Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; Career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here's today's news:- STARS - A month ago, my daffodils began blooming, and I knew that spring was coming. But now it's official. On March 21 at 00 07 UT (universal time), the Earth spins through the vernal equinox. It's that special moment in our annual trek around the Sun that marks the beginning of spring. Seen from Earth, the Sun is crossing the celestial equator headed north. Here in the United States, it's still March 20 at that moment, and so we're celebrating the first day of spring on March 20, and you're invited to celebrate "Sun-Earth Day." See http://space.com/searchforlife/070315 seti sun.html.g ABODES - The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on New Horizons captured another dramatic picture of Jupiter's moon Io and its volcanic plumes, 19 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter on Feb. 28. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/14iovolcano/.g LIFE - Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the University of Colorado have now obtained the first 3D visualization of a complete eukaryotic cell at a resolution high enough to resolve the cytoskeleton's precise architectural plan in fission yeast. The image of this unicellular organism will be published in this week's issue of the journal Developmental Cell and reveals remarkable insights into the fine structure of the cytoskeleton as well as its interactions with other parts of the cell. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070306101110.htm.g MESSAGE - What would be a sign of alien intelligence? Forget mathematics - try a simple, pure-tone radio signal. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti artificiality part2 030220.html.g COSMICUS - NASA notified the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory last week that its contract to build a robotic lunar lander would be allowed to expire at the end of March and would not be renewed - at least not anytime soon. See http://space.com/news/060316 nasa moonlander.html.g LEARNING - Here's a neat classroom activity courtesy of NASA: "Interstellar Real Estate." The lesson examines what makes Earth the perfect home for life as we know it as students explore the orbital characteristics a planetary home needs to support Earth-like life forms. See http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/html/Habitat/habitablezone.htm.g IMAGINING - ke stories about alien anthropology and cultures? Then be sure to read James Blish's classic novel "A Case of Conscience" (1958), in which he explores if original sin exists among the Lithians. See http://members.aol.com/firoane/blish.htm.g AFTERMATH - Would should we say to an extraterrestrial? Try the World Wide Web. SETI astronomer Seth Shostak opines at http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=308803.
Vernal Equinox Arrives First 3D Visualization Of A Complete Eukaryotic Cell And A Sign Of Alien Intelligence
Danang Viet Nam Ufo
Water That Flowed On Mars And Jurassic Global Warming
Dunfermline 5Th December 2013
Stanton Friedman William Moore And Mj 12
Much grist for the mill here, most of it centering on the cognitive dissonance of what Stan says about Moore's honesty - "Bill was a tricky guy, He liked to float proposals, run them up the flag pole and see how people would react," he was committing mail fraud - and his blithe brushing off of the prospect that Moore created the MJ-12 documents by saying that Bill couldn't have know certain details so he couldn't have created the documents. What Stan ignores is the probability that Moore was working with someone else (or a small group of people) who could have found all the needed information, namely Moore's other "partner" in the 1980s - Rick Doty.
As for a motive, Stan details that as well, even as he ignores its implications - Moore's financial problems in the 1980s. Nothing like some fake documents to gin up interest in his cash-cow story (Roswell) which was starting to grow cold.
The MJ-12 story really is that simple. Stan has all the facts at his command, but he just can't see the forest for the trees - a triumph of belief over reason and common sense.
Paul Kimball
Compelling Ufo Reads
SUBJECT: U.S.NAVY SHIP ENCOUNTERS A UFO NEAR CAPE HATTERAS... KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOSWWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORGU.S NAVY SHIP ENCOUNTERS A UFO NEAR CAPE HATTERAS SUMMER OF 1986While in the US Navy in the summer of 1986, I was standing lookout aboard the USS Edenton ATS 1 (currently decommissioned). The lookout watch, stood outside on top the bridge of the ship, and was responsible for reporting all contacts seen both in the water and sky. It was around eleven p.m. one clear night at sea, located about fifty miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC. During one of my scans of the night sky, out of know where, four red circular lights appeared. The lights where hundreds of yards apart from each other and formed a square. At first, I thought it was four separate air craft, such as, military helicopters because the lights were stationary; however, due to the distance from the ship, the lights where too large to be aircraft running lights. There were also no other normal running lights like green and white, which make-up the normal outline of an aircraft seen at night. The lights where located about twenty degrees above the horizon and about a mile away from the ship. Again, these four red lights were each about the size of a small plane, which were very bright and visible in the night sky. The night sky was also clear, moon lit, and a moderate amount of stars were visible, which also aided in calculating the distance and size of these lights. As stated, when I first saw these lights they were all stationary in the sky and appeared out of know where. Once I noticed that these were not normal lights, grouped in a square and not moving, I called down to the bridge over a salt and pepper line informing the conning officer of a possible UFO sighting. This brought laughter across the wire at first, but I relayed the contact again in a stern but excited voice, which succeeded in getting the bridge officers attention. After relaying the contact information a second time, the four lights, in a flash, darted towards the horizon amazingly fast. The lower two lights in the square went first, with the top two lights following directly behind them in a curved swooshing motion and there was no sound. Then all four shot straight up into outer-space and out of sight, all within a split second. At this point, I felt very excited and shocked, and was personally praying someone on the bridge had seen what I just saw. Having been an avid watcher of the night sky, seen shooting stars and a believer in that life has to exist somewhere out there, I become even more excited because I knew, I just saw my first unidentified flying object(s). To my amazement, when I returned to the bridge after my watch, I was very pleased to learn that the conning officer and everyone else on the bridge had seen this sighting and logged it into the ship's log as a UFO sighting. Next, after a half hour had passed since the sighting, the radiation detection system (gamma roentgen meter) on the bridge started making a loud clicking sound. At first, no one seemed to know what was making this sound then a very loud bell went off notifying us as to what was going on, we were being radiated. When the instrument stopped clicking, it indicated we had taken a hit of 385 roentgens in the period of about one minute. At this point, the captain of the ship was awoken and called to the bridge, as well as the chief in charge of the radiation metering equipment onboard ship. The captain was not impressed with an entry of a UFO sighting being placed in the ship's log, and at first, took the roentgen meter as being defective. However, the chief informed the captain that the meter had been serviced and calibrated the day before and that other like meters throughout the ship had just gone off indicating the same amount of roentgens received as the bridge. The captain stated not to log the instance concerning the radiation exposure and left the bridge. During the rest of my watch duty that night, no officer or enlisted person spoke of what happened, and also acted liked nothing happened. This experience, however, was etched into my memory as if it happened yesterday and I have told this story to only a few people, people who I thought would believe me. This is also the first time I have documented the events of this night.In conclusion, as an indication of the strength of gamma radiation, I and others received that night; all the personnel during the Project Trinity experiments conducted in 1945 at ground zero, only received between 1 and 6 total roentgens of gamma radiation. This leads me to believe, we traveled through the wake of radiation produced by the UFOs seen thirty minutes earlier. KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWSWWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORGThanks to http://naturalplane.blogspot.com and www.mufon.comWWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG SUBJECT: ALIEN CRAFT LANDING WITNESSED BY MANY IN NEW GUINEA... KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOSWWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORG ALIEN CRAFT LANDING WITNESSED BY MANY IN NEW GUINEA 6-26-59 PAPUA NEW GUINEA "WILLIAM GILL WOULD HAVE ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED UFO SIGHTINGS TO EVER BE DOCUMENTED, WHICH WAS VALIDATED BY A WHOLE GROUP OF ADDITIONAL WITNESSES. THIS EXTRAORDINARY EVENT WOULD TAKE PLACE AT 6:45 P.M., JUNE 26, 1959. FATHER GILL SAW WHAT HE DESCRIBED AS A BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT TO THE NORTHWEST. WORD OF THE SIGHT SPREAD QUICKLY, AND WITHIN A FEW MOMENTS, GILL WAS JOINED BY NO LESS THAN THIRTY-EIGHT ADDITIONAL WITNESSES, INCLUDING STEVEN MOI, ANANIAS RARATA, AND MRS NESSLE MOI. ACCORDING TO SWORN STATEMENTS, THESE THIRTY-PLUS INDIVIDUALS WATCHED A FOUR-LEGGED, DISC-SHAPED OBJECT APPROXIMATELY THE SIZE OF 5 FULL MOONS LINED UP END TO END. THIS UNBELIEVABLE CRAFT WAS HOVERING OVER THE MISSION! TO THEIR UTTER SURPRISE, THEY SAW FOUR HUMAN-LIKE FIGURES THAT SEEMED TO BE PERFORMING A KIND OF TASK. NOW AND THEN ONE OF THE FIGURES WOULD DISAPPEAR, ONLY TO REAPPEAR IN A MOMENT OR TWO. A BLUE LIGHT WOULD SHINE UP FROM THE CRAFT AT WHAT SEEMED TO BE REGULAR INTERVALS. THE WITNESS WATCHED THE CRAFT AND ITS ACTIVITIES FOR A FULL FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, UNTIL THE SHINING SHIP ROSE INTO THE SKY, AND DISAPPEARED AT 7:30 P.M. GLUED TO THE SKY, THE WITNESSES WOULD SEE SEVERAL SMALLER OBJECTS APPEAR AT 8:30, AND TWENTY MINUTES LATER, THE FIRST CRAFT REAPPEARED." THIS PHENOMENAL OCCURRENCE WOULD LAST AN INCREDIBLE FOUR HOURS, UNTIL CLOUD COVER OBSCURED THE VIEW AT 10:50. FATHER GILL PREPARED A FULL WRITTEN REPORT OF THIS EVENT, AND 25 OTHER OBSERVERS SIGNED THE DOCUMENT. THIS FIRST SIGHTING, A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OCCURRENCE, WOULD INCREDIBLY BE FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER SIGHTING THE VERY NEXT NIGHT. AT 6:00 P.M., THE LARGER OBJECT APPEARED AGAIN, WITH ITS OCCUPANTS. IT WAS SHADOWED BY TWO OF THE SMALLER OBJECTS. IN WILLIAM GILL'S OWN WORDS: "ON THE LARGE ONE, TWO OF THE FIGURES SEEMED TO BE DOING SOMETHING NEAR THE CENTER OF THE DECK. THEY WERE OCCASIONALLY BENDING OVER AND RAISING THEIR ARMS AS THOUGH ADJUSTING OR "SETTING UP" SOMETHING. ONE FIGURE SEEMED TO BE STANDING, LOOKING DOWN AT US." (IN A MOMENT OF ANTICIPATION, GILL RAISED HIS ARMS AND WAVED TO THE FIGURE.)"TO OUR SURPRISE THE FIGURE DID THE SAME. ANANIAS WAVED BOTH ARMS OVER HIS HEAD; THEN THE TWO OUTSIDE FIGURES DID THE SAME. ANANIAS AND MYSELF BEGAN WAVING OUR ARMS, AND ALL FOUR SEEMED TO WAVE BACK. THERE SEEMED NO DOUBT THAT OUR MOVEMENTS WERE ANSWERED..." GILL AND ANANIAS CONTINUED TO OCCASIONALLY WAVE, AND THEIR WAVES WERE RETURNED. ANOTHER WITNESS, ERIC KODAWARA, WAVED A TORCH, AND THERE WERE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FROM THE CRAFT. GILL WENT INSIDE TO EAT, BUT WHEN HE CAME BACK, THE CRAFT WAS STILL THERE, ONLY FARTHER AWAY (SMALLER). AFTER A CHURCH SERVICE, AT 7:45, GILL AGAIN CAME OUTSIDE TO LOOK FOR THE CRAFT, BUT CLOUDS HAD APPEARED, AND THERE WAS NO SIGHT OF THE OBJECT. THE VERY NEXT EVENING, THE SHINING CRAFT WOULD MAKE ONE MORE APPEARANCE. GILL COUNTED EIGHT OF THEM AT 6:45. AT 11:20, GILL HEARD A LOUD BANG ON THE ROOF OF THE MISSION. GOING OUTSIDE TO SEE WHAT HAD HAPPENED, HE SPIED FOUR UFOS IN A CIRCLE AROUND THE BUILDING. THESE FOUR CRAFT WERE EXTREMELY HIGH IN THE SKY. THE ROOF WAS CHECKED FOR DAMAGE THE NEXT MORNING, BUT NONE WAS FOUND. "" KEN PFEIFER WORLD UFO PHOTOS AND NEWS"WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOSANDNEWS.ORG"THANKS TO WWW.UFOCASEBOOK.COM"WWW.WORLDUFOPHOTOS.ORG"
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MY AMAZON AUTHOR PAGEThe Heavy Stuff
Ufo Sighting In New York Just Balloons
Orangered Lights Flying Over Hillcrest Ethekwini In Kwazulu Natal South Africa
Citizen Hearing On Disclosure Cia Official Breaks Silence On Extraterrestrials
Organizer of the Citizen Hearing, Steve Bassett, introduced the video saying it offered an insight into the suffering of many military and government officials who are forced to live a world of secrecy and fear in what he calls the "truth embargo" about extraterrestrial encounters.
"In a sense, this video represents the many individuals out there who could not come before a committee like this, who want to talk, but it's difficult. The vast majority of individuals who have interacted with this issue while working for the government, going back to the 40s, took the information that they had to their grave and did not talk if they were told not to talk.
"This gentleman has received numerous threats from his government not to talk, but he wanted this testimony to be presented and we agreed. He has only been interviewed by two researchers who are here today, Linda Moulton Howe and Richard Dolan," he said.
After the screening Linda Moulton Howe authenticated the former CIA official's credentials and his account, telling the hearing she had spent three days with him in which she had recorded eleven 90 minute audio tapes in 1994. She said on her return to her home after the three days she had received a phone call from him saying he and his wife had been threatened with retaliation if they went public and she could not release the tapes.
Richard Dolan, who is visible in the video, also authenticated the man's position.
The former CIA official had been involved with the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book study of UFOs, which was initiated soon after the crash of a large object at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/39890-cia-official-breaks-silence-on-extraterrestrials/
How To Target An Asteroid
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This spectacular image of comet Tempel 1 was taken 67 seconds after it obliterated Deep Impact's impactor spacecraft [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD]"
But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids' past, present and future locations in the cosmos, zapping them with the world's most massive radar dishes, or considering how to rendezvous and perhaps even gently nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit, Bhaskaran thinks about how to collide with one.
"If you want to see below the surface of an asteroid, there's no better way than smacking it hard," said Bhaskaran. "But it's not that easy. Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car."
The term hypervelocity usually refers to something traveling at very high speed -- two miles per second (6,700 mph / 11,000 kilometers per hour) or above. Bhaskaran's hypothetical impacts tend to be well above.
"Most of the hypervelocity impact scenarios that I simulate have spacecraft/asteroid closure rates of around eight miles a second, 30,000 miles per hour [about 48,000 kilometers per hour]," said Bhaskaran.
In the majority of our solar system, where yield signs and "right of way" statutes have yet to find widespread support, hypervelocity impacts between objects happen all the time. But all that primordial violence usually goes unnoticed here on Earth, and almost never receives scientific scrutiny.
"High-speed impacts on asteroids can tell you so many things that we want to know about asteroids," said Steve Chesley, a near-Earth object scientist at JPL. "They can tell you about their composition and their structural integrity -- which is how they hold themselves together. These are things that are not only vital for scientific research on the origins of the solar system, but also for mission designers working on ways to potentially move asteroids, either for exploitation purposes or because they may be hazardous to Earth."
Hypervelocity impacts by spacecraft are not just a hypothetical exercise. Scientists have taken the opportunity to analyze data from used spacecraft and rocket stages that have impacted the moon and other celestial bodies since the Apollo program. On July 4, 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully collided its dynamic impactor with comet 9P/Tempel 1 -- it was the first hypervelocity impact of a primitive solar system body.
Bhaskaran, who was a navigator on Deep Impact, would be the first to tell you that not all hypervelocity impacts are created equal. "Impacting an asteroid presents slightly different challenges than impacting a comet," said Bhaskaran. "Comets can have jets firing material into space, which can upset your imaging and guidance systems, while potential asteroid targets can be as small as 50 meters [164 feeet] and have their own mini-moons orbiting them. Since they're small and dim, they can be harder to spot."
Along with the size of the celestial body being targeted, Bhaskaran also has to take into account its orbit, targeting errors, how hard an impact the scientists want, and even the shape.
"Asteroids hardly ever resemble perfect spheroids," said Bhaskaran. "What you've got floating around out there are a bunch of massive objects that look like peanuts, potatoes, diamonds, boomerangs and even dog bones -- and if the spacecraft's guidance system can't figure out where it needs to go, you can hit the wrong part of the asteroid, or much worse, miss it entirely."
The guidance system Bhaskaran is referring to is called "AutoNav," which stands for Autonomous Navigation. To reach out and touch something that could be halfway across the solar system and traveling at hypervelocity requires a fast-thinking and fast-maneuvering spacecraft. It is a problem that even the speed of light cannot cure. "When it comes to these high-speed impact scenarios, the best info you get on where you are and where you need to be comes very late in the game," said Bhaskaran. "That's why the last few hours before impact are so critical. We need to execute some final rocket burns, called Impactor Targeting Maneuvers (ITMs), quickly. With Earth so far away, there is no chance to send new commands in time.
"So, instead, we have AutoNav do the job for us. It is essentially a cyber-astronaut that takes in all the pertinent information, makes its own decisions and performs the actions necessary to make sure we go splat where we want to go splat."
Currently, Bhaskaran is running simulations that make his virtual impactor go splat against the furrowed, organic-rich regolith of asteroid 1999 RQ36. The 1,600-foot-wide (500-meter-wide) space rock is the target of a proposed JPL mission called the Impactor for Surface and Interior Science (ISIS). The impactor spacecraft, which looks a little like a rocket-powered wedding ring, would hitch a free ride into space aboard the rocket carrying NASA's InSight mission to Mars. The impactor's trajectory would then loop around Mars and bear down on RQ36.
"One of the things that helps me sleep at night is that we know a lot about RQ36 because it is the target of another NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx," said Bhaskaran. "But it also provides some challenges because the scientists want us to hit the asteroid at a certain moment in time and at a certain location, so that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft can be sure to monitor the results from a safe vantage point. It is a challenge but it's also really exciting."
The part of the ISIS mission Bhaskaran is most interested in is what happens after our rocket-festooned, cyber-hero rounds Mars and begins to close the distance with the asteroid at a speed of 8.4 miles per second (49,000 kilometers per hour). Over the next several months, the mission navigators would plan and execute several deep space maneuvers that refine the spacecraft's approach. Then, with only two hours to go, AutoNav would take over to make the final orbital changes.
"AutoNav's imaging system and its orbit determination algorithms will detect the asteroid and compute its location in space relative to the impactor," said Bhaskaran. "Without waiting to hear from us, it will plan for and execute three ITMs at 90 minutes, 30 minutes and then three minutes out. That last rocket firing will occur when the asteroid is only 1,500 miles [2,400 kilometers] away. Three minutes later, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft hits like a ton of bricks."
While Bhaskaran loves ISIS for the navigation challenge it provides, the proposed mission's principal investigator likes what the out-of-this-world equivalent of the release of nine tons of TNT does to the surface -- and interior -- of an asteroid.
"We expect the crater excavated by the impact of ISIS could be around 100 feet across," said Chesley. "From its catbird seat in orbit around the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx, at its leisure, would not only be able to determine how big a hole there is, but also analyze the material thrown out during the impact."
The data would not only provide information on what makes up the asteroid, but how its orbit reacts to being hit by a NASA spacecraft.
"While the effect of ISIS on the orbit of asteroid 1999 RQ36 will be miniscule, it will be measurable," said Chesley. "Once we know how its orbit changes, no matter how small, we can make better assessments and plans to change some future asteroid's orbit if we ever need to do so. Of course, to get all these great leaps forward in understanding, we have to hit it in the first place."
Which leads us back to Bhaskaran and his hard drive laden full of hypervelocity impact simulations.
"We have confidence that whenever called upon, AutoNav will do its job," said Bhaskaran. "The trick is, we just don't tell AutoNav it's a one-way trip."
Bhaskaran will present his latest findings on guidance for hypervelocity impacts on Tuesday, April 16, at the International Academy of Astronautics' Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff, Ariz.
NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing relatively close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and predicts their paths to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.
JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Steve Chesley of JPL is leading the Impactor for Surface and Interior Science (ISIS) mission proposal. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the OSIRIS-Rex project.
More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch
"Source: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory [April 17, 2013]"
