The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
11-07-2021
The Mandela Effect Documentary - Alternative Time Lines or False Memories?
The Mandela Effect Documentary- Alternative Time Lines or False Memories?
The Mandela Effect Documentary – Alternative Time Lines or False Memories?
This is the best information I have ever seen on this. I have experienced this personally on more than one occasion. This DOCUMENTED proof speaks for itself.
MUFON CASE : 116778 South Beach, Florida ( July 7, 2021 )
Mutual UFO Network : MUFON SUBMISSIONS : We saw two orbs sightings at the South Beach FL Long Description of Sighting Report There were 2 sightings about 5 minutes apart from Each other, took pics of the first one and video tape the 2nd one
Date Submitted :2021-07-07 Date of Event : 2021-07-05 / 8:23PM MUFON SUBMITTER FILE : trim.0390F14646F7435B87EB28354816EEF6.MOV
The Chronicle of Akakor: The legend of “the gods who came from space”
The Chronicle of Akakor: The legend of “the gods who came from space”
Written and oral stories narrated by a tribe that still remains in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. More than 15,000 years of history in a compendium of experiences; the “Chronicle of Akakor.”
The book written by Karl Brugger where he explains the whole legend.
The first narratives of the Akakor Chronicle were written on tree bark. Using the language of the ancient masters and gods.
Tatunca Nara, considered the prince of the Ugha Mongulala tribe, was the one who transmitted the story orally to Karl Brugger, a German journalist, who worked on the legend in Brazil.
The enigma of an unknown story
Karl Brugger recorded Akakor’s chronicle, which begins with the arrival of the gods who civilized them for the first time, until the year 70. Brugger wrote and published a book in 1976.
The Ugha Mongulala are considered the oldest civilization in the South American region. Thus, the Chronicle of Akakor narrates the millenary history of the area.
This legend holds many mysteries and questions, which to date continue to be an enigma for archeology. An example of this are the creations of structures such as Machu Pichu or Tiahuanaco .
In fact, even the very region where the Ugha Mongulala live, or the “Akakor region”, is a mystery , as it has never been found.
the Chronicle of Akakor is told in chronological order and begins in the year 13,000 BC. C . when the old gods came from outer space . Upon their arrival, they chose the tribes located in the area of the great Amazon river.
They transmitted culture to them, brought them out of savagery, taught them to cultivate the land, to know and respect the laws of nature and to create their own laws so that they could live in harmony.
They were the guides in the construction of great stone structures and underground and superficial cities. These are the temples for sun worship, pyramids for spirituality.
In addition to an immense network of underground tunnels that cover areas of Peru, Bolivia, reaching Brazil and Venezuela.
Map where the city of Akakor would be.
After 3,000 years of being among them, the gods returned to their world. In the Chronicle of Akakor this date is identified as the Zero Hour which is equivalent to 10,481 years BC. C.
Structure of the Chronicle of Akakor
The history of the tribe is also really interesting and captivating; The tribe went through really difficult times; 15,000 years of wars between tribes, natural disasters and the European conquest that almost extinguished them.
Despite the fact that at present, both its existence and the Akakor Chronicle are practically unknown , the invasion that the Amazon is suffering was prophesied by the chieftain Tatunca Nara.
The story told by this leader mentions a period of 10,000 years of existence of the tribe and the chronicle divides it into 4 parts:
The book of the Jaguar: consists of the narration from the arrival of the gods, until the second catastrophe of the world .
The Book of the Eagle: according to its calendar, it includes the years 6,000 to 11,000 , and deals with the Goths and the description of their arrival in their lands.
The Book of the Ant: it narrates the colonization of the Spanish and Portuguese after landing in Brazil and Peru.
The Book of the Serpent: it narrates the arrival of 2,000 German soldiers to Akakor, how they integrated into the Ugha Mongulala people and the prediction of a third great catastrophe .
Lunar pyramidal structures? “The reason why we have not returned to the Moon”
Lunar pyramidal structures? “The reason why we have not returned to the Moon”
There are many theories as to why the Moon has not been returned. Independent researchers and other members of the community say it is due to the existence of pyramidal structures.
Edgar Mitchell, former NASA astronaut.
For decades, many people have wondered why humanity has not returned to the Moon . What is the reason? Why haven’t they said anything about it?
However thanks to the publications made by a group of former NASA scientists , which revealed the location of pyramidal structures located on the lunar surface.
The mystery of the moon landing
Edgar Mitchell, former NASA astronauts and the sixth person to walk on the Moon , at this time it can already be said that humanity is not alone in the universe.
It is believed that world powers have kept all kinds of information on this subject safe. Especially from what was found on the Moon during the moon landings .
Mitchell stated that every NASA worker must take an oath of confidentiality . However, this has not been enough and many employees have disclosed what is hidden.
One of the most important characters in this disclosure is John Brandenburg , a scientist with a Ph.D. in Plasma Physics, a consultant at Monrningstar Applied Physics LLC, and a part-time professor at Madison College of astronomy, physics, and mathematics.
Brandenburg was part of NASA during the Clementine mission , which was done in conjunction with the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The goal was to thoroughly investigate the satellite.
It was thanks to this mission that the existence of water was discovered at the lunar poles . However, the scientist said that “something else” was found.
Photographic reconnaissance revealed the existence of advanced pyramidal bases and structures on the lunar surface.
Several former employees have revealed the existence of pyramidal structures and bases on the Moon.
Among the images, a kind of straight wall stands out, measuring approximately a mile wide . This showed that, obviously, it was an artificial structure .
But the most worrying thing about the matter is that the representative of the Defense Organization said nothing . It was obvious that none of those structures were human. Why was he silent?
Editing pyramidal structures on the Moon?
However, Brandenburg is not the only one to divulge this information. The first person to tell this was Ken Johnston , former director of NASA’s Department of Space Photographic Evidence.
The scientist stated that, during his working days, he was able to observe original images of the lunar surface, where there were several pyramidal structures.
In addition, he said that all information of this type is protected by high-ranking US government officials. The one that reaches the public is always manipulated.
Shortly after giving these statements, NASA declared that it never had a relationship with Ken Johnston. However, there is evidence that needs no explanation:
The photos that NASA published in 1950 and the clear differences that exist with the most recent ones. The latter, clearly, are manipulated .
What was actually found on the Moon? Why has the satellite not been stepped on again when the technology is now much more advanced? There has to be a real compelling reason .
My previous article was on the subject of Philip Corso’s controversial claims in relation to the July 1947 “Roswell UFO Crash” in Lincoln County, New Mexico. The article was mostly on the possibility that the “bodies” found at the crash site were what we might call, in simple terms, “biological robots.” And, that they were constructed, rather than born. This makes me wonder if – should the theory have any merit to it, of course – that the mysterious makers of those biological robots might also be behind the likes of the Men in Black, the Women in Black, the Black Eyed Children, and so on – all of who look creepily odd. There’s a reason why I specifically say all of this. There’s no doubt there are a lot of accounts of people who have encountered strange-looking people and that we might call “semi-humans.” And there’s no doubt that most of the witnesses to these things have said that it’s the faces that gave them away – which is hardly surprising. After all, it’s largely our faces that define us. With that said, let’s take a look at the cases of a few, really creepy-looking people who might not even be human.
Denise Stoner, co-author with Kathleen Marden on The Alien Abduction Files, told me a bizarre but fascinating story. It involved her husband and occurred in Florida only a couple of years ago. Denise said: “My husband’s run-in with a possible WIB [Woman in Black] was a few days ago when he decided he would take a bike ride around a lake he travels around on a regular basis and knows it well. If he is feeling pretty energetic, he begins near a pool and park complex, rides the trail nearby and then turns into an area that has a Vet memorial then on around the lake that used to be part of the Navy Base – now new housing. When he entered the path, there was a woman jogging with one of those jogging strollers but the top was down so he could not see a baby inside. This woman had sunglasses on that wrapped around her head and looked way too large for her head. She was thin and about 6 ft. tall. She smiled at my husband as he passed on his bike. She was very thin and pale skinned. He still did not feel uncomfortable because not much scares him. He just thought she was a weird person. As he approached her, she dropped her sunglasses to show him huge black eyes that we at least 4X human size and they wrapped around the side of her head. She grinned again and this time he noticed she did not have a real nose; plus her mouth was long and thin with no teeth – only a dark gap.” Denise’s husband quit the area – quickly.
The Black Eyed Children are very much the same: at first glance they look like us, but the closer you get, the weirder things get. Their skin is, to say the least, nothing like ours. It’s plastic-like. One called it “kinda like wax.” Their faces are often like those of a mannequin. Plain, bland, lacking in emotion, and as if sculpted. Or, right out of a factory. One witness said: “His face was so thin and his skin was strange and almost a see-through milky color, no hair that I could see.” Others have said that the BEC seem to have come out on conveyor-belts. In other words, the witnesses got the feeling these things were machines, rather than real children, and being dispatched to perform particular tasks. What those tasks might be, it’s hard to know, since the BEC are elusive on almost every occasion. One other thing regarding the BEC: it’s almost always their not-quite-normal faces that give them away.
In 2015, Dr. David M. Jacobs’ book, Walking Among Us: The Alien Plan to Control Humanity, was published. As the title alone suggests, this is an extremely controversial book. Although it is heavily focused on so-called “alien abductees,” it is not actually about abduction events, at all. Rather, its focus is on how abductees are allegedly being used to assist alien-human hybrids whose role it is to infiltrate human society. And, yes, that word “infiltrate” is intended to suggest that nothing good can come from all of this. Or, from any of it. We’re talking about the way in which potentially hostile aliens – with no real regard for us, the Human Race – are working towards a certain, fateful day. A day when the Earth will be so heavily infested with these part-ET/part-human things that the invasion, take-over, and/or extermination, will be completed before we’ll have even a single chance to do anything about it. Yes, I said it was controversial. Even Jacobs notes this when he says: “My research has uncovered a substantial presence of hybrids living on Earth…”
Are all of these strange-looking characters something along the lines of a biological robot? It sounds totally nutty. Just maybe, though, it’s not.
Nikola Tesla was undoubtedly one of the brightest minds of the 20th century. Many of our modern day commodities owe their existence to his brilliant mind. However, he lived most of his life in a constant battle with the energy brokers of his day, namely Thomas Edison backed by General Electric.
On January 7, 1943, Tesla died alone and impoverished in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. Two days after his death, the FBI ordered that all of his belongings be seized.
His lifetime work was confiscated by the Office of Alien Property even though he had been an American citizen for 52 years. It was known at the time that Tesla had been working on several important projects, including wireless communications and limitless free energy.
Last photo of Nikola Tesla
Tesla’s plan was to harness energy from the radiation present in the universe, using the entire planet as a conductor. This would have meant that anybody could have free electricity simply by sticking a metal rod into the ground.
These notions did not go well with the power elite, whose interest was maintaining the status quo, that is keeping their multi-billion dollar businesses running.
After all, what good was free energy if they wouldn’t be able to meter and control it? Therefore, many speculate that the U.S. government acted according to the pressure exerted by these big corporations. They eventually shipped his estate to Belgrade, Yugoslavia but not before taking nine years to go through it.
This situation gave rise to a pervasive notion that is strongly supported by circumstantial evidence: Tesla’s research was considered critical, even dangerous and was confiscated for good measure.
His ideas could have constituted an important advancement for humanity and that’s exactly why they were withheld.
Nikola Tesla
It is believed that the technology behind HAARP is based on Tesla’s research. The U.S. has many top-secret compounds around the world and also has a history of secretly developing technology.
Perhaps this is why Tesla’s papers were seized but we might never know for sure.
After years of fielding questions about possible cover-ups, the FBI finally declassified some 250 pages of Tesla-related documents under the Freedom of Information Act in 2016. The bureau followed up with two additional releases, the latest in March 2018.
But even with the publication of these documents, many questions still remain unanswered—and some of Tesla’s files are still missing.
Shortly after an electrical engineer, Dr. John G. Trump (yes it is current President Donal Trump’s uncle) was assigned to review his papers to discover if any of it was of actual tangible value.
He determined that it was “primarily of a speculative, philosophical and promotional character” and said the papers did “not include new sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.”
Tesla’s extended family, including his nephew Sava Kosanovic, tried desperately to have at least his personal effects returned. Their requests were eventually accepted and some of his personal items were returned to the family.
Recently declassified documents reveal that the FBI, at the time, were concerned with his nephew’s intentions. They had even considered arresting him to prevent Tesla’s work falling into enemy hands.
After a long court battle, Kosanovic, the rightful heir to his uncle’s belongings, was finally given them. Tesla’s possessions and files were sent to Belgrade.
But, interestingly, of the 80 trunks or so of Tesla’s effects, only 60 arrived in Belgrade. Whether the U.S. Government had kept some of the information and effects or not is still, today, unknown.
It is also believed that Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative program in the 1980s was probably inspired by Tesla’s “Death Ray”. But if the government is still using some of Tesla’s material for its Research and Development, this would explain why some, if any, of his original works, are still missing today.
Has the Earth undergone periods of violent change throughout its long history? If so, what had been the result of these changes and, of equal significance, what instigated them in the first place?
Many ancient texts appear to describe great cataclysms that have affected our planet in various ways, although debate remains as to whether all of them describe real phenomena or are in some cases just myths and allegories conjured from the minds of ancient commentators.
Arguably, the most famous of all these is Plato’s account of the destruction of the fabled Atlantis. While modern scholars generally accept that Plato’s dialogues recounting tales of Atlantis had been aimed at having an instructive purpose, even some of Plato’s early followers were said to have considered the story to have historical roots. Chief among these had been Crantor, a Greek philosopher of the Old Academy and one of the earliest scholars to write commentaries on Plato’s works.
Raphael’s depiction of Plato, seen holding a copy of his “Timeaus,” which describes part of the Atlantis legend
(Public Domain).
Modern science holds a different view on the matter, however. To date, there has been little evidence come to light that supports the existence of a literal island continent that sank into the Atlantic some 9000 years or so before Plato’s time. However, this is not to say that there weren’t incredible changes that the Earth underwent during this period which, although they may be coincidental, certainly have caused some academics to wonder about narratives like the ones Plato offered.
Around 12,700 years ago, as Earth was transitioning from the last major ice age into the modern era (or Holocene) several changes were underway, for which there is an abundance of modern geological evidence. As the glacial formations around the polar regions began to melt and the ice sheets that extended over parts of North America and Eurasia began to slowly thaw, meltwater runoff gradually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean, disrupting the circulation of ocean currents and causing temperature changes lasting for hundreds of years.
Some modern evidence—primarily in the form of concentrations of rare-earth elements in geological strata coinciding with this period—points to even more potentially catastrophic phenomena that might have occurred, having possibly instigated some of the other changes Earth underwent around this time. One emergent theory that had once been ridiculed, but in recent years had increasingly gained support among scientists involves a possible impact event that occurred as Earth exited the Pleistocene, which triggered a period of cold reversal known as the Younger Dryas.
Many modern catastrophists point to this not only as possible evidence of a cataclysmic period in the late Pleistocene but also note the similarity in its timing and the period during which Plato said Atlantis sank beneath Atlantic waters. If nothing else, it might be possible that legends that range from Atlantis to the idea of a “great flood” prevalent in mythologies from all over the world could have been born from what were once actual memories of such events in Earth’s past.
Map depicting the location of Atlantis, as depicted in Ignatius Donnelly’s “Atlantis: The Antediluvian World”
(Public Domain).
Over time, catastrophism has seen sympathy from a range of scholars. These include the Harvard-trained professor and one-time member of the Office of Strategic Services Charles Hapgood, who went on to become a proponent of rapid pole shifts, as well as a champion of the idea that the famous Piri Reis map detailed not merely the coastline of the Americas, but perhaps Antarctica too. Most of Hapgood’s theories, while entertaining (and perhaps not all of them entirely without merit) have nonetheless failed to withstand scientific scrutiny over the ensuing decades.
Nonetheless, others have appeared to champion the catastrophist cause. A 1978 paper by P. Warlow titled “Geomagnetic Reversals?” in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, Volume 11, Number 10, revealed a comparatively fresh take on the matter (at least when compared with earlier theories proposed by the likes of Hapgood).
“The enigma of geomagnetic reversals and their apparent link with other phenomena,” Warlow wrote, “such as faunal extinctions, is shown to be explicable by treating these reversals as a relative rather than an absolute effect.” Rather than to suppose that mere magnetic reversals occur, Warlow posited the idea that an actual shift of the Earth’s rotation might periodically take place. Such an idea, he believed, “is sufficient to account for the behaviour of the field in detail during a reversal, and for explaining the links with the various other phenomena.”
Warlow cited information “not only from modern geological and related investigations, but also from astronomy and from ancient sources.” Among the sources he examined had been peculiar accounts from ancient Egypt that appear to describe the sun rising in the West, rather than in the East, a mystery which has been revisited more recently by author Scott Creighton in books like The Great Pyramid Void Enigma.
Of course, geomagnetic reversals certainly have occurred in the past and are widely recognized phenomena, although ideas about the range of effects they may cause remain varied. Geologists have long understood that changes in Earth’s magnetic field resulting in the reversal of the positions of magnetic north and south occur periodically throughout time, leading to alternating periods (known as chrons) where these polarity reversals occur.
As far as what leads to these changes, there are no definite patterns. While geomagnetic reversals appear to occur randomly, a total of 183 have occurred within the last 83 million years, meaning that on average such reversals occur once every 450,000 years or so. Some geomagnetic shifts appear to be far less widespread, which geologists call excursions. One interpretation is that these excursions could be the result of incomplete or failed geomagnetic shifts. Another possibility is that these shifts are instigated by cataclysmic events, and at least some data appears to correlate geomagnetic phenomena with periods like the Younger Dryas.
Will there be another geomagnetic reversal any time soon? Since the last one occurred around 780,000 years ago, some have noted that we appear to be overdue for the next one, which could occur at almost any time given our limited understanding of the mechanisms that might facilitate such changes. However, one thing that remains clear is that they do occur… and gaining a more complete understanding of why and how could be beneficial both in terms of understanding past changes our planet has undergone, as well as those which may await us in the future.
TAAI RADERDIERTJE LEEFT NA 24.000 JAAR INGEVROREN TE ZIJN GEWEEST, VROLIJK VERDER
TAAI RADERDIERTJE LEEFT NA 24.000 JAAR INGEVROREN TE ZIJN GEWEEST, VROLIJK VERDER
Vivian Lammerse
En met zo’n lange adem stoot hij het weerbarstige beerdiertje van de troon.
Je denkt misschien dat beerdiertjes taaie rakkers zijn. Maar we kennen er nog zo eentje. En wel het raderdiertje. Het raderdiertje uit de orde Bdelloida zijn meercellige dieren die zo klein zijn dat je een microscoop nodig hebt om ze te zien. Net als beerdiertjes zijn ze in staat om de meest krankzinnige omstandigheden te overleven, zoals uitdroging, bevriezing, verhongering en omgevingen met weinig zuurstof. Maar niet alleen zijn ze bestand tegen bevriezing… Wetenschappers hebben namelijk bijzonder kranige exemplaren gevonden die zelfs na 24.000 jaar (!) ingevroren te zijn geweest in Siberisch permafrost, gewoon verder gaan met hun leven.
Beerdiertje versus raderdiertje Op het eerste gezicht lijken beerdiertjes en raderdiertjes behoorlijk wat overeenkomsten te hebben. “Zowel beerdiertjes als raderdiertjes zijn microscopisch kleine meercellige dieren met organen en weefsels,” vertelt onderzoeker Stas Malavin in een interview met Scientias.nl. Bovendien zijn ze beide lastig kapot te krijgen. Zo zijn ze allebei al weleens de ruimte in geschoten en blootgesteld aan de meest gruwelijke experimenten, zoals je al even hierboven kon lezen. Maar er zijn ook verschillen. “Qua morfologie lijken ze niet veel op elkaar,” vervolgt Malavin. “En, nog belangrijker, ze hebben heel verschillende mechanismen van cryptobiose (schijndood).”
Bevroren Enkele jaren geleden ontdekten wetenschappers al dat ingevroren raderdiertjes na tien jaar gewoon weer de draad oppikken. Ook beerdiertjes kunnen dat. Zo wekten wetenschappers beerdiertjes die meer dan 30 jaar ingevroren waren geweest, weer tot leven. Maar daar doet het raderdiertje nu weer een schepje bovenop. In de nieuwe studie reisden de onderzoekers af naar enkele van de meest afgelegen Arctische eilanden en verzamelden de microscopisch kleine organismen uit oeroud permafrost. Radiokoolstofdatering maakte duidelijk dat de raderdiertjes al zo’n 24.000 jaar in het permafrost ingevroren zaten. Nadat de onderzoekers de diertjes ontdooid hadden, leefden ze wonderbaarlijk genoeg vrolijk verder.
Ontdooid Het is een bizarre ontdekking. Want het betekent dat de diertjes dus maar liefst 24.000 jaar ’slapend’ weten te overbruggen, om vervolgens gewoon door te gaan met hun leven. “Ze kunnen tienduizenden jaren in cryptobiose – de toestand van bijna volledig gestopt metabolisme – verkeren,” zegt Malavin. “Het aantal jaar maakt natuurlijk indruk. Dit overtreft alle eerdere bekende gevallen.” Bovendien leken de raderdiertjes weinig door zo’n lange periode in schijndood aangetast. Eenmaal ontdooid, plantte het raderdiertje zich zelfs gewoon voort.
Dat doet het raderdiertje trouwens ook al op een vrij merkwaardige manier. Zo is het raderdiertje aseksueel. Heel concreet betekent dat dat het organisme geen mannetjes nodig heeft om jongen op de wereld te zetten. Omdat er in dit geval geen uitwisseling van genen plaatsvindt, eet het raderdiertje waarschijnlijk DNA. “Ze nemen vreemd DNA in hun genomen op; een eigenaardig mechanisme van horizontale genoverdracht,” vertelt Malavin. “Dit helpt de genetische diversiteit in deze groep te verhogen.”
Je vraagt je misschien af hoe het raderdiertje zoveel jaar in een ingevroren toestand kan overleven. Om dat verder te onderzoeken, bevroren en ontdooiden de onderzoekers tientallen exemplaren in het laboratorium. Deze experimenten suggereren dat de beestjes bestand zijn tegen de vorming van ijskristallen die bij bevriezing ontstaan. Waarschijnlijk beschikken ze over een bepaald mechanisme om hun cellen en organen te beschermen tegen schade bij extreem lage temperaturen. “Raderdiertjes onderbreken hun metabolisme en accumuleren bepaalde verbindingen – zoals chaperonne-eiwitten – die hen van cryptobiose helpen herstellen wanneer de omstandigheden verbeteren,” legt Malavin desgevraagd uit. “Ze hebben ook een uniek mechanisme voor de bescherming tegen reactieve zuurstofsoorten – een van de grootste bedreigingen tijdens schijndood – en zeer sterke DNA-reparatiemechanismen.”
Voordelen Waarom raderdiertjes aan cryptobiose doen? Het is een slimme truc. “Door de rustperiode kunnen ze ontsnappen aan ongunstige omstandigheden en dus op plaatsen wonen die ongeschikt zijn voor de meeste andere dieren,” vertelt Malavin. “Bovendien ontsnappen ze dankzij cryptobiose aan parasieten en worden ze zelfs sterker wakker. Na herstel leven ze namelijk langer en zorgen voor meer nakomelingen dan soortgenoten die de staat van cryptobiose overslaan.”
Meercellige organismen Dankzij de studie kunnen we nu concluderen dat het blijkbaar ook voor meercellige organismen mogelijk is om tienduizenden jaren in bevroren toestand te verkeren, om daarna weer succesvol tot leven te worden gewekt. “Een droom van fictieschrijvers,” zegt Malavin. Tot voor kort werd gedacht dat dit alleen maar het domein was van rondwormen, die zelfs 30.000 tot 40.000 jarige dutjes doen. Maar nu kunnen ook raderdiertjes toegevoegd worden aan de lijst van organismen die over het opmerkelijke vermogen beschikken om schijnbaar voor onbepaalde tijd, in een toestand van schijndood, onder het bevroren landschap te overleven.
Mensen Of dit op een dag ook mogelijk wordt voor mensen? “Ik zie hier geen theoretische beperkingen aan,” beantwoordt de onderzoeker. “Natuurlijk, hoe complexer het organisme, hoe lastiger het is om dat wat bevroren is, levend te houden. Zoogdieren kunnen dit dan ook nog niet. Het lijkt misschien grappig, maar het grootste obstakel hiervoor is waarschijnlijk niet de complexiteit van zoogdieren, maar hun macroscopische afmetingen.” Op dit moment is het nog onduidelijk wat er precies nodig is om zelfs maar een paar jaar in ijs te overleven. Ook is het de vraag of de stap naar duizenden jaren veel verschil maakt. “Dat is een vraag die nadere studie vereist.”
De onderzoekers zijn van plan om Arctische monsters te blijven bestuderen. Op die manier willen ze namelijk ook achterhalen of er misschien naast indrukwekkende raderdiertjes en sommige wormen, ook andere organismen zijn die net zo lang in cryptobiose kunnen verkeren. Daarnaast zijn de onderzoekers van plan om de precieze biologische mechanismen die verantwoordelijk zijn voor de overleving van ingevroren raderdiertjes, volledig te doorgronden. De hoop is dat dit nieuw inzicht verschaft in hoe cellen, weefsels en organen van andere dieren – inclusief mensen – beter kunnen worden ingevroren en bewaard.
Planes crash every now and then. Although uncommon, this is a fact. What’s strange, though, is when a plane seems to completely vanish into thin air. Especially in the modern era, this is extraordinary, considering the incredible technology we have available to us. This is a list containing planes that left behind no wreckage, debris, clues, or answers from across history.
On October 21, 1978, 20-year-old Frederick Valentich disappeared during a flight in his Cessna 182L. Frederick was widely described by friends and family as a “flying saucer enthusiast,” and during the doomed flight, he reported being accompanied by an unidentified aircraft.
As Frederick flew over the Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia, he radioed air traffic control just after 7:00 PM to report that he was being followed by an aircraft. Air traffic control responded, saying there was no known traffic nearby. Valentich described the aircraft as large and illuminated by four bright landing lights. It purportedly passed about 300 meters (1,000 ft) overhead and was moving at very high speed.
Finally, Frederick stated that the UFO was orbiting above him and had a shiny metal surface and a green light. Air traffic control asked him to identify the craft, to which Frederick responded, “It isn’t an aircraft,” before his transmission was interrupted by unidentified noise described as “metallic, scraping sounds.” Contact was lost at this point, and neither Valentich nor his plane were ever seen again.[1]
This is a strange one. On the late afternoon of March 23, 1951, a US Air Force Douglas C-124 Globemaster II on its way to England ditched into the ocean. An explosion in the cargo hold and the ensuing fire forced the pilots to put the plane down in the Atlantic, a few hundred miles from Ireland. The exact location was radioed by the pilots, and the ditching itself was successful.
The 53 passengers and crew aboard the flight donned life preservers and climbed aboard well-equipped emergency rafts. A B-29 had already been en route with the intention of aiding the plane in its navigation to the nearest airfield. When it arrived at the location transmitted by the pilots, the crew of the B-29 observed the passengers and crew in their rafts. It seemed everyone was okay.
The B-29 then had to return to base, as it was running low on fuel. However, when rescue crews arrived, the plane and the stricken passengers had all disappeared without a trace. All that was left was a piece of charred plywood and a briefcase. Nobody knows what happened in those hours while help was on the way.[2]
Amelia Earhart was an American aviation pioneer. She held many early records, including being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean, near the island of Howland.
Her final transmissions to the nearby ship, Itasca, indicated that she believed she had reached Howland Island. However, this was incorrect: She was at least 8 kilometers (5 mi) away. Fearing the worst, the Itasca used its oil-fired boilers to generate large clouds of smoke to signal the fliers, but to no avail.
Many theories surround Earhart’s disappearance, including a failed crash landing into the ocean, a surprisingly complete theory of Japanese capture, and an explanation that assumes Earhart instead decided to land—successfully or not—on Gardner Island, 560 kilometers (350 mi) away.[3]
On March 16, 1962, Flying Tiger Flight 739 disappeared from radar screens over the ocean. The Lockheed Super Constellation aircraft was carrying 93 US and three South Vietnamese soldiers from California to Saigon. All 107 aboard the plane are presumed to have died in the incident.
No traces of wreckage or debris have ever been found. The only lead investigators have is an eyewitness account from a nearby civilian tanker, which reported seeing “an extremely bright flash of light, immediately followed by two red dots plummeting to the ocean at different speeds.” It is believed that the tanker witnessed the missing aircraft explode mid-flight, during which it split in two and fell to the ocean in separate fireballs.
The most reasonable assumption, given the evidence, is sabotage. However, since 518,000 square kilometers (200,000 mi2) of searching has turned up nothing, it is likely we will never get the true answers.[4]
Flight 19 was the designation of five Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared without a trace over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945. A Martin PBM Mariner flying boat also disappeared while searching for the lost bombers and their pilots. Overall, 14 crew members aboard the Avenger bombers were lost, as were the 13 aboard the rescue plane.
The bombers were experiencing serious navigation issues in and around the Bermuda Triangle. Their compasses were nonfunctional, and they were running out of fuel by their last transmission: “All planes close up tight. We’ll have to ditch unless landfall . . . when the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all go down together.”
By this point, the Sun had set, and the weather was deteriorating. At 7:27 PM, the PBM-5 Mariner took off and was never heard from again. A nearby tanker reported sighting an apparent explosion, whose flames leapt 30 meters (100 ft) high and burned for at least ten minutes. The wreckage of the bombers was never found.[5]
Star Ariel was lost on January 17, 1949. Very little is known about what caused the loss of the British South American Airways (BSAA) aircraft and its 20 crew and passengers. Weather was excellent, visibility was good, and the pilots were experienced. The captain chose a high-altitude flight path to best take advantage of the excellent conditions. The flight was between Bermuda and Kingston, Jamaica.
Last contact with Star Ariel was made at 9:42 AM. Despite a large search operation headed by a US Navy task force, no traces of wreckage, fuel, debris, or bodies was ever found. As stated by the head of the inquiry tasked with finding a cause for the loss of the aircraft: “Through lack of evidence due to no wreckage having been found, the cause of the accident is unknown.”[6]
4. Star Tiger
In the early hours of January 30, 1948, another BSAA craft, Star Tiger, disappeared between Santa Maria and Bermuda. All 31 passengers and crew aboard are believed to have perished, and the cause remains unsolved to this day. The Star Tiger was flown by two experienced pilots in strong winds and rain at an unusually low cruising altitude.
Flying at 600 meters (2,000 ft) during strong winds is inherently dangerous, but the pilots were highly experienced and likely very aware of their surroundings. It is suggested that a sudden, strong gust of wind could have forced the plane into the ocean or that altimeter failure could have made the pilots gently pitch the plane into the water. No distress call was made, and no wreckage or debris has ever been found.[7]
On July 22, 2016, an Antonov An-32 twin-engine transport aircraft belonging to the Indian Air Force disappeared while flying over the Bay of Bengal. There were 29 people on board at the time: 23 passengers and six crew members.
Radar contact was lost at 9:12 AM, and the ensuing search and rescue operation would become the largest in Indian history. Sixteen ships, a submarine, and six aircraft were deployed to aid in the search in and around the Bay of Bengal. On September 15, 2016, the mission was called off, and all aboard were presumed dead.[8]
On May 25, 2003, a Boeing 727, registered as N844AA, was stolen from Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Angola. Shortly before sunset, two men boarded the aircraft: American pilot Ben Padilla and mechanic John Mutantu. Neither were certified to fly the 727, which normally flies with a flight crew of three. It is believed that Padilla was the one at the controls. The aircraft made its way onto the runway without clearance and without communicating with the control tower. With its lights switched off and a few erratic maneuvers, the plane thundered down the runway and took off, heading southwest over the ocean.
Since then, neither the two men nor the aircraft have been seen. The disappearance of N844AA prompted a worldwide search by the FBI and the CIA. Despite this, no trace of the aircraft has ever been found.[9]
Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China. A total of 227 passengers and 12 crew members were aboard the Boeing 777, and the most expensive search operation in aviation history ($130–160 million) failed to turn up any evidence of the large aircraft. Some small pieces of the wings have washed up on various islands since the crash as well as a damaged briefcase believed to be related to the incident. At present, however, the plane has not been found, and the cause of the crash is unknown.
Verbal communication with the aircraft’s two experienced pilots was lost at 1:19 AM. At 1:21 AM, the aircraft’s transponder ceased to function. The transponder allows the plane to be tracked on radar by air traffic control. Despite the lack of a functioning transponder, the plane was still tracked by military radar, turning right and then left at an erratic altitude. Once it had left the airspace trackable by Malaysian military radar, the aircraft automatically responded to hourly status update requests from a satellite communication system. Two phone calls to the cockpit at 2:39 AM and 7:13 AM went unanswered. The final status update, which took place at 8:10 AM (almost two hours after MH370 was meant to land in Beijing) was initiated by the aircraft, as opposed to the ground station.
There are only a few reasons the plane would initiate this communication itself: power failure, critical component failure, loss of altitude, or fuel exhaustion. (The latter is the most likely scenario.) The status update would be the last communication from MH370, before it is presumed to have crashed at high speed into the Indian Ocean.[10]
In July 1952, a very weird event began in Racine, Wisconsin. It’s a story that went down on the morning of the 22nd of the month. Karl Hunrath had complained to his local police department about something very weird indeed; something that had occurred just a few hours earlier, in the dead of night. Who knows what the cops thought of it all, but it basically went as follows: In the early hours of the morning, Hunrath’s bedroom was flooded with a blinding, white light. He immediately sat upright and, as his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he could see in the corner of the room a floating ball of light that had a diameter of about four feet. Hunrath could only stare in shock and awe. Then, something amazing and terrifying happened: the glowing ball transformed into a well-dressed man in black, and Hunrath found himself temporarily paralyzed. The “man” then proceeded to pump Hunrath’s right arm full of chemicals – which rendered him into a distinctly altered state of mind – and proceeded to tell him that he had been chosen to play a significant role in the alien mission on Earth. A very groggy Hunrath could only look on from his bed as the somewhat foreign-sounding – but now perfectly human-appearing – alien told him: “I am Bosco. You have been chosen to enter our brotherhood of galaxies.”
The suit-and-tie-wearing Bosco advised Hunrath that the brothers from beyond were deeply worried by our warlike ways, and so action had to be taken against those dastardly elements of the Human Race that wanted to spoil everyone else’s fun. There was not to be any The Day the Earth Stood Still-style ultimatum for one and all, however. Nope. The aliens wished to recruit sympathetic humans to aid their righteous cause. Or, more correctly, get someone else to do all of their dirty work while they lurked safely in the shadows. And as Hunrath came to quickly realize, he was now one of the chosen few. But there was more. Bosco, via what Hunrath said were “occult techniques,” downloaded into his mind countless amounts of data on how to build a terrible weapon that had the ability to destroy aircraft; specifically, the aircraft of the U.S. military, who the Space-Brothers viewed as being just about as dangerous to world peace as the dastardly commies.
“I am Bosco and that will be its name, too,”” boomed the alleged alien, in reference to the device that he wanted Hunrath to not just build, but also deploy. Far too stunned and drugged to move, Hunrath could only watch in a mixture of befuddlement and shock as Bosco then turned on his heels and left for his – one might be inclined to assume after an experience like that – flying saucer. There was no amazing “Beam me up, Scotty”-type exit for Bosco, however. For a ball of light that shapeshifted into a human-like extraterrestrial, Bosco had a very down to earth means of making good his departure: he pulled back the curtains of Hunrath’s bedroom-window, clambered out, and vanished into the depths of the early morning blackness of Hunrath’s front-yard!
Hunrath had assured the police there was no way he would even consider building Bosco and letting it loose on the world. The neighbors were soon complaining of strange noises coming from Hunrath’s garage day and night, and at least three or four times per week he had a visitor who stayed for hours on end. He was a local: Wilbur J. Wilkinson – a subservient, Igor-like lackey to Hunrath’s escalating Dr. Frankenstein. On a morning in early August, FBI agents made an unannounced visit to Hunrath’s place of residence, demanding to be shown what it was that he and Wilkinson were working on in the garage. Weapon or not, to the FBI it appeared to be nothing more than “a collection of radios, and speakers and cables strung together.”” The somewhat bemused agents said their farewells and left. Had they been born into today’s world, they might just as well have texted their boss: “Hunrath/Bosco: WTF?”
Whether or not Hunrath may have anticipated getting such a visit is unknown. But what we can be sure of is that Hunrath was now a man on a mission. And with the Bureau boys snooping around, Hunrath had no choice but to head for pastures new. There was only one way he was going to achieve his goal of fame and fortune and do the right thing by brother Bosco. It was time to say “adios” to both Wisconsin and the FBI and head to where all the alien action was then taking place: California. Hunrath and Wilkinson soon hooked up with the major players in West Coast Ufology at the time. That included such Contactees as George Adamski and George Hunt Williamson, as well as a number of UFO researchers and investigative groups.
All was going well until November 1953. That was when things came to a mysterious and ominous end. It was early on the morning of the 10th that Hunrath and Wilkinson rented a compact aircraft from a local airstrip. They headed off for what they claimed to several colleagues, just forty-eight hours earlier, was to be a face to face meeting with a group of extraterrestrials connected to Mr. Bosco. Although the pair was seen taking off from the airstrip, and headed in a direction that would have set them on a course for Palm Springs and Joshua Tree, they were never seen again. Despite extensive searches by the emergency services, Hunrath and Wilkinson were not found. No wreckage of the aircraft was ever found, either. And, Wilkinson’s wife never heard from her husband again. They were gone. As in forever. Overseas? Into a mountain? Taken by ETs? There’s not a solid answer anywhere in sight.
Ryan Gordon had been in talks with Mike Rogers and Travis Walton beginning in June 2020. Ryan was driving when Mike called him out of the blue. This was not uncommon for Mike to do.
When Mike started to tell Ryan that the event was hoaxed, Ryan pulled his truck over and put his phone on speaker and recorded the call with his Apple Watch pursuant to Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-3001. The date of the call is April 30, 2021.
UFO Hoax Confession by Mike Rogers.
Partial transcript:
“All I can remember….like…is that…uhh….we were…we were talking in the woods one day….Travis and I….and uhh…..I….I remember…..leaving a chainsaw on a stump…..okay….he had a saw but he took his with him…because we were talking about creating….uhh…uhh….a UFO hoax….okay?”
“I remember that uhh…..uhh….when I drove….when I was driving the truck and he jumped out….it was….it was all deliberate….it was all uhh….staged thing….okay?”
“And he ran up there and uhh….and there was something….there was something about the UFO uhh….not being real…..although it looked real….”
Ryan Gordon:
What you’re saying is…uhh…you and Travis..together…hoaxed this?
Mike Rogers:
“Yeah….I mean Travis’ brother Duane helped him.”
“Phillip Klass uhh…….actually suspected that uhh…..uhh Duane was…..was part of it.”
“I mean, he was his protector and uhh…..he was saying weird things on that Fred Sylvanus interview – – ‘I have nothing. I don’t fear for at all for his life. I know where he’s at’..blah blah….you know?”
“And I thought all along that he was just trying to….uhh….how would you say it?….make himself belief that his brother was okay…”
On March 19, 2021, Mike Rogers posted the following to his personal Facebook page:
“The reason why the crew all passed the lie detector test was because the question on the lie detector was not about UFOs. Here is a good comment from Orion: “This was a question I had asked, well UNTIL I looked at what the polygraph consisted of. The questions they were asked had to do with a missing person and/or murder investigation – NOT a UFO abduction. We must remember that law enforcement is not in the business of conducting polygraphs to prove or disprove UFO abductions. Of course they passed the polygraph – they didn’t kill Travis nor did they have anything to do with his disappearance.”
P.S.
Comment from Victor Coleiro:
“I interviewed Mike around that time (March of 2021). He had been posting on Facebook that Travis was a UFO Hoaxer.
The interview was basically Mike complaining that Travis had owed him money and that Travis did not tell him of another movie he was lining up.
But they came to terms and they were all good again.”
Siberia: Meet the strange “metallic spheres” of unknown origin
Siberia: Meet the strange “metallic spheres” of unknown origin
Siberia is a frozen land, full of mysteries and enigmas that have dazzled the scientific world. One of these questions is metal spheres that baffle experts.
Aerial image of Yakutia, Siberia.
Located in Russia, Siberia is a region endowed with mysteries ; the area has been linked to multiple UFO sightings, habitat of lost civilizations, strange phenomena or rare explosions.
An example is the strange case of Tunguska ; mystery that little by little has become more related to an unidentified flying object.
Siberian Metal Spheres
North of Russia is Yakutia, a region of 3,083,523 square kilometers. This area has been explored very little since, being surrounded by swamps, it is practically impassable.
The natives know it as ” The Valley of Death ” and avoid approaching the area at all costs. Local stories assure that whoever enters, never returns .
It is in this frozen valley, where there are testimonies of the existence of some strange metallic spheres that nobody knows how they appeared or what function they fulfill there.
The locals assure that the origin of the spheres is not terrestrial , although there is no type of scientific research to corroborate it.
Obviously this whole area of Siberia seems to be a magnet for mysterious and strange phenomena ; A small list of unfortunate events in the area are the Tunguska, in 1908, Chulum in 1984, and Vitim, in 2002.
People who live in the vicinity say that the fear they feel is due to the number of diseases and deaths of people who went through it or were in the vicinity of the metal.
Hence, the legend of the “Ancient Taiga Demons” is born, quite popular among the natives.
Testimonials of people who went to the place
The renowned explorer R. Maak, was one of the first people to explore the region in 1853 . His story tells of Algy timirbit, a river that flows through the upper part of the Viliuy mountain . In that place there is a kind of “copper cauldron” that he could not measure , since only the edges were visible sticking out of the ground.
A geologist, in 1936 he ignored the legends of the area and entered the vicinity of the Olguidakh river , guided by native elders. There he found a sphere buried in the ground, reddish in color and extremely smooth . He said the edges were sharper than any material he has ever known and the outer walls were barely 2 centimeters thick.
All this information was sent to the Yakutia regional center.
In 1979 , an expedition of native archaeologists tried to locate the spheres mentioned in different legends.
The person who guided them claimed to have seen them in his youth, but the topography of the place was totally different compared to those days.
ND Arkhipov, a researcher who studied Yakutia culture, had this to say:
«Among the population of the Viliuy basin there is an ancient legend about the existence in the upper parts of this river of bronze cauldrons or olgis.
This legend deserves attention since the areas that are the supposed location of the mythical calderas contain several streams with the name Olguidakh ».
Other testimonies with less documentation come from hunters who claimed to have seen them. Some protruded from the ground and others covered by vegetation or under water.
What can be deduced is that these strange spheres are made of an unknown metal, very similar to copper. It is believed that its strength and toughness is far superior to what is known.
The curse of the spheres
The little vegetation that grows in the area is totally irregular.
The few tests that have been done have not been taken into account by the laboratories, since they do not know their origin or composition .
Local explorers assure that as time passes the spheres sink deeper into the ground until they disappear.
A strange fact is that in their surroundings, strange blackish spots appear on the ground and the vegetation does not grow . Reason why the elders of the area curse them.
Related to this is the testimony of Mikhail Koretsky from Vladivostok, who claimed to have been in the place where the spheres are found.
He said that up to 3 times he visited the place; the first time with his father at the age of 10 in 1933. Then he returned in 1947 with a group of young people.
His interest in visiting the place was the possibility of finding gold in the valleys. On the spheres, he managed to make out up to 7 spheres or cauldrons .
The size and the metal were powerfully conspicuous. They tried to scratch them with a fine, sharp chisel on several occasions, without success. The metal they are made of is not damaged .
The little vegetation that existed around the spheres was totally strange , of disproportionate sizes or peculiar colors.
They spent the night in the area and did not immediately feel any strange effects. However, 3 months later, one of the 6 young men lost all his hair and 3 strange sore spots appeared on the left side of Vladivostok’s head . Coincidentally, that side was the one that rested on the ground to sleep.
So far there is no scientific study on the spheres, beyond testimonies made by adventurers. But the spheres of Siberia continue to generate intrigue. Where do they come from or what is their origin? Nobody seems to know.
To say that there has been an incredible amount of diversity in the forms of life on our planet during the course of its existence would be more than an understatement. Scientists estimate that the species extant on our planet today represent less than 1% of the incredible range of organisms that once thrived here, and which have now faded into extinction.
Because of this, the evolution of life here on Earth is arguably among the most remarkable phenomena known to exist in all of nature, and one which continues to surprise us and our understanding of biology. Within the complex maze of constant changes and adaptations that Earth species have undergone, a number of mysteries have endured over the years which still evade conclusive understanding. Among these are questions about the earliest fossil insects, and the peculiar origins of their wings.
From within Devonian cherts unearthed in Scotland, some of the earliest known fossil insects represent a wingless variety of collembolans, which are essentially ancient predecessors to modern springtails. These primitive insects are named for their springlike tail which allows them to leap out of the way of potential harm when they are disturbed, and varieties of them have been recovered from such chert deposits dated to around 402 million years ago.
Sample of Rhynie chert from Scotland, the likes of which contains some of the oldest ancestors of living insects
(Public Domain).
These ancient springtails stand as both a testament to this simple, yet obviously successful evolutionary form, as varieties of springtails still exist today. However, biologists stop short of calling these creatures insects, since they lack both wings and the proper mouthparts for such designation, instead classifying them as hexapods. Nonetheless, it appears that modern varieties of springtails and their insect cousins share common ancestry with the hundreds of million-year-old bugs that turn up fossilized in chert deposits today.
Herein lies the true mystery, since there remains a surprising gap in the fossil record between these early springtails, and the first winged insects that only begin to appear in the Upper Carboniferous period some 100 million years later. At some point during this lengthy period, insects began to evolve the ability to fly, but why is there so little evidence of it in the fossil record?
Some scientists have theorized that the earliest forms insect wings might have taken hadn’t actually been designed for flight, but instead growths that aided in cooling the bodies of ancient bugs. From here, random mutations over time would have led to the musculature required to move these portions of early insect bodies, after which they eventually became adapted for flight as is commonly observed with insects today, a feature useful not only in locomotion, but allowing the similar protection mechanism of the springtail’s unique leaping activities.
Modern springtail (collembolans) as seen under a microscope
(Wikimedia Commons 3.0).
While the controversy over the origins of insects remains, a step toward discovering one of the long-sought representatives from the “missing” 100-million-year period did finally turn up in 2012, as detailed in a paper that appeared in the journal Nature.
“Although it can hardly be described as well preserved, the fossil shows a six-legged thorax, long single-branched antennae, triangular jaws and a 10-segmented abdomen,” wrote William Shear of the fossil discovery. Insects are, as Shear noted, the only known arthropods to have ever existed with this combination of traits, and therefore it would seem that the specimen in question had been just that. While the creature differed enough from insects known to us since around 250-million-years ago that there had been a few questions, the authors of the Nature paper nonetheless concluded that they were probably looking at one of the earliest ancestors of modern insects.
Dubbed Strudiella devonica, this specimen was recovered from samples extracted from a quarry in Belgium, and dated to approximately 370 million years ago. While perhaps one of the most significant discoveries of its kind, it only further emphasizes how strange the absence of anything definitively attributable to insects remains during their “missing” period in Earth’s ancient history.
There have been some promising discoveries found in Scottish chert deposits that resemble jaws of a possible insect, as well as in fossils recovered from New York that appear to represent portions of creatures that resemble modern insect eyes. As Shear noted in 2012, “these fragments more or less complete the picture of all that is known of insects at this crucial time in Earth’s history.”
To be recognized as one of the oldest and most successful forms life has ever taken on Earth, it is indeed mysterious that so little is known of the origins of insects. This, along with their early absence in the fossil record, endures as one of the most perplexing mysteries that nature and evolution presently keep from us.
The UFO phenomena and its alien abduction cases go way back. In the late 1800s, a strange series of events would begin to play out across the skies of the United States, in such far-flung places as of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, California and Arizona. People were seeing bizarre airships of some sort, usually described as massive, anywhere between 30 to 200 feet long and moving at speeds of roughly 135 to 150 mph, far beyond the dimensions and capabilities of anything at the time. One of the first sightings of these mysterious ships had been a mass sighting in November of 1896 at Sacramento, California, with hundreds of witnesses describing a giant cigar-shaped body with wheels at the sides, some calling it an “electric arc lamp propelled by some mysterious force,” with two human-looking figures seated upon an apparatus. Sightings would pour in after this, moving steadily eastward as far as Chicago, and it would reach peak weirdness with an alleged attempted alien abduction by the pilots of these mysterious vessels.
From between November 1896 and April 1897 there were thousands of reports from across a vast area of 18 states of these strange, cigar-shaped airships that resembled a flying dirigible of some sort, in some cases described as having revolving wheels, rudders, motors, sails, and a powerful beam they could project in front of them or towards the ground. In some cases, the pilots of the vessels were seen and even heard talking, although it could never be made out what they were actually saying. Some were described as having wings, others with propellers, some with no noticeable form of propulsion at all. Strange intricate machinery and contraptions were often mentioned, and all of them were completely bizarre things that no one had ever seen before, which served to sow fear in the regions where they appeared. People were truly baffled because this was an era when airships and blimps were still very rudimentary and primitive, and the Wright Brothers were years away from their flight of the Kitty Hawk. One report printed in the Quincy Morning Whig of April 1897 described a sighting at Quincy Illinois as follows:
At times it did not appear to be more than 400 or 500 feet above the ground. Men who saw the thing describe it as a long, slender body shaped like a cigar, and made of some bright metal. On either side of the hull extending outwards and upwards were what appeared to be wings. At the front end of the thing was a headlight similar to the searchlights used on steamboats.
As all of this was going on there was plenty of speculation on what was going on, ranging from the rational to the outlandish. Meteorites, Venus or other planets, stars, kites, floating Chinese lanterns, birds, and atmospheric phenomena were all mentioned, as was as pranksters and the idea that there may have been some mad inventor at work designing advanced flying machines. It got to the point that even the famous inventor Thomas Edison was questioned on his possible involvement, to which he laughed and said “I prefer to devote my time to objects which have some commercial value. At best, airships would only be toys.” Another idea was that they were aliens, “Martians” as people liked to call them at the time, and there would be at least one bizarre report that would suggest this was the case.
The very strange account was given in 1896, when a Colonel H.G. Shaw was travelling with a companion by the name of Camille Spooner in a horse and carriage in Lodi, California when the horse stopped in abject terror and refused to continue on. In a report on the incident in the Stockton Evening Mail of November 25th, 1896, Shaw would say of what happened next:
Looking up we beheld three strange beings. They resembled humans in many respects, but still they were not like anything I had ever seen. They were nearly or quite seven feet high and very slender. We were both somewhat startled, as you may readily imagine, and the first impulse was to drive on. The horse, however, refused to budge, and when we saw that we were being regarded more with an air of curiosity than anything else, we concluded to get out and investigate. I walked up to where the strange looking persons were and addressed them. I asked where they were from. They seemed not to understand me, but began – well, “warbling” expresses it better than talking. Their remarks, if such you would call them, were addressed to each other, and sounded like a monotonous chant, inclined to be guttural. I saw it was no use to attempt a conversation, so I satisfied myself with watching and examining them. They seemed to take great interest in ourselves, the horse and buggy, and scrutinized everything very carefully.
While they were thus engaged, I was enabled to inspect them as well. As I have already stated, they were seven feet in height and very slender. I noticed, further, that their hands were quite small and delicate, and that their fingers were without nails. Their feet, however, were nearly twice as long as those of an ordinary man, though they were narrow, and the toes were also long and slender. I noticed, too, that they were able to use their feet and toes much the same as a monkey; in fact, they appeared to have much better use of their feet than their hands. I presently discovered that this was probably a provision of nature. As one of then came close to me I reached out to touch him, and placing my hand under his elbow pressed gently upward, and lo and behold I lifted him from the ground with scarcely an effort. I should judge that the specific gravity of the creature was less than an ounce. It was then that I observed him try to grasp the earth with his toes to prevent my lifting him. You can readily understand that their slight weight made such a provision necessary, or they might be blown away.
They were without any sort of clothing, but were covered with a natural growth hard to describe; it was not hair, neither was it like feathers, but it was as soft as silk to the touch, and their skin was like velvet. Their faces and heads were without hair, the ears were very small, and the nose had the appearance of polished ivory, while the eyes were large and lustrous. The mouth, however, was small, and it seemed to me that they were without teeth. That and other things led me to believe that they neither ate nor drank, and that life was sustained by some sort of gas. Each of them had swung under the left arm a bag to which was attached a nozzle, and every little while one or the other would place the nozzle on his mouth, at which time I heard a sound of escaping gas. It was much the same sound as is produced by a person blowing up a football. From the description I give I do not want you to get the idea that these creatures were hideous. In appearance they were markedly the contrary. They were possessed of a strange and indescribable beauty. I can express myself in no other way. They were graceful to a degree, and more divinely beautiful than anything I ever beheld.
Shaw also made mention of very strange tools the creatures held, the size of a “hen’s egg,” and which could project “the most remarkable, intense and penetrating light one can imagine.” The mysterious beings apparently examined the horse and buggy with great interest, but this was apparently only the beginning of the weirdness, and it would soon escalate into what sems to have been a very early account of alien abduction. Shaw would say in the newspaper account of this:
Finally, they became tired of examining us and our horse and buggy, and then one of them, at a signal from one who appeared to be the leader, attempted to lift me, probably with the intention of carrying me away. Although I made not the slightest resistance, he could not move me, and finally the three of them tried it without the slightest success. They appeared to have no muscular power outside of being able to move their own limbs. Well, after trying in vain to move either of us they turned in the direction of the Woodbridge canal, near which we were, and as they flashed their lights towards the bridge we beheld a startling sight.
There, resting in the air about twenty feet above the water, was an immense airship. It was 150 feet in length at least, though probably not over twenty feet in diameter at the widest part. It was pointed at both ends, and outside of a large rudder there was no visible machinery. The three walked rapidly toward the ship, not as you or I walk, but with a swaying motion, their feet only touching the ground at intervals of about fifteen feet. We followed them as rapidly as possible, and reached the bridge as they were about to embark. With a little spring they rose to the machine, opened a door in the side, and disappeared within. I do not know of what the affair was built, but just before it started, I struck it with a rock and it gave no sound. It went through the air very rapidly and expanded and contracted with a muscular motion, and was soon out of sight. I have a theory, which, of course, is only a theory, that those we beheld were inhabitants of Mars, who have been sent to the earth for the purpose of securing one of its inhabitants.
What had gone on to be called the “Great Airship Mystery of 1896-97” would continue on after this, generating thousands of sightings of these aircraft but no further attempted abduction accounts, not even any detailed descriptions of the shadowy figures often reportedly standing atop them. It has all been written off as the product of some sort of collective delusion or mass hysteria, but does this really explain the myriad sightings made across many states? What are we to think of Shaw’s bizarre account, and how does it fit in to the larger mystery that was going on at the time? There is no way to know, and it remains a curious and very odd historical oddity.
The Nine Unknown Men: An Ancient Indian Secret Society
The Nine Unknown Men: An Ancient Indian Secret Society
There is a pervasive legend in India of a secret organization that allegedly has a vast amount of advanced knowledge in their possession. Believed to have been formed over 2000 years ago, the Nine Unknown Men is widely suspected of manipulating political and societal trends in order to further the personal goals of the Nine. But is sucha secret organizationa reality or is it merely the stuff of legend?
An Origin Story Like No Other…
The society of the Nine Unknown Men was formed shortly after 226 BC by Emperor Ashoka. Grandson of the legendary Emperor who unified the Indian subcontinent, Chandragupta, Ashoka was anxious to uphold his grandfather’s legacy and maintain the empire. In the region between Calcutta and Madras, the Kalingan’s resisted the imperial rule, leading to an all-out war.
Ashoka’s vastly superior forces are said to have killed over 100,000 of Kalinga’s warriors and deported over 150,000 of the region’s villagers. Even though he had won the war, Ashoka was aghast at the carnage such a victory entailed. From then on, he swore off violence forever.
Relief from Sanchi showing Ashoka on his chariot. First century BC.
Emperor Ashoka is best known for his conversion to Buddhism and his efforts to spread the peaceful religion throughout India as well as Malaya, Ceylon, and Indonesia. His efforts contributed to Buddhism’s later rise in China, Nepal, Tibet, and Mongolia. Ashoka was a sworn vegetarian but did not force others to do likewise. Indeed, he was incredibly tolerant of other religious sects. He did, however, prohibit the consumption of alcohol.
Most importantly, “he renounced the idea of trying to integrate the rebellious people, declaring that the only true conquest was to win men’s hearts by observance of the laws of duty and piety, because the Sacred Majesty desired that all living creatures should enjoy security, peace, and happiness and be free to live as they pleased” (Pauwels and Bergier). So committed was the Emperor to this mission that he sought to prevent his fellow man from putting their intelligence towards perpetrating evil, particularly the evil involved with warfare.
The task of collecting, preserving, and containing all knowledge was too great for one emperor to do alone, not the least because of the other duties required in ruling an empire. So Ashoka summoned nine of the most brilliant minds in India at the time. For security purposes, the identity of these men was never made public. Together, these geniuses formed a secret society that came to be known as the Nine Unknown Men.
What Did The Nine Unknown Men Study?
The organization set up accumulating all the scientific knowledge they could, from natural science to psychology to the composition of matter. Fearing that if ordinary men were given scientific knowledge they would use it for destruction, only the Nine Men were allowed to study and develop scientific theories and technology. To better accomplish this daunting task, each of the nine was charged with a specific book that he was to update, revise, and ultimately perfect the knowledge therein.
When one of the nine could no longer complete the task – whether from the wish to retire, fading health, or death - the obligation was passed to a chosen successor. The number of members in the society was always to be nine. Thus the society of the Nine Unknown Men has allegedly lived on for over 2000 years.
Portrait of a young Indian scholar, Mughal miniature by Mir Sayyid Ali, circa 1550 AD. ( Public Domain )
Speculation about the contents of each of the nine books varies widely. Talbot Mundy, an English writer, published a book entitled The Nine Unknown Men in 1923, which contained a list of the nine books. This list has come to be generally accepted.
“Propaganda: The first book dealt with techniques of propaganda and psychological warfare. “The most dangerous of all sciences is that of molding mass opinion, because it would enable anyone to govern the whole world,” according to Mundy.
Physiology: The second book discussed physiology and explains how to kill a person simply by touching him or her, known as the “the touch of death,” simply by the reversal of a nerve impulse. It is said that the martial artof Judo is a result of “leakages” from the second book.
Microbiology: The third volume focused on microbiology and biotechnology.
Alchemy: The fourth dealt with alchemy and transmutationof metals. According to another legend, in times of severe drought, temples and religious relief organizations received large quantities of gold from “a secret source.”
Communication: The fifth book contained a study of all means of communication, terrestrial and extraterrestrial. Alluding then that the Nine Unknown Men were aware of alien presence.
Gravity: The sixth book focused on the secrets of gravitation and actual instructions on how to make the ancient Vedic Vimana,(like Vaiminika Shastra on aerospace technology).
Cosmogony: The seventh contained cosmogony and matters of the universe.
Light: The eighth dealt with light, including the speed and how to use it as a weapon.
Sociology: The ninth and final book discussed sociology. It included rules for the evolution of societies and the means of foretelling their decline.” (Mundy paraphrased by Ancient Explorers)
Is the Secret Society Fact or Myth?
But were the Nine Unknown Men real? Ashoka may very well have asked nine men of unknown identity to gather scientific knowledge, particularly with regards to its application to warfare. This was a very fractious time and other Emperors have been known to order similar initiatives. These men may have explored different empires’ battle tactics and training, weapons manufacturing, horse/elephant handling, and maybe even gunpowder usage.
However, an ancient group living on in secrecy for over 2000 years, controlling global events from the remote jungles of India with not a hint of modern equipment, infrastructure, or technology is hard to believe. For many, the legend is most likely just a legend.
Has the ancient group of the Nine Unknown Men been working in secrecy for over 2000 years?
Imagine you're walking into a forest, and you roll over a fallen log with your foot. Fanning out on the underside, there is something moist and yellow – a bit like something you may have sneezed out, if that something was banana-yellow and spread itself out into elegant fractal branches.
What you're looking at is the plasmodium form of Physarum polycephalum, the many-headed slime mold. Like other slime molds found in nature, it fills an important ecological role, aiding in the decay of organic matter to recycle it into the food web.
This bizarre little organism doesn't have a brain, or a nervous system – its blobby, bright-yellow body is just one cell. This slime mold species has thrived, more or less unchanged, for a billion years in its damp, decaying habitats.
And, in the last decade, it's been changing how we think about cognition and problem-solving.
"I think it's the same kind of revolution that occurred when people realized that plants could communicate with each other," says biologist Audrey Dussutour of the French National Center for Scientific Research.
"Even these tiny little microbes can learn. It gives you a bit of humility."
P. polycephalum – adorably nicknamed "The Blob" by Dussutour – isn't exactly rare. It can be found in dark, humid, cool environments like the leaf litter on a forest floor. It's also really peculiar; although we call it a 'mold', it is not actually fungus. Nor is it animal or plant, but a member of the protist kingdom – a sort of catch-all group for anything that can't be neatly categorized in the other three kingdoms.
It starts its life as many individual cells, each with a single nucleus. Then, they merge to form the plasmodium, the vegetative life stage in which the organism feeds and grows.
In this form, fanning out in veins to search for food and explore its environment, it's still a single cell, but containing millions or even billions of nuclei swimming in the cytoplasmic fluid confined within the bright-yellow membrane.
Cognition without a brain
Like all organisms, P. polycephalum needs to be able to make decisions about its environment. It needs to seek food and avoid danger. It needs to find the ideal conditions for its reproductive cycle. And this is where our little yellow friend gets really interesting. P. polycephalum doesn't have a central nervous system. It doesn't even have specialized tissues.
"We're talking about cognition without a brain, obviously, but also without any neurons at all. So the underlying mechanisms, the whole architectural framework of how it deals with information is totally different to the way your brain works," biologist Chris Reid of Macquarie University in Australia tells ScienceAlert.
"By providing it with the same problem-solving challenges that we've traditionally given to animals with brains, we can start to see how this fundamentally different system might arrive at the same outcome. It's where it becomes clear that for a lot of these things – that we've always thought required a brain or some kind of higher information processing system – that's not always necessary."
P. polycephalum is well known to science. Decades ago, it was, as physicist Hans-Günther Döbereiner of the University of Bremen in Germany explains, the "workhorse of cell biology". It was easy to clone, and keep, and study.
However, as our genetic analysis toolkits evolved, organisms such as mice or cell lines such as HeLa took over, and P. polycephalum fell by the wayside.
In 2000, biologist Toshiyuki Nakagaki of RIKEN in Japan brought the little beastie out of retirement – and not for cell biology. His paper, published in Nature, bore the title "Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism" – and that's exactly what P. polycephalum had done. Nakagaki and his team had put a piece of plasmodium at one end of a maze, a food reward (oats, because P. polycephalum loves oat bacteria) at the other, and watched what happened.
The results were stunning. This weird little acellular organism managed to find the fastest route through every maze thrown at it.
"That triggered a wave of research into what other kinds of more difficult scenarios we can test the slime mold with," Reid says.
"Virtually all of those have been surprising in some way or another, and surprised the researchers in how the slime mold actually performed. It revealed some limitations as well. But mostly, it's been a voyage of revelation on how this simple creature can do tasks that have always been given to and thought to be the domain of higher organisms."
Full of surprises
Nakagaki recreated the Tokyo subway, with the station nodes marked out with oats; P. polycephalumrecreated it almost exactly – except the slime mold version was more robust to damage, wherein if a link got severed, the rest of the network could carry on.
Yet another team of researchers found that the protist could efficiently solve the traveling salesman problem, an exponentially complex mathematical task that programmers routinely use to test algorithms.
Earlier this year, a team of researchers found that P. polycephalum can "remember" where it has previously found food based on the structure of the veins in that area. This followed previous research from Dussutour and her colleagues, who discovered that blobs of slime mold could learn and remember substances that they didn't like, and communicate that information to other blobs of slime mold once they fused.
"I'm still amazed by how, in a way, complex they are because they always surprise you in an experiment, they would never do exactly what you choose to do," Dussutour says.
In one instance, her team was testing a growth medium used for mammal cells, and wanted to see if the slime would like it.
"It hated it. It started to build this weird three-dimensional structure so it could go on the lead and escape. And I'm like, 'oh my gosh, this organism'."
A processing network
Although it's technically a single-celled organism, P. polycephalum is considered a network, exhibiting collective behavior. Each part of the slime mold is operating independently and sharing information with its neighboring sections, with no centralized processing.
"I guess the analogy would be neurons in a brain," Reid says. "You have this one brain that's composed of lots of neurons – it's the same for the slime mold."
That brain analogy is a really intriguing one, and it wouldn't be the first time P. polycephalum has been compared to a network of neurons. The topology and structure of brain networks and slime mold blobs are very similar, and both systems exhibit oscillations.
It's not entirely clear how information is propagated and shared in the slime mold, but we do know that P. polycephalum's veins contract to act as a peristaltic pump, pushing cytoplasmic fluid from section to section. And oscillations in this fluid seem to coincide with encounters with external stimuli.
"It's thought that these oscillations convey information, process information, by the way they interact and actually produce the behavior at the same time," Döbereiner tells ScienceAlert.
"If you have a network of Physarum go to a certain food, it changes oscillation pattern when it encounters sugar: it starts to oscillate quicker. Because of these quicker oscillations, the whole organism starts changing its oscillation pattern and starts to flow into the direction where the food was found."
He and colleagues recently published a paper demonstrating that these oscillations are extraordinarily similar to the oscillations seen in a brain, only a hydrodynamic system rather than electrical signals.
"What's relevant is not so much what oscillates and how the information is transported," he explains, "but that it oscillates and that a topology is relevant – is one neuron connected to 100 neurons or just to two; is a neuron connected just to its neighbors or is it connected to another neuron very far away."
P. polycephalum growing on a life-sized model of a human skull.
As exciting as its escapades may seem, any researcher working with it will tell you that P. polycephalum is not, in itself, a brain. It's not capable of higher-level processing or abstract reasoning, as far as we can tell.
Nor is it, as intriguing as the notion may seem, likely to evolve into something like a brain. The organism has had a billion years to do so and shows no sign of going in that direction (although if any science fiction writers out there like the idea, feel free to run with it).
In terms of overall biology, slime mold is extremely simple. And by that very fact, it's changing how we understand problem-solving.
Just like other organisms, it needs food, it needs to navigate its environment, and it needs a safe place to grow and reproduce. These problems can be complex, and yet P. polycephalum can solve them with its extremely limited cognitive architecture. It does so in its own simple way and with its own limitations, says Reid, "but that in itself is one of the beautiful things about the system".
In a sense, it leaves us with an organism – a wet, slimy, damp-loving blob – whose cognition is fundamentally different from our own. And, just like the Tokyo subway, that can teach us new ways to solve our own problems.
"It's teaching us about the nature of intelligence, really, challenging certain views, and basically widening the concept," Reid says.
"It does force us to challenge these long-held anthropocentric beliefs that we are unique and capable of so much more than other creatures."
Over the course of several months between the final weeks of 1896 and the early summer of 1897, newspapers throughout the United States had been reporting on odd stories of airships that were purportedly being seen across the nation. Beginning in California, the sightings continued in the months ahead as the area of sightings slowly expanded eastward into states like Arkansas, Missouri and Texas.
One of the most interesting accounts from the era appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the date of April 16, 1897, which announced that the mysterious airship had been viewed through a telescope by one Dr. Leo Caplan while it passed over Missouri.
“The airship visited St. Louis again Thursday night,” the Post-Dispatch report read. “This time the bright searchlight was not only seen by thousands but the object was observed through a telescope and the outlines of the craft were seen.”
Artist’s rendering of the airship purportedly seen during late 1896 and into the summer of 1897.
Dr. Caplan, who was described in the article as a medical doctor and “a dabbler in astronomy” and frequent stargazer, had been convinced that what he observed was no star.
“I was walking to my home on Washington avenue last night about 7:45,” Caplan explained, “when I saw a bright light almost overhead.” The light appeared to the northwest of where Caplan stood observing.
“But the moment I saw this light,” Caplan explained, “I realized it was something unusual and I hastened home, ran to the roof and brought my telescope to bear on the object. Before taking a sight I noticed the light was swaying from side to side.” Caplan likened this peculiar motion to that of “a searchlight that was being manipulated.”
Most intriguingly, Caplan also said that he was able to observe through his telescope “a long black body behind the light,” which he described as being similar to other reports of a large, cigar-shaped object reported by other observers around the time who had seen the mysterious craft during its mostly nighttime visits. One day after Caplan’s observation, another purported sighting of the strange aerial visitor was logged by an Arkansas constable named John J. Sumpter, who saw the airship with his Deputy Sherriff John McLemore.
Amidst newspaper reports like these that had been occurring in the spring and early summer of 1897, there had been other unusual sightings taking place even further east. Around the same time, Joseph Loven, a resident of the Cold Springs community along Jonas Ridge, North Carolina, first said he observed peculiar lights that appeared at night and could be seen from his home off in the direction of a location now famous for the strange lights said to manifest there: a long, flat ridgeline called Brown Mountain.
Brown Mountain as seen today in Western North Carolina.
The Brown Mountain Lights, as the phenomena reputed to occur near Linville in Western North Carolina has since come to be known, would seem to be quite different from the reports of airships that were afoot during the 1890s. However, is it possible that there might nonetheless be a connection between them?
In 1906, nine years after the American airship affair had died down (and some of the earliest alleged sightings of the Brown Mountain Lights were said to have occurred), author Jules Verne still had airships on his mind. His novel Master of the World, a sequel to his earlier book Robur the Conquerer, was now hitting the shelves, which continued the adventures of the fearful Robur and his penchant for building magnificent flying ships. In Master of the World, Verne described a rather unique location as the base of operations for Robur’s latest operations, as featured in the opening pages of the story.
“The strange occurrences began in the western part of our great American State of North Carolina,” Verne explains. “There, deep amid the Blueridge Mountains rises the crest called the Great Eyrie. Its huge rounded form is distinctly seen from the little town of Morganton on the Catawba River, and still more clearly as one approaches the mountains by way of the village of Pleasant Garden.”
“The Great Eyrie,” as depicted in the original illustrations for Jules Verne’s novel “Master of the World”
(public domain).
Verne goes on to paint the Great Eyrie as a strange prominence rising above the surrounding landscape, describing it as “rocky and grim and inaccessible,” noting that “under certain atmospheric conditions [it] has a peculiarly blue and distant effect.” Verne elaborates further, speculating that the summit of the Great Eyrie, which remained impenetrable to even the most experienced climbers, might have been an ancient volcano, “one which had slept through ages, but whose inner fires might yet reawake,” which he likens to Krakatoa, Mont Pelee, and potentially being host to an “eruption such as that of 1902 in Martinique.”
This much might have been evident by the many sightings of smoke, or the “unexplained rumblings” cited by locals which appeared to emanate from the Great Eyrie. This, and the fact that, as Verne recounts, “A glow in the sky had crowned the height at night.”
“And finally,” Verne tells us, “one stormy night pale flames, reflected from the clouds above the summit, cast upon the district below a sinister, warning light.”
Flames above the Great Eyrie, from Verne’s “Master of the World”
(Public Domain).
Soon, newspapers throughout the region would begin to report on the mysterious light show occurring in the skies above The Great Eyrie, and as Verne tells us, “curiosity among those who being in no danger themselves were interested in the disturbance merely as a strange phenomenon of nature,” while others nearer to the mysterious mountain lived in fear of possible forthcoming danger.
“Those more immediately threatened were the citizens of Morganton,” Verne tells us, “and even more the good folk of Pleasant Garden and the hamlets and farms yet closer to the mountain.”
English translations of Vern’s novel wouldn’t make their way onto the shelves of American bookstores until 1911, but by the time they did, people around real-life Morganton, North Carolina, were already familiar with similar strange happenings said to occur in their region.
An example appeared in The Charlotte Daily Observer on the date of September 23, 1913, which provided the following account:
“The mysterious light that is seen just above the horizon almost every night from Rattlesnake Knob, near Cold Spring, on the Morganton road is still baffling all investigators. With punctual regularity the light rises in a southeasterly direction from the point of observation just over the lower slope of Brown Mountain, first about 7:30 p.m. and again at 10 o’clock. It looks much like a toy fire balloon, a distinct ball, with no atmosphere about it. It is much smaller than the full moon, much larger than any star and very red. It rises in the far distance from beyond Brown Mountain, which is about 6 miles from Rattlesnake Knob, and after going up a short distance, wavers and goes out in less than 1 minute. It does not always appear in exactly the same place, but varies what must amount in the distance to several miles. The light is visible at all seasons, so Mr. Anderson Loven, an old and reliable resident testifies There seems to be no doubt that the light rises from some point in the wide, level country between Brown Mountain and the South Mountains, a distance of about 12 miles, though it is possible that it rises at a still greater distance.”
Historical photo depicting lights purported to represent the mysterious lights seen near the vicinity of Brown Mountain, North Carolina.
According to most sources, no written records of mysterious lights appear in the region prior to around 1912, although most newspaper accounts begin appearing in 1913. These state that locals had been troubled by the appearances of the lights for the last “two or three years,” which as Geologist Ed Speer, a researcher who has studied the lights for several years has pointed out, would roughly coincide with the appearance of English translations of Jules Verne’s Master of the World in 1911.
However, some sources such as Joseph Loven, who claimed to have seen the lights as early as 1897 (when mysterious “airships” were frequent appearing, at least in American newspapers) also said he wouldn’t begin to pay attention to the lights until 1910, when others began to bring attention to them like Rev. C. E. Gregory, his neighbor at the time.
Is it indeed possible that there could be any connection between beliefs about the Brown Mountain Lights—appearances of which have been said to persist now for decades—and the mysterious airships of the 1890s? Admittedly, the appearance of “The Great Eyrie” as depicted in art from Verne’s novel bears a striking similarity to Table Rock, a prominent mountain in the Linville Gorge wilderness a short distance from Brown Mountain where reports of the mysterious lights have also been logged over the years.
An enhanced photo that may depict an anomalous light rising over Table Rock in the Linville Gorge Wilderness, taken in 2009 by researcher Bill Fox
(Credit: Bill Fox).
It would be difficult to imagine Jules Verne (who despite his gifted imagination, never strayed far from his home in France) had somehow heard about quaint local traditions in the southern Appalachians regarding ghost lights at the time he wrote of the “strange occurrences… in the western part of our great American State of North Carolina” in Master of the World. This is especially unlikely since newspaper accounts detailing the lights appeared no earlier than 1912, one year after the publication of his novel.
Conversely, the skeptically inclined would argue that stories about the lights, rather than inspiring Verne’s story, had actually been influenced by its publication instead. Then again, if this were true, what can be said of the endurance of reports of the lights now for more than a century? A final possibility would simply be that there are no connections, apart from the coincidental appearances of the lights shortly after the publication of Verne’s book, which borrowed from the lingering interest in prospective airships seen in America in the 1890s (although it should be noted that a similar rash of sightings occurred in Britain in 1909, Verne’s novel was published in France three years before this, and thus couldn’t have been inspired by the sightings of “Scareships” over Europe).
Some of the similarities between these late-19th and early-20th century oddities are certainly difficult to ignore. Ultimately, they could be suggestive of the cultural influence one of the most renowned early science fiction novelists had on the development of a famous folk tradition of “ghost lights” in the American southeast.
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Portal type “Stargate” discovered near Area 51 thanks to Google Maps
Portal type “Stargate” discovered near Area 51 thanks to Google Maps
The images captured by Google Maps show some structures or military complex with a kind of “Stargate” device, a short distance from the famous Area 51.
According to UFO researchers, this “Stargate” was built thanks to the ‘ Pegasus Project ‘, where different types of tests were carried out between 1968 and 1976.
Evidence that was basically “to travel in time and space, and possibly through parallel universes.”
Gravitational and magnetic research carried out long ago by UFO researcher Joshua Warren tells us that near Groom Lake, the time would decrease by 20 milliseconds.
Warren is convinced that it is a gravitational anomaly.
Warren himself tells us that in this place there could be a “Stargate” or a “Wormhole” that represents a temporal-gravitational dimension.
This is the effect of time flowing at different speeds in regions of different gravitational potential.
“For example, in the vicinity of a black hole, the slowest time will flow.”
Clearly, Warren was not wrong since this military complex was discovered with the “Stargate device.”
According to some whistleblowers, the Department of Defense developed Stargates or technology for space-time travel more than 40 years ago.
As early as 1967, the United States government allegedly used a facility dedicated to this and built on the basis of Tesla’s quantum access.
This technology has been used to keep the construction of military installations secret, as well as offering political and economic benefits by knowing what the future holds.
Some say the CIA confiscated the documents from the Tesla transporter shortly after his death.
The Dr. Andrew D. Basiago participated in the DARPA Project Pegasus (from 1968 to 1972) which focused on time travel.
He said that the CIA and the US Navy operating Area 51 were actively training groups of US military and students to become the first generation of dimensional explorers.
The “Stargate ring” visible on Google Maps is part of the underground military complex called «Century IV», which is part of Area 51, where work began on the «Aquarium» project in 1990.
The same microbiologist Dan Burisch who worked on Area51 describes a Stargate that is located near the secret base and near Lake Groom.
Dan says that “next to this huge device is a platform with a Portal that allows the object to be thrown into the wormhole to travel to other stars, teleporting people or materials from one place to another instantly.”
This device is also known as ” Looking Glass ” and was used to see the probabilities of future events.
As Burisch states, many wars and catastrophes would have occurred due to these Stargates. According to Burisch, there are fifty Stargates on Earth.
“Today, the human race would be in danger of extinction due to climate change, and the elite could be using these devices to build bases and shelters on other worlds.”
A corner of the UFO phenomenon that has remained rather spectacular and alluring is that of the UFO crash. By far the most famous of these is the July 1947 crash of some sort of flying object at Roswell, New Mexico, which has gone on to spawn countless conspiracy theories and tales of alien bodies and secret bases in the desert testing out alien technology. Roswell can also arguably be said to lay claim to being the incident that really launched the UFO craze into the public consciousness and put the idea of sinister government UFO research on the map, the name Roswell being nearly synonymous with any purported UFO crash thereafter and a name known by people who don’t even follow the field. The Roswell incident has become by far the most famous UFO crash, becoming a pop cultural icon in the process, and is largely thought to mark the beginning of serious mainstream consideration of mysterious craft coming down from the sky to smash into the earth. Yet, Roswell is not, as many may believe, the first, and there have been supposed mysterious crashes of UFOs and even alien bodies found that predate it by some margin.
One of the earliest UFO crash stories in America happened even before there was even a Roswell at all. In 1884 there was a very bizarre incident that allegedly happened at the tiny town of Max, Nebraska. The town was just a dusty, nondescript speck on the map, with only 914 living there at the time, a place where not much ever happened at all, but on June 6, 1884 all of that would change. On this day a rancher named John W. Ellis and a group of other cowboys were rounding up a herd of cattle when they heard a “terrific whirring noise over their heads” and turned to see “a blazing body falling like a shot to Earth.” Whatever it was hit nearby beyond an embankment, and when they went to investigate they found a strange metallic object embedded in the earth, which had left in its wake a deep gash in the ground. One of the frightened herdsmen, a man named Alf Williamson, was purportedly burned when he drew to close to the object. There was apparently a lot of debris from the mysterious craft lying about as well, and one report in the Nebraska State Journal would say of this:
One piece that looked like the blade of a propeller screw, of a metal of an appearance like brass, about 16 inches wide, three inches thick and three-and-a-half feet long, was picked up by a spade. It would not weigh more than five pounds, but appeared as strong and compact as any known metal. A fragment of a wheel with a milled rim, apparently having had a diameter of seven or eight feet, was also picked up. It seemed to be of the same material and had the same remarkable lightness.
It is a very compelling report, but it happened so long ago and was so little covered in the news at the time that it is impossible to ascertain how real any of the report is or what could have happened to the supposed fragments of the craft. What happened to this craft after that? Are there still pieces of this thing out there somewhere? Who knows? Another very early account of a supposed UFO crash that happened just a few years later even allegedly featured a dead alien pilot. In April of 1897, the small town of Aurora, Texas, was rocked by a rather spectacular event. It was reported that a large, slow-moving aircraft like nothing anyone had ever seen came down from the sky to go smashing into a windmill to send debris scattering everywhere, as well as a dead humanoid creature the townsfolk called the “Martian pilot.” An article in the Dallas Morning News would say of the incident:
Aurora Cemetery “About 6 o’clock this morning the early risers of Aurora were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing around the country. It was traveling due north and much nearer the earth than before. Evidently some of the machinery was out of order, for it was making a speed of only ten or twelve miles an hour, and gradually settling toward the earth. It sailed over the public square and when it reached the north part of town it collided with the tower of Judge Proctor’s windmill and went into pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground, wrecking the windmill and water tank and destroying the judge’s flower garden. The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard and, while his remains were badly disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world.
The body of the alien was then supposedly given a proper burial at the local cemetery, and it has all become a fixture of local lore, as well as almost legendary in the UFO field. Various people have tried to dig up more information on this, even talking to supposed living relatives of the original witnesses and scouring the cemetery with metal detectors, but the body supposed body has never been found. In 1973, a group called the International UFO Bureau claimed to have located the site of the alien’s grave, but they were denied the proper permits to have it exhumed, leaving it a mystery as to just who or what is buried there. A North Texas State University professor also allegedly unearthed some fragments at the site of where the windmill once stood, which “consisted primarily of iron which did not seem to exhibit magnetic properties,” but it is unknown what happened to these or what they actually were.
One account in later years from 1920 is an account related by a man named Clark Linch, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. On June 3, 1920, Linch took a break from working on his father’s farm in order to do some fishing at the nearby river. It was 10 AM on a pleasant day, and he planned to go out fishing for just a few hours and then come back to work. As he sat out at the riverside waiting for a fish to bite, he allegedly saw “an egg-shaped object the size of a cream can” come down to smash into the ground about 15 feet away on the bank, where it sat for around 15 minutes before taking off again. He would say of his rather odd encounter:
I wasn’t in any hurry to jump up and run over to it, and I’m glad I didn’t. It might have killed me. Just when I thought about going over to take a closer look at it, it took off without any sound and without turning around. The grass where it hit was pressed down. I didn’t know what to believe about it at the time, and I still don’t. I’ve concluded that it wasn’t anything from Earth. It was so small; it couldn’t have been occupied by intelligent life as we know it.
He would claim that the object flew off at very slow speeds, with a strange wobbling motion, making him think the thing had crashed and been damaged somehow. When Linch examined where the object had been, he found merely an area of pressed down grass, but no scorch marks or other damage. At the time he kept his strange experience to himself, and it would not be until 1955 that he would tell anyone about what had happened, explaining “You didn’t talk about flying saucers in 1920.” Despite decades having passed, he still vividly remembered the incident, and knew the date because it was his birthday and the year he got married. What did he see out there at that riverside?
Even more spectacular is another report of a UFO crash complete with alien bodies and a government cover-up that predates Roswell by 6 years. The account comes from the book UFO Crash / Retrievals: The Inner Sanctum, by UFO researcher Leo Stringfield. He claimed that he had received a letter from a woman named Charlette Mann, who had a very strange story to tell. She claimed that in 1984 her grandmother on her deathbed had told her about an incident experienced by her grandfather, a Reverend William Huffman, who had told her of having been involved with being called to bless alien bodies in the wake of a UFO crash outside of Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the spring of 1941. Huffman told her that he had been brought to the crash site thinking he was going to an airplane crash and that he would be saying last rights to human victims, but as soon as he arrived, it was immediately clear that this was no normal aircraft and these were not human victims, but rather a spaceship and several small, hairless beings. Charlette would explain of what had happened to her grandfather:
Upon arrival it was a very different situation. It was not a conventional aircraft, as we know it. He described it as a saucer that was metallic in color, no seams, did not look like anything he had seen. It had been broken open in one portion, and so he could walk up and see that. In looking in he saw a small metal chair, gauges and dials and things he had never seen. However, what impressed him most was around the inside there were inscriptions and writings, which he said he did not recognize, but were similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. There were 3 entities, or non-human people, lying on the ground. Two were just outside the saucer, and a third one was further out. His understanding was that perhaps that third one was not dead on impact.
It was hard for him to tell if they had on suits or if it was their skin, but they were covered head to foot in what looked like wrinkled aluminum foil. He could see no hair on their bodies and they had no ears. They were small framed like a child, about 4 feet tall, but had larger heads and longer arms. Their faces had large, oval-shaped eyes, no noses, just holes and no lips, just small slits for mouths. There had been mention of a ball of fire, yet there was fire around the crash site, but none of the entities had been burned and so father did pray over them, giving them last rites. There were many people there, fire people, photographers, and so they lifted up one, and two men on either side stood him up and they stretched his arms out, they had him up under the armpits and out here.
When Huffman had finished his blessings and his duty, he was then told in no uncertain terms to say nothing of what he had seen there, but he had eventually told his wife. Charlette also claimed that her grandfather had secretly kept a picture from the scene of the crash, which allegedly showed one of the dead alien bodies being held up by two military men. She had been shown this picture by her father, who had gotten it from her grandfather, and indeed she claimed that this was the reason she had pushed her grandmother to tell her the truth of what had happened that day. Charlette would say of the creature in the mysterious photograph:
As I recall from the picture I saw, he was about 4 feet tall, appeared to have no bone structure, soft looking. He had a suit on, or we assume it was a suit, it could have been his skin, and what looked like crinkled, soft aluminum foil. I recall it had very long hands, very long fingers, and I think there were three but I cannot swear to that.
It is unclear what happened to this picture, or whether it ever even existed or not, and indeed the whole account is a bit murky and difficult to get to the facts. Several people related to Charlette, as well as the living brother of the Cape Girardeau County sheriff in 1941, Clarance R. Schade have corroborated these events, and Charlette Mann has been called a very sincere and trustworthy person by those who have interviewed her since, but UFO researchers who have visited the area and dug for more information have failed to uncover much more information on the case. It is largely known from Stringfield’s book and some interviews with Charlette herself, and without further evidence it is hard to say just what exactly happened out there in the spring of 1941.
What can we say about such reports? With no real evidence there is not way to know how real they were, or whether they were merely hoaxes and urban legends and lore. One thing we can say is that they show that the notion of alien spacecraft coming down to crash into the earth did not begin with Roswell, and that this sort of report has been going on for some time. Whether it is aliens, tall tales, or some explainable phenomena, such reports certainly capture the attention, and serve as strange historical oddities that have remained elusive to our understanding.
Giants in Ancient Egypt? A “mummified finger” could confirm this
Giants in Ancient Egypt? A “mummified finger” could confirm this
The belief in giants does not go back to a simple myth. There is a lot of archaeological evidence, accepted and unrecognized, that suggests its existence. That is the case of the colossal finger found in Egypt.
Finger next to an Egyptian 20 pound note to compare the size.
Scholars of ancient cultures that inhabited the world thousands of years ago are convinced that giants roamed the Earth .
Although science recognizes the existence of abnormally large men through gigantism, archaeological evidence, which has not been accepted by the mainstream, shows that it was not a disease.
This could be the case of a strange mummified finger found in Egypt , which has dimensions that exceed those of the average human.
Giant’s finger in Egypt
In March 2012, the German magazine Bild published an article claiming that the remains of a giant had been found in Egyptian territory.
The finger, which was mummified, had all the characteristics of a human, except its size, which was 15 inches long .
According to the publication, the photographs are dated 1988 , but these had never come to light, until the newspaper was able to get them.
The images were taken by the Swiss businessman and fan of the history and culture of ancient Egypt, Gregor Spoerri.
In 1988, she says, one of Egypt’s private providers, Bir Hooker, promised to arrange a meeting with a former grave robber .
The meeting took place in a small house obtained by Hooker, 100 kilometers northwest of Cairo.
The businessman received a large bag with a rather strong smell. Opening it, he found the huge finger wrapped in rags. Obviously, Spoerri decided to cancel the $ 300 the man demanded to take some pictures of them.
To check the size of the finger, the man placed a 20 Egyptian pound note next to the finger. This one was dry and very light , but intact. Soperri assured that the creature must have been at least 5 meters tall .
X-ray supposedly demonstrating the authenticity of the mummified finger.
Its veracity was proven when the looter showed an X – ray of the mummified finger, which he performed in the 1960s. He also showed the certificate of authenticity .
A race that walked the Earth?
Although the businessman asked him to sell the relic, the man refused, claiming that the value it had for his family was priceless .
Later, Spoerri showed the images to colleagues and specialists, who rejected them . They all argued that it was simply “impossible” for someone that size to exist.
In 2009, the businessman once again visited Hooker to obtain new photographs of the giant toe. However, he was unable to find the looter.
Although this story sounds pretty incredible, it is not the first time that giants have been talked about in ancient Egypt.
In the year 79 d. C., the Roman historian, Josefo Flavio , wrote that the last member of the race of the giants lived in century XIII a. C., during the reign of King Josué .
In addition, he said that they had colossal bodies and their faces were so different from humans, that looking at them generated astonishment and their voice provoked fear.
Scientists claim that the giants are nothing more than fictional characters, since there is no evidence that hominids have grown to such dimensions. However, the enigmatic findings that could prove otherwise are piling up .
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.