Vallée’s lecture at the event, titled “The Age of Impossible: Anticipating Discontinuous Futures,” dealt with how the speed at which modern technology accelerates has resulted in events that would have seemed impossible to many people only years before they transpired. With examples ranging from the collapse of General Motors in 2009 to Bernie Madoff’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Vallee presented what he called a “Typology of the Impossible” that hinged on four main kinds of scenarios: events that escalated too quickly, convergences of “low-p scenarios,” events that appear to violate current cultural norms, and finally, scenarios that involve the appearance of a “completely alien concept within a particular culture.”

“There are many things in our culture today that fit that model,” Vallée said at one point during the talk, as he described historical instances where things that seemed unimaginable at one time later became technological norms. Such things, Vallee said, “are possible, but we cannot imagine them. The public is not aware that they can be done. History provides many examples, and the internet itself is an example of something that was unimaginable.”

After discussing his own part in helping create ARPANET, Vallée went on to share several more examples from recent history where unforeseen scientific advancements occurred, seemingly out of the blue.

“And finally,” the scientist said, never evincing a change in his measured tone and demeanor, “the Pentagon could not imagine that fast, erratic, mobile, oval objects in the sky were anything other than mental illusions, and they…” After a brief pause, Vallée cryptically added, “and you can fill out the answers in the next few years.”

Despite his success as a venture capitalist and “co-creator of the Internet”, most of the attendees at the 2013 TEDx event in Geneva were likely aware of what Vallée is best known for: his decades of involvement with the study of unidentified aerial phenomena. As a young computer scientist and astronomer in the 1960s, Vallee not only worked alongside Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Hynek, the official scientific advisor to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book but also authored Anatomy of a Phenomenon, one of the earliest popular books written on the UFO subject by a professional scientist. Though he never uttered any of the popular names or abbreviations for the phenomenon, it was obvious what Vallee had been alluding to during this brief, passing reference to “oval objects” during his talk.

At least at that time, what had not been so obvious had been why Vallée specifically referenced the Pentagon’s relationship to UAP, nor why a series of seemingly impossible future events might come to pass involving this subject “in the next few years.”

THE CALL FROM DR. VALLÉE came through earlier than I expected.

The scientist’s voice, softened by age yet still resonant with the French he learned as a youth in Pontoise before emigrating to America many decades ago, was unmistakable to me, having heard it in many interviews and documentaries over the years. Vallée, now 83, is a man whose work in the study of unidentified aerial phenomena is only one finger on the glove of his impressive resume, spanning decades of work in astronomy, physics, computer science, and venture capitalism.

As evidenced by his billing at the TEDx event in 2013, one could indeed argue that Vallée is partly responsible for the creation of the Internet, although the affable Frenchman is modest on this point, nearly to a fault. This much was evident almost immediately as we began our discussion, and I wasted no time in bringing up the talk in Geneva and some of the intriguing hints he had dropped at that time.

“I’ve seen the development and the unfolding of a number of technologies,” Vallée told me during our call. “Very often what happens is that a discovery is made, and everyone agrees that it is important, and people write papers, and so on. And then it disappears.” 

• Don’t miss Jacques Vallée’s recent interview on Rebelliously Curious with Chrissy Newton over on The Debrief’s YouTube Channel, and linked at the end of this article.

“You know, the Arpanet was essentially dead for a while,” Vallée recalls from his years working on the project decades ago. “Until [the] National Science Foundation picked up the funding, thinking that there would be several internets.” Initially a simple matter of accounting, the NSF initially believed it would be easier to fund three separate projects that looked at using networks through which computers could connect for purposes of communication.

THE PATH THAT BROUGHT

Vallée into the tempest that is the study of unidentified aerial phenomena is a long one, which stems back to his early years in Pontoise at an age when the world was still at war.

“There are things you don’t forget,” Vallée said during our call, describing his memories of seeing American aircraft being shot down over his town when he was five years old.

“I remember seeing the crew dropping out in parachutes and the Germans shooting at them.”

By 1945, the war had ended, although fears of a return to conflict lingered throughout parts of Europe. To the north, reports of ghostly “rockets” over countries like Sweden in the summer of 1946 kept many guessing whether the Soviets were conducting tests, perhaps with a form of secret new aerial weapon they had captured from the Germans. The following year, an all-new kind of paranoia would erupt across the Atlantic, as American newspapers were flooded with stories of “flying saucers” seen careening through the skies, especially in airspace around sites of importance to U.S. national security.

By the Autumn of 1954, as the wave of sightings of strange objects was cresting over North America, France was having its own torrent of reports of similar phenomena. Major newspapers like L’Aurore and France-Soir were carrying stories about unidentified flying objects almost daily, and Vallée began collecting clippings of stories like those of Marius Dewilde, a railroad worker who described his observation of a pair of diminutive “robots” next to a dark machine resting on the train tracks.

The reports seemed incredible, and very well might have remained so had it not been for what occurred the following year in May 1955, when Vallée had his own sighting.

“My mother saw it first,” he would later recall of the incident. She had been working in the garden when Vallée, sixteen at the time, heard her screaming for him and his father. Vallée made his way from the attic where his father’s woodworking shop was located, and down three flights of stairs just in time to observe a metallic disc-shaped object “with a clear bubble on top” as it hovered over the nearby church of Saint-Maclou.

The object reminded them of the parachutists the family had watched descending from the skies during the war. His mother, who continued watching it, recalled how it sped away, leaving only a few wisps of white vapor where the object had been. Vallée would later learn that a schoolmate nearby had also noticed the object, observing it through binoculars.

Despite his father’s disapproval, Vallée maintained his interest in these unusual aerial objects. “I realized,” he would later write in his journal, “that I would forever be ashamed of the human race if we simply ignored ‘their’ presence.” The young Frenchman began to educate himself on the topic by reading the works of Aimé Michel, one of the earliest serious French researchers to undertake the study of unusual aerial phenomena. It was an interest he maintained through his college years, completing his degree in mathematics at the University of Paris in 1959 and going on to receive his M.S. from the University of Lille Nord de France two years later. By 1961, Vallée was employed at the Paris Observatory as an astronomer with its artificial satellite service, tracking space objects through theodolites by night.

“Naively, I started work here with great enthusiasm, assuming that we would be engaged in genuine research,” Vallée would recall of his years at the observatory. “That is not what I found.” In July of 1961, he and the other astronomers recalled a few instances where they observed objects passing overhead that they could not identify. “The next morning,” he recalled of one incident, his superior “simply confiscated the tape and destroyed it.” Vallée inquired as to why they hadn’t sent this seemingly important information along with their normal Telex tape dispatches to U.S. Navy officials in Paris.

“The Americans would laugh at us,” his superior scoffed.

Having his fill of the prevailing attitudes in Paris, by 1962, Vallée had emigrated to the United States, first working at the University of Texas, Austin, as a research associate in astronomy, and thereafter for a short stint at the McDonald Observatory, where he helped to compile the first informational map of the planet Mars with fellow French astronomer Gérard de Vaucouleurs. However, by the summer of 1963, Vallée was looking ahead at new opportunities, one of which arrived following a meeting in September with astronomer J. Allen Hynek, chair of Northwestern University’s astronomy department, who helped the young scientist find work as a systems analyst on campus. Hynek, at the time the scientific advisor to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book UFO investigation, was a natural ally; not only would he serve as a mentor to Vallée, who went on to receive his Ph.D. from the institution in 1967, but for years thereafter the two would remain close colleagues in the pursuit of their mutual interest.

An undated photo of astronomer J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée

(public domain).

However, by the late 1960s, it seemed evident that scientific opinions on the UFO subject in the United States had finally begun to sour, despite the efforts of Hynek, Vallée, and a close network of like-minded scientists looking into the problem. By the end of 1968, the University of Colorado UFO Project, a U.S. Air Force-funded study headed by physicist Edward U. Condon, had delivered its findings; in an introductory summary to the lengthy report, Condon wrote that “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge,” adding that “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”

Vallée, musing over the Condon study during our call, remembered his incredulity at the time he first heard about its conclusions.

“That’s an interesting chapter in science,” he said. “Or the failure of science.”

By then, Vallee had already returned to France. As he, his wife Janine, and their son, Oliver, were acclimating to life in Europe again, Vallée was quietly readjusting his approach to the UFO question.

“Once I was back in France, in a way, it served to give me the space to rethink what we had done,” Vallée told me. “I mean, I knew the Condon Committee was a joke… and that science was somewhere else. So it forced me to ask some fundamental questions that I would not have asked if I had stayed at Northwestern.”

“So I thought, where does all this come from, anyway?”

Vallée began haunting the old Paris bookshops, acquiring rare historical texts and early treatises on the sciences. An interesting question had begun to form in his mind, as he recorded in a journal entry on October 29, 1967: What about the forgotten accounts of Little People, of Elementals, of Leprechauns? If these beings are part of the same phenomenon we see now, what does that mean for their nature? Are we necessarily dealing with extraterrestrials?

“I found that the phenomenon has always been there,” Vallée says of his years spent mining observations of unusual aerial phenomena from texts that date back to classical antiquity. “Of course, they are describing it in the language of the time,” he notes, “but they are describing something that’s very, very much like what I get from witnesses today.”

The fruits of such musings culminated in Vallée’s seminal 1969 effort, Passport to Magonia, widely regarded as one of his most influential early works and, paradoxically, the effort that cast him as a pariah in the eyes of many of his ufological peers.

“At first, it was completely rejected.” he says, recalling one UFO magazine that featured his likeness shortly after Magonia was published, accompanied by the headline, “Vallée has gone off the deep end.” Today, Vallée laughs about the chiding he received from his peers, and I note a hint of nostalgia about those early works behind the dry chuckle that emerges.

“Maybe the truth was in the deep end.”

OVER THE COURSE OF the ensuing decades, Vallée would continue to challenge the extraterrestrial hypothesis favored particularly among American UFO researchers. Parallel to this effort, his professional career brought him into work with the Institute for the Future in the mid-1970s, where he worked as principal investigator on the National Science Foundation computer networking project that gave rise to one of the earliest iterations of the ARPANET conferencing system. In the following decade, Vallée would become involved in venture capitalism, first as a partner at Sofinnova, then moving on to become a general partner in multiple different Silicon Valley funds, including his involvement in private investments today.

As his professional career flourished, Vallée never lost sight of his fascination with strange aerial phenomena. He authored a string of follow-ups to Magonia on the topic of UFOs throughout the 1970s and 80s, each continuing to build on the premise that the phenomenon could be far more complex than conventional opinions on UFOs would offer. His pioneering work continued to garner attention along the way, even serving as the inspiration for Claude Lacombe, a French scientist portrayed by actor François Truffaut in Stephen Spielberg’s classic film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

In the 1990s, Vallée authored a trilogy of books that focused on the prospects of alien contact. However, he always maintained a healthy distance from drawing conclusions about what any exotic technologies behind UFOs might represent. It was also during this period that Vallée began working with real estate developer Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), a privately funded scientific research effort that looked at UFOs and related phenomena.

In July 2014, Vallée presented a paper at the GEIPAN International Workshop in Paris, France, titled “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: A Strategy for Research,” offering both a snapshot of what he had learned about the complexities of the phenomenon over several decades of study, as well as what he believed might be a path toward more fruitful future research.

“After years of ideological arguments based on anecdotal data the field of UAP research appears ready to emerge into a more mature phase of reliable study,” Vallée wrote in the paper’s abstract. Citing the mounting scientific interest in UAP around the world, based in part on documents conveying an official military interest in these phenomena, the scientist argued that the path forward would require the analysis of hard data, paired with intelligently informed theoretical studies.

“Without pre-judging the origin and nature of the phenomena, a range of opportunities arise for investigation,” Vallée wrote, warning that “such projects need to generate new hypotheses and test them in a rigorous way against the accumulated reports of thousands of observers.”

The problem was that in 2014, despite the existence of several notable independent catalogs containing information on historical incidents, there was no single collection of reliable UAP reports—a centralized database, in other words—upon which such studies could rely. This had been part of what prompted Vallée to assemble such a database for NIDS, work that would later carry over as Bigelow’s efforts moved out of the private sector and into the official world as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP).

“In the United States the National Institute for Discovery Science (“NIDS”) and the Bigelow Aerospace Corporation have initiated a series of special catalogues to safeguard their own reports from public sources and from their staff,” Vallée wrote in his 2014 paper, adding that he had been asked to develop a UAP data warehouse containing 11 individual databases.

“The project is known as ‘Capella,’” it stated.

According to slides accompanying Vallée’s 2014 presentation, the Capella project focused on several areas that ranged from patterns emerging from UAP data to possible physics underlying the phenomenon and its impact on humans.

During our call, Vallée spoke candidly about the project and what he hopes it might still be used to achieve.

“There is such a database. It is the one we built as part of the AATIP/BAASS project in Las Vegas,” Vallée told me. Comprising roughly 260,000 cases from countries around the world, the scientist said during our call that the Capella database had been one of the major focal points of the program.

“Contrary to what people believe, [Capella] is the largest part of the budget that was spent on the classified project,” Vallée said. This included paying for translations of incident reports from Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and several other languages into English, and providing funding for teams that conducted additional research on-site.

“It was a large effort for two years, Vallée said, though he added that in reality, “probably close to fifty or sixty years of work went into the database.” Although Capella constitutes what is arguably the most extensive database containing information on UAP ever built, don’t expect to see it any time soon; it remains classified as a part of the data developed under the DIA’s AAWSAP program managed by James Lackatski between 2008 and 2010.

• 

See Also

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“The database is still classified, to my knowledge,” Vallée said during our call, prompting me to ask whether such a vast amount of historical information on the UAP subject shouldn’t be made publicly available.

Speaking with The Debrief in December 2021, Mark Rodeghier, Ph.D., director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies and a longtime colleague of Vallée, expressed frustration over previous statements made by Colm Kelleher, Ph.D., another of the scientists who worked on the AAWSAP program, who noted that much of the AAWSAP data will likely remain classified.

“I mean, isn’t that discouraging, disappointing, [and] ridiculous,” Rodeghier told The Debrief. “It’s not work on how we can get a hypersonic missile. It’s UFO investigations. How can that be classified at this point? And the answer, of course, is that it shouldn’t be classified now.”

During our call, Vallée expressed similar sentiments to Rodeghier’s, although he also defended Capella’s current classified status on account of some of the information it protects.

“You make a good point,” Vallée told me. “That’s the kind of thing that should be accessible to science,” although adding that “it will be accessible to very highly competent people who can continue to look at it under the proper classification.”

“I think it’s properly classified,” Vallée added, “because it contains a lot of medical data that should be private.” However, he said that he thinks that over time, perhaps portions can be “sanitized” for release to the public, “so that we don’t invade the privacy of individuals who have reported those things, especially their medical data.”

“It’s not classified for any military or intelligence reason as far as I know,” Vallée said. “But I’m not part of the project anymore.” Vallée noted that even he no longer has access to Capella, although several longtime colleagues of his who still work in government do.

“I’m very proud to have worked on that,” Vallée said. “It’s probably the high water mark in the computer study of UFOs so far.”

“But as we know, the high water mark is going to go even higher after this.”

DESPITE HIS OWN LEVEL of involvement with government UAP studies, as well as the level of interest generated by videos of unidentified objects collected by the U.S. military—the existence of which Vallée himself hinted at in Geneva as early as 2013—the 83-year-old scientist still doesn’t necessarily hold military UAP data in higher regard than that collected by civilians.

“The military cases in the databases I know of are less than ten percent in every country,” Vallee said during our call. “They are really good because the military has radar. They have, of course, planes that can chase the objects… pilots who are very well trained and very well positioned to give a description.”

“Those are excellent reports,” Vallée concedes. “But what about the farmer in the field, who sees [an object] close to him, and has traces, and has materials? Who has felt physiological reactions?”

“What about those cases?” he asks. “They are full of information.”

Vallée’s appreciation for UAP information collected from non-governmental sources is particularly evident in his latest book, Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, coauthored with Italian journalist Paola Leopizzi Harris. In it, they unravel the story of two men, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, who claim to have witnessed the crash of an unusual aircraft near San Antonito, New Mexico, in August 1945. Padilla, who went on to become a State Trooper in Rowland Heights, California, maintained that as children, he and Baca had seen a large, dull-gray avocado-shaped object—along with its frantic occupants—where it had apparently crashed near his family’s ranch. The object, they say, was later recovered by the military.

In a newly updated second edition of the book, Vallée and Harris present additional witness testimony they have gathered about the alleged incident, which includes an observation of the crash remembered by the family of Lt. Colonel William J. Brothy, who at the time had been piloting a B-25 on a training mission. According to Brothy, he and his crew had flown over the site and recalled, “There were a lot of pieces.”

In Trinity, Vallée emphasizes what he believes are undeniable similarities between descriptions of the 1945 incident and a UAP landing in New Mexico observed by police officer Lonnie Zamora in 1964. Then, the following year another strikingly similar incident occurred near Valensole, France, involving the close observation of a landed craft and its apparent pilot or occupant.

“There is a case in Valensole, in France, and the case in Socorro. The object is identical to the Trinity object,” Vallée said. “And the [occupants] are identical to the creatures that Mr. Padilla is describing to me at Trinity, that he saw.”

“I was involved in Socorro, and I was involved in Valensole. Those are cases I know very well,” Vallée said, adding that Trinity contains new information on the Socorro case, once referred to by Hector Quintanilla, director of the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book at the time of the incident, as being “the best documented case on record.”

Today, much of Vallée’s research is focused on the collection and study of material samples believed to have been collected from UAP. Compared with his earlier work, which challenged popular notions about extraterrestrials being associated with UAP, this might surprise longtime followers of the scientist’s work. For Vallée, however, it is only the next phase in the many decades he has spent working toward resolving the mystery.

“It’s all one thing,” Vallée said during our call. “The first book I wrote was Anatomy of a Phenomenon, which… I took as a study of extraterrestrial intelligence in general, and how it was I thought UFOs illustrated the idea of life elsewhere and intelligence elsewhere… that’s definitely the place from which we started.”

“Then, when I started working with Dr. Hynek, and I started working with—in those days, it was just called ‘computer catalogs,’ it wasn’t dignified as databases or data warehouses—but those catalogs held thousands of cases. My first complete catalog was donated to the Condon Committee at the University of Colorado, when they did the study funded by the Air Force.”

“Which,” Vallée notes, “to my surprise, concluded the problem didn’t exist. So, we’ve come a long way from that.”

Given his level of involvement in working to resolve the UAP question—an effort now spanning more than six decades, including his involvement in official government UAP investigations in several countries and having authored some of the most popular books ever written on the subject—perhaps the most surprising thing expressed by Vallée during our discussion had been his predictions about how he thinks his own work will be remembered by future generations.

“I think everything I’ve done, and everything my contemporaries have done, is going to be forgotten,” he said, mirroring his observations of the invention, and subsequent reinvention, of so many other innovations in science over time, not least among them the World Wide Web.

“And then in a few years, it’s going to be reinvented by, you know, great people at Stanford and Harvard in a new way,” he tells me, accompanied by the distinctive chuckle I had by now come to expect after one of his witty responses.

“That’s always the way science works.”

• Micah Hanks is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on Twitter: @MicahHanks. 

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

01-02-2024 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

Two US Marines Claimed Corbell’s Huge Mojave Triangle UFO Is Definitely Not Flares

UFO investigator and filmmaker Jeremy Corbell released another captivating footage for UFO enthusiasts. Along with investigative journalist George Knapp, Corbell claims to obtain spectacular footage of a UFO with five shiny lights in the V-formation as in the “Phoenix Lights,” hovering over a Marine base in the California desert.

Corbell has provided a detailed description of this incident and considered it a “Mass UFO sighting” as it involves a substantial amount of diverse documentation, including videos, photos, and recorded direct eyewitness testimonies from active military personnel. But still, it carries numerous doubts. Before discussing them, let us first take a look at the sighting details shared by Corbell.

According to Corbell, the incident occurred on the evening of April 20, 2021, at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms – Camp Wilson, a significant United States military base. The sighting lasted approximately 10 minutes and was witnessed by more than 50 people. They consistently reported observing a triangular-shaped craft during the encounter. It did not make any sound and was reported to be the size in the range from a football field to that of a three-bedroom, two-story house.

Corbell explained that he received a tip about the incident, prompting him to investigate further. Within a remarkable 36 hours after the event, he managed to connect with individuals who were present at the base during the sighting. He compared the sighting to the famous Phoenix Lights incident, citing the resemblance of a perfect V-shaped row of lights.

The craft was first observed at 8:20 pm PST and after a few minutes of observation, witnesses captured it on their iPhones. At 8:29 p.m., another remarkable occurrence took place. Illumination rounds were discharged into the night sky, above the UAP craft, leaving a visible trace and providing additional evidence of the incident. Astonishingly, at 8:30 pm, witnesses reported that the UAP seemingly “blinked out” or disappeared, just moments before the illumination rounds approached the vicinity of the unidentified craft.

Skeptical of military involvement, Corbell shared the first video of the sighting on his podcast “Weaponized” and discussed it in detail with Knapp. The footage captured the astonishment and confusion of witnesses as they saw the unidentified object in the sky. While the video did not clearly show the body of the craft, the audio and eyewitness accounts confirmed its presence.

Corbell shared the second video, which featured the reactions of U.S. Marines who were present. Their comments reflected a mix of bravado and genuine awe, acknowledging that something extraordinary was unfolding before their eyes, says Knapp. They ruled out the possibility of flares and recognized the uniqueness of the situation.

Corbell Rules Out Flares As An Explanation For UFO

Corbell debunks the theory that the sighting could be attributed to flares. He points out that the lights observed in the footage were a different color, more reddish, compared to the illuminating flares typically used, which are brighter and have a different hue. Flares also descend on parachutes, while the unidentified craft remained stationary for the duration of the sighting, with only slight forward movement at one point.

Although the triangle shape of the craft is not visible in the video, eyewitnesses on the ground reported seeing it. In a stroke of luck, another detachment of Marines shot up illuminating flares in an attempt to get a better look at the craft. The subsequent footage shows the descent of these flares onto the object, providing a side-by-side comparison between the appearance of flares and the lights observed on the craft.

Interestingly, as the flares descend, the lights on the craft appear to blink out in succession. However, according to eyewitnesses, the entire craft itself disappeared, as they could see more clearly than the footage captured.

Corbell raises an intriguing question about the behavior of the craft. If it is intelligently controlled, how might it react to the presence of flares being deployed above it to illuminate the area? This line of inquiry suggests that the craft’s response, or lack thereof, could indicate an advanced level of control and intelligence behind its movements.

Interview with Two US Marines who saw UFO

Corbell conducted a groundbreaking interview with two active-duty US Marines who witnessed this remarkable UFO sighting. The conversation, which was recorded and obtained by Corbell, provides a gripping firsthand account of the event, offering a glimpse into the experiences of these Marines during the encounter.

Taking place approximately 36 hours after the initial sighting, the interview captures the raw emotions and astonishment felt by the Marines as they recall the extraordinary incident. Both Marines, one serving as a mortar man and the other as artillery, share their perspectives on the sighting, revealing intriguing details about the event.

Corbell begins the conversation by asking for specific details, such as the location and time of the sighting. The Marines state that the event occurred around 8:25 pm near 29 Palms, California, adjacent to Camp Wilson, a Marine base. The Marines mention that the sighting attracted considerable attention, with over 50 people gradually gathering to witness the mysterious lights that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

When asked about people’s reactions to the sighting, the Marines explain that the majority of witnesses were unable to identify the object. They note that, despite being military personnel, the sighting was unprecedented for them and left everyone puzzled.

Corbell then inquires about the evidence the Marines captured, referring to the video and photo that were shared with him. The Marines confirm that the footage was indeed recorded by one of them, emphasizing that the lights remained stationary for a solid 10 minutes. They assert that the lights were not flares, as flares typically descend rather than stay in one spot for an extended period.

In response to Corbell’s question about their belief in the presence of a craft, one Marine confidently states that he would have to believe so, referencing a photo he took showing a black triangular shape beneath the lights. He dismisses the possibility of the object being flares or illumination rounds based on his experience working with artillery. The other Marine explains that the size, color, and behavior of the lights were unlike anything they had encountered before, drawing comparisons to their own illumination rounds.

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Corbell seeks further clarification, asking if the craft was hovering silently. Both Marines affirm that there was absolutely no sound, emphasizing the stationary nature of the object. When pressed about the size, one Marine compares it to a stealth bomber, although acknowledging that a stealth bomber cannot hover. He suggests that the object might have been even larger than a stealth bomber.

As the conversation progresses, the Marines recount additional intriguing details. They describe objects that emerged from the craft and circled it shortly before it went dark. They explain that these objects were the orange lights seen in the footage, which were actually the illumination rounds discharged above the craft. After the lights disappeared, helicopters began rapidly approaching the area, circling it extensively. The Marines note the presence of a convoy of over 60 trucks that also headed towards the site.

Corbell concludes the interview by asking the Marines to reflect on their experience. One Marine admits that he cannot determine what exactly they witnessed, as it was unlike anything he or his comrades had ever seen before. However, he firmly states that it was not anything recognizable from the US military and believes it was a UFO. The other Marine expresses his curiosity, emphasizing that the event remains highly documented, yet its nature and origin remain a mystery.

Another explanation by John Greenewald, Jr.

Renowned researcher John Greenewald, Jr. offers an alternative explanation for the UFO sighting over Twentynine Palms. Drawing from his experience working on the television show UFO Hunters, Greenewald suggests that the event could be linked to military training exercises rather than an unidentified aerial phenomenon.

Greenewald recalls his time on the show, where they encountered numerous cases similar to this sighting. To provide context, he highlights the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 2-21 taking place at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center on the same date as the UFO sighting. He presents photographs released by the Department of Defense (DoD) that depict military aircraft on runways during the training exercise.

Greenewald refers to nighttime videos released by the DoD, recorded on April 20, 2021, which showcase the significant military activity in the area. He emphasizes that the DoD’s official release clearly indicates the date and location of the videos. Greenewald acknowledges the presence of live training ranges in the Twentynine Palms area but notes that there was no mention of the UFO event coinciding with the military training exercise in the podcast transcript he examined.

Drawing from his past experiences, Greenewald suggests that many incidents occurring over military training ranges are often misinterpreted as UFOs when they are more likely related to military activities. He recalls solving cases involving Air Force One sightings, military aircraft, and drones, which were initially thought to be UFOs. Greenewald explains that the extensive work done behind the scenes often reveals the true nature of such incidents.

To provide further evidence, Greenewald refers to the additional context provided by The Black Vault, sourced from submitted material. He mentions the presence of B-Roll footage showing five aircraft flares being shot in night vision, which resembles the lights observed in the “UAP” videos. Greenewald questions the coincidence of both the flares and the UFO event occurring on the same date.

Greenewald concludes by sharing the Department of Defense’s response to the claims. A spokesperson confirms the presence of military aviation assets and the ongoing Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course in Twentynine Palms at the time. However, they state that there is no record of communication or allocation of resources to investigate a UAP sighting, and the authenticity of the report cannot be verified.

While Greenewald’s explanation points to military training exercises as a plausible cause for the UFO sighting, further investigation and analysis are necessary to reach a definitive conclusion.

Both Jeremy Corbell and John Greenewald, Jr. present their respective explanations based on their knowledge and perspectives. Corbell highlights the firsthand accounts of eyewitnesses, including active military personnel, who describe a triangular craft with specific characteristics and behavior. He emphasizes the mass UFO sighting and the subsequent air and ground response, suggesting that the event warrants further investigation.

On the other hand, Greenewald provides an alternative perspective grounded in his experience working on UFO-related projects and analyzing military activities. He draws attention to the military training exercises taking place at the same time as the sighting and presents evidence, such as photographs and videos released by the Department of Defense, suggesting that the lights observed could be related to flares and other military operations.

Ultimately, it is up to us to evaluate the evidence and draw our own conclusions. Both Corbell and Greenewald contribute to the ongoing discussion surrounding UFO sightings, offering differing viewpoints that highlight the need for continued research and analysis in order to better understand these phenomena.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

31-01-2024 om 00:44 geschreven door peter  

“I found the aliens, but…” Pentagon's UFO hunter talks about evidence of alien presence

Sean Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UFO investigations, debunks conspiracy claims of government cover-ups and alien technology possession.

The truth is out there, but is it extraterrestrial? Sean Kirkpatrick, the scientist who led the Pentagon's UFO investigations, spills the beans on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and the quest for alien life.

No evidence of alien life

Despite conspiracy claims of government cover-ups and reverse engineering of crashed spacecraft, Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UAP investigations, sets the record straight: "The best thing that could have happened in this job is I found the aliens, but there's none."

The departure from UAP investigations

Kirkpatrick recently stepped down from directing the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), tasked with investigating potential UFO sightings. The departure comes amid renewed attention fueled by military testimonies suggesting government possession of alien technology.

Military testimonies & alien technology

Former military witnesses testified to the House Oversight Committee, claiming the government's awareness of non-human activity since the 1930s. Allegations included the possession of alien UFOs and bodies of "dead pilots." Kirkpatrick notes that many interviewed shared similar stories of hidden UFOs dating back to the 60s or even earlier

Lack of evidence and government conspiracy

While acknowledging stories of hidden UFOs, Kirkpatrick stresses there is "no evidence of aliens" or a government conspiracy. He mentions a push to bring alien craft materials back into government oversight around the turn of the century, alleging Congress did not know about the supposed hidden program.

Pilots' UAP sightings

Many UFO sightings are reported by pilots witnessing strange objects in the sky. Kirkpatrick explains that, often, these sightings turn out to be caused by parallax—where an object appears to change position due to a shift in the observer's point of view.

Anomalous cases and lack of data

Kirkpatrick notes that between 2 percent and 5 percent of the investigated reports had sufficient data but remained "truly anomalous." He highlights the challenge in explaining phenomena when there is a lack of data, citing the case of U.S. Navy pilots witnessing a tic-tac-shaped object off the coast of California.

{ https://www.hindustantimes.com/ }

25-01-2024 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

De drie getuigen, Ryan Graves, David Grusch en David Fravor leggen de eed af voor de hoorzitting

{ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/ }

23-01-2024 om 20:59 geschreven door peter  

Op 14 november 2004 stijgt de aanvalsjager Boeing F/A-18 op van het vliegdekschip USS Nimitz in de Stille Oceaan, zo’n 160 kilometer ten zuidwesten van San Diego, Californië.

Aan boord bevindt zich David Fravor.

Met 18 jaar in de cockpit van de US Navy heeft de ervaren piloot veel meegemaakt in de lucht.

Maar over een paar minuten zal David Fravor iets zien dat alle logica tart.

Sinds enkele weken observeert een ander Amerikaans vliegdekschip, de USS Princeton, een reeks onverklaarbare objecten die rondvliegen in het omringende luchtruim. Nu moet David Fravor ze nader onderzoeken.

De gevechtspiloot doorklieft de wolkeloze hemel, tot hij plotseling een van die objecten ziet waar de bemanning van de USS Princeton zich het hoofd over brak.

Uit het raam van de cockpit ziet David Fravor een wit voorwerp met een glad oppervlak dat met circa 222 km/h door de lucht vliegt. Het object is ongeveer 14 meter lang en heeft de vorm van een Tic Tac. Het heeft geen vleugels, straalt geen warmte uit en lijkt op niets wat hij ooit eerder heeft gezien.

neens zoeft de enorme Tic Tac naar zee, waarbij hij in enkele seconden bijna 2 kilometer aflegt – een manoeuvre die met de toenmalige vliegtuigtechnologie niet mogelijk is.

In de loop der jaren zijn er talloze onverklaarbare vliegende objecten gezien. Vaak zijn er natuurverschijnselen in het spel, maar wat de Amerikaanse marine de afgelopen tien jaar heeft meegemaakt, blijft een mysterie.

In 2021 bracht de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst een rapport over ufowaarnemingen uit, en misschien hebben we wel bezoek van levensvormen van elders gehad.

VIDEO: Bekijk de ufowaarneming van 2004

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY

23-01-2024 om 20:43 geschreven door peter  

Over the past few years, much of the talk in the UAP community has revolved around Brett Tingley’s reporting of unusual patent applications by Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, an aerospace engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). Among those patents are: a “plasma compression fusion device” that promises to generate practically unlimited amounts of clean energy with a small reactor; a “high-frequency gravitational wave generator” that promises to harvest the power of gravity; and a “craft using inertial mass reduction device” that promises to revolutionize transportation.

These patent applications relate directly to UAP observables, in that UAPs seem to defy the known laws of physics precisely by appearing to deploy unthinkable amounts of energy in small regions of space, manipulate gravity at will, and have little to no inertial mass. For this reason, many—such as Ariel Cohen, writing for Forbes—have speculated that Pais’s ostensible inventions may be a cover for reverse-engineered UAP technology, and the associated patents an attempt by the US Navy to stay ahead of China and Russia in the new arms’ race.

• https://youtu.be/5E6QyAhTB3o

• https://youtu.be/_lml2D4eHbQ

In this essay, I will argue that these speculations are based on a fundamentally wrong understanding of how the game of Intellectual Property Rights—or ‘IPR’ in short, which includes patents—is played. Whatever NAWCAD’s inventions are, they aren’t reverse-engineered UAP technology and almost certainly have no defense significance.

Although I am best known as a philosopher and scientist, I have spent almost 25 years in the high-tech industry doing technology strategy. I have been deeply immersed in the world of high-tech IPR, having even once co-founded a computer company—Silicon Hive, now part of Intel—that dealt in IPR licensing. As such, despite not being a lawyer myself, I am qualified to opine on patent matters.

A patent is a legal monopoly: it gives an individual or a company the right to be the exclusive exploiter of the patented idea for a limited period—usually 20 years—unless the individual or company in question chooses to license the patent to a third-party. The goal is to give companies an incentive to invest in Research and Development (R&D) without fear that its competitors will immediately benefit from the fruits of that R&D without having invested in it. Patent law is at the foundation of high-tech entrepreneurship for this reason. Without it, which company would invest billions in, say, inventing a new drug, just to see its key competitors reverse-engineer the drug and commercialize an identical, cheaper alternative within months?

But patents represent a trade-off. While giving their holders temporary monopoly power, they also force the inventors to publicly disclose the ideas in question. Indeed, patents—and even patent applications—are public documents by law, available on multiple searchable databases such as Google Patents. Moreover, not only do the inventors have to publicly describe their inventions, they must also do so in a manner that a “person skilled in the art”—that is, a minimally competent practitioner in the field in question—can, based on a patent’s text and diagrams alone, implement a working embodiment of the corresponding invention.

As such, patents are the opposite of industrial secrets. Before deciding whether to patent an idea, a company needs to weight its monopoly benefits against giving the competition a head-start; for this is exactly what a patent application does: it broadcasts to the world the lines along which a company is developing its technology.

Sometimes, the decision of whether to patent an invention or keep it a secret is straightforward. For instance, it may be impossible to hide an idea, either because it is a visible and advertised product feature—such as a fingerprint reader or facial scanner to unlock your phone—or because the product can be easily bought from a shop and reverse-engineered. In these cases, it’s best to patent the whole thing in advance, as the secret cannot be kept.

{ https://thedebrief.org/ }

21-01-2024 om 18:01 geschreven door peter  

THE VANISHING STAR ENIGMA AND THE 1952 WASHINGTON D.C. UFO WAVE

BEATRIZ VILLARROEL·

As we look up at the starry sky, countless celestial bodies silently peer down upon us. Most of these have been there for billions of years as stellar processes slowly unfold, starting from their birth until their final demise. Light from other celestial objects, though long vanished, has only recently reached us. In other instances, swift changes in the sky occur at timescales as short as seconds or minutes, like when a dwarf star momentarily flares up or when a human satellite crosses the field of view.

My team has been searching for objects that may have vanished. As an unexpected result of our searches, we found cases where multiple star-like objects (transients) appeared and vanished in a small image within an hour, and even more peculiarly, two of our brightest cases happened in July 1952, coinciding in time with the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO flyovers. But what have we actually found, and how do these two events potentially link to one another?

In the Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project, our team has been dedicated to the search for celestial objects that vanished over the span of 70 years. In the grand scheme of cosmic time and the billions of years needed for a low-mass star to turn into a white dwarf, seventy years is only a fleeting moment in cosmic time. But 70 years is also much longer than the time needed for a satellite to pass through the telescope’s field of view. Our original objective was to search for a star that had vanished, with the hope of detecting instances where a star directly collapses into a black hole (failed supernova), an event predicted by supernova theoreticians. Alternatively, we were intrigued by the prospect of finding a star that vanishes entirely without a trace or explanation; a signature of a highly advanced civilization.

However, this task was far from straightforward. My colleague spent two years developing powerful methods [5] for sifting through the vast terabytes of image data involved. In parallel, we were (and still are) running a citizen science project together with scientists, amateur astronomers, and students primarily in Algeria and Nigeria, to search for these vanishing stars.

For our searches, we employed an object catalog sourced from the US Naval Observatory (USNO) together with archival images dating back to the early 1950s, captured at the Palomar Observatory in California. The images from Palomar predate the dawn of human space exploration. This night sky was pristine, and a far cry from today’s sky that is littered with tens of thousands of debris pieces from human satellites in orbits around the Earth, many producing flashes lasting fractions of a second as they reflect sunlight and tumble through space. These images we compared to the modern databases from Palomar Sky Survey, PanSTARRS, and the Gaia satellite in our quest to find disappearing objects.

Then we executed the search. We identified two candidates that were statistically significant and had unlikely alignments of transients and an additional three statistically weaker candidates (in total 5 candidates). Our best candidate, Candidate 5, had a probability of p ~ 0.0001 to exist by chance (see Figure 1 below). Regrettably, one journal after another declined to send our paper for peer review, informing us that the topic of the paper consistently fell ‘outside the scope of the journal’. Only one journal sent the paper to referees, which ended up being rejected after several confusing rounds. The paper remains on the arXiv preprint server.

Meanwhile, our team continued its search efforts. One year ago, my colleague presented the team with a case that he had uncovered during the automated searches [5]. The image showed three bright and beautiful objects looking just like stars in a POSS-I image from the 19th of July 1952 that appeared and vanished within a plate exposure [3] (see Figure 2 below). The three bright objects seemed as real as Betelgeuse itself. We explored a gravitational lensing hypothesis, considering the possibility that a massive foreground object could bend the passing light so that three images appear only to vanish moments later. Perhaps, a supermassive black hole located just a few light-years from Earth, with a mass ten times that of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, could explain the triple transient? We were not convinced. The article was recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Figure 2. The left image shows three transients on the 19th of July 1952 in the First Palomar Sky Survey. The right image shows the same star field in the Second Palomar Sky Survey, about 30 years later. This image is an adaption of the images in Solano, Marcy et al., 2023.

Let us have a closer look at the time period of the observations. July 1952 was a very special month in Washington D.C. Between July 12th and July 29th, 1952, a multitude of UFO sightings occurred over Washington D.C. in the United States involving radar-visual sightings in simultaneous observations, and even circumstances where a Navy pilot was authorized to shoot down an object (with some debris collected). The highest number of sightings took place during two weekends: July 19th – 20th and the weekend of July 26th – 27th, 1952.

An official record from the National Archives of Australia reveals that while the average monthly number of UFO reports of sightings between 1948 and 1951 was 15 per month, there were approximately 536 reports in July 1952. The US Air Force held a large press conference at the Pentagon (the largest press conference since the end of World War II), claiming that the radar observations were caused by temperature inversions, citing a theory produced and promoted [6,7] by the astronomer and UFO skeptic Donald Menzel, who had the highest clearances within the National Security Agency in the United States. Further work cast serious doubts on Menzel’s explanation. Also, the US Air Force failed to explain the numerous eyewitness reports.

This is where things get fun. The three transients we found were, indeed, observed on the night of July 19th, 1952, which coincided with the first weekend of the Washington UFO flyovers – a coincidence first noticed by my friend David Altman. As scientists, we recognize that coincidences will occur from time to time, no matter how remarkable they may seem. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder about whether any of the five top candidates in our previous 2022 arXiv paper could have been observed during the Washington flyovers.

Indeed, our absolute top candidate (Candidate 5, with a mere 0.0001% probability) was observed on July 27th, 1952, aligning with the second weekend (Author’s Note: In the arXiv paper and all presentations, including one I presented at the Sol Foundation event at Stanford University in October, 2023, and up until December 2023, I have quoted the wrong date of 28th of July 1952. The correct date for the XE141 plate, according to the STScI plate archive, is the 27th of July 1952). Ironically, our two most prominent and brightest cases of multiple transients coincided in time with the two weekends of the renowned Washington UFO flyovers.

What types of events might lead to the detection of multiple transients in plates from the same period? One possible explanation is that these transients are indeed UFOs. Another hypothesis is that high-altitude atomic bomb tests could have generated aurora-like phenomena over Washington. These events might have produced nuclear fallout in other regions of the vast country, which–perhaps–could be detected as false stars on the photographic plates. Perhaps, in this instance, Occam’s razor suggests that the first hypothesis requires less of a stretch.

A dataset that possibly could help to solve the mystery is the Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard (DASCH) project, which comprises digitized portions of Harvard College Observatory’s photographic plate collection. The observatory’s plate collection consists of 550,000+ plates that played a pivotal role in cutting-edge astronomy research spanning over a century. Given that the Harvard Observatory is considerably closer to Washington D.C. than Palomar, it might possess valuable records from the time of the Washington D.C. UFO flyovers. As recently as a few weeks ago, the DASCH project came back online after a several years-long hiatus; a blessing to many astronomers.

Despite its numerous successes, Harvard’s photographic plate collection faced many challenges during its history. In the early 1950s, Harvard University chose to destroy a portion of its own photographic plate collection under the directive of its Director Donald Menzel who entered office in 1952. This story is carefully retold in the astronomer Dorrit Hoffleit’s autobiography, Misfortunes as Blessings in Disguise. Furthermore, Donald Menzel stopped Harvard’s observatory from conducting further photographic plate surveys of the sky in 1953. The latter event is now commonly referred to as the ‘Menzel gap‘. Constraints related to storage space and budgetary limitations were cited. Only fifteen years later, Harvard resumed its surveillance of the sky upon Menzel’s retirement.

{ https://thedebrief.org/ }

21-01-2024 om 17:21 geschreven door peter  

Journalist Reveals First-Ever Photograph of UFO Shot Down in Syria in 2021

There is a series of shooting down unidentified objects around the world that involves the United States. The military 2023 February UAP events are among the recent cases. Filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, along with investigative journalist George Knapp, has revealed a photograph of an object initially labeled as a “hostile drone” by the media. However, official statements from the United States, the UK, and allied intelligence agencies now confirm their inability to ascertain its origin, designating it as “unidentified.”

In episode 41 of Weaponized, Corbell and Knapp discuss UFO shootdowns covering both current events and historical perspectives. Corbell discusses events in 2019, specifically mentioning attempts to bring down over 100 UAPs on Navy warships using electromagnetic systems like the DRAKE (Drone Restricted Access Using Known Electromagnetic Warfare) Anti-Drone System.

In the episode, Jeremy Corbell provides details about a UAP event that took place in late summer 2021 off the coast of Japan involving the USS Milius. The USS Milius experienced a series of encounters with UAPs that exhibited similar behavior to the previously mentioned incidents near Navy warships. However, in this case, the UAPs were observed in a vast 300-mile radius of sea, with no other ships around.

Corbell further describes the frustrating attempts to take down the UAPs using electromagnetic techniques, noting that these efforts were once again ineffective. The UAPs displayed extreme maneuverability over four or five consecutive nights, with multiple objects present during a 5-hour window from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. or midnight to 4:00 a.m. The ship’s captain, out of frustration, reportedly instructed the crew to stop reacting to the UAPs and creating reports since there seemed to be no viable solution.

It’s a UFO, not a Hostile Drone!

Corbell and Knapp discussed an incident that happened in the Middle East, specifically in Syria on December 14, 2021. Corbell describes how the Royal Air Force, using a Typhoon fighter plane, reported shooting down a hostile drone, marking the first air-to-air firing by the Royal Air Force in 40 years. The media initially reported it as a terrorist drone, but there was a subsequent shift to calling it a “Mystery drone” as no terrorist group or nation claimed responsibility.

Corbell notes a significant discrepancy between public reporting and intelligence community products. He introduces an image, referred to as the “Syria Dome UAP,” associated with the event, and mentions that internally, the intelligence community labeled it as an UAP. Corbell emphasizes the importance of transparency and accurate reporting, pointing out that what is publicly disclosed differs from the information shared among allied nations within the intelligence community.

Corbell posts on X (formerly Twitter), “In a joint operation, a Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jet engaged an unidentified aerial vehicle using an Advanced Short Range Air to Air Missile (ASRAAM). Initial media reports labeled the unidentified as a ‘hostile drone’ – however – internal intelligence products officially classify the aerial vehicle of unknown origin as a UAP – and maintain this designation. The UAP was not recovered.”

Liberation Times writes, “According to Corbell, the Five Eyes report was published months after the incident occurred and indicates that on 14 December 2021, an RAF Typhoon jet shot at one UAP using an ASRAAM missile. At the time, the incident was reported as the first enemy aircraft shot down by the RAF since the Falklands War in Argentina more than 40 years ago.”

Corbell continues, stating that Centcom (United States Central Command) has been tracking UAP for over 15 years, and the frustration lies in the lack of proper reporting and handling of these incidents within the chain of command. He notes that in conflict zones, there is a tendency to shoot at anything within a certain proximity to ground troops or bases, especially if it appears to have a payload. However, the issue arises in the lack of recovery or proper handling after such engagements.

Further, in the episode, Corbell reveals the image of an object that he called the “Syria Dome UAP.” He says, “This image… is the one that was historically fired upon. It is referred to as a ‘terrorist drone,’ exhibiting a peculiar appearance. Whatever it may be, it is classified as a UAP within the intelligence community. This is not something that has been identified.”

Corbell notes that there were two of these unidentified devices, and when the Royal Air Force engaged with them, firing an Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM), one of the objects managed to evade and escape the scene. Corbell emphasizes the intelligence control exhibited by these objects, suggesting that they were not under random or autonomous flight.

Corbell admits uncertainty about whether the fired missile hit the object or if it made contact with the ground. He underscores the discrepancy between the public narrative, which presented the incident as involving a terrorist drone, and the internal classification within the intelligence community, where it is recognized as a UAP. The point is reiterated that the public is not receiving the full and accurate information about these encounters.

He told Liberation Times: “Unless observed with a possible payload, UAPs largely go ignored, as they are not part of the mission – this means that we lose the opportunity to study the phenomena and answer key questions, including 1) Who are the operators 2) Where do they originate from 3) How do they work? And 4) What is their intent?”

“I can confirm that there is frustration within the ranks of the U.S. military that UAPs with unique flight characteristics are being ignored. Worryingly, this critical information is not being reported up the chain of command properly – causing vulnerability to our troops and those of other nations.”

Previously on the Joe Rogan show, Corbell claimed that based on information from documents, the military fires upon UAPs within a certain proximity to ground troops, typically within 27 to 30 miles. The decision to engage is reportedly based on the perceived threat, with the military firing upon objects that appear to have a payload. The text also mentions that UAPs resembling cubes surrounded by spheres are not targeted, as they do not appear to have a payload.

Corbell suggests that the military has been firing Hellfire missiles at these UAPs, and there are reports of similar actions by countries like Russia and Syria. The text raises questions about the origin of these UAPs, as they are not believed to be assets of the countries engaging with them. Some UAPs are described, such as one resembling a jellyfish about the size of a coffee table.

“One of the UAPs that was fired upon looked like a jellyfish, about the size of a big coffee table, and domed. There is no known retrieval program in these war zones, and even if they did hit something, it’s unknown if they would be able to take it down. It’s possible that these UAPs could be balloons used by drug smugglers, but they have controlled flight, which is not a new phenomenon. There have been similar sightings of metallic spheres outpacing planes during World War II, with both sides thinking it was the other side’s technology.”

A while ago, Lue Elizondo, the former head of AATIP shared his thoughts on the UFO/UAP and how the Pentagon approaches the phenomenon from strictly national security perceptive. In an interview with Curt Jaimungal and Sean Cahil, Elizondo provides deeper insight into the Pentagon’s theories on why UFO/UAPs are routinely spotted around American, Russian, Chinese, and other nuclear-armed nations’ most secretive and sensitive nuclear assets.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

09-01-2024 om 23:49 geschreven door peter  

Allow me to start with a confession: although the topic of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, previously called UFOs) has always fascinated me, my reaction to confronting much of the related literature—beyond the safe harbour of a few serious authors—has been one of considered dismissiveness. In my view, a significant portion of the published material could benefit from greater rigor, empirical grounding, theoretical clarity, and logical reasoning. This field often appears to diverge from the standards of intellectual precision and level-headed analysis that hold in academia. However, recent developments over the past six or seven years invite us to re-examine the subject from a more open and inquisitive perspective.

Because there are so few—if any—consensus launchpads for such a polemical topic, I must explicitly justify each step of my thinking and, thus, cover a lot of ground in this long essay. I shall start, below, by motivating the validity of the mystery: UAPs are no longer just tall and questionable tales shared on social media, accompanied by grainy, out-of-focus cellular phone footage. Enough has been officially acknowledged since 2017 that the topic is now undoubtedly deserving of serious treatment. After laying foundations for my argument, I will then proceed to elaborate on what I currently consider to be the most level-headed and plausible account of the phenomenon. And to anticipate a question you are bound to be already asking, no, I don’t think it is aliens from Zeta Reticuli; the facts may be a lot more surprising and closer to home than that.

SURPRISINGLY MUCH HAS RECENTLY BEEN DISCLOSED

In 2017, several videos of UAPs—soon to become known as the ‘Pentagon UFO videos,’ as they were recorded by infrared cameras in military aircraft—were circulating widely on the Internet. At around the same time, the story behind the videos was covered in a now-seminal report by The New York Times.

The videos seem to show airborne craft without wings or engines, flying and hovering deliberately, sometimes against high winds. They perform maneuvers despite the absence of flight control means—no rudder, elevators, ailerons, thrusters, etc.—and display surprisingly high acceleration with no detectable means of propulsion. The US Department of Defence later officially acknowledged the authenticity of the videos, as well as the fact that the objects visible in them remain unidentified.

Years later, in the summer of 2023, US Navy pilots involved in these incidents provided public testimony to Congress, under oath, adding detail and background to the odd images. Asked whether the UAP he saw with his own eyes moved in a way that defied the laws of physics, Commander David Fravor replied: “The way we understand them [i.e., the laws of physics], yes.” He then confirmed that the UAPs were not only captured on camera, but also tracked by radar from three different vessels: “The Princeton tracked it. The Nimitz tracked it. The E2 tracked it.” Asked to describe how the UAP maneuvered, CDR Fravor said, “Abruptly, very determinant. It knew exactly what it was doing. It was aware of our presence and it had acceleration rates—I mean, it went from zero to matching our speed in no time at all.” Finally, asked if any human technology could emulate the UAP’s flight characteristics he observed, he said: “No, not even close.” Navy F-18 pilot Ryan Graves—another military witness giving sworn testimony—described a UAP sighted from 50 feet away as “A dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere,” something that cannot be conflated with a drone or ordinary aircraft.

Still in 2023, United States Air Force officer and former intelligence official David Grusch became a UAP whistle-blower. In interviews with various media outlets, he claimed that several defense officials had confirmed to him that the US government maintains a secretive UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program, and is in the possession of several technological craft with Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) provenance.

Mr. Grusch, too, provided sworn testimony during the congressional UAP hearing of July 2023. Asked whether the US has the bodies of the pilots of the recovered UAPs, he said: “As I have stated publicly already … biologics came with some of these recoveries.” Pressed on whether these “biologics” were nonhuman, he confirmed without ambiguity: “Nonhuman, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.” Mr. Grusch understands that the penalty for lying under oath is jail, and offered several times during his testimony to confidentially—as required by law—provide specific details to lawmakers.

Mr. Grusch, Mr. Graves, and CDR Fravor are far from alone. In recent times, other individuals in a position to plausibly be privy to what the US government knows about the subject have come forward. For instance, oceanographer and retired US Navy Rear Admiral Timothy Cole Gallaudet has acknowledged having seen footage of UAPs while on active duty. Some of these UAPs have displayed the capability to go underwater (the so-called ‘transmedium’ capability described often in UAP reports). He has also expressed his belief that Mr. Grusch’s claims are true. Recently retired US Army Colonel Karl E. Nell—currently an aerospace executive—along with Christopher Mellon, who spent nearly twenty years in the US Intelligence Community and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Intelligence, have lent credibility to the claim that there are active UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs. Defence Intelligence Agency Programme Manager Dr. James T. Lacatski did the same, in a book officially cleared for publication by the Defence Office of Prepublication and Security Review of the US Department of Defence.

Up until 2017, the profitable UAP rumor mill was fed mainly by ‘anonymous sources,’ filmed with their faces and voices concealed, and telling vague stories largely impossible to verify independently. Even when one of those anonymous sources eventually identified himself—Mr. Robert Lazar—his credentials and even college education could never be verified. This has changed now: the names and credentials of the individuals mentioned above are not in doubt; they are who they say they are. And their ranks and roles put them in a position to plausibly know what they claim to know. These individuals are willing to testify under oath in public hearings and confidentially provide evidence to members of Congress. All this, while not proving that UAPs are of exotic origin, does lend credibility to UAP speculation. 

Even the former head of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office of the US Department of Defence—Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, a man widely reviled in the UAP community as a prejudiced gatekeeper working against UAP disclosure—has made very consequential revelations during an official NASA press briefing: there are seemingly metallic spheres out there that, somehow, move and maneuver without any signs of propulsion or flight control surfaces. He proceeded to show a declassified video of one such a sphere, as recorded by an MQ-9 ‘Reaper’ military drone, one of the most sophisticated sensor platforms in the world today. The sphere shown moves fast, in a controlled, non-ballistic trajectory. Dr. Kirkpatrick then stated that this is just “a typical example of the thing we see most of; we see these all over the world.” That the spheres are described as making “very interesting apparent maneuvers” is significant, as it rules out balloons and ordinary drones. That they are seen frequently and all over the world also rules out elaborate, expensive hoaxes.

Prejudiced gatekeeper or not, Dr. Kirkpatrick has thus officially acknowledged that there are concrete UAPs “all over the world,” for which there is no prosaic account thus far. They have been recorded by a variety of military-grade sensors, not just cell phones. That Dr. Kirkpatrick’s revelations have not become headline news in every mainstream media platform across the world is emblematic of the apathy and cynicism—the ‘don’t-look-up syndrome’—that has been assailing Western societies in recent years.

CROSSROADS

As a culture, we’ve thus reached an impasse. On the one hand, the meager amount of data that has been declassified or leaked isn’t enough for us to derive any firm conclusions regarding the nature of the phenomenon. On the other hand, enough has been begrudgingly but officially acknowledged that we can’t dismiss the phenomenon under prosaic accounts either. The best we can do is thus to take the data seriously, but not extrapolate from it without basis.

In this spirit, I submit to you that the following tentative premises are justifiable: firstly, there is an engineered technology in our skies and oceans that is not human. The counterargument to this is, of course, that UAPs may be top-secret but very human military devices, often called ‘black technology.’ Yet, this seems to contradict much of what has been disclosed since 2017. The following passage from the testimony of CDR Fravor to Congress illustrates the point: Representative Ms. Nancy Mace asked, “Many dismiss UAP reports as classified weapons testing by our own government. But in your experience as a pilot does our government typically test advanced weapons systems right next to multimillion-dollar jets without informing our pilots?” To which CDR Fravor responded: “No. We have test ranges for that.”

Moreover, if UAPs such as the metallic spheres were black technology the US Department of Defence were trying to keep secret, it is hard to imagine why Dr. Kirkpatrick—an official of that very department—would publicize their existence and even declassify a video showcasing their size, form, flight capabilities, etc. Also, the fact that UAPs often seem to defy our understanding of physics doesn’t line up with the black-technologies hypothesis, as it would require not only the engineering to be secret, but also the very advancement of the human understanding of physics. This isn’t impossible, but isn’t very plausible either. Finally, it is difficult to imagine why such game-changing black technologies—which would have to have been around for at least as long as the UAP phenomenon itself—were never used in large and conspicuous scales to advance the geopolitical interests of any nation.

Secondly, if there is non-human technology in our skies and oceans, then there must be Non-Human Intelligences (NHIs) active on our planet, engineering and controlling the UAPs. This does not imply that the NHIs are extra-terrestrial; it means simply that they aren’t human.

As implausible as these two premises may sound in this particular historical junction, the data, if taken seriously, does not seem to allow for prosaic alternatives. So whatever hypotheses we entertain, they will perforce stretch our credulity. Indeed, to insist on prosaic explanations we must disregard the data. The latter is not necessarily invalid—it isn’t incoherent to imagine that all the data are the spurious fabrications of some sprawling disinformation campaign stretching over decades—but it certainly doesn’t advance the discussion. It thus seems more productive, at this point, to bite the bullet of what the data suggests—at least hypothetically—and then check whether we can make sense of it in a manner that renders the data less vexing.

Before we can try that, however, we first need to understand the key characteristics of the phenomenon we are trying to account for.

THE HALLMARKS OF THE PHENOMENON

Although the disclosure process is relatively young, having publicly started only in 2017, the phenomenon itself seems to be at least as old as humanity. Ancient mythology, religious and otherwise, contains narratives largely consistent with today’s UAP observations. And serious researchers—the most prominent, competent, and reliable of which, in my view, is French astronomer and computer scientist Dr. Jacques Vallée—have been collecting data on it, applying statistical analyses to such data, and deriving conclusions from such analyses for decades now.

Two key conclusions from Dr. Vallée’s work are particularly pertinent to our challenge here. The first is that, based on countless witness reports, the phenomenon does not seem to make any distinction between physical and psychological effects; it produces both, as if they were mere facets of one and the same causative mechanisms. The boundaries we draw between the mental and the physical don’t seem to be observed by the phenomenon, which transits casually back and forth across the dividing line. Dr. Vallée acknowledges the undeniable physical aspect of the phenomenon—it can be filmed, tracked by radar and other sensors, emits measurable energy, often leaves physical footprints and vestiges behind, etc.—but adds that at least part of what the witnesses experience is “staged”: the UAP sometimes evokes archetypal, symbolic imagery directly in the witness’ mind to convey a feeling-laden metaphorical message, which transcends the objectively measurable characteristics of the phenomenon.

Though Dr. Vallée had already come to this conclusion decades ago, recent investigations into secret US Department of Defence programs on UAPs, by journalist Ross Coulthart, seem to confirm it (see pages 265-267 of Mr. Coulthart’s 2021 book, In Plain Sight). Stanford Professor Dr. Garry Nolan, perhaps the most respectable scientist to actively research the phenomenon, acknowledged Mr. Coulthart’s reporting on the matter. He went on to recount a specific UAP case that illustrates, perhaps better than any other, the UAPs’ ability to directly manipulate human perception: “[this is a] story that Jacques Vallée brought to me, of a family in France, driving down the highway. This was like in the last five or ten years [from June of 2022]. And they had a glass-topped car. They look up and they see a UFO, you know, basically paralleling them down the highway. The mother looks around and sees that no other individuals nearby are freaking out about this thing above them. The children in the back take out their cell phones, take a picture of it. They get home and they look at the pictures on their camera, and they don’t see an object [of the kind they thought they had witnessed]; they see a little star-shaped thing about thirty or so feet above, and I have the picture. That doesn’t look anything like a drone. … I think it has like seven spokes and a central hole of some sort. So, you’re left with this: they saw a giant craft, but the picture shows that it was nothing [like it] there. Nobody else could see it. So, even if it was an object that was there, others weren’t capable of seeing it, so it was manipulating vision” (my emphasis).

behavior of UAPs is not consistent with the extra-terrestrial hypothesis (see chapter 9 of his book, Dimensions). Dr. Vallée estimated that, in a period of just twenty years, there have been about three million UAP landings. This is not consistent with visitations by beings from another planet for the purposes of surveying the Earth or researching its inhabitants (orders of magnitude fewer visits would have sufficed for these purposes); instead, the UAPs’ behavior is precisely what one would expect if they were from here—and were simply going about their business. After all, there are many rare—and some not-so-rare—animal and plant species that human beings encounter a lot less frequently than 150.000 times per year, and they are undeniably terrestrial. In his interview with Mr. Coulthart, also Dr. Nolan expressed the view that UAPs are not extra-terrestrial.

TWO DISTINCT PHENOMENA?

Although the two characteristics discussed above generally apply to most of what we colloquially label ‘UAP,’ ‘UFO,’ or ‘alien’ encounters, there are reasons to entertain the possibility that we are dealing with at least two distinct phenomena here. If so, it is crucial that we do not conflate the two, otherwise, any viable account of one phenomenon may be discarded merely because it is not suitable for—or even contradicts—the other, leading to an insoluble impasse.

One clearly discernible class of observations, which I shall henceforth refer to as ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAPs, entails physical craft that can not only consistently be seen, filmed, and tracked by radar, but also—if we are to believe Mr. Grusch’s informants and other sources in a position to plausibly know—stored in hangars for decades, drilled into, analyzed under a scanning electron microscope, etc. The bodies of their occupants can also—again, if we are to believe the sources—be kept in freezers and harvested for biochemical analysis. This means that the phenomenon in question has a physical aspect as consistent and stable as our own body and the car in our garage. Moreover, these ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAPs are more frequently observed in the proximity of military exercises and installations, particularly nuclear installations (this has been the case for decades, the recent Pentagon UFO videos simply reiterating the pattern). They don’t seem to be interested in teaching us anything, but simply in monitoring human activity that could lead to large-scale destruction and compromise the planet’s habitability (incidentally, this is exactly what one would expect if the NHI in question is terrestrial).

Unlike the above, another class of observations entails encounters in one’s bedroom, at school, during one’s commute back from work, and other ordinary, random situations unrelated to military activity. These are the so-called ‘high strangeness’ events, encompassing the ‘alien contactee’ and ‘alien abduction’ cases. The craft and beings observed don’t have a consistent physical aspect but are, instead, elusive, appearing and disappearing, taking on an absurd variety of incongruous forms and behaviors. They leave either none or scarce, ambiguous physical traces, such as spontaneous nose bleeds, ordinary cysts found in places where the witness claims to have been implanted with alien technology, marks on the ground consistent with a variety of causes, and so on. This ambiguous physical evidence is better described as synchronistic—i.e., coincidental in a meaningful way—as opposed to causal. The observations are elusive, illogical, and shapeshifting like a dream. They seem focused on a form of deliberate, symbolic communication with the witness, aimed at conveying a teaching of some kind, as opposed to arising from chance encounters. Like a vision, they can’t be photographed.

I am not dismissive of this ‘high strangeness’ class of observations. As a matter of fact, I have written an entire book—Meaning in Absurdity—in which I try to account for it. I believe these visions are real as such; they are part of a natural feedback mechanism intrinsic to the human mind, which seeks to dislodge it from ossified worldviews that, despite having become stable, no longer serve the advancement of our understanding of ourselves and nature. The visions in question emerge from collective, phylogenetically ancient layers of the human mind shared by all of us, which, for being incapable of language and conceptual reasoning, communicate to the executive ego through dream-like, immersive metaphors. They should be taken seriously, just not literally.

But I do not think that the ‘high strangeness’ phenomenon is the same as the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAPs. Conflating the two, in my opinion, may make it impossible to account for either, as no one account will be consistent with the sometimes mutually contradictory characteristics of both. For this reason, and because I have explored the ‘high strangeness’ phenomenon in previous work, I shall henceforth exclusively discuss the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAP phenomenon.

IF TERRESTRIAL BUT NOT HUMAN, THEN WHO?

The idea that the intelligence behind the UAPs is terrestrial and ancient is itself not new. Dr. Hal Puthoff calls it the “ultra-terrestrial” hypothesis. He raises the possibility that remnants of a pre-Diluvial high-tech human civilization—think of the Atlantis myth—may have survived at the end of the last ice age and remain active today, though discreet in their activities.

The problem with this hypothesis is that any truly high-tech civilization—unless it has moved underground very early, which may not be plausible due to difficulties related to the space required for industrial and logistical infrastructure, difficulties with waste management and pollution, etc.—leaves vast and long-lasting footprints on the terrain and environment, such as mining holes, landfills, urban infrastructure, artificial pollutants such as microplastics, etc. These footprints, though degraded, would have remained conspicuous enough over the period of only several thousand years since the last ice age. Yet, we find no such traces predating our own civilization.

Because high technology development requires—at least at first—extensive industrial infrastructure, any ancient civilization capable of technology as advanced as that in UAPs will almost inevitably have had to go through steps of industrialization and resource extraction analogous to ours, and then some. It will have had to go through phases of urbanization, mining of metals and burning of hydrocarbons, the construction of vast industrial parks, logistical/transport infrastructure, and so on. If the intelligence behind UAPs is terrestrial, it will thus need to be ancient enough for the associated footprints to have been almost completely erased by natural weather and geological processes. Yet, it will also need to be recent enough to already have had access to fossil hydrocarbons to fuel the early stages of its industrialization process. Are these seemingly conflicting constraints reconcilable?

They are, as per the so-called “Silurian Hypothesis” first proposed by Gavin Schmidt and Adam Frank in a 2018 paper on the International Journal of Astrobiology. The idea is as follows: our planet has existed for about 4.5 billion years, with life on it for about 4 billion years. The genus Homo, to which we belong, has been around for less than 3 million of those 4 billion years; the blink of an eye in geological terms. And modern humans—Homo sapiens—for just 2 or 3 hundred thousand years. There is, thus, plenty of time and opportunity for other non-human species to have arisen on Earth, developed to a level of technology far beyond ours (imagine where our own science and technology will be in a mere thousand more years, if we don’t kill ourselves before that), and then to have effectively vanished due to one or more of the myriad possible civilisation-ending cataclysms that could end our own (climate change/collapse, comet/asteroid impact, pandemics, solar storms, thermonuclear war, etc.).

Any sign of abandoned urban and industrial infrastructure is unlikely to survive a period of only a few million years, due to weather erosion. Synthesized chemicals, alloys and other compounds, technological artifacts, as well as terrain signatures such as mining holes, are ultimately unlikely to survive the constant recycling of the Earth’s crust through plate tectonics. What is now the Earth’s crust will eventually sink into the molten asthenosphere and mantel beneath, where it will be reforged, just to eventually re-emerge through volcanic activity as a brand-new crust. As a rough estimate, if we assume an average plate movement of a few centimeters per year, it could take only tens of millions of years for large swathes of the Earth’s crust—especially the ocean crust but, to a more limited degree, also the continental crust—to be recycled in this manner. No conspicuous remnants of an ancient, technological, nonhuman civilization would likely survive all this.

The question now is, when were fossil hydrocarbons first available in large enough quantities to fuel the initial growth of an ancient industrial civilization? Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Frank estimate that this was already the case in the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago, which leaves us with a window of hundreds of millions of years for industrial NHIs—multiple different ones—to have developed on Earth.

Notice that my claim here is not that it is likely that high-tech nonhuman civilizations have emerged on Earth before us; I cannot evaluate the probabilities involved. My claim is that, based on what we know, such civilizations are not impossible or inconsistent with the geological record. On the contrary: as Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Frank point out, the record shows several periods of global warming consistent with large-scale industrialization.

Now, since we cannot visit an NHI city today, it is necessarily the case that, if such ancient terrestrial civilizations ever existed, they have largely died out—at least as far as the surface of the planet is concerned. This, however, is not implausible: as we know from our own case, civilizations can start, reach high-tech levels, and then be annihilated in a mere few thousand years. Indeed, although our civilization is still going, we are painfully aware of how easily and quickly it can be brought to a swift end tomorrow, in a thermonuclear war, asteroid impact, climate collapse, or a more deadly pandemic than the one we have just survived, etc.

Yet, it is unlikely that all members of our species would die in a planetary catastrophe. There is a good chance that few but enough of us would survive in shelters and preserve a minimum level of knowledge to keep some of our technology going, especially if we get some advance notice of the impending doom. In as little as a decade or two from now, for instance, we will likely have mastered the technology of small-scale, portable, clean nuclear reactors that can be buried in a backyard (or a cave) and provide effectively unlimited energy. Portable 3D printing technology is reducing our reliance on centralized, large-scale manufacturing facilities. Our computers, which were once the size of buildings, now live in our pockets. If we extrapolate these trends for another mere century or two, it is reasonable to imagine that technological miniaturization and portability will allow our civilization to survive at a reduced scale in, for instance, underground shelters. It is thus not unreasonable to imagine, purely speculatively, that the same could have been the case for ancient NHIs hypothetically behind today’s UAPs.

Any culture once exposed to the magnitude of a planetary catastrophe will have a historical trauma transmitted down the generations through myth and storytelling, similarly to—but much more acutely than—how flood stories have survived since the end of the last ice age. Such a culture will be wary of the planet’s surface, for the latter is a notoriously exposed and volatile region: it undergoes far more extreme temperature swings than, say, the deep oceans and underground caves; it is prone to severe weather that can ruin crops and flood entire cities; it is exposed to irradiation from solar storms and other cosmic events, which can ruin technology and life; it is extremely vulnerable to comet and asteroid impact, as the dinosaurs found out; etc. And since such a post-apocalyptic culture would have been reduced to relatively few members, their requirements for living space would also be relatively modest. Depending on the surviving level of their technology, they could have made a home for themselves underwater or underground. A few generations of (directed) adaption—genetic and cultural—to such an environment would render the planet’s surface perhaps as alien and inhospitable to them as the Mariana Trench is to us. They would be okay with allowing the monkeys to run amok on top of the roof (provided that the monkeys don’t start a thermonuclear war and compromise the entire house), but would rather stay safely indoors.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WEIRD MIND MANIPULATION STUFF?

Science fiction has inculcated in our culture the notion that communication with another, completely different species is a matter of translation or word-swapping; something akin to what we do to convert Chinese text into English. Indeed, we now have a completely manufactured sense of the plausibility of such an idea. But it is naïve.

Ordinary translation presupposes two important things: a shared cognitive structure (templates of thinking) and shared empirical references. The latter is easy to see: if both you and I have already had the experience of seeing and driving a car, then to understand each other we just need to learn what word the other uses to denote that experience. However, things are more subtle when it comes to shared cognitive structures, as they operate based on abstractions, not direct empirical experiences. For instance, think of the concept of ‘flow’: it can be used to denote a concrete empirical experience, such as watching a river flow. But it is also used in much more abstract ways: we say that ‘time flows’ even though we can’t see time, let alone its flow; we speak of the ‘flow of ideas’; we say that ‘we are in the flow’; and so on. ‘Flow’ is an abstraction that refers to sequential, somewhat ordered changes of state, something entirely bound to our human mode of cognition. To understand ‘flow’ one needs to share the basic cognitive templates that gave rise to the concept in us to begin with. Without these shared templates, it is impossible to merely translate the word.

All humans share these basic cognitive templates by the mere fact of being members of the same species. In other words, we think alike because we are alike. Some linguists—such as Noam Chomsky—go as far as to say that the basic structure of all human languages, which he refers to as the ‘Universal Grammar,’ is biologically encoded in the human cognitive system. Although Chomsky’s opponents argue that language is merely invented and shared by convention, it is still necessarily the case that the underlying foundations of whatever is invented reflect cognitive modalities the inventor shares with all other members of their species. It is this commonality that enables what we call ‘translation’ across human languages, and we tend to take it entirely for granted.

But NHIs, by definition, don’t share such commonality with us. After all, they belong to a different species. Their cognition will almost certainly unfold with vastly different patterns and modalities. Even their logic may bear little resemblance to our own Aristotelian axioms. Moreover, their cultural context is bound to be entirely different from ours, leading to different empirical references: originally, they may not have had a cognitive category for, say, ‘car’ or understand the concept of a wheeled vehicle (for instance, if they are an aquatic species). It is naïve to expect that NHIs could learn our language as easily as a Chinese person can learn English. The underlying cognitive structures and references won’t line up; why should they?

Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that we and NHIs can never communicate. What it does mean is that achieving this feat will require an effort to enter each other’s cognitive inner space—literally. In other words, before they could communicate with us, they would have to gain direct access to, and manipulate, our abstract mental processes. This is not something that can be casually achieved in the way I can pick up Italian during a holiday.

You will be closer to appreciating the difficulties if you think of whales: we know they have a language that scores higher in some relevant measures of complexity than our own. Yet, we can’t translate ‘Whalish’ into any human language, even though whales, just like us, are air-breathing, breast-feeding mammals.

To really appreciate the difficulties we have to go beyond whales—close relatives of ours—and imagine that, say, praying mantises—ancient insects much less related to us than whales—would have some form of language, and that we would try to communicate with them. Now we’re getting closer to the mark, for the cognitive templates and inner logic of insectoids are bound to be very largely incommensurable with ours. The challenge here is not mere translation; to speak ‘Insectoidish’ one would have to enter the cognitive space of insectoids—i.e., enter their mind.

Intellectual-level communication between more advanced terrestrial NHIs and us will require direct access to our cognitive processes. They will have to directly modulate our own abstract references and modes. In other words, they will have to convey their ideas to us by prompting our own mind to articulate those ideas to itself, using its own conceptual dictionary and grammatical structures. And because their message—a product of their own cognition, incommensurable with ours—is bound to not adequately line up with our grammar and conceptual menu, this articulation will perforce have to be symbolic, metaphorical; it will have to point to the intended meaning, as opposed to embodying the intended meaning directly, or literally.

There is plenty of clinical precedence for this in the literature of depth psychology. Analytical Psychology, for instance, maintains that the deeper, evolutionarily ancient, instinctive layer of our mind, for not having the language capabilities of the executive ego, speaks to us in dreams and visions through symbols, and metaphors. It can’t tell us in English, for instance, that time is flowing while we procrastinate, prompting us to act. So it may, instead, trigger and modulate a dream in which we, say, accidentally drop our backpack in a fast-flowing river and watch helplessly as it floats away. If the deeper layer of our mind, for being phylogenetically primitive, is incapable of articulating the conceptual abstractions ‘time,’ ‘flow,’ and ‘procrastination,’ it can still point symbolically to its intended meaning; it can still confront us with imagery that evokes the same underlying feeling—a sense of urgency—that would have been evoked by the statement, “time is flowing while you procrastinate.” This is what intellectual-level communication looks like when the interlocutors do not have commensurable cognitive structures. And this is how we may expect NHIs to communicate with us, if they have the technology required to reach directly into our minds and manipulate our cognitive inner space.

Notice the similarity between this and the ‘high strangeness’ class of observations: both entail symbolic communication by means of direct manipulation of our inner cognition. In the latter case, the communication is between deeper and shallower—primitive and modern, respectively—layers of our mind, taking place naturally and spontaneously. In the former case, the communication—likely mediated by technology—is between an NHI and a human, taking place in an artificial and deliberate manner. But both are metaphorical, akin to dreams and visions. This similarity is part of the reason why we feel tempted to conflate the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ and ‘high strangeness’ classes of observations.

In conclusion, I submit the hypothesis that, when UAPs manipulate our perceptions during an encounter, they are, in fact, attempting to communicate in the only way they can. Analogously, if you are hiking on a remote trail and come across a wild bear—another terrestrial species with a cognitive structure different from ours, which we encounter by chance as they go about their business in their own habitat—the bear, too, will communicate with you in the only way it can: through meaning-evoking body posture and sounds; and you will even understand it. The difference is that UAPs are better, more nuanced, and more sophisticated at the task.

HOW CAN WE CONFIRM THIS HYPOTHESIS?

For every useful, truly scientific hypothesis, there must be an experiment or a passive observation under controlled conditions that can either confirm or contradict it. As we’ve seen in the foregoing, the hypothesis in question is that the NHI—or NHIs—behind the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAP phenomenon is(are) ancient but terrestrial. We’ve discussed the characteristics of the phenomenon that motivated the hypothesis to begin with: (a) the frequency of UAP encounters, which suggests that they are from here and we meet them as they go about their business, just as we meet a bear in a trail; and (b) their interest in human activities that may jeopardize the habitability of this planet, such as nuclear installations and military exercises. But these characteristics aren’t conclusive. So just what could be conclusive?

If it is true, as Mr. Grusch claimed in his testimony to Congress in July 2023, that the US government has “biologics”—that is, the bodies of crashed UAP pilots—then a biochemical analysis of these biologics, if not conclusive, would at least be very indicative of whether they are terrestrial or not.

All terrestrial life we have studied in detail thus far, despite their drastic morphological differences—think of the differences between an amoeba, a praying mantis, and a cat—share the exact same biochemistry: they have two-stranded DNA with sugar-phosphate backbones and four nucleobasis (cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine) that form two possible base-pair configurations. Despite their extreme morphological differences, all terrestrial life thus looks the same when observed ‘under a microscope with sufficient magnification,’ so to speak.

Yet, the functions performed by this very specific biochemistry are multiple-realizable: there are many other conceivable ways in which these functions could be performed based on different biochemistry. The fact that all life we’ve studied thus far shares such specific biochemistry means simply that we all have a common ancestor dating back to an abiogenesis event: the rise of life from non-life. That event has defined the biochemistry we have all inherited. But it could just as well have been quite different; there is no a priori reason why biochemistry must be the way it is in us.

Indeed, a different event of abiogenesis—there is no a priori reason why life must have arisen from non-life only once on Earth either—could have set a different biochemistry; one still capable of storing the organism’s body plan, of constructing the organism’s building blocks (proteins, in our case), of metabolizing, and of passing the organism’s body-plan to the next generation via reproduction; yet one different from ours. This is acknowledged in biology in the hypothesis of a “shadow biosphere”: there may, in fact, be organisms on Earth with biochemistry different from ours, because they may be descendants from a different abiogenesis event; we haven’t detected them yet because we haven’t done a detailed biochemical analysis of most organisms on the planet.

If even terrestrial organisms, which arose and evolved on this very planet, could have biochemistry distinct from ours, it stands to reason that organisms evolved on another planet, with different environmental conditions and chemical composition, are very unlikely to have the exact same biochemistry we do. That would require an implausible coincidence of literally cosmic proportions, even under the assumption of convergent evolution at the level of the phenotype (i.e., body form).

Therefore, if the biologics in the freezers of the powers-that-be have the same biochemistry we do, I believe it is safe to assume that they are terrestrial; they are our older cousins—likely forever traumatized by earlier planetary cataclysms—and certainly not aliens.

Another prediction of the ‘ultra-terrestrial’ hypothesis is this: the materials—say, the metals—used in the UAP craft should have isotope ratios compatible with an earthly origin, as opposed to one outside the solar system. If the powers-that-be are in possession of such craft, this shouldn’t be a difficult test to perform.

Together, the two test results suggested above, if mutually consistent, should be conclusive.

CONCLUSIONS

The hypothesis I put forward is that, if the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ UAP phenomenon and the Non-Human Intelligence(s) behind it are real, they are unlikely to be extra-terrestrial. Instead, they may consist of remnants of industrial, technological NHIs that evolved on Earth up to 350 million years ago. We cannot find conspicuous archaeological or geological footprints of such civilizations because, according to the so-called ‘Silurian Hypothesis,’ not only weather erosion but also the regular recycling of the Earth’s crust through plate tectonics, erase them. The anthropocentric notion that nothing intelligent has arisen on our planet in the billions of years for which no conspicuous evidence would have remained on the geological record is unjustified. There has been plenty of time and opportunity for many technological, industrial, but non-human civilizations to have arisen and disappeared from the surface of the Earth.

Though I understand that many may consider this hypothesis disturbing at some level, it does not require anything fundamentally beyond natural processes we know to exist: we know that intelligent life can arise on this planet, given its environmental conditions; we know that industrial civilizations can arise, develop, and go extinct in a period no longer than a few thousand years, which is the blink of an eye at a geological scale; we know that our own technology today would have looked like magic to the Great Goethe, only 200 years ago; we know that intelligent species that evolved the ability to act according to an abstract ethical code can operate under a policy of non-interference towards less evolved life (just think of human wildlife researchers); and so on. The present hypothesis requires nothing more than the foregoing. As such, there is nothing unnatural or truly extraordinary about it. If it violates our sensitivities, then this informs us about our sensitivities, not about the plausibility of the hypothesis in a naturalist framework.

Notice, however, that the hypothesis proposed here presupposes the UAP data disclosed thus far to be authentic, and not the result of a sprawling disinformation campaign. In the latter case, the key motivations and empirical ground for the speculations in this essay would be void, and the hypothesis should be disregarded in its entirety.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

I am very grateful to Dr. Hal Puthoff, Dr. Garry Nolan, Rob van der Werf, and Paul Stuyvenberg for the generous feedback provided on earlier drafts of this essay. 

• Bernardo Kastrup is a Dutch philosopher, computer scientist, and the executive director of the Essentia Foundation. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and another in computer engineering, and has worked as a scientist in some of the world’s foremost scientific laboratories. His main interests are metaphysics and philosophy of mind. He lives in Veldhoven, Netherlands. This essay originally appeared on Kastrup’s personal website. 

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

07-01-2024 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

Discovered 2-Min Footage Of ‘Phoenix Lights’ & Arizona Man Who Filmed Huge Solid UFO Vanished

During the early 1980s, numerous people reported sighting colossal, sluggish V-shaped crafts silently hovering through the night sky above the Hudson Valley in New York. On March 13, 1997, a massive and noiseless aircraft was witnessed by thousands of people throughout Arizona, Nevada, and northern Mexico in the “Phoenix Lights” event.

While there are conflicting reports, some people claim that there were two distinct groups of lights amalgamated into one incident, but the majority of observers claimed to have seen an immense, silent object that was either V-shaped or triangular, gliding low over the area. According to a Rocky Mountain Poll conducted at the time, as well as the commotion that ensued, around 10% of Arizonans claimed to have witnessed the incident.

Despite the United Air Force’s identification of one of the groups of lights seen as flares dropped by A-10 Warthogs during training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range, Arizona’s then-governor Fyfe Symington firmly believed that he saw something entirely different. In fact, he was a witness to the incident himself and later informed reporters of his stance.

“I witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona. It was truly breathtaking. I was absolutely stunned because I was turning to the west looking for the distant Phoenix Lights… (Source)

As a pilot and a former Air Force Officer, I can definitively say that this craft did not resemble any man-made object I’d ever seen. And it was certainly not high-altitude flares because flares don’t fly in formation.”

Former Director of The Pentagons UFO Program (AATIP), Luis Elizondo explained many people are confused about the flares from the A10s, but the lights were a separate event and were witnessed by hundreds or thousands of people at the same time. There is a theoretical technology that if you can master it, all 5 observables (what we see the UAPs doing) are possible. If you know how to manipulate spacetime, all of these observables are possible. (Source)

Although there are many accounts of witnessing the Phoenix lights, Tim Ley and his family had a close look at the object hovered over the city in the V-formation. Ley, his wife Bobbi, and their son Hal saw a massive V-shaped object with five lights slowly and silently flying over their heads. The craft was so large that it spanned the entire length of the street.

For Tim Ley and his family, the experience was life-changing. They had never imagined they would witness such a bizarre and unexplainable phenomenon, and it has left an indelible mark on their lives. They continue to share their story, hoping that someday, the truth about the Phoenix Lights will be revealed.

We watched these lights, and I’d say the time it took from when we first spotted them until this thing actually went over a house was about 10 or 12 minutes. This thing never wavered once; it always came directly straight at us.

After a few minutes, maybe six or eight minutes, all of a sudden, instead of being five lights in a round arc shape, the lead light seemed to come out in front, and now it looked like a V formation flying towards us. I remember talking with Bobby as we were watching it, saying, “What could that possibly be?”

I said, “Well, maybe it’s a formation of helicopters.” But as the lights were getting further and further apart, the relationship between the lights never changed. They got further apart, but the individual distance between the lights always remained in the same relationship. They were perfectly even, and they didn’t move up or down. I said, “Wow, if this is a formation of aircraft, whoever’s flying this, I don’t know how they’re staying so tight in formation.”

And this last light came down and Bobbi and I were just standing there, and it went right over us. It looked like this big circular hole of pure white light. It looked… almost like little particles of light, and the light was stuck up inside. It was almost like it was being held inside.

There was no glass on it, and there was no light that I noticed around us on the ground, but it was really, really, really bright. Then the tail end of this thing went by like that, and I saw a very absolute sharp edge went by, and as it did, the stars unfolded after it.

We live up and about probably about 1200 feet above sea level. We’re in a little valley above Phoenix, and surrounded by this valley are like little mountain peaks. And there’s this one, two peaks, and in the middle of it, a little hill. This thing went right through the crack in the mountain.

It flew right through there, didn’t go over the top. It just barely fit. It was in such a way. Now it was probably just going straight because now I could see the lights from the backside underneath. It went out straight over towards the airport, right to the right side of peak, and then I lost the lights in the whatever lights were flying around in the atmosphere disturbance.

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Video Evidence

Below is the only known video recorded on March 13, 1997, around 8:30 PM that shows the V-shaped object (according to user Tom King). The video was captured by a man in the AZ area who wants to stay anonymous.

As you are watching the video, you can see one of the lights falling back from the group. This was reported by various people of the lights undocking and going out of formation. This happened during the video taken in Carefree, Arizona. That was also reported from Prescott, AZ.

Moreover, a man named Richard Curtis, who witnessed the incident and had compelling evidence, reached out to Councilwoman Frances Barwood from Arizona. However, after encountering MIB and exposing the incident to the media, he disappeared.

Frances Barwood, a member of the city council, opened an investigation into the incident. Since the military and local authorities had already managed to claim that the lights seen by the eyewitnesses were only flares, her coworkers thought her behavior was ludicrous.

Barwood received a call from Richard Curtis a few months later. He said right away that he had extremely detailed footage of the Phoenix Lights despite being an injured former soldier. He claimed that he had personally captured them using high-quality equipment. (Source)

Phoenix city councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood sits in her north Phoenix home with a copy of The Arizona Republic which touts “UFO Mania” on its front page June 20, 1997. Barwood didn’t see the lights, but many people called her about them demanding an explanation.

(AP Photo/Scott Troyanos, File)

Since the majority of the Phoenix Lights video footage up until this point had been merely specks of light on a dark background, Barwood was intrigued by this message. Curtis agreed to provide copies of the footage to Barwood’s office after she urged him to do so. However, days passed, and she did not receive films either by mail or by courier. “I thought he made this up. He didn’t have video, you know, all this stuff,” she said.

A week later, Curtis telephoned Barwood at her house and inquired about her thoughts on the films. Barwood informed him that she had not received them and expressed her amazement. Curtis continued by telling her that following their phone call, two men from her workplace stopped up at his home.

Curtis inquired if they were from Barwood’s office, and upon receiving confirmation, they asked about the Phoenix Lights videos, specifically questioning if Curtis had made copies. Curtis denied this and they offered to make copies for him themselves. He then gave them his videos and they departed in a black sedan.

Barwood was shocked to hear about the incident, as all her staff workers were female and she had no knowledge of the men. Curtis was angry and felt misled by the authorities. He spoke about the strange encounter and how the “Men in Black” took his videos in an interview with Phoenix TV.

Richard Curtis disappeared after supposedly taking a faulty medication and being transported to the hospital. There were no records of his admission, and when a professional checked Barwood’s phone lines, he confirmed that they were tapped by the government. This was surprising to Barwood, as authorities claimed the Phoenix Lights were just flares. Curtis’ disappearance became a major UFOlogy case, the second biggest one after Roswell.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

05-01-2024 om 21:54 geschreven door peter  

Tom Delonge Has UFO Secrets That Kept Him Up For 3 Nights: ‘These Beings Have Been Around Forever’

There are many things happening within the UAP phenomenon. With the recent Mexican UAP hearings, the entire world has come to learn about how governments worldwide are earnestly investigating this phenomenon. It is not solely about alien objects flying at supersonic speeds; the UAP phenomenon is intricately connected to our reality. Such like-minded individuals as Jacques Vallee and Michio Kaku propose the existence of other dimensions, also known as parallel universes, coexisting alongside our own reality. Within these dimensions, it is plausible that there are beings or entities living alongside us, despite our inability to perceive them.

Interestingly, Tom DeLonge, the former lead vocalist and guitarist of the popular band Blink-182, has always had a keen interest in UFOs. He has spent many years researching and studying the topic. He has even formed a company, To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (or To The Stars) to investigate and promote research on UFOs and other related phenomena.

DeLonge even paid a visit to Rome with former Pentagon UFO official Luis Elizondo, where they discovered shocking details about the 2004 Sicily UFO attack. His “To The Stars” is behind publishing the three footages (captured in 2004 and 2015 by the US Navy) that were released in 2017 and 2018. They depict UFOs and include audio recordings of the pilots. These videos gained a lot of attention when they were released.

Tom’s fondness for UFOs began at a young age. As a child, he was fascinated by stories of alien encounters and sightings. He used to spend hours reading books and watching documentaries about unidentified flying objects and was particularly interested in the 1947 Roswell crash. Furthermore, his research led him to conclude that UFOs are not only real but that they have alien origins. He believes that there is a wealth of evidence to support this conclusion, including reports of sightings and encounters, as well as physical evidence such as radar tracks and photographs.

In this podcast with Dr. Brian Keating, Tom DeLonge shared several insights and personal experiences related to his involvement in UFO research. He was asked by TOE host Curt Jaimungal what it was that kept him up for three days.

DeLonge at first hesitates to delve into this topic but continues to talk about his communication with Jim Semivan (who is a co-founder of TTSA) and their unique way of thinking. Tom notes that Semivan and others have taught him how to analyze information more critically and avoid jumping to conclusions. They emphasize the importance of forming patterns and analyzing data over time.

Tom then touches on the idea of not fully grasping the stakes involved in the UAP phenomenon. He explains that initially, he struggled to accept the reality of it, despite encountering videos and books on the subject. He emphasizes the importance of verifying the authenticity of such evidence, especially when it comes to videos with a chain of title traced back to the Department of Defense (DOD).

“That’s why it was so important with the ones we brought out had chain of title all the way back to the DOD. So we knew those were real, it wasn’t just like it was on YouTube and leaked. So it’s, it’s the idea of bringing for things that you know, where they come from, and and you really take it from that point forward, and start getting really good data and evidence on people’s encounters, and the stakes that come with that. And that when when I’ve talked about this, as a threat, you know, this, that’s just my words, right? I mean, I would never know the way that government treats that that’s not my zone, obviously.

But for me, in my own personal research, if something’s been here for a long period of time, and it really is showing up in people’s bedrooms, or in front of an F 18, or on a petroglyph wall, or in an ancient text down in archives of the Vatican, or whatever it might be, it’s obviously doing something. And it’s obviously having an influence, and it might only be an influence on where we end up as mankind, or it might be an influence, to keep us suppressed in a weird way to where they can take advantage of something, who knows, um, but it’s here for a reason. And it’s not really being, you know, forward about its intent. But we do know that we’ve been dealing with it for a long period of time.”

Tom then recalls a personal experience when he had a meeting with a couple of generals in Colorado Springs. During the discussion, they talked about things that people were experiencing or witnessing related to the UAP phenomenon. This conversation left him feeling uneasy and made him question the safety of his environment, similar to how his religious mother might feel if she encountered something that contradicted her beliefs. He emphasizes that the phenomenon’s impact becomes more significant when it is perceived as real rather than just a belief.

He shares his personal belief that as humanity advances in its understanding of consciousness and the UAP phenomenon, it will merge metaphysical consciousness science with conventional science. He suggests that this merging might lead to a more harmonious coexistence of various religious beliefs, as the core principles of many religions focus on the individual’s connection to a higher consciousness. Tom hopes that instead of crumbling, religions will adapt and find common ground in this new understanding of reality.

“You know, I look at the taskforce report, and I look at what’s going on now. And if I if there was such a thing, like bodies are great After whatever, um, and they’re so advanced, and they’re somehow influencing the, you know, mankind and the way we are engineered to evolve or something crazy. I mean, because I look at us now it’s like, first we, we got into the biology of our bodies, and then we got deeper and we got into like, you know, DNA and what that’s doing. And every time we master parts of the body and parts of, you know, the world, we see and touch and feel like, what’s the next thing?

Well, I think the next thing is going to be discovering consciousness, and then we’re going to go how do we manipulate consciousness? And how do we capture it? And how do we are you know, so I’m kind of thinking of this, these beings have been around for so long, they must be in, they must be so far beyond like, wondering about our DNA, or wondering about like, what our spleen does, I think it’s going to be probably unnerving, probably complicated, probably a lot that we don’t know. And so the idea of the government just coming out and saying, Hey, look, what we got, before they know what it is, doesn’t make any sense to me.”

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For some reason, Tom could not boldly speak about what he had discussed with those generals that kept him up for three days. In the same context, the case of former NASA researcher Ed Harris might shed some light on what Tom was trying to say.

Ed Harris claimed that serious researchers on the subject believe the story of former President Jimmy Carter crying after being briefed about classified UFO information to be true. According to the story corroborated by multiple witnesses, the U.S. presidents are given only a brief overview of the subject by the CIA, and presidential curiosity is not considered a sufficient need to know. (Click here to read the full article)

After being repeatedly stonewalled, Carter was given “the talk,” which reportedly left him deeply sobbing and visibly disturbed for weeks. He was told that major religions, including Christianity, were created by extraterrestrials to prevent humans from destroying themselves while they ran experiments on us, and that they made us. Carter, a deeply religious man who had witnessed a UFO with six other people, realized that releasing such information could cause tremendous economic and social upheaval.

Richard Dolan also covered this incident in his book, “UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed.” He wrote that President Carter was given a UFO briefing at the White House on June 14, 1977, which he was then bound to secrecy about.

Astronomer Jacques Vallée developed an alternative hypothesis that UFOs are part of a mechanism for controlling mankind. He is one of the few people who added credibility to the UFOlogy. When others called the UFO encounters a hoax, Vallée explained it scientifically. During his interview in 1986, he said that UFOs are a “physical object that interacts with the environment that causes effects on the witnesses on the psychology and the physiology and leaves traces on the ground and yet are capable of appeared to be manipulating time and space in ways that go beyond what our physics understands.” (Click here to read the full article)

Dr. Vallée argued that when investigating a UFO encounter, the focus should be on the witness, how he/she interpreted the event, and how it affected their life (he noted that many people tend to emotionally react to a UFO sighting as a spiritual or religious experience).

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

05-01-2024 om 17:45 geschreven door peter  

Original UFO Photograph From 1942 Battle Of Los Angeles That Was Sold On eBay

On February 25, 1942, around 2:30 in the morning, the people of Los Angeles were abruptly awakened by air raid sirens. The city was instructed to blackout and prepare for a possible attack. Searchlights illuminated the sky, searching for enemy aircraft. Eventually, the lights converged on a single object, causing frightened citizens to step outside to observe. The sky was filled with hundreds of explosions and smoke as the Battle of Los Angeles began.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the entire west coast of the United States was on high alert. Blackouts and curfews were common, and rumors circulated about Japanese battle groups invading the coast and enemy spies infiltrating the population. The Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, warned that American cities should be prepared for enemy attacks.

On February 23, 1942, a Japanese submarine off the coast of Santa Barbara fired 25 explosive shells at an oil field, causing minor physical damage but sending a clear message that America’s coast was vulnerable to attack at any time.

In the early morning of February 25, a radar station picked up a strange object in the sky over the Pacific about 200 miles from Los Angeles. By 2 am, two other radar stations confirmed the object, now only 120 miles off the coast, and headed directly for the city. At 3 am, the object was reported to be 25 planes flying at 12,000 feet, just off the coast of Santa Monica.

Suddenly, the object vanished from the radar. The city was ordered to blackout, and anti-aircraft batteries were loaded and ready to shoot on sight. Visual sightings continued, with some reporting one large ship and others multiple aircraft in formation. Anti-aircraft explosions lit up the sky as shrapnel rained down on the city for the next hour. The object eventually disappeared over Long Beach, and the situation was already under control by 4:14 am.

The incident was front-page news along the West Coast and across the nation. Over 1400 high-explosive shells and countless 50-caliber rounds were fired, but there was no evidence of any downed aircraft or bombs. Shell fragments damaged several buildings and vehicles, and five civilians died as an indirect result of the anti-aircraft fire: three were killed in car accidents in the ensuing chaos, and two heart attacks attributed to the stress of the hour-long action.

The Battle of Los Angeles has been the source of numerous UFO sightings, with some of these reports coming from credible military sources. Project Blue Book investigated over 12,000 UFO sightings between 1952 and 1969 and was able to explain most of these sightings, but the object over Los Angeles in 1942 remains unsolved and unexplained. Despite numerous investigations and explanations, some still question what was fired upon that night.

Out of the 12,000 cases, there are still 701 unsolved, unexplained objects documented in Project Blue Book. Of the 700 cases, the object over LA in 1942 remains unexplained.

The most logical explanation for the LA object was a Japanese air attack, although 250 anti-aircraft guns filled the sky with explosions and shrapnel, there were no confirmed hits or downed targets. After the war, the Japanese military claimed they had no aircraft in the area at that time.

A local police officer claimed he saw two planes shot down, but there was no evidence of that on the ground. Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt, said it was just a false alarm and an overreaction due to jitters, but the army disagreed. They said the alert was absolutely real, and the army report said that as many as 15 planes might have been involved flying at various speeds and altitudes.

Despite the numerous military reports of something in the sky, skeptics say it was just jitters, but what about the eyewitness accounts and the three separate radar hits? The supporters of the UFO theory say the radar hits are absolute proof of a UFO, but it is important to note that radar technology in 1942 was not perfect.

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• Leaked UFO Footage Shot In 1968 Smuggled By Journalist George Knapp From Russia

Upon asking his opinion on the UFO sightings, Major Donald Keyhoe said, “With all due respect to the air force, I believe that some of them will prove to be of interplanetary origin. During a three-year investigation, I found that many polishes have described objects of substance and high speed. In one case, the polish reported their plane was buffeted by an object which passed them at 500 miles an hour. Obviously this was a solid object that I believe was from outer space.”

However, the famous photograph of the object over LA has been discovered to be doctored and possibly retouched. One can see the searchlights converging on something in the sky that is shaped like a saucer or football. However, the photo was enhanced and possibly retouched.

Image credit: David Marler

This was a common practice in the past to make photos more visible in newsprint, but the original photo was very different. It was underexposed and barely showed anything except for the faint lights. It was previously thought the original negative had been lost, and the one in the LA Times photo archives is not the original. The LA Times could not track down the original after working with investigators.

Interestingly, UFO researcher David Marler presented an original photo of the object over LA at the 2017 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference. He has actively investigated and researched the subject for 32 years. He joined The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in 1990 as a Field Investigator Trainee. (Source)

The story of how Marler got the original photo is really interesting. He claimed he bought it on eBay back in September 2012. The famous photograph was possibly not taken by an LA Times photographer, and the source of the original negative is in doubt. If it didn’t come from the LA Times, where did it come from?

Marler claimed that he traced it back to the Associated Press. So, all the photographs of 1942 objects over Los Angeles on the internet are doctored image published by the LA times. The authenticity of his photo can be confirmed after Ben Hansen, a former FBI agent, showed him a clip he shot with Simon Eliot, Archivist of the LA Times Collection at UCLA, where Eliot showed Hansen the original negative that an LA Times photographer did not take.

Below is the explanation given by David Marler:

“This is the original negative, and I’m viewing it as a positive because it just plays havoc with your eyes when you’re looking at things in reverse. So I wanted you to be able to see what the actual original image before it was doctored looks like. Here you can see all the writing on the side of the negative and again that typical notch pattern that’s not typical for the LA Times. If we blow this up, here’s what we’re looking at. This right here, and you can see these little blobs of light. These are all anti-aircraft explosions captured at the moment the photographer clicked the shutter…

I know what the original photos look like and the characteristics they need to have. One interesting thing is that not only is it a photo, but on the back, it has a stamped property of Associated Press dated February 25, 1942. I have other examples to show you from the collection that have the original news teletype glued to the back with one of the original descriptions of the event.

Here’s a blow-up and it’s very blurry, but there is a note to the editor dated February 25, 1942. This means that it was published that morning in preparation to be disseminated across the newswire as an Associated Press photo. It says ‘caution, use credit if you use this photo.’ I have many other similar photos, so I know the characteristics to look for.

The original news teletype says ‘Associated Press Photo, not LA Times.’ It says ‘caution, use credit from Los Angeles, how any aircraft barrage looked to Los Angeles.’ This picture shows how the early morning anti-aircraft guns shooting shells into the sky appeared to the average Los Angeles resident who got up to watch it. The small round white dots were made by the exploding shells.

Many people thought that a slow-moving object was the target of the guns, but hours later, the army still had not identified it. And again, Associated Press Photo, February 25, 1942. This is a nice piece of history to have in regards to the case.

Now we’re talking about a case that is 75 years old this year, and I think it’s interesting because as UFO researchers, we can never close a case unless we can rule out the possibility of a prosaic explanation. If you have an open case and you know it’s not a satellite or aircraft, it’s truly an anomalous case, and you can never close it.”

Some people claim that the object was shot down by the ordinance in the air that night, but others believe it was just a weather balloon that anti-aircraft gunners launched. There are reports of planes, bombers, and a crashed aircraft in the middle of the city, but the government claimed that it was likely shrapnel and burnt embers from exploding shells.

Dr. Robert Wood, an aerospace engineer who worked for Sikorsky, Hughes, McDonald Douglas, and Lockheed, believed there was a cover-up and exposed secret government projects. After retiring, Dr. Wood researched and exposed the Majestic 12 and other secret government projects. He received five leaked documents about the Battle of Los Angeles; at least one has been authenticated.

One of the documents is a memo between FDR and George Marshall, the army’s chief of staff. It is dated one week after the incident. It reads, “This headquarters has come to the determination that the mystery airplanes are not of earthly origin and according to secret intelligence sources, they are in all probability of interplanetary origin.”

However, the government denied the memo, and Dr. Wood only received photocopies, not originals, so there is no way to test the paper to authenticate them as genuine. Nevertheless, this case, 80 years later, remains unsolved, and if there was a flying object in the skies above Los Angeles in February 1942, it remains unidentified.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

04-01-2024 om 22:11 geschreven door peter  

Former US Army Colonel Warns Of Catastrophic UFO Disclosure That May Spark 

Are we on the verge of a catastrophic UFO disclosure? The year 2023 has witnessed significant progress in bringing the UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) matter to the attention of the United States Congress. Pentagon whistleblower David Grusch has dominated discussions throughout the year. His testimony before Congress has raised numerous questions about the secrets the U.S. government has allegedly kept since the dawn of UFO sightings. Grusch is convinced that the world has been kept in the dark about this phenomenon for the past 80 to 90 years.

In November 2023, the Daily Mail published a bombshell story discussing the impending UAP Disclosure. Retired US Army Colonel Karl E. Nell was invited to a Stanford University conference to present a “campaign plan” aimed at achieving greater transparency. He also discussed a “Manhattan project,” dedicated to reverse-engineering recovered UFOs/UAPs.

During the conference, Nell showcased slides indicating his hope for disclosure by October 1, 2030. In the slides, he argued his plan, if achieved, would see “Proper Oversight Restored,” “Catastrophic Disclosure Avoid,” and “Scientific Understanding Advanced.” More specifically, Nell advocated for “restoration of proper Federal government oversight over all UAP legacy (and ongoing) program efforts” and “transformative” research and technology programs.

Daily Mail information was based on the first-ever symposium of the new nonprofit Sol Foundation, a group that wants serious research into UFOs and their effects on the world. In 2004, in response to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s decision not to release classified information about UFOs due to the perceived threat to national security, the Sol Foundation was formed.

At this meeting, both Colonel Nell and a former CIA scientist named Hal Puthoff spoke. Puthoff said that in 2004, these important groups chose not to share information about UFO research with the public. Among the Sol Foundation’s other speakers were former U.S. Air Force veteran David Grusch, who testified before Congress earlier this year under oath that “the U.S. government is operating with secrecy—above Congressional oversight” over UAP.

Grusch told the symposium: “Let us advocate for transparency, not for ourselves, but for the generations to come, as we embark on a journey toward a more enlightened and interconnected world.”

Grusch has the support of many individuals in authority who believe he is an authentic person. In the June 2023 edition of the Debrief, authors Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal mention Karl Nell, the retired Army Colonel and aerospace executive who worked with David Grusch and characterized Grusch as “beyond reproach.” Nell speaks highly of Grusch’s integrity and credibility in his role as the Army’s liaison for the UAP Task Force from 2021 to 2022.

Grusch left the government on April 7, 2023, in order, he said, to advance government accountability through public awareness. He remains well-supported within intelligence circles, and numerous sources have vouched for his credibility.

“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence,” Karl Nell said.

Ross Coulthart’s insights into UAP disclosure present a compelling narrative, suggesting that there’s more to this phenomenon than meets the eye. With mounting pressure from various quarters, including politicians and the media, the quest for truth regarding UAPs seems poised to intensify in the coming days.

The urgency for UAP disclosure has persisted for a very long time. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the third CIA director, wrote to Congress in 1960, pleading for UFO disclosure. This confirmed a cover-up and a government disinformation campaign aimed at ridiculing and stigmatizing the topic. (Source)

Perhaps Hillenkoetter’s best-known statement on the subject was in 1960 in a letter to Congress, as reported in The New York Times: “Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.”

In his interview with NewsNation, journalist Ross Coulthart shed light on the Office of Global Access (OGA), a key entity where much of the coordination regarding the retrieval of unidentified crafts seems to be happening. He emphasized the seriousness of the matter, stating, “You’ve got to have an office to coordinate the retrieval of these craft.” While some may dismiss these claims as mere science fiction, his recent interactions with credible intelligence sources have solidified his stance that operations related to UAPs are steered from within the CIA and OGA.

However, the scale of this phenomenon might be more extensive than what has been previously reported. Ross refuted claims that the U.S. only possesses nine such crafts. “I’m told that the United States has far more than nine craft,” he remarked, indicating that not all of them are intact. He further elaborated that JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) operators, primarily sourced from t he US Air Force special forces, are actively involved in retrieval missions.

A significant revelation from Ross’ sources is the recovery of what he terms as “biologics” — in simpler terms, Non-human Bodies. He shared, “We have recovered what David Grush euphemistically referred to as biologics. Alien bodies, non-human bodies.” This raises pressing concerns about the extent of knowledge the U.S. government possesses regarding non-human life forms.

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Ross expressed fears of a potential “catastrophic disclosure” if the government remains tight-lipped. He believes that withholding such crucial information from the public and Congress might lead to unforeseen consequences. He stated, “I think it’s incumbent on the president and members of the executive to start thinking seriously,” emphasizing the urgency of the matter.

When posed with alternate explanations, like the involvement of foreign adversaries, Coulthart was quick to debunk such theories. He clarified that the evidence and statements from government officials indicate that these phenomena are not associated with known foreign technologies. This assertion raises eyebrows and places the focus squarely on what exactly the U.S. government knows but is not sharing.

Ross pointed out the notable shift in stance by certain senior Republican politicians. He questioned their motivations behind opposing legislation that seeks transparency regarding non-human intelligence technology. Coulthart’s skepticism was evident when he questioned, “If this is all nonsense, why would somebody of the incredible reputation and seniority of Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio, associate themselves with legislation that specifically talks over 20 times about NHI nonhuman intelligence technology?”

Danny Sheehan has been publicly pushing for the disclosure or revelation of information related to UAPs. In other words, he believes that there should be more transparency from governments or other relevant authorities about these unidentified phenomena.

In his other interview with James Landoli on “Engaging The Phenomenon,” Sheehan, who was a former Chief Council for the United States Jesuit order, revealed intriguing details about his conversations with the head of the Vatican archives regarding the Vatican’s knowledge of extraterrestrial life. Sheehan shed light on his involvement in a groundbreaking initiative to address the theological and philosophical implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence.

During the interview, James raised the topic of David Grusch‘s claim that the Vatican possessed knowledge of extraterrestrial phenomena. Sheehan discussed his access to the classified files of the Project Blue Book, where he encountered photos of UFO crash retrievals and concrete evidence of non-human piloted vehicles.

He proposed the formation of a task force involving all 54 major religious denominations to address the issue from a theological perspective. However, at that time, there was insufficient consensus, and the proposal was declined. Sheehan is currently working through his New Paradigm Institute to organize a global summit conference involving world religious leaders to discuss the recent recovery of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

“The United States government is in possession of biological evidence and has actually taken into custody alive an extraterrestrial person. They’re keeping this secret, interrogating the being, and distorting the information to justify massive expenditures on weapon development under the guise of a perceived threat.”

– Daniel Sheehan.

Sheehan highlighted the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He referenced a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church on November 10, 2009, authorized by Pope Benedict. The statement, issued by Father Jose Gabriel Alfuz, a director of the Pontifical Observatory in Rome, recognized the increasing discovery of exoplanets and called for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological implications of the imminent discovery of extraterrestrial life.

Sheehan disclosed that the government was telepathically interrogating the extraterrestrial biological entity (EBO) in custody. Despite acknowledging the bizarre nature of the revelation, Sheehan stood by the credibility of the information, having interviewed individuals directly involved in the process. The EBO allegedly conveyed that a coalition of star systems in our galaxy monitors the evolution of life on different planets, including Earth.

“Pope Benedict had a formal statement issued by the Catholic Church, saying that with the discovery of more exoplanets, it has become clear that we will be discovering life elsewhere in the universe. This prompted the need for a global discussion on the philosophical and theological questions posed by the discovery of extraterrestrial life.”

– Daniel Sheehan.

Meanwhile, Lue Elizondo expresses support for efforts to increase transparency around UAPs. He indicates that there are ongoing efforts behind the scenes to achieve this transparency and that even if certain official channels face challenges or opposition, there are alternative methods and backup plans in place for disclosure. Elizondo emphasizes the importance of understanding the vulnerabilities and challenges faced in these efforts, suggesting a comprehensive strategy is in play.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

04-01-2024 om 21:08 geschreven door peter  

Stanford Prof. & US Navy Vet’s Claims Might Prove Wilson-Davis UFO Memo Is Authentic

Somehow, these documents found their way into the public domain after they were discovered in the files of the now deceased Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell. These 15 pages of notes describe Admiral Wilson’s discovery of a deeply classified program to study extraterrestrial technology.

During this alleged conversation, Admiral Wilson tells Eric Davis about a series of programs that he discovered hidden deep within the black project’s records of the Pentagon that were actively involved in attempts to reverse engineer a recovered craft that they believed could operate in air, sea, space or perhaps even in other dimensions. The program manager concluded that the craft was not man-made.

The claims have been hotly debated among ufologists but never corroborated. The DIA director at the time, Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson has reportedly denied it all. Numerous national security experts and researchers have also dismissed it as a hoax. (Source)

But one of the other primary individuals cited in the document, astrophysicist Eric Davis has not directly addressed it in public, only fueling suspicions that there might be something to it. And Davis alluded to the possibility of some of the claims contained in the alleged memo as recently as last year in an interview in The New York Times.

Key Witness

Jay Anderson, a founder of Project Unity has recently interviewed Oke Shannon, whose name is mentioned in the documents multiple times. Shannon confirmed that “what was said about him in these notes is accurate, further proving that the conversation between Admiral Wilson and Eric Davis did indeed take place, and they really did discuss the reality that a recovered, non-human vehicle, is being studied in extreme secrecy by a shadowy, quasi-governmental working group that is evading standardized oversight, operating outside of the reservation of government control,” wrote Anderson.

Oke Shannon is a US Navy Veteran and a physicist. He was the manager of all Special Projects at Los Alamos National Labs, one of the highest funded and most secretive US Government Research Facilities in the United States.

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• Ex-Pentagon Scientist, Vallée & FBI Report Suggest Interdimensional Beings Exist Among Us
• Ex-CIA Officer Encoded True UFO/Alien Information Into Novel, Another CIA Vet Confirmed
• US Navy Chilling Underwater UFO Encounters Might Prove Aliens Hiding Under Ocean

Below is a transcript of the conversation held between Oke Shannon (OS) and Jay Anderson (JA) discussing the Wilson-Davis Memo: (Source)

JA: I think it’s important that we just get your side of this on the record so I would just like to be able to ask you first of all whether or not you personally know Dr. Eric W Davis.

OS: Yeah! I didn’t work with him day in and day out but I did work with him. I know him fairly well. (Shannon said he got to know Davis through mutual projects and mutual acquaintances.)

JA: Do you personally know Admiral Thomas R Wilson?

OS: Yes I do. Of course, I know of him but I read somewhere that his response was Oke who? and I thought that was kind of funny. I’m sure that my memory of him is stronger than his memory of me because he became a flag officer, and I went off.

JA: Did Admiral Wilson get in contact with you in 2001 or 2002 inquiring into the background and overall trustworthiness of Dr Eric Davis?

OS: Earlier than that. This was in 1999. I got this phone call and it was from Admiral Wilson. He wanted to know was could he trust Eric Davis. I mentioned that YES I believe that Eric Davis was an honorable and conscientious scientist and that he would honor any restrictions the Admiral might put on.

JA: One last question on these notes. I just wanted to kind of get it in a confirmatory statement. So, in these notes that were recovered from Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s estate that are a transcription of an alleged meeting that took place between Admiral Wilson and Dr. Eric Davis. It’s mentioned within the trust a transcript of their conversation that you were difficult to get in touch with at the time you were in poor health due to heart conditions and were not easy to get hold. So this is true in of itself you were struggling with that?

OS: Yeah so it was difficult to get in touch with and I might add to that I’m still difficult to get in touch with.

During 2022 US Congress hearings on UFOs, Rep. Mike Gallagher asked Ronald Moultrie, the top Pentagon intelligence official, and Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence, whether they were aware of an unverified 2002 document known as the “Wilson-Davis memo.” (Source)

“There’s nothing we can offer or help out with on your request,” a spokesperson for the federal think tank said. As for Moultrie and Bray, they told Gallagher that they were unfamiliar with the Wilson-Davis document. The fact the document was even broached — and then entered into the official hearing record — was shocking to those who have followed the saga.

However, not many would be satisfied with the Pentagon’s response to Rep. Gallagher on the Wilson-Davis leak. There is another expert named Dr. Gary Nolan, a Stanford Professor who claimed that the documents are “genuine.” He told investigative journalist Ross Coulthart that he knows Eric Davis and that he would not lie. “You know Eric is the kind of character that it’s just impossible for him to lie,” Nolan added.

Nolan asserted that the document was ultimately leaked. “Why would Eric Davis lie about writing something that he never intended to go public in the first place? He was just doing what an intelligence agent does on a regular basis which is write reports of what it is that they’ve been doing,” he said.

Davis, who is now a senior project engineer at the government-funded The Aerospace Corporation, worked on the Pentagon’s secret UFO program AATIP. He also said that some of the materials taken from the found UFOs have so far been unidentifiable. “We couldn’t make [the materials] ourselves,” Davis told the Times. (Source)

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03-01-2024 om 01:28 geschreven door peter  

EXCLUSIVE - Retired US Army Colonel says secret UFO projects should be made public by October 2030 - to beat America's rivals and get ahead of a 'catastrophic' leak

• The revelations came amid an invite-only UFO gathering at Stanford University
• But many at the exclusive event worried UFO disclosure may spark social unrest
• READ MORE: CIA's secret office has conducted UFO retrieval missions on at least NINE crash sites around the world, whistleblowers reveal

By MATTHEW PHELAN IN PALO ALTO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Nearly two decades ago, a think-tank in Washington D.C. invited past and present government officials from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon and elsewhere to debate the risks of revealing the truth about UFOs.

The 2004 event — according to a former CIA scientist who went public with the shocking story Friday — broke into working groups to weigh the positive and negative ramifications of declassifying America's top secret UFO programs. 

Every working group according to that scientist, Dr. Hal Puthoff, came back with the same conclusion: the societal risks of UFO 'disclosure' were just too great. 

But now, a host of Washington insiders are calling for a strategic 'campaign' to drag these alleged UFO reverse-engineering programs out into public view.

The Sol Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to exploring the broad implications of what are now called 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' or UAP, convened its first ever symposium Friday, sponsored by Stanford University's School of Medicine 

Sol's lofty goal, as described by its chief operating officer - the now famous UFO whistleblower and US Air Force and intel veteran David Grusch - is to 'open ourselves to a future where truth, unity, technological advancements and a deeper understanding of our existence converge'

The pivot emerged this weekend at an invite-only conference of former government officials, tenured physicists and other academic researchers, activists and reporters, held at Stanford University and attended by DailyMail.com.

The most explosive moments from the UFO event — the first ever symposium of the new nonprofit Sol Foundation, which is dedicated to exploring the broad implications of what are now called 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena' or UAP — came from recently retired US Army Colonel Karl E. Nell.

On Saturday, Col. Nell called for a 'UAP campaign plan' to compel transparency as well as 'a Manhattan Project' to successfully reverse engineer recovered UAP craft.  

His stated goals, as heard by DailyMail.com at the event, were nothing less than broad transparency on covert UAP programs 'on or before conclusion of the decade.'

In a later slide, Col. Nell projected his strategic hope that so-called 'disclosure' on the UAP issue would be complete by October 1, 2030, although he admitted his timeline targets were 'at risk' of falling behind.

The Sol Foundation's lofty goal, as described by the now famous UFO whistleblower and US Air Force veteran David Grusch, was to 'open ourselves to a future where truth, unity, technological advancements and a deeper understanding of our existence converge.' 

Grusch delivered the concluding remarks for Sol's first ever symposium Saturday night, via a remote live video feed. 

'Let us advocate for transparency, not for ourselves,' Grusch told the assembled attendees, 'but for the generations to come, as we embark on a journey toward a more enlightened and interconnected world.'

Ahead of his alarming and explosive UFO testimony to the House Oversight Committee last July, Grusch submitted a C.V. to Congress listing his current job title as the Sol Foundation's chief operating officer — but a spokesperson for Sol told DailyMail.com that this was, at least, 'not the case now.' 

'The Sol Foundation does not currently have a C-Suite. There is no COO or CFO,' Matt Barbet, who helps represent Sol on behalf of its contracted PR representation Freuds, wrote via email. 'This may have been incorrectly shared previously.' 

Last June, Col. Nell staked his own reputation to Grusch's public testimony on UFOs, calling the UFO whistleblower 'beyond reproach' and vouching for Grusch's allegations of a secret, decades-long and illegal UFO crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program.

But the most explosive moments from Sol's two-day symposium came from retired US Army Colonel Karl Nell (left). Col. Nell called for a 'UAP campaign plan' to compel transparency as well as 'a Manhattan Project' to more successfully reverse-engineer recovered UAP craft

Col. Nell (above) called UFO whistleblower David Grusch 'beyond reproach' when Grusch's allegations of a secret, decades-long and illegal UFO reverse-engineering program became public in June. He said he wants to avoid 'catastrophic disclosure' on UAP initiated by a US rival

Col. Nell was one among a host of Washington insiders at Sol calling for a strategic 'campaign' to drag these alleged UFO reverse-engineering programs out into public view. He expressed the hope that the general public would compel their representatives in Congress on the issue

In one slide (above), Col. Nell projected strategic hopes that 'disclosure' on the UAP issue would be complete by October 1, 2030, although he admitted his timeline targets were 'at risk' of falling behind. Col. Nell was previously a 'modernization advisor' to Army Futures Command

Ahead of his testimony to the House Oversight Committee last July, Grusch submitted a C.V. to Congress listing his current job as Sol's COO - but a spokesperson for Sol told DailyMail.com that this was 'not the case now.' Early data on Sol's non-profit status listed Robovision founder Jonathan Berte as the foundation's CFO. Per Sol, this is apparently also not currently accurate

Geneticist Dr. Garry Nolan, whose Stanford lab houses some of the world's most precise equipment for measuring the atomic and molecular structure of physical samples, is a co-founder of Sol and its executive director.

The group's sweeping mission statement, according to its website, is to develop policy around the believed 'broad consequences' of UAP 'for the future of science, technology, economy, politics, law, religion, culture, and all other human institutions and endeavors.'

To that end, the group's other co-founder, Peter Skafish, is an anthropologist focused on the social implications of humanity's potential (or already occurring) encounters with the 'non-human intelligences,' which Grusch has said pilot these UAP.   

Due largely to Dr. Nolan's efforts, the Sol Foundation event was sponsored by Stanford University's School of Medicine. 

Col. Nell's comments raised eyebrows among attendees, in no small measure because of the senior army official's final military posting.

Col. Nell was a 'modernization advisor' to the Army Futures Command engaged in the 'most significant Army reorganization since 1973' — which has spearheaded the development of remote-operated and unmanned robotic combat vehicles, AI projects and other advancements.

In recent months, whistleblowers with knowledge of a classified UFO 'reverse engineering' program have opted to testify to the Senate intelligence committee, in part over their reported mistrust of the Pentagon's new UFO office, dubbed AARO. Above, a page from Project 1794 declassified in 2012

Nobel Prize nominee and CIA scientist Dr. Hal Puthoff, who worked in the government's 2008-2012 UFO program called AAWSAP, once told DailyMail.com that he had briefed Congress on classified information about UFO reverse-engineering programs

Chris Mellon, formerly with the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, told Sol he had recently spoken with someone still in the Defense Department. Mellon's source said that more revelations and more high-resolution images were coming soon

READ MORE:  Pentagon UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick will be REPLACED by end of 2023 as whistleblowers accuse him of lying to the public and ignoring witnesses

A candidate 'short list' has been interviewed to replace Dr. Kirkpatrick (above), current head of the US Defense Department's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), one ex-official told the DailyMail.com. The news comes as UFO whistleblowers, per one attorney, 'don't want to go to Sean's AARO' citing safety concerns. 'Really knowledgeable' UFO whistleblowers, 'people who've laid their hands on the equipment,' as this attorney aiding the whistleblowers told the DailyMail.com 'never did trust Sean' 

Col. Nell, now an aerospace executive, commanded at every grade level across decades of service including tours with the US Army Reserves, the DIA and US Space Command. 

From 2021 to 2022, Col. Nell was assigned as the Army's dedicated liaison to the Pentagon's UAP Task Force.

After apologizing for framing his recommendations to citizen UAP advocates in military terms, Col. Nell detailed tactical 'lines of effort' he hoped the public, government officials and scientists might execute, in parallel, as part of a collaborative effort to advance scientific understanding of UAP.

Perhaps most ambitiously, Col. Nell expressed the hope of direct 'engagement' with the 'non-human intelligences,' or perhaps extraterrestrial beings, piloting UAP sometime in the next decade — a new 'interactive' era of 'scientific discovery.' 

But, first and foremost, Col. Nell described his proposal as an effort to 'avoid catastrophic disclosure,' meaning a chaotic release of Earth-shattering revelations designed to sow discord, whether by independent actors or by one of the United States' foreign rivals. 

In an echo of the 2004 think-tank exercise detailed by Dr. Puthoff earlier at this Sol event, multiple speakers at the conference floated potential dangers that could arise from future revelations about allegedly secret UAP programs.

Belgian artificial intelligence entrepreneur Jonathan Berte, founder of Robovision, looked to the late 19th century Industrial Revolution to suggest that tech breakthroughs from UAP could actually worsen climate change. 

The discovery of oil during that period, Berte noted, actually led to a massive increase in coal mining, as older energy sources were pushed to their limits in an effort to build the hardware and equipment needed to exploit the new, emerging energy sources.

Berte suggested a similar Catch-22 could plague even the most utopian of new technologies or energy sources that may one day derive from UAP.

Early data on Sol's California non-profit status listed Berte as the foundation's chief financial officer, as posted to the site Bizapedia.com, although per Sol's spokesperson this is apparently not accurate.  

Another speaker, former Secretary of Defense for Intelligence official Chris Mellon, expressed similar worries about social unrest, economic turmoil and a possible international arms race that could follow further revelations on the UAP topic.

At one point, Mellon floated the possibility that 'disclosure' might change the behavior of UAP and whatever is controlling them, because they no longer have an incentive to hide and remain clandestine. 

He worried further about how governments might overreact, causing an aggressive response from UAP and their alleged occupants.

Nevertheless, he described himself as in favor of further UAP disclosure. 

Since helping leak three unclassified UFO videos to the New York Times in 2017 — sightings that remain unexplained to this day — Mellon has spearheaded efforts to compel the US government to investigate UFOs more seriously and more openly. 

The former DoD official challenged the idea that the measured 'controlled disclosure' described by Col. Nell could occur at all, attributing the current state of affairs to similar principled stands by activist-insiders.

In fact, Mellon said that he had recently spoken with someone still within the Defense Department and that more revelations and more high-resolution images were coming soon. 

'The US government is working on a declassification guide,' Mellon said, 'So with that there will be better imagery to be publicly released soon.' 

'Maybe not 100 percent in focus,' he added, 'but better imagery.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

31-12-2023 om 17:21 geschreven door peter  

Pentagon Hides 23-Minute UFO Video & UFO Photo 50 Feet From Cockpit, Elizondo Claimed

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30-12-2023 om 23:54 geschreven door peter  

Turkey Kumburgaz UFO Videos Are 100% Real With Clear View Of Alien Entities Sitting Inside Craft

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29-12-2023 om 23:33 geschreven door peter  

Journalist Said 2023 Alaska Object Was ‘Anomalous’; It Looked Like A Giant Tic-Tac

The series of events involving the US military shooting down multiple Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) in February 2023 has been staggering, particularly concerning the incident with an object detected over Alaska. When this object was intercepted above Alaska, the administration of the US president promptly ordered its takedown without hesitation.

LINKS RELATED VIDEOS

https://youtu.be/-BwQ0gpW0Ew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqIzm19ajNo

So, on February 10, 2023, a U.S. F-22 fighter jet successfully brought down the object, which was flying at an altitude of approximately 40,000 feet over Alaska. “We don’t know who owns this object,” said the White House spokesperson John Kirby, adding that it was unclear where its flight originated. The object fell inside the United States Territorial Waters. Mr. Kirby explained that those waters were frozen but still within American territory, implying that the recovery of the debris would be much easier.

U.S. Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, indicated that it was the size of a small car. According to him, the pilots who had been observing the object before it was shot down confirmed that there was no human presence on board. He further remarked that it lacked the ability to change direction and did not resemble any conventional aircraft. “It wasn’t an aircraft per se,” Ryder informed the media.

Interestingly, the pilots involved in the sighting gave inconsistent reports. Some stated that the object interfered with their plane’s sensors, while others did not experience this. Some also claimed that they could not discern any recognizable source of propulsion on the object and were unable to explain how it was able to remain afloat while cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

Alaska Object was “Anomalous”

On August 12, 2023, investigative journalist Ross Coulthart shared his thoughts at the Victorian State Library as part of an event called “Close Encounters Australia.” He talked for around two hours, including an hour-long Q&A session where he told the audience some interesting things he had learned about the Alaska shootdowns. (Source)

Coulthart wanted to be clear about something. He was not completely sure about the things he talked about. He thinks they are true, but he was not completely confident. He said: “I’m happy to be proved wrong, but it would be very very interesting to see an explanation from the White House.” What he found interesting is that some of the people he talked to, who know about defense and secrets, said that something weird happened in Alaska.

“Can you update us on the sphere and the US shootdowns from February?” This question was asked by someone in the audience, to which Coulthart replied, “On the balloons, we’re talking here about the balloons here in February, the February shoot downs. Now, to give you some official response to this, I think a very senior defense official was just recently quoted in the newspapers as saying there’s nothing alien or extraterrestrial about these shootdowns, about the objects that were shot down.”

He continued, “And I thought that was a very interesting comment because… the information I have is that two of the objects were indeed prosaic, they were just mundane objects. Probably weather balloons. But there is an abundance now of sources, including a guy who… heh… literally lives at the end of the road in Alaska where this object was encountered by an F-22 jet.”

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• U.S. Congressman Says UFOs May Be Machines of a Hidden ‘Ancient Earth Civilization’
• Ex-CIA Pilot Said US Buried Huge UFO That Was Too Big To Move, Corroborating Coulthart Claim

Coulthart talked about one of the things that got shot down in Alaska. He said it was not like the other two things; it was different, or “anomalous.” He mentioned he could be wrong, but this is what he had heard. According to what he learned, the Alaska object looked like a big “tic-tac.”  When the F-22 hit the objectwith missile, something fell off, but it kept going despite being hit.

“There was definitely a missile fired at an object which was described as… looking a little bit like a giant tic-tac, funnily enough. That something was seen to fall off that object. That even though it was hit with an AIM missile, which is a top of the line air-to-air missile, that the object kept on going. And uh… I’ve put this to different people in defense and intelligence, and I’ve been told yes… the Alaska object was anomalous. And um, anytime I try to get a response from anybody on an official basis they run 100 miles an hour,” Coulthart said.

He spoke to other individuals who were knowledgeable about military matters and secrets. They confirmed that the Alaska incident was strange indeed. He wanted to learn more from those in charge of defense, but they were unwilling to discuss it. When he asked them, they declined to provide an answer.

Coulthart explained, “But you might notice, that nobody has given a report back to the American public or the world about what it was that the U.S., for the first time in the history of NORAD, they shot down something over North America. That’s a historic event. And yet we haven’t been told, neither has America, the full story of what those shoot downs involved.”

Some people find Coulthart’s statement convincing because if the Alaska object was indeed anomalous, that would explain why the Department of Defense (DOD) responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about the object by referring the request to Advanced Aerial Research Organization (AARO).

Below is a response from the Department of Defense about a FOIA request submitted on February 11, 2023, asking for several data presumably collected during the Alaska object shot-down on February 10, 2023.

“This responds to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request # [ ] requesting “all available visual data (photographs in visual and Infra-Red spectrum, films in visible and Infra-Red spectrum, drawing and all related visual information) and tracking data (radar data, sonar data, timer data) that were presumably gathered about the object that was shot down at 1:45PM EST on 2/10/2022 over Alaska.”

We are providing a no records response in subject to your request. After a lengthy and exhaustive search through multiple offices on Elmendorf Air Force Base it has been determined that this request should be sent to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) which falls under the Defense Intelligence Agency. You can send a request to their office through the contact below.”

It’s intriguing to mention that there seem to be “no records” at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska about this case. This is puzzling because the base should have been involved in the mission to recover whatever was related to this case.

Even more fascinating, the request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is being sent to the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which is a part of the Defense Intelligence Agency.” This is happening even though officials described the objects in question as “likely mundane.” (Click to read the DIA resposne)

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27-12-2023 om 23:40 geschreven door peter  

This Is Clearest UFO Photo Ever Released That Shows Typical Alien Craft

On September 4, 1971, members of the Instituto Geográfico Nacional (National Geographic Institute) took photographs above Lake Cote for the Costa Rican governmental company that provides electricity and telecommunication services. The photographs were taken for the construction of a hydroelectric dam near lake Arenal, when the mapping agency members accidentally captured a UFO in their high-resolution camera that was mounted on the plane, pointing downwards. The photograph is considered to be the clearest and best UFO photograph ever taken.

Sergio Loaiza, Juan Bravo and Francisco Reyes were flying in a Canadian-made Areo-Commander model F680 piloted by Omar Arias, and Loaiza was in charge of aerial photography that day. They were flying above Costa Rica with a 100-pound map-making camera when Loaiza captured a photograph of a metallic disc like a typical alien “flying saucer” that can be seen flying between the F680 aircraft and the ground.

They were flying at 10,000 feet, mapping the landscape beneath with the high-resolution camera that was programmed to take photos every 20 seconds. While reviewing the negatives, Loaiza could not believe his eyes. He even said that they were completely banned from talking about it. According to UFO researcher Oscar Sierra, the photographs were analyzed in the USA and France and found to be 100% real. (Source)

The object can only be seen in the photograph in frame number #300 in the sequence, and there is no indication of it in either the frame of film that came before it or the one that was taken immediately after it. Due to the film stock and the quality of the camera, the image was incredibly clear. This object was not in either the frame before it (#299) or the frame after it (#301).

During the actual flight, the captain and his three crew members did not witness anything, and neither did the other passengers. It is estimated that the UFO was anywhere between 120 and 220 feet across, but the actual width would have depended on the object’s exact altitude.

New York Times writer and author Leslie Kean revealed that she has a framed copy of the photo taken at Lake Cote in the May 10, 2021 issue of The New Yorker by Gideon Lewis-Kraus. The article states, “…On the wall behind her desk, there is a framed black-and-white image that looks like a sonogram of a Frisbee. The photograph was given to her, along with chain-of-custody documentation, by contacts in the Costa Rican government; in her estimation, it is the finest image of a U.F.O. ever made public.”

On the New Yorker Radio Hour, she said: “I love this photo. It’s probably the best photograph of a UFO ever taken. It was taken in the 70s from a government mapping plane in Costa Rica which had a camera strapped on the bottom of the plane and it was like going over the terrain. There was this disc object and you clearly see the sun reflecting off this round object that’s got a little dot on the top and what’s important about it is that it was a government photo. There’s a clear chain of custody. It’s always been in possession of the Costa Rican government so you know it’s authentic and it’s completely unexplained.” (Source)

Read also:

• Ex-NASA Astronaut: ‘We have Contact With Alien Cultures & Their Appearance Is Bizarre’
• Famous 19-Sec UFO Footage Could Be Greatest Leak: CGI Experts Say It Is Real Deal
• Einstein’s Student Claimed US Govt. Re-Engineered UFO & Studied Alien Bodies
• Ex-Apollo Astronaut Claimed Humans Are Ancient Aliens, Visited Earth From Space

In 1985, computer scientist and astronomer Dr. Jacques Vallee obtained a copy of the negative and circulated it to his contacts in the United States government and at a California tech company. However, none of them helped Dr. Vallee in analyzing the negative.

Eventually, in December 1987, Vallee took it to Dr. Richard Haines in San Francisco. Haines was a retired aerospace engineer who had worked for NASA, and Vallee knew him. The photo was scanned, blown up, and looked at. Haines’ first focus was on the lighting. In 1989, Vallee and Haines wrote a “Photo Analysis of an Aerial Disc Over Costa Rica” for the Journal of Scientific Exploration. The 19-page report concluded: (Source)

“In summary, our analyses have suggested that an unidentified, opaque, aerial object was captured on film at a maximum distance of 10,000 feet. There are no visible means of lift or propulsion and no surface markings other than dark regions that appear to be nonrandom… There is no indication that the image is the product of a double exposure or a deliberate fabrication.”

There has always been speculation as to whether the craft had just emerged from or was about to enter Lake Cote. There are numerous local stories concerning UFOs emerging from the water. But it is impossible to understand the path of the craft because it only appeared in one frame #300. The original negative has been kept by the Costa Rican government, and it may be found in the country’s National Archive. There are copies available, such as the one that Vallee and Haines analyzed.

Loaiza’s UFO photograph has never been explained, despite the fact that UFO skeptics have thoroughly examined it. UAP Media, a UK-based UFO research company has got a brand fresh ultra-high resolution drum scan of the original photograph.

• Graeme Rendall – Author of UFOs Before Roswell and Flying Saucer Fever: “It’s a really intriguing photograph, and one which totally captures the imagination. I’m always impressed as to how “right” it looks. As to its veracity, though, I can’t say, but I’d love it to be true. It definitely looks a lot more convincing than a lot of other images I’ve seen over the years. I’d have to leave it to the photo analysis experts to pronounce sentence on it though.”
• Vinnie Adams – member of UAP Media: “After looking into the case, reading about the circumstances surrounding what was seen from that aeroplane that day, and reading the analysis done previously by Dr. Jacques Vallée, it does come across as a very compelling case. The fact that after 50 years it still hasn’t been conclusively proven or debunked is very interesting. Now that we have this high-resolution drum scanned version of the image, hopefully it might reignite interest in the case and lead to further analysis and some sort of conclusion.”
• Luis Elizondo – Former director of AATIP: “Although I was not around during this incident, pilot reports of smooth, shiny, lenticular craft are not new. In fact, even to this day, pilots, both civilian and military, along with their aircrew, continue to witness these types of craft and oftentimes displaying performance capabilities well beyond state of the art. Thankfully, some of these newer incidents are finding their way to Congress due to the courage of our fine men and women in uniform. During my time in AATIP, these incidents were surprisingly common.”
• Jeremy Corbell – Filmmaker: “As we search for meaning behind the UFO presence, it’s important that we remember we are more effective collectively when perusing analysis. Historic images like this one from Costa Rica still have stories to tell, and new insights are sometimes just around the corner. If we can socially democratize and crowdsource our search for answers – we will arrive closer to the truth than if we simply wait for further confirmation from our governments. I’m elated higher fidelity imagery continues to emerge, especially when it allows us to get a glimpse into our UFO past. Makes one wonder what other UFO evidence is lurking in boxes or files that have remained elusive until now. I’m confident that more and more people will be coming forward with valuable insight and evidence in the near future.”

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

27-12-2023 om 20:56 geschreven door peter  

It’s never aliens... until it is.

THE INVERSE AWARDS 2023

There’s nothing like a little trouble at home to make you look for greener pastures. And green or not, aliens were everywhere in 2023. Well, at least in the news.

From Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP, the classy new way to talk about UFOs) to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and all the way to tiny molecules clinging to frozen dust grains in interstellar space, the eyes of experts and the public were looking for life elsewhere.

The biggest alien stories — at least the most popular — came from military releases of data, hinting at cover-ups (or just ill-prepared government officials). But the most important — at least by our reckoning — were those that were steeped in science, offering hints of what life might look like outside of our planet, and where to find it. If you really do want to turn over that rock, that is.

Here, ranked from 11 to 1 by their chances of introducing us to real alien life, are the top alien and UAP events of 2023 that remind us the truth really is out there.

11. NASA RELEASED A GRIPPING REPORT ON UAPS

In September, ASA released its much-anticipated report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, and the agency says some of the sightings — between 16 and 40 out of roughly 800 — just can’t be explained — but Inverse spoke to experts, and it turns out the problem might just be that we don't have enough information. Most UAP reports come from sensors designed to guide weapons to objects, not gather detailed data about them, so it’s easy for fairly mundane objects to look bizarre when viewed through these sensors — or so says NASA.

Meanwhile, Inverse argues that the agency still needs a dedicated UAP office to take the investigation mainstream.

10. ... AND SO DID THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

The Department of Defense also published its own UAP report in January 2023, admitting that it has investigated more than 500 cases of possible UAP. Of those, more than a quarter were (of course) weather balloons; to be fair to DoD, weather stations in the U.S. alone launch 240 balloons every day. But according to a Pentagon spokesperson, “Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis.”

But don’t worry; experts tell Inverse that the military probably couldn’t pull off an alien cover-up. Swarms of commercial satellites, along with ubiquitous smartphones and social media — not to mention political pressure — would make it almost impossible to keep the cat in the bag for long.

“I still strongly maintain that alien visitation is not something that could be kept secret. The size of such a secret is just too big,” wrote SETI researcher Seth Shostak in a July 2023 essay for the SETI Institute.

9. THE MYSTERIES OF OUMUAMUA WERE UNVEILED.

Speaking of UAP, a chunk of interstellar debris called ‘Oumuamua caused a stir when it passed through our Solar system a few years ago — and an even bigger uproar when it seemed to accelerate under its own power, without leaving a tail like a comet. This year, a study suggested a possible explanation. Spoiler alert: It’s definitely not aliens.

8. WE CRAFTED A DECENT IDEA OF WHAT ALIEN SPACECRAFT COULD LOOK LIKE

One team of SETI researchers did some math and suggested that if an alien probe ever does visit our Solar System, it’s likely to be a zippy high-tech model, not an alien version of the Voyager probes.

7. ... AND ALSO WHAT CELESTIAL SIGNS MIGHT POINT US TO ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS.

SETI researchers also proposed some ways we might be able to spot high-tech alien civilizations from a distance — and some really wild ways the aliens might make themselves known to the rest of the universe, such as rearranging an entire star system into a cosmic “Kilroy Was Here” sign.

Other telltale signs to look for around distant stars include giant megastructures, built to siphon off mass and prolong the life of a dying star or the gleam of starlight on sprawling alien cities. But it may be easier to just look for pollution in a distant world’s atmosphere.

6. WE RULED OUT A WHOLE LOT OF HABITABLE PLANETS FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE

None of that advanced alien technology is likely to happen in a world without a lot of oxygen in its atmosphere, though. One study this year pointed out that unless about sixteen percent of the atmosphere is made of oxygen, you can’t start a fire. And without fire, you can’t work metals, cook food, or signal to distant alien civilizations.

5. ... AND LEARNED ALIENS PROBABLY WON’T THINK TOO FONDLY OF OUR INTELLIGENCE.

If intelligent, technologically advanced aliens are out there, they may not recognize us as intelligent. That could be good news because it means they may not see us as a threat — and they may even think we need protection, according to one 2023 study. If the first aliens we contact are vastly more advanced than we are — or just very different — they may not realize we're sentient. That means they probably won't see us as a threat to galactic peace, which needs to be eliminated posthaste. But the jury's out on whether these hypothetical aliens might turn Earth into a nature preserve or treat us with callous indifference.

4. ALIEN LIFE, INTELLIGENT OR NOT, IS PROBABLY QUITE COMMON

Alien encounters may be worth thinking about. It turns out that the basic ingredients for life are everywhere.

This year, astronomers found water vapor amid the rocky building blocks of a planetary system. Another team found some important chemical building blocks of organic chemistry clinging to dust grains in a cold cloud of interstellar gas. Elsewhere in the universe, astronomers found the amino acid tryptophan in one star-forming nebula, and a chemical essential for kickstarting the growth of complex organic molecules in another.

A few decades ago, we thought the chemicals involved in building cells and making them work might be rare in the universe, but now it looks like many of those ingredients could be part of the standard starter pack for new star systems. And that means life may — eventually — turn out to be more common than we ever dared to hope.

3. ... AND K2-18B IS A GREAT PLACE TO LOOK FOR IT.

One team of astronomers says they’ve found an ocean world orbiting a distant star, called K2-18b — and its atmosphere may contain evidence of life somewhere in that alien ocean. Even the researchers who studied the planet with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) aren’t convinced, though. It’s going to take more data to settle the debate, but the possibility is intriguing.

2. TRAPPIST-1 OFFERS EXPERTS HOPE AND FRUSTRATION.

Another swirl of debate, also fueled by JWST observations, is centered on the TRAPPIST-1 system. Home to at least seven rocky planets, three of which are in the habitable zone, TRAPPIST-1 is a hotspot for hopeful astrobiologists.

Earlier this year, JWST revealed that the system’s innermost two worlds — TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c — look like airless rocks, although it’s possible they just have really thin atmospheres. Neither of those planets is in the habitable zone, but many astronomers took the news as a discouraging sign that the star TRAPPIST-1 might have swept away the atmospheres of all its closest planets, including the potentially habitable ones. But others say it’s too soon to give up hope.

1. BUT DO WE NEED TO LOOK THAT FAR? ALIEN LIFE MIGHT BE RIGHT HERE IN OUR BACKYARD.

Closer to home, several studies this year show that Jupiter’s icy moons look extremely promising for alien life, or at least habitability, in a part of our Solar System that we used to consider totally uninhabitable.

NASA’s JUNO spacecraft spotted salt and organic molecules splattered across the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, and JWST revealed frozen carbon dioxide on the surface of Europa. Both moons are hiding vast, dark oceans beneath their thick, icy exteriors, and finding those chemicals on the surface suggests two important things: one, material from the ocean can reach the surface, where it might be easier for us to study. And two, those ice-covered alien oceans seem to have chemistry that could support life as we know it.

Meanwhile, another study suggested that every star system could host at least one Europa-like planet with an ocean hidden beneath an icy outer layer.

The truth is out there, all right — and it may be closer than we ever thought.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

27-12-2023 om 20:34 geschreven door peter