April 28th, 20184/28/2018 The "Men In Black" (MIB) are supposedly government agents who wear black suits and silence or harass individuals who have information about UFO/Alien visitation. But are they real or are they just an urban myth? The first person to supposedly have encountered a MIB was Harold Dahl in 1947. He claimed to see a doughnut shaped UFO which dropped debris into the water nearby to Dahl and his companions. The refuse was partially a very light white metal and also a kind of dark metal that caused steam when it hit the water. Some of the debris killed Dahl's dog and his son was burned in the incident. Regardless of whether it is true or not, the full story goes on to be incredibly interesting. After this incident, Dahl was visited by the mysterious men in black who tried keep his story from going public in a variety of ways. So is it a hoax, an urban myth or an actual conspiracy? Perhaps they are real or perhaps they are a product of imagined experiences induced by collective paranoia which has been directed towards the government...or maybe it is something else entirely. The documentary 'Mirage Men' suggests that the real UFO conspiracy is that the American government has been planting fake information in its citizens for the purpose of convincing them that UFOs and alien visitation are real. "Mirage Men's chief coup is to land an actual man in black: a former Air Force special investigations officer named Richard Doty, who admits to having infiltrated UFO circles. A fellow UFO researcher says: "Doty had this wonderful way to sell it – 'I'm with the government. You cooperate with us and I'm going to tell you what the government really knows about UFOs, deep down in those vaults.'" Doty and his colleagues fed credulous ufologists lies and half-truths, knowing their fertile imaginations would do the rest. In return, they were apprised of chatter from the community, thus alerting the military when anyone was getting to close to their top-secret technology. And if the Soviets thought the US really was communing with aliens, all the better." - The Guardian Believing in a secret government organization of boogeymen might be a soothing concept to true believers of UFOs who find it to be a way of rationalizing why their belief is not generally accepted. A possible side effect of this belief is also probably a position of superiority as they believe themselves to be the ones who can see through the "government's lies". In this, each strongly held belief enables the other. So far the situation has been, and it probably always will be, clouded by a number of factors. Perhaps there is no ultimate way to provide definitive answers to the Men in Black phenomena. Whatever it is, conspiracy theories like these are interesting to think about and also to imagine ways in which they could be debunked in order to find the reality of the urban myth. Is the truth still out there? Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/... https://www.youtube.com/(real Men In Black)... http://www.mufon.com/... https://www.youtube.com/ (Who are the MIB)... https://www.youtube.com/ (Dan Akroyd on UFOs)... http://theconversation.com/... http://www.ufoevidence.org/... https://www.theguardian.com/... http://mysteriousuniverse.org/... https://miragemen.wordpress.com/...
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An ocean of lava4/27/2018 The image above is a composite of Jupiter's closest moon, Io, made from 6 photos taken by Voyager 1 as it passed by the moon in March of 1979. The unique features of this landscape and its painted quality are a direct result of Io's volcanic activity which releases plumes and lava flows to color its surface. Io is actually the most geologically active object in the solar system which is due to the gravitational friction generated as Io is pulled back and forth between Jupiter and the outer moons of Europa as well as Ganymede. This special position in the solar system makes Io a very inhospitable place as, in addition to the constant volcanic activity, the radiation on the moon is 1000x stronger that what would be required to kill a human. With all of this information, I still thought to ask Google: "Is there life on Io?" I was expecting the answer to be a straightforward "NO, there has never been life on Io and there never will be" and also that I would read some theories about aliens having colonies on Io or other unfounded speculation about life on this particular moon. I was a bit surprised by both erronious expectations. In regards to the former, some scientists believe that Io could have held life a long time ago and that it could still persist today beneath the surface. Computer simulations of the formation of Jupiter's moons, suggest that Io formed with a large quantity of liquid water which was evaporated and sucked into Io's lava-tubes within 10 million years after its coalescence. So the chances for life on Io are poor, but there is still a possibility that microbes inhabit the turbulent moon. Recent findings also suggest that Io may be hiding a sub-surface ocean of molten rock, caused by the gravitational friction between it and Jupiter...this does not help the claim for life on the hellish moon but it does suggest that one of Jupiter's other moons, Europa, could have a warm and habitable ocean beneath its surface. While all of this is incredibly interesting, Io is probably one of the last places where we will send a autonomous surveying robot primarily because it is not a place where finding life is likely.Europa and Enceladus are the places in our solar system most likely to harbor life so, if we choose to explore for the purpose of learning as much as possible, then we will probably send a probe to one of these two moons to maximize our research-to-expense ratio. Perhaps we will never investigate Io and instead we will use our resources for our moon, Mars and Europa. Perhaps we will never become the multi-planet species that some of us hope for. It is certainly possible that we will make a critical error before we ever reach that point in our collective history. If we ever stopped fighting among each other, perhaps we could put all of that wasted energy into searching for the truths of our planet, our solar system and beyond. By the time we are able to reach out and touch something beyond our own moon, the truth might have evaporated into the solar winds and burned up in the cosmic radiation. Is the truth still out there? Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/... https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/... https://theplanets.org/... https://www.theguardian.com/... https://www.space.com/... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/... http://www.spacedaily.com/... http://mysteriousuniverse.org/... https://www.quora.com/... http://www.dailygalaxy.com/... https://www.forbes.com/... http://journalofcosmology.com/... https://www.seeker.com/... https://gizmodo.com/... https://www.centauri-dreams.org/... The curious case of Triton4/23/2018 This is Neptune's moon Triton. It was first discovered by William Lassell in 1846. It was found just 17 days after Neptune and the first of Neptune's moons to be discovered. It is one of only 5 moons in the solar system though to be geologically active, it has the coldest surface temperature in our solar system (at-235c/-391f) and is the only moon in our solar system with a retrograde orbit (traveling in an opposite rotation to its planet). The reason Triton travels in a rotation contrary to Neptune is because it did not form with the planet. It originally belonged in the Kuiper Belt (like Pluto) and was captured by the planet. Though it looks like a dirty snowball left over at the end of winter, Triton is a pretty interesting place...actually it was considered one of the most interesting satellites in the solar system until we discovered that the moons of Jupiter as well as Saturn had sub-surface oceans and then Triton was overshadowed by an abundance of water-worlds. Terry Hurford, planetary Scientist at NASA, examined Triton and believes that it is also hiding a sub-surface ocean. Hurford is hopeful that we will revisit Triton with our scientific instruments in the near future. Much of this information about Triton comes from the Voyager 2 spacecraft which did a quick flyby of the moon in 1989. The New Horizons spacecraft did a flyby of Neptune and Triton exactly 25 years later, on its way to Pluto, but didn't get close enough to get much data. Aside from those short lived and near-by visitations, we have only been able to get to know Triton from our Earth based telescopes.
They see things beyond that which exists in the evidence. Connections are drawn between ink blots, as the inventor formulates an image that isn't there. This ability to create a basis for believing without a reason, or perhaps without the faculty of reason, reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger Effect which is a cognitive bias where below-average individuals mistake their intelligence as being above-average because of how little they actually know. When there is so little data on a place, just some old photos taken in the dark of space on a 1980s digital camera and some basic qualitative data, it is possible to infer but improbable to do so accurately. Certainly there could be life on Triton but probably it is not intelligent and we have no reason to presuppose so. If there were evidence of intelligent aliens, or whatever, on Triton, or wherever, how would you separate the truth from the speculation which saturates the environment? is the truth still out there? Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/ (Triton)... https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/... http://www.seasky.org/... http://www.astronomy.com/... https://www.space.com/... https://www.astrobio.net/... http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/... https://www.nasa.gov/... https://gizmodo.com/... https://science.nasa.gov/... https://www.youtube.com/ (Proof of alien life)... https://www.youtube.com/ (Triton is inhabited)... https://www.youtube.com/ (Massive structures on triton)... http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/... https://www.metimeforthemind.com/... http://mysteriousuniverse.org/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ (Dunning-Kruger)... http://www.patheos.com/... Astounding stories & more...4/22/2018
Believing what we want or expect true rather than what we can prove is no different than any other religious zeal. Carl Sagan, an active searcher for intelligent extraterrestrial life, once made famous the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
If, for example, we believe that intelligent aliens do exist and are visiting us, then we will go looking for evidence of that with an innate bias towards finding it while ignoring contrary evidence. We may search through manlyy sources but we will find those which corroborate our initial feelings. Our ego refuses to acknowledge that our past beliefs were always fallacies as this would cause our emotional investment to be in vain. To support this situation, we stubbornly propagate misinformation as we enable others in the same situation. Conspiracy theories, fake news, hoaxes and events perceived incorrectly within a culture looking to escape reality creates a situation where large swathes of the population believe in things which do are not true. If we started fact-checking all of our sources of information, what would it be like to live in the unbiased reality? Is the truth still out there? Sources:
http://time.com/... https://www.theguardian.com/... https://www.scientificamerican.com/... https://www.youtube.com/... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/... https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/... http://nationalpost.com/... http://www.pbs.org/... https://www.livescience.com/... http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/... https://sputniknews.com/... http://discovermagazine.com/... To the moon, maybe4/19/2018 The moon is our closest extraterrestrial body. It has protected us from meteoric impacts and regulated life here on earth. If we manage to become a multi-planetary species, it will be the first step in extending our reach towards that goal. The ESA has plans to create a permanent settlement on the moon called "Moon Village", NASA is looking to use the moon as a launching point to get to Mars on the Orion spacecraft. NASA has even scheduled a test launch for Orion as early as 2019 but reaching Mars is not likely until at least the 2030s. The previous American presidential administration hadn't planned on returning to the Moon, and was going to shoot directly for Mars, but the current administration changed the plans... This photo is from the index page of the stunning book 'Lunar Panorama' by Lowman which is located at the Bibliothek Andreas Zust. Two other recent American presidential administrations have planned to get to the moon (the Space Exploration Initiative during the George H.W. Bush presidency in 1989 as well as the Constellation Program during the George W. Bush presidency in 2004) though neither resulted in boots on the lunar terrain as the last human crew departed the moon in 1972. Luckily though, if the American government doesn't come through, again, there are plenty of other national and private organizations who are looking to take advantage of the vacuum in endeavors for space colonization. For example, private startups from India, Israel, and Japan, along with a Silicon Valley-backed space-exploration company called 'Moon Express' are all shooting for the Google Lunar XPrize, big companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are also working on concepts, and governmental organizations for Russia, China and the ESA are all working towards returning to the moon and beyond. The ESA's 'Moon Village' (mentioned above) is particularly interesting as they plan to use inflatable structures and 3D printing with regolith (lunar soil). With all of this being said: the future plans, the present efforts and the history, there are still many people who don't believe that the original moon landings happened...According to a 1999 Gallup Poll, approximately 6% of Americans believe that it was a hoax and 5% are undecided. Of course some of these conspiracy theorists sound ludicrous but others propose sound arguments for why they do to believe that it never happened. For an example of some pretty convincing arguments, check out this video by a mustachioed gentleman. This TIME article even looks to it as one of the world's most enduring conspiracy theories and there is even a Wikipedia page for it. Even though people have tried to document the sites of the Apollo landings, conspiracy theorists hold strong to their belief. One example is Marcus Allen who has said that 'photographs of the lander would not prove that America put men on the Moon'. When does our skepticism stop being healthy and start being detrimental to society? Is it that our egos get in the way, as we refuse to accept that there are people who know more than us and that such knowledge is potentially trustworthy. When we don't trust people who have spent their entire lives in search for the truth on the environment/climate, astrophysics, biology, quantum mechanics, whatever...doesn't it hurt all of humanity for us to ignore these people? And why do some of us refuse to believe them while those same people choose to believe individuals who obviously know nothing? Is the truth still out there? Some links to provide more information on future travel to the moon: https://www.popularmechanics.com/... https://www.space.com/... https://news.nationalgeographic.com/... http://www.iflscience.com/... https://www.nbcnews.com/... http://www.esa.int/... Links to provide information on conspiracy theories: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/... http://content.time.com/... https://en.wikipedia.org/... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/... Will there ever be a future?4/17/2018 Last night was the beginning of the Lyriad Metor shower, which will peak on the 22nd, with its last night on the 25th. Unfortunately it wasn't visible from nearby the 'The Z Files' Archive and Observatory because the skies were overcast but I have hope that they will clear in the coming days. Because of the beginning of this astronomical happening, I thought to look through the archives for something from the constellation Lyra and I found this image below of the Ring Nebula (M57), and its dying central star, taken by the Hubble Telescope and found on page 138 of the book .'Die Milchstrase' by Henbest in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust... The Ring Nebula used to be a star several times more massive than our sun but gives us a glimpse into the future of our solar system, about 5 billion years from now. Were there planets/beings/life which existed in the solar system before it became the Ring Nebula and, if so, what happened to them? The actual event when the star shed off its outer layers to become a red dwarf is supposed to have happened 4000 years ago and the Ring Nebula is 2000 light-years from us, meaning that we are seeing it as it was just 2000 years after the event. It will grow 50% larger in the next few thousand years before it begins to dissipate as the white dwarf at its core slowly dies. Currently we see the Ring Nebula in its past and our present...but we will not be able to see its present until far in our future (if we hold out that long). But if we were able to travel through space on a ship which could go as fast as light, in order to visit the Ring Nebula, it would already be gone by the time we arrived. Is anyone presently looking in wonder at the nebula left by our dead star, while we sit 5 billion years in the past? How can we determine the truth reality under the governance of general relativity? Some links about the Ring Nebula (M57): https://www.solarsystemquick.com/... http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/... http://www.messier-objects.com/... https://www.nasa.gov/... http://www.constellation-guide.com/... https://apod.nasa.gov/ The Metal Man of Falkville4/16/2018 The Metal Man of Falkville Alabama, shown in the picture below, is a very curious case. The image is scanned from page 301 of 'Geheimsache UFO' by Hesemann located in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust. The witness of the Metal Man, Jeff Greenhaw, was the chief of police at the time when he had the sighting that would ultimately get him fired, lead to his wife divorcing him, and his house also burned down. Most of the sources below recount the exact same story: http://www.cryptopia.us/... http://www.ufocasebook.com/... https://books.google.ch/... http://realunexplainedmysteries.com/... http://outtherewithted.com/... The third source has an interesting first person account of perpetrating hoax which is quite similar to whatever Greenhaw witnessed and then the author writes about how he tried to contact Greenhaw, who does not want anything to do with the story which was detrimental to his life. The fourth source is not special in the article itself but the comments below the article have an array of commentators who claim to know the person who created the hoax and even one who claims to be the daughter of Greenhaw... What is the most probable actual reality of this story? The context of the situation, according to the reports, would be that this rural area after 10pm would be very dark except for Greenhaw's truck lights. Some individuals likely played a prank on the man by making/finding a costume reminiscent of 1950's sci-fi movies, calling in a fake UFO sighting, and then pretending to be the metal man and running off. Greenhaw's perception of the event, during the short time when everything happened and in the darkness, looked to fill in the gaps in order to make sense of the event. Greenhaw, probably believes, or believed, what he saw to be true. However, the numerous claims that it was a prank and the Metal Man's similar appearance to the automaton in the famous sci-fi movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still", and similar alien entities of other 1950's mass media, result in the most probable truth of the situation that it was probably a prank. If there was/are aliens visiting us, they probably would not resemble how we imagine them to be and the Metal Man of Falkville Alabama is very much reminiscent of extraterrestrial visitors which remained in the American collective unconscious left over from the explosion of 1950s sci-fi fervor.
Is the truth still out there? From the vaccum of space4/13/2018 The photo is from page 192 of 'The History of Rocketry and Space Travel' found in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust and added to the Z Files archives. The picture depicts a alien, floating above our planet and using a compressed air gun to propel himself through the vacuum.
We can assume this photo is real, because we trust the source that it comes from. Our understanding of the indifferent truth is reliant on the trustworthiness of experts and witnesses to it. Truth and trust are therefor deeply intertwined as the former is defined by the later. Trustworthy sources come as unbiased and without ulterior motive. For example, the majority of scientists have concluded that human induced climate change is the truth however there are some which deny this truth who do so because it benefits them to hold that position. Ulterior motives can come in many forms; keeping one's job or funding, pushing one's agenda, spectacle and attention, political benefit and so on. So when we look for the truth in order to try to understand reality, we not only have to understand what is being presented to us but to be aware of what is behind that presentation. The relationship between the two is how we can determine the trustworthiness of the source and therefor the truth of reality. Between skeptics and supporters4/10/2018 The photo above is by "Billy" Meier, taken from page 155 of the book 'Light Years' by Kinder located in the Bibliothek Andreas Züst.
I've Been looking into other peoples investigations into this photo, and others, taken by Meier. It seems unbelievable that one person could make so much documentation of UFOs. It seems more believable that one person could make a career out of hoaxing photos and videos. Between the skeptics and supporters, there is no definitive answer to whether Meier is a fraud or not...both seem to have some good points. Those who want to believe, find reasons to do so and those who don't, also don't. Maybe they are all right to some degree; maybe some of what Meier captured was real and some was a hoax in order to keep up appearances. Perhaps only "Billy" knows what really happened in all of the moments he captured on film and in video. Is the truth still out there? Below are many pages which provide evidence for or against the "Billy" Meier claims:
And some interviews with "Billy" Meier:
The wikipedia page states that "Some of Meier's photos are claimed by him to show prehistoric Earth scenes, extraterrestrials, and celestial objects from an alleged non-Earthly vantage point. Meier's claims are widely characterized as fraudulent by scientists, skeptics, and most ufologists, who say that his photographs and films are hoaxes.In 1997, Meier's ex-wife, Kalliope, told interviewers that his photos were of spaceship models he crafted with items like trash can lids, carpet tacks and other household objects, and that the stories he told of his adventures with the aliens were similarly fictitious. She also said that photos of purported extraterrestrial women "Asket" and "Nera" were really photos of Michelle DellaFave and Susan Lund, members of the singing and dancing troupe The Golddiggers." I want to believe, but...4/9/2018 Been splitting time between the archive and social media as well as between science and pseudoscience in these days. Looking for overlapping material, looking for facts, cross-referencing content. Much of the materials, even in the archive, are presented as truthful but are ultimately false, speculative and/or sensationalist. Sometimes the beliefs we hold blind us to reality while other times people create misleading content to take advantage of people who believe. This practice harms the believability of any real observations that have arisen or which will arise.
Archive awakened4/7/2018 Been scouring the archives looking for evidence. Piles of books on the table, scanning images from each that seem useful or important. The sound of the scanner echoes in my ears. Found this diagram of different UFO profiles in the Das Geheimnis der unbekannten Flugobjekte by Adolf Schneider and Hubert Malthaner. I will keep it in mind as I look to the skies of Appenzelland. #IsTheTruthStillOutThere?
M.P.BronsteinA scientist who exists outside of the time-space continuum, looking for the truth, but unsure if it still exists or if it has become extinct. ArchivesCategories
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