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  

NASA as they watched the scene unfolding in front of the Sun, thanks to images received from space probes

SOHO made the decision to close the six solar observatories around the world, so that no one witnessed what was happening.

{ http://aliensdocs.com/ }

07-01-2019 om 00:51 geschreven door peter  

'What the hell is that?' Incredible moment the skies above New Zealand are lit up like 'fireworks' by a 'meteor shower'

• This is the moment an object flew across New Zealand, lighting up the sky 
• Residents across the country's North Island reported sightings of bright lights 
• Many were unsure whether the falling object was space junk or a meteorite

By LAUREN FERRI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

This is the incredible moment an object flew across New Zealand and lit up the sky, as experts claim it's a meteorite.

Residents scattered across the country's North Island reported sightings of bright lights zooming through the sky at 9pm.

Many were unsure whether the falling object was a piece of space junk re-entering the earth's atmosphere, or a possible meteorite.

Many were unsure whether the falling object was a piece of space junk re-entering the earth's atmosphere, or a possible meteorite

President of the Auckland Astronomical Society Bill Thomas told the NZ Herald he found it more likely the object was a meteorite.

'There's a visible sort of tail, whereas a satellite [is] like a point of light moving across the sky ... bright [meteorites] like that one as not that common in the one place, but they're common worldwide.' 

New Zealand Police posted an alert saying they're aware of the meteor: 'Rest assured, we have confirmed with our Paranormal Division, and it is nothing to be concerned about.'

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People around the country managed to catch a glimpse of the mysterious object, with many managing to capture it on camera.

Graham Billings was enjoying dinner at an Italian restaurant when he saw the light fly across the sky.

'It was definitely a meteor. I wondered what it was for a bit but we can still see the smoke trail,' Mr Billings said.

In Whangamata, Jen Maloney and her friends saw the object light up the sky twice, once at 8.55pm and another one 15 minutes later.

This is the incredible moment an object flew across New Zealand and lit up the sky, as experts claim it's a meteorite

Ms Maloney described the light show as green, beautiful and dramatic, leaving a 'singe' smell afterwords.

One couple were in Auckland discussing the dangers of the use of drones when they looked up to the sky and thought they spotted one.

What May and Brian Seager actually saw was the meteorite whizzing through the sky above them.  

'It was a bright light and then it went green and left like a vapour trail. It was going way too fast [to be a drone] and it looked like it broke up into two pieces afterwards.'

More than 400 kilometres south, Steve Bloor saw a dazzling display in Napier.

Mr Bloor said when he saw the object - that he first believed to be a jet plane - it exploded into millions of pieces, like fireworks.      

Residents scattered across the country's North Island reported sightings of bright lights zooming through the sky at 9pm

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

06-01-2019 om 00:44 geschreven door peter  

Mystery event that saw mountain crash into river 'may have been UFO attack'

A MYSTERIOUS “blitzkrieg” which led to the side of a mountain crashing into a Siberian river was either a UFO attack or a giant meteorite strike, according to a majority of Russians.

By Kate Oglesby 

The claims about the incident – known as the Bureya Bliztkrieg – come amid a new report which said a “reliable” witness saw a “huge green-coloured body with a very long tail” streaking vertically downwards in the night sky on December 15.

The bizarre event, which took place last month, is under Russian scientific scrutiny after the water flow into a hydro-electric power reservoir was cut due to a massive landfall, creating a 525ft mound which was visible from space rising from the bed of Bureya River in the far east of Russia. 

05-01-2019 om 23:36 geschreven door peter  

Super Wolf Blood Moon Harbinger Prophecy January 21 2019

Many people stick to predictions, but do we believe predictions or is it just the uncertainty what the future will bring that people are starting to believe in predictions?

There are many self-proclaimed prophets but there are a few who have indeed made correct predictions, like Edgar Cayes and the blind woman Baba Vanga.

Known as the 'Nostradamus of the Balkans,' Baba Vanga passed away in 1996 at age 85, but more than two decades later her recorded prophecies continue to stir the imagination.

Said to have accurately foreseen such events as 9/11 and the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, a news report informs that her predictions for 2019 include:

A new devastating tsunami in Asia
A giant meteorite hitting Russia
An economic collapse for the European Union
An assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin
A baffling illness for Donald Trump occurring in the forthcoming year.

The year begins with January's full moon which is set to be very special indeed as four lunar spectacles combine to give the night sky a red hue.

Could it be that the first full blood moon which starts on Jan. 20-21 is a harbinger for the things to come this year?

The following video provides more information about the wolf blood moon including the expectations for 2019.

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

05-01-2019 om 20:20 geschreven door peter  

Scientists Just Gained Access To Mysterious Lake Buried Under 3,500 Feet Of Ice In Antarctica

Mysterious lake buried under 3,500 feet of ice discovered by scientists.

On December 26th scientists finally managed to reach a mysterious Subglacial Lake which was buried under 3,500 feet of ice in Antarctica. In a blog post, the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) announced that it took almost two whole days of drilling to reach Mercer Subglacial Lake during this holiday season.

Twice the size of Manhattan

The team of researchers with the organization was comprised of 45 scientists, drillers, and various other staff members. They were able to drill a borehole big enough to send down an instrument the next day to capture a glimpse of the huge subglacial body of water which was described as “twice the size of Manhattan”. The group is planning to study the lake further over the coming days such as depth, temperatures, and cleanliness. They are also going to lower a remotely operated vehicle down through the borehole to get more footage and take more extensive measurements about the mysterious lake.

John Priscu, chief scientist for SALSA, told environmental news site Earther Monday that they were unsure of what to expect as it is such a new discovery and they were still learning as they went along. The SALSA team flew to Mercer Subglacial Lake on Dec. 19 and began drilling days later, on Dec. 23.

The Drilling Process

View image on Twitter

Salsa Antarctica@SalsaAntarctica

Al Gagnon (left) and SALSA Marine Techs Michael Tepper-Rasmussen and Jack Greenberg (ctr and right) test the @WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Gravity Corer that will be used to collect 10-ft and 20-ft sediment cores from Mercer Subglacial Lake. #nsfsalsa #Antarctica

• 27

7:34 PM - Dec 30, 2018

See Salsa Antarctica's other Tweets

Scientists drill to the mysterious Antarctic lake under ...

View image on Twitter

Salsa Antarctica@SalsaAntarctica

Science Team Drills Into Mercer Subglacial Lake http://salsa-antarctica.org/2018/12/28/3578/ …

• 22

12:03 AM - Dec 29, 2018

See Salsa Antarctica's other Tweets

The drilling process is more complicated than just making a hole. There are many steps to take when drilling into a new environment for the first time. Part of that process involves sampling the drill water and testing it for cleanliness. In the words of SALSA PI Brent Christner, it was as clean as filtered water can get. This came after the water had been tested twice already by running it through filters that are able to catch 99.9% of germs and bacteria. At least eight days have been scheduled by the organization dedicated to sampling and testing the lake's water and sediments.

What's next?

Matt Siegfried, a glaciologist and SALSA member, has expressed his excitement by stating that they are currently sampling the deepest standing water body humans have ever accessed beneath Antarctica. It will, however, take many years to study all the samples they collect and process the data before any new concrete information can be released about life in this particular ecosystem.

Mercer Subglacial Lake was first discovered via satellite more than a decade ago, and there are reportedly around 400 lakes just like this one hiding beneath Antarctica's ice sheets which in my opinion, is very exciting indeed. I will personally be keeping an eye on the news from now on, excited to see what will come from this Subglacial Lake, and potentially many others around it!

{ https://www.disclose.tv/ }

04-01-2019 om 18:20 geschreven door peter  

{https://www.disclose.tv/ }

03-01-2019 om 18:15 geschreven door peter  

It’s big – an estimated five times the footprint of New York City. Its location is super-secret – even the people working on it don’t know for sure where it’s at. Its purpose is even more secret – it could be an earthquake detector; it could be a way to communicate with submarines with them needing to surface; it could be something else. It’s scary – even China’s own media is worried about the safety of the people living near it. And now it’s allegedly up and running. It’s the Wireless Electromagnetic Method (WEM) Project and the Chinese media has made the risky move of notifying the world about it and its potential dangers.

“Though I am involved in the project, I have no idea where it is. It should be up and running by now.”

When a scientist working on a 13-year project doesn’t know where it’s located, it can’t be a good sign. Yet that‘s what Chen Xiaobin, a researcher with the Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, told the South China Morning Postabout the WEM Project as it investigated reports that it’s finally up and running. Here’s what it knows so far. The WEM’s main above-ground part, possibly located in the central China Huazhong region, is a pair of high voltage power supply lines which form a cross that is 60km (37 miles) wide and about 100km (62 miles) long. At the ends, the copper wires go deep underground to power stations generating extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves whose official stated use is to provide early earthquake warnings and support the country’s resource extraction industry in detecting fossil fuels and precious metals and minerals.

The ELF waves can travel up to 3,500km (2,200 miles) through the Earth’s crust, but that’s not what worries military watchdog sites like The Drive. It reports that the ELF wave generators are difficult for spy satellites to detect and the possible location is in a heavily populated area. It also points out that ELF waves can travel through water, which makes them perfect for communicating with submerged nuclear subs and doesn’t require the transmitters to be close to the coast.

Believe it or not, according to the South China Morning Post, what worries the Chinese the most is that ELF waves are suspected to cause cancer. The World Health Organization-affiliated International Agency for Research on Cancer warns that ELF waves are “possibly carcinogenic to humans” and has been linked to an increased risk of childhood leukemia as well as a cause of delusions, sleep deprivation, stress, depression, breast and brain tumors, miscarriages and suicide. ELF fields can also affect human nerve fibers, stimulate synaptic transmissions in neural networks and cause retina cells to generate sporadic flashes of light in eyes. Other than that, they’re perfectly harmless. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment submitted a request for a comprehensive review on the WEM Project’s environmental impact. An anonymous source (for obvious reasons) said:

“The money came from civilian budgets, but the military has intervened and muted the ministry’s complaint.”

So, a secret wave generator that’s five times the size of New York City yet impossible to find is probably being used to expand China’s nuclear submarine capabilities despite the fact that its cancer-causing ELF waves are endangering upwards of 230 million of its own people. The Chinese government is learning American-style “everybody else is doing it” public relations. Xi Jilou, a researcher with the Institute of Earthquake Forecasting, said this:

“China is not the first country doing this. Other countries conducted similar projects long ago.”

And Huang Zhiwei, a professor with the department of electrical engineering at Nanhua University in Hengyang, says:

“The matter must be handled with extreme caution, or it can easily lead to public panic.”

Kudos to the South China Morning Post for breaking this story. Will it help stop Project WEM … or is it too late?

Other secret project of Chine

{https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

03-01-2019 om 15:56 geschreven door peter  

Must See! The Most Deleted Video on YouTube - Robots Taking Over

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/ }

02-01-2019 om 17:51 geschreven door peter