The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
18-12-2019
Earth Enters Unknown as Magnetic North Pole Continues Push Toward Russia, Crosses Greenwich Meridian
Earth Enters Unknown as Magnetic North Pole Continues Push Toward Russia, Crosses Greenwich Meridian
Earlier this year, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the British Geological Survey (BGS) were forced to update the World Magnetic Model a year ahead of schedule due to the speed with which the magnetic north pole is shifting out of the Canadian Arctic and toward Russia’s Siberia.
The BGS and the US National Centers for Environmental Information has released a new update to the World Magnetic Model this week, confirming that the magnetic north pole, whose coordinates are crucial for the navigation systems used by governments, militaries and a slew of civilian applications, is continuing its push toward Siberia.
“The WMM2020 forecasts that the northern magnetic pole will continue drifting toward Russia, although at a slowly decreasing speed –down to about 40 km per year compared to the average speed of 55 km over the past twenty years,” the US agency said in apress statement.
The data confirmed that this year, the magnetic north pole passed to within 390 km of the geographic North Pole, and crossed the Greenwich (prime) meridian. Compilers also confirmed that the Earth’s magnetic field is continuing to weaken, at a rate of about 5 percent every 100 years.
Global map of declination and the dip pole locations for 2020
The World Magnetic Model is used by everything from smartphone compass apps, maps and GPS services to telecommunications transmission systems, and navigation tools for various agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, the US Defence Department and NATO.
Scientists Still Don’t Know Exactly What’s Driving Pole’s Accelerated Drift
Magnetic north, the point on the planet’s surface toward which your conventional compass points, is created by the churning of molten metal in Earth’s core, which creates huge electrical currents to produce the magnetic field.
Commenting on the freshly-released magnetic north pole data, Dr. Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist and geomagnetic specialist from the British Geological Survey’s Edinburgh office, told FT that although the movement of the pole has been “much faster” since the 1990s “than at any time for at least four centuries,” scientists “really don’t know much about the changes in the core that’s driving it.”
With the pole passing the Greenwich meridian and continuing its race east, humanity is entering the unknown, scientifically speaking, since, from the time records of the magnetic north pole’s position have been kept starting in the 16th century, the pole had drifted around the Canadian Arctic.
Dr. Phil Livermore of Leeds University’s Institute of Geophysics recently postulated that a ‘jet stream’ of liquid iron flowing in the planet’s core could help explain shifts in the position of magnetic north, but suggested tracking the flows of this liquid iron could be difficult, “because it lies beneath 3,000 kilometres of rock.”
Scientists have previously expressed concerns about the fluctuations in the magnetic north pole and its possible impact on the magnetic field protecting Earth. Without the field, Earth would be left vulnerable to solar flares, which could cause damage to everything from spacecraft to power grids. Even with the magnetic field intact, the planet remains vulnerable. In 2011, the US National Academy of Sciences calculated that a repeat of a solar storm like the one which hit the planet in 1859 could cause as much as $2 trillion in initial damage, and take a decade to repair.
Furthermore, a weakened magnetic field may lead to a potentially cataclysmic process scientists call a “geomagnetic reversal,” in which the Earth’s north and south poles effectively switch places. The last such flip is estimated to have taken place about 800,000 years ago, and some scientists believe that another may be due soon, even though such an event could take centuries to complete.
Fishermen Break up Bizarre Battle Between Bald Eagle and Octopus
Fishermen Break up Bizarre Battle Between Bald Eagle and Octopus
Fishermen on Canada’s Vancouver Island have filmed the moment they rescued a bald eagle from the grips of an octopus’s tentacles after the bird of prey tried to attack it. The footage shows the fisherman removing the bird from the octopus’s tight hold, before they release it back to safety.
The octopus is a soft-bodied, eight-armed mollusc of the order Octopoda. Around 300 species are recognised and the order is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish and nautiloids.
Ancient Structure With 50 meter Doorway To Alien Base Below Volcano, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Ancient Structure With 50 Meter Doorway To Alien Base Below Volcano, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: Dec 15, 2019 17:42:40 Location of sighting: Volcano Popocatepetl, Mexico Source: Live Cam I was watching the live cam to see if I could catch a UFO shooting around or into it again. I've recorded over a dozen objects on this cam and thought I might have some luck today. I did...but instead of a flying object I found a giant structure hundreds of meters tall. It had a square doorway that was close to 60 meters across! The structure was not there and then the sun hit it perfectly and there it was! Maybe its a trick of the eye, an illusion of some sort, but I swear this looks like a giant entrances into an underground alien abase. A base I have been talking about for almost ten years. If so...then we found an easy way to get to that base...but we do need a way to break through that huge door. Scott C. Waring - Taiwan
Earth's magnetic north is shifting at an 'unprecedented' rate of 30 miles a year - throwing satellite positioning data and navigation systems off course
Earth's magnetic north is shifting at an 'unprecedented' rate of 30 miles a year - throwing satellite positioning data and navigation systems off course
New World Magnetic Model reveals movements in the Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic north pole is moving towards Siberia and away from Canada
Northern lights may be harder to see from Canada as the magnetic north shifts
Magnetic devices and GPS systems used by military and aviation industries rely on accurate magnetic field readings
The Earth's magnetic North Pole is travelling at an unprecedented rate and is picking up speed as it moves towards Siberia, according to new satellite data.
The magnetic North Pole is the wandering point on the surface of Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which the planet's magnetic field - created by molten iron within the planet’s core - points vertically downwards.
The latest World Magnetic Model, which tracks the movement of the Earth’s magnetic field, shows that the magnetic north is moving at a rate of 30 miles per year.
This is the fastest recorded shift of the Earth's north since the mid-16th century and could cause havoc for aviation and navigation systems, including smartphone apps that use GPS.
The WMM has also located ‘caution zones’ on Earth around the magnetic fields where compasses may be prone to errors and send users off course.
New World Magnetic Map data shows Earth's magnetic north is moving at 31 miles per year, up from just 6.2 miles around 20 years ago, away from Canada and towards Siberia
New World Magnetic Map data shows how Earth's magnetic north has moved away from Canada and towards Siberia. The dip pole is the magnetic pole where a free-swinging compass needle points directly into the ground. The geomagnetic pole is the position of the pole if the Earth’s magnetic field was like a bar magnet. The difference between them show how distorted the magnetic field has become
‘The magnetic North Pole wandered slowly around northern Canada from 1590 to around 1990 and then accelerated over the past 20 years moving from around 10 km (6.2 miles) per year to over 50 km (31 miles) per year,’ Ciaran Beggan of the British Geological Survey told MailOnline.
‘In contrast, the south magnetic pole has barely moved much in the past 100 years as the flow of the outer core there is much more sedate.'
After circling northern Canada for hundreds of years, the approximate location of the magnetic north pole started moving speedily towards Siberia at around the turn of the century.
Magnets rely on the Earth's magnetic field to send users in the right direction, but the problem is the magnetic field is constantly shifting around over time
The south magnetic pole has barely moved in the past 100 years compared to the north pole
WHAT IS THE WORLD MAGNETIC MODEL?
The World Magnetic Model is a key tool to model the change in the Earth’s magnetic field.
It gives accuracy to compasses, maps and GPS services by tracking irregular changes in the Earth’s magnetic core.
A new version of the World Magnetic Model is released every five years.
The current version, WMM2020, is only valid until 2025 to account for unpredictable magnetic changes.
Data from European Space Agency satellites and 160 land-based observatories as recently as October were used to map WMM2020.
The WMM is the standard model used by UK and US defence departments, NATO and the International Hydraulic Organisation.
It is mainly paid for and used by the military but it remains free for anyone else who needs it.
In recent months, it has crossed the Greenwich meridian line - the line of Zero Longitude from which all other longitudinal lines are measured.
Earth’s magnetic field is created by the movement of liquid iron in the Earth’s outer core, some 1,800 miles below our feet.
The iron is super hot (over 5,432 degrees Fahrenheit) and as runny as water meaning it flows very easily.
As the liquid flows, it drags the magnetic field with it.
‘We think the magnetic north pole has been sucked into a fast moving jet stream near the top of the planet and that’s causing it to be pulled from Canada to Siberia,’ Dr Beggan said.
'There are other factors, but that is the main one.'
Since its discovery in 1831, the north magnetic pole has travelled a total of around 1,400 miles.
This movement has been generally quite slow, but since the turn of the century has sped up – reaching an average speed of about 34 miles per year.
The shift will mean there will be less chance to see the Aurora in place of northern Canada
The new WMM forecasts that the northern magnetic pole will continue drifting towards Siberia in the next five years, at a slightly slower speed of about 25 miles per year.
The move also means that the northern lights will move slightly away from northern Canada towards Siberia, meaning there will be less chance to see them in some areas there.
The World Magnetic Model is a vital tool for civilian navigation systems and marine and aviation charts, which need to constantly adjust their measurements to account for the shifts in magnetic north.
Airport runways also rely on the navigation aid and use WMM data to give runways numerical names, which pilots refer to on the ground.
It’s the standard model used for navigation by the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence - and even compasses and smartphone apps that rely on GPS.
If you have smartphone with a map application (and an inbuilt compass which most phones do), then Google or Apple will change the magnetic field map in the next few months, as part of the general software updates.
The WMM is jointly put together by the British Geological Survey and the USA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
It’s updated every five years to take account of the unpredictability of the Earth’s magnetic field.
The updated model also confirms that the Earth’s magnetic field is weakening by about 5 per cent every century.
If this continues, the field could eventually reverse, which would have dire consequences for any civilisation around to witness it, because the magnetic field would no longer shield the Earth against damaging solar and cosmic radiation.
'If the field does reverse, it typically takes 5,000-10,000 years to do so,' said Dr Beggan.
'The usual process is that the two strong magnetic poles (north and south) vanish slowly, to be replaced by lots of local poles (so a compass points to its nearest 'pole').
'This state lasts a few thousand years and then the (reversed) south and north magnetic poles re-establish themselves.
'We won’t know if we’re in a reversal for a long time – certainly much longer than the average human lifetime.'
Seafloor map showing pockmark and micro-depressions in the seafloor off Big Sur.
Image. Credit: MBARI
During a recent survey of the deep seafloor off Big Sur, MBARI researchers discovered thousands of mysterious holes or pits in the seafloor. Scientists and resource managers want to understand how these pits formed because this area is the site of a proposed wind-energy farm. Researchers Eve Lundsten and Charles Paull describe their discovery this week at the Fall 2019 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
The researchers found two different sizes of holes. The larger ones, known as pockmarks, average 175 meters (almost 600 feet) across and five meters (16 feet) deep, and are nearly circular and fairly evenly spaced. Some of these pockmarks were initially discovered by MBARI scientists in 1999 during a seafloor survey using ship-mounted sonar. Over the last few years, additional surveys by MBARI and other organizations revealed over 5,200 pockmarks spread out over 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles), making this area the largest known pockmark field in North America.
More recently, MBARI conducted detailed seafloor surveys using sonar mounted on autonomous underwater vehicles. These surveys revealed thousands of smaller pits, which they termed micro-depressions. The micro-depressions average just 11 meters (36 feet) across and one meter (three feet) deep. They have steeper sides than the pockmarks and are often elongated in one direction.
Seafloor pockmarks have been found elsewhere around the world, and have been associated with releases of methane gas or other fluids from the seafloor. Such methane releases could potentially cause the seafloor to be unstable, which could pose risks for structures such as offshore oil platforms or wind turbines. However MBARI researchers found no evidence of methane in the sediment or seawater in this region. In fact, sonar data showing layers of seafloor sediments suggest that these pockmarks have been inactive for the last 50,000 years.µ
Computer generated 3-D view of a micro-depression.
Credit: MBARI
Map showing the locations of some of the pockmarks and proposed wind-farm areas off Central California.
Credit: MBARI
In contrast to the pockmarks, the micro-depressions formed in relatively young sediment. In addition, almost all of the micro-depressions contain objects such as rocks, kelp holdfasts, bones, trash, or fishing gear. Many micro-depressions also have "tails" of sediment that probably originated within the depression. In many areas, these tails are all oriented in the same direction.
Based on these observations, the researchers hypothesize that the micro-depressions are relatively recent features that were were excavated by local seafloor currents. Because the sediment on the seafloor in this area is so soft and "fluffy," the researchers speculate that even the movements of fish hiding out in the micro-depressions could stir up the sediment, allowing it to be carried away by currents.
Summarizing this work, Lundsten said, "The pockmarks and micro-depressions in this area are both holes in the seafloor that occur in softer sediments, but they are morphologically distinct. The cause and persistence of the pockmarks still remains a mystery, but we find no evidence they were created from gas or fluid in the seafloor in the recent past. The micro-depressions are recently formed erosional features; they are not 'incipient pockmarks.' Overall, a lot more work needs to be done to understand how all these features were formed, and this work is in progress."
Large Atmospheric Waves in the Jet Stream Present Risk to Global Food Production
Large Atmospheric Waves in the Jet Stream Present Risk to Global Food Production
Researchers at Oxford University, together with and international colleagues, have discovered jet stream patterns that could affect up to a quarter of global food production.In a new study published today in Nature Climate Change, scientists show how specific wave patterns in the jet stream strongly increase the chance of co-occurring heatwaves in major food producing regions of Northern America, Western Europe and Asia. Their research finds that these simultaneous heatwaves significantly reduce crop production across those regions, creating the risk of multiple harvest failures and other far-reaching societal consequences, including social unrest.
Lead author, Dr Kai Kornhuber from the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics and Colombia University’s Earth Institute, said: ‘Co-occurring heatwaves will become more severe in the coming decades if greenhouse gases are not mitigated. In an interconnected world, this can lead to food price spikes and have impacts on food availability even in remote regions not directly affected by heatwaves.
‘We found a 20-fold increase in the risk of simultaneous heatwaves in major crop producing regions when these global scale wind patterns are in place. Until now this was an underexplored vulnerability in the food system. We have found that during these events there actually is a global structure in the otherwise quite chaotic circulation. The bell can ring in multiple regions at once and the impacts of those specific interconnections were not quantified previously.’
Western North America, Western Europe and the Caspian Sea region are particularly susceptible to these atmospheric patterns that get heat and drought locked into one place simultaneously where they then affect crops production yields.
Dr Dim Coumou, co-author from the Institute for Environmental Studies at VU Amsterdam, said: ‘Normally low harvests in one region are expected to be balanced out by good harvests elsewhere but these waves can cause reduced harvests in several important breadbaskets simultaneously, creating risks for global food production.’
Dr Elisabeth Vogel, co-author from Melbourne University, said: ‘During years in which two or more summer weeks featured the amplified wave pattern, cereal crop production was reduced by more than 10% in individual regions, and by 4% when averaged across all crop regions affected by the pattern.’
Dr Radley Horton, co-author from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Colombia University, said: ‘If climate models are unable to reproduce these wave patterns, risk managers such as reinsurers and food security experts may face a blind spot when assessing how simultaneous heat waves and their impacts could change in a warming climate.’
The scientists conclude that a thorough understanding of what drives this jet stream behaviour could ultimately improve seasonal predictions of agricultural production at the global scale and inform risk assessments of harvest failures across multiple food-producing regions.
Strange Circles Appear On Forbidden Island, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Strange Circles Appear On Forbidden Island, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: Dec 2019 Location of discovery: Island of Carmen
A helicopter was passing over an island area and noticed something really strange. The beach area was littered with huge circles that were tied together. They almost appeare like we are looking at giant atoms...or perhaps the atomic structure of a totally new element. This island is forbidden for anyone to step onto it. Its considered a wildlife refuge...or so they say. But may be a hidden island that is used by aliens as a base location. These circles should not exist on an island where there are no humans on it. Obviously these circles were made by intelligent beings...if no humans...then aliens. Scott C. Waring
Strange Symbols Resembling Crop Circles Appear In UNESCO Protected Island
Symbols that resemble crop circles appeared in Isla del Carmen
The symbols appeared in nature reserve protected by UNESCO
A UFO expert believes the symbols were made by aliens
Several strange symbols resembling crop circles were spotted along the beaches of a nature reserve in Mexico that’s protected by UNESCO. According to a UFO expert, the symbols could have been made by intelligent alien life forms.
The symbols appeared on the beaches of an island in Mexico known as Isla del Carmen, which is situated in the Gulf of California. It is classified as a nature reserve and is under the protection of UNESCO.
According to the YouTube channel shadowland.13, photos of the mysterious symbols were taken by a helicopter pilot of the aviation company Specialized Aero as he was passing over the island. Based on the photos, the symbols were drawn on the sand and featured same-sized circles. Each of the circles was connected to each other by straight lines that were also drawn on the sand.
The symmetrical appearance and vastness of the symbols closely resemble the crop circles that usually appear in cornfields. Due to their mysterious nature, these symbols have been associated with UFOs and alien entities.
According to Scott Waring of ET Data Base, the strange symbols that appeared in Isla del Carmen resemble the structure of atoms or a new element.
“The beach area was littered with huge circles that were tied together,” he wrote on a blog post. “They almost appear like we are looking at giant atoms...or perhaps the atomic structure of a totally new element.”
Waring noted that the area where the symbols appeared is a protected site, which means people are not allowed to wander through it without proper authorization or a guide. Because of this, he believes that it is highly unlikely that the symbols were made by humans. He suggested that alien life forms may have taken advantage of the island’s remote nature to establish a base there.
“This island is forbidden for anyone to step onto it,” he stated. “It’s considered a wildlife refuge...or so they say. But maybe a hidden island that is used by aliens as a base location. These circles should not exist on an island where there are no humans on it. Obviously these circles were made by intelligent beings...if no humans...then aliens.”
Crop Circle found in Chualar, Ca, now known to be created by NVIDIA.
Retired USAF General claims advanced technology exists that could transport a human anywhere on earth within an hour
Retired USAF General claims advanced technology exists that could transport a human anywhere on earth within an hour
Recently retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast gave a lecture last month that seems to further signal that the next major battlefield will be outer space.
Kwast’s lecture included comments that heavily hint at the possibility that the United States military and its industry partners may have already developed next-generation technologies that have the potential to drastically change the aerospace field, and human civilization, forever, reports The Drive in their extensive article on advanced space technology.
Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast
Around the 12:00 mark in the video, Kwast makes the somewhat bizarre claim that the U.S. currently possesses revolutionary technologies that could render current aerospace capabilities obsolete:
"The technology is on the engineering benches today. But most Americans and most members of Congress have not had time to really look deeply at what is going on here. But I’ve had the benefit of 33 years of studying and becoming friends with these scientists."
"This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour."
Quantum physicist Deep Prasad previously hinted that he had an encounter with extraterrestrials which is why he became so interested in UFOs and aliens. And just recently he came forward with his story. On Thanksgiving, Prasad posted his experience to Twitter and it is one interesting story to say the least.
Deep Prasad@Deepneuron
A lot of people have asked what the beings I saw looked like. The glyphs are just impressions, I can't remember any specific one with 100% certainty. Hope this helps..and I felt no weight from them, but their touch felt like hard plastic.
It’s a pretty lengthy story (the full transcript can be read here as well as on Prasad’s Twitter account), so I’ll just summarize the most important and highly interesting parts.
He began the post by stating that on February 1st of this year, around 9:40 a.m., he became paralyzed and witnessed three strange beings that were communicating in a mysterious and incomprehensible language. The words/sentences that he saw were written in a sort of hieroglyphic texts/symbols and the only word Prasad understood was “DNA” – which he read at least three different times.
He noticed that he was no longer in his room and was somewhere he didn’t recognize. One of the beings jumped on top of him and walked towards Prasad’s head. At that point, he felt “the most blissful, euphoric feeling” that he ever had. After experiencing that “oneness” feeling for a few minutes, he was knocked out and lost consciousness, but immediately woke back up.
He experienced “impossible electrical anomalies” wherever he went for approximately two weeks after the encounter. He then went to the SCU conference where he met Lue Elizondo along with other people who shared his interest in UFOs and aliens.
As for his emotional well-being, Prasad claimed to have still felt the feeling of “oneness” for about two weeks after the encounter and had lost any feelings of depression, stress, anxiety and trauma. He said that he was unable to feel fear and had nothing but love for everyone. He also became spiritual after his encounter. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling that way and even considered getting an MRI in order to find out which parts of his brain were “rewired”.
He did, however, begin to have dreams where he was looking at the inside of a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and the beings in his dreams communicated with him telepathically. He even saw an unidentified craft only weeks after his experience with the aliens. As a matter of fact, he had a total of four UFO encounters since his experience – two of them he was able to record.
He finished off his story by stating that he was “grateful for the experience” and that he’s thankful for everyone that he has met since his encounter. But wait, there’s more! Prasad drew a picture of what the alien beings looked like (the sketch can be seen here). So, was he really transported to an alien craft where he witnessed extraterrestrials? Like I said, it’s one interesting story to say the least.
Climate scientists are speaking out against grossly exaggerated claims about global warming.
GETTY
Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of apocalyptic predictions about the impact of climate change. Bill McKibben suggested climate-driven fires in Australia had made koalas “functionally extinct.” Extinction Rebellion said “Billions will die” and “Life on Earth is dying.” Viceclaimed the “collapse of civilization may have already begun.”
Few have underscored the threat more than student climate activist Greta Thunberg and Green New Deal sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter said, “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change.” Says Thunberg in her new book, “Around 2030 we will be in a position to set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.”
Sometimes, scientists themselves make apocalyptic claims. “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that,” if Earth warms four degrees, said one earlier this year. “The potential for multi-breadbasket failure is increasing,” said another. If sea levels rise as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts, another scientist said, “It will be an unmanageable problem.”
Apocalyptic statements like these have real-world impacts. In September, a group of British psychologists said children are increasingly suffering from anxiety from the frightening discourse around climate change. In October, an activist with Extinction Rebellion (”XR”) — an environmental group founded in 2018 to commit civil disobedience to draw awareness to the threat its founders and supporters say climate change poses to human existence — and a videographer, were kicked and beaten in a London Tube station by angry commuters. And last week, an XR co-founder said a genocide like the Holocaust was “happening again, on a far greater scale, and in plain sight” from climate change.
Climate change is an issue I care passionately about and have dedicated a significant portion of my life to addressing. I have been politically active on the issue for over 20 years and have researched and written about it for 17 years. Over the last four years, my organization, Environmental Progress, has worked with some of the world’s leading climate scientists to prevent carbon emissions from rising. So far, we’ve helped prevent emissions increasing the equivalent of adding 24 million cars to the road.
I also care about getting the facts and science right and have in recent months corrected inaccurate and apocalyptic news media coverage of fires in the Amazon and fires in California, both of which have been improperly presented as resulting primarily from climate change.
Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.
I feel the need to say this up-front because I want the issues I’m about to raise to be taken seriously and not dismissed by those who label as “climate deniers” or “climate delayers” anyone who pushes back against exaggeration.
With that out of the way, let’s look whether the science supports what’s being said.
First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species. “‘Our children are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years.’ What’s the scientific basis for these claims?” BBC’s Andrew Neil asked a visibly uncomfortable XR spokesperson last month.
“These claims have been disputed, admittedly,” she said. “There are some scientists who are agreeing and some who are saying it’s not true. But the overall issue is that these deaths are going to happen.”
“But most scientists don’t agree with this,” said Neil. “I looked through IPCC reports and see no reference to billions of people going to die, or children in 20 years. How would they die?”
“Mass migration around the world already taking place due to prolonged drought in countries, particularly in South Asia. There are wildfires in Indonesia, the Amazon rainforest, Siberia, the Arctic,” she said.
But in saying so, the XR spokesperson had grossly misrepresented the science. “There is robust evidence of disasters displacing people worldwide,” notes IPCC, “but limited evidence that climate change or sea-level rise is the direct cause”
What about “mass migration”? “The majority of resultant population movements tend to occur within the borders of affected countries," says IPCC.
It’s not like climate doesn’t matter. It’s that climate change is outweighed by other factors. Earlier this year, researchers found that climate “has affected organized armed conflict within countries. However, other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are judged to be substantially more influential.”
Last January, after climate scientists criticized Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for saying the world would end in 12 years, her spokesperson said "We can quibble about the phraseology, whether it's existential or cataclysmic.” He added, “We're seeing lots of [climate change-related] problems that are already impacting lives."
That last part may be true, but it’s also true that economic development has made us less vulnerable, which is why there was a 99.7% decline in the death toll from natural disasters since its peak in 1931.
In 1931, 3.7 million people died from natural disasters. In 2018, just 11,000 did. And that decline occurred over a period when the global population quadrupled.
What about sea level rise? IPCC estimates sea level could rise two feet (0.6 meters) by 2100. Does that sound apocalyptic or even “unmanageable”?
Consider that one-third of the Netherlands is below sea level, and some areas areseven meters below sea level. You might object that Netherlands is rich while Bangladesh is poor. But the Netherlands adapted to living below sea level 400 years ago. Technology has improved a bit since then.
What about claims of crop failure, famine, and mass death? That’s science fiction, not science. Humans today produce enough food for 10 billion people, or 25% more than we need, and scientific bodies predict increases in that share, not declines.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts crop yields increasing 30% by 2050. And the poorest parts of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, are expected to see increases of 80 to 90%.
Nobody is suggesting climate change won’t negatively impact crop yields. It could. But such declines should be put in perspective. Wheat yields increased 100 to 300% around the world since the 1960s, while a study of 30 models found that yields would decline by 6% for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature.
Rates of future yield growth depend far more on whether poor nations get access to tractors, irrigation, and fertilizer than on climate change, says FAO.
All of this helps explain why IPCC anticipates climate change will have a modest impact on economic growth. By 2100, IPCC projects the global economy will be 300 to 500% larger than it is today. Both IPCC and the Nobel-winning Yale economist, William Nordhaus, predict that warming of 2.5°C and 4°C would reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 2% and 5% over that same period.
Does this mean we shouldn’t worry about climate change? Not at all.
One of the reasons I work on climate change is because I worry about the impact it could have on endangered species. Climate change may threaten one million species globally and half of all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians in diverse places like the Albertine Rift in central Africa, home to the endangered mountain gorilla.
But it’s not the case that “we’re putting our own survival in danger” through extinctions, as Elizabeth Kolbert claimed in her book, Sixth Extinction. As tragic as animal extinctions are, they do not threaten human civilization. If we want to save endangered species, we need to do so because we care about wildlife for spiritual, ethical, or aesthetic reasons, not survival ones.
And exaggerating the risk, and suggesting climate change is more important than things like habitat destruction, are counterproductive.
For example, Australia’s fires are not driving koalas extinct, as Bill McKibben suggested. The main scientific body that tracks the species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, labels the koala “vulnerable,” which is one level less threatened than “endangered,” two levels less than “critically endangered,” and three less than “extinct” in the wild.
Should we worry about koalas? Absolutely! They are amazing animals and their numbers have declined to around 300,000. But they face far bigger threats such as the destruction of habitat, disease, bushfires, and invasive species.
Think of it this way. The climate could change dramatically — and we could still save koalas. Conversely, the climate could change only modestly — and koalas could still go extinct.
The monomaniacal focus on climate distracts our attention from other threats to koalas and opportunities for protecting them, like protecting and expanding their habitat.
As for fire, one of Australia’s leading scientists on the issue says, “Bushfire losses can be explained by the increasing exposure of dwellings to fire-prone bushlands. No other influences need be invoked. So even if climate change had played some small role in modulating recent bushfires, and we cannot rule this out, any such effects on risk to property are clearly swamped by the changes in exposure.”
Nor are the fires solely due to drought, which is common in Australia, and exceptional this year. “Climate change is playing its role here,” said Richard Thornton of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre in Australia, “but it's not the cause of these fires."
The same is true for fires in the United States. In 2017, scientists modeled 37 different regions and found “humans may not only influence fire regimes but their presence can actually override, or swamp out, the effects of climate.” Of the 10 variables that influence fire, “none were as significant… as the anthropogenic variables,” such as building homes near, and managing fires and wood fuel growth within, forests.
Climate scientists are starting to push back against exaggerations by activists, journalists, and other scientists.
“While many species are threatened with extinction,” said Stanford’s Ken Caldeira, “climate change does not threaten human extinction... I would not like to see us motivating people to do the right thing by making them believe something that is false.”
I asked the Australian climate scientist Tom Wigley what he thought of the claim that climate change threatens civilization. “It really does bother me because it’s wrong,” he said. “All these young people have been misinformed. And partly it’s Greta Thunberg’s fault. Not deliberately. But she’s wrong.”
But don’t scientists and activists need to exaggerate in order to get the public’s attention?
“I’m reminded of what [late Stanford University climate scientist] Steve Schneider used to say,” Wigley replied. “He used to say that as a scientist, we shouldn’t really be concerned about the way we slant things in communicating with people out on the street who might need a little push in a certain direction to realize that this is a serious problem. Steve didn’t have any qualms about speaking in that biased way. I don’t quite agree with that.”
Wigley started working on climate science full-time in 1975 and created one of the first climate models (MAGICC) in 1987. It remains one of the main climate models in use today.
“When I talk to the general public,” he said, “I point out some of the things that might make projections of warming less and the things that might make them more. I always try to present both sides.”
Part of what bothers me about the apocalyptic rhetoric by climate activists is that it is often accompanied by demands that poor nations be denied the cheap sources of energy they need to develop. I have found that many scientists share my concerns.
“If you want to minimize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2070 you might want to accelerate the burning of coal in India today,” MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said.
“It doesn’t sound like it makes sense. Coal is terrible for carbon. But it’s by burning a lot of coal that they make themselves wealthier, and by making themselves wealthier they have fewer children, and you don’t have as many people burning carbon, you might be better off in 2070.”
Emanuel and Wigley say the extreme rhetoric is making political agreement on climate change harder.
“You’ve got to come up with some kind of middle ground where you do reasonable things to mitigate the risk and try at the same time to lift people out of poverty and make them more resilient,” said Emanuel. “We shouldn’t be forced to choose between lifting people out of poverty and doing something for the climate.”
Happily, there is a plenty of middle ground between climate apocalypse and climate denial.
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Linda Moulton Howe: High Ranking Naval Engineer Talks of Reptilians & Secret Space Technology
Linda Moulton Howe: High Ranking Naval Engineer Talks of Reptilians & Secret Space Technology
Retired Naval engineer Bill Tompkins told Linda that while working for Naval intelligence during that period, he became aware of UFO program, and that a group of Reptilian aliens were giving Germany, space vehicles with anti-gravitational propulsion, as well as access to underground caverns in Antarctica where they could develop the new technology.
He also contended that when the first astronauts landed on the moon, Reptilians were standing on the surface underneath their vehicles, just out of camera range.
A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often inexplicable) phenomena.
Is Trump Right? Do We Need An Alien War To Unite? UFO Sighting News.
Is Trump Right? Do We Need An Alien War To Unite? UFO Sighting News.
His name is Prince Ea and he has almost 5 million subscribers on Youtube. Here is a really great guy who is a guru of sorts to the soul. He said that president Trump said he wanted to turn space into a "war fighting domain."
This sounds crazy, but the way Prince Ea explains it...Trump is right. A space war may be the answer to all of our problems here on earth. The fastest way to create world peace would be an alien attack. It would unite the world to fight a foreign enemy invader. As Prince Ea puts it...we unite when in conflict. I didn't believe so at first, but by the end of his video...I realized he was right. Scary thought, but the truth often is. Scott C. Waring
Study shows there’s nothing wacky about conspiracy theorists
Study shows there’s nothing wacky about conspiracy theorists
Jessica Fagan
Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have delved into the world of online conspiracy theories, showing most of the people behind them are actually pretty ordinary.
The study looked at eight years of content, sifting through more than two billion comments posted on Reddit, including everything posted to the subreddit r/conspiracy.
Image credit: Pixabay
R/conspiracy covers everything from UFOs and 9/11, to political conspiracy theories like 'pizzagate', which took off during the 2016 US election campaign.
But despite the subject matter, lead author of the study Dr Colin Klein says conspiracy theorists aren't always a bunch of "crackpots wearing tinfoil hats".
"In the past before the rise of online forums like Reddit, we tended to only hear about the most extreme views, and those people tended to naturally be wary about talking to someone else about their beliefs," Dr Klein said.
"These massive online forums paint a very different picture.
"The enormous set of comments we examined show many r/conspiracy users actually have more 'sensible' interests.
"For example conspiracy theories about police abuse of power are common. That's not so crazy.
"These people might believe false things, but with good reason - because similar things have happened in the past."
Professor Klein and his team also found that while there are subtle differences in the language used by those who end up posting on r/conspiracy, it's not necessarily enough to set them apart from other Reddit users.
"You might find they talk more about power or power structures, but their language is not that different from what ordinarily goes on in a forum like r/politics. You can't distinguish them that way.
"It's very easy to look at conspiracy theories and think they're super wacky, and the people who believe in them are crazy, but it's actually much more continuous with a lot of things we do every day.
"Low level theorising goes on a lot in everyday life, I'm inclined to think the stuff you see online is just a strong outgrowth of that."
According to Dr Klein, forums like r/conspiracy can also be driven by current events.
"For example, Reddit attracted a whole new set of users following the election of US President Donald Trump.
"He also generates quite a lot of in-fighting amongst users. This is what makes it such great way to study social dynamics."
The data also reveals how people come to start posting on the r/conspiracy forum. The rise of Internet echo chambers is a factor - but there's much more at play.
"We followed people who started using Reddit and posted for about six months before they ended up on r/conspiracy," Dr Klein said.
"You find two people who, for example, both started on the popular 'ask me anything' Reddit, and one ends up talking about conspiracies and one doesn't.
"People who go on to post on r/conspiracy also tend to be over-represented in the political forums, but it's not like they're hyper-focused.
"This suggests a more active process where people are seeking out sympathetic communities. This process of finding like-minded people is something we see a lot of on the Internet."
The research has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
A mysterious radar track yesterday prompted Washington D.C. to go on alert.
A search of the area turned up nothing.
A reporter for CBS News noticed a missile launcher during the alert.
A mysterious radar return prompted yesterday that an unauthorized aircraft was flying over the restricted airspace of Washington D.C. A search of the area reportedly turned up nothing, but one reporter located in the city did notice something: a surface to air missile system across the street from the White House.
At approximately 8:30am local time, a “track of interest” on a radar at the Capitol Police command center was detected over Washington D.C. The track was described as a “slow moving blob.”
Washington’s skies are heavily regulated, the result of the 9/11 attacks in order to protect the White House, Capitol building, and other government locations. North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, sent a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter to investigate. The helicopter, call sign “Blackjack,” did not notice anything unusual but note it nearly ran into a flock of birds at 1,300 feet.
The alert lasted 45 minutes. During that time a CBS News reporter, Sara Cook, noticed something unusual on a building across the street from the White House: a missile launcher.
Sara Cook✔@saraecook
·
.@SecretService statement on this morning's lockdown at the White House:
“The White House was locked down this morning due to a potential violation of the restricted airspace in the National Capital Region. The lockdown has been lifted at this time.”
Sara Cook✔@saraecook
Spotted during the lockdown: a missile battery in position atop a building across the street from the White House
The launcher is an Avenger air defense missile system. Avenger consists of eight Stinger missiles and a M3 .50 caliber machine gun, and was originally designed to protect U.S. Army forces from low-level air attack. Avenger is typically mounted on a Humvee, but the Washington system appears to be mounted on a pedestal on top of the building.
Stinger is a short range system with a relatively small explosive warhead, so it is ideally suited for shooting down hostile small aircraft, drones, and other threats in and around the White House. Stinger missiles are infrared-guided and have a range of approximately two miles.
The Avenger system could be the missile launcher first spotted in 2004, on top of the nearby New Executive Office Building. It appears to be in a position where it is only noticeable from certain locations on the ground. It is visible on Google Maps on the northwest corner of the building.
Artificial Intelligence BREAKTHROUGH: 'Better than human' AI algorithm beats brain in test
Artificial Intelligence BREAKTHROUGH: 'Better than human' AI algorithm beats brain in test
AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence algorithm designed to interpret images and video has beaten human scientists at mapping active neurons in the brain, a shocking new study has claimed.
Bio-engineers studying the complexities of the brain in mice chart out each individual neuron as it fires off during periods of activity. Using a process known as two-photon calcium imaging, scientists see bright spikes and flashes of light in the brain – nerve impulses firing off in response to stimulus. The process is incredibly slow, arduous and requires scientists to circle every single neuron, which lights up like a lightbulb. However, an incredible artificial intelligence algorithm tested by Duke University in North Carolina, US, has proven to be much more effective at the job.
A Duke study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found the AI automated process is as accurate but considerably faster.
The algorithm, according to its lead author, appears to be “better than human experts”.
Duke University said in a statement: “This new technique, based on using artificial intelligence to interpret images, addresses a critical roadblock in neuron analysis, allowing researchers to rapidly gather and process neuronal signals for real-time behavioural studies.”
Typically, the human-led process of mapping neuron activity in a 30-minute-long video would take researchers anywhere from four to 24 hours.
Artificial intelligence trialled by Duke, on the other hand, was able to complete the process in mere minutes.
Artificial intelligence: AI algorithms are as accurate and faster than human experts
(Image: GETTY)
The AI proved faster and does not require food, hydration, toilet breaks or sleep to operate at peak performance.
Sina Farsiu, an associate professor of engineering at Duke, said: “As a critical step towards complete mapping of brain activity, we were tasked with the formidable challenge of developing a fast automated algorithm that as accurate as humans for segmenting a variety of active neurons imaged under different experimental settings.”
Fellow Duke researcher and professor Yiyang Gong said: “The data analysis bottleneck has existed in neuroscience for a long time – data analysts have spent hours and hours processing minutes of data, but this algorithm can process a 30-minute video in 20 to 30 minutes.
“We were also able to generalise its performance, so it can operate equally well if we need to segment neurons from another layer of the brain with different neuron size or densities.”
And Somayyeh Soltanian-Zadeh, a Duke PhD student and the study’s lead author said: “Our deep learning-based algorithm is fast and is demonstrated to be as accurate as, if not better than, human experts in segmenting and overlapping neurones from two-photon microscopy recordings.
Algorithm is fast and is demonstrated to be as accurate as, if not better than, human
Somayyeh Soltanian-Zadeh, Duke University
Deep learning algorithms give scientists and researchers a chance to trawl through cast amounts of data with relative ease.
AI algorithms can be trained to identify different parts of a complex image for a specific purpose – in this case, to track firing neurons.
Duke’s researchers were so impressed with the algorithm’s ability to beat humans, they have made their software publicly available to the public.
Artificial intelligence: AI algorithms rapidly track firing neurons in mouse brains (pictured)
(Image: DUKE UNIVERSITY)
The scientists are confident the application of AI in researcher can boost the speed at which bio-engineers study the mysteries of the brain.
Ms Soltanian-Zadeh said: “This improved performance in active neuron detection should provide more information about the neural network and behavioural states, and open the door for accelerated progress in neuroscience experiments.”
The news comes after scientists have developed a machine capable of predicting the future.
Artificial intelligence: Deep learning can be trained to interpret images
(Image: GETTY)
Experts in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence have also warned the rise of intelligent machines threatens to displace millions of people from their workplaces.
Nisreen Ameen, a lecturer at Queen Marty University of London, argued in an article for The Conversation higher education might be affected by smart technologies.
She said: “Artificial intelligence is set to have a significant impact. And not just on teaching and learning, but also on the whole student experience – innovation infused with traditional academic processes.
“This will change the classroom experience and how universities communicate with students, with lectures and marking potentially done by robots.”
Authored by Dagny Taggart via the organic pepper blog
Experts have been warning us about potential dangers associated with artificial intelligence for quite some time. But is it too late to do anything about the impending rise of the machines?
Once the stuff of far-fetched dystopian science fiction, the idea of robot overlords taking over the world at some point now seems inevitable.
The late Dr. Stephen Hawking issued some harsh and terrifying words of caution back in 2014:
The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded. (source)
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, warned that we could see some terrifying issues within the next few years:
The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most. Please note that I am normally super pro technology and have never raised this issue until recent months. This is not a case of crying wolf about something I don’t understand.
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast — it is growing at a pace close to exponential.
I am not alone in thinking we should be worried.
The leading AI companies have taken great steps to ensure safety. They recognize the danger, but believe that they can shape and control the digital superintelligences and prevent bad ones from escaping into the Internet. That remains to be seen… (source)
Experts say it is time to study “machine behavior.”
Last week, a team of researchers made a case for a wide-ranging scientific research agenda aimed at understanding the behavior of artificial intelligence systems. The group, led by researchers at the MIT Media Lab, published a paper in Nature in which they called for a new field of research called “machine behavior.” The new field would take the study of artificial intelligence “well beyond computer science and engineering into biology, economics, psychology, and other behavioral and social sciences,” according to an MIT Media Lab press release.
Scientists have studied human behavior for decades, and now it is time to apply that kind of research to intelligent machines, the group explained. Because artificial intelligence is doing more collective ‘thinking,’ the same interdisciplinary approach needs to be applied to understanding machine behavior, the authors say.
“We need more open, trustworthy, reliable investigation into the impact intelligent machines are having on society, and so research needs to incorporate expertise and knowledge from beyond the fields that have traditionally studied it,” said Iyad Rahwan, who leads the Scalable Cooperation group at the Media Lab.
Machines are making decisions and taking action without human input.
Rahwan explains:
“We’re seeing the rise of machines with agency, machines that are actors making decisions and taking actions autonomously. This calls for a new field of scientific study that looks at them not solely as products of engineering and computer science but additionally as a new class of actors with their own behavioral patterns and ecology.” (source)
“We’re seeing an emergence of machines as agents in human society; these are social machines that are making decisions that have real value implications in society,” says David Lazer, who is one of the authors of the paper, as well as University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer and Information Sciences at Northeastern.
We interact numerous times each day with thinking machines, as the press release explains:
We may ask Siri to find the dry cleaner nearest to our home, tell Alexa to order dish soap, or get a medical diagnosis generated by an algorithm. Many such tools that make life easier are in fact “thinking” on their own, acquiring knowledge and building on it and even communicating with other thinking machines to make ever more complex judgments and decisions—and in ways that not even the programmers who wrote their code can fully explain.
Imagine, for instance, a news feed run by a deep neural net recommends an article to you from a gardening magazine, even though you’re not a gardener. “If I asked the engineer who designed the algorithm, that engineer would not be able to state in a comprehensive and causal way why that algorithm decided to recommend that article to you,” said Nick Obradovich, a research scientist in the Scalable Cooperation group and one of the lead authors of the Nature paper.
Parents often think of their children’s interaction with the family personal assistant as charming or funny. But what happens when the assistant, rich with cutting-edge AI, responds to a child’s fourth or fifth question about T. Rex by suggesting, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you had this dinosaur as a toy?”
“What’s driving that recommendation?” Rahwan said. “Is the device trying to do something to enrich the child’s experience—or to enrich the company selling the toy dinosaur? It’s very hard to answer that question.” (source)
There is still a lot we don’t know about how machines make decisions.
What hasn’t been examined as closely is how these algorithms work. How do they evolve with use? How do machines develop a specific behavior? How do algorithms function within a specific social or cultural environment? These issues need to be studied, the group says.
There is a significant barrier to the type of research the group is proposing, however:
But even if big tech companies decided to share information about their algorithms and otherwise allow researchers more access to them, there is an even bigger barrier to research and investigation, which is that AI agents can acquire novel behaviors as they interact with the world around them and with other agents. The behaviors learned from such interactions are virtually impossible to predict, and even when solutions can be described mathematically, they can be “so lengthy and complex as to be indecipherable,” according to the paper. (source)
And, there are ethical concerns surrounding how AI makes decisions:
Say, for instance, a hypothetical self-driving car is sold as being the safest on the market. One of the factors that makes it safer is that it “knows” when a big truck pulls up along its left side and automatically moves itself three inches to the right while still remaining in its own lane. But what if a cyclist or motorcycle happens to be pulling up on the right at the same time and is thus killed because of this safety feature?
“If you were able to look at the statistics and look at the behavior of the car in the aggregate, it might be killing three times the number of cyclists over a million rides than another model,” Rahwan said. “As a computer scientist, how are you going to program the choice between the safety of the occupants of the car and the safety of those outside the car? You can’t just engineer the car to be ‘safe’—safe for whom?“ (source)
The researchers explain that it will take experts from a host of scientific disciplines to study the way machines behave in the real world, as a press release from Northeastern University states. “The process of understanding how online dating algorithms are changing the societal institution of marriage, or determining whether our interaction with artificial intelligence affects our human development, will require more than just the mathematicians and engineers who built those algorithms.”
As we watch robots, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence machines and the like slowly (and sometimes rapidly) permeate our world, it’s not hard to imagine them going from permeating to taking over. Reaching that point, even those who don’t watch sci-fi movies can see the possibility of rogue robots and AI machines using computer logic to eliminate the one thing that could stop their takeover – humans – and initiating a robot apocalypse. Fortunately, some computer scientists in California have developed an algorithm that trains robots to always avoid the bad, human-elimination decisions and stay on the path of good, obedient servitude instead. How well do you think this will work?
“We want to advance AI that respects the values of its human users and justifies the trust we place in autonomous systems.”
In a Stanford University press release announcing the publication in the journal Science of the paper “Preventing undesirable behavior of intelligent machines,” Emma Brunskill, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and senior author of the paper, illustrates the alleged noble goal of robot and AI developers – making them tools for the good of humankind – and describes the algorithm she and her colleagues have designed to accomplish – and hopefully guarantee – that goal.
“We show how the designers of machine learning algorithms can make it easier for people who want to build AI into their products and services to describe unwanted outcomes or behaviors that the AI system will avoid with high-probability.”
The idea is to describe bad decisions and behaviors mathematically. While “don’t do this or the patient will die” decisions are easy to describe, behaviors such as gender bias – a line AI is crossing as it’s used more and more to evaluate employment or school applications – requires a sense of fairness that is obviously much harder to define mathematically. The Stanford researchers modified the algorithm in a program designed to predict the future grade point averages of students and it learned to avoid bias toward one gender. While “fairness” is much more vague than “life or death,” the researchers believe it can – and should – be built into all AI using their algorithm.
Does all of this sound familiar? The paper refers to this solution as a “Seldonian algorithm” and fans of Isaac Asimov will recognize that obvious reference to Hari Seldon, the mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor in Asimov’s “Foundation” sci-fi series. Seldon developed psychohistory, an algorithmic science that allowed him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. It worked for Hari Seldon … will it work for us?
“Given the recent rise of real-world ML applications and the corresponding surge of potential harm that they could cause, it is imperative that ML algorithms provide their users with an effective means for controlling behavior. To this end, we have proposed a framework for designing ML algorithms and
shown how it can be used to construct algorithms that provide their users with the ability to easily (that is, without requiring additional data analysis) place limits on the probability that the algorithm will produce any specified undesirable behavior.”
Why do humans want us to avoid bad behavior when bad behavior is so much fun?
In the paper’s conclusion on using machine learning (ML) algorithms to change robot behavior, that nasty word “probability” pops up. The algorithm is not a 100% guarantee of robot apocalypse prevention and even if it were, it depends on humans using it in all applications. Just as it’s easy to imagine a robot apocalypse, it’s easy to imagine it being caused by unscrupulous businesses leaving the “bad behavior prevention algorithm” out to cut costs or make more profits.
Henry Lee was the 19th century expert on sea serpents, as we have seen in several articles I wrote last week. As far as the 20th century is concerned, however, there is no doubt about to whom the crown was passed. It was one Bernard Heuvelmans, whose work, In the Wake of the Sea Serpents, is the defining book on the subject. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman – who, with Patrick Huyghe, wroteThe Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mysterious Denizens of the Deep – said of Heuvelmans, who died in 2001: “From 1948 on, Heuvelmans exhaustively sought evidence in scientific and literary sources. Within five years he had amassed so much material that he was ready to write a large book. That book turned out to be Sur la piste des betes ignorees, published in 1955, and better known in its English translation three years later as On the Track of Unknown Animals.” As for In the Wake of the Sea Serpents, it became a classic – and, to this day, it very much remains a highly important research tool for creature-seekers everywhere.
Of particular significance is Heuvelman’s theory – based upon 358 sightings – that there are far more than just one kind of animal that falls into the sea serpent category. Heuvelmans’ list of creatures is an important one. It not only describes the physical appearances of the animals: it also reveals which kinds of creatures are most often seen – at least, at the time that Heuvelmans compiled his list. He began with what he termed the “long-necked” type, for which Heuvelmans had forty-eight reports. This particular group, he added, had necks that ranged from long to “very long,” a “median hump on the back,” and a pair of horns on the head. As for the color of the creatures, they were typically mottled.
Second on Heuvelman’s list was the “merhorse.” It had, said Heuvelmans, a “long floating mane,” huge eyes, a long neck, and whiskers on the face. For this entry, Heuvelmans had studied no less than thirty-seven cases. The third entry was focused on “many-humped” animals. As their title suggests, they had a “string of dorsal humps of virtually equal size.” The necks were not overly large, and had white stripes on their necks. Now, we move onto the “many finned” beast of the deep. As for these creatures they had “several triangular fins looking like a huge crest.” They also had a jagged crest on the spine and “prominent” eyes. Then, there was the “super otter.” Heuvelmans described it as having “a slender medium-length neck” and a “long tapering tail.” The color was beige or grey, according to the thirteen sightings that Heuvelmans had in his files.
The “super eel” plays an important role in Heuvelmans’ work, as in more recent times reports of massive eels are growing and growing. Twelve reports that Heuvelmans had on file allowed him to make a good image of the animals. They had a long neck, one which formed “am extension of the head.” The tail was “long [and] tapering,” “Leaps out of the water and falls back with a splash,” Heuvelmans told his readers. “The marine saurian” was very much like a crocodile, albeit seen in an “oceanic habitat.” Then, there was the “father-of-all-the-turtles.” Yes, we’re talking about giant turtles, a subject that I will return to here at Mysterious Universe on a later occasion. And, finally, Heuvelmans introduced his followers to “yellow belly,” a beast that was yellow with black stripes. Heuvelmans said of his list that, “It is not surprising that the types based on a few not very detailed sightings have few determining characteristics. It follows that the least well-defined types may include several different species, not necessarily related to one another.”
If you are into Cryptozoology and have not yet read Heuvelman’s classic book, you really should!
While most of the Star Wars saga has been filmed on sound stages in England and Australia, the filmmakers behind the ongoing space opera have sometimes traveled to real-life places to create the alien worlds of a galaxy far, far away. Here are 20 Star Wars movie locations you can visit in real life.
1. AJIM, TUNISIA
George Lucas used various locations around Tunisia to film exteriors for the desert planet Tatooine, most notably the ferry port town ofAjim. The town was used for the exteriors of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home, which was actually an old mosque, plus the Mos Eisley Spaceport in A New Hope.
2. THE HÔTEL SIDI DRISS // MATMATAT-AL-QADIMAL, TUNISIA
The Hôtel Sidi Driss in Matmatat-Al-Qadimal, Tunisia was used as the Lars homestead (Luke Skywalker’s childhood home) in A New Hope. The hotel consists of five pits, four of them reserved for lodging and sleeping, the fifth dubbed the “Star Wars pit.” Guests can dine in the Lars family dining room, now the hotel’s restaurant. The set dressings were removed after filming in 1976, but returned in the year 2000 in order to film scenes for Attack of the Clones. Ever since, the decorations have remained. Fittingly, it's more commonly known as the "Star Wars hotel."
3. DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA
George Lucas used Death Valley National Park for pickup shots after shooting in Tunisia for A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. The area between Sierra Nevada and the Mojave Desert, along with Tunisia, were used to make the desert planet of Tatooine come to life, most notably in the scene when Obi-Wan Kenobi meets Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and R2-D2 for the first time.
For Return of the Jedi, Twenty Mule Team Canyon in Death Valley was used to film the scene in which C-3PO and R2-D2 travel to Jabba's Palace.
The Empire Strikes Back'ssnowy opening battle scene on the ice planet Hoth was filmed on the Hardangerjøkulen Glacier, the sixth largest glacier in Norway.
5. FINSE, NORWAY
At the foot of the Hardangerjøkulen glacier is the small railroad town of Finse, Norway, which is located between Oslo and Bergen, and was used as the Rebel Alliance’s Echo Base on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. While shooting in 1979, a snowstorm hit the small town, allowing director Irvin Kershner to shoot two key scenes: Luke Skywalker's escape from the Wampa cave, as well as the young hero's interaction with the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi before he is rescued by Han Solo. Both scenes were shot just outside of the Finse 1222 Hotel.
In A New Hope, Lucas used ancient Mayan ruins, located in Guatemala's Tikal National Park, as the exterior of the Rebel Alliance’s Massassi Outpost.
7. YUMA DESERT, ARIZONA
Instead of returning to Tunisia for Return of the Jedi, the film's producers chose to shoot Buttercup Valley in Arizona's Yuma Desert for the Sarlacc Pit sequence. Jabba's Sail Barge and the Sarlacc Pit took more than five months to build, and more than 5500 cast and crew members lodged in Yuma during filming in 1982.
8. REDWOOD NATIONAL AND STATE PARKS, CALIFORNIA
California's Redwood National and State Parks portrayed the Forest Moon of Endor, the Ewoks’ home world, in Return of the Jedi. Several scenes, such as the speeder bike chase and the Ewok ambush, were shot in the parks’ many redwood groves in Marin County, which is close to Lucas’s home at Skywalker Ranch.
Most of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were shot at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney using green screen. However, Lucas would occasionally send crews out to capture scenery in various locations around the world for the plate photography used in background shots.
One of the real-life places shot for Revenge of the Sith was the beautiful mountain range of Grindelwald, Switzerland, which was used as the backdrop for the planet Alderaan, Princess Leia’s home.
10. VILLA DEL BALBIANELLO // LENNO, ITALY
The Lake Retreat where Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala go into hiding in Attack of the Clones is located at the Villa del Balbainello in Lenno, Italy. Originally built in 1787, the villa overlooks Lake Como and served as a monastery before it was turned over to the National Trust of Italy in 1988. Villa del Balbainello makes another appearance at the end of Attack of the Clones, as the location for Anakin and Padme’s wedding.
The Palace of Caserta in southern Italy, just northeast of Napoli, was used to shoot the interiors of the Theed Royal Palace on Naboo in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Originally built for Bourbon King Charles III in the 1750s, the Palace of Caserta is also the largest royal residence in the world.
12. PHANG NGA BAY // PHUKET, THAILAND
The beautiful island backdrop of Phang Nga Bay in Thailand was used as plate photography for the planet Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s birthplace, in Revenge of the Sith. For certain scenes, shots of Guilin, China were combined with Phang Nga Bay.
Lucas used England's Whippendell Wood for two scenes in The Phantom Menace: In the first instance, it's where Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet Jar-Jar Binks; the other shows the Wood as a sacred place for Jar-Jar's species, the Gungans.
14. PLAZA DE ESPAÑA // SEVILLE, SPAIN
The beautiful Plaza de España in Seville, Spain was used for the exterior of Theed on Naboo in Attack of the Clones. Anakin and Padme walk through the plaza before the pair go into hiding in the Lake Country.
15. MOUNT ETNA // SICILY, ITALY
LUCASFILM
Although Lucas actually didn’t shoot on Mount Etna, his team used Italy’s most active volcano for plate photography for the epic light saber battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Mount Etna was actually erupting during filming, so Lucas sent a film crew to capture its flowing lava.
16. SKELLIG MICHAEL, IRELAND
LUCASFILM
The island planet of Ahch-To, which the exiled Luke Skywalker called home at the end of The Force Awakens, is actually the island of Skellig Michael, which is located about 7 miles off the southwest coast of Ireland. Around 600 CE, a group of monks built a monastery that sits more than 600 feet above sea level, along with hundreds of rock steps to reach the top. Today, it’s a popular tourist attraction for Star Wars fans because it’s where Rey received her Jedi training in The Last Jedi.
17. RUB' AL KHALI DESERT // ABU DHABI, UAE
LUCASFILM
From Rey’s scavenger marketplace to Poe Dameron and Finn’s crash landing in The Force Awakens, the desert planet of Jakku was filmed in a large section of the Rub' al Khali desert known as “The Empty Quarter,” which is located a few hours away from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The Star Wars cast and crew filmed for six months in the largest contiguous sand desert in the world under the production title “Avco,” named after the L.A. movie theater where director J.J. Abrams watched the original Star Wars for the first time in 1977.
Located near the crest of the Andes is Salar de Uyuni, the Earth’s largest salt flat. It stretches more than 4000 square miles across southwest Bolivia and was used as the filming location for Crait, a mineral planet covered in white salt and red soil where the Resistance held its last stand against the First Order in The Last Jedi. The salt flat was created when prehistoric lakes dried up during the last Ice Age and left more than 10 billion tons of natural salt behind.
19. LAAMU ATOLL, MALDIVES
INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC, A DIVISION OF LUCASFILM ENTERTAINMENT
During the climax of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the Rebel Alliance, led by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), breaks into an Imperial Base located on the planet Scarif to steal the top secret blueprints for the Death Star.
Director Gareth Edwards used Gan and Berasdhoo—two very large islands in the Laamu Atoll island cluster in the Maldives—as the filming location for Scarif, a remote tropical planet in the Outer Rim. "Scarif is based on a paradise world, so we had to go to paradise to film it," Edwards said during Star Wars Celebration in 2016.
In addition, the interior of the Imperial Security Complex on Scarif was mostly filmed in the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London, England. Film crews worked on an exciting chase scene through the subway station between midnight and 4 a.m. when it was closed to the public.
In The Last Jedi, Canto Bight is a casino city on the planet Cantonica, where Finn and Rose embark on a mission to find a master codebreaker to disable the First Order’s new weapon. Director Rian Johnson used the walled seaside city of Dubrovnik, Croatia as the filming location for the lavish city.
Dubrovnik, which is known as the “Pearl of the Adriatic,” was also used as the filming location for King’s Landing on Game of Thrones. So the Croatian city gets double the nerd cred for Game of Thrones and Star Wars fans alike.
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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..
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