Formerly Secret Government Files Show Dozens of UFO Reports

A few weeks after a strange circle of lights was spotted above Tenbury, it has been revealed in previously confidential Government files that dozens of UFO sightings have been reported in the county.

No explanation has been offered yet for the recent UFO sighting in Tenbury.

The files reveal 21 reports of UFOs made by witnesses between 1997 and 2009 across Worcestershire.

Several reports feature teddy bear-shaped objects, red and yellow stars, and moon-sized balloons.

In August 1997, a UFO about the size of an aircraft was seen travelling across the sky at tremendous speed.

In 1998, too bright, oval-shaped objects were observed slowly moving across Evesham’s sky and round, white, erratic objects in Kidderminster.

In Bewdley, Hereford, and Worcester, witnesses also reported seeing a black teddy bear-shaped object moving quickly through the sky. Very bright round UFOs and shooting stars initially moving slowly then rapidly were also reported in the early morning in Worcester in 1999 and 2001.

On New Year’s Eve in 2001, a star-shaped object was reported pulsating and then vanishing in Malvern.

A yellow and red big, round, bright star moved upwards in April 2002 in Worcester.

A helium-type balloon about a moon’s size with blue and red lights was observed moving across the sky in Worcester in 2003. In the same year, seven to eight spherical UFOs moved in a straight line above Droitwich.

In 2009, noiseless lights flying fast in a V-shape was spotted splitting up and disappearing, leaving no visible trail in Malvern.

The final UFO sighting report in the file involves an orange craft hovering above Evesham in October 2009.

The Ministry of Defence said that it stopped taking UFO sighting reports after 2009.

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07-10-2020 om 20:02 geschreven door peter  

SOMETHING PEELED AN ENTIRE LAYER OFF THIS STAR LIKE A GIANT ORANGE

NASA

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07-10-2020 om 01:49 geschreven door peter  

Did NASA detect a hint of life on Venus in 1978 and not realize it?

A NASA illustration shows the Pioneer 13 probes descending toward the clouds of Venus.

(Image: © NASA)

Related: 6 reasons astrobiologists are holding out hope for life on Mars 

Mogul and his coauthors were broadly familiar with the data from the missions, he said. "So, for us, it was a natural next step to give the data another look.  As such, after consulting with my co-authors, we identified the original scientific articles, and promptly started looking for phosphorous compounds."

The discovery, published to the arXiv database Sept. 22 and not yet peer reviewed, doesn't tell researchers much beyond what was reported in Nature Astronomy — though it does make the presence of phosphine (made up of a phosphorus atom and three hydrogens) even more certain, they said. The 1978 data comes from the Large Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer (LNMS), one of several instruments that descended into Venus' atmosphere as part of the Pioneer 13 mission. 

Pioneer 13 dropped a large probe (the LNMS) into Venus' clouds; suspended from a parachute, the probe collected data and beamed it back to Earth as it plummeted toward its robotic death. (Three smaller probes also dropped from Pioneer 13 without parachutes.) The LNMS sampled the atmosphere and ran those samples through mass spectrometry, a standard lab technique used to identify unknown chemicals. When scientists first described the LNMS results in the 1970s, they didn't discuss phosphorus-based compounds like phosphine, focusing instead on other chemicals.

When Mogul's team reexamined the LNMS data from Venus' lower and middle clouds (a potential habitable zone on the planet), they found signals that look a great deal like phosphine, the researchers wrote. The scientists also found definitive evidence for atoms of phosphorus in the atmosphere, which likely came from a heavier gas such as phosphine.

LNMS wasn't built to hunt phosphine-like compounds, and would have had a hard time distinguishing the gas from other molecules that have similar masses. But Pioneer 13's sample did have evidence of some molecule present in the gas that had the same mass as phosphine — in amounts that match the levels described in the Nature Astronomy paper.

"I believe that evidence for [trace chemicals that could be signatures of life] in the legacy data were sort of discounted because it was thought that they could not exist in the atmosphere," Mogul said. "I think many people are now revisiting the notion of Venus as a fully oxidizing environment." (A "fully oxidizing environment" wouldn't include phosphine or most other chemicals seen as signs of life.)

Mogul and his colleagues also found hints of other chemicals that shouldn't arise naturally in Venus' clouds — substances like chlorine, oxygen and hydrogen peroxide.

"We believe this to be an indication of chemistries not yet discovered," they wrote, "and/or chemistries potentially favorable for life."

What's needed, they wrote, is further, sustained exploration of Venus.

"We need a more sustained approach for exploration like that of Mars," Mogul said.

NASA and the European, Indian and Russian space agencies have plans for Venus probes that might be helpful, he said. 

"However, when considering the past, current, and future habitability of Venus, we would need longer-term chemical and geology studies to understand the sources of any potential chemical [anomalies] in the clouds," he said. "This could be from orbital probes, balloon-suspended probes in the clouds, and/or heat-stable lander probes."

The phrase "heat-stable" is important, given the planet's habit of killing any robot that lands on its sizzling hot surface.

• Originally published on Live Science.

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07-10-2020 om 01:34 geschreven door peter  

For just about as long as there has been talk of UFOs and aliens, there has been that of these entities whisking people away for mysterious purposes. One of the weirder features of the alien abduction phenomenon are those cases in which some sort of physical evidence has been left behind on or in the bodies of the victims, and this can take many forms. Everything from burns, to strange lesions or rashes, to unidentifiable hairlessness, to myriad unexplained physical symptoms of all varieties have been seen in the alleged victims of UFO abductions, but some of the most remarkable of all are those instances in which some sort of foreign object has been left behind within the body of the abductee for purposes unknown. They are called “alien implants,” and can be simply small pieces of metal, strange wires, or other more sophisticated constructs like tubes or something akin to computer chips. Such implants have long been seen as very bizarre and fringe even within the UFO field, but there have been some seemingly very reliable witnesses to the phenomenon, and one of these must certainly be the surgeon who specialized in removing these outlandish otherworldly devices.

Roger Krevin Leir started out as a well-respected podiatric surgeon from California, who was not always known for his involvement with aliens and UFOs. He gradually picked up an interest in Ufology over the years and became a member of his local chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), attending conferences, but at the time is was more a hobby than anything else. It was at one conference in particular that his life would be changed forever. In 1995, Leit attended a MUFON conference and was presented the X-rays of a woman who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. The X-rays were strange, and since Leir was a doctor they were shown to him to see what he thought. They appeared to show some sort of small metal objects embedded within her, and he went about having them surgically removed out of sheer curiosity.

Roger Krevin Leir

What he found was that the objects were two tiny metal shards that when analyzed by a laboratory showed them to be composed of aluminum and a type of iron typically found in meteorites. There could be found no traces of scars to show a point of insertion, nor was there any inflammatory tissue or rejection reaction by the body to these foreign objects. How did these objects get there and what were they? Leir was perplexed, and when he removed similar objects from a second patient he knew that there was something very strange going on. He decided to devote his time to studying this bizarre phenomenon, and would open a practice especially for this purpose, as well as a nonprofit research organization dedicated to it, called A&S Research, even hiring a dentist, a radiologist and a general surgeon to be a part of his team. What he would find over the course of at least 17 such implant extractions over his career would open his eyes to a whole new, bizarre world.

According to Leir, these implants really ran the range of strangeness. Some were composed of strange metals or elements, including Rare Earth Metals such U-236, as well as a single isotope of Uranium existing by itself, a very rare element known as Iridium, alloys with non-terrestrial isotopic ratios suggesting they came from space, and other strange anomalies. Implants would sometimes demonstrate odd qualities such as unknown odd crystalline structures and advanced constructs such as carbon nano tubes, carbon nano strands and carbon nano fibers, as well as an oily hard outer covering that seemed to prevent the body from rejecting them. The implants often displayed unusual magnetic properties, and some were claimed to emit radio waves of “deep space frequencies” in the FM band, as well as electromagnetic fields in excess of ten milligauss, with some implants continuing to transmit even after removal. There was never any visible point of entry into the body, and Leir claimed that these implants would sometimes move during surgery, as if trying to avoid being removed. The implants also had a high resistance to ordinary cutting techniques such as metallic sawing, or severing with a cutting instrument, forcing Leir to resort to cutting them with lasers at times. Some cases were particularly odd, such as one in which the implant broke and then reassembled itself after removal. Leir would write of this outlandish case in an article in X News Magazine as follows:

Case number 15 involved a male patient who was married with several young children and a resident of Southern California. He had a long history of abductions and they involved both his wife and family. One morning he awoke with pain in a toe and several small dots of blood on the bed sheet. This had occurred during the night and he made an appointment the following day with me in my office, as an ordinary foot patient. He withheld the fact that he was an abductee. He finally related to me the story about his last nights incident and confessed he had seen me on television. After examination I became suspicious that he did have a foreign body in his toe and suggested an x-ray. At the time there were no wounds or signs of blood. The x-rays proved positive for a metallic foreign body and because of his pain, it was recommended that it be removed. On his follow up visit he told me about his many abduction experiences and why he chose me as his specialist. The patient was given a copy of our extensive questionnaire and was told to fill it out and return them to me. Following that his surgery was scheduled.

The following is a partial list of unusual events associated with his surgery: 1. All of our surgeries are performed with the use of an X-ray device called a C Arm. This allows the surgeon to see the object on two television screens and we can visualize the instruments we are using to remove it while they are inside the body. This was the first object that broke into several smaller pieces during the process of removal. Each piece was placed on surgical gauze and then transferred into the container filled with the patient’s own blood serum. We had removed all the pieces except for one final piece. When we revisited the TV screens we noticed the final segment that was left was gone. After an adequate time of searching for it we simply gave up because it was not there and had simply vanished. 2. After three days went by, I reexamined the container holding the individual segments of the object and noticed they were all lined up in a straight line on the bottom of the container. I re-sealed the container and shook them up, placed the container on a table and waited about 15 minutes. Reexamination was shocking as they had again re-assembled themselves in the order they were in the x-ray. I called our camera operator. He came and we filmed this several times. We have no explanation for this metallic behavior and can only conclude that the alloys were some kind of memory metal.

One of Leir’s extracted implants

Making it even odder still was that in some cases the implants were estimated to have been within the subject for decades, meaning they predated any of the technology behind them should have been possible, and all of this convinced Leir that these were devices that had been planted there within the body by extraterrestrials for inscrutable purposes. His main theory as to their purpose was that they were possibly used for tracking people or monitoring physical changes, but it was anyone’s guess. He was very aware that his work was drawing some amount of criticism and skepticism, but he would claim that he had pursued his finding through the most stringent scientific methods. Leir would say of his surgeries and analyses:

To date our research team through our non profit, research organization, A&S Research has performed 17 surgeries for removal of objects from alleged alien abductees suspected of being alien implants. The implants have undergone rigorous examinations by both biological and metallurgical scientists associated with some of the world’s most prestigious laboratories such as Los Alamos National Labs, New Mexico Tech, University of Toronto, York University, Southwest Laboratories, Seal Laboratories and numerous others with the same validation. The discoveries have been both earth shattering and prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that these objects are non-terrestrial in origin and have been placed in humans all over the world by advanced species for reasons we still do not understand. It is my opinion that someone, or some entity, from somewhere else, is implanting these devices into human beings so that they can possibly monitor genetic changes which are occurring in the human body.

Leir would go on to write several books on the subject, including his hot-selling The Aliens and the Scalpel and Casebook: Alien Implants, as well as numerous articles, and he would appear in countless radio and television shows, cementing his place as a revolutionary pioneer into the phenomenon of alien implants within the UFO community. He also was the subject of the documentary Patient Seventeen, by investigative filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who filmed one of Leir’s actual surgeries to remove an implant from a man’s thigh. The implant was then sent to be analyzed, although the results have remained inconclusive as to what the device is. Corbell, who went in skeptical and now has an open mind, has said of his experience with Leir:

I told Dr. Leir that I would film his surgery, but if he was lying, bending the truth or trying to deceive the public in any way by altering his results, that I was going to out him.  I asked him if he was sure that he wanted me to film his work, and he said, ‘Yes, Jeremy. I’ve been doing this for more than two decades, and there’s something to this!’ I don’t think belief should play a role here at all. I might be sitting on the most astounding physical evidence of an off-world, non-terrestrial nanotechnological device from an advanced Alien intelligence…or not. But you can be sure that I’m going to find out. I owe that to Patient Seventeen and I owe that to Dr. Leir.

Of course, with such amazing claims there are also plenty of skeptics, both within the medical field and Ufology. The main skeptical argument is that these are merely ordinary objects such as pieces of metal or shards of glass that have gotten lodged with the body in a way similar to splinters, or even simply disconnected collections of fat cells., and Leir has also been criticized for being reluctant to allow other independent doctors to do their own analyses of the objects in question. Also damning is a 1999 program called Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which found that Leir had at one point been put on probation for 3 years by the California Board of Podiatric Medicine for “repeated acts of negligence.” Sadly, Leir passed away in 2014 at the age of 79 shortly after Patient Seventeen wrapped filming, taking whatever secrets he had to the grave with him. We are left to ask whether Roger Leir was a fraud or for real, and what his alleged findings mean. What did he find in these patients, if anything? If these really are what he claimed they were, then what are they for, and who put them there? Whatever the case may be, the phenomenon of alien implants has not gone away, and there continue to be those who claim to have these devices lodged within them. What does it all mean? We may never know for sure.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

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06-10-2020 om 23:41 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Object Moving To And From The Space Station, Sept 30, 2020, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Sept 30, 2020

Location of sighting: Space station

 

I found this in NASA space station archives and there is a small oval shaped UFO that comes towards the spaces station and apparently circles the ISS and then returns the way it came, but on the right side of the ISS. The UFO clearly is very interested in the space station and seems to have come in this direction for that one reason. The astronauts aboard the space station never said anything about it. I never heard any conversation at all. So I will just add music to it. 

 

When I enlarged the UFO I found that it is egg shaped and has a bright green and yellow tint to it. This is absolutely 100% alien in origin. 

Scott C. Waring 

 

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06-10-2020 om 22:29 geschreven door peter  

Energy Entities Recorded Over UK On Oct 3, 2020, Raw Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Oct 3, 2020

Location of sighting: Preston in Lancashire, UK

 

Now at first this will appear to be spot lights, but as you watch, you will notice that it is something else. There is no light beam, no round or oval contact point on the clouds. Each beam is actually different in shape. The lights are not alien craft but energy beings that don't need a ship. They are traveling together  as they usually do, but they are circling over an are for a bit. They only circle when they are noticed by humans below. They are as curious about us and our reaction to them as we are about them. 100% proof that advanced aliens are watching over the UK. 

 

I took the video and added light to it to make the background sky and lights more visible...at the bottom of this post. 

Scott C. Waring 

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06-10-2020 om 22:14 geschreven door peter  

Plane Investigates UFOs Over Howard Beach, New York Oct 3, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Oct 3, 2020

Location of sighting: Howard Beach, New York, USA

 

At first this looks like the big dipper star constellation, but then they slowly move and change positions. They move closer and closer to the eyewitnesses as if its the UFOs watching them. This is a common theme in many past UFO reports. The absolute proof of this being alien craft is that they were seen on radar and a plane was seen in the video investigating the UFOs at 1:30 into the video. You can tell the plane by its flashing aircraft lights as it slows down near the UFOs. This is serious proof that aliens exist and are watching us back. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan

 

Eyewitness states: 

Dit gebeurde rond 22:15 uur. UFO's ???! We waren aan het rondhangen in onze achtertuin en keken naar de Volle Maan en Mars en de omringende sterren met de Sky View-app toen deze verschenen. De app identificeerde deze objecten niet die in een reeks leken te zweven. Er waren er ongeveer 5-6 waarvan ze allemaal geleidelijk verdwenen.

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06-10-2020 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

Three Glowing UFOs Seen Passing Over Homes In Philadelphia, Oct 3, 2020, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Oct 3, 2020
Location of sighting: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

At first the UFOs seem to be reflections from the street lights, however that is not the case. There are many glowing objects flying over the neighborhood. They are too low to be satellites and have no flashing lights so they are not aircraft. I am very surprised at the brightness of the UFOs. They must be close for them to shine so brightly. Excellent footage. 
Scott C. Waring 

Eyewitness states: 

Please look at watch we just witness over Philadelphia. Three UFO's spotted in the sky. While you're watching look as the 3rd one appears out of no where. Dont pay attention to the 2 moving spots that was just glare in my camera lens. Omg what is going on!

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06-10-2020 om 21:33 geschreven door peter  

Witness noticed a series of fast moving orbs in the sky over Bangor, Pennsylvania on which he started to record the strange phenomenon. 

Witness states:

My Dad first noticed none blinking reddish lights fly by his window and came down to ask me if I saw something fly by. 

I said no but call me if you see it again. So within about 2 minutes he called me and I ran outside to see. I immediately ran in to tell everyone to hurry up and come look. Then I started to record them. 

They came in groups of 2 and 3 and I believe they were big in size, fast moving and very bright. 

I live by ABE airport and see planes and just about everything before. I know what lighted blimps, Chinese lanterns, tracer rounds, A-10s, shooting stars and planets all look like but something like these orbs I've never seen. 

They flew in a direction that I don’t see planes flying and a group of them flew by a commercial airplane that was dropping altitude to land. So whoever was flying or on that plane had to see them too. Mufon case 111692.

Although the orb phenomenon often is associated with paranormal activity in the way that some orbs could be connected to spirit beings and the afterlife, it is more likely that the fast moving orbs over Bangor, Pennsylvania are UFOs either man-made or of alien origin.

  

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06-10-2020 om 20:57 geschreven door peter  

The recently established United States Space Force is widely considered to be the brainchild of President Donald Trump, which has subsequently aroused suspicion, if not outright opposition, by those believing it to be a grandiose vanity project with no genuine national security significance. 

However, the first proposal for a Space Force dates back to a bipartisan "Space Commission" established during the Clinton administration that delivered a detailed report on January 11, 2001, recommending a new military space service to be called "Space Corps". 

The chief goal of the Space Corps would be to prevent a future "Space Pearl Harbor". 

On September 10, 2001, Rumsfeld appeared on live television, saying that the Pentagon could not account for 2.3 trillion dollars in the fiscal year 1999. This was money that could not be tracked by the Pentagon Inspector General, who had described similar anomalies with the Pentagon budget in 1998 and 2000. 

The missing 2.3 trillion dollars probably were used to finance a black budget space program. 

This is an audio version of an article published on Exopolitics.org on October 1, 2020, and is narrated by the author Michael Salla, Ph.D.

For links and references go to: https://exopolitics.org/was-space-force-delayed-nearly-20-years-to-facilitate-a-space-pearl-harbor/

  

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06-10-2020 om 20:21 geschreven door peter  

Spectacular TR-3B UFO filmed over New York Mills 5-Oct-2020

This interesting footage of a possible TR-3B (triangle- UFO) was filmed over New York Mills, a village in Oneida County, New York, USA. Filmed on 5th October 2020.

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06-10-2020 om 19:18 geschreven door peter  

The Carter Administration’s Attempt to Create a NASA UFO Commission

Posted by: Antonio Huneeus  

Steven Spielberg mentions Jimmy Carter potentially releasing UFO information in this video.

The first account of Carter’s sighting appeared in October 1973—during that year’s big UFO flap—when dispatches from Georgia quoted the governor’s first statement on UFOs: “I’ve seen one myself.” The story was picked up in the press, prompting the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in Maryland to send UFO questionnaires to the Georgia State Capitol. Carter personally filled out both questionnaires and gave permission to use his name as a witness. According to the questionnaires, the sighting occurred “shortly after dark” in October 1969 when Carter and ten other “members of Leary Georgia Lions Club” were “outdoors waiting for a meeting to begin at 7:30 p.m.” The sighting lasted between ten to twelve minutes and the object, located at “about 30 degrees above the horizon,” was described as “about the same size as the moon, maybe a little smaller, varied from brighter/larger than planet to apparent size of the moon.”

President Carter’s UFO story reemerged as he gained prominence during the 1976 presidential campaign. On June 8, the National Enquirer published a short interview with Carter in which he said, “I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one,” adding that “I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky.” In that interview, Carter also made an important promise to the American public: “If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists.”

Ironically, the only ufologist to really investigate Carter’s sighting was skeptic Robert Sheaffer. The main clue was that Carter claimed to have seen the object while visiting the town of Leary to lecture at the local Lions Club. In his book, The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence, Sheaffer recounts that his effort to locate additional witnesses was difficult, but he was finally able to find one who remembered seeing, “like a blue light or something or other in the sky that night.”

However, Sheaffer soon discovered that there was a problem with the date given by Carter as the date of the sighting. Carter always said that in the sighting occurred in October 1969, but the Lions Club in Leary had disbanded in February of that year. Sheaffer eventually located the official records of the meeting at the Lions Club International Headquarters. The exact date of Carter’s speech in Leary was January 6, 1969, “nine months earlier than Mr. Carter’s recollection had placed it.” Furthermore, after computing the position of the planets for that date, Sheaffer discovered that “Venus was a conspicuous evening star, nearing its maximum brilliance. Venus was . . . at 7:15 PM, at about 25º elevation, in virtually the exact position where Carter had placed his UFO.”

The result of Sheaffer’s investigation was mostly ignored because it robbed the public of identifying the president as a witness to a genuine UFO. Yet, there is a high probability that what Carter saw could have been explained. The visual tricks that Venus can play in the eyes of the beholder have been known for decades by competent UFO investigators like Allan Hendry, who has characterized Venus as “the real champion” of the stars and planets that tend to cause UFO sightings.

The sighting, however, was only one aspect of President Carter’s link to ufology. The other was his campaign promise to release all the UFO data held by the government. Stanley Schneider, assistant to President Carter’s White House Science advisor Frank Press, later admitted to the New York Times that “public interest in this has been brewing for several months, slowly building up . . . It was getting to be more than we could handle.” In fact, so many letter about UFOs were sent to President Carter that Virginia ufologist Larry Bryant eventually published a book on the letters entitled, UFO Politics at the White House: Citizens Rally ‘Round Jimmy Carter’s Promise. One indicator of the campaign’s impact was revealed by U.S. News & World Report in its April 18, 1977 edition. Under the heading of “Official Word Coming on UFOs,” the magazine stated that “before the year is out, the Government—perhaps the President—is expected to make what is described as ‘unsettling disclosures’ about UFOs . . . based on information from the CIA.”

NASA’s UFO Past

In an attempt to achieve UFO disclosure, the White House had difficulty in developing a coherent policy, and thus, NASA became the logical candidate. Unlike the U.S. Air Force, NASA had never been officially involved in the UFO controversy, although a link between the two surfaced occasionally. Popular UFO articles, books, and movies often displayed UFO photos taken by NASA astronauts, but the great majority of these images were explained by prosaic phenomena such as lens flares, booster rockets, or items ejected from space capsules.

While NASA never officially investigated UFOs, it did produce a few UFO-related documents such as the Kennedy Space Center’s “NASA Management Instruction (KMI 8610.4)” of June 28, 1967, regarding “Processing Reports of Sightings of Space Vehicles Fragments.” The four-page-document signed by the space center’s director, Kurt H. Debus, contained procedures dealing primarily with manmade space vehicles, but KMI 8610.4 added that “reports of sightings of objects not related to space vehicles” were also included: “It is KSC policy to respond to reported sightings of space vehicles fragments and unidentified flying objects as promptly as possible.” The document provided definitions of “Space Vehicle Fragment” and “Unidentified Flying Objects,” and KSC personnel were instructed to “call in unidentified flying object reports to the Patrick Air Force Base Command Post.”

Additionally, NASA’s name appears often in connection with mysterious space crashes such as the one in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in 1965, which later led to a lengthy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against NASA by journalist Leslie Kean. The space agency also appeared as a “forwarding” office in several declassified documents from other government branches.

NASA’s Response to the White House

It was against this background that NASA found itself tasked with official UFO responsibility early on in the Carter administration. That segment of the population that believed Earth was being visited by aliens had not forgotten Jimmy Carter’s campaign promise. The president’s science and technology advisor, Frank Press, became the White House official in charge of the UFO problem, but outside help was sought when the White House became overwhelmed with UFO mail. Press stated in his July 21, 1977 letter to NASA administrator Robert Frosch “that the focal point for the UFO question ought to be NASA.”

“There appears to be a national revival of interest in the matter with a younger generation becoming involved,” wrote Press, adding that “this is a public relations problem as much as anything else.” Press’s problems were twofold: First, the most immediate issue was how to deal with the growing number of correspondence regarding UFOs being received by the White House. Second, Press has to face the substantive issue of whether there was any truth to the UFO phenomenon and he believed that a new “panel of inquiry could be formed by NASA” to review the UFO evidence and “see if there are any new significant findings.”

Subsequent FOIA requests revealed that even before Frosch responded to Press on September 6, 1977 the U.S. Air Force was already meddling in the affair. One of the most significant and prophetic pieces of paper to come out of this period is a four-line letter written on September 1, 1977 by Colonel Charles H. Senn, the chief of the air force’s community relations division. The addressee was another former air force man, Lieutenant General Duward L. Crow, who was, at that time, the assistant deputy administrator of NASA. Along with an enclosed “UFO Fact Sheet and standard response to UFO public inquiries” that Crow had requested, Senn wrote, “I sincerely hope you are successful in preventing a reopening of UFO investigations.” Considering what took place in the ensuing months, when NASA literally turned down an official request from the White House, one does not need to be particularly conspiratorial to see that the air force was not a neutral party in this drama. Before Frosch’s response to Press was sent on September 6, the letter was rewritten twice by Crow.

Bob Frosch’s letter was courteous, but not encouraging. The strategy for responding to UFO inquiries from the public through “form letters” and “information sheets” was discussed, as both NASA and the air force had discovered long ago that it was the most economical method. It obviously had its problems, continued Frosch, such as the lack of a “focal point for technical appraisal of sightings.” No quick action was to be taken regarding the proposed UFO panel or commission, wrote Frosch, “before . . . we should assure ourselves that an inquiry is justified.” His suggestion, therefore, was to name “a NASA project officer to review reports of the last ten years” and “provide a specific recommendation” by the end of the year.

Press’s response to Frosch a week later stated he was “pleased . . . that NASA can handle the public inquiries” so as to “relieve my staff of a responsibility we are not equipped to handle.” Frosch never said in his letter that NASA would handle the mail for the White House; instead, he had only referred to the air force and NASA’s experience in using form letters. Press agreed fully with Frosch that the NASA commission was something that should be weighed carefully and wrote, “I can understand your reluctance to commit the agency to a formal program.” He conceded that it was up to the space agency to review the UFO situation as it best saw fit.

NASA’s review of the UFO question was not a formal study, but an in-house analysis of the options available. The key document is a four-page memo, “UFO Study Considerations,” dated November 8, 1977 written by Dr. Noel Hinners, NASA’s associate administrator for space science. Dr. Hinners considered “the question of what NASA could reasonably do in both the short and the long term,” he wrote in his memo to NASA’s assistant administrator. The scientist went about his task in a straightforward manner, outlining succinctly the current UFO scene which included

• “Widespread interest” with about half of the American population believing “something” exists;
• Interest in forming a “specialized agency” in the United Nations;
• A formal study group being set up by the CNES, NASA’s counterpart in France;
• Several solid private UFO organizations in the USA “with responsible membership”;
• An increase in reports of what Hinners referred to as “the near encounter type”; and
• A wider acceptance within the UFO community of a government cover-up, meaning not only that the Government “knows far more than it has released,” but that it “may even have pieces of UFO hardware in hand.”

Dr. Hinners analyzed the problems facing a NASA UFO review: the “apparent lack of any tangible or physical evidence for laboratory analysis,” and the “absence of any sound scientific protocol for investigating the phenomenon firsthand.” The word “apparent” in the first line is to be noted while the word “absence” in the second line is questionable. After three decades of amateur investigations, by 1977, civilian UFO organizations had achieved a degree of this so-called “scientific protocol.” Other problems outlined by Dr. Hinners were the abundance of “secondary source materials” or “hearsay”; the prejudices on the part of investigators; hoaxes; “the delicate interface,” as Hinners put it, between the government and UFO witnesses; and “the danger of projecting an inaccurate NASA or Administration image.” Dr. Hinners’s conclusion was that, “all in all, undertaking a formal study at this time appears fraught with perils.”

Dr. Hinners presented two choices to NASA. The first option was to reject the White House’s idea for “the Federal government and specifically NASA, to investigate the UFO phenomenon.” As Dr. Hinners opined, this option would give added fuel to the “charges of cover-up” by the UFO community, but it would also avoid “controversy . . . within the science community NASA deals with.” There were budgetary advantages too in keeping the current policy of form letters and not spending extra resources, but Hinners had the intelligence of pointing out that choosing this option “would also be begging the question.”

The second option was for NASA to consider creating a commission to investigate the topic. This option seemed almost identical to the early, positive days of the Condon Committee. Basically, Hinners’s thought was that the commission could request major UFO organizations “to submit their ‘best’ cases,” put “this material into a usable format,” update and revise it, and finally “ask for a peer review.” On the basis of this preliminary study, NASA would decide whether some form of permanent UFO investigative branch should be established. Hinners also recommended something that was later used by Bob Frosch in his final and formal rejection of the commission that, “as a minimum, having gone so far and this publicly, NASA should stand ready to investigate new hard evidence that might come in.”

In late November 1977, the White House decided to go ahead publicly with formally requesting a NASA UFO commission. The wire services carried the story and quoted David Williamson, NASA’s assistant for special projects, saying the agency was “not anxious” to study UFOs. Like Dr. Condon, Williamson appeared to disqualify any existence of UFOs before any official conclusion had been reached. “There is no measurable UFO evidence such as a piece of metal, flesh or cloth,” he said.

When Bob Frosch finally responded to Frank Press on December 21, 1977, nobody in Washington was surprised. The main theme was “the absence of tangible physical evidence available for thorough laboratory analysis” coupled with the willingness to analyze “any bona fide physical evidence from credible sources” submitted to NASA. Frosch also mentioned the lack of “a sound scientific procedure for investigating these phenomena” as a reason that a study “would be wasteful and probably unproductive.” The shadow of Dr. Condon, deceased since 1974, seemed to pervade this letter. Condon had concluded eight years earlier that science could not be expected to gain anything by studying UFOs. Frosch reached the same conclusion without even embroiling himself in a thousand-page report at a cost of over half a million dollars. After turning down the White House’s request, Frosch left a way out, just in case, writing, “I wish in no way to indicate that NASA has come to any conclusion about these phenomena as such; institutionally, we retain an open mind, a keen sense of scientific curiosity, and a willingness to analyze problems within our competence.”

In 1978, NASA released its revamped “Information Sheet No. 78-1” on UFOs. It stated that other than answering UFO-related mail sent to the White House, “NASA is not engaged in a research program involving these phenomena, nor is any other government agency.” The six-page document was an updated version of the old air force form letter, yet NASA added an interesting paragraph not to be found in the Pentagon’s counterpart: “Reports of unidentified flying objects entering United States air space are of interest to the military as a regular part of defense surveillance. Beyond that, the US Air Force no longer investigates reports of UFO sightings.” In other words, NASA provided an admission that NORAD and the U.S. military still keep an eye on UFOs with possible national security implications. The NASA document quoted extensively from the administrator’s letter about the “bona fide physical evidence” and lack thereof.

It is interesting to see how quickly and effectively the government muzzled this revival of UFO interest. Although numerous FOIA lawsuits were being pursued by researchers, many months and even years would pass before some of these documents were obtained, processed, and publicized. But, the interaction between the White House, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force during this little known episode in President Carter’s administration offers a window into how the federal government deals publicly with ufology. The failed NASA UFO commission attempt by the Carter administration in 1977 is the last time the U.S. government even considered launching a new formal study. Given the current state of affairs in Washington, it’s extremely unlikely that a new effort will be attempted anytime soon, but the phenomenon itself is certainly not likely to go away.

• A version of this article originally appeared in Issue #23 (December/January 2014) of Open Minds UFO Magazine. Back issues can be found here.

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{ http://www.openminds.tv/ }

06-10-2020 om 01:46 geschreven door peter  

Nick Pope – UFOs and the UK and US Government

Nick Pope worked for the Ministry of Defence investigating UFO reports in the 90s. Now he is a UFO pundit, often speaking to media outlets around the world on the UFO topic. In this interview, we will discuss recent news and Nick’s thought on what will come of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s request for UAP reports from the US military.

Read more about Nick at: NickPope.net

{http://www.openminds.tv/ }

06-10-2020 om 01:20 geschreven door peter  

Is Earth A Prison/Slave Planet?

Science has proven that “hominids” have lived on this planet for a very long time. It has also proven that Homo Sapiens Sapiens have not.

Based on certain facts, there have been theories stipulated, in various timelines, which support the concept that our entire planet was created as a sort of prison.

According to one theory, it is a prison for the observation of our species. For another theory, Earth is a spiritual prison.

Let’s keep an open mind about this, as it is only natural that when a theory is brought forth, supporting something different than what was taught in school, most people dismiss it without even considering the evidence.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.top10listverse.com/}

05-10-2020 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

Amber fossils reveal the true colors of 99-million-year-old insects

Colors can tell many things about the behavior of long-extinct species.

 by Fermin Koop in Environment, News, Science

Researchers have discovered the true colors of a group of fossilized insects, trapped in amber approximately 99 million years ago in Myanmar. The ancient insects include cuckoo wasps, soldier flies, and beetles, all bursting in metallic blue, purple, and green colors.

Nature is very visually rich but fossils rarely retain evidence of an organism’s original color. Nevertheless, paleontologists are now finding ways of teasing out colors from well-preserved fossils, whether they be dinosaurs and flying reptiles or ancient snakes and mammals.

Knowing the color of extinct species is actually very important, as it can tell researchers many things about the behavior of the animals. Colors could have been used to attract mates or warn off predators or even help with temperature regulation, for example. Knowing more about them can also help researchers know more about ecosystems and environments.

For the new study, a research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) looked at 35 individual amber samples with fantastically preserved insects trapped inside. The fossils were found in an amber mine in northern Myanmar.

“The amber is mid-Cretaceous, approximately 99 million years old, dating back to the golden age of dinosaurs,” said Cai Chenyan, the lead author, in a press release. “It is essentially resin produced by ancient coniferous trees that grew in a tropical rainforest environment. Animals and plants trapped in the thick resin got preserved, some with life-like fidelity.”

Colors in nature usually fall under three main categories: bioluminescence, pigments, and structural colors. The amber fossils found retained structural colors, which tend to be intense and rather eye-grabbing (including metallic colors) and are produced by microscopic light-scattering structures located on the heads, bodies, and limbs of animals.

The researchers polished the fossils using sandpaper and diatomite powder. Some pieces of amber were polished into very thin slices, making the insects clearly observable and the surrounding amber matrix almost transparent in bright light. The images included in the study were edited to adjust for brightness and contrast.

“The type of color preserved in the amber fossils is called structural color,” said Pan Yanhong, a co-author of the study, in a statement. “The surface nanostructure scatters light of specific wavelengths” which “produces very intense colors,” said Pan, adding that this “mechanism is responsible for many of the colors we know from our everyday lives.”

Diverse structural-colored insects in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar.

Credit: NIGPAS.

Among all the fossils, the cuckoo wasps were particularly stunning, with their heads, thorax, abdomen, and legs featuring hues of metallic blue-green, yellow-red, violet, and green. The color patterns were a close match to cuckoo wasps alive today, according to the research. Other standouts included blue and purple beetles and metallic dark-green soldier flies.

The researchers used electron microscopy to demonstrate that the amber fossils have a “well-preserved exoskeleton nanostructure that scatters light.”

“Our observations strongly suggest that the color preserved in some amber fossils may be the same as displayed by the insects when alive, some 99 million years ago,” wrote the authors in the study. “This is moreover corroborated by the fact that metallic blue-green coloration is frequently found in extant living cuckoo wasps.”

• The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

05-10-2020 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

Stone Age Rock Tombs Found Near Göbekli Tepe Provide More Ancient Clues

Göbekli Tepe , in Turkey, is regarded as one of the most important Stone Age archaeological sites in the world. It has changed our view of how civilization developed. Recently, archaeologists working not far from Göbekli Tepe have made further discoveries related to the Stone Age complex.

They have found a large number of Stone Age rock tombs that could help to solve some of the mysteries of this prehistoric complex and the area that surrounds it. The excavation of the Stone Age rock tombs is near to the place where a Stone Age figure known as the Balıklıgöl statue or Urfa man, dating to 9000 BC, was also found.

Experts from the Şanlıurfa Metropolitan Municipality were collaborating with personnel from the Culture and Tourism Ministry, who were investigating the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area, when they discovered the Stone Age rock tombs. They came across the burial site in the Old Town of Şanliurfa, not far from where some stunning mosaics of hunting Amazons were previously unearthed. The rock tombs are believed to have been part of the same cultural area as Göbekli Tepe. 

The Urfa Man Is Much Like The Eye-Idols Found At Göbekli Tepe

The enigmatic Urfa man figure appears to be related to the distinctive T-shaped statues found at Göbekli Tepe , in particular in their ‘”double V-shape neck design”, according to Ancient Origins . The haunting empty staring eyes of the Urfa man have been likened to the so-called eye-idols found at Göbekli Tepe. The Urfa man figure is about 6 feet (1.80 meters) high and was most likely used for ceremonial or religious purposes and was possibly an idol. Hurriyet Daily News states that it has been called by experts the “oldest naturalistic life-sized sculpture of a human.”

The Urfa Man with its empty eyes, which was found not far from the recently discovered Stone Age rock tombs in Turkey.

( Alistair Coombs )

According to Zeynel Abidin Beyazgül, the mayor of the Şanlıurfa Metropolitan Municipality, “a total of 662 shanty houses were demolished in the area and 61 rock tombs unearthed.” The rock tombs come in a variety of sizes and they appear to have been built later than Göbekli Tepe. However, it is believed that these tombs will provide evidence on the prehistoric site and its builders.

One of the so-called eye-idols found at Göbekli Tepe .

(Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC0)

The Stone Age Mysteries of the Incredible Göbekli Tepe Site

Göbekli Tepe is a tell or massive earthen mound in the south-east of Turkey, a 30-minute drive from the city of Şanlıurfa. Göbekli Tepe dates to approximately 10,000 BC and was built and used by Stone Age people. It is home to the world’s oldest megalithic structure , which is comprised of 200 monumental T-shaped standing stones arranged in circular formations. The function of the site is not known but it was probably religious, and many view it as the world’s oldest temple. Göbekli Tepe is providing new evidence for the development of civilization and has already proven that Stone Age societies were much more sophisticated than once thought. In 2018, the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, but much of it is unexcavated and there are still many mysteries surrounding this incredible site.

The massive Göbekli Tepe earthen mound in the south-east of Turkey, a 30-minute drive from the city of Şanlıurfa, where the Stone Age rock tombs were recently discovered.

(Teomancimit / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

This is what makes the recent finding of the Stone Age rock tombs so exciting.  The Mayor of Şanlıurfa told Yeni Şafak “We believe that the excavations we will carry out in the area where artifacts similar to the discoveries in Göbekli Tepe are going to be very significant.” Any links between the tombs at Kizilkoyun, and the UNESCO Heritage site is important because it could throw new light on Stone Age civilizations. The Mayor is quoted by Turkish Express as saying that “the excavations around the Kızılkoyun Necropolis will contribute to solving the mystery in surrounding Göbekli Tepe .” The Göbekli Tepe burial site is famous for the variety of its burials and funerary art.

• The Secret of Gobekli Tepe: Cosmic Equinox and Sacred Marriage - Part 1
• Archaeologists find 12,000-year-old pictograph at Gobeklitepe
• Göbekli Tepe Shamans and their Cosmic Symbols – Part I

More Discoveries Expected From The Kizilkoyun Necropolis

Investigations at the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area Stone Age rock tombs will continue, and any artifacts found at the site will be interpreted to determine if they are connected to Göbekli Tepe . There is great hope that the digs at the rock tomb site will solve some of the Göbekli Tepe mysteries that are still unsolved.

The mayor is quoted by Hurriyet Daily News as saying that “Şanlıurfa is already preparing for more discoveries, let humanity expect new surprises.” The burial ground is only one of many historic locations in the Turkish city, known as Edessa in ancient times, a strategically important center to several empires in classical antiquity.

• Top image: The Stone Age rock tombs recently found at the Kizilkoyun Necropolis area not far from Göbekli Tepe .           
• Source: AA News Broadcasting System (HAS)

By Ed Whelan

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

05-10-2020 om 23:09 geschreven door peter  

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05-10-2020 om 22:00 geschreven door peter  

New study lists 24 exoplanets that may be better for life than Earth

Isn't this a plot twist?

 by Alexandru Micu in News, Science, Space

Although we’re all from here, Earth isn’t necessarily the best planet to live on in the Universe, according to new research. A new study lists two dozen such “superhabitable” planet candidates for further research.

It is quite an unexpected turn of events, but the planets identified in the new study all show some properties that could make it a better home for earthlings than Earth itself.

The study, published by researchers from Washington State University, also detail why these planets were chosen. Some are older, some larger, others wetter and slightly warmer than Earth. Some of them even orbit ‘better’ stars than our own Sun, and are expected to exist for longer.

Better than the original

“With the next space telescopes coming up, we will get more information, so it is important to select some targets,” said Schulze-Makuch, a professor with WSU and the Technical University in Berlin.

“We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours.”

All the 24 maybe-superhabitable planets are over 100 light years away from Earth, so for the time being, they’re far beyond our grasp. However, with concentrated effort and data pooled from current and future telescopes, such as from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the LUVIOR space observatory, and the European Space Agency’s PLATO space telescope, we could glean enough data to see whether they’d be nice places to live.

Schulze-Makuch, a geobiologist with expertise in planetary habitability, worked with astronomers René Heller of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and Edward Guinan of Villanova University to first determine which criteria would make a planet superhabitable. Then, they dredged through data of the over 4,500 known exoplanets to see which would fit.

A habitable planet isn’t necessarily one that has life, but one that has the right conditions to sustain life as we know it — things like pleasant temperatures, liquid water, magnetic fields, and breathable atmosphere.

The team looked at systems with stars similar to our Sun (G-class stars) and planets orbiting them in the liquid water zone — not too far nor too close. But since G-class stars have a lifespan of just 10 billion years, and it took life on Earth 4 billion years to evolve, this means they’re not the best candidates for life, as they can consume their fuel before anything spawns on the planets that orbit them. That’s why the team also looked at the cooler, dimmer K-class dwarf stars, which have lifespans of 20 billion to 70 billion years.

While this gives the planets more time to develop life, the authors argue that we shouldn’t be looking at ones that are too old. In order to be habitable, a planet needs a protective magnetic field — the ones that don’t end up like Mars is today. Those magnetic fields are generated in their core, and they’re powered by geothermal energy — which itself is produced by radioactive decay inside the planet. The Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, meaning it hasn’t yet expended its cache of geothermal energy. The authors thus argue that we should be looking for exoplanets 5 billion to 8 billion years old.

As far as size is concerned, we should look for something slightly larger and heavier than our own. Exoplanets that are at least 10% larger than Earth would have more habitable land but provide almost the same experience as living here. One around 1.5 times heavier should be able to better retain its geothermal energy and have enough gravity to keep its atmosphere intact.

Size and mass also matter. A planet that is 10% larger than the Earth should have more habitable land. One that is about 1.5 times Earth’s mass would be expected to retain its interior heating through radioactive decay longer and would also have a stronger gravity to retain an atmosphere over a longer time period.

Another element they’d look for is more water, especially in the form of moisture, clouds, and atmospheric humidity. A surface temperature of around 5 degrees Celsius (8 Fahrenheit) higher than on Earth, alongside extra moisture, would probably be better suited to life as we know it today. They argue that these elements make rainforests on Earth more biodiverse than forests in colder, drier areas.

None of the 24 exoplanets meet all the criteria, but one of the candidates has four.

“It’s sometimes difficult to convey this principle of superhabitable planets because we think we have the best planet,” said Schulze-Makuch.

“We have a great number of complex and diverse lifeforms, and many that can survive in extreme environments. It is good to have adaptable life, but that doesn’t mean that we have the best of everything.”

• The paper “In Search for a Planet Better than Earth: Top Contenders for a Superhabitable World” has been published in the journal Astrobiology.

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

05-10-2020 om 21:32 geschreven door peter  

Decapitated and dismembered skeletons reveal lost Iron Age massacre

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer 

Attackers may have timed the attack to coincide with a public gathering.

Sharp force trauma severed this amputated right ulna and radius, which belonged to a teenage girl and was found still wearing five bracelets.

(Image: © Antiquity Publications Ltd/Photo by T. Fernández-Crespo)

A brutal attack on an Iron Age town in northern Spain during the mid-fourth or late third century B.C. left more than a dozen bodies — men, women and children — scattered and smoldering in the streets, as the town burned. 

Injuries inflicted upon the people who died were horrific. One person was decapitated, two had severed arms, and the remains of nearly half of the individuals showed signs of mutilation, archaeologists recently discovered.

New analysis of the victims' bones — the first detailed investigation of their injuries — suggests that they were murdered by a neighboring community during either a calculated power grab or an act of revenge. 

• Related: 25 grisly archaeological discoveries

The site of the massacre was once a bustling, economically thriving town called La Hoya, located in northern Spain's Rioja Alavesa region. It was occupied from the 15th century B.C. to the third century B.C., and at its peak was home to about 1,500 people. Archaeologists uncovered the prehistoric settlement in 1935, and excavated it from 1973 until around 1990, uncovering about 15% of the site, the scientists reported in a study published today (Oct. 1) in the journal Antiquity. 

Though only a fraction of La Hoya was excavated, it was immediately clear that something terrible had happened there. Burned skeletons — at least 13 complete and partial remains — were found lying in the streets and inside buildings. One adult male had been decapitated, though the archaeologists did not find his skull. Damage to his right clavicle and shoulder bone revealed that his attacker struck more than once, according to the study.

Bone injuries of another male victim suggested he had been stabbed repeatedly from behind; a teenage girl suffered an amputated arm, which was found a short distance from her body, still wearing five copper-alloy bracelets, the researchers reported. They found no signs of weapons near the bodies. Nor were there any defensive injuries, and the damage appeared to have been inflicted at close range. All of these clues pointed to a surprise attack.

Scattered craft items, hobbled livestock and vessels filled with recently harvested cereal grain suggest the attackers invaded La Hoya during a market day in the summer or early autumn. By deliberately choosing a time when public spaces would be crowded, the attackers would have ensured a higher number of casualties, according to the study.

Yet despite the display of abundant goods in La Hoya at the time of the attack, the city was unplundered and its riches untouched, hinting that the motivation for the violence was political rather than for economic gain, the scientists said.

A violent legacy

The Roman occupation of Iberia, beginning in 218 B.C., was brutal, and has long been credited with sparking cycles of regional violence and upheaval. Two Roman massacres in Iberian towns — Cerro de la Cruz in 150 B.C. to 130 B.C. and La Almoina in 75 B.C. — are known from archaeological evidence. In Cerro de la Cruz, the Romans enslaved 10,000 people and beheaded 500 of them; in La Almoina, they shackled and executed 14 unarmed men. There, one man was beheaded, another was pierced by a javelin, and several had all of their limbs cut off, according to the study. 

However, the La Hoya carnage predates Roman conquest in northern Spain, so it's possible that political instability and deadly clashes between Iberian rivals were already well underway prior to the arrival of Roman forces, the scientists reported.

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An attack on La Hoya, which was politically and economically important in the region, likely had dramatic repercussions on the balance of local power, "by either creating a power vacuum or by consolidating the position of a rival community," the study authors reported.

Because the bodies were left unburied, the village was probably abandoned after the slaughter. Some who have analyzed the La Hoya site previously suggested that the townfolk may have regrouped and continued to live in La Hoya for centuries after the massacre, according to the study. But the preserved aftermath of the attack and the condition of the remains make that scenario highly unlikely, "given the scale of death and destruction revealed by the excavations," the scientists wrote.

• Originally published on Live Science.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

05-10-2020 om 21:02 geschreven door peter  

It often seems that the history of humanity is mostly just the history of warfare, and that’s especially true with the history of Europe, where entire ages are named for the wars and conflicts that took place in those time periods. No culture dominates both history and warfare like the ancient Romans, so one would believe that means the ancient Romans were the first Europeans to wage full-scale warfare. And one would be right … until now.

“Between the mid fourth and late third centuries BC, the site was subjected to a violent attack, its inhabitants killed and the settlement burned. Here the authors present osteological analyses for a massacre: decapitations, amputations and other sharp-force injuries affecting a wide cross section of the community. They interpret the massacre as an instance of conflict between rival local communities, contributing to a growing picture of the scale and nature of violence in Iron Age Europe.”

In a recent study published in the journal Antiquity, researchers led by Teresa Fernández-Crespo of Oxford University to a fresh look at remains discovered in the 1950s in La Hoya, an Iron Age town in what is now the Basque Country of northern Spain. Located in the Ebro River valley, La Hoya was a major town – the archeologists determined it had protective walls, streets and large buildings erected by the Berones, a Celtic culture. The Berones ruled the area from the 15th century BCE until about 300 BCE when they disappeared. New analysis of 13 remains gave Fernández-Crespo the definitive reason why.

“One adult male shows clear evidence of decapitation: his fourth cervical vertebra is completely bisected by an oblique cut, consistent with a single blow to the neck from left to right, at a downward angle.

“Although no clear defensive wounds have been identified, the most plausible explanation for the trauma observed is that it could have been inflicted during a face-to-face encounter in which the victim tried to confront his attacker.”

A male and a teenage female had their right arms amputated. The position of the female and her arm indicated it had been thrown away (with bracelets still on it) and she crawled to it until she died, either from blood loss or a stab in the back. Two more males had “sharp force injuries potentially inflicted from behind by bladed weapons – some swords and daggers were recovered in a nearby cemetery. (Photos here.) All of the skeletons showed signs the victims had been set on fire and were found unburied, indicating the perpetrators left them dead or dying in the streets.

As gruesome as the violence was, the cause was the real shocker. The archeologists found no evidence of raiding, pillaging or destruction of property in this thriving Iron Age marketplace. That leaves only one other reason for the massacre:

“Given the site’s location in a natural boundary area, the attack may have been a consequence of power struggles and territorial ambitions between neighbouring pre-Roman polities.”

Power and politics – of course. But the key phrase in the study is “pre-Roman.” La Hoya is the only known Iron Age Iberian site whose destruction occurred before the Roman conquest and occupation began in 218 BCE and warfare became the order of the day – Live Science reports that Roman massacres occurred in Cerro de la Cruz in 150 BCE to 130 BCE and La Almoina in 75 BCE.

It appears the massacre of La Hoya was so brutal and complete, the few survivors never came back. Who could have done this? The study concludes that pre-Roman Iberian Age societies waged political battles for power, dominance and destruction long before the rest of Europe became the war-mongering area it remains to this day. The last line of the study sums it up in terms George Orwell would enjoy … and modern humans should remember:

“Certainly, the Romans were not alone in being able to “make a desert and call it peace”.”

Make a desert and call it peace. Seen any of that lately?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

05-10-2020 om 20:02 geschreven door peter