These microbes, a new study suggests, might parasitically latch onto the human immune system and wreak havoc, resulting in serious disease or death. And if the alien pathogens do this on a larger scale, the result could be the catastrophic wiping out of large numbers of people — an alien genocide, in other words, that takes place on a scale much smaller than what the human eye can perceive.

One example of how this might occur are the recent rock and ice samples brought back from planets like Mars and Jupiter. If there are any lifeforms on these planets whatsoever, including microscopic bacteria, then the returning ships could be bringing these with them, sight unseen. Dr. John Rummel, a senior scientist at the Seti Institute in Mountain View, California, says it would be “pretty easy” for this type of thing to occur.

This is because pathogenic bacteria and even viruses are fully capable of surviving lengthy space journeys of the type that spacecraft are now taking. If proper precautions aren’t taken by space agencies to try to prevent this kind of possible invasion, the consequences for humanity on earth could be catastrophic.

“If we bring samples back from either Europa or Mars, we will contain them until hazard testing demonstrates that there is no danger and no life, or continue the containment indefinitely while we study the material, Dr. Rummel told an audience at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston.

Simple lifeforms believed to exist in salty ocean beneath crust of Europa

It has long been believed that Mars once had briny groundwater stores that served as salty homes for simple lifeforms. On Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, scientists believe there still is an underground water source, also full of salt, where simple lifeforms like bacteria and viruses may be living right now.

Under normal atmospheric conditions in these places, such life forms don’t stand a chance of living for much longer than a few weeks, or even days. But should they somehow make their way inside a spacecraft that is climate-controlled and where conditions are favorable to their longer-term survival, then all bets are off.

“Introduced to the intense radiation around Europa, exposed microbes should die off in hours to days to weeks, but organisms protected inside the spacecraft would still be alive as long as the silicon chips are functioning,” says Dr. Rummel. “Microbial life, as a whole, is pretty immune to cold, dry conditions.”

A recent paper published in the journal Life suggests that there is a “cosmic zoo” out there in space made up of diverse animal and plant life similar, but also much different, to what is commonly seen on earth. Conditions on other planets and in other cosmic environments keep these organisms in a more simple state, but if they were allowed to flourish on earth, there is no telling how they would evolve and change and adapt.

In other words, even though the issue at hand right now is limited to pathogens, it could burgeon into something much more serious in the future: potential alien animal life, for instance, or other unusual lifeforms not currently seen on planet Earth. The possibilities of potential contamination are endless, and almost none of them are positive for the subsistence of humanity.

Sources for this article include:

DailyMail.co.uk

MDPI.com

(Partial article by Bianca London from Dailymail.co.uk)

• Vinny Ohh, 22, from Los Angeles in California, has had over 110 procedures
• He wants to transform into a ‘genderless’ extra-terrestrial
• The make-up artists believes he’s neither male nor female 

A man has spent $50,000 (£40,000) on plastic surgery to become an alien – and could soon have his genitalia removed.

Vinny Ohh, 22, from Los Angeles in California, has had over 110 procedures to transform into a ‘genderless’ extra-terrestrial.

The make-up artists believes he’s neither male nor female and so his extreme look is a way of mirror how he feels inside.

Make-up artist Vinny Ohh, 22, from Los Angeles in California, has plans costing over $160,000 ((£130,000) to become a genderless alien. He has already spent $50,000 (£40,000) on plastic surgery to become an alien

…

Read the full story (with more photos) at: Dailymail.co.uk

NASA is planning two unmanned missions within the next ten years or so – one flyby and one landing mission – to find signs of life on Europa, or at least “evidence of habitability,” and where to concentrate the search for following missions.

Although its frozen surface is constantly bombarded with high radiation and therefore highly inhospitable to any sort of organic life, Europa is believed to contain an enormous ocean with a rocky floor underneath its frozen surface.

This rare feature (Saturn’s moon Enceladus is the only other place in the solar system where a subsurface ocean is thought to exist) makes Europa an extremely promising place to search for life.

If there really is water beneath Europa’s crust, as the evidence strongly suggests, there are also likely to be hydrothermal systems similar to those on earth where an abundance of microbial life is found.

From Sci-Tech Today:

“Below its shell of ice, Europa contains a vast inner ocean that’s thought to be in contact with its seafloor, potentially infusing the water with the energy and nutrients needed to support life. If there’s life in this deep, dark ocean, it may resemble the microbes that squirm around Earth’s seafloor and in subglacial lakes.”

NASA astronomer Jonathan Lunine added:

“Europa is provisionally a great place to go. It has a very large amount of rocks, it’s got a lot of heat [at its core], so at the base of the oceans there are undoubtedly hydro-thermal systems. Everything we know about it makes this a good [place] to look for life.”

NASA now has ambitions to send a lander to the surface of Europa in addition to its planned Europa Clipper multiple-flyby mission tentatively scheduled for launch in 2022. The landing mission could be launched within a year or two after the Clipper mission, putting a lander on Europa’s surface within a time frame only slightly longer than a decade.

In following missions, NASA hopes to drill beneath Europa’s crust and explore its mysterious hidden oceans with robotic probes, but exploring the moon at all presents a number of challenges. For example, the Europa Clipper multiple-flyby mission is designed to send the probe into a long elliptical orbit around Jupiter – rather than a close orbit around Europa itself.

Any probe locked into an orbit around Europa would soon be cooked by Jupiter’s radiation, reflected by the moon’s surface, so the mission revolves around a number of close flybys in which instruments can collect detailed information before the probe again heads for the safety of its elongated orbit around Jupiter.

The lander is expected to function for only 20 days in the high radiation, once again illustrating the difficulties of exploring Europa’s harsh surface environment.

One can only imagine the challenges associated with drilling miles beneath Europa’s crust to reach the ocean, as NASA scientists have envisioned for future missions, but there’s a tantalizing possibility that we might get a chance to sample the contents of Europa’s ocean without having to drill at all.

There is telescopic evidence of huge plumes escaping from apparent fissures within Europa’s crust, spewing water vapor and other particles high into the moon’s thin atmosphere. The Europa Clipper mission may have the opportunity to to not only confirm their existence but also “sample” these plumes and learn something about their chemical makeup.

The confirmation that life exists elsewhere in our solar system seems practically inevitable at this point, and Europa may indeed be the place where the first real proof is discovered.

Sources:

News.com.au

Sci-Tech-Today.com

SpaceNews.com

Futurism.com

JPL.nasa.gov

YouTube.com

(Article by by Jessica Brown from Indy100.com)

Monfort collated sightings recorded by the National UFO Reporting Centre, a US organisation that records sightings worldwide, from the beginning of the 20^th century.

And there’s been a bit of an upward trend…

Picture: Sam Monfort

Interestingly though, Sam has observed that spotting of flying saucers have been on the downturn, despite the rise in sightings over all.

Maybe extraterrestrials have just upgraded?

In terms of geography, Sam says that the US seems to be the most prone to UFO sightings all year round.

The States actually report 300 times as many sightings than the the global average, according to his calculations.

Picture: Sam Monfort

If you want to look at all Sam’s awesome data, head over to this website, where there are also breaks downs of sightings by State and other great graphs.

Read more at: Indy100.com

Although dark matter reflects no light, its presence is revealed through its gravitational influence on stars within galaxies such as our own Milky Way.

By analyzing the energy spectrum of X-rays emanating from the Milky Way that were gathered by the Chandra satellite, scientists were able to detect a tell-tale amount of X-ray photons displaying a particular energy within a specific spectrum range. These signals are consistent with current theory regarding how dark matter manifests itself and can be interpreted as evidence of its existence.

From The Daily Galaxy:

“This is not the first time that scientists have seen extra photons with an energy of about 3,500 electronvolts (3.5 keV) in the spectra recorded by X-ray satellites.

“The researchers found that the strength of their 3.5 keV signal was consistent with data from NASA’s X-ray satellite, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuStar). With no obvious interference within the satellite itself, the researchers concluded that the signal is unlikely to be caused by instrumental noise.”

Until now, it was unclear whether the anomalous “line” created by the photons in an otherwise smooth spectrum was merely a “statistical fluke” caused by an instrumental malfunction, or actual evidence of the decay of dark matter.

Scientists have spent years trying to detect dark matter particles directly using earth-based instruments, but have so far failed in their efforts. At the same time, astrophysicists have been searching the Milky Way for evidence of dark matter particles either decaying or interacting with one another.

There are competing theories as to the cause of mysterious gamma rays emanating from the Milky Way galaxy:

“The so-called weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are believed by some researchers to be responsible for unusual emissions of gamma rays seen coming from the center of the Milky Way. While others think sources such as pulsars are probably the cause.”

To determine whether the gamma ray emissions were associated with the presence of dark matter, scientists compared the spectra from Chandra to X-ray data originating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, collected by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite.

As the researchers had predicted, the signal from the XMM-Newton satellite was stronger, a finding consistent with the theory that dark matter should be densest in the galactic center where more stars are to be found.

There are other possible explanations for the anomalous signals, but at least two have been dismissed:

“The researchers also ruled out a couple of alternative astrophysical sources for the signal: photons emitted either when very large black holes suck in material from their surroundings or when ions of sulphur take electrons from hydrogen in the centre of galaxy clusters.”

Some scientists are skeptical of the new findings – there have been several other studies that failed to detect the 3.5 keV signal, and there is still the possibility that the data is the result of a fluke or that the emissions are caused by some other phenomenon.

However, the scientists involved in the research are encouraged by the fact that four different satellites have now detected the same signal.

At any rate, the Yale research team has at least added “yet another piece to the 3.5 keV puzzle,” as one researcher put it.

Once a few more of the pieces of the puzzle are in place, we may finally begin to unravel one of the biggest mysteries in the field of astrophysics.

Sources:

DailyGalaxy.com

BBC.com

The United Arab Emirates has announced plans to colonize Mars by the year 2117. The plans were officially made public at the 5^th World Government Summit in Dubai, where Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai and Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE declaring that deep space exploration was one of the country’s top scientific endeavors.

“Human ambitions have no limits, and whoever looks into the scientific breakthroughs in the current century believes that human abilities can realize the most important human dream,” said Sheikh Mohammed. But of course, the UAE gave themselves 100 years to achieve their goal for a reason. Naturally, an endeavor this large and ambitious has to be broken down into separate stages.

According to the UAE, the first step is to assemble a team of individuals who can properly “facilitate the arrival of humans… in the next decades.” The Mars 2117 Project, as the UAE is calling it, also “aims to prepare an Emiratis scientists team and to develop an international scientific consortium to speed up the research project.” But while the UAE should be congratulated for their ambitious new endeavor, there are still several challenges they must be prepared to face along the way.

To date, there have been six successful Mars landings, all of which have been unmanned. But sending a spacecraft 33.9 million miles away from earth with real living and breathing human beings inside of them is something quite different. The UAE will have to figure out how to minimize weight and use the least amount of fuel possible.

Walter Engelund of NASA’s Langley Research Center detailed another potential problem having to do with orbiting the planet. (RELATED: Read about how NASA is launching a twin into space for research purposes). “For a human-scale mission, it is very likely that we will have a spacecraft that stays in orbit with food and supplies for the journey home,” he said, adding that the orbiting spacecraft would also act as a “safe haven in case something goes wrong on the surface.” To even enter Mar’s orbit is a challenge in and of itself, requiring a technique that has never been tried before.

“One of the problems of getting a spacecraft to another planet is that we first have to get it out of earth’s orbit,” Engelund explained. “So we have to speed it up to a high enough velocity to break free of earth’s gravity field. Then when the spacecraft gets to its destination planet, it has to slow down enough so that it is captured into orbit around that planet’s gravity field.”

Of course, very few things in this world can be done without cold hard cash, which brings us to yet another challenge for the UAE – finding the funds to not only reach the red planet, but to establish a settlement as well. The technology, research, training, and the physical infrastructure itself would easily cost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more. The UAE would need to get that kind of funding from somewhere.

Sending human beings to mars and establishing a habitable human settlement there is extremely ambitious, but anything is possible. At the very least, the possibility of man one day walking around futuristic cities on the planet Mars is fun to think about. (RELATED: Unexplainable photos beg the questions – did human beings once inhabit Mars?) It is like something directly out of a science fiction book, but 100 years from now, what we once thought to be science fiction could very well be our reality.

Sources:

Breitbart.com

Space.com

While many would view ESP as being a bit “out there,” most would be intrigued to know that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – at least at one time – seemed to feel that there was some merit to the whole concept.

In January of this year, the CIA released about 13 million documents, detailing both “conventional” spying missions and some that came right out of left field, so to speak. These included both investigations into UFO sightings (X-Files, anyone?) and “missions” involving ESP. (RELATED: Are you as interested in outer space as the CIA? Stay in the loop of all the latest discoveries at Space.news)

One of the more interesting ones took place in May 1984, when the CIA undertook a sort of reverse fortune telling into the ancient past of the planet Mars by recruiting a clairvoyant in to help in a “remote viewing” exercise.

The clairvoyant was presented with a sealed envelope which contained a 3×5 card that simply stated: “The planet Mars. Time of interest approximately 1 million years B.C.” He was then verbally given a couple of coordinates and told to go for it. Incidentally, he wasn’t allowed to see what was hidden in the envelope until after the experiment was completed.

One can’t be sure if he was fed any other clues, e.g. “We want you to tell us what you can see in outer space, but we won’t tell you any more than that” etc. but if he genuinely wasn’t given any other information, then what he “saw” is really quite interesting. (RELATED: Follow more news of the unexplained at Unexplained.news)

He described what he referred to as an okra-colored “pyramid or pyramid form.” He also spoke of a dust storm that seemed to stem from a “major geologic problem,” and referenced several gigantic structures, including one that looked like the Washington Monument.

Managing to catch a glimpse inside a Martian structure, he described a utilitarian “hibernation” area that appeared to be more functional than comfortable, as it had no furniture and was strictly for sleeping (hibernating?).

Though there was no mention of color, green or otherwise, the clairvoyant did describe the Martians themselves as “thin and “tall.” He also said that they were very large and that they wore strange clothing (though no details were provided).

The government was clearly really interested in this kind of thing for a good number of years. Similar investigations were undertaken by “Project Stargate,” a Defense Intelligence Agency program that ran for 25 years, and which investigated consciousness, paranormal phenomena, ESP and remote viewing, among other things. (RELATED: If you, too, want to know all there is to know about ESP, check out this GoodGopher.com search from across the web.)

It’s unclear what conclusions the CIA drew from their ESP clairvoyance experiment. It certainly raises questions about the appropriate use of taxpayer money. And it makes one wonder what else they might be hiding, doesn’t it?

Sources:       

SputnikNews.com

Global.Britannica.com

Collective-Evolution.com

Until we reached the mysterious planet with our probes and rovers in the last few decades, all of this was mere speculation. But now – after having gathered a relatively vast amount of photographic and other evidence – there are more questions being raised than ever before, and there are also a fair number of interesting photographs that have even the experts scratching their heads. (For more news about the planets and cosmos, visit Space.news)

Many of the strange photographs that have captured the attention of alien hunters and UFO believers can probably be explained away as merely being odd rock formations that happen to resemble creatures or structures. The human tendency to see faces or patterns in random or vague stimuli is called “pareidolia,” and the phenomenon is likely to account for many of the “sightings” of weird animals, human-like apparitions and supposed “man-made” structures on the surface of Mars.

But are all of these anomalies so easily explained away? Most of us can be forgiven for laughing at images of formations vaguely resembling “mermaids” or “bears” when they are presented by slightly overzealous alien hunters as being “the real thing,” but some of the photographs taken by NASA rovers are not so easy to dismiss as tricks of the eye.

For example, a curious dome-like “structure” can be seen jutting out of a Martian hillside in one of the rover photographs posted on the NASA website:

(Click on image to enlarge)

The “dome” may very well be a natural feature of the Martian landscape, but is is rather odd-looking and doesn’t resemble any of its surroundings.

Another interesting NASA Curiosity rover photo includes a feature that closely resembles a perfect pyramid – a shape not commonly found in nature, except in crystal formations. Whether or not the Martian pyramid is a crystalline mineral structure has not yet been determined, but it also does not resemble any of the other features in the surrounding landscape:

(Click on image to enlarge)

These are just two examples of Martian photos that contain difficult-to-explain anomalies, and although these, like many others, may be simply odd-looking, naturally-occurring landscape features, we can’t really be sure until we go to Mars and have a firsthand look around for ourselves – a prospect that seems less and less far-fetched as rocket technology advances and the dreams of visionaries like Elon Musk come closer to being realized. There’s a good chance that we may finally set foot on the red planet within just a few years.

Interestingly, there has been at least one situation in which the scientific community has benefited from the obsessive search for weird anomalies among the NASA Mars photos conducted by those who believe there is evidence of ancient alien civilizations on the planet.

One UFO website posted some NASA photos of a strange-looking rock formation that was interpreted as being a “building with a doorway” on the side of a hill. The  purported “building” may have been a mere rock formation, but there were streaks in the sand below the ledge where the “building” was perched that looked an awful lot like fresh water flowing down the sandy Martian hillside. The website noted that fact, but attached no special importance to it.

NASA administrator, Cassie Conley, was informed through a tip that there might be something worth looking at in the photo and, sure enough, it turned out to be one of the best NASA images providing evidence of water flowing on the surface of Mars.

And generally speaking, where there is water, there is life – not to mention the fact that we now know that Mars was once blanketed with an atmosphere that may not have been so different to our own.

That story gives us a good reason not to be too hard on those who might see things on Mars that aren’t necessarily what they appear to be. They certainly can’t be blamed for being curious (who isn’t?) and sometimes their efforts pay off, even if their findings turn out to be less sensational than a mermaid or bear living on the surface of one of our nearest planetary neighbors.

Sources:

Ancient-Code.com

Wired.com

Mars.NASA.gov

The Secure Team also found something new and unusual while searching Antarctica through Google Earth. Imagery found shows a clear cut image of a flying saucer like object sitting partially inside of a cave inside of a mountain. Their video highlights multiple caves, including ones that appear to have been precision laser cut into a saucer shape. Did man make these caves to house the unidentified crafts? The saucer disc shown in the video has a distinct circular edge and shadow beneath it. There also appears to be some design attributes on the top of circular object. The outer rim of the disc appears to be sharp, giving the object a blade like appearance, which doesn’t seem to be natural by any stretch of the imagination. (RELATED: Find more stories about outer space discoveries at Space.news.)

The Secure Team’s video also showed a second disc they uncovered. This one closely resembles the one partially housed in the cave, but it’s underwater. Situated in a heart shaped lake lies a perfectly circular space craft like object. These objects, along with the pyramids, raise some serious questions regarding the many high profile people who have taken interest in the South Pole.

There are three documented instances where the Nazi party embarked on expeditions to Antarctica, but for unknown reasons. There is evidence that the defunct party had established bases there, and were testing flying saucer shaped air crafts. Many people believed that the Nazis were using reverse engineered alien technology to conduct their air experiments.

Admiral Bird once took a Navy fleet of 4 thousand men to the south pole, where the fleet allegedly encountered flying saucers arising from the Antarctic waters. Bird had also said that one of the greatest threats on Earth doesn’t stem from other countries, but rather from a force which is located at the bottom of our planet. What did he mean by that? (RELATED: Find more UFO news at UFOs.news)

Many world leaders have been taking mysterious trips to Antarctica over the years, including quite a number last year. Some of the names to visit the frigid region included former US President Obama, the Pope, Vladimir Putin, John Kerry, and Buzz Aldrin. Many of whom provided strange reasoning for their visits, including vacation, and global warming. In September of 1990, Bill Clinton became the first US President to visit Antarctica’s deep freeze base.

In 2013, Prince Harry of Whales took a trip to the South pole with his royal family. When asked why they had went there, they provided a bizarre reason that raised many questions. The royal family said the trip was made to highlight the extraordinary courage and determination of the men and women who have been wounded while serving their countries, and to draw attention to the need to help them with their career transition. Certainly that could have all been accomplished without the Antarctica trip, and doesn’t seem like a viable excuse.

There are many notable yet random figures and government politicians who have taken trips to Antarctica. Much of the need to visit the South Pole is said to be in relation to the discovery of the pyramids, but others believe there is an ongoing cover-up, which has caused a firestorm within the world governments who are trying to keep the pyramids low profile — and mask their true purpose. Also be sure to check out Unexplained.news for more coverage of unexplained findings across the world.

Sources:

Youtube.com

Youtube.com

Scientists narrow in on source of radio bursts coming from space

Shami Chatterjee, an astrophysicist at Cornell University, says that by knowing the source of FRBs, scientists may be able to unlock clues as to what is causing them. He doesn’t think the cause is aliens, but doesn’t rule that out either. Instead, he believes that the FRBs could indicate interactions of a neutron star or an active galactic nucleus.

When the scientists found out that a particular FRB was bursting repeatedly, they ruled out the idea that the radio wave was being caused by two neutron stars colliding. The signal was more than just a radio flash or explosive crash; the repetition of FRB 121102 made them look deeper to find the cause.

The repetition also allowed them to focus their detection equipment at a single patch in the sky.

“If you go fishing in this spot in the sky, you might be more likely to get lucky than in other random spots in the sky,” Chatterjee says.

The research team was able to start using an interferometer in New Mexico, which consisted of 27 radio dishes called the Very Large Array. This provided them with greater resolution to detect the bursts.  The equipment captured data at 200 frames per second at the selected spot in the sky.

“It was a pretty intensive observational and computational challenge,” Chatterjee commented.

Scientists capture images of radio bursts, narrow in on dwarf galaxy Auriga

After 50 hours of data recording, the research team found nothing of significance. That’s when they called on the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The scientists there were able to capture nine radio images of the elusive bursts. The research teams all narrowed in on an even tinier patch in the sky. The source was revealing itself.

All signs pointed to the constellation Auriga, a dwarf galaxy that is 2.5 to 3 billion light years away. If their theory is correct, then the event causing the bursts had to have occurred billions of years ago. The scientists hypothesize that the cause could have been a newborn magnetar with a strong magnetic field spinning and emitting giant pulses. They say it could also be a magnetar colliding with a black hole, or it could have been an active galactic nucleus emitting blobs of vaporized plasma.

The study, published in the journal Nature, also questions whether all FRBs pulse repeatedly, or if some are singular bursts.

Sources include:

NPR.org

Nature.com