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Scientists are studying whether Cold War-era photos of the night sky contain clues of alien life
May 26, 2022
On a single photographic plate from April 12, 1950, nine dots of light appear in a row in the night sky. To an uninformed eye, they appear unremarkable, perhaps nothing more than technical errors. Yet this particular photographic plate was produced as part of a larger project to photograph the night sky from California's Palomar Observatory Sky Survey. When lights appear and then disappear without explanation, they are known as transients, and astronomers seek explanations.
This is especially true as UFO sightings have become both more frequent and more effectively documented. Indeed, a group of scientists is arguing that the nine lights of these plates — which were taken seven years before the Soviet Union launched the first man-made satellite into space — could be evidence of extraterrestrial life. (Emphasis on could: there is nothing definitive that says these are alien craft.)
"Their presence supports searches for other, clearer signatures of potential debris and satellites in orbits around Earth," a research team led by Stockholm University's Beatriz Villarroel wrote in a recent paper for the scientific journal Acta Astronautica. "The best way to search them, is obviously by looking at images taken before human-made objects were sent to orbit the GEOs." (GEOs is a shorthand term for geosynchronous Earth orbit, meaning satellites that orbit in the ring around Earth above the equator and move at the same rate that Earth rotates such that they appear at fixed points in the sky to an Earth-bound observer.)
The number of transients in these photographic plates, the authors write, is "far higher than expected" from known natural phenomena that exhibit similar behavior.
This is not the only paper on the subject written by Villarroel and her team. They note that the objects in the old photos could not be asteroids or meteors, as they would either be too dark to show up or appear like streaks. After some research, they confirmed that the lights could not have been caused by airplanes or other astrophysical explanations. Since man-made satellites didn't exist at that point, another explanation could have been nuclear testing. But, to the best of our knowledge, that was not happening at the time and place where the plates were taken.
This is why, in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports last year, Villarroel and her team explain precisely why the lights in this particular plate are so intriguing to them.
The number of transients in these photographic plates, the authors write, is "far higher than expected" from known natural phenomena that exhibit similar behavior in photographs, such as "flaring dwarf stars, Fast Radio Bursts, Gamma Ray Bursts or microlensing events."
They concede that the lights could have been caused by contamination in the plates themselves, and would therefore be technical artifacts rather than anything otherworldly. Yet "if contamination as an explanation can be fully excluded, another possibility is fast solar reflections from objects near geosynchronous orbits," the authors add. They also suggest comparing images from another sky survey done in the 1950s to see if that one also shows multiple transient objects appearing all in a line.
In a paper published last month to the pre-print server arXiv.org, Villarroel and her team explained that the transients are scientifically significant even if they do not have an extraterrestrial origin. As the scientists explained in the conclusion of that paper, "there are still uncertainties that preclude a definite answer even if the authenticity of the transients eventually is confirmed, and one of these is to fully understand the phenomenology behind simultaneously appearing and disappearing point sources, that may originate in a entirely different process." In other words, these old images of flickering objects are definitely still weird by today's standards, and could yield new astronomy discoveries regardless.
These papers follow a recent trend in which serious politicians and scientists have become more openly curious about the question as to whether extraterrestrial intelligence may have ever visited Earth. Earlier this month, a congressional hearing on UFOs revealed that UFO sightings have become increasingly common among military personnel. As Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray explained, "Since the early 2000s, we have seen an increasing number of unauthorized and or identified aircraft or objects in military-controlled training areas and training ranges, and other designated airspace reports of sightings are frequent and continuing." There are a number of possible mundane explanations for these UFO sightings, from natural atmospheric phenomena and atmospheric clutter to secret government technology programs.
Meanwhile, declassified Pentagon documents that were revealed to the public in April showed that the U.S. Department of Defense had conducted a program monitoring reports of human encounters from 2007 to 2012. These documents revealed, among other things, that people who alleged UFO encounters frequently displayed similar symptoms: Heart ailments, sleep disturbances, and symptoms consistent with exposure to electromagnetic radiation (such as burns). Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has also been outspoken about the fact that companies which comprise the military-industrial complex have UFO fragments.
"I was told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials," Reid told The New Yorker last year. "And I tried to get, as I recall, a classified approval by the Pentagon to have me go look at the stuff. They would not approve that. I don't know what all the numbers were, what kind of classification it was, but they would not give that to me."
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Louisiana authorities have halted their pursuit of contempt charges against former superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves after he agreed to turn over three personal journals to a special committee looking into allegations of a coverup in the 2019 death of a Black motorist, the Louisiana Illuminator reports.
Video evidence shows white troopers beating, kicking, dragging and using stun guns on Ronald Greene. Police later claimed he died from injuries in a car accident.
The agreement calls calls for Reeves' journals to be turned over to the committee by end of day Friday.
The agreement came just the House and Governmental Affairs Committee was prepared to vote on a resolution to hold Reeves in contempt of the Special Ronald Greene Committee. the journals were subpoenaed in April but the committee has so far received only 11 pages.
Read the full report over at the Louisiana Illuminator.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill that would require federal agencies to monitor domestic terrorism incidents, including those potentially related to white supremacy.
The failure of the Senate procedural vote showed again how difficult it is for Congress to agree on any response to U.S. gun violence. It followed a racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, earlier this month that took the lives of 10 Black people in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Another mass shooting, this one at an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday, killed 19 children and two adults.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had scheduled the domestic terrorism legislation, already passed by the Democratic-controlled House, for a vote following the shooting in Buffalo.
“The bill is so important, because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism. We need to call it what it is: domestic terrorism,” said Schumer, a New York Democrat.
“It was terrorism that fed off the poison of conspiracy theories like white replacement theory. Terrorism that left 10 people dead, and a community forever torn asunder.”
But senators fell far short of the 60-vote threshold needed to move debate forward on the legislation. Schumer through a procedural move could bring the bill, H.R. 350, up again if there is more support.
The vote was 47-47, with six senators not casting their votes. Only Democrats backed advancing the bill. The House on May 18 had passed the bill, 222-203, with just one Republican vote.
Meanwhile, Schumer said Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Chris Coons of Delaware, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, and others are reaching out to Republican senators to work on some type of bipartisan gun control legislation.
“Make no mistake about it, if these negotiations do not bear fruit in a short period of time, the Senate will vote on gun safety legislation,” he said. “But our hope, even amidst our deep skepticism, is that during this week, Democrats and Republicans at long last will come to agree on something meaningful that will reduce gun violence in a real way in America.”
Schumer on the floor Wednesday had implored Senate Republicans to join Democrats in passing the domestic terrorism bill, as well as bipartisan gun control legislation, in reaction to this month’s mass shootings.
The domestic terrorism legislation creates domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the FBI to monitor domestic terrorist activity and requires Congress to take steps to prevent domestic terrorism. That includes white-supremacist-related incidents or attempted incidents.
The bill also “creates an interagency task force to analyze and combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement agencies,” according to a bill summary.
Shortly before the procedural vote, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the bill would brand police and military service members as white supremacists.
“To insinuate that the military is consumed with white supremacy is an insult,” Paul said on the Senate floor.
The Pentagon drafted a report, obtained by Roll Call, that found U.S. military personnel and veterans were considered high prizes as recruits for white supremacist groups.
The chair of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, said that the bill would not create any new laws, and the purpose of it is for Congress to be informed of reports of domestic terrorism.
Durbin said on the Senate floor that it’s important to include the threat of white supremacy in that category because “this is a category of crime in America that is metastasizing.”
There have been several shootings in the last few years that have targeted communities of color and places of worship. Besides Buffalo, that includes Atlanta, where shootings at several spa shops targeted Asian-American women; El Paso, Texas, where dozens of Latinos were gunned down; and Pittsburgh, where the Tree of Life synagogue was targeted.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.
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