28-12-2020 om 23:51 geschreven door peter  

They probably won’t look anything like this. 

Martina Badini/Shutterstock

Could invisible aliens really exist among us? An astrobiologist explains

Life is pretty easy to recognise. It moves, it grows, it eats, it excretes, it reproduces. Simple. In biology, researchers often use the acronym “MRSGREN” to describe it. It stands for movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition.

But Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut and a chemist at Imperial College London, recently said that alien lifeforms that are impossible to spot may be living among us. How could that be possible?

While life may be easy to recognise, it’s actually notoriously difficult to define and has had scientists and philosophers in debate for centuries – if not millennia. For example, a 3D printer can reproduce itself, but we wouldn’t call it alive. On the other hand, a mule is famously sterile, but we would never say it doesn’t live.

As nobody can agree, there are more than 100 definitions of what life is. An alternative (but imperfect) approach is describing life as “a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”, which works for many cases we want to describe.

The lack of definition is a huge problem when it comes to searching for life in space. Not being able to define life other than “we’ll know it when we see it” means we are truly limiting ourselves to geocentric, possibly even anthropocentric, ideas of what life looks like. When we think about aliens, we often picture a humanoid creature. But the intelligent life we are searching for doesn’t have to be humanoid.

Life, but not as we know it

Sharman says she believes aliens exist and “there’s no two ways about it”. Furthermore, she wonders: “Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them.”

Such life would exist in a “shadow biosphere”. By that, I don’t mean a ghost realm, but undiscovered creatures probably with a different biochemistry. This means we can’t study or even notice them because they are outside of our comprehension. Assuming it exists, such a shadow biosphere would probably be microscopic.

So why haven’t we found it? We have limited ways of studying the microscopic world as only a small percentage of microbes can be cultured in a lab. This may mean that there could indeed be many lifeforms we haven’t yet spotted. We do now have the ability to sequence the DNA of unculturable strains of microbes, but this can only detect life as we know it – that contain DNA.

If we find such a biosphere, however, it is unclear whether we should call it alien. That depends on whether we mean “of extraterrestrial origin” or simply “unfamiliar”.

Silicon-based life

A popular suggestion for an alternative biochemistry is one based on silicon rather than carbon. It makes sense, even from a geocentric point of view. Around 90% of the Earth is made up of silicon, iron, magnesium and oxygen, which means there’s lots to go around for building potential life.

Silicon is similar to carbon, it has four electrons available for creating bonds with other atoms. But silicon is heavier, with 14 protons (protons make up the atomic nucleus with neutrons) compared to the six in the carbon nucleus. While carbon can create strong double and triple bonds to form long chains useful for many functions, such as building cell walls, it is much harder for silicon. It struggles to create strong bonds, so long-chain molecules are much less stable.

What’s more, common silicon compounds, such as silicon dioxide (or silica), are generally solid at terrestrial temperatures and insoluble in water. Compare this to highly soluble carbon dioxide, for example, and we see that carbon is more flexible and provides many more molecular possibilities.

Life on Earth is fundamentally different from the bulk composition of the Earth. Another argument against a silicon-based shadow biosphere is that too much silicon is locked up in rocks. In fact, the chemical composition of life on Earth has an approximate correlation with the chemical composition of the sun, with 98% of atoms in biology consisting of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. So if there were viable silicon lifeforms here, they may have evolved elsewhere.

That said, there are arguments in favour of silicon-based life on Earth. Nature is adaptable. A few years ago, scientists at Caltech managed to breed a bacterial protein that created bonds with silicon – essentially bringing silicon to life. So even though silicon is inflexible compared with carbon, it could perhaps find ways to assemble into living organisms, potentially including carbon.

And when it comes to other places in space, such as Saturn’s moon Titan or planets orbiting other stars, we certainly can’t rule out the possibility of silicon-based life.

To find it, we have to somehow think outside of the terrestrial biology box and figure out ways of recognising lifeforms that are fundamentally different from the carbon-based form. There are plenty of experiments testing out these alternative biochemistries, such as the one from Caltech.

Regardless of the belief held by many that life exists elsewhere in the universe, we have no evidence for that. So it is important to consider all life as precious, no matter its size, quantity or location. The Earth supports the only known life in the universe. So no matter what form life elsewhere in the solar system or universe may take, we have to make sure we protect it from harmful contamination – whether it is terrestrial life or alien lifeforms.

• Read more: Elon Musk’s Starship may be more moral catastrophe than bold step in space exploration

So could aliens be among us? I don’t believe that we have been visited by a life form with the technology to travel across the vast distances of space. But we do have evidence for life-forming, carbon-based molecules having arrived on Earth on meteorites, so the evidence certainly doesn’t rule out the same possibility for more unfamiliar life forms.

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{ https://theconversation.com/uk }

28-12-2020 om 22:10 geschreven door peter  

What Would Happen If China Made First Contact With Extraterrestrials?

In January, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope was declared fully operational in China’s Guizhou province. Beijing’s steadfast commitment to improving the nation’s position as a leader in the basic sciences can be gleaned from the fact that the construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) was completed in five years, a remarkable achievement for a project of its technical complexity. The scientific mandate of FAST is many ways quite conventional for a telescope of its size, including detection of “fast radio bursts” – bursts of extremely powerful radio-waves from deep space of varying duration whose origins remains a mystery. (In September last year, FAST detected a significant number of such bursts from a single source, a feat that could only be achieved due to the telescope’s sensitivity.)

It is, however, the inclusion of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) in FAST’s scientific agenda that has attracted the most media attention, not always savory. A February 2016 New York Times article on FAST, for example, was headlined “China Telescope to Displace 9,000 Villagers in Hunt for Extraterrestrials.” Other media reporting emphasized the inclusion of SETI in the telescope’s research mandate at the expense of commenting on its potentially path-breaking use to study natural cosmic phenomena such as pulsars (distant geriatric stars made of exotic nuclear matter).

There is also no fundamental reason, as astronomers has now come to see, why detection of alien life may always need radio astronomy. Increasingly, search for “techno-signatures” – signs of advanced alien intelligence – now includes scanning other bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, predominantly infrared waves. But that said, recent revisions of the estimates of the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy alone (up to 300,000) – sharpened by recent advances in exoplanetology – points to the increasing probability of their detection.

China’s SETI road

It is interesting to think of how China and the rest of the world would react if – and this is a mighty “if” – China’s new mega radio telescope manages to detect an alien signal. What immediate steps would Beijing take if this were to happen during Xi Jinping’s (indefinite) tenure? As strategic competition between Washington and Beijing heats up and talks of a new Cold War abound, how would the United States and other allied powers react to the fact that the greatest discovery in human history was made possible through the efforts of an authoritarian, repressive regime? Would this mark an intensification of the rivalry between the China and the West, or lead to its decline?

The irony of this thought experiment of course is in the fact that we are now forced to contemplate the possibility that it is China and not the United States that is in the pole position to detect a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence. And in many ways, this was in the making for some time.

While the American radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico – the second-largest of its kind, after the Chinese dish – became iconic in the public’s imagination when it came to SETI, in 1993 the U.S. Congress terminated all research funding for what one American senator famously described as “Martian hunting season at the taxpayer’s expense.” (The SETI program at Arecibo, which lasted for a year till federal funding for it was stopped, was pioneered by astronomer Jill Tarter, widely assumed to be model for the character of Ellie Arroway, the protagonist of the movie and novel Contact. Early on in the movie version, Arroway’s SETI time on the Arecibo telescope is cancelled by a dismissive federal science administrator.)

This is not to say that American astronomers have stopped SETI research: substantial funding has since flowed from private sources. Most significantly, in 2015 Russian Silicon Valley billionaire (with serious Kremlin links) Yuri Milner announced a $100 million “Breakthrough Listen” initiative to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Milner’s funding continues to help the SETI program through the U.S. National Science Foundation-supported Green Bank Telescope, for example.

But private initiatives like Milner’s are international in character. For example, Breakthrough Listen is actively collaborating with the FAST project. While China has advertised FAST as an integral part of international collaborative efforts, it is controlled by the Chinese state directly. The ultimate arbiter of how of the new telescope’s time will go into the search for SETI is Beijing’s prerogative.

If directing state resources toward SETI is not an obstacle for China, could state ideology be so? Marxism-Leninism, the liturgy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has no problems imagining the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Writing in 1980, Soviet astronomer Boris A. Voronstov-Vel’yaminov noted the broad congruence between SETI and his state religion: “Dialectical materialism teaches that the infinite universe harbors an infinite number of inhabited worlds and that life will unfailing spring up where favorable opportunities present themselves.” (While doing so he also took a swipe at the Russian Orthodox Church, remarking that it was, on the other hand, altogether not comfortable with speculations about extraterrestrial life.) At a more concrete level, Soviet astronomers like Nikolai Kardashev were pioneers in detailed theoretical models of extraterrestrial civilizations.

Could there be other reasons why the Chinese may not be comfortable with idea of extraterrestrial intelligence? On this point many have drawn from the writings of Chinese science-fiction phenomena Liu Cixin. In Liu’s telling, the search for SETI may not be such a good thing after all. Based on China’s historical experience – and the “century of humiliation” narrative that finds such a significant place in Xi’s China – he has argued that humanity’s relationship with a sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial civilization may be fundamentally adversarial, resembling that of the hunter and the hunted. (Liu serves as an adviser of sorts to the FAST project.)

The Days After First Contact

Irrespective of the beliefs the leadership in Zhongnanhai holds when it comes to extraterrestrial civilizations, what happens if the FAST dish does receive a signal that, after processing, is determined not to have been generated by any natural astrophysical process?

As SETI Institute astronomer Seth Shostak points out, there are no binding international protocols that would require Beijing to make the discovery internationally known. But if China were to keep the option of non-disclosure open, its astronomical community must analyze the signal and definitely rule out any natural origins of the signal by itself. (Note that, as with recent claims around an unusual star or an interstellar rock that was found in our solar system , the majority of the international astronomical community would vastly prefer natural over artificial explanations.)

Following this, based on China’s recent domestic political behavior and the international environment, one can plausibly posit the following chain of events.

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Leading Small Groups (LSGs) – “coordinating bodies that address important policy areas that involve several different (and occasionally competing) parts of the bureaucracy” – are a Chinese governance mechanism that have grown in importance under Xi Jinping. Given that dealing with the aftermath of the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence signal is likely to involve getting the science and technology, as well as the national-security bureaucracies to work together, it quite likely that Xi will form one exclusively to deal with it, just as he did for the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

While Xi has personally led key LSGs in the past, whether he himself oversees this one will depend on whether he sees a personal risk in doing so. (For the coronavirus LSG, Xi has let Premier Li Keqiang lead it, perhaps as a way to insure himself should the crisis prove to unmanageable.)

It is highly unlikely that news of this discovery – if not precise details such as its coordinates or content – can be confined to a few in the scientific and political leadership, and impossible if it is a result of an international collaboration using FAST, say with Milner’s Breakthrough Initiative. As soon as words gets out, the CCP will attempt to milk the discovery domestically, arguing that it proves superiority of the Chinese model. This signaling through state-controlled social media such as the microblogging site Weibo will be a further attempt at regime consolidation, especially if the discovery comes at a time when Xi assesses that the Party’s grip over power is slipping. It will be accompanied by aggressive perception-shaping exercise along the line on the discovery the CCP sets.

What about the reaction from the rest of the world? If the details of the FAST signal are not released publicly, there is bound to be Western skepticism – “fake news,” some could exclaim. This reaction will partly be because of the culture of secrecy that permeates Chinese science, leading to an understandable hesitance on the part of many to accept claims from Chinese scientists at face value.

This comes on top of the fact that any suggestions that an astronomical event or object may be artificial is inevitably met with serious skepticism and the discoverer(s) subject to personal attack at times irrespective of their scientific credentials. For Chinese scientists, such attacks may have serious professional and even personal costs, as biophysicist He Jiankui discovered after his claims about the world’s first gene-edited babies were met with international skepticism as well as outrage.

But it could also be due to an ideological backlash: many Western governments may not be readily willing to concede that an authoritarian rival may succeed where they have failed. At a time when the U.S.-China relationship is increasingly acquiring a zero-sum character across the spectrum – political, economic, scientific-technological – and at least one leading American expert has endorsed the clash-of-civilization thesis when it comes to her country’s relationship with China, conceding to the Chinese claim may indeed prove to be politically difficult.

Of course, China’s own stance when it comes to releasing the details of the signal – the coordinates of the source as well as the content of the signal if it was a nonrecurring one-time-only event – will determine much of the international response. Here, the People’s Republic will have two choices, assuming that the discovery was the result of sole efforts of Chinese scientists: release the details to bolster its own credibility (knowing that if the claim was to be dismissed it would do serious damage to China’s international reputation) or keep it a secret. What may ultimately determine Beijing’s choice?

To understand it, note that the ETI signal could be of two different type: a “directed” signal that carries a message (a broadcast, if you wish) or an “undirected” one that could originate from an artificial source but not carry an meaningful information content (for example, energy remnant from some advanced technology of a civilization that harnesses the energy of an entire star or even an entire galaxy – a “Type II” or “Type III” civilization in the Kardashev scale). The difference between the two – whether a signal is part of intelligent communication or simply a technological artifact of alien origin – can be estimated by measuring its Shannon entropy, for example.

If China determines that not only is the signal directed but it has the potential to carry significant amount of information, it may weigh the benefits of keeping the signal secret versus revealing it more carefully for the simple reason that such a message may potentially carry information about very advanced (and therefore useful) technologies. (An advanced technology-blueprint bearing signal was the premise of Contact.) However, note that Chinese scientific achievements are still quite uneven – for example, the People’s Republic was unable to find enough researchers to analyze the FAST data a couple of years ago. It may very well determine that deciphering the message will require coordinated international effort.

Should China indeed release the details of the signal – thereby establishing conclusively that there is intelligent life outside Earth – what would the long-term American reaction be? Just as the Soviet Union’s success in launching the world’s first artificial satellite in 1957 caused the United States to dramatically increase its investment in science and technology, a FAST signal is likely to provoke a similar response especially at a time when American leaders are openly competing with Beijing for technological dominance. But the flip side to this otherwise happy development – just as during the original Cold War – would be the resulting military-technological contest exacerbating already deteriorating US-China relations.

In the 2016 movie Arrival, the worldwide detection of messages from an extraterrestrial intelligence forces the United States, China, and Russia to cooperate despite their individual misgivings – about each other’s as well as the aliens’ intention. The reality, if and when such a time comes, may unfortunately be much more complex.

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{ https://thediplomat.com/ }

27-12-2020 om 22:16 geschreven door peter  

Let’s Search for Alien Probes, Not Just Alien Signals

“Multimessenger” SETI would broaden the quest to find celestial companions

27-12-2020 om 17:39 geschreven door peter  

The year was 1979, and a man by the name of Robert Taylor was a forestry worker for the Livingston Development Corporation, in Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland. He was a respected war hero, was known as a good, honest worker, and was not prone to spinning wild yarns or getting into trouble, so when on November 8, 1979 he stumbled back from a trip to a hill called Dechmont Law looking disheveled, with cuts on his face, torn clothes, and looking somewhat the worse for wear, people were very concerned. When the visibly shaken man had gotten his head together, he would begin spinning a spectacular tale of bizarreness that has gone on to become a well-known and much discussed piece of UFO lore.

According to Taylor, he had gone out with his dog to do a routine check on the fences, gates, and a sampling project going on in the area. Since there were no direct roads to the remote location, he parked his truck on the nearby M8 expressway and he and the dog made their way into the woods of Dechmont Law on foot. As they progressed through the forest, Taylor says he was startled to see the startling sight of a dark grey metallic “flying dome” around 20 feet in diameter and 30 feet high hovering in the air of a clearing just above the forest floor, apparently kept aloft by an array of “small propellers” around its outer rim. As he looked on in wonder at this bizarre sight, he would claim that the air was pervaded by a smell like “burning brakes.” Very strange indeed, but it was about to get even stranger still.

Taylor claimed that before he had even had time to really process the sheer bizarreness of what he was witnessing, two small spheres detached from the larger craft, which were described as having protrusions and nodules all over them and as looking like “sea mines,” and which started rapidly rolling along the ground to approach the frightened man as they issued a “plopping, sucking sound.” These mysterious spheres reportedly then “grabbed” him with sets of protruding spikes and began pulling him towards the large dome as he struggled against them. He would claim that he believed they had been emanating some sort of toxic gas, as the acidic smell of burning rubber got unbearable and he felt the strength leaving his limbs. The whole time his dog was barking ferociously at the objects.

At this point Taylor apparently lost consciousness, and when he awoke he was lying face down in the clearing, which was now empty and with no sign of the otherworldly dome or its malevolent spheres. He found that his clothes had been shredded and that he had cuts and abrasions on his face and body, whether due to his struggle with the spheres or inflicted directly on him he did not know. Taylor had then made his way back to his truck, but was unable to start it, the engine completely dead, and so had stumbled all the way home on foot. Whatever those objects had done to him was still in his system at the time, because he did not seem to have full control of his body and had trouble speaking. When he came staggering to his home in this rambling, dazed, barely coherent state his wife immediately called the police and an investigation would ensue.

Police at first treated this as a common assault, and wrote up Taylor’s mutterings of UFOs and spiked killer spheres as just the rantings of his stressed mind, but they nevertheless went to the scene to investigate and see if they could get some information about the perpetrator. The area where the dome had allegedly appeared was found to have flattened grass, and to contain 32 anomalous holes in the ground, which were about 3.5 inches in diameter each and formed a strange semi-circular pattern, as well as ladder-like marks that looked like the treads of a bulldozer, which were confined to just the clearing and did not come from or lead to anywhere. Authorities tried to find out what could have made the marks by contacting the Livingston Development Corporation, and one investigator would say of this:

After examining every piece of machinery they had up there, we did not find anything to match. These marks just arrived. They did not come from anywhere or go anywhere. They just arrived as though a helicopter or something had landed from the sky. An object of several tons had stood there but there was nothing to show that it had been driven or towed away. There appeared to be no rational explanation for these marks.

Robert Taylor in the clearing

In the meantime, Taylor’s ripped clothing was examined by forensics experts, who came to the conclusion that they had been torn by something hooking into them and pulling sharply upward, which when taken with the tread marks made the story of domes and spiked discs sounding less and less far fetched by the minute. Police would ultimately log the incident officially as an assault, but there was nothing more they could do except ponder the strange clues surrounding it all. For his part, Taylor would adamantly insist that his story was true all the way up to his death in 2007, and considering what an upstanding citizen he was many people believed him. What has come to be known as the Robert Taylor Incident, Livingston Incident, or Dechmont Woods Encounter, has since gone on to become a much discussed and highly regarded possibly genuine UFO incident, and UFO researcher and author Malcolm Robinson has said of it:

This case stands head and shoulders above any other Scottish case and has the prestigious hallmark of being the only case officially investigated by the police and forensic science laboratories in Great Britain. Most, if not all, British UFO researchers would say that this one case provides the best evidence that something, not of this Earth, occurred in that lonely wood and which today, stands the test of time as being one of the biggest UFO cases in the annals of British UFOlogy.

Of course there are skeptics of the whole thing, and other possibilities have been offered above and beyond that Taylor was attacked by aliens. For instance the strange markings in the ground have been speculated to have been left by the water company that had been laying a cable duct through the area and had been storing a large collection of PVC pipes near the clearing. Taylor’s story of the dome, the spheres, and the physical effects he experienced have been suggested as being the result of him suffering an isolated attack of temporal lobe epilepsy, which can cause the physical symptoms described and cause hallucinations, which could have all been exacerbated by a case of meningitis Taylor had struggled with not long before the ordeal. It could have also been that he had mistaken a nearby water tower for being an alien craft in this disoriented state. Other theories are that he had consumed hallucinogenic berries, that he had suffered a stroke, that he had seen a mirage of the planet Venus, or simply that he just made the whole thing up. There has never been any definitive answer, and considering that the sole witness has passed away we will probably never know for sure, but the legacy of this case lingers on today and probably will for some time to come.

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

27-12-2020 om 16:18 geschreven door peter  

Ex-CIA boss John Brennan believes there may be life beyond Earth

{ https://nypost.com/ }

26-12-2020 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

Extraterrestrial evidence: 10 incredible findings about aliens from 2020

26-12-2020 om 20:01 geschreven door peter  

COAST TO COAST AM – Author and researcher Paul Blake Smith talked about his latest work examining the claim that President Eisenhower secretly met with aliens at an Air Force base. Smith also presented details of his investigation into the crash of a UFO just outside of Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1941). In February 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower flew to Palm Springs, CA for a golfing trip (considered odd since it was so far from Washington DC).

While there, his whereabouts were not officially recorded for one evening, and according to a report of a witness, a pilot, who came forward in the 1980s, Eisenhower went to nearby Edwards AFB. Smith recounted the report: They stood at the edge of an open-air hangar, and on the runway were five spaceships– three circular, and two elongated.

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{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

24-12-2020 om 18:02 geschreven door peter  

Alien Contact Disclosure Revelations… from ‘Greys’ to ‘Blues’ to MIB

COAST TO COAST AM – Contactee and spiritual counselor Sev Tok began communications with what she believes to be the Greys starting at age ten. In the latter half, she spoke about the nature of her ET experiences, which have run the gamut from beautiful to terrifying. In some of her contacts, she explained, she is transported to a multi-dimensional or interdimensional location– one time, she sensed that she was actually on the Moon.

In two instances, her body had physical evidence of contact, with red “X” marks burned on her back. By coming to terms and being honest about these experiences, she was able to transform her life. . For more, check out Sev Tok’s YouTube channel, Alien Spirit TV.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

24-12-2020 om 17:40 geschreven door peter  

We probably aren’t the first civilization in the Milky Way. It’s just that the others are dead

A new study suggests that it is likely that other civilizations have existed before us in the Milky Way -- before they annihilated themselves.

 by Tibi Puiu

Are there other intelligent lifeforms in the universe besides humans capable of founding a civilization? That’s the million-dollar question that people of all walks of life have, to their best of their ability, attempt to answer. There are many theories that attempt to explain the utter lack of, well, alien signals. For instance, one new study concludes that intelligent life may have appeared several times in the Milky Way, however, the vast majority of these civilizations have wiped themselves out already.

Ever since people first realized we are all living on a giant rock orbiting one of many stars, a heartbreaking thought must have crept the mind: we’re not that special after all. But since there are countless stars in the Milky Way, and countless galaxies in the universe, there must be other civilizations out there. This thought comes as a consolation, so we might not be the only ones drifting through the frightening darkness of outer space.

But if it’s true that we’re not that special after all, where is everybody else? Enrico Fermi, the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, thought about this long and hard, and his correspondence with fellow scientists on the subject has remained known in history as the ‘Fermi Paradox’ — the notion that there is a virtually limitless number of stars, but nevertheless you don’t see any life floating around besides us. Where is everybody?

The question is a valid one when considering:

• There’s nothing special about our sun – it’s young, medium-sized and similar to billions of other stars in our galaxy.

• It’s believed there are between 100 and 400 billion planets in the Milky Way. Considering intelligent life appeared on one, it’s reasonable to consider there should be at least some other kind of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy.

• Millions of years of technological progress mean that an intelligent species should have the capability to travel to distant stars and even other galaxies. Just look at how our world has changed in the past 100 years alone.

• According to mathematicians Duncan Forgan and Arwen Nicholson from Edinburgh University, self-replicating spacecraft traveling at one-tenth of the speed of light — admittedly a quick speed — could traverse the entire Milky Way in a mere 10 million years. This means that civilization could potentially colonize the whole galaxy in a mere couple of millions of years. Except it didn’t happen.

Then there’s the Drake equation, first proposed in 1961 by American astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake, which describes the variables involved in fostering intelligent life. This equation estimates the number “N” of civilizations in the Milky Way based on variables such as the rate of star formation, the number of planets in solar systems that may support life, or the necessary technological prowess to signal a civilization’s existence.

Drake’s equation was made famous by the late Carl Sagan, who featured it during an episode of his timeless series Cosmos. But since Sagan first talked about Drake’s equation, much has changed. Thanks to observations by the Kepler telescope, we now have a much firmer grasp of how many Earth-like worlds may be out there.

In a new study, researchers affiliated with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, as well as a high school student, have updated Drake’s equation with all the new things scientists have learned in the past decades, including the prevalence of sun-like stars harboring Earth-like planets or the frequency of supernovas that are unfriendly to life.

When they modeled the evolution of the Milky Way, the researchers found that life was most likely to emerge around 13,000 light-years from the galactic centers, where there is the greatest density of sun-like stars. The optimal time frame for the development of alien civilizations was also estimated at 8 billion years after the formation of the galaxy. For comparison, Earth is about 25,000 light-years from the galactic core and complex intelligent life evolved around 13.5 billion years after the Milky Way formed.

In other words, this study suggests that there are other regions of the Milky way where life is more likely to appear than in our corner of the galaxy. What’s more, other civilizations might have had a five billion-year headstart. The problem is they may have had a headstart for their self-annihilation.

According to the researchers, most civilizations that have appeared before us have likely self-annihilated. Other civilizations that are still active in the galaxy are likely young, due to the propensity of intelligent life to eradicate itself. Over a long-enough timeframe, the probability of self-annihilation borders on certainty.

“As we cannot assume a low probability of annihilation, it is possible that intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy is still too young to be observed by us. Therefore, our findings can imply that intelligent life may be common in the Galaxy but is still young, supporting the optimistic aspect for the practice of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence),” the authors wrote in their study that appeared in the pre-print server arXiv.

“Our results also suggest that our location on Earth is not within the region where most intelligent life is settled, and SETI practices need to be closer to the inner Galaxy, preferably at the annulus 4 kpc (kiloparsec) from the Galactic Center.”

The search for alien life is nowhere settled, though. The study’s biggest limitation is its sample size of confirmed civilizations: just one. Humans are biased to think that other civilizations might behave just like us. As such, these inherent biases may cloud our judgment, believing that other civilizations might also nuke themselves out of existence.

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{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

21-12-2020 om 23:06 geschreven door peter  

19-12-2020 om 18:37 geschreven door peter  

On December 4, Professor Haim Eshed generated worldwide headlines when in an interview published by the Israeli national newspaper, Yedioth Aharonot, he revealed the existence of a secret US agreement with extraterrestrials, the existence of a joint US alien base on Mars, and a Galactic Federation monitoring human affairs. Reactions to the Professor’s startling revelations varied from those taking the comments as a major breakthrough on disclosure of extraterrestrial life, to many claiming he either had lost his mind or his words were distorted during the translation process.

It’s important to point out that Eshed gave the interview to promote his recent book, published in Hebrew, titled The Universe Beyond the Horizon conversations with Professor Haim Eshed. This is where one controversy arises since he appeared to say much more in his interview than what he told in his book.

Here’s the crux of what the Professor had to say according to an extract of the interview, translated into English, that was published by The Jewish Press on December 5, which set off the worldwide controversy:

The UFOs have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet. Trump was on the verge of revealing, but the aliens in the Galactic Federation are saying: Wait, let people calm down first. They don’t want to start mass hysteria. They want to first make us sane and understanding. They have been waiting for humanity to evolve and reach a stage where we will generally understand what space and spaceships are.

There’s an agreement between the US government and the aliens. They signed a contract with us to do experiments here. They, too, are researching and trying to understand the whole fabric of the universe, and they want us as helpers.

There’s an underground base in the depths of Mars, where their representatives are, and also our American astronauts.

Anticipating that some would conclude that he had lost his mind in making such comments, the Professor, who is also a former Brigadier General in the Israel Defense Force (IDF),  added for good measure:

If I had come up with what I’m saying today five years ago, I would have been hospitalized. Wherever I’ve gone with this in academia, they’ve said: the man has lost his mind. Today they’re already talking differently.

I have nothing to lose. I’ve received my degrees and awards, I am respected in universities abroad, where the trend is also changing.

Support for Professor Eshed’s continued sanity comes from former colleagues such as the current head of the Israel Space Agency, Dr.  Isaac Ben-Israel (also a former IDF general), who says that Eshed “has been talking about aliens for decades, and it never compromised his academic integrity.”

Ben-Israel’s admission is vitally important since it shows that Eshed’s beliefs about alleged alien contacts and joint agreements with the US have evolved over decades during much of his professional life, and not a post-career flight of fancy as contended by some.

Other former colleagues such Dr. Dan Blumberg, the current head of the Earth and Planetary Image Facility at Ben Gurion University, says that the extraterrestrial topic is an important one that Eshed is more than qualified to cover authoritatively, but not as appears in the original Yedioth article:

I know Haim Eshed well, and have enormous respect for him. It’s a viable and legitimate discussion, but it has been taken to a completely bizarre place by the article.

Blumberg’s position is similar to many in that Eshed’s views were either mistranslated or embellished in the original December 4 article. But were they?

What’s important to keep in mind in finding an answer is that the Yedioth Aharonot interview follows the traditional question and answer format, interspersed with the interviewer’s commentary. The commentary sections involve the interviewer applying Eshed’s views to contemporary developments, which might raise the possibility of mistranslation or embellishment. However, these commentaries are followed by the professor’s own words in answering a succession of questions about UFOs, extraterrestrial life and secret agreements, all done in the Hebrew language.

I did a Google Translate of the Yedioth Aharonot interview into English and found Eshed’s responses to questions where he addressed the issues of US alien agreements, a US base on Mars, and a Galactic Federation monitoring human events. I was able to confirm that his responses, through Google Translate, closely matched what was written in the Jewish Press story, and other Israeli news outlets, such as The Jerusalem Post and The Times of Israel, in their English language articles.

While I’m not proficient in the Hebrew language, nor does Google Translate do justice to what Eshed is saying, there is nevertheless consistency in the quotes attributed to him, by these three independent Israeli news stories, with the translation of the Professor’s own words by Google Translate.

Each Israeli source discussed the radical implications of what was said rather than raise problems of embellishment or translation. Clearly, the writers for each Israeli source read the original Yedioth Aharonot interview to get the gist of what Eshed was saying in his own words.

What was subsequently published in Israeli news sources are therefore  accurate translations of what Professor Eshed actually said rather than embellishments or distortions as suggested by leading UFO researchers such as Britain’s Nick Pope. He told NBC News: “Either this is some sort of practical joke or publicity stunt to help sell his book, perhaps with something having been lost in translation, or someone in the know is breaking ranks”.  

Having eliminated translation or embellishment problems, then is Eshed “breaking ranks” and revealing long-held secrets as Pope suggests?

For an answer, we need to consider Eshed’s background, as revealed by Wikipedia and other sources. In 1969, Eshed was sent to the US by the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) Intelligence Division to gain a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering. Upon his return, he headed the IDF’s research and development department in the Intelligence Corps. By 1979, as Lt. Colonel in the IDF, he began to work on a detailed proposal for the establishment of a satellite program that could be used for space reconnaissance of the Middle East.

In 1981, Eshed retired from active military service and became a full-time professor at the Israel Institute of Technology, aka Technion, Israel’s oldest and top-ranked University. He subsequently played key roles in founding and leading the Israel Space Agency (1983) and the Technion’s (Asher) Space Research Institute (1984). Eshed managed Israel’s satellite projects, including its highly classified spy satellites responsible for monitoring the Middle East region for possible national security threats such as Iran’s secret construction of nuclear weapons facilities.

There are two phases during his military and civilian career that Eshed would have acquired access to information concerning extraterrestrial life and technology. The first phase involved his military service with the IDF, where Eshed worked with “Unit 81”, the secret technology unit of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate. It is the Israeli equivalent of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology.

It’s highly likely that Eshed, at some time during US Israeli collaborations on breakthrough technologies, would have learned about multiple highly classified DARPA/CIA programs conducted during the 1970s. One of these very likely included a joint US extraterrestrial base on Mars reported by various insiders associated with the Montauk Project (1971-1983).

Decades later, Laura Eisenhower, the great granddaughter of President Eisenhower, says that she was subjected to a recruitment effort for a secret US base on Mars, but declined despite great pressure exerted on her.

Consequently, it is likely that it is through joint US Israeli collaboration on breakthrough technologies while he was associated with Unit 81 during his military service that Eshed first learned about a secret US base on Mars and extraterrestrial agreements.

During his subsequent “civilian career” (1981-2010), Eshed no doubt continued to work closely with his peers from DARPA and the CIA on breakthrough technologies, while he focused on space surveillance technologies for the IDF.

Up to his retirement in October 2010, Professor Eshed had been responsible for the launch of 20 Israeli satellites during his nearly 30-year career at the Space Research Institute and the Israel Space Agency.

During his command of Israel’s spy satellite program, he now worked closely with US peers from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which runs spy satellites and is jointly run by the Pentagon and the CIA. It’s during joint intelligence sharing between the NRO, CIA, and the Pentagon’s National Security Agency (NSA), with the IDF, Israel Space Agency, and the Space Research Institute that Eshed presumably learned a lot more about highly classified US programs concerning UFOs and extraterrestrial life that he first learned about while working for Unit 81.

According to Dan Sherman, a 12-year veteran with the US Air Force (1982-1994), the NSA ran an electronic communications program (“Project Preserve Destiny”) with extraterrestrials that relayed details about abducted humans that were returned to their pick-up locations unharmed and with memories wiped. Sherman’s testimony matches what Prof. Eshed and others have said about US extraterrestrial agreements and genetic experiments.

As for Eshed’s revelations about a Galactic Federation monitoring human affairs and deciding that humanity is not yet ready for open contact, this is clearly a highly controversial claim. There have been many claims of an extraterrestrial Federation, Confederation, or Alliance monitoring human affairs and regulating multiple alien visitors’ activities to our world.

The earliest reference goes back to 1952 when the famed contactee, George Van Tassel, claimed to be in communication with the “Ashtar Command,” which was deemed to be part of a wider Galactic Federation, that requested the US abandon research into thermonuclear weapons. The Galactic Federation/Ashtar Command was involved in a failed diplomatic outreach that occurred on February 20, 1954, when President Eisenhower met with its representatives at Edwards Air Force base to discuss thermonuclear weapons testing. The extraterrestrial representatives further warned Eisenhower about unscrupulous alien groups that would soon make contact to make deals.

There has been over the subsequent decades a steady succession of contactees, insiders and channelers that have spoken or written about a Galactic Federation regulating human affairs. Eshed’s reference to the Galactic Federation adds credence to the legitimacy of such claims. Indeed, the subject of Galactic Diplomacy, which is the title of my 2013 book, has been given a healthy shot of credibility.

In a December 10 interview published on YouTube, I spoke with Corey Goode, a secret space program insider, about Professor Eshed’s claims concerning a Galactic Federation. Goode elaborated upon the different federations that he was aware of or that he interacted with during his SSP service and off planet contact experiences.

As for his claim that the Galactic Federation asserts humanity is not yet ready for open contact due to our lack of technological development, there are a few ways to interpret this. One may be that our overall technological level of development needs to be closer to a Type 1 status civilization according to the Kardashev scale. This is where the majority of humanity’s energy needs come from planet-wide energy generating systems. This would require humanity moving away from non-renewable fossil fuel sources to electromagnetic or other planet-wide energy systems.

Another interpretation is that the current global situation by which advanced technology is controlled by the Deep State and withheld from the rest of humanity needs to be dealt with before open contact can occur. In other words, the power of the Deep State needs to be removed or significantly curtailed before humanity is ready for contact. After all, why would a benign Galactic Federation want to admit a planetary member that is schizophrenic and corrupted by a hidden Deep State that contemptuously manipulates the rest of humanity?

In conclusion, Professor Eshed’s revelations have brought to the mainstream media’s attention information drawn from highly classified extraterrestrial related projects that have been earlier revealed by many brave insiders, witnesses, and contactees who were widely ridiculed and debunked for their disclosure efforts. It’s hard to debunk someone with Professor Eshed’s background and stature when he raises such controversial topics.

While there may be controversy over Eshed’s startling comments, this is not due to erroneous translations, embellishments, or him losing his mind. Instead, humanity is being told to wake up to truths about extraterrestrial life and secret agreements with the visitors that have been ignored and widely ridiculed for decades.

Many scientists, academics, and space professionals are in deep denial that they could have been fooled about such monumental issues during their distinguished careers. Professor Eshed’s revelations are a big wake up call. He is asking if we personally and collectively are ready for open contact with extraterrestrial life and a Galactic Federation.

[Note: Audio version of this article is available on YouTube and Spotify]

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

Further Reading

• The Coming Solar Flash & the Galactic Federation – Q&A with Corey Goode 
• Navy Admiral describes Reverse Engineering program involving extraterrestrial spacecraft
• When Secrecy is Better than Official Disclosure of Extraterrestrial Life
• New Investigation Shows Disputed MJ-12 Document Exposing Extraterrestrial Contact is Authentic
• Military Insiders Confirm Thousands of Extraterrestrials Live Among Us
• Eisenhower threatened to invade Area 51 former US Congress members hear testimony

{ https://exopolitics.org/ }

19-12-2020 om 16:36 geschreven door peter  

British Astronaut: Aliens Definitely Exist and They Could Be Living among Us on Earth, Says Britain’s First Astronaut

(Rob Picheta) Aliens definitely exist, Britain’s first astronaut has said — and it’s possible they’re living among us on Earth but have gone undetected so far.

• Related Five Weirdest UFO Sightings Ever Reported

Source – CNN

by Rob Picheta 

Helen Sharman, who visited the Soviet Mir space station in 1991, told the Observer newspaper on Sunday that “aliens exist, there’s no two ways about it.”

“There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life,” she went on. “Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not.”

Then, in a tantalizing theory that should probably make you very suspicious of your colleagues, Sharman added: “It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them.”

Sharman was the first of seven Britons to enter space.

Sharman became the first Briton in space in 1992.

Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?

The preceding information presents information that builds a case for the existence of extraterrestrial life in the universe, which some claim has already made contact with humanity. While these claims remain largely unconfirmed, in a substantive and comprehensive way, an individual can contemplate their meaning, and in the process, catalyze the mind for greater awakening. This information also helps dispel the false reality pushed by the Deep State, which is essential so as to liberate the individual from the fetters of disillusionment related fundamentally myopic and depreciated view of cosmic realities and ultimate identities.

– Justin

Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools.

• Stillness in the Storm Editor’s note: Did you find a spelling error or grammatical mistake? Send an email to corrections@stillnessinthestorm.com, with the error and suggested correction, along with the headline and url. Do you think this article needs an update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at sitsshow@gmail.com. Thank you for reading.

Source:

• https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/06/uk/helen-sharman-aliens-exist-scli-scn-gbr-intl/index.html

{ https://stillnessinthestorm.com/ }

17-12-2020 om 22:54 geschreven door peter  

Sometimes the UFO field takes a right turn into the dark recesses of the downright grim. The man called Stanley Romanek has had a pretty weird life. A prominent author and expert on alien and UFO phenomena, he is also well-known as being an alien abductee, which entails those individuals who claim to have been kidnapped by aliens for reasons we may never understand. Besides being an abductee, Romanek has a pretty unusual pedigree even within the UFO field, as his claims of alien contact really run the range of the weird, going well above and beyond the usual oddness. In the year 2000 he claims that he had his first abduction experience, during which time he was allegedly experimented on, and according to him he would be abducted numerous other times. He claimed that the aliens often communicated with him telepathically, and while this might seem pretty mundane by normal abductee standards, this is not even nearly the end of the strangeness. Here we go down the rabbit hole of a man who was embroiled in some really rather bizarre UFO stuff, as well as a dark secret life and unspeakable crimes.

Unlike the usual straight forward alien abduction claims, some of Romanek’s stories really went out past the stratosphere of the odd into the furthest reaches of the bizarre, and over the course of numerous supposed abductions by these aliens some of his stories really stand out. He says that on several occasions he had woken with lost time and inexplicable cuts and other wounds on his body, which oddly glowed brightly when put under a black light. He claims that under hypnosis he would remember that these strange wounds had been inflicted upon him by the aliens using inscrutable medical procedures. On another occasion he woke from one of these experiences and was baffled to find that he was now wearing a woman’s dress. How did he end up in women’s clothing? Why, the aliens did it of course, and not only that, but he was convinced that this wasn’t just any dress, but rather the actual dress that Betty Hill had worn during her famous alien abduction. Why the aliens would do this, Romanek doesn’t say. There was also the time that they installed an implant into his leg. He also claims that the aliens would frequently talk with him either telepathically or through a device known as a “ghost box,” basically an electronic audio device designed to pick up the voices of ghosts, called “electronic voice phenomena,” or EVP.

Stanley Romanek

Throughout these abductions Romanek claims that there was an ominous undercurrent to it all. He would say that the aliens constantly monitored him and followed him around, sometimes even breaking into his home. There also seemed to be others keeping tabs on him, both malevolent and benign. One of these was a mysterious call from a woman with a British accent who called him “Starseed,” and reassured him that he was special and important and that he should not be afraid of what he is, but follow his instincts and stay alert. Another person who contacted him was a little girl who called herself “Kioma” and who claimed to be one of his 9 (!) alien hybrid daughters. Other parties following him around were decidedly more nefarious, and he would complain of being subjected to stalking, harassment, computer hacking, intimidation, and even assault, all in what he claims was an effort to silence him on what he had experienced. So, did Romanek have any evidence for any of this? Well, that’s kind of a long, weird story in and of itself.

Romanek would claim to have taken various photographs and videos of these UFOs and aliens, with perhaps the most famous being what has come to be called the “Boo Video.” The video in question is taken in Romanek’s bedroom, and allegedly shows at one point an alien face leering in through the window. It is blurry and indistinct, like many other similar videos, but Romanek insisted that it was genuine, even going so far as to take a lie detector test over its authenticity after being suggested that he take one by radio host George Noory on the popular paranormal program Coast to Coast AM. Unfortunately for him, he failed the test, but that’s OK, because he would also claim that he had a mysterious medical condition that prevented lie detectors from working for him, later even accusing Noory of having set up the lie detector test to fail from the beginning. Right, then.

This would highlight another aspect of Romanek, which is that he was able to come up with an excuse for his lack of being able to show any concrete evidence at every turn. Seriously, he has a weasel excuse for everything. When he appeared on in an interview on ABC Primetime and someone wanted to examine the supposed alien implant in his leg, he agreed, yet when the time came for him to actually be examined he said it had mysteriously disappeared. When some of his photographic evidence was found to be almost definitely faked, he blamed the shady parties following him of capturing him in a nefarious plot to discredit him. He would use a similar excuse when he admitted that he had faked video footage of moving objects, but then said it was only because authorities had strong-armed him into discrediting himself. Then there was the time he was arrested on charges of child pornography and this was all a government conspiracy too. Wait, wait?

In 2014, Romanek was arrested on child pornography charges after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found more than 300 images as well as video files depicting child pornography on his computer. This is a serious felony offense, but both Romanek and his wife, Lisa, immediately strongly denied the charges. According to them this was all part of a vast conspiracy to frame him and to serve as an example and warning to silence other alien abductees. Romanek adamantly claimed that the pornography had been planted on his computer by the authorities in order to implicate him, and that everyone involved in the arrest and trial were corrupt conspirators. Romanek did everything but claim that aliens were actually controlling his mind in an effort to deny any responsibility for his action. He even constantly put off the inevitable by claiming illness on several court dates in order to push back and delay the trial, anything to deflect blame and stave off having to actually face taking responsibility for what had happened.

Lisa Romanek famously proclaimed that they were going to fight it to the end, and were going to “bring ufology into the courtroom,” but unfortunately for them child pornography is pretty serious business that no one really has any sense of humor or leeway about at all, and so their bonkers claims of corrupt cops and shadowy government alien conspiracies did little to stop Romanek’s inevitable conviction. In the end Romanek got off rather lucky, in that he was found guilty of knowingly possessing the pornography on his computer but not of the more serious charge of distribution. He would be sentenced to serve two years in the Larimer County Community Corrections halfway house and to register as a sex offender, including the 10 years of intensive supervised probation and regular mental evaluations that comes with. He has been featured on a Netflix documentary entitled Extraordinary: The Stan Romanek Story. What are we to make of Romanek and all of this weirdness? It is certainly a dark splotch on the record of the alien abductee phenomena, and whether any of his alien encounter stories are true or not, he is undoubtedly a pathetic human being that most are probably willing to agree got what he deserved.

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17-12-2020 om 20:36 geschreven door peter  

“HUMANS ARE NOT ORIGINALLY FROM PLANET EARTH,” SAYS EXPERT

Noted US researcher claimed that humans are not originally from Earth , but were brought to this planet by aliens tens of thousands of years ago.

Dr. Ellis Silver points to a series of physiological traits to explain why humans did not evolve along with other lives on Earth, instead we would have an extraterrestrial origin ; as indicated in his published book.

Silver indicates that human beings suffer from back disease and this could be suggested because we evolved in a world with less gravity. It also indicates that our skin is easily affected by the Sun and that we have difficulties giving birth.

It also indicates that while the planet meets the needs of humans for the most part, it may not serve the interests of the species, as well as the aliens who left us here.

In his book, Humans are not from Earth: a scientific evaluation of the evidence , the ecologist writes that the human race has defects that indicate that they are not of this world.

Silver said in a statement to Yahoo:

“Humanity is supposedly the most developed species on the planet, but it is surprisingly inadequate and ill-equipped for Earth’s environment: we are damaged by sunlight, we have a strong dislike for natural foods, ridiculously high rates of chronic disease, and plus”.

Dr. Ellis says that humans could suffer from back pain because they evolved in a world with less gravity.

He also says that it is strange that the heads of babies are so large and make it difficult for women to give birth, which can result in deaths of the mother and baby.

No other native species on this planet has this problem, he says.

He also believes that humans are not designed to be as exposed to the Sun as they cannot bask for more than a week or two, unlike a lizard, and they cannot be exposed to the Sun every day without problems.

Dr Ellis also claims that humans are always sick and this could be because our biological clocks have evolved to wait for a 25-hour day, as sleep researchers prove.

Dr. Ellis said:

“This is not a modern condition. The same factors can be traced to the end of human history on Earth ”.

It suggests that Neanderthals like Homo Erectus were interbred with another species, perhaps originating from Alpha Centauri, which is the closest star system to our solar system, about 4.37 light years from the Sun.

Professor Wainwright from the University of Sheffield plans to do more research and believes that life is constantly pouring in from space.

Dr. Ellis said:

“My thesis proposes that humanity did not evolve from that particular strain of life, but evolved elsewhere and was transported to Earth (as fully evolved Homo sapiens) between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago.”

Source:

• DailyMail

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16-12-2020 om 22:00 geschreven door peter  

It’s an absolute certainty that many of the craters that can be found peppered throughout the Earth’s surface were the result of meteorite and asteroid strikes – perhaps even comets, too. Arguably, the most famous one, period, is Arizona’s “Meteor Crater,” that is located near Winslow, Arizona. This mammoth scarring of the landscape occurred around 50,000 years ago, and is more than two miles wide and more than five hundred feet in depth. There are, however, some such craters that are very difficult to explain in a down to earth fashion. Welcome to the strange story of the Lonar Crater. It can be found in the state of Maharashtra, India. The locals aside, no one had seen the crater until 1823. Interestingly, NASA has taken an interest in the ancient crater. NASA states of the now-water-filled crater: “India’s Lonar Crater began causing confusion soon after it was identified in 1823 by a British officer named C.J.E. Alexander. Lonar Crater sits inside the Deccan Plateau—a massive plain of volcanic basalt rock leftover from eruptions some 65 million years ago. Its location in this basalt field suggested to some geologists that it was a volcanic crater. Today, however, Lonar Crater is understood to result from a meteorite impact that occurred between 35,000 and 50,000 years ago.”

NASA continues: “Lonar Crater is approximately 150 meters (500 feet) deep, with an average diameter of almost 1,830 meters (6,000 feet). The crater rim rises roughly 20 meters (65 feet) above the surrounding land surface. Scientists established Lonar’s status as an impact crater based on several lines of evidence, perhaps the most compelling being the presence of maskelynite. Maskelynite is a kind of naturally occurring glass that is only formed by extremely high-velocity impacts. A Science article published in 1973 pointed out this material’s presence, and suggested that the crater’s situation in volcanic basalt made it a good analogue for impact craters on the surface of the Moon.”

The Lonar Crater (NASA)

It should be noted that there is a very interesting, and intriguing, story attached to the history and lore of the Lonar Crater. For this part of the saga we have to turn our attentions to the Skanda-Purana, which is an approximately 1,100-year-old Hindu document, as Priya Ramachandran reveals: “The name ‘Lonar’ came from the demon, Lonasura, who lived in this subterranean abode and terrorized the people of the Earth. Now, heeding to his people’s prayers Vishnu came to the rescue, by sending his avatar in the form of a man named Daityasudna, who exposed the demon’s hideout, kicked away the rock that kept them hidden, thereby creating that crater. He slayed the mighty demon and when his blood was spilt, it turned into a lake.”

David Hatcher-Childress, who has extensively investigated the mystery, makes a very good point: “If such geologically recent craters as the Lonar [Crater] were of meteoric origin, why then do such tremendous meteorites not fall today? The Earth’s atmosphere fifty thousand years ago probably was no different from today’s, so a lighter atmosphere cannot be advanced as a hypothesis to explain an immense meteorite size, which of course would be considerably reduced by heat oxidization within a gaseously heavier atmosphere.” Hatcher-Childress also states that, “no trace of any meteoric, etc., material has been found at the site or in the vicinity, while it is the world’s only known ‘impact’ crater in basalt. Indications of great shock (from a pressure exceeding six hundred atmospheres) and intense abrupt heat (indicated by basalt glass spherules) can be ascertained at the site.”

And, to add to the weirdness, there is the following, also from NASA: “In early June 2020, a crater lake in west-central India promptly changed from green to pink. For now, the reason why remains a mystery. Lonar Lake’s color shift occurred over the span of a few days. The change is visible in this image pair, acquired on May 25 and June 10 with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. Scientists collected samples from the lake and are awaiting lab results before they can say with certainty what caused the change. They speculate, however, that the color could be a result of microscopic life that thrives in water with high salt concentrations.”

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14-12-2020 om 20:26 geschreven door peter  

One of the weirdest and most enduring facets of the UFO phenomenon is that of the mysterious mutilations of cattle and other livestock that have turned up in UFO hotspots all over the world. The state of these corpses really runs the gamut of the odd, with carcasses variously found with parts of the body excised with surgical precision, drained completely of blood, missing vital organs, and often reported as showing little to no sign of scavenger activity, decomposition, or even flies buzzing about. Reported throughout the world, the cattle mutilation phenomenon has become a major feature upon the landscape of UFO and alien weirdness, baffling investigators for decades, and although there have been many attempts to explain it all away it remains stubbornly lodged away within the lore. Among these there are occasionally cases that prove to be even weirder than most, and which show that cattle and animals are not the only target of the spooky UFO mutilation anomaly.

The bizarre case that we will be looking at here can supposedly be found buried within the body of reports compiled during a short-lived U.S. Air Force project and precursor to the more famous Project Blue Book, called Project Grudge. Taking over from a Project Sign, Project Grudge sought to investigate unidentified flying objects and aerial phenomena in an attempt to reach an unbiased consensus on it all using a scientific approach and standard intelligence procedures. For a project supposedly meant to be unbiased and to be looking for answers, it mostly ended up taking the stubborn approach that none of this was caused in any way by alien forces or extraterrestrial intelligences, and for the most part treated the UFO phenomenon as a whole as absurd, devolving into what one Dr. Michael D. Swords would describe as “an exercise of derision and sloppy filing.” They actively tried to pigeonhole all UFO reports into the mold of mundane phenomena, such as misidentified clouds, stars, aerial phenomena such as sun dogs, conventional aircraft, planetary phenomena such as Venus, swamp gas, and “misinterpretation of various conventional objects,” as well as lies, hoaxes, and mass hysteria, you name it, as long as it wasn’t aliens, no matter how inexplicable the case might seem and usually with very little actual investigation done to back up these claims. They were known as being active debunkers of the UFO phenomena rather than truth seekers, all culminating with the official Project Grudge conclusion:

There is no evidence that objects reported upon are the result of an advanced scientific foreign development; and, therefore they constitute no direct threat to the national security. In view of this, it is recommended that the investigation and study of reports of unidentified flying objects be reduced in scope. Headquarters AMC Air Material Command will continue to investigate reports in which realistic technical applications are clearly indicated. It is apparent that further study along present lines would only confirm the findings presented herein. It is further recommended that pertinent collection directives be revised to reflect the contemplated change in policy.

The 600 page Grudge Report would be full of wild debunking, and after operating from February to December of 1949 Project Grudge would be dissolved to make way for Project Blue Book. Yet although Project Grudge is all mostly seen as an exercise in spite towards UFOs and the people who think there is more to them, there are some exceptions. One of these is a top secret alleged document called “Project Grudge Report 13,” which the military denies exists, but which purportedly contains a report on the time an Air Force sergeant apparently became a human victim of the mutilation phenomenon.

The spooky case allegedly involves two men, an Air Force sergeant Jonathan P. Lovette and Major William Cunningham, who were assigned to the White Sands missile testing grounds near Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. In March of 1956, the two were out in the desert tracking down debris that had fallen during a recent rocket test. As they picked through the desolate landscape looking for fragments and pieces, they separated, and at some point Cunningham heard a loud, sharp scream from Lovette from over a dune. The Major ran to see what had happened, and found something beyond rational explanation, indeed beyond anything he could have imagined.

Upon crossing the dune, Cunningham alleged that he found Lovette being dragged across the sand by a “long, serpentine arm,” like a tendril of some sort, that was wrapped around his legs and yanking him towards a large silver disc nearby. Cunningham was too shocked to react, and as he looked on in horror that bizarre tentacle reportedly pulled the Sergeant into the bowels of the UFO, which then silently shot up into the starry sky. Throughout all of this the only sound was Lovette’s screams of panic and pain. As soon as the UFO was gone and he had regained his senses, Cunningham then ran all the way back to the jeep and frantically radioed for help. It would turn out that radar operators had picked up an anomalous signature at around the same time as the strange encounter, and a thorough search of the area found no sign of Lovette despite scouring the area for miles. It was as if he had just vanished into thin air. It would not be until three days later that his fate would become known, and push the whole thing further into the realms of the weird.

White Sands Missile Range

It was after three days of frantic searching that Lovette’s body would be found around 10 miles from where he had disappeared. The corpse was nude, and found to have been sitting out there in the desert for perhaps 24 to 48 hours, despite the fact he had been missing for three days. However, the strangest thing of all was that the corpse had been gruesomely mutilated in a most unusual way. Lovette’s tongue had been cleanly removed with surgical precision, his eyes had been taken out, his internal organs were missing, and both his anus and genitals had been cleanly detached from the body, all of it done with expert skill. There was also the unsettling fact that the body was missing all of its blood, with not even a single drop remaining, yet coroners would find that there was no collapse of the veins that would be expected with such a draining. How had his body come to be in such a state and what connection did it have to Cunningham’s claims of UFOs and tentacles? No one really knows, and the mysterious Project Grudge Report 13 gives no answers.

It is all a pretty wild and spectacular story that has gone on to be much discussed in ufology circles to this day, but there is little in the way of concrete verification for any of it. It is supposedly from one of the still classified reports within the Grudge Report, which itself really does exist and has even declassified some information, but which also still holds its secrets. For instance, there are declassified reports 1 to 12, as well as 14, but as for “Report 13,” it is mostly only known through insiders who claim to have read it, in particular a man named William Cooper. Cooper claimed that he had been in charge of analyzing an annotated version of Grudge Report 13 in the early 1970s, and leaked the report out. This was somewhat corroborated by a former Green Beret captain by the name of William English, who also claims to have seen the mysterious report and gave the same information from it. These two men would insist that it was all true, but there has never been any official substantiation, nor even any confirmation or denial concerning whether Report 13 exists or not. In the end, there is no way to know, and we are left to wonder just what happened out at that remote desert location, if anything at all.

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{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-12-2020 om 18:51 geschreven door peter  

Today’s article is focused on nothing less than Little Green Men. We’ve all heard of the term, but do such things really exist? Beyond any shadow of a doubt, at all, one of the most bizarre of all encounters with such strange creatures occurred at Juminda, Estonia, at some point in the late 1930s; the exact date being unclear. According to an investigation undertaken by acclaimed and renowned UFO expert, Jacques Vallee, two witnesses encountered a small – approximately three-feet-tall – humanoid creature with brown-green skin and [italics mine] which had distinct frog-like characteristics. Its eyes were slit-like, as was its mouth. And it appeared to be not at all accustomed to walking on land; its awkward gait made that abundantly clear, and particularly so when it caught sight of the pair and made good its escape. While it outran its pursuers, it did so in a very odd, near-drunken-like state.

A similar state of affairs occurred in the heart of woodland at Orland Park, Illinois, on September 24, 1951. The man who witnessed something both remarkable and disturbing was a steelworker named Harrison Bailey. As he walked through the park, Bailey was suddenly plagued by a burning sensation to his neck, which was accompanied by a sense of cramp in his neck, too. Sensing he was being watched, Bailey quickly swung around. He found himself confronted by a grey-colored object of a large size that was described as being “whirlwind”-like in shape. Things then became decidedly weird: Bailey felt groggy, confused, and almost in a dream-like state. And then nothing. His next memory was vague, but revolved around being surrounded by a large group of eighteen-inch-high humanoids that resembled frogs. They asked bizarre questions, such as where he was from and where he was going. All that Bailey could focus on was the fact that he felt somewhat paralyzed and unable to move properly. The unsettling feeling soon wore off, however, and Bailey was left to make his stumbling, slightly out of it, way back home.

Now, we come to a bit of humor. Now and again (like most Fortean writers, I’m sure), I get some distinctly odd stuff sent to me – including this photo of an alleged green alien, which I received some time around 1994. Frankly, to me, it looks like a badly-created combination of (A) something made for a low-budget sci-fi movie; and (B) Donald Duck. And, below this photo you’ll find another, equally weird picture. The thing it shows is, of course, green. What else?

No, don’t get too excited, the picture below is not evidence of one of Mac Tonnies’ elusive Extraterrestrial-Cryptoterrestrials! Nor does it validate the wild, underground tales of Richard Shaver and the diabolical Deros! It’s a photo that was sent to me around 1997 or 1998, and, in reality is just a life-sized model that can be found in a certain, famous series of caves in England, and which is meant to offer a bit of “sword-and-sorcery”-style entertainment to those who visit the caves in question. But what was interesting was the intricately woven yarn that accompanied the picture when it was mailed to me. I forget the precise details now, but it all revolved around the claim that intelligent, sword-wielding, dwarfish man-beasts – originally from another world (aliens, in other words) – were roaming the many and varied caves that exist deep below the British Isles. The letter ran to 2 or 3 pages and was an entertaining piece of hokum written in a definitively atmospheric, Lovecraftian style. But, if you too are ever on the receiving end of this particular photo and its accompanying letter, just enjoy it for what it is: a piece of man-made entertainment, coupled with the written ravings of someone with – apparently – a good imagination, but way too much times on their hands, and nothing else!

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-12-2020 om 18:01 geschreven door peter  

Do ETs and UFOs found in Apache Indian cave paintings prove ancient ALIENS visited Earth?

Getty*YouTube

Can you see aliens and UFOs in this Native American rock art?

{ http://amaznews.com/ }

13-12-2020 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

We're as good as it gets: Intelligent life is extremely UNLIKELY to exist anywhere else in the universe because it took a series of miracles for humans to evolve, say scientists

• Oxford researchers outline the various evolutionary steps to human existence 

• These steps take longer than a planet is actually habitable before its star dies 

• What's happened on Earth is unlikely typical of what happens on other planets

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

Statisticians say the evolution of intelligent life is 'exceptionally rare', and that human-like civilisations are extremely unlikely to exist on other planets. 

In a new paper, Oxford researchers theorise that, for life to evolve in the same way elsewhere in the universe, it would take longer than the whole of Earth's projected lifespan. 

Evolution on Earth from the Big Bang up until the current day has involved a series of what they call 'evolutionary transitions' that were helped by chance. 

These include the emergence of primitive life from non-living matter (known as abiogenesis) and eukaryotic life (with cells that have a nucleus enclosed), the evolution of sexual reproduction, multicellularity, and intelligence itself.   

If intelligent life does exist on other planets, it would need to have gone through a series of comparable evolutionary transitions.   

Intelligent life in the Universe is exceptionally rare, assuming that intelligent life elsewhere requires analogous evolutionary transitions, scientist say. Pictured, an artists's impression of an Earth-like planet in another galaxy

'It took approximately 4.5 billion years for a series of evolutionary transitions resulting in intelligent life to unfold on Earth,' the experts, from Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, say in their paper. 

'In another billion years, the increasing luminosity of the Sun will make Earth uninhabitable for complex life. 

'Together with the dispersed timing of key evolutionary transitions and plausible priors, one can conclude that the expected transition times likely exceed the lifetime of Earth, perhaps by many orders of magnitude. 

'In turn, this suggests that intelligent life is likely to be exceptionally rare.'

The researchers used a special statistical technique called a 'Bayesian analysis' to determine the probability of events in Earth's history – a 'chain of multiple evolutionary transitions' – happening elsewhere.

'Our methods were basically statistics,' Dr Anders Sandberg at the Future of Humanity Institute told MailOnline.  

'We made use of the assumption that what happened on Earth is typical for what happens on other planets – not the exact times, but that there are some tricky steps life needs to get through in sequence to produce intelligent observers.'

For example, eukaryotes – organisms with a nucleus – needed more than a billion years ago to emerge from their nucleus-less prokaryotic predecessors.

This was a far less probable event than the development of multicellular life, which is thought to have originated independently over 40 times in nature. 

The fact that some transitions occurred only once in Earth's history suggests a remarkable stroke of luck that resulted in intelligent Earthlings today. 

Eukaryotic life - with cells that have a nucleus enclosed - took over a billion years to emerge from prokaryotic precursors. Pictured, cell of a eukaryote

The team quote American evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who said that if the 'tape of life' were to be rerun, 'the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence' would occur. 

'What we added was a statistical approach that allows us to get estimates of just how unlikely the steps could be,' Dr Sandberg told MailOnline.

'We feed in data about when things happened on Earth and a guess of how many steps there were, and in return we get the most likely levels of difficulty.

'[These] turn out to indicate that, yes, we are an unlikely planet.' 

Arriving at the opposite conclusion – that life in the universe isn't rare at all – would require evidence for much earlier transitions than the ones that occurred on Earth, or multiple instances of transitions.  

The classic version of this argument stems from the work of Australian theoretical physicist Brandon Carter, who sought to explain why intelligent life emerged so late in Earth's history. 

It is unknown how abundant extraterrestrial life is, or whether such life might be complex or intelligent 

Earth is 4.5 billion years old and in another billion years, the increasing luminosity of the Sun will likely destroy Earth's ability to support complex life, due to increased surface temperatures. 

But humans – including our human-like ape ancestors that walked on two legs – have only existed on Earth for about the last 6 million years.

Homo sapiens, meanwhile, arrived around 200,000 years ago.

'[Carter] pointed out that there is no reason to think the tricky steps on average may take much more time than planets remain habitable,' Dr Sandberg said.   

'There might well be entirely different kinds of life and minds but they are likely as hard (or harder) to evolve than us.'

Dr Sandberg added that the new study fits into what one could call 'armchair astrobiology' as it deals with probabilities. 

'Just because we got our results doesn't mean it is a waste of time to look at the actual universe,' he said. 

'Data will always trump ever so careful reasoning and statistics.'

WHAT IS THE FERMI PARADOX?

The Fermi Paradox questions why, given the estimated 200bn-400bn stars and at least 100bn planets in our galaxy, there have been no signs of alien life. 

The contradiction is named after its creator, Italian physicist Enrico Fermi.

He first posed the question back in 1950.

Fermi believed it was too extraordinary that a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has yet to be detected in the universe — despite its immense vastness. 

Fermi concluded there must a barrier that limits the rise of intelligent, self-aware, technologically advanced space-colonising civilisations.

This barrier is sometimes referred to as the 'Great Filter'.

Italian physicist Enrico Fermi devised the so-called Fermi Paradox in the 1950s. It explores why there is no sign of alien life, despite the 100 billions planets in our galaxy

If the main obstacle preventing the colonisation of other planets is not in our past, then the barrier that will stop humanity's prospects of reaching other worlds must lie in our future, scientists have theorised.  

Professor Brian Cox believes the advances in science and engineering required by a civilisation to start conquering the stars ultimately lead to its destruction.

 He said: 'One solution to the Fermi paradox is that it is not possible to run a world that has the power to destroy itself and that needs global collaborative solutions to prevent that.

‘It may be that the growth of science and engineering inevitably outstrips the development of political expertise, leading to disaster.'

Other possible explanations for the Fermi Paradox include that no other intelligent species have arisen in the universe, intelligent alien species are out there — but lack the necessary technology to communicate with Earth.

Some believe that the distances between intelligent civilsations are too great to allow any kind of two-way communication.

If two worlds are separated by several thousand light-years, it's possible that one or both civilisation will be extinct before a dialogue can be established. 

The so-called Zoo hypothesis claims intelligent alien life is out there, but deliberately avoids any contact with life on Earth to allow its natural evolution. 

Read more:

• www.liebertpub.c...

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13-12-2020 om 23:25 geschreven door peter