Month: January 2021

Ancient ‘Super-Earth’ Offers Clue That Life in Our Galaxy Could be Older Than We Thought

Article by Morgan McFall-Johnsen                                              January 13, 2021                                               (businessinsider.com)

• On January 11th, astronomers at the University of Hawaii informed fellow scientist at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society that they have found a ‘rocky’ planet 280 light-years away, orbiting a star located within the Milky Way galaxy’s ‘thick disk’ that holds most of the Milky Way’s material. Stars in this thick disk region are about 10 billion years old, and researchers think that this planet is just as ancient.

• The planet, called TOI-561 b, is a “super-Earth” – about 50% larger than Earth and three times its mass. But it orbits so close to its star that has a surface temperature over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This would turn the top layer of rock into molten magma, drastically reducing the chance that it could host life forms.

• “TOI-561 b is the first planet with a confirmed rocky composition around such an old star, demonstrating that rocky planets have been forming for most of the history of the universe,” said Lauren Weiss, lead researcher in the discovery.

• While this super-Earth is far older than expected for a rocky planet, its existence suggests that other stars could have ancient Earth-like worlds with temperatures more suitable for life. Having existed for twice as long as Earth, such planets would have had plenty of time to support complex life and even intelligent civilizations.

• The finding was published in The Astronomical Journal.

 

A rocky, molten planet orbiting one of the galaxy’s oldest stars could be scientists’ best evidence yet that alien life may have

                 Lauren Weiss

arisen in the distant past.

The planet, called TOI-561 b, is a “super-Earth” 280 light-years away. It’s about 50% larger than our planet and three times its mass, but it’s unlikely to host life. It orbits so close to its star that the researchers who discovered it calculated that its surface temperature is more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, turning the top layer of rock into molten magma.

But this super-Earth is far older than scientists previously expected for rocky planets, suggesting that other stars could have ancient Earth-like worlds with temperatures more suitable for life. Such planets may have existed for twice as long as Earth, giving them plenty of time to support complex life and even intelligent civilizations.

The star that TOI-561 b orbits lies in the galaxy’s “thick disk,” the outer region above and below the flat plane that holds most of the Milky Way’s material. Stars in the thick disk are about 10 billion years old, and researchers think that this planet is just as ancient.

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Video of Glowing Object Streaking Behind Outer Banks Lighthouse

Article by Mark Price                                           January 13, 2021                                            (kansascity.com)

• On January 7th, at 10:20 pm, North Carolina photographer, Wes Snyder, was spending the night at the Cape Hatteras lighthouse on the Outer Banks shooting time-lapse photos for a video he is producing. Reviewing his footage, Snyder noticed an object streaking across the sky behind the lighthouse. (see 3:08 minute video below)

• “It’s much larger than your typical plane appears,’ says Snyder, “and it’s moving way faster than clouds.” Snyder thinks that the best explanation is that it is space junk or a satellite burning up in the atmosphere. It looks a lot like a meteor, but Snyder says that’s only because he sped the video up.“ The object was visible for just under 3 minutes total so I doubt it’s a meteor, (or) shooting star as those typically only last a few seconds.” Snyder notes that the object also appears to have corners in some of the time lapse photos.

• Some Facebook commenters said that it was “clearly extraterrestrial”, while others suggest something more ghostly, tied to the thousands of mariners who died in Outer Banks shipwrecks, known as the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’.

• North Carolina’s coast is well known for reported UFO sightings. Large segments of the Outer Banks are undeveloped and the lack of light pollution allows for extended viewing of the night sky. Add to that the ocean reflecting light and you have a perfect mix for strange sightings.

• Experts believe some of the suspected UFOs that have been reported off the coast are actually military exercises employing a mix of aircraft and flares, or a US Coast Guard helicopter, or lights on a fishing trawler.

• “I’m happy to see the response, as it validates that I’m not crazy and that I captured something unique,” Snyder said. “I’ve seen tons of planes, meteors, shooting stars, satellites in my time lapses before and this just didn’t act like anything I’ve ever seen before. …[I]t’s been fascinating to see all the various guesses and responses. I always love when I capture something I can’t explain.”

• [Editor’s Note]  This sighting brings to mind, a famous video taken by a tourist to the Outer Banks in October 2019 while traveling on a ferry across the Pamlico Sound. (see 3:16 minute video below). William Guy believed that he spotted a “fleet” of fourteen luminous objects in a cluster in the western sky as the sun was setting. In the video, Guy remarks, “We’re in the middle of the ocean, on a ferry.”

In my ‘Editor’s Note Update’ added to the October 2019 ExoArticle (see here) I noted that Guy’s video is pointed toward the sunset – or west. When he pans slightly to the left to see the UFO flotilla. Well, that wouldn’t be pointing east toward the Atlantic Ocean. That would be pointing southwest. This makes sense because in the YouTube video’s description, Guy says that the ferry is crossing the “Pimlico Sound lagoon”. As a native of the Outer Banks area (Virginia Beach) I remarked: “It’s the “Pamlico Sound” and it’s no lagoon. It is a huge body of water – so wide that you cannot see across it. So it looks a lot like the ocean. But it’s the sound. And they were crossing it from Ocracoke to Swan Quarters North Carolina… Therefore, these lights would be situated over the Croatan National Forest. Beyond this forest is the city of Jacksonville, NC and Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune.” So this UFO flotilla could very well be a Marine Corp aerial exercise.

 

                 Wes Snyder

A lively debate has erupted on social media over a video that appears to show an unidentified flying object last week over North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

It looks a lot like a meteor, but photographer Wes Snyder says that’s only because he sped the video up.

“The object was visible for just under 3 minutes total so I doubt it’s a meteor, (or) shooting star as those typically only last a few seconds,” Snyder posted on YouTube.

The object also appears to have corners in some of the time lapse photos.

Snyder, who is well known in the Carolinas for coastal photography, shared the video on Facebook and YouTube in hopes of getting sensible explanations. The result has been 300-plus comments, 600 shares and 1,500 reactions. The video was recorded around 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, he says.

“I spent a night at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse shooting time lapse photos in order to create an upcoming video. While I was looking through my footage I realized there was something in the video that I could not explain,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s much larger than your typical plane appears, and it’s moving way faster than clouds.”

3:08 minute video of UFO streaking over the Outer Banks of NC (Wes Snyder Photography)

3:16 minute video of ‘fleet’ of UFOs over North Carolina coast (‘Only Real UFOs’ YouTube)

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Strange Radio Signal Discovered Coming From Jupiter’s Moon

Article by Chris Ciaccia                                         January 12, 2021                                        (foxnews.com)

• In 2018, NASA researchers monitoring the Galileo Probe spacecraft observed extraordinary electromagnetic waves, or “chorus waves,” on Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede. NASA recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters that NASA’s Jupiter space probe ‘Juno’ (pictured above) detected a “decametric radio emission” as it traveled over Jupiter’s polar region at a speed of 111,847 mph. The radio emission lasted for only five seconds, but it was enough time to confirm the source.

• “It’s not ET,” says NASA’s Patrick Wiggins. “It’s more of a natural function.” Electrons spiraling in Jupiter’s magnetic field are thought to be the cause of the radio noise. Scientists have known about radio waves on Jupiter since the mid-1950s, but this is the first time the phenomenon has ever been seen emanating from Ganymede.

• The Juno spacecraft launched in 2011and was scheduled to stop functioning in July 2021. But NASA recently extended the duration of the Juno mission around Jupiter to September 2025, if it survives that long. During its mission, Juno has made a number of discoveries and captured remarkable images of the planet and its moons. Juno will continue to observe the gas giant and its rings, and is planned to make close flybys of moons Ganymede, Europa and Io.

• Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter’s moons, has long fascinated astronomers. In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean. Jupiter’s moon Europa is the sixth-largest moon in the solar system and home to an ocean that “could be habitable,” say researchers.

 

                    Galileo Probe

NASA recently extended the life of two of its planetary discovery missions, including the Juno mission to Jupiter. Now it’s come to light Juno has discovered an FM signal emanating from one of the gas giant’s moons, Ganymede.

                      Patrick Wiggins

The discovery is not an indication of extraterrestrial life, but it is fascinating nonetheless, given it’s the first time it’s been discovered coming from the celestial satellite.
“It’s not E.T.,” Patrick Wiggins, one of NASA’s ambassadors to Utah, said in comments obtained by Fox 8 Cleveland. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, which launched in 2011, happened to be traveling across Jupiter’s polar region at a speed of 111,847 mph when it crossed the radio source, known as a “decametric radio emission,” or simply Wi-Fi. It saw the radio emission for only five seconds, but it was enough time to confirm the source.

                              Europa

According to NASA, the decametric radio waves have frequencies between 10 and 40 MHz, but never above 40 MHz. “Electrons spiraling in Jupiter’s magnetic field are thought to be the cause of the radio noise we hear,” the space agency added.

Scientists have known about radio waves on Jupiter since the mid-1950s, but this is the first time the phenomenon has ever been

                           Ganymede

seen emanating from Ganymede.
The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

While notable, this is not the first time scientists have discovered strange occurrences on Ganymede. In 2018, researchers observed “extraordinary” electromagnetic waves, also known as “chorus waves,” thanks to the Galileo Probe spacecraft.

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has long fascinated astronomers—as it is the largest of the planet’s moons. In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean.

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New Discovery+ Series Unveils Unseen Project Blue Book UFO Files

Article by Patrick Cavanaugh                                     January 11, 2021                                      (comicbook.com)

• Project Blue Book is one of the most well-known investigative efforts into UFOs and extraterrestrial life, conducted by the US Air Force in the ’50s and ’60s before shutting down in 1970. While some of the research conducted within Project Blue Book has been released, there is still valuable information that the general public has never seen. On January 14th, the online streaming service, discovery+, debuted the series UFO Witness to explore all manner of intergalactic phenomenon, from UFO sightings to possible contact with humans. Among the topics in the UFO Witness series is a fresh look at Project Blue Book.

• Jennie Zeidman was the last surviving member of the Project Blue Book investigative team. Before her death in April 2020, Zeidman spoke publicly for the first time about her decades of research for UFO Witness. She believed we’ve been visited by UFOs and that the Earth is under extraterrestrial surveillance. Zeidman gave discovery+ exclusive access to her Project Blue Book files, including the personal files of chief scientific consultant, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, to help continue Hynek’s investigations.

• In UFO Witness, former federal agent and paranormal investigator Ben Hansen reopens case files of some of the most astounding UFO encounters in history, which have been hidden from the public for decades. With unprecedented access to more than 10,000 of Dr. Hynek’s case files, Hansen believes the answers to UFOs in America are hidden in the cases of the past. Aiding Hansen on his quest is UFO investigator Mark O’Connell – Dr. Hynek biographer and member of J. Allen Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies. Together, Hansen and O’Connell will attempt uncover the secrets of the past to shed new light on today’s newest UFO encounters.

 

                    Jennie Zeidman

Project Blue Book is one of the most well-known investigative efforts into UFOs and extraterrestrial life,

                        J. Allen Hynek

with the study being conducted by the United States Air Force in the ’50s and ’60s before shutting down in 1970. While some of the research conducted within Project Blue Book has been released, there is still valuable information that the general public has never seen, with the upcoming discovery+ series UFO Witness to debut all-new information about the phenomenon. The upcoming discovery+ series will explore all manner of intergalactic phenomenon, from UFO sightings to possible contact with humans. The first three episodes of UFO Witness debut on discovery+ on January 14th.

          Ben Hansen

Per press release, “We are definitely not alone! For more than 70 years, the U.S. government has been documenting

sightings and cases of unidentified flying objects. In cooperation with former Project Blue Book investigator Jennie Zeidman, former federal agent and paranormal investigator Ben Hansen reopens case files of some of the most astounding UFO encounters in history, files that have been hidden from the public for decades. In the new series, UFO Witness, launching Thursday, January 14th exclusively on discovery+, these findings are finally seeing the light of day.

“Zeidman was the last surviving member of the Air Force’s top-secret UFO investigation called Project Blue Book, which

                      Mark O’Connell

looked into sightings from 1952 through 1970. She has broken her silence, speaking publicly for the first time about her decades of research – motivated to share her expertise because she believes we’ve been visited by UFOs before – and fears Earth is under extraterrestrial surveillance. Sadly, Zeidman passed away in April 2020, but she has given discovery+ exclusive access to the files from the chief scientific consultant of Project Blue Book, Dr. Allen J. Hynek, to help continue his investigations.

“With unprecedented access to more than 10,000 of Dr. Hynek’s case files, Hansen believes the answers to UFOs in America are hidden in the cases of the past. Also aiding Hansen on his quest is Mark O’Connell – an accomplished UFO investigator, Dr. Hynek biographer and member of J. Allen Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies. Together, they will uncover the secrets of the past to shed new light on today’s freshest UFO encounters.”

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UK Proposes the Creation of a Space Command

Article by Nicholas Puschman                                         January 5, 2021                                            (lexology.com)

• Since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established the international legal framework for space activities, space has become recognized as a potential domain of warfare. Satellites are increasingly viewed as essential components of critical communications for military and defense purposes, and space-faring countries have made clear the importance of space and space technology to their current and future defense posture.

• In 2019, space was recognized by NATO as the latest operational domain (along with air, land, sea and cyberspace). In October 2020, NATO announced that it would establish a center for space operations at Ramstein airbase in Germany to increase deterrence and defense. While many countries have had space-related functions within existing military branches, both the US and France have recently established new military branches devoted to the strategic and military importance of space. In 2019, the U.S. established Space Force and France formed a new Space Command (Commandement de l’Espace), which supersedes the previous French military service dealing with space.

• In recent years, the UK government has been considering how to develop its capabilities in using space technology and ensuring that space is part of its national defense strategy. In 2019, the UK Ministry of Defence announced several new military space initiatives and published plans for a Defence Space Strategy, noting that “satellites and space-based services are vital to modern life” and that “there would be severe consequences from any disruption, whether by natural or man-made hazards, or intentional threats from hostile states”.

• On November 18, 2020, the UK announced its proposal to establish a new military command dedicated to space. (see previous ExoArticle here) The proposal of a new Royal Air Force (RAF) space command was part of an announcement by the UK Government of the largest defense budget since the Cold War of £16.5 billion over the next four years. The full details of how this new UK space command will be composed, and what it will do, remain to be seen.

• The potential opportunities of a new UK military space command will likely be of interest to industry players, and in particular those involved in the UK spaceport market in relation to commercial spaceflight and spaceports, such as those being established in Scotland. In announcing the new defense budget, Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated that “we will establish…a new RAF space command, launching British satellites and our first rocket from Scotland in 2022.”

 

Space has long been recognised as a potential domain of warfare – indeed, it was one of the major motivating factors in establishing the international legal framework for space activities in the form of the Outer Space Treaty 1967. Space continues to be viewed as an area of strategic importance for military capability, and satellites are increasingly viewed as essential components of critical communications for military and defence purposes. In recent years, many space-faring countries and international organisations have made clear the importance of space and space technology to their current and future defence.

At an international level, in 2019, space was recognised by NATO as the latest operational domain (along with air, land, sea and cyberspace) and adopted a new space policy. In October, NATO announced that it would establish a centre for space operations at Ramstein airbase in Germany to increase deterrence and defence.

At a national level, while many countries have long had space-related functions within existing military branches, countries such as the US and France, as two examples, have recently established new military branches to clearly demonstrate the strategic and military importance of space. In 2019, the US established an independent military branch dedicated to space defence, named the US Space Force. In the same year, France formed a new Space Command (Commandement de l’Espace), which supersedes the previous French military service dealing with space.

       UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

The UK announces the establishment of a new military command dedicated to space

On 18 November 2020, the UK announced its proposal to establish a new military command dedicated to space, similar to the recent moves taken by allied countries such as France and the US. The proposal of a new Royal Air Force (RAF) space command was part of an announcement by the UK Government of the largest defence budget since the Cold War of £16.5 billion over the next four years.

This announcement is in the continuity of the UK’s national defence strategy

While a new military branch is new, the UK Government has in recent years been considering how to develop its capabilities in using space technology and ensuring that space is part of its national defence strategy. In 2019, the UK Ministry of Defence announced several new military space initiatives and published plans for a Defence Space Strategy, noting that “satellites and space-based services are vital to modern life” and that “there would be severe consequences from any disruption, whether by natural or man-made hazards, or intentional threats from hostile states”.

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Ohio Man Shares UFO Experience – Part II

Article by Stacy Turner                                        January 7, 2021                                            (weeklyvillager.com)

• In this second part of a two-part article, we continue sharing the story of ‘Joe from Ohio’, who in 2017, was on his way home from his job in Garrettsville when he noticed strange blinking lights over a field from what he determined were three craft, and took some photos from his flip phone. A year later, driving through the same area Joe noticed lights in a wooded area, and thought he saw some figures as if they were looking for something. When he tried taking some photos on his flip phone, the cab inside his truck became illuminated with light. The charm hanging from his rear view mirror was inexplicably moving, but for some reason, Joe was not afraid. Before long, he had forgotten about the incident and the pictures on his flip phone, until a year ago when he was deleting photos and transferred the photos of these incidents to his computer. (see Part 1 of Joe’s story in this previous ExoArticle)

• Once the photos had been transferred to his computer, it provided a much larger view of the photos. Joe and his wife then noticed a figured shifting in the background between photos which Joe had taken while shielding his eyes from the light inside his truck. In the first shot, they noticed a shape that filled in a small portion at the top of the rear view mirror (featured photo above). Each frame showed the unidentified shapes’ reflection taking up a larger portion of the mirror. That looming shape appeared to be a face that came into more clarity as the image series progressed. The enlarged images also depicted what looked like a cylindrical shape entering the left side of the photo frame. In successive frames the figure changes shape, filling more of the mirror that reflected the event unfolding behind the cab of Joe’s truck.

• Joe’s wife admitted to being “creeped out” by the images, which appear to depict at least two figures approaching Joe’s vehicle amidst an unnaturally bright light source. While Joe remembered taking the initial photos that depicted bright lights above the field (see below), he noted that he wasn’t afraid. “I didn’t feel it/they wanted to hurt me.” But he had trouble remembering some of the other photos he found on his camera roll.

• Looking closer at the dates the photos were taken, Joe realized that several unexplained photos on his phone that he assumed were taken on the same date had actually taken place over multiple days. “In my mind, it all happened then and there,” he says. But a look at the time stamps shows that these experiences happened a number of different times. Since then, Joe’s had “weird dreams” along with an urge to get up and write them down, although the resulting mix of odd letters and numbers doesn’t make sense to him. Joe admits that every so often, he sits at his desk and studies the photos to try and jog his memory. But he hasn’t come any closer to explaining it, and “had to back away from it for a while.” “If I keep dwelling on it, it encompasses me.”

• The couple has also noticed strange lights near their home, which leads them to believe the visitors have some sort of connection to Joe. These experiences seem to occur when Joe takes out his photos to try and gain some clarity. He likens the visits to an experience with a stray dog. He explains, “When you first see it, you might be scared. But as you see it more often, you may feed it and you get used to each other, and then it’s not so scary.” His wife quickly added, “I don’t see it that way.”

• On at least two occasions, Joe and his wife have awoken to discover their home alarm system had been unarmed. They experienced what they considered a ‘break-in’, where someone had opened a ground floor window. They found small prints and a ‘mud-like” substance on the exterior of the house and on the windowpane, though the sticky substance didn’t match the type of soil around their home. Joe noted that the ‘visitor’ appeared to have moved items on the table below the window, presumably to make space to climb in the house. But nothing was taken, even though money was sitting on his desk in plain sight. The window was left open, with the blinds blowing, alerting him that someone had been there that evening.

• Joe wonders how many people have seen or experienced what he has, and hopes that they too will come forward to share what they’ve seen, and maybe help solve this mystery.

 

   Joe’s photo of ‘lights’ seen across a field

You’ll recall from the first part of Joe’s story, which appeared in the December 25th issue, where he shared what he experienced one night on Shanks Downes Road on his way home from work. You’ll remember that Joe set the phone aside, and didn’t think about them again until he sat down to remove old contacts and download photos to his computer. When he and his wife downloaded the photos, they made a startling discovery. Once they saw the series of photos enlarged on the computer screen, they noticed details that had escaped their notice on the tiny flip phone screen.

In the rear view mirror, in addition to the bright light that appeared to be coming from above the truck’s cab and the movement of a charm hanging from the rear-view mirror, the two noticed movement behind the cab where Joe sat. In the first shot, they noticed a shape that filled in a small portion at the top of the mirror. As Joe continued pressing the shutter with one hand while shielding his eyes from the intense light with his other, each frame showed the unidentified shapes reflection taking up a larger portion of the mirror. That looming shape appeared, to the couple, to be a face that came into more clarity as the image series progressed. In addition to what appeared in the center of the mirror, the enlarged images also depict what looked to the couple like a cylindrical, tube-shape entering the left side of the photo frame. In successive frames, the figure changes shape, filling more of the mirror that reflected the event unfolding behind the cab of Joe’s truck.

As we spoke, Joe’s wife visibly shuddered and admitted to being “creeped out” by the images, which appear to depict at least two figures approaching Joe’s vehicle amidst an unnaturally bright light source. While Joe remembered taking the initial photos that depicted bright lights above the field, he noted that he wasn’t afraid. “I didn’t feel it/they wanted to hurt me.” But he had trouble remembering some of the other photos he found on his camera roll.

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New Intelligence Community Member Space Force is Looking For a Clearer Picture

Article by Scott Maucione                                       January 7, 2021                                         (federalnewsnetwork.com)

• The Space Force announced last month that it would become the 18th member of the US intelligence community. It still needs to submit its plans to Congress on how it will go about making the move. The Space Force’s two core space squadrons — space analysis and counter space analysis — are currently located at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) at Wright-Patterson AFB (see previous ExoArticle here). During the next year, the Pentagon will set up a National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC) focused on space.

• But the Pentagon wants to maintain the information ‘synergy’ that comes with all of these squadrons being able to interact on a daily basis and talk to each other, says Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback, Air Force director of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance. So while NSIC will be separate from NASIC, their office will remain in the same building. Lauderback said the Air Force and Space Force are looking into the engineering and modeling to best maintain the two centers together.

• Space Force’s intelligence sector will be joining an already crowded community of 17 departments and agencies. Lauderback says that Space Force needs more sensors and presence in Earth’s orbit in order to characterize threats in space. “It’s just is so much more difficult in trying to characterize something that happens 12,000 miles away …that flies over the earth once every 90 minutes, all through technical means,” says Lauderback. “I just want to be able to make a more confident call and in a faster manner.” Another priority is bettering international agreements and education with Five Eye partners and other allies.

• Space Force has already received 2,400 recruits from the ranks of the Air Force. Space Force has just graduated its first seven enlisted trainees straight from basic training. Another 86 Air Force Academy cadets have been commissioned into Space Force, and there are 6,400 Air Force personnel who still plan to move over to the new military branch. “[N]ext year, we’ll have 98 cadets that will come over,” says Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond. “[W]e’re interviewing every single person that comes into the Space Force to be very, very selective.”

• Space Force is comprised of six career fields: Space operations, cyber operators, acquisition, engineering, cyber and intelligence. “[N]ow we have to develop those folks to fill those positions and do that organically,” says Gen. Raymond. “As new missions come about, we will add squadrons. [W]ith the units that were already in the Air Force, bringing them over, [we will] develop the manpower that fills those units today.”

 

         Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback

New details are emerging on how the 18th member of the intelligence community will be set up as the Space Force continues to entrench itself as the newest service of the military.

Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback, Air Force director of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance, said within a year the military will set up a National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC).

                     Gen. Jay Raymond

The center will develop from the two core space squadrons — space analysis and counter space analysis — that are now at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC).

“Those squadrons will be the nucleus, they’d be the core of NSIC and then we will smatter a little bit of overhead on that to ensure that they’re getting what they need,” Lauderback said. “We absolutely want that to be co-located with NASIC. As a commander, there’s no way that we want to destroy the synergy that comes out of all of these squadrons being able to walk down the hallway and talk to each other.”

Lauderback said the Air Force and Space Force are looking into the engineering and modeling and other final assessments they need to station the two centers together.

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He Filmed History and Often Became Part of It

Article by Jorge Encinas                                     January 2, 2021                                         (gvnews.com)

• In 1952, Ralph Mayher enlisted in the US Marines. He had studied photography in a trade high school in Cleveland, so he was assigned as a combat photographer in a photographic unit with the Third Marine Air Wing at Opa-locka, Florida. For the next 22 years, Mayher traveled the world, documenting history as it happened – sometimes in dangerous circumstances – as a photographer for the Marine Corps and then for ABC News. He covered the Watts Riots in Los Angeles in 1965 and the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. He filmed an ABC News documentary in the Soviet Union called “Comrade Soldier,” in 1967 (pictured above), and covered the Mexican government’s brutal suppression of university protesters known as the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968.adventure

• Mayher, now 90 years old, has no shortage of amazing stories spanning his 22 years of filming newsreels. Twice he and his wife of more than 50 years, Gypsie, had attempted to write a memoir on his exploits as a news photographer. But it wasn’t until they were stuck at home during this past year’s pandemic that they had the time to finish the job. “My wife had saved detailed documents and photographs for at least 25 years,” Mayher said. “It wasn’t easy going through the material, and especially the photographs, but we enjoyed doing it. I dedicated the book to my wife because she kept all of the documents with all of our moves around the country and in and out of the country. And without her keeping these documents and photographs, we wouldn’t have had a book.” The stories shared in their new book, The Last Newsreel, were well worth the wait.

• One of Mayher’s most fascinating stories happens to be his first. When PFC Mayher had just begun his two years as a photographer in the US Marine Corps in Florida, he heard about a UFO that appeared over Miami Beach on June 28, 1952. Local television station WYVJ in Miami was willing to pay $50 for footage of the UFO. Mayher decided he was going to be the one to capture the image. He positioned himself with his 16-millimeter camera at a spot where he anticipated the UFO would return, and sure enough, it did. His camera caught a bright yellowish-orange saucer-like UFO as it flew overhead. Three crew members flying a Navy amphibious aircraft nearby confirmed the UFO sighting at the same altitude, in the same area, and on the same night. Mayher processed the photos and turned them in to the newspaper. The next day, a Miami Daily News article headlined, “Miami’s Saucer? Marine Here Snaps Disc”. Mayher never got his $50.

• By 1957, Mayher had left the Marine Corps and was working for KYW-TV in Cleveland when the station decided to do a UFO documentary. He offered up his Miami Beach UFO photos. Surprisingly, two CIA officers showed up at the TV station and wanted to see the photos. Mayher gave them some 8x10s. As the CIA officers were leaving, they “suggested” that the UFO photographs should not be used on the show. The CIA agents also told Mayher to deny that the CIA were ever involved. “What do you mean?” Mayher responded. “This is a news story, and you’re here.'” The CIA officers pointed out that Mayher could be recalled to serve six more years in the Marine Corps, referring to him as ‘corporal’ – Mayher’s last rank. After the CIA’s veiled threat, Mayher never aired the photos for the UFO documentary. In 2011, Mayher learned that his original UFO photos were now in the possession of the US Air Force.

 

     Ralph Mayher in the 1960s

Ralph Mayher has no shortage of amazing stories spanning his 22 years of filming newsreels. And thanks to a

          Ralph Mayher

little cabin fever, he put them down in black and white in a book recounting the history he recorded for the world.

Mayher, 90, said his two previous attempts to put his memories into words didn’t pan out when the stress of putting them together stalled the efforts.

But with the pandemic making travel and everyday errands ill-advised, he decided to give it another shot. And the stories in “The Last Newsreel” were well worth the wait.

Mayher, who lives in Green Valley, took up photography at a trade high school in Cleveland. In 1952, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where his education took him straight into a photographic unit with the Third Marine Air Wing at Opa-locka, Florida.

He was a combat cameraman, but Mayher said he thankfully didn’t deploy to Korea. But his time at Opa-locka was anything but typical.

And that’s where Mayher’s story begins. A Marine, a 16-millimeter camera and a UFO.

Miami Beach

    Ralph and Gypsie Mayher

PFC. Mayher had heard about a UFO that appeared over Miami Beach on June 28, 1952, and he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be the last sighting.

He heard a local television station was willing to shell out $50 for footage of the UFO, and Mayher decided he was going to be the one to capture the image.

“So, I tell my buddies I’m going to go out and film a UFO at Miami Beach the following night, June 29, 1952,” he said. “And they all said, ‘We knew you were a little bit off your rocker, but here’s the camera. Good luck.’ I said not only thank you for the good luck, but we’re going to have a beer party when I get my 50 bucks from WTVJ in Miami.”

And, wouldn’t you know it, Mayher’s hunch paid off. His 16-millimeter camera caught the bright yellowish-orange saucer from Miami resident Herman Stern’s back patio.

“The gentleman who allowed me to go out on his patio, he thought I was crazy as well, but when the damn thing flew over, I was able to get about nine frames of film of the UFO,” he said.

It wasn’t just Mayher who saw it. Three Navy crew members flying a Consolidated PBY Catalina confirmed the UFO sighting flying at the same altitude, in the same area, on the same night.

The Miami Daily News reported the sighting in an article headlined, “Miami’s Saucer?: Marine Here Snaps ‘Disc.'”

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Special SAS Unit Trained to Respond to Alien Invasion of Earth

Article by Isobel Dickinson                                        January 9, 2021                                       (dailystar.co.uk)

• The Special Air Service (SAS) is a ‘special forces’ unit of the British Army that was founded in 1941. The unit specializes in a number of roles including counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, direct action, and covert reconnaissance. SAS troops have trained alongside US special forces in America for capture missions involving every conceivable threat.

• The elite British soldiers are trained to use non-lethal weapons against a variety of potential threats. A special projects unit of about twenty SAS troopers is even prepared to encounter the “alternative threat’’ from extraterrestrial aliens. Non-lethal weapons include spraying foam, which covers a target and hardens rapidly, preventing them from moving.

• Most people believe that life on other planets exist. In 1920, Albert Einstein asked, “Why should Earth be the only planet supporting human life?” The late Professor Stephen Hawking warned against contacting Little Green Men. Hawking once said, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”

• So if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, then you must accept that alien life could present a threat and you need to plan for it. In 2018, we learned that British defense experts had spent 50 years trying to catch a UFO so they could use the technology to build new super weapons. Declassified files showed that the UK government feared that China or the Soviet Union may had impounded a UFO and were using it to develop their own super-fast warplanes.

 

The SAS have got ET in their sights, the Daily Star Sunday can reveal.

A special projects unit of around 20 troopers is ready to tackle “alternative threats’’.

The elite soldiers are trained to use non-lethal weapons against a variety of potential threats – including aliens.

A source told us: “ The SAS has to be prepared for anything, and any threat.

“That includes everything from terrorists to human bio-weapons where someone has been deliberately infected with a deadly bug, all the way through to an alien life form.

                    Stephen Hawking

“I know it sounds bonkers but the SAS train for capture missions for every threat.

“They can use a range of non-lethal weapons, one of which involves spraying foam which covers a target and hardens rapidly, preventing them from moving.”

                        Albert Einstein

Troops are understood to have trained alongside US special forces in America.

Our source added: “ Most people believe that life on other planets exists. Even Einstein in 1920 said, ‘Why should Earth be the only planet supporting human life?’

“If you believe in that then you must accept that alien life may present a threat, so you need to plan for it.

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Britain’s SAS & Global SpecOps Trained to Fight Extraterrestrials

On January 9, Britain’s Daily Star ran a story about elite SAS personnel being trained to fight any potential adversary including extraterrestrials. Rather than such training being based on a remote possibility, multiple sources have revealed that elite military forces from around the world have been secretly recruited, and trained to fight visiting extraterrestrials. In this Exopolitics Today podcast, Dr. Michael Salla discusses the news about Britain’s SAS in the context of historic reports of firefights between military personnel and extraterrestrials.

Links discussed in  Podcast:

A New Frontier in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Article by Adam Frank                                       December 31, 2020                                        (washingtonpost.com)

• On December 18th, ‘Breakthrough Listen’ – a privately funded offshoot of SETI, the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ – detected a distant “candidate signal” labeled BLC-1, which SETI astronomers would like to think is coming from another intelligent civilization in the galaxy. Of course, these scientists are quick to point out that it is probably not coming from another civilization, but just radio interference from our own planet.

• The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence began more than 60 years ago. Proponents of SETI have long complained that there has never been sufficient funding or telescope time available to make a dent in the effort. In the 1980s and 1990s, Congressional legislators withheld “wasteful” SETI funding, and it has survived since on private funding from millionaires like Yuri Milner who in 2015 pledged $100 million to create Breakthrough Listen.

• Jason Wright and his astronomy colleagues at Penn State have argued that the reason we have not found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked. If the galaxy were an ocean, so far astronomers have splashed around in just one hot-tub’s worth of water.

• With Milner’s funding, the Breakthrough Listen project was provided access to telescopes from the Parkes radio dish in Australia and the Green Bank instrument in West Virginia, and resources to explore new search methods and technologies. These include machine-learning initiatives designed to accelerate “classic” SETI research. Artificial intelligence can enable computers to identify those all-important ‘weirdness needles’ in the cosmic signal haystack of data. The next generation of instruments, including the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, should enable SETI astronomers to explore the atmospheres of smaller, Earthlike planets and search for the chemical imprint of an exo-biosphere.

• Meanwhile, the ‘exoplanet revolution’ opened a second frontier in the search for ET. In the mid-1990s, astronomers found the first exoplanet, a Jupiter-size world on a four-day orbit around the star 51 Pegasi. Today, we know that almost every star in the sky hosts a family of worlds. Scientists worldwide are building a census of alien planets, showing which stars have planets and which planets are in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where surface temperatures are just right (that is, anywhere between freezing and boiling) for life to form. As a result, astronomers can find out exactly where they should be looking for life and intelligence.

• Astronomers are also gaining the capacity to probe the atmospheres of distant planets for ‘biosignatures’. By interrogating light passing through a far-flung world’s gaseous veil, astronomers can compile its chemical inventory and see what’s in the planet’s atmosphere. Alien astronomers looking at Earth, for example, would see oxygen and methane in our atmosphere — a signature of life’s presence on our planet. Scientists have already explored the atmospheres of a few Jupiter-size exoplanets.

• But why stop at biosignatures? The presence of technology on a planet might be far more detectable than biology. Telescopes on the drawing boards right now might have the capacity to see city lights on distant worlds. In 2019, NASA awarded the first-ever research grant to study atmospheric technosignatures, with two more funded in 2020. All this means that the search for technosignatures is becoming just as plausible and just as important as the search for biosignatures, representing a thrilling new face of SETI, embracing both anomaly-based searches and targeted explorations of exoplanets and their environments.

• The truth about the search for intelligent exo-civilizations is that it’s probably going to take a lot of time and effort. That’s the price you pay for great science. This extraordinary journey — taking us to the shores of alien worlds — is really only just getting started. Something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning.

• [Editor’s Note]  The boys at SETI are dedicated… dedicated, that is, to making sure that the average person remains woefully ignorant of the multitude of intelligent beings and civilizations that permeate our galaxy and universe. Seth Shostak and his accomplices at SETI are simply shills for the deep state. The deep state controls several secret space programs that interact constantly with mostly negative extraterrestrial beings, and have access to their advanced technologies which the deep state wants to maintain for themselves only, in order to preserve their advantage.

But it appears that 2021 will usher in a new level of disclosure of this underlying deep state cabal that has repressed the natural technological and spiritual development of the human species on this Earth since World War II, when the presence of extraterrestrial beings, both benevolent and malevolent, greatly increased in response to our species’ own technological achievements. Suddenly, Earth humans were a more interesting species to scrutinize, and more valuable to exploit. By using human (?) deep state operatives to infiltrate all aspects of government and society, these negative beings orchestrated a false reality which has supported their control agenda for the past seventy years.

We have a unique opportunity now to expose this deep state cabal and the negative extraterrestrial entities that have given this cabal its capacity to control the planet. The time has come to reclaim the planet for our own species, as the benevolent beings and our human cousins of the Galactic Federation have urged us to do. They won’t step in and do it for us. We must save ourselves. It appears that President Trump has declared war on the deep state, and this much anticipated transition has begun.

We are living in the most fantastic period in human history. It is just a shame that more people have not yet awakened to recognize the battle between good and evil that is now unfolding. Once we have overcome our deep state oppressors, the human species will enter a golden age of higher spiritual consciousness and advanced technologies (available to everyone) that will transform our planet as we assume our rightful place among the multitude of space-faring civilizations which deep state operatives, such as SETI and the Washington Post, are desperately trying to prevent.

 

On Dec. 18, the world learned that Breakthrough Listen, a privately funded search for extraterrestrial

                        Jason Wright

intelligence, had found its first official candidate signal. The signal’s existence lit up the Internet. Was BLC-1, as it’s called, finally our moment of contact? Breakthrough Listen scientists, now hard at work on a paper about their findings, were quick to explain that the answer was probably “no”: Given the wealth of human-made radio signal interference out there, BLC-1 will probably turn out to be of human origin.

Their preliminary conclusion, however, does not defuse the excitement of BLC-1. The fact that there’s a candidate at all is cause for celebration. That’s because something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning.

                             Yuri Milner

Many people have the romantic notion that astronomers huddle over their telescopes every night and scan the skies looking for signals from distant, alien civilizations. That, unfortunately, just ain’t happening. Though the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began more than 60 years ago, there was never sufficient funding or telescope time available to make a dent in the effort. In the 1980s and 1990s, some in Congress cited public SETI funding (as little as it was) as a press-worthy example of wasteful spending. Government support mostly dried up, leaving the field running on fumes. As Jason Wright and colleagues at Penn State have demonstrated, if the sky is an ocean that needs to be searched for life, so far astronomers have splashed around in just one hot-tub’s worth of water. The reason we have not found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked.

Now, however, the long desert of opportunity may finally be giving way to a new era of growth. In 2015, Internet billionaire Yuri Milner pledged $100 million to create Breakthrough Listen, a next-generation radio-based search for extraterrestrial intelligence. With a single stroke, Milner helped rejuvenate the field: The project provided access to telescopes from the Parkes radio dish in Australia and the Green Bank instrument in West Virginia, and provided resources to explore new search methods and technologies. These include machine-learning initiatives designed to accelerate “classic” SETI research of the kind epitomized by BLC-1. As pioneered by Frank Drake and others (and popularized by the 1997 movie “Contact”), classic SETI searches for signals that are anomalous, as opposed to those originating from natural or human causes. Historically, the challenge has been that SETI observations produce tidal waves of data. But artificial intelligence can enable computers to identify those all-important weirdness needles in the cosmic signal haystack of all that data.

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With the Passage of the IAA, Will We Get A UFO Dump From the Pentagon?

Article by Jazz Shaw                                              December 31, 2020                                             (hotair.com)

• Back in June, some big UFO news focused around a provision that was inserted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence into the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) that directed the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force to produce an unclassified report on what they know about UFOs. It directed that this report be released to the Senate committee within 180 days of the enactment of the IAA. Well, the IAA was included in the $1.4 trillion government funding package that was passed on December 27th along with a $900 billion COVID-relief fund. So the 180 day clock is ticking. So what can we expect to see when that clock runs out?

• Christopher Mellon is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and former staff Director of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee. Mellon played an integral role in the development of the committee’s UFO legislation. He points out that the UFO phenomenon enjoys the support of both parties in both Houses of Congress, and therefore it is more likely that some sort of report will be released. Any expectations of revelations of UFO incidents or discoveries under current investigation, however, are more unlikely.

• First of all, the Pentagon can respond by saying that they’ve not being given enough time and will need to postpone it – for a very long time. Second, this report specifically pertains to unclassified material. All of the juicy stuff will no doubt be deemed ‘classified’. Thirdly, back in September, after the Pentagon’s verification of the existence of the UAP Task Force, numerous reporters were contacting the Pentagon’s one and only spokesperson to handle UAP questions, Susan Gough. Gough began issuing a boilerplate refusal to any and all questions regarding details of UAP incidents under investigation. To wit: “To maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to our adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examination of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.” You can rest assured they have zero intention of starting to discuss it publicly now. Short of the President ordering specific documents from the UAP Task Force declassified (document that they somehow already know about), it seems obvious that the Pentagon intends to keep a lid on all of this.

• The military and the intelligence community routinely overclassify information, covering virtually every area of interest, not just UFOs. And once they lock something down it requires a herculean effort to bring it back to light. I can’t see those channels in our government sweeping away more than 70-years of obfuscation and deception with one sweep of a new broom. While cautiously hopeful about the pending release of this report, I’m definitely not getting my hopes up.

 

A lot of news came out of that massive COVID relief bill with bazillions of dollars in other spending wrapped up in it. One item that didn’t draw nearly as much attention was the fact that the annual Intelligence Authorization Act was rolled in as part of that mess. The IAA is obviously a necessary bit of housekeeping that Congress has to take care of on a regular basis, but this year’s version was of particular interest to people in the ufology community. I wrote about this when the measure was drafted back in June, specifically focusing on the provisions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that made it so interesting to the saucerheads. It dealt with internal communications challenges for the UAP Task Force (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and directed the UAPTF to produce an unclassified report on their progress within 180 days of when the measure was enacted. Well, now it’s enacted. And as The Debrief pointed out this week, that means that the clock is ticking. But what should we really expect to receive when that clock strikes midnight?

“Now, with the recent passing of the Omnibus, the clock has officially started ticking, and The Pentagon’s

          Christopher Mellon

UAP Task Force has 180 days to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with their unclassified report detailing The Pentagon’s current investigations into UFOs.”

“The newly enacted Intelligence Authorization Act incorporates the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report language calling for an unclassified, all-source report on the UAP phenomenon. This was accomplished in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the bill,” says Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and former staff Director of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee, who played an integral role in the development of the legislation.”

“Consequently, it’s now fair to say that the request for an unclassified report on the UAP phenomenon enjoys the support of both parties in both Houses of Congress,” Mellon told The Debrief in an email.”

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The Betz Mystery Sphere

Article by Caroline Delbert                                       December 31, 2020                                              (popularmechanics.com)

• In 1974, the Betz family moved to a home in Fort George Island, Florida, at the beach near Jacksonville. In the yard of the house they discovered a 30-pound shiny metal sphere. They assumed that it must be a cannonball from Renaissance-era Spanish colonizers in the area, although it is unlikely that Spanish missionaries would have cannons. Curiously, the sphere was clean and free of corrosion. It appeared to be made of stainless steel or silver plate, although 16th century Spaniards would have used iron.

• The family soon discovered that the sphere behaved autonomously – rolling by itself, making noises, and vibrating. They noticed that it made a throbbing noise in reaction to guitar music. It reportedly moved “intensely” when the sun shone brightly. When it was rolled in one direction, it would change direction midway and head back to the person who rolled it. Gerri Betz claimed that when the family dog got next to the sphere, “she began to whimper and cover her ears with her paws, something I’ve never seen her do before.” An expert from a research firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana examined the sphere and found “radio waves coming from it and a magnetic field around it,” according to Gerri. Could it be alien technology?

• The US Navy analyzed the sphere at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. A x-ray managed to penetrate the steel. A Navy spokesman remarked, “We do know it is not an explosive and presents no hazard.” “I say it came from Earth.” Upon examining the metal sphere, renowned ufologist J. Allen Hynek agreed the object was manmade.

• The Betz’ accounts of the sphere’s spontaneous motions and noises made the local news and continued to inspire UFO origin theory believers. Seeing the steel ball on television, the president of a Jacksonville equipment supply company compared it with a stainless steel ball he kept in stock. He produced a Bell & Howell stainless steel ball that was 8 inches across and weighed over 21 pounds—almost the same size as the sphere. It is also unlikely that an advanced alien technology would use a steel alloy 431 used in fasteners and bolts on Earth. And not even a solid steel ball would remain unblemished after falling through the Earth’s atmosphere as suggested.

• As for the noted strange behaviors of the sphere, which have been festooned with extra details over years, experts say the sphere was probably rolling on an uneven floor. Said a Navy spokesman, “I believe [the sphere moved] because of the construction of the house. It’s old and has uneven stone floors. The ball is almost perfectly balanced, and it takes just a little indentation to make it move or change direction.” UFO theory stalwarts attributed the spontaneous motions and vibrations due to having different sections of different materials inside the alien sphere, making it unknown to terrestrial science despite being coated in a carefully human-developed steel alloy.

• It’s easy to see how a regular family in Florida would decide a strange object in their yard had some kind of improbable alien properties. The 1970s were a heyday for UFOs, new religious movements, and transcendental meditation – a heady mix for people to run with some wild ideas. Such a legend could grow very quickly.

 

The Conspiracy

The Betz mystery sphere is a strange object that the Betz family found near their home in Fort George

   Gerri Betz and her son

Island, Florida in 1974. It’s a metal sphere that’s a little smaller than a bowling ball (a diameter of 8 inches), but a solid 8 pounds heavier than even the sturdiest professionals use (22 pounds).
The Betz family said the sphere acted of its own accord, moving and making noises. What does this surprising backyard shotput have to do with conspiracy theories? Is it some kind of autonomous cannonball? Could it actually a piece of alien technology?

The Origins

                      J. Allen Hynek

After a fire destroyed their property in March 1974, the Betz family found the bizarre metal sphere in their yard and believed it was a historic cannonball from Florida’s Renaissance-era Spanish colonizers, Skeptoid explains. But the sphere was clean, free of corrosion, and shiny. Weaponry in the Spanish colonial time period, unlikely from Florida’s missionaries to begin with, would have been iron or stone—not stainless steel or silver plate.
When the family took the sphere home, they said, it started to behave by itself. Their accounts were of the sphere rolling by itself, making noises, and vibrating.

From Wonderful Engineering: “Terry, the son of Antoine and [G]erri Betz, was playing guitar and found that the sphere reacted to the sound of the guitar and made a throbbing noise which scared the family dog. Things took an even odder turn when they were sitting on the floor and rolling the sphere towards one another. When it was sent in one direction, it would change direction midway and head back to the person who rolled it.”
In an April 1974 interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Gerri Betz said when the family dog got next to the sphere, “she began to whimper and cover her ears with her paws, something I’ve never seen her do before.”

The Betz family suspected solar radiations affected the sphere, which may have been why it reportedly moved “intensely” when the sun shone brightly, according to Wonderful Engineering. Eventually, the U.S. military got their hands on the sphere to analyze it for more answers.

When an expert from a research firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana examined the sphere, he “found radio waves coming from it and a magnetic field around it,” Gerri Betz told the St. Petersburg Times. Then, the U.S. Navy analyzed the sphere at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. A Navy spokesman told the St. Petersburg Times that the Navy’s first X-ray attempts failed because its “machine wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the steel, but two subsequent tests showed the contents of the globe.”
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US Air Force Spacecraft Will Beam Solar Power to Earth

Article by Caroline Dlbert                                            December 30, 2020                                         (popularmechanics.com)

• Cutting edge solar panels on Earth – prototypes developed by scientists for research, not the commercial ones you can readily buy – operate at around 30 to 40 percent efficiency. But if these solar panels operated above the clouds in space, the efficiency would be far greater. As CleanTechnica’s Tina Casey writes: “There are no clouds to block or even reduce solar panel efficacy. They can pivot, maybe even completely freely, to maximize exposure to more sun over a longer time each day. The sunlight is more potent outside of Earth’s atmosphere.”

• In December, the US Air Force Research Laboratory unveiled ‘Helios’ – a component part of the Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) project – that will be launched into space on the Arachne spacecraft in 2024. The Helios component will gather power for other spacecraft as a fueling station in space.

• Arachne/Helios also serves a working model of an emerging technology that can convert solar energy to radio frequency (RF) power, transmitting that energy to the Earth, and converting it to usable power. “Solar is critical to our long-term spaceflight plans because of its plentiful and completely renewable nature,” says Casey. “We’ll likely learn a great deal from the use of solar power in space and then… extend to Earth.”

• The logistical challenge is to get the solar panels positioned into space. But the technology to “beam” power is pretty established at this point, relying on directed mirrors and receiver panels that focus energy into beams that act as wireless wires through the air. The right kind of solar panels paired with storage could periodically beam power to specific places without losing notable energy.

 

Beaming solar power from outer space sounds like a Marvel movie plot, but space could remove barriers to solar acceptance that dominate the Earthbound discourse.

Could the secret to our energy future be solar panels above the clouds, or even above the Karman line altogether?

Besides the logistical challenges of even getting solar panels up in space, the benefits are pretty airtight, as CleanTechnica’s Tina Casey writes. There are no clouds to block or even reduce solar panel efficacy. They can pivot, maybe even completely freely, to maximize exposure to more sun over a longer time each day. The sunlight is more potent outside of Earth’s atmosphere.

Right now, even the best solar panels are reaching something like 30 to 40 percent efficiency, and these are mostly cutting-edge prototypes developed by scientists for research—not the ones you can readily buy.

             Tina Casey

That means the huge advantage of higher-up sunlight would directly translate, perhaps even to the difference between

              USAF’s Arachne spacecraft

feasible solar and not. Again, though, this is without the logistics of putting panels into space.

And the technology to “beam” power is pretty established at this point, relying on directed mirrors and receiver panels that focus energy into beams that act, basically, like wireless wires through the air. The right kind of solar panels paired with storage could periodically beam power to specific places without losing notable energy.

Earlier this month, the Air Force Research Laboratory unveiled a component coyly named Helios (after the original Greek sun god) for its forthcoming Arachne spacecraft, the main part of the Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) project. Arachne will launch in 2024.

Helios will gather power for other spacecraft, making it an essential research piece as well as proof of concept for some big ideas NASA has about traveling to the moon and subsequently to Mars.

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Video Shows UFO Soaring Past SpaceX Craft and ISS in ‘2020’s Best Sighting’

Article by Simon Green                                       December 30, 2020                                         (dailystar.co.uk)

• On December 6th, as the SpaceX ‘Dragon’ rocket capsule was delivering cargo to the International Space Station, an unusual “metallic” object can be seen moving up the camera screen before disappearing behind the craft.

• The video clip (see below) was sent to the ‘thirdphaseofthemoon’ YouTube channel run by Blake and Brent Cousins. Despite only lasting several seconds, has been lauded as one of the most eye-opening sightings for months. Blake Cousins told Daily Star that the object seemed to have “three thrusters on the back” but didn’t resemble any kind of aircraft on Earth. “Some people speculated, as I did, that this could be some sort of secret asset in the Space Force yet to be revealed to the public,” Blake suggested.

• Plenty of viewers dismissed the object in the video as nothing more than space debris or satellites. But Blake disagrees, saying that the object is “way too close to the ISS and too large” to be space debris. “If this was space debris, the ISS would be in jeopardy of a collision that would be catastrophic.” Furthermore, “[S]atellites do not resemble anything like this and, again to have it so close to the ISS is dangerous.” “[I]t could be something otherworldly…”

• “This sighting, in my opinion,” says Blake Cousins, “is possibly the best UFO sighting with regards to an ISS encounter with a UFO for the year 2020.” “I also believe that in 2021 there will be a pick-up in UFO sightings due to the fact Elon Musk has HD 4K cameras aboard the SpaceX… and they’re going to be taken aboard the ISS. …[W]e’re going to be seeing clear video and photographs of these anomalous objects surrounding the ISS.” “2021 will be a huge year for UFO sightings.”

 

            metallic object near the ISS

A mysterious object has been spotted hurtling past a SpaceX craft in what has been described as the best sighting of the year.

The baffling footage was taken as the Dragon capsule reached the International Space Station to deliver cargo on December 6.

             Blake and Brent Cousins

In the clip, an unusual “metallic” object can be seen moving up the camera screen before disappearing behind the craft.

It was sent in to YouTube UFO channel thirdphaseofmoon and, despite only lasting several seconds, has been lauded as one of the most eye-opening sightings for months.

Blake Cousins, who runs the channel, told Daily Star that the object seemed to have “three thrusters on the back” but didn’t resemble any kind of aircraft on Earth.

“Some people speculated, as I did, that this could be some sort of secret asset in the Space Force yet to be revealed to the public,” he suggested.

Conspiracists have often claimed strange sightings in the skies could actually be top-secret aircraft developed by the Space Force, which have yet to be made public.

Object traveling past the ISS (‘thirdphaseofthemoon’ YouTube)

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Cigar-Shaped Vessels in California Skies Spark Alien Debate

Article by Nirmal Narayanan                                      December 27, 2020                                      (ibtimes.co.in)

• California seems to be a hotbed of UFO activities. Many UFO sightings have been reported in the state. On December 23rd, two illuminated cigar-shaped flying objects were spotted in the night skies over Orange County, California (see image above).

• To believers, the video on the LUFOS YouTube channel (see below) is more proof of alien existence on Earth. Skeptics contend that the luminous flying objects are a reflection of objects on a window inside a house.

• A few weeks back, Haim Eshed, the former head of Israel’s space security program, revealed that aliens are in direct contact with the United States and Israel. Eshed said that United States is a member of the Galactic Federation, which comprises a multitude of alien representatives. He also said that there is a secret underground base on Mars with advanced facilities where both both human and alien representatives live.

 

Unlike people from other countries, citizens of the United States are known for having an obsession with sky watching, and as a result, the country has

                            Haim Eshed

reported a record number of UFO sightings over years. And now, a new UFO video, apparently captured from Orange County has surfaced online. The mysterious video shows two cigar-shaped flying objects hovering in the night skies in an eerie manner.

Mysterious UFO sightings continue

Conspiracy theorists strongly believe that California is a hotbed of UFO activities, and over the years, several UFO sightings have been reported in the state. The recent UFO video was shot on December 23, and the flying objects spotted in the skies had illuminating lights on the body.

The video uploaded on YouTube by the channel named LUFOS has apparently convinced conspiracy theorists, and they claim that events like these are authentic proof of alien existence on earth.
However, skeptics dismissed the alien rumors, and they made it clear that the flying objects that appeared in the skies could be most probably a reflection of objects placed in the interior of the house. These skeptics also claim that the photographer who captured the event was behind window glass, and the reflection of light or objects from the room’s interior has resulted in the UFO debate.

Is the United States working with aliens?

1:05 minute video of cigar craft over California (‘LUFOS’ YouTube)

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More Stories About the “Star People” Shared by American Indians

Article by Arjun Walia                                 December 28, 2020                                   (collective-evolution.com)

• Continuing to report the work of Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University who is Cherokee/Choctaw Native American. Dr. Clarke was told the legends of extraterrestrial “Star People” by her grandmother. She has been collecting encounters between these ETs and Native Indians for many years, which she has compiled in her book: Encounters With Star People, Untold Stories of American Indians. “My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago,” says Dr. Clarke. “The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other.” Here is another such story.

• In 1930, a fur trapper named Arnaud Laurent and his son were traveling near Lake Anjikuni in northern Canada when they saw a ‘cylindrical or bullet-shaped’ aircraft crossing the northern sky. Shortly thereafter, another trapper, Joe Labelle, snowshoed to the Eskimo fishing village of Anjikuni, home to 2,000 Eskimos (pictured above). The village was unnaturally silent. Looking into each hut and storehouse, Labelle found blackened stew pots but not a single human.

• Labelle went directly to a telegraph office to report the mystery to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounties arrived and were baffled by the mass disappearance of the villagers. A search party found untouched provisions and food in the huts, but no villagers. The sled dogs belonging to the Eskimos were found dead – buried under a 12-foot snow drift at the perimeter of the camp. Later, that night, the Mounties stared in wonder at a strange blue, pulsating light, quite unlike the Northern Lights common to that part of Canada.

• Newspapers throughout the world reported the disappearance of the 2,000 Eskimos in 1930. The Anjikuni Eskimo villagers disappearance remains unsolved today. Stories are still told in Eskimo communities about the UFO that abducted an entire village.

• In addition to the disappearance of the entire Anjikuni village, Native Eskimos also relate stories of the appearance of a mysterious craft in the sky that corresponded with the disappearance of entire Eskimo families without a trace. On one occasion, a family of fourteen disappeared, leaving behind full dinner plates on the table, a television blaring in the bedroom, and an oven that had not been turned off. Despite years of searching, no family member was ever located. But their relatives can show you a burned out circle on the ground where they believed a spacecraft landed and took them away. There are even entire civilizations that have vanished without a trace, like the Mayans for example. Some believe they were also ‘taken’ by extraterrestrials.

• Dr. Clarke also tells about someone named Luther who lived on a reserve in North Dakota. According to Luther, “Once a whole family disappeared. I was a young man when the family disappeared…around 1946 or 1947. They were never found. When their relatives went to visit they found everything just like they got up in the middle of dinner and walked away. Food on the table and everything seemed to be in order, except the family. There were seven of them in all: they were gone. No one on the reservation ever saw them again. They held a ceremony and the Holy man said that they were taken to live among the Star People.” Luther says that Star People visiting the reservation was not uncommon when he was a child. “Sometimes when people disappeared on the reservation, it was said that the Star People had taken them away to live in the stars.” But when the government came in and changed the land, the Star People stopped visiting.

• Luther describes his own UFO encounter: “Maybe five or six years or so after the family disappeared. I was down by the lake one evening. The horses went there to drink in the evenings and I wanted to harness (one of the horses) and put him in the barn. It was just about dusk. Suddenly the hair on my body stood up like an electrical shock. I looked around and that’s when I saw it. A huge object came in over the butte to the north of the property. It came slowly. It was the size of a battleship. I sat down on the edge of the lake and watched. The horses ran away. I was alone. The craft moved to the center of the lake and just stayed there without moving. It was suspended in mid-air. At some point, I started back toward the cabin. That’s when they saw me, I guess. Suddenly a light came out like a search light and fell directly on me. I kept walking. I didn’t know what else to do. When I got back to the house I went inside.”

• Luther continues: “I went into the bedroom to look out the window and that’s when I saw them. Two of them. They were in my bedroom. I stopped, frozen in my tracks when I saw them. They looked at me and seemed just as surprised as me. They were about 5 foot 7 or 8. They were dressed in light-colored uniforms that glistened when the light from the craft hit them. I started backing toward the door and they told me they wouldn’t hurt me. They were searching for something. I understood it to be something they had left behind or left here, but they could not find it. When I asked them what they were looking for, they replied, but I did not understand what they said.” Luther describes the ETs as “shaped like humans”. “They told me not to be afraid and I wasn’t,” said Luther. “They actually acted like I wasn’t even in the room…They were all business.”

• Luther vividly remembers an alien having “this stick like thing.” “It had some kind of motor, I think,” says Luther, “because I remember lights blinking on it. Strangest machine I ever saw. I had never seen anything like that and I saw a lot in the war. They held it and pointed it around the room. The stick must have talked to them or something, because once they pointed it in every direction, they seemed satisfied that I did not have what they were looking for. They put it in a holster.”

• Then the extraterrestrial visitors went back to their craft and left. But before the craft took off, it stopped and hovered over the spot where the missing family once lived. “Their cabin was submerged in water after the lake was built by the government (and the area flooded). I watched for maybe 30-40 minutes. The spaceship just hung there. No movement, no sound, and then suddenly it moved upward and was gone. I have not seen it since.”
• Apollo 12 astronaut Al Worden shared his beliefs on the subject of extraterrestrial life a few years ago: “We are the aliens. [W]e just think they’re somebody else, but we’re the ones who came from somewhere else. [Our ancestors] got in a little space craft and …came here …landed and …started civilization here.” Multiple astronauts have said that, without a doubt, we have been visited and are still being visited by extraterrestrials, and that NASA astronauts have been privileged enough to be in on that type of information. Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, for example, was quite outspoken on the subject throughout his lifetime.

 

  Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke

“My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago. The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other.”

I’ve been sharing the work of Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University who is Cherokee/Choctaw and has been researching the Star People and collecting encounters between them and Native Indians for many years. She first learned about the “Star People” when her grandmother told her the ancient legends of her people.

I’ve written about a story she shared regarding an elder who told a story about a ship that crashed on his reservation. I wrote about another elder who shared a story of a petrified alien heart, which he claimed belonged to the Star People. I’ve written one about an elder who claimed to have been told that humans were one of four violent species in the universe. One of the most popular ones was about the stories told by indigenous elders about Star People who are currently, and have been for a long time, living inside of the Earth. The last one I wrote about was a story from a Native American man who claimed to have had an interesting experience in an Alaskan Blizzard.

This will be yet another article sharing the stories Dr. Clarke compiled in her book, Encounters With Star People, Untold Stories of American Indians. Chapter three is titled “Sometimes they come for families.” Right off the bat I find this interesting because having been a researcher into the phenomena myself for a very long time, I know that the idea that some of these beings are ‘taking’ people, families, and in some cases large communities is not uncommon.

One example Dr. Clarke shares in her book is as follows: “In 1930, a fur trapper named Arnaud Laurent and his son saw a strange light and an unusual aircraft crossing the northern sky toward Lake Anjikuni in northern Canada. The trappers described the object as cylindrical or bullet-shaped. Shortly thereafter, Joe Labelle, another trapper, snowshoed to the Eskimo fishing village of Anjikuni. The village, home to 2,000 Eskimos, appeared unnaturally silent when he arrived. He

Anjikuni Native Eskimos

visited every hut and storehouse and found blackened stew pots, but no people. Inexplicably, he did not find a single human track in the settlement. Labelle, concerned about the missing people, went directly to a telegraph office and reported the mystery to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Several hours later, the Mounties arrived and were baffled by the mass disappearance of the villagers.”

                         Al Worden

“A search party looked for the missing villagers, but they were never found. The sled dogs belonging to the Eskimos were found buried under a 12-foot snow drift at the perimeter of the camp. All of them had starved to death. The search party also discovered untouched provisions and food in the huts.”

“Later, that night, the Mounties stared in wonder as a strange blue glow lit a steady, pulsating light,

           Dr. Edgar Mitchell

unlike the Northern Lights that frequented that part of Canada. Newspapers throughout the world reported the baffling disappearance of the 2,000 Eskimos. Many people believed there would be a rational explanation for the disappearance, but the Anjikuni group disappearance remains unsolved. Today, stories are still told in the Eskimo communities about the UFO that abducted an entire village.”

“While this event in Canada is rare and unusual, there are encounters spoken about on reservations where entire families have disappeared without a trace. Just as in the case of the Canadian disappearance, these events occurred simultaneously with the emergence of a mysterious craft. During the course of my research, I was told about two such events. On one occasion a family of 14 disappeared, leaving behind plates that had been filled on the dinner table, a television blaring in the bedroom, and an oven that had not been turned off. Despite years of searching, no family member was ever located, but their relatives can show you a burned out circle on the ground where they believed a spacecraft landed and spirited them away.”

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NASA Scientists Will Send This Robot Dog to Mars

Article by Kristin Houser                                       December 27, 2020                                    (freethink.com)

• So far, NASA has landed four rovers on Mars. But because they’ve all used wheels to move around, they’ve only been able to explore the parts of the planet that are relatively flat. The parts they can’t reach with a wheeled Mars rover, however, are some of the most enticing to explore. More than sixty researchers and engineers from NASA, CalTech, MIT, and other organizations built a robot dog that they think could be the ideal Mars rover for exploring those hard-to-reach areas.

• Mars is riddled with caves and lava tubes. Those underground structures could be the best places to look for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life. They could also be the key to human life surviving on Mars in the future. Martian colonists might be able to seek shelter underground, avoiding radiation, frigid temperatures, and meteorites that could jeopardize their safety on Mars’ surface.

• Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, “Spot”, became the possible answer. Spot already has an eclectic resume — it’s herded sheep in New Zealand, scouted factories for Ford, and even helped the NYPD during a recent hostage situation. While the robot dog is highly capable, it wasn’t ready for a job as a Mars rover right out of the gate. So the engineers made some modifications, which they presented during the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting on December 14th.

• They gave Spot a new sensor package, including a thermal camera and LiDaR (laser-scanning) sensor, and mounted a new power and computing package to its back. They also equipped the robot dog with AI software to help it learn as it explores, and a communication system it could use to send data from below ground to the surface. They renamed their newly upgraded robot dog “Au-Spot”, and it has already taken first place in a DARPA challenge that required it to navigate courses designed to look like underground urban environments.

• The researchers are currently testing the robot’s ability to navigate obstacle courses and map outdoor locations similar to the subterranean structures of Mars, such as the lava tubes found in Northern California. NASA hasn’t announced any impending plans to send Au-Spot to the Red Planet. But Au-Spot’s behaviors could one day enable revolutionary scientific missions to take place on the Martian surface and subsurface.

 

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot has an eclectic resume — it’s herded sheep in New Zealand, scouted factories for Ford, and even helped the NYPD during a recent hostage situation.

However, the multi-talented bot’s next job might be the most remarkable yet: exploring Mars for NASA.

Limitations of a Wheeled Mars Rover

NASA has landed four rovers on Mars so far, and because they’ve all used wheels to move around, they’ve only been able to explore the parts of the planet that are relatively flat.

Scientists want to be able to scope out the entire planet, though — and the parts they can’t reach with a wheeled Mars rover are some of the most enticing.

Mars is riddled with caves and lava tubes, and those underground structures could be the best places to look for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life.

They could also be the key to human life surviving on the Red Planet in the future — Martian colonists might be able to seek shelter underground, avoiding some of the radiation, frigid temperatures, and meteorites that could jeopardize their safety on Mars’ surface.

Now, more than 60 researchers and engineers from NASA, CalTech, MIT, and other organizations have built a Spot robot dog they think could be the ideal Mars rover for exploring those subsurface structures.

The Roving Robot Dog

While Boston Dynamics’ robot dog is already highly capable, it wasn’t exactly ready for a job as a Mars rover right out of the box, so the researchers had to make some modifications, which they presented during the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual meeting on December 14.

11:43 minute video of Au-Spot, NASA’s robot dog (‘Thomas Touma’ YouTube)

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Large Blue UFO Seen Above Oahu Appeared to Drop Into Ocean

Article by Allyson Blair                                   December 31, 2020                                    (hawaiinewsnow.com)

• On Tuesday night December 29th, “Moriah”, a 38 year old women from Nanakuli, Hawaii (on the western side of Oahu), spotted a bright blue elongated object in the sky around 8:30 pm. She called her husband, and the two of them jumped in the car to follow the object. “I don’t know what it was,” said Moriah. “This one was going so fast.” (see 10:42 minute video below)

• After following the blue light for three miles, they reached the ocean water where they saw the object drop out of the sky and into the ocean. Moriah described it as being larger than a telephone pole but she never heard it make a sound. “We called 911,” Moriah said. When the police arrived, Moriah and the officers spotted a second light. This time it was a smaller white orb “coming in the same direction as the blue one”. But they lost sight of the after it passed behind a nearby mountain.

• An FAA spokesperson, Ian Gregor, said the agency received a report from police Tuesday night about a possible plane down in the area “but had no aircraft disappear off radars. And no reports of overdue or missing aircraft.” A spokesperson for the Honolulu police said they had no further information on whatever fell into the ocean.

• Multiple witnesses reported seeing the large blue object fall out of the sky and into the ocean, and there are multiple videos of what appears to be a glowing‚ oblong mass — both in the sky and in the water. Moriah has had a couple days to think about it, but she is still baffled by what she saw. “To this day I don’t know,” she said laughing. “If you guys can find out what it was, I’d like know…”

 

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) – An unidentified flying object spotted in the evening sky over Leeward Oahu prompted witnesses to call 911 on Tuesday.

The sighting happened about 8:30 p.m.

There are multiple videos of what appears to be a glowing‚ oblong mass — both in the sky and in the water.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration say there were no aircraft incidents or accidents in this area at the time. But multiple witnesses reported seeing a large blue object fall out of the sky and into the ocean.

In a one video a woman can be heard saying, “Something is in the sky. What is that?”

Misitina Sape told Hawaii News Now she captured the image at 8:26 p.m. near Haleakala Avenue in Nanakuli.

Not long after, a woman named Moriah spotted what looked like the same object passing over Princess Kahanu Estates.

“I look up and then I was like oh s***!,” she said. “I started calling my husband and them because they were all in the garage. I was like hey. Come look up there. See if you see what I see. They all said yea!”

The 38-year-old says she’s never really been a believer in UFOs, but the bright blue object had them so intrigued they jumped in the car and started following it.

10:42 minute video of blue UFO over Oahu, Hawaii Dec 29, 2020 (‘Popcorned Planet” YouTube)

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Alien Life on Mars Could Help Humans in Space Exploration

Article by Kirill Kurevlev                                 December 27, 2020                                       (sputniknews.com)

• NASA plans to land the Perseverance rover on Mars in February 2021. The agency plans to return US astronauts to the surface of the Moon by the end of 2024, and a manned mission to Mars by the early 2030s. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is determined to land humans on Mars and start a colony by 2026.

• “[M]icrobial life is [what] we’re most likely to find within our solar system,” states NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. James Green. “Intelligent life we may find outside of our solar system…” Dr. Green, believes that the discovery of even microbial life on planets like Mars may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments. Dr. Green says that the discovery of life in the Solar System – any life – would completely change the worldview of mankind.

• Studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it. Says Dr. Green, “[I]f we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”

 

                     Dr. James Green

For many years of manned missions, scientists have been searching for other planets and moons that could be suitable for human life. However, most of them present very harsh conditions for us. The problem may be solved with a little help from Martians.

American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) chief scientist, Dr. James Green, believes that the discovery of life on other Solar System planets, like Mars, may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments, Green said in a podcast of “Gravity Assist”.

According to the scientist, studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it.

“[…] if we’re able to crack that, if we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”, the physicist stated.

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“Earth to Earth” Space Travel With Supersonic Airliners

Article by Thomas Burghardt                                        December 26, 2020                                    (nasaspaceflight.com)

• The future of ‘Earth to Earth’ commercial transportation in the 2020’s appears to lie in two alternatives: ‘suborbital flights’ which fly above the official American boundary of space at 80 kilometers altitude, and ‘supersonic aircraft’ that stay within the Earth’s atmosphere. The suborbital craft will get you there faster (arriving anywhere on Earth in under an hour), while the supersonic aircraft will get you there safer. SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are the only two companies flying humans into space today.

• The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, developed the suborbital flight concept in 2017 to transport large payloads to Mars for colonization. By attaching additional ‘Raptor engines,’ the ‘Starship’ craft’s launch system is also able to transport cargo – and eventually passengers – suborbitally from one place to another on Earth without the need for the ‘Super Heavy’ booster rocket (which is required to push the Starship craft fully into space). Test flights of the suborbital Starship system could begin in 2022.

• Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic’s ‘SpaceShipTwo’ is another suborbital craft flying in lower Earth orbit. The spacecraft is carried into the upper atmosphere by piggy-backing on a larger airplane and launches from there. Virgin Galactic and its manufacturing partner, Scaled Composites (a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), plan to develop a next generation version of SpaceShipTwo (‘SpaceShipThree’?) to provide suborbital trans-continental spaceflights for passengers once it has proven itself with cargo flights.

• Astra is another spacecraft company that has plans to conduct Earth-to-Earth suborbital cargo transportation using its ‘Rocket 3’ design, possibly beginning in 2022.

• Boom Supersonic rolled out its ‘XB-1’ prototype supersonic aircraft in November 2020. It plans to develop its supersonic passenger airliner, ‘Overture’, in 2021, and plans to be operational – carrying up to 88 passengers at ranges up to almost 5000 miles – by 2029. Both Japan Airlines and the Virgin Group have placed orders for the Overture craft. Notwithstanding, Virgin Galactic recently unveiled a partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop its own supersonic aircraft capable of Mach 3, with a passenger capacity of up to 19 people.

• Aerion Supersonic, with headquarters in Melbourne, Florida (just south of Space Force station Cape Canaveral), is developing its ‘AS2 Supersonic Business Jet’, in partnership with Boeing and General Electric. It is designed to carry up to 10 passengers at speeds up to Mach 1.4.

• Both hypersonic suborbital space travel and supersonic atmospheric flight methods produce sonic booms. Supersonic aircraft produce sonic booms along the entire flight path. (This contributed to the demise of the Aérospatiale and the Concorde supersonic craft.) Rockets, on the other hand, only cause audible sonic booms during landing. The shockwaves created during a rocket launch move upwards and away from any observers to hear them.

• Aside from sonic booms, rockets will produce potentially dangerous noise levels and ‘blast danger areas’ during launch, especially those on the scale of SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy booster. Companies such as SpaceX plan to solve this by launching and landing far offshore from population centers, which will require additional transportation between the spaceport and the destination city. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division is developing the ‘X-59 QueSST’ (Quiet Supersonic Technology) for NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstration Program, to decrease the intensity of the supersonic shockwave so as not to disturb populated areas. Test flights for the X-59 are scheduled to begin in 2023 to inform legislation on approving supersonic air travel over populated areas.

• A safety advantage that winged aircraft have over propulsively landed rockets is the ability to glide in the event of an engine failure. These new supersonic airliners and spaceplane concepts are designed to be able to glide towards a controlled emergency landing. Vehicles which rely on their engines to land safely, such as Starship, do not have this contingency.

• The costs of space launches and the limited capacity on supersonic airliners will mean higher ticket prices. Will the appeal of shorter travel time outweigh the increased price? Some vehicles, such as Blue Origin‘s New Shepard rocket or Virgin Galactic’s own SpaceShipTwo, cater to ‘space tourists’ who will book a flight just to experience high speed air travel or suborbital spaceflight. They may even opt for a ticket on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon or Starship craft to experience low orbit space.

• Companies developing suborbital and supersonic commercial craft are also conscious of their carbon footprint. Their engines are designed to remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as is emitted by the flight system, to achieve ‘carbon neutrality’. SpaceX’s ‘Starship Mars’ is designed to capture methane on Mars in order to refuel the craft for its return trip to Earth.

 

                SpaceX’s ‘Starship’

Commercial spaceflight companies are preparing to enter a new market: suborbital flights from one place to

        Virgin Galactic’s ‘Spaceship Two’

another on Earth. Aiming for fast transportation for passengers and cargo, these systems are being developed by a combination of established companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, and new ones like Astra.

Technical and business challenges lie ahead for this new frontier, and an important piece is the coming wave of supersonic aircraft which could offer safer but slower alternatives to spaceflight. These two different approaches could face off in the 2020s to be the future of transportation on Earth.
(Lead image via Mack Crawford for NSF/L2)

Suborbital space travel

        Astra’s ‘Rocket 3’

The most prevalent concept for suborbital Earth to Earth transportation comes from none other than Elon Musk and

     Boom Supersonic’s ‘XB-1’ prototype

SpaceX. Primarily designed for transporting large payloads to Mars for the purpose of colonization, the next generation Starship launch system offers a bonus capability for transporting large amounts of cargo around Earth.

Musk first presented this idea in 2017, envisioning suborbital spaceflights between spaceports offshore from major cities. These launch and landing facilities would be far enough to reduce the disruption of rocket launch noise levels and sonic booms produced by landing vehicles, connected to land by a high speed form of transportation such as speedboats or a hyperloop.

Originally, these Earth to Earth flights were expected to use both stages of the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) rocket, since evolved and renamed to the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster. In 2019, Musk revealed that these suborbital flights could instead utilize only the Starship vehicle with no booster, achievable for distances of approximately 10,000 kilometers or less. In order to meet thrust requirements, a single stage suborbital Starship would include an additional two to four Raptor engines.

              Boom Supersonic’s ‘Overture’
Aerion Supersonic‘s ‘AS2 Supersonic Business Jet’

Given the inherent danger of rocket powered space travel, the Starship system will complete many, possibly hundreds of flights before flying passengers, with the first Earth to Earth test flights beginning as early as 2022.

Another side effect of the Starship Mars architecture, which requires that methane be captured from Martian resources to refuel spacecraft and return to Earth, is that the same propellant production processes can be used on Earth to make Starship operations carbon neutral.

The idea of carbon neutrality, removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as is emitted by the system, is a crucial part of ensuring that future transportation systems do not contribute to the harmful effects of climate change. Musk has confirmed that carbon neutrality is an important goal of the Starship program.

        Lockheed Martin’s ‘X-59 QueSST’

SpaceX is not the only major commercial spaceflight company with a suborbital transportation concept. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic also has a vision of space travel around Earth. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon flying astronauts to Low Earth Orbit, and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo flying crew on suborbital trajectories above the official American boundary of space at 80 kilometers altitude, are the only two commercial companies actively flying humans to space today. A successor to SpaceShipTwo is planned that could provide trans-continental spaceflights for passengers.

While no technical details of a “SpaceShipThree” have been announced by Virgin Galactic, it is fairly likely that the vehicle would be air launched, similar to the SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplanes. SpaceShipThree was originally intended to be a orbital vehicle, developed jointly by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites.

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Lifting the Lid on Britain’s Most Famous Alien Encounter

Article by Nick Pope                                         December 25, 2020                                          (thescottishsun.co.uk)

• Forty years ago, in the early hours of December 26, 1980, that three men from the US Air Force security police based at RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, England saw the strange flashing lights deep in the adjacent Rendlesham Forest. They figured that an aircraft might have crashed, so they drove out to investigate and help. As the track of road narrowed, they were forced to continue on foot. Two of the men, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, advanced into a small clearing, brightly lit by the strange lights. As they got closer, they realized it was not a crashed aircraft but a landed UFO.

• The object was triangular, ten feet wide at the base, resting on three legs. It looked like a cross between a small stealth fighter and a lunar landing module. And the only way into the clearing was from above. Penniston was trained in aircraft recognition and this was like nothing he had ever seen. Symbols on the side looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs. The photos that Penniston took “did not come out”. But his drawings of the craft and his accompanying notes have survived (see below). The craft took off vertically and he noted: “Speed — impossible.”

• Two nights later on December 28, 1980, the UFO returned. The witnesses on this night included the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt who led a team into the forest to investigate. Halt recorded his observations on a cassette tape. On tape, Halt is heard remarking about the UFO ahead: “It’s definitely coming this way . . . pieces of it are shooting off . . . this is weird.” The UFO appeared overhead and fired a thin beam of light in front of them. Halt later asked himself: “Was this a weapon, was this a warning, was this communication?” Burroughs and Penniston later reported health issues, which they attributed to the UFO sighting.

• Later it was claimed that the UFO was seen firing light beams into a storage area where nuclear weapons were kept. In 2015, Colonel Halt acquired statements from two military radar operators, Ike Barker and Jim Carey. They confirmed that the UFO was tracked on radar, traveling at thousands of miles an hour then stopping over the base. “It wasn’t like any radar target I have seen,” Barker said. (see previous ExoArticle on the radar operator’s story) Radioactivity at the site was also said to be “significantly higher than the average background”. Halt concluded that the craft was clearly under intelligent control.

• British and American defense chiefs conspired to keep the incident secret. But in 1983, Lord Hill-Norton, formerly Britain’s most senior military officer, asked a series of questions about the Rendlesham Forest incident in Parliament. Hill-Norton stated that either the deputy commander of an operational, nuclear-armed NATO base was hallucinating – or there had been an actual UFO landing.

• In 1997, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was at a charity function with the socialite Georgina Bruni. When Bruni asked Thatcher about UFOs and the Rendlesham Forest incident, Thatcher replied: “You must have the facts, (but) you can’t tell the people.” Bruni believed that Thatcher had been spooked by secret intelligence regarding UFOs.

• In 2006, the MoD declassified a top-secret assessment of the overall UFO phenomenon, code-named ‘Project Condign’. In the final report, it stated that “several observers were probably exposed to UAP radiation for longer than normal UAP-sighting periods”. This information was passed along to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and a confidential claim settlement was reached with at least one of the US Air Force personnel at Rendlesham.

 

       John Burroughs and Jim Penniston

It was in the early hours of December 26, 1980, that three men from the US Air Force security police

                Charles Halt

based at RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, saw the strange flashing lights.

Coming from beyond the perimeter fence, in Rendlesham Forest, they figured an aircraft might have crashed. They drove out to investigate and help.
As the track narrowed, they continued on foot.

They were walking into history.

John Burroughs and Jim Penniston advanced into a small clearing, brightly lit by the strange lights. As they got closer, they realised it was not a crashed aircraft — it was a landed UFO.

               sculpture of UFO craft

The object was triangular, ten feet wide at the base, looked like a cross between a small stealth fighter and a lunar landing module, and was resting on three legs.

The only way into the clearing for a vehicle was from above.

Penniston was trained in aircraft recognition and this was like nothing he had ever seen. Symbols on the side looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs.

     Jim Penniston’s drawing of the craft

He took photos but was later told they did not come out. But he sketched the craft too, and his drawing has survived. He also took notes. The craft took off vertically and he wrote: “Speed — impossible.”

Two nights later the UFO returned and the witnesses then included the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt. A sceptic, he led a team into the forest when he was told the UFO had come back.

            Lord Hill-Norton

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

He recorded his observations on a cassette. It makes eerie listening as Halt catches sight of the UFO and says: “It’s definitely coming this way . . . pieces of it are shooting off . . . this is weird.”

Then the UFO appeared overhead and fired a thin beam of light in front of them.

                   Margaret Thatcher

Shocked Halt later asked himself: “Was this a weapon, was this a warning, was this communication?”

Later the UFO was seen firing light beams into a storage area, where many claim — though this was never confirmed — that nuclear weapons were kept.

In 2015, Colonel Halt, who has pursued the case, acquired statements from two military radar operators, Ike Barker and Jim Carey.

They confirmed the UFO was tracked, travelling at thousands of miles an hour then stopping over the base.

Georgina Bruni

“It wasn’t like any radar target I have seen,” Barker said.

Halt concluded that the craft, “was clearly under intelligent control”.

Radioactivity at the site was said to be, “significantly higher than the average background”.

  article’s writer, Nick Pope

Defence chiefs conspired to keep the incident secret.

But in 1983 the News of The World printed details.

Then Lord Hill-Norton, formerly Britain’s most senior military officer, asked a series of questions about the incident in Parliament.

He stated that either the deputy commander of an operational, nuclear-armed Nato base was hallucinating — or there had been a UFO landing.

The second establishment figure to break ranks was former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She was at a charity function in 1997 with the socialite Georgina Bruni, who had a long-standing interest in UFOs.

Bruni asked Baroness Thatcher about UFOs and Rendlesham and she replied: “You must have the facts and you can’t tell the people.” Bruni believed Thatcher had been spooked by a secret about UFOs.

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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

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