A new dinosaur that had a tail similar to a weapon that the Aztecs once used has been found and it is very odd. The new species, which has been named Stegouros elengassen, looked like a mix between a stegosaur and an ankylosaur.

Described as being a “very weird” dinosaur, paleontologists unearthed the remains in Chile – specifically in rocks that date back between 74.9 and 71.7 million years during the Cretaceous Period. The skeleton, which was around 80% complete, was very well preserved. In an interview with Live Science, Alexander Vargas, who is a vertebrate paleontologist in the Department of Biology at the University of Chile, described the skeleton by stating that “it’s weird, because it’s articulated [the bones are in order] from the waist down, and everything from the waist up was kind of scattered.” This may have been because it died near a river or even in quicksand but that theory hasn’t been proven yet.

(Not the Stegouros elengassen)

What’s so unusual about the 6.5-foot-long (2 meters) ankylosaur was that it had a deadly armored tail that looked like an Aztec war club as Mr. Vargas explained, “The tail would have looked like a sword; it’s so flat,” adding that it was “a bit like an Aztec sword, or the Aztec club called the macuahuitl.” It is the shortest tail of any armored dinosaur and contained seven paired flat and big osteoderms – the first two pairs were situated near its body while the others were merged together into a deadly flat weaponized tail.

“We all know tail clubs, we all know the tail spine, but this is a new lineage … a Southern Hemisphere lineage that evolved a third kind of tail weapon,” Mr. Vargas added.

Another interesting discovery the researchers made regarding the Stegouros elengassen involved the evolution of ankylosaurs. Those living in the northern supercontinent Laurasia were very different than the ones inhabiting the southern supercontinent Gondwana (Stegouros elengassen lived in Gondwana).

(Not the Stegouros elengassen)

Mr. Vargas detailed the Stegouros elengassen in greater detail, noting that it had a “rather large head with a narrow, curved beak, which is not common for ankylosaurs.” “It has slender limbs. … It doesn’t have pointed claws; it has rounded, hoof-like claws on both hands and feet.” Additionally, its pelvis was very similar to that of a Stegosaur. Their study was published in the journal Nature where it can be read in full.

A re-enactment of the Stegouros elengassen moving its tail and pictures of what it would have looked like can be viewed here.

The newly described ankylosaur Stegouros elengassen displays its weaponized tail. 

(Image credit: Gabriel Diaz Yantén)

Paleontologists in Italy have uncovered up to eleven skeletons belonging to a dinosaur species that lived approximately 80 million years ago. Included in these remains is the largest and most complete dinosaur that has ever been discovered in the country.

The bones, which belonged to a dinosaur species named Tethyshadros insularis, were unearthed at a location called Villaggio del Pescatore which is close to the Italian city of Trieste. It is believed that the creature inhabited one of the European archipelago islands in the Tethys Ocean.

Tethyshadros insularis was a type of herbivorous Hadrosauroid that grew as long as 13 feet (4 meters) and weighed as much as 350 kilograms (772 pounds). It had a long skull, short neck, short tail, and long legs (especially its shin bones). With the proportions of its body along with the reduced number of fingers, it probably ran on two legs.

(Not the Tethyshadros insularis)

Among the dinosaurs found was a young one named “Antonio” – this was the first one that was discovered and was previously believed to have been a “dwarf species” but new studies conducted by the University of Bologna have indicated that it was just a juvenile. Since the site where the bones were found was once part of an island, experts initially thought that the creatures were a “dwarf species” because of the “island rule” which meant that animals living on islands became smaller in size due to the lesser amounts of resources.

Another dinosaur named “Bruno” was larger than “Antonio” but might have still been in the process of growing when it died. In total, there were at least seven dinosaurs that were unearthed, but researchers say that the number is probably eleven.

Since the site is 80 million years old – 10 million years older than previously believed – terrestrial animals like the dinosaurs may have been able to cross land bridges in what we know today as being Italy.

(Not the Tethyshadros insularis)

In addition to the dinosaurs, researchers found the remains of flying reptiles, crocodiles, fish, and small crustaceans. Their study was published in the journal Scientific Reports where it can be read in full.

Pictures of the skeletons as well as what Tethyshadros insularis would have looked like can be seen here.

“Shocking images.” “Draw Your Conclusions.” “This is not a joke.”

Those types of headlines are sure to draw in readers and viewers, so the Colombian media sprinkled them liberally in their coverage of a UFO sightings recorded by a popular celebrity and reality show judge – two characteristics that also attracted attention to a video that appeared to be picked up and reported on by multiple media sites. What did César Escola see to earn that much coverage?

“To bother with my new cell phone, I started to record the landing of the two planes, so when I record the second plane, I start to look at the video again, as one normally does to see how it turned out. But there was a moment that my eye, after having worked so long on television, detected something strange and I began to search in slow motion. I want you to give your opinion and draw your own conclusions.” (Google translation)

A re-creation of the UFO sighting?

César Escola is a Colombian-Argentine musician, composer, television presenter and reality show judge on “Yo me llamo” (My name is). He claims that on November 26 he was at the El Dorado International Airport in Bogota waiting for his flight and decided to play with smartphone by recording planes landing. Reviewing the videos, his ‘trained’ eye picked up some blurred motion from right to left, so Escola played with the video speed slowed down. What he saw was not something his ‘trained’ eye could identify, as he posts on Instagram.

“Strange object in El Dorado? Help me understand? I share with you what happened to me yesterday 11/26/21.”

“What will it be?”

“Above all, what the authorities think officers. ” (Google translation)

What will it be? Take a look for yourself here or here (on a network TV show with appropriate music) and “draw your own conclusions.”

Many of the conclusions first point out that César Escola is a multimedia star and currently a judge on a reality show, so he has a lot of products that could benefit from this kind of ‘celebrity UFO’ publicity. The prevailing theory is that Escola’s ‘trained’ eye did not recognize a bug flying through his field-of-view but not in the same focal point as the landing planes. He says he’ll make the video available to “authorities” but he’s a celebrity – why didn’t he rush to the authorities while he was at the airport and have the control tower look at the radar?

For comparison purposes — a bug

Sorry, Cesar … unless you have more evidence, this sounds like an episode of “I’m a Celebrity … Let Me See if I Can Fool the Public With a UFO Video and Get Some Media Face Time.” No joke.

Footprints that were made 3.7 million years ago were initially thought to have been made by an ancient bear, but new analysis has revealed that they were instead made by an ancient human ancestor.

The most famous set of Laetoli footprints were made by adult A. afarensis and discovered in 1978.

(Flickr: Tim Evanson)

Located in Tanzania, Laetoli trackway is a well known site for the thousands of footprints that have been found over the years. There are about 18,400 tracks that have been made by numerous animals that include giraffes, hyenas, and ostriches, as well as ancient hominins that walked on two legs.

Millions of years ago, an ancient ancestor of ours walked on two legs along volcanic ash that eventually turned into rock. These footprints were discovered at Laetoli “Site A” back in 1978. They were initially described as being left by a bear; however, new analysis has completely turned that explanation around.

The new study, which was conducted by Ellison McNutt who is an anthropologist at Ohio University, along with colleagues, compared the prints to those made by bears (Ursus americanus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and humans.

Interestingly, they found that the prints were completely different from others that were made by another hominin species at an area close by. Footprints that were discovered at Sites G and S were left by the Australopithecus afarensis species (“Lucy” belonged to this group). They were made by individuals who were between 111 and 168 centimeters in height.

But the ones made at Site A were made by a smaller individual measuring about 100 centimeters tall – perhaps they were left by a child. In fact, whoever made the footprints is still an unknown hominin species.

The Site A footprints did resemble those left by a bear as they showed a foot that was short but very wide – even the heel was wide. The impression revealed a big toe with a second toe that was almost as long. But the experts were able to rule out bears and chimpanzees as they have heels that are narrower. Additionally, there weren’t any claw marks that would have been left behind if it was a bear.

Another interesting feature was that its big toe pointed out towards the side of the foot which may indicate that the species gripped tree branches with its toes. It also appeared to have a raised ridge which is another characteristic of tree-climbing species. Furthermore, the individual walked in an odd cross-stepping pattern with one leg crossing over the other. The research was published in Nature where it can be read in full.

A picture of the footprint can be viewed here.

Ever since we started gazing up at the night sky above us and were first aware that there was something out past the planet we live on we have looked to the stars and wondered what lies out there and whether we are alone in the universe. Philosophers, thinkers, and scientists alike throughout history have contemplated this since time unremembered, looking out to the vast sea of stars and pondering what might lie out there. In modern times, the stars themselves have given us strange clues about the nature of the universe, and have even at times hinted at the answer to our question of whether we are alone in the universe, and here are some of the most baffling and bizarre of all.

By far the most well-known weird star that has attracted stories of alien influences is the one called Tabby’s star, also known as Boyajian’s star and occasionally jokingly known as the WTF star. In 2015, scientists noticed unusual fluctuations in the light from a star with the rather dry and scientific sounding name KIC 8462852, located in the constellation Cygnus, about 1,480 light-years from Earth. Mostly it is just a rather ordinary F-type star, meaning it is slightly larger and hotter than our sun, but it would soon turn out that there was something definitely odd going on with this one. When various data collected on the star by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which is designed to detect exoplanets, astronomer Tabetha “Tabby” Boyajian, of Yale University, noticed that KIC 8462852 would sporadically dim in brightness by up to 22%, with such dips lasting anywhere from a few days to a week and with no obvious explanation. These dimming events did not seem to follow any discernible pattern or rhythm, and were not consistent with what one would expect to see with normal activity such as planets or dust crossing the star.

At the time it was rather bewildering, with no other known example of a star with such a unique and bizarre dimming phenomenon, and astronomers scrambled to try and explain it. Ideas included that it was an uneven ring of dust orbiting the star, fluctuating luminosity caused by uneven heat transfer or cooling of its photosphere, a swarm of disintegrated comet fragments, a field of asteroids, a series of giant planets with very large ring structures, a planetary debris field created by the remnants of a destroyed planet or moon, and others, but none of these fully fit the observed data, and without any other examples there was nothing to compare it to. But why have all of these boring explanations when you can have aliens? Perhaps the most controversial and at the same time fascinating hypothesis is that the dimming phenomenon is caused by some vast megastructure built around the star by an advanced, intelligent alien civilization, and here’s where things get interesting.

The main thrust of this idea is that the star could be surrounded by a hypothetical megastructure called a Dyson sphere, so immense that is partially or completely encompasses the star. First proposed in 1960 by the mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson, these Dyson spheres would hypothetically be built around a star to harness its energy in order to power the technology and civilization of an extraterrestrial race, and they are theorized as taking the form of either a shell or scaffolding around the star, or globular swarms of giant solar panels orbiting it. Dyson saw this as almost inevitable for any advanced space going civilization, and would write:

One should expect that, within a few thousand years of its entering the stage of industrial development, any intelligent species should be found occupying an artificial biosphere which completely surrounds its parent star.

In this scenario, the dimming could be caused by either the structure passing over the star’s face to block its light, creating the weird dimming, or by blasts of infrared caused by the radiating heat of the energy the aliens did not use, sort of like an energy exhaust port. Although this was just conjecture and really one of the last explanations scientists were entertaining, the media snapped it up and soon Tabby’s Star was all over the news as the star with aliens around it, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) was enamored enough with the idea to make it a prime target for searching for radio signals from aliens. They got no particularly odd signals from there, but considering we are seeing what the star looked like 1,480 years ago perhaps the aliens are just no longer there. After further analysis it is believed that it is likely caused by dust, debris, or the disruption of an orphaned exomoon, although scientists have not fully taken the alien megastructure hypothesis off of the table.

Interestingly, in later years it has turned out that Tabby’s Star is not so completely unique after all, and there have been a few others found with comparable unexplainable dimming patterns and events. One of these is the star KIC 4150611, which also had an odd flickering that hasn’t been explained, as well as the star EPIC 204278916, and the star VVV-WIT-07, with “WIT” amusingly standing for “What is This?”, which has mysteriously dropped up to 80% in brightness at times and has been called a “one in a billion object” by astronomers. More and more of these so-called “dippers” are being found all of the time. Edward Schmidt, an astrophysicist and emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has extensively studied and mapped such stars, amassing a list of more than a dozen flickering stars like Tabby’s Star. These stars have different patterns and speeds of flickering, with some being “slow dippers” while others are “rapid dippers,” but all are so far beyond any conventional explanation. While Schmidt, like other astronomers, is trying to find rational answers, he has not dismissed the possibility that extraterrestrial intelligences could be to blame, and has said of these mysterious stars:

The thing that surprised me the most were these stars that had so many dips, the ones I called ‘rapid dippers.’ I expected more occasional dips like Boyajian’s star. I intend to try and follow up on the rapid dippers. One thing I noticed about them is that at least one seemed to be slowing way down in its dipping rate over the five years of coverage we have of it. It’d be interesting to find out what happened in its past, which may help give a better idea of what’s going on with these stars. Many explanations for these stars is that something is passing in front of them, but the fact that the stars all fall within a narrow range of properties suggests that may not be it. Extraterrestrial intelligence is a low-probability explanation but it’s a possibility, and the SETI people ought to be looking at these stars.

What is going on with these stars? No one really seems to know for sure. It’s not only changes and anomalies in the brightness of these stars that suggest possible alien activity, but also the spectrum of their chemical elements. In 1960, Polish-Australian astronomer Antoni Przybylski was studying fast-moving stars in southern skies when he saw one that caused him to note “No star should look like that.” The star itself is hotter than our sun, as well as twice the diameter and four times the mass, but what surprised Przybylski was that it harbored a chemical spectrum that seemed to be impossible. Each star has a spectrum that shows the imprint left by its chemical components, and this can be detected with our instruments, but this star had a highly unusual mix of chemicals unlike any other. There were detected strontium and all 15 rare Earth elements, which is not so unusual, but there are also radioactive elements such as neptunium, plutonium, and curium, and the problem is that these radioactive elements should not be there. Jason Wright, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, has explained of this, “These are all short-lived elements—they have half-lives of as little as a year or so. But the star has been there for millions of years, so the elements should have decayed away.”

So how did this happen? Some of the more rational scientific explanations include that these elements are being pulled up to the surface by magnetic fields and radiation pressure from below, or that they are somehow being bombarded onto the star by some outside cosmic phenomenon. It could also be that the star passed through an interstellar cloud which contained these elements, or that it devoured a planet that had a high concentration of them. Or it could be aliens. That’s more fun, let’s talk about that. There has been speculated the possibility that the presence of these anomalous elements could be because a spacefaring alien civilization is intentionally dumping them there. The hypothesis is that extraterrestrials from one of the star’s planets could be using their sun as a dumping ground for their radioactive waste, simply launching it into the star to dispose of it. The idea itself is not so far-fetched, as even here on Earth the idea of launching nuclear waste into the sun has been proposed occasionally in the past but was considered too expensive and impractical. Perhaps this race has figured out a way to do it, and that is why these elements are present there. Is this an alien garbage dumping ground or is there a more rational explanation? Who knows?

Perhaps even stranger than flickering stars and those with anomalous chemical balances are those stars that just seem to completely disappear for no explainable reason. Throughout historical and contemporary astronomical data, there have been around 100 stars or at least star-like celestial objects that have just sort of vanished without a trace under observation. They are called “red transients” or more colloquially “vanishing stars,” due to the fact that they typically start off as dim red dots, before experiencing a burst of brightness, up to several thousand times their starting luminosity and then completely disappearing as if they were never there. This usually happens within one hour, and it has been completely baffling astronomers.

A team led by Beatriz Villarroel, from Stockholm University and the Institute of Astrophysics of Canarias in Spain, discovered the phenomenon during a search of astronomical records looking for vanishing objects in the night sky in a project called Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO). They have been studying the phenomenon of red transients since 2017 and have ruled out the explanations that they are asteroids, fast-moving stars, or stars that have just moved out of view. These are something else, although what that could be is up for debate. The thing is, stars don’t just spontaneously disappear. When a star dies off, it is a long, slow process of turning into a white dwarf star and fizzling out, or exploding into a supernova, which would definitely leave a trace behind. There is nothing to explain how one could just completely vanish without a trace within the space of an hour, and so scientists have been scratching their heads trying to find an answer. Some ideas are that the phenomenon is caused by massive solar flares emanating from red dwarfs, or that they were sucked into a black hole, but yet another explanation has of course been aliens. Villarroel would say in an article in the Astronomical Journal:

Unless a star collapses directly into a black hole, there is no known physical process by which it could physically vanish. If such examples exist this makes it interesting for searches for new exotic phenomena or even signs of technologically advanced civilizations.

Just like in the cases of the other strange stars we have looked at here, the scientists are not eager to embrace the alien theory, but nor can they completely rule it out considering how bizarre and unprecedented the anomalies are. In the extraterrestrial scenario, it is thought that it could be caused by either massive lasers or heat waste from Dyson spheres. It is certainly a strange possibility, but in the absence of any concrete answers it has not been waved away. Nevertheless, the team is trying to eliminate all other possibilities before deciding on the alien hypothesis, and a co-author of their paper on the matter has said, “But we are clear that none of these events have shown any direct signs of being ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence). We believe that they are natural, if somewhat extreme, astrophysical sources.” However, whenever dealing with some new and inexplicable astronomical phenomenon the possibility that it just might be caused by aliens is always eerily hanging in the background. Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, has explained of the hypothesis of extraterrestrial influence on these phenomena:

It’s a fine line. We have no evidence for technologically capable life anywhere else in the universe. So one doesn’t want to immediately leap to that solution for any newly discovered astronomical phenomenon. But at the same time, one doesn’t want to neglect the possibility that it could be going on.

What is going on with these stars? As we penetrate further out into the cosmos we are encountering more and more weirdness like this all the time, so what could it all mean? Is this just mundane forces that can be explained away with more knowledge? Is it it all just normal forces at work or is there something more to it? Could there possibly be alien intelligences out there that could account for these anomalies? While scientists like to shy away from such answers, they are still hesitant to rule it out, and through these mysterious stars we might just see that the universe could hold deep mysteries that could answer our question on whether we are alone in it all. Time will tell, and in the meantime, these stars keep doing their mysterious dance, in some ways just as impenetrable and inscrutable as they were at the dawn of our consciousness that they even existed at all.

In relation to the question I have posed at the top of this article, it’s not as easy as you might think. The biggest problem is that apart from a one-page FBI document on the Roswell case from 1947, there is nothing else to be seen or found in government archives. No documents. No files. No dossiers at the National Archives that we can read. Nothing. There are only (a) the memories of the families of the people who were at the site and at the time, and (b) the words of the very few who are still alive, and (c) the handful of military personnel who are just about hanging on. Despite several investigations into the Roswell affair in the 1990s (two by the U.S. Air Force and one by what used to be called the General Accounting Office, and what is now titled the Government Accountability Office), nothing appeared of substance. Just about everyone who has an interest in UFOs will know that back in the summer of 1947, something crashed to Earth outside of Roswell, New Mexico. The object was first described as a “Flying Disk,” and a day after that as nothing stranger than a weather-balloon. And that’s where things stopped and were largely forgotten until Bill Moore and Stan Friedman resurrected the mysterious affair in the mid-1970s. And, although a great deal of testimony is now on file, we still haven’t found a single, solid piece of anything; whether photos of dead bodies, old files or…well…anything.

Now, many might say that the reason why we haven’t been able to penetrate the secret of Roswell is because the U.S. Air Force has it all hidden away. However, I don’t believe that, at all. You’ll see what I mean by that. When, in the 1990s, the Air Force began to take a new look at Roswell, it worded its reports very carefully. I’ll explain that. Despite what many UFO researchers have said, the Air Force never stated that the answer to Roswell was a Top Secret, huge “Mogul” balloon designed to monitor for Russian atomic bomb-tests. What the Air Force actually said was that they suspected that the “Mogul” theory was probably the correct picture. It was very much the same when, in 1997, (the 50th anniversary of the incident), the Air Force brought out its “crash-test dummy” report that suggested that the “alien bodies” found not too far from Roswell in ’47 were really nothing but mannequins used in high-altitude flights. It’s important to note that the Air Force never said that the crash-test dummy theory was the answer. Rather, the Air Force said, the “dummy” angle was the likely answer. In other words, the Air Force came up with two theories. And that’s what they were: theories. But, not hard facts. Even the Air Force admitted that.

(Nick Redfern)

Crash-Test Dummies at Roswell? No.

If you read those two, aforementioned Air Force reports – along with the GAO report – and you read them carefully, you’ll see that the Air Force made it clear (albeit briefly) that there was no hard evidence to prove that the Mogul and dummy theories provided definitive answers. Now, some Ufologists might say that the Air Force was lying when they reeled out their 1990s-era reports; that the Air Force was hiding the alien truth. But, I don’t think the Air Force was lying. Not even in the slightest. In my opinion, the Air Force of the 1990s was completely out of the loop of Roswell. As was the GAO team. It may sound strange to suggest that the U.S. Force of the 1990s was not given access to the real story, whatever it was/is. But, such a thing is quite plausible. And, it all revolves around the issue of what are known in the U.S. government as Special Access Programs. Or, SAPs. It is within the domain of SAPs that secrecy so often resides. And, it’s highly likely that the truth of Roswell is hidden deep within the heart of a SAP that has overseen the  Roswell puzzle for decades. In essence, Special Access Programs are highly classified projects that are buried so deeply that not even the U.S. Congress knows much about them – if, indeed, anything at all. There is another important issue to note when it comes to Special Access Programs: just because a person may have a Top Secret clearance, it does not mean that he or she automatically has the “magic key” that opens just about every door in government, every secure facility, and every well-guarded underground bunker. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. On the matter of Special Access Programs, the concept of “need to know” is as significant as one’s level of security clearance.

(Nick Redfern)

Out at the Roswell Crash Site

Let’s say that, purely hypothetically, there is still  a secret Special Access Program that is sitting on the smoking-gun that would reveal the full story of the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. “John Smith” and “Bill Jones” may both have Top Secret clearances. Smith is tasked with hiding the truth of the death of the president. Jones, however, is an expert in North Korea’s plans to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. There would be no need for Jones to have access to the JFK-themed Special Access Program because it has no bearing on his work and expertise in the field of North Korea’s military. That both men have identical security clearances has no bearing, at all, when it comes to SAPs. In fact, it is wholly irrelevant. It all comes down to what a person needs to know to do their job, or, more specifically, what they don’t need to know. That is the way in which secrets are kept. In other words, the control that oversees what we can know, and what we can’t be told, doesn’t just apply to the public and the media. It also applies to the government itself.

In conclusion, and incredibly, what all of this means is that, just like us in the UFO research field, the U.S. Air Force has been denied access to the history, to the files, to the documents, to the photos, to the recovered whatever-it-was that crashed, and to the remains of the bodies. And, as a result, the Air Force – denied from being briefed on the real story and not given any access to the “Roswell Special Access Program”- did its very best by coming up with the Mogul and crash-dummy scenarios.