UFO Examiner: UFO video hoaxed as proof that faking is easy

As American ufologists deal with seemingly heightened numbers of anomalous reports nationwide amid rapid communications advances and flourishing social networking web sites – the hoaxers are out in larger numbers as well.

One delicate piece of the picture is the often polite stand that UFO hunters take – being good listeners – as they try to sort out the difference between Mother Nature, something manmade, and what might be anomalous.

Case in point is the recent posting at YouTube of a video purported to be a video phone capture of the O’Hare Airport sighting from Nov. 7, 2006. What you read in columns like mine about these kinds of events is straight reporting – it’s an event – of a video gaining more than a quarter-milion viewer hits. But in the background, behind what you’re reading, myself and those ufoloigsts I contact for an opinion, are shaking our heads and saying, “No, not again.”

So being kind and being a good listener allows some of the hoaxing to get through.

British citizen Anthony Wharton finally fessed up this morning, announcing in an email to me that his social experiment set out to prove ufologists and the media will let anything through the system.

Image: Anthony Wharton, St Helens, Merseyside, United Kingdom, 2009.

… Today by email, Wharton writes,

“I haven’t got much time so I will have to be brief, 2 weeks ago several clips anonymously appeared on you tube claiming to be photographic evidence from the Chicago O’Hare Airport UFO Incident. They have caused quiet a UFO media frenzy over the last 2 weeks and one clip received a quarter of a million hits, and even made Fox News in America(shocking). I can now reveal that I faked all of these clips for no other reason than to prove that photographic evidence is not acceptable proof of UFO’S and that some people, including ” UFO experts” only see what they want to see. To read more you can read the details at the side of the clip. To see how I created these clips, go to my channel and you will see the clip titled “The Chicago O’Hare UFO Experiment”, click this link

www.youtube.com/user/billymeierhoax

“To see the 3 original clips go to

www.youtube.com/user/ohareufowitness

“I have sent you an article with this email, please consider it for publication. I hope that you can see the serious side to my research, unlike many other people who just label me a “skeptic”

Take great care, Best, Tony.”

via UFO Examiner: UFO video hoaxed as proof that faking is easy.

Young Pulsar Shows Its Hand

A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for a beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years.

At the center of a new image made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand.

In the new image, the lowest energy X-rays that Chandra detects are red, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. Astronomers think that B1509 is about 1,700 years old and is located about 17,000 light years away.

Neutron stars are created when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse. B1509 is spinning completely around almost 7 times every second and is releasing energy into its environment at a prodigious rate — presumably because it has an intense magnetic field at its surface, estimated to be 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field.

The combination of rapid rotation and ultra-strong magnetic field makes B1509 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy. This generator drives an energetic wind of electrons and ions away from the neutron star. As the electrons move through the magnetized nebula, they radiate away their energy and create the elaborate nebula seen by Chandra.

via Young Pulsar Shows Its Hand.

Why not call it the Hand of God? Don’t forget that we’ve already seen the Eye of God:

This is an authentic photograph — or rather, composite of photos — taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The image was featured on NASA’s Website as an Astronomy Picture of the Day in May 2003 and thereafter posted on a number of Websites under the title “The Eye of God” (though I have found no evidence that NASA has ever referred to it as such). The awe-inspiring image has also been featured on magazine covers and in articles about space imagery.

What it actually depicts is the so-called Helix Nebula, described by astronomers as “a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases.” At its center is dying star which has ejected masses of dust and gas to form tentacle-like filaments stretching toward an outer rim composed of the same material. Our own sun may look like this in several billion years.

Image Credit: NASA, WIYN, NOAO, ESA, Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), & T. A. Rector (NRAO). – about.com

Drug-Free Therapy Could Erase Memories

A new drug-free therapy wipes away fearful memories in rats and humans. The simple treatment might eventually help patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, say researchers.

The new procedure relies on a quirky property of memories called reconsolidation. The process of jogging a memory – with an emotional or sensory jolt, for instance – seems to make it malleable for a few hours.

Potent drugs that block brain cells from making new proteins can erase fearful memories during this window. But these chemical are toxic, and wholesale memory erasure could do more harm than good, says Karim Nader, a neuroscientist at the McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who performed some of the drug studies.

In search of a gentler way to block fearful memories, Marie Monfils, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas in Austin, tweaked a therapy sometimes used to treat PTSD, called extinction.

Here, doctors repeatedly deliver threatening cues – gun shots, for instance – in safe environments in hopes of drowning out the fearful associations.

… “When extinction is done during reconsolidation, it probably has the same effect as drugs,” Schiller says.

… Despite proof of principle experiments in rats and humans, Monfils says researchers should proceed with caution in applying the new findings to treating PTSD or other anxiety disorders. Some people’s reconsolidation windows may be longer than others, and people respond differently to stressful situations….

via Drug-Free Therapy Could Erase Memories – ABC News.

Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic

An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped.

Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence of rapid change in the region.

Sited on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s.

Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place.

Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean.

European Space Agency satellite pictures had indicated last week that cracks were starting to appear in the bridge. Newly created icebergs were seen to be floating in the sea on the western side of the peninsula, which juts up from the continent towards South America’s southern tip.

…While the break-up will have no direct impact on sea level because the ice is floating, it heightens concerns over the impact of climate change on this part of Antarctica.

Over the past 50 years, the peninsula has been one of the fastest warming places on the planet. … Separate research shows that when ice shelves are removed, the glaciers and landed ice behind them start to move towards the ocean more rapidly. It is this ice which can raise sea levels, but by how much is a matter of ongoing scientific debate.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic.

Global warming deniers say what?

Squirrel leaves U.S. Navy base incommunicado

Protecting American interests around the globe, the U.S. Navy faces a myriad of threats. From terrorists and anti-ship rockets, to mines, torpedoes and even ballistic missiles, there are plenty of hazards to worry the brass.

But here at home, one naval installation has discovered a new menace, capable of knocking out key communications in a matter of seconds.

However, this particular hazard doesn’t involve suicide bombers, long-range missiles, space weapons, or even explosives. Indeed, this latest threat can be found in most backyards, or any other wooded area. It typically weighs a pound—or less—and belongs to the Sciuridae family.

We’re referring to the common tree squirrel, and last Saturday night, one of the furry rodents disrupted phone service at Virginia’s Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. Four days later, “land line” phones at the base still aren’t working, making communications difficult.

“It’s a real pain,” said a civilian employee at the base personnel office, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He said workers are using e-mail and cell phones as a work-around.

A senior official at the weapons station, who asked not to be identified, said the problem began when a squirrel came in contact with an electrical transformer. The rodent was electrocuted and the transformer exploded, knocking out power for a time, and seriously damaging a key component of the base phone system.

Since then, callers to the installation have heard nothing but busy signals, and weapons station personnel have been unable to reach anyone, on or off the base.

Technicians were still working on the problem Wednesday morning, but there was no indication as to when phone service might be restored. Mark Piggott, a public affairs officer at the base, said software for the phone network had to be re-loaded manually, a process that could take three to six days. That means phone service might not be restored until the weekend.

While the base is not completely without communications, the problem does affect some key nodes, including secure voice phones based on land-line networks.

Classified intranet communications systems, which handle data at the Secret and Top Secret/SCI levels, remained in operation, providing other options for sharing information.  …

via Norfolk Military Affairs Examiner: Squirrel leaves Navy base incommunicado.

Strong earthquake hits central Italy. Deathtoll reaches 228, aftershock slows rescue

A powerful earthquake struck central Italy early Monday, killing at least 16 people, collapsing buildings and leaving thousands of people homeless, officials and news reports said.

Officials said the death toll was likely to rise as rescue crews made their way through the debris. Firefighters aided by dogs were trying to rescue people from crumbled homes, including a student dormitory where half a dozen students remained trapped, RAI state TV reported.

A student who was not identified told RAI they were awakened by the quake and ran down the stairs of the dorm before the roof collapsed.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude of the quake was 6.3, though Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics put it at 5.8.

The quake struck about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Rome at 3:32 a.m. local time (0132 GMT), officials said. The Civil Protection Department said the epicenter was near the city of L’Aquila, in the mountainous Abruzzo region.

By early morning, the death toll stood at 16, including five children, with some 30 people unaccounted for, the ANSA news agency reported, citing the Civil Protection Department. The town of Castelnuovo appeared particularly hard hit, with five of the 16 dead there.

“It’s the worst tragedy since the start of the millennium,” said Guido Bertolaso, the head of the Civil Protection Department.

Residents and rescue workers were hauling away debris from collapsed buildings by hand while bloodied victims waited to be tended to in hospital hallways.

via Strong earthquake hits central Italy, killing 16 | The News Tribune – Nation/World | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound’s Destination.

Update: 4/7/09 Link to video of the damage.

UFOs and Nukes: Close call at US base.

Over at the HeraldTribune Billy Cox has an interesting article which says UFOs continue to mess with our nukes. This goes all the way back to Roswell, NM.  Roswell Army Air Force Base was the only place on Earth with an Atomic bomb at the time of the famous Roswell UFO crash. Read more on this topic at ufohastings.com.

… This week, on the Internet radio operation Paracast, two more Air Force veterans once assigned to America’s ICBM silos joined Hastings to discuss how UFOs probed and disabled our weapons of mass destruction during the Cold War. Bruce Fenstermacher, former crew commander at F.E. Warren AFB, and Patrick McDonough, head of a field survey team with the 1381st Geodetic Survey Squadron at Malmstrom AFB in 1966, are just the latest eyewitnesses who’ve approached Hastings and established their bona fides with DD-214 military discharge papers.

Since conducting his first interviews with missile-base operatives in the 1970s, Hastings says 115 have gone on the record with what they saw. At the time he discussed the results in his 2006 book “UFOs and Nukes” during an appearance on Larry King Live last summer, Hastings says he had 90 witnesses in the database. Obviously that number has spiked. He says Fenstermacher and McDonough decided to speak up following the audacious UFO incident over Stephenville, Tex., in 2008.

“I think it’s significant that not one person I’ve ever talked to has ever reported being leaned on to shut up — not one,” Hastings says from his home in Albuquerque, N.M. “I suspect it’s because the Pentagon knows if they try to muscle these guys, they’ll go to the media.”

But predicting how the MSM would respond in that event is a crap shoot. The latest witnesses merely reinforce a long established pattern of UFO surveillance — and, in some cases, the outright lockdown — of America’s nuclear arsenal. FOIA-recovered documents detailing bold and persistent UFO incursions over Strategic Air Command bases along the northern U.S. frontier in 1975 have been in the public domain for decades. But press coverage has been restrained and spotty.

The most chilling incident in Hastings’ files didn’t surface until 2007. That’s when David H. Schuur, formerly with the 455th/91st Strategic Missile Wing at Minot AFB, recounted what happened at the Minuteman bunkers during either the summer of 1966 or ‘67, back when he was a first lieutenant working alert duty at a silo named Echo Capsule. Each silo housed 10 nukes apiece.

Sometime after midnight, easternmost Alpha Capsule reported a brightly lit UFO hovering in the no-fly zone overhead, and the console board operators were receiving “spurious indicaters” on each missile panel, as if each was being scanned individually. For the next hour or so, the object repeated the pattern in geographical sequence, concluding with Oscar Capsule before taking off.

When the UFO buzzed Echo Capsule, Schuur says seven or eight missiles began registering “spurious indicators.” Then a “Launch in Progress” switch got tripped, forcing operators to manually override with an “Inhibit” command. When the UFO passed, all systems returned to normal. …

via Close call at SAC base | HeraldTribune.com | Sarasota Florida | Southwest Florida’s Information Leader.

Adam becomes first robot to make a scientific discovery after conducting its OWN experiments

Image: Professor Ross King and a colleague with the robot scientist Adam

A robot called Adam that can think up theories and test them with almost no human help has become the first machine to make a new scientific discovery. Operating from a laboratory at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales, the machine identified genetic processes in baker’s yeast that were previously unknown. – dailymail

Unlike other pieces of lab equipment, a robotic system created by scientists from Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge can design and perform new experiments on its own.

In a study called “The Automation of Science,” published in the latest issue of Science, the researchers asked the robot, named Adam, to find out which genes code for several enzymes of unknown origin (“orphan enzymes”) in baker’s yeast. Drawing on a database of yeast and other biological information, Adam came up with 20 hypotheses and designed several experiments to methodically test mutant strains against normal ones. The robot successfully identified–for the first time–the origins of several enzymes.

Video

In the video, Adam carries out experiments to identify orphan enzymes in baker’s yeast. First, it takes out a yeast library plate from the freezer. Then, it stab-picks the strain it wants and inoculates a plate. Adam carries the plate to an incubator and lets the yeast grow for 24 hours. Finally, Adam shakes and reads the sample, getting growth measurements for three days.

“The knowledge that Adam produces is expressed in logic,” Ross King, a professor of computer science at Aberystwyth and first author on the paper, explained to me. This “makes the knowledge more reproducible and more useful.” King believes that intelligent lab assistants like Adam will be common in labs within a decade or so.

via Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors’ blog: Robot Scientist Designs Its Own Experiments.

Rainforests may pump winds worldwide

THE acres upon acres of lush tropical forest in the Amazon and tropical Africa are often referred to as the planet’s lungs. But what if they are also its heart? This is exactly what a couple of meteorologists claim in a controversial new theory that questions our fundamental understanding of what drives the weather. They believe vast forests generate winds that help pump water around the planet.

If correct, the theory would explain how the deep interiors of forested continents get as much rain as the coast, and how most of Australia turned from forest to desert. It suggests that much of North America could become desert – even without global warming. The idea makes it even more vital that we recognise the crucial role forests play in the well-being of the planet.

Scientists have known for some time that forests recycle rain. Up to half the precipitation falling on a typical tropical rainforest evaporates or transpires from trees. This keeps the air above moist. Ocean winds can spread the moisture to create more rain. But now Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva of the St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute in Russia say that forests also create winds that pump moisture across continents.

How can forests create wind? Water vapour from coastal forests and oceans quickly condenses to form droplets and clouds. The Russians point out that the gas takes up less space as it turns to liquid, lowering local air pressure. Because evaporation is stronger over the forest than over the ocean, the pressure is lower over coastal forests, which suck in moist air from the ocean. This generates wind that drives moisture further inland. The process repeats itself as the moisture is recycled in stages, moving towards the continent’s heart (see diagram). As a result, giant winds transport moisture thousands of kilometres into the interior of a continent.

via Rainforests may pump winds worldwide – environment – 01 April 2009 – New Scientist.

Sweet dreams are made of geomagnetic activity

Looking for an explanation for recurring nightmares of leaving the house without your trousers on or losing your teeth? New research suggests you can blame the Earth’s magnetic field, rather than a repressed childhood.

Darren Lipnicki, a psychologist formerly at the Center for Space Medicine in Berlin, Germany, found a correlation between the bizarreness of his dreams, recorded over eight years, and extremes in local geomagnetic activity.

Other studies have tied low geomagnetic activity to increases in the production of the melatonin, a potent hormone that helps set the body’s circadian clock. So, based on anecdotal evidence that melatonin supplements used as a sleeping aid can cause off-kilter dreams, Lipnicki wondered whether local magnetic fields could induce the same effects.

via Sweet dreams are made of geomagnetic activity – life – 01 April 2009 – New Scientist.