Germinating Pine Cone Found Encased in Baltic Amber

Seed germination — a crucial stage in the development of all plants — normally occurs in the soil after the seed has fallen from the mother plant. In some infrequent instances, precocious germination — a type of viviparity or vivipary — occurs when the seed sprouts while still within the fruit. In a new paper published in the journal Historical Biology, Oregon State University’s Professor George Poinar Jr. described the first case of precocious germination of a fossil plant involving a number of seeds that have germinated in a pine cone embedded in a piece of 40-million-year-old (Eocene epoch) Baltic amber.

“Crucial to the development of all plants, seed germination typically occurs in the ground after a seed has fallen,” Professor Poinar said.

“We tend to associate viviparity — embryonic development while still inside the parent — with animals and forget that it does sometimes occur in plants. Most typically, by far, those occurrences involve angiosperms.”

“Angiosperms, which directly or indirectly provide most of the food people eat, have flowers and produce seeds enclosed in fruit.”

“Seed germination in fruits is fairly common in plants that lack seed dormancy, like tomatoes, peppers and grapefruit, and it happens for a variety of reasons. But it’s rare in gymnosperms.”

Precocious germination in pine cones is so rare that only one naturally occurring example of this condition, from 1965, has been described in the scientific literature.

“That’s part of what makes this discovery so intriguing, even beyond that it’s the first fossil record of plant viviparity involving seed germination,” Professor Poinar said.

“I find it fascinating that the seeds in this small pine cone could start to germinate inside the cone and the sprouts could grow out so far before they perished in the resin.”

“At the sprouts’ tips are needle clusters, some in bundles of five, associating the fossil with the extinct pine species Pinus cembrifolia, which was previously described from Baltic amber.”

According to the scientist, viviparity in plants typically shows up in one of two ways.

“Precocious germination is the more common of the two, the other being vegetative viviparity, such as when a bulbil emerges directly from the flower head of a parent plant,” he said.

“In the case of seed viviparity in this fossil, the seeds produced embryonic stems that are quite evident in the amber.”

“Whether those stems, known as hypocotyls, appeared before the cone became encased in amber is unclear. However, based on their position, it appears that some growth, if not most, occurred after the pine cone fell into the resin.”

Research on viviparity in extant gymnosperms suggests the condition could be linked to winter frosts.

“Light frosts would have been possible if the Baltic amber forest had a humid, warm-temperate environment as has been posited,” Professor Poinar said.

“This is the first fossil record of seed viviparity in plants but this condition probably occurred quite a bit earlier than this Eocene record.”

“There’s no reason why vegetative viviparity couldn’t have occurred hundreds of millions of years ago in ancient spore-bearing plants like ferns and lycopods.”

_____

• George Poinar Jr. Precocious germination of a pine cone in Eocene Baltic amber. Historical Biology, published online November 8, 2021; doi: 10.1080/08912963.2021.2001808

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18-11-2021 om 00:25 geschreven door peter  

French Prankster Tricks Everyone With Fake UFO Sightings and an Alien With a Crashed Spaceship

LORI DORN

The brilliant French prankster Rémi Gaillard, who has pulled off some wild hoaxes in the past, really outdid himself by creating highly believable UFO sightings in Southern France that the media lapped up with glee. The sightings then led to a stray alien with a crashed spaceship showing up in rather odd but commonplace locations.

Gaillard, who is the master of straight face comedy, portrayed the wayward alien who blocked traffic, tried to get the spaceship towed by a local garage, called the fire service for assitance, and even tried to steal a cow, as aliens often do.

UFOs spotted in France : behind the scenes of the hoax that fooled the media… Here is my new prank video ! Watch out, they’re coming

Gaillard stated that his pulled this prank in order to fool the media.

18-11-2021 om 00:06 geschreven door peter  

Bizarre UFO Appears To Be Captured On Doorbell Camera

I don’t know what that is in the sky, but it definitely doesn’t look like a plane or a helicopter. If it were either, I’m not sure why the lights would be positioned the way they are.

Is it possible it’s just an optical illusion captured on camera? I suppose so, but it seems unlikely.

As many of you know, I’m fascinated by UFOs and whatever they might be. I truly have no idea, but at this point, can anyone truly deny something strange isn’t going on?

I think the answer to that is no. There are simply too many examples of unexplained events, and it’s not like people wearing tinfoil hats are making the claims.

Our own government has released videos captured by fighter jet pilots. Clearly, something out of the ordinary is happening.

Let us know in the comments what you think it is!

{  https://dailycaller.com/ }

17-11-2021 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

The ancient village of Culham, nestled in a bend of the River Thames west of London, seems an unlikely launching pad for the future. But next year, construction will start here on a gleaming building of glass and steel that could house what many people consider to be an essential technology to meet demand for clean energy in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Long derided as a prospect that is forever 30 years away, nuclear fusion seems finally to be approaching commercial viability. There are now more than 30 private fusion firms globally, according to an October survey by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) in Washington DC, which represents companies in the sector; the 18 firms that have declared their funding say they have attracted more than US$2.4 billion in total, almost entirely from private investments (see ‘Fusion funding’). Key to these efforts are advances in materials research and computing that are enabling technologies other than the standard designs that national and international agencies have pursued for so long.

The latest venture at Culham — the hub of UK fusion research for decades — is a demonstration plant for General Fusion (GF), a company based in Burnaby, Canada. It is scheduled to start operating in 2025, and the company aims to have reactors for sale in the early 2030s. It “will be the first power-plant-relevant large-scale demonstration”, says GF’s chief executive Chris Mowry — unless, that is, its competitors deliver sooner.

Designed by British architect Amanda Levete, GF’s prototype plant illustrates the way fusion research has shifted from gargantuan state- or internationally funded enterprises to sleek, image-conscious affairs driven by private companies, often with state support. (GF will receive some UK government funding; it has not disclosed how much.)

Artist’s impression of General Fusion’s planned plant at Culham, UK. Credit: AL_A for General Fusion. Lead image: The world's strongest high-temperature superconducting magnet will be used in a 2025 fusion reactor in Massachusetts.

Credit: Gretchen Ertl, CFS/MIT-PSFC, 2021

In this respect, advocates of fusion technology say it has many parallels with the space industry. That, too, was once confined to government agencies but is now benefiting from the drive and imagination of nimble (albeit often state-assisted) private enterprise. This is “the SpaceX moment for fusion”, says Mowry, referring to Elon Musk’s space-flight company in Hawthorne, California.

“The mood has changed,” says Thomas Klinger, a fusion specialist at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany. “We can smell that we’re getting close.” Investors sense the real prospect of returns on their money: Google and the New York City-based investment bank Goldman Sachs, for instance, are among those funding the fusion company TAE Technologies, based in Foothill Ranch, California, which has raised around $880 million so far. “Companies are starting to build things at the level of what governments can build,” says Bob Mumgaard, chief executive of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And just as private space travel is now materializing, many industry observers are forecasting that the same business model will give rise to commercial fusion — desperately needed to decarbonize the energy economy — within a decade. “There’s a very good shot to get there within less than ten years,” says Michl Binderbauer, chief executive of TAE Technologies. In the FIA report, a majority of respondents thought that fusion would power an electrical grid somewhere in the world in the 2030s.

Several fusion researchers who don’t work for private firms told Nature that, although prospects are undeniably exciting, commercial fusion in a decade is overly optimistic. “Private companies say they’ll have it working in ten years, but that’s just to attract funders,” says Tony Donné, programme manager of the Eurofusion consortium which conducts experiments at the state-run Joint European Torus, established at Culham in the late 1970s. “They all have stated constantly to be about ten years away from a working fusion reactor, and they still do.”

Timelines that companies project should be regarded not so much as promises but as motivational aspirations, says Melanie Windridge, a plasma physicist who is the FIA’s UK director of communications, and a communications consultant for the fusion firm Tokamak Energy, in Culham. “I think bold targets are necessary,” she says. State support is also likely to be needed to build a fusion power plant that actually feeds electricity into the grid, adds Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

But whether it comes from small-scale private enterprise, huge national or international fusion projects, or a bit of both, practical nuclear fusion finally seems to be on the horizon. “I’m convinced that it’s going to happen”, says Chapman. Chris Kelsall, chief executive of Tokamak Energy, agrees. “Sooner or later this will be cracked,” he says. “And it will be transformative.”

Seventy-year dream

Nuclear fusion, says Klinger, is “the only primary energy source left in the Universe” that we have yet to exploit. Ever since the process that powers the stars was harnessed in the 1950s for hydrogen bombs, technologists have dreamt of unlocking it in a more controlled manner for energy generation.

Existing nuclear power plants use fission: the release of energy when heavy atoms such as uranium decay. Fusion, by contrast, produces energy by merging very light nuclei, typically hydrogen, which can happen only at very high temperatures and pressures. Most efforts to harness it in reactors involve heating the hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) until they form a plasma — a fluid state of matter containing ionized atoms and other charged particles — and then fuse (see ‘Fuel mix’). For these isotopes, fusion starts at lower temperatures and densities than for normal hydrogen.

D–T fusion generates some radiation in the form of short-lived neutrons, but no long-lived radioactive waste, unlike fission. It is also safer than fission because it can be switched off easily: if the plasma is brought below critical thresholds of temperature or density, the nuclear reactions stop.

FUEL MIX

Many reactors fuse deuterium (D) with tritium (T) to release energy. This mix ignites, or creates a self-sustaining fusion reaction,at around 100 million kelvin. It produces neutrons, which can make the chamber radioactive.

Deuterium  +  Tritium                         Helium 4      +         neutron

Other reactions, such as fusing protons (p) with boron-11 (¹¹B), don’t produce neutrons, but ignition requires higher temperatures.

p             Boron-11                                             3a

What makes it so difficult to conduct in a controlled manner, however, is the challenge of containing electrically charged plasma that is undergoing fusion at temperatures of around 100 million kelvin — much hotter than the centre of the Sun. Generally, researchers use magnetic fields to confine and levitate the plasma inside the reactor. But instabilities in this infernal fluid make containment very difficult, and have so far prevented fusion from being sustained for long enough to extract more energy than is put in to trigger it.

This is necessarily big science, and until this century, only state-run projects could muster the resources. The scale of the enterprise is reflected today in the world’s biggest fusion effort: ITER, a fusion reactor being constructed in southern France and supported by 35 nations, including China, European Union member states, the United States, Russia, South Korea and Japan, with a price tag of at least $22 billion.

Although the first test runs are scheduled for 2025, full D–T fusion is not scheduled until 2035, ultimately with the goal of continuously extracting 500 MW of power — comparable to the output of a modest coal-fired power plant — while putting 50 MW into the reactor. (These numbers refer only to the energy put directly into and drawn out of the plasma; they don’t factor in other processes such as maintenance needs or the inefficiencies of converting the fusion heat output into electricity.)

A further series of big reactors might follow ITER: China, which has three fusion reactors feeding results into ITER, plans a China Fusion Engineering Testing Reactor (CFETR) in the 2030s, and both South Korea and the EU propose to build demonstration power plants that would follow on from ITER.

The big national and international efforts won’t succeed soon enough to enable the decarbonization needed to address climate change, although fusion is expected to become a key part of the energy economy in the second half of the century. But private companies hope to have working and affordable devices sooner (see ‘Fusion rush’).

As with space exploration, one of the benefits of a private fusion sector is greater diversity of approaches than monolithic state enterprises can muster. ITER is using the most common approach to confining plasma, in a device called a tokamak, which uses powerful superconducting magnets to hold the plasma in a ring-shaped (toroidal) vessel. The flow of the electrically charged plasma particles themselves also generates a magnetic field that helps to confine the plasma.

But a tokamak isn’t the only option. In the early days of fusion, in the 1950s, US astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer showed that magnetic fields could be configured in a twisted loop, rather like a figure of eight, to make a ‘magnetic bottle’ that could be filled with plasma. This design was known as a stellarator. But solving the equations describing the plasma for this complex geometry was too computationally intensive, so the concept was mostly abandoned once tokamaks had been shown to work.

As supercomputers became available in the late 1980s, however, researchers revisited the idea. This led to a stellarator project at the IPP called the Wendelstein 7-X reactor. Costing more than €1 billion (US$1.15 billion) to build, staff and operate up to its first plasma testing in 2015, with construction costs of €370 million largely borne by the German government, Wendelstein 7-X will be completed by the end of this year. Then comes a long process of working out how to operate it routinely as a demonstration project.

Stellarators have the advantage that their plasma is more easily confined, with no need (as in tokamaks) to drive strong electric currents through it to keep a lid on instabilities, says fusion physicist Josefine Proll at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. But it’s not clear whether it will be possible to implement stellarator technology in a reactor in 20–30 years. “It seems not all that likely at this moment,” she says. “We have a lot of basic questions still to answer,” says Klinger. “This is a first-of-a-kind machine, so one must be patient and go step by step.” Private companies set shorter-term goals because they have to satisfy their stakeholders, he says — but that doesn’t mean they can deliver.

Alternative designs

Some private fusion companies are sticking with the tokamak design, but scaled down. At Tokamak Energy, a team of around 165 employees is working on a spherical tokamak, shaped like an apple with its core removed. At 3.5 metres across, it will be many times smaller than the ITER tokamak, which, with surrounding cooling equipment, will be almost 30 metres wide and tall. Some state-funded schemes are considering the compact spherical design, too: the UKAEA, for example, has launched a project called STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) that aims to create such a device in a prototype plant that would deliver at least 100 MW to the national grid by 2040. The UKAEA has shortlisted five sites to host the plant, and expects the final choice to be made next year.

Hydrogen plasma in Tokamak Energy’s ST40 spherical tokamak. This video has no sound.

Credit: Tokamak Energy Ltd

Key to these designs are new kinds of magnets made from ribbons of high-temperature superconducting materials, which should produce much stronger fields than the conventional superconducting magnets used by ITER. They are “a potential game-changer”, says Klinger — not just because of their higher fields, but also because conventional superconductors need liquid-helium cooling. That is an engineering nightmare: liquid helium’s viscosity is almost zero, allowing it to leak through any tiny cracks. High-temperature superconductors, by contrast, can be cooled with liquid nitrogen, which is abundant, cheap and easy to store.

Both Tokamak Energy (in collaboration with CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland) and CFS are banking on these new magnets. In August, CFS announced that it had made them in the form needed for its tokamaks — “on schedule and on budget”, Mumgaard says proudly.

In 2018, CFS was spun off from the Plasma Science and Fusion Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, and Klinger considers the firm “the most promising, most valuable and most thought-through private fusion initiative”. MIT and CFS together are preparing to build what Mumgaard calls “the first fusion machine that makes net energy” — producing more energy than goes into it. Named SPARC, it is being constructed in Devens, Massachusetts. Mumgaard says it will be running by the end of 2025, and will be “commercially relevant” because it will generate around 100 MW of power.

First Light Fusion, a company spun off from the University of Oxford, UK, in 2011, is pursuing a different strategy, called inertial confinement. Here, the fusion plasma isn’t held by magnetic fields: rather, a shock wave compresses it to the immense densities needed for fusion, and the plasma retains its shape just for a split second by inertia alone, before spreading out and dissipating its energy. The idea has been around since the 1950s, and is also being studied at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where pea-sized plastic capsules of D–T fuel are imploded by nanosecond pulses of laser light to ignite fusion. In August, NIF reported a laser shot that produced a fleeting energy output 8 times higher than it had ever before achieved — and amounted to 70% of the energy that had gone into the reaction. That has raised hopes of net gain from inertial-confinement laser fusion, although such an energy-intensive process might be more useful for fundamental research than for large-scale power generation.

At First Light, the compression shock wave is created not by energy-hungry lasers, but by using an electromagnetic projectile gun to fire a small piece of material into a target containing the hydrogen isotopes. The company is keeping details of the process secret, but has said that to achieve fusion, it will need to fire the material at 50 kilometres per second — twice as fast as is typically achieved in current shock-wave experiments.

GF is taking yet another approach, called magnetized target fusion. It involves the plasma being compressed more slowly — for instance, using pistons — but with the aid of magnetic confinement that prevents heat from dissipating as the plasma is squeezed. This idea, suggested in the early 1970s by researchers at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, seeks an optimal compromise between the energy-intensive high magnetic fields needed to confine a tokamak plasma, and the energy-intensive shock waves, lasers or other methods used to rapidly compress plasma in inertial-confinement designs.

GF’s design for its Culham reactor uses a centrifuge to spin a chamber filled with molten lead and lithium. That motion opens a cavity in the liquid metal, where the plasma sits. A piston system pumps more liquid metal into the chamber, compressing the plasma over a few tens of milliseconds. Fusion begins; then the pressure is released and the process repeated in pulses, about once a second.

One especially neat aspect of this reactor is how it generates tritium fuel — a hugely expensive resource that can be made only in nuclear reactions, and decays rapidly. In ITER and other designs, tritium will be produced when neutrons escaping the reactor hit a lithium blanket lining the tokamak. In GF’s design, tritium is made when neutrons hit lithium within the liquid-metal compression system itself.

GF has cracked key challenges only in the past few years — making a plasma target that lasts for long enough to be compressed, and smoothly and rapidly collapsing the liquid- metal cavity. The firm says, however, that after it has its UK demonstration plant operating in 2025, it will “power homes, businesses and industry with clean, reliable and affordable fusion energy by the early 2030s”.

TAE Technologies has, in some ways, an even more audacious concept. It plans to abandon D–T fuel altogether, instead fusing boron-11 atoms with hydrogen-1 nuclei (protons). This idea, championed by TAE’s co-founder, the Canadian plasma physicist Norman Rostoker, and dubbed p–¹¹B fusion, requires temperatures ten times greater than for D–T fusion: about one billion kelvin. The advantage is that this reaction uses only abundantly available fuel, and generates no neutrons that could contaminate the reactor. Binderbauer says that the concept offers lowers maintenance costs and a much more sustainable end goal.

In TAE reactors, the plasma is confined inside a cylindrical magnetic field made by a solenoid — a design that draws on particle-accelerator technologies. The plasma rotates around the axis; that rotation, as in a spinning top, generates inherent stability. Confinement doesn’t require strong external magnetic fields; those are mostly generated by the spinning plasma itself. To keep it rotating, tangential beams of boron inject angular momentum, rather as a top is torqued by a whip.

The company has made prototypes to demonstrate this set-up; since 2017, it has been working with a test system called Norman, and it is now starting work on a device called Copernicus that will run with normal hydrogen (or other non-fusing) plasmas to avoid producing neutrons. Computer simulations will show what energy would be generated if real fusion fuel were used. If TAE achieves the conditions needed for D–T fusion — which it hopes to do by around the middle of this decade — the company plans to license the technology to others who are pursuing those fuels. Binderbauer calls Copernicus a “stepping stone” to the temperatures needed for p–¹¹B fusion. “We’re convinced that we can go to the billion-degree level,” he says — and he hopes to see this towards the end of the decade.

Among the many other private fusion firms, Helion Energy, in Everett, Washington, has attracted the most interest from investors: this month, it announced a $500-million funding round, bringing its total to $578 million. Its aim is to generate electricity directly from fusion, rather than using the process to heat fluids and drive turbines. Helion’s technique involves firing pulses of plasma together inside a linear reactor, then rapidly compressing the merged plasma with magnetic fields. When fusion occurs, the plasma expands and its magnetic field interacts with that surrounding the reactor to induce an electric current. Helion hopes to fuse a mixture of deuterium and helium-3, which would not produce neutrons as a by-product. But helium-3 itself would need to be produced by D–D fusion. The company is building a demonstration reactor called Polaris, which it aims to have in operation by 2024.

How Helion’s technology will generate electricity. This video has no sound.

Credit: Helion Energy

Cheaper reactors?

The reactors built by private companies, being smaller than ITER-scale projects, will be much more affordable. Tokamak Energy’s co-founder, David Kingham, envisages billion-dollar devices, and Binderbauer thinks TAE’s systems could be built for around $250 million.

The aim is to make small fusion reactors that are compatible with existing energy grids. Kelsall says they could also serve industries that are particularly energy-intensive, such as metal smelting — a sector that can’t be supplied by renewables. Mowry adds that shipping could be another important market: devices producing around 100 MW of power are “just the right size for a large container ship”.

Donné remains cautious about the prospects, however, saying that private companies “are working on aggressive time paths compared to publicly funded projects, but also have a much higher risk of potential failure”. All the same, TAE, for one, insists that it is still on the track that it promised in the mid-2010s, of having a fusion device ready for commercialization by around the end of this decade  

Despite his scepticism, Donné adds: “I see the booming of private fusion companies as a good sign. There can be mutual benefits in keeping close ties between public and private fusion projects.” That’s certainly happening. Not only is the private fusion industry building on years of state investment in projects such as ITER, but it is benefiting from governments that see value in supporting it — which is why the UK government and the US Department of Energy are also investing in firms such as Tokamak Energy, CFS and GF. Mowry thinks that such public–private partnerships are the way forward — as they were for COVID-19 vaccines. And, as with the vaccines, fusion will be needed everywhere, especially as energy use rises in lower-income countries.

The vaccines showed “what you can do if you have the resources”, says Windridge. “If we had that kind of commitment in energy, I think it would be incredible to see what can be achieved.” As with the vaccines, too, society desperately needs more clean, carbon-free sources of energy. “This is an existential challenge,” says Mowry. “Fusion is the vaccine for climate change.”

• Philip Ball is a science writer in London.

{ https://www.nature.com/ }

17-11-2021 om 22:21 geschreven door peter  

When workers were cleaning up about 6 inches of mud and other debris caused by flooding at Colorado’s Picket Wire Canyonlands in the Comanche National Grassland, they discovered between 100 and 150 dinosaur footprints. Bruce Schumacher, who is a paleontologist with the U.S. Forest Service, stated that the round footprints were left behind by dinosaurs that belonged to the same family of Brontosaurus.

Brontosaurus was a type of sauropod dinosaur that lived between 156.3 and 146.8 million years ago during the late part of Jurassic Period. These herbivores could grow as large as 72 feet in length (22 meters) and weighed as much as 17 tons. They were believed to have lived as long as 100 years and perhaps even longer.

Brontosaurus

These newly discovered footprints will be added to the approximately 2,000 prints already discovered at the location. And there could possibly be even more as Schumacher explained that they “could continue for a long, long time.” “But we’ve kind of reached a point where we’ve got a good amount exposed. At least I feel like we’re at a place to continue to manage it as it is.”

All of the dinosaur tracks have been discovered in more than 130 different trackways in about a quarter of a mile of bedrock that is located along the banks of the Purgatoire River.

During the Jurassic Period, the southeastern part of Colorado was full of forests with ground ferns, tree ferns, sequoia trees, and pine trees, along with tropical climate and a massive shallow lake where the Purgatoire River Valley is now located. Allosaurus and Apatosaurus dinosaurs often visited the shoreline where they left their tracks. In fact, the Comanche National Grassland has the biggest dinosaur track site in all of North America.

A picture of the newly discovered dinosaur footprints can be seen here.

Comanche National Grassland

(Via Wikipedia)

In addition to the massive amount of dinosaur footprints, rock art created by the Native Americans can also be found at the location on the canyon walls. These images, which are between 375 and 4,500 years old, include elk, deer, abstract designs, and humans.

The historic Rourke Ranch is another favorite area for visitors to explore. Built in 1871, it was used by Eugene and Mary Rourke who used it as a horse and cattle ranch. It was in use for three generations until being sold in 1971. Known as one of the most successful ranches in the southwest, it started out with 40 acres and grew to more than 50,000 acres.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-11-2021 om 21:01 geschreven door peter  

Maybe, it has afflicted you on more than one occasion. Perhaps, now and again. Possibly, it’s something that has never bothered you. Or, you get it regularly. What is it? Well, I’ll tell you: it’s the issue of how certain Ufologists, researchers and witnesses to UFO phenomena find themselves on the receiving end of weird phone-calls. To some degree this ties in with the threatening Men in Black. On other occasions, the whole thing is just bizarre. With that said, I’ll share with you a few examples. On November 9, 2014, the Marshall family of Perth, Australia had a strange encounter after seeing a huge, black, triangular shaped UFO flying completely silently, and at a dangerously low level, as they headed home after a night out on June 3, 1999. Although they did not tell anyone about their experience (at least, not at the time, anyway), late on the following night the phone rang. It was a man with a strange and somewhat European accent who warned them not to talk about the craft they had seen [italics mine]. In this case, the family forgot about the experience until years later when they saw a TV documentary on the Men in Black enigma – which referenced the issue of the MIB making threatening phone calls to UFO witnesses. Today, the family is solidly convinced that what they experienced was full-blown intimidation from a menacing MIB. I had to agree, when I read the facts.

Point Pleasant, West Virginia is – beyond any shadow of doubt – noted most of all for its wave of sightings of the infamous Mothman, between 1966 and 1967. In 2014, however, the town played host to something even stranger. The witness to the weird affair was a local woman named Denise, who emailed me the details on May 23. As Denise explained, she was jolted from her sleep by the sight of a young boy looming over her bed. This was no normal boy, however: it was one of the dreaded Black-Eyed Children – pale-skinned, black-hoodie-wearing kids who are noted for their completely black eyes. Denise tried to scream out, but her vocal-chords were paralyzed, as was her entire body. The eerie boy stared at terrified Denise for a few moments, then retreated into the shadows of the room and vanished. It was a nerve-jangling experience that Denise has not forgotten. Nor has she forgotten a strange wave of hang-up phone calls that occurred across the next three nights, and all around 3:00 a.m. A connection? Denise believed so. As did I [Italics mine].

(Nick Redfern) Point Pleasant, West Virginia

August 2015 was a time when, for me, telephone problems were absolutely rife. As an example, Whitley Strieber invited me on his Unknown Country show to talk about my MIB book and we experienced endless amounts of very strange interference and odd sounds on the line. The exact same thing happened, at a later date, with Coast to Coast AM – something which took on even stranger proportions when my landline phone suddenly quit. So, I proceeded to use my cell-phone as a back-up. The battery drained astonishingly quickly, despite being fully charged. And, so, I had to hastily dig out of a cupboard an old, spare, cordless landline phone, which finally allowed us to complete the show. You’ll see from the cases above, all of them were relatively close to each other: from 2014 to 2015. There was more, too. A lot more. The strangest, one, however, took place back in 2003. I had returned from a trip to Taos, New Mexico, where I met with a now-deceased UFO researcher/whistleblower, Dan Salter – a man who claimed insider knowledge of the Marilyn Monroe-UFO controversy. I interviewed the guy and then we wrapped up. So, after getting home, I crashed in the sack. For a while…

It was around 2:00 a.m. and the phone rang. None of us like those situations. And all for the same reason: that, maybe, the voice on the other end will be calling with bad news. In a half-asleep state I ran into the darkness-filled living-room and, without thinking of reaching for the light, fumbled around to grab the phone. As I picked it up, I heard what sounded like screeching static, such was the ear-blasting level of the volume. In a few seconds, though, I was able to figure it out. It was a recording of Marilyn’s never-to-be-forgotten rendition of “Happy Birthday” for JFK at the third Madison Square Garden in New York on May 19, 1962, even though JFK’s actual birth-date of May 29. And the recording was playing over and over on a loop. No call-number was available. A warning? Of what? Having someone play “Happy Birthday” down the line to me – in the dead of night – is certainly one of the nuttiest things that has ever happened to me, but it was hardly something guaranteed to keep me wide awake for the rest of the night. I guessed the message had to be for me, but it was so obscure there was little I could do except make a few notes and save them for posterity. Then, I headed back to bed and slept fine.

For the record, near-identical situations have happened to me on a handful of occasions. Again, it was in the middle of the night. I was woken up, and there was a voice on the phone. This time, it was the sound of one of those battery-powered laughing bags. That’s what can happen when you get into Ufology: you’re exposed to loonies, M.I.B. and spies (and which are, sometimes, one and the very same) with too much time on their hands.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-11-2021 om 18:42 geschreven door peter  

Egypt's 'biggest discovery in decades' solves 4,500-year-old pharaoh mystery: 'Impressive'

EGYPT has announced its "biggest discovery in decades" after archaeologists uncovered the mysterious remains of a 4,500-year-old Sun temple.

By CALLUM HOARE

The experts made what is being dubbed as "one of the most important discoveries in 50 years" in Abu Gorab, south of Cairo. They found one of the four "lost Sun temples" erected by the pharaohs of the fifth dynasty to complement their pyramids. These magnificent monuments were said to have been constructed to make the pharaoh a god while still alive.

But while experts believe six were built by different pharaohs, only two have ever been found by modern archaeologists – now one of those mysteries has finally been solved, according to Dr Massimiliano Nuzzolo.

The assistant professor of Egyptology at the Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, said: “Each king wanted a pyramid for achieving his resurrection but this was not enough for the fifth dynasty kings.

"They wanted something more. The king built [a Sun temple] to turn himself into a god. The Sun god.”

Ra, the Sun god, was the most powerful god in ancient Egypt and the focal point of many elaborate rituals that were performed both on the living and dead.

Archaeologists made a stunning find 

(Image: GETTY)

The remains of a Sun temple were uncovered

 (Image: NAT GEO)

These grant structures were built around a tall, pyramid-like obelisk that aligned perfectly with the east-west axis of the Sun.

Dr Nuzzolo focused on one of the already known Sun temples, which was built in Abu Goab by the king Nyuserre, who ruled for about 30 years in the 25th century BC.

But after carefully digging under its shattered remains, he found an older base made of mud bricks, indicating that a building previously existed at the site.

However, the experts had no idea what it was.

Experts then discovered the two-foot-deep base of a white limestone pillar which they suggested the original structure was "quite impressive".

It solves the mystery of one of the temple's locations 

(Image: NAT GEO)

Dr Nuzzolo said: “We knew that there was something below the stone temple of Nyuserre, but we don’t know if it is just another building phase of the same temple or if it is a new temple.

“Actually, the fact that there is such a huge, monumental entrance would point to a new building.

"So, why not another Sun temple, one of the missing Sun temples?”

But then an array of beer jars filled with mud were uncovered providing the final proof the old site was a temple.

The experts believe they were an offering reserved for the most sacred places.

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Artist's impression of the Sun temple 

(Image: NAT GEO)

The discovery featured in a documentary 

(Image: NAT GEO)

Dr Nuzzolo added: “I have now many proofs that what we are excavating here is one of the lost Sun temples,”

What remains a mystery though is who the Sun temple was built for and when.

The Fifth Dynasty pharaohs reigned for about 150 years from the early 25th century BC to the mid 24th century BC.

Only a small number of rulers had Sun temples created in the name of the Sun god Ra on the west bank of the Nile.

The discovery of the third Sun temple was shown as part of Lost Treasures of Egypt on National Geographic.

A sculpture of the ancient Egyptian Sun god 'Ra'.

(inset: The excavation site of the temple/Twitter)

{ https://www.express.co.uk/ }

17-11-2021 om 18:32 geschreven door peter  

The remains of what is believed to be one of the lost sun temples dating back about 4,500 years during the middle part of the 25^th century BCE has been unearthed by archaeologists in Egypt. The structure was found buried underneath another temple located at Abu Ghurab.

This isn’t the first sun temple that has been found. In fact, it is thought that a total of six sun temples were constructed around Abu Ghurab; however, only two had been previously discovered. Back in 1898, the sun temple of Nyuserra (also called Neuserre or Nyuserre) – the sixth king of the 5th dynasty – was found by archaeologists at the same site as the recently discovered one. It is now believed that the Nyuserra temple was built over an older one.

Reconstruction of Nyuserre’s Sun Temple by Gaston Maspero.

(Via Wikipedia)

In an email to CNN, Massimiliano Nuzzolo, who is the mission’s co-director as well as an assistant professor of Egyptology at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures in Warsaw, went into further details, “The archaeologists of the 19th century excavated only a very small part of this mud bricks building below the stone temple of Nyuserra and concluded that this was a previous building phase of the same temple,” adding, “Now our finds demonstrate that this was a completely different building, erected before Nyuserra.” (The dig is a joint mission by the Polish Academy of Sciences as well as the University of Naples L’Orientale.)

The researchers found several items that seem to prove that the sun temple was much older than the one of Nyuserra. These artifacts, which contained engravings of kings who ruled prior to Nyuserra, included seals for jar stoppers, a limestone threshold, and the bases of two limestone columns that would have been located at the entrance.

Additional items found at the site included dozens of beer jars with some of them still containing mud that was used during ancient religious rituals. Furthermore, the jars date back one or two generations prior to when Nyuserra was alive.

Statue of Nyuserra

(Via Wikipedia)

As for the temple itself, it was constructed with mud bricks and was “…impressive in size” as described by Nuzzolo. It was later destroyed in order for Nyuserra to have his temple built which was bigger and made with stones.

Now that the latest sun temple has been unearthed, researchers are hoping to figure out which former king had it built. And by analyzing the pottery that was found there, they will hopefully learn more about those who inhabited the area during ancient times, such as their beliefs and what types of food they feasted on.

Pictures of the ancient sun temple and some of the artifacts can be viewed here.

The temple was discovered beneath a later sun temple.

Lost Treasures of Egypt/National Geographic/Windfall Films

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-11-2021 om 17:58 geschreven door peter  

We have long looked out into the sky and wondered what lies out there. It seems that ever since the first flickers of consciousness swirled within our brains we have looked up at the heavens and wondered at what lies out there and what our place is. On our long road to understanding of the universe we live in, there have been many strides and missteps. Science has tried to pave the way forward over the horizon of the unknown, and sometimes it gets it very right, and sometimes it gets things so very, very wrong.  Here we will look at a rather entertaining look at the latter.

Reverend Thomas Dick was born in November of 1774, and was a British church minister, science teacher and writer who had a deep and intense interest in astronomy from a young age. It all began when he saw a meteor streak across the sky when he was 9 years old, and before long he was devising his own telescope fashioned from some modified spectacle lenses and pasteboard tubes. He would pursue this passion into adulthood, and although his career as a preacher derailed a bit when he was excommunicated for having an affair with his servant, he nevertheless still managed to churn out quite a few scientific, philosophical, and religious works that were well received both in England and America and would go on to influence countless scientists, engineers, politicians, writers and thinkers. Yet for all of his respected work, some things really stand out as very odd in this day and age.

Thomas Dick

Between stints at writing, preaching, and scientific research, Dick became more and more obsessed with the idea that we are not alone in the universe. He was what is called a “natural theologist,” meaning that he believed that God’s signs pervaded nature and the cosmos, and that if He had deemed it worthy to create life here, then He had probably done it elsewhere as well. He came to strongly believe in the concept of the plurality of worlds, or cosmic pluralism, that every planet in the Solar System was inhabited and that God would not have created a universe that consisted of merely barren expanses and lifeless rocks. Dick believed that God would want the grandeur of His creation to be witnessed as widely as possible, and so he came to believe that all of the planets of the solar system must therefore be inhabited. He would say of this in his book Celestial Scenery:

This is a conclusion which is not merely probable, but absolutely certain, for the opposite opinion would rob the Deity of the most distinguishing attribute of his nature, by virtually denying him the perfection of infinite wisdom and intelligence. But we have no reason to conclude that they are exactly similar to us. Schemes far more foolish and preposterous than the above have been contrived and acted upon in every age of the world.

The idea of alien life in our solar system in and of itself wasn’t a new idea, and indeed the astronomer William Herschel had been talking about it since way back, but Dick was one of the first to actually try to make a census of just how many aliens there were. He was so sure that the rest of the solar system was inhabited that he went about trying to calculate exactly how many aliens there were populating each planet in our neighborhood, ultimately falling back on the now questionable method of using the surface area of each planet and the population density of England. In those days there were an average of 280 people per square mile in England, so crunching the numbers gave Dick an idea of how many extraterrestrials there were on each celestial object, and his predictions are wild, to say the least.

According to Dick, based on his calculations, there were 50 billion creatures living on Venus, seven trillion on Jupiter, 15 billion Martians on Mars, eight trillion living on Saturn, and even 4.2 billion on the moon and the asteroid Vesta holding around 64 million inhabitants according to him. Dick even theorized that Saturn’s rings were inhabited, and surmised that there were no fewer than 21 trillion inhabitants of the solar system, possibly even more if the sun was also inhabited, which he believed it was, even theorizing that it could support an additional 31 times as many creatures. Indeed, Dick believed that although these alien creatures would similar to us in size and habits of living, God had provided each planet with organisms capable of adapting to live in their own respective habitats, even the sun, which was pretty revelatory since this was just before Charles Darwin would come out with his theories on evolution. He would say:

We need not imagine there will be any great difficulty in ascending such lofty eminences; for the inhabitants of such worlds may be furnished with bodies different from those of the human race, and endowed with locomotive powers far superior to ours.

Dick would die in 1857 at the age of 82 without meeting a single one of these 22 trillion galactic neighbors, and to this day we haven’t met any of them either. It all seems pretty silly to us now, but back in the day Dick was so respected as a scientist that it didn’t all seem totally absurd. Looking back at it all now, it seems to be a rather charming, if misguided foray into gathering an understanding of our solar system, and although we can laugh now, it all goes to show the stumbling blocks we have had when venturing out into the vast unknown above our heads, and how much we don’t know even now.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-11-2021 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

Will November 15th, 2021, go down in history as the day the first shot was fired starting the first war in space. Or will it go down as the first example of how a space program can shoot itself in the foot without gravity? Both are possible as news spreads that the Russian military destroyed one of its own satellites with a missile on November 15th … and the resulting debris put the International Space Station in such danger that the crew members were forced to take shelter in the attached space capsules. This comes just days after the ISS was moved to avoid colliding with an old piece of a Chinese rocket. Are any – or all – of these events related? Is this a first shot, a first shot-in-the-foot … or something else? Something worse?

“Earlier today, due to the debris generated by the destructive Russian Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test, ISS astronauts and cosmonauts undertook emergency procedures for safety.

“Like Secretary Blinken, I’m outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing action. With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts. Their actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station and the taikonauts on board.

“All nations have a responsibility to prevent the purposeful creation of space debris from ASATs and to foster a safe, sustainable space environment.

“NASA will continue monitoring the debris in the coming days and beyond to ensure the safety of our crew in orbit.”

That statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says it all from the U.S. side, but both crews were affected – The Guardian and Spaceflight Now reported that most of the NASA and ESA crew members moved to the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and the two Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei boarded the Soyuz spacecraft on the Russian side. In response, ROSCOSMOS tweeted:

“The crew of the International Space Station regularly performs work in accordance with the flight program. The orbit of the object, due to which the crew was forced today according to standard procedures to transfer to spaceships, moved away from the ISS orbit. The station is in the “green zone”.”

That “Move along … nothing to see here” comment belittles the reality that a Russian missile exploded a defunct satellite into over 1500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris in the direct path of the ISS, which was reportedly in danger on two orbital passes before getting the ‘all clear’. In a strong statement, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said “We will work with our allies and partners in different ways to make clear that the United States, that the international community is not going to tolerate this kind of irresponsible behavior,” but will not take any action “today.”

Space.com reports that the U.S. Department of Defense was not made aware of this test ahead of time, which has now been identified as an Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test destroying a Kosmos-1408 satellite.

The question is … was this an intentional provocation or a dangerous screw-up? With the problems on the oxygen-leaking Russian side of the ISS, the on-again-off-again plans for a Russian space station, and political tensions on the ground, this is a troubling situation.

The verdict on November 15, 2021, is far from being decided.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

17-11-2021 om 17:14 geschreven door peter  

Ancient Statue Head Found On Mars, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Stumbled up it today
Location of discovery: Mars Sol 1087

• http://www.gigapan.com/galleries/13476/gigapans/195670

 

Now maybe finding a head of a statue is not significant to NASA since they over look so many archeological discoveries daily on Mars, but to me its significant. The face is not only the face of an intelligent species that once lived on Mars, but also the face of a child about 10-14 years of age. The curly hair, chubby cheeks and chin really stand out, not to mention the eyes, nose, mouth and forehead. The hair...the hair seems to be in a bun on the top, so it has a high probability of being a female. The statue head is looking out from the small hill and its facing outward on purpose...its where it was placed, so that it can look out to the horizon...I'm guessing its probably aimed at the setting sun. Also the face itself is very small, about 3 inches across, or 6-7cm. That means the probability of this species being 30 cm or 1 foot tall is very likely. 

 

Here on Earth there are many short people, a few that are only 20-28 inches tall, 1.5-2 feet tall. And those people had a normal intelligence and you or I. So its safe to assume that a species once lived on Mars and was only 20-30 cm tall. Clearly they had a high intelligence...just look at that incredible detail of the face they made. It was probably made to be a head stone...for a grave...a final goodbye to a loved one lost. I really wonder how may archeological artifacts are passed by the NASA rover every year? Hundreds...thousands...too many to even believe possible, and yet...the rover passes by as if the discoveries don't even exist. Ask yourself why? Because, the rover is not there to inform the public, but instead to appease and drop feed the public boring scientific info the control the publics curiosity.

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

 

 

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

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

17-11-2021 om 12:59 geschreven door peter  

Possible triangle UFO hovering above Fort Worth, Texas 16-Nov-2021

Here’s one new UFO video of a possible triangular-shaped formation hovering in the sky above Forth Worth, TX on 16th November 2021.

Witness report: 

Viewed a hovering craft with two main “motherships” there were smaller disc-like crafts entering and exiting. From the video at certain points this can be noticed, such as about 1:47 minutes in…the video doesn’t do justice from what I could see with my eyes, the ships could be seen visibly entering what I could see as docking stations. At certain points when there were violent flashes, it was close enough that my phone would cut out. Thanks for letting me post this, if you know of anything that I don’t see, please let me know. Keeping this video just to you from me, has not been shared with any other organizations at all.

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

17-11-2021 om 12:42 geschreven door peter  

Ex-Head Of Pentagon UFO Program Has Documents Showing The Same UFOs Being Reported For Over 70 Years

BY DOUGLAS CHARLES

 

GETTY IMAGE

• Luis Elizondo, the ex-head of the Pentagon UFO program, reveals more informaton pertaining to his time working for the government.

• While working for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), Elizondo witnessed and learned about numerous things that defy explanation.

• More UFO news here.

There are few people with more inside knowledge about the world of UFOs, Demi Lovato aside, than the former head of the Pentagon UFO program Luis Elizondo.

Elizondo, who has a new tell-all book coming out soon, that will “reveal shocking never-before-shared details” and have “profound implications for humanity,” recently spoke to GQ UK about some of his experiences working for the government in the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).

In a lengthy interview, Luis Elizondo discussed some of his experiences working for the AATIP, his current work with congress helping to set up a program that works with allies to report and monitor UAPs (unidedntified aerial phenomena – today’s government term for UFOs), and whether he believes many of the UFOs witnessed and reported in the past were man-made or from some other world.

When asked why he believes many of these UFOs are not just some sort of foreign government’s spy technology, Elizondo’s answer was striking.

“Well, if that were the case, this would be the greatest intelligence failure that this country has ever faced, including that of 9/11,” Elizondo explained. “Because some country, for more than 70 years, has managed to be able to conduct operations with a technology that surpasses anything that we’ve ever had or currently have. And they’ve been able to operate in and around our restricted airspace unchallenged.

“But the second reason is there’s a time aspect. I have in my possession official US government documentation that describes the exact same vehicle that we now call the Tic Tac [seen by the Nimitz pilots in 2004] being described in the early 1950s and early 1960s and performing in ways that, frankly, can outperform anything we have in our inventory. For some country to have developed hypersonic technology, instantaneous acceleration and basically transmedial travel in the early 1950s is absolutely preposterous.”

Related: 

• Top Quantum Physicist Believes USS Nimitz UFO Used ‘Metamaterial’ And Time-Traveled To Reach 19,000 MPH

Embed from Getty Images

3/21/66: With unidentified flying objects reportedly frequenting the southern Michigan area, curious citizens are turning out by the hundreds to scan the night sky. These area residents gathered late at the scene of a reported sighting by Dexter patrolman Robert Huniwell.

Elizondo also confirmed that there are a lot of videos of UFOs in the government’s possession that the public still hasn’t seen.

“There’s one that’s 23 minutes long,” he said. “There’s another one where this thing is 50 feet away from the cockpit. I mean, it ain’t ours. We know that. Sometimes you just couldn’t believe it – you’d have seven or eight incidents in a single day.”

He also explained why pilots’ observations and reports of UFOs are so important.

“The pilots are trained observers,” said Elizondo. “They are trained to identify an aircraft silhouette at 20 miles away – an SU-22, a European Tornado, a Harrier or even an F-16 – and literally within a split moment’s notice be able to identify friend or foe and shoot it down. What they’re reporting doesn’t fit any type of parameters of any type of conventional aircraft that we know of.”

Elizondo also stated that many of these UFOs may not come from another planet, but rather from another dimension.

Embed from Getty Images

3/12/1967: A New Mexico State University student took this photo of what he says is a UFO, while photographing land formations for a geology class. The picture was taken with a 4×5 press camera at F8 at 1/100/second. He said the object made no noise and disappeared as he looked down to change plates in the camera.

He also explained why it may be that so many of these sightings occur near water and nuclear sites: an abundance of super dense hydrogen in water and a potentially limitless supply of energy with nuclear power.

Related: 

• Former US Air Force Officers To Reveal Evidence UFOs Tampered With Nuclear Weapons

“Right now one of the leading theories out there [about how these UFOs fly] is that someone has figured out a way to manipulate space-time and, in essence, master the idea of antigravity,” said Elizondo.

“Current hypothesis is that it creates a bubble around it and that bubble is insulating itself from the space-time that all of us experience. And so, therefore, the way it experiences space-time within the bubble is fundamentally different from outside the bubble.”

When asked if he believes these UFOs are manned or controlled remotely like a drone, Elizondo responded, “They’re intelligently controlled, for sure, because they’re responding and reacting to our actions. That is for certain,” adding “I suspect they have things inside them.”

As for the recent reports and additional transparency being put forth by the United States government regarding UFOs, Elizondo believes it’s all legit.

“At no time since I’ve been involved with AATIP has my government been involved in an active disinformation campaign, other than initially denying that it was real,” Elizondo said. “The United States government is not in the habit of conducting disinformation on American citizens. There was a time when our government did do that and got caught and so congress passed laws to make sure that will never happen again.”

Read the entire interview with Luis Elizondo over at GQ UK.

• Top image: UFO photographed in the sky over DeLand, Florida in 1969.

{ https://brobible.com/ }

17-11-2021 om 01:45 geschreven door peter  

Mysterious Glowing ‘Doughnut’ UFO Photographed Over Switzerland Has Experts Baffled

BY DOUGLAS CHARLES

 

ISTOCKPHOTO

• A “doughnut” UFO was photographed over Zurich, Switzerland right around the same time SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule returned to Earth last week.

• One report claimed that “doughnut” UFO was just the capsule returning from the International Space Station, but that, it turns out, was impossible.

• More UFO news here.

A photograph taken on November 8 of a “doughnut” UFO has people puzzled. The glowing blue and white object was initially thought by many to be the SpaceX Endeavour capsule which was returning from the International Space Station, completing its 200 day mission.

The Daily Mail even included it in a roundup of photos of the craft’s return home as it flew over Louisiana and Alabama.

Just one problem though. This is what it actually looked like when viewed in those states…

 

Below is the image that was captured by a photographer in Zurich, Switzerland on the same night…

Those are not the same thing.

In fact, according to Live Science, “When the Endeavour capsule splashed down a little after 10:30 p.m. EDT that night, it landed half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico — more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) from Zurich.”

Related: 

• Ex-Head Of Pentagon UFO Program Has Documents Showing The Same UFOs Being Reported For Over 70 Years

While spectators in Louisiana, Alabama and several other Gulf states saw clear views of the capsule streaming across the sky, it is almost impossible that anyone in Switzerland would have been able to see the craft’s reentry, Marco Langbroek, an amateur satellite tracker and academic researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told Live Science in an email.

“Any passes [of Endeavour] over Switzerland prior to landing that night would have been completely in Earth’s shadow, i.e. it would not be illuminated by the sun and hence not visible,” said Langbroek. “Reentry itself was over Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico, and would not have been visible from Switzerland. The deorbit burn, prior to reentry, was over the Indian Ocean, so also not visible from Switzerland.”

Langbroek’s best guess is that this “doughnut” UFO was really just “an out-of-focus image of a bright star.”

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, speculated that the UFO was the upper stage of a rocket reentering the atmosphere and burning up, but wasn’t in any way certain.

One thing is certain though.

{ https://brobible.com/ }

17-11-2021 om 01:30 geschreven door peter  

In dramatic shift, national intelligence director does not rule out 'extraterrestrial' origins for UFOs

17-11-2021 om 01:08 geschreven door peter  

Two planes report 'bright green UFO' swooping through the clouds over Canada

17-11-2021 om 00:46 geschreven door peter  

Rémi Gaillard monte un canular sur un Ovni en Occitanie... TF1 tombe dans le panneau !

Le célèbre youtubeur Rémi Gaillard, aidé par des complices, a fait croire que des Ovnis avaient envahi le ciel de l’Hérault. Le JT de TF1 a même consacré un reportage sur ces étranges apparitions.

{ https://www.paris-normandie.fr/  }

16-11-2021 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

Un ovni dans le ciel d’Occitanie? Le journal télévisé de TF1 piégé par Rémi Gaillard

Par   Emilie Paul 

VIDÉO - Vendredi 12 novembre, Marie-Sophie Lacarrau évoquait dans le journal de 13 heures de la Une, l’apparition d’une mystérieuse lumière, laissant à penser qu’il pourrait s’agir d’extraterrestres.

16-11-2021 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

Zoroastrianism: 4000 Years of Faith, Fire and the Battle Between Good and Evil

The origins of Zoroastrianism can be traced back to nearly 4,000 years ago. It was the first monotheistic faith in the world and even Persia’s official religion from 600 BC to 650 AD. And it still exists! However, while it was a powerful religion in the distant past, now Zoroastrianism is one of the smallest religions in the world. There are between 100,000 to 200,000 modern followers of Zoroastrianism worldwide.

Zoroaster – The Founder of Zoroastrianism

Zoroaster (Zarathushtra), a mysterious prophetic figure, founded Zoroastrianism in ancient Iran. While the precise date of the religion’s foundation is not known, it is believed to have been established between 1200-1500 BC, as per the archaeological evidence.

Zoroaster was born in Southwest Afghanistan or Northeast Iran. He was born into a family that followed a polytheistic religion which included the ritual use of different intoxicants and animal sacrifice. Very little information is available about the birth and early life of the prophet Zoroaster. Most of what is known about Zoroaster comes from The Gathas , which is an ancient hymn collection composed by Zarathushtra.

• Who Was Zoroaster and How Did He Gain Religious Followers?
• Emergence of Zoroastrianism and The Legacy of Zarathushtra

Life of Zoroaster, founder of Zoroastrianism.

( Public Domain )

Zoroaster rejected the Bronze Age Iranian religion that included worshipping many gods. He was also against the hallucinogenic Haoma plant use for rituals and opposed sacrificing animals. The early Zoroastrian texts reveal that the prophet used to receive answers through his prayers. Later writings state that he even ascended to heaven to speak with God directly.

As per the Zoroastrian tradition, Zoroaster had a divine vision when he was thirty years old. In the vision, he saw his Amesha Spentas (seven divine entities) and God while performing a ritual purification rite. This single vision changed his worldview, and he went on to tell others about it. He started believing that there was only one God, the creator. He also taught that the one God, called Ahura Mazda, was worthy of all worship.

Some of the deities, such as the Daevas of the old religion, seemed to delight in strife and war. According to the prophet Zoroaster, they were evil spirits who worked for Angra Mainyu, the adversary of God.

The Investiture Relief of Ardashir I, with Ardashir on the left, and Ahura Mazda on the right.

(Ginolerhino 2002/ CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Zoroastrian Religious Beliefs

The core belief system of Zoroastrianism is that Ahura Mazda is the supreme being of light and goodness, and Agra Mainyu is the spirit of evil and darkness. Ahura Mazda means ‘Wise Lord.’ Ahriman, who is equivalent to the devil, is believed to be the embodiment of Agra Mainyu.

According to this religion, everything that happens is driven by the dual forces of dark and light. Zoroastrians believe in the concept of free will. All human beings are free to make a choice whether they want to follow the path of light or darkness. The followers of this religion believe that ethical and active participation in life through good thoughts, good deeds, and good words is essential to keep chaos away and ensure happiness in life.

The religion teaches that Ahura Mazda is the creator of the whole universe and is compassionate by nature. He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. He is unchanging and the source of all happiness and goodness. He is capable of conceiving things that are impossible for humans. Zoroastrians also believe that everything that the Wise Lord has created is pure and must be treated with respect and love.

At the age of seven, the followers are given a kusti (cord) and sudreh (shirt) as a part of a ritual initiation ceremony. The garments are considered sacred. They tie the cord around the shirt three times to remind themselves of good words, good thoughts, and good deeds. They perform this ritual along with prayers several times a day. They emphasize action over belief. Zoroastrians generously give to charities and participate in social and educational initiatives.

Fire and water are symbols of purity in the Zoroastrian religion. The followers of this religion worship in fire temples that contain an altar where flames burn 24 hours a day. Earth and air are also considered sacred elements for Zoroastrians. Traditionally, Zoroastrians placed their dead on top of special towers where the bodies were left to be eaten by birds. However, modern Zoroastrians bury the dead in stone or concrete graves.

Printed drawing of 'Towers of Silence', two circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians (parsees) to dispose of the dead.

(Wellcome Images/ CC BY 4.0 )

Zoroastrian Holidays

According to the traditional Zoroastrian calendar, each month consists of 30 days and 5 or 6 days are added to the end of the year. Zoroastrian holidays usually fall on the same day every year. One of the most widely celebrated holidays for Zoroastrians is Nowruz. It is their New Year festival that falls on the first day of spring. They spend a month preparing for this holiday. According to the followers of the religion, the concept of New Year is to start fresh. It involves cleaning both one’s house and one’s soul.

• Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu In Zoroastrianism’s Creation Mythology
• Zoroastrian Towers of Silence: Leaving the Dead for the Vultures

Moreover, if anyone has old quarrels, they need to settle them by this date. During this festival, every house is filled with sweets, fruits, and long-stemmed white flowers. Gifts are exchanged for the New Year. Nowruz is still embedded in Iranian culture and is now celebrated as the Iranian New Year.

A painting depicting Haft-sin symbols of Nowruz related to the elements of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, and the three life forms of Humans, Animals, and Plants.

(Yousef abdinejad/ CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Khordad Sal is another significant festival Zoroastrians celebrate. It is Zoroaster’s birthday and is celebrated six days after Nowruz. On this day, the followers of this religion gather in fire temples to feast and pray together.

As you can see, along with being one of the oldest religions, Zoroastrianism is also an interesting religion to explore.

• Top Image: The fire temple of Baku, c. 1860 . Hindus, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians have worshipped here. 
• Source: Public domain

By Bipin Dimri

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net }

16-11-2021 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

The super painful initiation rite of the Sateré-Mawé people, one of the oldest native tribes of Brazil, involved wearing gloves full of stinging Bullet Ants.

(Mongabay)

The 5 Most Terrifying Initiation Rites in History

Being a full-fledged member of any society was an important thing in many of the world’s oldest cultures. To be a part of the community, of the tribe, or the family, is one of the strongest human needs. Because those that are left ostracized and unaccepted, will suffer hardships and possibly death. But in remote corners of the world, not everyone was deemed fit to become a part of the society. That’s why complex and often brutal initiation rites were invented. These were tests of prowess, manhood, or womanhood. Those who passed these difficult initiation rites were accepted as full-fledged members of the family. But these tests were simple or peaceful. Often enough, they were straight out horrifying.

Initiation Rite #1: Surviving Stinging Ants in the Amazon

The Sateré-Mawé people are one of the oldest native tribes of Brazil . They live deep in the Amazon, and nowadays number a little over 10,000 people. Like many of the tribesmen living in the Amazon jungle, they have complex and intriguing initiation rites. And theirs is by far the most brutal one.

The Sateré-Mawé devised a complex test of manhood. Those who pass this initiation rite would become full-fledged warriors, with a fearsome reputation to boot. The rite involves surviving ant stings! The elders of the tribe catch a whole bunch of Bullet Ants ( Paraponera Clavata ), which are known for their extremely painful bite, equal to a bullet shot (hence their name).

The elders proceed to render the ants unconscious. They do so by placing them into a natural sedative they create. This allows them to handle the insects easily. Following this, each ant is woven into a pair of specially crafted gloves. Made out of palm leaves , the gloves resemble large oven mitts. Hundreds of ants are densely packed into these gloves, their stings pointed towards the inside. And then, the young boys of the tribe enter the initiation rite by wearing these gloves for more than five minutes. The ants sting his hands repeatedly, and the boy is exposed to extreme agony. It is said that such pain is unlike anything a man can experience.

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When the ordeal is done, the boy is in terrible agony. The ant venom courses through his body, numbing it and causing hallucinations because of the intense pain. His hands become paralyzed and violent tremors shake his body continuously, sometimes for days. But that’s just the first part of the initiation rite. To become a warrior, the boy must complete the same process twenty times over the course of several months.

A sculpture of Maasai warriors on a lion hunt, which was also an initiation rite for individual potential warriors.

( Transitions ABROAD )

Initiation Rite #2: Africa’s Maasai Lion Hunt

The Maasai are one of Africa’s best known ancient tribes. Dwelling near the African Great Lakes , these people pride themselves on their unique dress, traditions, and a very old way of life. And one of the most important parts of their culture is a complex tradition, historical practice, and an initiation rite: the lion hunt.

A very demanding rite of passage, the lion hunt was meant to initiate skilled boys into the rank of brave warriors. But the challenge was immense. Those who undertook it would show great bravery, and this would be a sign of personal achievement. In ancient times, before contact with the outside world, populations of both lions and the Maasai were very high. That’s why the elders encouraged young men to go on solo lion hunts . Without anyone’s help, a warrior would expose himself to incredible danger, facing a male lion with little more than a spear. Only the bravest “future” warriors would succeed in this task.

To make things more challenging, the rule stated that the warrior could not hunt lions that were sick, poisoned, snared, or otherwise incapacitated. What is more, the rules prohibited the hunting of lionesses. The Maasai considered them the bearers of life in every species. So, only the most dangerous male lions were hunted.

However, over the years, the lion populations shrunk considerably, and hunting them became difficult. Thus, the Maasai developed olamayio, the group hunt that ensured more success. But even so, the practice remains one of the most terrifying initiation rites in history.

Just imagine yourself facing a raging lion, armed with a spear. You’ll quickly understand why this would be a rite reserved only for the bravest.

The deadly Vanuatu land diving platform with a young boy ready to leap!

(Paul Stein / CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Initiation Rite #3: The Deadly Vanuatu Land Diving Ritual

The country of Vanuatu is an archipelago comprising 83 islands of various sizes. On one of these, Pentecost Island, the tribesmen perform a death-defying initiation rite that is listed amongst the world’s deadliest tribal practices. The rite can very easily end in death.

It is best described as the earliest form of and a precursor to bungee jumping. As an initiation rite, it is a sure way for a young man to prove his masculinity and to be initiated into the rank of the bravest warriors. As a ceremony, it is considered as a way to enhance the health and the abilities of all who jump. The ceremony is also believed to cure illnesses and physical ailments that come with the annual wet season.

The rite begins with the construction of a tall tower . It is made over the course of five weeks and can be up to 20 to 30 meters (66 to 98 feet) high when finished. Essentially, it is a series of scaffolding platforms, and the jumpers can choose a height that is suited to their age. Once they commit, they tie special vines around their ankles, which are designed to prevent them from hitting the ground and dying. As an added precaution, the ground at the bottom of the platform is tilled to soften the impact.

The men who jump are defying death. Their goal is to brush their shoulders against the ground, after plummeting down to the ground from an extreme height. The ramshackle tower creaks and bends, and the barely elastic vines tug violently on the man’s legs. In the end, their bodies stop just barely off the ground, and they are able to walk away safely. But one simple mistake, and all can end in death and disaster.

This initiation rite can be undertaken by both boys and grown men. When boys receive their ritual circumcision around age seven, they become eligible to make the jump. By completing this incredible challenge, they prove their masculinity to all the members of their tribe.

The four-stage initiation rite of the Matsë Tribe in the Brazilian jungle involves injecting the poison of the Giant Monkey Frog into a tribe member's blood.

( Xapiriground)

Initiation Rite #4: The Excruciating Trials of the Matsë Tribe

The Matsë Indians, also known as Matis, are one of Brazil’s most remote Amazonian tribes. Living deep in the isolated jungle areas of Western Brazil, the Matis were only discovered in the 1970s. Up to that point, the tribesmen believed that the passenger planes flying high above the tree canopies were the spirits of their ancestors. And the smaller two-man planes that flew lower were considered to be harmful demon spirits. Outside contact nearly wiped the tribe out, as smallpox was something their immune systems couldn’t endure. Luckily, the tribe managed to survive, although in small numbers. Their straight-out terrifying initiation rites take place in four separate stages.

• Land Diving in Vanuatu: Would You Take the Leap of Faith?
• The Maasai Legend Behind Ancient Hominin Footprints in Tanzania

Before reaching manhood, a boy of the Matis tribe needs to prove himself worthy of hunting alongside other men. To do so, he needs to pass their initiation rites, a complex four-stage trial that places him in great danger and great pain.

The first part of the trial consists of temporary self-blinding. The boy puts a concoction of bitter and dangerous poison straight into his eyes. The elders believe that once the sight returns (if at all) it is enhanced and will make the boy a better hunter, enhancing the senses and improving vision.

Next, the boy endures a series of brutal whippings and beatings by the other men. These are done with the stems of the rattan plant . The whipping is supposed to help remove laziness.

The next step of the four-stage trial is even more extreme. The young man is injected with the poison of Phyllomedusa Bicolor (Giant Monkey Frog) , a small poisonous frog native to the jungles of Brazil. The poison is placed directly into the bloodstream, and its effects are brutal. If the boy proves his courage and does not vomit at once, he is injected again. What follows is light-headedness, violent vomiting, and uncontrolled bowel movements. In the end, it is believed that the frog poison will greatly increase the man’s strength and endurance.

Finally, in the fourth stage, the initiate is body rubbed with the leaves of a poisonous plant. This causes a heavy painful rash that lasts for hours and is believed to help the man with patience.

Only after completing these demanding initiation rites are the men deemed worthy of accompanying others in the hunt. The only catch is that these trials are repeated many times before every important hunting trip.

The Mandan Okipa Spirit Ceremony, depicted in this painting by George Catlin, involved hanging initiates by their muscles and beating them.

( George Catlin / Public domain )

Initiation Rite #5: The Mandan Okipa Spirit Ceremony

The Mandan tribe of the Great Plains region of America is one of the best known and best documented tribes of the continent. They lived in the area of what is now North Dakota and were one of the great trading tribes and excelled in corn production. They also had a complex set of traditions and beliefs, all of which were well documented by European explorers in the late 1700s and early 1800s. One of these was the Okipa or Sun Dance ceremony. It was a religious ceremony that was of the highest priority for the tribe, but it was also an initiation rite, offering a chance for young warriors to become respected and admired members of the tribe.

There were at least three purposes to the Okipa: the annual commemoration of the tribe’s salvation from the primordial flood (according to their myths), to communicate with ancient spirits and summon buffalos, and to give the chance for individuals (usually men) to complete vows given to the almighty spirit to prove their bravery and dedication. But not everyone could endure this brutal ceremony. Only the bravest of warriors could get through this violent rite of passage.

Before the ordeal, chosen warriors would not eat, drink, or sleep for four days. Afterwards, they were led to the great hut where the ordeal began. They were required to sit smiling, while elders pierced their shoulders and chest, thrusting skewers behind the muscles. Next, ropes were tied to the skewers, and the warriors suspended in mid-air, hanging there until they fainted.

Elders would add more weight to their legs, in order to increase agony and tension on their muscles. Next, they were removed from the skewers, and upon awakening the approval of the great spirits was confirmed. In gratitude, the warriors would offer their left little finger, which was cut off as a sacrifice with a hatchet.

In the last step of the ordeal, the men would race around the village, dragging their weights behind them, until they ripped out of the skin alongside the skewers. This marked the end of a grueling ordeal. Men who completed the rite twice in their life would gain everlasting fame in their tribe.

The Hamar people of southwestern Ethiopia are famous for their bull jumping initiation rite, which is also dangerous and sometimes deadly! This photo shows them preparing for this rite.

( veleknez / Adobe Stock)

What Would You Do to Become a Part of Your Community?

In primitive societies, young braves and would-be warriors were ready to complete anything just so they could become a proven member of the community. It was the adventure of a lifetime, the annual event that everyone spoke of in hushed voices. Men and women who didn’t complete these tests would be looked down upon, lacking bravery and the attributes of their sex.

• An Ambiguous Amphibian: The Everchanging Frog Symbol in World Myth
• Invisible Killers - Poisons may have been used by Palaeolithic society 30,000 years ago, new testing shows

There’s no doubt that these initiation rites required great courage and endurance, and that they left the initiates tougher and bolder for the rest of their lives. But they were also foolish and dangerous, and put the young people at great risk. Sometimes, these rites of initiation would end in death. But for the people who practiced these rites, death was the will of the great spirits.

• Top image: The super painful initiation rite of the Sateré-Mawé people, one of the oldest native tribes of Brazil, involved wearing gloves full of stinging Bullet Ants.             
• Source: Mongabay

By Aleksa Vučković

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

16-11-2021 om 21:11 geschreven door peter