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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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/... Beneath the ice in the salty ocean4/21/2018 Meet Europa. It is the smallest of Jupiter's four moons which were discovered by Galileo. Europa is smaller than Earth's moon(~65%), but larger than Pluto. It's surface is a thick layer of smooth but scarred ice, obscuring an ocean underneath which is able to remain liquid due to the tidal flexing between the moon and the planet. Scientists think that there is an ocean of salty water located just beneath the surface due to a special magnetic field that Europa has, which was measured by the Galileo Mission. NASA's preliminary plans for reaching the saline moon, The Europa Clipper, could allow us to touch the icy surface as soon as the 2030s, at the same time that we are hopefully in the beginning stages of getting people to Mars. The reason Europa is so interesting is because that liquid ocean is very similar to sub-glacial lakes that have been found on earth and it is thought to be old enough for life to have evolved there. In the timespan of roughly 400 years, we could go from discovering a celestial body to having found life on it. That is truly amazing and a credit to all of the people who have built made it a possibility, many of them working on thankless tasks but for an amazing cumulative effect. Of course there are many people today who suggest that such missions into space are a waste of money, resources, time. We have a collective legacy as explorers, often fraught with the terrible actions of colonialism, but this is a legacy that we should continue and improve as we extend our reach into outer space. With reasonable certainty we can say that life exists outside of our planet, but without finding evidence of it we can never be absolutely certain. As we venture forth, it will be a search for more than life but for scientific discovery in general which will ultimately give us insight into our own planet, about the origins of our solar system, the galaxy and our universe. Research and development created for these ventures will also give us new technologies that could make life on Earth better and more sustainable. Trying to see, to understand and to touch ever farther beyond our planet is a heroic task that will ultimately aid the survival of our species. Is the truth still out there? Photo Of Europa taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft and found on page 115 of Der Weltraum by Klett and located in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust. Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/... https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/... https://www.space.com/ (Life?)... https://www.space.com/ (Facts)... https://www.youtube.com/... https://www.popsci.com/ (Europa Lander)... https://www.independent.co.uk/... https://www.popsci.com/ (Seafaring robots)... https://www.outerplaces.com/... https://phys.org/... 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/... Mysteries in Roswell4/18/2018 Why do we love a mystery? The possibly unattainable goal of finding out its answers are able to absorb our search for decades and even whole lifetimes. That driving curiosity imbues a parching thirst for a solution to our quandary, which may ultimately never be reached.
The incident itself, which you can read at Wikipedia, is interesting but what is even more so, is the effect that the incident had in sparking curiosity which led off in numerous directions of imaginative speculation, fiction, tourism and citizen-detective work. But it wasn't immediate, the story gestated for some 30 years before public interest in Roswell reignited. The ambiguity and the uncertainty of the situation, led for a search for truth. In chapter 9 of 'Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order', the authors cite the Roswell Incident as the key example of how discourse can migrate from the fringes of society to the mainstream: "public preoccupation in the 1980s with "conspiracy, cover-up and repression" aligned well with the Roswell narratives as told in the "sensational books" which were being published." Though the widespread interest in Roswell diminished in the 1990's, there are still numerous believers who actively search to answer the question of whether a UFO crashed in New Mexico in 1947. The research into the incident started in 1978, by UFO researchers Stanton T. Friedman, William Moore, Karl T. Pflock, and continues to this day by many more though all of that time searching has led to nothing conclusive. Those who believe, point to the easiest answer which is that there is a conspiracy within the American Government to hide the evidence of a UFO crash. That is certainly a possibility but it would be an incredibly complicated task requiring the utmost competence of many personnel over a long period of time, even after their retirement, which seems pretty improbable... Is the truth still out there? Images from pages 48/49 of the book 'UFO' by Brookesmith located in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust. The first is supposedly the original debris recovered from the Roswell crash and the second is an artist's depiction of the "actual" crash site. 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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