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.
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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!!!
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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 Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
17-04-2025
Did a Pole Shift 41,000 Years Ago Doom the Neanderthals to Extinction?
Did a Pole Shift 41,000 Years Ago Doom the Neanderthals to Extinction?
Newly published research suggests that prehistoric Homo sapiens developed innovative ways to protect themselves from increased ultraviolet (UV) radiation during periods of extreme instability in Earth’s magnetic field, while their close cousins the Neanderthals did not. While this may not have been the only reason why Neanderthals went extinct, it might very well have been the most decisive cause of their decline.
These environmental shifts, known as geomagnetic excursions (or more popularly as pole shifts), happen when Earth’s magnetic poles wander from their usual positions due to changes in the planet’s liquid outer core, and they have happened at different times throughout history. One notable event, the Laschamps excursion, occurred around 40,000 to 42,000 years ago. During this time, Earth’s magnetic field dramatically weakened to about 10 percent of its current strength, allowing much more radiation to reach the planet’s surface. The magnetic North Pole shifted from the Arctic and dropped down near the equator.
The Earth’s magnetic field, which is produced by electrical currents in the molten iron core, normally protects the planet from harmful cosmic rays and solar particles. A weakened field reduces this protection, thinning the ozone layer and increasing UV exposure.
As a result of this weakened shield, auroras that are typically seen only near the poles may have been visible across much wider areas. “Auroras would have been visible in much wider areas, possibly even near the equator,” said Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a University of Michigan researcher, in an interview with New Scientist.
While auroras can be beautiful, in this case they would have been harbingers of doom. This surge in UV radiation would have posed a serious risk to both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, and would have required meaningful adaptations to survive—and as Mukhopadhyay and his fellow researchers explain in a new article published in Science Advances, the evidence shows that our human ancestors rose to the challenge, while Neanderthals did not.
Spectacular Aurora borealis as seen from Abisko National Park in Sweden,of the type that would have been seen frequently over the Northern Hemisphere 41,000 years ago.
Two Closely Related Species, and Two Wildly Divergent Fates
Archaeological records indicate that Homo sapiens began creating tailored clothing during this time, using tools such as needles and hide scrapers. Raven Garvey, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, noted in Discover Magazinethat this clothing likely served a dual purpose. “Tailored clothing could have also provided another unintended benefit—protection from sun damage,” she said.
In addition to clothing, Homo sapiens increasingly used ochre—a reddish pigment made of iron oxide, clay, and silica—during this period. When applied to the skin, ochre offers natural protection against the sun.
“There have been some experimental tests that show it has sunscreen-like properties. It’s a pretty effective sunscreen, and there are also ethnographic populations that have used it primarily for that purpose,” Garvey explained.
These adaptations likely gave Homo sapiens an edge over Neanderthals, who did not seem to adopt similar sun protection measures. Some researchers believe the harsh environmental conditions brought on by the Laschamps excursion contributed to Neanderthal extinction, as their inability to adapt to increased radiation would have had lethal consequences. Scientists have been searching for reasons to explain why Neanderthals and Homo sapies met such divergent fates around 40,000 years ago, and different responses to an environmental emergency could certainly explain it.
A red ochre spring near Elland in West Yorkshire in the UK.
(Humphrey Bolton/Geograph Britain and Ireland/CC BY-SA 2.0).
Seeking shelter in caves was another behavior that helped humans survive. These natural structures provided some level of protection from UV exposure.
“We found that many of those regions actually match pretty closely with early human activity from 41,000 years ago, specifically an increase in the use of caves and an increase in the use of prehistoric sunscreen,” Mukhopadhyay said.
Modeling a Catastrophe
To better understand these ancient events, researchers at the University of Michigan developed complex models simulating the effects of the Laschamps excursion. They integrated a global geomagnetic field model, a space plasma environment model, and an aurora prediction model. Using magnetic signatures locked in volcanic rocks and sediments, Mukhopadhyay and his team reconstructed a detailed 3D image of Earth’s magnetic field during the Laschamps event.
“In the study, we combined all of the regions where the magnetic field would not have been connected, allowing cosmic radiation, or any kind of energetic particles from the Sun, to seep all the way into the ground,” Mukhopadhyay said.
While the findings are not definitive, they offer a new perspective on how early humans may have responded to climate and environmental changes.
The research implies that early Homo sapiens may have developed strategic behavioral responses to environmental stress. Though Homo sapiens and Neanderthals coexisted in Europe starting around 56,000 years ago, Neanderthals disappeared during the time of the Laschamps event, which now seems unlikely to have been a coincidence. The innovative protective strategies employed by Homo sapiens may have contributed not only to their survival but also to their eventual spread across Europe and Asia.
Prehistoric human woman applying natural sunscreen to her child’s face.
It isn’t known when the next geomagnetic excursion or pole shift will happen. But it does seem to be a matter of if rather than when, and if it happened today, it could be devastating. Satellites and navigation apps would be rendered useless, and power grids would be disrupted at a cost of up to US$48 billion each day in the United States alone. Scientists say that certain parts of the planet could become all but inhabitable for centuries, as the UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface at those spots would be too strong to survive.
If there is any good news, it is that humans found a way to adapt and ride out the storm during the Laschamps event. Perhaps the same thing would happen this time, although at this point it does seem we are completely unprepared for such a catastrophe, while at the same time being more vulnerable—and that is deeply concerning.
Top image: Neanderthal display at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid.
Wetenschappers maken stuk kip in labo: “doorbraak” maakt kweken grotere lappen in toekomst mogelijk
Een team van Japanse wetenschappers heeft stukjes kip gekweekt in een labo. Experten noemen het een doorbraak in de ontwikkeling van grotere stukken vlees. Dat meldt het Britse medium ‘Sky News’.
In hun streven naar het kweken van vlees zonder de klimaatimpact van (pluim)vee, waren wetenschappers er tot nu toe alleen in geslaagd om kleine stukjes dierlijke cellen te kweken die gebruikt worden om producten zoals gehaktballetjes na te maken.
Het Japans team heeft echter een nieuwe methode ontwikkeld om grotere stukken kip in een laboratorium te kweken. Volgens hen kan hiermee de textuur en structuur van vlees worden nagebootst, iets wat tot nu toe onhaalbaar leek. Onafhankelijke experts prijzen het proces als een “doorbraak” en een “betekenisvolle technische prestatie”.
Hoe het werkt
De methode gebruikt dunne, holle vezels die bloedvaten nabootsen om zuurstof en voedingsstoffen naar levende kippenspiercellen te brengen, waar ze uitgroeiden tot stukken vlees van maximaal twee centimeter lang en een centimeter dik, met een gewicht tot 10 gram.
“Het is spannend om te ontdekken dat deze minuscule vezels ook effectief kunnen helpen bij het creëren van kunstmatig weefsel en - in de toekomst - mogelijk zelfs hele organen”, aldus Shoji Takeuchi van de Universiteit van Tokio, hoofdauteur van het artikel dat deze week is gepubliceerd in het wetenschappelijke tijdschrift ‘Trends in Biotechnology’.
Deze vezels worden al gebruikt in waterfilters bij mensen thuis en in dialyseapparaten voor patiënten met een nieraandoening.
“Kweekvlees biedt een duurzaam en ethisch alternatief voor gewoon vlees”, aldus Takeuchi. “Het blijft lastig om de textuur en smaak van heel vlees te evenaren. Onze technologie maakt de productie van vlees met een verbeterde textuur en smaak mogelijk”, klinkt het nog.
Professor Derek Stewart van het Schotse James Hutton Institute noemt bij Sky News de prestatie van het Japanse team “een technologische doorbraak”. En ook dr. Rodrigo Amaro-Ledesma van Imperial College in Londen spreekt van een “betekenisvolle technische prestatie dat ze kweekvlees van enkele centimeters dik hebben gemaakt”.
Dit, gecombineerd met ander werk aan het verfijnen van smaken en het verlagen van kosten, brengt ons “op koers naar een spannend en aantrekkelijk nieuw assortiment producten”, zegt Amaro-Ledesma. Maar, zo waarschuwt hij, “om kweekvlees in de supermarktschappen te doen belanden, moet het ook een succes worden bij de consument”.
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BREAKING: UFO CRASHES in Colombia! Man Captures It on Video and Recovers Alien Object. You Have to See This! 👽🚨 #UFOSightings
BREAKING: UFO CRASHES in Colombia! Man Captures It on Video and Recovers Alien Object. You Have to See This! 👽🚨 #UFOSightings
On March 4, 2025, the quiet town of Buga, Colombia, became the center of global attention after a man captured astonishing video footage of a UFO crash. The unidentified flying object, seen plummeting from the sky, was recorded by two witnesses — one showing the object in flight, and the other capturing its dramatic impact with the ground.
According to the man who recovered the object, it exhibited bizarre physical properties. Initially lightweight (1.5 kg), it reportedly increased in mass to over 9 kg within hours, and emitted a chilling cold sensation when touched. The man later reported symptoms like nausea, dizziness, and headaches, prompting him to seek medical attention.
What’s even more compelling? He has photos and video proof, now circulating widely on social media, drawing massive attention from UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike.
Whether this is a genuine alien encounter or an unexplained natural event, one thing is clear — this is one of the most talked-about UFO sightings of 2025.
Don’t miss the full video below. Judge for yourself!
Wetenschappers vinden bewijs voor mogelijk buitenaards leven: “Sterkste tekenen tot nu toe”
In een mogelijk baanbrekende ontdekking hebben wetenschappers met behulp van de James Webb-ruimtetelescoop “de sterkste tekenen tot nu toe van mogelijk leven buiten ons zonnestelsel” gevonden. Hoewel ze benadrukken nog geen direct bewijs te hebben, wordt wel gesproken van een ‘keerpunt’. Onze HLN-wetenschapsexpert Martijn Peters licht de ontdekking toe en nuanceert.
De onderzoekers hebben in de atmosfeer van de planeet K2-18b de chemische vingerafdrukken gedetecteerd van gassen die op aarde uitsluitend door biologische processen worden geproduceerd. Het gaat om gassen (dimethylsulfide en dimethyldisulfide) die voornamelijk worden gevormd door microbieel leven (organismes van microscopische grootte) zoals fytoplankton (algen).
Dit suggereert dat de planeet mogelijk wemelt van microbieel leven, aldus de onderzoekers. Ze benadrukken echter dat ze geen aankondiging doen van de ontdekking van daadwerkelijk levende organismen, maar eerder van een mogelijke indicator van een biologisch proces.
Wat is K2-18b?
“K2-18b is een exoplaneet die rond een koele dwergster draait, genaamd K2-18 op 124 lichtjaren afstand van de aarde in het sterrenbeeld Leeuw. De planeet bevindt zich in de ‘Goldilocks zone’, de omgeving rond een ster waar leven mogelijk is”, vertelt HLN-wetenschapsexpert Martijn Peters. “Wetenschappers vermoeden dat K2-18b een ‘Hycean’ zou kunnen zijn, een planeet met water op het oppervlak en waterstof in de atmosfeer. Dat maakt deze exoplaneet een interessant doelwit in de zoektocht naar leven in het universum.”
Hoe hebben ze deze planeet bestudeerd van zover weg?
“De James Webb ruimtetelescoop heeft krachtige instrumenten aan boord zoals de ‘Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph’ en ‘Near-Infrared Spectrograph’ , waarmee hij de chemische samenstelling van de atmosfeer van planeten buiten ons zonnestelsel kan ontdekken op basis van licht.”
Wat hebben ze dan ontdekt en wat kan dat betekenen?
“Wetenschappers van de University of Cambridge hebben gemeld dat ze met de ruimtetelescoop een molecuul genaamd dimethylsulfide (DMS) in de atmosfeer van de planeet hebben waargenomen”, vertelt Peters. “Dat linken we met leven, omdat op aarde deze gassen geproduceerd worden door fytoplankton in zeeën en oceanen en bacteriën. We kennen geen enkel ander proces dat DMS maakt. Naar schatting zou de hoeveelheid zelfs duizenden keren hoger zijn dan die hier op aarde. Wat volgens de onderzoekers zou betekenen dat de planeet mogelijk wemelt van het leven.”
De wetenschappers benadrukken zelf ook dat ze geen aankondiging doen van de ontdekking van daadwerkelijk levende organismen, maar eerder van een mogelijke biosignatuur - een indicator van een biologisch proces.
In ons universum gebeuren allerlei vreemde zaken
HLN-wetenschapsexpert Martijn Peters
Is dit echt een baanbrekende ontdekking?
“Helaas is het wat minder spectaculair dan we op het eerste gezicht zouden vermoeden. En dat omwille van een aantal redenen”, nuanceert onze wetenschapsexpert. “Deze onderzoekers hebben dit al eens naar buiten gebracht, in 2023. En ook andere groepen bestuderen de aanwezigheid van DMS op deze exoplaneet. Nieuw is het dus niet.”
“Belangrijk ook om te weten is dat het nog steeds gaat om een vermoeden op dit moment dat het molecuul in de atmosfeer aanwezig is van K2-18. Deze keer is dat vermoeden al wat sterker dan vorige keer, al is het nog altijd niet wetenschappelijk bevestigd. In 2023 waren ze maar 68 procent zeker, nu is dat 99,7 procent. Dat klinkt veel. Maar voor een echte bevestiging die andere wetenschappers kan overtuigen moet het 99.99999 procent zijn. Dat is om ervoor te zorgen dat er achteraf geen fout in de data of dergelijke blijkt te zijn. De wetenschappers zelf en ook andere astronomen melden dat er daarom dat er meer onderzoek nodig is en dat het nog zeker een jaar of twee kan duren voor we zekerheid hebben.”
Betekent de ontdekking van DMS echt leven op een andere planeet?
“Ook hier moeten we voorzichtig zijn”, stelt Peters. “Zelfs als we het binnenkort met zekerheid kunnen bevestigen blijft de vraag bestaan wat de echte oorsprong van dit gas is. Inderdaad, hier op aarde ontstaat DMS door micro-organismen. Maar dan kan je niet onmiddellijk stellen dat DMS op K2-18 van biologische oorsprong is. In ons universum gebeuren allerlei vreemde zaken.”
“Voor hetzelfde geld is het molecuul ontstaan door geologische processen die we nog niet kennen. Zo hebben wetenschappers het molecuul al ontdekt op een komeet, waardoor er twijfel is of we het wel als een teken van biologische activiteit kunnen gebruiken in de astronomie. We weten trouwens ook nog niet met zekerheid hoe deze exoplaneet is opgebouwd en of hij dan wel leven kan herbergen. We zijn de berg nog volop aan het beklimmen en de top is nog lang niet bereikt”, besluit Peters.
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Strongest Evidence of Alien Life Yet Found 124 Light-Years Away
Strongest Evidence of Alien Life Yet Found 124 Light-Years Away
By Daniel Lawler, AFP
Artist's impression of an exoplanet near a red star.
(A. Smith, N. Madhusudhan/University of Cambridge)
Astronomers announced Thursday that they had detected the most promising "hints" of potential life on a planet beyond our Solar System, though other scientists expressed scepticism.
There has been vigorous debate in scientific circles about whether the planet K2-18b, which is 124 light years away in the Leo constellation, could be an ocean world capable of hosting microbial life.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a British-US team of researchers detected signs of two chemicals in the planet's atmosphere long considered to be "biosignatures" indicating extraterrestrial life.
On Earth, the chemicals dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and dimethyl disulfide are produced only by life, mostly microscopic marine algae called phytoplankton.
The graph shows the observed transmission spectrum of the habitable zone exoplanet K2-18 b using the JWST MIRI spectrograph. (A. Smith, N. Madhusudhan/University of Cambridge)
The researchers emphasised caution, saying that more observations were needed to confirm these findings, and that they were not announcing a definitive discovery.
But the implications could be huge, according to Nikku Madhusudhan, a Cambridge University astrophysicist and lead author of the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"What we are finding at this point are hints of possible biological activity outside the solar system," he told a press conference.
"Frankly, I think this is the closest we have come to seeing a feature that we can attribute to life."
But outside experts pointed to disputes over previous discoveries about the exoplanet, adding that these chemicals could have been created by unknown means having nothing to do with life.
Chemical clues
More than eight times the mass of Earth and 2.5 times as big, K2-18b is a rare exoplanet that orbits its star in a habitable or "goldilocks" zone.
This means it is neither too hot nor too cold to have liquid water, considered the most important ingredient for life.
Telescopes observe such far-off exoplanets when they cross in front of their star, allowing astronomers to analyse how molecules block the light streaming through their atmosphere.
In 2023, the Webb telescope detected methane and carbon dioxide in K2-18b's atmosphere, the first time such carbon-based molecules were detected on an exoplanet in a habitable zone.
It also detected weak signals of the chemical DMS, leading astronomers to turn Webb towards the planet again a year ago, this time using its mid-infrared instrument to detect different wavelengths of light.
They found much stronger signs of the chemicals, though still well below the "five sigma" threshold of statistical significance scientists seek for such discoveries.
Even if the results are confirmed, it would not necessarily mean that the planet is home to life.
Last year, scientists found traces of DMS on a comet, which suggested it can be produced in non-organic ways.
However the concentration of the chemical observed on K2-18b appears to be thousands of times stronger than levels on Earth, strongly suggesting a biological origin, Madhusudhan said.
Are we alone in the universe?
K2-18b has long been considered the premier candidate for a "hycean planet" – an ocean world bigger than Earth with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
These planets would not be expected to be home to intelligent alien life, but rather tiny microbes similar to those in Earth's oceans billions of years ago.
Some research has questioned whether the currently proposed hycean planets are too close to their stars to support liquid water, including K2-18b, which orbits its star every 33 days.
Raymond Pierrehumbert, a planetary physics professor at Oxford University, has conducted separate research indicating K2-18b is too hot for life.
If the planet did have water, it would be "hellishly hot" and uninhabitable, he told AFP, adding that oceans of lava were more plausible.
Sara Seager, a professor of planetary science at MIT, called for patience, pointing to previous claims of water vapour in K2-18b's atmosphere that turned out to be a different gas.
And within our solar system, Mars, Venus and moons such as Saturn's Enceladus all have "more chance to be realised as life-hosting," she told AFP.
Madhusudhan estimated that it would take just 16 to 24 more hours of Webb's time to confirm their findings, which could happen in the next few years.
Even beyond K2-18b, Madhusudhan said Webb and future telescopes could allow humanity to discover life outside our home planet sooner than one might think.
"This could be the tipping point, where suddenly the fundamental question of whether we're alone in the universe is one we're capable of answering," he said.
"Sterkste bewijs tot nog toe": wetenschappers zien aanwijzingen voor buitenaards leven op verre planeet
Een illustratie van de Universiteit van Cambridge over hoe K2-18b er zou kunnen uitzien
"Sterkste bewijs tot nog toe": wetenschappers zien aanwijzingen voor buitenaards leven op verre planeet
Artikel door Stien Schoofs
Wetenschappers van de Universiteit van Cambridge die al enkele jaren de planeet K2-18b bestuderen, vermoeden dat de planeet vol zit met microbieel leven. Dat hebben ze ontdekt door naar de chemische samenstelling van de atmosfeer te kijken met de James Webb ruimtetelescoop.
In die chemische samenstelling hebben ze gassen met de naam dimethylslfide (DMS) en/of dimethyldisulfide (DMDS) ontdekt. Dat staat te lezen in hun onderzoek in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Op aarde kennen we die ook, want die worden geproduceerd door algen en fytoplankton in het water.
Fytoplankton zijn een soort algen en dus een levend organisme. Aangezien DMS en DMDS enkel nog maar bij levende organismen zijn gevonden, veronderstellen de onderzoekers dat het op de planeet K2-18b krioelt van het leven.
"Bovendien is de hoeveelheid van die gassen op K2-18b duizenden keren hoger dan wat we op aarde hebben", vertelt professor Nikku Madhusudhan, die het onderzoek op de Universiteit van Cambridge leidt, aan de BBC.
99,99999 procent zekerheid nodig
Het is voor alle duidelijkheid een veronderstelling. Eentje die ze in 2023 ook al eens deden, maar toen waren de onderzoekers maar voor 68 procent zeker. Omdat ze nu, 2 jaar later, kunnen spreken van een 99,7 procent zekerheid, brengen ze het nieuws nog eens naar buiten.
De wetenschappers benadrukken zelf dat er nog bijkomend onderzoek nodig is .Toch zijn ze hoopvol. "Dit is het sterkste bewijs tot nu toe dat er mogelijk buitenaards leven is. Realistisch gezien kan ik zeggen dat we dit nieuws kunnen bevestigen binnen 1 of 2 jaar", klinkt het bij Madhusudhan.
Onduidelijkheid over oorsprong gassen
"Als we bevestigen dat er leven is op K2-18b, zou dat in feite moeten bevestigen dat leven heel gewoon is in het sterrenstelsel", gaat hij enthousiast verder. Hij geeft ook wel duidelijk aan dat er nog veel vragen zijn in dit stadium van het onderzoek.
Los van het feit dat er nog geen 99,99999 procent zekerheid is over de resultaten, is er ook geen absolute zekerheid over de oorsprong van de gassen. "Het is niet omdat het op aarde afkomstig is van micro-organismes, dat het op andere planeten ook zo is", stelt professor Catherine Heymans van de Universiteit van Edinburgh.
ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
Heymans heeft niets met het onderzoek te maken, en plaatst er nog vraagtekens bij. "In het universum gebeuren veel vreemde dingen", zegt ze aan BBC. "We weten niet welke andere geologische activiteiten plaatsvinden op de planeet die misschien die gassen produceren."
We hebben nog een grote wetenschappelijke berg te beklimmen als we een van de grootste vragen in de wetenschap willen beantwoorden
Er is nog een andere optie: intense komeetinslagen zouden voor die gassen kunnen zorgen. "Leven is een van de opties, maar het is een van de vele", zegt dr. Nora Hänni aan de universiteit van Bern. "We zouden alle andere opties strikt moeten uitsluiten voordat we leven claimen."
Ook het team van onderzoekers van Cambridge University weten dat die mogelijkheid er is en doen daarom onderzoek om te zien of DMS of DMDS ook geproduceerd kan worden zonder levende organismen.
Hoe dan ook voelt het voor de onderzoekers van Cambridge wel als een doorbraak. "We hebben nog een grote wetenschappelijke berg te beklimmen als we een van de grootste vragen in de wetenschap willen beantwoorden. Maar ik geloof dat we op de goede weg zijn", sluit Madhusudhan af.
Snel meer duidelijkheid over buitenaards leven?
Het is duidelijk: collega-wetenschappers willen meer duidelijkheid voordat ze aannemen dat er leven is op de planeet K2-18b. "Wetenschap is anders dan bijvoorbeeld de juridische wereld", verklaart Decin. "In de rechtbank ben je onschuldig tot het tegendeel bewezen is, terwijl in de wetenschap een hypothese overeind blijft tot iemand ze ontkracht."
En wetenschappers doen er alles aan om die hypothese te ontkrachten, net omdat dat de hypothese sterker maakt als dat niet lukt. "Dat neemt niet weg dat dit een heel belangrijke stap is."
Een stap die ons snel kan vertellen of er een kans is op buitenaards leven? "Nee, dan moeten we nog wel wat stappen zetten om die zekerheid te hebben", nuanceert Decin.
"Je moet je voorstellen dat je als buitenaards wezen naar de aarde kijkt. Je ziet ons daar ook niet op lopen", maakt ze de vergelijking. "Je zal zien dat er water aanwezig is en methaan bijvoorbeeld. Dat is niet genoeg om te bevestigen dat er leven mogelijk is. Dan moet je ook bijkomend onderzoek doen, net zoals we hier nog lang zullen moeten doen voor we zekerheid hebben over buitenaards leven."
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Scientists on an icebreaker ship have captured a number of weird and wacky animals from Antarctica's ocean floor, including a bizarre pig-shaped creature.
Among the creatures pulled up by scientists on board the RSV Nuyina were strange orange "sea pigs" — a type of sea cucumber.
(Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia/AAD)
Strange creatures straight out of a science-fiction movie have been captured by scientists off the coast of Antarctica.
Pink and bulbous "sea pigs", hand-sized sea spiders and delicate sea butterflies are among the bizarre animals hauled up from the ocean floor by a team of Australian researchers aboard the icebreaker ship RSV Nuyina, which is on a 60-day voyage across the Southern Ocean to the Denman Glacier.
Some of the weird wildlife may even be previously undiscovered.
"[We've collected] a really large diversity of a broad suite of marine life, and likely some new species to science," Jan Strugnell, a professor of marine biology at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, told ABC News.
The RSV Nuyina was launched for the Denman Marine Voyage to investigate the effects of warming sea temperatures on the Denman Glacier, which is located about 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometres) south of Australia and has already retreated 3.1 miles (5 km) between 1996 and 2017/2018. It is considered the fastest-melting glacier in East Antarctica.
Along the way, the ship's researchers have beentrawling the sea floor to bring up a huge variety of unusual organisms from the deep.
One of the strangest creatures was a sea pig. These bizarre animals are a type of sea cucumber and measure around 1.5 to 6 inches (4 to 15 centimeters) long. They get their name from their squishy, bloated bodies and stubby little legs, which make them vaguely resemble pigs. Sea pigs live on the sea floor, between 3,300 to 19,500 feet (1 to 6 km) below the ocean's surface, and feed on the organic material that falls from the upper ocean layers, sometimes called "marine snow."
The scientists also fished out sea spiders "as big as your hand" and sea stars "that grow to the size of a dinner plate," according to Strugnell.
The sea spiders collected by the team were about the size of a human hand. (Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia/AAD)
Sea spiders are not true spiders, but instead belong to a separate group of arthropods, more closely related to crabs than the arachnids that live on land. They have eight long, thin legs and tiny bodies, with some species having a leg span of up to 20 inches (51 cm).
There are over 1,300 species of sea spider, which are found on the sea floor in a wide range of environments, including depths of up to 13,100 feet (4 km). Their bodies are so small that some of their organs — including parts of the gut and reproductive systems — are stuffed into their legs.
Researchers say many of the specimens pulled up from the ocean floor could be new to science. (Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia/AAD)
The researchers on the ship were able to capture the most minuscule and fragile creatures thanks to a special "wet well," which is a tank that holds seawater and is used to keep marine organisms alive and in good condition after they are collected from the ocean.
One organism that they were able to study was a sea butterfly, a type of sea snail that looks like it flies through the water. The sea butterfly specimen — nicknamed "Clio" by the scientists — laid eggs in one of the aquariums on the ship, allowing the researchers to study how these eggs developed for the very first time.
A sea butterfly collected by the team started spawning after it was brought on board, allowing researchers to watch the eggs develop for the first time. (Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia/AAD)
"The team is super excited about having the little creature and observing it and looking after it, so that it tells all the secrets that have been hidden until now," Laura Herraiz Borreguero, an oceanographer at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP), told ABC News.
The expedition aims to study effects of warming sea temperatures on Antarctica's Denman Glacier.(Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia/AAD)
The expedition includes 60 scientists from four different research organizations in Australia.(Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia/AAD)
Along with collecting creatures from the deep, the researchers have also been taking samples of seawater near the edge of the glacier to analyze temperature, salinity, oxygen and the level of metals present at different depths.
"For us to really understand how much heat enters the ice shelf, we need to be as close as possible to understand these processes and properties of the ocean," Herraiz Borreguero said.
"The system is changing. And it is really important that we observe the change so that we keep on challenging those climate models we rely on for our mitigation and adaptation strategies."
Oude Vimana: 5 Belangrijke Dingen om te Weten over India’s Mythologische Vliegende Machines
Oude Vimana: 5 Belangrijke Dingen om te Weten over India’s Mythologische Vliegende Machines
De Geheimen van de Oude Indische Mythologische Technologie Onthullen
De Vimana, vliegende machines uit het oude India, hebben al lange tijd de verbeelding van historici, wetenschappers en enthousiastelingen gevangen. Deze mysterieuze luchtvaartuigen worden genoemd in oude Indiase teksten, wat velen doet afvragen of ze de sleutel bevatten tot het begrijpen van geavanceerde technologieën uit een vervlogen tijdperk. Dit artikel verkent vijf essentiële feiten over deze fascinerende Vimana en hun betekenis in de oude Indiase geschiedenis.
1. Oorsprong in Oude Indiase Teksten
De beschrijvingen van de Vimana in deze teksten zijn intrigerend, omdat ze niet alleen verwijzen naar de fysieke kenmerken van de voertuigen, maar ook naar de spirituele en symbolische betekenis ervan. De Vimana wordt vaak geassocieerd met goddelijke wezens, en hun vlucht door de lucht weerspiegelt een verbinding tussen de hemelse en aardse rijken.
1.1. De Vimana in de Ramayana
In de Ramayana, een van de twee grote epische verhalen van het oude India, wordt de Pushpaka Vimana beschreven als een schitterend luchtvoertuig dat door de god Kubera is gemaakt. Deze Vimana kan zich verplaatsen met de snelheid van de gedachte en is in staat om te reizen naar elke gewenste bestemming. De beschrijving van de Pushpaka Vimana als een gouden, met juwelen versierde wagen, die niet alleen luxe maar ook kracht en goddelijke waarde uitstraalt, benadrukt de rol van technologie in de oude Indiase cultuur als iets dat verder gaat dan louter materieel nut. Het wordt een symbool van macht, status en de verbinding met het goddelijke.
1.2. Technologische Beschrijvingen
De Veda's en andere oude teksten bevatten passages die gedetailleerde instructies geven over de constructie van Vimana. Er zijn beschrijvingen van verschillende materialen die gebruikt worden, evenals de methoden voor de aandrijving en navigatie. De teksten suggereren dat de oude Indiërs niet alleen een basiskennis van de natuurkunde hadden, maar ook een opmerkelijk inzicht in de mogelijkheden van luchtvaarttechnologie. Sommige interpretaties van deze teksten suggereren zelfs dat ze verwijzen naar technologieën die verder gaan dan wat we vandaag de dag begrijpen, wat aanleiding geeft tot speculaties over de aard van deze oude kennis.
1.3. Spirituele Betekenis en Symboliek
Naast hun technologische implicaties, hebben de Vimana ook een diepere spirituele betekenis. In de oude Indiase cultuur wordt het concept van de luchtvaart vaak gezien als een symbool van de reis van de ziel. De Vimana kan worden geïnterpreteerd als een voertuig voor spirituele ascensie, waarmee de ziel de hogere rijken of de hemelen bereikt. Dit idee van transformatie en ascensie wordt vaak teruggevonden in de mythologieën van verschillende culturen, maar de Indiase teksten hebben een unieke manier om dit te verankeren in de fysieke realiteit van een voertuig.
1.4. Vergelijkingen met Andere Culturen
Het idee van vliegende voertuigen of luchtvaartuigen is niet uniek voor de Indiase cultuur. In andere oude beschavingen, zoals de Egyptische, Griekse en Mesopotamische, zijn er ook verhalen over goddelijke of magische voertuigen. Deze vergelijkingen bieden een fascinerend perspectief op hoe verschillende culturen de concepten van technologie en spiritualiteit hebben verweven. Wat de Vimana echter bijzonder maakt, is de combinatie van zowel praktische als spirituele aspecten, die samen een rijk en complex verhaal creëren.
1.5. Moderne Interpretaties en Invloeden
In de moderne tijd zijn de Vimana opnieuw in de belangstelling gekomen, vooral in de context van de populariteit van UFO-onderzoek en de speculatie over oude astronautentheorieën. Sommige onderzoekers en enthousiastelingen hebben geprobeerd verbanden te leggen tussen de beschrijvingen van de Vimana en moderne vliegende schotels of andere geavanceerde technologieën. Hoewel deze ideeën vaak omstreden zijn en niet breed geaccepteerd worden door de academische gemeenschap, weerspiegelt het de blijvende fascinatie voor de Vimana en de mysteries van de oude Indiase teksten.
De Vimana vertegenwoordigt een opmerkelijk aspect van de oude Indiase cultuur, waarbij technologie, mythologie en spiritualiteit op unieke wijze met elkaar verweven zijn. Door de lens van de Veda's en de epische verhalen als de Ramayana en Mahabharata, krijgen we niet alleen inzicht in de technologische aspiraties van de oude Indiërs, maar ook in hun diepere spirituele verlangens en symboliek. Het blijft een bron van inspiratie en mysterie, die ons herinnert aan de rijke geschiedenis en de diepgaande wijsheid van de oude beschavingen.
2. Beschrijving en Capaciteiten
De oude Vimana, zoals beschreven in verschillende Indiase geschriften, zijn fascinerende luchtvaartuigen die de verbeelding van velen hebben gevangen. Deze mythische voertuigen worden vaak afgebeeld als geavanceerde machines die niet alleen door de lucht konden vliegen, maar ook in staat waren om enorme afstanden te overbruggen, en zelfs interplanetaire reizen te maken. De beschrijvingen van Vimana zijn te vinden in teksten zoals de Mahabharata en de Ramayana, en schetsen een beeld van technologie die ver vooruit lijkt te zijn op onze huidige mogelijkheden.
2.1. Voortstuwingssystemen
De voortstuwingssystemen van de Vimana worden vaak omschreven als zeer geavanceerd, met mechanica die de wetten van de zwaartekracht en aerodynamica op een unieke manier benutten. Volgens sommige oude teksten zouden de Vimana zijn aangedreven door een combinatie van zonne-energie, kwikdamp en andere nog onbekende energiebronnen. Dit wijst op een diepgaand begrip van energie en natuurkunde, wat suggereert dat de oude beschavingen die deze machines bouwden, beschikten over kennis en technologie die verder ging dan wat we vandaag de dag begrijpen.
De constructie van de Vimana zou bestaan uit verschillende metalen, waaronder goud, wat niet alleen de esthetische aantrekkingskracht van deze voertuigen vergrootte, maar ook bijdroeg aan hun functionaliteit. Goud is een uitstekende geleider van elektriciteit en zou kunnen zijn gebruikt in combinatie met andere materialen om de energie die nodig was voor de voortstuwing en andere systemen te optimaliseren.
2.2. Reizen door de lucht en in de ruimte
Een van de meest opmerkelijke eigenschappen van de Vimana is hun vermogen om te vliegen. Volgens de overleveringen konden deze vliegtuigen niet alleen grote afstanden overbruggen, maar ook verschillende hoogtes bereiken, van de laagste luchtlagen tot de hoogste sferen. Sommige verhalen suggereren zelfs dat ze in staat waren om de atmosfeer van de aarde te verlaten en andere planeten te bereiken. Dit idee roept vragen op over de kennis van astronomie en ruimtevaart in oude beschavingen en suggereert dat ze misschien al een concept van ruimteverkenning hadden.
2.3. Wapens en defensieve systemen
Naast hun indrukwekkende voortstuwingssystemen waren de Vimana volgens de teksten ook uitgerust met geavanceerde wapens en defensieve mechanismen. Deze systemen waren ontworpen om hun piloten te beschermen tegen vijandelijke aanvallen en om strategische voordelen te behalen in oorlogssituaties. Er zijn verhalen die suggereren dat de Vimana konden worden bewapend met krachtige energiekanonnen en raketten, die vernietigende impact konden hebben op land- en zeewaterdoelen.
Bovendien wordt er in sommige teksten gesproken over defensieve systemen die de Vimana in staat stelden om zich te camoufleren of zelfs onzichtbaar te worden voor vijandelijke waarnemers. Dit zou kunnen wijzen op een geavanceerd begrip van stealth-technologie, wat de status van deze voertuigen als goddelijke machines verder versterkt.
2.4. Beheersen van de elementen
Een van de meest intrigerende aspecten van de Vimana is het vermogen dat aan hen wordt toegeschreven om de elementen te beheersen. Sommige teksten beweren dat deze vliegtuigen in staat waren om stormen te veroorzaken, weerpatronen te veranderen en zelfs aardbevingen te initiëren. Dit vermogen zou niet alleen de kracht van de technologie van de Vimana benadrukken, maar ook hun goddelijke status in de ogen van de mensen. Het idee dat een voertuig in staat is om de natuur te beheersen, roept beelden op van een tijd waarin technologie en spiritualiteit nauw met elkaar verbonden waren.
De oude Vimana vertegenwoordigen een fascinerend snijpunt van technologie, mythologie en spiritualiteit. Hun beschrijvingen in oude teksten geven ons een glimp van een tijd waarin de mensheid misschien verder gevorderd was dan we ons kunnen voorstellen. Of de Vimana nu een product zijn van overdreven verhalen of een weerspiegeling van verloren technologie, ze blijven een intrigerend onderwerp van onderzoek en speculatie. Het idee dat deze vliegende machines niet alleen waren ontworpen voor transport, maar ook een symbool van macht en mystiek waren, zorgt ervoor dat ze een blijvende fascinatie oproepen in de moderne wereld.
3. Oude Indische Wetenschap en Vimana Technologie
De Vimana, een term die vaak wordt gebruikt in de oude Indiase teksten, verwijst naar luchtvaartuigen of vliegende machines die worden beschreven in verschillende epische verhalen, zoals de Mahabharata en de Ramayana. Volgens deze teksten waren Vimanas niet alleen indrukwekkende luchtvaartuigen, maar ook complex in hun ontwerp en functionaliteit. Deze beschrijvingen hebben geleid tot een fascinerende discussie over de mogelijke technologische kennis van de oude Indiërs en hun vermogen om geavanceerde technologieën te ontwikkelen die vergelijkbaar kunnen zijn met moderne innovaties.
3.1. Technologische Verkenningen in de Oude Indische Wetenschap
De oude Indiase beschaving heeft een rijke geschiedenis van wetenschappelijke en technologische vooruitgang. De bijdrage aan wiskunde, astronomie en geneeskunde is goed gedocumenteerd. Bijvoorbeeld, de concepten van nul en het decimale systeem, dat zijn oorsprong in India vindt, zijn fundamenteel voor de ontwikkeling van de moderne wiskunde. Daarnaast waren Indiase astronomen zoals Aryabhata en Varahamihira pioniers in hun studies van de sterren en planeten, en hun werken bevatten opmerkelijke observaties die eeuwenlang invloedrijk bleven.
De geneeskunde, vooral de Ayurvedische geneeskunde, getuigt ook van een diepgaande kennis van anatomie, farmacologie en chirurgie. Het idee dat oude Indiërs niet alleen de aarde maar ook de lucht konden beheersen, sluit aan bij hun algehele wetenschappelijke nieuwsgierigheid en inventiviteit. De Vimanas worden soms gezien als een logisch vervolg op deze technologische vooruitgang, waarbij men speculeert dat ze misschien gebruik maakten van principes die nog niet volledig zijn begrepen of ontdekt in de moderne wetenschap.
3.2. Vimana en Antizwaartekracht
Een van de meest intrigerende aspecten van de Vimana-technologie is de suggestie dat deze voertuigen gebruik zouden kunnen maken van antizwaartekracht en andere geavanceerde principes van de natuurkunde. In sommige oude teksten wordt gesproken over een soort "vliegende kracht" die de Vimana's in staat stelde te stijgen en te navigeren door de lucht, wat zou kunnen duiden op een technologie die verder gaat dan de brandstofgedreven systemen die we vandaag de dag kennen. Sommige onderzoekers hebben gepostuleerd dat deze beschrijvingen van antizwaartekracht kunnen resoneren met hedendaagse theorieën in de fysica, zoals de theorie van kwantumzwaartekracht of andere nog te ontdekken principes die ons begrip van de zwaartekracht zouden kunnen uitbreiden.
3.3. Nucleaire Energie en Oude Kennis
Een ander fascinerend aspect van de Vimana-technologie is de speculatie over het gebruik van nucleaire energie. Sommige teksten suggereren dat Vimana's werden aangedreven door een vorm van energie die lijkt op wat wij nu beschouwen als nucleaire energie. Dit heeft geleid tot speculaties dat er in het oude India een begrip van nucleaire reacties was, wat op zijn beurt vragen oproept over de oorsprong van deze kennis en de ethische implicaties van het gebruik ervan. Het idee dat een oude beschaving in staat zou zijn geweest om dergelijke krachtige energiebronnen te beheersen, roept zowel verwondering als scepsis op.
3.4. Hedendaagse Relevantie en Debat
De discussie over de Vimana-technologie en de wetenschappelijke prestaties van het oude India is niet zonder controverse. Veel van deze theorieën zijn nog steeds onbewijsbaar en worden vaak als pseudowetenschap bestempeld. Desondanks blijven ze een onderwerp van fascinatie voor zowel onderzoekers als het bredere publiek. De mogelijkheid dat oude beschavingen beschikken over kennis die verloren is gegaan of vergeten is, spreekt tot de verbeelding en nodigt uit tot verder onderzoek.
Wetenschappers en historici blijven debatteren over de haalbaarheid van deze ideeën en de noodzaak om oude teksten en archeologische vondsten grondiger te onderzoeken. De Vimana en de technologieën die eraan worden toegeschreven, kunnen ons helpen om niet alleen het verleden van de oude Indiase beschaving te begrijpen, maar ook om bredere vragen te stellen over de ontwikkeling van technologie door de mensheid in zijn geheel.
In conclusie, de Vimana-technologie biedt een fascinerend venster op de oude Indiase wetenschappelijke prestaties en roept vragen op over wat mogelijk is op het gebied van technologie en menselijke kennis. Hoewel veel van deze theorieën nog steeds onbewezen blijven, blijft de zoektocht naar antwoorden een bron van inspiratie en nieuwsgierigheid voor veel mensen.
4 . Vimana en Extraterrestische Theorieën
De Vimana, mythische vliegende voertuigen die in oude Indische teksten worden beschreven, zijn de afgelopen decennia onderwerp van veel speculatie en fascinatie. Deze voertuigen, die vaak worden afgebeeld als majestueuze vliegtuigen in de oude geschriften, hebben geleid tot een aantal intrigerende theorieën over hun oorsprong en functie. Een van de meest opmerkelijke speculaties is de mogelijkheid dat deze Vimana niet alleen uit de menselijke verbeelding voortkwamen, maar mogelijk ook buitenaardse invloeden of technologieën weerspiegelen.
De oude teksten, zoals de Mahabharata en de Ramayana, beschrijven Vimana als indrukwekkende machines die in staat zijn om te vliegen door de lucht en zelfs door de ruimte. Dit roept de vraag op hoe mensen in die tijd, duizenden jaren geleden, zulke geavanceerde technologie konden begrijpen en beschrijven. Voorstanders van de buitenaardse theorieën stellen dat het idee van Vimana een bewijs kan zijn van de aanwezigheid van oude astronauten die de aarde bezochten en hun kennis en technologie met de mensheid deelden. Dit idee is niet nieuw; het is een terugkerend thema in verschillende culturen en mythologieën over de wereld.
De basis voor deze theorieën ligt in de overtuiging dat de beschrijvingen van Vimana zo geavanceerd zijn dat ze niet door de toenmalige menselijke kennis en technologie konden zijn voortgebracht. Voorstanders van deze visie wijzen op de gedetailleerde beschrijvingen van de constructie, het ontwerp en de werking van deze machines. Sommige teksten beschrijven zelfs de mogelijkheid van interplanetaire reizen, wat de veronderstelling ondersteunt dat de schrijvers mogelijk technologieën en ideeën hebben geïnspireerd door buitenaardse bezoekers.
Desondanks blijft de mainstream wetenschap sceptisch over deze theorieën. Veel wetenschappers wijzen erop dat de beschrijvingen van Vimana in de context van mythologie en symboliek moeten worden gezien, eerder dan als feitelijke technologie. Ze benadrukken dat de oude Indiërs niet over de middelen beschikten om vliegtuigen te bouwen zoals we die vandaag de dag kennen, en dat de beschrijvingen van deze voertuigen meer metaforisch dan letterlijk zijn. Het idee dat buitenaardse wezens in de oudheid de aarde bezochten, wordt vaak bestempeld als pseudowetenschappelijk en niet ondersteund door hard bewijs.
Toch houdt de fascinatie voor Vimana en de bijbehorende buitenaardse theorieën aan. Diverse auteurs hebben boeken geschreven die deze thema's verkennen, en er zijn talloze documentaires geproduceerd die de mogelijkheid van buitenaardse invloed op de menselijke geschiedenis onderzoeken. Deze media hebben bijgedragen aan het behoud van de belangstelling voor het onderwerp en hebben een breed publiek aangetrokken dat openstaat voor het idee dat de geschiedenis van de mensheid misschien niet zo eenvoudig is als het lijkt.
Een ander belangrijk aspect van de Vimana-theorieën is de culturele impact die ze hebben gehad op het denken over ruimtevaart en technologie. De concepten van vliegende voertuigen en interplanetaire reizen zijn tegenwoordig populair in de wetenschap en fictie, en de oude beschrijvingen van Vimana kunnen worden gezien als een vroege verkenning van deze ideeën. Dit heeft geleid tot discussies over hoe oude beschavingen technologieën en ideeën hebben ontwikkeld en hoe deze ideeën door de tijd heen zijn geëvolueerd.
Sommige onderzoekers hebben zelfs parallellen getrokken tussen de beschrijvingen van Vimana en moderne technologieën zoals drones en ruimtevaartuigen. Dit heeft geleid tot speculaties over wat er mogelijk is geweest in de oude wereld die we ons vandaag de dag nog niet volledig kunnen voorstellen. De vraag blijft: waren de Vimana louter producten van de menselijke verbeelding, of zijn ze een echo van een meer geavanceerde technologie die verloren is gegaan in de annalen van de tijd?
In conclusie, de theorieën over Vimana en hun mogelijke buitenaardse oorsprong blijven een fascinerend onderwerp van discussie. Hoewel de mainstream wetenschap deze ideeën vaak afwijst, blijven ze een bron van inspiratie en nieuwsgierigheid voor velen. De combinatie van mythologie, technologie en de mogelijkheid van contact met buitenaardse beschavingen maakt dit onderwerp tot een intrigerende verkenning van de menselijke geschiedenis en onze plaats in het universum.
5. Moderne Interpretaties en Populaire Cultuur
In de afgelopen jaren hebben de Vimana een opmerkelijke heropleving gekend, niet alleen binnen de academische wereld, maar ook in de populaire cultuur. Deze mythische vliegende machines, diep geworteld in de oude Indiase teksten zoals de Veda’s en de Mahabharata, zijn een bron van fascinatie geworden voor zowel wetenschappers als kunstenaars. De Vimana worden vaak afgebeeld als symbolen van geavanceerde technologieën, die de grenzen van menselijke creativiteit en verbeelding verkennen. Dit heeft geleid tot een breed scala aan interpretaties en herinterpretaties, waarbij elementen van sciencefiction, mythologie en historische intrige met elkaar worden verweven.
De populariteit van de Vimana in fictieve werken is niet te ontkennen. Films, boeken en televisieseries hebben deze oude vliegtuigen vaak gebruikt als centrale elementen in hun verhalen. Een voorbeeld hiervan is de film "The Mahabharata", waarin Vimana worden afgebeeld als majestueuze en krachtige voertuigen die door de lucht zweven. Deze visuele representaties zijn vaak spectaculair en dramatisch, waardoor ze een sterke impact hebben op het publiek. De combinatie van historische elementen met futuristische technologie helpt om een brug te slaan tussen het verleden en de toekomst, waardoor de Vimana een tijdloos symbool worden van menselijke aspiratie en ontdekking.
In de wereld van de literatuur zijn er talloze romans en verhalen die de Vimana als inspiratiebron gebruiken. Deze werken verkennen niet alleen hun mythische oorsprong, maar stellen ook vragen over technologie en vooruitgang. Auteurs spelen met het idee dat de Vimana misschien niet alleen een product van de verbeelding zijn, maar ook een weerspiegeling van verloren kennis en technologie uit een verre tijd. Dit heeft geleid tot speculaties over wat deze oude machines ons kunnen leren over de ontwikkeling van technologieën in onze moderne wereld.
Daarnaast blijft de academische gemeenschap de Vimana bestuderen vanuit verschillende perspectieven. Sommige onderzoekers onderzoeken de mogelijkheid dat de technologieën die in oude teksten worden beschreven, inzichten zouden kunnen bieden voor hedendaagse uitdagingen. In het bijzonder wordt er gekeken naar hoe deze oude beschrijvingen ons kunnen helpen bij het ontwikkelen van nieuwe vormen van transport en energiebronnen. Het idee dat we lessen uit het verleden kunnen toepassen op moderne kwesties zoals duurzaamheid en energie-efficiëntie, is een opwindend concept dat de verbeelding van wetenschappers prikkelt.
De Vimana zijn niet alleen objecten van studie; ze zijn ook symbolen van de menselijke zoektocht naar kennis en begrip. Het idee dat deze machines ooit hebben bestaan, roept vragen op over wat we echt weten over onze geschiedenis en de mogelijkheden van technologie. Zijn er verborgen waarheden die wachten om ontdekt te worden? Of zijn de Vimana slechts een product van mythe en fantasie? Deze vragen blijven onbeantwoord, maar ze stimuleren het debat en de nieuwsgierigheid.
In de populaire cultuur zijn de Vimana ook een symbool geworden van buitenaardse ontmoetingen. Sommige theorieën suggereren dat deze oude machines niet alleen door mensen zijn gemaakt, maar mogelijk ook door buitenaardse wezens zijn beïnvloed. Dit heeft geleid tot een groeiende subcultuur van mensen die geloven dat de Vimana bewijs zijn van een geavanceerde beschaving die ooit op aarde heeft bestaan of zelfs dat onze technologie is geïnspireerd door buitenaardse contacten. Deze speculaties zijn vaak het onderwerp van documentaires en populaire boeken, waardoor de Vimana een integraal onderdeel zijn geworden van de hedendaagse mythologie.
Samenvattend, de Vimana zijn een blijvende bron van fascinatie en inspiratie die de grenzen van wetenschap, mythologie en populaire cultuur overschrijden. Of ze nu worden gezien als bewijs van een verloren technologie of als fascinerende verhalen uit een rijke culturele geschiedenis, de Vimana blijven een intrigerend mysterie dat uitnodigt tot verder onderzoek en verkenning. Hun impact op de moderne wereld is onmiskenbaar, en hun verhaal zal waarschijnlijk blijven evolueren naarmate nieuwe generaties van kunstenaars en wetenschappers zich over deze oude machines buigen.
EINDBESLUIT
De Vimana, de mythische vliegende machines die in oude Indiase teksten worden beschreven, zijn meer dan slechts fantasieën of legendes. Ze zijn een fascinerend venster naar de rijke geschiedenis en cultuur van India, en ze bieden ons een unieke mogelijkheid om na te denken over de relatie tussen mythologie, technologie en wetenschap. In de eeuwenoude geschriften zoals de Mahabharata en de Ramayana worden Vimana vaak afgebeeld als geavanceerde voertuigen die niet alleen in staat zijn om door de lucht te reizen, maar ook krachtige wapens en wonderbaarlijke technologieën bevatten. Deze beschrijvingen roepen vragen op over de technologische vaardigheden en wetenschappelijke kennis van de oude Indiase beschaving.
De Vimana zijn bovendien een symbool van de menselijke verbeeldingskracht en de drang naar ontdekking. Terwijl we de teksten bestuderen, worden we geconfronteerd met de intrigerende mogelijkheid dat deze verhalen niet alleen fictie zijn, maar dat ze misschien zijn gebaseerd op werkelijke ervaringen of zelfs verloren technologieën. Dit roept de vraag op in hoeverre de oude Indiërs in staat waren tot innovaties die ons tot op de dag van vandaag blijven fascineren. De zoektocht naar de waarheid achter de Vimana kan ons niet alleen helpen om meer te leren over de geschiedenis van India, maar ook over de ontwikkeling van technologie door de tijd heen.
Bovendien kunnen de lessen die we uit de Vimana trekken, ons inzicht geven in onze eigen benadering van technologie in de moderne wereld. In een tijd waarin we geconfronteerd worden met zowel ongelooflijke vooruitgang als grote ethische dilemma's rond technologie, is het van cruciaal belang om de waarden en lessen van het verleden te heroverwegen. De Vimana herinneren ons eraan dat innovatie vaak voortkomt uit een combinatie van creativiteit, nieuwsgierigheid en een verlangen naar verbetering. Ze moedigen ons aan om verder te kijken dan de grenzen van onze huidige kennis en om te blijven dromen over wat mogelijk is.
Ten slotte zijn de Vimana niet alleen een fascinerend onderwerp van studie, maar ook een uitnodiging om onze verbeelding te gebruiken en de mysteries van de wereld om ons heen te verkennen. Terwijl we de verhalen en symboliek van deze oude machines blijven onderzoeken, kunnen ze ons inspireren om nieuwe ideeën te omarmen en de grenzen van onze eigen technologieën te verleggen. De Vimana zijn een krachtig voorbeeld van hoe mythologie en wetenschap hand in hand kunnen gaan, en ze bieden ons de kans om zowel de geschiedenis als de toekomst van menselijke creativiteit te heroverwegen.
An illustration of different tools and inventions.
Curiosmos.
The ability to create and use tools defined humanity’s rise from primitive survival to building complex civilizations. These tools were not just practical but transformative, enabling early humans to shape their world and lay the groundwork for modern technology. From the simplest stone tools to sophisticated instruments of navigation, the inventions of our ancestors remain a testament to human ingenuity.
This article delves into the ancient gadgets that revolutionized human history and their enduring impact.
The Dawn of Technology: Stone Tools
The advent of stone tools marked a monumental leap in human evolution. Around 2.6 million years ago, early hominins crafted the first tools in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, giving rise to the Oldowan Industry. These rudimentary tools—hammerstones, choppers, and flakes—were used for essential tasks like butchering animals, processing plants, and woodworking.
Why Stone Tools Were Revolutionary
Unlike organic materials like wood or bone, stone tools endured the test of time, leaving behind artifacts that reveal key insights into the lives of early humans. The deliberate crafting of these tools, involving percussive blows to shape sharp edges, demonstrates advanced cognitive and motor skills.
Fun Fact: Even animals like chimpanzees and crows use basic tools, but the manufacturing of Oldowan tools reflects a unique behavioral innovation among early hominins.
From Oldowan to Acheulean
The Oldowan tools paved the way for the Acheulean Industry, characterized by hand axes, cleavers, and knives. Acheulean tools, associated with Homo erectus, spread from Africa to Asia and Europe, enabling early humans to hunt, build shelters, and thrive in diverse environments. This era represents 99% of humanity’s technological history (Toth & Schick, 2014).
Simple Machines: The Foundation of Engineering
The invention of simple machines transformed how humans manipulated their environment, leading to some of the greatest engineering feats in history. These tools leveraged mechanical advantage to amplify force, making tasks easier and more efficient.
The Lever: An Ancient Power Tool
One of the earliest uses of the lever is evident in the shaduf, a water-lifting device invented in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Consisting of a long pole balanced on a pivot, the shaduf allowed farmers to irrigate their crops with minimal effort. Remarkably, it remains in use today in parts of Africa and Asia.
The Wheel: Rolling Into the Future
The wheel and axle mechanism originated in Mesopotamia, with the Sumerians initially using it for pottery around 3500 BC. This invention evolved into wheeled carts, revolutionizing transportation and trade. By enabling the movement of goods over long distances, the wheel played a crucial role in the development of early economies.
The Archimedes Screw: Innovation in Agriculture
Attributed to the Greek mathematician Archimedes, the Archimedes screw was a device designed to lift water for irrigation. Although similar mechanisms existed in Assyria and Egypt earlier, this invention became a cornerstone of ancient agricultural practices and is still used in some industries today.
Building the Impossible: Ramps and Pulleys
Ancient architects relied on ramps, levers, and pulleys to construct monumental structures like the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Colosseum in Rome. Archaeological evidence from the Hatnub quarry in Egypt suggests that ramps and pulleys were integral to hauling massive stone blocks, showcasing the ingenuity of ancient engineers.
Navigating the World: Instruments of Exploration
The ability to navigate vast oceans and unknown territories was a defining moment in human history. Early navigation tools enabled trade, exploration, and cultural exchange, laying the foundation for global connectivity.
The Compass: Guiding the Way
Invented in China around 206 BC, the magnetic compass was initially used for divination. Over time, it became an essential tool for navigation, allowing sailors to traverse vast seas even when celestial objects were obscured. This innovation revolutionized exploration and expanded trade routes.
Sunstones: The Vikings’ Secret Weapon
According to Norse legend, Vikings used sunstones to locate the sun on cloudy days. Modern research confirms that birefringent crystals like calcite could polarize light, enabling accurate navigation without a magnetic compass. This method might explain how the Vikings conquered the North Atlantic’s treacherous waters.
Austronesian Seafaring
The Austronesians, masterful sailors from Southeast Asia, invented outrigger canoes and catamarans, enabling them to explore and settle the Pacific Islands. Their innovative vessels allowed them to travel vast distances, facilitating the spread of culture and trade across the region.
The Written Word: A Technological Masterpiece
The development of writing was one of humanity’s most transformative achievements. Recording information allowed civilizations to preserve knowledge, govern societies, and develop literature.
Cuneiform: The First Writing System
The Sumerians pioneered cuneiform writing around 3100 BC. Initially used for accounting, it evolved into a versatile script capable of recording laws, religious texts, and epic poetry. The famous Sumerian poem Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta highlights the importance of writing as a tool for communication and storytelling.
Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Beyond
Inspired by cuneiform, the Egyptians developed hieroglyphics, a pictorial script used for monumental inscriptions and religious texts. Other civilizations, such as the Mesoamerican Olmecs, followed suit with their own writing systems, illustrating the universal need for recorded knowledge.
Measuring Time: The Ultimate Gadget
Timekeeping was essential for agriculture, governance, and religious practices. Ancient societies developed ingenious methods to track time, many of which laid the groundwork for modern clocks.
Sundials and Shadow Clocks
The Egyptians used shadow clocks and sundials as early as 3500 BC to divide the day into hours. These devices were not only practical but symbolized humanity’s growing understanding of celestial mechanics.
Water Clocks: Precision in Timekeeping
Known as clepsydrae, water clocks measured time based on the steady flow of water between vessels. The oldest known example, dating to Amenhotep III’s reign, exemplifies the advanced engineering of ancient Egypt. The Greeks later adapted water clocks for more complex uses, including Plato’s invention of the first alarm clock.
From the stone tools of early hominins to the sophisticated instruments of ancient engineers, these gadgets were more than functional—they were transformative. They enabled humans to conquer their environment, build civilizations, and explore the world. Even today, their influence persists, reminding us of the creativity and resilience of our ancestors.
Artifacts like the Antikythera Mechanism and the Baghdad Battery hint at the technological capabilities of ancient societies that were far ahead of their time. These inventions not only shaped history but continue to inspire innovation in the modern era.
We published an earlier version of this article in 2024.
This Man’s model for Consciousness used by the CIA believed that consciousness and physical reality are deeply connected through vibration. His main idea was that everything in the universe—from atoms to humans to the entire cosmos—is vibrating, and these vibrations are what create and shape reality.
Dr Itzhak Bentov was born in Czechoslovakia during World War II. He lost his parents and siblings in a Nazi concentration camp. After escaping to Israel, he joined the army’s scientific division and helped invent their first rocket—despite not having formal science training. Later, he moved to the U.S. and invented a steerable medical catheter. He was considered a brilliant mind.
His idea of consciousness starts with the smallest particles: atoms. He believed everything in the universe is vibrating or resonating. From atoms to molecules to human beings, everything vibrates. Even things like sound waves, light waves, and gravity waves all follow patterns of harmony (called coherence) and disharmony (decoherence). Reality, according to Bentov, is made up of these vibrations.
He believed that for a tiny moment, when vibrations cancel out to zero (a node), our reality “switches” into a different, higher-frequency state. Most of the time, we experience normal reality, but in those tiny moments, we may be connected to a deeper, more refined level of existence.
Itzhak Bentov’s work played a crucial role in shaping the theoretical foundation of the CIA’s Gateway Process. Bentov, known not only for his inventions like a remote-controlled cardiac catheter and diet spaghetti, also wrote extensively about human consciousness.
His biomedical and metaphysical models were central to Lt. Col. Wayne M. McDonnell’s 1983 report for the U.S. Army, which explored methods for transcending spacetime using the mind.
McDonnell’s report pulled ideas from various sources, but Bentov’s theories provided the scientific scaffolding that helped explain how altered states of consciousness—induced through techniques like meditation, biofeedback, hypnosis, and Kundalini yoga—could lead to powerful transformations in perception.
Specifically, Bentov’s ideas helped support the notion that the human body and mind can be tuned like instruments, with vibrational coherence playing a key role in achieving states of deep awareness or even out-of-body experiences. His influence helped lend credibility and structure to the more abstract or esoteric elements of the Gateway Process. (Source)
Bentov wasn’t just interested in engineering or medical inventions. His deep curiosity led him to explore something much bigger—consciousness and how it connects to the physical world. This journey led to his most famous book, Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness.
In the book, Bentov shares a bold idea: consciousness isn’t just something created by the brain. Instead, it’s a basic part of the universe—just as real and fundamental as matter or energy. His work combines modern science with ancient spiritual wisdom to create a unique model of reality.
He believed that each part of the universe contains the whole, like how a hologram works. This means every part of reality reflects everything else. It’s an idea supported by both some modern physics and old spiritual beliefs.
Rather than thinking of the brain as the source of consciousness, Bentov thought it acts more like a radio. It doesn’t create consciousness—it tunes in to it, like tuning into a broadcast that’s already out there.
He believed consciousness is linked to vibrations. Our thoughts, feelings, and meditative states are all connected to certain frequencies both in the brain and in the environment around us.
The Nervous System as a Link
Bentov believed that the nervous system is the key connection point between the physical world and the non-physical or spiritual realms. Through practices like meditation, he thought people could tune their nervous systems to universal frequencies—sort of like tuning a radio to a clear signal. This would allow someone to reach deeper levels of awareness and experience expanded consciousness.
He also studied what actually happens in the body during meditation. Bentov invented a special device that could measure tiny movements caused by the heartbeat and blood flow—kind of like a scientific seismograph for the body.
Through this research, he found something interesting: normally, the vibrations in the aorta (a big blood vessel) are slightly out of sync with the heartbeat. But during deep meditation, those vibrations become perfectly in sync—what he called phase-locked. This means the heart and aorta are working together more efficiently, using less energy.
This discovery suggested that meditation doesn’t just change your mind—it actually creates a powerful shift in how your body works, making everything run more smoothly and with less effort.
Bentov says that it’s our nervous system—our brain, nerves, and senses—that allows us to experience reality. The body, made of bones, muscles, and tissue, supports this system, but it’s the nervous system that gives us the picture of the world we see. Everything we perceive—flowers, chairs, teacups—comes to us through our senses.
But our senses are limited. We can’t see beyond ultraviolet or infrared light. We only hear a certain range of sounds. That means we’re only perceiving a small portion of what actually exists. We’re looking through a narrow slit at reality.
As we evolve, this slit starts to open. We begin to perceive more of the full picture. It’s not that we’re seeing different realities—it’s just that our view of the one big reality becomes wider. The eyes, ears, and other senses are simply extensions of the nervous system, which itself is an extension of the brain.
Some people learn to expand this perception through spiritual practices. Yogis, for example, have developed ways to push the nervous system into a more advanced state. But sometimes these shifts happen naturally, without any training.
When it comes to the soul, Bentov says most people treat it like a vague, spiritual concept—something they think about at church and then forget about. But in his view, it’s the other way around. We don’t have a soul. The soul has us. The soul is the eternal part; the body is temporary, like a car you drive until it breaks down, then replace. The soul gathers everything we learn in a lifetime and carries it forward.
On the physical level, people seem completely separate. You sit there, I sit here. But if you look at a higher level—the level of the soul—our souls begin to touch, to overlap. Go even higher, to what he calls the Higher Self, and the overlap increases. At the highest level, the spiritual level, everything overlaps. There’s no separation anymore. Everything and everyone exists everywhere, all at once. That’s the state of a perfected being, or a god.
We already exist on all of these levels at the same time, but we just don’t realize it. Like it or not, we are all evolving toward becoming more aware—toward godhood. But this takes ages, so there’s no need to rush. What’s interesting, Bentov says, is that the universe actually wants us to learn. The whole system is built to teach us about itself. And what it wants is for us to become all-knowing and everywhere—because the system itself is intelligent, gathering information and sharing it freely.
Bentov also challenged the idea of entropy. Normally, we think the universe gets more chaotic over time. But he believed that as the universe becomes more conscious, living things also become more aware. He said even atoms have a tiny bit of consciousness. As life evolves into more complex forms—like humans—our awareness grows too, though we still only perceive a small part of reality. For example, we can only hear certain sound frequencies and see a limited range of light.
He mentioned how infrasound (very low sound) and ultrasound (very high sound) can affect us even if we don’t consciously hear them. Infrasound has even been linked to supernatural experiences. One interesting concept he talked about is the Schumann Resonance, a natural frequency around 7.5 Hz caused by electromagnetic waves moving through the Earth’s atmosphere. That frequency is close to the brainwave states linked to meditation and remote viewing.
Bentov believed that the human body is like a musical instrument. This idea comes from an ancient Greek philosopher named Pythagoras. According to Bentov, each part of the body can be thought of as playing a different musical chord or note. This way of thinking helps explain how vibrations might affect our health—physically, emotionally, and mentally.
He studied how the brain works, especially during meditation. He noticed that people who meditate a lot sometimes hear high-pitched sounds. He believed these sounds came from different parts of the brain and that the brain uses these frequencies to send messages within itself.
He also thought that two small glands in the brain—the pineal and pituitary glands—could “talk” to each other using vibrations. These vibrations travel through a small fluid-filled space in the center of the brain, called the third ventricle. This idea supports the theory that our brain communicates using energy and frequencies, not just chemicals.
Bentov studied how the brain works, especially during meditation. He noticed that people who meditate a lot sometimes hear high-pitched sounds. He believed these sounds came from different parts of the brain and that the brain uses these frequencies to send messages within itself.
He also thought that two small glands in the brain—the pineal and pituitary glands—could “talk” to each other using vibrations. These vibrations travel through a small fluid-filled space in the center of the brain, called the third ventricle. This idea supports the theory that our brain communicates using energy and frequencies, not just chemicals.
Physio-Kundalini Reflex
He described a group of symptoms that sometimes happen during intense spiritual practices. He called this the “Physio-Kundalini Syndrome.” People experiencing this could have both body and mind changes. Some of the mental effects seemed similar to schizophrenia, a mental health condition. This means that spiritual practices can deeply affect the mind, and people should be careful and have proper guidance.
Bentov had a theory to explain strange body sensations that people sometimes feel during deep meditation or spiritual practice. These are often called “kundalini experiences.” More and more people around the world are reporting these kinds of experiences—especially when they practice meditation or energy work without proper guidance.
He believed these sensations are caused by standing waves—vibrations that stay in place—inside the fluid-filled areas of the brain (called ventricles). These waves can gently “massage” or stimulate a nearby part of the brain called the sensory cortex. That area controls how we feel touch and movement in our bodies.
This stimulation sends a sort of electric signal in a loop around the brain. People feel this as a tingling or sometimes painful energy that starts at the toes, moves up through the legs, spine, and head, and then comes down the front of the body—over the face, throat, and stomach—before starting over again. This follows the brain’s map of the body.
Bentov named this process the physio-kundalini reflex, and he linked it to ancient ideas of “kundalini awakening”—a concept from yoga and meditation traditions. In those traditions, kundalini is described as a powerful energy that rises through the spine during deep spiritual awakening.
According to Bentov, when this loop of brain stimulation overlaps with a part of the brain that gives feelings of pleasure, the person may feel incredible happiness, peace, or even bliss—something called samadhi in meditation.
Bentov said that reaching this state of bliss usually takes years of regular meditation. But in some rare cases, it can happen suddenly without warning. It can also be triggered when someone is near a highly advanced meditation teacher or spiritual master (called a guru), who somehow helps the student reach this deep state.
One of Bentov’s most fascinating ideas was about enlightened or cosmic consciousness—a state of expanded awareness and deep connection to the universe.
He believed that during very deep meditation, the brain builds up an electric current in the sensory cortex (the area that processes body sensations). This current creates two magnetic fields around the meditator’s head, each with opposite polarity (like the north and south poles of a magnet). These magnetic fields pulse in harmony with the body’s other rhythms, especially at 7 cycles per second (7 Hz), a frequency often seen in meditation.
Bentov and others actually measured these fields around the heads of meditators. He proposed that at this point, the meditator’s head acts like an antenna, tuned into both the Earth’s magnetic field and even the energies from the sun and stars.
Our planet’s environment is filled with constantly changing electromagnetic fields. Bentov believed that a person in deep meditation can receive and respond to these changes, because their brain becomes “tuned in” like a radio station. The head antenna both sends and receives energy and information.
As the Earth and universe shift, those changes affect the brain’s resonating frequency during meditation. The brain translates this energy into new levels of awareness, giving the meditator a deeper sense of connection with life and the cosmos.
This could explain why some advanced yogis seem to live in perfect harmony with the world—staying healthy, calm, and resilient through all of life’s ups and downs. Bentov believed that this “super-conscious” state is a form of natural alignment—magnetic and bioelectric harmony with the universe.
Interestingly, Bentov wasn’t alone. At the First International Conference on Psychotronic Research in 1973, eight scientific papers shared this same basic idea: that we can integrate with a universal energy field. These researchers suggested that psychic abilities—like telepathy, clairvoyance, and intuition—come from tuning into this universal field.
In yoga, these abilities are called siddhis, and they often show up naturally as someone goes deeper into meditation. But true yogis don’t focus on gaining powers—they aim for full self-realization: complete awareness of who they are and their place in the universe.
Tragically, Itzhak Bentov died in 1979. He was among the passengers on American Airlines Flight 191, which crashed shortly after takeoff from Chicago O’Hare Airport.
The disaster claimed the lives of all on board and remains the deadliest non-terrorism-related aviation accident in U.S. history.
Despite his early death, Bentov left behind a profound legacy—his pioneering work continues to influence thinkers, spiritual seekers, and consciousness researchers around the world.
Roadmap for Obtaining First Sample Returns from Mercury and Venus
Roadmap for Obtaining First Sample Returns from Mercury and Venus
By Laurence Tognetti
Ultraviolet image of Venus (left) and optical imageof Mercury (right) obtained by NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft during its mission in the 1970s. (Credit: NASA)
How can we successfully collect and return samples from Mercury and Venus to Earth? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) discussed how future missions could successfully conduct sample return missions from the two innermost planets in our solar system. This study has the potential to help scientists, engineers, and mission planners better understand new methods for conducting sample returns throughout the solar system, and specifically from hard-to-reach destinations.
Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible research with Teng Ee (Tony) Yap, who is a PhD student at Caltech and lead author of the study, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant takeaways, next steps for developing sample return missions, and the importance of returning samples from Mercury and Venus. Therefore, what was the motivation behind the study?
Yap tells Universe Today. “This study came out of a workshop held by the Keck Institute of Space Studies (KISS) at Caltech on Sample Return across the Solar System, which brought together experts in geo/cosmochemistry, orbital dynamics, mission science, etc. (as well as early career scientists like myself) to discuss the highest priority scientific objectives that can be achieved through sample return from bodies spanning the whole solar system, and what technologies need to be developed for those missions to be feasible.”
For the study, the researchers discussed the pros and cons of obtaining samples from Mercury and Venus, specifically mentioning the absence of meteorites that originate from the inner solar system, as all collected meteorites have originated from beyond the Earth’s orbit, specifically the main asteroid belt, Mars, and the Kuiper Belt. The researchers emphasized that along with the lack of meteorites from the inner solar system comes a lack of knowledge regarding the planetary building materials, such as carbonaceous and non-carbonaceous materials, and what materials could have existed in the inner solar system during its early formation billions of years ago.
Additionally, the researchers made a case for sample returns from both Mercury and Venus by using past and current missions like NASA’s MESSENGER to Mercury, active missions like the European Space Agency’s BepiColombo to Mercury, and proposed future NASA missions like DAVINCI and VERITAS to Venus. Therefore, what are the most significant takeaways from this study?
“We do not have a single sample, in the form of a meteorite, from Mercury and Venus,” Yap tells Universe Today. “The building blocks of both planets are derived from the innermost Solar System, and we need to know what these blocks look like geochemically to better understand the evolution in the early Solar System ~4.6 billion years ago and figure out if they represent the missing component needed to explain the Earth’s composition. A sample return mission to Mercury is possible with the development of nuclear thermal propulsion – it is unclear when this technology will come online’, however. A sample return mission to Venus doesn’t appear to be feasible, even with nuclear propulsion (largely due to its large mass; tough to get down to the surface and back to Earth). Balloon-based technologies (imagine a lab floating in a Venusian cloud layer) are being considered.”
Getting a space mission approved for flight is often a lengthy and time-consuming process taking anywhere from several years to decades to go from a proposal to a fully operational and launch-ready space mission. To facilitate this process, NASA incorporates its Technology Readiness Levels system to gauge each step of development for a mission, including laboratory and real-world demonstrations for all systems and subsystems. Each level often involves countless tests, evaluations, re-designs, more tests, and more evaluations until the spacecraft is finally ready for flight.
For example, while NASA’s Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to conduct a detailed study of Mercury in 1975, it would be another 23 years before another spacecraft was proposed to travel to the closest planet to the Sun. This is because traveling that close to the Sun is very dangerous to the Sun’s enormous gravity that would pull in any spacecraft traveling too close. Therefore, multiple gravity assists and planetary flybys were utilized to slow a spacecraft to the necessary speeds to orbit Mercury.
The MESSENGER spacecraft was proposed in 1998 and launched in 2004, but didn’t enter Mercury orbit until 2011. Therefore, what are the next steps for developing future missions to return samples from Mercury and Venus, along with what is the importance of returning samples from Mercury and Venus?
Yap tells Universe Today, “Pushing for the development of nuclear propulsion and balloon-based technologies! Getting the community excited about looking ‘in’ towards Mercury and Venus, in addition to looking ‘out’ towards the giant planets and their moons. Strengthening the science case for sample return to those planets (i.e., figuring out how to make the most of, say, 1 gram of rock scraped or drilled from their surfaces).”
Yap continues, “Mercury and Venus have the potential to solve a major and longstanding problem in the field of cosmochemistry: tracing the building blocks of the Earth. Ironically, we don’t know how to ‘build’ the Earth from materials we know; there is no mixture of meteorites we know that yields the Earth’s composition.”
How will returned samples from Mercury and Venus help scientists better understand the history of the planets and the solar system in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
Mind blowing UFOs Over Nowy Targ, Poland April 15, 2025, UAP Drone Sighting News.
Mind blowing UFOs Over Nowy Targ, Poland April 15, 2025, UAP Drone Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 15, 2025
Location of sighting: Nowy Targ, Poland
Source: Email report at scwaring @yahoo.com
Watch this amazing raw video just in from Poland. A fleet of UFOs were seen passing over the city and notice that they just appear out of nowhere. I mean it's just such a rare video to see the UFOs arriving.
Such events are the most important, why? Because we get to see how they arrive and how they leave...something most UFO videos leave out.
Scott C. Waring - Utah
Eyewitness states:
I received the video from one of my readers and shared it on Facebook. Some people believe it might be a military exercise or possibly parachute jumps. However, I’ve never seen any military drills like this since I started following this topic — but maybe I just haven’t seen enough in my life. Many local residents witnessed it. I'm waiting for more footage to come in.
What's going on? 4 cryptic messages emerge from Russia’s mysterious radio station
What's going on? 4 cryptic messages emerge from Russia’s mysterious radio station
UVB-76, widely known by its nickname "The Buzzer," is a mysterious shortwave Russian radio station radio broadcasts in the world. It began broadcasting in the mid-1970s and is still active today, broadcasting cryptic signals at 4625 kHz.
This Russian shortwave station usual broadcast consists of a monotonous buzzing tone that occasionally breaks for cryptic voice messages in Russian. The station is widely believed to be operated by the Russian military, possibly as part of the Strategic Rocket Forces’ communication network.
The use of shortwave radio enables the signal to travel vast distances, potentially covering all of Russia and extending far beyond its borders.
Due to the high transmission power of UVB-76’s antenna, some theorize that the station’s signals could even reach outer space. This possibility opens the door to even more extraordinary speculation: that satellites might receive these signals and relay them to submarines, remote military units, or even unidentified aerial phenomena (UFOs). One theory even posits that UVB-76 could be part of an experimental system designed to scan or communicate with extraterrestrial life.
Under normal circumstances, UVB-76’s broadcasts are infrequent and minimal, just the repetitive buzz and the rare coded message. However, something highly unusual happened just ten hours ago. Within a single day, the station transmitted four coded voice messages, an event considered extremely rare and potentially significant.
While the true meaning of these messages remains classified or unknown, some analysts believe they could be activation codes, operational signals, or test messages for military units. The repeated prefix "NZHTI" could be a call sign or an authentication marker. The names—NEPTUN, TIMUS, LISOPLASH, and NUTOBAKS, might refer to code-named operations, geographic regions, or military assets. The numeric sequences could represent coordinates, timestamps, or identification numbers.
Given the timing and unusual frequency of these messages, some suspect that UVB-76 is ramping up activity in preparation for a significant event. While there's no confirmation of any immediate threat, the sudden uptick in coded communications suggests that something serious could be developing.
Many experts believe UVB-76 is maintained as a wartime contingency channel, ready to relay commands in the event of nuclear war or a catastrophic loss of national communications. Its consistent presence, even during peacetime, supports the theory that it serves as an emergency or fail-safe communication method for defense forces.
The sudden surge of messages within one day suggests that something serious is happening, or about to. But who are they intended for? And more importantly, what comes next?"
The UFO phenomenon is full of very strange reports stretching back for many decades. From sightings to crashes to alien abductions, it really runs the range. One trend that has turned up is the tendency for UFOs to congregate around certain areas for reasons unknown. Bodies of water have long been one type of place these strange craft flock to, and here we will look at a selection of UFOs appearing at lakes.
One very remarkable case of an actual abduction carried out by a lake-dwelling UFO is that of a woman named Betty Andreasson Luca back in 1950. A housewife, mother and grandmother, she would claim that this experience had been uncovered through hypnosis, and that the strange incident had happened when she was just a child. She says that she was in her home on a perfectly normal evening when she was whisked away by a “wheel-like vehicle,” and once aboard, she claims that it went speeding towards a large lake at dangerously high speeds. She braced for what seemed to be imminent, catastrophic impact as the craft hurtled towards the water’s surface with no sign of slowing down, but instead of the expected crash, it smoothly submerged and continued without issue or even so much as a shudder.
After some time of travelling underwater at great speeds, the underwater scenery blurring by outside, the craft then allegedly entered a submerged tunnel system, which had ice and icicles along its walls and was brightly lit through means she could not ascertain. She says the ship eventually reached an enormous underwater dome and base or facility of some kind, where she was shocked to see a collection of people in some sort of suspended animation within glass containers, frozen there like insects stuck in amber. She described hundreds and hundreds of these people, wearing clothing from different periods throughout history and placed in sets that approximated that period, which made her think of this strange place as a “Museum of Time.” There were people of all ages encased like this, rows upon rows of them, along with animals as well, and it was a chilling sight, She was then sped off back to her home, and would forget the whole incident for decades until she had it uncovered by hypnosis in 1980 after experiencing vivid nightmares of the ordeal.
It is hard to know what to make of this report, and seeing as Andreasson has gone on to report other encounters with aliens she says are angelic servants of Jesus Christ, her tales have been met with some skepticism. Was she really taken deep underwater to this Museum of Time by a UFO?
Moving on, it was the evening of November 23, 1953, and what had started out as a routine, quiet night for Air Defense Command Ground Intercept radar operators at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, was about to get very weird very fast. It started with an unusual radar signature that was picked up over the Soo Locks area of Lake Superior, near the border with Canada. It was particularly odd, as the area in question was restricted airspace; no one should have been there at all, yet here was this anomalous target just flying through as if it had every business in the world to be there. The nearby Kinross Air Force Base was notified, and they began scrambling a fighter to take to the air and intercept the mystery aircraft. An F-89C Scorpion was prepped for takeoff and roared up into the sky towards the unknown, carrying within pilot First Lieutenant Felix Moncla and radar operator Second Lieutenant Robert L. Wilson. Little did anyone know that they were about to fly out into one of the greatest UFO mysteries in history, or that they would not be coming back at all.
Once in the air, Wilson went about trying to track the mysterious object, but this would prove to be easier said than done, as he had trouble getting a lock on it. Instead, ground radar operators kept constant radio contact, guiding the plane towards its target, yet as they descended from a higher altitude to engage, the object reportedly made a sudden, sharp turn and evaded them. The F-89 panned around to continue the pursuit, and the object managed to match their movements and remain elusive, almost as if it were toying with them. Meanwhile, ground radar was watching this cat and mouse game unfold as two blips on a radar screen, and at one point at an altitude of 8,000 feet and around 70 miles from Keweenaw Point, the two blips seemed to merge on the screen. This was not necessarily completely shocking in and of itself, as there was no distress signal issued and it was just thought that the two aircraft were passing over or under each other, yet when the expected separation of the single blip into two did not happen, and radio contact with the F-89 was lost as that blip just continued off as one signature things got more worrying. It was thought that this meant the two objects had collided, yet the single blip continued its journey on its original course with no sign of having any problems, until it left the radar range altogether.
There were panicked attempts to recover radio contact with Moncla, but there was nothing but silence in return, and so it was assumed that their plane had crashed, and a rescue mission was immediately launched, involving both the American and Canadian Air Forces, as well as numerous ships. The area where the blips had become one was then scoured for any sign of the men or their plane, but not a single sign of any wreckage was found, as if they had just flown off the face of the earth. Neither was any sign found of the mysterious aircraft that had started all of this, and it too seemed to have just vanished.
In the meantime, the USAF got off to an unsteady start trying to explain all of this to the public, at first saying that the F-89 had crashed after chasing a mysterious unidentified object, but they soon backpedaled away from this and completely changed their story. The official report was now that the object that was being chased was actually a Canadian C-47 Skytrain, later oddly changed to a DC-3 airliner, that had flown off course and that the F-89 had crashed due to pilot difficulties on the way back from successfully guiding the Canadian aircraft back on course, speculated as likely caused by Moncla experiencing vertigo, combined with the poor weather at the time. Yet, this doesn’t jibe with the fact that two radar blips had gone in, merged, and only one had come out. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) also changed their story, at first saying that the DC-3 pilot had not been aware of the American jet at all, yet they later claimed that there had been no Canadian aircraft in the area at all at the time of the incident. Either way, according to the RCAF the incident had never happened at all.
Curious, and it would get even curiouser when ex-Marine and UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe found in leaked Air Force documents that far from considering this an open and shut case, the government in fact considered it to be a very anomalous occurrence that they could not explain. Keyhoe also found that there had been wildly conflicting stories from Air Force officials when informing the families of the victims, with some saying the plane had come in low to crash into Lake Superior and others saying that the plane had exploded and disintegrated in midair. This last one is strange, because does vertigo cause a plane to explode in midair? Without any wreckage to examine, it is hard to say, but what is for certain is that the USAF and RCAF couldn’t keep their stories straight. Making it a bit more ominous and conspiratorial is the fact that investigators from the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) who looked into it were surprised to find that Moncla’s mission had apparently been struck from the official record altogether. They would write:
“There is no record in the Air Force files of sighting at Kinross AFB on 23 November 1953… There is no case in the files which even closely parallels these circumstances.”
Other odd things would pop up related to the case. One is that UFO researcher John Tenney would claim to have spoken to a member of the USAF who claimed that there had been a faint radio transmission from Moncla hours after his plane was said to have gone down, which seems weird, and it is hard to know what to make of. There would also be a possible clue in the report of some railway workers along the Canadian Algoma Central Railway, who claimed that they had heard a huge explosion on the night of the incident. These incoming leads have done little to solve the mystery, and indeed have only served to sprinkle it with more oddness.
The whole Kinross incident actually received relatively little coverage and remained fairly obscure to the general public at the time, perhaps to the relief of the governments involved, and it flew under the radar for quite a few years until it was sort of resurrected again in 1968. In October of that year, some wreckage was found near the eastern shore of Lake Superior that looked very much like that of a USAF fighter plane, but the only confirmation forthcoming was an Air Force officer admitting that they seemed to be from one of their planes, but the report was never officially recognized and the identity of the parts remains unknown. In 2006, interest in the case was piqued again when it was claimed that a group of Michigan divers from the “Great Lakes Dive Company” had discovered Moncla's F-89 at the bottom of Lake Superior, even providing sonar and photographic evidence. However, efforts to contact the company all led to a man calling himself “Adam Jimenez,” who was very vague about it all. It would later be found that the Great Lakes Dive Company didn’t even really exist, that the claims were likely a part of an elaborate hoax, and Jimenez soon completely disappeared after that.
With so many mysteries and so many conspiracies surrounding it, theories have flown about what happened to the plane and the two men. Maybe it was a crash, just as the military has said, but maybe it was something more. The idea has been put forward that this could have involved some top-secret experimental aircraft, possibly from a foreign power, that was engaged out there. There is also the notion that this was a genuine UFO encounter with something beyond our understanding, an otherworldly craft that either collided with the F-89, shot it down, or even abducted the entire plane to whisk it off to places unknown. In the end, we are left with a case that officially remains a simple crash, but which is far from satisfactorily explained. With all of the changing stories and obfuscation, there are only a few things we know for sure. We know that Moncla and Wilson took off in that plane to never return. We know that two radar blips converged and only one left. And we know that there has never been any other trace found of the missing plane or crew. Other than that, there is nothing concrete to go on; the government has been very opaque on the whole incident, and we will probably never get the answers we seek, even as that plane and its two crew remain missing.
On October 26, 1958 at 10:30 PM, near the Loch Raven Dam, north of Baltimore, Maryland, two men by the names of Phillip Small and Alvin Cohenwere driving along and as they approached a bridge, they saw what appeared to be a “flattened out, egg-shaped object” hovering approximately 100-150 feet from the top of the bridge. They slowed their vehicle down to try and get a better look, and as they did, their car just completely died and would not start again. The frightened men looked on to see the object flash a blinding white light, which was accompanied by a loud, low rumble like thunder. The UFO then slowly rose straight up, seeming to get even brighter as it did so, and then flew off out of sight.
The men were then able to restart their car and rush to the nearest phone to report their sighting to the Towson Police Department. Two patrolmen would arrive at the scene to find that the witnesses were experiencing an excruciating burning sensation on their skin, so they were taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Baltimore for treatment. Project Blue Book investigated the case, but found no absolute cause for the appearance of the object or the physical symptoms experienced by the witnesses. The case remains unidentified, although the Air Force did state that the object constituted no security threat to the United States.
In the spring of 1959, a U.S. Air Force C-118, now called a Douglas DC-6, was doing training runs at McChord Air Force Base, also called McChord Field, in Pierce County, Washington. On April 1, the large cargo aircraft was doing takeoffs and landing training, particularly what are called “touch and go” landings, after which the plane would circle back around and do another run. On this day, the plane had a very experienced crew, with seasoned pilot 1st Lieutenant Robert Roy Dimick, his co-pilot 1st Lieutenant Thomas E. Lasater, and flight engineers Technical Sergeant Guy J. Cunningham and Staff Sergeant Arthur T. Foote. Everything was going to plan, and it was all considered to be pretty routine stuff, but then something very odd would happen that would launch this plane into an obscure but fascinating oddity of UFO history.
During one of the landing runs, the plane was told to hold off and let some approaching fighter jets land, so Dimick brought the aircraft into a holding pattern over nearby Bonney Lake while they waited. At some point during this holding pattern, which was a mundane maneuver the pilot had done many times before, the pilot allegedly suddenly made a panicked radio call, saying, “We’ve hit something or something has hit us.” The plane then quickly lost altitude as the pilots struggled to maintain control, finally clipping some treetops in the surrounding wilderness, which heavily damaged the wing. The plane would then continue limping on, spewing flames the whole way, and finally come down just outside the town of Orting, killing everyone on board.
For the Air Force, there was nothing mysterious about it. They officially explained the crash as due to pilot error and a misunderstanding between the plane and ground control over who was tracking its altitude, all compounded by the fact that it was very dark and there were no ground lights in the wilderness they were over. For the Air Force, it was just a tragic accident, move along, nothing to see here. However, some odd details would begin to emerge that seemed to point to something far stranger. In the days after the crash, some locals claimed that they had heard what sounded like sonic booms at around the time of the accident, and there were also some reports of seeing strange lights in the sky in the weeks before and even on the evening in question. When combined with the claim that the pilot had said they had hit something, this started to spawn rumors that the plane might have actually collided with a UFO. According to some researchers, the plane also did not seem to hit the ground at an angle, as one would expect, but rather it has been claimed that it seemed to have almost come down vertically, as if pushed down from above. Also, according to some witnesses, there were sinister efforts by the military to quiet local officials in Orting from talking about it.
Pushing it all further into the realm of conspiracies is the fact that the original report on the incident seems to have had two whole pages redacted from it, and numerous requests for the information have allegedly been denied time and time again. Why should that be if this was a simple training accident involving pilot and ground tower error? Also, the doomed plane was flying in calm conditions on a routine run, and suddenly radioed a collision, before going down to take the lives of all aboard. With all of the reports of the lights and sonic booms and other strangeness surrounding this case, is it all as the Air Force says it was, or is there something else more mysterious going on here?
The case of the Bonney Lake incident is fairly obscure, but it has all the makings of an intriguing case. What really caused that plane to go down back in 1959? What did those men potentially witness out there while soaring over that swath of wilderness? What did that call mean? That they had hit something? What could that have been, and how does that tie into the official explanation? Why the redacted pages? Although the military claims it was all an accident, these oddities and discrepancies have ensured that the case has still generated discussion in some circles, and considering we will probably never really know the full story, it seems destined to do so for some time to come.
On the night of March 14, 1965, James W. Flynn, who is a rancher and hunting dog trainer, was camped out for the night at Lake Okeechobee in the Florida Everglades, and one night his dogs suddenly became uncommonly agitated and restless. He looked around, expecting visitors, but instead he saw a bright light silently and slowly descending about a mile away. At first, he thought it might be an airplane in trouble, so he got into his buggy to try and get closer to investigate, following an eerie glow through the trees. As the terrain grew more treacherous, he was forced to stop the buggy and continue on foot through the glow-frosted gloom towards an unknown thing through those trees.
He soon entered a clearing to see not a crashed plane, but rather a circular, cone-shaped object hovering over the ground that measured about 75 feet in diameter, emitting a low hum and ensconced within a pulsating glow. There were four rows of ports or windows encircling the craft, each emitting a yellow light unlike the color of the craft's overall glow, and a partition immediately behind the windows prevented him from seeing any internal details or occupants. Overcome with curiosity, he crept closer to the strange craft, and that was when a “pencil-thin blue light” supposedly shot out from "somewhere" on the craft to hit Flynn on the forehead "right between the eyes.” He lost consciousness and immediately crumbled to the muck at his feet.
When he regained consciousness, he was partially blind, sluggish, had a terrific headache, and a large, sore bruise on his forehead. Of the craft, there was no sign, so he stumbled back to his buggy and was able to get himself to a hospital, where he told everyone about his otherworldly ordeal, and he was diagnosed with “atrophy of internal muscles.” It was odd enough to convince authorities to go check the site out, and there they found a large circular spot in the clearing where the ground and grass were charred, as well as fir trees with their tops completely burned off. At the time, the Air Force was quick to write off and debunk such experiences, and they quickly labeled the whole thing as a hoax. We are still left with the question of what happened here, and if it was just a hoax, how did Flynn manage to create the charred circle, burned trees, and unusual physical symptoms? We may never know for sure.
The following year, on January 11, 1966, Patrolman Joseph Cisco was on patrol at the Wanaque Reservoir, in Wanaque, New Jersey, when he got a strange call over the radio, reporting a “glowing light, possibly a fire” by the lake. The dispatcher continued, saying that there had been a rash of UFO sightings in the vicinity. Cisco would say of what happened next:
“I pulled into the sandpit, an open area to get my bearings. There was a light that looked bigger than any of the stars, about the size of a softball or volleyball. It was a pulsating, white, stationary light changing to red. It stayed in the air; there was no noise. I was trying to figure out what it was.”
At around the same time, Wanaque Mayor Harry T. Wolfe, Councilmen Warren Hagstrom and Arthur Barton, and the Mayor’s 14-year-old son Billy were on their way to oversee the burning of the borough’s Christmas trees, when they heard the reports that something "very white, very bright, and much bigger than a star" was hovering over the Wanaque Reservoir. They managed to run into Officer Cisco, and all of them observed the oval object “flying low and gliding oddly over the vast frozen lake like a huge star, but it didn’t flicker.” The object apparently frequently changed colors from white to red to green and back to white. The next thing that Officer Cisco remembers is his patrol car’s radio "going bananas," as calls from all over a 20-mile radius flooded into the police headquarters. Cisco radioed Officer George Dykman, who was on patrol nearby. Just as Dykman received Cisco’s message, two teenagers came running up to his patrol car, frantically pointing at the sky and shouting, "Look, look!"
At that moment, Wanaque Civil Defense Director Bentley Spencer drove up with CD member Richard Vrooman, and all of them gawked at the mysterious object, trying to figure out what it was. Joseph Cisco’s radio crackled as another unbelievable message came across the airwaves: "Something’s burning a hole in the ice! Something with a bright light on it, going up and down!" Then another transmission fought its way through the din: "Oh boy! Something just landed in front of the dam!” Spencer and reservoir employee Fred Steines raced to the top of the 1,500-foot-long Raymond Dam, where they described seeing "a bolt of light shoot down, as if attracted to the water... like a beam emitted from a porthole.” Hagstrom would say:
“There was something up there that was awful bright. We don’t know what it was. We thought it was a helicopter, but we didn’t hear a motor. It looked like a helicopter with big landing lights on. We got goose bumps all over when we saw where the hole was.”
One day after the initial sightings of the UFO, Patrolman Jack Wardlaw reported seeing a "bright white disk" floating in the vicinity of his home in the Stonetown section of Wanaque, just west of the reservoir. He would say of it:
“It seemed like only a block away, above Lilly Mountain, maybe 1,000 feet up. Don’t ask me what it was. But I do know it wasn’t any helicopter, plane, or comet. It shot laterally right and left. It stopped. It moved up straight. And then it moved down and disappeared in the direction of Ringwood to the north. It was definitely disc-shaped and at certain angles, egg-shaped."
That same evening, Cisco would see the object again over the reservoir “moving back and forth like a rocking chair motion.” A few minutes later, the object shot straight up into the night sky, until it was indistinguishable from the other stars. It would not make another appearance. This case is interesting in that it has multiple witnesses, many of whom would be considered to be quite reliable. What was going on there at that lake?
One of the most dramatic and harrowing supposed UFO encounters in not only Canadian history, but that of anywhere else, began in 1967 in the remote wilderness of a place called Falcon Lake, Manitoba, located just about 150 kilometers east of the city of Winnipeg. It was here in this peaceful wilderness that, on May 20, 1967, industrial mechanic and Polish immigrant Stefan Michalak was out prospecting for mineral deposits. At one point he seemed to have found what he was looking for, a rich vein of quartz, but as he was getting ready to try and go about staking a claim on it a very bizarre sequence of events would unfold that would change his life forever, and would go on to become one of the most intriguing cases of a purported UFO attack ever.
As he scoped out the area, Michalak was startled by a gaggle of geese suddenly alighting into the sky with some commotion, which he followed skyward until his eyes fell upon an otherworldly sight hovering above. He says that the geese passed in front of two large, oval or cigar-shaped objects in the air surrounded by a reddish glow, and that one of these began to descend as he looked on in awe to land on a nearby flat shelf of rock, where it seemed to morph into a disc-like shape right before his startled eyes. As the strange object did this, the other craft allegedly ascended into the sky to disappear, leaving Michalak alone with the glowing disc that had landed only about 45 meters away from him.
The witness would claim that he had warily approached the curious sight, and as he did so, a hatch would open on the side of the object as the glow subsided to reveal a metallic surface. He claimed that the opening belched forth a smell not unlike sulphur, and that a motorized whirring noise could be heard emanating from within, as well as the glare from a bright light. He still crept closer, and said that he could hear what sounded vaguely like voices echoing about within. Michalak allegedly called out to whoever it was, but there was no reply. The multilingual Michalak even tried calling out in Polish, Russian, and German, thinking that this was a manmade craft, but met with only that unearthly machine hum each time. Where as most people would have probably called it a day and gotten out of there with haste, Michalak was so curious that he moved ever closer to the craft, each call out to the occupants unanswered, until he was purportedly standing right at the portal that had opened in the craft, and it was here where things would get truly bizarre.
After taking a peek within to see various flashing lights, panels of some sort, all bathed in a purplish glow, he reached out to touch the side of the object to find it extremely hot to the touch, causing him to withdraw his hand in surprise. Inspecting his glove, he found that it had actually been melted, and as he stared at his hand in bafflement, the whole of the craft then began to rattle and shake. As this was happening, the now frightened man says he was struck in the chest by what felt like a stream of very hot air emitted from within the craft, which sent him sprawling back away from the disc. The bizarre craft then began to lift off the ground to hover over him, before shooting off over the trees into the sky to leave Michalak feeling nauseous to the point that he vomited where he stood. In his head, he could feel an intense pain building, as well as an intense burning in his chest area, and he knew that something was very wrong. Wrapping himself close with his jacket, he meandered off towards the road and civilization, constantly vomiting along the way and eventually stumbling into the parking lot of the Falcon Motor Hotel.
When hotel staff found him, he was delirious and rambling, disheveled and wild-eyed and still vomiting, and it was at first thought that he was just very drunk. Michalak managed to make it on his own on a bus back to Winnipeg, where he was whisked off to the hospital, and things would get even stranger still. When examined, it was revealed that he had a series of burn marks that formed a grid-like pattern over his chest, as well as signs of what appeared to be radiation sickness, the cause unknown. Michalak’s son, Stan Michalak, would later say of seeing his father in this state:
“I recalled seeing him in bed. He didn't look good at all. He looked pale, haggard. When I walked into the bedroom there was a huge stink in the room, like a real horrible aroma of sulphur and burnt motor. It was all around and it was coming out of his pores. It was bad. I was very afraid. My dad had been injured and I didn't know anything about it.”
As soon as the man was lucid enough to give his version of events, the story hit the news, and a UFO sensation was born. There was quite a lot of interest from the military and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Royal Canadian Air Force at he time, with numerous alleged searches of the area of the incident using tracker dogs and aircraft, and even Michalak himself was recruited to join in the sweep when he was feeling better. They found the remains of Michalak’s scorched and melted glove, as well as some of his tools and allegedly a circular area on the rock that was strangely devoid of moss or any vegetation and which possessed soil high in radiation readings and some odd pieces of melted metal within the cracks of the rock, also radioactive.
In the meantime, the tale was launching itself into local legend, and there was, by many accounts, a pronounced military presence in the area for weeks, with helicopters hovering above at all hours. There was also a deluge of reporters and curiosity seekers gravitating towards the Michalak home, and in the meantime, there was also an intense investigation going on into the claims he had made. There were some efforts at the time to discredit Michalak, trying to paint him as a town drunk who had hallucinated the whole thing or completely fabricated it, but this didn’t stick and seems to have been wholly invented just to make him look crazy. He had been a military policeman in his former years and was known as an honest and responsible upstanding citizen, with no history of telling tall tales, by all accounts not someone who would be making these kinds of stories up or showing up stumbling about ranting about flying saucers. There was also the physical evidence left behind, which could not be easily explained and which was confirmed by doctors. UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski, who has written the definitive book on the whole incident, “When They Appeared: Falcon Lake 1967: The Inside Story of a Close Encounter,” has said of this:
“Michalak certainly wasn’t an alcoholic. He didn’t drink to excess but he drank socially. To suggest that having a few drinks or even three or four drinks the night before his experience would make him imagine something to the point where he would be physically burned and leave radioactive debris behind is, I think, quite a quantum leap.
We have a witness who was judged by a psychiatrist to not fabricate stories. A person who was a good member of society holding a good job, a background in the military himself, and no reason to perpetrate such a hoax at all. He maintained until he died that this is what happened to him. He did not have a history of seeing aliens around every corner, like so many contactees and abductees maintain these days in their own stories. This was a very unusual experience that happened to him and he was as puzzled as anyone. Whether it was something from outer space or a military vehicle… there’s no question something happened. It’s a mystery. It’s quite fascinating. I knew the family quite well, and he wasn’t the type of guy to make up stories like this."
Michalak’s son would agree, having said, “If Dad hoaxed this — remember we're talking about a blue-collar, industrial mechanic — if he hoaxed it then he was a freakin' genius.” There were also the findings of official investigators and civilian researchers, who concluded that there was no explanation for the incident, the radiation, or what happened to Michalak, and to this day, the Canadian Department of National Defence considers the case to be officially unsolved. Michalak himself would adamantly stand by his story right up until he died in 1999, so what happened to him? Was this just all some sort of elaborate hoax or something else, and if so, what? One idea is that he saw not aliens or extraterrestrials, but rather some sort of terrestrial experimental aircraft, and indeed, Michalak himself thought this could be the case, never really specifically insisting that what he saw were aliens. His son Stan has said of this:
“If you asked him what it was he saw, he could describe it in intimate detail but he would never say, 'Oh, it was definitely extraterrestrials,' because there was no evidence to prove that. He might ask, 'What do you think I saw?' but right up until he died, his story never changed one iota — nothing about it or how he told it. I'm not so close-minded that I can't entertain the possibility that it's otherworldly. I can't discount that. But without specific evidence to show me that it is, I don't know. What I can tell you is that I'm an aviation fanatic, a huge aviation buff, and I am very familiar with how aviation technology has advanced in the past 50 years. And there was nothing even close to that in the works anywhere at that time.”
What are we dealing with here? Was this an extraterrestrial presence? Was it some type of top-secret military craft? Was it all a tall tale, and if so, how did he fake the injuries and the physical evidence that was allegedly found at the site? Or was it something else altogether? What caused those grid-like burns on his chest, and was this some sort of attack directed at him? These are questions we still don't have the answers to, and the case of the Falcon Lake Incident has become one of the great mysteries of the landscape of UFO lore.
Moving along, we come to 1981, when Captain Phil Schultz was flying a TWA passenger jet on a routine flight over Lake Michigan, in the United States, under ideal conditions. The flight had up until then been completely smooth, but then things would get strange. Both Schultz and his co-pilot suddenly saw in the near distance a “large, round, silver metal object with six jet black portholes equally spaced around the circumference,” which had dropped rapidly from somewhere above them. The object was so large and in such close proximity that a collision seemed imminent, and Schultz, a veteran US Navy fighter pilot in the Korean War, took evasive action. The mysterious object then made a sharp turn and shot off out of sight. Schultz would later talk extensively with Dr. Richard Haines, former senior scientist with NASA, about the incident, and although he had always been skeptical of similar reports by other pilots, he insisted that what he had seen was “a spaceship.”
One morning in August of 1981, an unnamed 55-year-old Polish immigrant living in Germany took a bicycle ride from his home in the city of Rheda-Wiedenbruck on a clear, sunny day. He was rather fond of these leisurely rides, during which he would just meander about and enjoy nature, and on this day, he decided to head to a small lake called Lintel, not far from where he lived. He often went to this lake to enjoy the peaceful serenity of the area, and although his bicycle chain broke and he was forced to walk, it wasn’t far, and it was such a lovely day that he kept on going. As he sat looking out over the placid water, his attention was drawn to movement out across the lake on the opposite shore. He could see an old shed out there, and nearby it a figure who seemed to be moving around strangely.
The witness thought this was just a fisherman getting supplies from the shed, but as he peered across the water at this person, his attention was drawn to something else. According to the report, the witness saw a massive metallic object, about 10 meters high and 30 meters in diameter, that looked somewhat like an “upside-down plate” hovering silently about 50 feet over the surface of the lake, with no apparent windows, seams, or propulsion device. It sort of hovered there for a time, never making a sound, and when the witness looked back to the fisherman he had been observing, he could now see that the man was in the company of several other figures dressed in some kind of suits that seemed to sparkle and glint in the sunlight. When he looked back at the flying object, he could see that it seemed to be moving towards that shed, eventually hovering low over a grassy clearing near it.
As he looked on at this bizarre sight, he still had no idea what he was looking at, and when he saw a woman walking her dog pass right past the object, the witness began to think that it was perhaps some sort of super advanced transport aircraft accepting passengers. He took it upon himself to approach the strange craft, and as he got closer, he could see there was some type of oval opening in its side, and he went even closer, meaning to ask how much admission was for a ride on this wondrous aircraft. It would appear that aliens were the furthest thing from his mind at this point, but this was about to change.
There was a platform leading from the opening down to the ground below, and as he approached, the witness noticed one of the figures in the sparkling suits examining the bicycle he had left not far away. He could now see that the being was somewhat translucent, but this was still not enough to deter him from stepping aboard the craft. Once inside, he found himself in a room that seemed to be surrounded by nearly transparent walls, and he was led to sit on an “invisible bench” by another of those strange figures. He could now smell a very unpleasant smell like burning rubber, and noticed that the fisherman he had seen earlier was sitting nearby in some sort of daze and was half-naked, being examined by one of the entities. The one near him then telepathically demanded that he hand over his satchel, which he did. The surroundings were now filled with that smell of burning rubber, now so potent that it made him feel dizzy, and he also became aware of some other rather unsettling sights around him. He says of what happened:
“In my way toward the being I was somewhat light as if there was no floor below. I saw a cut off head of a cow without left eye and a half of its horn that was also cut off. There were some chains in it jaws. There were also childish shoes and glasses. They put me on some table. I felt lightness as if I was devoid of some internal organs. The interior part of the object was light with pinkish-violet glow."
He was brought into a “misty, blue-grayish room” with more of the beings, and he was undressed and forced to lie down on another table. He was then examined, dressed up again, and his bag was returned to him. He was also given some sort of belt that seemed to transform into different shapes and had strange symbols on its side. The belt would also hover over the floor if dropped and return to his hand, and would always return to its original position, no matter how much he tried to fold it up. As all of this was going on, the ship seemed to be moving, and he would say:
“I could see many lights and I don't know if in the ceiling or by a transparent floor I saw an enormous city with illuminated tower blocks - sometimes I was observing them from various positions. And maybe I was in some big machine or over it, somewhere far away when it was a night and everything around resembled very much an illuminated city.”
The witness also says that a “small, transparent ball as big as a tennis ball” suddenly materialized in his hand, which “sparkled with many colors.” He could see when it shone that the bones in his hands were visible, like an x-ray, and this frightened him enough to make him want to throw the ball away, but he found he could not, as every time he threw it hovered back to him in much the same way that the belt did. The ball seemed to be weightless, and when he looked within it, he could see various strange things. The original report by UFO researcher Marcin Mizera would say of this:
"The ball was emitting an image from inside - something like a three-dimension show. There were impossible things inside. From a chaos [a multitude of colorful stains divided by lines] there formed some images. There appeared: a tower [measuring pressure] from the town where he lived and then a town hall and a tower block standing in vicinity of his house. Then other similar elements were seen, for example: church towers, playing fields, parking lots etc. Mrs. X saw even himself holding the ball and looking into it. He wanted to turn it in his hands but it transformed into a big, glass circle [7-10 m.wide] that got smaller immediately and transformed into the original ball.”
What in the world was going on here? It is all so bizarre that it is hard to say. All through this, one of the mysterious figures just looked on with an inscrutable expression, as if observing, and the witness would say of what happened next:
“I smiled foolishly because it was weird, cool and funny. I haven't seen something like it before. The humanoid was looking at me as a king at a clown. Anyway, I found myself unexpectedly on a scrapheap."
He was just suddenly there on the ground, around 5 km from the lake, with a severe headache and his watch inexplicably broken. His skin was red, as if suffering a sunburn, and he also noticed that both the orb and the belt he had been given on the craft were gone. A search of the area also showed that his bicycle was gone, and so he walked home. He felt a sudden exhaustion upon arriving and fell into a deep sleep. From that day on, he claims that he suddenly had an incredible affinity and talent for painting and went on to become a well-known artist in the area, although it is unclear if this had anything to do with his surreal encounter or not. The whole thing is incredibly bizarre, and it is really hard to make sense of. What happened to this man, and what did he experience out there? It is hard to say for sure, but it is certainly one of the weirder alien encounter reports there is.
Most recently, there is an account from the UFOCasebook concerning a witness who had quite the unusual experience at a pond in Flager, Oklahoma in June of 2006. The witness says of what happened:
“On June 27, 2006, five of our grandchildren were fishing in our pond about 3:00 p.m., when they saw a big splash on one side of the pond. Everything became still, and the pond became like glass as the object sank. Then they saw a whirlpool in the pond about 8 to 10 feet across that moved very fast across the pond towards them. When it hit the water there was steam that went up from the object then the object disappeared to reappear in another area.
One of the children got on a boat that was at the bank, and she could see lights around the sides and the object looked like metal. Two other children said they saw the lights, but two of them said it looked yellow under the water. Two were still watching it when they saw the water and grass around the pond next to them start to move violently, so they got scared and ran to the house. They were very disturbed by what they saw, and it took three hours before they would tell us what had happened. They range from 7 to 13 years old and all had the same story.
The next day we drove around and found truck like tracks that led towards the pond, but stopped before they got to the pond. There was a circle where the grass had been bent down in an arc shape at the edge of the pond as it splashed into the pond. They said there was a cloud over them that was swirling. The older children thought it might be a tornado that sounded like a muffled lawn mower. I asked the OSU Extension Agency to check for contamination. They informed me there had been two other similar incidents.”
What are we dealing with in accounts such as these? What sort of inscrutable activities were these things up to? Why congregate around lakes? Are these even reliable cases at all, or merely delusional rants? Whatever the case may be, these are some damn strange accounts that serve to propel the UFO phenomenon further into the weird.
John Ramirez, a former CIA official with 25 years of experience, has been sharing the knowledge he gained about UAPs in the course of his work since 2021. He possesses a wealth of information and experience on UAPs and the U.S. intelligence organization. Due to his revelations of UAP riddles that had never been discussed in public by government officials, he established himself as an influential figure on social media. Among all his claims, the most surprising reveal is about the alleged human-hybridization programs. He strongly believes that the 1947 Roswell crash happened and its occupants who were unlike humans were recovered.
The recent tweet on retired CIA Officer John Ramirez by investigative Journalist Ross Coulthart has opened up a new channel to discuss the topics that were considered fringe before. The UAP phenomenon is becoming more intense and mysterious with more credible sources, bringing new information. Coulthart questions why the US government lied about the Roswell crash.
Coulthart’s tweet mentioned Ramirez’s interview with Martin Willis Live Shows, where he revealed the never-told information on the Roswell UFO crash, alien occupants and their DNA that only came out after World War II. Ramirez discussed an unclassified meeting he attended about “modern human origins,” his personal thoughts on the subject, his personal experiences, and the UFO connection between him and several of his colleagues that led to their careers.
A former senior official of the @CIA makes extraordinary claims about the 1947 Roswell incident being a recovered craft…with ET occupants. So, did the @usairforce lie about this crash…and, if it is lying, why? And, why is an admission like this ignored by most in the media?https://t.co/7Pkw7Xg9D8
John Ramirez served at the CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, Directorate of Intelligence, and ODNI National Counterproliferation Center between 1984 and 2009. At the CIA, he was a chief intelligence analyst specializing in ballistic missile defense, weapon system radars, and technical collection activities. He was the SIGINT expert and multi-discipline collection needs strategist at the NCPC. Ramirez served in the US Navy as an Electronics Warfare Technician aboard surface ships from 1973 to 1979. He majored in political science at George Washington University, Washington, DC, and graduated in 1983.
Ramirez says that he attended a one-day symposium at a hotel in 2001 that was unclassified, about which he was himself surprised. He recalled the story went back to after World War II. He said that the CIA was interested in the hybridization of humans, and he was told by two top officials (their names are classified) that they discovered an alien DNA in the human genome.
On Podcast UFO @JRam_11_11, a retired GS-15 CIA officer talks about attending a presentation held by very senior members of the CIA with members of the “invisible college” present about finding “alien” DNA in the human genome (1/3) pic.twitter.com/6J2xXh146o
“I give credence to the fact that Roswell actually happened. I will believe personally that bodies were recovered and if these bodies were examined and then their DNA was examined and they know what that alien genome looks like and they look at humans and they can identify the same sequences in the human genome. I think that was what led them to believe that there’s a hybridization of humans and they further said in this one-day symposium that… they have not only alien DNA but enhanced alien DNA.”
“We know that Roswell happened in July of 47… if we believe in Colonel Corso, if you believe in eyewitnesses, if we believe the Roswell’s story then we know that the bodies were recovered. We have to believe that those bodies were examined somewhere and we have to believe that they were able to sequence something in those bodies that look like a genome and from there they checked the human genome and saw the correlations. That’s what I believe because that’s what I was told. I don’t have any evidence of that but by releasing these names I would hope that serious researchers and journalists would contact these people and try to get the story. If they would even admit to the story but I heard it with my own ears,” Ramirez said.
Many netzines refute to accept Ramirez’s narrative of Roswell’s alien DNA story as they believe DNA was discovered in 1953. That is not true. Ramirez is correct: “DNA was discovered in 1869 by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher, who was originally trying to study the composition of lymphoid cells (white blood cells).”
Then, in the decades that followed Miescher’s discovery, other scientists, notably Phoebus Levene and Erwin Chargaff, conducted a series of studies that revealed additional characteristics about the DNA molecule, such as its fundamental chemical components and how they were connected. Watson and Crick’s ground-breaking conclusion of 1953, that the DNA molecule exists in the form of a three-dimensional double helix, may never have been achieved without the scientific groundwork supplied by these pioneers. (Source )
Anna Whitty, who knows a lot about UFOs, has a theory. She thinks aliens live in Earth’s oceans to stay safe and have always been here. She got this idea from Dr. Shirley Wright, who supposedly talked to the only person who survived the Roswell UFO crash in 1947.
There’s a documentary called “Roswell 75: The Final Evidence” where Whitty and other experts talk about the UFO crash and the possibility of advanced humanoid aliens on Earth. In the documentary, Dr. Wright says the aliens asked about how far humans have explored in the ocean.
Dr. Wright, who used to work with Albert Einstein, claims she interviewed aliens from the Roswell crash in 1947. She says these aliens are like advanced humans and that not all of them live above the ground; many live underground on Earth.
In 1993, a public interview with Dr. Wright came out. She talked about seeing debris from the Roswell UFO crash and nine alien bodies. She described how the aliens look, what they wear, and how they can survive on Earth. But they didn’t share much about their lives and how they reproduce. (Click here to read the full article)
“Make no mistake, Roswell happened. I’ve seen secret files which show the government knew about it — but decided not to tell the public,” claimed Edgar Mitchell, Ph.D., Apollo 14 Astronaut.
Why Believe the Roswell Crash?
Bryce Zabel, a CNN reporter writes: “That storyline has hundreds of witnesses testifying to roughly the same fact trail. Some were first-hand witnesses to debris and even the recovery of bodies, and several accounts came from deathbed confessions. Many more witnesses were family members who learned of the secret their fathers and husbands had kept inside them for decades. There were many dozens who attested to extremely tight security and transportation of material in the aftermath of what crashed at Roswell.”
Moreover, the hype of Roswell stories has increased. The New York Times started covering this issue in the summer of 2020 and is continuing its investigation into crash wreckage. Besides, the former head of the AATIP Luis Elizondo gave his candid take on the 1947 Roswell crash in New Mexico and more in an interview with the Roswell Daily Record.
Ramirez made an intriguing statement in response to the rumor that the US government is reluctant to discuss the potential UFO occupants. The U.S. Air Force may be partially to blame for this current stance, according to Ramirez. However, not for obvious reasons. He commented:
“The air force and their exploitation of that type of technology made a mess of things, as when people see the triangular craft, and they’re not flying in space but in our atmosphere, it points to the fact that we know what the triangles are and we want people to think they’re seeing UFOs because then people won’t know exactly what they’re seeing.”
Former CIA Official John Ramirez Says Roswell Alien Beings DNA Was Found In Human Genome
Some others believed Ramirez’s assertion that the USAF might be to blame for reports of triangular aircraft — dubbed the TR3B by some — may be true. Tom Delonge hinted that the US government controlled these ships on the Joe Rogan Experience, but he also said that some of them belonged to other intelligence. Delonge asserted that triangle-shaped ship, presuming they have tail fins, represent technological advancements made by humans.
Moreover, Ramirez also stated in an interview with Project Unity that humans are hybrids. According to him, Elizondo is unable to use the word “hybridization,” but the Pentagon employees are counting on him to do so eventually. Elizondo discussed the possibility that non-human intelligence have been in contact with humans for a very long time on the Theories of Everything podcast. This would imply that we have all forgotten about our own past, which would hide the possibility that we are hybrids of humans and extraterrestrials.
The most distant object ever explored up close might just have revealed one of the earliest stages of planet formation.
This is Arrokoth, which resides in our solar system’s Kuiper Belt, a region of objects beyond Neptune. On January 1, 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft found some unusual mounds on Arrokoth, which scientists say are some of the original building blocks of our solar system, from billions of years ago.
Image via NASA/ Johns Hopkins/ Southwest Research Institute/ Roman Tkachenkou.
Arrokoth, the Kuiper belt object known for its reddish hue and bi-lobed snowman shape, has bumpy mounds all over its larger lobe, and these may be the remnants of boulders that once smooshed together to create the whole object.
Using data from the New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Arrokoth around 44.6 astronomical units from the Sun in 2019, a team led by planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute made a close study of the lobe, known as Wenu.
They discovered 12 bumps that have more or less the same size, shape, color, and reflectivity, suggesting that these are the units from which Wenu was assembled.
"It's amazing to see this object so well preserved that its shape directly reveals these details of its assembly from a set of building blocks all very similar to one another," says astronomer Will Grundy of Lowell Observatory. "Arrokoth almost looks like a raspberry, made of little sub-units."
Arrokoth, hanging out far from the Sun, past Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt of icy rocks, is thought to be a seed of a planet that never made it to full growth. Moreover, because of its location, its alteration by solar radiation is thought to be minimal; it is the most primitive and pristine object we've ever observed.
Previous studies have shown that Arrokoth was once two smaller objects in a binary orbit that gradually came together and fused, but there's a lot more to its formation history. A 2020 paper showed that it was actually a whole bunch of objects in a complex orbital dance that gently came together under gravity at low speeds to form a larger rock.
Color-coded images of Arrokoth that show the mounds. (SwRI)
This supports the notion that planet growth starts with a bunch of smaller objects from the same part of the cloud of debris that surrounds a newborn star. And the new discovery further supports this scenario.
Arrokoth measures about 35 kilometers (22 miles) in length, by 20 kilometers (12 miles) in width, and 10 kilometers (6 miles) in thickness. And Wenu, New Horizons observations revealed, wasn't smooth, but was covered in a series of interlocking mounds, or bumps, that incited curiosity about how it formed.
Using two close-up images from the New Horizons flyby, Stern and his colleagues conducted an in-depth analysis of the mounds of Wenu. They counted, in total, 12 mounds, generally about 5 kilometers across, and with similar length-to-width ratios, in addition to other similarities.
To figure out how Wenu got that way, the researchers conducted simulations, focusing on two formation scenarios: smaller objects, about 3 kilometers across, slamming together at high speed; or larger objects, about 5 kilometers across, gently glomming together at low speed.
The first scenario, the high-speed one, is unlikely to be how Wenu formed. The resulting object was too smooth, since the rocks shattered and smushed on impact. The slow formation scenario, however, produced a lumpy blob that looked a heck of a lot like Wenu.
The lumpy object resulting from low-speed simulations (left) compared to Wenu (right). (Stern et al., PSJ, 2023)
This fits previous findings about the slow and gentle formation of Arrokoth, but it raises another question: why are the rocks all more or less the same size? That's a question we might need more modeling – and more observations of other planetesimals – to answer.
"Similarities including in sizes and other properties of Arrokoth's mound structures suggest new insights into its formation," Stern says. "If the mounds are indeed representative of the building blocks of ancient planetesimals like Arrokoth, then planetesimal formation models will need to explain the preferred size for these building blocks."
As for the smaller of the two lobes, Weeyo, at first glance, it doesn't look a lot like Wenu, with its large crater. However, the team was able to tentatively identify three mound-like structures. So it's not impossible that Weeyo formed the same way.
A NASA mission, Lucy, is currently underway to explore the populations of asteroids that share the orbit of Jupiter. Looking for signs of mounds among these objects will help scientists understand exactly how common this formation process might be.
"Once the egg hatches, the ant has only a few weeks of life before it succumbs to the manipulations of its attacker, stumbling away from its home and family and then undergoing decapitation from the inside out."
Decapitator flies lay their larvae inside the ant's thorax. The ant then has just a few weeks to live before its eaten from the inside out.
(Image credit: armi fauzi / 500px via Getty Images)
Zombies are among us. And these tiny undead creatures are everywhere. In this excerpt from "Rise of the Zombie Bugs" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025), author Mindy Weisberger examines the very grizzly end for worker ants that get zombiefied by the decapitating fly Pseudacteon wasmanni.
Scientists first described the gruesome habits of ant decapitators in the phorid genus Pseudacteon more than 90 years ago, from observations among ant populations in Europe, South America, and the United States. A female fly begins by staking out a worker ant — carefully keeping her distance at first, as she is no bigger than her target's head.
Females don't have a lot of time to be choosy about their hosts, as adult flies live only for about a week or less in the wild. When the female fly sees an opening, she darts in and lays an egg inside the ant's thorax — one and done — in less than a second (analysis of the female reproductive system in the phorid fly Pseudacteon wasmanni revealed that eggs are torpedo-shaped and measure 130 micrometers long, or about 0.005 inches).
A single Pseudacteon female can produce from 200 to nearly 300 eggs, and in a single hour she may make more than 100 parasitizing attempts (though she only lays one egg per host).
Newly parasitized workers "frequently appear stunned after an oviposition strike," U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist Sanford Porter wrote in Florida Entomologist, and the ants "often stilt upon their legs for a few seconds to a minute before running away."
These egg-laying attempts don't all succeed; indeed most of them flop. In laboratory experiments, when Pseudacteon females tried to implant an egg in an unwilling ant, they failed at least 65% of the time. But when an egg does manage to end up inside an ant, its host enters the realm of the walking dead. Once the egg hatches, the ant has only a few weeks of life before it succumbs to the manipulations of its attacker, stumbling away from its home and family and then undergoing decapitation from the inside out.
A phorid fly (left), Pseudacteon cultellatus, about 1 mm long, and a red imported fire ant (right), Solenopsis invicta, about 3 mm long. The fly can lay eggs inside the ant’s head. Fly maggots that hatch will then slowly decapitate the ant. (Image credit: Sanford Porter)
Within days after hatching, the phorid larva migrates from the thorax into the ant's head; little is known about how the parasitoid avoids being destroyed by the ant's immune system, but one possibility is that moving quickly into the host's head may help the larva evade an immune response. For the duration of the larva's second instar — about two to three weeks — it makes itself comfortable in the ant's head cavity, sipping on hemolymph.
This liquid nutrition is all the larva needs until it reaches its third instar. For an infected ant during those initial honeymoon weeks, despite carrying and nourishing a growing parasite inside its head, life is pretty much business as usual; the ant looks and behaves normally, according to scientists with the Louisiana State University (LSU) College of Agriculture.
Through "intensive observation" of ant parasitism by the phorid fly Pseudacteon tricuspis, LSU researchers found that a parasitized ant stayed with its nest mates until about 8 to 10 hours before the larva in its head was ready to pupate. It would then depart the nest on what appeared to be a normal foraging expedition, alongside its non-parasitized sisters. But for the zombified ant, this final excursion was a one-way trip.
A newly hatched decapitator fly bursts from the head of a fire ant that it parasitized and killed. (Image credit: USDA-Agricultural Research Service)
Once the ant turned its back on the colony and walked away, it was on a death march. And the parasite was in the driver's seat. "Parasitized ants were highly mobile after they left the nest and ultimately entered the thatch layer at the soil surface," the scientists reported. "The term 'zombie' fire ant workers was coined to characterize the behavior while under parasitoid control."
Finally, the phorid larva is ready for its metamorphosis. It releases an enzyme that degrades membranes in the wandering ant's exoskeleton, causing the ant to stop walking and eventually collapse. The ant's head loosens from the body, as does the first pair of legs; other legs may be affected, too. Its mandibles weaken, rendering it unable to bite or burrow. As for the larva, it indulges a new appetite for solid food; namely, ant head tissue. You can probably guess where this is headed; the ant's hollowed-out, larvae-stuffed head falls off (the ant, unsurprisingly, is already dead by now, even though its legs are often still twitching as its head rolls away).
The parasitoid, however, is just fine. It finishes off the last of the tasty bits inside the decapitated ant head and pushes the mandibles out of the way — the ant's no longer using them, after all — and then the larva wriggles into position so that its first three pupal segments are stuffed into the gap where the ant's mouthparts used to be.
A zombie ant biting down on the underside of a twig before its death.
Kim Fleming
These segments harden and darken, becoming a tough, protective plate that's roughly the same color as the ant's exoskeleton, and two hairlike breathing "horns" extend from the pupa out on either side of the ant's mouth opening. Other parasitoid insects keep their zombie host alive until the larva's metamorphosis is over, but phorids pupate unguarded inside their dead hosts' disembodied heads.
However, the exoskeleton of an ant's head is extremely hard — tougher than other parts of its body — and therefore lends extra protection to the pupating larva, Brown says. Two to six weeks later, depending on air temperature and species size, the adult phorid fly is ready to pop out from inside the detached ant head, like the goddess Athena of legend springing fully grown from the head of her father, Zeus.
Ant with spore growing from its head.
David Hughes, Maj-Britt Pontoppidan, PLoS ONE
Only, this newborn is a lot smaller than an ancient Greek deity and has more legs than most. A few hours after emerging, the adult phorid fly is ready to mate — and continue its head-splitting reproductive cycle.
Aliens among us? New military radar footage shows mysterious ‘tic tac’ UFOs off US coast
Aliens among us? New military radar footage shows mysterious ‘tic tac’ UFOs off US coast
It was seen emerging from the Pacific Ocean and seamlessly transitioning into air-flight ‘without any plumes or exhaust signatures of conventional propulsion’.
It was seen emerging from the Pacific Ocean and seamlessly transitioning into air-flight ‘without any plumes or exhaust signatures of conventional propulsion’. (Representational image | Pexels)
American military ships may have recorded fresh examples of ‘alien activity’ — with newly released footage showing ‘tic-tac’ shaped UFOs flying off the coast of California. The radar video was purportedly recorded by active duty naval officers in 2023 as they witnessed one of the unidentified flying objects with their own eyes.
“Personnel from the USS Jackson in the CIC (Combat Information Center) filmed them. One of the vehicles of unknown origin was observed exiting the water, transitioning directly into flight, demonstrating transmedium capability. No flight control surfaces or conventional propulsion signatures (heat plumes, exhaust) were detected. The UAPs executed an observed instantaneous, synchronized departure,” ufologist Jeremy Corbell wrote on X while sharing the clip.
According to the details shared on his podcast, the first of these “self-illuminated” UFOs was observed at night on February 13, 2023 by officials stationed on the USS Jackson. It was seen emerging from the Pacific Ocean and seamlessly transitioning into air-flight ‘without any plumes or exhaust signatures of conventional propulsion’. The Naval officer had subsequently rushed to track the anomalous object using forward-looking infrared radar.
The clip shared by Corbell showed several white cruciform signatures popping up on the radar interface as Naval operators tried to monitor the situation. Witnesses said that the four ‘tic-tac’ forms eventually departed in an ‘instantaneous’ and ‘synchronized’ manner.
The US Pentagon had previously confirmed in 2021 that footage of unidentified aerial phenomena (a blinking triangular object in the sky as well as those categorised as sphere, acorn and metallic blimp) were legitimate and taken by Navy personnel. Later came the historic US congressional hearing on UFOs following claims that the government was concealing a longstanding programme that retrieves and reverse engineers UFOs. Three retired military veterans had testified during the widely-followed 2023 hearings — and even claimed that that the US had recovered non-human “biologics” from alleged crash sites
Do you believe in aliens: CIA says KGB fought UFOs, ETs in Cold War Ukraine
Do you believe in aliens: CIA says KGB fought UFOs, ETs in Cold War Ukraine
According to the survivors, the extraterrestrials regrouped and 'merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape'
A declassified CIA document has gone viral—reviving an eerie, long-buried incident that apparently took place in the dying days of the Soviet Union.
A page from the declassified CIA document that has gone viral. (X/@BoDeepest)
According to the document, now available on the CIA’s official website, a bizarre event unfolded in 1989-90 during a military training exercise in Ukraine—then part of the USSR—where a group of Soviet soldiers reportedly engaged a low-flying, saucer-shaped UFO.
What followed was a scene straight out of a sci-fi horror film.
AI-generated image
(ChatGpt)
The 250-page KGB report, said to have been obtained by the CIA following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, recounts in chilling detail how a platoon of soldiers fired a surface-to-air missile at the unidentified craft.
The attack reportedly brought down the object, prompting five short, humanoid beings with large heads and black eyes to emerge from the wreckage.
The witnesses’ account becomes more unsettling from there.
According to the survivors, the extraterrestrials regrouped and “merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape.”
Seconds later, the sphere emitted an intense, blinding flash of light.
In the moments that followed, 23 soldiers who had been watching were reportedly transformed—turned into what the document refers to as “stone poles.”
Only two soldiers survived, supposedly shielded by the shadows of nearby cover, escaping the full force of the mysterious flash.
The report—based on summaries from Canadian Weekly World News and Ukrainian newspaper Holos Ukrayiny—described “a horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood freeze.”
The alleged petrified bodies and the wreckage of the unidentified object were transported to a secret Soviet research facility near Moscow.
There, scientists are said to have determined that the soldiers’ bodies had been transformed into a limestone-like substance.
Whatever technology the beings deployed, the report concludes, it defied science.
“If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case,” a CIA analyst reportedly noted, as per Hindustan Times report. “The Aliens possess such weapons and technology that go beyond all our assumptions. They can stand up for themselves if attacked.”
Although the event allegedly occurred in either 1989 or 1990, the story surfaced after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and was declassified by the CIA in 2000.
The document has since drawn renewed interest, surfacing in various discussions, including a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
Former CIA officer Mike Baker cautioned against taking the report at face value.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Baker remarked, “If there was an incident, regardless of the nature of the incident, I suspect that the actual report doesn’t look much like what has now come out from five or six or seven iterations of what originally was [written].”
“I’m sure there’s something out there,” he added. “I just don’t think that they landed decades ago, turned Soviet soldiers into limestone, and we’re just now hearing about it. I don’t think that’s the case.”
Despite his doubts, Baker conceded that unexplained aerial phenomena remain worthy of investigation.
AI-generated image
(Grok AI)
The declassified file arrives at a time of heightened public interest in UFOs—now officially termed Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).
In 2020, the US Department of Defense established a UAP Task Force aimed at detecting, analysing, and cataloguing such encounters.
This initiative resulted in the release of several formerly classified files, igniting widespread public discourse.
As per The Economic Times, between May 2023 and June 2024 alone, the Pentagon received 757 reports of UAPs.
While most sightings were attributed to balloons, drones, or satellites, a handful remained unexplained—including a near-collision between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object near New York.
Even political leaders have weighed in.
Donald Trump and Logan Paul
(AI-Generated picture via ChatGpt)
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump told podcast host Logan Paul he didn’t believe in aliens.
But upon assuming office, he signed an executive order mandating the declassification of all federal records related to extraterrestrial sightings, stating that it was time to “expose or dispel rumours of any cover-up that may or may not have taken place.”
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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 74 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.