Ministry of Defence files on UFO sightings released

Defence experts examined a 2004 photo of a "flying saucer" over Retford town hall

Continue reading the main story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14486678

Newly released government files on UFOs show a lack of will and resources to study thousands of reported sightings.

The Ministry of Defence files released by the National Archives cover reported sightings of UFOs from 1985 to 2007.
In one, a military officer predicts embarassment if the public discovered a "lack of funds and higher priorities" were stopping UFO investigations.
The 34 files include sightings of lights over Glastonbury and a "flying saucer" in Nottinghamshire.
They can be downloaded free of charge for a month from the National Archives website.
National Archives consultant Dr David Clarke said it was about time the data was released.
"One of the most interesting documents in the files is a piece from an intelligence officer, who basically says that despite thousands of reports that they've received since the Second World War, they've never done any study or spent any money or time on the subject, and they say that people just won't believe that when they find out."
The internal memo from a DI55 [defence intelligence] wing commander dated 5 July 1995 says the media's portrayal of DI55 as a "defender of the Earth against the alien menace" is "light years from the truth."
The file shows the officer feared that if intelligence's interest in UFOs was to be revealed it could cause "disbelief and embarrassment since few people will believe the truth that lack of funds and higher priorities have prevented any study of the thousands of reports received."
A former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator said the files reflected debate over the significance of reported UFO sightings.
Nick Pope worked at the MoD between 1991 and 1994.
He said the files were quite revealing: "The fascinating thing about these files is that they show that just as in society there's this huge debate about UFOs - is it really interesting, are we being visited by aliens - or is it all just nonsense?
"We were having the same debates in the Ministry of Defence. Some people thought it was a waste of time and money, others thought it was of extreme defence significance."
Reported sightings

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UFO sightings 'not investigated by MoD'

The files show Alex Birch contacted the Ministry of Defence after capturing a series of images of what looked like a "flying saucer" over the town hall in Retford, Nottinghamshire.
In July 2004, the ministry sent the images to the Defence Geographic and Imagery Intelligence Agency (DGIA).
The agency's report said "no definitive conclusions" could be made from the photos. But it added: "It may be coincidental that the illuminated plane of the object passes through the centre of the frame, indicating a possible lens anomaly, eg a droplet of moisture."
The files include 2001 testimony from a retired RAF fighter controller and an MoD official on a 1956 UFO incident in Suffolk.
Ex-controller Freddie Wimbledon describes scrambling fighter planes to intercept a UFO seen on radar and by people on the ground at RAF Lakenheath. He says it reportedly latched on to a fighter plane, "following its every move" before departing at "terrific speed".
Retired MoD official Ralph Noyes describes being shown footage of UFOs taken from the aircraft.
'Wriggling around in the sky'
Another file describes a 2003 sighting by a mother and daughter of "worm-shaped" UFOs "wriggling around in the sky" over East Dulwich in south-east London.
In their testimony to the MoD, two men in "space suits and dark glasses who called themselves Mork and Mindy" joined police officers who attended the scene.
A letter from the woman later complained they had been fed "a lot of rubbish, presumably to make us look foolish and our story unbelievable".
Police told the MoD the officers could not see anything in the sky and "concluded it was possibly a reflection of a star and a street light in her window".
Experts had concluded that sightings of lights in the sky in the summer of 2006 were likely to be Chinese lanterns, an additional file shows.

In pictures: UFOs files seen for the first time

This sketch, of a "spaceship" creating crop circles, was part of the information released which also included a reference to UFOs being discussed by the CIA and being debated in the House of Lords in 1979.

Documents released by the National Archives reveal how the issue of unidentified aircraft was discussed by authorities and include this photograph from about March 2004. The doughnut-shaped phenomenon were snapped by a retired RAF officer before sending the photo to his old bosses tasked with investigating unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12624573

Pentagon releases names of Chinook crash victims

11:53 AM, Aug 11, 2011  |   comments

http://www.11alive.com/news/article/201226/40/Pentagon-releases-names-of-Chinook-crash-victims

Soldiers board a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan in July. (CNN)

(CNN)

(CNN) -- The U.S. Defense Department Thursday released the names of U.S. military personnel killed in Saturday's downing of a helicopter in Afghanistan.

Thirty-eight people were killed in that attack, eight of them Afghan military personnel. It was the single largest loss of life for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in late 2001.

Of the 30 Americans, 17 were Navy SEALs.

Twenty-two of the dead were U.S. Navy personnel, the Pentagon said.  Fifteen were SEALs belonging to the top-secret unit that conducted the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan.  Two others were SEALs assigned to a regular naval special operations unit.

Five were so-called conventional forces with particular specialties who regularly worked with the SEALs.

The other eight U.S. troops killed included three Air Force forward air controllers and five Army helicopter crew members.

NATO said it killed the militants responsible for the attack.  Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid rejected that, saying a NATO airstrike killed a separate group of insurgents.

The following list was provided by the Defense Department:

The following sailors assigned to an East Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit were killed:

• Lt. Cmdr. (SEAL) Jonas B. Kelsall, 32, of Shreveport, La.,
  
  The Shreveport native was in charge of Saturday's mission in Warduk Province near Kabul. Father John Kelsall, who heads Lakewood, California's Chamber of Commerce, told CNN affiliate KTLA in a statement, "The country will never understand the level of service those guys gave us." KABC reported that Kelsall, 33, was trained in San Diego, and he met his wife of three years while attending the University of Texas.
• Special Warfare Operator Master Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Louis J. Langlais, 44, of Santa Barbara, Calif.,
  
  Special Warfare Operator Senior Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Thomas A. Ratzlaff, 34, of Green Forest, Ark.,
  
  The 34-year-old Green Forest, Arkansas, native had a motto, according to CNN affiliate KYTV: "There's two ways to do things: Do them right or do them again." Ratzlaff leaves behind two sons - 6 and 11 years old - and wife who is expecting the couple' third child in November. KYTV spoke to his professors in high school, where he played middle linebacker for the football team, and many had fond memories of him. Science teach Bruce Culver joked that he was the best at dissecting frogs, and his friend Kevin Disheroon told the station that he always wanted to be a SEAL. He went to boot camp just weeks after his 1995 graduation from high school.
• Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Senior Chief Petty Officer (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist) Kraig M. Vickers, 36, of Kokomo, Hawaii,
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Brian R. Bill, 31, of Stamford, Conn.,
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) John W. Faas, 31, of Minneapolis, Minn.,
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Kevin A. Houston, 35, of West Hyannisport, Mass.
  
  The Cape Cod, Maryland, native lived in Chesapeake, Virginia, with his wife and three children, according to CNN affiliate WVEC. In 1994, he graduated from high school (where he captained his football team) in a wheelchair after having a nasty motorcycle accident. He became a SEAL a few years later. His mother told the station, "He was born to do this job. He'd do it all over again." Just weeks ago,according to CNN affiliate WTKR, Houston gave an American flag - which he'd worn under his armor during his last three Afghanistan tours - to veteran Chris Kelly, a man who inspired him. Kelly told the station he was too heartbroken to be interviewed.
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Matthew D. Mason, 37, of Kansas City, Mo.,
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Stephen M. Mills, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas,
  
  The father of three children - 1, 13 and 18 years old - had a tremendous sense of humor, friends and family told CNN affiliate WTKR, and the 14-year Navy veteran loved being a SEAL. A sister of the 36-year-old chief petty officer told CNN affiliate KVUE that he never bragged about being a SEAL, despite a decade in the elite force. "He loved his teammates as brothers. He'll always be remembered as a loving person," Ashley Mills told the station. His cousin, J.B. Abbott, told KVUE that the central Texas native was "very proud and very brave."
• Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Chief Petty Officer (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist/Diver) Nicholas H. Null, 30, of Washington, W.Va.,
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Robert J. Reeves, 32, of Shreveport, La.,
  
  The 32-year-old chief petty officer grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, with Lt. Cmdr. Jonas Kelsall, who was in charge of the Afghanistan mission that ended with Saturday's helicopter crash. They went to school, played soccer and became Navy SEALs together. On a Facebook page set up in Reeves' memory, one poster said, "You could always make the boys laugh, dude." Another described him as "sweet, funny and kind-hearted ... More than anything, though, Rob was most passionate about the Navy and his role as a SEAL."
• Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Heath M. Robinson, 34, of Detroit, Mich.,
• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Darrik C. Benson, 28, of Angwin, Calif.
• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL/Parachutist) Christopher G. Campbell, 36, of Jacksonville, N.C.,
• Information Systems Technician Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist) Jared W. Day, 28, of Taylorsville, Utah,
• Master-at-Arms Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist) John Douangdara, 26, of South Sioux City, Neb.,
• Cryptologist Technician (Collection) Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist) Michael J. Strange, 25, of Philadelphia, Pa.,
• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL/Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist) Jon T. Tumilson, 35, of Rockford, Iowa,
• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Aaron C. Vaughn, 30, of Stuart, Fla.,
  
  Kimberly Vaughn met Aaron Vaughn in Guam when she traveled there with the Washington Redskins cheerleaders to entertain the troops. She said she last spoke with her husband the day before the fatal crash and, Kimberly Vaughan said, "We got to tell each other we loved each other so it was a great conversation to have." Kimberly Vaughn said she still plans to move forward with building their home in Virginia Beach, where she will raise their two children. His wife described her husband as a "warrior for Christ and he was a warrior for our country and he wouldn't want to leave this Earth any other way than how he did."
• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Jason R. Workman, 32, of Blanding, Utah.

The following sailors assigned to a West Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit were killed:

• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Jesse D. Pittman, 27, of Ukiah, Calif.,
• Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 2nd Class (SEAL) Nicholas P. Spehar, 24, of Saint Paul, Minn.

The soldiers killed were:

• Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter, 47, of Centennial, Colo. 
  
  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), Aurora, Colo.;
• Chief Warrant Officer Bryan J. Nichols, 31, of Hays, Kan. 
  
  He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kan.;
• Sgt. Patrick D. Hamburger, 30, of Lincoln, Neb. 
  
  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), Grand Island, Neb.;
• Sgt. Alexander J. Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, Wash. 
  
  He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kan.;
• Spc. Spencer C. Duncan, 21, of Olathe, Kan. 
  
  He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kan.

The airmen killed were:

• Tech. Sgt. John W. Brown, 33, of Tallahassee, Fla.;
  
  The technical sergeant from Siloam Springs, Arkansas, studied pre-med before joining the U.S. Air Force to become a pararescueman, his mother, Elizabeth Newlun told CNN affiliate KFSM. His friend, Jon Woods, told the station that Brown was popular, athletic and loved a challenge. "He was just an all-American G.I. Joe, just a great guy who loved his country," Woods said. Newlun read KFSM a letter Brown's uncle had written, describing the airman as "Rambo without the attitude" and "brave but never arrogant, powerful but always gentle." He was married and had no children.
• Staff Sgt. Andrew W. Harvell, 26, of Long Beach, Calif.;
• Tech. Sgt. Daniel L. Zerbe, 28, of York, Pa.

All three airmen were assigned to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Field, N.C.

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Coal-Black Alien Planet Is Darkest Ever Seen

• By Charles Q. Choi , SPACE.com Contributor Space.com | SPACE.com – 9 hrs ago
• This handout picture released on August 11 by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for …

An alien world blacker than coal, the darkest planet known, has been discovered in the galaxy.

The world in question is a giant the size of Jupiter known as TrES-2b. NASA's Kepler spacecraft detected it lurking around the yellow sun-like star GSC 03549-02811 some 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation Draco.

The researchers found this gas giant reflects less than 1 percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it darker than any planet or moon seen up to now.  [The Strangest Alien Planets]

"It's just ridiculous how dark this planet is, how alien it is compared to anything we have in our solar system," study lead-author David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told SPACE.com. "It's darker than the blackest lump of coal, than dark acrylic paint you might paint with. It's bizarre how this huge planet became so absorbent of all the light that hits it."

Whereas Jupiter has clouds streaking it white and red, reflecting more than a third of the sunlight reaching it, TrES-2b apparently lacks reflective clouds, super-heated as its atmosphere is to more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (980 degrees Celsius) by a star just 3.1 million miles (5 million kilometers) away from it.
"However, it's not completely pitch black," co-author David Spiegel of Princeton University said in a statement. "It's so hot that it emits a faint red glow, much like a burning ember or the coils on an electric stove."

The researchers propose that light-absorbing chemicals such as vaporized sodium and potassium or gaseous titanium oxide in the planet's atmosphere could help explain why it is so dark. Still, none of these can fully explain why the world is as stealthily cloaked as it is.

"It's a mystery as to what's causing it to be so dark," Kipping said. "There's a good chance it's a chemical we haven't even thought of yet."

The astronomers think TrES-2b is tidally locked like our moon, such that one side of the planet always faces the star. This would lead it to change phases as it orbits its star just as our moon waxes and wanes from new to crescent to full, causing the total brightness of the star plus the planet to vary slightly over time.

"By combining the impressive precision from Kepler with observations of over 50 orbits, we detected the smallest-ever change in brightness from an exoplanet — just 6 parts per million," said Kipping. "In other words, Kepler was able to directly detect visible light coming from the planet itself."

These extremely small fluctuations in light proved that TrES-2b is incredibly dark. A more reflective world would have shown larger brightness variations as its phase changed.

Although TrES-2b currently is the darkest known planet, similar worlds around other stars undoubtedly await discovery, the researchers said. For now, it reinforces the idea that our solar system may not be as typical as we once thought, with an extraordinary variety of worlds potentially filling our galaxy.

Additional investigation of the more than 1,200 prospective worlds that Kepler has detected could turn up other unusually dark planets. The spacecraft, which launched in March 2009, is planned to run until at least November 2012.

"If Kepler gets an extended mission as we're hoping, it would be a huge boost to this kind of research," Kipping said.

Kipping and Spiegel detailed their findings in a study accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Jodie Foster Helps Revive SETI Search for Aliens

Obama: Something is wrong with America's politics

Russia Reports Exploding Afghan “Time Well” Killed Elite US Navy Seals

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
August 10, 2011
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1510.htm


A shocking Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that nearly 50 American military troops and technicians have been “obliterated” after the “activation” of the “Time Well” holding an ancient “Vimāna” flying craft discovered late last year and believed to be over 5,000 years old. 
In our 21 December 2010 report World Leaders Flock To Afghanistan After Mysterious ‘Time Well’ Discovered we first detailed this incredible discovery and as we can, in part, read:
“What caused the sudden rush of these most powerful leaders of the Western World to go to Afghanistan, this report continues, was to directly view the discovery by US Military scientists of what is described as a “Vimāna” entrapped in a “Time Well” that has already caused the “disappearance” of at least 8 American Soldiers trying to remove it from the cave it has been hidden in for the past estimated 5,000 years.
From the ancient accounts found in the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata, we know that a Vimāna measured twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels. Apart from its 'blazing missiles', The Mahabharata records the use of its other deadly weapons that operated via a circular 'reflector'. When switched on, it produced a 'shaft of light' which, when focused on any target, immediately 'consumed it with its power'.
To the “Time Well” encasing the Vimāna, this report continues, it appears to be an electromagnetic radiation-gravity field first postulated by Albert Einstein as the Unified Field Theory and long rumored to be behind the infamous American World War II experiment in teleportation called the Philadelphia Experiment that in 1943, like the events occurring in Afghanistan today, likewise, caused the sudden “disappearance” of US Soldiers.
The seemingly “perpetual” power source to this mysterious “Time Well”, this SVR report says, appears to be based on the technology of Edward Leedskalnin, who claimed to have discovered the “Secret Knowledge of the Ancients” and from 1923-1951 “single-handedly and secretly” carved over 1,100 tons of coral rock by an unknown process that created one of the World's most mysterious accomplishments known as the Coral Castle.
Most intriguing of all about this report is its stating that not just any Vimāna has been discovered, but from the ancient writings contained in the cave where it was discovered, it claims that its “rightful owner” is the ancient prophet Zoroaster [pictured top left] who was the founder of arguably one of the most important religions of all time called Zoroastrianism.”
This new SVR report states that on 31 July, 3 US Marine Corps Special Operations Command Forces soldiers, and their specially-trained German Shepherd dog able to alert them to sudden changes in electromagnetic fields, were “incinerated” when the “Time Well” holding the “Vimāna” activated without notice due to what is believed to have been a “reaction” from a powerful solar-blast that hit our Earth’s ionosphere.  The US Department of Defense in announcing the tragic deaths of these soldiers only acknowledged that these US Marines and their dog had been killed in a “non-combat related” incident related to fire.
Following this 31 July incident, this SVR report continues, the “Time Well” holding the “Vimāna” was in the process of its being moved from its original location in Herat Province, Afghanistan, to Wardak Province where it was intended to be flown back from Kabul to the United States for further examination and study.
The method chosen for the transporting of the “Time Well” holding the “Vimāna” was by airlifting it with a US Army CH-47F Chinook helicopter and protected it with an elite team of US Navy Seals flying separately in 4 of their super-secret stealthy Blackhawk-type helicopters first known to exist after one of them crashed [3^rd photo left] in Pakistan during the 2 May American raid to kill Osama bin Laden.
Upon nearing Kabul, however, this SVR report says this mysterious “Time Well” was once again suddenly “activated” on 5 August causing an electromagnetic shockwave to “obliterate” everything in the air near it and “incinerating” all of the helicopters in this air-convoy killing nearly 40 more US troops and technicians along with another of their specially trained German Shepherd dogs.
The US government and their propaganda media enablers have, of course, denied the truth of this catastrophic incident opting instead to spin one of their fairy tales, and which in this case says that the deaths of these American soldiers was due to their being shot-down by a rocket propelled grenade while they were all travelling together in a US Army CH-47F Chinook helicopter.
This SVR report, however, contradicts these American claims by noting that is against all US military rules to ever allow their Special Forces troops (especially their elite Navy Seals) to either fly together in such numbers or to fly into combat in anything other than their own stealth aircraft.  The reason this is so, the SVR says, is exactly to keep from happening what the US is saying did happen, namely a mass loss of life of the most highly-trained forces in the American military arsenal and as we can, in part, read:
“Normally, JSOC commandos ride in tricked-out helicopters — including stealth models — belonging to the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. But this weekend the SEALs hitched a ride in what was apparently a run-of-the-mill Army National Guard chopper.”
Late yesterday the US Special Operations Command also stated that “multiple investigations” into this incident were now underway as no certain cause for this tragic incident has yet been officially indentified, but with some experts floating the “new story” that a new type of Taliban weapon may have been involved.
Even more curious about the American cover-up of this tragedy was Pentagon spokesman Marine Colonel David Lapan telling reporters during an off camera briefing that “no identifiable remains” of these US servicemen and the Chief of the secretive US Special Operations Command began lobbying against the release of names of those elite American commandos killed, though many have been indentified through their death notices in local hometown newspapers.
President Obama, who in 2009 lifted the media ban imposed by the Bush regime on the photographing of returning US war dead, suddenly reversed himself yesterday by ordering the Pentagon not to allow any media coverage of the heroic war dead returning from Afghanistan; though he did attend their return personally in what this SVR report says was his attempt to “plead” with returning survivors of this tragedy not to ever allow the truth of what really happened to be known.
To the likelihood of the American people ever accepting the truth of what really happened, instead of the lies they are being told, it appears unlikely as scientists from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have long found that if just 10 percent of the population believes something, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. 
© August 10, 2011 EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com.

Israel Lobby Dominates Congress, Media Covers it Up

by Alison Weir, August 11, 2011

http://original.antiwar.com/alison-weir/2011/08/10/israel-lobby-dominates-congress/

You might think that 20 percent of the American Congress going on all-expenses-paid, weeklong junkets to a foreign country — paid for by a lobby for that country — would be newsworthy, especially when the top congressional leaders of both parties are leading the trips.
You would be wrong.
Eighty-one congressional representatives from all over the country, led by Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are traveling to Israel this month. Most are freshmen congressmen, and the group includes half of all the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010.
The weeklong trips are being paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which was created in 1990 as a supporting organization of AIPAC, America’s major pro-Israel lobbying organization, and they are located in the same building. AIEF, which is only one of numerous organizations pushing pro-Israel policies, has an annual budget of over $24 million, with an even larger endowment.
This is an extraordinary situation. No other lobby on behalf of a foreign country comes anywhere near controlling such wealth or taking so many of America’s elected representatives on a propaganda trip to its favorite country.
Not all those going on these trips are enthusiastic. The wife of one congressman who made a similar trip some years ago said that she and her husband had never been exposed to such pressure in all their lives. She said that at one point on their trip, her husband — a normally extremely tough man — was curled up in a fetal position.
A staff member of one representative participating in this month’s junkets said the representative had no choice. If the congressional rep didn’t go on the trip, the rep would be targeted by AIPAC; large quantities of money, including massive out-of-state money, would be raised for the opponent in the next election; and quite likely the representative would be defeated. The staffer said that the Israel Lobby is far too powerful to ignore and that American voters have no knowledge of what’s going on.
It’s no surprise that voters are unaware that their representatives are being propagandized and pressured by a foreign lobby. Their news media almost never tells them.
The Associated Press, America’s number one news service, has decided not to report on a lobbying group taking 81 representatives to a foreign country in order to influence their votes.
Even though the trips are being reported by news media in Britain, Iran, India, Israel, Lebanon, and elsewhere, AP has decided to give the story a pass. When contacted about this, an AP editor in Washington, D.C., said AP knew about the trips and was “looking into it.”
Taking a similar tack, The New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, CNN, ABC, et al., failed to inform Americans about the trips. The Washington Post, after the story was posted throughout the blogosphere, finally covered it belatedly on Page 13. The CBS website had a story on the situation, but CBS News made no mention of the junkets on-air.
The only AP stories on the subject are scattered local stories about individual representatives. For example, AP’s Chicago bureau reported that Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is taking part, without reporting that he was one of 81 representatives accepting these all-expenses-paid junkets and that his trip was being paid for by the pro-Israel lobby.
A few other American media outlets reported the story in interestingly diverse ways:
Washington’s Politico covered it twice; The Atlantic‘s website reported on people who were “kvetching” about the one-sided nature of the junkets, pointing out that some of the reps were also going to meet with some Palestinian leaders, without telling how many (no one will say) and for how long (apparently for a few hours of the weeklong trip). Los Angeles’ Jewish Journal was remarkably forthright, reporting that “the congressional reps will be getting the dog and pony show,” and Commentary gloated at the “astonishing” number of representatives going on the trip, noting that “Congress is the backstop that gives Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the ability to say ‘no’” to the president of the United States.
While Commentary claims that the willingness of congressional representatives to go on all-expenses-paid trips by one of the country’s most powerful lobbies “is a good reflection of American public opinion on the Middle East,” this is actually not accurate.
Surveys find that an extraordinarily strong majority of Americans — typically between two-thirds to three-quarters — do not wish the U.S. to take sides on Israel-Palestine. Such widespread desire for neutrality is particularly noteworthy given that U.S. news sources across the political spectrum are consistently highly Israel-centric in their reporting.
It is quite likely that such voters would be unhappy to learn that a foreign lobby has such power over their elected representatives, leading them to give the favored nation, one of the smallest and wealthiest countries on the planet, over $8 million per day of American tax money when the U.S. is in the middle of a financial crisis.
Perhaps that’s why AP and the others don’t tell them.

Read more by Alison Weir

• Critical Connections: Egypt, the US, and Israel  – February 4th, 2011
• Israel’s Flotilla ‘Investigation’ – June 17th, 2010

Only 20 percent of U.S. House of Representatives will visit Israel during summer recess

by Jeff Blankfort and Phil Weiss on August 8, 2011

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/08/only-20-percent-of-u-s-house-of-representatives-will-visit-israel-during-summer-recess.html

From Jerusalem Post, 81 congressmen to visit Israel during the summer recess, including leaders Steny Hoyer and Eric Cantor:

Most of the representatives are freshmen congressmen, with 47 – or fully half of the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010 – making the trip.

For many of them, this will be their first trip to Israel.

The week-long trips are sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which brings large delegations of congressmen here every other August.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) will head the Democratic delegation, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) will lead one of the Republican groups.

This is just another example of how we are living in inflationary times. In 2009, the year before the last election there were only 55 members of Congress going to Israel during the August recess, 25 Republicans followed by 30 Democrats.  This brings up the old joke: "Why doesn't Israel want to become the 51st state? Because then it would only have two senators."

Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle

Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), the fastest aircraft ever built is designed to fly anywhere in the world in less than 60 minutes, crashed into the Pacific Ocean, although officials said they were able to gather "unique data" that will guide the development effort.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/falcon-hypersonic-technology-vehicle-2-htv-2--1313082093-slideshow/

 

A Mysterious Hiss from the Milky Way (Part 1)

August 4, 2011

http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/4406/karl-jansky/

In the early 1930′s, Bell Labs, the research division of AT&T, wished to use radio “short waves” for transatlantic radio telephone links.  A young engineer, Karl Jansky, was assigned the job of finding sources of radio static that might interfere with radio transmissions.  During his work, he made an accidental discovery that revolutionized astronomy.

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To search for static that might interfere with radio transmission, Jansky built an antenna to detect radio waves at a frequency of 20.5 MHz (a wavelength of 14.5 meters). He mounted the rotatable antenna on four Ford Model-T tires to determine the direction of any radio signal he might find. The antenna was jokingly called “Jansky’s merry-go-round” (see image above).
After recording signals for several months, Jansky found static from nearby and distant thunderstorms.
But he also found a faint steady radio hiss of unknown origin. The intensity of the hiss rose and fell once a day. At first, he thought the unknown static might be radio waves from the Sun.
After a few months of following the signal, the brightest point moved away from the Sun. The signal repeated not every 24 hours, but every 23 hours and 56 minutes, the same period in which the stars rise and set.
Jansky eventually figured out the radiation was strongest in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation of Sagittarius. The discovery of radio waves from the center of the galaxy was widely publicized, appearing in the New York Times on May 5, 1933.
Though he wanted to learn more about the radio waves, Jansky was assigned to another project by Bell Labs managers and did not pursue the subject further.
Many scientists were fascinated by Jansky’s discovery. But no one followed up on it for several years until a modest radio engineer from Chicago became the world’s first true radio astronomer.  We continue that story next week…
Footnote: In honor of Karl Jansky, the unit used by radio astronomers for the strength (or flux density) of radio sources is the Jansky.

Earth 'to get second sun' as supernova turns night into day

By David Gardner
Last updated at 8:12 PM on 10th March 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1349383/Betelgeuse-second-sun-Earth-supernova-turns-night-day.html
The Earth could soon have a second sun, at least for a week or two.
The cosmic phenomenon will happen when one of the brightest stars in the night sky explodes into a supernova.
And, according to a report yesterday, the most stunning light show in the planet’s history could happen as soon as this year.

Cosmic phenomenon: The Earth could soon see two suns - just like Luke Skywalker saw on Tatooine in the Star Wars film (pictured)

Earth will undoubtedly have a front row seat when the dying red supergiant star Betelgeuse finally blows itself into oblivion.
The explosion will be so bright that even though the star in the Orion constellation is 640 light-years away, it will still turn night into day and appear like there are two suns in the sky for a few weeks.
The only real debate is over exactly when it will happen.
In stellar terms, Betelgeuse is predicted to crash and burn in the very near future. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to rush out and buy sunglasses.
Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, claimed yesterday that the galactic blast could happen before 2012 – or any time over the next million years.
‘This old star is running out of fuel in its centre,’ Dr Carter told te Austalian website news.com.au.
‘This fuel keeps Betelgeuse shining and supported. When this fuel runs out the star will literally collapse in upon itself and it will do so very quickly.
‘This is the final hurrah for the star. It goes bang, it explodes, it lights up - we’ll have incredible brightness for a brief period of time for a couple of weeks and then over the coming months it begins to fade and then eventually it will be very hard to see at all,’ he added.

Look out: Betelgeuse, which is in the Orion constellation, is set to blow itself into oblivion - which will give the effect of two suns in the sky for us on Earth

The Internet is abuzz with doomsday theories linking the supernova to the Mayan calendar’s prediction of an Armageddon in 2012, fuelled by the association of the word ‘Betelgeuse’ with the devil.
But experts claimed that even if the big bang is looming, it will still happen way too far from Earth to do us any harm.
‘When a star goes bang, the first we will observe of it is a rain of tiny particles called nuetrinos,’ said Dr Carter.
‘They will flood through the Earth and bizarrely enough, even though the supernova we see visually will light up the night sky, 99% of the energy in the supernova is released in these particles that will come through our bodies and through the Earth with absolutely no harm whatsoever.’
When it happens, the Betelgeuse supernova will almost certainly be the most dramatic ever seen.
It is the ninth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest in the constellation of Orion, outshining its neighbour Rigel – or Beta Orionis – only very rarely.
It’s distinct orange-red colour makes it easy to spot in the night sky.
If it was at the centre of our solar system, its surface would extend past the asteroid belt, wholly engulfing Mercury, Venus, Mars and the Earth.

How To Make a Planet Into a Star

http://www.oneminuteastronomer.com/1067/jupiter-star/

October 5, 2009

I miss Arthur C. Clarke.  He died more than 18 months ago at age 90, but the great science-fiction writer left more than 30 novels and dozens of short stories that described a mostly optimistic vision of mankind’s exploration of space and his responsible use of technology.  His most famous work, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was made into what many consider the best science fiction movie of all time.

As a writer, Clarke was no Hemingway.  But the strength of his writing came not from his elegant style or complex character development, but from his thought-provoking ideas, most of which were based on scientific fact.
Perhaps his most unexpected plot twist came in his sequel to 2001, called 2010.  Towards the end of the novel, the mysterious black monoliths of an advanced and meddlesome race began infesting and multiplying in the atmosphere of Jupiter, adding mass to the big planet in a matter of days.  As its mass grew, the planet shrunk, then finally collapsed and ignited as a new star (I won’t tell you why this happened.  You can read the book or see the movie if you’re interested; as usual, the book is better).
Here’s a view from the movie of 2010 that shows the collapse of Jupiter into a star.  The key moment happens at 3:15 into this clip.
Clarke’s idea is almost entirely accurate.  As it happens, Jupiter is not just the largest planet by size in the solar system.  Given its composition, structure, and mass, it’s as large as it can possibly be.
If Jupiter was less massive, it would be smaller like Saturn or Uranus.  But if you could add 2x, 5x, 10x or more mass to Jupiter, perhaps with the help of Clarke’s magic monoliths, the planet would not grow larger.  It would shrink.  (Don’t you wish your waistline worked like that).
As it is now, the dense core of Jupiter generates heat which radiates into space.  If the planet’s mass increased by 50x to 60x, the core would get hotter and denser until the planet turned into a “brown dwarf”, a type of failed star.  At that mass, the planet would start to grow again back to its present size.  In fact, all brown dwarfs, whether 10x or 60x Jupiter’s mass, all have roughly the same diameter as Jupiter.
If Jupiter grew to 75x its current mass, its core would get hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium in its core.  It would become small main sequence red dwarf star, and burn steadily for billions of years.  Though even then, its diameter as a red dwarf star would only be 30% larger than the planet’s current diameter.
By comparison, our sun, which is bigger than most stars, has a diameter 10x that of Jupiter, but a mass 1000x as great.
You’ll find Jupiter this month in the constellation Capricorn, hovering fat and bright in the southern sky at an impressive magnitude -2.6.  It’s the brightest object in the southern night sky, save the moon.  Aside from Jupiter, Capricorn has quite a few sights for binoculars and small telescopes, including a lovely double star just west of the biggest planet (see page 59-60 of Stargazing for Beginners for more about what to see in this part of the sky this time of year).
Next time, we’ll give you a few tips on how to observe  Jupiter.  No monoliths required.

EVIDENCE OF MICROFOSSILS IN CI1 METEORITES AND LIFE IN ICE: IMPLICATIONS TO POSSIBLE LIFE ON COMETS, EUROPA, AND ENCELADUS
http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html
The detection of evidence of viable microbial life in ancient ice (Abyzov et al., 1998, 2003; Hoover and Pikuta, 2010) and the presence of microfossils of filamentous cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites has direct implications to possible life on comets and icy moons with liquid water oceans of Jupiter (e.g. Europa, Ganymede or Callisto) and Enceladus (Fig. 8.a) Saturn’s spectacular moon that is exhibiting cryovolcanism and spewing water, ice and organics into space from the region of the blue and white “tiger stripes.” Europa exhibits red, orange, yellow and ochre colors and fractured regions indicating the icy crust is floating on a liquid water ocean. The possibility of life on Europa has been discussed by Hoover et al. (1986): Chyba et al. (2001) Dalton et al. (2003), and in edited books by Russell (2011), and Wickramasinghe (2011) and in Volumes 5, 11, and 13 of the Journal of Cosmology. Hoover et al. (1986) argued while deep blue and white colors in the Galileo images of the Jovian moon Europa were typical of glacial ice, ice bubbles and snow on Earth as seen in this image of ice bubbles from the Schirmacher Oasis of East Antarctica (Fig, 8.b). The red, yellow, brown, golden brown, green and blue colors detected by the Galileo spacecraft in the Conamara Chaos region (Fig. 8.c.) and the deep red lines of the icy crust of Europa (Fig. 8.d.) are consistent with microbial pigments rather than evaporite minerals. The 1986 paper suggested that the colors seen in Europa images resulted from microbial life in the upper layers of the ice. A number of more recent studies and books have been published concerning the significance of ice microbiota to the possibility of life elsewhere in the Solar System (e.g. Russell 2011; Wickramasinghe 2011; Volumes 5, 7, 13 of the Journal of Cosmology).
Diatoms are golden brown and cyanobacteria exhibit a wide range of colors from blue-green to red, orange, brown and black. Bacteria recovered from ice are often pigmented. For example, the extremophiles isolated from the ancient Greenland ice cores produce pigmented colonies. Herminiimonas glaciei colonies are red (Fig. 8.e) and the colonies of “Chryseobacterium greenlandensis” exhibit yellow pigments (Fig. 6.b.). Figure 5.c. shows the red pigmented colonies of the new genus of psychrophile, Rhodoglobus vestali isolated from a lake near the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica (Sheridan et al. 2003). Colonies of Hymenobacter sp. (Fig. 6.d.) isolated from the Schirmacher Oasis Ice Cave are red-ochre in color (Hoover and Pikuta, 2009, 2010). The possibility of life on Enceladus and the detection of biomarkers in the plumes of water, ice and organic chemicals ejected from the “Tiger Stripes” of Enceladus has been discussed by McKay et al., (2008) Hoover and Pikuta ( 2010) and in a number of articles published in volumes 5, 7, and 13 of the Journal of Cosmology.






Figure 8.a. Blue and white snow and glacial ice tiger stripes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus and b. ice bubbles from Lake Glubokoye, Antarctica. Color images from the Galileo spacecraft of c. the Conamara Chaos region and d. the Thrace region of Europa. Colonies of pigmented bacteria from the deep Greenland glacier ice core: e. red Herminiimonas glacei and f. yellow Chryseobacterium greenlandensis. From the McMurdo Valley ice sheet are colonies of g. red Rhodoglobus vestalii; and from the Schirmacher Oasis Ice Cave h. the red-ochre colony of Hymenobacter sp. strain IS118C-5s. Photos Courtesy: a.,c., & d. NASA/JPL/Arizona State University; b. R. B. Hoover; e.,f.,&g. Jennifer Loveland-Curtze/Penn State University and h. Asim K. Bej/UAB. 6. CONCLUSIONS
It is concluded that the complex filaments found embedded in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites represent the remains of indigenous microfossils of cyanobacteria and other prokaryotes associated with modern and fossil prokaryotic mats. Many of the Ivuna and Orgueil filaments are isodiametric and others tapered, polarized and exhibit clearly differentiated apical and basal cells. These filaments were found in freshly fractured stones and are observed to be attached to the meteorite rock matrix in the manner of terrestrial assemblages of aquatic benthic, epipelic, and epilithic cyanobacterial communities comprised of species that grow on or in mud or clay sediments. Filamentous cyanobacteria similar in size and detailed morphology with basal heterocysts are well known in benthic cyanobacterial mats, where they attach the filament to the sediment at the interface between the liquid water and the substratum. The size, size range and complex morphological features and characteristics exhibited by these filaments render them recognizable as representatives of the filamentous Cyanobacteriaceae and associated trichomic prokaryotes commonly encountered in cyanobacterial mats. Therefore, the well-preserved mineralized trichomic filaments with carbonaceous sheaths found embedded in freshly fractured interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites are interpreted as the fossilized remains of prokaryotic microorganisms that grew in liquid regimes on the parent body of the meteorites before they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy data reveals that the filaments detected in the meteorites typically exhibit external sheaths enriched in carbon infilled with minerals enriched in magnesium and sulfur. These results are interpreted as indicating that the organisms died on the parent body while aqueous fluids were present and the internal cells were replaced by epsomite and other water soluble evaporite minerals dissolved in the liquids circulating through the parent body. The nitrogen level in the meteorite filaments was almost always below the detection limit of the EDS detector (0.5% atomic). However, nitrogen is essential for all amino acids, proteins, and purine and pyrimidine nitrogen bases of the nucleotides of all life on Earth.
Extensive EDS studies of living and dead cyanobacteria and other biological materials have shown that nitrogen is detectable at levels between 2% and 18% (atomic) in cyanobacterial filaments from Vostok Ice (82 Kya) and found in stomach milk the mammoth Lyuba (40 Kya); mammoth hair/ tissue (40-32 Kya); pre-dynastic Egyptian and Peruvian mummies (5-2 Kya) and herbarium filamentous diatom sheaths (1815). However, Nitrogen is not detected in ancient biological materials such as fossil insects in Miocene Amber (8 Mya); Cambrian Trilobites from the Wheeler Shale (505 Mya) or cyanobacterial filaments from Karelia (2.7 Gya). Consequently the absence of nitrogen in the cyanobacterial filaments detected in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites indicates that the filaments represent the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present, long before the meteorites entered the Earth’s atmosphere. This finding has direct implications to the distribution of life in the Cosmos and the possibility of microbial life in liquid water regimes of cometary nuclei as they travel within the orbit of Mars and in icy moons with liquid water oceans such as Europa and Enceladus.