The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
23-02-2019
Scientist Warns to Beware of Capitalistic Extraterrestrials
Scientist Warns to Beware of Capitalistic Extraterrestrials
If you thought the only place in the universe where you have to worry about predator capitalists is on Earth … think again. Two professors in Germany have written a new book detailing possib
le outcomes of a human encounter with an intelligent alien species and in it they warn that our SETI messages sent into space may be attracting the wrong kind of extraterrestrials – namely, the capitalistic kind who will see only the financial gains to be had by exploiting (or worse) the physically, technologically and intellectually weaker species they encounter on this wet blue planet. Does this scenario sound vaguely familiar? Even scarier, human capitalistic space explorers could find alien technology that gives them an advantage over other humans and use it against their fellow Earthlings. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
In an interview with Bild, Michael Schetsche, a Research Coordinator at the Freiburg Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health and an adjunct professor at the Institute for Sociology of the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, discussed the book “The Alien Society — Introduction to Exosociology” which he co-authored with his scientific assistant, Andreas Anton. He sees the second scenario – humans finding alien technology, whether current or an artifact – as the more dangerous one, because it could happen on the Moon or one of the asteroids we’re already visiting.
“Maybe it’s space debris that a strange probe has left on the moon or in the asteroid belt. But imagine, the artifact is still functional. Maybe it is a drive segment intended for free space. Of course we humans want to explore that, we bring it to earth, experiment with it, activate it with overflowing curiosity. And then it rips away a quarter of the planet’s surface.”
On the other hand, the discovery of this technology may not destroy humanity on its own but instead be used as a tool by greedy states or corporations. Even the quest to get it and bring it back could be deadly.
“(It could happen) that an artifact discovered somewhere in the asteroid belt provides the reason for warlike conflict on Earth.”
Schetsche recommends immediately setting up an international agreement to “subordinate extraterrestrial finds to the supervision of the United Nations” and let the U.N. determine how found alien technology is handled and when, if at all, it should be brought back to Earth. (A U.N. agreement on alien technology to prevent one nation or corporation from becoming almighty? Good luck with that.)
It’s the first scenario – that of contact with an extraterrestrial species with human capitalistic tendencies – that conspiracy thoerists like Alex Jones picked up on and screamed “GERMAN SCIENTISTS URGE TO STOP SENDING SIGNALS INTO SPACE TO ‘CAPITALIST ALIENS’.” (His all-caps headline.) Schetsche compares it to the European ‘discovery’ of America and the conquest of Africa. As Native Americans and Africans found out, overwhelming power changes everything.
“All action of nation states is based on power. The entire structure is obsolete in the moment in which an overpowering extraterrestrial actor appears in the sky. It would be a struggle between Bambi and Godzilla, and we would be Bambi in the case.”
Take me to your money.
Even if the aliens are benevolent, human response to no longer being superior to everything could cause chaos.
“Even if people do not kill each other, direct contact can destroy the social, economic, political and religious structures of countries.”
Based on these speculations, Schetsche obviously thinks it’s better to be the discoverer, not the discoveree, and recommends that we stop sending signals to superior aliens, especially ones that might have the same conquer and capitalize tendencies as their Earth counterparts once and most likely still have (sorry Trekkies).
It won’t be like this.
Should we stop sending signals and start sending more humans and exploration robots into space? That’s already happening. Should we fear contact with superior life forms? Look in the mirror. Should we trust those in power to do the right thing should alien technology be found? Look in the mirror again.
Either way, it looks like most of us will probably end up like Bambi.
I’ve often wondered whether future varieties of artificial intelligence might not help humans discover incredible new things about reality. Perhaps machines will even unveil little nuances that have been hidden beneath our noses all along, but which required the kind of critiques that only a computer mind could offer.
But while we are thinking about the ways ever-watchful A.I. may help us critique reality in the future, another question comes to mind which mirrors the old idea, “quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” proposed by Roman satirist Decimus Junius Juvenalis: in a world where we’re learning from the machines we’ve built, who fact-checks those machines, and more importantly, how do we know that what we learn from them even be trusted?
This might sound like a silly proposition, due in part to the sorts of stigmas we have about artificial intelligence and machine learning. On the one hand, many would ascribe to notions like, “of course we shouldn’t trust machines completely… they aren’t human!” In direct contrast to this, advocates of machine learning and A.I. might argue that this is precisely the reason they should be trusted: machines are, and will continue to be, capable of processing and synthesizing information in ways that often far exceed what the human brain can do.
Genevera Allen, a Rice University statistician recently made the argument that until machine learning systems can be designed in ways that allow for objective critiques of the information they provide, their trustworthiness remains flawed.
Allen spoke earlier in February at an Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she addressed this problem as part of her lecture:
“The question is, ‘Can we really trust the discoveries that are currently being made using machine-learning techniques applied to large data sets?’ The answer in many situations is probably, ‘Not without checking,’ but work is underway on next-generation machine-learning systems that will assess the uncertainty and reproducibility of their predictions.”
Fundamental to the problem is the predictive nature of many (if not most) computational systems. Allen argues that because making a prediction about information is what these computers are designed to do, they are unlikely not to find data when tasked with doing so… even if a human observing the same data could easily discern that, in some instances, none exists.
“[Machines] never come back with ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I didn’t discover anything,’ because they aren’t made to,” Allen said in a Rice University press release. However, the concerns Allen raises aren’t merely prospective: some instances already exist where it appears that questionable information may have been gleaned, at least in part, from studies that incorporated computational data that remained uncorroborated with relation to cancer research.
Allen explains:
“[T]here are cases where discoveries aren’t reproducible; the clusters discovered in one study are completely different than the clusters found in another… Because most machine-learning techniques today always say, ‘I found a group.’ Sometimes, it would be far more useful if they said, ‘I think some of these are really grouped together, but I’m uncertain about these others.'”
I recall a discussion I had with a futurist a few months ago, where we discussed the question over dangers stemming from interpretive issues that may arise from the way machine learning differs from our own. The example he gave was relevant here, although more in line with the “Hollywood” conception of potential problems we may one day have with A.I. (we might call this the “Terminator” model, which I think needs no further explanation here).
Imagine, he said, if we told A.I. to find a way to destroy a particular human disease. We input the information, and the computer outputs the following solution: “destroy all carriers of the disease.” In other words, rather than finding a cure, the machine interprets the problem in simple terms of its elimination… whereby the machine makes no distinction between “solving” the problem and committing murder.
This is a dramatic example, but it works analogically in comparison with what we already see in studies where machine learning is involved. Computers, in other words, function and respond to data sets in ways that differ vastly from human reason. Thus, we do need to be aware of these kinds of issues as more and more computational systems are affecting the knowledge science is acquiring and working with in the future.
Wallace’s giant bee is about four times larger than a honeybee.
Credit: Global Wildlife Conservation.
After being missing in the action for more than four decades, Wallace’s giant bee (Megachile pluto) has been found in a remote part of Indonesia. The huge insect with enormous jaws — about the size of a human thumb — is the largest bee species in the world.
The ‘flying bulldog’
The giant bee, also known as the ‘flying bulldog’, was first discovered by British naturalistAlfred Russel Wallace, famous for independently proposing the theory of evolution through natural selection alongside Charles Darwin. When Wallace first came across the beefy insect in Indonesia’s North Moluccas islands in 1858, he described it as a “large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle.”
Despite its conspicuous size, Wallace’s giant bee likes to keep to itself. For more than a century it hadn’t been spotted by Western scientists, only to be seen again by entomologist Adam Messer in 1981, who called it the ‘king of bees’. The lack of sightings, despite scientists’ best efforts, coupled with wide scale habitat loss, has led many to believe that the insect had gone extinct. Although Indonesia has abundant flora, it’s also a country where regulations are weak and forests are being cut down for agriculture.
But then Clay Bolt, a specialist bee photographer, did the unimaginable: he found Wallace’s giant bee, where many others had failed before him. Several months prior to the discovery, Bolt was introduced to a museum specimen of the giant bee by Eli Wyman, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. The two quickly bonded through their shared interest of seeing the bee in the wild and hatched a plan for an expedition.
Natural history photographer Clay Bolt takes the first ever photos of a living Wallace’s giant bee.
Credit: Simon Robson.
In January, the two had arrived with a search party in Indonesia where they explored the rainforest in North Moluccas. For a week, the crew braved extreme heat, humidity, and thunderstorms, as they looked for the giant bee’s nests that are typically carved into termite mounds in trees. They were down to their last day with nothing to show when a guide spotted a promising low-lying termite mound. When they peeked inside the resin-covered enclosure, the explorers thought they had spotted a snake. To everyone’s surprise, they found that the creature making a racket inside was a Wallace’s giant bee. They quickly blocked the nest’s exit and collected the bee.
“We were just basically freaking out after so many years of planning and almost giving up hope,” Bolt told Earther. “It was an incredible moment to realize that we came all this way, other people have looked for it, and here we were: filthy and sweaty and we somehow found this insect. For me, it was a moment of tremendous gratitude and humility that I was a part of this moment and this team.”
Rediscovering the giant bee is certainly a breakthrough — yet the real tough part is only just beginning. Now, researchers will have to work on plans designed to protect the species, which will require more studies that might estimate how many individuals are left and what the state of their habitat is. The fact that the bees live in very remote locations is reassuring, but there is still a lot we don’t know about this elusive species.
“I hope this rediscovery will spark future research that will give us a deeper understanding of the life history of this very unique bee and inform any future efforts to protect it from extinction,” Wyman said in a statement.
Around this time of year – if the western horizon stays clear – the last few minutes of daylight fall perfectly on Horsetail Falls, making it glow as if on fire. Photographers call it the firefall …
For two weeks out of the year, a spectacular event known as the firefall takes place within Yosemite National Park. Hundreds if not thousands of photographers flock to the valley in hopes of capturing the elusive moment, that is, if the weather, snow and light cooperate. If Yosemite receives an ample amount of snowfall throughout the winter, and if the western horizon stays clear, the last few minutes of daylight fall perfectly upon Horsetail Falls and illuminate it in a vibrant orange and red. The waterfall glows so fiercely that it appears to be on fire. Yesterday, after the valley received several feet of snow for a few days, one last clearing snowstorm led to the perfect mix of ingredients. Water flowing from the beautiful Horsetail Falls and a dazzling mix of broken clouds floating past El Capitan as the sunset set the fall ablaze.
Thank you, Mike!
Bottom line: Fireball at Yosemite National Park, February 17, 2019.
Now that the CIA has placed a trove of its dirty laundry online for all to see, all sorts of strange chapters of the intelligence agency’s past are beginning to be revealed. Since 2017, journalists and amateurs alike have been poring over the CIA’s CREST database in search of the truth about the many dark, twisted research projects and activities the Central Intelligence Agency has gotten into over the years.
Already, some interesting and somewhat unexplained things have been found. Earlier this month, files were discovered showing the CIA hunted the elusive Yeti and a mysterious “metallic disc” in the Nepalese Himalayas, while another set of files appeared to depict unexplained shadow people with curious numbers stamped on them. Who knows what else may be waiting to be discovered in the CREST databases?
This week, American government watchdog site Muckrock found an interesting set of documents outlining the CIA’s interest in and fears of psychic abilities. Many of the files describe experiments into telekinetic abilities conducted throughout the U.S., Europe, and the USSR, including experiments involving famous psychic Uri Geller. In many of these experiments, the files note, individuals were able to “evidence a new form of energy that moves and perhaps alters matter.” The documents claim that British scientists witnessed objects appearing or disappearing during some of these tests, leading to CIA fears that enemy psychics might create “poltergeist phenomena” in order to terrify and confuse their adversaries’ leadership with psychic attacks.
This aspect of the CIA’s research into possible uses of psychic phenomena is well-documented by our own Nick Redfern and others, but these documents show that the CIA’s fears went even deeper, involving worries that its greatest adversary at the time was developing psychic abilities that could be used as weapons which could cause “a massive change which will alter the direction, time, space and energy-matter relationship of our world.” Yikes.
According to these files, the CIA began tracking Soviet research into parapsychology in the 1970s. While some CIA analysts believe the KGB’s research may have been a counterintelligence ruse designed to confuse American spies, many elements of America’s intelligence agencies took the threat of Soviet psychic weapons seriously. Some analysts even feared that if enough Soviet psychics were combine their powers, they could potentially cause mass destruction with their minds:
With the above scientific speculation and laboratory experiments in mind, a weapon or weapons could be theorized. […] If we see awareness in a psychic framework and you concentrate ten individuals in one area – all of whom are evidencing disruptive telekinetic phenomena – do you cause a chain reaction, causing much matter to reverse direction and sink back into a sea of energy or be displaced in time and space? Could such a ‘critical mass’ affect a whole city?
Could such a psychic weapon exist? Have any actually been deployed? Would we know it if they were? Perhaps the “disruptive telekinetic phenomena” and mind manipulation mentioned in these files could explain our recent shift into a bizarre dystopian timeline.
While these files are a tantalizing glimpse behind the veil of government secrecy, I firmly believe that the really secret, spooky stuff will never see the light of day or was never documented on paper at all. Still, these CREST files are beginning to show that the many conspiracy theories and allegations made about the CIA’s paranormal research over the years are perhaps more true than we realize.
Pictured: one of Mary’s offspring in the aquarium at School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham.
Credit: Laura Dean.
Stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) make babies without having sex. Like most other fish, the female lays unfertilized eggs which the males later fertilize with sperm in the nest. But somehow, one such female got pregnant and produced offspring through an emergency C-section. The female, aptly named Mary, shows that evolution is fluid and that nature doesn’t always play by the rules.
“We were astounded at what we found when we examined Mary in our lab in the Outer Hebrides. She looked like an ordinary egg-bound fish so we couldn’t believe it when we found she had almost completely developed embryos inside her ovaries. This is pretty much unheard of in an egg laying species. The embryos were perfectly healthy, not deformed in any way, and most have gone on to live a normal adult lifespan,” Dr. Laura Dean, a researcher at the University of Nottingham and lead author of the new study, said.
This isn’t the first time that scientists have come across developing embryos inside unfertilized egg-laying fish. Previously, only two such cases were known to science and both also involved stickleback fish. This most recent case is even more striking because this time, the embryos survived and many of the pups grew into adults that are still alive today.
Researchers found Mary while surveying egg-bound sticklebacks in Scotland — and she wasn’t in great shape. She was swollen with her young and very close to dying. Researchers euthanized Mary with drugs and then opened her up to extract the eggs. A total of 56 eggs hatched and survived to adulthood inside a laboratory aquarium. Twenty of these individuals are still alive today, three years later, the authors wrote in the journal Scientific Reports.
VIDEO: Embryos moving showing beating hearts just before hatching.
Credit: University of Nottingham.
Stickleback males don’t just contribute sperm. They have an active parenting role, helping eggs develop by fanning them with their fins for two weeks until they hatch. But it seems like the environment inside Mary was good enough to ensure healthy embryo development.
“Although this almost accidental find revealed a vanishingly rare phenomenon, it might help us to understand a really important change that has happened throughout the tree of life,” Andrew MacColl, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Nottingham in England, said in a statement. “Most animals lay eggs, but some (including almost all mammals, but few fish) retain their eggs inside and give birth to live young. Although this appears to be a difficult thing to achieve in evolution, this one little fish seems to have got there almost by itself.”
As to how Mary got pregnant in the first place, that’s a mystery that might never be solved. Researchers thought that perhaps Mary had cloned herself or that maybe she was a hermaphrodite with both male and female sex organs. However, the authors ruled these two possibilities out since genetic testing showed that the offspring had versions of genes that could only have come from a father.
What probably happened is that Mary strayed by a nest where a male had just recently ejected sperm to fertilize normal eggs. Some of that sperm must have traveled up Mary’s egg tube, fertilizing some of the un-laid eggs inside her.
Researchers are now planning to go the site where they found Mary, hoping the catch similar specimens. Some fish, such as guppies pupfish, are livebearers and this ability may have evolved independently. In this regard, Mary may offer researchers with a glimpse of how such an evolutionary leap might occur.
As Yellowstone Awakens, Dr. Michio Kaku Wans That it Could “Literally Tear the Guts Out of the United States of America”
As Yellowstone Awakens, Dr. Michio Kaku Warns That it Could “Literally Tear the Guts Out of the United States of America”
One day it will happen. Scientists assure us that one day the absolutely massive Yellowstone supervolcano will once again experience a Category 8 eruption, and if it happened today it would “literally tear the guts out of the United States of America”. That is why what has been happening at Yellowstone in recent months is so alarming. We know that the ground has been rising and that “a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock”is moving upwards directly under Yellowstone. And we also know that the major geysers at Yellowstone were more active last year than in any other year in any of our lifetimes. Are these signs that an eruption is coming? We better hope not, because as Dr. Michio Kaku recently told Fox News, there is“a sleeping Godzilla underneath Yellowstone”…
Dr Kaku told Fox News: “Forget the image of Yogi Bear representing Yellowstone.
“We’re talking about a sleeping Godzilla underneath Yellowstone, that if it erupts in a maximum eruption called Category 8, it can literally tear the guts out of the United States of America.
“Instead of having 50 states of the Union, we would have 30 states of the Union.“
We live at a time when seismic activity has been increasing all over the world, and Yellowstone has also been exhibiting very unusual behavior.
“Unlike a meteor from outer space, where you get no warning whatsoever, we get warnings.
“If you see movies like Pompeii, you know that there are days, in fact, weeks of eruptions building up, rumbling inside, underneath the pocket of lava.
“So there would be enough time, several weeks, to begin evacuation if and when such an unlikely event were to take place.”
But what if we have been ignoring the warnings that we have already been getting?
For example, Steamboat geyser erupted more times in 2018 than in any other year in history. The following comes from National Geographic…
The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory reports that Steamboat has now set a record by erupting a whopping 32 times in 2018, a personal best for the geyser for a single calendar year. Previously, this geyser made it as high as 29 paroxysms back in 1964.
Other nearby geysers have also been behaving fairly interestingly of late. Ear Spring Geyser, for example, has been pretty quiet since 1957, but it erupted spectacularly a few months back—and sprayed human garbage from the 1930s everywhere.
Prior to last year, there had not been an eruption of the Steamboat geyser for three and a half years.
In addition, the ground under Yellowstone has been steadily rising for the last few years, and the area was hit by 121 earthquakes in the month of December alone…
“In the area of Norris Geyser Basin, GPS data indicate a minor amount of uplift over the past few months, with a total uplift of about 2cm during 2018, also continuing the trend that has been ongoing since 2015.”
In the same Yellowstone update, the USGS revealed a total of 121 earthquakes were recorded in the Yellowstone area in December 2018 alone.
It is indeed possible that when Yellowstone finally erupts that we will get more of a warning than this.
But it is also possible that we will not.
When Yellowstone blows, life as you have known it will instantly be over. If you are not in the immediate kill zone, you will have an opportunity to try to survive, but it won’t be easy. One survivalist expert suggests that everyone should “head east as fast as you can”…
He added: “Zone one, which is a radius of 100 miles, could see 70,000 people die instantly.
“Zone two, which starts after 100 miles, would be covered in 10ft of volcanic ash at 450C.
“After the second zone, your chances of surviving increase, but still head east as fast as you can.
“Beyond zone six is where you would be the safest in the US for the short term, but the wind will greatly determine where ash falls.”
Personally, I don’t know if that is the best approach. The roads will be absolutely clogged, and there is no way that you are going to outrun the volcanic ash. If you get completely buried in volcanic ash in your vehicle, it will all be over.
Of course the truth is that if Yellowstone experiences a Category 8 eruption most Americans will eventually die no matter what they do. The following is an extended excerpt from one of my previous articles…
Hundreds of cubic miles of ash, rock and lava would be blasted into the atmosphere, and this would likely plunge much of the northern hemisphere into several days of complete darkness. Virtually everything within 100 miles of Yellowstone would be immediately killed, but a much more cruel fate would befall those that live in major cities outside of the immediate blast zone such as Salt Lake City and Denver.
Hot volcanic ash, rock and dust would rain down on those cities literally for weeks. In the end, it would be extremely difficult for anyone living in those communities to survive. In fact, it has been estimated that 90 percent of all people living within 600 miles of Yellowstone would be killed.
Experts project that such an eruption would dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away, and approximately two-thirds of the United States would suddenly become uninhabitable. The volcanic ash would severely contaminate most of our water supplies, and growing food in the middle of the country would become next to impossible.
In other words, it would be the end of our country as we know it today.
The rest of the planet, and this would especially be true for the northern hemisphere, would experience what is known as a “nuclear winter”. An extreme period of “global cooling” would take place, and temperatures around the world would fall by up to 20 degrees. Crops would fail all over the planet, and severe famine would sweep the globe.
In the end, billions could die.
Let us hope and pray that nothing like this happens any time soon. Those of you that regularly follow my work already know that I am far more concerned about an eruption of Mt. Rainier, and we should also keep a very, very close eye on Mt. Fuji in Japan.
As our planet becomes increasingly unstable, there will be unprecedented natural disasters in the years ahead, and multitudes of people will die in those disasters.
Unfortunately, most of the “experts” continue to assure the public that everything is going to be “just fine”, but meanwhile the shaking of our planet just continues to get even worse with each passing year.
While it holds a predominant place in Australian Aboriginal mythology as well as in tales by European settlers, the cryptid known as the bunyip has been rarely seen. That makes the news of both the discovery of Aboriginal cave paintings of bunyips as well as a possible video of one a two-fer for their fans. If you’re not one yet, you may become one after hearing one of the origin stories, and if you believe the video, you may want to avoid rivers and billabongs for a while.
The word bunyip comes from the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of Victoria, but tales of similar creatures are found throughout Aboriginal folklore. Most say it’s a water spirit, usually evil, with a wide variety of characteristics, including a dog-like face, a crocodile-like head, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks or horns, or a duck-like bill – many of these coming from unidentified fossils attributed to the bunyip.. The National Library of Australia has a famous drawing by an unknown artist illustrating the strange combination of features. Since the sightings are always in water, there’s some speculation the creature is based on a seal, a prehistoric ancestor to the platypus or even an aquatic prehistoric marsupial.
Bunyip by C.D. Richardson
The Aboriginal people have their own ideas, which brings us to the cave paintings. They were rediscovered in 2016 during an expansion of the Grampians Peaks Trail in a shallow cave atop a cliff in the Mt. Difficult Range in Grampians National Park Victoria. Four red-ochre bunyips, well-worn but still identifiable possibly tens of thousands of years after they were drawn on the sandstone wall, have been kept secret until now for their protection – in fact, the exact location of the caves has not been revealed to anyone but traditional owners, park rangers and archaeologists. (See the photos here.)
The rock art of the Grampians is rich in symbols, some of which are found nowhere else and much of which has meanings yet to be relearned.
Picture: JUSTIN MCMANUS
Though faded after years of neglect, park rangers and archaeologists are using new technology to reveal traces of ochre which may be tens of thousands of years old.
Picture: JUSTIN MCMANUS
The traditional owners tell an interesting tale of the bunyip. Bunjil, the creator spirit, lived on a cliff in the Mt. Difficult Range. One day he jumped from it safely with his wife and two children in his arms. However, when his mother-in-law jumped, he couldn’t catch and she broke into pieces. Still alive, she crawled to a waterhole where a bunyip attacked her. She offered her clumsy son-in-law instead and the bunyip killed Bunjil.
I told you some people would become fans of the bunyip after hearing this story!
The Bunyip
That brings us to the recent video. (See it here.) There is very little information on it, other than it was allegedly shot in the western Australia outback, far from Victoria, and the barely visible creature swimming in the water allegedly ate a horse. The explanation refers to it as possibly a rainbow serpent, which is sometimes used to describe a bunyip but with more benevolent characteristics – it came with the great mother from the sea, brings the wet seasons and deposits spirit-children in pools where women swim to impregnate them. Sounds better than eating a horse, doesn’t it? The word “bunyip” has entered common usage as a synonym for “imposter” or “pretender” and that also seems to fit this video.
The cave paintings of the bunyip are truly an historic find and will add to the heritage of Mt. Difficult and the Grampians National Park. Of course, all of that changes if a better video of a surfacing bunyip surfaces.
Researchers studying the brain have stumbled upon a mysterious, previously unknown form of neural communication that has stunned the scientific community.
Despite major scientific breakthroughs, the brain largely remains a mystery, and the team from Case Western Reserve University have added to it with their latest paper on a self-propagating ‘wireless’ communication they encountered that can jump across different sections of the brain.
While we’re asleep, the cortex and hippocampus in the brain send out mysterious neural ‘waves’. Scientists have previously observed a low-level, slow periodic activity in the brains of decapitated mice by studying slices of their hippocampuses.
“We’ve known about these waves for a long time, but no one knows their exact function and no one believed they could spontaneously propagate,”says neural and biomedical engineer Dominique Durand from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
This slow periodic activity can generate electric fields which ‘switch on’ neighboring cells briefly, allowing for chemical-free communication across gaps in the brain. The team managed to simulate communication across completely severed brain tissue while the separate pieces remained in close proximity.
“It was a jaw-dropping moment for us and for every scientist we told about this so far.”
The review committee at The Journal of Physiology required the researchers to replicate their results again before they would consider publishing. The researchers were happy to oblige and their paper was subsequently published in the October issue.
When many neurons fire they create a weak electric field, which we can observe on an electroencephalogram (EEG); think of a Mexican wave that keeps going despite breaks in the crowd.
The team has yet to decipher how exactly the discovery works, or what its applications may be.
Gigantische gletsjer twee keer zo groot als België dreigt los te komen van Antarctica: zeeniveau kan tot 3 meter stijgen
Gigantische gletsjer twee keer zo groot als België dreigt los te komen van Antarctica: zeeniveau kan tot 3 meter stijgen
IllustratieFOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Een gletsjer die twee keer zo groot is als de oppervlakte van België dreigt te verdwijnen door de opwarming van de aarde. En als dat gebeurt, kunnen de gevolgen catastrofaal zijn. “In het worstcasescenario is er sprake van een stijging van de zeespiegel met 3 meter”, klinkt het.
De Thwaitse-gletsjer is 600 kilometer lang, 120 kilometer breed en is een van de grootste gletsjers van West-Antarctica. Maar zal die nog lang blijven bestaan? Geavanceerde radars van NASA hebben binnenin de gletsjer een enorme holte waargenomen, waar er al een massa ijs is weggesmolten. Het gaat om een holte van 300 meter hoog, 10 kilometer breed en 4 kilometer lang. Die holte verwarmt de gletsjer van binnenuit, waardoor die verder wegsmelt. Het zeewater binnenin de gletsjer is nu al verantwoordelijk voor 4 procent van de totale stijging van de zeespiegel.
Maar de gletsjer dreigt dus volledig te verdwijnen, en in dat geval zou het waterpeil met 65 centimeter stijgen. Sommige modellen spreken zelfs van een stijging van het water met 3 meter. Volgens Eric Rignot hoogleraar Earth Science aan Universiteit van Californië is West-Antarctica gedoemd om te verdwijnen. Rignot bestudeerde het fenomeen in de Thwaitse-gletsjer en zegt dat hij denkt dat het publiek niet beseft wat er op Antarcticata en in de poolgebieden echt aan het gebeuren is. “We doen het niet goed. Dit fenomeen is onmogelijk te stoppen”, zegt hij. “Maar het kan wel vertraagd worden, als we de opwarming vertragen. De gletsjer zal zich wellicht blijven terugtrekken, maar door iets aan het klimaatverandering te doen, kunnen we dat proces héél traag laten verlopen.”
Ook Emmanuel Le Meur, docent aan de Universiteit van Grenoble, bevestigt dat: “De grote vraag is nu of dit het geval is de komende decennia, de volgende paar eeuwen of zelfs volgende millennia. Hoe snel dit zal lopen, hangt af van onze manier van leven en van wat onze besluitvormers zullen doen.”
Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers
Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers
Conspiracy theories shown on video-sharing site persuade people to doubt Earth is round
Science editor
All but one of those interviewed said they had changed their minds after watching videos promoting conspiracy theories on YouTube. Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images
Researchers believe they have identified the prime driver for a startling rise in the number ofpeople who think the Earth is flat: Google’s video-sharing site, YouTube.
Their suspicion was raised when they attended the world’s largest gatherings of Flat Earthers at the movement’s annual conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2017, and then in Denver, Colorado, last year.
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Flat Earth rising: meet the people casting aside 2,500 years of science – video
Interviews with 30 attendees revealed a pattern in the stories people told about how they came to be convinced that the Earth was not a large round rock spinning through space but a large flat disc doing much the same thing.
Of the 30, all but one said they had not considered the Earth to be flat two years ago but changed their minds after watching videos promoting conspiracy theories on YouTube. “The only person who didn’t say this was there with his daughter and his son-in-law and they had seen it on YouTubeand told him about it,” said Asheley Landrum, who led the research at Texas Tech University.
The interviews revealed that most had been watching videos about other conspiracies, with alternative takes on 9/11, the Sandy Hook school shooting and whether Nasa really went to the moon, when YouTube offered up Flat Earth videos for them to watch next.
Some said they watched the videos only in order to debunk them but soon found themselves won over by the material.
Landrum said one of the most popular Flat Earth videos, “200 proofs Earth is not a spinning ball” appears to be effective because it offers arguments that appeal to so many mindsets, from biblical literalists and conspiracy theorists to those of a more scientific bent.
One way or another, the interviewees found themselves believers and before long were asking “where is the curve?” and “why is the horizon always at eye level?”
The Flat Earth conference in Denver, Colorado, in November 2018. Photograph: Josiah Hesse/The Guardian
Landrum, who presented her results at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, said she did not think YouTube was doing anything overtly wrong, but said that if the site wanted to help it could tweak its algorithm to show more accurate information.
“There’s a lot of helpful information on YouTube but also a lot of misinformation,” Landrum said. “Their algorithms make it easy to end up going down the rabbit hole, by presenting information to people who are going to be more susceptible to it.”
“Believing the Earth is flat in of itself is not necessarily harmful, but it comes packaged with a distrust in institutions and authority more generally,” she added. “We want people to be critical consumers of the information they are given, but there is a balance to be had.”
Landrum called on scientists and others to create their own YouTube videos to combat the proliferation of conspiracy videos. “We don’t want YouTube to be full of videos saying here are all these reasons the Earth is flat. We need other videos saying here’s why those reasons aren’t real and here’s a bunch of ways you can research it for yourself.”
But she conceded that some Flat Earthers may not be swayed by a scientists’ words. When the US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained how small sections of large curved surfaces will always appear flat to the little creatures that crawl upon it, his message was seen by some Flat Earthers as patronising and dismissive, Landrum said.
“There’s always going to be a small percentage of people who will reject anything that scientists put out there but maybe there’s a group in the middle that won’t,” she added. “The only tool we have to battle misinformation is to try and overwhelm it with better information.”
Strange cloud over Stonehenge : A strange vertical unexplainable ‘cloud’ appears
Strange cloud over Stonehenge : A strange vertical unexplainable ‘cloud’ appears
Stonehenge is an emblematic monument for people from all over the world. Built about 5,000 years ago, it represents the mysteries and forgotten secrets that await deciphering. Located in Wiltshire, England, three kilometers west of Amesbury, archaeologists have suggested that it could have been built using the Pythagorean theorem. Interestingly, Stonehenge dates back to 2,750 BC, long before the time of Pythagoras. It was after two millennia that Pythagoras was born to present his theory that states that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the respective lengths of the legs.(Strange cloud over Stonehenge)
And the truth is that there are triangles perfectly aligned in Stonehenge , so it would show that the ancient humans knew perfectly the Pythagorean equation years before the legendary mathematician presented this theory. It is for this reason that one can not speak of Stonehenge without mentioning the theory of the ancient extraterrestrials. The Swiss author Erich von Däniken suggested in his book “Cars of the gods” published in 1968 that ancient religions and technologies were taught by extraterrestrial beings , who were received as gods.
Moreover, von Däniken states that Stonehenge was built by these visitors from other worlds, or at least that they provided the knowledge and technologies necessary to build it, as happened with the Pyramids of Giza and the moáis on Easter Island, between other things. And perhaps this would explain the large number of UFO sightings and supernatural phenomena at Stonehenge. But now the mystery that surrounds this place returns. Expert meteorologists and the British Ministry of Defense have been baffled by the presence of a strange cloud in an upright position on Stonehenge.
The mysterious vertical cloud
A strange spiral cloud similar to the vapor trail left by the planes has left the experts surprised. So far no one understands how the trail was formed, a kind of rippling cloud near Stonehenge and a few installations of the British Ministry of Defense (MoD).(Strange cloud over Stonehenge)
Weather experts and MoD officials are trying to find an explanation for the unusual phenomenon. The incredible photo was taken by David Hargrave, of Sidbury Hill in Salisbury Plain, on Tuesday night. He was walking with his dogs when he saw the trail of steam , which also looks like the trail left by the launch of a rocket. David said he appeared about 50 kilometers from where he was, heading for Westbury at the northwest corner of Salisbury Plain.(Strange cloud over Stonehenge)
“I also have no idea what it is, I hope someone has an answer,” Hargrave, 66, told MailOnline . “It’s a mystery.”
Apparently, nearby there are MoD facilities where weapons are tested and military maneuvers are carried out. However, the Defense Infrastructure Organization, which is part of the British Ministry of Defense, said that no military tests or maneuvers were conducted in the entire area . For their part, meteorologists from the University of Bristol and experts from the drone company Somerset Drone have not been able to explain the unusual phenomenon.(Strange cloud over Stonehenge)
Extraterrestrial evidence
Because of this, there were many who said that it was clearly the trace left by the takeoff of a UFO in Stonehenge . In addition, this would show that this ancient structure was actually built by aliens who visited our planet in the past. Moreover, its true function, debated for decades, would be to hide an extraterrestrial base within it.
These beings from other worlds were in contact with our ancestors , helping them in their technological and spiritual development, and those who worshiped them as gods. Several cave paintings around the world also confirm the theory that aliens visited Earth in the past.
Without a doubt, we are facing a really disconcerting phenomenon, as it is possible for a “cloud”to form vertically. And if we add that the meteorologists and the British Ministry of Defense have not been able to find a logical and rational explanation, we have one of the best evidences of how the Stonehenge continues to be some kind of “landing strip” for ships from of other worlds or dimensions.(Strange cloud over Stonehenge)
What do you think about the mysterious cloud? Is it a strange and unusual natural formation? A secret military test? Or is it the trace left by a UFO?
A new paper describes a remarkable set of fossil spiders found in South Korea. Two of the fossils – from an extinct spider family called Lagonomegopidae that lived between 110 and 113 million years ago – feature reflective eyes for nighttime hunting.
University of Kansas paleontologist Paul Selden is co-author of the paper, published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology on January 28, 2019. Seldon said in a statement:
Because these spiders were preserved in strange silvery flecks on dark rock, what was immediately obvious was their rather large eyes brightly marked with crescentic features. I realized this must have been the tapetum — that’s a reflective structure in an inverted eye where light comes in and is reverted back into retina cells. This is unlike a straightforward eye where light goes through and doesn’t have a reflective characteristic.
Flint rock preserved characteristics of the spider fossils differently than the more common amber-preserved spiders.
Selden said that some contemporary spiders feature eyes with a tapetum, but the new paper is the first to describe the anatomical feature in a fossilized spider. He said:
In spiders, the ones you see with really big eyes are jumping spiders, but their eyes are regular eyes – whereas wolf spiders at nighttime, you see their eyes reflected in light like cats. So, night-hunting predators tend to use this different kind of eye. This was the first time a tapetum had been in found in a fossil. This tapetum was canoe-shaped – it looks a bit like a Canadian canoe. That will help us place this group of spiders among other families.
Soft-bodied species like spiders aren’t usually fossilized in rock like animals with bones and teeth. More often, ancient spiders and insects are discovered preserved in amber. The researchers said these spiders, who lived between 110 and 113 million years ago, must somehow have been protected from deterioration to allow them to be so well-preserved in the shale formation. Seldon said:
This is so rare because they’re very soft – they don’t have hard shells so they very easily decay. It has to be a very special situation where they were washed into a body of water. Normally, they’d float. But here, they sank, and that kept them away from decaying bacteria – it may have been a low-oxygen condition.
These rocks also are covered in little crustaceans and fish, so there maybe was some catastrophic event like an algal bloom that trapped them in a mucus mat and sank them but that’s conjecture. We don’t really know what caused this, but something killed off a lot of animals around the lake at one time or on an annual basis.
The spider fossils were found in South Korea, in an area of shale called the Lower Cretaceous Jinju Formation, when the shale containing the fossils was exposed during a construction project.
According to Selden, the shale preserved the spider fossils in a manner that highlighted the reflectivity of the tapetum, a feature that may have been missed had the spiders been preserved in amber instead, as is more typical. He said:
Amber fossils are beautiful, they look wonderful, but they preserve things in a different way. Now, we want to go back and look at the amber fossils and see if we can find the tapetum, which stares out at you from rock fossils but isn’t so obvious in amber ones because the mode of preservation is so different.
Locality map of the study area. A, distribution of Cretaceous sedimentary basins around the Korean Peninsula; rectangular area is magnified in B. B, simplified geological map of the Gyeongsang Arc System; the sedimentary rocks represent the Gyeongsang Backarc Basin, while the volcanic rocks represent the Gyeongsang Volcanic Arc; rectangular area is magnified in C (modified from Chough & Sohn 2010; the displacement by the Yangsan Fault has been recovered). C, road map of the study area showing the two fossil localities (stars).
Credit: Paul Selden.
Bottom line: A remarkable set of fossil spiders found in South Korean shale display reflective eyes.
Eerie black snow falls over Siberian region triggering acute pollution concerns from locals
Eerie black snow falls over Siberian region triggering acute pollution concerns from locals
Ghostly pictures of dark snowscapes - which should be pristine white - as blame pointed at failure to filter fumes at coal plant.
Eerie black snow.
Picture: nataseife, Typical Kemerovo
Prosecutors in Kemerovo region are reportedly checking the cause of black snow over three cities in the coalmining region - Prokopyevsk, Kiselyovsk and Leninsk-Kuznetsky.
Pictures shared by locals show alarming black winter scenes with one comment reading: ‘Is this what snow looks like in hell?’
Others have claimed there is a beauty in the bleak snowscapes.
Local media have blamed the gloom on local plants processing coal.
Director general of Prokopyevskaya factory Anatoly Volkov explained to Vesti-KUzbass TV channel that a shield stopped working at his plant protecting the air from coal powder.
Ghostly pictures of dark snowscapes - which should be pristine white - as blame pointed at failure to filter fumes at coal plant.
Pictures: Typical Kemerovo
Deputy governor of Kemerovo region Andrei Panov - in charge of ecology - is to meet local environmentalists to discuss the matter.
He suggested this plant was not the only cause of the problem.
Coal boilers, car exhausts and other coal-burning plants were also to blame.
On social media residents point the finger at other plants too, alleging there is a long-term lack of environmental protection in an region that’s lifeblood is coal.
‘No cleansing systems, all the waste, dust and dirt, coal lay in the area. Our children and us are breathing it. It's just a nightmare,’ said one.
Another commented: ‘The government bans smoking in public. But let us inhale coal dust all together and let it reside in our lungs.’
Black snow falls over Siberian region triggering acute pollution concerns from locals.
Pictures: Nataseife, kamenkseni, Typical Kemerovo
Many on social media concerns about pollution.
The region ‘is just a place for extracting resources’ with the authorities not caring about ‘living conditions (and) culture’, was one angry comment.
’It is not surprising that our people have no taste in art, it simply can't form when you live around ugly sculptures covered with black snow, and slide down a black slide, and see dirty monuments.’
Cars were seen covered in grime but many expressed most concern over young lungs.
‘The future of our children is terrifying.’
Pictures from Kemerovo region by Orlovprklife, Willravilov, Typical Kemerovo
Using an optical technique, researchers have identified numerous mammal footprints in Gibraltar — including one that seems to come from a Neanderthal.
The place where the footprint was found.
Image credits: Universidad de Sevilla.
“In this work we present the first record of fossil footprints of terrestrial mammals in the Late Pleistocene coastal aeolian deposits of Gibraltar (southern Iberian Peninsula),” researchers write.
For the past 10 years, researchers from Gibraltar, Spain, Portugal, and Japan have been analyzing aeolianites — rocks formed by the solidifying of sediment deposited by aeolian processes (that is, wind). Most such rocks come from coastal limestones, just like is the case in Gibraltar.
The Gibraltar aeolianites are riddled with footprints from vertebrates that used to inhabit the area some 28-31,000 years ago. The footprints correspond to Red Deer, Ibex, Aurochs, Leopard and Straight-tusked Elephant — iconic mammal megafauna that lives alongside early humans. In a new study, researchers describe what they believe to be the footprint of another mammal that inhabited the area: Neanderthals.
A 3D model of the single track described as Hominipes isp. seen from different angles. A and D. Different oblique views of the microtopographic representation of the track with false colors (hot colors represent higher areas, cold colors the lower areas and the dark ones correspond to the printed horizon).
Image credits: Muñiz et al.
Of course, much of the sediment in and around the footprint has been eroded, and it’s not clearly visible to the naked eye. So the team used a technique called Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to date the footprint and get a better view of it. OSL is somewhat analogous to radiocarbon dating, the main difference being that radiocarbon dating is used to date organic materials, while OSL is used to date minerals.
The Neanderthals in Gibraltar are well known, being among the first to be discovered by modern scientists. They’ve been thoroughly studied, and most anthropologists believe that the Iberian Peninsula and Gibraltar acted as a “refuge” for the shrinking Neanderthal populations in the area.
If the footprint is confirmed to be Neanderthal, it would only be the second one in the world, the other being Vartop Cave in Romania. There are rare documented examples of human footprints in coastal aeolianites, but Neanderthal footprints have turned out to be much more elusive.
Researchers hope that this can be another piece of the puzzle that allows us to understand these close relatives of ours, their culture, and ultimately — what led to their demise. In a way, though, Neanderthals still live through us: it is suggested that 20 percent of Neanderthal DNA survived in modern humans, notably expressed in the skin, hair, and diseases of modern people.
Journal Reference: Fernando Muñiz et al. Following the last Neanderthals: Mammal tracks in Late Pleistocene coastal dunes of Gibraltar (S Iberian Peninsula). Quaternary Science Reviews, 2019; DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.01.013
With the advancement of technology, drones have become quite popular and very useful. One example is that Ordnance Survey has introduced a solar-powered mapping drone that will be able to fly for 90 straight days and will take high quality pictures of Earth. This new unmanned aircraft will travel at a height of 67,000 feet which is twice the height of a commercial airliner.
Ordnance Survey (a mapping firm) owns 51% of Astigan, which is a firm based in Bridgwater, Somerset, England. Astigan is also the name that was given to the unmanned solar-powered aircraft that is scheduled to complete the last of its endurance tests before the end of this year. Brian Jones, who is Astigan’s managing director, said, “By the end of 2019 we aim to be completing endurance flight testing, building up to 90 days non-stop, which is the operational capability we’re striving for.”
The aircraft, which is controlled remotely, weighs 330 pounds with a wingspan of nearly 130 feet. According to Mr. Jones, the mobility of this aerial vehicle makes it much cheaper and a lot more flexible than using satellite imagery. “It’s incredibly exciting that the UK has developed this kind of technology, delivering satellite capabilities, unparalleled flexibility and improved efficiency, all at a vastly reduced cost,” he explained.
In other news, the Colorado sky has been lit up with giant light paintings of Pokemon characters, the Batman symbol, and a large cube, just to name a few. An artist and photographer named Russell Klimas attached a powerful LED light called Lumecube to his drone and created bright white streaks in the sky which formed several images. In order to map out a detailed flight plan for his drone to make the images in the sky, he used Google Earth as well as a navigation app named Litchi. The images took him less than fifteen minutes to create in the sky. Now that’s definitely a unique and eye-catching way to show off one’s artistic talents.
“A few months ago I was inspired to try and see what shapes I could create while attaching a Lumecube to my drone,” Klimas said. He then explained the process involved in making these images by manually drawing in waypoints one at a time in order to create more detail in the images. “A shape can consist of a few waypoints or hundreds to thousands,” adding, “My current record when writing this article is 633 for Santa and his reindeer but you can definitely have much more.”
Click here to see pictures and a video of the images created by the drone, as well as the article written by Russell Klimas himself on how he created them.
There are extra pictures by clicking here of the Batman and cube images that Klimas created in the sky.
The Cold War may be over (or not), but Space War I is clearly heating up as the world’s major superpowers continue to appear to be scrambling to get as many weaponized satellitesand secret space dronesinto orbit as they can before the other sides do the same. We cannot afford a killer satellite gap!
Many nations are now believed to have some type of “killer satellite” in orbit.
The latest development to suggest we’re heading towards a war in space comes in the form of a new Pentagon publication which was quietly released this week. The 46-page report is titled Challenges to Security in Space and was published by the Defense Intelligence Agency. According to the document, the Pentagon believes “some foreign governments are developing capabilities that threaten others’ ability to use space” and “developing jamming and cyberspace capabilities, directed energy weapons, on-orbit capabilities, and ground-based anti-satellite missiles that can achieve a range of reversible to non-reversible effects” on other satellites and spacecraft. Clearlyit’s only the other guys doing these things, too; the US wouldn’t be up to the same shenanigans, no way!
“Oh that X-37B? It’s merely a weather balloon.”
One of the threats the document cites is a new laser technology China is developing which it claims is intended to zap space debris. Orbital pollution is becoming a serious issue after all, one which threatens every nation’s ability to conduct safe operations in orbit around Earth. While China’s anti-debris lasers certainly seem like they could clean up space if they wanted to, the Pentagon notes (as I did last year when the technology was unveiled) that these seemingly peaceful technologies could easily also function as full-on space weapons:
These systems could include payloads such as kinetic kill vehicles, radio frequency jammers, lasers, chemical sprayers, high-power microwaves, and robotic mechanisms. Some of these systems, such as robotic technology for satellite servicing and repair and debris removal, have peaceful uses but can also be used for military purposes.
The document outlines several technologies the People’s Liberation Army is known to be testing which could pose a threat to other nations’ space-based defense and surveillance capabilities. It makes you wonder what type of reports the Chinese and Russians are publishing concerning the same types of technologies being developed here in the West.
It sure is looking more and more like the next major conflict between superpowers will look like something straight out of the science fiction of the mid-20th century. Space lasers, space-to-surface missile strike capabilities, cyberwarfare conducted by artificial intelligence constructs – nothing is off the table for the oncoming struggle over Earth’s dwindling natural resources. Who will come out on top?
Other than the irradiated super-cockroaches, that is.
“No animal is more elusive. Nobody I knew had ever seen one in the wild and I never thought that I would either.”
Figures from May 2018 show that over 170 million people worldwide saw the blockbuster movie “Black Panther.” Figures from the past 100 years show that no one has seen an actual black panther (also called a black leopard) in Africa and has a movie or photo to prove it … until now. UK photographer Will Burrard-Lucas revealed stunning images of a live black panther he photographed in Kenya, not far from the mythical land of Wakanda, home of the ‘other’ Black Panther. How cool is that?(The images can be seen here.)
Slinking through the darkness, these stunning images show an ultra-rare black leopard in action. The mythical creature was captured by British wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas, 35, while it was prowling around Laikipia in Kenya in the dead of night
Its wide eyes can be seen looking eagerly for prey, while leopard-like spots can vaguely be seen on its dark coat, which is the result of melanism
Working in collaboration with biologists in the area, Burrard-Lucas went about installing camera traps. These were placed in areas the black leopard was rumoured to frequent
Nicholas Pilfold PhD, a biologist with San Diego Zoo Global who is currently researching leopards at the Loisaba Conservancy and helped Burrard-Lucas with his photography project, confirmed that the recent on-camera sighting was extremely rare
Summing up the black leopard in three words, Burrard-Lucas said: 'They are truly stunning, beautiful and elusive'
Dr Pilfold said: 'We had always heard about black leopard living in this region, but the stories were absent of high quality footage that could confirm their existence.' This grab from San Diego Zoo's video shows the black leopard clambering over rocks. The video footage was shot over a period of a year
“We had always heard about black leopard living in this region, but the stories were absent of high quality footage that could confirm their existence. This is what Will’s photos and the videos on our remote cameras now prove, and are exceptionally rare in their detail and insight.”
A normal African leopard
(Wikipedia)
The black panther or African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) was suspected of living somewhere in the Loisaba Conservancy, a 57,000 acre wildlife conservancy and working ranch located in Northern Laikipia, Kenya, by Nicholas Pilfold PhD, a biologist working there for the San Diego Zoo Global. According to his study published in January 2019 in the African Journal of Ecology, Pilford’s video cameras captured a young female black panther five times in February, March and April of 2018. (A video can be viewed here.) Those sightings brought photographer Burrard-Lucas to the area with his specially-designed camera traps using wireless motion sensors, high-quality DSLR cameras and multiple flashes. Despite Pilford’s videos, he wasn’t certain he could capture sharp photographs of the black panther.
“I can’t believe it really. I think when I started this project I didn’t actually think I was going to be able to achieve a shot of a black leopard in Africa but that it is exactly what is here on the back of my camera. Just the most stunning, spectacular creature I think I’ve ever photographed!”
Pilford shared with National Geographic some of the mythology behind the black (or melanistic, which is the opposite of albino) panther, whose last known photograph had been taken in 1909.
“These are the first confirmed images of a panther in Africa in nearly 100 years. Almost everyone has a story about seeing one, it’s such a mythical thing. Even when you talk to the older guys that were guides in Kenya many years ago, back when hunting was legal [in the 1950s and ‘60s], there was a known thing that you didn’t hunt black leopards. If you saw them, you didn’t take it.”
The juvenile female was traveling with an older normal female believed to be its mother, so Pilford thinks its color was not a problem with the rest of the cat’s family, even though melanism is extremely rare in African big cats.
Or is it?
Shortly after the photographs were released, researchers at the Ol Ari Nyiro Conservancy 30 miles west of Loisaba unveiled another high-quality photograph of a black leopard reported to have been taken in 2007. Are there more hiding in drawers around Kenya and Africa? Are there more black panthers than the experts believe to exist there? Will this revelation put them in danger?
Could lightning have literally been the ‘spark’ which ignited all life here on Earth? New bizarre-sounding research published by scientists at Tel Aviv University has found that lightning may give off a unique type of extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic field which actually serves to protect the cells of living organisms. While these fields are quite weak and difficult to detect, scientists think they already have enough data to show the lightning may be one of the key factors which allowed or helped life to flourish on our mysterious planet.
Lightning is known to create what are known as Schumann resonances, a phenomenon in which the Earth’s electromagnetic field resonates at very low frequencies due to the lightning activity worldwide. According to Professor Colin Price of Tel Aviv University’s Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, this new study is among the first to find a connection between lightning and the electromagnetic fields of living things:
It is the first study that demonstrates a link between global lighting activity and the Schumann Resonances and the activity of living cells. It may explain why all living organisms have electrical activity in the same ELF spectral range, and it is the first time such a connection has been shown. This may have some therapeutic implications down the line, since these ELF fields appear to protect cells from damage, but this requires further research.
Researchers found that environmental electromagnetic fields can actually protect cells under stress conditions such as a lack of oxygen. Cells in these stress states seem to respond to the types of electromagnetic resonances given off by lightning activity in ways that suggest these fields can help reduce the damage cells experience while under stress.
While on one hand this study provides one more fascinating hint that all things living and non-living on Earth may be more connected than we know, it also may foreshadow future therapies which harness these mysterious effects of electromagnetic fields. It’s already suspected that the electromagnetic fields given off by today’s telecom devices may be affecting living things in harmful ways, so it makes sense that natural electromagnetic fields may likewise be able to affect living cells. Much more data is needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn about this phenomenon, but if confirmed, it may demonstrate that electromagnetic energy plays a vital role in the natural processes of living things. Could lightning be a vital part of life on Earth?
I’m also left to wonder if perhaps ancient cultures were aware of this phenomenon given some of the claims made about the pyramids and electromagnetic radiation. Could the pyramids have been healing centers?
Planetary alignment beginning on Valentine’s Day has some earthquake forecasters on high alert, as they believe a massive “mega-thrust” tremor is on the way. Uranus, Mars, Venus and the sun are all said to be tugging on the Earth, combining to unleash a huge tremor. The planets will have a gravitational tug-of-war across our solar system and will pull from all sides on Earth’s tectonic plates.
The forecast was made by new age earthquake prediction website Ditrianum, run by researcher Frank Hoogerbeets. He said: “Critical lunar geometry later on the 10th and early 11th has the potential of triggering larger seismic activity, possibly into the mid 6 magnitude range, perhaps even higher.
“Overall, the second half of February, starting around the 14th is going to be very critical with the potential of a mega-thrust earthquake between the 20th and 28th.”
Mr Hoogerbeets fails to state where the “earthquake” might hit, but if it were to be a “mega-thrust”, it would surely be devastating for at least one country, if not worldwide.
The earthquake has "the potential of a mega-thrust earthquake between the 20th and 28th.”
(Image: GETTY)
The Dutch researcher said he reached his conclusion using his Solar System Geometry Index (SSGI) which “is the computation of a dataset for a specific time-frame of values given to specific geometric positions of the planets, the Moon and the Sun”.
He said: “After three years of observations, it became clear that some planetary geometry in the Solar System clearly tends to cause a seismic increase, while other geometry does not.”
But experts have consistently rejected Mr Hoogerbeets’ claims, saying that there is no way earthquakes can be predicted.
Earthquake WARNING: ‘Huge MEGA-THRUST to strike’ by end of February
(Image: GETTY)
John Bellini, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) has said: “We can't predict or forecast earthquakes.
"Sometimes before a large earthquake you'll have a foreshock or two, but we don't know they're foreshocks until the big one happens.”
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Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
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