Unexplained Shifts in Earth's Magnetic Field Imperil Global Navigation

The magnetic field is changing like never before, and scientists aren't sure what to do.

The Earth’s magnetic field has always been in flux, thanks to the changing patterns of molten metals in the planet’s outer core. But a new report suggests that this natural variability has taken on surprising dimensions since 2015. New geologic evidence shows that the Earth’s magnetic field is changing far more and more frequently than usual. It’s not great news news for crucial global networks that depend on its stability, like navigational instruments and satellite GPS, as well as natural phenomena like animal migration, and even the protection we receive against solar winds.

The report, published in Nature on Wednesday, showed that the Earth’s magnetic field is shifting so rapidly and unpredictably that it’s rendering the models on which our lives depend obsolete at a faster rate than ever before. Scientists, faced with the new rate of change, are scrambling to keep up.

Normally, scientists with the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the British Geological Survey get together every five years to produce a model of the shifting magnetic field called the World Magnetic Model, which helps technologists, researchers, and navigators around the globe maintain a shared map on which to base their systems. Since the WMM is only updated every five years, scientists build in some room for variability to account for subtle changes that will inevitably occur before the next update rolls out.

But so much has changed since the 2015 WMM came out that the world can’t wait for the 2020 update. As Nature reported, by early 2018 the WMM was already reaching unacceptable levels of error for navigation. Unfortunately, even the short-term solution is in limbo. With NOAA staff furloughed because of the government shutdown, the proposed short-term update is on hold for at least a few weeks.

The 2015 WMM was rendered obsolete almost immediately after it was released. As early as 2016, ESA Swarm satellites over South America showed some of the first evidence that the magnetic field was changing faster than expected. Then, in 2018, a phenomenon in the field between South America and Africa, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, weakened so much that it actually disrupted satellites as they passed through the region.

News of these two events raised concerns that Earth was about to undergo a total magnetic pole reversal, in which the north and south poles fully swap positions and thus wreak havoc on satellites, power lines, ocean currents, and animal migration. Concerns of a complete reversal in the near future have been dismissed as unrealistic, but some geophysicists have noted that the Earth is historically overdue for such a flip. Regardless, the shifts we have seen exceed the level of variability accounted for by the WMM’s wiggle room, making a fix more urgent than ever.

An interim update was meant to be released on January 15, Nature reported, but not long after publication the article was updated to state that the US government shutdown had pushed it back to at least January 30

• Media via NASA, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA, Flickr / Astro_Alex

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15-01-2019 om 00:34 geschreven door peter  

Questions and Answers - THE ALLIES OF HUMANITY

BY MARSHALL VIAN SUMMERS

SIXTH BRIEFING

We feel that it is important, given the information that we have provided thus far, to respond to questions that must surely arise regarding our reality and the significance of the messages that we have come to give.

“Given the lack of hard evidence, why should people believe what you are telling them about the Intervention?”

First, there must be great evidence concerning the visitation to your world. We have been told that this is the case. Yet we have also been told by the Unseen Ones that people do not know how to understand the evidence and that they give it their own meaning—a meaning that they prefer to give it, a meaning that provides comfort and reassurance for the most part. We are certain that there is adequate evidence to verify that the Intervention is occurring in the world today if one takes the time to look and to investigate this matter. The fact that your governments or religious leaders do not reveal such things does not mean that such a great event is not occurring in your midst.

“How can people know that you are real?”

Regarding our reality, we cannot demonstrate our physical presence to you, and so you must discern the meaning and the import of our words. At this point, it is not merely a matter of belief. It requires a greater recognition, a Knowledge, a resonance. The words we speak we believe are true, but that does not assure that they can be received as such. We cannot control the response to our message. There are people who require more evidence than can possibly be given. For others, such evidence will not be necessary, for they will feel an inner confirmation.

In the meantime, perhaps we remain a controversy, and yet we hope and we trust that our words can be considered seriously and that the evidence that does exist, which is substantial, can be gathered and understood by those who are willing to give this their effort and their focus in life. From our perspective, there is no greater problem, challenge and opportunity to receive your attention.

Therefore, you are at the beginning of a new understanding. This does require faith and self-reliance. Many will reject our words simply because they do not believe that we could possibly exist. Others perhaps will think that we are part of some manipulation that is being cast upon the world. We cannot control these responses. We can only reveal our message and our presence in your life, however removed that presence may be. It is not our presence here that is of paramount importance, but the message that we have come to reveal and the greater perspective and understanding that we can provide for you. Your education must begin somewhere. All education begins with the desire to know.

We hope that through our discourses we can gain at least part of your confidence in order to begin to reveal what we are here to offer.

“What do you have to say to those who view the Intervention as a positive thing?”

We understand, first of all, the expectation that all forces from the heavens are related to your spiritual understanding, traditions and fundamental beliefs. The idea that there is prosaic life in the universe is a challenge to these fundamental assumptions. From our perspective and given the experience of our own cultures, we understand these expectations. In the distant past, we maintained them ourselves. And yet we had to relinquish them in facing the realities of Greater Community life and the meaning of visitation.

You live in a great physical universe. It is full of life. This life represents countless manifestations and also represents the evolution of intelligence and spiritual awareness at every level. What this means is that what you will encounter in the Greater Community encompasses almost every possibility.

However, you are isolated and do not yet travel in space. And even if you had the capability to reach another world, the universe is vast, and no one has gained the ability to go from one end of the galaxy to the other with any kind of speed. Therefore, the physical universe remains enormous and incomprehensible. No one has mastered its laws. No one has conquered its territories. No one can claim complete dominance or control. Life has a great humbling effect in this way. Even far beyond your borders this is true.

You should then come to expect that you will meet intelligences representing forces for good, forces for ignorance and those who are more neutral regarding you. However, in the realities of Greater Community travel and exploration, emerging races such as your own will, almost without exception, encounter resource explorers, collectives and those seeking advantage for themselves as their first contact with Greater Community life.

Regarding the positive interpretation of visitation, part of this is human expectation and the natural desire to welcome a good outcome and to seek help from the Greater Community for the problems that humanity has not been able to resolve on its own. It is normal to expect such things, particularly when you are considering that your visitors have greater capabilities than do you. However, a large part of the problem in interpreting the great visitation has to do with the will and the agenda of the visitors themselves. For they are encouraging people everywhere to view their presence here as wholly beneficial to humanity and to its needs.

“If this Intervention is so well underway, why didn’t you come sooner?”

At an earlier time, many years ago, several groups of your allies came to your world to visit in an attempt to give a message of hope, to prepare humanity. But alas their messages could not be understood and were misused by those few who could receive them. In the wake of their coming, the visitors from the collectives have amassed and gathered here. It has been known to us that this would happen, for your world is far too valuable to be overlooked, and, as we have said, it does not exist in a remote and distant part of the universe. Your world has been observed for a long time by those who would seek to use it for their own benefit.

“Why can’t our allies stop the Intervention?”

We are only here to observe and to advise. The great decisions facing humanity are in your hands. No one else can make these decisions for you. Even your great friends far beyond your world would not intervene, for if they did so, it would cause warfare, and your world would become a battleground between opposing forces. And should your friends be victorious, you would become wholly reliant upon them, unable to fend for yourself or to maintain your own security in the universe. We know of no benevolent race that would seek to bear this burden. And in truth, it would not serve you either. For you would become a client state to another power and would have to be governed from afar. This is not beneficial for you in any way, and it is for this reason that this is not occurring. Yet the visitors will cast themselves as saviors and rescuers of humanity. They will utilize your naiveté. They will capitalize on your expectations, and they will seek to wholly benefit from your trust.

Therefore, it is our sincere desire that our words can serve as an antidote to their presence and to their manipulation and abuse. For your rights are being violated. Your territory is being infiltrated. Your governments are being persuaded. And your religious ideologies and impulses are being redirected.

There must be a voice of truth regarding this. And we can only trust that you can receive this voice of truth. We can only hope that the persuasion has not gone too far.

“What are realistic goals for us to set, and what is the bottom line with regard to saving humanity from losing its self-determination?”

The first step is awareness. Many people must become aware that the Earth is being visited and that foreign powers are here operating in a clandestine manner, seeking to hide their agenda and endeavors from human understanding. It must be very clear that their presence here is a great challenge to human freedom and self-determination. The agenda that they are furthering and the Pacification Program that they are sponsoring must be countered with sobriety and wisdom regarding their presence. This counteraction must occur. There are many people in the world today who are able to understand this. Therefore, the first step is awareness.

The next step is education. It is necessary for many people in different cultures and in different nations to learn about life in the Greater Community and to begin to comprehend what you will be dealing with and are dealing with even at this moment.

Therefore, realistic goals are awareness and education. This in itself would obstruct the visitors’ agenda in the world. They are operating now with very little resistance. They are encountering few obstacles. All those who seek to view them as “allies of humanity” must learn that this is not the case. Perhaps our words will not be enough, but they are a beginning.

“Where can we find this education?”

The education can be found in The Greater Community Way of Knowledge, which is being presented in the world at this time. Though it presents a new understanding about life and spirituality in the universe, it is connected to all of the genuine spiritual paths that already exist within your world—spiritual paths that value human freedom and the meaning of true spirituality and that value cooperation, peace and harmony within the human family. Therefore, the teaching in The Way of Knowledge calls forth all the great truths that already exist in your world and gives them a greater context and arena of expression. In this way, The Greater Community Way of Knowledge does not replace the world’s religions, but provides a larger context within which they can be truly meaningful and relevant to your times.

“How do we convey your message to others?”

The truth lives within each person at this moment. If you can speak to the truth in a person, it will become stronger and begin to resonate. Our great hope, the hope of the Unseen Ones, the spiritual forces who serve your world, and the hope of those who value human freedom and wish to see your emergence into the Greater Community successfully fulfilled, rely upon this truth that lives within each person. We cannot force this awareness upon you. We can only reveal it to you and trust in the greatness of Knowledge that the Creator has given you that can enable you and others to respond.

“Where do humanity’s strengths lie in opposing the Intervention?”

First, we understand from observing your world, and from what the Unseen Ones have told us regarding things that we cannot see, that though there are great problems within the world, there is sufficient human freedom to give you a foundation for opposing the Intervention. This is in contrast to many other worlds where individual freedom was never established to begin with. As these worlds encounter alien forces in their midst and the reality of Greater Community life, the possibility for them to establish freedom and independence is very limited.

Therefore, you have a great strength in that human freedom is known in your world and is practiced by many, though perhaps not all. You know you have something to lose. You value what you have already, to whatever extent it has been established. You do not want to be ruled by foreign powers. You do not even want to be ruled harshly by human authorities. Therefore, this is a beginning.

Next, because your world has rich spiritual traditions that have fostered Knowledge in the individual and fostered human cooperation and understanding, the reality of Knowledge has already been established. Again, in other worlds where Knowledge was never established, the possibility for establishing it at the turning point of emerging into the Greater Community shows little hope for success. Knowledge is strong enough in enough people here that they may be able to learn of the reality of life in the Greater Community and to comprehend what is occurring in their midst at this time. It is for this reason that we are hopeful, for we trust in human wisdom. We trust that people can rise above selfishness, self-preoccupation and self-protection to view life in a greater way and to feel a greater responsibility in service to their own kind.

Perhaps our faith is unfounded, but we are trusting that the Unseen Ones have counseled us wisely regarding this. As a result, we have placed ourselves at risk by being in the proximity of your world and witnessing events beyond your borders that have direct bearing on your future and destiny.

Humanity has great promise. You have a growing awareness of problems in the world—the lack of cooperation amongst nations, the degradation of your natural environment, your diminishing resources and so forth. If these problems were unknown to your people, if these realities had been kept hidden from your people, to the extent that people had no idea of the existence of these things, then we would not be as hopeful. However, the reality remains that humanity has the potential and the promise to counteract any intervention into the world.

“Is this Intervention going to become a military invasion?”

As we have said, your world is too valuable to incite a military invasion. No one who is visiting your world wants to destroy its infrastructure or its natural resources. That is why the visitors do not seek to destroy humanity, but instead to engage humanity in service to their collectives.

It is not military invasion that threatens you. It is the power of inducement and persuasion. This will be built upon your own weakness, upon your own selfishness, upon your ignorance of life in the Greater Community and upon your blind optimism regarding your future and the meaning of life beyond your borders.

To counteract this, we provide education and we speak of the means of preparation that are being sent into the world at this time. If you did not already know human freedom, if you were not already aware of the problems endemic to your world, then we could not entrust such a preparation to you. And we would not have confidence that our words would resonate with the truth of what you know.

“Can you influence people as powerfully as the visitors, but for the good?”

Our intention is not to influence individuals. Our intention is only to present the problem and the reality into which you are emerging. The Unseen Ones are providing the actual means of preparation, for that comes from God. In this, the Unseen Ones influence individuals for the good. But there are restraints. As we have said, it is your self-determination that must be strengthened. It is your power that must be increased. It is your cooperation amongst the human family that must be supported.

There are limits as to how much help we can provide. Our group is small. We are not walking amongst you. Therefore, the great understanding of your new reality must be shared from person to person. It cannot be forced upon you from a foreign power, even if it were for your own good. We would not, then, be supporting your freedom and self-determination if we sponsored such a program of persuasion. Here you cannot be like children. You must become mature and responsible. It is your freedom that is at stake. It is your world that is at stake. It is your cooperation with each other that is needed.

You now have a great cause to unite your race, for none of you will benefit without the other. No nation will benefit if any other nation falls under alien control. Human freedom must be complete. The cooperation must occur around your world. For everyone is in the same situation now. The visitors do not favor one group over another, one race over another, one nation over another. They only seek the avenue of least resistance to establish their presence and their domination of your world.

“How extensive is their infiltration of humanity?”

The visitors have a significant presence within the most advanced nations in your world, particularly the nations of Europe, Russia, Japan and America. These are viewed as the strongest nations, having the greatest power and influence. It is there that the visitors will concentrate. However, they are taking people from all over the world, and they are furthering their Pacification Program with all those that they capture, if those individuals can be responsive to their influence. Therefore, the visitors’ presence is worldwide, but they are concentrating on those whom they hope will become their allies. These are the nations and governments and religious leaders who hold the greatest power and sway over human thought and conviction.

“How much time do we have?

How much time do you have? You have some time, how much we cannot tell. But we come with an urgent message. This is not a problem that can simply be avoided or denied. From our perspective, it is the most important challenge facing humanity. It is of the greatest concern, the first priority. You are late in your preparation. This was caused by many factors beyond our control. But there is time, if you can respond. The outcome is uncertain and yet there is still hope for your success.

“How can we focus on this Intervention given the immensity of other global problems which are occurring right now?”

First of all, we feel that there are no other problems in the world that are as important as this. From our perspective, whatever you can resolve on your own will have little meaning in the future if your freedom is lost. What could you hope to gain? What could you hope to achieve or secure if you are not free in the Greater Community? All of your accomplishments would be given to your new governors; all of your wealth would be bestowed upon them. And though your visitors are not cruel, they are completely committed to their agenda. You are valued only insofar as you can be useful to their cause. It is for this reason that we do not feel that there are any other problems facing humanity as important as this.

“Who is likely to respond to this situation?”

Regarding who can respond, there are many people in the world today who have an inherent knowledge of the Greater Community and who are sensitive to it. There are many others who have been taken by the visitors already but who have not yielded to them or to their persuasion. And there are many others who are concerned about the future of humanity and who are alerted to the dangers that humanity faces, even within your own world. People in all or any of these three categories may be amongst the first to respond to the Greater Community reality and to the preparation for the Greater Community. They may come from any walk of life, from any nation, from any religious background or from any economic group. They are literally all over the world. It is upon them and upon their response that the great Spiritual Powers that protect and oversee human welfare are depending.

“You mention that individuals are being taken all over the world. How can people protect themselves or others from being abducted?”

The more you can become strong with Knowledge and aware of the visitors’ presence, the less you become a desirable subject for their study and manipulation. The more you use your encounters with them to gain insight into them, the more of a hazard you become. As we have said, they seek the path of least resistance. They want individuals who are compliant and yielding. They want those who cause them few problems and little concern.

Yet as you become strong with Knowledge, you will be beyond their control because now they cannot capture your mind or your heart. And with time, you will have the power of perception to see into their minds, which they do not wish. You then become a danger to them, a challenge to them, and they will avoid you if they can.

The visitors do not seek to be revealed. They do not wish for conflict. They are overly confident that they can achieve their goals without serious resistance from the human family. But once such resistance is mounted, once the power of Knowledge awakens in the individual, then the visitors are facing a much more formidable obstacle. Their intervention here becomes thwarted and more difficult to achieve. And their persuasion of those in power becomes more difficult to accomplish. Therefore, it is the individual’s response and commitment to the truth that are essential here.

Become aware of the visitors’ presence. Do not yield to the persuasion that their presence here is of a spiritual nature or that it holds great benefit or salvation for humanity. Resist the persuasion. Regain your own inner authority, the great gift that the Creator has given to you. Become a force to be reckoned with regarding any who would trespass against or deny your fundamental rights.

This is Spiritual Power being expressed. It is the Will of the Creator that humanity should emerge into the Greater Community united within itself and free from foreign intervention and domination. It is the Creator’s Will that you should prepare for a future that will be unlike your past. We are here in service to the Creator, and thus our presence and our words serve this purpose.

“If the visitors encounter resistance in humanity or in certain individuals, will they come in greater numbers or will they leave?”

Their numbers are not great. Should they encounter considerable resistance, they would have to fall back and make new plans. They are wholly confident that their mission can be fulfilled without serious obstacles. Yet should serious obstacles arise, then their intervention and persuasion would be thwarted, and they would have to find other ways of gaining contact with humanity.

We trust that the human family can generate enough resistance and enough consensus in order to offset these influences. It is upon this that we are basing our hope and efforts.

“What are the most important questions that we must ask of ourselves and others with respect to this problem of alien infiltration?”

Perhaps the most critical questions to ask yourself are, “Are we humans alone within the universe or in our own world? Are we being visited at this time? Is this visitation beneficial to us? Do we need to prepare?”

These are very fundamental questions, but they must be asked. There are many questions, however, that cannot be answered, for you do not know enough about life in the Greater Community, and you are not yet confident that you have the ability to counteract these influences. There are many things lacking in human education, which is primarily focused upon the past. Humanity is emerging from a long state of relative isolation. Its education, its values and its institutions were all established within this state of isolation. Yet your isolation now is over, forever. It was always known that this would happen. It was inevitable that this would be the case. Therefore, your education and your values are entering into a new context, to which they must adapt. And the adaptation must happen quickly because of the nature of the Intervention in the world today.

There will be many questions that you cannot answer. You will have to live with them. Your education about the Greater Community is only at the very beginning. You must approach it with great sobriety and care. You must counteract your own tendencies to try and make the situation pleasant or reassuring. You must develop an objectivity about life, and you must look beyond your own personal sphere of interests in order to put yourself in a position to respond to the greater forces and events that are shaping your world and your future.

“What if enough people cannot respond?”

We are confident that enough people can respond and begin their great education about life in the Greater Community in order to give promise and hope to the human family. If this cannot be achieved, then those who value their freedom and who have this education will have to retreat. They will have to keep Knowledge alive in the world as the world falls under complete control. This is a very grave alternative, and yet it has occurred in other worlds. The journey back to freedom from such a position is quite difficult. We hope that this will not be your fate, and that is why we are here giving you this information. As we have said, there are enough people in the world who can respond to offset the intentions of the visitors and to thwart their influence on human affairs and human values.

“You speak of other worlds emerging into the Greater Community. Can you speak of successes and failures which might have bearing on our situation?”

There have been successes or we would not be here. In my case, as the speaker for our group, our world had already been greatly infiltrated before we realized the situation at hand. Our education was prompted by the arrival of a group such as ourselves, providing insight and information about our situation. We had alien resource traders in our world interacting with our government. Those who were in power at that time were persuaded that trade and commerce would be beneficial to us, for we were beginning to experience resource depletion. Though our race was united, unlike your own, we began to be wholly dependent upon the new technology and opportunities that were being presented to us. And yet as this occurred, there was a shift in the center of power. We were becoming the clients. The visitors were becoming the providers. As time went on, terms and restrictions were placed upon us, subtly at first.

Our religious focus and beliefs were also influenced by the visitors, who showed interest in our spiritual values but who wished to give us a new understanding, an understanding based upon the collective, based upon the cooperation of minds thinking alike in unison with each other. This was presented to our race as an expression of spirituality and achievement. Some were persuaded, and yet because we were well advised from our allies beyond our world, allies such as ourselves, we began to mount a resistance movement and over time were able to force the visitors to leave our world.

Since that time, we have learned a great deal about the Greater Community. The trade that we maintain is very selective, with only a few other nations. We have been able to avoid the collectives, and that has preserved our freedom. And yet our success was difficult to achieve, for there were many of us who had to die in the face of this conflict. Ours is a story of success, but not without cost. There are others in our group who have experienced similar difficulties in their interaction with intervening powers in the Greater Community. And yet because we eventually learned to travel beyond our borders, we gained alliance with one another. We were able to learn what spirituality means in the Greater Community. And the Unseen Ones, who serve our world as well, helped us in this regard to make the great transition from isolation to Greater Community awareness.

Yet there have been many failures that we are aware of. Cultures where the indigenous peoples had not established personal freedom or had not tasted the fruits of cooperation, even though they were advancing technologically, did not have a foundation to establish their own independence in the universe. Their ability to resist the collectives was very limited. Induced by promises of greater power, greater technology and greater wealth, and induced by the seeming benefits of trade in the Greater Community, their center of power left their world. In the end, they became wholly dependent upon those who supplied them and who gained control of their resources and their infrastructures.

Surely you can imagine how this could be the case. Even within your own world according to your history, you have seen smaller nations fall under the domination of greater ones. You can see this even today. Therefore, these ideas are not wholly foreign to you. In the Greater Community, as in your world, the strong will dominate the weak, if they can. This is a reality of life everywhere. And it is for this reason that we are encouraging your awareness and your preparation, in order that you may become strong and your self-determination may grow.

It may be a grave disappointment to many to understand and to learn that freedom is rare in the universe. As nations become stronger and more technological, they require greater and greater uniformity and compliance amongst their peoples. As they bridge out into the Greater Community and become involved in Greater Community affairs, the tolerance for individual expression diminishes to the point where large nations that have wealth and power are governed with a strictness and an exacting attitude that you would find abhorrent.

Here you must learn that technological advancement and spiritual advancement are not the same, a lesson that humanity has yet to learn and which you must learn if you are to exercise your natural wisdom in these matters.

Your world is greatly valued. It is rich biologically. You are sitting on a prize that you must protect if you are to be its stewards and its beneficiaries. Consider the peoples in your world who have lost their freedom because they lived in a place considered valuable by others. It is now the whole human family that is so imperiled.

“Because the visitors are so skilled in projecting thoughts and influencing people’s Mental Environment, how do we ensure ourselves that what we are seeing is real?”

The only basis for wise perception is the cultivation of Knowledge. If you believe only what you see, then you will believe only what is shown to you. There are many, we are told, that have this perspective. Yet we have learned that the Wise everywhere must gain a greater vision and a greater discernment. It is true that your visitors can project images of your saints and of your religious figures. Though this is not practiced often, it certainly can be used in order to evoke commitment and dedication amongst those who are already given to such beliefs. Here your spirituality becomes an area of vulnerability where Wisdom must be used.

Yet the Creator has given you Knowledge as a foundation for true discernment. You can know what you are seeing if you ask yourself if it is real. Yet to do this, you must have this foundation, and that is why the teaching in The Way of Knowledge is so fundamental to learning Greater Community Spirituality. Without this, people will believe what they want to believe, and they will rely upon what they see and what they are shown. And their potential for freedom will have been lost already, for it was never allowed to flourish in the first place.

“You speak about keeping Knowledge alive. How many will it take to keep Knowledge alive in the world?”

We cannot give you a number, but it must be strong enough to generate a voice within your own cultures. If this message can only be received by a few, they will not have this voice or this strength. Here they must share their wisdom. It cannot be purely for their own edification. Many more must learn of this message, many more than can receive it today.

“Is there a danger in presenting this message?”

There is always a danger in presenting the truth, not only in your world, but elsewhere. People gain advantage from the circumstances as they currently exist. The visitors will offer advantage to those in power who can receive them and who are not strong in Knowledge. People become accustomed to these advantages and build their lives upon them. This makes them resistant or even hostile to the presentation of truth, which calls for their responsibility in service to others and which may threaten the basis of their wealth and achievements.

This is why we are hidden and do not walk in your world. Certainly the visitors would destroy us if they could find us. But humanity may seek to destroy us as well because of what we represent, because of the challenge and the new reality that we demonstrate. Not everyone is ready to receive the truth even though it is greatly needed.

“Can individuals who are strong with Knowledge influence the visitors?”

The chance of success here is very limited. You are dealing with a collective of beings who have been bred to be compliant, whose whole life and experience have been encompassed and engendered by a collective mentality. They do not think for themselves. For this reason, we do not feel that you can influence them. There are few amongst the human family who have the strength to do this, and even here the possibility for success would be very limited. So the answer must be “No.” For all practical purposes, you cannot win them over.

“How are collectives different from a united humanity?”

Collectives are made up of different races and of those who are bred to serve those races. Many of the beings that are being encountered in the world are bred by collectives to be servants. Their genetic heritage has long been lost to them. They are bred to serve, as you breed animals to serve you. The human cooperation that we are promoting is a cooperation that preserves the self-determination of individuals and provides a position of strength from which humanity can interact, not only with the collectives but with others who will visit your shores in the future.

A collective is based upon one belief, one set of principles and one authority. Its emphasis is complete allegiance to an idea or an ideal. Not only is this engendered in the education of your visitors, but in their genetic code as well. That is why they behave in the ways that they do. This is both their strength and their weakness. They have great strength in the Mental Environment because their minds are united. But they are weak because they cannot think for themselves. They cannot deal with complexities or adversity very successfully. A man or woman of Knowledge would be incomprehensible to them.

Humanity must unite to preserve its freedom, but this is a very different establishment from the creation of a collective. We call them “collectives” because they are collectives of different races and nationalities. Collectives are not one race. Though there are many races in the Greater Community that are ruled by a dominant authority, a collective is an organization that spans beyond the allegiance of one race to its own world.

Collectives can have great power. Yet because there are many collectives, they tend to compete with one another, which prevents any one of them from becoming dominant. Also, various nations in the Greater Community have long-standing disputes with one another, which are difficult to bridge. Perhaps they have competed for a long time for the same resources. Perhaps they compete with one another to sell the resources that they have. Yet a collective is a different matter. As we are saying here, it is not based upon one race and one world. They are the result of conquest and domination. That is why your visitors are comprised of different races of beings at different levels of authority and command.

“In other worlds that have successfully unified, did they maintain their individual freedom of thought?”

To varying degrees. Some to a very high degree, others less so, depending upon their history, their psychological make-up and the needs of their own survival. Your life in the world has been relatively easy compared to where other races have developed. Most places where intelligent life exists have been colonized, for there are not many terrestrial planets such as your own that provide such a wealth of biological resources. Their freedom, in large part, depended upon the wealth of their environments. But they have all been successful in thwarting alien infiltration and have established their own lines of trade, commerce and communication based upon their own self-determination. This is a rare accomplishment and must be earned and protected.

“What will it take to achieve human unity?”

Humanity is very vulnerable in the Greater Community. This vulnerability, in time, can foster a fundamental cooperation amongst the human family, for you must join and unite in order to survive and to advance. This is part of having a Greater Community awareness. If this is based upon the principles of human contribution, freedom and self-expression, then your self-sufficiency can become very strong and very rich. But there must be greater cooperation in the world. People cannot live for themselves alone or put their own personal goals above and beyond the needs of everyone else. Some may view this as a loss of freedom. We see it as a guarantee for future freedom. For given the current attitudes prevalent in the world today, your future freedom would be very difficult to secure or maintain. Take heed. Those who are driven by their own selfishness are the perfect candidates for foreign influence and manipulation. If they are in positions of power, they will give over their nation’s wealth, their nation’s freedom and their nation’s resources in order to gain advantage for themselves.

Therefore, greater cooperation is required. Surely you can see this. Surely this is apparent even within your own world. But this is very different from the life of the collective, where races have been dominated and controlled, where those who are compliant are brought into the collectives and those who are not are alienated or destroyed. Surely such an establishment, though it may have considerable influence, cannot be beneficial for its members. And yet this is the path that many in the Greater Community have taken. We do not wish to see humanity fall into such an organization. That would be a great tragedy and a loss.

“How is the human perspective different from yours?”

One of the differences is that we have developed a Greater Community perspective, which is a less self-centered way of looking at the world. It is a point of view that gives great clarity and can provide great certainty regarding the smaller problems that you face in your daily affairs. If you can solve a great problem, you can solve lesser ones. You have a great problem. Every human being in the world faces this great problem. It can unite you and enable you to overcome your long-standing differences and conflicts. It is that great and that powerful. This is why we say there is a possibility for redemption within the very circumstances that threaten your well-being and your future.

We know that the power of Knowledge within the individual can restore that individual and all of their relationships to a higher degree of accomplishment, recognition and ability. You must discover this for yourself.

Our lives are very different. One of the differences is that our lives are given to service, a service that we have chosen. We have the freedom to choose and thus our choice is real and meaningful and is based upon our own understanding. Amongst our group are representatives from several different worlds. We have come together in service to humanity. We represent a greater alliance that is more spiritual in nature.

“This message is coming through one man. Why aren’t you contacting everybody if this is so important?”

It is merely a matter of efficiency. We do not control who is selected to receive us. That is a matter for the Unseen Ones, those whom you could rightly call “Angels.” We think of them in this way. They have selected this person, a person who has no position in the world, who is not recognized in the world, an individual who has been chosen because of his qualities and because of his heritage in the Greater Community. We are glad to have one through whom we can speak. If we spoke through more, they perhaps would disagree with one another, and the message would become confused and lost.

We understand, from our own studenthood, that the transmission of spiritual wisdom is generally given through one, with the support of others. This individual must bear the weight and the burden and the risk of being so chosen. We respect him for doing this, and we understand what a burden it can be. This will be misconstrued, perhaps, and that is why the Wise must remain hidden. We must remain hidden. He must remain hidden. In this way, the message can be given, and the messenger can be preserved. For there will be hostility towards this message. The visitors will oppose it and are opposing it already. Their opposition can be significant but will primarily be aimed at the messenger himself. It is for this reason that the messenger must be protected.

We know that the answers to these questions will generate more questions. And many of these cannot be answered, perhaps even for a long time. The Wise anywhere must live with questions that they cannot yet answer. It is through their patience and their perseverance that real answers emerge and that they are able to experience them and embody them.

*These questions were sent to the New Knowledge Library by many of the first readers of the Allies Material.

Final Words

Humanity is at a new beginning. It is faced with a grave situation. The need for a new education and understanding is paramount. We are here to serve this need at the request of the Unseen Ones. They are relying upon us to share our wisdom, for we live in the physical universe, as do you. We are not angelic beings. We are not perfect. We have not achieved great heights of spiritual awareness and accomplishment. And therefore our message to you about the Greater Community, we trust, will be more relevant and more easily received. The Unseen Ones know far more than we about life in the universe and about the levels of advancement and accomplishment that are available and that are practiced in many places. Yet they have asked us to speak regarding the reality of physical life because we are fully engaged there. And we have learned through our own trials and errors the importance and the meaning of what we are sharing with you.

Thus, we come as the Allies of Humanity, for such we are. Be thankful that you have allies that can help you and that can educate you and that can support your strength, your freedom and your accomplishment. For without this assistance, the prospect of your surviving the kind of alien infiltration that you are experiencing now would be very limited. Yes, there would be a few individuals who would come to realize the situation as it actually exists, but their numbers would not be great enough, and their voices would go unheard.

In this, we can only ask for your trust. We hope that through the wisdom of our words and through the opportunities you have to learn their meaning and relevance, that we can gain this trust over time, for you have allies in the Greater Community. You have great friends beyond this world who have suffered the challenges that you are facing now and have achieved success. Because we were assisted, we must now assist others. That is our sacred covenant. It is to this that we are firmly committed.

{ https://alliesofhumanity.org/ }

14-01-2019 om 22:49 geschreven door peter  

It’s aliens! It’s HAARP! It’s the ghost of Darth Vader making sure you never ever forget his sacrifice! Or not. Either way, a recent video has surfaced showing what could be interpreted as all those things. A glowing red pillar of light appeared in the skies over Edmonton, Alberta earlier this month. It was filmed by a group of witnesses who, in turn, suggested all of those explanations (more or less).

Here’s a link to the video. It’s an eerie sort of light that just hangs there in the sky, perfectly still, for the duration of the video. There’s a presence to it, the beam of light is thick and seems to pulse, though perhaps that’s simply due to the refraction through the clouds. According to Youtube channel Secureteam10, who shared and commented on this video, this is far from the first sighting of these mysterious red pillars of light. Apparently they have been seen all over the globe, as well as spotted in footage from the International Space Station. So what is it?

Another example of the mysterious pillars of light.

Credit: Raitisfreimanis (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The first thing that comes to mind is a laser pointer illuminating low hanging clouds. Yeah, that’s a pretty boring explanation, I know, but that’s also the simplest. However, if it was someone just pointing a laser straight up, it wouldn’t be perfectly still. It’s near impossible to keep something perfectly still and pointed perfectly vertical unless you have the physical discipline of a Buddhist monk. So if it was a laser, it would have to be mounted on something.  Also, what would be the purpose? Other than staging a weird video for imaginary internet points, of course.

The other problem with the laser hypothesis is that the beam ends abruptly and symmetrically at the top and bottom. If it was a laser, there should be more of a gradual tapering of the beam. Of course, that’s also the problem with one of the other, more paranoid explanations: that it’s one of those new directed energy weapons that’s taking the blame for just about everything these days.

OK. What about HAARP? While it’s hilarious to think of the shadow government targeting Edmonton, Alberta, specifically, with their swiss-army-knife weather manipulation super-weapon (or something) for no good reason other than to spook some folks, it just doesn’t make sense. Which is usually the case whenever HAARP gets brought up.

So, aliens then. It’s got to be aliens. Towards the end of the video, one of the people in the video notices something small and black fly across the light at high speed. Perhaps these lights are portals for the ever-upcoming alien invasion. Although it’s totally understandable to look at a weird light, see a shape flying near it, and see a pattern, there’s absolutely no logical reason to think those two things are connected. Birds don’t take time off when something spooky is happening.

Actually, the most reasonable explanation is a natural phenomenon. It’s known, predictably, as “light pillars.” In cold weather, ice crystals in clouds can refract light in such a way that it looks like a pillar of light disconnected from the ground. This would explain the symmetry, the shimmering quality, and the stillness of the beam. There’s likely a red light from a business or sign directly beneath the mysterious pillar, yet hidden from the perspective of the video.

Dear God, they’re everywhere.

Credit: Christoph Geisler (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What about the International Space Station? Well, if you look at the still from the space station video, it doesn’t really look anything like a light pillar. It’s red and it’s a line, yes. But that’s where the similarities end. There’s no symmetry, it is not perfectly vertical, and it only appears briefly. It’s safe to say it’s not the same thing. Which means that, yes, it could still be an inter-dimensional alien portal. Most things are, until proven otherwise.

The scientific explanation

However, skeptics have another different opinion. The lights would actually be a fairly common atmospheric phenomenon called pillars of light. Although they look a lot like the aurora, they are not related to the Northern Lights, which are caused by electrically charged particles from the atoms that excite space in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, which causes them to release a spectacular light. Instead, these pillars occur in freezing temperatures when hexagonal ice crystals form lower in the atmosphere than they normally would.

When this happens, the crystals essentially form a collective giant mirror, which can reflect a source of light, like the lights of the city and the automobile. The pillars of light are an optical phenomenon that belongs to the halo family, since it is due to the interaction of light with ice crystals. It would simply show that nature tends to be more spectacular than science fiction itself. It is clear that this is the skeptical explanation, but perhaps its origin is not as logical as it seems.

What do you think of the pillar of light on Canada? Is it a natural phenomenon, directed energy weapons or is it of extraterrestrial origin?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

14-01-2019 om 16:13 geschreven door peter  

The Mysterious Genius Who Patented the UFO

Alexander Weygers, a Renaissance man in the mold of the tech industry’s stated ideal, inspired an art dealer to become an acolyte.

Alexander Weygers made numerous detailed drawings of an aircraft called the "Discopter", a vertical liftoff aircraft that looked very much like what was to be later termed "flying saucer" and other drawings of an American cities specifically flying saucers in San Francisco and as well as a port in Chicago.

He sent these detailed plans to all the branches of the U.S. Military and was eventually told that they were intrigued by the concept and the design of the craft but were not prepared at that time because the war effort superseded its development.

However he did indeed patent the design for the "Discopter" in January 1944 with the U.S. Patent Office and it served as the prototype for other similar aircraft that have been developed up to the present day.

Ashlee Vance visits the dealer whose curiosity about Weygers has evolved into an obsession.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

13-01-2019 om 17:55 geschreven door peter  

Experiencers, Unique Intuition, and Biomarkers

A guest article written by “Twitter User Jay.” (@Jay09784691) 

I’ve been fortunate enough to have slides shared with me by Dr. Garry Nolan (@GarryPNolan) a professor at Stanford University who has been undertaking some incredible work on a patient population brought to him by Dr Kit Green that might shed light on individuals with unique cognitive and intuitive abilities. The study was accomplished in close collaboration with Dr Christopher (Kit) Canfield Green who worked for the CIA between the 1970s and 1980s, and who is now a private physician in forensic medical practice, and is affiliated with the Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at the Wayne State School of Medicine and Detroit Medical Center.

The presentation itself occurred during the Consortium for Space Genetics at Harvard Medical School, so carries weight not only from the people giving the presentation but from the venue as well. The whole talk centers on one main topic with two relating subtexts. The leading reason for the talk isquestioning whether there is evidence for biological indicators that identifies people with unique forms of intuition and the two subtexts being the intuition itself with related information on what’s known as “experiencers” – more on those later.

It’s important to mention that some of the details may sound like a work of science fiction, but the information here was presented to a group of mainstream scientists at one of the most prestigiousuniversities in the world. If doubt arises, please consider performing some research into the authors of the paper and looking into the histories around this subject. While it’s important to have some skepticism, I would suggest it’s also important to consider the wider picture and message being sent.

Several of the slides are included in this article to better represent the information that was shared at Harvard back in December 2018; as agreed with the authors of the slides not all can be shared. The first slide is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Opening slide of the presentation by Drs. Nolan and Green at Harvard.

What is Intuition?

A question asked in the talk is whether there are forms of inherited intuition that are handed down across families that allows for distinct forms of intelligence and which are correlated, roughly, bycontributing to higher IQ (later referred to those with >140). The subtext asked is whether thisbenefits the population with “high intuition” and “high performance”. It would appear these indicators are present in the patients included in the trial, however, it’s not clear whether such high performance is absolutely required to be considered an “intuit” along with the required brain connections (discussed below). According to Green and Nolan, a wider patient population will be required to explore this matter further.

The primary section of interest will be the intuitive abilities, since high performers – while rare– are possibly less unique than people with the brain features as outlined in the presentation. The definitionof intuition, and there are many, are initially mentioned in Figure 2.

Figure 2. RPD model = Recognition Primed Decision

The concepts above are from the mainstream literature, which has honed an understanding of where decisions are made in the brain when presented with complex problems to be solved in 1) limited time and with 2) limited information. The cohort studied by Green and Nolan included a heavy sampling of individuals whose daily jobs, and lives, depended on taking the correct course of action for time-limited events and have fast problem solving. While interesting, this alone doesn’t make the patients seem especially unique, it’s when we get later in the slides that we start to get an idea of the broader picture.

The following was included in the presentation to show that identification of a particular area of the brain involved in these processes may have been first recognized by a Russian neuroscientist by the name of Oleg Sergeivich Adrianov (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Excerpts from Oleg Adrianov’s paper in 1988.

Now this is where the nature of the patients’ abilities starts to reveal itself. Dr. Adrianov has called out “high integrative activity”, which is much the same as listed in the prior slide, and then, “programming future activity” and “foreseeing the future”. All of which allow the brain to have a “higher psychic function”. This is especially interesting since it seems to indicate that people can anticipate future events. Of course, that’s what intuition is—just predicting what might happen. The open question is from where the information in the brain, or environment, arrives. Whether these people are particularly good at processing information from their senses in a way that allows them to predict the most likely course of action logically or if they’re witnessing some sense of future information remains unanswered. I believe it the latter. If they’re able to foresee (remote view) the future, without having the data at hand as understood by mainstream physics, then it would suggest that some level of precognition of future events are possible. While none of the slides even speculate about this per se, the mention of the work of Dr. Adrianov is revealing in and of itself.

While an aside, it was alluded to elsewhere in the slides that people have “multiple episodes” without explicitly stating the type of episodes suffered. It’s specified as being “Hallucinations… NOT”, so presumably these people are getting visions or are seeing/hearing things to which the general populace may be oblivious. Later in the slides it’s mentioned that people see “visual and auditory of orbs, voices, entities”, it’s worth noting that these experiences are not detailed beyond this piece of text.

Experiencers

Individuals commonly referred to as “Experiencers” are people that have received exposure to something that would normally be referred to as paranormal, whether that be UFOs, spirits, ghosts, or religious apparitions. These can be experienced when these people are, as mentioned in the slides, “awake”. While the talk never specifically mentions paranormal, it seems to suggest that hallucinations may not explain the visual or auditory experiences, the slides are vague on this point. I suspect this was Dr Nolan’s intent to not distract from the central message of “real science” and data.

The presentation again mentions savant level IQs, so it can only be assumed that this is a main requirement for the experiences. It also has more references to genetic inheritance as two brothers and their mother are mentioned as well as a father, mother, and daughter.

While the study points out to the, now, mainstream understanding of the caudate-putamen’s role in processing complex information, it is possible to speculate that the study population might be capable of interpreting some information from their environments to which the rest of the population may be somewhat blind. Whether this is the “akashic field” that’s been spoken about in various esoteric religions and scripts, Annie Jacobsen’s reporting on the “spidey sense” program(http://time.com/4721715/phenomena-annie-jacobsen/) , or something else is not clear. Considering it’s mentioned that people see “entities”, it may be possible that such a thing (whatever they are – religious spirits, aliens, fairies, etc.), if existing, may be drawn to these people. We should consider the possibility that they’re attracting these things as these people can interpret their environmental changes in a manner that makes some forms of communication feasible. Without full analysis of the communication across a blinded population, it may be impossible to read much more into any possible consistent message being received. However, this is speculation on my part.

Caudate-Putamen

The general focus of the slides appears to be the identification of a physical biomarker (by MRI brain scan) that can be used to identify people that have these novel traits. There are no references to DNA analyses in the slides, so the genetic DNA markers are unlikely to have been identified by the time of the presentation. It’s entirely possible that should the features be genetically determined, they will require the interplay of thousands of genes that architect the relevant brain functions, making genetic analyses difficult until more precisely determined.

The brain feature that correlates to this patient population are the connections between the caudate and the putamen. Helpfully, the slides show normal brain connections compared with those in the study group, again none of the brain scans from the slides can be shared here due to privacy reasons.

In some of the images it’s possible to see a scan of a patient with the specific caudate and putamen connections with the relating sections highlighted. While the MRI scans cannot be shown here, some of the “cartoon” 3D renders that have been prepared are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The snapshot in this image is from a slide showing a 3D spinning representation of both the control (i.e., “Normal” people) and the intuit (listed on the slide as “hyper”). The visual representation above where there are “bright” regions indicated heightened areas of neuronal connectivity between the head of the caudate and the putamen.

Figure 5. A diagram from the literature of the Caudate-Putamen.

The oval shaped section is the putamen with the tail being the caudate (see the figure above for specifics, from http://what-when-how.com/neuroscience/the-basal-ganglia-motor-systems-part-1/).

In the 3D rendered image of Figure 4’s slide, on the right all the additional connections (termed hyper)between both parts are highlighted (the lines or nerves connecting the two). The total number of these connections or strands are not as complex for the control population (as measured in 100 ‘normals’), as shown in the left-hand side of the image.

Fundamentally, the additional connections (or strands) between these areas of the brain are speculated to identify people that have higher intuitive capabilities that are not present in the greater populace. At present this is only correlation, speculation, and no causality has been demonstrated. The significance of these findings may start to become more apparent as more details are released and data are available. Dr Nolan insisted in our side discussions that these findings are, so far, preliminary data and require considerable further analysis. While the study was carried out in a blinded fashion, it was his feeling that the study of this area of the brain can be accelerated by pointing out these findings to others for independent verification and invite the field in general to participate. Apparently, since many mainstream scientists are focused on this area of the basal ganglia and its role in decision making processes, data will be forthcoming from others to support, or not, the speculation put forward.

Whether or not these people are approaching an evolution of the species or if these types of rare connections are present in what would have been present in the shamans of the past remains unclear, but it appears that Drs Nolan and Green are onto something interesting.

It’s worth noting that patients with ADHD and autism (as presented in the talk) have been shown in the mainstream literature to have deficits in the caudate region of the basal ganglia—among other deficits. This supports the role of this region in “perception” and information management. There are no indicators as to the population size when compared to the control to determine percentage rates across the general population. But publicly available databases of brain MRIs might be scanned to determine the frequency of the trait.

Might our species may be going through an evolutionary process as suggested by several scientists in their papers over the past few years? My speculation in this blog posting is that perhaps as consciousness evolves to interpret messages from elsewhere (for instance a hyperdimensional space if you’re willing to accept the “woo”), then this region of the brain might be involved. Considering that super-string theory suggests that there may be as many as ten spatial dimensions and that our minds, or consciousness, appear to exist in something greater than the three usual spatial dimensions, then maybe there is some exposure is occurring to wider/greater dimensional spaces.

The significance of the details of this presentation are potentially dramatic. While Drs Nolan and Green were not claiming at all that this area of the brain functions as an antenna per say, what ifhumans are experiencing evolutionary changes that allow access (whether visual or auditory) to some future events, and be in receipt of information from something “other” that currently can’t be easily objectively measured? Given the role of the caudate putamen in the mainstream understanding of information processing, it is reasonable to speculate it would be involved in processing data from anomalous sources.

While it may be trickier to accept, there have been suggestions from psychics in the past that have for all intents and purposes intuited the exact same brain connections Drs Nolan and Green determined empirically. Specifically, Dr Nolan called out in one of his later slides the book “Through the Curtain”by Viola Petitt Neal and Shafica Karagulla. Ms. Neal talks about this exact area of the brain, it’sconnections to higher consciousness capabilities in the 1960s—well before mainstream neuroscience understood the role of the caudate-putamen in cognition. The full detail around this will be covered in a later article.

For some further reading, I would suggest some of the following scientific papers (also check my Twitter account for more; @Jay09784691):

Theoretical Physics Between Adjacent Realities by ex-NASA scientist Alex Vary.

Tuning the Mind in the Frequency Domain by Shelli Renee Joyce.

Analysis of Technically Inventive Dream-Like Mental Imagery by Bruce Towe and Cay Randall-May

Intuitive Consciousness and the Logic of Single Field Physics: A Conscious Synergy of Worldviews and Theories by James Beichler and Sperry Andrews

{ https://silvarecord.com/ }

13-01-2019 om 01:08 geschreven door peter  

12-01-2019 om 18:29 geschreven door peter  

25 Pics Of Underwater Creatures That Defy All Logic - PART II

{ https://www.thetravel.com/ }

12-01-2019 om 18:27 geschreven door peter  

Scientists warn Earth's magnetic North Pole has begun moving 'erratically' at speeds so fast they are having to issue an emergency update to maps used by electronic navigation systems

• Magnetic North Pole is 'skittering' away from Canada, towards Siberia 
• Researchers say it is moving at an 'unusually high speed of about 50 km per year'
• Say Canada is essentially losing a magnetic tug-of-war with Siberia
• Researchers around the world are scrambling to update global models relied on by GPS navigation systems

By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

Earth's magnetic fields are shifting - and scientists are unsure why.

Researchers say the magnetic North Pole is  'skittering' away from Canada, towards Siberia.

The problem has got so bad, researchers around the world are scrambling to update a global model of the fields.

Called the World Magnetic Model, it underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones. 

Scroll down for video 

Researchers say the magnetic North Pole is 'skittering' away from Canada, towards Siberia, far more quickly that they expected it to.

The most recent version of the model came out in 2015, and it was supposed to last until 2020.

However, researchers say the  magnetic field is changing so rapidly that they have to fix the model urgently.  

It was due to be updated on the 15th January, but due to the US Government shutdown, that has already been delayed until the 30th.

'It's moving at about 50 km (30 miles) a year. It didn't move much between 1900 and 1980 but it's really accelerated in the past 40 years,' Ciaran Beggan, of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, told Reuters on Friday. 

The magnetic field is in a permanent state of flux. 

Magnetic north wanders, and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so that a compass would point south instead of north.  

'The error is increasing all the time,' Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Centers for Environmental Information, told Nature. 

'In early 2018, as part of our regular assessment of the WMM, we found that the model exceeded its specification for declination only three years into the five-year WMM cycle,' he told the American Geophysical Union meeting. 

'We investigated this error and tracked it down to the combined effect of a global geomagnetic acceleration pulse occurring in 2015-2016, and a fast-changing magnetic field in the North polar area. 

A remarkable manifestation of the field variation is the drift of the North magnetic pole towards Russia, which has been occurring at the unusually high speed of about 50 km per year since the beginning of the 21st century. 

'On the contrary, the South magnetic pole drift is very slow (less than 10 km per year) and has not changed much over the past few decades, and hence provided a much smaller contribution to the overall model declination error.'

To fix the model, he and his colleagues fed it three years of recent data, which included a 2016 geomagnetic pulse, and he says the new model, when it is released,  should remain accurate until the next regularly scheduled update in 2020.

Satellites such as the European Space Agency's Swarm mission tracked the shift. 

Phil Livermore, a geomagnetist at the University of Leeds, UK, said at the American Geophysical Union meeting 'the location of the north magnetic pole appears to be governed by two large-scale patches of magnetic field, one beneath Canada and one beneath Siberia,' Livermore says. 

'The Siberian patch is winning the competition.' 

WHAT IS THE WORLD MAGNETIC MODEL? 

The charts, known as the World Magnetic Model (WMM), are used to convert between compass measurements of magnetic north and true north and can be found in the navigation systems of ships and airplanes as well as geological applications (such as drilling and mining). 

The WMM is also part of map applications in smartphones, including the Google Maps App.

Researchers from the U.S.'s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintain the WMM.

The charts, known as the World Magnetic Model (WMM), are used to convert between compass measurements of magnetic north and true north

'Although GPS is a great tool for navigation, it is limited in that it only provides your position,' geodetic scientist James Friederich from the U. S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency explained in 2014. 

'Your orientation, the direction you are facing, comes from the magnetic field.'

'Our war fighters use magnetics to orient their maps. 

'Your smartphone camera and various apps can use the magnetic field to help determine the direction you are facing,' he continued. 

'All of these examples need the WMM to provide your proper orientation.'

Scientists in recent years have predicted that Earth's magnetic field could be gearing up to 'flip' – a shift in which the magnetic south pole would become magnetic north, and vice versa.

Such an event could have catastrophic effects, wreaking havoc on the electric grid and leaving life at the surface exposed to higher amounts of solar radiation.

While it's previously been thought that these reversals take place at intervals of hundreds of thousands of years, one recent study suggests it could happen in just a matter of centuries. 

Scientists in recent years have predicted that Earth's magnetic field could be gearing up to 'flip' – a shift in which the magnetic south pole would become magnetic north, and vice versa. Earth's magnetic field is illustrated above

Scientists estimate Earth's North and South magnetic poles flip every 200,000-300,000 years.

But, it's been roughly 780,000 years since the last such event, causing many to suspect we're overdue.

When the magnetic poles flip, Earth's protective magnetic field weakens, leaving its inhabitants at higher risk from the effects of space weather.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO EARTH IF ITS POLES FLIPPED?

The Earth’s magnetic field is in a permanent state of change. 

Magnetic north drifts around and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north. 

The strength of the magnetic field also constantly changes and currently it is showing signs of significant weakening. 

Life has existed on the Earth for billions of years, during which there have been many reversals. 

There is no obvious correlation between animal extinctions and those reversals. Likewise, reversal patterns do not have any correlation with human development and evolution.

It appears that some animals, such as whales and some birds use Earth's magnetic field for migration and direction finding.

Since geomagnetic reversal takes a number of thousands of years, they could well adapt to the changing magnetic environment or develop different methods of navigation.

Radiation at ground level would increase, however, with some estimates suggesting that overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer. ‘But only slightly,’ said Professor Richard Holme.

‘And much less than lying on the beach in Florida for a day. So if it happened, the protection method would probably be to wear a big floppy hat.’

The movement of the Earth's magnetic poles are shown in this animation at 10-year intervals from 1970 to 2020. The red and blue lines sjpw the difference between magnetic north and true north depending on where you are standing. On the green line, a compass would point to true north.

Credit: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

Electric grid collapse from severe solar storms is a major risk. As the magnetic field continues to weaken, scientists are highlighting the importance off-the grid energy systems using renewable energy sources to protect the Earth against a black out. 

'The very highly charged particles can have a deleterious effect on the satellites and astronauts,' added Dr Mona Kessel, a Magnetosphere discipline scientist at Nasa.

In one area, there is evidence that a flip is already occurring. ‘The increasing strength of the South Atlantic anomaly, an area of weak field over Brazil, is already a problem,’ said Professor Richard Holme. 

The Earth's climate could also change. A recent Danish study has found that the earth's weather has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field.

They claimed that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

'Earth's magnetic field, which has existed for at least 3.45 billion years, provides a shield from the direct impact of solar radiation,' said Professor Roberts from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences.

'Even with Earth's strong magnetic field today, we're still susceptible to solar storms that can damage our electricity-based society.'

In the new study, researchers at the Australian National University analyzed the paleomagnetic record from 107,000 to 91,000 years ago by analyzing a stalagmite from a cave in southwestern China.

The team conducted magnetic analysis and radiometric dating on the meter-long sample, revealing the behaviour of the ancient magnetic field.

And, they found the magnetic field experienced a rapid shift over the span of about two centuries, decreasing in strength by about 90 percent when a field reversal occurred.

In the new study, researchers at the Australian National University analyzed the paleomagnetic record from 107,000 to 91,000 years ago by analyzing a stalagmite from a cave in southwestern China

The damage to power grids and communications systems resulting from such a flip in today's society would cause trillions of dollars in damage, the researchers explain.

'Hopefully such an event is a long way in the future and we can develop future technologies to avoid huge damage, where possible, from such events,' Professor Roberts said.

The study suggests Earth's magnetic field is a lot more unpredictable than suspected, the researchers say.

'The record provides important insights into ancient magnetic field behaviour,' Professor Roberts said, 'which has turned out to vary much more rapidly than previously thought.'

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

12-01-2019 om 17:01 geschreven door peter  

The city of Lewisburg, Tennessee lies just under an hour away from the southern cultural mecca of Nashville. Lewisburg resident Patsy Wright’s family has lived in the city for over 100 years on a piece of rural property which enjoys a sizable pond. Last week, Wright was walking her dog around the property on her way to the pond when she came across a surprising sight:

I walked down here with my dog and sure as the world, no water! It was gone!

Wright says this is the first time she’s known the pond to be empty in the century her family has lived at the property. Drone footage captured at the scene shows a fairly large hole lying on the completely dry bottom of the tiny pond. The hole appears to be a few feet deep and full of muddy water.

Lakes and ponds have been known to mysteriously disappear into sinkholes from time to time.

While ponds or other small bodies of water draining into underground sinkholes or unexplored subterranean rivers is nothing new, Patsy Wright is adamant that a larger mystery is afoot. Wright told local news station WSMV that just before she discovered her pond was empty, she saw an unidentified object fall from the sky and crash into its waters:

When I seen them waves go up like it did?! And then they come back down. And I heard the splash. I mean it was a big splash. I know something hit it, because I heard it. I thought, I’m not imagining nothing. It’s there.

A report has been filed with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office, and Wright plans on contacting the Environmental Protection Agency to see if the case is worthy of their investigation. Last year, a series of mysterious booms rocked the skies just a few hours to the east – mysterious booms which remain unexplained. Could this pond’s disappearance be related?

Did a meteorite or piece of space debris fall to Earth and drain Patsy Wright’s pond? Weird things do seem to be falling from or exploding in the sky at a high frequency lately. Perhaps it was another megacryometeor? Until this one is investigated – if it ever is – it will likely remain a mystery.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

12-01-2019 om 15:49 geschreven door peter  

There May Be Creatures on This Planet More Intelligent Than Humans, Study Says

It has long been known that humans are very intelligent, often thought of as the most intelligent. However, could there be something far more intelligent that blows us humans out of the water? Quite a lot of people think the answer to that question is yes. What is it though?

What is more intelligent than humans?

A study from last year (2018) suggests that Dolphins are highly intelligent creatures, so much so that they may surpass human intelligence in some respects. One of those ways being self-awareness. The study used was a mirror-self recognition (MSR) test which basically consists of presenting a mirror to the test subject and seeing how long it takes them or it to recognize themselves.

When presented with a mirror, human infants aren’t usually able to recognize themselves until they are around 12 months old. Bottlenose dolphins, on the other hand, are able to recognize themselves at just seven months old. The experiment was done on both male and female dolphins to get a range of results.

They are capable of far more than anyone had ever realized. They are even able to create personalized whistles which can be seen as their equivalent of names for different members of their pod. They can solve problems as well as communicate with each other with no difficulty whatsoever. Some people actually believe we should treat them as people in a sense because of their high intellect.

What did the report say?

Here is a small extract from the report on the dolphins;

We exposed two young bottlenose dolphins to an underwater mirror and analyzed video recordings of their behavioral responses over a 3-year period. Here we report that both dolphins exhibited MSR, indicated by self-directed behavior at the mirror, at ages earlier than generally reported for children and at ages much earlier than reported for chimpanzees. The early onset of MSR in young dolphins occurs in parallel with their advanced sensorimotor development, complex and reciprocal social interactions, and growing social awareness. Both dolphins passed subsequent mark tests at ages comparable with children. Thus, our findings indicate that dolphins exhibit self-awareness at a mirror at a younger age than previously reported for children or other species tested.

Dolphins have both been here longer than us, and have much larger brains than us. We can learn a lot from these animals whether we seem them as our equals or not. They should be studied and tested further to see what they are really capable of. A TedEd talk video on dolphins can be seen below which explains how smart dolphins really are.

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

12-01-2019 om 01:42 geschreven door peter  

Earth’s magnetic pole is on the move, fast. And we don’t know why

Earth’s magnetic field is what allows us to exist. It deflects harmful radiation. It keeps our water and atmosphere in place. But now it’s acting up — and nobody knows why.

By Jamie Seidel | news.com.au

Planet Earth is alive. Deep beneath its skin, its life blood — rivers of molten iron — pulse around its core. And this mobile iron is what generates the magnetic field that causes auroras — and keeps us alive.

But, according to the science journal Nature, something strange is going on deep down below.

It’s causing the magnetic North Pole to ‘skitter’ away from Canada, towards Siberia.

“The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move,” Nature reports.

Graphic via Science Journal Nature

Source:Supplied

On January 30 (delayed due to the US Government shutdown), the World Magnetic Model — which governs modern navigation systems — is due to undergo an urgent update.

This model is a vital component of systems ranging from geopositioning systems used to navigate ships through to smartphone trackers and maps.

The current model was expected to be valid until 2020. But the magnetic pole began to shift so quickly, it was realised in 2018 that the model had to be fixed — now.

“They realised that it was so inaccurate that it was about to exceed the acceptable (safe) limit for navigational errors,” Nature reports.

FICKLE TIDES

Every year, geophysicists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the British Geological Survey do a check on how the Earth’s magnetic field is varying.

This is necessary as the liquid iron churning in the Earth’s core does not move in a consistent manner.

“In 2016, for instance, part of the magnetic field temporarily accelerated deep under northern South America and the eastern Pacific Ocean,” Nature reports.

This shift was captured by satellites.

Earth has lines of magnetic force looping from North Pole to South Pole, creating Earth's protective magnetosphere. The straight line coming out of the North and South Poles represents Earth's axis of rotation.

Source:Supplied

• RELATED: Something weird’s happening deep beneath the South Atlantic

But the movement of the north magnetic pole has been the object of study since 1831. Initially, it was tracked moving into the Arctic Ocean at a rate of about 15km each year. But, since the mid 1990s, it has picked up speed.

It’s now shifting at a rate of about 55km a year.

But another recent study has revealed the Earth’s magnetic field has been acting up now for some 1000 years.

CORE OF THE MATTER

Why the magnetic field is shifting so dramatically is unknown.

“Geomagnetic pulses, like the one that happened in 2016, might be traced back to ‘hydromagnetic’ waves arising from deep in the core,” Nature reports. “And the fast motion of the north magnetic pole could be linked to a high-speed jet of liquid iron beneath Canada”.

This fast-flowing molten river appears to be weakening the magnetic influence of the iron core beneath North America.

• EXPLORE MORE: How humanity survived a supervolcano

“The location of the north magnetic pole appears to be governed by two large-scale patches of magnetic field, one beneath Canada and one beneath Siberia,” Phil Livermore of the University of Leeds told an American Geophysical Union meeting. “The Siberian patch is winning the competition.”

And, as global warming opens up more shipping lanes to the north of Russia and Canada, this presents a potentially deadly problem.

“The fact that the pole is going fast makes this region more prone to large errors,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA.

{ https://www.news.com.au/ }

11-01-2019 om 20:14 geschreven door peter  

Niels Lesniewski

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is continuing to advocate for UFO research.

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is lobbying his former colleagues to do more to study unidentified flying objects.

“I personally don’t know if there exists little green men other places, I kind of doubt that, but I do believe that the information we have indicates we should do a lot more study,” the Nevada Democrat said. “We have hundreds and hundreds of people that have seen the same thing — something in the sky, it moves a certain way.”

Reid said that also included sightings of vessels at sea.

The topic of UFOs was on Reid’s mind Thursday because his interview with KNPR came just before he said he was scheduled to talk with an important senator about setting up a way for members of the military to support exploring suspicious sightings without facing retribution.

“I’m going to have a call with a member of the Senate in an hour or two where we have people in the military who want to come and tell somebody what they’ve seen,” Reid said in the interview, declining to identify who that senator is. (Food for thought: Reid’s former deputy, Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., is the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.)

“What we found in the past is that these pilots, when they see something strange like this, they’re prone not to report it for fear that the bosses will think something’s wrong with them, and they don’t get the promotion,” he said. “So, many, many times they don’t say a word to anybody about these strange things.”

“The facts are, they need a place to be able to report this, and that’s what I’m going to work on in a couple of hours, to make sure that somebody I think’s a powerful member in Congress, I want him to be able to sit down and talk to some of these pilots who have seen these things,” Reid said. “I can arrange this because of the contacts I have with members of the Congress.”

Back in December 2017, the New York Times reported on a Pentagon program to study UFO sightings that came about because of Reid’s advocacy back when he was serving in the Senate.

“We spent a lot of money, and it was an extremely important study,” Reid said Thursday, calling setting up the program,“one of the easiest sells I ever had to make.”

He recalled again how he lobbied the leaders of the Senate Appropriation’s Defense Subcommittee to get money for the project, and how the late Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was entirely on board because of a suspicious aircraft he cited during his own time as military pilot.  But Reid said that the Pentagon has not done enough since then.

“Frankly, I think the federal government has done almost nothing to help us with this,” Reid said.

During the interview, Reid also said he knew a lot more about classified operations undertaken at Area 51 in his home state of Nevada.

“Oh sure, I’ve been to Area 51. I know Area 51. I don’t know if I should say many times, but lots and lots of times. I know Area 51 quite well, I know what they’ve done there,” said Reid. “I don’t know in recent years, of course, but I know what went on there.”

{ https://www.rollcall.com/ }

11-01-2019 om 19:48 geschreven door peter  

With the recent release of articles by James Iandoli and Twitter user @Jay09784691, and hosted by Danny Silva and myself, we see an interesting connection between materialist biology and science, and the mystical non-physical world of esoteric metaphysics. The work being done by Dr. Garry Nolan of Stanford University and Dr. Christopher ‘Kit’ Green, a medical doctor, create a symbiosis between the real and the ‘unreal,’ between the natural and the super-natural.

Being a product of a good Jesuit education, I am reminded of St. Paul. Around 54 CE, Paul wrote his famous letters to the Corinthian churches. Known to most Bible readers as 1 Corinthians, Paul expresses in those letters the basic notions of what the Church ought to be. Moreover, his ideas lay the foundation for the dogma of most Catholics. His ideas, though two millennia old, continue to resonate. In 1 Corinthians 15:49 (NIV), he wrote,

“And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.”

Being a student of various esoteric philosophies, I am also reminded of Hermeticism, and the infamous, though dubiously sourced phrase,

“As above, so below.”

It seems Paul and early Hermeticists were on similar paths. What is physical reflects the mystical, and vice versa. To paraphrase what Jesus said to Peter, what is bound on Earth is also bound in Heaven. I’m going to guess that Christ was being both literal and metaphorical here. The material and the immaterial are shadows of the other, mirrors, which reflect the other in themselves.

The realm Nolan and Green seem to be dabbling lies in the gap between the material and the immaterial. The biological evolution of the human brain hardwired to sense the natural world around it, yet simultaneously wired to ‘sense’ the super-natural. While we can only speculate, since this study is in its infancy, we seem to be going through a shift in general perception regarding science, but more importantly, what we deem to be real.

While empiricism and materialism may still reign supreme, the turn towards a more holistic and idealist approach to the world around us has been slowly taking shape over the last several decades. What has been occurring is not a revolution in thinking, but rather an evolution. With the incredibly broad implications and complications of a strange and spooky quantum universe, and with the development of better and more rigorous testing for anomalous science, such as various psi phenomena, everything we used to take for granted is beginning to slowly evolve into something different.

I am not suggesting some “end of days” scenario for mainstream science, nor some dramatic shift towards a world full of New Age hipster academics who believe in The Great Spirit (though, the times they certainly are a’ changing). This shift will be slow and cautious. Perhaps it will be a quiet return to some bygone age where the physical measurable work of scientists was also the mystical work of shamans seeking to understand some version of a Neoplatonist anima mundi. It may sound silly. Perhaps it is. It is a strange world we live in, and while empiricism’s goal is to make it less strange, perhaps it is time to embrace the strange.    

Nolan and Green’s hypothesis concerning the connectivity between the brain’s caudate and the putamen structures as being a potential indicator of high cognitive functioning is incredibly fascinating. Moreover, the theories presented by Nolan and Green suggest that this brain system also leads to the potential of ‘sensing’ data and information beyond the five normal senses. Their presentation at Harvard did mention certain candidates in their study who often see and hear things beyond the five senses and possess a sort of “sixth sense” that allows the individual to interact with shades of the universe beyond our current understanding.

Putamen and Caudate Brain Structure

(artist rendering, not to scale)

Putamen and Caudate Brain Structure

(image from Nolan & Green)

I’ve asked this before in previous posts, and I address this idea more in my book, but are we a simultaneous blend of immaterial systems and material structures? Am I made of dreams and bones?

Returning to ancient religious traditions, such as the writings of St. Paul and the texts of the Hermeticists, Nolan and Green are walking down a well-trodden path, and in good company. This new and unique look at these physical brain structures may be a key to understanding these esoteric ideas which have been around for thousands of years. Our ancient predecessors would not have had the ability to understand the complex physical system of the brain, but they did have the awareness and the insight to understand that the mind was reflexive and reflective of a symbiotic, if not divine, system of the Other.

In my book, I refer to the UFO community as a collection of ghosts who haunt the broader mainstream culture by constantly challenging popular interpretations of reality. Much like ghosts, the community exists, for better and for worse, in the anarchic gap between what is understood and what isn’t. Like so many other religious and spiritual movements, perhaps Nolan and Green are scratching at the surface of what causes communities like the UFO community to form. Jacques Vallee referred to this intelligent Other as a ‘control system,’ and indeed it very well may be, but our various cultures and societies also seem to give it shape (and at times, breadth and depth). In other words, we are influenced by this Other as much as we influence it.

It stands that if there is some Other, well above us in awareness, or ‘intelligence,’ and agency, then indeed, our only tool, our immaterial mind and material brain, which allows for creativity, intellect and imagination must be housed below. Our thoughts and ideas are not totally our own, but part of a larger system. To steal from Jung, we seem to be shadows of something larger, yet in our own right, also seem to cast shadows upon that broader body. Nolan and Green may be at the gateway to this realm of the Other; perhaps they have found the door, and all that is missing now is the key.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-01-2019 om 19:13 geschreven door peter  

Residents of Ontario, Canada had a rare and spectacular view of a very odd-looking upside down rainbow. Technically called a circumzenithal arc, it is caused by ice crystals in the upper atmosphere that act as a prism which refracts light and creates an upside down rainbow.

Although they look identical to a rainbow (with the exception of being upside down), they’re not technically rainbows. Rainbows are formed when light reflects off of water drops such as rain or fog, while a circumzenithal arc is the result of light refracting off ice crystals in the upper atmosphere and are related to the very commonly seen halos that appear around the sun and moon. In addition, the weather has to be calm and cold, which is definitely not a problem with it being winter in Canada. Circumzenithal arcs normally appear when little to no clouds are in the sky.

The center of the bow is always towards the sun with the red color on the outside closest to the ground and purple at the top. They only happen when the sun is at a height of less than 32 degrees in the sky.

Canadian residents witnessed another beautiful phenomenon recently called “sundogs” which is when mini-suns appear hovering close on each side of our actual sun. The technical name is parhelion and the spots on each side of the sun are usually white but can sometimes appear as a reddish color located on the inside and blue on the outside.

Sundogs are created when the sun shines through a cirrus cloud that’s made up of hexagonal ice crystals that are falling with their axes located vertically. When the axes are arranged perpendicularly to the sun’s rays, they instead create the halo phenomenon. Sundogs appear at 22 degrees on either side of the sun and are also at the exact same height as our sun.

These sundogs can even be seen in tropical countries because the cloud layer is “cold no matter where you are,” according to British physicist Les Cowley.

• Click here to see pictures of the upside down rainbow and the sundogs.

An upside-down rainbow is called a circumzenithal arc.

(Submitted by Christy Litster)

The weather phenomena of a sun dog is caused by ice crystals in the sky.

(Submitted by Andy Breschuk)

The spots on either side of the sun can be reddish but are most often white.

(Submitted by Bonnie Stefishen)

So next time you’re outside on a bright sunny day, you may want to look up at the sky and you may catch a glimpse of a rare, but spectacular weather phenomenon.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

11-01-2019 om 11:41 geschreven door peter  

These 7 Expeditions Could Reveal Some of Earth's Biggest Secrets in 2019

11-01-2019 om 00:48 geschreven door peter  

CIA UPLOADS MILLIONS OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS TO ITS WEBSITE, INCLUDING INFORMATION ON UFOS AND PSYCHIC POWERS

The 'STAR GATE' remote viewing programme aimed to explore whether humans could be taught to be psychic

The CIA is putting its secret history online, uploading millions of newly declassified documents.

The documents include previously unseen information about the agency's hunt for UFOs and its work on the "Star Gate" project, which tried to teach humans to become psychic and see through walls.

One document, for instance, describes that project in detail. It shows how the CIA recruited volunteers to go through a programme of training that would let people access information without any of the usual means, and which would be used as a weapon for which there is "no known defense".

The US spy agency will put up 12 million pages into its online "reading room", where people will be able to search through the documents.

The previously classified pages include private briefs given to presidents and the information that is passed between its operatives. They cover everything from the Cold War and Vietnam to relatively modern problems like terrorism.

That means that people can see its history from its formation until the early 90s, for now. None of that is selected, the agency claims, meaning that it shows some of the agency and the US government's most controversial episodes.

The CIA has to declassify records that are 25 years old, unless they are made exempt. That means that each year it releases a whole new set of documents.

But this year that has been accompanied by the first time that the documents have been made available online. Until now, the documents could only be read on four terminals inside the US National Archives, in their original format.

{ https://www.independent.co.uk/ }

10-01-2019 om 20:51 geschreven door peter  

Scientists from Russia and around the world see plasma rocket technology as a crucial possible ingredient for speedy missions to Mars and beyond.

Physicists from the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk are preparing another round of experiments aimed at successfully harnessing the power of thermonuclear plasma for use in a rocket engine, institute deputy director Alexander Ivanov has told journalists.

The experiments, which will begin later this month, will follow up on earlier successful tests which confirmed the feasibility of confining plasma in an experimental setup using parameters suitable for a rocket engine, Ivanov said.

© COURTESY OF THE EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY

sPHENIX Project: How Scientists Study “Soup” That Gave Rise to Universe

In late 2018, the institute began operation of a unique installation, known as the SMOLA, the Russian acronym for "Spiral-based Magnetic Open Trap", with the setup serving as the first step forward toward the creation of a fusion reactor. The "plasma trap" allowed scientists to work on confining plasma in a linear magnetic system, which, it is hoped, can eventually help lead to the creation of prototype plasma engine suitable for space travel.

"The first experiments showed that the effect exists. The space engine works, and the means to reducing plasma losses as well. Presently, standard equipment is installed. We are preparing to start experiments on it in January 2019 which should fully demonstrate its capabilities," Ivanov said.

According to the physicist, the current setup serves as a technology demonstrator, with scientists achieving a temperature of 100,000 degrees to form the plasma, and reaching a sufficient density to provide them with data suitable for further work on the creation of a plasma-based rocket engine.

In October, Energomash, a Russian power engineering company involved in the production of rocket engines, announced plans to build a high-powered electrode-less plasma rocket engine. Russia's Kurchatov Institute and the Chemical Automatics Design Bureau first reported that they were working on a plasma-based engine for space travel in 2016.

© PHOTO: ICARUS INTERSTELLAR

Interstellar for Real: Meet the Nuclear-Powered Spaceships of the Future

Other countries, including the United States, are engaged in similar developments. In 2015, NASA awardedprivate plasma rocket technology firm Ad Astra a contract on the creation of the "Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket" (VASIMR), with the proposed engines operating by heating pressurised gas to extremely high temperatures using radio waves and keeping the resulting plasma under control using magnetic fields.

Plasma-based rocket engines are one of several proposed options for human exploration of other planets in our solar system, and beyond it.

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

09-01-2019 om 21:32 geschreven door peter  

Antarctica has become one of the most mysterious places on Earth. Maybe it always has been, but scientists are finally beginning to discover and explore these mysteries thanks to recent technological advances. Lost continents, mysterious space sounds, and unexplained sources of radioactivity are just some of the weirdness currently afoot on the southernmost continent – and that’s just the weirdness we know about.

The latest mystery to develop in Antarctica is the exploration of a long “lost” ancient lake lying over a kilometer below the continent’s ice sheet. Lake Mercer is referred to as a ‘lost’ lake because it exists below the surface of the ice, cut off from the rest of the world. It’s been that way for tens of millions of years, meaning this “lost lake” is a veritable time machine into prehistory. Even more exciting is the possibility that this isolated body of water could contain a unique, untouched ecosystem unlike anything else on the planet. What might we find at the bottom of Lake Mercer?

Scientists with the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) project drilled down to a depth of 1,084 metres (3,556 feet) in December 2018 using a tiny drill nozzle that sprays hot water. In order to ensure that the waters of Lake Mercer weren’t contaminated by the project, the drill water was sterilized with UV light and hydrogen peroxide using 500 tonnes of equipment that had to be shuttled for two months across the glacial surface from McMurdo Station.

McMurdo Station

Scientists plan to soon analyze sediments collected at the bottom of the lake in the hopes of discovering new organisms which might have been cut off from the rest of the world. Who knows what could have evolved down there over tens of millions of years? Whether or not we find life in space, the life we find in these super-remote corners of our own planet should be enough to rewrite the boring chapters of the biology books – if we ever find them before it’s too late. Let’s face it: contamination is inevitable, either in space or at the bottom of an Antarctic lake. It’s what we do best.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-01-2019 om 22:57 geschreven door peter  

Burrell: In this time of tension and anxiety, UFOs are back in the news

by Hedley Burrell  (www.heraldtribune.com)

• Stories of UFOs have ebbed and flowed over the decades, but now there is new chatter of a different kind. Today mainstream news outlets featuring heavily credentialed experts weighing in on the ongoing UFO phenomenon. In December (2017), CNN announced: “A former Pentagon official who led a … government program to research potential UFOs said … he believes there is evidence of alien life reaching Earth.”
• The New York Post summarized events: “… The New York Times released the results of an investigation into the U.S. military’s monitoring of UFO claims and came up with… a video released by the Pentagon that shows U.S. Navy pilots tracking the movements of a totally unexplainable aircraft. Now, a local news team from Las Vegas has obtained a military report that offers even more details on the sighting and the story is somehow becoming even more bizarre than it already was.” “The report explains in great detail how a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier played a strange game of hide and seek with multiple Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) that demonstrated flight characteristics that should be downright impossible to pull off.”
• Then there was a Washington Post story describing how a rock star had “mustered a team of credentialed experts to put mysterious incidents on your radar.” “UFOs”, the headline said, “are suddenly a serious news story.” The rock star, the Post reported, was former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge, who launched To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science. It will investigate the “outer edges of science.”
• Christopher Mellon, an adviser to the academy who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, wrote a Washington Post opinion piece that carried this headline: “The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?”
• What we have today are heavy-duty experts taking UFOs seriously. “My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” declared Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon official in the CNN interview.
• It is intriguing to think of a new generation of journalists having to decide what attention, if any, should be given to new assertions that “the truth is out there,” to borrow a tagline from “The X-Files.”

Long ago, as a young reporter, I was well aware of UFO stories.

Out of curiosity, I read mainstream media pieces as well as tabloid tales. What repeatedly struck me was this: As with much else in life, we were reluctant to simply accept that we didn’t immediately know the answer to the mystery of the moment.

In any event, I would not have imagined that some six decades later, UFO stories would still be around, with heavily credentialed experts weighing in.

The stories ebbed and flowed over the decades, but now there is new chatter of a different kind.

In the past, I suspected that reports of sightings were likely to increase when popular entertainment featured space sagas, but I also thought they were a reflection of universal tensions and anxiety.

Given that these are truly tense and anxious times, I started to look around for UFO-type talk — or, rather, the reporting of same. I searched for some indication of renewed and perhaps more intense attention.

I found it, and it even had a new spin — namely an assertion that the subject was “serious.”

In December, CNN announced: “A former Pentagon official who led a ... government program to research potential UFOs said ... he believes there is evidence of alien life reaching Earth.” Other media outlets also weighed in. What was going on?

Last month, The New York Post summarized and updated events:

“UFO sightings are a dime a dozen ... but back in December, The New York Times released the results of an investigation into the U.S. military’s monitoring of UFO claims and came up with something totally wild. It was a video released by the Pentagon that shows U.S. Navy pilots tracking the movements of a totally unexplainable aircraft. Now, a local news team from Las Vegas has obtained a military report that offers even more details on the sighting and the story is somehow becoming even more bizarre than it already was.”

The account continued: “The report explains in great details how a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier played a strange game of hide and seek with multiple Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) that demonstrated flight characteristics that should be downright impossible to pull off.”

So there was all this.

Then I discovered a Washington Post story describing how a rock star had “mustered a team of credentialed experts to put mysterious incidents on your radar.”

UFOs, the headline said, “are suddenly a serious news story.”

The rock star, the Post reported, was former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge, who launched To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science. It will investigate the “outer edges of science.”

Christopher Mellon, an adviser to the academy who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, wrote a Washington Post opinion piece that carried this headline: “The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?”

In the past, we have seen UFO reports gain substantial international attention — originating from such locations as Roswell, N.M., the Exeter, N.H., area, Shag Harbour, N.S., Rendlesham Forest, which has been dubbed Britain’s Roswell, and many others. The British site even offers a UFO Trail.

I suppose it’s not exactly surprising that in times of uncertainty, many might wish for intelligent and caring aliens to arrive and show us how we lost our way.

What we have today, though, are heavy-duty experts taking UFOs seriously.

“My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” declared Luis Elizondo, the former Pentagon official in the CNN interview.

And Britain’s Telegraph newspaper quoted Elizondo, who is also involved with DeLonge’s academy, as saying: “In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of ‘beyond reasonable doubt.’ I hate to use the term UFO, but that’s what we’re looking at.”

Now, I came across all kinds of accounts involving UFOs in my day. So it is intriguing to think of a new generation of journalists having to decide what attention, if any, should be given to new assertions that “the truth is out there,” to borrow a tagline from “The X-Files.”

Meantime, as the stories pick up in the mainstream media, I can only quote Leah Crane writing in New Scientist: “The most ambitious search so far for extraterrestrial intelligence has released its first data – and there are no aliens yet.”

• Hedley Burrell is a former editor and writer for The Washington Post and The Associated Press and media adviser for U.S. government agencies. He lives in Manatee County.

{ https://exonews.org/ }

08-01-2019 om 21:54 geschreven door peter  

The Sahara swings between ‘lush’ and ‘desert’ every 20,000 years, in sync with the Earth’s tilt

 BY TIBI PUIU

A new analysis of African dust reveals the Sahara swung between green and desert conditions every 20,000 years, in sync with changes in the Earth’s tilt.

Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Few places on this planet are as inhospitable as the Sahara desert. This is why it’s so intriguing to learn that the Sahara, and most of North Africa for that matter, used to be a lush region filled with a diversity of plants and wild animals. What’s more, this transition occurred relatively recently, in the order of thousands of years, judging from fossils and even rock paintings made by artists who lived in now abandoned settlements.

Now, MIT researchers claim that the region may be swinging between desert and lush conditions every approximately 20,000 years due to changes in the Earth’s axial tilt.

Tadrart Acacus desert in western Libya, part of the Sahara.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Each year, tons and tons of Saharan dust are swept by northeastern winds into the Atlantic Ocean forming thick sediment deposits on the ocean floor. By analyzing these dust layers, it’s possible to infer many qualities about the climate they originate from. For instance, thick dust layers indicate arid times, whereas thinner layers are a sign of a wetter climate.

Some of the sediment core samples retrieved off the coast of West Africa can trace back Sahara’s climate history over millions of years. Previously, such analyses suggested that the Sahara oscillated between wet and dry climates every 100,000 years or so — something which scientists had pinned down to ice age cycles. Thick layers of dust seemed to coincide with periods when the Earth was more covered in ice, wheres less dusty layers corresponded to interglacial periods.

This correlation, however, does not bode well with our present understanding of the Saharan climate, which ought to be mainly driven by the region’s monsoon season. A periodic change in precipitation is determined by the tilt of the planet’s axis, which exposes some regions of Earth to more sunlight than others.

“We were puzzled by the fact that this 20,000-year beat of local summer insolation seems like it should be the dominant thing controlling monsoon strength, and yet in dust records you see ice age cycles of 100,000 years,” David McGee, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, said in a statement.

McGee and colleagues devised a new technique which reinterprets the values of Saharan dust cores deposited over the last 240,000 years. The new method hinges on the measurement of the concentration of a rare isotope of thorium.

Thorium is produced in the ocean when small amounts of radioactive uranium dissolve in seawater, then quickly attaches itself to sinking sediments, i.e. Saharan dust. This way, it’s possible to infer how much dust was accumulating during a particular era by studying the concentration of thorium in a particular sediment layer. The slow accumulation of sediment is associated with a higher concentration of thorium, and vice-versa.

Using thorium as their proxy for dust deposition (and, hence, Sahara’s historical climate), the MIT research team found that some peaks of dust in the cores may be false positives due to carbonate dissolution. With the confounding effect removed, the researchers found that the Sahara shifted from wet to dry climates every 20,000 years, in sync with monsoon activity and the planet’s periodic tilting of its axis.

This time series could be useful not only for understanding the history of the Sahara Desert (or luxurious plains, alternatively) but also that of our species. Humans emerged out of multiple hotspots in Africa and migrated towards the Middle East, and from there to Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world. These migrations may have been facilitated by the Sahara’s periodical mood swings.

“We can now produce a record that sees through the biases of these older records, and so doing, tells a different story,” McGee says. “We’ve assumed that ice ages have been the key thing in making the Sahara dry versus wet. Now we show that it’s primarily these cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit that have driven wet versus dry periods. It seems like such an impenetrable, inhospitable landscape, and yet it’s come and gone many times, and shifted between grasslands and a much wetter environment, and back to dry climates, even over the last quarter million years.”

That being said, the Sahara is also influenced by the global climate. According to a 2018 study, human-induced climate change contributed to a 10% expansion of the Sahara desert’s surface over the past hundred years.

And, of course, some of you might be wondering: when will the Sahara’s climate revert back to lush conditions? Scientists believe that up until 10,000-11,000 years ago, the Sahara looked more like today’s African savannah. This means that we still have another 10,000 years before North Africa becomes a giant oasis again.

• The MIT study was published in the journal Science Advances. 

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

07-01-2019 om 21:45 geschreven door peter