Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
14-11-2021
Never-Before-Seen Mineral Found Inside of a Diamond
Never-Before-Seen Mineral Found Inside of a Diamond
A diamond discovered deep beneath Earth’s surface contains a mineral that has never been found before on our planet. The mineral has been named davemaoite after geophysicist Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao.
While davemaoite is the first ever discovery of a high-pressure calcium silicate perovskite (CaSiO3) on our planet, another CaSiO3 named wollastonite is plentiful on Earth. Davemaoite, however, can only form by high temperatures and a lot of pressure in the mantle of our planet.
It was long believed that Earth did contain davemaoite but experts never found any evidence of it – until now. Since davemaoite breaks into different minerals as it gets closer to the surface, finding proof of it is exceptionally difficult, but a diamond in Botswana has finally provided scientists with the evidence they needed.
(Not the diamond mentioned in this article.)
The diamond formed in Earth’s mantle approximately 410 miles (660 kilometers) below the surface. And inside of the stone was a very tiny piece of davemaoite – only a few micrometers (millionths of a meter) in size. Oliver Tschauner, who is a mineralogist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and his colleagues, used synchrotron X-ray diffraction in order to find the never-before-seen mineral inside of the diamond. In an interview with Live Science, Tschauner stated that the discovery “…came as a surprise”.
Since scientists believe that davemaoite might contain additional elements that can give off heat by radioactive decay (such as thorium and uranium), the mineral could possibly aid in providing a significant dose of heat in Earth’s mantle. Additionally, this means that diamonds can grow much farther down below Earth’s surface than previously believed and these stones could possibly lead to even more discoveries of never-before-seen minerals.
Yingwei Fe, who is a geophysicist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., but was not part of the study, weighed in on the discovery by saying, “The work by Tschauner et al. inspires hope in the discovery of other difficult high-pressure phases in nature.” “Such direct sampling of the inaccessible lower mantle would fill our knowledge gap in chemical composition of the entire mantle of our planet.”
(Not the diamond mentioned in this article.)
The discovery has led the International Mineralogical Association to confirm davemaoite as being a new mineral. A picture of the diamond that contained davemaoite can be viewed here.
This diamond holds tiny black specks of davemaoite, a mineral formed at high temperature and pressure in the deep Earth.
Credit: Aaron Celestian, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
The study was published in the journal Sciencewhere it can be read in full.
Paul Bennewitz was a scientist who, in the 1970s, ran a company in Albuquerque called Thunder Scientific – a company that quite literally backed onto the well-guarded fences of Kirtland Air Force Base. It was around 1978 that Bennewitz – who had a pre-existing interest in UFOs – began to hear of more and more so-called alien abduction events in and around Albuquerque and further up into northern New Mexico. On top of that, strange signals were picked up by Bennewitz on his radio equipment. He saw weird-looking aircraft soaring silently across the skies over Kirtland late at night and in the early hours of the morning. He was given accounts of abductees being secretly taken to Kirtland and grilled by U.S. intelligence agents, who were deeply concerned about the growing number of people seemingly being kidnapped from their homes and subjected to terrifying and bizarre experiments of a genetic nature. As the weeks and months progressed Bennewitz came to believe something incredible: that deadly ETs were secretly getting ready to take over the planet. They were planning on doing so from their command post deep below the town of Dulce. Worldwide invasion and the enslavement of the human race were lurking just around the corner – as Bennewitz saw it, at least. Suspecting that the end really was possibly getting nearer and nearer, Bennewitz prepared a dossier on his findings and theories. He called it Project Beta. Bennewitz mailed copies of the controversial report to the FBI, to the CIA, to the NSA, to every branch of the military, and even to the White House. People had to be warned – and warned now, Bennewitz wrote.
Greg Bishop at the grave of Paul Bennewitz
(photo courtesy of Nick Redfern)
Notably, Bennewitz was not written off as a crank, as many might expect him to have been. In fact, quite the opposite was the case: intelligence agents at Kirtland Air Force Base quickly established a secret liaison with Bennewitz. They warned him about digging any further into things that could be dangerous – even to Bennewitz’s life, no less. But, those same agents also confided in Bennewitz something incredible: that he was on the right track. They did all they could to keep Bennewitz quiet, almost to the point of begging him to keep his mouth shut on what he knew. For Bennewitz, though, this was like a red rag to a bull: the somewhat veiled threats to keep his nose out of things only served Bennewitz to push further for answers.
As a result, U.S. intelligence fed Bennewitz more and more horror stories of what was supposedly going on several miles below Dulce, including tales of the aliens using captured people – in their thousands – as food. It’s no wonder – given the nature of the stories and that they were coming directly from the military – that Bennewitz became more and more paranoid. Eventually, he became completely unhinged, and to the point where he ended up spending time in a local medical facility, where he was treated for stress, anxiety, and, finally, what practically amounted to a complete mental collapse. Thankfully, he recovered, but was careful kept his distance from Ufology. Today, some UFO researchers dismiss Bennewitz’s theories and conclusions – preferring, instead, to suspect that Bennewitz had stumbled on not alien activity but top secret programs of the U.S. military and intelligence community. By steering Bennewitz down a path filled with fictitious tales of dangerous aliens, the government would be able to divert him away from the far more down to earth truth, so the theory goes. On the other hand, Bennewitz, who died in 2003, still has a huge following of UFO sleuths who are absolutely certain that below Dulce something abominable is going on – and has been for years. Maybe even for centuries.
While Bennewitz’s Project Beta report does read like something straight out of the early years of The X-Files, there is absolutely no doubt that Dulce itself is a very weird place, one where strange activity has been reported for years. For example, in the 1960s the area around Dulce became the site of a classified U.S. Atomic Energy Commission program called Gasbuggy. It was part of a larger operation code-named Plowshare. The plan was to explode a significantly-sized atomic device, underground, deep below the Carson National Forest, which just happens to be only a few miles from Dulce. The reason was to try and access massive and precious supplies of natural gas. The bomb was detonated on December 10, 1967 – more than four thousand feet below the surface. Although the Plowshare program continued in the area until the late 1970s, even today digging underground in the area is strictly forbidden. In light of all of Bennewitz’s findings, it’s not at all surprising that there are those in the UFO community who believe that the Plowshare program was actually a cover story – one created to mask the fact that the U.S. Government had tried to destroy the alien base under Dulce with a nuclear weapon. That just such a weapon really was exploded, underground, and only a few minutes’ drive from Dulce, only ensures that the rumors of an alien presence in the area continue to thrive. The story is, without doubt, fascinating. Greg Bishop (see the photo above) is the expert in this arena of disinformation. His findings make for incredible reading. Such is the extent to which this bizarre program went on, the whole thing still rumbles along
One big area of the UFO phenomenon has always been the evidence of radar signatures, or sometimes the lack of. Ever since we have been able to patrol the skies with radar, strange thing have managed to creep up, and one one these holds the distinction of being among the first. The year was 1948, and at the time the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, developed during World War II, was the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter, and the first aircraft designed to use radar. The aircraft held a crew of three, a pilot, gunner, and radar operator, and at the time it was pretty revolutionary, seeing action during the war in the European Theater, Pacific Theater, China Burma India Theater, and Mediterranean Theater, where it served well as a long-range, all-weather, day/night interceptor. In 1948, the P-61 was still in use, and one evening in October of 1948 a crew aboard one of these planes would have one of the first radar contacts with a UFO in the skies of Japan, which would also turn out to be one of the earlier UFO “dogfights.”
On October 15, 1948, a USAF P-61 Black Widow was on a routine patrol over the skies of Fukuoka, an island in southeastern Japan. This was a totally normal patrol during which none of the crew had expected to encounter any trouble, certainly not the strangeness they were about to witness. At approximately 11:05 p.m., the plane’s radar operator obtained a radar pickup on an unknown target at an altitude of around 6000 feet, and an initial range of about 10 miles. The object was initially moving at about 200 m.p.h. and although the radar return seemed comparable to that of a conventional aircraft, when it was visually spotted it was described as not a conventional aircraft, but rather about 20 to 30 feet long and shaped like a “rifle bullet,” with no discernible wings or tail structures and “a dark or dull finish.” Curious as to what this intruder might be, the decision was made to approach the object, upon which it began sharp acceleration and various impressive aerial acrobatics.
Northrop P-61 Black Widow
It seems that every time the P-61 tried to close in, the unidentified object would rapidly accelerate away, far beyond what a normal aircraft should have been capable of, quickly reaching a speed of 1,200 m.p.h., and would also abruptly dip and dive under them. It was all quite puzzling to the crew of the plane, with six attempts to make a pass at the unknown object that were thwarted by its maneuverability, and one report from the Far East Air Forces intelligence would say:
The radar observer estimated that on three of the sightings, the object traveled seven miles in approximately twenty seconds, giving a speed of approximately 1200 mph. When the F-61 approached within 12,000 feet, the target executed a 180 degree turn and dived under the F-61. The F-61 attempted to dive with the target but was unable to keep pace. It could go almost straight up or down out of radar elevation limits. It is believed that the object was not lost from the scope due to normal skip null-zones common to all radar equipment. The pilot and observer feel that it was the high rate of speed of the object which enabled it to disappear so rapidly. This aircraft seemed to be cognizant of the whereabouts of the F-61 at all times. It had a high rate of acceleration and could go almost straight up or down out of radar elevation limits. There was sufficient moonlight to permit a silhouette to be discerned although no details were observed. At the time of only visual sighting, target was on a level with observing aircraft. Under night visibility all that was visible was a silhouette. Type of tail stabilizers is unknown. General classification – very short body giving a stubby appearance. Canopy, if present, was formed into aircraft body to give the object clean-cut lines and was not discernible.
The object would continue this cat and mouse game, as if playing with the P-61, usually pulling off its seemingly impossible evasive maneuvers whenever the American plane closed to within 400 yards. Indeed, the object seemed to jump around so much that the crew began to think that they were dealing with more than one bogey. The pilot of the P-61, a 1st Lt. Oliver Hemphill, would say of their six passes at the radar target:
The target put on a tremendous burst of speed and dived so fast that we were unable to stay with it. The aircraft immediately outdistanced us. The third target was spotted visually by myself. I had an excellent silhouette of the target thrown against a very reflective undercast by a full moon. I realized at this time that it did not look like any type of aircraft I was familiar with, so I immediately contacted my Ground Control Station. The fourth target passed directly over my ship from astern to bow at a speed of roughly twice that of my aircraft, 200 mph. I caught just a fleeting glimpse of the aircraft; just enough to know that he had passed on. The fifth and sixth targets were attempted radar interceptions, but their high rate of speed put them immediately out of our range.
Rather strangely, although the P-61 was picking up the mysterious object on radar, USAF ground-radar stations at Shigamo-Shima and Fukae-Shima were only able to see the American aircraft, but not the anomalous object. The duration of the six attempted intercepts is given as 10 minutes, after which the object or objects left the area to disappear. The case would go on into the files of Project Blue Book, and be studied by the head of the organization, Edward Ruppelt, who would write of it in his book The Report on the Unidentified Flying Objects (1955), as well as Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, and professor, Department of Meteorology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, Dr. James E. McDonald. It has gone on to become a case known as one of the first times that pilots used airborne radar to track a UFO, and so it is a unique addition to the history of Ufology and an important but little-known case.
Not Saying it was Aliens, but ‘Oumuamua Probably Wasn’t a Nitrogen Iceberg…
Not Saying it was Aliens, but ‘Oumuamua Probably Wasn’t a Nitrogen Iceberg…
On October 19th, 2017, astronomers made the first-ever detection of an interstellar object (ISO) passing through our Solar System. Designated 1I/2017 U1′ Oumuamua, this object confounded astronomers who could not determine if it was an interstellar comet or an asteroid. After four years and many theories (including the controversial “ET solar sail” hypothesis), the astronomical community appeared to land on an explanation that satisfied all the observations.
The “nitrogen iceberg” theory stated that ‘Oumuamua was likely debris from a Pluto-like planet in another solar system. In their latest study, titled “The Mass Budget Necessary to Explain ‘Oumuamua as a Nitrogen Iceberg,” Amir Siraj and Prof. Avi Loeb (who proposed the ET solar sail hypothesis) offered an official counter-argument to this theory. According to their new paper, there is an extreme shortage of exo-Plutos in the galaxy to explain the detection of a nitrogen iceberg.
In the paper where he broached the possibility, Loeb indicated that ‘Oumuamua’s unusual character and behavior were consistent with a solar sail. This included the highly-reflective nature of the object and its profile, which appeared to be either cigar-shaped or pancake-like. More importantly, its sudden acceleration and deviation from its expected orbit appeared to be the result of radiation pressure, which is precisely how solar sails achieve propulsion.
There was also the way it entered our Solar System, which allowed it to make a flyby of Earth after passing closest to our Sun (perihelion). In other words, its orbital dynamics allowed it to get a close look at the only habitable planet in our Solar System, which is precisely what one might expect of an interstellar probe. These arguments were detailed further in Loeb’s book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, which we reviewed in a previous article.
At the time of the book’s writing, all attempts to explain ‘Oumuamua in terms of natural phenomena fell short. Basically, there was no single explanation that could account for its brightness, profile, and acceleration while acknowledging that there was no evidence of outgassing. In addition, the sudden acceleration could not be attributed to gravitational forces since these should have been slowing ‘Oumuamua down at the time.
In March of 2021, two researchers from the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University (ASU) offered a new hypothesis. In two published studies, SESE Exploration Fellow Alan Jackson and Professor Steven Desch argued that ‘Oumuamua may have been a nitrogen ice fragment ejected from a young star system (possibly in the Perseus Arm of our galaxy) ca. 400 to 500 million years ago.
In their first paper, Jackson and Desch addressed the size and compositional constraints of ‘Oumuamua and showed how ‘Oumuamua’s albedo was similar to the nitrogen ices on the surface of Triton and Pluto. In their second paper, they showed how these types of nitrogen ice fragments could be generated by the collision of extrasolar objects similar in composition to Pluto and Kuiper Belt Object (KBOs).
Artist’s Concept of Oumuamua. Credit: William Hartmann
By their estimates, these collisions would generate and eject around 100 trillion (~1014) objects into interstellar space, half of which would be composed of water ice and the other half of nitrogen (N2). This population would be enough to satisfy the statistical significance of ISOs necessary to explain the detection of ‘Oumaumua. Equally important was the fact that an object composed of N2 would not form a tail as it neared our Sun, as there would be no water vapor or CO/CO2 to sublimate. As Siraj explained to Universe Today via email:
“The attraction of the nitrogen iceberg hypothesis is primarily in explaining ‘Oumuamua’s non-gravitational acceleration. Just like for a hypothetical hydrogen iceberg, a nitrogen iceberg’s outgassing activity would not have been detectable in the measurements that were taken of ‘Oumuamua by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which simply limited the abundance of carbon-based molecules around ‘Oumuamua. As a result, the sublimation of material could conceivably power the object’s observed non-gravitational acceleration.”
One of the main points made by Loeb in his proposal paper was that regardless of ‘Oumuamua’s true nature, its detection implied a massive population of similar objects in our galaxy. In their rebuttal paper, which was recently accepted for publication in the journal New Astronomy, Siraj and Loeb addressed whether there is enough material in the Milky Way galaxy to create such a population of nitrogen icebergs.
A consequence of Jackson and Desch’s assessment was that there must be a robust population of “exo-Plutos” in our galaxy. For that to be the case, stars in the Milky Way would need to have enough material left over from star formation (i.e., a mass budget) to accommodate the formation of these planets. To test this, Siraj and Loeb took the nitrogen iceberg model and examined what amount of stellar material is required to make it work.
Artist’s impression of the first interstellar object “Oumuamua,” which was discovered on October 19th, 2017, by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
“Our calculation is very straightforward,” said Siraj. “We take all of the nitrogen iceberg model parameters, the required abundance of ‘Oumuamua-like objects to explain its detection by Pan-STARRS, and basic facts about stars in the Galaxy, and derive from these values the total mass of solar metallicity material required to be converted into exo-Plutos, to make the nitrogen model plausible.”
What they found was that even under the most optimistic assumptions possible, the model fails by several orders of magnitude. In short, a star system would not have enough nitrogen ice to allow for such a robust population of exo-Plutos, which means that statistically, there simply cannot be enough ISOs composed of N2 to account for the fortuitous detection of ‘Oumuamua.
The model becomes even more unlikely when one considers how cosmic rays naturally erode ISOs. According to other recently-published research, this process imposes a much shorter lifespan on ISOs than previously thought. As Siraj explained:
“The primary issue with a nitrogen iceberg model is that producing the required population of such objects would require more than ten times the entire mass of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy to be converted directly into exo-Plutos — and when we properly account for inevitable cosmic ray erosion of nitrogen icebergs, we need a thousand times the Galaxy’s stellar mass. These numbers render the nitrogen model untenable, since only a small fraction of the stellar mass in the Galaxy goes towards the production of exo-Plutos.“
Project Starshot, an initiative sponsored by the Breakthrough Foundation, is intended to be humanity’s first interstellar voyage. Credit: breakthroughinitiatives.org
In addition, Siraj and Loeb cite research that appeared shortly after their study appeared on the arXiv that casts doubt on the prevalence of nitrogen icebergs in our galaxy. In a study titled “Constraints on the Occurrence of ‘Oumuamua-Like Objects,” which appeared in the October issue of Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (BAAS), authors Levine et al. argue that both the hydrogen iceberg and nitrogen iceberg hypotheses suffer from critical flaws.
Whereas the temperature requirements for the former theory make it untenable, the necessary formation efficiency does the same for the latter. In the end, they also determined that the mechanism for producing N2 ice fragments (impacts on extrasolar Kuiper Belt analogs) was insufficient to create objects as large as ‘Oumuamua, and several orders of magnitude too low to create a population of 1014 objects.
What does this mean for ‘Oumuamua and the more “exotic” explanation of its origin – i.e., that it might have been an ET solar sail? For starters, it does not mean “it was aliens,” nor is anyone in the astronomical community making that assertion. But it does mean that this latest attempt to explain ‘Oumuamua in terms of natural phenomena does not fit all of the requirements – contrary to what many suspected previously.
“The nitrogen model is now off the table,” said Siraj. “This means that the ‘Oumuamua mystery remains wide open, motivating even more strongly the study of objects like ‘Oumuamua in the future. This is the goal of the interstellar object branch of the Galileo Project, which I have the privilege of leading — to discover and characterize objects like ‘Oumuamua, and ultimately to understand their nature.”
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s summit facility. Credit: Rubin Observatory
The Galileo Project (described in a previous article) is a non-profit research initiative founded by Prof. Loeb and Frank H. Laukien, a visiting scholar to Harvard University and the Chairman, President, and CEO of the Bruker Corporation (a manufacturer of scientific instruments). This multi-national, multi-institutional project is made of volunteer experts, including Amir Siraj as its Director of Interstellar Object Studies.
Together, they are working to bring the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and technosignatures into the mainstream. They are joined by astronomers and observatories worldwide that are looking forward to the next few years when next-generation observatories will become operational in the coming years. This includes the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), which is finishing construction in Chile and is expected to commence operations sometime next year (or possibly 2023).
Using its 8.4-meter (27 foot) mirror and 3200-megapixel camera, this observatory will conduct a 10-year survey, during which time it will observe an estimated 37 billion stars and galaxies. The Rubin Observatory will also explore our Solar System and provide regular alerts concerning newly-discovered objects, including an estimated 5 ISOs a month! NASA and the ESA are also developing missions that will rendezvous with ISOs in the near future and study them up close.
Once again, the true nature and origins of ‘Oumuamua’s have confounded explanation. In many ways, this is good news. If there is one thing the entire astronomical community can agree on, it’s the fact that ‘Oumuamua represents a class of previously-unknown objects. The fact that such objects pass through our Solar System regularly (and that some end up staying) presents immense opportunities for future study!
To put it in TL:DR terms, we’re not saying it was aliens. But either way, we are sure to find out very soon!
Not Saying it was Aliens, but ‘Oumuamua Probably Wasn’t a Nitrogen Iceberg…
Not Saying it was Aliens, but ‘Oumuamua Probably Wasn’t a Nitrogen Iceberg…
On October 19th, 2017, astronomers made the first-ever detection of an interstellar object (ISO) passing through our Solar System. Designated 1I/2017 U1′ Oumuamua, this object confounded astronomers who could not determine if it was an interstellar comet or an asteroid. After four years and many theories (including the controversial “ET solar sail” hypothesis), the astronomical community appeared to land on an explanation that satisfied all the observations.
The “nitrogen iceberg” theory stated that ‘Oumuamua was likely debris from a Pluto-like planet in another solar system. In their latest study, titled “The Mass Budget Necessary to Explain ‘Oumuamua as a Nitrogen Iceberg,” Amir Siraj and Prof. Avi Loeb (who proposed the ET solar sail hypothesis) offered an official counter-argument to this theory. According to their new paper, there is an extreme shortage of exo-Plutos in the galaxy to explain the detection of a nitrogen iceberg.
In the paper where he broached the possibility, Loeb indicated that ‘Oumuamua’s unusual character and behavior were consistent with a solar sail. This included the highly-reflective nature of the object and its profile, which appeared to be either cigar-shaped or pancake-like. More importantly, its sudden acceleration and deviation from its expected orbit appeared to be the result of radiation pressure, which is precisely how solar sails achieve propulsion.
There was also the way it entered our Solar System, which allowed it to make a flyby of Earth after passing closest to our Sun (perihelion). In other words, its orbital dynamics allowed it to get a close look at the only habitable planet in our Solar System, which is precisely what one might expect of an interstellar probe. These arguments were detailed further in Loeb’s book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, which we reviewed in a previous article.
At the time of the book’s writing, all attempts to explain ‘Oumuamua in terms of natural phenomena fell short. Basically, there was no single explanation that could account for its brightness, profile, and acceleration while acknowledging that there was no evidence of outgassing. In addition, the sudden acceleration could not be attributed to gravitational forces since these should have been slowing ‘Oumuamua down at the time.
In March of 2021, two researchers from the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University (ASU) offered a new hypothesis. In two published studies, SESE Exploration Fellow Alan Jackson and Professor Steven Desch argued that ‘Oumuamua may have been a nitrogen ice fragment ejected from a young star system (possibly in the Perseus Arm of our galaxy) ca. 400 to 500 million years ago.
In their first paper, Jackson and Desch addressed the size and compositional constraints of ‘Oumuamua and showed how ‘Oumuamua’s albedo was similar to the nitrogen ices on the surface of Triton and Pluto. In their second paper, they showed how these types of nitrogen ice fragments could be generated by the collision of extrasolar objects similar in composition to Pluto and Kuiper Belt Object (KBOs).
Artist’s Concept of Oumuamua. Credit: William Hartmann
By their estimates, these collisions would generate and eject around 100 trillion (~1014) objects into interstellar space, half of which would be composed of water ice and the other half of nitrogen (N2). This population would be enough to satisfy the statistical significance of ISOs necessary to explain the detection of ‘Oumaumua. Equally important was the fact that an object composed of N2 would not form a tail as it neared our Sun, as there would be no water vapor or CO/CO2 to sublimate. As Siraj explained to Universe Today via email:
“The attraction of the nitrogen iceberg hypothesis is primarily in explaining ‘Oumuamua’s non-gravitational acceleration. Just like for a hypothetical hydrogen iceberg, a nitrogen iceberg’s outgassing activity would not have been detectable in the measurements that were taken of ‘Oumuamua by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which simply limited the abundance of carbon-based molecules around ‘Oumuamua. As a result, the sublimation of material could conceivably power the object’s observed non-gravitational acceleration.”
One of the main points made by Loeb in his proposal paper was that regardless of ‘Oumuamua’s true nature, its detection implied a massive population of similar objects in our galaxy. In their rebuttal paper, which was recently accepted for publication in the journal New Astronomy, Siraj and Loeb addressed whether there is enough material in the Milky Way galaxy to create such a population of nitrogen icebergs.
A consequence of Jackson and Desch’s assessment was that there must be a robust population of “exo-Plutos” in our galaxy. For that to be the case, stars in the Milky Way would need to have enough material left over from star formation (i.e., a mass budget) to accommodate the formation of these planets. To test this, Siraj and Loeb took the nitrogen iceberg model and examined what amount of stellar material is required to make it work.
Artist’s impression of the first interstellar object “Oumuamua,” which was discovered on October 19th, 2017, by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
“Our calculation is very straightforward,” said Siraj. “We take all of the nitrogen iceberg model parameters, the required abundance of ‘Oumuamua-like objects to explain its detection by Pan-STARRS, and basic facts about stars in the Galaxy, and derive from these values the total mass of solar metallicity material required to be converted into exo-Plutos, to make the nitrogen model plausible.”
What they found was that even under the most optimistic assumptions possible, the model fails by several orders of magnitude. In short, a star system would not have enough nitrogen ice to allow for such a robust population of exo-Plutos, which means that statistically, there simply cannot be enough ISOs composed of N2 to account for the fortuitous detection of ‘Oumuamua.
The model becomes even more unlikely when one considers how cosmic rays naturally erode ISOs. According to other recently-published research, this process imposes a much shorter lifespan on ISOs than previously thought. As Siraj explained:
“The primary issue with a nitrogen iceberg model is that producing the required population of such objects would require more than ten times the entire mass of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy to be converted directly into exo-Plutos — and when we properly account for inevitable cosmic ray erosion of nitrogen icebergs, we need a thousand times the Galaxy’s stellar mass. These numbers render the nitrogen model untenable, since only a small fraction of the stellar mass in the Galaxy goes towards the production of exo-Plutos.“
Project Starshot, an initiative sponsored by the Breakthrough Foundation, is intended to be humanity’s first interstellar voyage. Credit: breakthroughinitiatives.org
In addition, Siraj and Loeb cite research that appeared shortly after their study appeared on the arXiv that casts doubt on the prevalence of nitrogen icebergs in our galaxy. In a study titled “Constraints on the Occurrence of ‘Oumuamua-Like Objects,” which appeared in the October issue of Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (BAAS), authors Levine et al. argue that both the hydrogen iceberg and nitrogen iceberg hypotheses suffer from critical flaws.
Whereas the temperature requirements for the former theory make it untenable, the necessary formation efficiency does the same for the latter. In the end, they also determined that the mechanism for producing N2 ice fragments (impacts on extrasolar Kuiper Belt analogs) was insufficient to create objects as large as ‘Oumuamua, and several orders of magnitude too low to create a population of 1014 objects.
What does this mean for ‘Oumuamua and the more “exotic” explanation of its origin – i.e., that it might have been an ET solar sail? For starters, it does not mean “it was aliens,” nor is anyone in the astronomical community making that assertion. But it does mean that this latest attempt to explain ‘Oumuamua in terms of natural phenomena does not fit all of the requirements – contrary to what many suspected previously.
“The nitrogen model is now off the table,” said Siraj. “This means that the ‘Oumuamua mystery remains wide open, motivating even more strongly the study of objects like ‘Oumuamua in the future. This is the goal of the interstellar object branch of the Galileo Project, which I have the privilege of leading — to discover and characterize objects like ‘Oumuamua, and ultimately to understand their nature.”
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s summit facility. Credit: Rubin Observatory
The Galileo Project (described in a previous article) is a non-profit research initiative founded by Prof. Loeb and Frank H. Laukien, a visiting scholar to Harvard University and the Chairman, President, and CEO of the Bruker Corporation (a manufacturer of scientific instruments). This multi-national, multi-institutional project is made of volunteer experts, including Amir Siraj as its Director of Interstellar Object Studies.
Together, they are working to bring the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and technosignatures into the mainstream. They are joined by astronomers and observatories worldwide that are looking forward to the next few years when next-generation observatories will become operational in the coming years. This includes the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), which is finishing construction in Chile and is expected to commence operations sometime next year (or possibly 2023).
Using its 8.4-meter (27 foot) mirror and 3200-megapixel camera, this observatory will conduct a 10-year survey, during which time it will observe an estimated 37 billion stars and galaxies. The Rubin Observatory will also explore our Solar System and provide regular alerts concerning newly-discovered objects, including an estimated 5 ISOs a month! NASA and the ESA are also developing missions that will rendezvous with ISOs in the near future and study them up close.
Once again, the true nature and origins of ‘Oumuamua’s have confounded explanation. In many ways, this is good news. If there is one thing the entire astronomical community can agree on, it’s the fact that ‘Oumuamua represents a class of previously-unknown objects. The fact that such objects pass through our Solar System regularly (and that some end up staying) presents immense opportunities for future study!
To put it in TL:DR terms, we’re not saying it was aliens. But either way, we are sure to find out very soon!
Belgium General says incredible UFO case is a mystery - Exclusive
In this video, retired Belgian Air Force General Wilfried De Brouwer discusses a wave of triangular UFOs he investigated in 1989 and 1990. He was in charge of the Belgian Air Force's official investigation. They never came to a definite conclusion as to where the mysterious triangles came from. De Brouwer also discusses the controversial photograph that was allegedly taken in Petit-Rechain.
The rectangular UFO flying over the factory's roof reconstitution is an event that occurred in my village in Basècles. I have a friend (policeman) who knew one of the night workers who witnessed this phenomenon, and it's established that his testimony was absolutely serious. His colleagues and he were talking about "a mass that looked like an upside down aircraft carrier".
I witnessed what is being described on march 31th 1990 at 20h30 on a bridge over the Schelde in Heusden-Destelbergen(Belgium) for several minutes as I stepped down from my bike.A slowly hovering triangular set of lights
This short clip is showing photographs of a UFO. The pictures were provided by Commander Graham Bethune of the US Navy. He obtained these photographs of an FS-143 saucer from a close friend who claimed to have rendezvoused with another intelligence and requests anonymity. What do you think it is?
A space object that orbits near Earth may actually be part of our moon that broke off in ancient times when an asteroid collided with it. Known as Kamo’oalewa, this mysterious space object was first noticed back in 2016.
Kamo’oalewa, which measures 40 meters in width (130 feet), is referred to as Earth’s quasi-satellite. It orbits the sun in a very similar pattern to our planet so it is always located fairly close to us. Its closest distance to us is approximately 40 times further than the moon. It is believed that it has been accompanying our planet for at least a century which is very odd as other quasi-satellites normally stay around for several months to a couple of years.
(Not Kamo’oalewa)
Vishnu Reddy, who is an associate professor in cosmochemistry and planetary astronomy at the University of Arizona, as well as PhD student Benjamin Sharkey have been studying the object and recently made a very interesting discovery. In an interview with Space.com, Reddy explained what they found, “We couldn’t believe the way it was looking because it was unlike anything we’ve seen before,” adding that the object was very different from the other 2,000 near-Earth asteroids that have previously been studied.
By using the Large Binocular Telescope (this is one of the biggest optical telescopes in the United States) as well as the infrared Lowell Discovery Telescope, they were able to analyze how the space rock reflected light. They realized that the light spectra on Kamo’oalewa had a lot of common with samples collected from the moon in the 1960s and 1970s during the Apollo missions. In fact, 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar samples were collected and brought back to Earth during six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.
Sharkey reiterated this by telling Space.com, “The spectral properties of this object look very similar to that of the moon.” “It’s not that there couldn’t be other asteroids [with such spectra], but we haven’t found anything so far that looks similar to it.”
But considering its close proximity to our planet and our lunar companion, it’s very possible that Kamo’oalewa was once part of the moon. “If you look at the moon through a telescope, you see thousands of craters,” Reddy explained, “The material ejected during these impact events should be all over the place. But nobody has found it so far.”
Is Kamo’oalewa part of the moon?
China is planning to launch a mission in 2024 that will collect a sample from Kamo’oalewa and return it to Earth, so we may definitively find out in a few years if Reddy and Sharkey’s theory is correct. Their study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment where it can be read in full.
An artist’s impression of Kamo’oalewa can be seen here.
An artist impression of Earth quasi-satellite Kamo`oalewa. Astronomers using the Large Binocular Telescope have shown that it might be a lost fragment of the moon.
Many great discoveries occur when researchers go back over old data for a second or third or fourth or nth look. A famous British astronomer claims he took another look at data collected nearly 40 years ago using the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths and thinks he’s found the holy grail of astronomy – Planet 9.
“In 1983, while working on the preparation of the IRAS Point Source Catalog, I undertook a systematic search for Planet X in the IRAS data. The search was unsuccessful though it did yield a detection of Comet Bowell (Walker and Rowan-Robinson 1984).”
Michael Rowan-Robinson is an astronomer, astrophysicist and professor of astrophysics at Imperial College London perhaps best known as the doctoral advisor to the most rocking astrophysicist ever – guitarist Dr. Brian May of the band Queen. His work in the early 1980s with data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) yielded an asteroid but no mysterious planet messing up the orbit of Neptune. Rowan-Robinson moved on from Planet X (his research took place when Pluto was still a planet), but after seeing all of the attention given to Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology after they proposed 2016 that the strange orbits of six trans-Neptunian objects could be caused by a Planet 9, he decided to review the old data again. Since no one had found it yet by looking where Brown and Batygin said it would be, Rowan-Robinson aimed his search elsewhere.
After filtering out background sources of infrared radiation like stars and galaxies, Rowan-Robinson looked for objects that could disrupt the trans-Neptunian orbits and found several hundred. However, none matched the Planet 9 criteria of Brown and Batygin and all were much closer to Earth than they predicted. He found three that looked promising and one of them met all of his criteria for a Planet 9 – it was in the direction of the Constellation Cepheus, was between 3 and 5 Earth masses and orbited the Sun at a distance of 225 Astronomical Units. That object is R20593 + 6413 and the evidence was convincing enough to Rowan-Robinson to publish it in arXiv open access archive – the paper is also accepted for publication in the Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society. Is this a drop-the-mic-we-found-Planet-9 moment?
“Balderdash!” or whatever astronomers say when contradicted. At Olhar Digital, Mike Brown says that R20593 + 6413 would not be able to gravitationally disturb the trans-Neptunian objects like his definition of Planet 9 would. However, he admits R20593 + 6413 could be real – it’s just not Planet 9. Rowan-Robinson concedes that the IRAS images are old and a new look with stronger telescopes would help.
In other words, hang onto the mic and hold off on the Queen concert for the time being.
Although, as you may well know, I don’t have much faith in the theory that UFOs have crashed to Earth and that their mangled crews are stored away in some kinds of “cryogenic tanks.” But, I guess it’s not impossible. Today, there aren’t many reports of this particularly type. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, however, such stories were all over the place. As you’ll see now. Consider these words: “The subject of UFOs is one that has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the information is stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret.” Intriguing words; and they are made even more intriguing by the fact that they were set forth in a 28 March 1975 letter to the UFO investigator Shlomo Arnon by none other than the late Senator Barry Goldwater, formerly the chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. For years, it has been rumored that at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, there exists a highly-classified (and decidedly off-limits) series of rooms, aircraft hangars and underground chambers, where the preserved remains of a number of dead alien creatures are stored along with the wreckage of their crashed and recovered spacecraft. In specifically generic and folkloric terms, the location of this astonishing evidence has become popularly known as Hangar 18.
Of those who attempted to force open the doors of Hangar 18, the late Leonard Stringfield was certainly the most active. A United States Air Force Intelligence officer during the Second World War, Stringfield collected a huge amount of data that, if true, suggested that at Wright-Patterson AFB there existed an absolute wealth of UFO material, debris and even alien bodies, locked away from prying eyes. Of the many accounts that were brought to Stringfield’s attention, two came from the researcher Charles Wilhelm. As Stringfield recalled, “In 1959, a lady living alone in Price Hill, Cincinnati, had hired young Charles to cut her grass all summer. She knew of his interest in the UFO [subject] but said little about it until she became ill with cancer. Knowing that she had a short time to live, she called Charles to her bedside to reveal a startling story. She said that she had had a Top Secret clearance in her past work at Wright-Patterson and had seen two saucer-shaped craft in a secret hangar. One craft was intact; the other, damaged. She also knew of two ‘small creatures’ preserved inside another secret building, and had personally handled the paperwork on their autopsy report. She told Charles, ‘Uncle Sam can’t do anything to me after I’m in the grave.'”
The second revelation came to Stringfield from Wilhelm following his acquisition of sensitive intelligence data in 1966: “Wilhelm got the story from a friend in the Army Reserve whose father worked with Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson Field and held high security clearance,” stated Stringfield. “On his deathbed, he related to his son that he had seen two disc-shaped craft, one intact and one damaged, and four preserved, small alien bodies ‘packed in chemicals.'” But from where had Wright-Patterson acquired this incredible material evidence? Much of the witness testimony suggested that its point of origin was the New Mexico desert, circa July 1947: Roswell. There are long-standing allegations to the effect that during the summer of 1947, a UFO crashed in the deserts of New Mexico and, along with its dead crew was whisked away under cover of overwhelming secrecy to Wright-Field (later re-named Wright-Patterson), where both the UFO and the alien bodies were placed into storage for preservation and analysis.
(Nick Redfern),
Roswell, New Mexico, 2017
For example, from ex-military man, Norman Richards, formerly of the U.S. 25th Tropic Lightning Division, there came an account based upon his recollections of events that occurred in the post-World War Two era: “In 1950, I was in the ROTC program of the Air Force at Indiana University. We were sent to Lowry Air Force Base for six weeks training that summer. One day, we had a lecture by a colonel from Wright-Patterson AFB. He outlined many changes and new experimental aircraft being tested. During the question and answer session, he was asked if UFOs were real. He got very excited and said we better believe it. He went on to tell us of the crash, and retrieval of the parts, and the humanoids found at the site. He said they were under investigation at Wright-Patterson after being flown from Roswell, New Mexico.”
As Leonard Stringfield’s inquiries into Wright-Patterson’s involvement in the crashed UFO issue deepened, further sources came forward with additional data. Citing one such source, Stringfield asserted, “My informant is self-employed after serving a long career with the Air Force, retiring with the rank of major. During one of our several discussions of the UFO problem, when I cited some of the medical information relative to the recovered alien humanoids, he confided in me that in 1952 he had attended a high-level secret meeting at Wright-Patterson AFB and saw in an underground chamber one of the deceased alien bodies in deep-freeze preservation. The body was about four feet tall. The head was large by human standards, and the skin on the face appeared smooth and gray. No bone structure was evident; eyes were open, no hair. The feet, he said, were like an orangutan.” What was perhaps the most fantastic account related to Stringfield, however, concerned an allegedly live alien on the loose at the Air Force Museum in Fairborn, Ohio, that had supposedly escaped from its confines within the bowels of Wright-Patterson. It was a Sunday in 1965 when “R.M.” and his wife decided to pay a visit to the museum. With his wife engrossed in examining a German V-2 rocket, R.M. wandered off and found himself lost and heading down a corridor with a double door marked OFF LIMITS.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Aliens Are Interdimensional Demons: Exposing The Strong Delusion
Aliens Are Interdimensional Demons: Exposing The Strong Delusion
ByLee Austin
Haim Eshed, former head of Israeli’s Defense Ministry space directorate admitted that Israel has made contact with extraterrestrials. ”The Unidentified Flying Objects have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet,” said Mr. Eshed. Further adding cooperation agreements had been signed between humans and extraterrestrials. ”There is an agreement between the U.S. government and the aliens. They signed a contract with us to do experiments here, They have been waiting until today for humanity to develop and reach a stage where we will understand, in general, what space and spaceships are, The Unidentified Flying Objects have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet,” Eshed said, referring to the galactic federation.
A respected professor and retired general, Eshed stated the aliens were also interested in humans and were seeking to understand the fabric of the universe.
So who are these aliens and where did they come from?
Actually, “aliens” is a misnomer. These extraterrestrials are in fact Interdimensional beings, known as demons, dating back to the days of antiquity. Let’s first clarify the difference between a demon and a dark angel.
Demons are persons without bodies. They are the disembodied, fierce spirits set loose upon and below the earth after the flood spoken of in the book Genesis. When two hundred rebel watcher angels took on a garment of flesh and had intercourse with woman, a race of half angel. half human hybrids called the Nephilim were created. After God flooded the earth, all of the Nephilim were killed. However. the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim continued to live, because angels are eternal beings. These fierce spirits became what we now refer to as demons, whose purpose is to steal, kill and destroy.
Soon after the flood, Noah’s sons complained to their father, the demons were oppressing everyone. When Noah plead to God for a resolution, the Lord decided to send ninety percent of the demons into the abyss under the earth. And allow the other ten percent of the demons to remain on the earth. Therefore a demon is always seeking to inhabit a human, animal or material object. In that order.
Demons are more effective when operating within a human host. Many times when someone who has a demon inside of them dies, the demon will leave the deceased and take up residence in the offspring. This is known as a familiar spirit. A spirt familiar with a family’s sins and generational curses
Angels on the other hand are spirits created by God, sent to earth to assist the heirs of salvation. Angels have a celestial body hosting their spirit, and can also transform their heavenly body into a human body, unbeknownst to man. Even a dark angel will have it’s own type of celestial body, and therefore not have a need to search out a human host to inhabit. A demon is a lower terrestrial spirit, limited to our first heavenly plane of existence and the abyss. Angels can access all of the multiple heavens in the universe.
I don’t doubt the former head of Israeli’s Defense Minister space directorate has been in direct contact with interdimensional beings. Israel is renowned for being a ”thin place.” A thin place is a location where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in two worlds – the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one. With Jerusalem being the spiritual epicenter of the world, it is a very thin place. Home to all three of the major religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. And it is where the third temple will be built and the coming Anti-Christ will rule and reign for seven years.
The end time strong delusion will be disclosure and the lie of Panspermia. The theory that life on the earth originated from microorganisms or chemical precursors of life present in outer space and able to initiate life on reaching a suitable environment. I believe these dark angels are consorting with the Luciferian elite mainly in Jerusalem, Rome, London and Washington D.C. to orchestrate the illusion of our alien overlords. In essence the panspermia lie is as follows. “We are your creators. The great architect who also made this world and everything in it. We’ve been observing you, and in your time of greatest need, we are here to help you and reveal the secrets of the universe.”
The coming “Great Reset” will not just be economical, but spiritual. The Great Whore of Babylon is on the horizon
Hello everyone, I found this structure long ago, but found myself thinking about it today. I think it may not be just an alien base, but a portable base...a UFO. This alien craft landed on the edge of this mountain cliff so that it could have a view of things far away. The object is huge, about half a km long so it would hold thousands of occupants. Look at those two large black windows! They are massive and they are clearly facing the view from the mountain. The windows are very dark, but obviously windows...transparent, but not glass, but probably a transparent metal of incredible strength. Seeing a UFO landed like this and being used as a base...really gives me more respect for aliens. They recycle old ships for moon habitats. I gota respect that.
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UFO Over BBQ In Murviel, France Nov 9, 2021, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Over BBQ In Murviel, France Nov 9, 2021, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Nov 9, 2021 Location of sighting: Murviel, France Source: MUFON
This is a strange one. This was recorded in France at a BBQ party when a glowing orange object passed above them from behind the trees. It move to the left, then stopped, and moved back to the right. After passing behind the tree it was seen rotating and then dropping suddenly, disappearing from view. UFOs do come down during events that bring people together in groups, but a drone cannot be ruled out since it fell so fast. Yet, it could have been landing in the area. I really wish the eyewitness ran out there to check where it went. Might have been a life changing experience if they had.
Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
(NO SOUND)
Eyewitness states:
We were alerted immediately by the video posted by a witness on a facebook page. We see on this video a very bright object evolving in a strange way. 10 people were present, all gathered around a BBQ - Several other videos have circulated the next day.
WAT VEROORZAAKTE DE EERSTE GROTE VERWOESTENDE MASSA-EXTINCTIE DIE DE AARDE DOORMAAKTE?
WAT VEROORZAAKTE DE EERSTE GROTE VERWOESTENDE MASSA-EXTINCTIE DIE DE AARDE DOORMAAKTE?
Vivian Lammerse
Zo’n 445 miljoen jaar geleden werd zo’n 85 procent van de mariene soorten bruut van de aardbodem geveegd. Maar wat lag er aan de teloorgang van al dit leven ten grondslag?
De meesten zullen weten dat de dinosaurussen uitstierven tijdens een grote massa-extinctie. Maar wist je dat de aarde ook andere massa-extincties heeft doorgemaakt? In totaal hebben er vijf de revue gepasseerd – bekend als de ‘big five’ – waarbij tenminste driekwart van alle soorten die op aarde leefden met uitsterven werd bedreigd. In dit artikel haken we in op de eerste massa-extinctie die de aarde doormaakte: de zogenaamde Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie. Want wat lag hier precies aan ten grondslag?
Oorzaak van massa-extincties Wetenschappers zijn al langer geïnteresseerd in het achterhalen van de oorzaak van massa-extincties. Dat komt omdat het begrijpen van de omgevingsomstandigheden die in het verleden geleid hebben tot de uitroeiing van de meeste soorten, ons zou kunnen helpen voorkomen dat een soortgelijke gebeurtenis zich in de toekomst herhaalt. Bovendien denken veel wetenschappers dat we ons momenteel middenin een zesde massa-extinctie bevinden. En dus is het bestuderen van dit fenomeen belangrijker dan ooit.
Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie De Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie vond zo’n 445 miljoen jaar geleden plaats. Tijdens deze massale uitsterving verdween ongeveer 85 procent van de mariene soorten, waarvan de meeste in ondiepe wateren voor de kust van continenten leefden, van de aardbodem. En dat terwijl daarvoor, ten tijden van de Ordovicium-periode, de zeeën vol biodiversiteit zaten. “Als je in een Ordovicische zee was gaan snorkelen, zou je een aantal bekende dieren hebben gezien, zoals mosselen, slakken en sponzen,” schetst onderzoeker Seth Finnegan. “Maar je zou ook veel andere soorten zijn tegengekomen die nu zeer beperkt in diversiteit zijn of volledig zijn uitgestorven, zoals trilobieten, armpotigen en zeelelies.”
Fossielen uit de Ordovicium-periode, gevonden op het Canadese eiland Anticosti.
Afbeelding: André Desrochers, University of Ottawa
Maar dan gebeurt er iets rampzaligs. In tegenstelling tot de massa-extinctie waarbij de dinosaurussen vrij plotseling uitstierven, speelde de Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie zich af over een vrij lange periode. Mogelijk strekte deze massale uitsterving zich zelfs uit over twee miljoen jaar. Maar wat lag er aan de teloorgang van al dit leven ten grondslag?
Vraagteken We weten dat het klimaat destijds afkoelde. Maar kan dat het verlies van maar liefst 85 procent van het zeeleven hebben veroorzaakt? “Van verschillende geologische recentere massa-extincties is bekend dat ze zijn veroorzaakt door vulkanisch aangedreven snelle opwarming en het daaruit voortvloeiende verlies van zuurstof in de oceanen,” vertelt Finnegan in gesprek met Scientias.nl. “Maar wat met name opvalt aan de Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie is dat de combinatie van veranderingen in het milieu die gepaard gaan met het uitsterven, ongebruikelijk en moeilijk te begrijpen zijn.”
Gebrek aan zuurstof Eén van de belangrijkste discussies rond de Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie is of gebrek aan zuurstof in het zeewater de oorzaak van de massa uitsterving is geweest. Om die vraag te onderzoeken, maten de onderzoekers de concentratie jodium in carbonaatgesteenten uit de Laat-Ordovicische periode. De concentratie van dit element in carbonaatgesteenten dient namelijk als een belangrijke indicator voor veranderingen in het oceanische zuurstofniveau.
Ondiepe wateren Het leidt tot een interessante ontdekking. “In ons artikel tonen we aan dat het inderdaad waar lijkt te zijn dat de hoeveelheid opgeloste zuurstof in de diepe oceaan afnam,” vertelt Finnegan. “Maar, we vonden geen bewijs voor een afname van zuurstof in ondiepe wateren. En juist hier leefden de meeste diersoorten die uitstierven. Het betekent dat een afname van zuurstof de massa-extinctie waarschijnlijk niet kan verklaren.”
Zuurstofgebrek in de diepe oceaan Hoewel het er op lijkt dat ondiepe wateren niet met zuurstofgebrek te maken kregen, breidde dit verschijnsel zich rond diezelfde tijd wel uit in de diepe oceaan. De onderzoekers schrijven dit toe aan de circulatie van zeewater door de mondiale oceanen. Een belangrijk punt om in gedachten te houden, is namelijk dat oceaancirculatie een zeer belangrijk onderdeel is van een klimaatsysteem. De afkoeling van het klimaat veranderde mogelijk de oceaancirculatie, wat de stroom van zuurstofrijk water uit de ondiepe zeeën naar de diepere oceaan stopte. Dit betekent dat klimaatkoeling dus ook kan leiden tot lagere zuurstofniveaus; tenminste, in bepaalde delen van de oceaan.
Maar als de massa-extinctie niet in gang werd gezet door zuurstofgebrek, wat lag er dan aan ten grondslag? Hoewel de onderzoekers hier geen volledig uitsluitsel over kunnen geven, vermoeden ze dat koudere omstandigheden tijdens het late Ordovicium, gecombineerd met aanvullende factoren, waarschijnlijk verantwoordelijk waren voor de ondergang van talloze diersoorten.
Klimaatkoeling “De veroorzaker kan dus goed de klimaatkoeling zelf zijn geweest,” onderstreept Finnegan. “We zien aanwijzingen voor zeer substantiële klimaatkoeling en uitbreiding van ijskappen, met een grote bijbehorende zeespiegeldaling. Deze afkoeling en daling van de zeespiegel kunnen aanzienlijk veelomvattender zijn geweest dan tijdens recentere ijstijden. Dit betekent dat verlies van leefgebied verantwoordelijk kan zijn geweest voor een deel van de uitsterving. De vraag is echter of zoveel uitsterving (85 procent van de mariene soorten, red.) aan het verlies van leefgebied kan worden toegeschreven.”
Zullen we het ooit weten? De vraag is of we het mysterie van de Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie ooit volledig zullen ontrafelen. “Een gevolg van de daling van de zeespiegel is dat de mariene sedimentaire gesteenten vrij schaars zijn geworden,” zegt Finnegan. “Dus om te begrijpen wat de meeste uitsterving veroorzaakte, moeten we die gebieden in detail bestuderen, maar ook modellen gebruiken om te proberen te begrijpen wat er is gebeurd in de delen van de wereld waarvoor we geen goed bewaard gebleven sedimentaire gegevens hebben. Het is een zeer uitdagend probleem. Maar ik ben optimistisch dat we er als gemeenschap grip op beginnen te krijgen.”
Wat de onderzoekers in hun studie in ieder geval hebben aangetoond, is dat één van de vaakst aangevoerde verklaringen – zuurstofgebrek in de oceanen – waarschijnlijk de Laat-Ordovicische massa-extinctie niet kan verklaren. Toch moeten we volgens onderzoeker Zunli Lu onze zuurstofrijke wereld ook zeker niet als vanzelfsprekend beschouwen, zo vertelt hij in een interview met Scientias.nl. “Veel is nog onbekend over eerdere massa-extincties. We begrijpen deze gebeurtenissen nog lang niet volledig. Het zou verstandig zijn om het oceaanmilieu en het klimaatsysteem niet verder drastisch te verstoren voordat de menselijke samenleving in staat is om uitgebreide veranderingen in het aardsysteem beter te voorspellen en te verminderen,” besluit hij.
Onderzoekers hebben maar liefst 35 signalen opgepikt, waaronder twee hele bijzondere.
De befaamde natuurkundige Albert Einstein voorspelde het bestaan van zwaartekrachtsgolven (zie kader) een slordige 100 jaar geleden al. Maar pas in 2015 werden de eerste ontdekt. In dat jaar werden zwaartekrachtsgolven gedetecteerd die het resultaat waren van twee samensmeltende zwarte gaten. Sindsdien is het hard gegaan; zo zijn er ondertussen tientallen signalen opgepikt. En daar komen er nu wéér een aantal bij. Want in een nieuwe studie kondigen onderzoekers aan dat ze maar liefst 35 nieuwe zwaartekrachtsgolven hebben gedetecteerd.
Meer over zwaartekrachtsgolven
Zwaartekrachtsgolven zijn rimpelingen in de ruimtetijd die ontstaan wanneer twee zware objecten zeer dicht om elkaar heen draaien of fuseren. Einstein voorspelde het bestaan van zwaartekrachtsgolven al aan het begin van de twintigste eeuw. Maar pas in 2015 slaagden onderzoekers erin om ze daadwerkelijk te detecteren. In de loop van 2016 en 2017 wordt nog enkele malen een verstoring in het zwaartekrachtsveld gedetecteerd die het gevolg is van fuserende zwarte gaten. Eind oktober 2017 spotten onderzoekers vervolgens zwaartekrachtsgolven die ontstaan zijn door het fuseren van twee neutronensterren. En dit jaar zijn er voor het eerst ook zwaartekrachtsgolven van een botsend zwart gat én een neutronenster opgepikt.
De onderzoekers hebben de tsunami aan gedetecteerde zwaartekrachtsgolven goed onder de loep genomen. Want wat lag er precies aan deze rimpelingen in ruimtetijd ten grondslag? De onderzoekers komen tot de ontdekking dat 33 signalen waarschijnlijk voortvloeiden uit samensmeltingen van zwarte gaten in verschillende vormen en maten.
Zwaartekrachtsgolven voortgekomen uit fuserende zwarte gaten in verschillende vormen en maten.
Maar, de overige twee detecties zijn nóg een tikkie bijzonderder.
Samensmelting zwart gat en neutronenster Volgens de onderzoekers is één van de overige twee gedetecteerde zwaartekrachtsgolven vermoedelijk voortgekomen uit een botsing tussen een zwarte gat en een neutronenster: een veel zeldzamere gebeurtenis. Het zwarte gat was behoorlijk massief (van ongeveer 33 keer de massa van onze zon) en botste mogelijk met een neutronenster met een zeer lage massa (ongeveer 1,17 keer de massa van onze zon). En dat is bijzonder. Want deze neutronenster heeft één van de laagste massa’s ooit gedetecteerd. “Ons begrip van fusies tussen objecten met een lagere massa, was vaag,” zegt onderzoeker Zoheyr Doctor. “Maar nu we harde detecties hebben, beginnen we die onderkant van het massaspectrum ook in te vullen.”
MEER OVER ZWARTE GATEN EN NEUTRONENSTERREN
Zwarte gaten en neutronensterren zijn twee van de meest extreme objecten die ooit in het heelal zijn waargenomen. Hoe ze ontstaan? Als de zwaarste sterren sterven, storten ze onder hun eigen zwaartekracht in elkaar en laten zwarte gaten achter. Wanneer sterren die iets minder zwaar zijn ter ziele gaan, exploderen ze in een supernova. Wat achterblijft zijn de dichte en dode resten van sterren die neutronensterren worden genoemd. Typische neutronensterren hebben een massa van anderhalf keer die van de zon, maar al die massa zit in een extreem dichte ster. Een theelepel neutronenster weegt ongeveer net zoveel als de hele mensheid!
In het laatste geval botste een zwart gat (met een massa van ongeveer 24 keer de massa van onze zon) met óf een heel licht zwart gat, óf een zeer zware neutronenster van ongeveer 2,8 keer de massa van onze zon. Wetenschappers vermoeden dat het hoogstwaarschijnlijk om een zwart gat gaat, maar helemaal zeker weten ze het niet.
Toenemende detecties Met de nieuwe detecties meegerekend, hebben onderzoekers nu in totaal 90 zwaartekrachtsgolven gedetecteerd. Dat onderzoekers de laatste jaren steeds vaker op zwaartekrachtsgolven stuiten, is overigens goed te verklaren. De golven die de aarde bereiken zijn nauwelijks waarneembaar, waardoor het in het begin heel lastig was om ze aan het licht te brengen. Maar ondertussen worden de instrumenten waar wetenschappers ze mee kunnen oppikken, steeds beter. Het betekent dat wetenschappers dergelijke trillingen van het universum nu soms zelfs meerdere keren per dag detecteren.
“Naarmate ons internationale netwerk van interferometers gevoeliger wordt en langer observeert, detecteren we meer zwaartekrachtsgolven,” zegt Doctor. “Van deze zeer korte, zwakke signalen kunnen we veel leren. We beginnen zeldzamere gebeurtenissen te zien en de diversiteit van fusies tussen zwarte gaten en neutronensterren te ontsluiten. Uiteindelijk willen we weten hoe deze exotische objecten ontstaan en met elkaar in botsing komen. En de nieuwe detecties zullen ons daarbij helpen.”
Diversiteit Naarmate er meer detecties worden toegevoegd aan de catalogus van zwaartekrachtgolven, leren onderzoekers dus steeds meer over deze bijzondere kosmische verschijnselen. En dat betekent dat we eigenlijk nu pas de prachtige diversiteit van zwarte gaten en neutronensterren beginnen te zien. De nieuwe detecties bewijzen dat ze in vele maten en combinaties verkrijgbaar zijn. Door de massa’s van de samensmeltende objecten te berekenen, kunnen astrofysici vervolgens beter begrijpen hoe sterren leven en sterven én waardoor ze precies bij hun dood instorten in zwarte gaten of neutronensterren. Uiteindelijk hopen de onderzoekers te ontrafelen hoe sterren – de bouwstenen van ons universum – evolueren.
De LIGO-observatorium en zwaartekrachtsdetector Virgo ondergaan momenteel belangrijke updates. Hierdoor worden de krachtige detectoren klaargestoomd voor een nieuwe reeks zoektochten naar zwaartekrachtsgolven die naar verwachting eind 2022 start. En het belooft een enerverende jacht te worden. “Onze verbeterde detectoren zullen stillere signalen kunnen opvangen, waaronder die van zwarte gaten en neutronensterren die op nog grotere afstand en miljarden jaren geleden versmolten,” zegt onderzoeker Maya Fishbach. “Ik kan niet wachten om te ontdekken wat er nog meer allemaal is.”
The space telescope’s latest hardware problem has kept it offline for two weeks, raising concerns that the decades-old spacecraft is running out of time.
When engineers encounter an unknown problem, they’re meticulous. The slow process is designed to protect Hubble’s systems so it can assist scientists for as long as possible.
PHOTOGRAPH: NASA
THE HUBBLE SPACE telescope, one of the most famous telescopes of the 20th and 21st centuries, has faltered once again. After a computer hardware problem arose in late October, NASA engineers put Hubble into a coma, suspending its science operations as they carefully attempt to bring its systems back online.
Engineers managed to revive one of its instruments earlier this week, offering hope that they will end the telescope’s convalescence as they restart its other systems, one at a time. “I think we are on a path to recovery,” says Jim Jeletic, Hubble’s deputy project manager.
The problem began on October 23, when the school bus-sized space probe’s instruments didn’t receive a standard synchronization message generated by its control unit. Two days later, NASA engineers saw that the instruments missed multiple such messages, so they put them in “safe mode,” powering down some systems and shuttering the cameras.
Some problems are fairly easy to fix, like when a random high-energy particle hits the probe and flips a bit on a switch. But when engineers encounter an unknown problem, they’re meticulous. The slow process is designed to protect Hubble’s systems and make sure the spacecraft continues to thrive and enable scientific discovery for as long as possible. “You don’t want to continually put the instruments in and out of safe mode. You’re powering things on and off, you’re changing the temperature of things over and over again, and we try to minimize that,” Jeletic says.
In this case, they successfully brought the Advanced Camera for Surveys back online on November 7. It’s one of the newer cameras, installed in 2002, and it’s designed for imaging large areas of the sky at once and in great detail. Now they’re watching closely as it collects data again this week, checking to see whether the error returns. If the camera continues working smoothly, the engineers will proceed to testing Hubble’s other instruments.
Hubble has had its share of hiccups over its long and productive career, during which it has documented everything from ancient galaxies to the birth and death of nearby stars. It launched in 1990, just a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and it was deployed by the crew aboard the space shuttle Discovery. It now orbits about 340 miles above the Earth. On five occasions since its deployment, astronauts on NASA shuttles have conducted servicing missions to repair and upgrade its systems, boosting the impressive longevity of the telescope, which was originally expected to only last about a decade. Astronauts aboard the shuttle Atlantis completed the final such mission in May, 2009, when they repaired its spectrograph, among other things. Since then, all other reboot attempts have been conducted from Earth; engineers are no longer able to replace the telescope’s hardware.
Hubble’s current glitch isn’t unprecedented. In fact, it’s the second one this year. In July, engineers put the telescope’s instruments in safe mode for about a month when the payload computer, which coordinates and monitors the science instruments, went offline. When they started using a backup power unit, they were able to make the science instruments operational again.
Jeletic and his team also try to anticipate potential mishaps. For example, they found that the thin wires Hubble’s gyroscopes depend on gradually corrode and break, and three of its six gyros have failed. Without gyros, Hubble can’t target anything properly. But on the last servicing mission, astronauts replaced the gyros and enhanced the wires so that they can’t corrode, solving the problem.
Nevertheless, each new hitch inevitably raises concerns about the aging telescope, which has been instrumental in so many astronomical accomplishments, including pinning down the age of the universe and discovering the smaller moons of Pluto. “I think it’s been utterly transformational,” says Adam Riess, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing how measurements of exploding stars, or supernovas, reveal the accelerating expansion of the universe, a project that benefited from Hubble data. To this day, the telescope continues to be oversubscribed by at least fivefold, Riess says, meaning astronomers have more than five times as many proposals for using Hubble as there is available telescope time.
The space telescope has also served as an educational tool and kindled public interest in space science for a whole generation. “Everybody knows Hubble,” says Jeyhan Kartaltepe, an astronomer at the Rochester Institute of Technology, whose work on multiple galaxy surveys makes extensive use of Hubble images. “It has become a household name. People enjoy reading articles about what Hubble has discovered, and they enjoy seeing the pictures. I think people have an immediate association of Hubble with astronomy.”
Hubble’s latest hardware challenges come just a month before its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch into orbit. Like its iconic predecessor, the new telescope will collect troves of spectacular images, though it’s designed to probe wavelengths more in the infrared range, allowing it to penetrate dusty parts of galaxies and stellar nebulae. Riess expects it to be similarly popular with astronomers and with the public.
Hubble has easily surpassed its expected lifespan, and the same goes for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which launched in 1999 and remains operational, although it was designed to last only five years. This is a good sign for Webb, similarly planned for a five-year lifespan. Unlike Hubble, however, it will orbit much farther away, making it inaccessible to astronauts. That means any problems that arise will have to be fixed remotely.
But Hubble helped set the stage for its successor. For example, after Hubble launched, engineers realized that its mirror wasn’t curved properly, initially resulting in blurry images. Webb’s design allows for engineers to adjust the curvature remotely if an error like that crops up.
Astronomers appreciate the hard work of Hubble’s engineers and operators. “Their dedication to keep on rescuing the telescope from all its fits of pique and changes of mood is fantastic. I’m so proud of them backing the scientists who are using the data,” says Julianne Dalcanton, an astronomer at the University of Washington who has used Hubble frequently throughout her career, including to map Andromeda, our galactic neighbor. She, Kartaltepe, and other astronomers look forward to a time when both Hubble and Webb are in the sky, taking observations together, especially as they’ll learn different things from the telescopes’ respective instruments and wavelength coverage.
While Jeletic and his team don’t yet know when Hubble will be back online, he expects all systems to eventually be up and running once again. “Some day Hubble will die, like every other spacecraft,” he says. “But hopefully that’s still a long ways off.”
EXCLUSIVE: Striking video shows pulsating orb drop down from the sky and cruise alongside two FedEx pilots flying over Mexico that experts believe is a UFO with a plasma forcefield to deflect radar
EXCLUSIVE: Striking video shows pulsating orb drop down from the sky and cruise alongside two FedEx pilots flying over Mexico that experts believe is a UFO with a plasma forcefield to deflect radar
On March 19, 2020 two FedEx pilots flying a cargo airplane near Monterrey, Mexico, saw a bright light drop down from the sky
The UFO stopped at their altitude, shot them with a beam of light, then moved in tandem with the plane for over 30 minutes before flying away
Mysteriously, the UFO did not show up on the plane's radar
The captain shot video of the encounter, which was analyzed in a report by the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP)
In the video the captain can be heard expressing his shock at seeing a UFO, which he described as 'a brilliant yellow white plasma object, teardrop shaped'
'I thought it was a shooting star but then it stopped,' the former Air Force pilot said in the video
Aviation experts tried to explain the light as the planet Venus, and the pulsating as a deceptive effect from the camera autofocus adjusting its lens in the dark
However, the pilots told NARCAP they saw the pulsing, plasma-like appearance with their own eyes as well as capturing it on camera
NARCAP executive director Ted Roe told DailyMail.com that the pilots' account was 'very consistent with what pilots have been reporting for over 100 years'
A video exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com shows a pulsating orb caught on camera by FedEx pilots flying over Mexico – which experts say could be a UFO with a plasma forcefield that may help it fly or deflect radar.
On March 19, 2020 two FedEx pilots were flying a cargo airplane near Monterrey, Mexico, when they saw a bright light drop down from the sky, stop at their altitude, shoot them with a beam of light, then move in tandem with the plane for over 30 minutes before flying away.
The captain shot a stunning video of the encounter, which was analyzed in a report by the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), a nonprofit organization that studies pilots' brushes with UFOs to help develop safety procedures.
The report did not name the pilots, as many in the aviation industry are still wary of the stigma around UFOs despite official acknowledgement of the phenomena by the U.S. and other governments.
But NARCAP executive director Ted Roe, the author of the report, told DailyMail.com that the pilots' account was 'very consistent with what pilots have been reporting for over 100 years.'
Commercial pilot spots a UFO over Mexico during flight
On March 19, 2020 two FedEx pilots flying a cargo airplane near Monterrey, Mexico, saw a bright light drop down from the sky
The UFO stopped at their altitude, shot them with a beam of light, then moved in tandem with the plane for over 30 minutes before flying away
Mysteriously, the UFO did not show up on the plane's radar. Experts say it could be a UFO with a plasma forcefield that may help it fly or deflect radar
The captain of the Boeing 767 cargo plane is 'a career pilot with 19 years of experience flying wide-body aircraft for a major cargo company with an additional 10yrs flying KC-135 refueling tankers for the US Air Force,' according to the report, while the first officer was a 'career fighter pilot that flew f-15s before working in the private sector.'
NARCAP executive director Ted Roe told DailyMail.com that the pilots' account was 'very consistent with what pilots have been reporting for over 100 years'
They were described as 'competent airmen, highly experienced with observing and identifying aircraft, and are capable of determining normal observations and incidents from unusual ones.'
The plane left Queretaro International Airport north of Mexico City at 8.05pm, and was about 150 miles south of Monterrey on its way to Memphis, Tennessee, when the unidentified object appeared.
'The incident began when the First Officer, looking across to the left side of the cockpit, saw a yellowish white light descend into view from above,' the report said.
'He first believed that it was a meteor and began to say so when it suddenly stopped near the same altitude as their aircraft. The UAP [unidentified aerial phenomenon]/Light then projected an illuminating beam of bright, white, light on their aircraft, and appeared to take a collision heading.
'At this moment the Captain also saw the beam of light projected onto their aircraft from the UAP/Light. Both crewmen, in the belief that an aircraft with its landing lights on had turned onto a collision heading with their aircraft, took a defensive attitude and prepared for evasive control inputs.'
But instead of heading to crash into them, the UFO then started to move in tandem with the plane between 1,000 and 2,000 ft away.
'As they prepared to avoid the apparently approaching UAP/Light, the beam of light illuminating their aircraft ceased, and the UAP/Light suddenly accelerated to the same speed and heading of the aircraft, maintained separation, and paced the aircraft,' the report said.
In the video the captain can be heard expressing his shock and excitement at seeing a UFO, which he described as 'a brilliant yellow white plasma object, teardrop shaped.'
The report said it had 'no navigation lights or other features associated with airplanes'.
The captain took a five-minute video of the object, three other clips and eight photographs.
Mysteriously, the UFO did not show up on the plane's radar.
'I thought it was a shooting star but then it stopped,' the former Air Force pilot said in the video.
'It's like an orb man, look at that s**t. It's pulsating. This is awesome. And he's not on TCAS [the plane's radar].
'That is s**t hot… Oh man, look at that thing dude.
'That is an unidentified flying object bro, I can finally say I saw one. That is cool.'
'You saw it just drop out of the sky and just stop?' he asked his copilot.
'Yeah. I thought it was a shooting star and then it stopped,' the former F-15 pilot replied.
The plane left Queretaro International Airport north of Mexico City at 8.05pm, and was about 150 miles south of Monterrey on its way to Memphis, Tennessee, when the unidentified object appeared
The captain was flying a similar Boeing 767 cargo plane. He was described as a 'a career pilot with 19 years of experience flying wide-body aircraft for a major cargo company'
Discussing whether it could be a weather balloon, the captain said: 'The only weather balloon we have is near [inaudible], it's 15,000 ft AGL [above ground level]. This thing's above our altitude.'
The 767 was flying at approximately 575 mph at 37,000 ft when the encounter happened.
'As the aircraft and its attendant UAP/Light approached the Mexico/US border the UAP/Light began to flicker, it changed colors from yellow-white to pinkish/purple, and turned on a perpendicular heading away from the aircraft and parallel to the border without crossing into the United States,' the report said.
'We're going to lose him in the clouds, son of a b***h,' the captain said towards the end of the video.
'There's weather about 40 miles off our left wingtip where this thing seems to have disappeared. It didn't have strobes or beacon or nothing.'
The captain filmed his radar screen showing no sign of the UFO, just patches of clouds to the west of the 767.
Aviation experts on the website Metabunk, including renowned UFO debunker Mick West, tried to explain the light as the planet Venus, and the pulsating as a deceptive effect from the camera autofocus adjusting its lens in the dark.
Although the flight was not identified in the NARCAP report, West identified it from flight records matched to the times in the report as FedEx flight FDX82, which departed Queretaro 50 minutes late at 8.55pm and arrived in Memphis around 12.20am.
West dug out star maps showing Venus was in a similar location in the sky to where the pilots saw the pulsating light, sitting about 10 degrees above the horizon at that time of night.
'Out of focus with atmospheric distortion and focus seeking, it looks like a wobbly pulsating blob,' he wrote.
West posted videos on the debunking forum showing how stars can appear to flash or ripple on camera from atmospheric distortions or heat shimmer, exaggerated by an autofocus lens coming in and out of focus.
However, the pilots told NARCAP they saw the pulsing, plasma-like appearance with their own eyes as well as capturing it on camera, and described seeing the pulsing light, as well as the inexplicable movement of the object – dropping from the sky, coming to a complete stop in mid-air and then matching their speed and direction.
NARCAP executive director Ted Roe says, 'We have a database going back to 1916. It describes four basic types of UAP encounters and they are balls of light, spheres, cylinders and discs,' he said.
'I went through the analysis. There was some argument that it could have been an astronomical effect. Venus was quite bright that night.
'But when you take the entire narrative of how they describe it dropped in vertically, stopped at their altitude and then paced their aircraft, that is a very consistent story. We've had many of those.
'They flew northbound out of Queretaro Airport. Venus was quite high in the western sky at that point and bright, they were well aware of it. They were at 37,000 ft.
'When he turns the camcorder towards his radar, which is probably the most important aspect of this case and really the only reason I took it on, it confirmed what I've been saying all along which is that UAP are intermittently detected on radar. He turned his camera on his radar monitor and there was no detection.
'It also showed there were clouds to the West, and if Venus was parallel to his aircraft, appearing to be at his altitude, the clouds would have obstructed it.'
Roe said both the 'teardrop' shape that the UFO made as it moved through the air and the lack of radar return could be due to plasma surrounding it.
'We didn't get a clearly defined video of what this phenomenon was. But we have the description. It was teardrop shaped, white/yellow. I'm guessing that these things are plasma or have plasma involved in them,' he said.
'We use plasma to cut the radar cross-section on the reflectable parts of a stealth aircraft. They might use plasma actuators to absorb that signal rather than allow it to reflect.'
+6
The plane left Queretaro International Airport (pictured) north of Mexico City at 8.05pm on its way to Memphis, Tennessee
In 2011, researchers at the University of Florida wrote a report on a 'proof-of-concept demonstration' of how plasma could be used to make a wingless object 'selflift, hover and fly'.
Their experiments, sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, involved 'building, characterization, testing, and simulation of plasma actuators, aerodynamics, power and propulsion systems, micromachining and microfabrication.'
NARCAP was founded in 1999 specifically to investigate and document the safety implications of pilots' encounters with reports of UFOs,
It has a staff of about 50 specialists that conduct 'investigations, analysis, publications and activism related to UAP and aviation safety.'
NARCAP's chief scientist, Dr. Richard Haines, has collected 'over 3,400 cases of aviation-related observations and incidents involving unidentified aerial phenomena' according to the organization.
Roe told DailyMail.com that one of his continued frustrations is that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) refuses to document incidents like those of the FedEx pilots.
'The FAA literally will not accept their reports,' he said. 'The aeronautical instruction manual, which is the primary manual for air crews, tells them if they want to report a UFO they can contact a civilian UFO reporting center.
'This has been going on for decades. The information is lost to the aviation system and safety planners because the data is never presented to the aviation system to begin with.
'Recently we've had this UAP Task Force and government activity on the subject. In the report, the Director of National Intelligence on June 25 stated that UAP are a hazard to aviation, and they were rather clear about it.
'When they were out looking for data, I can't imagine what it was like going into the FAA's offices, and saying 'you guys must have all this great UFO data, we need it now,' and there isn't any because they've been telling the pilots they don't take those reports.'
Two FedEx pilots flying a cargo plane filmed a brush with what they called a pulsating orb that followed them for more than 30 minutes.
The UFO incident occurred near Monterrey, Mexico and video of the encounter has been analyzed by the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).
Two FedEx pilots flying a cargo plane near Monterrey, Mexico had an encounter at 37,000 feet with a UFO that has experts perplexed.
The pilots claim that as they were flying near Monterrey, Mexico a bright light dropped down from the sky, stopped at their altitude, shot them with a beam of light, then moved in tandem with the plane for over 30 minutes before flying away, reports DailyMail.com.
The UFO incident, which occurred on March 19, 2020, was captured on video, along with audio revealing their dialogue during the sighting.
While the two pilots remain unnamed, the captain of the Boeing 767 cargo plane is “a career pilot with 19 years of experience flying wide-body aircraft for a major cargo company with an additional 10yrs flying KC-135 refueling tankers for the US Air Force,” according to a National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP) report. The first officer is “a career fighter pilot that flew f-15s before working in the private sector.”
The initial reporting of this UFO sighting shed little light on the details surrounding it, but this week NARCAP executive director Ted Roe spoke with DailyMail.com and offered up some new insight.
‘The FAA literally will not accept their reports,’ he said. ‘The aeronautical instruction manual, which is the primary manual for air crews, tells them if they want to report a UFO they can contact a civilian UFO reporting center.
‘This has been going on for decades. The information is lost to the aviation system and safety planners because the data is never presented to the aviation system to begin with.
‘Recently we’ve had this UAP Task Force and government activity on the subject. In the report, the Director of National Intelligence on June 25 stated that UAP are a hazard to aviation, and they were rather clear about it.
‘When they were out looking for data, I can’t imagine what it was like going into the FAA’s offices, and saying ‘you guys must have all this great UFO data, we need it now,’ and there isn’t any because they’ve been telling the pilots they don’t take those reports.’
Footage of the UFO incident near Monterrey, Mexico taken by the FedEx pilots, described as “competent airmen, highly experienced with observing and identifying aircraft, and are capable of determining normal observations and incidents from unusual ones,” was analyzed by Roe’s group at the NARCAP.
In the video, one of the pilots can be heard talking about “a brilliant yellow white plasma object teardrop shaped” object in the sky.
They were so concerned about what they were seeing that the daptain engaged the Combined TCAS and cockpit display and activated the Airborne Collision Avoidance System SSR (Secondary Surveillance radar) system.
Radar did not detect anything in the sky.
According to the NARCAP report, “The UAP/Light came from above and stopped/hovered near FL37, about the same altitude as the aircraft, shone a light on the 767 and briefly approached the aircraft. Then it instantly matched the speed, and heading of the aircraft and maintained a consistent separation.”
a. The light descended vertically, stopped abruptly, and shone a light on the 767 causing the crew to believe that there was another airliner on a collision heading with its landing lights on.
b. It changed direction from vertical descent to a sudden stop/hover, to approaching the aircraft briefly, to taking the same heading and speed of the aircraft at about the same altitude and an estimated distance of 1-2k ft.
c. It matched the altitude, speed, and heading of the aircraft, 575mph and at 37,000ft for over 32 minutes.
d. The UAP/Light changed colors and turned away from the aircraft on a perpendicular heading, West, just inside the Mexico/US border.
e. The UAP/light did not have wings or running lights. It was a new and unique observation to the experienced air crew.
These movements, the report explains, “are not consistent with known aerial phenomena but they are characteristic movements of UAP.”
“We have a database going back to 1916. It describes four basic types of UAP encounters and they are balls of light, spheres, cylinders and discs,’ Roe told DailyMail.com.
“I went through the analysis. There was some argument that it could have been an astronomical effect. Venus was quite bright that night.
“But when you take the entire narrative of how they describe it dropped in vertically, stopped at their altitude and then paced their aircraft, that is a very consistent story. We’ve had many of those.”
Roe also added that the FedEx pilots’ account of their UFO experience is “very consistent with what pilots have been reporting for over 100 years.”
“The primary difference being that this case is on video. Now there are cameras in the cockpits and they are validating what pilots have been describing anecdotally for over 80 years and the work of NARCAP over the last 20 years,” reads the report.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
