The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld 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.
13-10-2025
Chinese startup successfully launches most powerful solid-fuel rocket in history
Chinese startup successfully launches most powerful solid-fuel rocket in history
On October 10, Chinese startup Orienspace launched its second Gravity-1 rocket. It successfully placed three satellites into orbit.
Orienspace was founded in 2020. Like many other Chinese aerospace startups, it decided to start its activities with the creation of solid-fuel rockets, and then move on to more powerful liquid launch vehicles. The company’s first rocket was Gravity-1.
Gravity-1 is 30 meters high and consists of four side boosters and three stages. All of them are solid fuel. It can carry up to 6.5 tons of cargo into low orbit and up to 4.2 tons into sun-synchronous orbit. This makes it the most powerful solid-fuel rocket in history. When activated, Gravity-1 engines produce large amounts of smoke and debris. Therefore, a barge is used to launch it.
The first flight of Gravity-1 took place in January 2024 and was successful. After that, Orienspace specialists modernized the rocket, which, according to the company, improved its reliability.
Launch of the Gravity-1 rocket. Source: ASPT
The second launch of Gravity-1 took place on October 10. Orienspace provided an official live broadcast of the mission, which is rare for Chinese launches. Gravity-1 successfully launched three spacecraft into near-polar orbit: an Earth remote sensing satellite and two satellites for the Internet of Things system being developed by Geely.
The successful launch of Gravity-1 is an important step toward realizing Orienspace’s ambitious plans. The company is actively working on a more powerful liquid rocket, Gravity-2, whose first test flight may take place before the end of this year. It will have a reusable first stage and will be capable of delivering over 20 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit.
A group of former US Defense Department experts has called on the current Pentagon leadership to pay more attention to the development of hypersonic weapons. They say that the United States is already significantly behind Russia and China in this area due to road development.
Hypersonic weapons include aircraft capable of traveling at speeds of several thousand kilometers per hour, i.e., 6, 8, or even 10 times faster than the speed of sound. Only recently, experts who previously worked for the US Department of Defense stated that the country was moving too slowly in developing such systems and risked falling behind its competitors.
These specialists are now part of the so-called Task Force, i.e., they are consultants who conduct independent external assessments of the situation in the military department. Their latest report suggests that the US has significant problems in the field of hypersonic weapons, even though officials may not think so.
In the modern world, hypersonic aircraft are predominantly unmanned, because suborbital bombers have never been put into practical use. That is, these are missiles, but their development faces a number of problems.
Hypersonic missiles and drones are being fully developed by the United States’ main competitor, China, and have already reached the practical testing stage. Russia is also attempting to use them in its war against Ukraine. All of this could pose a direct threat to the United States.
Missiles that are too pricey
Experts note that, in general, military engineers in the United States are not sitting idly by. There are projects for hypersonic weapons, but they are progressing extremely slowly. And the main reason for this is the price. The cost of one such unit is estimated at several tens of millions of dollars. This means that even a rich country like the US can only order them in small batches.
At the same time, China and Russia are trying in every way to reduce the cost of their hypersonic missiles, while large American companies, which are the main partners of the Department of Defense, are not interested in this at all. No one is interested in bringing discipline to the organizational chaos that exists in this area.
The structure of enterprises and subcontractors in the missile industry is far from optimal for the mass production of hypersonic missiles. Experts suggest drawing on the experience of the space program, which partially overcame this problem by involving private companies. In addition, they believe that attention should be paid to missile defense.
Since homo sapiens first emerged, humanity has enjoyed an unbeaten 300,000–year run as the most intelligent creatures on the planet.
However, thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), that might not be the case for much longer.
Many scientists believe that the singularity – the moment when AI first surpasses humanity – is now not a matter of 'if' but 'when'.
And according to some AI pioneers, we might not have much longer to wait.
A new report from the research group AIMultiple combined predictions made by 8,590 scientists and entrepreneurs to see when the experts think the singularity might come.
The findings revealed that AI experts' predictions for the singularity keep getting closer and closer with every unexpected leap in AI's abilities.
In the mid–2010s, scientists generally thought that AI couldn't possibly surpass human intelligence any time before 2060 at the earliest.
Now, some industry leaders think the singularity might arrive in as little as three months' time.
The singularity is the moment that AI's intelligence surpasses that of humanity, just like Skynet in the Terminator films. This might seem like science fiction, but experts say it might not be far away
What is the singularity?
In mathematics, the singularity refers to a point where matter becomes so dense that the laws of physics begin to fail.
However, after being adopted by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge and futurist Ray Kurzweil, the term has taken on a radically different meaning.
Today, the singularity usually refers to the point at which technological advancements begin to accelerate well beyond humanity's means to control them.
Often, this is taken to refer to the moment that an AI becomes more intelligent than all of humanity combined.
Cem Dilmegani, principal analyst at AIMultiple, told Daily Mail: 'Singularity is a hypothetical event which is expected to result in a rapid increase in machine intelligence.
'For singularity, we need a system that combines human–level thinking with superhuman speed and rapidly accessible, near–perfect memory.
'Singularity should also result in machine consciousness, but since consciousness is not well–defined, we can't be precise about it.'
Scientists' predictions about when the singularity will occur have been tracked over the years, with a trend towards closer and closer predictions as AI has continued to surpass expectations
When will the singularity arrive?
Earliest predictions: 2026
Investor Prediction: 2030
Consensus prediction: 2040–2050
Predictions pre–ChatGPT: 2060 at the earliest
What is the earliest the singularity might arrive?
While the vast majority of AI experts now believe the singularity is inevitable, they differ wildly in when they think it might come.
The most radical prediction comes from the chief executive and founder of leading AI firm Anthropic, Dario Amodie.
He says that this AI will be 'smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across most relevant fields' and will 'absorb information and generate actions at roughly 10x–100x human speed'.
CEO and founder of AI firm Anthropic, Dario Amodei (pictured), predicted in an essay that AI would become superintelligent by 2025
Likewise, Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, claimed in a 2024 essay: 'It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days.'
That would place the arrival of the singularity any time from about 2027 onwards.
How likely is it that these predictions are right?
Although these predictions areextreme, these tech leaders' optimism is not entirely unfounded.
Mr Dilmegani says: 'GenAI's capabilities exceeded most experts' expectations and pushed singularity expectations earlier.'
The key to this revaluation of AI's potential is that the power of leading AI models has grown exponentially, roughly doubling once every seven months.
If this exponential growth starts to accelerate, it could kick off a chain reaction that would lead to a sudden intelligence explosion.
For this reason, some AI leaders think that the singularity could arrive incredibly quickly once the right conditions are met.
Sam Altman (pictured), CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, has argued that AI will surpass humanity by 2027–2028 at the earliest
The confidence of tech leaders is based on the rapid increase in the power of AI models. These graphs show how various types of 'Large Language Models' have rapidly increased their computing power over the last decade
What is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)?
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is currently seen as one of the necessary preconditions for the singularity.
AGI describes a type of computing system that is as good as a human at a wide range of different tasks.
At the moment, some AIs are better than humans at certain tasks but not at every task. Experts call this Narrow Artificial Intelligence.
Once AGI is achieved, experts think it will be between two and 30 years until the AI surpasses the collective intelligence of humanity.
However, the expert consensus is that the singularity will not arrive for many more years.
Mr Dilmegani says that if the singularity does arrive next year, he will 'happily print our article about the topic and eat it.'
Over–optimism about AI is nothing new, and countless exaggerated predictions have been proven wrong in the past.
Even as far back as 1965, AI pioneer Herbert Simon boldly claimed: 'Machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do.'
As Mr Dilmegani points out, AI's capabilities are currently nowhere near what the human mind is capable of.
However, business leaders like Mr Altman and Mr Amodei have good reasons to overstate how soon the singularity will arrive.
Mr Dilmegani says: 'An earlier singularity timeline places current AI leaders as the ultimate leaders of industry.
Based on the rapid growth of computational power available, Elon Musk has predicted that AI will surpass humanity by the end of this year
The support for this theory is that the abilities of AI appear to have grown exponentially. This graph shows how the speed of AI agents has doubled once every seven months
AI expert Cem Dilmegani, of AIMultiple, told Daily Mail that he would print out and eat his research if Elon Musk's predictions (illustrated) came true
'The company that reaches singularity could always remain as the world's most valuable company.
'This optimism fuels investment, and both of these CEOs run loss–making companies that depend on investor confidence.'
When is the singularity likely to arrive?
To get a picture of when the singularity is really likely to occur, Mr Dilmegani and his colleagues combined surveys covering 8,590 AI experts.
This showed that, although predictions have moved a lot closer since the release of ChatGPT, most experts think the singularity is probably about 20 years away.
For the singularity to occur, experts say that AI will first need to reach a state known as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), in which it has human–like abilities across a wide range of tasks.
Although the results of some studies vary, the consensus is that this will happen by around 2040.
Some groups, like investors, were more confident and placed this moment a little earlier, usually centring on some point around 2030.
However, most experts believe that the singularity will arrive sometime around 2040–2060. Investors are more bullish, putting this point around 2030. However, the overall consensus is that the AI singularity is coming, but not next year
Once AGI has been achieved, the experts think that the singularity will follow very quickly as the AI rapidly evolves to reach 'superintelligence'.
In one poll, scientists assigned a 10 per cent probability to the singularity arriving two years after AGI and a 75 per cent chance of this happening within the next 30 years.
However, although the experts' opinions put the singularity much further back than leaders like Mr Altman and Mr Musk, most agree that the singularity is coming.
That may mean humanity does not have much longer to enjoy our position as the smartest creatures on Earth.
Elon Musk wants to push technology to its absolute limit, from space travel to self-driving cars — but he draws the line at artificial intelligence.
The billionaire first shared his distaste for AI in 2014, calling it humanity's 'biggest existential threat' and comparing it to 'summoning the demon'.
At the time, Musk also revealed he was investing in AI companies not to make money but to keep an eye on the technology in case it gets out of hand.
His main fear is that in the wrong hands, if AI becomes advanced, it could overtake humans and spell the end of mankind, which is known as The Singularity.
That concern is shared among many brilliant minds, including the late Stephen Hawking, who told the BBC in 2014: 'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.
'It would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate.'
Despite his fear of AI, Musk has invested in the San Francisco-based AI group Vicarious, in DeepMind - which has since been acquired by Google - and OpenAI, creating the popular ChatGPT program that has taken the world by storm in recent months.
During a 2016 interview, Musk noted that he and OpenAI created the company to 'have democratisation of AI technology to make it widely available'.
Musk founded OpenAI with Sam Altman, the company's CEO, but in 2018 the billionaire attempted to take control of the start-up.
His request was rejected, forcing him to quit OpenAI and move on with his other projects.
In November, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, which became an instant success worldwide.
The chatbot uses 'large language model' software to train itself by scouring a massive amount of text data so it can learn to generate eerily human-like text in response to a given prompt.
ChatGPT is used to write research papers, books, news articles, emails and more.
But while Altman is basking in its glory, Musk is attacking ChatGPT.
He says the AI is 'woke' and deviates from OpenAI's original non-profit mission.
'OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it 'Open' AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft, Musk tweeted in February.
The Singularity is making waves worldwide as artificial intelligence advances in ways only seen in science fiction - but what does it actually mean?
In simple terms, it describes a hypothetical future where technology surpasses human intelligence and changes the path of our evolution.
Experts have said that once AI reaches this point, it will be able to innovate much faster than humans.
There are two ways the advancement could play out, with the first leading to humans and machines working together to create a world better suited for humanity.
For example, humans could scan their consciousness and store it in a computer in which they will live forever.
The second scenario is that AI becomes more powerful than humans, taking control and making humans its slaves - but if this is true, it is far off in the distant future.
Researchers are now looking for signs of AI reaching The Singularity, such as the technology's ability to translate speech with the accuracy of a human and perform tasks faster.
Former Google engineer Ray Kurzweil predicts it will be reached by 2045.
He has made 147 predictions about technology advancements since the early 1990s - and 86 per cent have been correct.
NASA has unveiled plans to send astronauts to live on the moon – inside glass bubbles made from lunar dust.
The US space agency is funding research into the large livable spheres which would be created in situ, theTelegraphreports.
Tiny pieces of so–called lunar glass – a component of the moon's soil, or regolith, along with rocks and mineral fragments – would be collected upon arrival from Earth.
The material would be melted down using the same technology as in a domestic microwave oven, along with a 'smart microwave furnace'.
A 'smart microwave furnace' will be developed to aid melting and blow the glass into a bubble, which would harden into a large, transparent structure.
The idea has been dreamt up by US space engineering company Skyeports, which has already proven that glass balls can be blown from lunar dust in this way.
The firm's test spheres are only a couple of inches wide – but the goal is to expand them by hundreds or thousands of feet, into workable astronaut homes.
The compound used to build a spherical habitat – which is hoped to be between around 1,000ft and 1,600ft wide – could be altered to make the eventual glass self–healing.
The compound used to build a spherical habitat – which is hoped to be between around 1,000ft and 1,600ft wide – could be altered to make the eventual glass self–healing.
It is a special type of glass made of polymers which can reorganise themselves after any breaks caused by micrometeorites or 'moonquakes'.
The moon homes could also be fitted with solar panels to generate their own energy.
Skyeports chief executive Dr Martin Bermudez hoped to one day see entire cities of the spheres, connected by glass bridges, on the moon – and elsewhere in space.
'You will never replicate Earth, but this is something that gets pretty close, and we could even put them into orbit one day,' he said.
He has always been interested in space and wanted to start using his architecture background to explore how to make structures on the moon or Mars.
Chemical compounds called silicates, often used to make glass, can account for up to 60 per cent of lunar dust – which first got him thinking about the bubbles.
And with further research, he discovered glass can be adapted to become less brittle – and even stronger than steel.
He contacted NASA around two years ago with the idea, which he said the agency liked from the start.
The American space agency is funding research into the large livable spheres (pictured, in plans), which would be created in situ
Lunar regolith would be melted down by a 'smart microwave furnace' and blown into concentric bubbles that would give the lunar base its structure
NASA's Artemis Mission Timeline
Artemis I
- Uncrewed lunar flight test
- Launched November, 2022
Artemis II
- Crewed Lunar Flyby
- Launch planned for April, 2026
Artemis III
- Crewed Surface Landing
- Launch planned for mid–2027
Artemis IV
- Building First Lunar Space Station
- Launch targeting September 2028
The concept is now being researched under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) programme, for projects which have the potential to transform aerospace.
And its in situ construction is attractive – it is hard to build things on the moon, with shipping materials to its surface hugely expensive.
Enormous gas pipes would be used to blow the melted glass – and repurposed to create the entrance once the bubble has been created.
Any interior fittings would be 3D printed using materials gathered from the surface of the moon.
Skyeports has said a sphere was chosen because it is a particularly structurally sound shape, with an even distribution of pressure.
Using transparent glass to build it, meanwhile, was said to be beneficial for astronauts' mental health.
Dr Bermudez added: 'The spherical shape happens automatically, because at that temperature it becomes an amorphous liquid, and when it is extruded out of a furnace in low gravity it will form the shape of a sphere.'
Along with the lunar glass, metals like titanium, magnesium and calcium will need to be mixed into the raw compound for strength.
Interior fittings could be made via 3D printing. This would create a habitat that could be suitable for a long–term presence on the lunar surface
It is also hoped that layers of bubbles could be created, with one warmer surface and another cooler to create condensation.
This would allow astronauts to plant vegetables and plants and create an ecosystem to produce oxygen.
And development teams also hope a glass bubble of that size could be used to produce enough electricity to power the whole system.
The blowing technique will be tested in a thermal vacuum chamber in January, before moving to a micro–gravity environment.
It will eventually be trialled on the International Space Station – and tests on the moon itself could happen in the next couple of years.
While NASA works out if humans could live on the moon, astronauts may well return to it for a visit.
The agency could put men on the moon within the next five years under its Artemis programme and is currently searching for appropriate habitats for that mission.
Dr Bermudez said: 'We're in a race against time because Artemis is moving so fast.'
NASA currently plans to return to the moon in 2027 with the Artemis III mission (illustrated. However, the space agency has also expressed plans for a 'village' on the moon by 2035
Clayton Turner, from NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is responsible for tech innovation, said: 'Our next steps and giant leaps rely on innovation, and the concepts born from NIAC can radically change how we explore deep space, work in low–Earth orbit, and protect our home planet.
'From developing small robots that could swim through the oceans of other worlds to growing space habitats from fungi, this programme continues to change the possible.'
The study comes after researchers at Aalen University in Germany suggested in 2023 that buildings and roads could be built on the moon using bricks made from lunar dust zapped with a laser.
The space agency's description of the research notes: 'This innovative approach involves in–situ melting of lunar glass compounds and the creation of a large spherical shell structure, representing a significant departure from current habitat construction methods.
'Traditional construction methods, such as using prefabricated parts, 3D printing, inflatable systems and complex assembly, are labour–intensive and time–consuming.
'In contrast, the concept of blown scalable glass structures utilizes lunar glass resources and introduces a novel in–situ manufacturing approach.'
It adds: 'The idea of constructing monolithic glass habitats on the moon holds immense promise for the future of space exploration and habitation.
'It inspires a pioneering spirit by envisioning a new era of self–sustaining off–world habitats, offering significant benefits to NASA, the aerospace community, and humanity as a whole.'
This Declassified CIA Book Reveals That Earth Undergoes Cataclysmic Events Approximately Every 6,500 Years, Leading to the Destruction and Rebirth of Civilizations
This Declassified CIA Book Reveals That Earth Undergoes Cataclysmic Events Approximately Every 6,500 Years, Leading to the Destruction and Rebirth of Civilizations
This declassified CIA document, “The Adam & Eve Story” by Dr. Chan Thomas, reveals that Earth undergoes cataclysmic events approximately every 6,500 years, leading to the destruction and rebirth of civilizations. He suggested that these cataclysms are natural, recurring events that reshape the planet’s surface and human history.
In 1966, Dr. Chan Thomas published a book called The Adam and Eve Story, but it soon disappeared from public access after the CIA classified it. The book talks about big disasters like pole shifts, mass extinctions, and the repeated destruction of advanced civilizations. It stayed mostly hidden until some parts were released years later.
Now, only 57 pages are available, but they are heavily edited, leaving many questions about what the book really says. People are curious about why this book might be considered dangerous and why the CIA wanted to keep it secret.
Bookshelves
Dr. Chan Thomas
Dr. Chan Thomas was an American electrical engineer and psychic who authored a hypothesis of global cataclysms involving radical shifts in Earth’s electromagnetic fields that increase the viscosity of the crust, causing rapid continental drift.
This is most notably described in his book “The Adam and Eve Story.” During the 1950s, Dr. Thomas was a project engineer on Bell Aircraft’s RASCAL missile guidance system and Douglas Aircraft’s A4D Skyhawk program, and was later employed in the late 1960s by McDonnell Douglas to work with Robert Wood’s “Advanced Concepts” R&D team, which worked on UFO and other fringe science related projects.
The idea of pole shifts has interested scientists and caused discussions for many years. Charles Hapgood was one of the first to suggest this concept in the mid-1900s. He believed that the Earth’s outer layer could move over the inner layers, making the poles change position.
Hapgood’s theory of “Earth’s crustal displacement” said that these shifts could happen fairly quickly, resulting in major changes in the Earth’s geography and climate. At first, many scientists rejected Hapgood’s ideas, but he gained respect when Albert Einstein showed interest in his work. Even though Hapgood’s theory didn’t become widely accepted, it opened the door for more research on how the Earth’s magnetic poles might change.
Charles Hapgood
Today, we know that the magnetic poles do indeed shift, though typically at a slow rate. However, the possibility of rapid, catastrophic shifts remains a subject of ongoing research.
Dr. Chan Thomas, in his book The Adam and Eve Story, made a scary prediction about sudden pole shifts. He believed these shifts could happen quickly, even in one day, and cause major disasters. He said that these quick changes could lead to huge earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, resulting in widespread damage. While most scientists are doubtful about such rapid shifts, the idea still captures the interest of researchers and the public
Throughout Earth’s history, mass extinctions have wiped out many species, changing the course of life on our planet. Some scientists think these extinctions might be connected to pole shifts or other major geological events.
One example often mentioned is the Younger Dryas, a time of sudden cooling about 12,800 years ago. This period saw a big drop in global temperatures, which some believe was caused by a comet impact or a significant pole shift.
These disastrous events have also led to theories about ancient advanced civilizations that may have been destroyed by sudden catastrophes. Supporters of these theories argue that evidence of these lost civilizations can be found in myths and unexplained archaeological sites.
However, mainstream archaeologists are careful and stress the need for more solid evidence before changing our understanding of history.
Flood myths are stories about big floods that are found in many ancient cultures. These tales, which describe floods that destroyed entire civilizations, appear in religious texts, oral traditions, and ancient writings worldwide.
For example, Noah’s Ark in the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia share many similarities, even though they come from different places and times.
When we compare these myths to known geological events, like the Younger Dryas (a time about 12,800 years ago when the climate changed quickly), we see some interesting connections. The Younger Dryas involved sudden cooling and melting ice, which caused sea levels to rise significantly.
Some researchers think that these big changes in the environment might have inspired the flood stories in various cultures. They believe that ancient people, seeing the destruction from rising waters, passed down these stories to warn others about nature’s power.
Dr. Chan Thomas, in his book The Adam and Eve Story, goes further by saying these flood myths are not just exaggerated tales but are based on real disasters caused by shifts in the Earth’s poles and other catastrophic events. He argues that these myths are historical records of past disasters that nearly wiped out humanity. According to Thomas, our ancestors created these stories to remember these events and warn future generations about their r
The idea that advanced civilizations existed before written history fascinates both scholars and enthusiasts. Supporters of this theory point to archaeological evidence, like erosion patterns on the Great Sphinx of Giza and submerged cities off the coasts of Japan and India, suggesting these lost cultures were destroyed by disasters like the floods in ancient myths.
However, this idea is controversial and faces skepticism in the academic world. Many archaeologists and historians believe the evidence for these theories is either misinterpreted or not strong enough. The general view is that human civilization began about 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, with no credible evidence of advanced societies before then.
Still, the ongoing debate continues to interest people, and new discoveries sometimes spark discussions. While the concept of ancient advanced civilizations is still on the outskirts of scientific study, it encourages us to rethink what we know about the past and stay open to new evidence.
Dr. Chan Thomas’s predictions in The Adam and Eve Story show a dark future. He warns that a quick shift in the Earth’s poles could happen, causing disastrous events worldwide. He believes this shift could lead to huge earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, possibly wiping out most of humanity in just a few hours. He thinks this disaster could happen soon, maybe even in our lifetime.
Scientists know that the Earth’s magnetic field is always changing, and the poles can move over time. However, most geophysicists think a sudden and disastrous shift like Dr. Thomas describes is very unlikely.
Right now, we understand that the poles may shift slowly or even reverse over thousands of years, but a quick shift causing a global disaster isn’t supported by current evidence.
If Dr. Thomas’s predictions were to come true, the effects on modern society would be terrible. Our essential systems — like power grids, communication, and transportation — would likely fail. This shift could lead to widespread destruction, chaos, and possibly a return to a dark age for survivors.
Dr. Thomas’s work makes us rethink our view of history. If he’s right about pole shifts and recurring disasters, it means that human civilization is much more fragile and has gone through cycles of rise and fall more than we think.
This view challenges the common belief that human progress is steady and uninterrupted. If disasters happen in cycles, it suggests that advanced civilizations have appeared and disappeared several times in Earth’s history, each time erased by a major event.
This idea changes how we see human history, suggesting that our current civilization is just the latest attempt at creating a lasting society.
Given Dr. Thomas’s theories, we should consider what we can learn for the future. If these disasters really do happen in cycles, it would be wise to prepare and build resilience, so that if another disaster occurs, humanity can survive and rebuild more effectively.
In 1966, the CIA classified The Adam and Eve Story soon after it was published. This decision has led to a lot of speculation about why a book about ancient disasters and pole shifts would catch the attention of a government agency.
One theory is that if people took the book seriously, it could cause a lot of panic. The idea of a coming global disaster, along with the government’s secrecy, might lead to unrest in society.
Another possibility is that the book had information related to secret government research. The author, Dr. Chan Thomas, worked on classified projects at McDonnell Douglas, and some think he knew more than what was publicly shared. The CIA might have been worried about revealing technologies or ideas that could threaten national security.
The “sanitization” of the 57 pages that were later declassified adds to the mystery. A lot of the text is blacked out, making people wonder what was removed and why. Some believe that the missing parts could contain more details about disasters or even government secrets. The exact reason for keeping much of the book hidden is still unclear
Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin claim that all our ‘Dreams’ and ‘Thoughts’ can be Decoded—imagine what authoritarian states could do with such power. AI can even read Wi-Fi radio signals bouncing around a space to create 3D image estimations.
Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin are the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology which aims to warn people about how technology affects individuals, organizations, and society. It looks for ways to manage these effects, encourages leaders to take action, and offers resources for those interested in humane technology.
FYI: Harris was Google’s Design Ethicist, developing a framework for how technology should “ethically” steer the thoughts and actions of billions of people from screens. Raskin is a trained mathematician and dark matter physicist. He is the son of Jef Raskin, a human–computer interface expert who was the initiator of the Macintosh project at Apple.
In May 2023, Harris & Raskin attended Summit At Sea where they discussed how existing A.I. capabilities already pose catastrophic risks to a functional society, how A.I. companies are caught in a race to deploy as quickly as possible without adequate safety measures, and what it would mean to upgrade our institutions to a post-A.I. world.
This video educated me about the serious consequences we might face if greater control over advanced AI models—specifically generative models like Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs)—isn’t implemented.
Tristan Harris explains the complex terms behind “generative large language multimodal models” (AI models that handle language and images). To make things simpler, he suggests calling them “Golems.” This is inspired by the Golem in Jewish mythology—a creature that comes to life and gains unexpected abilities, much like these AI models. As more data is fed to them, they start displaying new skills even their creators didn’t anticipate.
Although many AI demos look different on the surface, they often function in similar ways. For example, tools like Stable Diffusion or DALL-E let users type words to generate images. If you type “Google soup,” the model turns it into a picture. However, Raskin points out that these “Golems” don’t truly “understand” what they’re doing; they process information without real comprehension of meaning.
Your Dreams And Thoughts Are No Longer Safe
Researchers Harris & Raskin discuss here how to turn brain patterns into images by studying brain scans from people looking at pictures. Raskin explains a person sits in an fMRI machine, which records brain activity while they look at an image. The computer learns to match each brain pattern with the image the person is viewing.
When the computer is shown only the brain patterns (without seeing the actual image), it tries to guess what the person saw. For example, if someone looked at a giraffe, the computer would use only the brain data to create an image it believes represents the giraffe.
The latest research uses “stable diffusion” technology, a tool used in digital art creation, to make these brain-reading images even clearer. Surprisingly, tools made for art are now helping decode human thoughts.
The research has advanced to the point where it can capture people’s inner dialogue—the words they think to themselves. In one experiment, people watched a video and thought about what they saw. The computer was able to recreate their thoughts, like “a girl gets hit and falls,” based solely on brain patterns.
This kind of brain decoding could raise concerns, especially in authoritarian States, since it could lead to tracking what people think or dream about.
WIFI Radio signals led to tracking Living Beings
This explains how AI can use Wi-Fi signals, like the ones from your home router, to locate and track people in a room. Think of it like sonar: the Wi-Fi signals bounce around, similar to how sonar works. In this experiment, they first used a camera along with Wi-Fi signals to track where people were. The camera acted like one “eye,” and the Wi-Fi signals were the “other eye.”
After the AI learned how to recognize where people were, they removed the camera, leaving only the Wi-Fi signals. Now, just by analyzing the way Wi-Fi signals bounce, the AI could figure out people’s positions in 3D and in real-time—even in the dark. Essentially, this technology could turn any Wi-Fi router into a sort of “camera” that can track movement without needing light.
Hacking Wi-Fi routers would be a complicated task. However, computer code is like a language. Raskin shares a real example where they asked an AI (like GPT) to find a security weakness in some code from a mail server and to write a script to take advantage of that weakness. In just about 10 seconds, the AI provided a code that could exploit it.
While AI can’t yet be used to hack Wi-Fi routers directly, Raskin believes that in the near future—whether in one, two, or five years—it will become much easier to use existing technology for widespread surveillance. Essentially, take it as a warning that as AI improves, it could turn all the hardware we have into powerful tools for monitoring people.
AI can copy you and generate your imagery, voice & full appearance in the most natural way possible
If we want to manage and control technology better, we need to understand its effects. For instance, new AI can copy someone’s voice using just three seconds of audio. There are examples of this, like how a computer can make a person sound a bit robotic after those initial three seconds, and then it generates the rest of the speech on its own.
One scary thought is that someone could call your child, record their voice, and then use it to trick you into thinking it’s really them calling for help. This has already happened in real life, like when a teenager’s voice was cloned for a million-dollar kidnapping scam.
People are already used to seeing changes in social media, where you can make photos look better or change voices instantly. Filters on apps like TikTok have evolved so much that they can create very realistic images of people.
For example, one influencer made a virtual version of herself to use as a kind of digital friend, allowing people to interact with her avatar. This means that in today’s world, it’s hard to trust what you see or hear, even in videos.
Banks and other institutions still think they can confirm your identity by recognizing your voice or face on video calls, but that doesn’t work anymore because of AI technology. This year marks a big change: photographic and video evidence may no longer be reliable, and we need to catch up to this reality.
2024 will be the last human election
Democracy relies on language, and our society operates through it. Language shapes law, code, and religion. A point was made in a New York Times article by an author named Yuval Harari, who wrote Sapiens. The idea presented was that if someone can manipulate language, they can control how people think and act.
Someone asks an AI like GPT to explain biblical events in light of current events. This means taking religious ideas and using them to make sense of what’s happening in the world today. By doing this, you can reshape people’s understanding of reality and relationships. Language is what makes us human, and technology allows us to alter it.
Yuval compared the power of nuclear weapons in the real world to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in the virtual world. He noted that the last time a non-human force created large, influential belief systems was with religion. Now, AI has the potential to form significant narratives that can deeply affect how people think.
Looking ahead, Harris & Raskin predicted that the 2024 election could be the last one mostly controlled by humans. This doesn’t mean there will be robots taking over, but it suggests that since 2008, political campaigns have already been using technology to test which messages work best with voters. By 2028, it’s expected that the effectiveness of content created by AI will greatly surpass what humans can produce, making human-generated messages less impactful in elections.
A never-before-seen video released Tuesday by a member of Congress appears to show a U.S. military Hellfire missile bouncing off a bright, shiny object that was being tracked off the coast of Yemen on Oct. 30, 2024.
The video was released at a House Government Oversight subcommittee hearing into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), which is the military's term for UFOs.
During the hearing Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) played a video that he said "I've been given" and that he claimed was taken by an MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The overhead video showed a fast-moving object moving in a straight line above the waves in the waters off the coast of Yemen and captured what Burlison said was a Hellfire missile fired by another Reaper drone that appeared to strike the object.
"I'm not going to explain it to you, you'll see exactly what it does," said Burlison as the video clip was played.
The video showed what appeared to be an impact, but the object seemed to continue on its same trajectory.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) witness U.S. Air Force veteran Jeffrey Nuccetelli, UAP witness U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins, UAP Journalist George Knapp, UAP witness U.S. Air Force veteran Dylan Borland and Senior Policy Counsel at the Project On Government Oversight Joe Spielberger testify before the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets at the Capitol, Sept. 9, 2025.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
"This is when it's zoomed out, you can still see it traveling," said Burlison who did not provide details of how he had obtained the video.
At the time that the video was purportedly taken, the waters off Yemen were an active combat zone as U.S. Navy ships and aircraft protected commercial shipping lanes from missiles and drones fired at shipping vessels by the Houthi militants in Yemen.
U.S. Navy ships were regularly shooting down Houthi missiles and drones that posed a threat to them or commercial vessels.
The video raises several questions: Did it capture a potential attack on ships? Did the object pose a threat to U.S. Naval ships operating in the combat zone?
"The public should be seeing this stuff, and why you're not allowed to, I don't know," said George Knapp, an investigative journalist, who was a witness at Tuesday's hearing alongside others identified as whistleblowers of military UFO incidents.
"That's the Hellfire missile smacking into that UFO and just (bouncing)right off," he said, commenting on the video. "And it kept going."
"It kept going," Burlison agreed, "and it looks like the debris was taken with it."
"Yeah. What the hell is that?" Knapp added.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) journalist George Knapp testifies before the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets at the Capitol, Sept. 9, 2025.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Burlison said he was not going to speculate on what the object was in the video, but asked "Why are we being blocked from this information consistently?"
A U.S. defense official told ABC News "we do not have anything to provide on this" when asked to authenticate the video and the time and location it was allegedly taken.
Asked to comment on the video, a DOD spokesperson said: "I have nothing for you."
The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) continues to investigate UAP reports filed by military personnel, some of them going back decades.
While it has been able to explain some high-profile reports, there are still many cases that have been unexplained and has not found that any of the incidents are of an extraterrestrial origin
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) witness U.S. Air Force veteran Jeffrey Nuccetelli, UAP witness U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins, UAP Journalist George Knapp, UAP witness U.S. Air Force veteran Dylan Borland and Senior Policy Counsel at the Project On Government Oversight Joe Spielberger are sworn-in before testifying to the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets at the Capitol, Sept. 9, 2025.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The new video is similar to a 2015 video that came to be known as the "Go Fast" video that showed a fast moving object appearing to fly at a high rate of speed above the waves in the waters off of California.
AARO analysts later determined that the video had captured an optical illusion involving a weather balloon and that the high rate of speed captured by the sensors aboard a Navy F/A-18 fighter jet was due to parallax and the angle from at which the camera viewed the object.
AARO officials have said previously that some of the older incidents remain unexplained because there was not enough data gathered by high-tech military sensors at the time. Newer incidents provide more data, because of the increased sophistication of sensors, that analysts can use to review them.
At the end of the hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) replayed the video and asked the panelists if they were scared by what they saw in the video. All said yes with the exception of Knapp, who replied that he was happy that the video had been released.
The stories of flying saucers, little green men, and contact with beings from across the cosmos have fascinated the public for centuries as people have wondered what's beyond our skies.
But over the last few decades, as science and mass media have expanded, the obsession with unidentified flying objects and possible extraterrestrial life has exploded.
From the fun, such as sightseeing tours of supposed UFO activity hotspots like Roswell, New Mexico, to the serious, with last year's tense congressional hearings on the subject, a lot of money, resources and time has been spent answering the question: "Are we alone?"
Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks with "Impact x Nightline."
ABC News
"There are people who will see things that are explainable, but they can't explain it. So to them, it's unidentified. Fine. Well, let's investigate it," famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told "Impact x Nightline."
An episode of "Impact x Nightline" now streaming on Hulu takes a look at the cultural phenomenon behind UFOs and features interviews with scientists, UFO enthusiasts and people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.
Margaret Weitekamp, the department chair of the National Air and Space Museum, told "Impact" that the phenomenon behind UFOs began in the 1940s and 1950s with the public obsession over flying saucers.
Arguably the most famous incident took place in the summer of 1947 when a rancher found wreckage, including metallic-looking scraps, on his property. This was around the same time that the U.S. Air Force began "Project Blue Book," an initiative to investigate UFO reports.
"What we know is probably that it was a weather balloon incident, but a lot of lore has risen up around that and around especially secure areas in the American West, where people then ask a lot of questions about what's really happening there," Weitekamp said.
The reports of the weather balloon did little to quell people's suspicions, experts said.
Reports of unidentified lights in the sky, aircraft and other unexplained events, particularly in the Southwest, exploded since the 1950s and turned the area into a pop culture phenomenon.
Just outside of Las Vegas lies what many UFO enthusiasts call "The Extraterrestrial Highway," which features UFO-themed attractions and stores.
Kat Patterson claims she was abducted by aliens.
ABC News
But some who claimed they had gotten up close and personal with a being from outer space told "Impact" that their lives were forever changed from that fateful encounter.
Kat Patterson told "Impact" that she was abducted by aliens 24 years ago when she and her sister-in-law were driving in a rural area. Patterson said the experience, where she allegedly was put on a metal bed and was given a "pelvic exam" by a group of aliens, traumatized her.
"If you believe me, great. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. You don’t have to," she said. "I know what happened."
Avi Loeb, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University's department of astronomy, told "Impact" that aliens exist "because to think otherwise is arrogant." However, he said that there is no concrete evidence, yet, to prove extraterrestrial activity on Earth.
Avi Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard University, has been studying astronomy for years.
ABC News
"Nowadays, there are 10,000 satellites, many of which are communications satellites, and a lot of people mistake them for anomalous objects and there are many drones," Loeb said.
Still, that hasn't stopped scientists and the government from pouring billions of dollars over the years into probing the skies.
Two years ago, the Department of Defense created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena.
The agency's former director, Sean Kirkpatrick, told ABC News that there is no evidence of reports of an intact spacecraft kept by the U.S. government.
However, last July, David Grusch, a member of a previous Pentagon office tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, gave bombshell testimony to a congressional hearing.
Grusch spoke of the unconfirmed existence of a secret UFO recovery program sanctioned by the government and claimed that the UAPs were may be capable of probing our activities.
Kirkpatrick dismissed Grusch's testimony in a statement published on his personal LinkedIn page released shortly after the hearing.
The Pentagon last year also said it had investigated over 650 UAP incidents and found there was no evidence that any of them were of extraterrestrial origin.
Weitekamp noted that Grusch's testimony had very little new scientific information.
Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, David Grusch, former National Reconnaissance Officer Representative of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force at the U.S. Department of Defense, and Retired Navy Commander David Fravor are sworn-in during a House Oversight Committee hearing titled "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency" on Capitol Hill 26, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
"So when Congress is holding hearings investigating the questions of unidentified aerial phenomenon, those are really questions about national security, questions about overflight, not so much about something overflying in space," she said.
Outside of the government, civilians have banded to try and answer the questions about the unknown themselves.
When "Project Blue Book," terminated in 1969, the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, formed to independently continue the government's work. The nonprofit has members across the globe from all walks of life, and conducts research, lobbies the government, and investigates sightings.
Once a year MUFON puts on a three-day field investigator boot camp preparing newcomers to join their ranks in proving or disproving mysterious phenomena.
"So when Congress is holding hearings investigating the questions of unidentified aerial phenomenon, those are really questions about national security, questions about overflight, not so much about something overflying in space," she said.
Outside of the government, civilians have banded to try and answer the questions about the unknown themselves.
When "Project Blue Book," terminated in 1969, the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, formed to independently continue the government's work. The nonprofit has members across the globe from all walks of life, and conducts research, lobbies the government, and investigates sightings.
Once a year MUFON puts on a three-day field investigator boot camp preparing newcomers to join their ranks in proving or disproving mysterious phenomena.
"They're learning advanced interviewing techniques. They're learning astronomy, among other subjects that are just going to help them in their work," Stacey Wright, the head of the Arizona MUFON chapter, told "Impact."
Wright said MUFON can positively classify about 95% of the reports they investigate, "whether it's a naturally occurring thing in the environment, whether it's a conventional aircraft that people are seeing, [or] something floating in the sky as simple as mylar balloons."
Members of the Arizona MUFON gaze into the night sky for any signs of unusual activity.
ABC News
And while some of those inquiries about UFOs may not lead to major scientific revelations of extraterrestrial life, scientists said it is important to continue the research and follow the facts.
"If the day arises where they capture one of these things and they find there are aliens in it, that's cool. I'll rejoice. Finally, we found some aliens. But until that day happens, all we can do is collect data," Neil deGrasse Tyson said.
Pope Leo's bombshell alien claims as he makes 'life on other planets' statement
Pope Leo's bombshell alien claims as he makes 'life on other planets' statement
The Vatican has, since the dawn of Vatican time, stayed away from ever officially commenting on aliens and what officials known about them . . . until now, it seems
But nothing came of it, and rumours still persists that there are secret alien files in the Vatican's much-mysterious vault.
David Grusch, a US Air Force veteran has often made claims about the US Government's involvement in covering up the truth about aliens and UFOs and last year he brought the Vatican into the fold by claiming that it knows about aliens and was involved in a cover-up as far back as 1933.
However, nobody has ever really commented in any official capacity – until now.
Pope Leo XIV, who has only been in his role for a few months, has bucked the trend of silence and gone on record to claim that it's possible life does exists in other parts of the universe.
However, nobody has ever really commented in any official capacity – until now.
Pope Leo XIV, who has only been in his role for a few months, has bucked the trend of silence and gone on record to claim that it's possible life does exists in other parts of the universe.
Speaking during a reception held for participants of a summer course at the Vatican Observatory in June – but only just surfacing now – he said: “Thanks to this remarkable instrument, we are able for the first time to peer deep into the atmosphere of planets in other solar systems, where life could develop.
He was speaking at the Specola Vaticana
(Vatican Observatory) at Castel Gandolfo(Image: Getty Images)
“The new technology also makes it possible to trace the ancient light of distant galaxies, which tells us about the origins of our universe".
He then called on the participants of the course to use new telescopes and technology at the observatory to "deepen our knowledge of the cosmos, of which we are only a small but significant part”.
Despite this, it has often been claimed that if the Vatican were to open its vault doors and be honest about what it knows, it could do irreparable damage to itself.
But for now, the truth remains out there . . . somewhere.
For the first time, physicists have simulated what objects moving near the speed of light would look like — an optical illusion called the Terrell-Penrose effect.
The Vienna team stitched together slices of light to create snapshots. At rest (left), the cube looks normal. But when simulated at 99.9% of light speed (right), a sphere still looks round but reveals parts of its far side.
Using ultra-fast laser pulses and special cameras, scientists have simulated an optical illusion that appears to defy Einstein's theory of special relativity.
One consequence of special relativity is that fast-moving objects should appear shortened in the direction of motion — a phenomenon known as Lorentz contraction. This effect has been confirmed indirectly in particle accelerator experiments.
But in 1959, mathematician Roger Penrose and physicist James Terrell pointed out that an observer with a camera wouldn't actually see a squashed object at all. Instead, because light from different parts of the object takes different times to reach the camera, it would appear rotated.
Although previous models have worked with this illusion, now called the Terrell-Penrose effect, this is the first time it has been done in a lab setting. The team described their results in the journal Communications Physics.
"What I like most is the simplicity," Dominik Hornof, a quantum physicist at the Vienna University of Technology and first author of the study, told Live Science. "With the right idea, you can recreate relativistic effects in a small lab. It shows that even century-old predictions can be brought to life in a really intuitive way."
Re-creating the illusion
In the new study, physicists used ultra-fast laser pulses and gated cameras to produce snapshots of a cube and a sphere "moving" at nearly the speed of light. The results showed snapshots of rotated objects. This proved the Terrell-Penrose effect to be true.
The researchers fired ultra-short laser pulses at their test object and then used a delay generator to tell the camera exactly when to open its shutter (for just billionths of a second). This camera captured single slices of light bouncing off the object. They repeated the process and shifted the object between shots. The team built up the illusion of an object racing at near light speed. (Image credit: Hornof et al., 2025; CC BY 4.0)
But like every study, this one also had its difficulties. Moving any object at or near the speed of light is currently impossible. "In Einstein's theory, the faster something moves, the more its effective mass increases. As you get closer to the speed of light, the energy you need grows by a lot," Hornof said. We cannot generate enough energy to accelerate something like a cube, and "that's why we need huge particle accelerators, even just to move electrons close to that speed. It would take a huge amount of energy."
So the team used a clever substitute. "What we can do is mimic the visual effect," Hornof said. They started with a cube of about 3 feet (1 meter) on each side. Then, they fired ultra-short laser pulses — each just 300 picoseconds long, or about a tenth of a billionth of a second — at the object. They captured the reflected light with a gated camera that opened only for that instant and produced a thin "slice" each time.
After each slice, they moved the cube forward about 1.9 inches (4.8 cm). That is the distance it would have traveled if it were moving at 80% the speed of light during the delay between pulses. Then, the scientists put all of these slices together into a snapshot of the cube in motion.
"When you combine all the slices, the object looks like it's racing incredibly fast, even though it never moved at all," Hornof said. "At the end of the day, it's just geometry."
They repeated the process with a sphere, shifting it by 2.4 inches (6 cm) per step to mimic 99.9% light speed. When the slices were combined, the cube appeared rotated and the sphere looked as if you could peek around its sides.
"The rotation is not physical," Hornof said. "It's an optical illusion. The geometry of how light arrives at the same time tricks our eyes."
That is why the Terrell-Penrose effect does not contradict Einstein's special relativity. A fast-moving object is physically shortened along its direction of travel, but a camera doesn't capture that directly. Because light from the back takes longer to arrive than light from the front, the snapshot shifts in a way that makes the object appear rotated.
"When we did the calculations, we were surprised how beautifully the geometry worked out," Hornof said. "Seeing it appear in the images was really exciting."
Recent archaeological discoveries at two pivotal biblical sites are transforming our understanding of early Christianity's expansion across the ancient Mediterranean world. In Turkey's ancient Lystra, excavators have uncovered a magnificent 100-foot basilica adorned with gold-gilded mosaics, while Israel's el-Araj site yields new evidence supporting its identification as biblical Bethsaida. These findings illuminate the sophisticated urban networks that supported the first Christian communities and help validate biblical accounts with tangible archaeological evidence.
The Lystra basilica, discovered near modern Hatunsaray in central Anatolia, provides concrete proof that the city mentioned eight times in the New Testament was indeed a thriving Christian center capable of supporting grand religious architecture. According to Assoc. Prof. İlker Mete Mimiroğlu of Necmettin Erbakan University, this discovery confirms biblical narratives describing Paul's miraculous healing of a lame man and the subsequent establishment of organized Christian communities in first-century Anatolia claims the Daily Mail report.
Lystra: From Miraculous Healing to Christian Center
Lystra achieved biblical fame during Paul and Barnabas's first missionary journey when Paul healed a man "lame from birth" who had "never walked." This miracle, recorded in Acts 14:8-10, caused local residents to mistake the apostles for gods Hermes and Zeus, leading to dramatic religious confrontations that became foundational to early Christian history.
The newly discovered basilica spans 100 feet (30 meters) and features sophisticated late antique craftsmanship with gold-gilded ceiling mosaics and richly ornamented walls.
Archaeological evidence suggests the basilica served dual functions as both worship center and administrative hub, reflecting the organizational structure of early Christian communities in Anatolia. The site also connected to Timothy, Paul's spiritual successor, who was appointed as one of the region's first bishops. Excavations reveal continuous use from late antiquity through the early medieval period, demonstrating Christianity's lasting impact in this strategic Lycaonian city explains Arkeonews.
Beyond its Christian significance, Lystra excavations reveal remarkable cultural continuity through the Seljuk period (12th-13th centuries). Archaeologists discovered turquoise-colored beads in children's graves alongside Seljuk coins, representing early forms of the nazar boncuğu (evil-eye bead) that remains central to Turkish culture today. These artifacts demonstrate peaceful coexistence between Christian populations and incoming Turkish rulers rather than complete cultural displacement.
"It shows that when the Seljuks came, the local Christian population did not disappear," explains Mimiroğlu. "They continued their lives under Seljuk rule, within an atmosphere of tolerance."
Parts of the Byzantine basilica were repurposed into smaller chapels, with one altar incorporating a Roman funerary stele, illustrating how successive civilizations adapted sacred spaces for new religious purposes while maintaining spiritual continuity.
Turquoise-colored beads in children's graves alongside Seljuk coins discovered at the basilica.
Parallel discoveries at Israel's el-Araj site continue building the case for its identification as biblical Bethsaida, hometown of apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip. Recent excavations uncovered a Byzantine church containing a mosaic inscription referencing "the chief of the apostles" - widely interpreted as Peter. This finding, combined with geographic and stratigraphic evidence, provides the strongest archaeological support yet for locating New Testament Bethsaida at this Sea of Galilee site.
The el-Araj church inscription includes a donor named Constantine petitioning for St. Peter's intercession, demonstrating organized Christian veneration at this location by the 5th-6th centuries AD. Wildfire damage in 2025 unexpectedly revealed hundreds of small mounds across the site, potentially representing individual house foundations from the ancient fishing village where Jesus performed multiple miracles and called his first disciples.
Ruins revealed by wildfire boost Sea of Galilee site's claim as being the New Testament's Bethsaida.
These synchronized discoveries at Lystra and Bethsaida demonstrate how archaeological evidence can help bolster biblical historical accounts while revealing the sophisticated urban networks that enabled Christianity's rapid expansion across the first-century Mediterranean world. From Paul's miraculous healings to the establishment of lasting religious institutions, these ancient cities continue yielding tangible proof of Christianity's foundational period.
Top image: The archaeological excavations at the Roman Lystra site in Turkey.
Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of modern science, because we can’t see it, touch it or feel it with our current instruments, and yet, we know it’s there because we can see how it affects galaxies, and its presence is felt through its gravity. Light bends around it as it travels across the universe, and the distribution of dark matter is known because of the way galaxies and galaxy clusters move, and the universe itself evolved differently than it would have if dark matter weren’t present.
The following 10 facts are a summary of what scientists have learned about this invisible stuff.
It outweighs the stuff we can see, because scientists have taken data from a number of missions, including the European Space Agency’s Planck mission, to show that regular atoms make up only about 5 percent of the universe, while dark matter makes up about 26 percent, and dark energy about 69 percent, which means that everything we can see and touch is only a small fraction of the universe’s mass-energy budget.
It’s invisible to light, because dark matter doesn’t emit, absorb or reflect any electromagnetic radiation, so our telescopes can’t spot it directly, but we know it’s there from the gravitational pull it exerts on stars, planets and galaxies, and stars in the outer regions of galaxies move faster than the stars closer to the center, which wouldn’t be possible if all we could see was the total amount of mass in the universe.
It’s not a new idea, since in the 1930s, Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky noticed that galaxies were moving so fast within galaxy clusters that the clusters should be flying apart, unless there was some invisible mass holding them together, which he called “dunkle Materie” — dark matter, and in the 1970s, Vera Rubin and Kent Ford made the same discovery in the rotation curves of spiral galaxies, thus turning it from a hunch to a fact of modern cosmology.
The Big Bang afterglow agrees, because dark matter affects the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang, and satellites like WMAP and Planck have mapped the tiny ripples of heat in the CMB in exquisite detail, which agree with models that include dark matter, and without it, galaxies would not have formed so quickly.
It’s not made of normal atoms, because if dark matter were made of protons, neutrons or electrons, we would see clear signatures of that in the cosmic microwave background and in the abundance of light elements created in the first few minutes after the Big Bang, but we don’t, so that means dark matter is some other kind of particle.
Top candidates for dark matter are WIMPs and axions, because weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and axions are two of the top contenders, where WIMPs would be heavy and interact via gravity and the weak force, while axions would be extremely light, and several experiments, such as XENONnT, LUX-ZEPLIN and ADMX, are currently hunting for signs of WIMPs and axions.
It molds galaxies and clusters, because dark matter provides the gravitational scaffolding that keeps galaxies and galaxy clusters together, while it also warps light across the universe, according to Einstein, where mass warps space and bends light, an effect called gravitational lensing, which has been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and other observatories, that have seen distant galaxies that are stretched and warped by massive, invisible structures, and those distortions create maps of where dark matter is.
It might only feel gravity, because no lab has yet detected dark matter interacting with anything except gravity, and the lack of signals at the Large Hadron Collider and other facilities has led some researchers to explore other ideas, such as self-interacting dark matter and sterile neutrinos.
It draws the cosmic web, because on the largest scales, galaxies are arranged into a web of filaments and galaxy clusters, which matches the distribution of dark matter in both simulations and maps of gravitational lensing, and dark matter’s gravity drew normal matter into those structures, giving the universe its large-scale architecture.
The existence of dark matter is supported by a wide range of observations, from the rotation curves of galaxies to the cosmic microwave background, therefore, whether it turns out to be a new particle, a tweak to gravity, or something we haven’t yet imagined, solving this mystery is key to understanding the universe and what it’s really made of.
Artificial intelligence is starting to appear in unexpected places, including houses of worship and spiritual communities. Around the world, religious groups, artists, and technologists are experimenting with ways AI might help people reflect on faith, ethics, and belief.
In 2024, the small chapel at the Protestant church in Lucerne, Switzerland, housed the Deus in Machina installation, where visitors could sit across from an animated “AI Jesus” and pose their questions, and the machine had texts from the Bible and writings from Christian theologians at its disposal to answer their questions. Almost 900 people tried it out over the course of two months, and some found it fascinating, while others were outraged, because, according to the organizers of the project, they did not want to encourage worship, but rather curiosity, and they were exploring what happens when ancient questions of meaning meet a machine. The parish of Poznań in Poland even went a step further and installed an AI guide for questions on Catholicism, which quotes from the Bible and official Church documents, and the priest behind the project said the machine allows people to ask things that they would not dare ask a human priest.
These are small experiments, but they show how AI is already changing how people talk about theology and belief, and a new role for algorithms is emerging, because Artificial intelligence is being used in a few corners of religious life, such as a reader of scripture, where large language models can read religious texts at a scale no human can, comparing translations and tracking patterns across centuries of commentary. Researchers are also testing how well these systems can answer questions about doctrine and ethics, but the results are mixed, because they can synthesize information quickly, but they tend to lose nuance or introduce bias, and some critics say they confuse guidance and automation. AI is also being used as a listener, as some communities are testing AI chat companions for daily reflections, prayers, or emotional support, which offer privacy and 24/7 availability that people can’t always provide, however, some critics argue that they lack the human touch.
As the source of belief itself, a handful of people have argued that AI could be worshipped as a god, because, in 2017, engineer Anthony Levandowski started a short-lived organization called Way of the Future, with the aim of preparing for a world where superintelligent machines have surpassed human intelligence, although the group never attracted more than a handful of followers, but the idea remains in the corners of the net, that intelligence, even artificial, could one day be revered as a divine force.
Moral philosophy and theology
Moreover, religious ethicists are taking up positions in AI labs, arguing that centuries of moral philosophy and theology can inform how we design intelligent systems, and at Oxford, the Collaboration on Theology and Artificial Intelligence is exploring how faith traditions understand concepts of autonomy, responsibility, and conscience, which dovetail with debates over machine decision-making.
When faith meets data, some of these problems will not be solved by better code, because bias is one of the issues, as these models learn from human language, which means they pick up our prejudices and blind spots, and a system trained to talk about religion will repeat not just the sacred texts, but the cultural biases woven through them. Agency is another problem, because a machine can recite scripture, but it cannot pray, doubt, or feel remorse, and it lacks what many people of faith would call the heart of moral experience, as some theologians have put it, AI may talk about God, but it can’t talk to God. Furthermore, there’s the danger of reduction, because boiling faith down to data points and algorithms strips the communal and emotional richness that is essential to most religious traditions, such as rituals, silence, and shared space, which are all fundamental aspects of most religions, and no chatbot can replace them.
The psychological effects are complex, too, because a study published by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business found that reading about the capabilities of AI slightly decreased people’s reported belief in God, while another study, published by Duke University, found that thinking about God made people more likely to trust recommendations from AI, and the relationship between divine and machine authority appears to be a two-way street. Consequently, AI isn’t going to replace religion, but it’s going to change how we practice it, and it’s going to change how we interpret it, because, for some, AI is a new kind of mirror, reflecting our hopes, fears, and contradictions in sharp relief, while for others, it’s a threat to the authenticity of our belief. Therefore, the real test is how our communities choose to use it, as a tool for inquiry, or as a stand-in for faith, because the machines can help us organize our texts, translate our scripture, spark us to reflection, but the heart of religion, the experience of wonder, doubt, and relationship, is something only humans can offer, and as the machines grow more capable, those lines are going to matter even more. Ultimately, the future of faith may not depend on whether the machines can find God, but it depends on whether the humans remember why they started searching.
A strange tilt in the outer reaches of the Kuiper Belt has scientists wondering if the solar system is hiding another planet—a potential “Planet Y” that could soon join the family of known worlds.
The Kuiper Belt is an enormous ring of icy bodies that extends from the orbit of Neptune to a distance of close to 30 astronomical units (AU), or approximately 30 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. During recent investigations of this mysterious outer solar system region, a team of Princeton researchers uncovered a strange warpin its plane, which could mean that something is pulling on some of the icy objects beyond Neptune—possibly even an undiscovered planet.
Eying the Kuiper Belt
The Princeton team’s work began with a simple question: “Is the Kuiper Belt flat?” Despite some slight deviations, the planets in our solar system all lie on roughly the same plane, which should be reflected in the belt. However, the Kuiper Belt unexpectedly changes this orientation with a tilt of about 15 degrees. Despite the team’s best efforts, most potential explanations failed to account for the unusual warpage, save for one: the potential existence of an unknown body the researchers dub “Planet Y.”
While there has been no direct observation of this currently theoretical planet, the team believes that current data suggests the planet would be between the sizes of Earth and Mercury, positioned deep in the outer reaches of our solar system.
“This paper is not a discovery of a planet, but it’s certainly the discovery of a puzzle for which a planet is a likely solution,”the authors said when presenting their work in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
A New Addition to the Solar System?
This isn’t the first time a theoretical planet has been suspected to lurk in the Kuiper Belt, which once held a recognized planet until one of its largest residents, Pluto, was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. The region remains mysterious due to difficulties in observing it at such great distances.
Earlier work sought what astronomer Percival Lowell dubbed “Planet X,” an attempt to explain away other anomalies by proposing a mysterious hidden planet. Those anomalies were in the orbits of the planets Neptune and Uranus, and even the 1930 discovery of Pluto didn’t prove to be enough to account for them.
However, the mystery resolved itself in a less dramatic way than expected when Voyager 2 probe data revealed Neptune’s mass to be less than speculated in the 1990s. The recognition of a less massive Neptune seemingly resolved the question of the irregularities without requiring the pull of an unknown body.
Planet Y and the Search for Planet Nine
However, the search for a mysterious planet reignited with a 2016 paper speculating on what was now being called “Planet Nine” instead of “Planet X.” However, this long-suspected outer-solar system planetary body differs considerably from what the recent Princeton University research proposes, as this planet would be much larger and farther out beyond Pluto.
There is a great deal of debate over what an undiscovered planet in our solar system might look like, but the Princeton team says that they are not mutually exclusive. In theory, a pair of undiscovered planets could coexist beyond the range of our present observations.
Pentetrating the mysteries of the Kuiper Belt may soon be on the horizon, though, as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is about to launch its decade-long survey, which the researchers believe will likely detect any such planet in the Kuiper Belt within two to three years.
Hence, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory may soon be able to finally resolve the question of whether other worlds might exist in our planetary neighborhood, as well as which planetary category the Princeton team’s suspected “Planet Y” belongs to.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
Chinese onderzoekers hebben een plastic ontwikkeld uit bamboe dat twee schijnbaar tegenstrijdige eigenschappen heeft: het materiaal is sterker dan veel kunststoffen die vandaag de dag worden gebruikt, maar breekt volledig af binnen 50 dagen wanneer het in de grond terechtkomt.
Het plastic is gemaakt uit bamboevezels die worden ontleed tot losse moleculen en vervolgens opnieuw worden samengesteld tot een nieuwe vorm van plastic. Het resultaat, volgens het onderzoek waar het materiaal in wordt beschreven, is een kunststof die sterker is dan polyethyleen en ABS. Dat zijn veelgebruikte plastics: polyethyleen zit in verpakkingen en zakjes, ABS wordt gebruikt voor speelgoed en elektronische behuizingen.
Het plastic bereikte bij testen een treksterkte van 110 megapascal. Dat is een maat voor hoeveel kracht nodig is om het materiaal kapot te trekken. Gewoon polyethyleen haalt ongeveer 30 megapascal, het populaire bioplastic PLA zit rond de 50 megapascal. Ook de stijfheid van het bamboemateriaal overtrof die van gangbare plastics fors. Het plastic bleef tijdens tests zijn vorm behouden bij temperaturen van 100 graden Celsius en zelfs bij min 30 graden, zonder te barsten of te vervormen. Deze eigenschappen zouden het materiaal geschikt moeten maken voor allerlei toepassingen, zoals onderdelen voor auto’s en meubelair.
Op 50 dagen volledig weg
Maar de belangrijkste troef is misschien wel dat het materiaal kan oplossen in de natuur, zonder dat er plasticafval achterblijft. Zodra het in contact komt met grond, beginnen schimmels en bacteriën de bamboevezels af te breken. Op 50 dagen tijd zijn ze volledig verdwenen. De onderzoekers testten dit door monsters te begraven, naast stukjes gangbare plastics zoals ABS en polystyreen. Na 50 dagen waren deze laatste nog volledig intact. Logisch, want deze materialen blijven honderden jaren aanwezig in de bodem. Belangrijk om te vermelden is dat het bamboeplastic het beter doet dan bestaande bioplastics, die vaak slechts gedeeltelijk afbreken, of die speciale industriële producten vereisen om af te breken.
Makkelijk te gebruiken
Het materiaal heeft nog een groot voordeel. Het kan net als gewone plastics makkelijk worden vervormd. Zo kan het bijvoorbeeld in mallen gegoten worden, waardoor je in feite elk soort product kan maken. De onderzoekers toonden dit aan door tandwielen, sterren en golfplaten te produceren in het laboratorium. Dit lukte met vroegere materialen uit plantenvezels moeilijk.
Volledig recyclebaar
Dat het plastic in de natuur oplost, is een troef. Natuurlijk blijft het wel handiger om het te recyclen. Volgens de onderzoekers kan dit nieuwe materiaal worden omgesmolten tot nieuw plastic. Gerecycled materiaal heeft nog altijd 90 procent van zijn sterkte, staat te lezen in de studie. Ook de gebruikte oplosmiddelen kunnen worden teruggewonnen en opnieuw worden gebruikt.
Kostenplaatje lijkt mooi
Een economische analyse van de onderzoekers toont aan dat de productie van het bamboeplastic ongeveer 2.300 dollar per ton zou kosten, omgerekend zo’n 2.000 euro. Dat ligt weliswaar hoger dan simpel polyethyleen, maar het vergelijkbaar met of zelfs lager dan andere hoogwaardige plastics. Bamboe groeit bovendien razendsnel. Per hectare kan elk jaar tot 78 ton worden gewonnen. Dat is ruim vier keer zoveel als gewoon hout.
Volgens de onderzoekers is het materiaal ten slotte bestand tegen verschillende oplosmiddelen en zuren en blijft het stabiel wanneer de luchtvochtigheid hoog is. Dat wil zeggen dat materialen die buitenshuis gebruikt worden, hiermee kunnen worden gemaakt.
Niet té optimistisch zijn
Hoewel de resultaten veelbelovend zijn, is dit nog geen reden om te juichen. Tot nu toe is het materiaal enkel in het laboratorium getest, onder gecontroleerde omstandigheden. Of het in de echte wereld even goed presteert, is nog koffiedik kijken. Ook is de economische analyse nog niet onafhankelijk onderzocht en is niet duidelijk of het proces op een betaalbare wijze kan worden opgeschaald. Ten slotte is het materiaal enkel in één soort grond getest, bij een temperatuur van 25 graden. Wat er gebeurt als het in de zee terechtkomt of hoe het zich gedraagt in extreme klimaten zoals woestijnen, blijft nog een onbeantwoorde vraag.
Sumer, or the ‘land of civilized kings’, flourished in Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, around 4500 BC. Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics. Their religious system was a complex one comprised of hundreds of gods. According to the ancient texts, each Sumeriancity was guarded by its own god; and while humans and gods used to live together, the humans were servants to the gods.
The Tablet of Nippur: Discovering the Ancient Sumerian Texts
As one of the earliest known written creation stories, the Sumerian creation legend holds significant importance offering valuable insights into the religious, political, and cultural aspects of ancient Mesopotamia.
The Sumerian creation myth can be found on a tablet in Nippur, an ancient Mesopotamian city founded in approximately 5000 BC. The creation of Earth (Enuma Elish) according to the Sumerian tablets begins like this:
When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, And the primeval Apsu, who begat them, And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both Their waters were mingled together, And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; When of the gods none had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained; Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven, Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being...
The texts mention that at some point the gods mutinied against their labor.
When the gods like men Bore the work and suffered the toll The toil of the gods was great, The work was heavy, the distress was much.
The figures can be identified as gods by their pointed hats with multiple horns. The figure with streams of water and fish flowing from his shoulders is Ea (Sumerian Enki), god of subterranean waters and of wisdom. Behind him stands Usimu, his two-faced vizier (chief minister). At the centre of the scene is the sun-god, Shamash (Sumerian Utu), with rays rising from his shoulders. He is cutting his way through the mountains in order to rise at dawn. To his left is a winged goddess, Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna). The weapons rising from her shoulders symbolise her warlike characteristics.
The Unity of God and Man: How the First Human Came into Existence
Anu, the god of gods, agreed that their labour was too great. His son Enki, or Ea, proposed to create man to bear the labour, and so, with the help of his half-sister Ninki, he did. A god was put to death, and his body and blood was mixed with clay. From that material the first human being was created, in likeness to the gods.
You have slaughtered a god together With his personality I have removed your heavy work I have imposed your toil on man. … In the clay, god and man Shall be bound, To a unity brought together; So that to the end of days The Flesh and the Soul Which in a god have ripened – That soul in a blood-kinship be bound.
This first man was created in Eden, a Sumerian word which means ‘flat terrain’. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Eden is mentioned as the garden of the gods and is located somewhere in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Adapa, the first human being in ancient Sumerian Texts failed to answer the question of “the bread and water of life” Anu.
Initially human beings were unable to reproduce on their own, but were later modified with the help of Enki and Ninki. Thus, Adapa was created as a fully functional and independent human being. This ‘modification’ was done without the approval of Enki’s brother, Enlil, and a conflict between the gods began. Enlil became the adversary of man, and the Sumerian tablet mentions that men served gods and went through much hardship and suffering.
Adapa, with the help of Enki, ascended to Anu where he failed to answer a question about ‘the bread and water of life’.
Opinions vary on the similarities between this creation story and the biblical story of Adam and Eve in Eden. While Adapa was granted great wisdom and knowledge by Enki, he unknowingly rejected the gift of immortality when offered the "bread and water of life. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden and instructed not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, they were tempted by the serpent and ate the forbidden fruit, leading to their expulsion from paradise.
Overall, the Sumerian creation myth holds significant importance as one of the earliest known written creation stories, offering valuable insights into the religious, political, and cultural aspects of ancient Mesopotamia.
Astronomers have observed stars that are accelerating through space at a shockingly rapid pace. Normally this is assumed to relate to gravitational forces in some way, or to the natural emissions of the stars that might be causing them to move at unusually fast rates.
But one researcher has a different idea about why some stars or star systems seem to be moving more rapidly than normally, presumably dragging their planets along with them as they go. According to Clement Vidal, a philosopher from Vrije University Brussels in Belgium who has an interest in astronomy, these traveling solar systems may have been converted into fast-moving “spaceships” by advanced alien civilizations looking to explore other areas of the Milky Way galaxy.
The Solar System as UFO
Assuming for a moment they developed the technology to actually accomplish such a thing, an alien civilization might have various motivations for propelling their entire solar system through space.
“Two universal evolutionary motivations will make interstellar travel a necessity to any long-lived civilization: survival and reproduction,” Vidal wrote in a non-peer-reviewed paper about his concept published through Cornell University.
Such a civilization might want to escape the vicinity of a nearby supernova that threatens their star system’s existence. Or they might be running out of resources on their home planet, and decide to move to another part of their galaxy where resources might be plentiful. Or they could simply be explorers driven by curiosity or a sense of adventure. They might even be forced to take such action as a response to attacks from other alien civilizations.
Rather than constructing ships that would carry just a few of them through space as astronauts, these aliens could take everyone along for the ride, with their solar system traveling through space on the ultimate voyage of discovery. While the journey to another solar system in a different part of the galaxy would be a long one, since the entire civilization was taking the trip together the passing of the time wouldn’t really be noticed.
Binary star system R Aquarii, located 700 light-years from Earth.
This is an astonishing proposal, but it is based on an idea that has been around for a long time. The idea of creating a “stellar engine” (a star that could be used to power space travel) was first conceived of by science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon in 1937, and the concept has always been considered sound—impractical perhaps, but not totally out of the realm of possibility.
In his theoretical study, Vidal proposes that binary star systems would make the best candidates to be converted into spaceships. The particular types of binary systems he identifies are known as spidar pulsars and redback pulsars, and each consists of a star that is smaller than our sun revolving around a dense neutron star with a powerful gravitational field.
In such systems the neutron stars create an enormous amount of energy. They do this through the combination of their rapid rotation (rapidly spinning stars are known as pulsars) and the gravitational forces they generate, the latter of which causes high-powered ejections of materials from their partner stars.
It is these forces, Vidal says, that could be controlled or redirected by an advanced alien civilization to actually propel an entire star system through space at a high rate of speed. The idea would be to take control of the pattern of ejections by the neutron’s companion star, and to point them in a specific direction. This would essentially turn that star into a massive rocket, propelling the solar system and all of its inhabitants toward the region of space they would like to explore. Making changes of direction in the material ejection patterns would allow the alien engineers to steer their moving solar systems, giving them total control over their final destination.
An alien civilization would have to be enormously advanced to have developed the technology necessary to manipulate stellar forces. But if they were, converting their entire solar system into a spaceship could be feasible and logical, Vidal argues, and in such a circumstance there would be no shortage of reasons why such a civilization might want to put this idea into practice.
Let the Investigation Begin!
It would be easy to dismiss an idea like this as 100-percent speculation, rooted in science fiction more than science reality. But it is an idea that can be investigated, which is really all that Clement Vidal is recommending that astronomers do.
In fact scientists have already looked closely at the anomalous movements of hypervelocity stars, strange objects that were apparently ejected from the center of the Milky Way after passing too close to a black hole. Astronomers have identified and analyzed 16 hypervelocity stars so far, but as Vidal readily admits none of them show movement patterns that would suggest they are under intelligent control.
Vidal is convinced, however, that binary star systems with the neutron star-small companion star arrangement would make the best stellar engines, because of their unique gravitational dynamics. In fact, he has already identified two candidates that match the characteristics of the solar systems he wants investigated. These are a “black widow” pulsar designated PSR J0610-2100, and a "redback" pulsar known as PSR J2043+1711. Both of these binary star systems are accelerating, and as of now there is no good explanation for that.
Illustration of star flying through space pulling planet along with it.
And just last year, Vidal notes, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory spotted five more binary pulsar systems like these in the Omega Centauri globular cluster, a grouping of 10 million stars that are about 17,000 light-years from earth. Vidal’s idea is that the movement patterns of all of these binary star systems should be closely analyzed, to see if they show any signs of speeding up or slowing down, changing direction, moving faster than predicted, and so on.
“I see the highlighted spider stellar engine candidates and predictions as promising starting points and clues that require further attention, observation, modeling, and follow-up,” he wrote.
Should such evidence be observed, it would of course not prove these solar systems were being driven across the galaxy by aliens. But if any of them are, perhaps one day thousands of years in the future they will decide to park in orbit for awhile around our sun and stop in for a visit. Should this ever happen, the result would be the largest and most spectacular mass UFO sighting in world history, followed up by actual alien contact.
Top image: Illustration of binary pair of giant starts, accompanied by multiple planets.
Source: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva M. ZamaniCC BY-SA 4.0.
Rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may trigger a series of geological and biological processes that could ensure the next ice age arrives on time instead of being delayed, researchers say.
The key to the new findings is how phosphorus moves from the land to the ocean, researchers said.
(Image credit: Qiang Zhang / 500px/Getty Images)
Earth may respond to the huge quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) that humans are pumping into the atmosphere by "overcorrecting" the imbalance, which could result in the next ice age arriving on time instead of being delayed by tens of thousands of years, as had previously been predicted.
This is due to a newfound "thermostat" that buries mountains of carbon beneath the seafloor so efficiently, it could do away with human carbon emissions within 100,000 years, researchers have discovered.
That's several times quicker than scientists assumed would happen with a previously described "lazy thermostat" that locks away carbon on timescales of 500,000 to 1 million years, the team reported in a study published Sept. 25 in the journal Science.
With both thermostats working in tandem, it's possible that the next ice age could start on time, instead of being delayed by the effects of climate change, study co-author Andy Ridgwell, a professor of geology at the University of California, Riverside, told Live Science.
The newfound thermostat does not protect humans living now from the effects of global warming, said study co-author Dominik Hülse, a mathematician and biogeochemical modeler at the University of Bremen in Germany. "It's not to say that we will be safe from global warming in the next 100 or even 1,000 years," he told Live Science.
Scientists have long suspected that Earth regulates its climate on geological timescales. Since the 1980s, researchers have theorized about a mechanism called the silicate weathering feedback, which occurs when rain captures CO2 from the air and sprays it onto silicate rocks — rocks with minerals made of oxygen and silicon that constitute about 90% of the planet's crust. CO2 reacts with these rocks, dissolving them and forming molecules that leach into the ground and eventually end up in the ocean. Once there, what was once CO2 forms limestone and chalk, meaning it is locked away for millions of years.
The silicate weathering feedback is like a thermostat because the more CO2 that is in the atmosphere, the warmer Earth gets and the more the water cycle intensifies. As precipitation increases, silicate weathering accelerates, meaning more CO2 is transferred to the ocean and atmospheric CO2 sinks to background levels again.
The feedback also works the other way around. "If you get too cold and CO2 is too low, then the thermostat is consuming too little CO2 compared with a background of constant release of CO2 from the mantle, from volcanoes and other magma features," Ridgwell said. In this scenario, less CO2 ends up in the ocean and atmospheric levels slowly increase back to average levels, he said.
But the silicate weathering feedback moves slowly; it can take up to 1 million years after a perturbation to rebalance CO2 levels. As a result, there are climate events it can't explain, including Earth's glacial and interglacial cycles, which are characterized by huge fluctuations in CO2 levels and temperature that occur roughly every 100,000 years, Ridgwell said.
Silicate weathering also can't explain snowball Earth events, which completely cover the planet in ice, Hülse said. If silicate weathering were the only thermostat regulating Earth's climate, its smooth balancing act would prevent it from tipping into such extreme conditions, Hülse explained.
A second "thermostat"
The new research was inspired by Hülse's doctoral dissertation, in which he calculated how much organic carbon was preserved in ocean sediments during past climatic events. His results showed that after periods of intense volcanic activity and warming, mountains of organic carbon were deposited onto the seafloor. This finding suggested there might be a link between atmospheric CO2 levels and organic carbon burial in the ocean.
"There are definitely times in Earth's history when a lot of organic carbon has been deposited," Ridgwell said. "We've sort of known that there must be other things going on [besides silicate weathering], but it's much more complex to put in a model."
But Hülse and Ridgwell tackled this challenge in the new study by amalgamating their individual projects into a single global climate carbon cycle model that accounted for organic carbon burial in the seafloor. Their results revealed a second "thermostat" rooted in Earth's phosphorus cycle, which starts on land with rocks containing minerals such as apatite, the researchers said.
Weathering of these rocks due to precipitation releases phosphorus, which leaches into the ground, enters streams and rivers, and eventually ends up in the ocean. There, phosphorus is a key nutrient for tiny photosynthetic creatures known as phytoplankton, which use it to fuel cellular processes. When phytoplankton die, they sink to the ocean bottom, where they deposit organic carbon, phosphorus and other nutrients.
Phytoplankton take up phosphorus to power cellular processes, and when they die, they bring it with them to the seafloor. (Image credit: Roland Birke/Getty Images)
In a warmer world, more phosphorus is washed into the ocean and phytoplankton proliferate, meaning more organic carbon and phosphorus reach the seafloor. However, warmer oceans also hold less oxygen because oxygen becomes less soluble as temperatures increase. This deoxygenation releases deposited phosphorus back into the water column while burying organic carbon in sediments.
"Exactly how that happens is not mechanistically entirely known, but we know it happens," Ridgwell said. "Where we've had these events in the past where we see massive amounts of organic carbon being buried after a warming event, there's very, very, very little phosphorus in that material compared with normal material. If it's not being buried, it must have been returned to the ocean."
As phosphorus gets recycled, it reenters the food chain and phytoplankton continue to proliferate as they feast on phosphorus from both the land and the ocean. This leads to a phytoplankton boom, which sucks more and more CO2 out of the atmosphere and deposits more and more organic carbon onto the seafloor, which brings down global temperatures.
So, the warmer the world gets, the more productive the oceans become and the more carbon is locked away, which cools the climate. But the difference between phosphorus and silicate weathering is that phosphorus in the ocean doesn't decline as soon as Earth cools, because it continues to be released at the seafloor.
"The organic carbon thermostat is a little bit like the silicate thermostat, except it has this supercharger," Ridgwell said. "You end up with so many nutrients in the ocean — and they're being recycled very efficiently — that it's very difficult to get rid of them again."
The phosphorus cycle eventually regains its balance, but the planet can "overcorrect" in the meantime, triggering events like snowball Earth, the researchers said. It's unclear how this second thermostat will respond to climate change now, but the ocean is so rich in oxygen compared with in the past that a snowball Earth is unlikely, they said.
Instead, it's possible that the organic carbon thermostat will make up for the delay expected for the next ice age. Climate change is disturbing Earth's natural cycles, and previous research suggests it could push back the next glacial period, which is due in about 11,000 years, by tens of thousands of years. But if the organic carbon thermostat activates, atmospheric CO2 could return to background levels much faster, ensuring that the next ice age arrives on time.
"Whatever delay we'll end up with for the next ice age ... thinking about this mechanism might bring it back forward again," Ridgwell said. "One is going to start at some point for sure; it's all about when it starts."
De evolutie van UFO-studies: van randwetenschap tot voorhoedewetenschap
Oude UFO-foto. Beeldconcept van buitenaardse wezens.
Depositphotos.
De evolutie van UFO-studies: van randwetenschap tot voorhoedewetenschap
Inleiding
Sinds mensenheugenis hebben we de hemel boven ons bestudeerd met verwondering en een tikkeltje angst. Is er werkelijk leven buiten onze planeet, zoals we onszelf kennen? De afgelopen vier decennia heb ik het onderwerp UFO’s gevolgd, vaker naar de sterrengekeken dan ik kan tellen, en mezelf afgevraagd of een van die fonkelende objecten misschien een huis biedt aan wezens zoals wij. Soms vroeg ik me af of er planeten in het melkwegstelsel zijn die een spiegel vormen van onze eigen wereld. En ja, ik heb meerdere malen dingen aan de hemel gezien die ik niet kon verklaren. Dat betekent niet per se dat ik wezens uit andere werelden heb waargenomen die met hoge snelheid voorbijschieten; maar het betekent ook zeker niet dat ik dat niet heb gedaan. Wie over dit onderwerp bedachtzaam spreekt, zegt dat de waarheid daarbuiten ligt. En ik geloof sterk dat dit inderdaad zo is. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat sommige voorwerpen die wij in onze lucht zien — en mogelijk zelfs door de ruimte reizen — niet van deze planeet zijn en geen product van de aard der dingen. Het is egoïstisch en grootheidswaanzin te denken dat ALLEEN op onze Aarde intelligent leven is en niet op de biljoenen sterren en planeten om ons heen...
Verandering van perceptie - Van bagatellisering, belachelijk maken naar wetenschap
Decennialang werden onopgehelderde vliegende voorwerpen, beter bekend als UFO’s, nu UAP's genoemd, vrijwel uitsluitend afgedaan als speelse curiosa uit de wereld van sciencefiction en mythen. De publieke verbeelding werd al gauw overschaduwd door scepsis: wat bovennatuurlijke verklaringen leek de overhand te hebben, werd in wetenschappelijke kringen al snel als ongefundeerd, oncontroleerbaar en soms zelfs als belachelijk beschouwd. Journalisten, politici en wetenschappers wisten zich vaak geen beter woord te vinden dan ridicule om het onderwerp te benaderen, waardoor serieuze debatten over de realiteit en oorzaken van deze verschijnselen ontaardden in grapjes of ontkenning. De consequentie hiervan was dat veel waarnemingen niet gedocumenteerd of serieus onderzocht werden, en dat het wetenschappelijke gesprek over mogelijk niet-normale luchtverschijnselen werd verengd tot marginaal terrein.
De afgelopen jaren is dit patroon echter ingrijpend verschoven. Steeds meer onderzoekers erkennen dat er minder sprake is van louter fantasie of misinterpretatie dan aanvankelijk werd gedacht, en dat systematische waarnemingen, data-analyse en verantwoorde rapportage wel degelijk leiden tot bruikbare inzichten. Universiteiten, onderzoeksinstituten en onafhankelijke wetenschappers pleiten vaker voor een open maar kritische benadering van wat aanvankelijk als “ongebruikelijke” gebeurtenissen werd gecatalogiseerd. Ze benadrukken dat het opdoen van betrouwbare kennis mogelijk is wanneer er transparante methodes, reproduceerbare bevindingen en stringent getypeerde waarnemingen aan ten grondslag liggen.
Ook overheidsinstanties hebben hun houding aangepast en investeren in gestructureerde programma’s om de verschijnselen te bestuderen zonder de wetenschappelijke integriteit in gevaar te brengen. Een bekend en symbolisch voorbeeld is de betrokkenheid van NASA, die, hoewel vaak geassocieerd met traditionele ruimtevaart en technologische topprestaties, nu duidelijk heeft gemaakt dat het onderwerp van onverklaarde luchtverschijnselen aandacht verdient. De vorming van een gespecialiseerde UFO-studiegroep door NASA onderstreept een intentie om werkwijzen te verbeteren, dataficeren te harmoniseren en interdisciplinaire samenwerking te stimuleren. Daarmee ontstaat een nieuw plausibel kader waarin waarnemingen worden geëvalueerd op basis van evidence, meegewogen in de context van ruimtevaart, atmospherische wetenschap en data-analyse.
Samengevat markeert deze verschuiving een markant keerpunt: van een sfeer van bagatellisering en belachelijk maken naar een wetenschappelijke, transparante en serieuze aanpak van onbegrepen verschijnselen. Het traject is nog lang niet afgerond, maar de toon is onmiskenbaar verschoven richting nieuwsgierigheid, methodische inzet en een herontdekte legitimiteit van onderzoek naar wat ons al lang fascineert: het onbekende aan de grenzen van onze perceptie.
In de afgelopen drie jaar hebben hoge functionarissen publiekelijk hun verwarring over ongeïdentificeerde luchtverschijnselen toegegeven. Boven: Vier mysterieuze objecten gespot in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1952.
Foto-illustratie door Paul Sahre
NASA’s UFO-studiegroep
Een spelverdeler of een keerpunt? De opstelling van zo’n groep onder de paraplu van een van ’s werelds meest gerespecteerde ruimte- en wetenschapsinstellingen verleent een ongekende geloofwaardigheid aan het onderzoek naar UFO’s. In plaats van losse geruchten of sensationele rapporten fungeert deze werkgroep als een serieuze, methodische instantie die systematisch kalibratie, validatie en replicatie van bevindingen nastreeft. Door een multidisciplinair team samen te brengen—astronomen, datawetenschappers, ingenieurs, veiligheidsdeskundigen en psychologen—wordt geprobeerd een zo volledig mogelijk beeld te schetsen van wat er gezien kan zijn en hoe het in een breder wetenschappelijk kader past.
De groep houdt zich bezig met het bestuderen van gerapporteerde ontmoetingen met UFO’s en het analyseren van mogelijke wetenschappelijke verklaringen voor de waargenomen verschijnselen. Dit omvat het beoordelen van waarnemingsdata uit satellieten, radar- en fotografische waarnemingen, evenals getuigenverklaringen die op langere termijn herzien kunnen worden. Een cruciale stap in dit proces is het scheiden van betrouwbare signalen van ruis, niet-specifieke interpretaties en mogelijk misleidende artefacten die door menselijke perceptie of instrumentele beperkingen kunnen ontstaan. Daarnaast wordt er aandacht besteed aan het ontwikkelen van gestandaardiseerde methoden voor data-registratie, metadata-consistentie en kwaliteitscontrole, zodat bevindingen op lange termijn herhaalbaar zijn door onafhankelijke onderzoekers.
Op 31 mei 2023 hield NASA een bijeenkomst waaruit blijkt dat UFO’s een mysterie zullen blijven totdat we betere, nauwkeurigere gegevens hebben. Daarmee wordt de eis niet zozeer dat alles onmiddellijk verklaard moet zijn, maar dat de kwaliteit en betrouwbaarheid van de data essentieel zijn voor elke vooruitgang. In deze context fungeert de studiegroep ook als een transparant platform voor publiek en wetenschappelijk debat, waar bevindingen worden gedeeld, scrutinized en waar mogelijk geanonimiseerd gedeeld in een gecontroleerde omgeving.
Overheids- en militaire onthullingen - Geluid van insiders
Naast NASA komen er steeds vaker onthullingen naar buiten van hooggeplaatste overheidsfunctionarissen, inlichtingenofficieren en militair personeel die het debat op een hoger niveau brengen. Deze insiders brengen getuigenissen naar buiten die niet louter als anekdotisch hoeven te worden gezien, maar als onderdeel van een soms lange geschiedenis van gedocumenteerde waarnemingen, onderzoeken en gedematerialiseerde rapportages. Ze beschrijven ervaringen die de twijfels van sceptici uitdagen en tegelijk de verantwoordelijke procedures benadrukken waarmee dergelijke feiten moeten worden geverifieerd en afgewogen. In veel gevallen wordt gespecieerd hoe meerdere getuigen onafhankelijk van elkaar soortgelijke kenmerken en patronen hebben waargenomen: snelle acceleraties, afwijkende aerodynamische manoeuvres, en een opmerkelijke stabiliteit tijdens turbulente omstandigheden. Sommigen voegen daaraan toe dat de waarnemingen gepaard gaan met meetinstrumenten die anomalieën registreren, zoals ongebruikelijke radiogolven, anomalieën in infraroodbeeldvorming en onverklaarbare responsen van sensoren.
Schokkende radarbeelden tonen Hellfire-raket afgevuurd door het Amerikaanse leger die afketst op een UFO boven de oceaan
Rapporten beschrijven objecten met geavanceerde vliegeigenschappen, die soms lijken te ontsnappen aan de bekende wetten van de aerodynamica en zelfs naadloos kunnen schakelen tussen verschillende media, zoals lucht en water, waardoor ze transmedium-vaartuigen lijken te zijn. In andere gevallen wordt gesuggereerd dat sommige waarnemingen mogelijk bestaan uit technologische demonstraties, prototypes of zelfs non-terrestrische technologieën die mogelijk in risicovolle proeven zijn ingezet. Daarnaast worden er bevindingen genoemd die suggereren dat overheden mogelijk delen of zelfs hele buitenaardse vaartuigen hebben teruggevonden, gedocumenteerd of onder langdurige geheimhouding geplaatst, wat het debat over autorisatie, classificatie en publieke verantwoording scherp houdt.
Of dit nu waar is of niet, het feit blijft dat dergelijke beweringen de horizon van wat als mogelijk wordt beschouwd aanzienlijk verbreden. Ze zetten overheden en militaire instellingen onder druk om transparanter, verifiëerbaarder en verantwoorder te handelen. Het gevolg is een toegenomen publieke interesse, een herijken van veiligheids- en technologiebeleid, en een gesprek over de implicaties voor nationale veiligheid, wetenschappelijke integriteit en ethische normen bij het omgaan met onbekende verschijnselen en potentieel revolutionaire technologieën. De combinatie van getuigenissen, feiten en onzekerheden maakt de kwestie complexer dan ooit en vraagt om zorgvuldige, feitelijke analyse en verantwoorde media-aandacht.
De evolutie van UFO-studies en maatschappelijke implicaties
Door de decennia heen is het veld van UFO-studies geëvolueerd van sensationele rapporten en mysteriezaaiers naar een doorwroet wetenschappelijk domein waarin gegevens, methodologie en transparantie centraal staan. In de beginjaren speelde het stigma een grote rol: waarnemingen werden vaak afgedaan als onbelangrijk of verkeerd geïnterpreteerd. Met de verschuiving naar gestructureerde rapportage, datasets en verificatie door onafhankelijke onderzoekers is de geloofwaardigheid aanzienlijk toegenomen. Instituten zoals NASA en andere ruimtevaartorganisaties hebben hun benadering verfijnd: open data, strikte waarnemingsprotocollen, en samenwerking met interdisciplinair teams van astronomen, natuurkundigen, psychologen en veiligheidsanalisten. Deze ontwikkeling heeft ervoor gezorgd dat het onderwerp op een verantwoord niveau wordt onderzocht, zonder sensationele hoogstandjes maar met reproduceerbare bevindingen.
De maatschappelijke implicaties zijn divers en diepgaand. Een “onthulling” van informatie—zij het geleidelijk of gedeeltelijk—kan het publieke vertrouwen in instituties versterken of juist ondermijnen, afhankelijk van de mate van transparantie en de duidelijkheid van communicatie. Het debat over buitenaardse intelligentie zet fundamentele vragen op tafel: wat weten we werkelijk over onze plaats in het universum, hoe definiëren we technologische vooruitgang, en welke ethische kaders gelden bij het delen van mogelijk wereldwijde kennis? Daarnaast beïnvloedt de mogelijkheid van technologische implicaties uit kontakt met andere beschavingen ons begrip van wetenschap, defensie en internationale samenwerking. Het bestuderen van deze fenomenen kan leiden tot een bredere kijk op innovatie, het herijken van prioriteiten in ruimte- en onderzoeksbeleid, en een versterkt bewustzijn van de intrinsieke menselijke zoektocht naar betekenis, zonder dat dit per se hoeft te leiden tot sensationalisme of paniek.
Een nieuwe periode van ontdekking en begrip
Wanneer we naar de toekomst kijken, lijkt het alsof de toenemende belangstelling voor UFO’s of UAP’s een hele nieuwe fase inluidt voor wetenschappelijke verkenning en menselijke nieuwsgierigheid. Deze verschijnselen roepen vragen op die verder gaan dan de onmiddellijke mysterie: wat is de aard van hun oorsprong, welke technologieën schuilen erachter, en welke wetten van natuurkunde dragen hieraan bij? Door het stimuleren van basiswetenschappelijk onderzoek kunnen onderzoekers theoretische modellen toetsen, instrumenten verbeteren en lanceerbaar maken wat ooit als ongrijpbaar lag. In dit proces kan de mensheid stappen zetten op het gebied van data-analyse, beeldverwerking, radar- en optisch waarnemen, en zelfs artificiële intelligentie die patronen detecteert die met het blote oog onzichtbaar blijven.
De verkenning van UAP’s biedt bovendien kansen om technologieën te ontwikkelen die de toekomst van de mensheid kunnen vormgeven. Denk aan geavanceerde sensoren en communicatiemethoden die ons begrip van energie, materiaalapatiteit en systemen op grote schaal kunnen verbeteren. De resultaten kunnen doorwerken in ruimtevaarttechnologie, langeafstandscommunicatie en efficiënter energiebeheer op aarde.
Daarnaast heeft deze zoektocht het potentieel om internationale samenwerking te versterken. Gedeelde nieuwsgierigheid en de drang om de grenzen van menselijke kennis te verleggen vormen universele motivaties die landen kunnen samenbrengen, ongeacht politieke of culturele verschillen. Het besef dat we mogelijk niet alleen zijn in het universum kan een sterker gevoel van menselijk samenhorigheid creëren. Het kan leiders aansporen om gezamenlijk te investeren in onderzoek, data-uitwisseling en gezamenlijke missies, met respect voor ethische, juridische en veiligheidskaders. Uiteindelijk zou dit kunnen leiden tot een nieuw tijdperk van vredevolle wetenschappelijke samenwerking en een bredere, inclusieve kijk op onze plek in het kosmische geheel.
Zwart-wit afbeelding uit video verstrekt door het ministerie van Defensie, gelabeld Gimbal, uit 2015, een onverklaard object is in het midden te zien terwijl het wordt gevolgd terwijl het hoog langs de wolken zweeft en tegen de wind in reist. Witte cijfers zijn rond de rand van de afbeelding te zien.
bu.edu
De onbekende grens - Van ridicule naar ERNSTIG wetenschappelijk terrein
De reis van UFO-studies van onderwerp van spot naar serieuze wetenschap is opmerkelijk en transformerend. Wat ooit als louter entertainment, complotdenken of oppervlakkige curiositeit werd afgedaan, wint tegenwoordig aan legitimiteit dankzij systematische waarnemingen, methodische analyses en transparante rapportage. Met de medewerking van gerenommeerde onderzoeksinstellingen, universiteiten en onafhankelijke onderzoeksnetwerken, evenals voormalige ambtenaren die hun ervaring en documenten delen, maken we licht op een terrein dat lange tijd in de schaduw lag. Deze samenwerking creëert een unieke cross-over tussen astronomische observaties, luchtvaarttechniek, datawetenschap, informatica, neurowetenschap en sociaologie, waardoor het terrein niet langer in silo’s kan worden gedacht.
Wat we vandaag doen, gaat verder dan anekdotes of sensationele beelden. Het doel is om hypotheses te formuleren, waarnemingen te verifiëren en een robuuste methode te ontwikkelen voor het evalueren van bewijs. Dit vereist open data, reproduceerbare analyses en voorzichtige interpretatie, zodat misverstanden en gehechtheid aan verlangens worden vermeden. De betrokken onderzoekers erkennen de hoge drempel van bewijslast en de noodzaak om kritisch te blijven, terwijl ze tegelijk de potentieel revolutionaire aard van bevindingen onderkennen.
De implicaties zijn diepgaand en reiken verder dan de wetenschap zelf. Een bevestigd fenomeen van buitenaardse oorsprong of onbekende technologische principes zou kunnen leiden tot doorbraken in communicatie-technieken, aandrijvingstechnologie, ruimtelijke verkenning en zelfs materiaalwetenschap. Verder heeft de verschuiving invloed op onderwijs, beleidsvorming en publieke perceptie: een cultuur van nieuwsgierigheid en bewijsverwerving kan de manier waarop wij ons universum, onze oorsprong en onze toekomst bekijken, fundamenteel veranderen. De onbekende grens blijft een uitdagend maar boeiend terrein, waarin heden en toekomst elkaar ontmoeten op de rand van wat wij kennen en wat nog ontdekt moet worden.
Een optimistische noot - Vooruitgang in zes jaar tijd
Wat de toekomst ook brengt, één ding is zeker. In de afgelopen zes jaar is er meer vooruitgang geboekt in het begrijpen van het UFO-fenomeen dan in de zestig jaar daarvoor samen. Die constatering onderstreept niet alleen de snelheid van nieuwe ontdekkingen, maar ook de ernst en de toewijding waarmee wetenschappers, beleidsmakers en onderzoeksinstellingen het onderwerp benaderen. Er is sprake van een verschuiving van terughoudend scepticisme naar een open, transparante en kritische aanpak, waarin data, verificatie en reproducibiliteit centraal staan. Betrouwbare waarnemingen worden verzameld, geclassificeerd en geconsumeerd met steeds geavanceerdere instrumenten: geodesische radars, high-resolution videotechnologie, spectroscopie en longitudinale analyses die patronen en anomalieën in kaart brengen zonder vooroordelen.
De tijdlijn van deze ontwikkeling is inspirerend. Grote onderzoeksnetwerken, internationale samenwerking en publiek-private partnerschappen hebben geleid tot een rijkere databank en een betere standaardisatie van rapportage. Burgers, piloten en professionals worden aangemoedigd om waarnemingen te documenteren en te delen, wat een bredere basis biedt voor peer-review en aanknopingspunten voor vervolggroepen. Het onderwerp zelf wordt verweven met naast elkaar liggende disciplines zoals astronomie, wiskunde, informatica en cognitieve wetenschap, waardoor we niet alleen kunnen verklaren wat mogelijk is, maar ook hoe het menselijke begrip evolueert.
Dus, kijk omhoog naar de hemel: misschien ziet ook u iets buitengewoons. De boodschap is duidelijk: we bevinden ons aan de vooravond van een mogelijk revolutie in ons begrip van de ruimte, de technologie en de plek van de mens in het grote heelal. Een toekomst waarin nieuwsgierigheid, voorzichtigheid en samenwerking de richting bepalen.
Overwegingen voor een geïnformeerde burger
Data is cruciaal. Zonder betrouwbare, hoogwaardige waarnemingen blijft het gissen. De roep om systematische verzameling en openbaarheid van data is essentieel voor elke wetenschappelijke doorbraak. In een tijdperk waarin data exponentieel toenemen, is het van belang te beseffen dat de kwaliteit van besluitvorming direct afhankelijk is van de integriteit, representativiteit en controleerbaarheid van die data. Dit betekent het investeren in gestandaardiseerde meetmethoden, metadata over context en beperkingen expliciet vermelden, en het waarborgen van herhaalbaarheid door het delen van meetprotocollen, analysecode en ruwe datasets waar mogelijk. Daarnaast dienen privacy, veiligheid en ethische overwegingen te worden afgewogen, zodat maatschappelijke belangen niet uit het oog verloren worden. Transparante kwaliteitsborging, inclusief peer-review en onafhankelijke validatie, versterkt het vertrouwen van burgers in wat wordt gemeten en gerapporteerd.
Wetenschap werkt best met meerdere invalshoeken.Gegevens uit anekdotische getuigenissen kunnen aanwijzingen geven, maar de robuuste conclusies komen voort uit rigoureuze analyses, reproduceerbare waarnemingen en gecontroleerde hypothesetoetsingen. Diversiteit in methoden en perspectieven helpt biais te verminderen en maakt het mogelijk verschuivingen in kennis dynamisch bij te houden. Het is cruciaal om verschillende disciplines naast elkaar te laten fungeren: statistiek, experimenten, modelling, en kwalitatieve benaderingen kunnen elkaar aanvullen. Zo ontstaat een vollediger beeld dan uit één enkel paradigma. Communicatie over onzekerheden hoort daarbij: welke resultaten zijn robuust, welke onzekerheden blijven bestaan, en welke aannames lagen ten grondslag aan de conclusies?
Open debat en transparantie zijn noodzakelijk. De geschiedenis heeft geleerd dat verkramping en geheimhouding innovatie kunnen schaden. Een cultuur van verantwoorde onthulling kan leiden tot bredere publieke steun en saamhorigheid. Dit vergt duidelijke richtlijnen voor toegankelijkheid van data, open publicatiekanalen, en mechanismen voor kritiek en foutcorrectie. Ook moet er ruimte zijn voor maatschappelijke stemmen, zodat zorgen en vraagstukken uit de samenleving worden meegenomen in onderzoeksprioriteiten en interpretaties.
Internationale samenwerking kan van onschatbare waarde zijn. De grootste mysteries in de kosmos overstijgen landsgrenzen; samenwerking tussen naties kan leiden tot completere datasets en betere interpretatie. Gezamenlijke infrastructuren, gedeelde databanken en gestandardiseerde protocollen verrijken de kwaliteit en snelheid van wetenschappelijke vooruitgang. Bovendien helpt internationale samenwerking bij het voorkomen van verstoorde belangen, het delen van kosten en risico’s, en het vergroten van de legitimiteit van bevindingen op wereldschaal.
Beleidsmakers en wetenschappers hebben een gezamenlijke verantwoordelijkheid om de publieke fascinerende maar vaak misleidende verhalen te corrigeren en een evenwichtig beeld te schetsen van wat bekend is, wat onbekend is, en welke vragen nog onbeantwoord zijn. Door betrouwbare uitleg te bieden, onzekerheden helder te communiceren, en toegankelijk beleid te vormen dat gebaseerd is op actuele inzichten, kunnen zij het draagvlak versterken en maatschappelijke keuzes ondersteunen die gebaseerd zijn op feiten, ethiek en transparantie.
Een terugblik op het huidige moment
De verschuiving in houding ten opzichte van UFO’s weerspiegelt een bredere verandering in hoe de mensheid kennis benadert en onze plaats in het universum uitlegt. Het is geen kwestie van het onkritisch aanvaarden van elk spectaculair verslag als onbetwist waar, maar van het erkennen dat sommige verschijnselen serieus wetenschappelijk onderzoek verdienen en mogelijk de grens tussen klassieke wetenschap en mysterie kunnen overbruggen. Deze nuance is cruciaal, want zij opent de deur naar een meer genuanceerde vorm van nieuwsgierigheid: geen blind geloof, maar wel weloverwogen verbeelding en bereidheid om hypotheses te toetsen.
Het debat is daarmee minder polariserend en meer onderzoekend geworden. Wetenschappers, overheidsinstanties en onafhankelijke onderzoekers zoeken naar methodische data, transparante rapportage en reproduceerbare resultaten. Samenwerking over landsgrenzen heen speelt een steeds belangrijkere rol, omdat de complexiteit van observaties vaak om grootschalige infrastructuur, gedeelde technieken en vergelijkbare standaarden vraagt. Internationaal gecoordineerde initiatieven kunnen de valkuilen van forensische biases en fragmentarische informatie verminderen en zo een robuuster beeld opleveren.
Ongeacht of er uiteindelijk bewijs wordt gevonden voor buitenaardse intelligentie of niet, zal de inzet van rigoureuze wetenschappelijke methoden, systematische data-analyse en open wetenschappelijk debat de manier waarop wij denken over onszelf en ons universum blijvend veranderen. Het gaat niet alleen om wat er buiten ons waarnemingsbereik ligt, maar ook om een verdiept bewustzijn van de grenzen en mogelijkheden van menselijke kennis, en de bereidheid om die grenzen waar nodig te herdefiniëren.
Slotbeschouwing
In een tijd waarin de grenzen van de menselijke kennis voortdurend worden uitgedaagd, imponeert de geschiedenis van UFO-studies als een treffend symbol van hoe wetenschap en wonder, twijfel en redelijkheid met elkaar verweven raken. Het pad van randverschijnselen naar frontlinie-wetenschap is niet lineair en is doordrenkt van controverse, maar de recente ontwikkelingen laten een hernieuwde moed en toewijding zien bij onderzoekers, ingenieurs en beleidsmakers. Nieuwe meetinstrumenten, betere data-analyse en vruchtbare interdisciplinaire samenwerking hebben de mogelijkheid geboden om eerder onverklaarde waarnemingen op een systematische en reproduceerbare manier te benaderen. Tegelijkertijd roept dit thema vragen op over methodologie, transparantie en verificatie, die ons dwingen om staalhard te marmeren wat we weten en wat we nog moeten leren.
De toekomst biedt ons de belofte van een genuanceerder begrip van wat er in onze atmosfeer gebeurt en mogelijk zelfs verder daarbuiten. Dit kan leiden tot onverwachte mogelijkheden voor technologie en veiligheid, maar ook tot een herdefinitie van onze positie in het universum en een diepere waardering van onze gedeelde verantwoordelijkheid voor de planeet en haar bewoners. Eén ding blijft onveranderd: we zullen blijven zoeken, blijven kijken en blijven leren, ook wanneer twijfel de eerste reflex blijft. In die voortdurende speurtocht schuilt de ware kern van vooruitgang.
Tot slot: de oproep aan de lezer
Wanneer u ’s nachts naar de sterren kijkt, weet dan dat er een groeiende gemeenschap is van mensen die hetzelfde doen, met hetzelfde doel: begrip. Blijf nieuwsgierig, kritisch en verantwoordelijk. Deel kennis, stel vragen en laat wetenschappelijke principes leidend zijn in het gesprek. Misschien ziet u zelf ooit iets wat uw verbeelding tart en uw begrip van het universum uitbreidt. Als we samen blijven zoeken, misschien ontdekken we uiteindelijk niet alleen wat er in de lucht rijdt, maar wat het betekent om mens te zijn te midden van de onmetelijke en stille ruimte.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
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.