the solar wind.

• What's Inside the Sun? A Star Tour from the Inside Out
• NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission to the Sun in Pictures
• NASA Sun Probe Spies the Solar Wind in 1st Birthday Photo

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

29-01-2020 om 22:45 geschreven door peter  

2 satellites will narrowly avoid colliding at 32,800 mph over Pittsburgh on Wednesday

29-01-2020 om 22:27 geschreven door peter  

Alien investigation series 'Project Blue Book' shows more weird encounters in Season 2

By Elizabeth Howell 

Michael Malarkey as Captain Michael Quinn (left) and Aidan Gillen as Dr. J. Allen Hynek in The History Channel's "Project Blue Book."

(Image: © Eduardo Araquel/History)

"Project Blue Book," the hit television docudrama about the U.S. military's investigations into aliens more than 50 years ago, is back for Season 2.

The History Channel series runs on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST and PST — check your local listings to confirm the time in your viewing area. The next episode is tonight (Jan. 28).

The series shares the same name as the real-life U.S. Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which was called Project Blue Book. That investigation launched in 1952 and continued until 1969. Experts examined more than 12,000 UFO sightings (of which more than 700 are still unexplained), according to series creator and executive producer David O'Leary.

• Related: Top-Secret UFO Program Revealed in TV's 'Project Blue Book' 

"For me, UFOs have been a lifelong obsession," he told Space.com. "I have always been fascinated by the question [of] 'Are we alone in the universe? And I never felt you could honestly answer that question without examining the UFO issue."

O'Leary said through his research on Project Blue Book, he became convinced that there "really is a phenomenon" of UFOs, even though experts often debunk the purported sightings, or say that the existence of UFOs doesn't necessarily mean that aliens are in our airspace. 

"Once I learned the chief of scientific consultants for the U.S. Air Force [J. Allen Hynek] and the first director of that program [Edward J. Ruppelt] both became convinced through this program that UFOs are real and represent a true scientific mystery and worthy of true scientific study, something clicked for me. This is unbelievable. So this is a drama series that examines this program through the eyes of these two men."

O'Leary has spent many hours reading the first-hand research from both Blue Book, via the declassified documents in Hynek's book "The UFO Experience" (Regnery, 1972), and from independent UFO historians. The producer also interviewed the last living director of Blue Book — Robert J. Friend, who died in June 2019 at age 99. Friend not only provided details of the investigations, but also discussed matters such as what the project's offices looked like. His testimony helped with the sets on the show, O'Leary said.

Some of the more famous examples of Blue Book investigations include the Roswell incident (in which a purported UFO crashed near Roswell, N.M.) and Area 51, Nev., a top-secret military testing ground that some people say is linked to alien research. 

Season 1 of Project Blue Book ran between January and March 2019, with 10 episodes — each one examining a UFO conspiracy in detail. Some of the stories examined include:

• A reported UFO "dogfight" over Fargo, N.D.,, in 1948, which some say was a weather balloon — although O'Leary's research indicated that there was a more ambiguous explanation. "It's a pretty intense and incredible sequence, where the pilot engages with this aircraft that seems to maneuver like nothing he's ever seen before," O'Leary said.
• A discussion about "foo fighters," or strange aerial phenomena that Allied aircraft pilots reported during the Second World War . Theories about these sightings range from aerial phenomena to fighter pilot fatigue. That said, Friend was a former foo fighter and O'Leary said that the old pilot genuinely believed that he saw something in the sky.
• The "Washington Merry-Go-Round" incident in 1952, when something breached restricted air space in Washington, D.C., two weekends in a row, sparking President Harry Truman's administration to scramble fighter jets, O'Leary said. "We still have no idea what they were.

O'Leary added that the show tries not to show the same kind of UFO sightings in each episode; some have focused on matters such as an "X-Files"-like chase of something in the forest, people who felt that they made telepathic connections with aliens, and a Kentucky family reporting an alien home invasion. 

While a Season 3 hasn't been confirmed yet, O'Leary said the show's team would be interested in producing more episodes. "We have a lot of new ideas, and areas to explore," he said, again pointing to the hundreds of unresolved cases under Project Blue Book.

• UFOs Are Real, But Don't Assume They're Alien Spaceships
• Thousands of Government UFO Reports Now Available at Canadian University 
• Are the aliens us? UFOs may be piloted by time-traveling humans, book argues

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

{ https://www.space.com/ }

29-01-2020 om 22:09 geschreven door peter  

40,000 Year Old Archaeological Discoveries That Show There Was an Advanced Civilization

We look to the far-reaching spread of Denisovan DNA and artifacts. Andrew Collins traces the legacy of the Denisovans, through myth History and archeology, across the ancient world, leading to the origins of human civilization. What we find is a civilization more than 40,000 years old, with an advanced intellect and technology, merging with modern humans.

The Denisovans or Denisova hominins are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human in the genus Homo without an agreed taxonomic name. Pending consensus on its taxonomic status, it has been referred to as Homo denisova, Homo altaiensis, or Homo sapiens denisova.

Other videos - peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

29-01-2020 om 21:32 geschreven door peter  

Twee ‘gepensioneerde’ satellieten dreigen vannacht boven de VS met elkaar in botsing te komen - HLN.be

Bron: Science Alert

Het gaat om de Infrarood Astronomische Satelliet (afgekort IRAS) die in 1983 werd gelanceerd en de satelliet genaamd GGSE-4 die sinds 1967 in het luchtruim hangt. Omdat ze al eventjes niet meer in contact met de aarde staan, betekent dat dat ze ook geen manoeuvres meer kunnen uitvoeren.

LeoLabs, de organisatie die ruimtepuin nauwgezet in de gaten houdt, gelooft dat ze elkaar op een afstand van 15 tot 30 meter zullen passeren. En de kans dat ze elkaar raken is 1 op 1.000. Een kleine kans, toch waarschuwt LeoLabs voor de mogelijke gevolgen. Een botsing zou immers nog meer ruimtepuin opleveren, en er vliegen naar schatting reeds 129 miljoen stukjes puin rond.

Vermits er in de ruimte wel duizenden oude satellieten – die niet meer in contact staan met de aarde – rondzweven, is het eigenlijk vreemd dat er niet vaker botsingen gebeuren. LeoLabs waarschuwt dat de kans op zo’n aanvaring vannacht een pak groter is.

• Het wordt steeds drukker in de ruimte: wie heeft het daar eigenlijk voor het zeggen?

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

29-01-2020 om 19:48 geschreven door peter  

SpaceX lanceert opnieuw Falcon-draagraket met zestig satellieten voor ‘Starlink’ - HLN.be

Op lanceercomplex 40 van Cape Canaveral vertrok met twee dagen vertraging - door ongunstige weeromstandigheden - om 15.09 uur Belgische tijd een Falcon-9 draagraket. 

Lees ook

Vrees van astronomen komt uit: vloot Starlink-satellieten van Elon Musk verstoort zicht op sterren en planeten

De nuttige lading bestond uit zestig satellieten voor Starlink, de constellatie die SpaceX aan het uitbouwen is voor wereldomvattend breedbandinternet, en waarvoor eerder in drie etappes al 180 kunstmanen zijn gelanceerd. De meegevoerde Starlinks wegen elk zowat 260 kilo en vormden samen de zwaarste nuttige lading ooit meegenomen door een Falcon-9. Het uitzetten van de lading in een cirkelvormige baan, op zowat 290 kilometer hoogte, duurde ongeveer een uur. Dit uitzetten gebeurde deze keer in één keer, in plaats van zoals gangbaar twee per twee. 

De eerste trap van de draagraket keerde veilig terug op droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’. Het is de 49ste keer dat SpaceX de eerste trap van een Falcon recupereert, deze eerste trap is trouwens al twee keer eerder gebruikt. Hergebruik drukt de lanceerkosten. 

De twee delen van de neuskegel moesten in netten van twee schepen, ‘Ms. Tree’ en ‘Ms Chief’, ploffen. Een van de twee helften is zoals verhoopt in een vangnet geland; het succes was voor Ms.Tee weggelegd. De andere helft van de neuskegel kwam in de Atlantische Oceaan terecht. SpaceX zal proberen het ding te bergen met het oog op hergebruik.

Starlink raakt net als concurrerende netwerken meer en meer omstreden, zeker gezien het feit dat SpaceX op duizenden kunstmanen mikt. Die verhogen de kans op botsingen in de ruimte en er lijkt ook geen plan te zijn om ze na uitdiensttreding weer naar beneden te halen. Bovendien kunnen ze de waarnemingen van astronomen verstoren. 

29-01-2020 om 19:36 geschreven door peter