A witness from Flintshire told how one of the objects was spinning and had 'two black crosses underneath it'

By Lydia Morris - Daily Post Reporter

Lynn Murphy claims to have witnessed two UFOs hovering next to her Flintshire home in July 

(Image: Lynn Murphy)

A woman claims to have witnessed two UFOs hovering next to her Flintshire home moments after her friend saw the same thing 20 miles away.

Lynn Murphy told how one of the objects was spinning and looked similar to a “white tic tac” that had “two black crossed underneath it”.

Next to it was a “very clear orange circle” that was like nothing she had ever seen before.

The 60-year-old from Connah’s Quay claims she saw them both through her bedroom window after waking at 2.41am on July 21.

After noticing a friend from Prestatyn had shared some images on Facebook minutes earlier of some strange objects in the sky, she was shocked when she could see exactly the same thing above the house opposite her window.

"At first I thought it looked like a giant star that was out of place, it was massive and looked like it shouldn’t have been there," Ms Murphy said.

“It wasn’t the space station or a satellite, it wasn’t an airplane or a drone - it wasn’t anything I know of, it was just this bright light turning quickly."

Around two weeks later, her neighbour claimed to have also witnessed the same thing that night.

“There were four witnesses to that that I know of,” she added.

“It’s very intriguing. There was no noise so it couldn’t have been a helicopter."

However, it wasn’t the first time Ms Murphy experienced something she believed to be extraterrestrial.

Several unidentified flying objects have appeared right before her eyes over the year, she says.

The most bizarre was in the early hours of the morning in April 2011, during a camping trip to Cardigan.

Ms Murphy said when she stepped outside the tent after being woken in the night by the sound of “screaming sheep”, she witnessed a “massive horse shoe shaped object” in the sky.

“The sheep sounded like they were being tortured,” she said.

“I walked to the end of the field to see if I could see any sheep but there was nothing.

“As I looked over the valley, I saw this great big massive horse shoe shaped object.

“It had nine lights that were rhythmic with each other and were changing from white to red.

“It was nothing I had ever seen before.”

She added a red ball of red light then came over a hill, swooped down the valley and settled next to the bizarre object.

“They were both in rhythm together, and the next thing, they slotted in together and the whole area went silent” she said.

“It never moved, so I just ran as fast as I could back to the tent.

“My heart was bouncing off the floor, I was terrified.”

Ms Murphy believes her first “experience” was around late November in 1978, when she was living in Connah’s Quay.

“I woke up about 1.30am and I felt something strange and overpowering, and there was a sort of humming noise,” she said.

“I looked out the window and there was nothing there.

“I knew it wasn’t right because it was scaring me so I got the boys and put them in bed with me.

“My eldest son was 16 months and my other son was six weeks old.

“The terror I felt was bad, my heart was pounding out of my chest.

“After about 10 minutes, the feeling went but it felt as though there was something above the house.

“I was too scared to look, so I just stayed in bed with the babies.”

Some years later in the early 90s, she claims to have had more “overwhelming experiences”, similar to the first.

“Every now and again, I could feel this energy,” she said.

“One night, it must have been around 11.30pm, and my husband at the time told me to come outside.

“He wasn’t the kind of person to believe in all this kind of thing.

“I looked up and there was a giant black triangle above the street - it must have been the size of two football pitches - it was giant.

“There was no vibration or sound, it was silent and just floating.

“On each of its corners, there was a white glowing light and it had a round, dull orange light on the bottom.

“We just stood there and watched it, and it eventually started gliding away and then it just shot off towards the estuary.”

Over the years, she’s also heard of several reports of UFO sightings by the River Dee estuary and out of the sea near Rhyl towards the Clwydian Range.

“I can’t really explain any of it, all I know is what I’ve seen and I know I haven’t imagined any of it.

“As soon as you start talking about this stuff, people straight away ridicule you.

“But I can’t help what I’ve experienced and what I’ve seen.”

{ https://www.dailypost.co.uk/ }

03-09-2020 om 01:10 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s 56-year-old satellite that weighs more than 1,000 POUNDS is set to fall into the South Pacific this weekend – but experts say it will burn up before hitting the ocean

• One of NASA's satellites is set to fall back to Earth on Saturday at 5:01pm ET
• Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 1 has been in space for 56 years
• The satellite has succumb to Earth's gravity and will meet its end 
• However, experts say it will break up and burn in the atmosphere in re-entry 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

After spending over five decades in space, NASA’s Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 1 (OGO-1) spacecraft is set to retire.

New data shows that the 1,070-pound satellite has fallen victim to Earth’s gravity and will descend back to our planet over the South Pacific this weekend – ending its life in a blaze of fire.

Details of OGO-1’s demise surfaced when astronomers observed a very small object that appeared to be on an impact trajectory with Earth.

The violent death of the craft is set for Saturday, August 29 around 5:00pm ET, however, experts say the satellite to break up in the atmosphere and poses no threat.

Scroll down for video 

Details of OGO-1’s demise surfaced when astronomers observed a very small object that appeared to be on an impact trajectory with Earth

NASA launched OGO-1 September of 1964 as part of a mission with Goddard Space Flight Center to study Earth's atmosphere, magnetosphere, and the space between the our planet and Moon.

The craft was the first of six other satellites to journey into space – all tasked with understanding Earth.

OGO-1 was launched into an eccentric orbit around Earth that took the spacecraft approximately two days to complete one orbit and allowed the spacecraft to sweep through Earth’s radiation belts to study our planet’s magnetosphere—the region of space surrounding Earth that is controlled by Earth’s magnetic field.

The craft operated and returned scientific data for five years until 1969, after which point the spacecraft was placed in standby mode when scientists were unable to return any more data.

After spending over five decades in space, NASA’s Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 1 (OGO-1) spacecraft is set to retire

The violent death of the craft is set for Saturday, August 29 around 5:00pm ET, however, experts say the satellite to break up in the atmosphere and poses no threat

And in 1971, all support for the mission was terminated.

Although OGO-1 was the first to launch, the satellite will be the last to retire – the others have all decayed and fell into Earth’s atmosphere.

Astronomers at the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), funded by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office notified the American space agency of the object heading to Earth. 

The team first speculated that it may be an asteroid, but following a further investigation the object was confirmed to be the aging satellite. 

‘OGO-1 is predicted to reenter on one of its next three perigees, the points in the spacecraft’s orbit closest to our plant, and current estimates have OGO-1 re-entering Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday, August 29th, 2020, at about 5:10 pm EDT, over the South Pacific approximately halfway between Tahiti and the Cook Islands,’ NASA shared in statement.

NASA launched OGO-1 September of 1964 as part of a mission with Goddard Space Flight Center to study Earth's atmosphere, magnetosphere, and the space between the our planet and Moon

‘The spacecraft will break up in the atmosphere and poses no threat to our planet—or anyone on it—and this is a normal final operational occurrence for retired spacecraft.’

OGO-1 may be moving towards Earth’s atmosphere but there are many satellites that are dead and still floating around our planet – adding to the millions of pieces of junk in space. 

There are an estimated 170 million pieces of so-called 'space junk' - left behind after missions that can be as big as spent rocket stages or as small as paint flakes - in orbit alongside some US$700 billion of space infrastructure.

But only 20,000 are tracked, which are mostly from Russia and the US.

WHAT IS SPACE JUNK? MORE THAN 170 MILLION PIECES OF DEAD SATELLITES, SPENT ROCKETS AND FLAKES OF PAINT POSE 'THREAT' TO SPACE INDUSTRY

There are an estimated 170 million pieces of so-called 'space junk' - left behind after missions that can be as big as spent rocket stages or as small as paint flakes - in orbit alongside some US$700 billion (£555bn) of space infrastructure.

But only 22,000 are tracked, and with the fragments able to travel at speeds above 16,777 mph (27,000kmh), even tiny pieces could seriously damage or destroy satellites.

However, traditional gripping methods don't work in space, as suction cups do not function in a vacuum and temperatures are too cold for substances like tape and glue.

Grippers based around magnets are useless because most of the debris in orbit around Earth is not magnetic.

Around 500,000 pieces of human-made debris (artist's impression) currently orbit our planet, made up of disused satellites, bits of spacecraft and spent rockets

Most proposed solutions, including debris harpoons, either require or cause forceful interaction with the debris, which could push those objects in unintended, unpredictable directions.

Scientists point to two events that have badly worsened the problem of space junk.

The first was in February 2009, when an Iridium telecoms satellite and Kosmos-2251, a Russian military satellite, accidentally collided.

The second was in January 2007, when China tested an anti-satellite weapon on an old Fengyun weather satellite.

Experts also pointed to two sites that have become worryingly cluttered.

One is low Earth orbit which is used by satnav satellites, the ISS, China's manned missions and the Hubble telescope, among others.

The other is in geostationary orbit, and is used by communications, weather and surveillance satellites that must maintain a fixed position relative to Earth.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

03-09-2020 om 00:48 geschreven door peter  

Planetary defenses spot ‘UFO’ on collision course with Earth, turns out to be a NASA relic (VIDEO)

The sighting was corroborated by the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. 

After crunching some numbers, and consulting ancient tomes from the 1960s, the specialists had cracked the case. The UFO was, in fact, NASA’s Orbiting Geophysics Observatory 1 (OGO-1), headed home after 56 years in space.

Having arrived in orbit in September 1964, the satellite burned up harmlessly in the atmosphere, raining down fiery debris over the Pacific Ocean some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Tahiti, in French Polynesia on Saturday, August 26 at 20:44 UTC according to NASA.

OGO-1, along with five other satellites, was launched to chart and study the Earth’s magnetosphere, atmosphere, the Earth’s relationship with the Moon and the impact of the Sun’s rays on the space immediately surrounding our planet. 

Its function began diminishing after five years in space at which point the decision was made to place it in standby mode in November 1969, before being decommissioned two years later.

At this point, the 487-kilogram (1,074-pound) satellite joined the thousands of other fragments of space junk clogging up Earth’s backyard. 

It then proceeded to fall ever so slowly back down to Earth thanks to its eccentric orbit, which brought it just close enough for Earth’s gravity to convince it to come back down in a blaze of glory this past week. 

Despite being the first of six OGO satellites launched, it was the last to come back down, the other five burned up upon reentry between 1972 and 2011, their debris falling harmlessly into the ocean.

{ https://www.rt.com/ }

03-09-2020 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

Ethan Siegel - Senior Contributor

Starts With A Bang

Contributor Group Science

The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it.

When two black holes merge, a significant portion of their mass can get converted into energy in one... [+]

NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Last week, NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory made history by announcing the most energetic explosive event ever discovered in the Universe. In a galaxy cluster some 390 million light-years away, a supermassive black hole emitted a jet that created an enormous cavity in the intergalactic space of that galaxy cluster. The total amount of energy required to create this observed phenomenon? 5 × 10⁵⁴ J: more energy than any event seen since the Big Bang.

But there's another class of event that definitely exists in the Universe that can output even more energy in a shorter amount of time: the merger of two supermassive black holes. Although we've never seen such an event, it's only a matter of time and technology until one reveals itself to us. When it does, the old record-holder will be shattered, possibly by an enormous amount. Here's how.

This simulation shows two stills from the merger of two supermassive black holes in a realistic,... [+]

ESA

There are lots of events that can be considered either explosions or cataclysms in the natural Universe, where a large amount of energy is released over a short period of time. A very massive star that reaches the end of its life will explode in a cataclysmic type II supernova, creating either a black hole or neutron star as a stellar corpse. Over the final few seconds of its life, it will release some ~10⁴⁴ J of energy, with hypernovae (or superluminous supernovae) reaching up to 100 times that amount.

For a long time, supernovae were used as the standard by which all other cataclysms were measured. As the brightest electromagnetic events in the sky, they could outshine entire galaxies, dependent on their individual brightnesses and the overall mass of the galaxy in question.

This illustration of superluminous supernova SN 1000+0216, the most distant supernova ever observed... [+]

ADRIAN MALEC AND MARIE MARTIG (SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY)

The only things that rivaled or exceeded the energy released in a supernova were gamma-ray bursts or larger-scale, extended events such as merging galaxies or galaxy clusters, or supermassive black holes feeding on enormous amounts of matter. During the 2010s, we uncovered the origin of at least some gamma-ray bursts: kilonovae, or the merging of two neutron stars. Between gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation, a significant amount of mass — about ~10²⁹ kilograms worth — gets converted into pure energy, leading to an energy release of about 10⁴⁶ J.

On the other extreme, active galaxies and quasars can be even more energetic. Enormous amounts of mass, perhaps millions or even billions of solar masses worth, can get funneled into a central, supermassive black hole, where it gets torn apart, accreted, and accelerated. The matter and radiation emitted can reach a total of ~10⁵⁴ J of energy, although it's emitted over about a million years (or more) in time.

An annotated version of the X-ray/radio composite image of Pictor A, showing the counterjet, the Hot... [+]

X-RAY: NASA/CXC/UNIV OF HERTFORDSHIRE/M.HARDCASTLE ET AL., RADIO: CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA

But the Universe gives us a way to emit even larger amounts of energy, and to do so on much shorter timescales. The key to unlocking this came last decade, when the NSF's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) direct detected the first gravitational wave event: from two merging black holes. For the very first one ever seen, two black holes of two different masses (36 and 29 Suns' worth, respectively) merged together to produce a final-state black hole of a lesser (62 Suns' worth) mass.

This was an enormously big deal, netting a number of scientists the 2017 Nobel Prize for the discovery of gravitational waves. Over the subsequent years, many more black hole-black hole mergers and merger candidates have been detected, with approximately 50 known so far (to date). In all cases, the same bizarre and fascinating behavior has been observed: large amounts of mass are converted into pure energy over a timescale of just a few milliseconds.

Illustration of two black holes merging, of comparable mass to what LIGO first saw. At the centers... [+]

SXS, THE SIMULATING EXTREME SPACETIMES (SXS) PROJECT (HTTP://WWW.BLACK-HOLES.ORG)

Two points, in particular, are extremely interesting about these black hole-black hole mergers.

1. In all cases, the peak power that was emitted, or energy-per-time, was about the same. They all outshone all the stars in the Universe, combined, for a tiny fraction-of-a-second, but the more massive mergers had their peak power output occur over longer periods of time, emitting more total energy.
2. You can make a very simple approximation for the total amount of energy released in gravitational waves in a black hole-black hole merger: about 10% of the mass of the lower-mass black hole gets converted into pure energy, via Einstein's E = mc².

For the first black hole-black hole merger ever discovered, the total amount of energy emitted was ~10⁴⁷ J, and that occurred over a time interval that spanned just 200 milliseconds or so, leading to a fascinating possibility.

The messy cores of these colliding galaxies hide the final stage of two merging galactic nuclei. The... [+]

M. KOSS (EUREKA SCIENTIFIC, INC.)/NASA/ESA;KECK IMAGES: M. KOSS (EUREKA SCIENTIFIC, INC.)/W.M. KECK OBSERVATORY; PAN-STARRS IMAGES: M. KOSS (EUREKA SCIENTIFIC, INC.)/PANORAMIC SURVEY TELESCOPE AND RAPID RESPONSE SYSTEM

Instead of two "stellar mass" black holes merging together, where the masses of each black hole range from a few to a few dozen solar masses, we could look to the most massive black holes in the Universe: the supermassive ones found at the centers of galaxies. When they merge together, a series of events will unfold, resulting in the largest release of energy that — at least theoretically — should ever occur in our post-Big Bang Universe.

In particular:

• when two galaxies merge, their black holes will preferentially sink towards the new mutual center, due to gravitational interactions between other masses.
• Interactions with gas and other normal matter will dominate for a time, leading to a relatively tight, short-period orbit for these black holes.
• In the final merger stages, lasting ~25 million years, gravitational waves will dominate, resulting in a scaled-up inspiral and merger scenario, albeit one that's far beyond the reach of detectors like LIGO.

The most massive pair of black holes in the known Universe is OJ 287, whose gravitational waves will... [+]

RAMON NAVES OF OBSERVATORIO MONTCABRER

When two black holes merge together, their mutual inspiral causes the deformation of space, and their motion through that deformed space leads to the emission of gravitational radiation, which carries energy away from the black hole-black hole system and out to the Universe beyond. Given that we know of black holes that are many billions of times the mass of our Sun, the merger of black holes that are hundreds of millions of solar masses with multi-billion solar mass black holes is an inevitability.

One system in particular, OJ 287, consists of a 150 million solar mass black hole in close orbit around an ~18 billion solar mass black hole. When they merge, ~3 × 10⁵⁴ J of energy will be released over a timespan of just a few hours. The frequency will be all wrong for LIGO or even LISA to detect, unfortunately. But in the lead-up to a merger, a different technique — one based on pulsar timing — could reveal a large merger like this, especially if the two masses were closer to one another in magnitude, after all.

This illustration shows how many pulsars monitored in a timing array could detect a gravitational... [+]

DAVID CHAMPION / MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR RADIO ASTRONOMY

The first supermassive black holes that are inspiraling, according to our best modern estimates, should be detectable this decade by advanced pulsar timing arrays such as NANOGrav, the European Pulsar Timing Array and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. As these supermassive black holes inspiral, they should emit gravitational waves with a large enough amplitude and at a predictable, observable frequency that means — if we understand how to model the frequency and population of these supermassive binary black holes — the 2020s should see us detect our first one.

When we detected our first black hole-black hole merger, there was a brief time period lasting under 200 milliseconds where that merger produced more energy than all the stars in the Universe combined. If we can find a supermassive black hole merger where the smaller mass is more than 500 million solar masses, not only will it emit more energy than all the stars in the Universe for about a week, but it will become the most energetic event since the Big Bang, emitting more than ~10⁵⁵ J over that time interval.

This illustration maps out the various stages of a supermassive black hole merger, and the expected... [+]

ESA – S. POLETTI

But it's eminently plausible that there are many examples, particularly in rich galaxy clusters, where two black holes of billions or even tens-of-billions of solar masses will merge together. In the Coma Cluster for example, the two most massive galaxies are NGC 4889, with a 21 billion solar mass black hole, and NGC 4874, which looks to be more massive and possesses twice as many globular clusters, but its black hole is of an unknown mass.

We won't have merely gravitational waves to look for when two supermassive black hole-containing galaxies merge, either. They ought to emit telltale signs of electromagnetic radiation, particularly in the X-ray, which should offer the potential to study these mega-events in gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals simultaneously, even before they merge. With ESA's Athena and NASA's Lynx potentially coming to augment our X-ray astronomy arsenal, we might finally discover the prototypical example of what promises to be the Universe's most energetic event of all.

When two supermassive black holes orbit one another, they not only perturb and accelerate the matter... [+]

MARTIN KRAUSE / THE CONVERSATION

One of the most remarkable facts about merging black holes is that the maximum rate of emitted gravitational wave energy isn't dependent on their mass at all, but rather is determined by the fundamental constants of the Universe. The heavier your black holes are, the more energy they emit, but they do so over a longer period of time, rather than in a greater-magnitude burst. They should still represent the most energetic events in all the Universe, but the most massive ones of all should have their most energetic signals spread out over the final years or even decades, rather than emitted all in a few milliseconds.

With an ever-improving suite of instruments, detectors, and new techniques, the first hints of a supermassive binary black hole merger might appear later this decade, which would be an incredible development for gravitational wave astronomy, a science that only saw its first success less than 5 years ago. Supermassive binary black hole mergers are, undoubtedly, the most energetic single event in the entire post-Big Bang Universe. For the first time, they may be finally within our detectable reach.

---

The author thanks Drs. Chiara Mingarelli, Leo Stein, Joey Neilsen, Bernard Kelly and Karan Jani for graciously providing detailed facts about merging black holes that were used in constructing this article.

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.forbes.com/ }

02-09-2020 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

A team of astronomers have spotted what they claim is the most massive collision of two black holes ever observed.

Prior to the gigantic collision, at least one of the massive colossal space objects had the mass of 85 Suns. The collision itself created a black hole about 150 solar masses — putting it into a mass range previously thought to be possible — and ejected the equivalent of eight solar masses in the form of energy in the form of gravitational waves, as detailed in papers published today in the journals Physical Review Letters and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“Everything about this discovery is mindboggling,” Simon Portegies Zwart, a computational astrophysicist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the research, said in a Nature statement.

The size of the black holes involved in the merger would make them more massive than a regular star, but lighter than the supermassive black holes often found at the center of galaxies.

The event, which occurred approximately seven billion light years away, was observed in May 2019 using the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Antenna (LIGO) detectors in the US and the smaller Virgo observatory in Italy.

The researchers made the discovery by observing gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that can give away these galactic events. The relatively new technique has allowed scientists to make discoveries of dozens of other black hole collisions like it.

But even by the epic standards of black hole collisions, this one takes the cake.

“This doesn’t look much like a chirp, which is what we typically detect,” Virgo member Nelson Christensen, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who compared the new results to the first detection of gravitational waves using LIGO dating back to 2015, said in an MIT press release.

“This is more like something that goes ‘bang,’ and it’s the most massive signal LIGO and Virgo have seen,” Christensen added.

The masses of the two merging black holes are highly unusual as there is a “mass gap,” roughly between 65 and 135 solar masses, where black holes aren’t expected to exist. That’s because at those sizes, stars theoretically tend to be ripped apart and disintegrated by the explosive fusion of oxygen nuclei, a process known as “pair instability.”

“This is quite neatly in the range one would expect the pair-instability mass gap should be,” LIGO astrophysicist Christopher Berry of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in the Nature statement.

Scientists suspect that at least one of the black holes may not have formed from a collapsing star — the more conventional way smaller black holes are formed.

Another scenario is that smaller black holes could have merged together over time, accumulating into the one involved in this collision. Yet such a theory is hard to back up as we still haven’t found any other intermediate black holes.

“That’s why astronomers have been looking for these extensively, because they would help in solving this puzzle,” Salvatore Vitale, an assistant professor at the LIGO Lab of MIT, told The Verge.

“LIGO once again surprises us not just with the detection of black holes in sizes that are difficult to explain, but doing it using techniques that were not designed specifically for stellar mergers,” Pedro Marronetti, program director for gravitational physics at the National Science Foundation, said in the MIT press release.

“This is of tremendous importance since it showcases the instrument’s ability to detect signals from completely unforeseen astrophysical events,” he added. “LIGO shows that it can also observe the unexpected.”

• READ MORE: Astronomers say they’ve detected the most massive merger of two black holes ever discovered [The Verge]
• More on black holes: Cornell Scientists Say “Strange Metals” Are Similar to Black Holes

This simulation shows two stills from the merger of two supermassive black holes in a realistic,... [+]

ESA

{ https://futurism.com/ }

02-09-2020 om 23:11 geschreven door peter  

There can be no doubt that one of the creepiest phenomena to have surfaced in the last two decades is that of what have become infamously known as the Black-Eyed Children. It would be overly simplistic to suggest they are merely the offspring of the Men in Black and the Women in Black, who will surface later in this book. Admittedly, though, there are deep similarities, as will soon become apparent. And, also like the MIB and the WIB, the BEC are definitive drainers of energy. Before we get to this aspect of the story, let’s first take a look at how, and under what specific circumstances, the Black-Eyed Children came to prominence. We’ll also take a look at a few classic cases. None of them are particularly heartwarming. As if you really needed to be told that. Although, today, we have people who claim to have seen the BEC in the period from the 1930s to the present day, the very first reported case didn’t surface until January 1998. The location was the Lone Star State, specifically the city of Abilene. The story revolves around a man named Brian Bethel, a journalist who works for the Abilene Reporter News. It was late one night when Bethel’s life was changed and he came to realize that there are dangerous, supernatural entities in our midst.

It was close to 10:00 p.m. when Bethel had the kind of close encounter that one never, ever forgets. He had pulled up at a mall not too far from his home, to deposit a check in a mail-box. All was quiet and dark. Bethel, using the lights of the mall to illuminate the interior of his vehicle, was writing the check when he was rudely interrupted. He jumped with surprise at the sight of a couple of kids who were standing next to the car, on the driver’s side. But, there was something about these kids that rang alarm bells in Bethel’s head. In fact, as Bethel would imminently learn, things were wrong in the extreme.

Bethel stared at the pair and couldn’t fail to see just how incredibly pale the face of one of the boys was. The other had what Bethel described as olive-colored skin. Both boys were around ten to fourteen years of age, Bethel estimated, and both were dressed in pullovers. Only one of the two boys spoke – he claimed that they wanted to see a movie, Mortal Kombat, at the local cinema. But, there was a problem: they had left their money at home. Could Bethel take them to their homes to get some cash? Bethel near-instantly realized that this whole situation had an air of dark and disturbing theater about it. There was an undeniably unsettling agenda at work, and it had absolutely zero to do with movies.

Bethel awkwardly hemmed and hawed for a few moments, something which caused the talkative boy to become ever more insistent that Bethel let them in the car. Then, things became downright eerie and chilling: Bethel found himself almost mind-manipulated, to the point where, to his horror, he could see that his hand was heading to the driver’s-side door – with the intent of opening it, but without his control. Bethel, fortunately, broke the enchanting spell and didn’t open the door, after all. This clearly incensed the talkative boy, who amped up the pleas to allow them into Bethel’s car. It was then, for the first time, that Bethel finally got a good look at their eyes. In his own words – referenced in Pararational’s May 16, 2013 article titled “Brian Bethel – The Black Eyed Kids”” – Bethel stated: “They were coal black. No pupil. No iris.”

The two boys realized that, by now, they were losing the battle to be permitted to get into Bethel’s car. On this very point, Bethel himself said that the boy who did all of the talking “wore a mask of anger.” The boy, now displaying a look on his face which was part-frustration and part-anger, almost shouted: “We can’t come in unless you tell us it’s okay. Let us in!” Bethel, terrified, did nothing of the sort. What he did do was to slam the car into reverse and head for home, completely panicked by the whole thing. Oddly, as he drove away, Bethel looked back, only to see that the boys were nowhere in sight. In what was clearly and impossibly quick time, they had vanished.  And, thus was quickly born a legend. It’s a legend that shows no signs of stopping. It’s only getting worse.

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

02-09-2020 om 22:50 geschreven door peter  

The most powerful nuclear bomb in history was dropped by the Soviet Union above a remote island in October of 1961 that was felt hundreds of miles away. The bomb, which was called RDS-220 or “Tsar Bomba”, was detonated about 2.5 miles above the Novaya Zemlya islands, north of the Arctic Circle.

An aerial bomber brought the 27-ton, 26-foot-long weapon over the islands before dropping it by a parachute. When the bomb detonated, the explosion was so strong that it caused the plane to drop 3,000 feet before the pilot could steady it.

Even though it was detonated a couple of miles above the ground, the island was still left flat and bare. The flash from the bomb was seen for over 600 miles and its massive heat was felt up to 160 miles away, capable of causing third degree burns as far as 62 miles from the detonation site.

(Not Tsar Bomba)

Even the huge mushroom cloud stretched so high up that it almost reached the edge of space (it reached an altitude of 210,000 feet). Incredibly, nobody died from the detonation.

In July of 1961, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the construction of the bomb. He had initially ordered a 100-megaton nuclear weapon, but the engineers gave him a 50-megaton weapon instead. To put this into better perspective, the “Tsar Bomba” was thousands of times more powerful than the nukes that were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Another jaw-dropping comparison was that the United States’ extremely powerful nuclear weapon that was tested in 1954 called “Castle Bravo” was 15 megatons.

No bomb even close to being as powerful as “Tsar Bomba” has ever been tested again. Although, a lot of that probably has to do with the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that the Soviet  Union, Great Britain, and United States all signed in August of 1963. According to the treaty, nuclear weapons were not allowed to be tested in outer space, in the atmosphere, or underwater.

(Not Tsar Bomba)

There have, however, been several atomic tests that have occurred underground with one example being North Korea who conducted such a powerful test in 2018 that a mountain near the testing site (Mount Mantap) actually moved and compressed after the explosion.

Now, getting back to the Soviet Union’s “Tsar Bomba”, Russia’s state atomic agency called Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation declassified a 40-minute video of the bomb – from the manufacturing process, to being dropped via a parachute and the gigantic mushroom cloud. The video can be seen here on YouTube with the countdown to the bomb being detonated starting at around the 22:20 mark.

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

02-09-2020 om 22:36 geschreven door peter  

Enorme schokgolf door samengesmolten zwarte gaten schiet langs de aarde - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

De trilling bestond uit vier golfjes, die in totaal maar een tiende van een seconde duurden, maar de schok was uitzonderlijk. “Dit lijkt niet op de ‘tsjirp’ die we meestal meten. Dit is ‘bam’, het is het grootste signaal dat we hebben gezien”, aldus onderzoeker Nelson Christensen.

Lees ook

Astronomen zien hoe een zwart gat botst met iets wat eigenlijk niet kan bestaan

De schokgolf is veroorzaakt door twee zwarte gaten die ongeveer 7 miljard jaar geleden zijn samengesmolten, toen het heelal half zo oud was als nu. Een van de twee zwarte gaten was ongeveer 85 keer zo zwaar als onze zon, het andere ongeveer 66 keer zo zwaar. Die zijn zelf zo groot, dat ze misschien ook ooit door fusies zijn ontstaan. Door de samensmelting ontstond een nieuw zwart gat met ongeveer 142 keer de massa van onze zon. Ongeveer acht zonnemassa’s aan energie werd weggeslingerd door het heelal, en dat zijn de zwaartekrachtgolven die nu zijn gemeten, de rimpels in een vijver wanneer iemand daar een steen in laat vallen.

Tot nu toe kenden wetenschappers twee soorten zwarte gaten. Als grote sterren sterven, ontstaat een gat dat hooguit enkele tientallen keren zo zwaar is als onze zon. In het midden van onze Melkweg staat daarentegen een ‘superzwaar zwart gat’, en zulke objecten kunnen miljarden keren zo zwaar als de zon zijn. Het zwarte gat dat bij deze fusie ontstond, is het eerste dat daar tussenin valt, te groot voor het servet en te klein voor het tafellaken. “Deze gebeurtenis roept meer vragen op dan ze beantwoordt”, aldus onderzoeker Alan Weinstein.

Albert Einstein stelde meer dan een eeuw geleden dat het heelal bestaat uit ruimte en tijd. Die vormden volgens hem één geheel, dat hij ruimtetijd noemde. Deze is de ruggengraat van het heelal. Bij een grote gebeurtenis kan ruimtetijd iets uitrekken of krimpen, en die golf trekt het hele heelal door. Dat gebeurt bijvoorbeeld als zwarte gaten of neutronensterren botsen. Pas nu kunnen extreem gevoelige detectoren die trillingen meten. In Italië en de Verenigde Staten schijnen laserstralen door kilometerslange armen. Als een zwaartekrachtgolf langs de aarde trekt, verschuift de straal een miljoenste van een miljoenste van een miljoenste van een meter. In 2015 werd zo voor het eerst een zwaartekrachtgolf waargenomen. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

02-09-2020 om 22:11 geschreven door peter  

7km Tall Archway On Planet Mercury, Mind-blowing Size! Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Sept 1, 2020

Location of discovery: Mercury

Source map: 

https://messenger.quickmap.io/?

extent=-179.1682273,-54.8560805,-175.1713479,-52.3058865&proj=5&layers=NrCMBYCYB

oAZtA6JIE5YGYn0QOwK4A2h0A3gL4C6lZVy4GWOSIGoArONkgcbdf0pA

How is this even possible? Even I am baffled at the purpose and the reason for such a massive structure to exist. I found this archway using a Mercury map thats online. According to the measuring device at the bottom of the map...this archway is 5km across and over 7km tall. Yeah you read right. I am just shaking my head as I write this. Its nuts I know...but its there and if you click on the link I give you, you will see it with your own eyes, and compare its size to the ruler in the lower right hand corner of the map and make your own estimates of its hight. Its not often I come across something that...makes me go wow! But todays that day. 100% proof that aliens exist on Mercury and are technologically advanced far beyond humanity. Maybe a possible stargate of some type for ships to travel through. 

Now I say 7km to be conservative, because at points it looks 10km on ruler. You be the judge. 

I found it, so I'm naming it. Warings' Gate. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-09-2020 om 20:45 geschreven door peter  

UFO sighting: Metal disk pulled from Delaware river came from UFO, alien hunter claims

UFO enthusiasts think a flying saucer-shaped alien spaceship has been discovered at the bottom of a US river - but is all as it seems?

02-09-2020 om 20:39 geschreven door peter  

Metal Disk Retrieved Out Of Delaware River! Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: August, 2020
Location of discovery: Olentang River, Delaware, USA
News source: 

• https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20200901/olentangy-river-cleanup-dredges-up-mysterious-disk-and-wild-theories
  

This large metal disk was pulled out of the Delaware river this week. The object has perfect dimensions of being a self contained disk. It is similar in size and appearance to may drone disks seen coming out of larger UFOs. Although the locals in Delaware were joking about it. This object will soon be investigated by the US government and analyzed by scientists to verify what it is. I do believe its an authentic drone disk that either outlived its usefulness and it ditched it self in the water, or a disk that was struck by lightning which would be too much for a little drone to handle. The disk may have been there for hundreds of years from the looks of it.
Scott C. Waring

News states: 

Work crews dredging the Olentangy River in August had gathered tires, rusted metal and assorted garbage when their equipment felt a solid “thunk.” A backhoe operator wrestled with the 880-pound object before watching in awe as it emerged from the river just north of Mingo Park in Delaware. The discovery quickly inspired theories: military equipment, amusement park ride, UFO? Lee Yoakum, city spokesman, said the likely explanation is more earthly. Years ago, White Sands Campground had a water park and events at a small lake just east of the river. “It appears that might have been some kind of water feature that broke free of its moorings and sank,” Yoakum said. The disk was taken for “analysis” and eventual salvage at Sims Brothers recycling center. The value: $17.68, said Yoakum, laughing. “We have asked them to set it aside, just in case White Sands wants it back.”

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-09-2020 om 20:23 geschreven door peter  

Huge UFO Witnessed Over Sussex, UK On Aug 2020, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: August 2020

Location of sighting: Sussex, UK

News source: 

• https://www.worthingherald.co.uk/news/people/ufo-cloud-spotted-over-sussex-2957645

This UFO in the clouds was formed when a cloaked UFO came down and settled among the cloud ceiling. The UFOs great bulk pushes the clouds aside leaving a huge disk hole. This UFO looks to be 1/2km across. 

 

Such evidence was gathered from the 90 page MUFON investigative report of the Ohio Airport incident, which had hundreds of eyewitnesses and as the UFO shot up through the clouds, it left a gapping hole that lasted 15 minutes. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

News states: 

Melissa French snapped the spooky sight at around 8.45pm yesterday (August 30) above her home in Cumberland Road, Sidley. She said: "I was looking out of the window at the moon with my grandson, that’s when I noticed it. "I wasn’t sure what to make of it to be honest as it looked peculiar; the shape of it made me think of a UFO, so I took a photo of it and posted it on Facebook.

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

02-09-2020 om 20:14 geschreven door peter  

On August 24, 2020 an amateur drone operator in Mukachevo, Ukraine accidentally captured a so-called "Fastwalker when it was flying towards his drone on which the "Fastwalker" then flies right past the drone. 

For those unfamiliar with the "Fastwalker" phenomenon we recommend you to check our label - Fastwalker - to learn more on these unidentified flying objects which, due to the very high speed, are not visible to the naked eye.

  

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

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

02-09-2020 om 18:29 geschreven door peter  

Huge unknown space objects have been captured while flying next to the sun. Maybe just a coincidence, but for some reason a lot of UFOs have been spotted in the vicinity of the sun, lately.

Besides the UFOs near the sun, the video shows us large objects hitting the moon and as well as other unidentified aerial phenomena in a live footage filmed with a telescope of 14 inches with a High Definition option and a Nikon D-850 at the back on September 1, 2020.

  

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

02-09-2020 om 18:05 geschreven door peter  

Neuralink, Elon Musk's startup that's trying to directly link brains and computers, has developed a system to feed thousands of electrical probes into a brain and hopes to start testing the technology on humans in in 2020.

Although Neuralink has a medical focus to start, like helping people deal with brain and spinal cord injuries or congenital defects, Musk's vision is far more radical, including ideas like "conceptual telepathy," or seeing in infrared, ultraviolet or X-ray using digital camera data. 

Even according to Musk, you could basically store your memories as a backup and restore the memories. You could potentially download them into a new body or into a robot body.

Elon Musk goes full transhumanist with his advocacy of Neurallink's brain implant since he believes we need brain implants to combat Artificial Intelligence which will otherwise take over humanity, but Dr. Michael Salla explains another way to deal with transhumanism, AI and the automation that is coming and that is Full disclosure! 

In the next video Dr. Michael Salla references to Elon Musk's Neuralink and his presentation which you can read in the following article: 

• https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-shows-neuralink-brain-implant-working-in-a-pig/

  

Related videos, selected and posted by peter2011

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

02-09-2020 om 18:01 geschreven door peter  

Daytime footage of triangle UFO over Carson City, Nevada 6-Jun-2020

This triangular formation was hovering in the sky above Carson City in Nevada on 6th June 2020.

Witness report:

• Ball like orbs that traveled in a group as well as independent. We initially observed just one object traveling north. It was bright (light). Then suddenly we observed 6 to 8 more objects traveling south bound. I was able to get a brief cell phone video. Upon inspecting t he video afterward, several more objects were observed flying around the clustered group at high speeds.

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram for the latest UFO videos & photos.

Link: instagram.com/latestufos/

Related video, selected and posted by ter2011

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

02-09-2020 om 17:38 geschreven door peter  

Where Did the Polynesians Really Come From?

Oceania was the last region to be settled by humans and the last part of Oceania to be settled by humans was Polynesia. Polynesians are famous for their voyages to remote islands in distant parts of the Pacific. Using outrigger canoes, they founded a society across islands stretching in a triangle from the Hawaiian Islands to Easter Island to New Zealand. That society was reasonably well-connected by trade, language, culture, and religion, despite its distribution over such a large area.

One major question today is where did the Polynesians originally come from? Several theories have been proposed over the years, but one which is gaining ground is that the Polynesians originated from Taiwan, parts of Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia. Another intriguing area of study is the genetic connection between Polynesians and South Americans.

Could the Polynesians Have Origins in South America?

One early theory of the origin of Polynesians is that they came from South America and sailed west, eventually reaching the Polynesian triangle. This was proposed by the archaeologist, writer, and explorer Thor Heyerdahl , who even constructed a Polynesian outrigger canoe and, with a team, sailed it west of Easter Island from the South American coast. This demonstrated the feasibility of using a primitive craft such as an outrigger canoe to cross the Pacific.

Girls Carrying a Canoe in Samoa by John La Farge. ( Public Domain ) Polynesian outrigger canoes may have been used to cross the Pacific.

The thing to remember about experimental archaeology is that just because something could have theoretically been done doesn’t mean that it actually happened that way. Although it is plausible that Polynesia was settled by ancient South Americans; all the genetic, linguistic, and ethnographic evidence points toward a predominantly southeast Asian origin.

• Ghost Beliefs in Polynesia: When Spirits Return and Possess
• Ancient Skulls Give Insights into Origins of Polynesians
• Disney ALMOST Got It Right: From Moana to Mayhem, The Mythology Behind the Real Maui

The Express Train or Slow Boat to Polynesian Origins

The two main theories today are called the Express Train Hypothesis and the Slow Boat Hypothesis. The Express Train Hypothesis says that Polynesians originally come from Taiwan by way of the Philippines and Melanesia. According to this view, Polynesians are mainly a part of a migration wave that came out of Taiwan.

The western part of Polynesia was settled between 3000 and 1000 BC by people from Taiwan via the Philippines as well as parts of New Guinea. Eastern Polynesia was settled beginning around 900 AD as Polynesian voyagers began to set out from Tonga and Samoa and other islands of western Polynesia to settle the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island, among other islands of the region.

According to the Slow Boat Hypothesis, the ancestors of the Polynesians are of Austronesian descent and still have a connection to Taiwan, but the ancestors of modern Polynesians spent several centuries intermarrying with people of Papuan and Indonesian lineage before setting out to Polynesia.

Depiction of possible Tahitian warrior dugouts. ( Public Domain ) Much of the origins of Polynesians remains uncertain.

The first view is supported by linguistic and ethnographic data, but there is genetic evidence for the second hypothesis. Genetic studies have shown, for example, that a significant percentage of the Polynesian population has y-chromosomal DNA haplogroups coming from Papua New Guinea while most of the mtDNA comes from haplogroups in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

This suggests some degree of intermarriage between Polynesians and other Austronesian groups as well as non-Austronesian groups. Another possible line of evidence for this hypothesis comes from the fact that there is a gap in the language evolution of Polynesian Austronesian languages. Polynesian languages have features that no other Austronesian languages possess. This could be because of interaction with Papuan and Indonesian populations.

Reconstruction of the face of a Lapita woman. National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. (Yanajin33/ CC BY SA 3.0 ) Genetic studies have shown that most mtDNA in Polynesia comes from Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

Are there Amerindian Connections to Early Polynesians?

It is even possible that Thor Heyerdahl may have been partly right about an Amerindian connection . Genetic studies of the Rapa Nui of Easter Island reveal a small percentage of Native American ancestry (8%). To be fair, this study also revealed 16% European ancestry for the Rapa Nui.

However, the genes and haplogroups associated with European descent are much less degraded due to recombination than those associated with Native American descent, making it clear that European haplogroups are from 19th century Europeans intermarrying with the natives. The genes associated with Native American ancestry are much older, suggesting a date closer to the 13th-15th centuries AD for these elements entering the genes of the Rapa Nui .

However, a study in 2020 has suggested that the date for Polynesians meeting South Americans should be pushed back even further, to around 1150 AD. The nature of those genetic links and the location for that first contact also differs from previous beliefs. As Ed Whelan writes:

“Genetic evidence appears to prove that Polynesians are related to present-day Indigenous people, especially from the coast of Colombia and Ecuador. Interestingly, the DNA study concludes that the earliest contact was on Fatu Hiva, an island in the South Marquesas islands, sometime around 1150 AD, and not Rapa Nui which is much closer to the coast of South America.”

Is it possible that Amerindian cultures are partially responsible for the colonization of Polynesia, or at least part of it, after all?

• DNA Study reveals connection between Brazil and Polynesia. Well, how?
• New study suggests that the Philippines is the ancestral homeland of Polynesians
• The Menhune of Hawaii – Ancient Race or Fictional Fairytale?

Genetic analysis appears to prove that Polynesians have genetic roots tracing back to diverse regions across the Pacific and the Americas, denoting the mixed origin of the population. 

(Ruben Ramos-Mendoza / Nature)

Although it is possible that South American voyagers sailed to Polynesia to meet the Rapa Nui or another group of Polynesians, the Polynesians are known to have been more skilled at seafaring at the time, so it is more likely that it was the Polynesians who came to the Americas. The Polynesians may have come to South America to trade with the natives, and as a result may have ended up also bringing home South American brides.

Intriguingly, there is circumstantial evidence for pre-Columbian contact between Native Americans and Polynesians - chicken bones that have been found at an archaeological site on a beach in Chile that appear to predate the coming of the Spaniards.

Regardless of where the Polynesians originally came from, their ancestry appears to be more complex than initially thought. The more we learn about historical genetics , the more we realize just how convoluted the communication and intermarriage between different populations was in the past.

If we go far back enough, current thinking is that we are all a mixture of many lineages of mankind which originally diverged from a single lineage that goes back to Africa, perhaps 200,000 years ago.

• Top Image: A Wa'a Kaulua (double canoe) of Hawaiian Nobility of the 18th Century. Polynesia was inhabited by skilled seafarers. Source: Herb Kawainui Kāne

By Caleb Strom

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

02-09-2020 om 01:23 geschreven door peter  

Elongated Skulls Found in Completely New Region of Peru

Five sets of human skeletal remains have been discovered by investigators in Peru and, surprisingly, two of the five have elongated skulls. The find has been made in an area where this type of skull has never been found before. To add to the story, local knowledge speaks of a race of ‘Gentiles’ (pronounced ‘jenteelez’), who were larger than the indigenous people living in the region.

The History of Elongated Skulls in Peru

Throughout history, many cultures have artificially deformed the skulls of babies in order to achieve a flattened or elongated shape, which was often associated with the ruling or elite classes . Examples of this artificial cranial deformation (ACD) have been uncovered in Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, and the Americas from ancient times, as well as Oceanic and African tribes in modern times. When examined, most of these skulls exhibit features common to modern skulls, such as 3 cranial plates and sutures, as well as a brain size of around 1200-1400 cc.

But in 1928, Julio Tello , a Peruvian archaeologist, came across extraordinary elongated and oversized skulls in a cemetery in Paracas, Peru. These skulls had a cranial capacity that far exceeded the norm for modern humans

Paracas skulls, found on the south coast of Peru.

( CC BY-SA 4.0 )

These examples were baffling due to their size and unorthodox structure , and remain so to this day. In fact, DNA testing performed in 2014 perhaps just muddied the water more, when a geneticist reported that they have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far”. And then later testing at labs in Canada and the USA claimed they were from “the Haplogroup (genetic population group) of H2A, which is found most frequently in Eastern Europe, and at a low frequency in Western Europe.”

So when it comes to elongated skulls in Peru, there is clearly much more work needed in order to reach any conclusions regarding how or what has caused the misshapen forms and abnormal capacities.

The recent find involves examples of skulls that seem to have roughly normal capacity but are misshapen. What is most exciting about this find, however, is the location of the discovery.

Locations of Elongated Skulls in Peru

Paracas is a desert peninsula located within Pisco Province on the south coast of Peru, and the skulls there are known to range from 2800 to 800 years old. An example found in 2015 was a mummified baby’s skull with an enlarged cranium . This finding is suggestive of a genetically elongated skull since the process of ACD takes at least 6 months to produce the desired effect.

Other elongated skulls have been located in Nazca, 111 miles (178 km) to the south and dated from 200 to 100 BC, Tumbes 935 miles (1500km) to the north of Paracas, and Colca Valley in the south-east of the country (from the Collagua people and dated 1100 to 1450 AD ).

Proto Nazca deformed skull, c 200–100 BC.

( CC BY-SA 4.0 )

The elongated skulls discovered by Philip J.S. Jones and his indigenous friends are not as voluminous as the Paracas examples, and it is not currently established whether their unconventional shape is a result of ACD or a genetic factor. However, the significance of the find is that they have been found in an entirely new region, with no other extended skulls found anywhere near it previously. This, along with the local folklore, demanded further investigation.

Side and front angle of skulls.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

Well Worth a Call

When I was first approached by Philip J.S. Jones, I administered my usual measure of skepticism. I was intrigued, but in my position working with a successful website I am lucky enough to get a bunch of emails of the ‘discovery’ type each month. They range across the spectrum of possibilities and various levels of excitement. It’s part of the thrill of the role. Each day one learns something new, and each day one ‘discovers’ something previously unknown (even if it was only previously unknown to me).

However, the following kind of email doesn’t drop into one’s inbox everyday:

“At the end of 2018 I found some skeletons with skulls that have extended crania, in a previously undiscovered tomb in the Peruvian Andes at about 3400m above sea level. They are said to come from a long lost civilization, called the "Gentiles" locally. This is an important discovery as these types of skulls were unknown in the area.”

When someone writes to say they have found some elongated skulls, and the clincher – ‘I’ve got pictures’, the adrenaline begins to rise.

One of two elongated skulls discovered in the mountains in the Cuzco region of Peru, North of Abancay.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

How to ‘Come Across’ Elongated Skulls in Peru

Philip J.S. Jones is someone who could be described as an explorer, or perhaps these days as a ‘seeker’ personality, although he would probably refer to himself as ‘just a normal bloke’. But his exploits stray far from the norm. ‘Normal blokes’ don’t end up high in the Peruvian Andes gallantly defending a local community from incumbent mining companies - and winning. Normal blokes don’t just happen to be in the right place at the right time with the courage, grit, and qualifications to save a community’s homeland. ‘Normal blokes’ take a hike to Machu Picchu and shoot a selfie.

Now, elongated skulls are not a new discovery, and, although they are rare, there are still hundreds of them in various museums around the world. But finding one (or more) is just not the kind of thing that happens every year or even every decade, and for any archaeologist, or even anyone curious about dipping into mankind’s ancient origins, this is likely to be ‘once in a lifetime’ stuff. Eat your heart out Brien Foerster !

Two of the skulls show distinct signs of elongation.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

So how did this extraordinary find come about?

In 2008, Philip first visited South America and, as many of us do, he fell in love with the continent and its unusual and intriguing people. And because he ‘could build things’ he found himself off that well-beaten track, building a dormitory in a village in the mountains, a place he would return to almost every year over the next decade.

In 2018, he was making one of his regular visits to his now long-time friends when one of those friends iterated a local folk tale, known as “ Los Tres Foresteros: The Lost Legend of the Chancas ”, which Philip has since put to paper. This tale talks of a lost race of people known as ‘Gentiles’ - a different race who once lived in the region and were “said to be taller than the Chanca tribe” and thriving in the region in the years before the 1530 AD. Legend has it that the Gentiles were banished to live underground by a firestorm sent down upon them by the gods as punishment for their greed.

Although interesting, what brought about the discovery of interest here was the viewing of a documentary a few days later that discussed the Paracas skulls. Speaking of them with his friends, Philip was told there were examples of these to be found in caves in the surrounding mountains, and some had extended mandibles to boot! (Presumably longer than the Habsburgs).

Some of the skulls include teeth, but no mandibles have been recovered.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

Seeking Out the Extended Skulls

Once Philip had heard there were long skulls in those hills, I imagine it was hard to shake them out of his own cranium, which, incidentally, appears to be fairly ordinarily shaped.

And so it was, the small group of Philip, Vilma (his friend), and two wily 15-year-olds called Tania and Wilder, set off from the tiny pueblo near where the skulls were found. After a treacherous hike (as it is dramatically portrayed by Philip in his book, ‘ The Three Foresteros: The Lost Legend of the Chancas’ ), they found what is described as a ‘worked cave’, having some human modification to transform it into somewhat of a tomb (common in the mountain cave tombs found in the Andes). Here they did make a find, but not exactly what they were seeking. Yes, there were some human remains, but there were no skulls attached.

Disappointment is a feeling often associated with exploring, seeking, and archaeology, but the antidote to this can be perseverance, and it was just two weeks later that Philip received word that Wilder had gone on his own quest for skulls and, in a staggering spot of luck (or perhaps the reward for perseverance), had been successful.

Fifteen-year-old Wilder, demonstrating admirably the invaluable contribution of local knowledge in this type of investigation, had come across the skulls that are the subject of this report. They were found in a completely different tomb, somewhere in the mountains nearby. It is highly likely that this tomb was previously known to the local community through the ages, but had been long forgotten.

• Geneticist Suggests Long-Skulled Ladies Were Used as Treaty Brides in Europe
• The Incredible World of Painted Skulls and Bone Houses
• The Story Of Elongated Skulls And The Denied History Of Ancient People: An Interview With Mark Laplume

Three of the skulls, including the two extended skulls.

(Image: © Philip J.S. Jones)

Ramifications of the Find

So we have the discovery, almost completely by chance, of evidence of extended crania in a new region of Peru, around 100 miles (150 km) north of Abancay. It shows that the tradition of modifying skulls spread wider than was previously known; or that there was a separate race with odd-shaped skulls living in the region - the Gentiles?

To find out the details of this find, such as their antiquity, cranial capacity and origin, the skulls will need to be sent off to laboratories with the appropriate equipment, and this will require a suitable institution to take interest. So, for now, confirmation of the reach of the artificial cranial modification tradition in Peru – or indeed the existence of ‘Gentiles’ – remains in the realms of amateur interpretation, with questions that still abound. For now, the skulls are in the safe hands of the authorities in a remote community high in the Andes in South Central Peru.

You can discover more about how a lawyer from England happens across elongated skulls in Peru, the legend of the Gentiles, and more, in Philip’s books, The Three Foresteros: The Lost Legend of the Chancas’ , and ‘ A Peruvian Diary’ , or even tune in for more of Philip’s fascinating discussions on Strange But True Radio .

• https://www.facebook.com/hughan88/
• Top image: Several of the extended or elongated skulls being measured. Source: © Philip J.S. Jones

By Gary Manners

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

02-09-2020 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Sea Monster Discovered in Hull of King’s Ship

During the summer solstice of 1495 AD, the royal flagship Gribshunden of the Danish King Hans, also known as King John of Denmark, sank when sailing from Copenhagen to Kalmar, Sweden, where it was to meet Sten Sture the Elder as part of Hans’s claim to the Swedish throne. The shipwreck was discovered by sport divers in the 1970s, but unaware of its significance they didn't alert archaeologists until 2000. The Gribshunden shipwreck, from the late medieval period, came to media attention when archaeologists salvaged a fabulously well-preserved wooden figurehead of a dragon-like monster from the stern and brought it to the surface, probably the only one left in the world from a 15 ^th century ship.

Buried in silt in the ancient hull of the ship, archaeologists have now discovered a barrel containing the skeleton of what appears to be an ancient sea monster measuring two meters (6.56 feet) long. Having applied DNA analysis to the sea monster’s remains, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have announced that the remains come from an Atlantic sturgeon. It appears that King Hans was aiming to demonstrate both power and grandeur to Sten Sture by presenting the giant fish, but the Gribshunden caught fire and sank, taking with it the monster’s skeleton which has remained on the bed of the Baltic Sea for over five hundred years.

The Gribshunden shipwreck came to media attention when archaeologists salvaged a fabulously well-preserved wooden figurehead of a dragon-like monster from the stern and brought it to the surface.

( Blekinge Museum )

The 120,000-Million-Year-Old Legacy About To Go Extinct

The Atlantic sturgeon is a prehistoric fish that has existed for more than 120 million years. Its long, hard, upturned snout, has four sensory barbels on the side of its mouth which is soft and toothless. Famed for its eggs, which are used for caviar, this bony ancient-looking fish has no scales but five rows of bony plates, called scutes, which protect its head and body. While males can weigh up to 90 pounds (41kg), females can weigh up to 160 pounds (72.5kg). Atlantic sturgeons can live for more than 60 years and while males do not reach sexual maturity until they are at least 10 years old, females take nearly 20 years to mature.

The largest Atlantic sturgeon ever recorded was caught in America’s Chesapeake Bay , measuring over 4.2 meters (14 ft) long and weighing almost 370 kilos (811 lbs). The Atlantic sturgeon was an important fishing industry commodity from colonial times up until the early 20th century. However, in 2012 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  officially declared the Atlantic sturgeon an endangered species, defining it as “almost extinct.” Today it is illegal to fish for, catch or harvest Atlantic sturgeon or their eggs.

Skeletal remains of the ancient sturgeon were found in a barrel buried in silt in the hull of the shipwreck.

(Lund University / Science Direct )

Ancient Sea Monster Preserved in the Pantry of a King’s Ship

Discovered fifty years ago, King Hans’s shipwreck was well preserved in the Baltic Sea’s high salt oxygen-free environment, and an absence of deteriorating shipworms has offered researchers data about how royal ships in late Middle Age Europe functioned. But it was the discovery last year of a wooden barrel in the royal pantry that uncovered the giant fish.

In a press release , Dr. Stella Macheridis, a researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University, said “it is a really thrilling discovery” and that it has been “very exciting” to work with the ancient sea monster . The professor also added that when the fish remains were first discovered, they instantly knew it was a sturgeon because of its bony plate armor.

Skeletal remains of the ancient sturgeon which measured two meters long.

(Lund University / Science Direct )

A Monstrous Tool of Propaganda

While the scientists knew the fish was a sturgeon, it was incorrectly assumed to have been a European sturgeon, commonly found in the Baltic Sea at that time. However, the new DNA analysis revealed it was an Atlantic sturgeon, the species currently on the endangered list and nearing extinction. King Hans must have planned on seriously impressing the Swedes with the ancient sea monster !

Maria C. Hansson, the molecular biologist at Lund University who carried out the DNA analysis, said that for her the discovery is “of major significance” because it offers a glimpse of what the Baltic Sea looked like before we interfered with it. Thanks to the discovery we now know that the Atlantic sturgeon was a member of that ancient ecosystem. In order to reanimate the creature, the professor claims that by using underwater DNA it might be possible “to recreate what it looked like previously.”

• Beast from the Deep: Rare wooden figurehead salvaged from historic Danish shipwreck
• Icelandic Government Commission Announces Legendary Sea Monster Exist s
• Legendary Sea Monsters of the Past May Not Be Myth After All

Sturgeon remains are rare archaeological finds. Thanks to this breakthrough discovery in an ancient royal environment, it is now known that the giant creature was a symbol of high status and power in the medieval period. Brendan P. Foley, marine archaeologist at Lund University, and project coordinator for the excavations, explains that the sturgeon located in the ships pantry was “a propaganda tool” that would have served a political function. As such it provides archaeologists with crucial information about medieval European politics, religion and economics.

• Top image: Buried in silt in the hull of the Gribshunden shipwreck, archaeologists have now discovered a barrel containing the skeleton of what appears to be an ancient sea monster measuring two meters long. Source: Reuseableart

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

02-09-2020 om 00:43 geschreven door peter  

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02-09-2020 om 00:27 geschreven door peter