The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
31-07-2018
Russia's Doomsday Weapon Revealed In New Video
Russia's Doomsday Weapon Revealed In New Video
Leaked video shows Russian "Doomsday Device" capable of triggering tsunamis of up to 300-feet.
Following President Trump's contentious meeting with Vladimir Putin, the Russian governmenthas released a series of videos showcasing an array of new nuclear weapons. One video, in particular, is most disconcerting. It is rumored to be a giant torpedo purpose-built to avoid US defenses. One expert has nicknamed it a "Doomsday Machine."
Putin himself has addressed the weapon on March 1st. According to a Kremlin translation of Putin's remarks, the weapon is said to be remotely-controlled, allowing for no Russian casualties, be able to hold masses of nuclear power, as well as have few vulnerabilities. "It is really fantastic," said Putin, "there is really nothing in the world capable of withstanding them".
A torpedo-shaped device called 'Poseidon' featured on the Russian Ministry of Defenses' YouTube account on July 19th. The new clips show real-world footage of a prototype warhead. Defense analyst H.I. Sutton believes Poseidon could measure in at about 2 meters (6.5 feet) wide and 20 meters (66 feet) long rendering capable of holding great nuclear power.
Why is this new weapon so terrifying?
In 2015 the Russian government released diagrams of weapon that looks eerily similar to Poseidon which suggested the weapon would be capable of carrying a 50-megaton nuclear bomb which is about as powerful as Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device ever donated.
US nuclear tests of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, including the underwater operations Crossroads Baker and Hardtack I Wahoo, illustrated why bombs detonated underwater could be so devastating. Warships were staged around the explosions to test the effect of the bombs, which were roughly as energetic as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki on August 1945. Some warships were vaporized, others were flipped and sunk, while only a few sustained cracked hulls and damaged engines.
However, experts have questioned the purpose and effectiveness of Putin's device. While it could potentially create a Tsunami, if detonated above ground the effects could be far more destructive and widespread. There is also no guarantee the Tsunami would occur, especially as the bomb would be detonated miles from shore and waves lose energy as they approach land meaning it would be a waste of a nuclear bomb and a significant amount of money for Russia.
Why Would Russia Develop Such A Weapon?
While the reports and leaked videos/images portray a terrifying 'Doomsday Machine', it is still unconfirmed whether Putin has developed this weapon of mass destruction or not.
In 2015, Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear policy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, wrote an article saying there wasn't speculation that the underwater bomb might be "salted", or surrounded with metals like cobalt, which would drastically increase the radius of fatal radiation levels from fallout for at least several months, or possibly even decades. However, if detonated underwater, the vast majority of the fallout or 'source term' will never escape the water as airborne particles.
Whereas, if it was dropped on land, almost 100% of the source term would end up on the land and so the devastation from a "salted" weapon detonated on land would be far worse than that of a weapon detonated below the water, salted or not.
To Lewis and many other nuclear experts, it doesn't really matter whether the rumors are real or not and Russia really has this kind of weaponry:
"Simply announcing to the world that you find this to be a reasonable approach to [nuclear] deterrence should be enough to mark you out as a dangerous creep, "Lewis said.
To conclude, this is certainly a worrying development emerging from one of the most powerful countries in the world, and we should all be wary indeed.
A filmed version of Hamilton, starring the 2016 cast, could be headed to movie theatres or a streaming service soon: “According to The Wall Street Journal, multiple studios are currently bidding on the rights to the recording, as is Netflix, which would likely host the film on its streaming service.”
Priests and UFOs: “Michael Burke-Gaffney, S.J., a Canadian priest who is an astronomer and professor at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, had an extensive personal interest in U.F.O.s—even covertly investigating them for Canada’s National Research Council and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In 1966, after the noted astronomer and ufologist J. Allen Hynek penned an infamous letter to Science magazine offering seven reasons why U.F.O.s merited scientific study, Father Burke-Gaffney responded with his own letter. He takes a more cautionary tone. Until we identify mysterious ‘atmospheric phenomena,’ he asks, should not scientists strive ‘(i) to exhort people to have patience, and (ii) to remind them that, up to the present, U.F.O.s have furnished no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, and (iii) to point out that the existence of extraterrestrial little green men is no more firmly established than that of leprechauns?’ There is no official Vatican position on U.F.O.s and aliens, although in 2014 the Vatican Observatory co-hosted a conference on the subject with the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, called ‘The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignature and Instruments.’ The next year, Pope Francis gave an interesting response to a question about extraterrestrial life: ‘In every case I think that we should stick to what the scientists tell us, still aware that the Creator is infinitely greater than our knowledge.’”
Anna Aslanyan reviews a film of a country that does not exist: “A young man stares into the camera, blinking, then turns his head away. His name is Kolya, and he was born in 1990 in what was then the USSR. Later that year, his native Transnistria broke away from the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and proclaimed itself an independent state; today, it remains unrecognized by most countries and the UN. To Kolya, ‘it’s not important whether it’s recognized or not’. He has a Russian passport, but he doesn’t see himself as a Russian citizen; nor can he quite verbalize what connects him to this narrow strip of undistinguished land between the Dniester river and Ukraine. Extinction, directed by the Portuguese filmmaker Salomé Lamas, and screened this week at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, is a black-and-white portrait of a country that exists largely in the minds of its inhabitants.”
What is secularism?
It is the belief that “the things of this life and of the next cannot only be distinguished but also divided—what is more, that they ought to be.” Is this the best way to organize modern societies?
Essay of the Day:
What can Russian populism in the late nineteenth century teach us today?Gary Saul Morson explains:
“Populism fed on guilt, and everything about Likharev, down to his very gestures, expressed a consciousness of guilt about something. The populist ideologists insisted that all high culture depends on wealth stolen from the common people and is therefore tainted by a sort of original sin. As Russia’s greatest autobiographer Alexander Herzen lamented, ‘All our education, our literary and scientific development, our love of beauty, our occupations, presuppose an environment constantly swept and tended by others . . . somebody’s labor is essential in order to provide us with the leisure necessary for our mental development.’ Shame and guilt over unearned privilege shaped a generation of the ‘repentant nobleman.’ Pyotr Lavrov’s Historical Letters (1868-69), the populist bible, put it this way: ‘Mankind has paid dearly so that a few thinkers sitting in their studies could discuss its progress.’
“Perhaps high culture should be abolished altogether? This urgent question came to be called ‘the justification of culture,’ with many writers contending that justification was impossible. Since the symbol of Russian culture was Pushkin, critics, most notably the nihilist Dmitri Pisarev, insisted that any pair of boots is worth more than all of Pushkin’s verse. The nihilists at least worshiped science—like Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, who dissects a frog to show that people are nothing but complex amphibians—but the populists rejected science as well. A story about the writer Vsevolod Garshin as a boy tells how he too dissected a frog, only to take pity on it, sew it up, and let it go. Not knowledge but pity became the moral touchstone. The populist argument about ‘the justification of culture’ became part of what philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev called “the Russian Idea” and, so far as I know, marks Russian culture as unique. (To be sure, it is common today to convict the Western tradition as the product of imperialism and dead white males, but that is still different from rejecting high culture per se.)”
After being defrosted, worms “nematodes” frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years showed signs of life, they started moving an eating since the Pleistocene said a report from Yakutia, the area were the worms were found.
Credit image: Siberiantimes.
The roundworms from two areas of Siberia came back to life in Petri dishes, says a new scientific study.
We have obtained the first data demonstrating the capability of multicellular organisms for longerterm cyrobiosis in permafrost desposits of the arctic; states a report from Russian scientist from our institutions in collaboration with Princetown University.
Some 300 prehistoric worms were analyzed and two were shown to contain viablenematodes.
One worm came from an ancient squirrel burrow in a permafrost wall of the Duvanny Yar outcrop in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River – close to the site of Pleistocene Park which is seeking to recreate the Arctic habitat of the extinct woolly mammoth.This is around 32,000 years old.
Credit image: Siberiantimes - Image left variable nematodes.
Currently the nematodes are the oldest living animals on the planet. They are both believed to be female.
The worms came back to life in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science in Moscow.
Our data demonstrate the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term (tens of thousands of years) crybiosis under the conditions of natural cryoconservation, scientists said to siberiantimes.
Video: Worms frozen in Siberian permafrost come back to life
Worms frozen in permafrost have come back to life after up to 42,000 years, say scientists. Two nematodes from Siberia are moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age, it is reported.
Scientists sure are good at making us constantly feel like we’re in the opening scenes of a horror movie. The latest case of science toeing the line between being really cool and going too far comes out of Siberia, because of course it does. According to the Siberian Times, Russian scientists have successfully resurrected two roundworms—nematodes— that were frozen in the Siberian permafrost since the Pleistocene era. For context, when these worms were frozen, woolly mammoths were stomping around Siberia. The two nematodes are 32,000 and 40,000 years old, approximately, and now that they’ve woken from their slumber are the two oldest living animals on earth.
Nematodes (Representational picture)YouTube grab/ The Soil Association VideosScientists say that this is a major breakthrough and could pave the way for human cryonics—the ability to freeze a person for long periods of time and bring them back, for applications like long term space travel or the arrogant quest for immortality. According to the scientists:
“Our data demonstrate the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term (tens of thousands of years) cryobiosis under the conditions of natural cryoconservation.
It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology.”
This is a frozen nematode.
Russian scientists at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, working in collaboration with scientists at Princeton University in the U.S., collected samples of frozen nematodes from the Yakutia region of Siberia, the coldest part of Russia. This is close to the proposed “Pleistocene Park” which would recreate the habitat of woolly mammoths. All in all 300 samples of frozen nematodes were taken. Only two were actually brought back to life, so don’t go taking a nap in the walk-in freezer just yet.
According to the research once the worms were defrosted in petri dishes, they began showing signs of life, moving and eating food, as if they hadn’t just slept for all of recorded history.
If you’ve spent at least a decade or two on this planet you’ve heard of cryonics or cryogenic freezing. The plot of the show Futurama is based on a 21st century man accidentally freezing himself and getting defrosted in the far future. Then there’s the persistent—and likely false—rumor of Walt Disney having his body frozen so he might get resurrected when they found a cure for cancer.
This is not Walt Disney.
Cryonics holds a lot of promise to a lot of people. Apart from the medical applications, the other use is in space travel. Assuming we don’t develop faster than light travel, the only way to get a space exploration team farther into deep space than the human lifespan will allow is to freeze them. The basic premise is this: it should be possible to lower a persons body temperature enough so that there is no deterioration, even after centuries (or millennia) spent frozen. The second part is harder: bringing them back. Thawing out two worms is definitely a far cry from freezing the crew of a space ship and bringing them back a century a century or more later in the middle of deep space, but at least it’s a start.
Unless these worms keep eating and growing until they’re the size of school buses and then we have that problem to deal with. Be careful when you jump into sci-fi territory, people, you never know which version of the future you’re going to get.
Worms frozen in permafrost for 42,000 years have sprung back to life, scientists say.
Experts managed to coax the two roundworms back to life after thawing the ice that had imprisoned them since the era of woolly mammoths.
The experiment could provide a breakthrough in the fields of astrobiology and cryonics, since it demonstrates the 'ability of multi-cellular organisms to survive long-term', the researchers claimed.
Cryonics, which bridges the gap between science-fiction and reality, is a field that hopes to suspend people in time by freezing their bodies for years.
The end goal is to keep people on ice for centuries at the time, long enough to allow for long-term interplanetary exploration.
Scroll down for video
Two nematodes from Siberia are moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age 42,000 years ago
The ancient roundworms - frozen since the era of woolly mammoths - started wriggling again in Petri dishes at a Russian institute (pictured)
The nematodes were coaxed back to life in a Petri dishes in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science, near Moscow.
Russian researchers team worked with geoscientists from Princeton University, New Jersey, USA to analyse more than 300 frozen worms to find suitable candidates.
According to researchers, only two ‘were shown to contain viable nematodes’.
One of these was found in permafrost near the Alazeya River back in 2015, and believed to be around 41,700 years old.
The other was taken in 2002 from an prehistoric squirrel burrow in Duvanny Yar outcrop in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River, and is around 32,000 years old.
This location is close to the site of Pleistocene Park, an experimental project seeking to recreate the Arctic habitat of the extinct woolly mammoth.
Both sites are in Yakutia, which is renown for being the coldest region of Russia.
The worms were coaxed back to life in Petri dishes in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science near Moscow. The breakthrough demonstrates the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term
Both specimens were found in the Yakutia region of Siberia, which is known to be the coldest region of the country
WHAT IS CRYONICS?
WHAT IS CRYONICS?
The deep freezing of a body to -196°C (-321°F).
Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged.
The hope is that medical science will advance enough to bring the patient back to life.
Two main US organisations carry out cryonics in the US: Alcor, in Arizona, and the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan.
Russian firm KrioRus is one of two facilities outside the US to offer the service, alongside Alcor's European laboratory in Portugal.
HOW IS IT MEANT TO WORK?
The process can only take place once the body has been declared legally dead.
Ideally, it begins within two minutes of the heart stopping and no more than 15.
The body must be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting.
At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above 0°C and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs.
Cryonpreservation is the deep freezing of a body to - 196°C (-321°F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged
The body is injected with another solution to stop ice crystals forming in organs and tissues, then cooled to -130°C.
The final step is to place the body into a container which is lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196°C.
WHAT'S THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS?
Many experts say there is none.
Organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed.
It is even less likely a whole body, and the brain, could be without irreversible damage.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Charges at the Cryonics Institute start at around £28,000 ($35,000) to 'members' for whole-body cryopreservation.
Rival group Alcor charges £161,000 ($200,000) while KrioRus' procedure will set you back £29,200 ($37,600).
HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE?
Cryonics organisations claim it could be decades or even centuries.
However, medical experts say once cells are damaged during freezing and turned to 'mush' they cannot be converted back to living tissue, any more than you can turn a scrambled egg back into a raw egg.'
After being defrosted, the nematodes showed signs of life – they started moving and eating,' said another report on the findings cited by The Siberian Times. According to the international team of researchers, this latest breakthrough demonstrates 'the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term – tens of thousands of years' in a state of 'natural cryoconservation.'
'It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology,' the researchers wrote in the report, published in journal Doklady Biological Sciences.
One of the worms was from a site near the Alazeya River (pictured), found in permafrost in 2015, and believed to be some 41,700 years old
A second worm was taken in 2002 from an prehistoric squirrel burrow in Duvanny Yar outcrop in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River (pictured), and is around 32,000 years old
WHAT ARE WOOLLY MAMMOTHS?
The woolly mammoth roamed the icy tundra of Europe and North America for 140,000 years, disappearing at the end of the Pleistocene period, 10,000 years ago.
They are one of the best understood prehistoric animals known to science because their remains are often not fossilised but frozen and preserved.
Males were around 12 feet (3.5m) tall, while the females were slightly smaller.
Curved tusks were up to 16 feet (5m) long and their underbellies boasted a coat of shaggy hair up to 3 feet (1m) long.
Tiny ears and short tails prevented vital body heat being lost.
Their trunks had 'two fingers' at the end to help them pluck grass, twigs and other vegetation.
They get their name from the Russian 'mammut', or earth mole, as it was believed the animals lived underground and died on contact with light – explaining why they were always found dead and half-buried.
Their bones were once believed to have belonged to extinct races of giants.
Woolly mammoths and modern-day elephants are closely related, sharing 99.4 per cent of their genes.
The two species took separate evolutionary paths six million years ago, at about the same time humans and chimpanzees went their own way.
Woolly mammoths co-existed with early humans, who hunted them for food and used their bones and tusks for making weapons and art.
These creatures have set a new record for cryogenic survival.
The nematodes isolated from permafrost deposits of the Kolyma River Lowland. Image credits: Shatilovich et al.
The Kolyma River in north-eastern Siberia flows along over 2,129 kilometers (1,323 miles) before ultimately emptying into a part of the Arctic Ocean. For the most part (about 250 days each year), the Kolyma is frozen to depths of several meters. Similarly, most of the path it flows along is surrounded by thick ice — after all, this is the permafrost land we’re talking about.
A while back, Russian biologists dug up more than 300 samples of frozen soil from the area. They found that the samples are teeming with microscopic life: single-celled cyanobacteria, green algae, and yeasts. But among these samples, they also found some macroscopic organisms — namely, some nematodes (Panagrolaimus aff. detritophagus and Plectus aff. parvus) — or, as most people would call them, roundworms.
Some were found in what was likely a ground squirrel burrow some 32,000 years ago, but had since caved in and frozen over. The others were found in a bore sample at a depth of around 3.5 meters (about 11.5 feet). They were carbon dated and found to be 42,000 years old. There’s still the off chance of contamination, but researchers have detailed their strict practices, and peer-review also confirmed the sterility procedures.
After identifying the worms, biologists placed them in a room kept at a mellow temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit). It didn’t take long before they started showing signs of life. Within weeks, they were moving around and eating, setting a new record for how long animals can survive frozen in ice.
Two nematodes from Siberia are moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age 42,000 years ago
Longest survival
In 2000, scientists found bacteria spores inside 250 million-year-old salt crystals, and after careful processing, were able to bring them back to life.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that the tricks bacteria pull off to survive so long cannot be applied to macroscopic creatures, which are much more complex. Roundworms are remarkably sturdy creatures (related to tardigrades), but they don’t even come close to bacteria. Yet even tardigrades, these incredibly resilient creatures, have “only” been known to survive for decades after preservation.
The worms were coaxed back to life in Petri dishes in a laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science near Moscow. The breakthrough demonstrates the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term
Both specimens were found in the Yakutia region of Siberia, which is known to be the coldest region of the country
Aside from the main story, — that the creatures survived for 42,000 years, frozen — there are two ways to look at this. The first is optimistic and upbeat: by studying the mechanisms which allowed them to survive, we can learn more about cryomedicine and how creatures (potentially, alien creatures) survive in extreme environments.
“It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology,” the researchers write in their study.
But there’s a darker side to the story. As global warming takes its course and much of the permafrost continues to melt, it could release a string of pathogens currently frozen. What the consequences will be is anyone’s guess.
Tales of what have infamously become known as “black helicopters” abound in the field of conspiracy-theorizing. Two of the biggest questions surrounding the phenomenon are: (a) who has the technology and power to fly such craft; and (b) from where do they operate? There are good reasons to believe that at least a part of the phenomenon had its origins at none other than Area 51 – the world’s most well-known “secret base.” Even elements of the government are puzzled by the controversy. Indeed, thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, more than a few files have surface that are focused on these mysterious craft.
Official documentation on the encounters has surfaced from the Air Force, the FBI, and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). One particular document, titled Suspicious Unknown Air Activity, provides the following: “Since 28 Oct 75 numerous reports of suspicious objects have been received at the NORAD CC. Reliable military personnel at Loring AFB Maine, Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, Malmstrom AFB, MT, Minot AFB, ND, and Canadian forces station Falconbridge, Ontario Canada have visually sighted suspicious objects. Objects at Loring and Wurtsmith were characterized to be helicopters[italics mine]. Missile site personnel, security alert teams and air defense personnel at Malmstrom, Montana report an object which sounded like a jet. FAA advised there were no jet aircraft in the vicinity. Malmstrom search and height finder radars carried the object between 9500 ft. and 15,000 ft. at a speed of seven knots.”
Of particular note is Unidentified Helicopter Sighted at Low Level Over Loring AFB, a file that adds further weight to the theory that there had been major, serious invasions of secure facilities – facilities that appeared to be not so secure, after all. Consider the following: “On 28 Oct 75, Lewis…advised that the a/c [aircraft] was first observed by Clifton W. Blakeslee, Sgt. [deleted] and William J. Long, SSgt., both assigned to the 42 SPS, who were on duty at the storage area. The initial sighting took place at approximately 1345. The a/c was observed approximately 1,000 meters north of LAFB. The a/c was subsequently observed by Lewis and others intermittently for the next hour and a half. Subsequent to the sighting by Long and Blakeslee, the a/c did not come nearer to the northern perimeter of LAFB than approximately 3 miles. Lewis observed a flashing white strobe light and red navigation lights on the a/c. The operator of the a/c either turned the lights off periodically or the a/c flew below a point from which the lights could be observed. The a/c disappeared from view and did not reappear. A search of the vicinity of the northern perimeter of LAFB by 42 SPS personnel met with negative results.”
In 1995, the U.S. magazine, Aviation Week and Space Technology, published an article (Vol. 142, No. 6) which, in part, stated that, “…the U.S. military has been working for years on at least two helicopter projects. The more recent is [the] development of a light, very quiet helicopter [italics mine] with a mast-mounted sight.”
One of those who had uncovered certain, classified data on this particular Nevada-based program was a conspiracy-theorist named Jim Keith, who died in 1999. The issue of the silent helicopters was one which particularly intrigued Keith. After all, helicopters are known for their deep, thump-thump sound. So, to encounter a helicopter that is near-silent – or, perhaps, even completely silent – would be amazing, indeed. In pursuing the tales of the silent copters, Keith found himself repeatedly pointed in the direction of Nevada. By now, you know the specific stretch of Nevada.
In February of 1995, the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper ran an article titled “Ex-Worker Describes Stealth Copter.” It was written by a journalist named Susan Greene. Commenting on all of this, Keith said: “According to statements of a former worker at Groom Lake Air Force Base, a black budget stealth helicopter was being tested at this facility as early as 1990. The code name for the helicopter was ‘T.E.K,’ which stood for ‘Test and Evaluation Project K.’”
Keith continued as follows: “The former worker at Groom Lake reported that the chopper was olive drab, riveted, and angular, with gull wing doors. An account in the Vegas paper quotes experts as saying, ‘Light, quiet and stealthy helicopters could be used for clandestine ‘Rambo-type missions,’ quick-in, quick-out assignments without being noticed.”
Of course, the mysterious helicopters were seen long before the 1990s; something which suggests the programs operating out of Groom Lake have been going on for decades – and not just since the 1990s.
GOTCHA A new machine, shaped sort of like a five-fingered arcade claw, gently encloses soft-bodied sea creatures (like this cephalopod) to study before releasing them, unharmed, back into the ocean.
Like a submarine Poké Ball, a new robotic device gently captures and releases deep-sea creatures without a scratch. This critter catcher could be decked out with cameras and other sensors to give scientists an unprecedented view of life in one of Earth’s most mysterious environments.
The contraption, designed to be mounted on a remotely operated underwater vehicle, folds into a 12-sided box about 21 centimeters across. Using a joystick, an operator on board a nearby ship can carefully close this box around soft-bodied creatures, like jellies and cephalopods, that might be hurt or killed by other specimen-collection tools. Temporarily detaining creatures inside the enclosure, described online July 18 in Science Robotics, would create rare opportunities for closeup inspection of otherwise elusive deep-sea creatures.
Deep-sea free-floaters, including some jellyfish and their gelatinous ilk, are “sometimes considered the forgotten fauna,” says study coauthor David Gruber, a marine biologist at Baruch College, City University of New York. While many biologists survey the hustle and bustle of the seafloor, homing in on small creatures in open water is much more difficult, he says, so our understanding of these animals is “almost a blank slate.”
Researchers have a few tools in their arsenals for capturing open-water animals and bringing them to the surface for examination. Unfortunately, nets or suction devices well suited for nabbing sturdy deep-sea dwellers, like fish and crustaceans, can shred fragile life-forms like comb jellies and siphonophores (SN: 7/16/05, p. 46). The new creature-catching gadget offers “a really cool” way to handle the deep sea’s most delicate residents more gently, says Kelly Robinson, a biological oceanographer at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette not involved in the work.
CATCH AND RELEASE Watch how a new submarine “Poké Ball” nabs squishy sea creatures, like jellies and cephalopods, for examination before letting them go back into the ocean.
Zhi Ern Teoh, a mechanical engineer at Cooper Perkins Inc., an engineering firm based in Lexington, Mass., and colleagues tested their device in an underwater canyon in Monterey Bay off the coast of California. The researchers trapped and released jellyfish and squid up to 700 meters below the surface, but their machine is designed to work as deep as 11 kilometers.
Encasing animals inside this robotic box “is really the first step among many,” Gruber says. The team now hopes to rig the machine with 3-D cameras, DNA-swabbing technology and other sensors to gather information on specimens’ physiology. The chamber could also be equipped with instruments to tag animals before they’re released back into the ocean.
Using this technology to inspect deep-sea life on its home turf would be far less stressful for animals than bringing them up to the surface. At sea level, “you’ve got pressure changes, temperature changes, light changes and people staring at them,” says George Matsumoto, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., where Teoh and colleagues tested their device.
Observations of sea creatures in their element may reveal more about what they eat, where they travel, how they are reacting to changing climate conditions, as well as uncover new species. Given that we know “virtually nothing” about the deep sea, “almost anything we come up with is going to be useful information,” Matsumoto says.
You know, you don’t have to go trawling around the controversial Wikileaks website to discover the truth behind closely-guarded government secrets.
In recent years the powers that be in the United Kingdom and the United States have declassified thousands of fascinating documents, which were kept secret from the public for decades.
In the UK, the National Archives website and the museum in London hold a treasure trove of information on wartime Britain and alien sightings, while various CIA releases document Cold War struggles, the Area 51 base and the Watergate scandal that donated its name to every half-cocked controversy ever since!
Here are some of our favourite subject matters we’re able to explore online.
Alien sightings – The Truth is Actually Out There
The National Archives have detailed reports of UFO sightings across the UK. The final papers were released in 2013 and covered sightings from 2007 to 2009, before the MoD’s UFO desk shut down.
Did you know the second highest number of sightings (748) recorded by the desk occurred in 2009? Of course, conspiracy theorists claimed this disclosure was just a cover-up story, to hide the real alien landings in the UK.
These documents, like the one chronicling Mork and Mindy’s alleged landing in East Dulwich in 2003, can each be viewed for a small fee (£3.30) on the National Archives website.
Another fascinating section of the brilliant Gov.UK website allows those with a morbid curiosity to read the wills of some of the most notable Brits ever.
These include Sir Winston Churchill, Alan Turing, Princess Diana, AA Milne and Beatrix Potter and 41 million others who’ve died in England and Wales since 1858. For example, Winnie The Pooh creator Milne, left his widow and literary agent a total of £64,173 13 shillings and 6 pence when he passed away on January 31 1956.
Last year, the CIA finally declassified its role in covertly publishing and distributing Boris Pasternak’s (above) banned novel Dr. Zhivago in Russia during the Cold War period.
“We have the opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country [and] in his own language for his people to read,” a senior CIA agent wrote in 1958.
You can read over 100 documents relating to this Cold War-era success at the CIA’s website.
The extent of Nazi plundering and allied restitution efforts
This fascinating section of the National Archives details the scale of the German Army’s looting of artwork, cultural artefacts and historic monuments across Europe prior to and during World War 2.
It also documents British-led Allied efforts “to do their utmost to defeat the methods of dispossession practised by the Axis Powers and their associates against countries and peoples whom they have so wantonly assaulted and despoiled”. The declaration focused on protecting historic monuments in war areas and investigating items already seized by the Germans.
Every scandal has the word “gate” annoyingly attached to it these days, but the original Watergate Scandal, from which the trend gets its name, shook the United States to its core in the 1970s.
The break-in at the Democratic National Convention and subsequent cover-up forced President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974 under threat of impeachment. Back in 2011, the Nixon Presidential Library opened files from the Watergate Special Prosecution Force including Nixon’s secret Grand Jury testimony, during which he answered questions about an infamous 18 ½ minute gap in a recording of a conversation in the Oval Office, believed to have been erased as part of the attempted cover-up.
The Cabinet Papers section of the National Archives holds some enthralling insights into the efforts of Churchill’s Cabinet to assess the threat of the “imminent” German invasion and strategies for the defence of the home front during and following the fall of France in 1940.
The documents include discussions of plans to evacuate children to the United States, the possibility of using gas on British beaches to thwart the invasion and the need for the United States to join the war effort as soon as possible.
While the UFO phenomena in the UK is detailed above, there’s no site conspiracy theorists take more interest in than the famous Area 51 military base in Nevada, USA. In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged the base for the first time, releasing a 355-page document detailing its existence as a secret Cold War military base for testing spy planes. So, all those UFO sightings by commercial pilots were actually Lockheed Martin U-2 planes, which were eventually flown over Russia, Vietnam and Cuba at various points during the crisis.
Complete Mystery in Arctic Siberia as Day turns Into Night
Complete Mystery in Arctic Siberia as Day turns Into Night
No official explanations for darkness over swathes of Yakutia amid conspiracy theories of a UFO, new weapons tests, a meteorite, or pollution from wildfires.
The remote Eveno-Bytantaisky, Zhigansky, and Verkhozansky districts in Siberia, Russia saw their day turn into a 'complete darkness' for almost three hours on Friday, July 20, 2018.
Credit image: Siberiantimes.
Even though they should have 24 hour light at this time of year the region, larger than Italy, was hit by a mysterious phenomenon that turned the day into night.
No-one wanted to be on the street because the feeling was as if something heavy in the air was pressing on your chest", said one resident.
At first it looked like it was a strong thunderstorm coming, the sky went dark, and got darker and darker, but this time unlike anything else we have seen before the darkness had a rich yellow undertone, it was very unusual said another resident.
Credit image: Siberiantimes.
Officials expressed doubts over the theory that smoke from raging wildfires in other districts or a thick layer of dusk had blotted out the sun. Besides officials stated that there was no dust, reports Siberiantime.
Head of Verkhoyansk town Yevgeny Potapov said that the sun didn’t disappear in his area, but something strange happened on that day.
Credit image: Siberiantimes.
Coincidence or not but the phenomenon in Siberia appeared days before the Saturn-Moon conjunction and full moon near Mars while on July 27 the Moon will undergo an eclipse which will be the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century.
There is still no official explanation of the weird phenomenon in the sky over Siberia from meteorological, defense, or other deferral officials.
Genetics research has transformed our understanding of human history, particularly in the Americas. The focus of the majority of high profile ancient DNA papers in recent years has been on addressing early events in the initial peopling of the Americas. This research has provided details of this early history that we couldn’t access though the archeological record.
Collectively, genetics studies have shown us that the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas are descended from a group that diverged from its Siberian ancestors beginning sometime around 23,000 years before present & remained isolated in Beringia (the region of land that once connected Siberia & North America) for an extended period of time. When the glaciers covering North America melted enough to make the Pacific coast navigable, southward travel became possible, & patterned genetic diversity across North & South America reflects these early movements.
Recent ancient DNA studies indicate that approximately 13,000 years ago, two clades (genetic groups) of peoples emerged; one exclusively consisting of northern Native Americans, & one consisting of peoples from North, Central, & South America, including the 12,800 year old Anzick child from a Clovis burial site in Montana. All genetics research to date has affirmed the shared ancestry of all ancient & contemporary indigenous peoples of the Americas, & refuted stories about the presence of “lost tribes”, ancient Europeans, & (I can’t believe that I actually have to say this) ancient aliens.
Events that occurred after people first entered the Americas – how they settled in different parts of the continents, adapted to local environments, interacted with each other, & were affected by European colonialism – have received somewhat less attention in the press, but as can be seen in the links above, there have been some very significant research papers published on these topics. One such paper that I’ve recently found very interesting (in fact, I wrote up a short article for Current Biology that discusses its significance), Genetic Discontinuity between the Maritime Archaic & Beothuk Populations in Newfoundland, Canada by Duggen et al. (2017), explores the genetic diversity within three different ancient groups who lived in Newfoundland & Labrador.
One reason this region is of particular interest is that it’s on the furthest northeastern margin of North America & so was one of the last areas in the Americas to be peopled. It appears to have been occupied successively by three culturally distinct groups beginning about 10,000 years before present (YBP) in Labrador & 6,000 YBP in Newfoundland: the Maritime Archaic, the Paleo-Inuit (also referred to as the Paleo-Eskimo), & the indigenous peoples that Europeans called the Beothuk. Today the region is home to several indigenous groups, including the Inuit, the Innu, the Mi’kmaq & the Southern Inuit of NunatuKavut.
The members of the Maritime Archaic tradition created the oldest known burial mounds in North America (dating to 7,714 YBP) & subsisted upon coastal marine resources. Approximately 3,400 YBP they seem to have abandoned Newfoundland, either in response to the appearance of Paleo-Inuit in the region or because of climate changes. The Paleo-Inuit’s presence on the island overlapped with the peoples referred to as the Beothuk beginning around 2000 YBP. The Beothuk encountered European settlers in 1500 AD, & in response to their presence gradually moved to the interior of the island, where their populations declined.
The last known Beothuk, Shanawdithit, died of tuberculosis in captivity in 1829. Although it remains possible that Beothuk traces of ancestry persist in contemporary residents of NL, including members of the Innu, Mi’kmaq, & European communities, it is generally accepted that the Beothuk became culturally extinct with the death of Shanawdithit.
By analyzing mitochondrial haplogroups (groups of closely related maternal lineages) present within individuals from all three populations, Dugan et al. addressed the question of whether they were genetically similar or whether all three groups were biologically as well as culturally distinct from each other. This happens to be one of the most fundamental questions that arises when studying the past: do cultural changes in the archaeological record of a region represent the arrival of new groups, or did one group of people living in the same region over time adopt new cultural practices & technologies from others?
In the case of Newfoundland, the three groups were genetically distinct; they do not share any maternal haplogroups except for haplogroup X2a, lineages of which were found in both the Maritime Archaic & Beothuk. (The presence of haplogroup X2a in North American populations has sometimes been cited as evidence for European ancestry in ancient Americans. If you’re interested in why I & most other geneticists specializing in Native American populations disagree with that, you can read about it here).
Apart from that single exception, the Maritime Archaic, Paleo-Inuit, & Beothuk are clearly genetically distinctive from one another. However, it’s important to note that this study was done on mitochondrial DNA, which is exclusively matrilineally inherited, & so we can only say that the three groups were not maternally related. While they indicate that the groups are genetically different from each other, does that mean that there was no shared ancestry between them at all? It’s unclear without looking at the rest of the genome whether, for example, there might have been any paternal lineages shared between the populations. I hope that the authors of this study will follow up with analyses of complete genomes from these ancient individuals, as there is a great deal more to be learned by looking more deeply at their ancestry.
As this study shows, we can learn a lot about the past by characterizing the genomes of ancient & contemporary peoples. This paper by Duggen et al. adds to decades of study of the genomes from ancient & contemporary peoples of the Americas, which reveals a nuanced picture of their complex & remarkable history of evolution, interaction, & resilience in the face of unbelievable oppression.
But it’s also important to understand what genetics can’t tell us. While writing up this article, I was appalled (although not surprised) that there is at least one personal ancestry testing company that has made the claim that they can help you determine whether or not you are Beothuk based on your DNA.
Let’s be clear: all claims that a person’s tribe or indigenous nationality can be determined from their genomes are scientifically inaccurate. First, this is because there simply are no currently known genetic markers that allow us to identify individual tribes or nations; although we see geographically patterned genetic variation throughout the Americas in ancient & contemporary populations which allows us to differentiate them (as done in this study), genetic lineages are not tribal or nation-specific.
More importantly, who is or is not a member of a particular community is determined by indigenous groups’ own standards of belonging, which are often just as much about relations & community ties as they are about biological descent. Geneticists can’t determine who is or is not authentically Beothuk, Cherokee, or anything else based on the percentage of “Native American DNA” they might have.
Ancient DNA Reveals a Completely Unknown Population of Native Americans
Time is weird. It’s a concept notoriously impossible define without circular logic. The operating definition of time in physics is simply “what a clock reads.” That’s it. Yet, we have ideas about time that are held as fundamental truths. The arrow of time is one, that’s the idea that time only moves in one direction. Simple enough right? Here’s another one: cause and effect, thing’s cause things to happen. Also pretty simple and just kind of self evident. Causality is one of the first concepts that infants learn, and it’s baked into everything we do. But for how basic and integral to our whole reality time is, we don’t really understand it or have a better definition than “what a clock reads.” Sometimes, discoveries are made that seem to fly in the face of our supposed understanding of time. That’s what happened this week, when a paper titled Cause and Effect in a Quantum World was published in the journal Physical Review X. According to the paper, quantum computers can ignore cause and effect when modeling systems, a discovery which may fundamentally alter our understanding and relationship with time itself.
OK, so two things need to be addressed before this makes sense. Just kidding, we’re talking about time and quantum physics. It’s not going to make sense, but we’re going to try anyway.
The first is cause and effect. Due to our ability to understand cause and effect we can predict things and model possible futures. If you see a person walking around with their shoes untied, you might make a prediction that they’re going to fall on their face. You could very well be right. Untied shoelaces cause a person to trip which causes the person to fall on their face. Computers can make these predictions too. However, it doesn’t work the other way. It’s exponentially harder and requires a great deal more memory and processing power, for both humans and computers, to model systems based on information interpreted in the wrong order. If you’re given the statement: “a person has fallen on their face” it’s a lot harder to figure out why. Another way to say it is: it’s easier to understand a movie if you watch it from beginning to end than if you watch it in reverse. This is called causal asymmetry and it seems like a basic idea.
The second is that the physical laws of nature don’t actually require time to move in one direction. We just sort of assume the arrow of time moves in one direction does because of our experience and perception. Addressing the question of why it takes so much more processing power and memory to figure out a cause from an effect than it does the other way around, paper co-author Mile Gu asks:
“When the physics does not impose any direction on time, where does causal asymmetry — the memory overhead needed to reverse cause and effect — come from?”
This guy thinks he’s late, but time is an illusion so he should probably just go home and take a nap.
To try to answer that question, scientists decided to force quantum computers to model systems backwards, essentially making them watch a movie in reverse and figure out how it all fits together. What they found is pretty ridiculous: quantum computers entirely ignore causal asymmetry when reading data in reverse. Cause and effect has no bearing on their ability to figure out systems. In fact, quantum computers model systems in reverse-time more efficiently than classical computers model systems in forward-time. Jayne Thompson, one of the co-authors of the paper explains the “profound implications” of this discovery:
“The most exciting thing for us is the possible connection with the arrow of time. If causal asymmetry is only found in classical models, it suggests our perception of cause and effect, and thus time, can emerge from enforcing a classical explanation on events in a fundamentally quantum world.”
So basically, we keep getting stumped by our need to make the universe conform to our preconceived notions of how things work, and time is still weird.
Newly Discovered Crop Circle Has A Message For Humanity (July 2018)
Newly Discovered Crop Circle Has A Message For Humanity (July 2018)
(Alanna Ketler) A new crop circle was recently discovered on July 8th in Coneybury Hill, Nr Stonehenge, Wiltshire. This circle is the exact same as the chemical weapons warning symbol.
Interestingly this crop circle was found shortly after the death of Dawn Sturgess who had come into contact with a deadly nerve agent.
While we can’t know for sure, this crop circle certainly appears to be a message to humanity about the dangers of chemical weapons and the catastrophic damage they can cause, regardless of who you believe made it. Perhaps this circle symbolizes the fact that these weapons have no place in our world, and it’s time we got rid of them, for good.
Check out some amazing drone footage of this newly discovered crop circle below.
ET Intervention?
It is not all that surprising to see this message show up in a crop circle, as in the past we have seen deliberate ET intervention when nuclear weapons would have otherwise been used. We have covered this topic before, and the following is an excerpt from an older article,
One of many previously classified reports -out of the thousands in existence -that is now available in the public domain is the intrusion at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, on August 24, 1966. Air Force personnel were concerned about a light in the sky. A team went to check it out and confirmed the object, then saw a second white object while doing so. The object was tracked on radar and moved vertical several times; each time it descended, an air force officer in charge of a missile crew found his radio transmission interrupted by static. The object eventually descended to ground level, and the Air Force sent a team to check it out. They saw the object either on the ground or hovering very low. According to the official report:
“When the team was about ten miles from the landing site, static disrupted radio contact with them. Five to eight minutes later, the glow diminished, and the UFO took off. Another UFO was visually sighted and confirmed by radar. The one that was first sighted passed beneath the second. Radar also confirmed this. The first made for altitude toward the north, and the second seemed to disappear with the glow of red.”
It seems that these extraterrestrials know just how damaging nuclear weapons can be to our planet, and possibly to our entire solar system. There is information that says that UFO’s have been deactivating nuclear weapons since we created them and started to show up a lot more often when we were testing the atomic bomb. Thankfully, someone or something has our back and is helping to stop us, humanity from making a huge mistake.
Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier is melting, thanks to warming waters from below. What’s more, a recent study has discovered a volcano beneath the glacier.
This article is republished with permission from GlacierHub. This post was written by Andrew Angle.
West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is the fastest-melting glacier in Antarctica, making it the single biggestcontributor to global sea-level rise. The main driver of this rapid loss of ice is the thinning of the PIG from below by warming ocean waters due to climate change. However, a study, published June 22, 2018, in Nature Communications, discovered a volcanic heat source beneath the PIG that is another possible driver of the PIG’s melting.
On the icebreaker RSS James Clark Ross looking toward the Pine Island Glacier on the 2014 expedition
Study lead author Brice Loose spoke to GlacierHub about the research. He said that the study was a result of a larger project funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.K. National Environmental Research Council to
… examine the stability of the Pine Island Glacier from the terrestrial and the ocean side.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), which includes the PIG, sits on top of the West Antarctic Rift System that includes 138 known volcanoes. It is difficult, however, for scientists to pinpoint the exact location of these volcanoes or the extent of the rift system, because most of the volcanic activity occurs below kilometers of ice.
The Pine Island Glacier from above taken by Landsat Image via NASA.
Warming ocean temperatures due to climate change have long been identified as the primary contributor to the extensive melting of the PIG and other glaciers that transport ice from the WAIS. This melting is largely driven by Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW), which melts the PIG from below and leads to the retreat of its grounding line, the place where the ice meets the bedrock.
To trace CDW around coastal Antarctica, the scientists used helium isotopes, specifically He-3, because CDW is widely recognized as the principal source of He-3 in the waters near the continent. For this study, the scientists used historical data of helium measurements from the Weddell, Ross and Amundsen seas around Antarctica. They looked at the three seas, all of which have CDW, and examined differences in He-3, which could have come from volcanic activity.
By tracing the glacial meltwater produced by the CDW, the researchers discovered a volcanic signal that stood out in their data. The helium measurements utilized were expressed by the percent deviation of the observed data from the atmospheric ratio. For the observed CDW in the Weddell Sea, this deviation was 10.2 percent. In the Ross and Amundsen Seas, it was 10.9 percent. However, HE-3 values gathered by the team during expeditions to the Pine Island Bay in 2007 and 2014 differed from the historical data.
For this data, the percent deviation was considerably higher at 12.3 percent, with the highest values being near the strongest meltwater outflow from the PIG’s front. Additionally, these high helium values coincided with raised neon concentrations, which are usually an indication of melted glacial ice. The helium was also not uniformly distributed. This suggests it originated from a distinct meltwater source and not from across the PIG’s entire front.
With this knowledge in hand, the team of scientists endeavored to identify the source of the HE-3 production. The Earth’s mantle is the largest source of HE-3, although it is also produced in the atmosphere and during past atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons through tritium decay. These two sources, however, could only account for 0.2 percent of the 2014 data.
Another potential source was a fissure in the earth’s crust directly below the PIG, where He-3 could rise from the mantle. However, this source was ruled out as it would have a strong thermal signature, something that was not discovered by mapping expeditions.
Map of He-3 samples around Antartica (yellow = 2007, red = 2014)
The researchers then considered another source: a volcano beneath the PIG itself, where He-3 escapes from the mantle in a process known as magma degassing. The He-3 could be transported by glacial meltwater to the PIG’s grounding line, where the ice meets the underlying bedrock. At this line, the ice shifts due to the ocean tides, allowing the meltwater and the He-3 to be discharged into the ocean.
After identifying a subglacial volcano as the most likely source of the elevated He-3 levels near the PIG’s front, the scientists next calculated the heat released by the volcano in joules per kilogram of sea water at the front of the glacier. It turned out that the heat given off by the volcano constitutes a very small fraction of the overall mass loss of the PIG compared to the CDW, according to Loose.
In total, the volcanic heat was 32 ± 12 joules kg-1, while the heat content of the CDW was much larger at 12 kilojoules kg-1. Nevertheless, if the volcanic heat is intermittent and/or concentrated over a small surface area, it could still have an impact on the overall stability of the PIG by changing its subsurface conditions, said Loose. There is also the possibility that the continued melting of the PIG could lessen the pressure and weight on the volcano, spurring more volcanism and subsequent melting.
The presence of an active volcanic heat source beneath the world’s fastest-melting glacier is a disturbing discovery that threatens to accelerate the PIG’s contribution to future sea-level rise. To develop a better understanding of how the volcano might impact the PIG, Loose stated that future studies should examine how the volcanic signal varies from year to year and attempt to pinpoint the likely location of the volcano itself beneath the ice.
Active volcano discovered beneath Antarctic ice sheet
Bottom line: A recent study discovered a volcano beneath Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier.
Our planet continues to change due to the various forcesfalling under the blanket term of climate change. While this obviously poses challenges and threats the likes of which humanity hasn’t seen since perhaps the last Ice Age, there are a few positive effects that help lessen the blow of witnessing the beginning of a new, hot and decidedly wet era of human history.
Remember that awesome Kevin Costner movie? Yeah, it’s going to be like that.
As Earth changes around us, strange animal sightings are becoming more common in populated areas likely thanks to loss of habitat and food sources. Along those same lines, the melting Arctic and Antarctic sea ices are revealing new, untouched areas of the Earth possibly containing entirely new forms of life.
In the archaeological world, a rapidly changing Earth has meant that many ancient mysteries have begun to reveal themselves from below the ground or the bottom of the seas. The latest case comes out of Ireland’s Boyne Valley where a harsh drought has meant a sharp decline in native grass and scrub plants. With that ground-covering vegetation out of the way, historians conducting aerial drone photography in the area have been able to discover a mysterious ancient ringed structure lying literally right under their feet.
The Boyne Valley
The structure appears to be composed of concentric rings, the largest of which is about 200 meters in diameter. Like other ancient henges, the rings are composed of post holes, implying that this was once some sort of walled enclosure. Anthony Murphy, founder of Mythical Ireland, says the discovery was a complete surprise to even the most seasoned local researchers:
We couldn’t believe it to be honest. It soon became apparent that were looking at something very very exciting. I was aware of the possibility that previously unrecorded things might show up, but I didn’t think they’d show up in the Boyne Valley because it’s been under intense scrutiny for the past few decades by archaeologists. Only because of the drought has it become visible.
The discovery was made not farm from Brú na Bóinne, or Boyne Valley tombs. The tombs are a UNESCO World Heritage site and date back some five or six thousand years.
The Newgrange burial mound at Boyne Valley was constructed with a network chambers and passages.
Like other Neolithic monuments, the Boyne Valley site consists of burial mounds, henges, and earthworks. Its overall purpose or use remains a mystery, though many of the structures are believed to have been used for archaeoastronomical rituals or timekeeping.
Dozens of Long White Structures On Moons Surface Found, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Dozens of Long White Structures On Moons Surface Found, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: March 2014 , but revisiting today. Coordinates of discovery: 3°53'18.47"S 17°34'20.73"W Method used: Google Moon map I wanted to take a look at the structures I discovered back in 2014, because many of the buildings and discoveries have been deleted or the URLs don't exist any more. These buildings are still there on Google Moon which is a free program to download and use from your desktop. The structures measure about 100-150 meters long and 10-15 meters wide. I don't think they are structures to live in, but probably have a purpose like air or breathing filtration or collecting of energy or even as a transmitting antenna. Glad to see they are still there. Scott C. Waring
Zeewier reist 20.000 kilometer en meert aan op Antarctica
Zeewier reist 20.000 kilometer en meert aan op Antarctica
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Dit is de langst bekende biologische drijftocht ooit.
Onderzoekers hebben langs de kust van Antarctica zeewier ontdekt dat daar niet thuishoort. DNA-onderzoek wijst uit dat een deel ervan afkomstig is van de Kerguelen-eilanden in de zuidelijke Indische Oceaan. En een ander deel komt helemaal uit de Zuid-Georgia-eilanden in de zuidelijke Atlantische Oceaan. Het betekent dat dit zeewier tienduizenden kilometers heeft afgelegd alvorens het bij Antarctica aanmeerde.
Onmogelijke reis Het is volgens onderzoekers de langste bekende biologische drijftocht ooit. En dat niet alleen: het is een reis die tevens onmogelijk werd geacht. Zo wist het zeewier polaire winden en stromingen die ondoordringbaar werden geacht, te trotseren en Antarctica – dat altijd gezien wordt als een geïsoleerd gelegen continent – te bereiken (zie kader). “Dit onderzoek laat zien dat levende planten en dieren Antarctica over de oceaan kunnen bereiken, en dat de Antarctische kustlijnen waarschijnlijk constant gebombardeerd worden met allerlei plant- en diersoorten,” aldus onderzoeker Crid Fraser. “Wij dachten altijd dat het Antarctische ecosysteem zo uniek was vanwege de geïsoleerde omgeving, maar dit onderzoek laat zien dat deze verschillen bijna volledig te wijten zijn aan extreme omgevingsfactoren, niet isolatie.”
Sterke westenwinden en oppervlaktestromingen zorgen er in principe voor dat drijvende objecten van Antarctica vandaan bewegen. Tot stormen de boel verstoren, zo stellen de onderzoekers. Hun nieuwste modellen laten zien dat hoge golven die tijdens deze stormen ontstaan grote ‘vlotten’ zeewier helpen om naar Antarctica te reizen.
Andere dieren Als zeewier op deze wijze bij Antarctica kan komen, dan kunnen nog veel meer organismen Antarctica bereiken, zo redeneren de onderzoekers. “Dit zeewier groeit niet op Antarctica, maar kan als vlot dienen voor andere planten en dieren” stelt onderzoeker Erasmo Macaya. “Als die vlotten van zeewier naar Antarctica drijven, kunnen we binnenkort enorme veranderingen zien in de ecosystemen daar.” Antarctica warmt namelijk razendsnel op. “Als planten en dieren vrij vaak over zee naar Antarctica reizen, zullen ze zich kunnen vestigen zodra de lokale omgeving voldoende gastvrij is,” aldus Fraser.
Het onderzoek heeft ook implicaties voor niet-levende drijvende objecten, zoals plastic. “Het zou goed kunnen dat de stormen en zeestromingen die dit zeewier hebben vervoerd, ook plastic naar Antarctica kunnen transporteren, waardoor het kwetsbare ecosysteem daar extra onder druk komt te staan,” vertelt onderzoeker Erik van Sebille. “We moeten er zo snel mogelijk achter komen of dat zo is.”
Dat blijkt uit nieuw onderzoek. Klein minpuntje: we kunnen er onmogelijk bij.
Het onderzoek onthult dat de aarde veel meer diamanten herbergt dan gedacht. Maar de meeste van die diamanten zitten ontzettend diep: tussen 140 en 240 kilometer onder het oppervlak.
Kratons De diamanten zitten opgesloten in de ‘wortels’ van rompgebergtes (ook wel kratons genoemd). Dit zijn een soort omgekeerde gebergten die je kunt vinden onder het centrum van de meeste aardplaten. Ze reiken tot wel 240 kilometer diep en zijn al lange tijd ‘tektonisch stabiel’. Dat betekent dat ze al zeker 1 miljard jaar geen grootschalige deformatie of metamorfose hebben ondergaan. De diepste secties van deze kratons worden ook wel aangeduid als ‘wortels’ en dringen tot in de aardmantel door. En het nieuwe onderzoek onthult nu dat deze ‘wortels’ voor wel 1 tot 2 procent uit diamanten bestaan. Als je dan het volume van de wortel van een kraton in ogenschouw neemt, moet je concluderen dat deze meer dan 1 biljard (10^15) ton diamanten herbergt. En aangezien er zo’n 10 van deze wortels zijn, zou het in totaal zelfs om 10^16 ton diamanten gaan.
Niet zo exotisch “Dit laat zien dat diamant misschien niet zo’n exotisch mineraal is, maar op de geologische schaal vrij veel voorkomt,” aldus onderzoeker Ulrich Faul. “We kunnen er niet bij, maar toch, er zijn daar veel meer diamanten dan we eerder dachten.”
Seismische activiteit De onderzoekers kwamen deze enorme voorraad op het spoor nadat ze zich bogen over een anomalie in seismische data. Al decennialang houden onderzoekers de seismische activiteit – in feite niets anders dan geluidsgolven die door de aarde reizen en ontstaan door bijvoorbeeld aardbevingen, tsunami’s en explosies – wereldwijd in de gaten. Aan de hand van deze seismische data kunnen onderzoekers zich een beeld vormen van hoe de aarde er van binnen uitziet; de snelheid waarmee de geluidsgolven door de aarde bewegen, wordt immers bepaald door de temperatuur, dichtheid en temperatuur van het gesteente waar deze doorheen moeten reizen. En zo onthult seismische data bijvoorbeeld dat geluidsgolven significant versnellen wanneer ze door de ‘wortels’ van oude kratons bewegen. En dat is vreemd (zie kader).
Kratons zijn kouder dan de omringende mantel, ook is hun dichtheid kleiner dan die van de omringende mantel. Je zou dus verwachten dat geluidsgolven wanneer ze door de diepste secties van deze rompgebergten bewegen iets versnellen. Maar de versnelling die we zien, is veel groter dan onderzoekers kunnen verklaren.
Virtuele gesteenten Die anomalie vormt het uitgangspunt van dit nieuwe onderzoek. Faul en collega’s gingen in het laboratorium na hoe geluidsgolven door verschillende mineralen bewegen. Vervolgens maakten ze ‘virtuele gesteenten’ die uit verschillende combinaties van die mineralen waren samengesteld en berekenden hoe snel geluidsgolven door deze virtuele gesteenten bewogen. Er bleek slechts één type gesteente te zijn dat geluidsgolven net zo sterk versnelde als de kratons en dat was een gesteente dat voor 1 tot 2 procent uit diamant bestond. In dit scenario bevatte het gesteente zeker 1000 keer meer diamant dan eerder werd gedacht. Maar dat had verder geen impact op de dichtheid van de kraton (die dus kleiner is dan die van de omringende mantel). “Het zijn een soort stukjes hout, drijvend op water,” legt Faul uit. “Kratons hebben een iets kleinere dichtheid dan hun omgeving, dus ze duiken niet terug de aarde in, maar blijven aan het oppervlak drijven. Dat is hoe de oudste gesteenten bewaard blijven. En wij ontdekten dat je slechts 1 tot 2 procent diamant nodig hebt voor stabiele kratons die niet zinken.”
Dat kratons zoveel diamanten herbergen, is achteraf gezien trouwens best logisch. Diamanten ontstaan namelijk diep in de aarde, onder hoge druk, bij hoge temperaturen en komen aan het oppervlak door vulkaanuitbarstingen. Deze uitbarstingen zorgen ervoor dat er geologische kanalen ontstaan die opgebouwd zijn uit een gesteente dat kimberliet wordt genoemd. Diamanten reizen door deze kanalen – samen met magma dat diep uit de aarde komt – naar boven. De meeste van deze kimberlieten kanalen zijn gevonden aan de rand van de ‘wortels’ van kratons. Het lijkt dan ook niet meer dan logisch dat deze wortels voor een deel uit diamant bestaat. “Het is indirect bewijs, maar het komt allemaal samen,” aldus Faul. “We hebben alle verschillende mogelijkheden vanuit elke hoek bekijken en dit is de enige redelijke verklaring.”
The crater lakes at the summit of Kelimutu volcano in Indonesia change colors from day to day. The colors can change from white, green, blue and brown to black.
Landsat 8 views from space of the 3 lakes at the summit of the Kelimutu volcano in Indonesia, known to change color unpredictably, via NASA Earth Observatory.
This composite image of Kelimutu volcano in Indonesia was the NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day for July 6, 2018. It called them volcanic mood rings and explained:
From milky white to vibrant turquoise to blood red, the three lakes at the summit of the Kelimutu volcano are known to unpredictably change color – a phenomenon unique to this volcano on the Indonesian island of Flores.
These images, acquired by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8, show the various colors of the crater lakes on three different days. All three crater lakes appear on the crest of the volcano with the eastern two lakes sharing a common crater wall … Depending on when you visit, the colors can range from white, green, blue, brown or black. In 2016, the lakes changed colors six times.
Local folklore contends the lakes are the resting place for the dead, and that a person’s good or bad deeds in life determine which of the three lakes becomes his or her resting place.
Science says the changing colors of Kelimutu’s summit lakes are caused by fumaroles, or volcanic vents that release steam and gases, producing upwelling in the lakes and bringing denser, mineral-rich water from their bottoms to their surfaces. NASA Earth Observatory explained:
All of the lakes contain relatively high concentrations of zinc and lead.
While minerals play a part in the coloring, another key factor is the amount of oxygen present in the water. Like your blood, these lake waters appear bluer (or greener) when low in oxygen. When they are oxygen-rich, they appear blood red or even cola black.
Bottom line: NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day for July 6, 2018, showing the three variously colored lakes at the summit of Kelimutu volcano in Indonesia.
Whether you find flocks of birds terrifying or mystifying, you can objectively say that they’re pretty skilled at not ramming into each other mid-flight.
Looking to the success of birds, group of European researchers has successfully enabled a group of 30 quadcopters to fly in sync after programming the drones to mimic the flight of a flock of birds.
Dr. Gábor Vásárhelyi, the first author of this new research published on Wednesday in the Science Robotics journal, tells Inverse he believes collective bird movement holds the answer to solving an issue we’ll soon be faced with: Keeping thousands of drones from colliding over our heads. Dr. Agoston E. Eiben, a co-author of the new study, describes their development of drone technology that mimics how birds flock together as “natural computing.”
Here’s how they did it: Researchers spent six years observing pigeons with GPS devices to determine if they could reproduce these aerial formations of the birds with autonomous drones. For drones, mastering synchronized flight may be a crucial first step to mastering real-world delivery routes.
Flight simulation of 30 autonomous drones moving in a confined area at 6 m/s (13.4 mph) using the method developer by Vásárhelyi and his colleagues.
“When the first cars appeared on the streets people were walking in front of them and ringing a bell that cars were coming, but soon there we a diversity of cars moving in coordinated ways throughout cities, something similar is going on with drones,” Vásárhelyi says. “Now, every drone has a single pilot, soon these drones will have such a density in the air that we need to make them able to communicate with each other.”
Realistic simulations of 30-1000 drones flocking in confined environments
Why Drone Delivery Could Be Big Business
This in-air communication is crucial, because of the intense interest in drone delivery as a business. Multi-national companies and startups alike are working to make these services a reality.
The best-known player in the competition to develop delivery drones is probably Amazon: The e-commerce giant makes 1.6 million daily deliveries in the United States, according to one estimate. Even if its future Prime Air service would take care of a quarter of those deliveries, that would be thousands of autonomous drones that would some system to make sure they don’t slam into each other, or anything else.
30 drones light up the night sky.
Drone Delivery Faces Regulatory Obstacles
In March 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that drone registration outnumbered that of airplanes. Standard planes use control centers to coordinate their flights but with so many drones in the sky, it would be impossible to develop a drone-ports to manage them all. Eiben tells Inverse that each drone will need to have the capability of managing itself.
There needs to be underlying, decentralized software to make sure [drones] don’t collide.”
“We have a massive e-commerce industry. If drone delivery gets big than urban environments will be a major hurdle for various drones sharing the same airspace,” says Eiben, a professor of computer science at VU University Amsterdam. “There needs to be underlying, decentralized software to make sure they don’t collide, it’s core to this advancement.”
Eiben explained drone delivery has been held back by the “reality gap” — or the rift between what works in simulation and what works in real life. Previous studies found that even though solutions seemed promising on the computer screen, testing them on hardware would yield disappointing results. But not this time.
Vásárhelyi and his other colleagues built their own custom drones, implemented their bird-inspired models, which were refined by Eiben’s software expertise and dunked on prior research. They managed to get 30 quadcopters to self-organize themselves using GPS modules, just like our feathery, avian friends. They managed to pull this off by not only determining the distance to the closest drone but also calculate the speed and acceleration of their fellow robots.
But don’t worry, this isn’t the beginning of some futuristic version of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Vásárhelyi sees great potential for this type of technology to be used for search and rescue missions, as well as enabling drone deliveries.
So if the day comes where quadcopters are delivering parcels right to your window sill, remember to thank the birds. The OG drones.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 75 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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