Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 12 YEARS AND 11 MONTHS.
ON 06/05/2024 MORE THAN 1.972.210
VISITORS FROM 134 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
10-05-2024
Look! This Strange Cosmic Cloud Looks Like a Dinosaur
Look! This Strange Cosmic Cloud Looks Like a Dinosaur
This striking image of CG4 was captured by a telescope instrument originally built to study dark energy.
This strange cosmic cloud is called “the hand of God,” but it looks more like a Tyrannosaurus rex to us.
The reddish aura surrounding the cloud of gas and dust called CG4 comes from hydrogen gas, heated and ionized (electrically charged) by the radiation from massive nearby stars. That powerful bombardment of radiation is probably what eroded and stretched CG4 into its distinctive shape.
Astronomers call clouds like CG4 cometary globules, because their long, dust-shrouded tails look a bit like comets, even though they form completely different ways and on drastically different scales (one cometary globule probably contains a few star systems’ worth of actual comets). This one, CG4, is an especially dense patch of gas and dust within the larger Gum Nebula, which is home to the Vela Supernova Remnant and the Vela Pulsar.
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
NOIRLAB
Cometary globules like CG4 are just one form of a type of cosmic cloud called a Bok Globule. These clouds of gas and dust are so dense that visible and ultraviolet light can’t pass through them, making them appear as dark shadows in telescope images (when we can see them at all). The best way to see a Bok Globule is with an infrared telescope, like the Dark Energy Camera: an instrument mounted on the Victor Blanco Telescope on a mountaintop in Chile.
Weirdly, all of the 32 cometary globules in the Gum Nebula have their heads pointed toward the center of the nebula, where the fast-spinning Vela Pulsar lurks at the heart of the Vela Supernova Remnant; the pulsar and the expanding cloud of stellar debris around it are all that’s left of a massive star that exploded in a supernova about 1 million years ago. That explosion, along with radiation and charged particles from nearby massive stars in the Gum Nebula, may have shaped CG4 and other cometary globules into their streamlined shapes.
If you’d like a sense of scale, CG4 is about 1300 light years away. Its head is about 1.5 light-years wide, and its faint tail stretches across 8 light years.
Sahara was ooit weelderig groen, blijkt uit rotstekeningen van 4.000 jaar geleden die vee afbeelden
Sahara was ooit weelderig groen, blijkt uit rotstekeningen van 4.000 jaar geleden die vee afbeelden
Artikel door Michaël Torfs
De rotstekeningen zijn uitgebreid onderzocht tijdens veldwerk in de jaren 2018 en 2019. Julien Cooper van de Macquarie University in Australië leidde toen een team archeologen in het zogenoemde Atbai Survey Project, waarin 16 nieuw ontdekte rotstekeningen uit Wadi Haifa werden bestudeerd.
Vandaag is het een kurkdroge regio in het oosten van Soedan. Maar de tekeningen suggereren dat de omgeving er toen compleet anders uitzag. Er viel veel meer regen en het landschap zag er groen uit, weelderig groen zelfs, moet blijken uit de rotstekeningen waarop vee staat afgebeeld.
"Het was een raadsel om vee afgebeeld te zien op de wanden van rotsen midden in de woestijn, want voor het houden van runderen is veel water nodig, en weiland. Ze zouden in de Sahara van vandaag geen kans maken", zegt Cooper in een mededeling van de universiteit.
Volgens Cooper is de aanwezigheid van heel wat vee in de tekeningen "een van de belangrijkste bewijsstukken van een voormalige groene Sahara". Dat komt ook overeen met eerdere bevindingen van experts.
Groene Sahara?
Eerder archeologisch en klimatologisch veldwerk heeft al aangetoond dat alvast een deel van de huidige Sahara in Afrika er vroeger totaal anders moet hebben uitgezien tijdens de zogenoemde "Afrikaanse natte periode"
Er viel toen veel regen in de regio tijdens moessonregens in de zomer. De vochtige periode zou van ongeveer 15.000 jaar geleden tot ruwweg 5.000 jaar geleden hebben gelopen en dan langzaam zijn uitgedoofd. Er zou plaats geweest zijn voor een afwisselende Afrikaanse savanne waar ook giraffes en olifanten leefden.
Rond 3.000 voor Christus begonnen meren en rivieren uit te drogen en verdwenen ook de grazige weiden. De mensen trokken weg in de richting van de Nijl.
De aanwezigheid van mensen bij het vee suggereert dat de dieren gemolken werden. Er zouden herders geleefd hebben in het gebied, maar zij begonnen het rond 3.000 voor Christus moeilijker te krijgen.
"De bevolking trok weg en er waren hoogstens nog schapen of geiten. De impact op het leven moet groot geweest zijn", zegt Cooper.
De tekeningen tonen niet enkel vee. Er zijn ook boten afgebeeld. Die hebben speciale kenmerken in deze tekeningen, en waren misschien het werk van plaatselijke Nubische Nubische stammen.
Sahara was ooit weelderig groen, blijkt uit rotstekeningen van 4.000 jaar geleden die vee afbeelden
Unveiling the Enigmatic Secrets of Area 51 and UFOs
Unveiling the Enigmatic Secrets of Area 51 and UFOs
Area 51, nestled within the desolate stretches of the Nevada desert, has long captivated the imagination of millions around the world. Officially a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base, this highly classified U.S. Air Force facility is shrouded in secrecy, giving rise to numerous theories and stories about extraterrestrial activities and groundbreaking technology. Let’s delve into some of the intriguing accounts that contribute to the legendary status of Area 51.
Historical Context and Alleged Alien Encounters
The intrigue surrounding Area 51 often centers on accounts of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and their purported connection with the U.S. government. One of the most storied events allegedly occurred on May 19, 1953, during a series of nuclear tests under the codename “Upshot-Knothole” at Yucca Flat, Nevada. Observers reported seeing a disc-shaped object descending rapidly from the sky, which then disappeared into the mountains south of Las Vegas. This incident was followed by rumors that the U.S. government swiftly assembled a team to investigate a UFO crash in the outskirts of Kingman, Arizona, approximately 175 miles south of the test site.
The Kingman UFO incident is said to involve a 40-foot diameter disc-shaped craft that was found intact, with no visible damage, and accompanied by four extraterrestrial beings. The recovered craft and beings were reportedly transported to what is now known as Area 51 for further examination and reverse engineering.
Theories of Reverse Engineering and Collaboration
Speculations suggest that Area 51’s primary purpose might extend beyond testing experimental aircraft and weaponry. It is believed to include the reverse engineering of alien technology. According to some accounts, this includes working directly with extraterrestrial beings, such as an entity named J-Rod, who allegedly assisted U.S. scientists and engineers in understanding alien technology.
Area 51’s lore also includes tales of underground facilities where extensive collaboration between humans and aliens takes place. These stories are bolstered by testimonies from individuals like Captain Bill U House, a former U.S. Air Force officer who claimed to have worked closely with an extraterrestrial being to gain insights into alien science and engineering.
Modern Myth or Hidden Truths?
As fantastical as these stories might sound, they are supported by various whistleblowers and former employees who assert the existence of alien technology at Area 51. These claims, while lacking concrete evidence and often dismissed by skeptics, fuel ongoing interest and debate regarding what truly lies within the confines of this secretive base.
Despite numerous public disclosures and declassifications of documents, the U.S. government remains largely silent about the full extent of activities at Area 51. This secrecy only amplifies the mystery and the allure of the base, making it a central figure in UFO folklore.
Area 51 continues to be an emblematic symbol of UFO conspiracy theories and a focal point for those who believe in extraterrestrial visits. Whether these beliefs are grounded in reality or are merely products of the human imagination, Area 51 undeniably holds a significant place in popular culture as a repository of the unknown and possibly the extraterrestrial. As long as the veil of secrecy remains, the theories about what really happens behind the gates of Area 51 will continue to proliferate, captivating the minds of those who seek answers to the age-old question: Are we alone in the universe?
'I saw glowing white flaming orb UFO – it was like one from 1350s Jesus Christ painting'
'I saw glowing white flaming orb UFO – it was like one from 1350s Jesus Christ painting'
An infamous painting housed in the Visoki Decani Monastery in Kosovo, and painted by an unknown artist, shows a pretty standard scene of Christ's crucifixion - with two odd extras
The infamous painting features two potential alien-filled UFOs
(Image: Visoki Decani Monestary)
A bloke has claimed he saw a “glowing white orb UFO” and it looked exactly like one depicted in the infamous 1300s painting of Jesus Christ's crucifixion.
According to a post on Reddit's biggest alien forum, the poster – going by the name of Kaiserschleier – was talking to his brother-in-law while in an unidentified countryside when he has his “first experience” of an encounter with a UFO.
Taking to the forum, he said: “I was chatting with my brother-in-law in the countryside when suddenly, I glanced up and spotted a glowing white orb. It swiftly shot away the moment I looked at it, hovering about 20 feet above ground, leaving behind a trail of orange flame-like glow as it moved. It moved swiftly and emitted no sound.
“I was so stunned, I jolted and said 'What the f**k is that?!' – my brother-in-law confirmed to have seen the same thing as me, saying that it looked like a flying glowing moon.”
The poster returned later on to add more to his story, to explain that the object he saw look suspiciously like the strange UFO-like object depicted in the 1350s painting of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Located in the Visoki Decani Monastery in Kosovo, and painted by an unknown artist, the image shows a pretty standard scene of Christ's crucifixion . . . but what is in the top left and right corners has left people baffled for centuries. It shows two UFO-shaped objects, with people inside, flying across the skyline. And it is those that the original Reddit poster claims he saw.
Was this what the bloke saw in the field . . . ?(Image: Visoki Decani Monestary)
He explained: “Despite its radiant glow, it emitted no illumination onto its surroundings. Its hues of white and orange were exceptionally vivid, yet it remained silent as it traversed in a perfectly straight trajectory, devoid of any audible disturbance even amidst the passage through the air.
“This occurrence defied any rational explanation, unlike anything I've ever encountered before. Its proximity ruled out possibilities like a comet or shooting star, as it hovered closer to the ground than the tree canopy.
“I'm left baffled by this enigmatic phenomenon, never before witnessed or heard of, and the mere fact that I bore witness to it fills me with a profound sense of awe.”
New NASA Visualization Shows Supermassive Black Hole’s Event Horizon
New NASA Visualization Shows Supermassive Black Hole’s Event Horizon
Thanks to a new visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer, you can plunge into the event horizon, a black hole’s point of no return.
“People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real Universe,” said Dr. Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“So I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera — a stand-in for a daring astronaut — just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate.”
To create the visualizations, Dr. Schnittman teamed up with Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Brian Powell and used the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation.
They generated about 10 terabytes of data and took about 5 days running on just 0.3% of Discover’s 129,000 processors. The same feat would take more than a decade on a typical laptop.
The destination is a supermassive black hole with 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, equivalent to the monster located at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.
“If you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole,” Dr. Schnittman said.
“Stellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon.”
This occurs because the gravitational pull on the end of an object nearer the black hole is much stronger than that on the other end. Infalling objects stretch out like noodles, a process astrophysicists call spaghettification.
The simulated black hole’s event horizon spans about 16 million miles (25 million km), or about 17% of the distance from Earth to the Sun.
A flat, swirling cloud of hot, glowing gas called an accretion disk surrounds it and serves as a visual reference during the fall.
So do glowing structures called photon rings, which form closer to the black hole from light that has orbited it one or more times.
A backdrop of the starry sky as seen from Earth completes the scene.
As the camera approaches the black hole, reaching speeds ever closer to that of light itself, the glow from the accretion disk and background stars becomes amplified in much the same way as the sound of an oncoming racecar rises in pitch.
Their light appears brighter and whiter when looking into the direction of travel.
The movies begin with the camera located nearly 640 million km (400 million miles) away, with the black hole quickly filling the view.
Along the way, the black hole’s disk, photon rings, and the night sky become increasingly distorted — and even form multiple images as their light traverses the increasingly warped space-time.
In real time, the camera takes about 3 hours to fall to the event horizon, executing almost two complete 30-min orbits along the way. But to anyone observing from afar, it would never quite get there.
As space-time becomes ever more distorted closer to the horizon, the image of the camera would slow and then seem to freeze just shy of it. This is why astronomers originally referred to black holes as “frozen stars.”
At the event horizon, even space-time itself flows inward at the speed of light, the cosmic speed limit.
Once inside it, both the camera and the space-time in which it’s moving rush toward the black hole’s center — a one-dimensional point called a singularity, where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.
The NASA visualization tracks a camera as it approaches, briefly orbits, and then crosses the event horizon — the point of no return — of a supersized black hole similar in mass to the one at the center of our Galaxy.
Image credit: J. Schnittman & B. Powell, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“Once the camera crosses the horizon, its destruction by spaghettification is just 12.8 seconds away,” Dr. Schnittman said.
From there, it’s only 128,000 km (79,500 miles) to the singularity. This final leg of the voyage is over in the blink of an eye.
In the alternative scenario, the camera orbits close to the event horizon but it never crosses over and escapes to safety.
If an astronaut flew a spacecraft on this 6-hour round trip while her colleagues on a mothership remained far from the black hole, she’d return 36 min younger than her colleagues.
That’s because time passes more slowly near a strong gravitational source and when moving near the speed of light.
“This situation can be even more extreme,” Dr. Schnittman said.
“If the black hole were rapidly rotating, like the one shown in the 2014 movie Interstellar, she would return many years younger than her shipmates.”
De krachtige uitbarstingen die op onze moederster exploderen, hebben een sterke impact op de aarde en lijken niet te stoppen. Dit is wat er gebeurt.
Wat zijn zonnevlammen?
SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER
Een zonnevlam, zo meldt NASA, is "een intense uitbarsting van straling door het vrijkomen van magnetische energie die gepaard gaat met zonnevlekken". Dit zijn, legt de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie uit, de grootste explosieve gebeurtenissen in ons zonnestelsel. Ze manifesteren zich als heldere gebieden op de zon die enkele minuten tot enkele uren zichtbaar zijn.
Wat ons in staat stelt om ze te detecteren is het licht, dus de fotonen, die vrijkomen en die worden gecontroleerd door optisch licht en röntgenstraling. In zonnevlammen worden de zwaarste deeltjes versneld. De afgelopen dagen zijn zonnevlammen in volle actie: X1.6 vond plaats op 3 mei, gevolgd door andere krachtige fenomenen volgens het Space Weather Prediction Center van NOAA. Elk van deze fenomenen heeft een grote impact gehad op onze planeet.
De gevolgen van krachtige zonnevlammen op aarde
Een X1.3 en een X1.2 zonnevlam barstten op 5 mei los uit de actieve groep zonnevlekken AR 3663. In beide gevallen traden radio blackouts op op onze planeet, in Japan, Australië en grote delen van China, en de effecten zouden langer kunnen duren als coronale massa uitstoot, enorme wolken van zonneplasma doordrenkt met magnetische veldlijnen, geladen deeltjes naar de aarde zouden leiden.
Hierover zijn echter geen zekere gegevens bekend. Er zijn momenteel negen clusters zonnevlekken aanwezig aan de kant van de zon die naar onze planeet is gericht, die ongeveer 150 zonnevlekken omvatten. AR 3663 is op dit moment in ieder geval het meest actief en heeft sinds 30 april meerdere M-klasse en vier X-klasse vlammen uitgezonden, waarmee hij op de tweede plaats staat van de sterkste vlammen die onze ster kan produceren.
Maar wat zijn de voorspellingen van de wetenschappers en wat kunnen we verwachten? Volgens de voorspellers zullen er meer M-klasse vlammen zijn en mogelijk nog een of meer X-klasse vlammen voordat ze buiten de baan van de aarde draaien.
Keith Strong, een zonnefysicus, schreef in een bericht op X, voorheen Twitter: “Het gebied van zonnevlekken AR3663 produceerde een X4.5 vlam, de op twee na grootste sinds het begin van zonnecyclus 25 (4,3 jaar geleden)." Hij voegde eraan toe dat de vlam een sterke black-out veroorzaakte in een groot deel van Azië, Oost-Afrika en Oost-Europa. "Als het een coronale massa uitstoot produceerde, zal deze waarschijnlijk binnen een dag of twee de aarde raken."
Geomagnetische storm op komst? Er is iets positiefs aan
SDO | Solar Dynamics Observatory NASA
Zonnevlammen gaan soms gepaard met uitbarstingen die de aarde met een paar dagen vertraging kunnen bereiken, omdat plasma zich minder snel verplaatst dan licht. Op het moment dat de coronale massa uitstoot ons bereikt, ontstaat er echter een geomagnetische storm met aanzienlijke gevolgen voor de communicatie. Op het moment dat het de magnetosfeer van de planeet raakt, ontstaan er elektrische stromen die door elektriciteitsnetwerken kunnen reizen, stroomuitval kunnen veroorzaken en satellieten, radio- en navigatiesignalen kunnen beïnvloeden.
Maar er is ook een positief aspect: de wisselwerking tussen zonnedeeltjes, de magnetosfeer en de atmosfeer van de aarde leidt tot een opvallend poollicht boven de polen van de aarde, dat alleen 's nachts zichtbaar is, wanneer er geen zonlicht is. In elk geval zullen de volgende uitbarstingen kleine gevolgen hebben, omdat AR 3663 van de baan van de aarde af draait, maar de zon zit midden in haar activiteitscyclus, haar piek vindt om de elf jaar plaats en kan ons nog meer “verrassingen” bezorgen.
I found this structure on Mars today, just wanted to share with you all, UFO Sighting News.
I found this structure on Mars today, just wanted to share with you all, UFO Sighting News.
Date of discovery: May 9, 2024
Location of discovery: Perseverance photo 1141-NW
It's from the newest rover images and shows a structure on top of a Mars hilltop, best view I have to say, and the opening is facing outward to see the view. We can go on denying that life existed in our solar system on other planets, or we can cherish the excitement of new proof that it exists. It's up to you.
Then again, maybe not knowing, keeps your world view smaller and easier for you to manage. Much more...and it may break you.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
We Need to Consider Conservation Efforts on Mars
Curiosity at work firing a laser on Mars. This artist's concept depicts the rover Curiosity, of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, as it uses its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to investigate the composition of a rock surface. ChemCam fires laser pulses at a target and views the resulting spark with a telescope and spectrometers to identify chemical elements. The laser is actually in an invisible infrared wavelength, but is shown here as visible red light for purposes of illustration. Credit: NASA
Astrobiology is the field of science that studies the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the Universe. In practice, this means sending robotic missions beyond Earth to analyze the atmospheres, surfaces, and chemistry of extraterrestrial worlds. At present, all of our astrobiology missions are focused on Mars, as it is considered the most Earth-like environment beyond our planet. While several missions will be destined for the outer Solar System to investigate “Ocean Worlds” for evidence of life (Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Enceladus), our efforts to find life beyond Earth will remain predominantly on Mars.
If and when these efforts succeed, it will have drastic implications for future missions to Mars. Not only will great care need to be taken to protect Martian life from contamination by Earth organisms, but precautions must be taken to prevent the same from happening to Earth (aka. Planetary Protection). In a recent study, a team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, recommends that legal or normative frameworks be adopted now to ensure that future missions do not threaten sites where evidence of life (past or present) might be found.
The study was led by Clare Fletcher, a Ph.D. student with the Australian Centre for Astrobiology (ACA) and Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre at UNSW. She was joined by Professor Martin Van Kranendonk, a researcher with the ACA and the head of the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University, and Professor Carol Oliver of the School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences at UNSW. Their research paper, “Exogeoconservation of Mars,” appeared on April 21st in Space Policy
The search for life on Mars can be traced to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Percival Lowell made extensive observations from his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Inspired by Schiaparelli’s illustrations of the Martian surface (which featured linear features he called “canali”), Lowell recorded what he also believed were canals and spent many years searching for other indications of infrastructure and an advanced civilization. During the ensuing decades, observatories worldwide observed Mars closely, looking for indications of life and similarities with Earth.
However, it was not until the Space Age that the first robotic probes flew past Mars, gathering data directly from its atmosphere and taking close-up images of the surface. These revealed a planet with a thin atmosphere composed predominantly of carbon dioxide and a frigid surface that did not appear hospitable to life. However, it was the Viking 1 and 2 missions, which landed on Mars in 1976, that forever dispelled the myth of a Martian civilization. But as Fletcher told Universe Today via email, the possibility of extant life has not been completely abandoned:
“It’s my personal belief that it is unlikely we will find evidence of extant (current) life on Mars, as opposed to evidence of past life on Mars. If we were to find extant life on Mars that could be proven to be endemic to Mars and not contamination from Earth, some think it might be found underground in lava tubes, for example, and some think the ice caps or any possible source of liquid water might be suitable places.”
Ironically, it was the same missions that discredited the notion of there being life on Mars that revealed evidence that water once flowed on its surface. Thanks to the many orbiter, lander, and rover missions sent to Mars since the turn of the century, scientists theorize that this period coincided with the Noachian Era (ca. 4.1 – 3.7 billion years ago). According to the most recent fossilized evidence, it was also during this period that life first appeared on Earth (in the form of single-celled bacteria).
Artist’s impression of Mars during the Noachian Era. Credit: Ittiz/Wikipedia Commons
Our current astrobiology efforts on behalf of NASA and other space agencies are focused on Mars precisely for this reason: to determine if life emerged on Mars billions of years ago and whether or not it co-evolved with life on Earth. This includes the proposed Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission that will retrieve the drill samples obtained by the Perseverance rover in the Jezero Crater and return them to Earth for analysis. In addition, NASA and China plan to send crewed missions to Mars by 2040 and 2033 (respectively), including astrobiology studies.
These activities could threaten the very abodes where evidence of past life could be found or (worse) still exists. “Human activities might threaten sites like this in part due to possible microbial contamination,” said Fletcher. “Evidence of life (past and extant) also has greater scientific value when in its palaeoenvironmental context, so any human activities that might damage the evidence of life and/or its surrounding environmental context pose a risk. This could be something innocuous, like debris falling in the wrong spot, or something more serious, like driving over possibly significant outcrops with a rover.”
Conservation measures must be developed and implemented before additional missions are sent to Mars. Given humanity’s impact on Earth’s natural environment and our attempts to mitigate this through conservation efforts. In particular, there have been numerous cases where scientific studies were conducted without regard for the heritage value of the site and where damage was done because of a lack of proper measures. These lessons, says Fletcher, could inform future scientific efforts on Mars:
“It’s important that we learn from what has been considered “damaging” on Earth and take this into consideration when exploring Mars. If a site is damaged beyond being able to be studied in the future, then we limit what can actually be learned from a site. When considering Mars missions cost billions of dollars and are to meet specific scientific goals, limiting the information being learned from a site is incredibly detrimental. My recommendations are that of my paper: interdisciplinary cooperation, drawing on experience and knowledge from Earth, creating norms and a code of practice (part of my PhD work), and working towards creating legislation for these issues.”
Artist’s rendition of NASA’s Dragonfly on the surface of Titan. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
The need for exogeoconservation is paramount at this juncture. In addition to Mars, multiple astrobiology missions will travel to the outer Solar System this decade to search for evidence of life on icy moons like Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Enceladus. This includes the ESA’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, currently en route to Ganymede, and NASA’s Europa Clipper and Dragonfly missions that will launch for Europa and Titan in October 2024 and 2028 (respectively). Therefore, the ability to search for extant or past life without damaging its natural environment is an ethical and scientific necessity.
“I hope this paper is very much a starting point for anyone working in Mars science and exploration, as well as anyone thinking about space policy and exogeoconservation,” said Fletcher. “My goal was to start drawing attention to these issues, and that way start a generation of researchers and practitioners focused on exogeoconservation of Mars.”
Earth is naked without its protective barrier. The planet’s magnetic shield surrounds Earth and shelters it from the natural onslaught of cosmic rays. But sometimes, the shield weakens and wavers, allowing cosmic rays to strike the atmosphere, creating a shower of particles that scientists think could wreak havoc on the biosphere.
This has happened many times in our planet’s history, including 41,000 years ago in an event called the Laschamps excursion.
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles, usually protons or atomic nuclei, that travel through space at relativistic speeds. Normally, they’re deflected into space and away from Earth by the planet’s magnetic shield. But the shield is a natural phenomenon and its strength fluctuates, as does its orientation. When that happens, cosmic rays strike the Earth’s atmosphere.
That creates a shower of secondary particles called cosmogenic radionuclides. These isotopes become embedded in sediments and ice cores and even in the structure of living things like trees. There are different types of these isotopes, including ones like Calcium 41 and Carbon 14.
Showers of high-energy particles occur when energetic cosmic rays strike the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. Illustration Credit: Simon Swordy (U. Chicago), NASA.
Some of the isotopes are stable, and some are radioactive. The radioactive ones have half-lives ranging from only 20 minutes (Carbon 11) up to 15.7 million years (Xenon 129.)
When Earth’s shield weakens, more of these isotopes reach the planet’s surface and collect in sediments and ice. By studying these cores and sediments, scientists can determine the magnetic shield’s history. Their observations show that Earth experienced a geomagnetic excursion or reversal 41,000 years ago. It’s called the Laschamps excursion after the Laschamps lava flows in France, where geomagnetic anomalies revealed its occurrence.
Every few hundred thousand years, the Earth’s magnetic poles flip. North becomes South and vice versa. In between those major events are more minor events called excursions. During excursions, the poles shift around for a while without swapping places. The excursions weaken the Earth’s shield and can last from a few thousand to tens of thousands of years. When that happens, more cosmic rays strike the atmosphere, creating more radionuclides that shower down onto Earth.
Scientists often focus on one particular radioactive isotope in paleomagnetic studies. Beryllium 10 has a relatively long half-life of 1.36 million years and tends to accumulate on the soil surface.
Sanja Panovska is a researcher at GFZ Potsdam, Germany, who studies geomagnetism. At the recent European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2024, Panovska presented new research on the Laschamps excursion. She found that during the Laschamps excursion, production of Be 10 was twice as high as normal.
To understand the Laschamps excursion more thoroughly, Panovska combined cosmogenic radionuclide and paleomagnetic data to reconstruct the Earth’s magnetic field at the time. She found that when the field decreased in strength, it also shrank. The transition from normal field to reversed field took about 250 years, and it stayed flipped for about 440 years. During the transition, the Earth’s shield weekend to as little as 5% of its normal strength. When it was fully reversed, it was at about 25% of its regular strength. This weakening allowed more Be 10 and other cosmogenic radionuclides to reach Earth’s surface.
Each map shows the intensity of Earth’s geomagnetic field at different snapshots in time, according to Panovska’s reconstructions that are constrained by both paleomagnetic data and records of cosmogenic beryllium-10 radionuclides. DM stands for Dipole Moment, which is a measure of the field’s polarity or separation of positive and negative. Age [ka BP] is the age measures in thousands of years before the present. Image Credit: Sanja Panovska.
These radionuclides do more than collect in sediments and ice. Some of them are radioactive. The weakening of the shield also weakened the ozone layer, letting more UV radiation reach Earth’s surface. The high-altitude atmosphere also cooled, which changed the wind flows. This could’ve caused drastic changes on the Earth’s surface.
For these reasons, the Laschamps event has been linked to the extinction of the Neanderthals, the extinction of Australian megafauna, and even to the appearance of cave art. Those links haven’t withstood scientific scrutiny, but that doesn’t mean that events like the Laschamps event aren’t hazardous. If it occurred now, it would knock out our power grids. The Earth’s equatorial region would light up with aurorae.
“Understanding these extreme events is important for their occurrence in the future, space climate predictions, and assessing the effects on the environment and on the Earth system,” Panovska said.
Scientists are learning that the magnetic shield isn’t static. There are anomalies. One of them is the South Atlantic Anomaly, a region where the magnetic field is weakest near Earth. When satellites pass over this region, they’re exposed to higher levels of ionizing radiation. The anomaly is likely caused by a reservoir of dense rock inside Earth, illustrating how complex the magnetic shield is.
The ‘South Atlantic Anomaly’ refers to an area where Earth’s protective magnetic shield is weak. Image Credit: By Christopher C. Finlay, Clemens Kloss, Nils Olsen, Magnus D. Hammer, Lars Tøffner-Clausen, Alexander Grayver & Alexey Kuvshinov “The CHAOS-7 geomagnetic field model and observed changes in the South Atlantic Anomaly”, Earth, Planets and Space, Volume 72, Article number 156 (2020), https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-020-01252-9, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99760567
Scientists are uncertain about what effect the cosmic rays have on life when the magnetic shield is weak. It’s tempting to correlate extinctions with events like the Laschamps excursion when they line up temporally. But the poles have shifted, weakened, and reversed many times and life is still here and still thriving.
If humanity lasts long enough, we’ll go through one of these reversals. Then we’ll know.
NASA used a supercomputer to visualize falling into a black hole much like the one in the center of the Milky Way.
NASA used a supercomputer to visualize falling into a black hole much like the one in the center of the Milky Way. Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center /J. Schnittman and B. Powell
Fall Into a Black Hole With this New NASA Simulation
No human being will ever encounter a black hole. But we can’t stop wondering what it would be like to fall into one of these massive, beguiling, physics-defying singularities.
NASA created a simulation to help us imagine what it would be like.
Jeremy Schnittman is an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and he created the visualizations. “People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real universe,” he said. “So I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera — a stand-in for a daring astronaut — just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate.”
In one, the viewpoint plunges directly into the black hole like a free-falling astronaut, with explanatory text to guide us through what we’re seeing. The other is a 360-degree view of the black hole.
Schnittman created them with a NASA supercomputer called Discover in only five days, generating about 10 terabytes of data. The computer used only about 0.3% of its power. The same visualization would’ve taken more than a decade to create on an average laptop computer.
The black hole in the visualization is the same size as Sagittarius A star, the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the heart of the Milky Way. It has 4.3 million solar masses and dominates the galaxy’s inner regions. Its event horizon reaches about 25 million km (16 million miles). That’s about 17% of the distance from Earth to the Sun. The event horizon is surrounded by an accretion disk, a swirling disk of superheated material drawn in by the black hole’s overpowering gravity.
Another type of black hole, the stellar-mass black hole, is much less massive. Schnittman says that if you’re going to fall into a black hole, you’d rather fall into the supermassive one.
“If you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole,” Schnittman explained. “Stellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon.”
Powerful gravity is the reason. The SMBH’s gravity is so strong that it pulls harder on the end of the object nearest it. That stretches the object and elongates it. Stephen Hawking was the first to call this ‘spaghettification,’ and the name has stuck. Presumably, you’d get a better look if you fall into an SMBH.
In the movies, the camera begins at a distance of 640 million km (400 million miles.) Since space-time is warped around a black hole, so are the images of the sky, the black hole’s disk, and the photon ring. It takes the camera three hours of real-time to fall into the event horizon, and it completes almost two 30-minute orbits as it falls. A distant observer would never see an object ever reach the black hole. From a distance, the object would freeze at the event horizon.
When a falling object reaches the event horizon, it and space-time itself reach the speed of light. After crossing the horizon, the object and the space-time around it surge toward the singularity, a point of infinite density and gravity. “Once the camera crosses the horizon, its destruction by spaghettification is just 12.8 seconds away,” Schnittman said.
In the second video, the camera never crosses the event horizon and instead escapes. But the powerful black hole still has an effect. Imagine if the camera were an astronaut, and they flew this six-hour roundtrip while a separate astronaut stayed far away from the SMBH. The astronaut would return and be 36 minutes younger than the astronaut who never approached the black hole.
“This situation can be even more extreme,” Schnittman noted. “If the black hole were rapidly rotating, like the one shown in the 2014 movie ‘Interstellar,’ she would return many years younger than her shipmates.”
The bottom line is, don’t fall into a black hole. In fact, resist your fascination and don’t even approach one.
Alien Encounters: Investigating the Phenomenon of Missing Time
Alien Encounters: Investigating the Phenomenon of Missing Time
by Wayne J. Gardner
Missing time does seem to be a widely reported phenomenon (iStockphoto)
“Missing time is a key part of the abduction phenomenon. It is a symptom of the larger syndrome, and it is often the first thing that people notice when they begin to recall their experiences.”
— David M. Jacobs
Introduction
For decades, stories of people encountering aliens and being taken aboard their spacecraft have been circulating in the media, books, and movies. These encounters are often accompanied by a strange phenomenon known as missing time, in which the person who has been abducted cannot account for the time they were missing. This phenomenon has been studied by experts in psychology, ufology, and neuroscience, but a definitive explanation for why it occurs has yet to be determined. In this article, we will examine several famous cases of alien abduction accompanied by missing time, including the Nebraska incident in 1966, the Allagash Waterway Abduction, the Travis Walton Abduction, and the Kirsan Ilyumzhinov Abduction, and hypothesize on why this phenomenon occurs.
Here are some famous UFO missing time cases:
The Betty and Barney Hill Abduction:
Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings in September 1961 while driving home to New Hampshire. During their encounter, they reported experiencing missing time and were unable to account for a two-hour period during their journey.
Betty and Barney Hill’s experience of missing time is a key aspect of their reported alien abduction. During their drive home to New Hampshire in September 1961, they claimed to have observed a bright light in the sky that appeared to be following them. They eventually stopped their car and observed the object up close, reporting that it was a UFO with several humanoid beings inside.
The Hills then claimed to have experienced a period of missing time, during which they were unable to recall what had happened to them. Betty reported waking up in a different location, and both she and Barney reported feeling disoriented and confused. They arrived home two hours later than expected, and when they later attempted to reconstruct the events of that evening, they realized that they were unable to account for this missing time.
The Hills’ experience of missing time is a common feature of many reported alien abductions. It is typically described as a period of time during which the individual is unable to recall what happened to them or experiences a lapse in their memory. This missing time is often reported to be associated with UFO sightings or other paranormal experiences.
There are many theories about the causes of missing time experiences in the context of alien encounters. Some researchers suggest that they may be due to psychological factors, such as dissociation or post-traumatic stress disorder. Others propose that missing time experiences may be linked to altered states of consciousness or the use of mind-altering substances.
Whatever the cause of these experiences, they continue to be a subject of fascination and investigation for researchers and the public alike. Betty and Barney Hill’s experience of missing time during their reported alien abduction remains one of the most famous cases of its kind, and continues to be studied and debated by researchers interested in the phenomenon of missing time.
The Travis Walton Abduction:
One of the most famous cases of alien abduction accompanied by missing time is the Travis Walton abduction. In November of 1975, Walton and a group of loggers in Arizona reported seeing a UFO in the sky. Walton got out of the truck to get a closer look, but as he approached the object, he was hit by a beam of light and knocked unconscious.
When Walton regained consciousness, he found himself aboard the craft, surrounded by aliens. He reported that he was subjected to a medical examination, during which he felt intense pain. Walton was returned to Earth five days later, and when he reported the incident to the authorities, he was initially met with skepticism.
The Allagash Waterway Abduction:
In August 1976, four men were canoeing on the Allagash Waterway in Maine when they reported encountering a UFO. They later reported experiencing missing time and having shared hallucinations of being abducted by extraterrestrial beings.
The case of the Allagash Waterway Abduction is one of the most well-known incidents of alien abduction in American history. The event reportedly occurred in August 1976, when four men — Charles Foltz, Jack Weiner, Jim Weiner, and Chuck Rak — were on a camping trip on the Allagash Waterway in Maine. According to their account, they observed a bright object in the sky that they believed to be a UFO, which then appeared to approach and hover above them.
The next thing they remembered was being back at their campsite, feeling disoriented and confused. It was only later, during a hypnosis session, that they began to recall memories of being taken aboard the UFO and subjected to medical procedures by extraterrestrial beings.
“Missing time is the hallmark of a classic abduction experience. It is a common feature reported by abductees all over the world.”
— John E. Mack
One of the most notable features of the Allagash Waterway Abduction is the reported experience of missing time by the four men. According to their account, they had been fishing when they observed the strange object in the sky, and the next thing they knew they were back at their campsite, with several hours of time unaccounted for.
Missing time is a common feature of many reported alien abduction cases. It is typically described as a period of time during which the individual is unable to recall what happened to them or experiences a lapse in their memory. In the case of the Allagash Waterway Abduction, the four men reported a gap in their memory spanning several hours, during which they have no recollection of what happened.
The experience of missing time has been the subject of much speculation and debate among researchers studying the phenomenon of alien encounters. Some suggest that it may be the result of psychological factors, such as dissociation or post-traumatic stress disorder. Others propose that missing time experiences may be linked to altered states of consciousness or the use of mind-altering substances.
Whatever the cause of this experience, it continues to be a subject of fascination and investigation for researchers and the public alike. The Allagash Waterway Abduction, with its reported experience of missing time and shared hallucinations, remains one of the most intriguing and well-known cases of alien abduction in American history.
The Ariel School Encounter:
In September 1994, 62 school children in Zimbabwe reported seeing a UFO land near their school. Many of the children reported experiencing missing time during the encounter.
The incident at the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, is one of the most well-known cases of a mass UFO sighting involving school children. On September 14, 1994, approximately 62 children, aged between six and twelve years old, were playing outside during their morning break when they observed a silver craft descend from the sky and land in a nearby field.
The children reported that several beings, described as “large-eyed” and “grey-skinned,” emerged from the craft and began to approach them. Many of the children experienced a feeling of paralysis, while others reported feeling disoriented or frightened.
One of the most striking aspects of the incident at the Ariel School was the reported experience of missing time by many of the children. According to their accounts, they were unable to recall what happened during a period of time spanning several minutes to several hours, and some reported feeling as though they had “zoned out” or were in a state of trance.
In subsequent interviews with researchers and investigators, the children described a range of experiences during their encounter with the beings. Some reported being taken aboard the craft and subjected to medical procedures, while others described feeling as though they were communicating with the beings telepathically.
“Missing time is a powerful and unsettling experience. It can shake a person’s sense of reality and leave them with deep-seated questions about their place in the universe.”
— Whitley Strieber
The experience of missing time reported by the children at the Ariel School is a common feature of many reported UFO sightings and encounters. It is typically described as a period of time during which the individual is unable to recall what happened to them or experiences a lapse in their memory.
While the cause of missing time experiences remains a subject of speculation and debate, some researchers have suggested that it may be linked to psychological factors, such as dissociation or post-traumatic stress disorder. Others propose that it may be the result of exposure to electromagnetic fields or other environmental factors.
The incident at the Ariel School remains a subject of fascination and investigation among researchers and the public alike. The reported experience of missing time by many of the children adds another layer of intrigue to this already fascinating and mysterious case.
The Pascagoula Abduction:
In October 1973, Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings while fishing in Mississippi. They reported experiencing missing time during their encounter.
The Pascagoula Abduction is a well-known case of alleged extraterrestrial abduction that occurred on October 11, 1973, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson were fishing on the Pascagoula River when they claimed to have been abducted by three humanoid beings.
According to Parker and Hickson’s accounts, the beings were approximately five feet tall and had gray, wrinkled skin and large, elongated eyes. They were described as having no visible ears or nose, and their mouths were described as being a “slit.”
During their encounter with the beings, Parker and Hickson reported experiencing a sense of paralysis and were unable to move or speak. They were then subjected to a medical examination by the beings, during which they reported feeling as though they were being probed and examined.
One of the most notable aspects of the Pascagoula Abduction is the reported experience of missing time by Parker and Hickson. According to their accounts, they were unable to account for a period of approximately 30 minutes during their encounter with the beings. This experience of missing time is a common feature of many reported UFO sightings and encounters.
“Missing time is not just a matter of lost minutes or hours. It is a profound disruption of a person’s sense of time and space. It can shatter their understanding of reality and leave them struggling to make sense of what has happened to them.”
— Budd Hopkins
The phenomenon of missing time is often described as a period during which an individual is unable to recall what happened to them or experiences a lapse in their memory. Some researchers believe that missing time experiences may be the result of psychological factors, such as dissociation or post-traumatic stress disorder. Others propose that it may be the result of exposure to electromagnetic fields or other environmental factors.
In the case of the Pascagoula Abduction, Parker and Hickson’s reported experience of missing time has been a subject of speculation and investigation for many years. While some have dismissed their accounts as a hoax or a misinterpretation of natural phenomena, others argue that their story is compelling evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life and the phenomenon of UFOs.
Regardless of the explanation for their experience of missing time, the Pascagoula Abduction remains one of the most intriguing and mysterious cases of alleged extraterrestrial contact on record.
The Psychology of Missing Time
The psychology of missing time during an alleged alien abduction is a subject of much debate and speculation among researchers and UFO enthusiasts. There are several theories that attempt to explain the experience of missing time, some of which are rooted in psychology.
One of the most common theories is that missing time experiences may be the result of psychological factors such as dissociation or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dissociation is a psychological process in which an individual becomes disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. It is often associated with trauma and can result in a temporary loss of consciousness or memory.
PTSD is a condition that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, and it is often characterized by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and avoidance of triggers associated with the trauma. Some researchers have suggested that missing time experiences may be a symptom of PTSD or a related condition.
Another theory is that missing time experiences may be the result of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) or other environmental factors. EMF is a type of radiation that is emitted by electronic devices, power lines, and other sources. Some researchers believe that exposure to high levels of EMF can disrupt brain function and cause memory loss or other cognitive impairments.
Still, other researchers have proposed that missing time experiences may be the result of sleep paralysis, a phenomenon in which an individual is temporarily unable to move or speak upon waking or falling asleep. During a sleep paralysis episode, individuals may experience hallucinations or a sense of being held down or restrained, which could be interpreted as an abduction experience.
There is no clear or proven method by which extraterrestrial beings may be able to induce missing time in humans. However, there are several hypotheses and theories that attempt to explain how this phenomenon might occur during an alleged alien abduction.
One theory suggests that extraterrestrial beings may use advanced technology to manipulate human perception and memory. This could involve the use of hypnotic suggestion, neural implants, or other forms of mind control to alter the individual’s perception of time or to selectively erase memories of the encounter.
Another theory proposes that extraterrestrial beings may use a form of temporal distortion to alter the individual’s experience of time during the encounter. This could involve the manipulation of space-time itself, such as through the creation of a localized time warp or a bending of the laws of physics to create a perception of missing time.
One hypothesis is that extraterrestrial beings may use advanced technology to manipulate human perception and memory during an alleged abduction experience. This could involve the use of hypnotic suggestion, neural implants, or other forms of mind control to alter the individual’s perception of time or to selectively erase memories of the encounter.
Hypnotic suggestion is a technique that has been used for decades to alter an individual’s perception of reality. During a hypnotic session, the hypnotist can suggest to the subject that they are experiencing a certain reality or have a certain memory, even if that memory is not real. It is possible that extraterrestrial beings could use a similar technique to manipulate human perception and memory during an alleged abduction experience. They could use hypnotic suggestion to implant false memories of missing time or of the encounter itself, or they could use it to erase memories of the experience altogether.
Another possibility is that extraterrestrial beings could use advanced neural implants to manipulate human perception and memory. Neural implants are devices that can be placed inside the brain to stimulate or inhibit certain regions of the brain. These implants have been used in medical research to treat conditions like epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, but they could potentially be used to alter an individual’s perception of time or memory. It is possible that extraterrestrial beings could use such implants to manipulate the brain’s perception of time or to erase memories of the encounter.
Famaous Missing Time Researchers
Jacques Vallee
Jacques Vallee is a well-known researcher who has investigated the phenomenon of missing time in the context of alleged alien abductions. In his book “Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact,” Vallee discusses numerous cases in which individuals reported experiencing missing time during an encounter with extraterrestrial beings.
Vallee is known for his interdisciplinary approach to studying UFOs and related phenomena. He has emphasized the importance of analyzing not only the physical evidence associated with UFO sightings and abductions, but also the psychological and cultural factors that may be involved. Vallee has also explored the possibility that UFOs and related phenomena may represent a form of non-human intelligence that is capable of manipulating human perception and belief.
In his work on missing time, Vallee has emphasized the need to take a nuanced and open-minded approach to understanding this phenomenon. He has argued that missing time may be a complex and multi-faceted experience that can have multiple underlying causes, and that researchers should be careful not to jump to simplistic or reductionist explanations. Vallee’s work on this topic has contributed to a broader and more nuanced understanding of the complex and mysterious nature of alleged alien abductions.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
Dr. J. Allen Hynek is another well-known researcher who investigated the phenomenon of missing time in the context of alleged alien abductions. Hynek was an astronomer and professor who served as a scientific consultant to the US Air Force’s Project Blue Book, which investigated reports of UFO sightings and related phenomena.
In his later years, Hynek became increasingly interested in the phenomenon of alleged alien abductions, and he investigated numerous cases in which individuals reported experiencing missing time. Hynek believed that the experience of missing time was a crucial aspect of many abduction accounts, and he viewed it as a potential key to unlocking the mystery of UFOs and related phenomena.
Hynek’s work on missing time emphasized the importance of taking a multidisciplinary approach to studying this phenomenon. He argued that researchers should not only investigate the physical and sensory aspects of abduction experiences, but also the psychological and emotional dimensions. He also highlighted the need to take the subjective experiences of individuals seriously, and to avoid jumping to simplistic or reductionist explanations for complex and mysterious phenomena.
Overall, Hynek’s work on missing time helped to pave the way for a more nuanced and open-minded approach to investigating alleged alien abductions, and his legacy continues to influence researchers in this field today.
Dr. John Mack
Dr. John Mack was a Harvard psychiatrist who investigated the phenomenon of alien abductions, including cases of missing time. He interviewed and studied numerous individuals who reported having experiences with extraterrestrial beings and documented their accounts in his book “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.” Dr. Mack was particularly interested in the psychological and spiritual implications of these experiences and believed that they had the potential to transform individuals’ worldview and understanding of the nature of reality. While some criticized his work as lacking scientific rigor, others praised him for his open-mindedness and willingness to consider the possibility that these experiences were real and meaningful to those who reported them.
Dr. John Mack was a well-respected psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School who began studying the phenomenon of alien abductions in the early 1990s. He initially approached the subject with skepticism, but after interviewing and studying numerous individuals who reported having experiences with extraterrestrial beings, he became convinced that something extraordinary was happening.
Dr. Mack’s research focused on the psychological and spiritual implications of these experiences, rather than on physical evidence or proof of their veracity. He believed that these experiences were real and meaningful to those who reported them, and that they had the potential to transform individuals’ worldview and understanding of the nature of reality.
One of the key aspects of many alien abduction experiences is the phenomenon of missing time, where individuals report gaps in their memory during the time they believe they were abducted. Dr. Mack believed that this was not evidence of a physical abduction, but rather a result of the extraterrestrial beings using advanced technology to manipulate human perception and memory.
Dr. Mack’s work was controversial, and he faced criticism from some in the scientific community who accused him of lacking scientific rigor and objectivity. However, he also had many supporters who praised him for his open-mindedness and willingness to consider the possibility that these experiences were real and meaningful to those who reported them.
Despite the controversy, Dr. Mack continued to study the phenomenon of alien abductions and missing time until his death in 2004. His work continues to be an important contribution to the field of ufology and to our understanding of the potential psychological and spiritual implications of encounters with extraterrestrial beings.
Stanton T. Friedman
Stanton T. Friedman was a well-known ufologist who investigated various aspects of the UFO phenomenon, including cases of missing time reported by individuals claiming to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings. Friedman was particularly interested in cases where there was corroborating evidence to support claims of missing time, such as physical traces left behind by UFOs, or multiple witnesses who experienced the same event.
In his book “Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience,” which he co-authored with Kathleen Marden, Friedman extensively examined the case of Betty and Barney Hill, who reported experiencing missing time during their alleged abduction by extraterrestrial beings in 1961. Friedman also investigated other cases of missing time reported by individuals claiming to have had encounters with UFOs and extraterrestrial beings.
Friedman was a firm believer in the reality of the UFO phenomenon and the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth. He believed that cases of missing time were a particularly compelling aspect of the UFO phenomenon, as they suggested the use of advanced technology by extraterrestrial beings to manipulate human perception and memory.
Bill Chalker
Bill Chalker is an Australian researcher who has investigated the phenomenon of missing time in alien abductions. Chalker has written extensively on the subject, particularly in relation to Australian cases, and has conducted numerous investigations and interviews with abductees. He has also examined the psychological and physiological effects of abductions, including missing time experiences. Chalker’s work has been widely respected in the UFO research community, and he has been acknowledged for his contributions to the field.
Bill Chalker has investigated a number of cases involving missing time in alien abductions. Here are a few examples:
The Kelly Cahill Encounter: In 1993, Kelly Cahill and her husband reported encountering a UFO while driving in Victoria, Australia. They reported experiencing missing time and later recalled being taken aboard the craft and examined by humanoid beings. Chalker conducted an investigation into the case, interviewing the Cahills and other witnesses, and concluded that their experiences were consistent with the classic pattern of alien abduction.
The Australian Close Encounter: In 1992, a group of people camping in the Australian Outback reported encountering a UFO and experiencing missing time. Chalker investigated the case and concluded that the witnesses had likely been subjected to an extraterrestrial encounter, based on their consistent reports of unusual lights and strange beings.
The Westall UFO Encounter: In 1966, hundreds of students and teachers at a high school in Melbourne, Australia reported seeing a UFO land in a nearby field. Some witnesses reported experiencing missing time during the encounter. Chalker conducted an investigation into the case many years later, and found that the witnesses’ accounts were consistent with a genuine UFO sighting and subsequent abduction.
These are just a few examples of the many cases that Bill Chalker has investigated over the years. He is known for his thorough and careful research, and his investigations have contributed significantly to our understanding of the phenomenon of missing time in alien abductions.
Final Words
These are just a few examples of famous UFO missing time cases. There are many other reports of missing time that have been linked to UFO encounters, and the phenomenon continues to be a subject of fascination and investigation.
Another possibility is that missing time experiences may be linked to altered states of consciousness. Some researchers have suggested that alien encounters could trigger a shift in consciousness, leading to a feeling of disorientation and lost time. This could be due to the intense emotional and psychological impact of such experiences, which may cause the brain to enter a state of altered consciousness.
Another theory is that missing time experiences may be related to the use of mind-altering substances. Some abductees have reported using drugs or alcohol prior to their encounters, and it is possible that these substances may have played a role in their experiences. However, this theory remains controversial and there is little scientific evidence to support it.
Finally, some researchers have suggested that missing time experiences may be linked to temporal lobe epilepsy. This condition can cause seizures that affect the temporal lobe of the brain, which is responsible for processing memory and emotions. It is possible that some individuals with this condition may experience altered states of consciousness during seizures, leading to a feeling of lost time.
In conclusion, missing time experiences are a fascinating and perplexing phenomenon that has been reported by many individuals who claim to have had alien encounters. While the causes of these experiences remain unclear, there are several theories that have been proposed by researchers and abductees alike. Whether these experiences are due to psychological, neurological, or extraterrestrial factors, they continue to captivate the imaginations of scientists and the public alike. As we continue to investigate this mysterious phenomenon, we may one day uncover the truth behind missing time experiences and their link to alien encounters.
It is important to note that these theories are speculative and have not been scientifically proven. The phenomenon of missing time during alleged alien abductions remains a subject of much debate and controversy, and there is no consensus among researchers about the underlying causes of this experience.
“The experience of missing time is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the reality of the abduction phenomenon. It is a clear indication that something very strange and inexplicable is happening to these people.”
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“Missing Time” in UFO Encounters
“Missing Time” in UFO Encounters
In the realm of UFO research, one of the most perplexing phenomena reported by witnesses is “missing time”—periods where individuals experience unaccountable gaps in their memory, often associated with UFO sightings. Richard Dolan, a renowned UFO historian and host of the Richard Dolan Show, recently shed light on this ongoing mystery in a detailed discussion, bringing both historical context and new insights into these strange occurrences.
The Nature of Missing Time
“Missing time” refers to episodes where individuals report a lapse in their chronological experience, typically discovering that hours have passed in what seemed like moments. These incidents are frequently tied to encounters with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs), as well as interactions with mysterious entities. The affected individuals often cannot recall what happened to them during these lost hours without external assistance, such as hypnotic regression.
Historical Context
Richard Dolan provides an extensive look at missing time cases across several decades, illustrating that this phenomenon is not a new aspect of UFO encounters but has been consistently reported since at least the 1950s. He emphasizes the profound impact these experiences have on individuals, often leaving them with lasting psychological and sometimes physical aftereffects.
Selected Case Studies
Dolan discusses various cases to highlight the patterns and peculiarities of missing time. For instance, he recounts an incident from 1982 involving a U.S. Airman who experienced a sudden time loss around midday at Canon Air Force Base in New Mexico. The Airman reported seeing multiple UFOs before his memory abruptly cut off, only to resume hours later with no recollection of the intervening time.
Another intriguing case presented by Dolexaminationsan occurred in 1996 in New South Wales, Australia, where a family driving between Lismore and Grafton encountered strange lights and subsequently realized they had lost track of time. Under hypnosis, they recalled being taken aboard an alien craft and subjected to medical by non-human entities.
Psychological and Societal Implications
The recurring theme of missing time challenges our understanding of time perception and memory. Dolan speculates on whether these experiences might indicate a nonlinear perception of time or even the ability of certain entities to manipulate time and memory. This notion extends beyond simple memory loss, suggesting a complex interaction between human consciousness and the capabilities of the entities associated with UFOs
The Role of Hypnotic Regression
Dolan discusses the use of hypnotic regression in recovering memories of missing time, a method that remains controversial among researchers. While some argue it can lead to confabulation or false memories, others believe it is a vital tool for uncovering the truth hidden in the subconscious mind. The consistency of recovered memories across multiple witnesses, as seen in several cases, adds a layer of credibility to this approach.
Contemporary Relevance and Ongoing Research
Despite the transformation of UFO discourse towards more sanitized discussions under the UAP terminology, Dolan stresses the importance of not losing sight of the more dramatic aspects of UFO encounters, like abductions and missing time. He calls for a balanced approach in research that acknowledges the historical depth and potential extraterrestrial implications of these phenomena.
VIDEO:
MISSING TIME Cases STILL HAPPENING | Richard Dolan Show
As Richard Dolan continues to explore and discuss these bewildering experiences on his show, the mystery of missing time remains a compelling topic in UFO research. It challenges our perceptions, pushing the boundaries of what we understand about time, consciousness, and the potential interactions between humans and otherworldly entities. For those intrigued by the unexplained, the phenomenon of missing time offers a fascinating yet puzzling glimpse into the unknown.
In January 2023, a military pilot reportedly encountered a series of unidentified objects while participating in training exercises over the Gulf of Mexico near Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
Initially detected on radar, the four objects appeared to maintain a diamond-shaped formation, and the pilot was able to obtain images of the nearest of them using electro-optical and infrared imaging systems on his aircraft, despite various system malfunctions that occurred as he closed to within 4,000 feet of the unidentified craft. In shape and appearance, the pilot likened the mysterious object to an Apollo-era spacecraft.
That remained the case until last month, when an official report by the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was released that revealed images of the object photographed by the military pilot for the first time. According to its report, AARO’s team labeled the case “Resolved” after the official government office tasked with the investigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena—objects traditionally known as UFOs—concluded that the craft in the images had likely been some kind of lighter-than-air object. In other words, it was most probable that the object was a balloon.
Yet from the outset, there were problems with AARO’s analysis, whose investigators asserted only “moderate confidence” in their findings. The sparing report, while making no attempt to account for the other three objects initially observed on radar, likened the sole object photographed by the pilot to “a commercial lighting balloon,” even though images of the object obtained during the incident essentially matched the pilot’s description of an “Apollo spacecraft” with a rounded under portion and conical top.
The problems with AARO’s analysis weren’t overlooked by Mick West, arguably the most well-known UFO skeptic and the administrator of Metabunk, a website that crowdsources information West and other site contributors use to attempt to resolve UAP cases. In a posting on X following the release of AARO’s case analysis on the Eglin incident, West was quick to point out that the object in the photos obtained by the pilot bore little resemblance to images of a commercial lighting balloon used for comparison in AARO’s report.
“This Eglin UFO looks like a white sphere wearing a hat,” West wrote in his X posting that accompanied an image comparison he produced. “It shows a quite irregular ‘hat,’ which is not really consistent with the lighting balloon hypothesis.”
Continuing the dialoguein a thread on the Metabunk forum, West noted on April 24, 2023, that some of AARO’s analysis still “seems a bit of a stretch.” For instance, in one portion of AARO’s analysis of the Eglin incident, the report’s authors note that “It is also plausible that the sun angle at the time of day of the event, when plotted with the EO/IR sensor’s viewing angle, illuminated the bottom half of the balloon— from the pilot’s perspective—while the top would appear dark, shaded, and cold.”
“I have never heard of ‘Earth Shine’ outside of the context of the Moon at night (or during a total eclipse),” West wrote in his posting at Metabunk. “But then the IC partner seems to think it’s direct illumination.”
“Their diagram is of little help,” West noted further, referring to an illustration in AARO’s report, which its authors use to explain why the lower portion of the object photographed by the pilot during the January 2023 incident might have appeared brighter than its upper portion, which West noted seems to be “at odds with the ‘earth shine’ theory.”
Above: The diagram featured in AARO’s recent resolution report on the Eglin incident depicting the military pilot’s point of view in relation to the UAP based on the “position and altitudes of the aircraft and object, the look angle of the sensor, and the sun geometry” (Credit: DoD/AARO).
The Debrief reached out to West regarding his views on AARO’s analysis of the Eglin UAP case, as well as other issues that have arisen with official publications issued by the Pentagon’s UAP investigative office in recent weeks; most notably, AARO’s long-awaited “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Volume I,” which it released earlier this year.
Mick West, a prominent UFO skeptic, raises several points of contention with recent analyses performed by the DoD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (Credit: Mick West/X).
For West, the lighting balloon theory falls short of offering a definitive resolution for the case, as do several of AARO’s other recent assertions.
“The lighting balloon hypothesis always felt like something someone at AARO liked, but wasn’t really supported by much evidence,” West told The Debrief in an email.
In an interview earlier this year with CNN’s Peter Bergen, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, made vague references to instances where ‘Tic-Tac’-shaped balloons produced by a Florida-based company were believed to have escaped.
“One of my favorite things is there’s this company in Florida,” Kirkpatrick told Bergen during the interview. “They make these backyard lighting balloons. Some of them are round. Some of them are tic tac shaped, and they’re black on the top, and inside, they have lights, and they’re helium filled. And they’re strapped down in people’s backyards for backyard parties, and they get away. When we talked to the company, they’re like, ‘yeah, we lose ’em. And we sometimes find them again, but generally not.”
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, former Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
(Credit: NASA).
“Well, you know, that’s a really weird-looking thing. Lit from the bottom, not light on the top, big tic-tac thing, flying around. Well, what is that? That kind of stuff is a flight hazard,” Kirkpatrick told Bergen at the time, although offering no additional details on any instances where such an object was believed to have been mistaken for a UAP.
West told The Debrief that Kirkpatrick’s remarks had initially sounded “almost as if he was trying to explain the Nimitz Tic-Tac, which would be rather a stretch.” However, with the release of the AARO’s report on the Eglin UAP case, it is now clear that this was the incident Kirkpatrick had been referring to at the time. West says that although some kind of lighter-than-air object cannot be dismissed, even AARO seemed uncertain whether this was a definitive conclusion, despite the report now being categorized as resolved.
“In the Eglin case, it can’t be ruled out, but it’s also not the only hypothesis [AARO] put forward,” West points out, noting that AARO’s recent report on the incident suggests that the Eglin UAP had been “very likely a lighter-than-air object, such as a large commercial lighting balloon,” although the report’s authors express that limited data on the case makes it difficult to rule out other potential explanations.
One of the primary issues critics have raised with the balloon hypothesis is that while it could potentially explain a single object, such as the one photographed by the military pilot during the January 2023 incident, this theory becomes more difficult when attempting to apply it to all four objects initially observed on radar.
Although West concedes this point, he also notes that AARO’s report never claimed that the lighting balloon hypothesis could account for all the objects, which the pilot initially judged to have been holding a diamond-shaped formation and potentially remaining stationary amidst 80 mph winds. If anything, AARO’s investigators seemingly ignored the presence of the additional three objects detected on radar, apart from a brief mention of them near the outset of their report.
West says that while the release of radar data from the Eglin incident might be helpful in making further determinations about the other objects the pilot detected, some caution would still be warranted.
“There’s a long history of conflating radar data with visual sightings,” West told The Debrief. “Unless it can clearly be demonstrated, we need to be open to the idea that what was seen on radar was not the same thing as seen visually (or on other sensors).” West cites similar instances where radar returns may have been unrelated to the primary objects captured on camera, including a case investigated by the Chilean Navy several years ago, which, after initially being touted as an unknown, was quickly revealed to have been a conventional aircraft.
“In the Chilean Navy case, much was made of the fact that there was no object on radar where the pilots thought the object was,” West says, “because it was 3x as far away.”
“So [the Eglin] the radar data could be something else, an unrelated glitch, or maybe even something related to the object (like a radar jammer/spoofer).”
While these possibilities exist, fundamentally, it remains unknown what the radar data might actually entail since, in addition to very little being said about it in AARO’s report, it presently remains inaccessible to the public.
“The problem here is that we don’t have the data,” West says. “We have the assessments of multiple experts that the sum total of the available data points towards something non-anomalous and lighter than air.”
Asked if he felt that it would be helpful for independent analysts to review at least some of the additional data that was available to AARO investigators, West said that this might not only make AARO’s job easier, but it could potentially improve their analysis in significant ways.
“Ideally the data would be public, as the more eyes you have on something, the quicker issues and questions get resolved,” West told The Debrief. “AARO works with two partners, an IC (Intelligence Community) partner and an S&T (Science and Technology) partner. It’s not clear who they are, but they both seem to have reached similar conclusions. Oddly, neither seem to comment on the lighting balloon hypothesis, which suggests that it was internal to AARO, so three teams.”
One primary issue is that AARO, by virtue of its job within the government, often has to work with classified information related to various technologies and military operations. This limits its ability to properly communicate its findings and how much it can reveal about the experts and kinds of analysis from these three teams being employed in AARO’s investigations.
“The multi-domain and classified approach results in a fragmented report with very little visibility as to the workings of the three teams,” West says. “Adding more people, such as myself, or the broader public, would help iron out the inconsistencies and poorly communicated details.”
“There’s a risk it gets too messy, but I advocate for an approach called ‘curated crowdsourcing,’ which I described a few years ago,” West says, referencing an article in which he explains how crowdsourced information and analysis led to a reasonable explanation for the Chilean UAP footage within just a few days of its release.
Had the issues present in its recent report on the Eglin incident been the only instance where problems in AARO’s conclusions had been noted, some of the problems with its analysis might have been deemed innocuous. However, the release of the office’s proposed resolution for the 2023 Eglin UAP incident follows just weeks after the appearance of AARO’s Historical Record Report Volume I, which received a lackluster reception due to several factual inaccuracies it contained.
West shares some of those concerns about the mistakes in AARO’s recent publications, which he feels point to why independent analysis by civilian researchers is important.
“AARO should have had the report fact-checked and edited,” West told The Debrief. “They messed up.”
“They have multiple teams of highly paid people working with them, and they have done some good work. But putting out a report with lots of minor errors makes them look bad and casts doubt on their broader conclusions, such as the circular conversations leading up to the Kona Blue proposal and stories about crash retrievals.”
Unlike cases such as the Eglin UAP incident, which may involve reliance on some appropriately classified information, the public version of AARO’s historical report draws much of its contents from publicly accessible information. Additionally, an unclassified version of the report was planned for public release all along, as directed in legislation passed into law that required the completion and publication of the report.
Given that it was destined for public release anyhow, West told The Debrief that AARO might have benefited from having independent researchers offer feedback before the final version of the Historical Report was published.
“Since the report was going to be unclassified, there’s no reason why they could not utilize outside experts to review an embargoed version,” West says. “They could even contract with them, having them sign NDAs.
Fundamentally, West says that working more closely with independent researchers under such circumstances could have helped AARO produce a better, more accurate final report and may have reduced negative responses from many who, justifiably, viewed the report as lacking quality and factual merit.
“There’s no real downside,” West concluded, “and an error-free report is a much better way of conveying your research and conclusions than what they actually produced.”
Despite its Earth-like size and source material, Venus is extremely dry, indicating near-total water loss to space. Using computer simulations, planetary scientists from the University of Colorado, Boulder and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Arizona, Tucson found that hydrogen atoms in the planet’s atmosphere go whizzing into space through a process known as dissociative recombination — causing Venus to lose roughly twice as much water every day compared to previous estimates.
Venus today is dry thanks to water loss to space as atomic hydrogen.
Image credit: Aurore Simonnet / Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics / University of Colorado at Boulder.
Despite being a close neighbor and being similar in size and source material to Earth, Venus is extremely dry.
Research has suggested that water from Venus’ once steam-dominant atmosphere was lost to space via a mechanism called hydrodynamic outflow.
However, this mechanism cannot remove all the water needed to explain current conditions, and other studied escape mechanisms are too slow to complete the process of water removal.
“Water is really important for life,” said Dr. Eryn Cangi, a researcher with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
“We need to understand the conditions that support liquid water in the universe, and that may have produced the very dry state of Venus today.”
“Venus is positively parched. If you took all the water on Earth and spread it over the planet like jam on toast, you’d get a liquid layer roughly 3 km (1.9 miles) deep.”
“If you did the same thing on Venus, where all the water is trapped in the air, you’d wind up with only 3 cm (1.2 inches), barely enough to get your toes wet.”
“Venus has 100,000 times less water than the Earth, even though it’s basically the same size and mass,” added Dr. Michael Chaffin, a researcher with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
The study authors propose a new explanation: a reaction called HCO+ dissociative recombination, which produces more escaping hydrogen than previously suggested processes.
HCO+ dissociative recombination would nearly double the rate of water loss to space from Venus and would resolve longstanding difficulties in explaining measured water abundances and isotope ratios on Venus.
Future Venus spacecraft missions need to measure HCO+ abundances to determine if HCO+ dissociative recombination is indeed the dominant mechanism for water loss.
“Our findings reveal new hints about why Venus, which probably once looked almost identical to Earth, is all but unrecognizable today,” Dr. Cangi said.
“We’re trying to figure out what little changes occurred on each planet to drive them into these vastly different states.”
M.S. Chaffin et al. Venus water loss is dominated by HCO+ dissociative recombination. Nature, published online May 6, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07261-y
New Rock Art Sites Discovered in Sudanese Eastern Desert
New Rock Art Sites Discovered in Sudanese Eastern Desert
Archaeologists from Macquarie University and Polish Academy of Science’s Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Culture have discovered 16 new rock art sites in the Sudanese Eastern Desert or the ‘Atbai.’ Almost all of the newly-discovered artwork, which dates back 4,000 years, features the presence of cattle.
Painted rock art at a site around Gebel Nahoganet in the Sudanese Eastern Desert.
Image credit: Cooper et al., doi: 10.1177/03075133231211.
“It was puzzling to find cattle carved on desert rock walls as they require plenty of water and acres of pasture, and would not survive in the dry and arid environment of the Sahara today,” said Dr. Julien Cooper, a researcher at Macquarie University.
“The presence of cattle in ancient rock art is one of the most important pieces of evidence establishing a once ‘green Sahara’.”
The rock art discovered in Eastern Sudan also paints the desert as a grassy savannah, brimming with pools, rivers, swamps and waterholes and home to a variety of African savannah fauna such as the giraffe and elephant.
The idea of a ‘green Sahara’ has been proven in previous archaeological and climatic fieldwork and research, with experts referring to this as the ‘African humid period’ — a time of increased summer monsoon rainfall which began approximately 15,000 years ago and ended roughly 5,000 years ago.
Dry and desolate: today's view of the Atbai desert near Wadi Halfa.
Image credit: Julian Cooper
Depictions of humans alongside the cattle could indicate the act of milking, suggesting the region was once occupied by cattle pastoralists until as late as the second or third millennium BCE.
After this point, decreasing rainfall rendered cattle pastoralism impossible.
Today, this region receives almost no annual rainfall.
Following the end of the ‘African humid period’, around 3000 BCE, lakes and rivers began to dry up, sand covered dead pastures and most of the human population left the Sahara for refuge closer to the Nile.
“The Atbai Desert around Wadi Halfa, where the new rock art was discovered, became almost completely depopulated. For those who remained, cattle were abandoned for sheep and goats,” the archaeologists said.
“This would have had major ramification on all aspects of human life — from diet and limited milk supplies, migratory patterns of herding families and the identity and livelihood of those who depended on their cattle.”
The team’s paper was published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
Julien Cooper et al. 2023. Rock Art Surveys in the Sudanese Eastern Desert: Results of the 2018-2019 Atbai Survey Project. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 109 (1-2); doi: 10.1177/03075133231211
On January 31, 1961, there was a special event in space history. A chimpanzee named Ham traveled into space, becoming the first of his kind to do so. Before famed astronauts like Alan Shepard and Neil Armstrong, there was Ham, a small chimpanzee, weighing only 37 pounds. Ham is remembered as both a hero and a creature who was put into a difficult situation during the space race.
Ham was part of a group of six chimps chosen for NASA’s Project Mercury. They were taken to Cape Canaveral in Florida, where they trained for three weeks in simulators designed to mimic the conditions of space. The purpose of sending Ham into space was to test if a spacecraft’s systems could keep a living creature safe and comfortable. This included making sure the life support systems worked during the short time of weightlessness in space.
Number 65 was a male chimpanzee, born in Africa in 1957. He was caught by trappers and taken to a bird farm in Florida. Then, in 1959, the U.S. Air Force bought him and took him to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. There, he learned to be an astro-chimp, which is a chimpanzee trained for space missions. His handlers called him “Ham” because of where he was trained. Ham was one of 40 chimps picked for the space program.
Ham the astrochimp after his historic 1961 suborbital flight. Image Credit: Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Before sending humans to space, NASA wanted to see if they could do tasks there. They picked chimpanzees because they’re like humans in many ways. They wanted to see if chimps could do tasks in space that other animals couldn’t. In simple words, Ham was like a test subject to see if humans could survive a journey into space. According to NASA’s publication, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury, (“Ham Paves the Way” chapter):
Intelligent and normally docile, the chimpanzee is a primate of sufficient size and sapience to provide a reasonable facsimile of human behavior. Its average response time to a given physical stimulus is .7 of a second, compared with man’s average .5 second. Having the same organ placement and internal suspension as man, plus a long medical research background, the chimpanzee chosen to ride the Redstone and perform a lever-pulling chore throughout the mission should not only test out the life-support systems but prove that levers could be pulled during launch, weightlessness, and reentry.
The chimpanzees were trained to push buttons when they heard sounds or saw lights. If they did it right within five seconds, they got treats called banana pellets. If not, they felt a little shock on their feet. Scientists also made them experience what it’s like to feel strong forces and float in space, like the people training to go to space, called the “Mercury Seven.” They trained for almost two years.
The astrochimps were not trained to “pilot” space capsules. Instead, they were trained to do regular jobs during short space trips. They were also used as test subjects to understand the dangers of space travel, both physically and mentally. This helped scientists learn about the risks before sending humans, starting from the Mercury program and continuing into later space missions.
“According to one story, which strict scientists contend is apocryphal,” LIFE wrote, “a veterinarian gave a banana to a chimp before a rocket sled ride. As the animal peeled it, the ride started with a lurch and the monkey got the banana full in the face. The next time the chimp was offered a banana before a sled ride, he took it, peeled it, and smeared it over the veterinarian’s face.”
An astrochimp in training at Holloman Air Force Base, 1960. Image Credit: Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
On January 31, 1961, a Mercury-Redstone launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Ham over 400 miles down range in an arching trajectory that reached a peak of 158 miles above the Earth. Ham performed his lever-pulling tasks well in response to flashing lights. NASA used chimpanzees and other primates to test the Mercury capsule before launching the first American astronauts.
During the flight, his vital signs and various assigned tasks were closely monitored by computers back on Earth. At one point, the spacecraft lost some air because of a problem with a valve. But Ham was safe in his spacesuit. Ham’s journey in the spacecraft lasted for about 16 and a half minutes. He flew at around 5800 miles per hour and reached a height of 157 miles above the Earth. During part of the journey, he felt weightless for about 6 and a half minutes. Even with all the speed and strange feelings, Ham performed his tasks without any problem.
During the flight, they checked how Ham reacted to feeling weightless and speeding up by making him do tasks where he pulled levers. He had practiced doing these tasks before the flight. According to A Brief History of Animals in Space published by the NASA History Office, the flight did not go completely as planned:
The original flight plan called for an altitude of 115 miles and speeds ranging up to 4,400 mph. However, due to technical problems, the spacecraft carrying Ham reached an altitude of 157 miles and a speed of 5,857 mph and landed 422 miles downrange rather than the anticipated 290 miles… He experienced a total of 6.6 minutes of weightlessness during a 16.5-minute flight.
After the flight, when Ham’s capsule landed in the water, it was about 130 miles away from where it was supposed to be. The capsule started filling with water, but it took a few hours for a ship to come and rescue Ham. Amazingly, he was alive and seemed pretty calm, considering what he’d been through. His trainer described the moment he was recovered from his capsule following the project – “I have never seen such terror on a chimp’s face.” Biologist, Jane Goodall, would say his face showed “the most extreme fear.”
Later on, there was another moment that showed how scared Ham was. Some photographers wanted to take more pictures of him in his seat, but he refused to get back in. Even though people tried to make him, he wouldn’t do it.
After he flew into space, Ham lived alone for 20 years in the National Zoological Park in Washington D.C. Then, he moved to the North Carolina Zoo where he could be with other chimpanzees.
He died when he was only 26 years old on January 19, 1983. Some people wanted to make an exhibit of his stuffed body in a museum, but many disagreed. They thought it was disrespectful. An article in the Washington Post wrote, “Talk about death without dignity.” A letter in the Smithsonian Archives from a sophomore at West High School in Painted Post, New York, summed up the public mood: “By treating his body like that of a stupid beast, people will continue thinking of apes as stupid beasts, and not the intelligent, almost human animals they really are.”
Instead of being stuffed, Ham was cremated, and his ashes were buried with a plaque at the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo, New Mexico. His bones are now shown at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
UFO over Celle di Bulgheria, in Cilento, Italy May 5, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
UFO over Celle di Bulgheria, in Cilento, Italy May 5, 2024, UAP Sighting News.
A woman in Italy took two photos and a UFO appeared out of know where in one of them. Italy is close to the Rocca Pia, Italy UFO base below the castle...it was an alien interaction with people that lasted several decades. This is absolute proof that the Rocca Pia base is still active even today.
UFO rising out of Seneca Lake, New York, USA water 💦 dripping off it, April 29, 2024, UAP sighting news.
UFO rising out of Seneca Lake, New York, USA water 💦 dripping off it, April 29, 2024, UAP sighting news.
Guys, this is a very rare event. A huge cloaked UFO disk is rising up from the bottom of the lake. When it’s fully out of the water it will wait till most water drips off and then shoot away. This is just mind boggling to see it take place. Scott C. Waring
De Marianentrog: wat weet jij over de diepste plek op aarde? Met zijn bergtoppen en spectaculaire valleien zijn de aarde en zijn landschappen werkelijk bijzonder. Als we het echter over oceanen hebben, denken we vaak dat ze slechts wat water en een bodem met zand zijn, maar ze zijn eigenlijk net zo levendig als de wereld boven water. Een van de meest indrukwekkende locaties onder water is de Marianatrog, een plek van mysterie en verwondering in de Stille Oceaan. Het staat bekend als de diepste oceaantrog ter wereld en hier bevindt zich ook de Challengerdiepte, het diepst bekende punt op aarde.
Van wonderbaarlijke diepten tot verbazingwekkende dieren, klik verder voor wat bijzondere feitjes over deze unieke plek onder water.
Een koninklijke naam De eilanden zijn vernoemd naar koningin Maria Anna van Oostenrijk, die getrouwd was met koning Filips IV van Spanje. Vervolgens werd de trog weer naar de eilanden vernoemd.
De bodem vinden Het deel van de trog dat als diepste wordt beschouwd heet de Challengerdiepte, hoewel de exacte locatie ervan moeilijk vast te stellen is.
Het is dieper dan de Mount Everest hoog is Ter vergelijking: de Mount Everest heeft een hoogte van 8.848 meter boven zeeniveau, wat betekent dat het diepste deel van de Marianentrog 2.147 meter dieper is dan de Mount Everest hoog is.
Het heeft een bijzondere vorm De trog heeft de vorm van een halve maan. Hij ligt in de buurt van twee tektonische platen: de Filipijnse Plaat en de Pacifische Plaat. De Pacifische plaat, die groter is, ligt onder de Marianentrog.
De temperatuur De temperatuur op de bodem varieert van 1 tot 3°C. In de rest van de trog zijn de temperatuurverschillen echter groter. Door de stoom die in sommige delen van de trog aanwezig is en door hydrothermische energie kan het er op sommige plekken 300°C worden.
De platen vormen nieuwe geografische eigenschappen De beweging van de twee platen speelde een belangrijke rol bij het ontstaan van de Marianen. Door onderzoek naar deze platen zijn enkele van de oudste materialen die in de aardkorst zitten ontdekt. Deze materialen zijn tot wel 170 miljoen jaar oud
Het werd ontdekt in 1875 De Marianentrog werd voor het eerst ontdekt tijdens de Challenger-expeditie in 1875, genoemd naar het onderzoeksschip HMS Challenger. Om de diepte van de trog te meten gebruikten de ontdekkingsreizigers een dieplood. Deze werd vastgesteld op 8.183 meter.
Een nauwkeurigere meting Er werd een nauwkeurigere meting gedaan tijdens een tweede onderzoek in 1951. Er werd een echolood gebruikt en bij de Challengerdiepte werd een diepte van 10.899 meter vastgesteld. Op de foto zie je een echolood uit die tijd.
Technologie helpt ons de diepte ervan te onderzoeken Naarmate de technologie verbeterde, werd het mogelijk om duidelijkere beelden vast te leggen en nauwkeurigere metingen te doen. Zowel echoloden als op afstand bediende camera's hebben veel meer informatie over de trog gebracht.
De eerste mensen die de Marianentrog verkenden In 1960 daalden Jacques Piccard en Don Walsh naar het diepste punt van de trog af in een bathyscaaf genaamd Trieste. Een bathyscaaf is een onderwatervoertuig dat zelf kan stijgen en dalen. Tevens kan het grotere diepten bereiken dan een onderzeeër.
De Amerikaanse marine heeft geholpen bij het verkennen van de Marianentrog Het onderzoek van Piccard en Walsh werd gesteund door de Amerikaanse marine. Ze slaagden erin het hele gebied in kaart te brengen.
In 2019 werden in de Marianentrog recorddiepten bereikt In 2019 bracht de Texaanse ontdekkingsreiziger en investeerder Victor Vescovo de DSV Limiting Factor tot een diepte van 10.928 meter, waarmee hij het wereldrecord met 16 meter verbrak. Datzelfde jaar daalde hij voor de tweede keer af en werd daardoor de eerste persoon die tweemaal naar de bodem van de Challengerdiepte afdaalde.
Het is mogelijk om de Marianentrog zonder duikers te verkennen In 2020 bracht een Russisch verkenningsschip genaamd Vityaz drie uur in de trog door en werd daarmee het eerste schip dat het gebied zelfstandig verkende.
'Titanic'-regisseur James Cameron is een van de weinige mensen die het heeft bezocht James Cameron daalde af met een onderzeeër, die hij persoonlijk hielp ontwerpen, tot ongeveer 10.908 meter, waarmee hij in 2012 een wereldrecord vestigde.
Het beschikt over een uniek zeeleven en moddervulkanen Ondanks het gebrek aan licht en de vijandige omgeving leven er talloze organismen in de Marianentrog. Er zijn meer dan 200 micro-organismen en andere levende wezens in de Marianentrog aanwezig.
Het bevindt zich in een hadale zone De term 'hadale zone', die naar Hades is vernoemd, de Griekse god van de onderwereld, verwijst naar de diepste delen van de oceaan (6.000 meter of dieper).
Het is een populaire plek voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek De trog fungeert als een internationale hotspot voor wetenschappelijk en multidisciplinair onderzoek dat gericht is op het ontrafelen van geheimen op het gebied van geologie, biologie en oceanografie.
Het heeft tot innovatie geleid Het verkennen van de Marianentrog stimuleert innovatie op het gebied van wetenschap, techniek en technologie. Op de foto zie je Richard Branson en ontdekkingsreiziger Chris Welsh met een autonome onderzeeër die klaar werd gemaakt om de trog te bezoeken.
Het wordt ernstig geschaad door luchtvervuiling Helaas kunnen er verontreinigende stoffen en weggegooid plastic afval in de diepten van de oceaan terechtkomen. In de Marianentrog is dit heel erg het geval.
Polychloorbyfenil vormt een probleem in de Marianentrog Onderzoekers hebben zorgwekkend veel polychloorbifenyl (een gifstof) aangetroffen in het lichaam van schaaldieren. Dit gif werd in 1970 verboden vanwege de risico's die het teweegbracht voor het milieu. Er werden enorme hoeveelheden van dit gif aangetroffen op meerdere dieptes in de bodem van de trog.
Het is een plek waar radioactief afval werd gedumpt Van 1946 tot 1993 dumpten verschillende landen radioactief afval in de oceaan om zich er van te ontdoen. De Marianentrog was een van de plekken waar dit vaak gedaan werd.
Mensen geven oprecht om de toekomst van de trog Milieuactivisten blijven aandringen op een groter bewustzijn en meer belangstelling voor de bescherming van het milieu tegen door de mens veroorzaakte problemen. De waterkwaliteit en de natuur van de Marianentrog staan onder voortdurend toezicht van de lokale overheid.
Het is aangewezen als Amerikaans monument Het Marianas Trench Marine National Monument werd in 2009 opgericht. Dit was voornamelijk bedoeld om de zeldzame organismen te beschermen die in de diepten leven.
Het geeft een kijkje in de geschiedenis Aan de hand van sedimentair gesteente en geologische formaties biedt het bestuderen van de Marianentrog een unieke kans om een kijkje te nemen in de verre geschiedenis van onze planeet.
De trog heeft ter inspiratie gediend voor fictieboeken Het mysterie en de aantrekkingskracht van de trog hebben als inspiratie gediend voor fictieboeken, waaronder 'Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror' (1997) van de New York Times-bestsellerauteur Steve Alten.
Het was ook te zien op het witte doek In 2018 werd een verfilming van Altens boek genaamd 'The Meg' uitgebracht. Jason Statham is in deze film te zijn, die wordt ingeschakeld om te voorkomen dat een gigantische prehistorische haai de Chinese kust aanvalt.
Government Breaks Silence: Investigating Strange Encounters with UFOs
Government Breaks Silence: Investigating Strange Encounters with UFOs
In 2015, a significant event marked a turning point in the discourse surrounding unidentified flying objects (UFOs) – the government broke its silence. Navy pilots reported perplexing encounters with UFOs off the coast of Virginia Beach, igniting a flurry of speculation and debate within both military and civilian circles. These encounters, characterized by the pilots as objects with no wings, no cockpit, and no visible means of propulsion, spurred a reassessment of the UFO phenomenon.
Lieutenant Ryan Graves, a Navy pilot with over a decade of service, recounted his experiences aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. He described radar contacts that defied conventional explanation, prompting his squadron to file safety reports. Graves’ testimony, along with numerous other pilots, shed light on a pattern of encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena that persisted over months and years, occurring almost daily in some cases.
The stigma surrounding UFO sightings, often dismissed as hallucinations or ignored to protect careers, began to erode as more pilots came forward with their testimonies. Despite the risk to their professional reputations, these pilots emphasized the importance of addressing the reality of what they were witnessing. The prevailing sentiment among them was clear – the truth could not be muzzled, especially when it posed potential safety risks in the skies.
The government’s acknowledgment of UFO encounters was underscored by the revelation of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), initiated in 2007 and funded by the Department of Defense. This program, previously shrouded in secrecy, signaled a shift towards a more transparent approach to investigating UFO sightings. The release of footage captured by military aircraft, accompanied by firsthand accounts from experienced pilots, provided undeniable evidence of the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena.
The New York Times’ groundbreaking article in 2017 further propelled the UFO discourse into the mainstream, revealing the ongoing efforts of the US government to study and understand these phenomena. Former Senator Harry Reid played a pivotal role in catalyzing government interest in UFOs, advocating for official disclosure and transparency. His efforts, along with those of other government officials, culminated in the establishment of the Galileo Project, a scientific initiative
The recent Congressional hearings on UFOs marked a historic moment, signaling a renewed commitment to transparency and accountability. Witnesses from the Pentagon and Naval intelligence testified before Congress, acknowledging the reality of UFO encounters and the potential national security implications. While the hearings fell short of providing definitive answers, they underscored the need for further investigation and collaboration between government agencies and the scientific community.
The Galileo Project, spearheaded by astrophysicist Professor Avi Loeb, represents a groundbreaking effort to study UFOs using scientific methodologies. By deploying advanced sensor systems and artificial intelligence, the project aims to gather empirical data on unidentified aerial phenomena and analyze them with rigor and objectivity. This interdisciplinary approach, supported by leading scientists and researchers, holds the promise of unlocking the mysteries surrounding UFO encounters.
In conclusion, the government’s acknowledgment of UFO encounters represents a significant step towards understanding the unknown. By shedding light on these phenomena and initiating scientific inquiry, we move closer to unraveling one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time. The journey towards understanding UFOs is fraught with challenges, but with transparency, collaboration, and scientific rigor, we may finally uncover the truth behind these strange encounters.
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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 73 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.
![Each map shows the intensity of Earth's geomagnetic field at different snapshots in time, according to Panovska's reconstructions that are constrained by both paleomagnetic data and records of cosmogenic beryllium-10 radionuclides. DM stands for Dipole Moment, which is a measure of the field's polarity or separation of positive and negative. Age [ka BP] is the age measures in thousands of years before the present. Image Credit: Sanja Panovska.](https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Panovska-summary-map.jpg)
