Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 10 MONTHS.
ON 06/04/2024 MORE THAN 1.951.050
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
28-10-2023
NASA knows there is a spinning and glowing artificial object hiding in the Kuiper Belt
NASA knows there is a spinning and glowing artificial object hiding in the Kuiper Belt
On May 12, 1994 astronomers Michael Irwin and Anna Jitk were working at the observatory in the Canary Islands observing the Kuiper Belt when they spotted something and it glowed and dimmed in a regular rhythm every 5 and a half hours and according to science this object shouldn't even exist.
On April 7, 2016, the NASA team running NASA’s New Horizons mission were waiting nervously. The spacecraft was about to enter the outermost reaches of our solar system.
They'd aimed toward Pluto. Which lives in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt. Just before arriving at the dwarf planet, the team noticed an object, discovered by the astronomers in 1994, nearby. And it was acting very strange. This object, whatever it was, was spinning faster than everything else around it. Too fast. Artificially fast. And the object reflected light in an odd way.
New Horizons changed course to do a fly-by. They wanted a better look at this bizarre behavior. But as the spacecraft approached the object, all communications went down.
The New Horizons spacecraft suddenly put itself into safe mode. Nothing was broken but NASA wasn't able to see or hear anything.
Something or someone was controlling it and blocking the signal and if there is someone controlling the object, they don't want to be seen and of all the places in the solar system the Kuiper belt is the best place to hide.
Whoever it was did not want NASA to know they were here and that they’ve been watching us for a very long. time.
Even though NASA did lose contact with New Horizon at one point in time it is not a surprise that there's no official record of New Horizons breaking down.
When high-ranking officials whisper secrets, hidden for decades, and Congress sheds light on age-old mysteries, there’s a seismic shift. At the heart of this change, there’s George Knapp, an investigative journalist who’s had an up-close encounter with the truth.
In the 1980s, Area 51 was mostly unknown, a mere spot in the Nevada desert. That changed with two names: Bob Lazar and John Lear. They brought to the public’s attention tales of reverse engineering alien craft, stoking the fires of UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists. While many dismissed Lazar’s accounts as fabrications, George Knapp, a seasoned journalist, couldn’t simply look away.
Throughout his career, Knapp navigated the intricate web of UFO lore, whistleblower accounts, and government silence. His encounters with David Grusch, an intelligence officer, became especially significant. Grusch unveiled his whistleblower complaint that disclosed a multi-decade UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering program. In the presence of high-ranking bosses, Grusch attended a UFO conference, shedding light on these covert operations.
The Mysterious Mantell UFO Incident by Crashed Pilot Captain Thomas F. Mantell (1948) - FindingUFO
The Pilot Who Chased a UFO... and died - Thomas Mantell
Such testimonies weren’t isolated events. There were congressional hearings where pointed questions were asked about extraterrestrial technology and biologics. Eyebrows raised at the mention of non-human entities associated with UFO crash sites. Even more startling were revelations of unidentified aerial phenomena showing interest in nuclear technology.
This isn’t merely a tale of unverified accounts. Behind the stories lies a deeper truth: a government possibly sitting on groundbreaking information. Are they safeguarding national security, or is there more to the story? As Knapp’s reporting suggests, there might be people behind the scenes who possess knowledge far beyond what’s publicly known.
In recent years, the conversation has changed. UFOs, once a fringe topic, are now discussed openly in mainstream media. The public’s interest has surged, eager for answers to questions that might reshape humanity’s understanding of itself and the cosmos.
Video:
The UFO Reporter Part 2: The Files of George Knapp | NewsNation Prime
Yet, as Knapp reminds us, the journey to truth is layered. “It would be interesting if we could have a much larger investigation by someone else,” he mused. And while the path ahead remains uncertain, one thing is clear: this enigma warrants our attention.
With researchers like Knapp and Jeremy Corbell at the forefront, sharing testimonies of whistleblowers and unearthing more pieces of the puzzle, the future promises revelations that could be both astonishing and transformative.
Planet formation is a little like making a cake. If you haven't yet added an emulsifier, you will find that the liquids and fats separate in the bowl. Something like this happened when big celestial bodies in our Solar System were forming billions of years ago. Scientists now think Mars was once covered in a global magma ocean, and eventually, gravity began to separate the different stuff within this gooey ultra-hot blob into layers.
Data from NASA’s Mars InSight mission suggests that its center is more decadent than expected. Rather than one single, sizable liquid iron core, there’s evidence that it's much smaller but topped with a coating of molten rock.
LISTENING TO A CRASH
On Wednesday, the journal Nature published two papers based on data from Insight, which listened keenly to Mars’ interior rumblings beginning in 2018 until dust blanketed the stationary lander’s solar panels, cutting off its energy supply and forcing the mission to end in 2022.
The Red Planet is only the third celestial body, after Earth and the Moon, to have its interior significantly examined via seismological waves, the same science that tracks earthquakes on Earth. On Mars, tremors are called marsquakes. These perturbations come from internal activity or when a meteorite smacks into the planet’s surface, and they give scientists an idea about what is sitting in the middle of the planet, deep below any probe could survive. Waves travel differently depending on what they move through, and thanks to one particular meteorite strike, scientists have reimagined what lies deep beneath Mars’ surface.
The two new studies focused on a strike from a meteor that smacked into Mars almost on the opposite side to where Insight was located. The September 2021 event created waves that sliced through the planet and skimmed across the top of Mars's center. This reading, paired with other marsquake data, reveals that the iron core of Mars is smaller than previously estimated, owing to the coating of a molten rock layer.
Two new studies published on October 25, 2023 suggest that Mars’ liquid iron core (center) is surrounded by a 93-mile-thick (150 km) molten rock layer.
A critical aspect of the new work is the P wave that propagated through Mars. In seismology, there are two main types of waves. Imagine a slinky on a table, and you're holding one end. Push it, and the coil will compress and travel, known as a P wave. The meteorite impact was almost on the other side of Mars to where the InSight probe was stationed, so the lander picked up this P wave after it hit the molten rock layer on top of the iron liquid core.
Other marsquakes that happened much closer to Insight produced S waves. If instead of pushing a slinky, you move the end side to side, you create a vertical wiggle known as an S wave. Altogether, P wave and S wave data show that Mars's iron liquid iron core is actually much smaller than previously predicted, as it’s surrounded by a 93-mile-thick liquid layer made of silicate.
A UNIQUE POSSIBILITY
Molten rock touching molten iron “appears to be unique,” Amir Khan, a geophysicist at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich and lead author of one of the two studies, says in a Nature article describing the research. “You have this peculiarity of liquid–liquid layering, which is something that doesn’t exist on the Earth.”
The second study suggests there was an ancient, global magma ocean on Mars, a time in the planet’s ancient past when heavy iron gravitationally separated from the lighter silicates and formed the liquid iron core that has fascinated scientists since InSight’s surveys began.
Scientists think Mars’ core is entirely covered by the molten rock, but the estimate is based on the serendipitous blows that meteorites dealt to Mars while InSight was online. There’s no future seismological survey planned for Mars to add further checks, but at the very least, what scientists have learned with the lander will inform missions to other worlds in our Solar System.
NASA heeft een prachtige opname gepresenteerd in de ‘Astronomische Afbeelding van de Dag‘ van Komeet Encke, de tweede periodieke asteroïde ooit ontdekt in de geschiedenis, na de Komeet Halley, naast de emissienevel die officieel bekendstaat als IC 410.
Encke (2P/Encke) staat bekend om zijn korte omlooptijd onder de kometen die door ons zonnestelsel reizen, en heeft slechts 3,3 jaar nodig om een volledige omloop om de zon te voltooien en zichtbaar te worden.
Bovendien is deze komeet nauw verbonden met ten minste twee jaarlijkse meteorietenregens op aarde, de Noordelijke en Zuidelijke Tauriden, die beide eind oktober en begin november plaatsvinden.
Op de afbeelding is de schoonheid van Komeet Encke te zien, met zijn groene kleur, in de buurt van een jonge sterrenhoop en wolken in de emissienevel IC 410.
NASA benadrukt een indrukwekkende opname van een komeet naast een nevel
Mars’ liquid iron alloy core is surrounded by a layer of fully molten silicate (magma) about 150 km thick, according to a pair of papers published in the journal Nature.
An artist’s depiction of a liquid silicate layer wrapped around the Martian core.
Image credit: IPGP-CNES.
In 2021, an analysis of seismic data gathered by the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument onboard NASA’s InSight lander suggested the presence of a large but low-density core, composed of liquid iron and lighter elements such as sulfur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
However, these results suggest that the core has a higher proportion of lighter elements than is feasible according to estimates of the abundances of these elements early in Mars’ formation history.
In the two new studies, the authors analyzed the latest batch of seismic data from InSight in combination with first principles simulations and geophysical models to produce their estimates for the size and composition of the Martian core.
They found that the liquid iron core of Mars is surrounded by an approximately 150 km-thick layer of near-molten silicate rock, the top of which was previously misinterpreted as the surface of the core.
This decrease in core radius implies a higher density than estimated in the earlier InSight study.
“The blanket not only insulates the heat coming from the core and prevents the core from cooling, but also concentrates radioactive elements whose decay generates heat,” said University of Maryland’s Professor Vedran Lekic.
“And when that happens, the core is likely to be unable to produce the convective motions that would create a magnetic field — which can explain why Mars currently doesn’t have an active magnetic field around it.”
Without a functional protective magnetic field around itself, a terrestrial planet such as Mars would be extremely vulnerable to harsh solar winds and lose all the water on its surface, making it incapable of sustaining life.
“This difference between Earth and Mars could be attributed to differences in internal structure and the different planetary evolution paths the two planets took,” Professor Lekic said.
“The thermal blanketing of Mars’ metallic core by the liquid layer at the base of the mantle implies that external sources are necessary to generate the magnetic field recorded in the Martian crust during the first 500 to 800 million years of its evolution,” said Dr. Henri Samuel of the French National Center for Scientific Research.
“These sources could be energetic impacts or core motion generated by gravitational interactions with ancient satellites which have since then disappeared.”
The findings support theories that Mars was at one time a molten ocean of magma that later crystallized to produce a layer of silicate melt enriched in iron and radioactive elements at the base of the Martian mantle.
The heat emanating from the radioactive elements would then have dramatically altered the thermal evolution and cooling history of the Red Planet.
“These layers, if widespread, can have pretty big consequences for the rest of the planet,” Professor Lekic said.
“Their existence can help tell us whether magnetic fields can be generated and maintained, how planets cool over time, and also how the dynamics of their interiors change over time.”
“The discovery of this stratification in the Martian mantle opens new research horizons, since the seismic data recorded by the SEIS instrument of the InSight mission will now be reconsidered in the light of this new paradigm,” said ISAE-SUPAERO’s Dr. Mélanie Drilleau.
A. Khan et al. 2023. Evidence for a liquid silicate layer atop the Martian core. Nature 622, 718-723; doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06586-4
H. Samuel et al. 2023. Geophysical evidence for an enriched molten silicate layer above Mars’s core. Nature 622, 712-717; doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06601-8
Idaho’s Unsolved Mystery: UFO Chase Ends in Military Showdown! #TruthIsOutThere
Idaho’s Unsolved Mystery: UFO Chase Ends in Military Showdown! #TruthIsOutThere
The picturesque landscapes of northern Idaho, with its expansive lakes and undulating mountains, aren’t just renowned for their beauty. For some, they harbor secrets that span both the modern age and ancient times. Among the captivating mysteries is the story of Carolyn, a resident of the region, whose tale of a mysterious sighting and an unexpected military confrontation has left many astounded.
On a seemingly ordinary day in the vicinity of Lake Pend Oreille, Carolyn’s afternoon took an unexpected turn. As she glanced towards the mountains, a strange object streaked across the sky. To the casual observer, it could have been dismissed as a meteor, but for Carolyn, it was clear this was no ordinary celestial body. The object was engulfed in flames, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake, moving faster than any aircraft she had ever seen. Intrigued and driven by an indomitable spirit of curiosity, she decided to follow it.
But what started as a pursuit of the unknown quickly took a dark turn. Rounding a bend, Carolyn was met not with answers, but with the chilling sight of military jeeps and armed personnel. The guns weren’t pointed to the skies from whence the object came, but squarely at her. The urgency and surprise in the encounter were palpable. Where had they come from? Why were they so suddenly on the scene? And most importantly, what were they hiding?
Carolyn’s account suggests that whatever she saw wasn’t just known to her, but was also of significant interest to the military. Rumors later swirled through the town of a military flatbed truck, making its way discreetly with an enigmatic cargo hidden beneath a tarp. Was it a fragment of the object she saw, or was it something else entirely?
The story is reminiscent of many UFO accounts where witnesses find themselves inadvertently crossing paths with official entities, seemingly eager to keep such incidents under wraps. What sets Carolyn’s story apart is the backdrop of Lake Pend Oreille’s rich history. The land, which is steeped in Native American culture, particularly the Kalispell tribe, has tales of the ‘star people’—beings from another realm or perhaps, another galaxy.
VIDEO:
UFO Witness Was Threatened By The US Military After Pursuing Mysterious Sighting | UFO Witness
While Carolyn’s confrontation with the military was unnerving, it’s also a testament to the lengths to which some entities might go to keep certain truths hidden. Whether the object was extraterrestrial or just a top-secret military asset is still up for debate, but for Carolyn and those who’ve heard her tale, the skies over Idaho will never look the same again.
In a world where the extraordinary is often drowned out by the noise of daily life, stories like Carolyn’s serve as a powerful reminder. Sometimes, all it takes is a glance towards the horizon to challenge what we know and push us into the realm of the unknown.
Bizarre aerial phenomenon baffles Ohio residents with sonic boom
Bizarre aerial phenomenon baffles Ohio residents with sonic boom
On October 23, 2023, an unusual event unfolded in the skies above Northwestern and Eastwestern Ohio, leaving residents perplexed.
Initially, attention was drawn to a mysterious white object descending through the daytime sky above Eastwestern Ohio which was obviously not a conventional aircraft, helicopter, drone, or meteor, the orb-like nature of this white object fueled speculation.
Soon after, a second swiftly moving object emerged above Northwestern Ohio, changing direction which means the object is under intelligent control. Adding to the intrigue, a sudden and thunderous sonic boom echoed through the air, further intensifying the mystery.
The first white object remains unexplained. Regarding the second unidentified entity, MrMBB333 proposed a hypothesis involving a potential crash into the Earth. However, alternative theories circulated, with some speculating that the resounding sonic boom might have been the result of a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier. Nonetheless, this theory lacks conclusive evidence.
Whatever these two objects were, their presence in the sky constituted a highly uncommon occurrence, capturing the attention of onlookers on that October day.
When it comes to mystery and eeriness, there is no place quite like Solomon Islands. This remote island chain in the Pacific Ocean is located to the east of Papua New Guinea and consists of six major islands and hundreds of smaller islands. Guadalcanal is the largest island where the capital city Honiara is located. Much of what we know about the strange and chilling phenomena that routinely occur here was documented by an Australian aircraft engineer named Marius Boirayon, in his book titled, Solomon Island Mysteries. [1]
Marius had taken early retirement and married into the local community in the Solomon Islands. During the time he was living in Guadalcanal he came to know from the locals that the dense tropical forests of the islands are infested with hundreds of humanoid giants, some of whom are well over 15-feet tall! Sightings of these Sasquatch-like creatures are very common here, and no-one makes a big deal out of it. Terrifying stories of abduction and cannibalism practiced by the giants are remembered and passed on by the villagers. The giants have an unsavory reputation of occasionally abducting women and breeding with them, giving birth to human-giant hybrids, some of some still survive. I had written about Marius’s experiences with the Solomon Island giants in a previous article.
The Solomon Islands and Melanesia. Credit: Cruickshanks, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
As if the incredible tales of menacing humanoid giants are not enough to test the limits of our belief, Marius writes of another strange phenomenon that occurs routinely on the islands. Almost every other night, a bright, menacing, UFO - which the villagers call a “Dragon-Snake” – flies over the island, and often terrorizes the locals. During the time Marius was living in a remote seaside village in north-west Guadalcanal, he learnt that, “this creature came out of the mountains at night and flew around. Everyone in the whole area had feared this so-called Dragon-Snake for generations, as it had piercing red eyes that killed people and had been responsible for people going missing.” One night, while spear-fishing by torchlight with his friend Joseph, Marius got his first view of the Dragon-Snake.
“As I looked down the beach, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. About a kilometer away, there was a very bright luminous white object flying slowly over the water...After focusing in on the star-like, brilliantly lit object (with binoculars), I noticed that it was about 60-foot round and appeared to make no noise. We watched it for a couple of minutes until it submerged itself in the sea. Joseph told me to just wait for about ten minutes and I’d see it come back out again - which it did! When it rose out of the water, it was glowing twice as brightly as when it first went in. We continued to watch it with my binoculars as it returned back to the coast in the same direction as it came and disappeared out of sight over the top of the coconut trees.”
The UFO appeared almost every other night, and Marius recounted having seen it more than sixty times over a seven-month period. Once it flew noiselessly over Marius’s house, the brilliance of its white light illuminating the whole area. Not only could it fly at phenomenal speeds, it could also vanish instantly, almost as if it had cloaked itself! The locals said that the Dragon-Snake had been seen well over a century, but it exhibited a distinctly unfriendly and menacing attitude towards the islanders, because of which it was greatly feared. Marius was greatly mystified by these tales, as well by his own sightings. He wondered how many of the UFOs were actually there on the islands. Why did it go under the sea from time to time? What could be the reason for the killing and abduction of the natives?
A couple of disturbing incidents convinced Marius that the stories of abduction and injuries inflicted by the UFOs were not just tall tales meant for the entertainment of foreigners. One day Marius learnt from his friend Joseph that a fisherman had sustained grievous burn injury to his entire body from a UFO. Marius and Joseph visited the fisherman in the hospital, where he was lying on his bed in great pain, covered in bandages from head to toe. The fisherman recounted his story to Joseph in the Guadalcanal language.
“He told Joseph that he had been out fishing in his fiber-glass boat at about 3:00 am, when he saw the Dragon-Snake flying along. Foolishly, he started flashing his torch at it. That was when it flew over to him in an instant and hovered overhead. Panicking, he started his engine and took off to get away from it, but it followed him as he zigzagged his way back to shore. It was during this short pursuit to the beach, that the so- called Dragon-Snake fired some form of light at him, only partially hitting him…The fisherman said that when he drove his boat up onto the beach and ran into the bush, the Dragon-Snake followed him to where he was hiding behind a tree and hovered above him.”
It seems like the act of flashing the torch offended the UFO to the extent that it decided to injure the fisherman with a light beam. Of course, this is not the first time that the UFOs of Solomon Islands have tormented and terrorized the villagers, without much of a reason. It reveals an insensitive and sinister side of the UFOs that is often not observed or reported in other parts of the world.
The only other cases that I am aware of where UFOs were said to have inflicted severe burn injuries on humans, or even killed them, are those which were recorded during the UFO wave in Brazil in 1977-78. The MUFON archive in the Black Vault Encyclopedia Project contains a detailed report by UFO investigator Bob Pratt who had made more than ten field visits to Brazil between 1978 to 1993 with the express objective of collecting and translating documented information about the UFO incidents, and to interact with eyewitnesses. The report states,
“Operação Prato was a Brazilian Air Force investigation of a prolonged UFO wave that went on in Brazil in 1977-78. In the Prato investigation between October 1977 and January 1978, intelligence agents from the Air Force base in Belém in northern Brazil interviewed hundreds of witnesses in Colares and about thirty other villages north of Belém…
The men were sent to the Colares area only after several mayors complained that their villages had come under attack by UFOs and appealed to the Air Force for help. Many of the people had been burned by rays of light from UFOs that swarmed over the area. During the operation the agents themselves saw UFOs numerous times and took hundreds of photographs as well as several hours of motion picture films. Some of the films reportedly showed UFOs diving into or coming out of the waters of nearby Marajó Bay. The investigation lasted only four months but continued unofficially throughout much of 1978 because of the personal interest of the leaders of the investigators.
In 1997, long after he had retired as a lieutenant colonel, Hollanda decided he was no longer obligated to remain silent about Operação Prato and publicly discussed Operação Prato. He gave several interviews, including one with fellow researcher Cynthia Luce and me (Bob Pratt). He told us “many people” had been burned by UFOs during the UFO wave, both on the Colares Island side of Marajó Bay and on Marajó Island.... A doctor once told Belém researcher Daniel Rebisso Giese that a colonel had shown him many photos of people who had been burned….Wellaide Carvalho, the doctor in Colares at the time, told Daniel and me in 1993 that she had treated about forty people who had been burned and that two of them died. She said members of the Air Force team knew people had been burned.”[2]
Bob Pratt later wrote a book titled UFO Danger Zone (1996), where he described the harrowing encounters of the people of Colares with the UFOs during the 1977-78 wave, and the physical and psychological aftereffects of these experiences.
“Frequently, an encounter of the unhealthy kind peculiar to Brazil begins when a UFO appears without warning just above the head of someone at night, revealing itself in a burst of sudden daylight and then chasing the terrified man, woman or child as he or she flees in terror. At times, UFOs have tried to pull a victim up into their craft with some unseen force, and sometimes they've taken people away. They've also used grappling hooks to snag unfortunate souls, and dropped hot liquid on the arms and shoulders of others to make them let go of trees and bushes.
Some hapless victims have been paralyzed during encounters. Others have hidden, horror-stricken, as UFOs tried for hours to flush them out of their hiding places. Not even homes have been safe, as beams of lights from UFOs have pierced tile roofs like lasers and burned men and women inside.
Even when a person isn't injured, he or she is nearly always traumatized. They are confronted by a strange airborne machine with seemingly magical powers and humanoid creatures who try to take them away. Even the simple sighting of a fiery ball of light in the sky can be terrifying because almost everyone knows of someone who had been chased, hurt or killed by these things.”
Apparently, the UFOs that swooped down on the island of Colares in Brazil in 1977-78, and later extended to nearby locations, exhibited the same kind of terrorizing propensity as those of Solomon Islands. Could these be a specific bunch of rogue aliens who get a kick out of terrorizing hapless victims? Perhaps, they just can’t stop themselves from showing off their technological superiority and having a laugh at our expense? While abductions and genetic experiments have been reported in many UFO cases, there haven’t been too many instances of people being deliberately burnt or killed. This is kind of scary and one can only imagine the terror that the people of Colares went through and the deep scars it would have left in the collective memory.
Coming back to Marius’s adventures on Solomon Islands, sometime after the fisherman incident Marius heard on the radio news that two Catholic nuns had gone missing while walking along the road, a few kilometers east of the village where he lived. This greatly intrigued him. This region of Guadalcanal was renowned for the Dragon-Snake’s reputation for stealing people. Were the UFOs at it again? Or were the normally reclusive giants feeling the urge to breed with the villagers? These are the kinds of surreal issues that the Solomon Islanders grapple with. When an abduction happens, they try to narrow it down between giants or UFOs. They don’t think in terms of criminals or psychopathic nutcases on the loose, like the rest of us.
During one of his conversations with a local chief, Marius came to know that the Dragon-Snake comes out of a lake at the base of a waterfall, located high up on an unnamed mountain, around 8 km inland from the coast. For the sake of convenience, Marius named this mountain, “Mount Dragon”. After a bit of planning, he and Joseph set out on a difficult and dangerous trek through the dense, mountainous, rainforests, which were teeming with wild boars, snakes and leeches. After three days of arduous climbing on steep, slippery slopes, they caught sight of the waterfall lake below them. It was about half the size of a football field with reeds growing around its edge and a waterfall feeding it from above. They found a good viewing spot, and concealed themselves with leaves and twigs to avoid being spotted by the UFO and getting incinerated. Their efforts paid off, as Marius writes:
“It was nearly 9:45 pm when we first saw the light of the UFO glow in the water of the lake before it surfaced and, after moving to the edge of the lake, flew slowly northwards down the mountain range at a 45-degree angle, continuing along the length of the valley and, after a minute or so, disappearing out of sight. I remember that moment as being all the confirmation I needed of what the chiefs had told me – and the beginnings of a mind-altering realization. We had been waiting for it to return for about two hours when we saw the light of another UFO surfacing out of the lake. “What! Two of them! How many of them were there?” This one did not head north but instead went south along the valley and, shortly after, disappeared out of sight. It was approximately 2:30 am when, I presume, the one that went north emerged from the darkness and flew back up the valley, slowly climbing to the lake’s entrance and submerging itself in the lake, with the glow from the vehicle diminishing as it went deeper. I had been expecting the UFO that went south to return that night, but it didn’t.”
This is probably the only instance I know of where a UFO has been surreptitiously observed emerging from its subterranean entrance and re-entering the same entrance later at night. If this account is true – and I have no reason to believe otherwise – then it is a strong indication that the UFO phenomenon is largely driven by the inhabitants of a highly advanced underworld civilization, who prefer to keep themselves hidden from us. Marius also found out from a book kept in the Solomon Island Cultural Museum that the Solomon Islanders who had interactions with the “alien” beings flying these UFOs described them in a very similar fashion as other eyewitnesses from around the world.
“Upon arriving at the Solomon Island Cultural Museum, and after a few directions to this book, there it was! Fifteen pages of hand-drawn, detailed sketches of aliens, just like the ones we are all used to seeing on the television. An islander had compiled this short collection for the museum from different eyewitness accounts of these strange-looking creatures.”
Over time, working on tips and information received from the islanders, Marius identified five entrances on the islands of Guadalcanal and Malaita that the UFOs use to enter and exit their subterranean world. He believes that all these entrances lead to a vast, highly-advanced, subterranean civilization that we have no clue about. “Although there’s no shortage of extraterrestrial traffic around Planet Earth from other parts of the Galaxy”, he writes, “the majority of the UFO sightings that we Homo sapiens surface-dwellers see, are actually from extraterrestrial subterranean species that live beneath our planet. It’s a big world down there…”
He believes that these subterranean dwellers “were here several hundred thousand years before Homo sapiens arrived and they originally evolved here on Earth anyway. A long time ago, they and many other technologically advanced species, learnt that it is safer to live below the surface of the planet.”
Now, that is an astute observation, for it is indeed safer under the earth’s surface, where one can be sheltered from extreme temperature fluctuations, volcanic eruptions and high-energy radiation from space that causes harmful genetic mutations. However, one needs to be physiologically adapted to living in an environment with low oxygen and sunlight. Recent scientific discoveries indicate that subterranean life may be the most common form of life on the other planets of the Solar System. Surface living may be an exception, rather than the norm. In 2019, scientists found geological evidence of a “planet-wide groundwater system” on Mars. Pluto has an underground ocean below its thick frozen shell, as does Europa, the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 67 confirmed moons. These subsurface oceans may act as incubators of life. If alien life forms from the subterranean oceans or caverns of a different star system came to the earth thousands or millions of years ago, either on spaceships or by hitching a ride on interstellar comets, they would be inclined to fashion a home for themselves underground, within the vast aquifers or enormous cave systems.
Marius’s reckons that the giants of the Solomon Islands – who are sighted almost every other day somewhere on the island chain – also live under the surface of the earth, and move from place to place through extensive subterranean tunnels.
“The giants have vast cave systems running within most of the mountains of this 200-plus kilometer tropical jungle island. Some of the Guadalcanal giants live organized lifestyles with social structures, and I have come across many Guadalcanal people that believe they can go from east to west through their cave systems without seeing the light of day, and many believe that their population numbers in the thousands. The Guadalcanal islanders also believe that there is a huge city of them living inside or underneath the big mountains of the island.”
What I found most appealing about Marius’s accounts of the Solomon Island UFOs and giants is the conviction with which he claimed that both the giants and the UFOs inhabit a secret, subterranean civilization. This conviction stems not only from his own experiences and researches into this topic over a period of many years, but also the many interactions he had with many locals and eyewitnesses, who had nothing to gain by relating their incredible experiences and the stories they had heard from their ancestors.
In many parts of the world, the UFO phenomenon seems to go hand-in-hand with Sasquatch sightings. In other words, wherever Sasquatch sightings are frequent, or the legends of the giants and the dwarfs are deeply embedded in the local folklore, UFOs are also spotted from time to time. This could be because there are certain “hot spots” on the surface of the earth with multiple points of entry and exit to the subterranean civilization. The subterrestrials prefer to use these portals for their nocturnal adventures, and as such, we find a concentration of paranormal phenomenon in a specific region. Undoubtedly, Marius’s personal experiences in the Solomon Island takes us a step closer to unraveling this ongoing mystery, where answers are hard to come by.
References
[1] Marius Boirayon, "Solomon Island Mysteries: Accounts of Giants and UFOs in The Solomon Islands", 2009. [2] Operação Prato , MUFON archive in the Black Vault Encyclopedia Project, https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/MUFON/Pratt/prato.pdf
The inner structure of Mars, revealed: NASA discovers a molten layer wrapped around the planet's core - in breakthrough that could provide key clues to its formation
The inner structure of Mars, revealed: NASA discovers a molten layer wrapped around the planet's core - in breakthrough that could provide key clues to its formation
The discovery suggests Mars' core is denser and smaller than previous estimates
It may help to explain how Mars evolved and became the barren planet it is today
Like Earth, much of Mars' rocky insides remain somewhat of a mystery because the planet's interior is inaccessible to humans.
But a major new breakthrough could yet provide new insights into how Mars formed, evolved and became the barren world it is today.
That's because two new studies have helped to uncover a previously unknown molten layer wrapped around the planet's core.
The scientists involved compared it to a 'heating blanket' and say the discovery suggests the Martian core is likely to be smaller and denser than previously thought.
Their findings have been described as 'the most accurate and precise estimates so far of Mars' core and mantle structure'.
The inside of Mars: Data from NASA's Insight lander has helped to discover a molten layer wrapped around the Red Planet's core
Cutting open the Red Planet: Scientists compared it to a 'heating blanket' and say the revelation suggests the Martian core is likely to be smaller and denser than previously thought
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a 'near-dead' dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere.
Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past.
It is one of the most explored planets in the solar system and the only planet humans have sent rovers to explore.
One day on Mars takes a little over 24 hours and a year is 687 Earth days.
Facts and Figures
Orbital period: 687 days
Surface area: 55.91 million mi²
Distance from Sun: 145 million miles
Gravity: 3.721 m/s²
Radius: 2,106 miles
Moons: Phobos, Deimos
Vedran Lekic, a professor of geology at the University of Maryland and co-author of one of the new studies, said: 'The blanket not only insulates the heat coming from the core and prevents the core from cooling, but also concentrates radioactive elements whose decay generates heat.
'And when that happens, the core is likely to be unable to produce the convective motions that would create a magnetic field — which can explain why Mars currently doesn't have an active magnetic field around it.'
Experts believe Mars once had a similar magnetic field to Earth which shut down billions of years ago and left behind only patches of magnetism thanks to magnetised minerals in the Martian crust.
Without a protective shield surrounding it, the Red Planet would then have been extremely vulnerable to harsh solar winds, causing it to lose all water on its surface and making it incapable of sustaining life.
Lekic believes the difference in internal make-up between Earth and Mars is likely to explain why the two planets took very different evolutionary paths, leading to life forming on Earth around 3.7 billion years ago.
'The thermal blanketing of Mars' metallic core by the liquid layer at the base of the mantle implies that external sources are necessary to generate the magnetic field recorded in the Martian crust during the first 500 to 800 million years of its evolution,' said the paper's lead author Henri Samuel, of the French National Center for Scientific Research.
'These sources could be energetic impacts or core motion generated by gravitational interactions with ancient satellites which have since then disappeared.'
The researchers added that the results would help to further scientists' understanding of how terrestrial planets such as Mars and the Earth form, as well as revealing more about what they are made of.
The Red Planet's internal structure was originally mapped by NASA's InSight mission — a probe which landed on Mars in November 2018 and concluded its mission last year.
Conclusion: The new studies support theories that Mars was once a molten ocean of magma which later crystallised to produce a layer of silicate melt enriched in iron and radioactive elements at the base of the planet's mantle
However, scientists are still pouring over data from the mission.
This is what helped to uncover the existence of a thin layer of molten silicates – rock-forming minerals which make up the crust and mantle of both the Earth and Mars – surrounding the Red Planet's liquid iron core.
With the new discovery of this layer, the researchers concluded that Mars' core is likely to be both denser and smaller than previous estimates indicated.
This assumption is also backed up by geophysical data and analysis of Martian meteorites.
A separate new study led by researchers at ETH Zürich in Switzerland also suggests that the liquid iron core is in fact surrounded by a 93-mile (150km)-thick layer of near-molten silicate rock, the top of which was wrongly thought to be the surface of the core.
How Mars evolved: The heat coming from these radioactive elements would have dramatically altered the thermal evolution and cooling history of the Martian world, experts say
Analysis of measurements from InSight suggested in 2021 that Mars had a low-density core made up of liquid iron and lighter elements such as sulfur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
However, this doesn't fit with estimates of how abundant such lighter elements were at the time the Red Planet was formed.
The new studies support theories that Mars was once a molten ocean of magma which later crystallised to produce a layer of silicate melt enriched in iron and radioactive elements at the base of the planet's mantle.
The heat coming from these radioactive elements would then have dramatically altered the thermal evolution and cooling history of the Martian world, experts say.
'These layers, if widespread, can have pretty big consequences for the rest of the planet,' Lekic said.
'Their existence can help tell us whether magnetic fields can be generated and maintained, how planets cool over time, and also how the dynamics of their interiors change over time.'
The two new studies have been published in the journal Nature here and here.
Tools: The InSight lander (pictured) had three key instruments
Three key instruments allowed the InSight lander to 'take the pulse' of the Red Planet:
Seismometer: The InSight lander carried a seismometer, SEIS, which listened to the pulse of Mars.
This recorded the waves travelling through the interior structure of a planet.
Studying seismic waves tells us what might be creating the waves.
On Mars, scientists suspect that the culprits may be marsquakes, or meteorites striking the surface.
Heat probe: InSight's heat flow probe, HP3, burrowed deeper than any other scoops, drills or probes on Mars before it.
It was tasked with investigating how much heat is still flowing out of Mars.
Radio antennas:Like Earth, Mars wobbles a little as it rotates around its axis.
To study this, two radio antennas, part of the RISE instrument, tracked the location of the lander very precisely.
This helped scientists test the planet's reflexes and gave them information about how the deep interior structure affects the planet's motion around the sun.
Why doesn’t Mars have a magnetic field? If it did, the planet would be protected from cosmic radiation and charged particles emitted by our Sun. With a magnetic field, perhaps the Red Planet wouldn’t be the dry, barren world it is today.
It has long been believed that Mars once had a global magnetic field like Earth does, but somehow the iron-core dynamo that generated it must have shut down billions of years ago.
But new seismic data from NASA’s InSight lander might change our understanding of Mar’s interior, as well as alter the view of how Mars evolved and changed over time. InSight’s data revealed the presence of a molten silicate layer overlying Mars’ metallic core. Scientists say this insulating layer is like a blanket that might prevent the core from producing a global magnetic field.
“The blanket not only insulates the heat coming from the core and prevents the core from cooling, but also concentrates radioactive elements whose decay generates heat,” said Vedran Lekic, a professor at the University of Maryland and co-author of a new paper published in Nature. “And when that happens, the core is likely to be unable to produce the convective motions that would create a magnetic field—which can explain why Mars currently doesn’t have an active magnetic field around it.”
Earth’s magnetic field comes from its core, where molten, electrically conducting iron flows beneath the crust. This magnetic field is global, meaning it surrounds the entire planet. Even though Mars is a rocky, terrestrial planet like Earth, Mars does not generate a magnetic field on its own, outside of relatively small patches of magnetized crust.
Without the protection a magnetic field provided, Mars’ atmosphere was stripped, and eventually, any water on the surface – even oceans – would have evaporated as water vapor in the atmosphere was lost to space, making it incapable of sustaining life.
InSight’s seismometer, SEIS, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure. Credit: NASA/JPL
NASA’s InSight mission deployed the first seismometer on the surface of Mars. It recorded “Marsquakes,” and it has also helped determine the layering and thickness of the planet’s crust, the structure of the mantle, and the size of Mars’ core and its composition. Data from InSight is helping planetary scientists to work out the internal structure of Mars. Lekic and his colleagues say that InSIght has now revealed, surprisingly, the molten silicate layer overlying the planet’s metallic core.
Silicates are rock-forming minerals that make up the crust and mantle of both Mars and Earth. The molten layer on Mars lies between the mantle and core. Earlier research with data from InSight revealed that the Martian core is molten but is larger than previously thought. With the discovery of this molten layer, the researchers say this explains “other geophysical data and analysis of Martian meteorites,” according to a press release from the University of Maryland.
They also theorize that Mars was at one time a molten ocean of magma that later crystallized to produce a layer of silicate melt enriched in iron and radioactive elements at the base of the Martian mantle. The heat emanating from the radioactive elements would then have dramatically altered the thermal evolution and cooling history of the red planet.
Mars’ interior as revealed by the NASA/DLR InSight lander. Image Credit: Cottar, Koelemeijer, Winterbourne, NASA
“These layers, if widespread, can have pretty big consequences for the rest of the planet,” Lekic said. “Their existence can help tell us whether magnetic fields can be generated and maintained, how planets cool over time, and also how the dynamics of their interiors change over time.”
The InSight lander mission officially ended in December 2022 after more than four years of collecting data on Mars. InSight was part of the overall effort to understand Mars and if it was habitable in the past. By probing the planet’s interior, it has revealed some of the planet’s geological history. Another finding by InSight’s magnetometer showed that the planet’s magnetic field may have been much stronger on the surface than orbital measurements showed, which strengthens the case for its potential ancient habitability.
As this new research indicates, analysis of the spacecraft’s observations continues.
“This new discovery of a molten layer is just one example of how we continue to learn new things from the completed InSight mission,” Lekic said. “We hope that the information we’ve gathered on planetary evolution using seismic data is paving the way for future missions to celestial bodies like the Moon and other planets like Venus.”
Io has 266 Active Volcanic Hotspots Linked by a Global Magma Ocean
Jupiter’s Io stands apart from the Solar System’s other moons, with its numerous volcanoes and its surface dominated by lava flows. Io’s surface volcanism was confirmed in 1979 when the Voyager spacecraft imaged it, but its volcanic nature isn’t duplicated anywhere else in our system. Tidal heating is behind the moon’s eruptive nature, driven by Jupiter’s powerful gravity, and by resonance with other moons. But is there a magma ocean inside Io?
A final answer to that question has been elusive, but new research supports the idea of a magma ocean.
NASA’s Juno mission has shifted its focus from Jupiter to the gas giant’s moons, beginning with the volcanic Io. It’s flybys are getting increasingly closer to the unique moon, and the decreasing distance is giving the spacecraft a better and better look. It’s identified 266 active volcanoes, and together, they’re evidence of a vast global ocean of magma according to new research.
A new study titled “Io’s polar volcanic thermal emission indicative of magma ocean and shallow tidal heating models” presented these results. The lead author is Ashley Gerard Davies from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The extreme level of volcanic activity on Io, the most volcanically active object in the Solar System, is the result of tidally-induced internal heating,” the authors write. That’s not a new conclusion, but there’s more to the research.
Juno’s Jovial Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument acquired the data behind this research. JIRAM is an image spectrometer, and was designed to probe Jupiter’s upper atmosphere in infrared, including the giant planet’s auroral regions. But now the focus has shifted to Io, and JIRAM is observing the moon’s widespread volcanic activity.
“Io is the most volcanic celestial body that we know of in our solar system,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “By observing it over time on multiple passes, we can watch how the volcanoes vary – how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, whether they are linked to a group or solo, and if the shape of the lava flow changes,” Bolton said in May 2023 when Juno came within about 35,500 km (22,000 miles) of Io.
Since then, Juno has closed the distance even more, and its latest pass brought it to within 12,000 km (7500 miles.) But it’s not just the proximity that is driving more discoveries. Juno follows a polar orbit, while previous observations of Io have been mostly confined to an equatorial plane. Why does that matter?
Scientists have been studying Io intently, trying to discover what drives its volcanic nature. They’ve developed detailed models of the moon, but haven’t been able to test them as rigorously as they can now. “Models predict enhanced heat flow at Io’s poles if tidal heating is deep in the mantle, and at lower latitudes if heating is predominantly in the asthenosphere, or a magma ocean is present,” the authors explain.
But now scientists have Juno’s data to work with, and its polar orbit is giving researchers a more complete look at the moon.
This figure from the research shows four images of Io from JIRAM. Two are from perijove 10 and show the south polar region at a resolution of 112 km/pixel (a & c.) The other two (c & d) are from perijove 43 and show the north polar region at a resolution of 21 km/pixel. Image b and d are JIRAM data overlain on Galileo/Voyager images. This new data from Io’s poles is critical to understanding the moon’s nature. Image Credit: Davies et al. 2023.
“The distribution of Io’s volcanic activity likely reflects the position and magnitude of internal tidal heating,” the authors write. Now that JIRAM has provided polar data, researchers have complete, global near-infrared coverage that reveals the distribution and the magnitude of thermal emission from Io’s actively erupting volcanoes. With that data, the researchers can probe the moon’s interior and models developed to explain it.
“This result is consistent with models of a global magma ocean or tidal heating in the shallow asthenosphere.”
From “Io’s polar volcanic thermal emission indicative of magma ocean and shallow tidal heating models” by Davies et al. 2023
The research uncovered differences in energy output between the poles and the more equatorial regions, and between the poles themselves. “On average, Io’s polar volcanoes individually generate less energy than volcanoes at lower latitudes; and the south polar volcanoes generate less energy per volcano than the north polar volcanoes,” the researchers explain.
This figure from the research shows the hot spot detections. They range in colour and size from blue up to yellow. Each increasing size and corresponding colour indicates greater spectral radiance. Image Credit: Davies et al. 2023.
Why are these findings significant? It’s because of previously developed models.
“We show that the distribution of volcanic heat flow from 266 active hot spots is consistent with the presence of a global magma ocean, and/or shallow asthenospheric heating,” the authors write.
This isn’t the first study to suggest that Io has a magma ocean. Previous research from 2009 based on Galileo’s magnetometer data showed that the moon must have a magma ocean about 50 km (30 mi) below the surface. But Galileo only did one flyby of the moon, leaving room for some doubt to creep in. More recent analysis of the same data strengthened the same conclusion, showing that the magma ocean is 50 km thick.
But there was always a little doubt cast on those conclusions because they lacked global infrared data. Now that scientists have that data, the case for a magma ocean is solidifying
After DART Smashed Into Dimorphos, What Happened to the Larger Asteroid Didymos?
Asteroid Didymos (bottom left) and its moonlet, Dimorphos, about 2.5 minutes before the impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL.
After DART Smashed Into Dimorphos, What Happened to the Larger Asteroid Didymos?
NASA’s DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) slammed into asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022, changing its orbital period. Ground and space-based telescopes turned to watch the event unfold, not only to study what happened to the asteroid, but also to help inform planetary defense efforts that might one day be needed to mitigate potential collisions with our planet.
Astronomers have continued to observe and study Dimorphos, well past the impact event. However, Dimorphos is the smaller asteroid in this binary system, and is just a small moon orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the only telescope capable of visually distinguishing between the two closely orbiting asteroids. Now, astronomers have made follow-on observations on the system with JWST to see what happened to Didymos after the dust cleared.
In a new preprint paper, a team of scientists, led by Andrew Rivkin, the Investigation Lead for DART, explain how they used two instruments on JWST to measure spectra of Didymos about two months after the DART impact. One of their biggest takeaways is that Didymos and Dimorphos appear to be of the same composition, which is that of an ordinary chondrite. That’s the class of stony meteorites which account for over 80% of total meteorite falls on Earth. This means DART’s test was an extremely good proxy for the type of asteroids that might pose a threat one day.
“One of the benefits of using the Didymos system was definitely that we thought it was representative of most of what’s out there in its properties,” Rivkin told Universe Today via email. “People working on planetary defense often note that the ‘asteroid picks us rather than the other way around,’ but showing that what we did at Dimorphos is broadly applicable is very important.”
For the new observations, the scientists used NIRSpec – the near infrared spectrometer — and MIRI, the mid-infrared instrument, on November 28, 2022.
At the time of the observations, the centers of Didymos and Dimorphos were never separated by more than 0.1” from each other, from JWST’s vantage point. But the team did take advantage of Dimorphos being occulted by Didymos during the MIRI observations.
Median averaged slice through the MIRI MRS IFU showing Didymos. Note that Dimorphos was being occulted by Didymos during the entire period of MIRI observations.Credit: Rivkin et al, 2023.
“Didymos is roughly five times larger in diameter than Dimorphos and therefore it has roughly 25 times the cross-sectional area as Dimorphos,” the researchers wrote. “This size difference between the components means that roughly 96% of flux from the system typically comes from Didymos.”
The researchers said several lines of evidence suggest that the asteroid and its moon have similar compositions and the team concludes they “can reasonably estimate the composition of Dimorphos specifically from measurements of the Didymos-dominated flux.”
This image from the DART spacecraft of the light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DART Navigation Team
Given how hard it is to distinguish between Didymos and Dimorphos in long-range observations, I asked Rivkin if they were able to see any noticeable changes in the observations of Didymos after the impact to Dimorphos, given all the dust and debris from the impact. The results seem to indicate Didymos escaped mostly unscathed from DART’s impact of the asteroid’s moon.
“We have a lot of new results from observations of the Didymos system that are getting published (including this pre-print paper led by Theodore Kareta) talking about the tail development and evolution. It shows that after 25 days or so there was no extra brightness from debris within the Didymos system, and so by November 2022, observations of the system (including the JWST ones!) are pretty much all Didymos again.”
Rivkin added that they’ve made some puzzling observations using polarized light that suggest perhaps the average particle size or the average reflectivity might have slightly changed on Didymos, but they are waiting for spring 2024 to get more observations.
Rivulets of melted rock line the fusion crust of melted rock on this small Chelyabinsk meteorite. Credit: Bob King
An interesting (and fun!) comparison that Rivkin and his team made is how similar in composition Didymos is to the Chelyabinsk meteor, the famous meteor that created a huge airburst event over Russia in February 2013. The Chelyabinsk meteor is thought to be the biggest natural space object to enter Earth’s atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event. So, it too serves as a very representative near-Earth asteroid.
“Yes, that comparison seemed particularly apt!” Rivkin said. “What Didymos and Dimorphos are composed of are very common among near-Earth asteroids, so even a randomly chosen meteorite would have a good chance of matching!”
Other asteroids that have been studied even more closely — such as Eros and Itokawa — also have similar compositions, Rivkin said, even though they likely don’t come from the same original object. But all the asteroids mentioned here are from the same class, S-type asteroids – siliceous or stony.
Eros was the first asteroid to be orbited by a spacecraft (NEAR in 2000), and the first asteroid to have a spacecraft land on it. It was also the first near-Earth asteroid (NEA) to be discovered, in 1898. Itokawa was visited by the JAXA Hayabusa mission, and was the first asteroid from which samples were captured and brought to Earth for analysis.
Detailed view of the rubble-pile asteroid 25143 Itokawa visited by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa in 2005. Credit: JAXA
Even though remote observations of distant objects like Didymos and Dimorphos are incredibly difficult – especially for precisely determining asteroid composition – Rivkin said he’s heartened by the success they’ve had.
“We’ve spent over 50 years trying to sort out some very detailed questions and how to approach them,” he said. “Studies like the JWST observations and all of the other great work done to observe Didymos over the years and the fact they agree on the big-picture story gives us a chance to step back and realize how far we’ve come in being able to remotely tell what something is made of.”
But the observations of Dimorphos and Didymos will continue, and astronomers are looking forward to learning even more soon. ESA’s Hera mission is scheduled to arrive at the Didymos system in late 2026, and the researchers said they’ll be able to follow up or extend several of the results they found with JWST.
Hera specifically will be able to image Didymos’ surface at higher spatial resolution than was possible from DART (as well as from LICIACube — the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, a cubesat that was part of the DART mission, which sent back images of the impact.) Hera will be able to perform a test of the regolith particle size inferences derived from mid-infrared spectroscopy and a do check on the measured thermal inertia.
“We look forward to Hera and future JWST measurements of additional S-complex asteroids to help us continue efforts to understand the population of potential asteroid impactors, for the science return and to help inform planetary defense efforts to mitigate potential collisions,” the researchers said.
Civilizations are Probably Spreading Quickly Through the Universe
TheSearch for Extraterrestrial Intelligence(SETI) has always been plagued by uncertainty. With only one habitable planet (Earth) and one technologically advanced civilization (humanity) as examples, scientists are still confined to theorizing where other intelligent life forms could be (and what they might be up to). Sixty years later, the answer to Fermi’s famous question (“Where is Everybody?”) remains unanswered. On the plus side, this presents us with many opportunities to hypothesize possible locations, activities, and technosignatures that future observations can test.
One possibility is that the growth of civilizations is limited by the laws of physics and the carrying capacity of the planetary environments – aka. The Percolation Theory Hypothesis. In a recent study, a team from the University of the Philippines Los Banos looked beyond traditional Percolation Theory to consider how civilizations might grow in three different types of Universes (static, dark energy-dominated, and matter-dominated). Their results indicate that, depending on the framework, intelligent life has a finite amount of time to populate the Universe and is likely to do so exponentially.
The study was conducted by Allan L. Alinea and Cedrix Jake C. Jadrin, an Assistant Professor of Physics and a Teaching Associate with the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Physics at the University of the Philippines Los Banos. The preprint of their paper, “Percolation of ‘Civilization’ in a Homogeneous Isotropic Universe,” recently appeared online. For their study, the team considered how traditional Percolation Theory could be interpreted in terms of a Logistic Growth Function (LGF), where a population’s per capita growth rate gets smaller as population size approaches a maximum imposed by the limits of local resources (aka. carrying capacity).
The Big Bang Theory: A history of the Universe starting from a singularity and expanding ever since. Credit: grandunificationtheory.com
Percolation Theory
In brief, Percolation Theory describes how networks behave when nodes or links are removed, wherein they will break down into smaller connected clusters. The first known instance of this theory being applied to the Fermi Paradox was perhaps made by Carl Sagan and William I. Newman in 1981. In a paper titled “Galactic Civilizations: Population Dynamics and Interstellar Diffusion,” they argued that the reason humanity has not encountered extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) is because interstellar exploration and settlement are not linear phenomena.
In contrast to the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, which argues that advanced ETCs would have colonized our galaxy long ago (hence, they do not exist), Sagan and Newman postulated that interstellar exploration is a matter of diffusion. Geoffrey A. Landis argued these same sentiments in his 1993 paper, “The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory,” where he argued that the laws of physics impose limits on interstellar growth. According to Landis, there is no “uniformity of motive” to be expected from extraterrestrial civilizations:
“Since it is possible, given a large enough number of extraterrestrial civilizations, one or more would have certainly undertaken to do so, possibly for motives unknowable to us. Colonization will take an extremely longtime, and will be very expensive.It is quite reasonable to suppose that not all civilizations will be interested in making such a large expenditure for a pay off far in the future. Human society consists of a mixture of cultures which explore and colonize, some times over extremely large distances, and cultures which have no interest in doing so.”
Similarly, Prof. Adam Frank and colleagues from NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanetary Systems Science (NExSS) wrote a paper in 2019 titled “The Fermi Paradox and the Aurora Effect: Exo-civilization Settlement, Expansion, and Steady States.” Inspired by the 2015 novel Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, they argued that the interstellar settlement would occur in clusters since not all potentially habitable planets would be hospitable to an alien species. In short, the laws of physics, biology, and evolution impose limits on how far and fast a species can settle our galaxy.
Solve for T & H
To constrain those limits, the team considered the three main cosmological models of the Universe, including static, matter-dominated, and dark energy-dominated. A static Universe, as originally described by Einstein and his Cosmological Constant, is infinite in terms of space and time and is neither expanding nor contracting. A matter-dominated Universe describes the state of the Universe prior to 9.8 billion years after the Big Bang, a time when the energy density of matter exceeded both the energy density of radiation and the vacuum energy density.
A dark energy-dominated Universe describes the latest phase of cosmic evolution, which began roughly 9.8 billion years ago and is characterized by an accelerated rate of expansion. The team also considered all three scenarios in terms of a Logistic Growth Function to determine the number of planets settled with time. From this, the team obtained the two parameters of their study: T, the time needed to settle a spherical section of an ideal Universe that is both homogeneous and isotropic, and H, the Hubble parameter that describes the rate of cosmic expansion – a.k.a. the Hubble Law or Hubble-Lemaitre Law.
For a static Universe, they found that settlement follows the LGF, similar to how population growth, the spread of infectious diseases, and chemical reactions do. As they noted in their study, these dynamical systems follow a general pattern beginning with a relatively slow start due to limited sources (in this case, habitable planets). But, as they continue to expand and acquire new sources, this multiplies the number available, and the propagation speeds up. This continues until the number of sources begins to dwindle and/or the elements of the system are exhausted.
To their surprise, the team noted similar behaviors when looking at a matter-dominated and dark-energy Universe. As Dr. Alinea told Universe Today via email.
“Remarkably, when the space itself is expanding as in the dark-energy and matter-dominated Universes, the process of settlement, for the most part, still follows the Logistic Growth Function. We did not expect this result because a system with expanding space appeared to us as vastly different from a static system. Most of the studies we know on percolation are based on a static lattice (e.g., spread of forest fire, propagation of disease, information diffusion) where the logistic growth behavior is usually observed. Our study ‘extends’ this behavior to cases where the lattice is expanding like our very own Universe.”
Steps to the Hubble Constant.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)
Nevertheless, they did find there was a delay in an expanding Universe in terms of the rate of settlement compared to a static one. For a dark energy-dominated universe, they found that the total settlement time (T) was marked with divergence for a large enough expansion rate (H). In accordance with Hubble’s Law, when H is large enough, some planets would expand beyond the horizon and become “unreachable.” In essence, distant planets can be receding faster than the speed of light, making it improbable that an expanding civilization would ever reach them.
They also found that in cases where the Hubble Sphere (H) was smaller, the relation between T and H was linear – in other words, T was roughly equal to H (T ~ H). For a matter-dominated Universe, their findings indicated that where Hwas similarly small, the same relation applied, but where H became larger, the relation changed significantly to T~ H2. In comparison to that of a dark energy-dominated Universe, T did not increase exponentially or reach infinity unless H was infinite. Said Alinear:
“This is interesting because a matter-dominated Universe is also characterized by a horizon. It means that for planets far enough from a reference planet in this Universe, they are receding at a velocity faster than light, making it appear that they are unreachable. However, for a matter-dominated universe, in accordance with Friedmann Equation, the comoving Hubble Sphere is shrinking instead of expanding. Put simply and informally, those planets far away from a reference planet in this Universe (that are initially ‘moving’ faster than the speed of light) are ‘slowing down,’ making them reachable, at least in principle.”
So… Where Are They?
From their results, the team determined that advanced civilizations will generally follow a growth trend that is slow to start but will take off over time, eventually slowing and stopping as the number of “reachable” planets is exhausted. As Dr. Alineal described, “This model is marked by a three-phase pattern: slow settlement rate –> fast settlement rate –> slow settlement rate.” The question remains: what does this mean for Fermi’s time-honored question? How does this three-phase pattern help us refine the search for advanced civilizations expanding across the galaxy?
To that, the team concludes that our galaxy may currently be in Phase I, characterized by a slow settlement rate. This could be because only a few intelligent, advanced civilizations are engaged in interstellar settlement right now. “This slow phase can be exacerbated by large distances between”living” planets. But once some number of traveling civilizations is reached, we may enter Phase II, characterized by a fast settlement rate. Given enough time upon entering this phase, we may finally say hello to aliens out there.”
The center of the Milky Way as seen from Chile. The core contains very old stars that date back to early in cosmic history. Credit: ESO/P.Horalek CC by 4.0.
Moreover, their results address the possibility of humanity becoming an interstellar species someday, perhaps as a means of ensuring the continued survival and development of our species. This represents a challenge in an ever-expanding, ever-accelerating Universe dominated by Dark Energy. But as Dr. Alineal summarized, there are options:
“Given enough technology to travel near the speed of light, it is still challenging to reach any planet in the Universe, particularly the far away planets. Having said this, there is a spherical section of this Universe, centered in our location, whose planets are reachable, at least in principle, for possible settlement. Beyond this are planets that “move” away from us at a speed higher than that of light and may not be reachable. Unfortunately, this sphere is shrinking, so a section of the universe that we can inhabit, although large on the human scale, becomes smaller and smaller with time.”
“If there is a mechanism to drive the universe to a state such that its expansion rate is the same or similar to that of a matter-dominated universe, then we would be lucky enough to have a Universe that can, in principle, be colonized up to any distance from us; that is, the colonization and human influence in the Universe is not bounded by any sphere unlike that of the dark-energy dominated Universe.”
In summary, the answer to Fermi’s question may be that advanced civilizations are in an early, slow phase of expansion that has (so far) prevented us from making contact. But as there spherical volume of Hubble Space (H) that we could occupy expands, we are more likely to get close enough to someone else’s that we will finally know that we’re not alone in the Universe. Similarly, while Dark Energy may limit how far we can reach (within our galaxy, not much farther), a sufficient volume of space would enable our continued development and could prevent a single cataclysmic fate from claiming all of our species.
And who knows? Perhaps cosmic expansion will not carry on as it has for the past 4 billion years, and the Universe will slow down and achieve a sort of homeostasis – the kind Einstein preferred to believe in. In that case, our Hubble Spheres may continue to expand indefinitely, and there will be no shortage of intermingling between cosmic civilizations. It does make for some exciting prospects, doesn’t it?
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Astronomers Want JWST to Study the Milky Way Core for Hundreds of Hours
This overview of the Milky Way's Galactic Center (GC) shows the region of the proposed JWST survey. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech)
Astronomers Want JWST to Study the Milky Way Core for Hundreds of Hours
To understand the Universe, we need to understand the extreme processes that shape it and drive its evolution. Things like supermassive black holes (SMBHs,) supernovae, massive reservoirs of dense gas, and crowds of stars both on and off the main sequence. Fortunately there’s a place where these objects dwell in close proximity to one another: the Milky Way’s Galactic Center (GC.)
Astronomers know this, and they’ve studied the GC intensely. There are many unanswered questions in astronomy and astrophysics, and some of the answers are hidden in the densely-packed GC. But while its densely-packed nature make it an area practically begging to be studied, it also makes it difficult to study. Only the most powerful telescopes have the angular resolution to make sense of the Milky Way’s central region and its crowded constituents.
Fortunately, the James Webb Space Telescope has the angular resolution to make sense of the region. A new white paper lays out the case for a multi-epoch, large-area, multi-wavelength survey of the Milky Way’s inner 100 parsecs.
The paper is “The JWST Galactic Center Survey: A White Paper.” Over a hundred participants from more than 80 institutions around the world are listed authors, with Rainer Schodel from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC), Granada, Spain listed as first author.
“JWST has the unique capability to provide us with the necessary, game-changing data,” the authors write. “As a community, we have identified the key unknowns that are limiting the potential of the Galactic Center as a laboratory for extreme astrophysics and understanding how galactic nuclei shape the galaxy population.”
These images from the white paper show how the JWST’s high angular resolution can help scientists figure out what’s going on in the GC. The left image was captured with the the ESO’s Vista Telescope in 2010. The middle image was captured in 2019 with the ESO’s VLT, and the image on the right is from the JWST. Image Credits: L: Minniti et al. 2010; M: Nogueras-Lara et al. 2019; R: JWS Proposal 1939, PI J. Lu.
What are the unknowns in this turbulent region? Sgr. A*, the SMBH at the heart of it all, draws matter inexorably towards itself, shredding stars that get too close and creating an enormous swirling mass of gas and dust. Vast gas clouds are caught up in it all, and out of these clouds, stars in their multitudes are born and then extinguished, many as ultra-powerful supernovae. The Milky Way’s nuclear star cluster is there, too, and is many times more massive than Sgr. A*, an anomaly in galaxies. And then there’s the nuclear bulge, where old, comparatively metal-rich stars congregate.
This image shows the Milky Way’s nuclear bulge and its nuclear star cluster (NSC.) The Milky Way is one of the few instances where evidence shows an NSC in a galaxy that also has an SMBH. Image Credit: Schoedel et al. 2008.
This survey, if it takes place, will help astrophysicists untangle some of nature’s most perplexing, stubborn questions. In their white paper, the multi-national team of astronomers lays out five key questions that the JWST can help address in an observing campaign focused on the GC:
What is the formation history of the Galactic Center and its relation to the overall formation history of the Milky Way?
How much stellar mass formed in the past ~30 Myr and what does this imply for the overall energetics of the GC?
What is the origin of, and environmental variation in, the stellar initial mass function?
Why is the star formation rate one to two orders of magnitude lower than predicted by standard star-formation-dense-gas relations?
What is the 3D structure of the interstellar medium (ISM) orbiting and fueling accretion and star formation at the Galactic Center?
This is an ambitious list of questions that helps define the current state of astronomy and astrophysics. Perhaps the only things not mentioned are dark matter and dark energy, and those two phenomena are outside of the JWST’s primary focus.
Success depends on being able to resolve more detail than previous studies of the region. “By being able to resolve physical processes down to size scales separating individual stars, the survey will provide a foundation for addressing key open questions in other fields,” the authors write. The GC is an extreme environment, and is often the case in science, understanding the extremes helps us understand nature’s boundaries.
“What drives the mass flows and energy cycles in extragalactic nuclei and high-z environments?” the authors ask. “What shapes star formation and the evolution of nuclear star clusters, nuclear stellar discs and their interaction with central black holes?” These are all compelling questions.
The proposed survey is designed to address them. As a multi-epoch survey, it would examine the GC in three separate epochs separated by 1, 5, and 10 years. It would observe the nuclear stellar disk and associated giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the central molecular zone (CMZ,) a region containing about 60 million solar masses of star-forming gas. To see inside the region accurately, the survey would utilize the JWST’s NIRCam and its system of filters.
This image shows the Milky Way’s GC region and some of the objects of interest, including the nuclear star cluster and associated giant molecular clouds in the central molecular zone. Image Credit: Schodel et al. 2023.
One telescope can’t reveal everything, and the JWST won’t be alone in this survey. Success will rely on synergy with other telescopes. ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope will be part of this observational coalition, as will future telescopes like the Roman Space Telescope, the ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, and Japan’s JASMINE infrared astrometry mission.
“Together these surveys herald a revolution in the interpretation of current/future data, bring together research in different sub-fields, and answer key open science questions with enormous legacy potential,” Schodel and his colleagues write.
One of the questions the survey hopes to address is particularly fundamental in astrophysics: the Initial Mass Function (IMF.) The IMF describes how mass is distributed during star formation in a giant cloud of gas. The IMF is like an agglomeration of smaller sub-functions in star formation, and it also links individual star formation to larger issues of galaxy formation and evolution. “Thus, understanding the properties of the IMF and how it behaves in different environments has far-reaching implications for star formation theory and beyond,” the paper states.
The Milky Way’s galactic center is the only GC we can observe, and it’s been a tricky target. But the JWST has the power to probe this tumultuous astrophysical maelstrom more deeply than ever before. Along with the SMBH, the NSC, and gas clouds, there are other mysteries. The GC contains hundreds of mysterious magnetized radio filaments that are so far unexplained. Then there are the questions around stellar feedback and how it interacts with the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and how black hole feedback plays into it all.
If this survey takes place, it’ll provide answers that shift the horizon of our knowledge, and also highlight new questions. This survey will far surpass other GC surveys and observations. The authors claim that they can discern the proper motion for more than 10 million stars in the GC. “Such revolutionary data would enable exploring the GC kinematically down to almost solar mass main sequence stars,” the authors write, and that would be an enormous contribution.
As always, there will be surprises, and those surprises will almost certainly spread to scientific topics beyond the study of the GC. “The project proposed in this White Paper has implications for the entire GC community – and beyond,” the authors write.
Alien Encounters and Theories: Unraveling the Mysteries with Joe Rogan
The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, a popular platform renowned for its diverse range of discussions, has occasionally delved into the enigmatic world of UFOs and extraterrestrial theories. Throughout its history, a myriad of guests have shared their personal experiences, academic opinions, and mysterious tales about otherworldly entities. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most captivating segments on this topic:
Post Malone’s Alien Story: At the start, rapper and songwriter Post Malone narrates an uncanny encounter, adding his voice to the growing number of celebrities who’ve allegedly had close encounters of the third kind.
Bob Lazar: Wilson Document & Ancient Alien Technology: Bob Lazar, often termed the whistleblower of Area 51, discusses the controversial Wilson Document. He touches upon the possibility of ancient alien technologies being concealed from the public and their potential implications on human history.
Brazil’s Roswell: Dubbed as “Brazil’s Roswell,” this segment delves into an incident that echoes the infamous Roswell event in the USA. It adds to the intrigue surrounding UFO sightings and crashes in different parts of the world.
Will We See Aliens in Our Lifetime A philosophical and speculative discussion revolves around the potential of humanity making definitive contact with extraterrestrial beings within our lifetime. It’s a topic that stokes wonder and fear in equal measure.
Zimbabwe UFO: The mysterious case of a UFO sighting in Zimbabwe, witnessed by multiple individuals, especially children at a school, is dissected. This event remains one of the most well-documented and yet unexplained sightings in UFO history.
Physicist’s Opinion on Aliens: A refreshing perspective is added with a physicist weighing in on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Grounded in science, this segment examines the odds and the scientific consensus around the phenomenon.
Travis Walton: Alien Abduction: Perhaps one of the most chilling accounts comes from Travis Walton, who claims to have been abducted by aliens. His detailed and harrowing story serves as a fitting climax to the sequence of otherworldly discussions.
From heated debates on the authenticity of these events to trying to fathom the unfathomable, Joe Rogan’s podcast episodes on alien theories present a captivating mix of skepticism and wonder. Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, one thing is certain: these discussions will leave you pondering about our place in the vast cosmos.
UAP On Security Cam, Saint Louis, Missouri 6-15-2023, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UAP On Security Cam, Saint Louis, Missouri 6-15-2023, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 6-15-2023 Location of sighting: Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
Source: MUFON
Wow, look at this security cam video and you will see a huge glowing sphere passing over the house and away, but then it comes back and shoots off into the distance. UFOs often come out when at late night and early morning when there are less eyewitnesses around. This is 100% proof of that very fact.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
I was watching TV late at night with my husband, in our basement apartment. I kept hearing something like a lawn mower on mute, but he did not. It was driving me nuts, so I rushed outside to see it the next time I heard it. I looked up, and saw a rectangular object over my head. It was the brightest thing I had ever seen. It had three unwavering lights. The bottom two lights were white and rectangular; the top light was a red square. It was flying low, and it did not make a sound when I was under it. I watched as it flew away, then went inside and told my husband. He came outside with me, but it was gone.Later, I reviewed our cameras, and saw it. My camera recorded it, but it recorded something completely different. The camera picked up a very bright white orb damn near hovering over my house. It was flying incredibly low (that particular camera was placed about hip height). It shows the orb close to our basement entrance 5 minutes before I come outside. It then records me staring up at the object (orb to the camera, rectangle to me).
A series of UFO incidents occurred between 2007 and 2009 in the town of Kumburgaz, situated near Istanbul, Turkey. The events stunned the media and UFO enthusiasts after the images and videos of the sightings went viral on the Internet. The video evidence of UFOs shared by a nightwatchman named Yalcin Yalman could be another strong evidence of non-human technology.
Back in 2008, Yalcin Yalman worked as a night watchman at the Yenikent facility from where he shot all these amazing videos of UFOs, hovering over the Marmara Sea near Kumburgaz. He even showed his second-hand camera to the media in a press conference held at the Dedeman Hotel in Istanbul.
Yalman said he started recording the strange crafts as a hobby to pass his time in the night. Due to the shaky videos, some skeptics claimed that the mysterious objects over the skies of Turkey could have been a US stealth drone or other aircraft. However, numerous experts confirmed that the videos were authentic. Besides, many people witnessed the same unknown crafts in the sky. The sightings gained attention from locals, national media, and even CNN. Several videos were recorded between June 8 and 12, 2009, showing mysterious objects and lights.
Originally, the video was analyzed and made public by the Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center led by researcher Haktan Akdoğan. Haktan said the UFOs were often seen by civilians and military pilots during an International UFO Congress in 2009. (Source)
In 2009, after the conference, there were witnesses of 8-10 people including UFOlogist Dr. Roger Leir, who also witnessed and verified the Kumburgaz UFO sighting. Dr. Leir was present during the filming of one video on May 17, 2009, and confirmed that as the UAP turned, it was similar to the “Roswell” shaped craft (more boomerang-shaped) rather than a traditional disc. Dr. Leir discussed this incident that happened with him after the conference on Coast to Coast with George Knapp.
Yalcin Yalman (Left) sitting next to Akdoğan (Right), showing his camera during a press conference in Istanbul in 2009
Dr. Leir told Knapp that he, Yalman and others went to Kumburgaz to film UFOs. The group stayed up from midnight to 4 o’clock in the morning to capture any possible sightings. The conditions were ideal, with clear skies and no obstructions. During the filming, they observed a bright object below the full moon, which initially appeared as a potential star or planet. As they focused on this object, they discovered a semi-circular craft with a multitude of lights, possibly shaped like a boomerang or a cylindrical saucer.
Dr. Leir said,“You’d think, ‘Well, gee, a bright sky, bright moon, you’re not going to see anything.’ But in this case, the moon was a big help. It essentially lit up the exterior portion of the craft, which initially, when we saw it, looked a bit like a boomerang because we weren’t seeing it straight on, so we couldn’t tell the exact shape of the craft. But then we went to full film on it, and we could see that it was either a boomerang, or we were looking at a certain portion of a cylindrical craft or a saucer.
Till this day, I don’t know, and I don’t know what the analysts said about the shape. But it was either one of the two: either a boomerang shape with a round front or a complete saucer. It did turn a couple of times, so we were able to see the side, and it looked like it could have been saucer-shaped. But then we got the biggest shock of our lives because we could see light that was emanating from the internal portion of the craft in three areas. One was directly in front, and one was on either side.
This was a full-on front view, and folks can look at the Coast website and they can not only see the video but please go to the Chilean analysis because there are some still photos there which show what we saw when we looked in the central portion. That was a big shock to look and see, not a Rorschach-type thing, but actual entities that were, whatever they were doing, looking out the front of the craft, just the same as we were looking at them.”
Video Observation
From 2007 to 2009, Yalman recorded approximately 30 videos. The footage was taken with a MiniDV Canon DM-GR1-A based on the NTSC system with a diaphragm set at a maximum of 1.8. It is a 3CCD 20x optic 100x with a teleconverter mounted on a 58 mm adapter. The tele-objective is a Sony VCL HGD 1758 model lens, x 1.7. [2007 to 2009 Original Raw Footage]
The videos were examined by two influential state-sponsored organizations in Turkey, “The Scientific and Technology Research Board of Turkey” and “The TUG National Observatory.” Their objective was to identify any evidence of forgery, but the results supported the authenticity of the videos. The original film cassettes were also studied by individuals from Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Russia, and despite several attempts, no one has been able to conclusively demonstrate evidence of a hoax, fraud, or manipulation, leaving the case unidentified.
Yalman’s camera was equipped with a zoom option which allowed him to even capture the pilots, sitting in one of the crafts. The image is shaky due to the hand movements while zooming. However, with the editing software, the video was stabilized, and the result shocked everyone. Two humanoid figures could be seen in the image with large black eyes and oversized heads.
“We see the heads of not only one UFO but also of two beings in the images. This is the first in the world.” He further added that those images would have a great impact on UFOlogy. He had been researching UFOs for 22 years and had never seen something like this. He stated: “These are the most remarkable images taken in Turkish history.”
[In translation] Akdoğan stated that “these beings are generally seen in areas rich with resources, volcanic areas, and historical places. They started to come more frequently after nuclear tests. Maybe the released radiation also harms the cosmic neighbors, we disrupt the balance in the universe. Maybe they observe this dangerous process.” (Source)
The images were recorded in digital NTSC format by the above-mentioned camera.
The date on the video indicates that the recordings were made during 2007, 2008, and 2009.
The footage images of the object that visibly have a certain configuration are not computer animations, special video effects or studio-re-created images or models. The footage is genuine.
The first observation made from the footage is that some of the images were recorded in the nighttime sky at a certain altitude from the horizon. The footage also covers images of the moon in some parts which proves that the video was shot in the nighttime and open air. But, the fact that digital date displays show AM in certain frames and PM in others, raises suspicion about the validity of the time in which the recordings were made.
Since in some parts, there is no other object that can be featured as a reference in the close-up frames and no observable differences were found on background examination, the actual location, distance, dimensions and nature of the objects could not have been determined.
Through the examination of shootings of multiple dates, it is a strong possibility that 2-3 different objects were captured. However, it is difficult to determine whether the objects are moving or not. Their movement is slow even if they do so.
The reflections of light on the objects are sometimes caused by the moon which was in a convenient location at that time, and sometimes produced by some other sources of light.
The light reflection from the left side of the object which is seen on the August 10th shootings is not produced by the moon. At that time, the moon was in a phase that was pretty close to the “new moon” phase and located approximately at a 10-degree proximity/angle to the horizon. Moreover, the image processing analysis conducted on some parts of the footage revealed that the center of the object has the same density as its background, namely is of a transparent nature.
Not Debunked
Adam Goldstack of UAP Media UK mentions that many debunkers try to explain the craft as cruise ships but according to former F-16 fighter pilot and researcher Chris Letho, it does not add up. Letho analyzed the videos and case and calculated the object’s size, horizon distance, plus visual angles from the Marmara Sea. He concluded the logistics of a cruise ship did not match the reported UAP. (Source)
Additionally, the triangulation of the UAP in most video cases was calculated to be too high to be a cruise ship or boat, by other researchers. Alternatively, in the fixed/stabilized camera videos (as shown below), we can see that the objects are motionless against a black background in the vast majority of videos. The motionless aspect of the UAP could also discount the “small-boat theory,” given that even on calm waters/oceans floating objects will still move and rock around slightly. Additionally, despite the mass mainstream media coverage in Turkey at the time, no person has ever come forward to state that the objects/boats belonged to them or that they were sailing off the coast in the middle of the night.
Goldstack writes, “From an analytical perspective, the Turkey Kumburgaz UFO case is unique with regards to the clear and multiple video footage obtained. Through this case, we also have sequential data that display behavioral patterns, times, and dates. We see all of the twenty-five video encounters/incidents at night-time/early morning (with one in the late evening), which is in keeping with the wider range of Ufology data that suggests UAP often appears at night-time.
We also see another significant pattern displaying the encounters around water – in this case, the Marmara Sea. The Sea of Marmara itself is a small sea with an area of 11,350 km2 (4,380 sq mi) and with dimensions of 280 km × 80 km (174 mi × 50 mi). The sea has a greatest depth of 1,370 m (4,490 ft). How significant the Sea of Marmara is to potential UAP has still not been explained. No connection to nuclear facilities or weapons has been linked in this case.”
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NASA krijgt "wetenschappelijke schat" met buitenaardse bodemstalen niet open
NASA krijgt "wetenschappelijke schat" met buitenaardse bodemstalen niet open
Artikel van Wim De Maeseneer
"Een wetenschappelijke schat", zo noemde NASA de verzamelde bodemstalen van de planetoïde Bennu twee weken geleden. Op 11 oktober werden de eerste resultaten en foto's bekendgemaakt van het ruimtegruis dat 3 jaar onderweg is geweest.
NASA verklaarde toen dat de capsule nog niet werd geopend, omdat er zoveel zwart stof en steentjes aan de buitenkant van de capsule waren blijven hangen dat de wetenschappers zich daar eerst uitgebreid zouden over ontfermen.Nu blijkt dat NASA de capsule eigenlijk niet open krijgt. "Het team heeft 70,3 gram stenen en stof kunnen verzamelen, veel meer dan de 60 gram die we voor ogen hadden", zo staat te lezen op deblogvan NASA over de OSIRIS-REx-missie.
"Het goede nieuws is dat er nog veel meer stalen verzameld zijn. Maar na verschillende pogingen om de capsule te openen, ontdekte het team dat twee van de 35 sluitingen niet kunnen worden geopend met het voorziene gereedschap."
NASA zoekt nu andere manieren om de bodemstalen uit de capsule te halen, zonder ze te beschadigen en besmetten.
NASA krijgt "wetenschappelijke schat" met buitenaardse bodemstalen niet open
Voor alle duidelijkheid: de capsule met de bodemstalen was tijdens de terugkeer naar de aarde beschermd door nog een tweede omhulsel. Het ruimtegruis dat zich buiten de afgesloten capsule bevond, is dus niet per definitie onbruikbaar.
Zo veel ruimtegruis dat deksel eerst niet dicht kon
In oktober 2020 kon het onbemande OSIRIS-REx-ruimtetuig bodemstalen oppikken van de planetoïde Bennu, die op dat moment zo'n 330 miljoen kilometer van de aarde stond.-
Tegen de verwachting in konden veel meer steentjes en stof worden meegenomen. Zo veel dat het deksel eerst niet meer kon sluiten, waardoor een deel van de stalen verloren zijn gegaan. NASA verwacht dat er in totaal toch nog 250 gram ruimtegruis kon worden meegenomen.Bennu is een grote ruimterots die rond de zon draait en waarschijnlijk 4,5 miljard jaar geleden is ontstaan, in het prille begin van het zonnestelsel. Wetenschappers verwachten dat Bennu de bouwstenen bevat waaruit het zonnestelsel, en ook het leven op aarde, is opgebouwd. De eerste analyses van de bodemstalen tonen inderdaad aan dat er water- en koolstof zijn op Bennu.
Hints of a government coverup, compelling eyewitness accounts from airforce officials, a spacecraft purportedly hovering through trees and landing; the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident has it all when it comes toinstances of the unexplained.
Here's a look at some of the standout witness statements, and what experts have said about the 1980 incident which has been dubbed "Britain's Roswell".
Do you believe the Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident is a real case of extraterrestrials landing on Earth? Have a read and let us know what you think.
al sightings occurred in the early hours of December 26, 1980
It is now almost 40 years since the UFO incident at Rendlesham forest. Understandably, the facts are murky as contradictory accounts have emerged in the years since the incident took place.
Sections of the U.S. Air Force were stationed at the airbase when the incident occurred, including eyewitnesses that, to this day, claim they saw an extraterrestrial craft in the forest in the month of December 1980.
3. It is one of the few officially documented UFO sightings where witnesses claim to have seen a craft land
Nick Pope, who was a Ministry of Defence employee from 1985 to 2006, and who wrote a book titled 'Encounter in Rendlesham Forest: The Inside Story of the World's Best Documented UFO Incident', described the incident with the following words:
“This was not some vague ‘lights in the sky’ sighting – the UFO actually landed.”
4. U.S. Air Force officer John Burroughs described agitated animals and red and blue lights near a farmhouse
One of the men asked to investigate the strange blue, red, orange, and white lights coming from the forest was, John Burroughs. In a witness statement, published in 1981, he said:
"The woods lit up and you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noises... You could see the lights down by a farmer’s house [on the forest's edge]... We climbed over the fence and started walking toward the red and blue lights and they just disappeared."
5. Officer Jim Penniston's witness account describes a craft made from "smooth, opaque, black glass"
USAF officer Jim Penniston, who was with Burroughs during the incident, described seeing a craft covered in hieroglyphic-like characters. He said the following:
“I estimated it to be about three meters tall and about three meters wide at the base. No landing gear was apparent, but it seemed like she was on fixed legs. I moved a little closer... I walked around the craft, and finally, I walked right up to the craft. I noticed the fabric of the shell was more like a smooth, opaque, black glass.”
6. Indentations on the ground and high radiation levels were recorded the next day
The morning after the incident witnessed by Burroughs and Penniston, indentations on the forest floor were spotted, as well as damage to the trees in the area where the lights had been seen.
Radiation levels recorded at the site of the indentations were also reported to be unusually high.
7. Colonel Halt recorded a running commentary during the second UFO sighting at Rendlesham Forest
On December 27 1980, two nights after the first reported incident, United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt was ready. Known as a pragmatic character, Halt set out to disprove the wild theories doing the rounds at the RAF bases. When more lights were spotted, he took his tape recorder and joined a military patrol group.
The resulting audiotape has since been declassified by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence. It is now public domain, and can be listened to here:
During the recording, in which he mentions objects and lights in the sky, as well as a red orb floating near the ground, Colonel Halt says:
“It looks like an eye winking at you... Here he comes from the South, he's coming towards us now... Now we're observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal."
The recording is considered today to be one of the most valuable pieces of evidence from the Rendlesham Forest incident.
8. Burroughs and Penniston, the first two witnesses, suffered Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
In the Encounter in Rendlesham Forest book, Penniston wrote: “I left the forest a different man… I was in awe of the technology and yes, a knowing that it was not an aircraft which could have been manufactured in 1980 or even now.”
Both Penniston and Burroughs have since suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, The Telegraphreported in 2015. In recent years, Penniston has claimed that the craft telepathically transmitted binary code into his brain.
9. Numerous eyewitness statements emerged following the incident
Burroughs, Penniston, and Col. Halt have been the most vocal in saying they believe what they saw was extraterrestrial in origin, but they are not the only eyewitnesses.
Sgt. Adrian Bustinza, a security police commander who investigated the incident at the time, said: “When I arrived [at the scene], it was going in and out through the trees and at one stage it was hovering.”
10. Some eyewitnesses claim not to have seen any UFO
Another witness, Ed Cabansag, described seeing, "a glowing near the beacon light, but as we got closer we found it to be a lit-up farmhouse. We got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance."
The Ministry of Defence has claimed that the lights came from the nearby Orfordness lighthouse — more on this in section 16. It also stated that the event posed no threat to national security, and was, therefore, never investigated as a security matter.
11. In 1983, a U.K. newspaper ran a front-page story which stated, "UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK, And that's OFFICIAL"
In the following years, as accounts about the Rendlesham Forest incident were released, the press started to respond to the growing public interest around the events
In 1983, the News of the World ran a front-page story which proclaimed: "UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK, And that's OFFICIAL."
12. Statements from radar operators have recently corroborated Colonel Halt's claims
As recently as 2015, the then-75-year-old Col. Halt announced that he had obtained written statements from radar operators at RAF Bentwaters and nearby Wattisham airfield that an unknown object was, in fact, tracked at the time of the incident.
As per the BBC, Halt claimed they had not wanted to come forward until after they had retired from their military roles.
"I have confirmation that (Bentwaters radar operators)... saw the object go across their 60 mile (96km) scope in two or three seconds, thousands of miles an hour, he came back across their scope again, stopped near the water tower, they watched it and observed it go into the forest where we were," said Col. Halt.
13. Today, there is a 'UFO Trail' set out for forest trekkers
In 2005, due to the public interest in the UFO incident, the Forestry Commission used Lottery proceeds to create a trail in Rendlesham Forest. They called it the "UFO Trail".
In 2014, the Forestry Service commissioned an artist to create a sculpture, that was placed at the end of the trail, based on drawings made by eyewitnesses of the UFO.
14. In 2015, a dog walker posted a fresh video of UFO footage from Rendlesham Forest
There have been more incidents of unexplained lights and UFOs in the United Kingdom and Rendlesham Forest since 1980.
Only five years ago, a dog walker posted the above video of bright moving unidentified lights in the sky above Rendlesham Forest, filmed alongside an RAF helicopter.
15. There is a story about incredibly futuristic technology secretly installed at RAF Bentwaters
Daniel Simpson, director of The Rendlesham UFO Incident, a fictionalized account of the story filmed on location in Rendlesham Forest, told The Telegraph the following story:
"I recently heard a very interesting story of a guy that went up to the Bentwaters airbase and, because it’s privately owned, some of those buildings are rented out to people. A company up there wanted to have their internet sorted out and this guy dug down and – he was a telecom guy – he came back and he was sheet white. He couldn’t believe it.
"He said he’d just come across these cables, two-foot down, and they were cables delivering such a powerful internet connection – but they were cables from 1980... They were from 1980 and yet they were so in advance of what we’ve even got now. I’m told that all the time what we get [technologically] is much behind what they [the military] actually know."
16. Recent claims suggest the Rendlesham Forest incident was a 'revenge' hoax by the SAS
In December 2018, Dr. David Clarke, a British UFO researcher, reported a claim that the incident was set up by the SAS as a revenge plot on the USAF. According to the story, in August 1980, the SAS parachuted into RAF Woodbridge to test security at the site.
The USAF detected and captured the SAS troops, who were subsequently interrogated, beaten up, and reportedly even called "unidentified aliens." As a form of revenge, the SAS devised their own prank version of an alien event.
"....as December approached, lights and colored flares were rigged in the woods. Black helium balloons were also coupled to remote-controlled kites to carry suspended materials into the sky, activated by radio-controls," The Telegraphexplains in an article about the purported hoax.
17. One original proponent now believes it was an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) that was seen at the site
Jenny Randles was one of the first journalists to report on the incident. She also co-authored the first book on the case in 1984, Sky Crash: A Cosmic Conspiracy.
In 2010, Randles suggested that a UAP, an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena of unknown origin, might be responsible for what eyewitnesses experienced.
"Whilst some puzzles remain, we can probably say that no unearthly craft were seen in Rendlesham Forest," she explained. "We can also argue with confidence that the main focus of the events was a series of misperceptions of everyday things encountered in less than everyday circumstances."
18. Some UFO skeptics believe the sightings were caused by a meteor and atmospheric distortions
As science writer and UFO skeptic Ian Ridpath explains, on the night of the incident, the British Astronomical Association Meteor Section reported that "an exceptionally brilliant meteor, termed a fireball by astronomers, was seen over southern England. It is shown that this fireball is most likely what they saw and that nothing landed in Rendlesham Forest."
Some skeptics have also suggested the lights seen in the sky may have been bright stars distorted by atmospheric and optical effects, a common source of UFO reports.
19. Others have suggested the sightings may have been caused by the nearby Orfordness lighthouse
According to the witness statements from 26 December, the flashing light seen from the forest lay in the same direction as the nearby Orfordness Lighthouse. Timings on Halt's audiotape also suggest that the light he saw flashed every five seconds — the same flash rate as the lighthouse.
As Daniel Simpson countered to The Telegraph, “the lighthouse theory is rubbish. Lighthouses don’t fly down into forests, split up into five different lights and zap off into space at Mach-3. They don’t move through the trees and get mistaken by up to 20 witnesses from the United States Air Force.”
20. There have been suggestions of a government cover-up
Colonel Halt, who recorded the audiotape commentary during the second incident, has gone on record saying that he believes what he saw was of extraterrestrial origin and that the incident was covered up by the U.K. and U.S. governments.
The Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, is adamant that the Rendlesham Forest incident was of no threat to national security, and therefore, hadn't merited a full investigation.
21. Details continue to emerge as "Britain's Roswell" earns iconic status
Academic David Clarke argues that Rendlesham Forest, which now has an iconic status amongst UFO enthusiasts, is passing into legend. And it's not about to be put to rest — new witnesses have emerged as recently as 2016 and 2019, one of which describes a glowing "reddish ball", and a new documentary called Capel Green is in the works.
With a lack of any satisfying conclusive evidence on either side, skeptics and proponents will continue to debate the matter, and compare it to the Roswell UFO incident in 1947. What do you believe?
The Rendlesham Forest "UFO" Affair: It's Weirder Than You Can Ever Think
Nick Redfern
In the final days of December 1980 multiple,strange encounters and wild incidents occurred in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England. And across a period of three nights, no less. Based upon their personal encounters, many of those who were present believed that something almost unbelievable came down in the near-pitch-black woods on the night of December 26. Lives were altered forever – and for the most part not for the better, I need to stress. Many of those who were present on those fantastic nights found their minds dazzled, tossed and turned – and incredibly quickly, too. Those incidents involved American military personnel who, at the time it all happened, were stationed in the United Kingdom. Their primary role was to provide significant support in the event that the Soviets decided to flex their muscles just a little bit too much – or, worse still, planned on hitting the proverbial red button and ending civilization in hours. Maybe, even in minutes.
Reportedly, those U.S. personnel who were in the area and helped to protect the U.K., came face to face with something much stranger than the likes of a crashed Soviet satellite, a secret Stealth-type plane that malfunctioned and went off-course, or something similar to today’s drones – all of which have been suggested as potential candidates for the whatever-it-was that landed four decades ago. Some, though, are absolutely certain that unearthly entities were encountered: aliens from another world. Confusion was all around. With that in mind, here's the original document that started everything:
(Nick Redfern) The Rendlesham Forest Affair of 1980: Still an Enigma
"1. Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L) two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed on foot. The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.
"2. The next day, three depressions 1.5 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. The following night (29 Dec 80) the area was checked for radiation. Beta/gamma readings of 0.1 milliroentgens were recorded with peak readings in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (0.05–0.07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions.
"3. Later in the night a red sun-like light was seen through the trees. It moved about and pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared. Immediately thereafter, three star-like objects were noticed in the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of which were about 10 degrees off the horizon. The objects moved rapidly in sharp, angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights. The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8-12 power lens. They then turned to full circles. The objects to the north remained in the sky for an hour or more. The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time. Numerous individuals, including the undersigned, witnessed the activities in paragraphs 2 and 3.
"Charles I. Halt, Lt Col, USAF, Deputy Base Commander"
It’s fair to say that when it comes to UFOs, Rendlesham Forest is right up there with the Roswell “UFO crash” of July 1947. It’s no wonder at all that the case has become known as “Britain’s Roswell.” Not because anything actually crashed in the forest – it was described as being much more like a touch-down – but because of the widespread visibility and notoriety that surrounds the case. The December 1980 encounters have been the subjects of countless prime-time television documentaries on both sides of the pond, and of more than a few books, too. Mostly, the authors behind those same books take the view that extraterrestrials really did come down in picturesque Suffolk – and not on just one occasion. More than a few of the military personnel involved have come forward to tell their stories of what happened. Some of them are sure they had encounters with extraterrestrials. For them, no other answer can be considered. What if, however, there are other explanations for what happened decades ago? And what if that explanation, if revealed, would prove to be even more controversial than the notion that extraterrestrials really manifested within our very midst? The ramifications for the field of Ufology could be – and likely will be - immense. The fact is that Rendlesham is downright weird. As you'll see.
There may be another aspect of the Rendlesham Forest legend that prompted the people behind the experiments to choose that particular area of woods for their tests. Rendlesham Forest has a long history of ghostly encounters. Witchcraft and occult-based rites and rituals have been performed late at night in those dark woods. So-called “Alien Big Cats,” or “black panthers,” as they are mostly named, have been seen roaming through the woods on more than a few times. One of the earliest, credible cases on record is that of Jimmy Freeman, whose close encounter with a big cat occurred while driving past Rendlesham Forest late one night in the mid-1970s. While the precise date has been lost to the inevitable fog of time, the details are as fresh in the mind of Freeman today as they were on the night the incident occurred.
(Nick Redfern) Porton Down: a Secret Facility That Played a Key Role in the Forest Incidents
Given the fact that the encounter had occurred around 11:15 to 11:30 on what was a dark, cloudy and slightly misty night, Freeman was driving slowly and had his lights on full-beam as he negotiated the dark and winding roads. As a result, when something large and shadowy charged across the road in front of him, Freeman could not fail to see the creature for what it was. Long, sleek and black in color, Freeman is in no doubt that for a split second or two he had a brief sighting of a huge cat. Today, he says firmly: “If I live to be a hundred, I will tell the same: Rendlesham Forest has big cats.” On a cold winter’s afternoon in 1983, the then-soon-to-be-married Paul and Jane Jennings were blissfully strolling through those woods when they were terrified by the sudden manifestation in front of them of what Jane would describe succinctly as “a big black dog.” She elaborated that the pair had been walking along a pathway when, on rounding a bend, they came face to face with the phantom beast – something that prompted Jane to intriguingly add: “It was almost like it was waiting for us.” Far more shocking, however, was what happened next. Suddenly, the beast began to flicker on and off for four or five times, then finally vanished, literally, before the Jennings’ eyes amid an overwhelming smell that reminded the pair of burning metal. Not surprisingly, the terrified couple fled for the safety of their car and fled the area. The U.K.’s “phantom black dogs,” as they are popularly known, prompted none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – the creator of Sherlock Holmes – to write his classic novel, The Hound of the Baskerevilles.
Rendlesham Forest, as well as the Suffolk locales of West Wratting and Balsham, is reportedly home to an even more diabolical beast than the phantom black dog. It is a creature that has come to be known locally as the Shug-Monkey. Described as being a bizarre combination of giant dog and large ape, the creature is said to strike deep terror into the hearts of those souls unfortunate enough to cross its path. And you thought that UFOs were the strangest things to be found in Rendlesham Forest, right? Wrong. It’s a magnet for strange phenomena – and it has been for a long, long time. It is, however, Rendlesham Forest’s UFO connection that has made those woods world-famous. In many respects, it doesn’t really matter if you are a believer or a disbeliever in supernatural phenomena, such as large and mysterious cats, ghostly hounds and a weird ape-like beast. The important thing to note is this: Rendlesham Forest has a reputation of being distinctly creepy for reasons that go far beyond UFOs and aliens, as you have just seen. If you wanted to run a secret project in an area of English woodland, then what better place could there be than Rendlesham Forest? The answer is simple: there is no better location. Here’s why: Those who do believe in the paranormal will likely say that tales of mysterious creatures seen in the woods only serve to reinforce the idea that aliens landed at Rendlesham – which is almost certainly what the people that concocted the experiments were counting on.
After all, the renowned expert on all-things supernatural, John Keel – noted most of all for his 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies - came to believe that Bigfoot, UFOs, aliens, the Djinn, the Loch Ness Monster and more mysterious entities were all inter-connected. Using an area of woods – for nefarious reasons - that already had a reputation for being drenched in unearthly phenomena, would amount to perfect planning. When the “UFOs” put in their appearances at Christmas 1980, it was just another addition to the already-bulging collection of tales of the unknown that came from within Rendlesham Forest. And, because of the eerie reputation that the woods had (and still have), no-one was thinking about secret experiments of government agencies. It was in January 2001 that the then-retired - and now late - British Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Hill-Norton, decided to get into the Rendlesham Forest controversy. Having had an interest in UFOs for decades, he used his considerable clout to try and figure out what occurred in 1980. It was hardly an easy task for Hill-Norton to achieve. Of specific interest to Hill-Norton were the claims of a connection to the activities of the Porton Down staff. He wanted to know “whether personnel from Porton Down visited Rendlesham Forest or the area surrounding RAF Watton in December 1980 or January 1981; and whether they are aware of any tests carried out in either of those two areas aimed at assessing any nuclear, biological or chemical hazard.”
Hill-Norton got a response from the government he had dutifully worked for. It was not, however, the reply that he hoped for. The reply came from Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean. She spoke on behalf of the MoD, who provided nothing but a concise comment that didn’t really advance the investigation into the case at all. The baroness said: “The staff at the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) Chemic and Biological Defense (CBD) laboratories at Porton Down have made a thorough search of their archives and have found no record of any such visits.” It has to be said that government agencies – and their fawning lackeys – can be extremely careful about what they say and how they say it. It should be noted that Baroness Symons never said that there was no Rendlesham-Porton link. What she said was that no evidence of such a connection had been found. That’s a very different thing, altogether. Playing things carefully and tactfully provides government personnel with a perfect “get out clause,” in the event that additional information might later surface that shows the earlier claims to have been erroneous.
One of those who had a fascination for the Rendlesham Forest mystery was the Admiral of the Fleet Peter John Hill-Norton, Baron Hill-Norton. From 1971 to 1973 he held the position of Chief of the Defense Staff. Having heard of the curious rumors revolving around HM Prison Highpoint North, Hill-Norton was determined to get to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, Hill-Norton’s attempts to pry open the can of worms failed miserably. It was on October 23, 1997 that Hill-Norton brought up the issue in the U.K. government’s House of Lords. The response he got was this: “Lord Hill-Norton asked Her Majesty’s Government whether staff at Highpoint Prison in Suffolk received instructions to prepare for a possible evacuation of the prison at some time between 25 and 30 December 1980, and, if so why these instructions were issued.” Lord Williams of Mostyn provided a response that only served to muddy the waters even more: “I regret to advise the noble Lord that I am unable to answer his question, as records for Highpoint Prison relating to the period concerned are no longer available. The governor’s journal is the record in which a written note is made of significant events concerning the establishment on a daily basis. It has not proved possible to locate that journal.”
As I’ve stressed, government personnel are very careful when it comes to making statements on sensitive topics. Lord Williams did not deny the story that a major evacuation was almost initiated in late 1980. Instead, he simply said that the logbook for that particular period could not be found. And that was the end of it. Hill-Norton was deeply frustrated by the take-it-or-leave-it response that was dished out to him. You might wonder why someone like Hill-Norton – who was the Chief of the Defense Staff for two years – would not be told the full, true story. The answer is actually quite simple: Hill-Norton retired in 1977, three years before the Rendlesham Forest incident even occurred. And it was two decades after his retirement that he demanded answers concerning HM Prison Highpoint North. Hill-Norton – despite his influential and powerful standing in the government and the military in the 1970s – was long out of the loop by the time George Wild had got the ball rolling in the 1980s. By then, Hill-Norton no longer possessed what is known in government as a “need to know.” Or, in Hill-Norton’s position, a lack of a need to know.
(Nick Redfern) Who Knows the Truth?
Now, to more bizarre activity at Rendlesham Forest: our story moves on from HM Prison Highpoint North to another strand of this curious part of Rendlesham. It’s a story that Georgina Bruni found herself involved in. Bruni confided in me that she had a source of information on the prison connections and who held a significant position in the U.K.’s Special Branch – which, in 2005, was merged into the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13). Counter Terrorism Command now performs the roles that Special Branch previously performed. According to what Georgina was told, one of the other prisons primed for evacuation was HM Prison Blundeston, which is located thirty-nine miles from Woodbridge. Opened in the early 1960s, it once housed around five hundred prisoners. In 2013, an announcement was made by the Home Office that the jail was to be closed no later than 2014. Bruni’s Special Branch whistleblower informed her that the other jail was HM Prison Hollesley Bay. The U.K. government’s HM Prison & Probation Service says of the facility: “Hollesley Bay opened on this site as a Borstal in 1938. From that year and until 2006, the prison managed an 1800 acre farm on which the care of both crops and livestock, delivered employment for the prisoners. Today the establishment is an outward looking modern institution which holds sentenced adult males from 18 years and upwards without limit. The farm has gone, and a focus on resettlement and reducing re-offending is at the heart of our agenda. The establishment has developed a strong reputation in successfully preparing life sentenced prisoners for their final release.” It should be noted that HM Prison Hollesley is barely eight miles from the village of Woodbridge.
The year 2000 was when Georgina Bruni’s important discoveries about Porton Down and Rendlesham Forest appeared publicly - in her book You Can’t tell the People. I know from speaking to Georgina on many occasions, though, that she had been working on her book for several years prior to its publication. Did someone in government (who knew that Georgina’s revelations would ultimately surface, even if it was still a couple of years down the line) decide that certain action had to be done to try and diffuse what Georgina had unearthed about the Rendlesham Forest-Porton Down connection? Was a plan initiated to encourage the idea, via the media and the world of on-screen entertainment, that there were real ties between Porton Down and aliens? That would have been much more preferable than having an enterprising journalist discover that the real story of UFOs and Porton Down was actually driven by classified tests designed to determine just how much fucking the human mind could take. Or, in some cases, couldn’t. The people behind the operations may have come up with something very much like a scenario I have conjured up: “If we can’t hide the truth of Porton Down’s secret experiments in Rendlesham Forest, and we can’t stop the publication of Georgina Bruni’s book, then let’s swamp and distort the truth with incredible tales, whistleblowers, TV shows, and novels.”
On top of all that, there's Jim Penniston: The year 2000 was when Georgina Bruni’s important discoveries about Porton Down and Rendlesham Forest appeared publicly - in her book You Can’t tell the People. I know from speaking to Georgina on many occasions, though, that she had been working on her book for several years prior to its publication. Did someone in government (who knew that Georgina’s revelations would ultimately surface, even if it was still a couple of years down the line) decide that certain action had to be done to try and diffuse what Georgina had unearthed about the Rendlesham Forest-Porton Down connection? Was a plan initiated to encourage the idea, via the media and the world of on-screen entertainment, that there were real ties between Porton Down and aliens? That would have been much more preferable than having an enterprising journalist discover that the real story of UFOs and Porton Down was actually driven by classified tests designed to determine just how much fucking the human mind could take. Or, in some cases, couldn’t. The people behind the operations may have come up with something very much like a scenario I have conjured up: “If we can’t hide the truth of Porton Down’s secret experiments in Rendlesham Forest, and we can’t stop the publication of Georgina Bruni’s book, then let’s swamp and distort the truth with incredible tales, whistleblowers, TV shows, and novels.”
Now, in the final part of this articlle, it's time to jump back and show people who found the truth of the Rendlesham affair. On the issue of how Ufology learned of the story, there’s no doubt at all that it was the team of Brenda Butler, Dot Street and Jenny Randles that got the ball rolling. They were the authors of the very first book on the mystery, Sky Crash, which was published in 1984. There is also no doubt that without their combined investigations, our knowledge of the incidents would be nowhere compared to where we are today. Possibly, even, without those three persistent investigators the truth behind those incidents would have remained hidden and locked away. Forever? I would not bet against it. That gives you some idea of the depth and determination of Dot, Jenny and Brenda to get the answers.
A bit of background for you on how the story began to surface: Brenda lived not at all far from the forest and had more than a few contacts in the region. Notably, that included friends who were employees of the U.S. military. It wasn’t one hundred percent inevitable that Brenda would hear tales of something strange having taken place just outside the confines of RAF Woodbridge. It was, however, highly likely that such a thing would eventually occur. And as the history books have shown, such a thing did occur. Dot and Brenda were friends and decided to take a deep and careful look at the story. Jenny Randles joined their team soon after, in early 1981. The three were soon hot on the trail of the story – and barely a month after Lieutenant Colonel Halt had put his memo together for the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense. And, the three never looked back. It was a story that suggested, just maybe, a spacecraft from a faraway world had come down in the woods. In the world of Ufology, this was a development that could not have been envisaged just a short period earlier. One of the key sources for the story who the three women relied on - and whose unforgettable words galvanized the trio to look ever deeper into the story - was the pseudonymous “Steve Roberts.” Such was the sensitivity surrounding the man and his story, he was careful to mask his real name. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the very early part of 1981, however. Today, we know so much more. That includes the real name of that prime, early source.
Gary Heseltine is a former Royal Air Force Police officer who went on to have a twenty-four-year-long career with the British Transport Police, serving the majority of the time as a detective. Heseltine, who has spent a large amount of time studying what happened in Rendlesham Forest, says: “Surprisingly to this day, many people don’t realize that the mysterious ‘Steve Roberts witness’ has been identified for many years as J. D. Ingles. Ingles was on the base at the time of the incident, a Sergeant in the Reports and Analysis section of the 81st Security Police Squadron.” It was, to a large degree, the words of their source that caught the attention of Street, Butler and Randles. They did a very good, solid job of pursuing the story. It was soon published. Sky Crash makes for fascinating reading. Shadowy characters, Ministry of Defense chicanery, sinister goings-on in the woods, tales of extraterrestrial visitation, and military figures hiding their real names for fear of what might happen to them, were just the start of things. In the weeks and months that followed, the Ministry of Defense proved to be highly close-mouthed when it came to discussing the December incidents with members of the public and the media. No surprise. They were even more cautious about chatting with an energized team of UFO sleuths who weren’t going to give up. That’s Jenny, Dot and Brenda, of course.
In some ways, the MoD was unable to do very much about it, as wild rumors of the startling events were already seeping out. Eventually matters would develop into a chaotic torrent. To demonstrate how incredibly careful and determined the MoD was to try and keep matters under wraps, it was not until April 13, 1983 that an official admission was made to Jenny Randles that a handful of “lights” had been seen in the vicinity of Rendlesham Forest and that remained “unexplained.” That’s right: two years passed before the rumors of something very strange and non-human having been seen in Rendlesham Forest began to unravel in the world of intelligence and the military. Those who were hiding the truth were now in the dangerous position of losing control of the situation. Almost two months later to the day, a copy of Lieutenant Colonel Halt’s memo was declassified in accordance with the laws of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. It was provided to a now-deceased American UFO investigator, Robert Todd. In a June 14, 1983 letter to Todd, Colonel Peter Bent – who, at the time, was the Commander of the 513th Combat Support Group (CSG) – made an amazement statement. He said: “It might interest you to know that the U.S. Air Force had no longer retained a copy of the 13 January 1981 letter written by Lt. Col. Charles I. Halt. The Air Force file copy had been properly disposed of in accordance with Air Force regulations. Fortunately, through diligent inquiry and the gracious consent of Her Majesty’s government, the British Ministry of Defense and the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Air Force was provided with a copy for you.”
It wasn’t long at all before Brenda, Dot and Jenny found themselves in a runaround. Curiously, during the course of an interview with MoD spokeswoman Pam Titchmarsh on August 18, 1983, Randles was told that – contrary to the statement made by Colonel Bent – the Ministry of Defense had not supplied the Americans with a copy of Halt’s memorandum. Notably, Titchmarsh was very wary about discussing the case with Randles, who had made a trip down to London with Street and Butler. “I wouldn’t know,” was Titchmarsh’s uneasy and succinct reply when Randles asked her if the MoD’s “operational staff” had built up their own files on the case. Nevertheless, since a copy of the Halt memo had been released to Robert Todd by U.S. authorities, Titchmarsh was – at the very least - obliged to admit that her department in the MoD (Defense Secretariat 8) did have a copy of Halt’s report on file. Despite that, the Ministry of Defense denied that the events of December 1980 were of any kind of defense significance. It was a stubborn, mule-like stance from which the Ministry of Defense has never, ever wavered. The MoD just loves that mule. Always has, always will.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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