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FEBRUARY 2006 NEWS ARCHIVES:

INDEX OF ARTICLES:
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AIRCRAFT ANOMALIES
OBJECTS NEAR AIRPLANES PHOTOGRAPHED
SWEDISH FIGHTER CHASES UFO

ANCIENT CIVILIZATION / ANCIENT EARTH
NEW TOMB FOUND NEAR KING TUT
CAVE GIRLS WERE FIRST BLONDES TO HAVE FUN
ANCIENT GREEK MERCHANT SHIP FOUND
TITANIC'S MISSING PIECES?
3,000-YEAR-OLD TOMBS UNEARTHED IN HENAN

CRYPTOZOOLOGY / FLORA & FAUNA ANOMALIES
SCIENTISTS FIND DOZENS OF NEW SPECIES IN 'LOST WORLD'
SOCIETY CLAIMS SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF BIGFOOT COLONY

GEOLOGY / EARTH
GREENLAND ICE LOSS DOUBLES IN PAST DECADE
CLIMATE 'WARMEST FOR MILLENNIUM'
ANCIENT CLIMATES SUGGEST EARTH ON PATH TO GLOBAL WARMING
WATERWORLD: EARTH IN 1000 YEARS
VIDEOS EXPLAIN MYSTERIOUS FLASHES ABOVE EARTH
EARTH'S WOBBLE HAS PAUSED
MYSTERY BLOB EATING DOWNTOWN L.A.
ATMOSPHERIC 'SPRITES' CAPTURED

MARS
SPACE ROCK REOPENS MARS DEBATE
MARS: ARTIFICIAL SUBSTANCES
MARS: ENDURANCE CRATER HAS WATER
MARS SYMBOLS SIMILAR TO ROSWELL DEBRIS
MARS TWIN TOWERS
MORE INTRIGUING MARTIAN OBJECTS

SPACE / SCIENCE
MOON EXPLOSION MIGHT INDICATE MINING
ANOMALOUS STRUCTURES ON THE MOON
TOP TEN LIST OF HABITABLE PLANETS
SCIENTISTS SEQUENCE COMPLETE GENOME OF WOOLLY MAMMOTH

UFO / ET
ARE WE ALONE?
MARSHALL BLAMED FOR UFO COVERUP
UNDERWATER UFO BASE OFF S CALIFORNIA COAST?
NINE THEORIES OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL CONTACT
WALES UFO CRASH INVESTIGATION

MISCELLANEOUS
UFO SLEUTH ON TRAIL OF MYSTERY AT SEA
MOVING EVER CLOSER TO AN ERA OF MIND CONTROL
GIVING DÉJÀ VU A SECOND LOOK
SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE PARANORMAL
THE PARADOX OF TIME TRAVEL


OBJECTS NEAR AIRPLANES PHOTOGRAPHED
Jalisco, Mexico, 01-28-06

The UFO Casebook received the following report on 01-30-06 of a sighting with photographs on 01-28-06:

I'm going to send you two clear examples of objects which are flying near airplanes. I can only see one object in the second photo; but it flying very fast. In the first photograph, I didn't see the object but it appeared when the picture was uploaded to my computer. It was a cloudy day when the photos were taken. The photos were taken with a Kodak Easy Share DX4530 digital camera in auto mode, near the airport of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Thanks, ofnava

IMAGES: http://www.ufocasebook.com/jalairplane1.jpg
http://www.ufocasebook.com/jalairplane2.jpg

A big thanks to ofnava for sending in his report and photos.

SOURCE: UFO Casebook 2-06-06
http://www.ufocasebook.com/020606.html


SWEDISH FIGHTER CHASES UFO
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/06draken.jpg

Clas Svahn UFO-Sweden reports, " The experienced Swedish Air Force pilot flew a J-35F "Draken" fighter plane on a routine training mission between the islands of Öland and Gotland in the Baltic Sea southeast of Sweden when he was diverted to chase a target by the ground control radar about noon in the summer of 1977. The ground control had picked up a target further East of Sweden, and the pilot was at the time of the call around 100 kilometers from the target.

Identifying unknown targets were routine during these days, Swedish military went up several times every week identifying Russian and American spy planes flying in a strip outside Gotland. This time the target behaved different. The radar control on ground, situated 100 kilometers from the object, reported it to be stationary, something that was later confirmed by the pilot as he approached the object. In a taped telephone interview made on June 19, 1999, the pilot told me that he approached the target at a speed of Mach 0,9 and soon got the object on his own radar screen. He was flying at 1.000 meters altitude straight towards the UFO. and had the object 500 meters above his altitude.

"When I was 10 kilometers from the object it suddenly started to move straight up", he told me. "I never saw it with my naked eye, but could follow it on my radar and decided to light up (the after burner) and started to follow the target. I had a perfect lock on it all the time. His "Draken", which was the latest model J-35F, climbed at an angle of 70 degrees trying to keep up with the target. According to the pilot he never came closer than 6-8 kilometers. "When I was at 10.000 meters the object flew out of the radar range, straight out in space. It was at an altitude of 40 to 50 kilometers at that time.

I aborted the chase but stayed in the area for 2-3 minutes trying to locate the object but was unable to find anything." "My aircraft was leaving vapor trails behind me, but the object left none", he says. "I really looked for them but there were none." The weather was fine with 3/8 cumulus. His comments were, "I do not know of any single aircraft that would have been able to - from zero - out fly a "Draken" at that time." He never reported the incident after landing at the airbase F-12 in Kalmar at the time but reported to ground control that the object was gone as he came to the scene. "The ground control radar did not look at vertical movements after they had led me to the target, so when the object started moving upwards it just seamed to have vanished of the screen for them", the pilot said. The incident came to UFO-Sweden's attention when he sent an e-mail to us a couple of years ago. On June 19, 1999, I made a telephone interview with him. Sadly he died in a helicopter accident a year after.
Thanks to Clas Svahn UFO-Sweden
www.ufo.se/english

SOURCE: Filer's Files #6 - 8 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


NEW TOMB FOUND NEAR KING TUT
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

See pictures of the inside of King Tut's tomb:
http://dsc.discovery.com/anthology/unsolvedhistory/kingtut/tomb/tomb.html

Feb. 11, 2006 — American archaeologists have found King Tut's neighbors in the Valley of the Kings, making the first discovery of a new tomb in the desert valley since King Tutankhamun's was uncovered in 1922, according to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Called KV 63 — it is the 63rd discovered since the valley was first mapped in the 18th century — the new, intact tomb was found just 16 feet away from the boy pharaoh's resting place by a team of archaeologists from the University of Memphis, led by Otto Schaden.

Schaden discovered the tomb, buried under 13 feet of rubble and stones, by accident, while conducting "routine digs" on the nearby tomb of King Amenmesses, a 19th Dynasty pharaoh.

"The tomb appears to date to the 18th Dynasty (ca. 1539-1292 B.C.) and it contains five human mummies and several pottery vessels," the University of Memphis said in a statement.

So far, archaeologists have not entered the burial site, as workers are still clearing rubble. However, Egyptian authorities had a first look Friday into the rectangular single chamber through an opening of its four-foot-high door.

Five wooden sarcophagi in human shapes with colored funerary masks laid surrounded by more than 20 jars, sealed with pharaonic seals, Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said.

The jars were placed haphazardly, as if the burial was completed in a hurry.

"For an unknown reason they were buried rapidly in the small tomb," Hawass said.

Though the Valley of the Kings, on the West bank of the Nile outside Luxor, was the burial ground for many pharaohs, the University of Memphis archaeologists do not think the K63 mummies are royal.

Most likely, they were members of a pharaoh's court from the 18th Dynasty, when Egypt's power was at its height.

The first of the New Kingdom, the 18th Dynasty's capital was in Thebes, the present day city of Luxor. It included pharaohs such as Amenhotep I, the warrior pharaoh, Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's only female pharaoh, Akhenaten, the "heretic" pharaoh and Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh.

According to Patricia Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis, the KV 63 discovery has finally broken the century-long belief that there wasn't anything left to discover in the Valley of the Kings.

"Many archaeologists said the valley was done 100 years ago¦ obviously, they were wrong," Podzorski said.

SOURCE: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060206/newtomb_arc.html?source=rss


CAVE GIRLS WERE FIRST BLONDES TO HAVE FUN
Roger Dobson and Abul Taher

THE modern gentleman may prefer blondes. But new research has found that it was cavemen who were the first to be lured by flaxen locks.

According to the study, north European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males.

The study argues that blond hair originated in the region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men.

Lighter hair colors, which started as rare mutations, became popular for breeding and numbers increased dramatically, according to the research, published under the aegis of the University of St Andrews.

“Human hair and eye color are unusually diverse in northern and eastern Europe (and their) origin over a short span of evolutionary time indicates some kind of selection,” says the study by Peter Frost, a Canadian anthropologist. Frost adds that the high death rate among male hunters “increased the pressures of sexual selection on early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of color traits.”

Frost’s theory, to be published this week in Evolution and Human Behavior, the academic journal, was supported by Professor John Manning, a specialist in evolutionary psychology at the University of Central Lancashire. “Hair and eye color tend to be uniform in many parts of the world, but in Europe there is a welter of variants,” he said. “The mate choice explanation now being put forward is, in my mind, close to being correct.”

Frost’s theory is also backed up by a separate scientific analysis of north European genes carried out at three Japanese universities, which has isolated the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blond hair to about 11,000 years ago.

The hair color gene MC1R has at least seven variants in Europe and the continent has an unusually wide range of hair and eye shades. In the rest of the world, dark hair and eyes are overwhelmingly dominant.

Just how such variety emerged over such a short period of time in one part of the world has long been a mystery. According to the new research, if the changes had occurred by the usual processes of evolution, they would have taken about 850,000 years. But modern humans, emigrating from Africa, reached Europe only 35,000-40,000 years ago.

Instead, Frost attributes the rapid evolution to how they gathered food. In Africa there was less dependence on animals and women were able to collect fruit for themselves. In Europe, by contrast, food gathering was almost exclusively a male hunter’s preserve. The retreating ice sheets left behind a landscape of fertile soil with plenty of grass and moss for herbivorous animals to eat, but few plants edible for humans. Women therefore took on jobs such as building shelters and making clothes while the men went on hunting trips, where the death rate was high.

The increase in competition for males led to rapid change as women struggled to evolve the most alluring qualities. Frost believes his theory is supported by studies which show blonde hair is an indicator for high estrogen levels in women.

Jilly Cooper, 69, the author, described how in her blonde youth she had “certainly got more glances. I remember when I went to Majorca when I was 20, my bum was sore from getting pinched.”

However, Jodie Kidd, 27, the blonde model, disagrees with the theory: “I don’t think being blonde makes you more ripe for sexual activity. It’s much more to do with personality than what you look like. Beauty is much deeper than the color of your hair.”

Film star blondes such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson are held up as ideals of feminine allure. However, the future of the blonde is uncertain.

A study by the World Health Organization found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

SOURCE: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2087-2058688%2C00.html


ANCIENT GREEK MERCHANT SHIP FOUND
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Feb. 3, 2006 — Photographs taken by an undersea robot are providing the first public glimpse of a wrecked ancient Greek merchant ship loaded with olive oil and wine that probably capsized in a sudden gust of wind off the coast of the island of Chios in the fourth century B.C.

The images represent a breakthrough in underwater technology since the exploration of the Titanic; the robot photographer in this case was fully autonomous, according to a recent MIT press release. Scientists program the robot, called "SeaBED," with missions that can be changed via an acoustic modem once the robot is launched.

The project, which brought together research teams from MIT, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Hellenic Center for Marine Research, is also providing clues about ancient vessels and early trade routes.

Brendan Foley, one of the project's leaders and a researcher in WHOI's Deep Submergence Laboratory, told Discovery News that the single-masted ship was about 55 feet long and 16 feet wide. He believes some of its wooden hull is still intact beneath sea floor sediments.

Strewn across the eastern Aegean Sea floor below 200 feet of water lies what's left of the ship's cargo. Since the remains are tightly contained within the dimensions of the wreckage site, the researchers theorize wind might have violently heeled the ship, shifted the cargo and then made the ship unstable before it capsized.

Foley and his colleagues think the vessel once carried around 1,000 ceramic jars called amphorae, several of which have survived.

"The amphorae from Chios are slightly less than 39 inches tall, and contained approximately five gallons," Foley said. He explained that chemical analysis, along with other evidence, suggests many contained wine. He added, "As far as olive oil, sometimes olive pits are found in amphoras. Occasionally amphoras show sign of re-use, with resin-lined amphoras containing olive pits. So, we surmise based on previous archaeological evidence and texts that the amphoras on the Chios Classical wreck carried wine and also possibly olive oil."

Since the containers came from Chios, the researchers suspect that if the shipment was intended for a single market, the vessel likely was headed for Corinth or Athens before it capsized.

"However," Foley said, "in 356-354 B.C., just before we think this ship sank, Athens fought a war against Chios and other former allies in the eastern Aegean, called the 'Social War.' Questions we have are, 'What was the nature of Chios' economy after the Social War? Did Chios and Athens resume their trade upon the conclusion of that war? Did Chios find new markets instead?"

Another unsolved mystery is the fate of the men who manned the vessel. The scientists think there were three or four, and they might have survived. "The ship wrecked less than a mile from shore, so it is possible that the crew and any passengers might have made their way to shore by swimming or by clinging to bits of floating wreckage," Foley said.

Jonathan Adams, a specialist in maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton in England, told Discovery News that while this vessel is not the oldest shipwreck, a distinction that goes to a 3,300-year-old boat that sunk off the coast of Turkey, it "is interesting due to its well-organized cargo, which suggests the Greeks were already quite industrialized."

Adams also said the research is noteworthy because it could enhance our understanding of trade in the classical world, and because the exploration utilized such high-tech equipment. This June, Foley and his colleagues plan to return to the Aegean to study an underwater volcano and two other ancient shipwrecks.

SOURCE: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060130/greekship_arc.html


TITANIC'S MISSING PIECES?
February 27, 2006

Now that the new discovery of the keel sections of Titanic have been publicly released, it is time for the Titanic enthusiasts to mull over the information. Although a discovery of this magnitude answers several questions, it poses even more questions about its interpretation. The naval architect, Roger Long gave a very plausible explanation of how two relatively intact keel sections could be found in a newly discovered debris field east of the main bow and stern sections of the wreck site. I find that I have so many questions to address regarding his potential scenario of the sinking. At times I found myself talking to the television and saying "No way!"

Obviously I was not the only one that was saying something similar. Parks Stephenson, one of the show's technical experts that was portrayed at Woods Hole and member of the marine forensics panel of the Society of Naval Engineers, has a different take on the data retrieved from the discovery. His views can be found on his web site at Marconigraph.com and his analysis of the sinking seems more logical to me. That is not to say it is right or wrong, but I am more comfortable with his thoughts at the present time.

I am very grateful to David Concannon and Robert Williams for setting this whole investigative theory into an active hunt for the new evidence. In 2003, both Robert Williams and Fred McLaren spent their entire dives doing "sand sweeps" outside the perimeter of the main sections of Titanic in pursuit of keel pieces. Even though they had limited success, their time spent on the bottom ruled out sections that needed to be explored. I am sure that the limited amount of dives available to the latest research team can owe these researchers a debt of thanks for narrowing their search pattern.

As the new evidence is being "digested" by the many interested Titanic enthusiasts, including me, there will be many new and ingenious interpretations of the new discovery. For further analysis of the bow and stern sections of the ship, please visit our corporate web site and in the text of the homepage, select Educational Services for photographs of the wreck site from this year's scientific research Titanic exploration. I certainly need more information to satisfy my own curiosity. This new evidence does not rule out the grounding theory but certainly assists in a more accurate portrayal of speculation about Titanic's sinking. I think that Roger and Parks explanations, both very different, are a wonderful foundation for further research and study. I commend all of these individuals for putting together a thoroughly enjoyable evening that will be talked about for years to come!

SOURCE: http://shipwreck.blogs.com/shipwrecks_historical_tim/2006/02/index.html


3,000-YEAR-OLD TOMBS UNEARTHED IN HENAN
www.chinaview.cn  02-09-2006

ZHENGZHOU, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Archaeologists in the central China province of Henan have excavated 336 tombs dating back more than 3,000 years.

Arranged in a U shape, the tombs were unearthed near Hebi City at the Liuzhuang ruins of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.). Funeral objects were discovered in 208 of the 336 tombs, including tomahawks, strings of turquoise stone beads, ancient cooking vessels and basins.

The most noticeable among these tombs contained a stone coffin, which was formed by 13 stones. Archaeologists also discovered that in some of the tombs, stones were put beside the head or feet of the tomb owner.

Judging from the few funeral objects in each tomb and the shape and structure of the tombs, archaeologists said that the tombs belonged to a clan of middle to lower class of their day.

This is the first time that such a great number of Shang tombs have been unearthed in Henan Province and the discovery provides valuable evidence for studying the funeral rituals, social structure, and culture of the Shang Dynasty, said Zhao Xinping, a research fellow with the Henan Provincial Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Research Institute.

The discovery of the stone coffin, which had not previously been seen in central China at that time, provides clues to the origin of the Shang people, Zhao said.

Located to the south of Liuzhuang Village of Qibin District in Hebi City, the Liuzhuang ruins covers more than 300,000 sq m. So far an area of 7,700 sq m. has been excavated.

SOURCE: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/09/content_4157190.htm


SCIENTISTS FIND DOZENS OF NEW SPECIES IN 'LOST WORLD'
Conservation.org 2-7-6

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Scientists surveying an isolated Indonesian jungle discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants, and glimpsed large mammals that have been hunted to near- extinction elsewhere, the team announced Tuesday.

The expedition also found rare animals that were remarkably unafraid of humans during the rapid survey of the Foja Mountains, an area with more than a million hectares of old growth tropical forest in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province, said Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the month-long trip.

Two Long-Beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal, simply allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back to their camp to be studied, he said, noting that the enigmatic animals were probably so unwary because they never had seen people before.

The December 2005 expedition - organized by the U.S.-based environmental organization Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences - was funded by the National Geographic Society, the Swift Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Global Environment Project Institute.

Papua, the scene of a decades-long separatist rebellion that has left an estimated 100,000 people dead, is one of Indonesia's most remote provinces, geographically and politically, and access by foreigners is tightly restricted.

The 11-member team of U.S., Indonesian and Australian scientists needed six permits before they could legally fly by helicopter to an open, boggy lakebed surrounded by forests near the range's western summit, where they set up camp at an altitude of 1,500 meters (yards).

"There was not a single trail, no sign of civilization, no sign of even local communities ever having been there," said Beehler, adding that two headmen from the Kwerba and Papasena tribes, the customary landowners of the Foja Mountains, accompanied the expedition.

"They were as astounded as we were at how isolated it was," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Washington D.C. "As far as they knew, neither of their clans had ever been to the area."

The scientists said they discovered 20 frog species - including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14 millimeters (a half inch) long - four new butterfly species, and at least five new types of palms during their trip.

Their findings, however, will have to be published and then reviewed by peers before being officially classified as new species, a process that could take six months to several years.

One of the most remarkable discoveries was the Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo, an arboreal jungle-dweller new for Indonesia and previously thought to have been hunted to near extinction, and a new honeyeater bird, which has a bright orange face-patch with a pendant wattle under each eye, Beehler said.

Because of the rich diversity in the forest, the group rarely had to stray more than a few kilometers (miles) from their base camp. "We've only scratched the surface," said Beehler, vice president of Conservation International's Melanesia Center for Biodiversity Conservation, who hopes to return later this year with other scientists to continue the field work.

One of the reasons for the rainforest's isolation, he said, was that only a few hundred people live in the region and game in the mountain's foothills was so abundant that they had no reason to venture into the jungle's interior.

There did not appear to be any immediate conservation threat to the area, which has the status of a wildlife sanctuary, he said.

"No logging permits are given to this area, there is no transport system - not a single road," Beehler said. "But clearly with time everything is a threat. In the next few decades there will be strong demands, especially if you think of the timber needs of nearby countries like China and Japan. They will be very hungry for logs."

SOURCE: http://www.conservation.org/xp/news/press_releases/2006/020706.xml
http://rense.com/general69/scifind.htm


SOCIETY CLAIMS SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF BIGFOOT COLONY

JOHOR BAHARU -- The Johor Wildlife Protection Society said it has "scientific evidence" to prove the existence of Bigfoot whose reported sightings recently in the Johor jungles have excited the world's media.

Not just one Bigfoot but a whole colony of the giant, hairy creatures which the society named "Orang Lenggor" (Lenggor People) as one was spotted in an area by that name, said the society's secretary Tay Teng Hwa.

"We will make public the evidence soon," he said today. He said a member of the society had studied the creatures for six years and interacted directly with the colony.

"The adult creatures are between 10 and 12 feet tall while their children are 6 to 7 footers. Seventy per cent of the Orang Lenggor have a human appearance but the rest resemble apes," he said.

Tay declined to reveal the location of the Bigfoot colony or the type of "scientific evidence" in the possession of the society. The claim by the society followed a statement by Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman that he was convinced about the existence of Bigfoot based on information provided by Orang Asli.

Tay said the society decided to reveal its discovery because foreigners armed with sophisticated equipment were entering the Johor jungles to track down Bigfoot without the knowledge of the state government. "We are worried these foreigners might find Bigfoot and then announce to the world as their discovery," he said.

Relating the background to the society's study of the creatures, he said a member of the society, who was a logger, came across Bigfoot when the creature encroached into the logging company's base camp to look for food. Since that incident, the member began to study the creatures and went close to their colony.

Tay said the creatures, despite their size and rough appearance, were timid and showed no aggression to humans who approached them.

The "Orang Lenggor" had a covering of black hair on their bodies when they were young but the hair gradually turned brown as they grew older, he said. "They like to eat fish and fruits they gather in the jungles, including durian. They also have a liking for river water that contains dissolved salt and would walk for miles to get it," he added. Tay said the society would organize an expedition to the "Orang Lenggor" colony in either March or April.

Source: Bernama/Malaysian National News Agency
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=181090
Conspiracy Journal 2/24/06 #354
http://uforeview.tripod.com/conspiracyjournal354.html


GREENLAND ICE LOSS DOUBLES IN PAST DECADE, RAISING SEA LEVEL FASTER
News Release: 2006-023 February 16, 2006

The loss of ice from Greenland doubled between 1996 and 2005, as its glaciers flowed faster into the ocean in response to a generally warmer climate, according to a NASA/University of Kansas study.

The study will be published tomorrow in the journal Science. It concludes the changes to Greenland's glaciers in the past decade are widespread, large and sustained over time. They are progressively affecting the entire ice sheet and increasing its contribution to global sea level rise.

Researchers Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam of the University of Kansas Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, Lawrence, used data from Canadian and European satellites. They conducted a nearly comprehensive survey of Greenland glacial ice discharge rates at different times during the past 10 years.

"The Greenland ice sheet's contribution to sea level is an issue of considerable societal and scientific importance," Rignot said. "These findings call into question predictions of the future of Greenland in a warmer climate from computer models that do not include variations in glacier flow as a component of change. Actual changes will likely be much larger than predicted by these models."

The evolution of Greenland's ice sheet is being driven by several factors. These include accumulation of snow in its interior, which adds mass and lowers sea level; melting of ice along its edges, which decreases mass and raises sea level; and the flow of ice into the sea from outlet glaciers along its edges, which also decreases mass and raises sea level. This study focuses on the least well known component of change, which is glacial ice flow. Its results are combined with estimates of changes in snow accumulation and ice melt from an independent study to determine the total change in mass of the Greenland ice sheet.

Rignot said this study offers a comprehensive assessment of the role of enhanced glacier flow, whereas prior studies of this nature had significant coverage gaps. Estimates of mass loss from areas without coverage relied upon models that assumed no change in ice flow rates over time. The researchers theorized if glacier acceleration is an important factor in the evolution of the Greenland ice sheet, its contribution to sea level rise was being underestimated.

To test this theory, the scientists measured ice velocity with interferometric synthetic-aperture radar data collected by the European Space Agency's Earth Remote Sensing Satellites 1 and 2 in 1996; the Canadian Space Agency's Radarsat-1 in 2000 and 2005; and the European Space Agency's Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar in 2005. They combined the ice velocity data with ice sheet thickness data from airborne measurements made between 1997 and 2005, covering almost Greenland's entire coast, to calculate the volumes of ice transported to the ocean by glaciers and how these volumes changed over time. The glaciers surveyed by those satellite and airborne instrument data drain a sector encompassing nearly 1.2 million square kilometers (463,000 square miles), or 75 percent of the Greenland ice sheet total area.

From 1996 to 2000, widespread glacial acceleration was found at latitudes below 66 degrees north. This acceleration extended to 70 degrees north by 2005. The researchers estimated the ice mass loss resulting from enhanced glacier flow increased from 63 cubic kilometers in 1996 to 162 cubic kilometers in 2005. Combined with the increase in ice melt and in snow accumulation over that same time period, they determined the total ice loss from the ice sheet increased from 96 cubic kilometers in 1996 to 220 cubic kilometers in 2005. To put this into perspective, a cubic kilometer is one trillion liters (approximately 264 billion gallons of water), about a quarter more than Los Angeles uses in one year.

Glacier acceleration has been the dominant mode of mass loss of the ice sheet in the last decade. From 1996 to 2000, the largest acceleration and mass loss came from southeast Greenland. From 2000 to 2005, the trend extended to include central east and west Greenland.

"In the future, as warming around Greenland progresses further north, we expect additional losses from northwest Greenland glaciers, which will then increase Greenland's contribution to sea level rise," Rignot said.

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home.

For University of Kansas Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets information, visit: http://www.cresis.ku.edu/flashindex.htm.

Alan Buis (818) 354-0474, JPL, Pasadena, Calif.
Erica Hupp/Dwayne Brown (202) 358-1237/1726, NASA Headquarters, Washington

SOURCE: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-023


CLIMATE 'WARMEST FOR MILLENNIUM'

In the late 20th Century, the northern hemisphere experienced its most widespread warmth for 1,200 years, according to the journal Science. The findings support evidence pointing to unprecedented recent warming of the climate linked to greenhouse emissions.

University of East Anglia researchers measured changes in fossil shells, tree rings, ice cores and other past temperature records or "proxies". They also looked at people's diaries from the last 750 years.

Timothy Osborn and Keith Briffa of UEA analyzed instrument measurements of temperature from 1856 onwards to establish the geographic extent of recent warming. Then they compared this data with evidence dating back as far as AD 800.

The analysis confirmed periods of significant warmth in the Northern Hemisphere from AD 890 - 1170 (the so-called "Medieval Warm Period") and for much colder periods from 1580 - 1850 (the "Little Ice Age").

The UEA team showed that the present warm period is the most widespread temperature anomaly of any kind since the ninth century.

"The [period of the] last 100 years is more striking than either [the Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age]. It is a period of widespread warmth affecting nearly all the records that we analyzed from the same time," co-author Timothy Osborn told the BBC.

Osborn and Briffa used 14 sets of temperature records from different locations across the Northern Hemisphere. The records included long life evergreen trees growing in Scandinavia, Siberia and the Rockies which had been cored to reveal the patterns of wide and narrow tree rings over time. Wider rings related to warmer temperatures.

The chemical composition of ice from cores drilled in the Greenland ice sheets revealed which years were warmer than others. The researchers used proxy data developed from the diaries of people living in the Netherlands and Belgium during the past 750 years that revealed, for example, the years when the canals froze.

"These records extend over many centuries and even thousands of years. We simply counted how many of those records indicated that, in any one year, temperatures were warmer than average for the region they came from," said Dr Osborn.

Professor John Waterhouse, director of the Environmental Sciences Research Centre Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge commented: "Although we're getting increasingly accurate measurements of present-day temperature, we've got nothing like that from the past to compare those with. There's much uncertainty in past reconstructions. You've got to look at the reconstructed data in the past in light of the likely errors that those data have."

But he added: "As we get more and more evidence in, it is looking as if the current period is the warmest for over 1,000 years."

In November, Science published a paper showing atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane are higher now than at any time in the past 650,000 years.

Source: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4698652.stm ;
Conspiracy Journal 2/17/06 #353
http://uforeview.tripod.com/conspiracyjournal353.html


STUDIES OF ANCIENT CLIMATES SUGGEST EARTH IS
NOW ON A FAST TRACK TO GLOBAL WARMING

February 17, 2006

Human activities are releasing greenhouse gases more than 30 times faster than the rate of emissions that triggered a period of extreme global warming in the Earth's past, according to an expert on ancient climates.

"The emissions that caused this past episode of global warming probably lasted 10,000 years. By burning fossil fuels, we are likely to emit the same amount over the next three centuries," said James Zachos, professor of Earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Zachos presented his findings this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in St. Louis. He is a leading expert on the episode of global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when global temperatures shot up by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit). This abrupt shift in the Earth's climate took place 55 million years ago at the end of the Paleocene epoch as the result of a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere in the form of two greenhouse gases: methane and carbon dioxide.

Previous estimates put the amount of released carbon at 2 trillion tons, but Zachos showed that more than twice that amount--about 4.5 trillion tons--entered the atmosphere over a period of 10,000 years (Science, June 10, 2005). If present trends continue, this is the same amount of carbon that industries and automobiles will emit during the next 300 years, Zachos said.

Once the carbon is released into the atmosphere, it takes a long time for natural mechanisms, such as ocean absorption and rock weathering, to remove excess carbon from the air and store it in the soil and marine sediments. Weathering of land rocks removes carbon dioxide permanently from the air, but is a slow process requiring tens of thousands of years. The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide much more rapidly, but only to a point. The gas first dissolves in the thin surface layer of the ocean, but this surface layer quickly becomes saturated and its ability to absorb more carbon dioxide declines.

Only mixing with the deeper layers can help restore the ability of the surface water to absorb additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the natural processes that mix and circulate water between the ocean surface and deeper ocean layers work very slowly. A complete "mixing cycle" takes about 500 to 1,000 years, Zachos said.

The greenhouse emissions that triggered the PETM initially exceeded the ocean's absorption capacity, allowing carbon to accumulate in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, humans appear to be adding carbon dioxide to the air at a much faster rate: about the same amount of carbon (4.5 trillion tons), but within a few centuries instead of 10,000 years. What was emitted 55 million years ago over a period of about 20 ocean mixing cycles is now being emitted over a fraction of a cycle.

"The rate at which the ocean is absorbing carbon will soon decrease," Zachos said.

Compounding this concern is the possibility that higher temperatures could retard ocean mixing, further reducing the ocean's capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. This could have the kind of "positive feedback" effect that climate researchers worry about: reduced absorption, leaving more carbon dioxide in the air, causing more warming.

Higher ocean temperatures could also slowly release massive quantities of methane that now lie frozen in marine deposits. A greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, methane in the atmosphere would accelerate global warming even further.

Such positive feedback or "threshold" effects probably drove global warming during the PETM and a few other ancient climate extremes, Zachos said, and they could happen again. It is possible that we already are in the early stages of a similar climate shift, he said.

"Records of past climate change show that change starts slowly and then accelerates," he said. "The system crosses some kind of threshold."

Clues to what happened during the PETM lie buried deep inside the sediment at the bottom of the sea, which Zachos and his colleagues have probed during several cruises of the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). Composed mainly of clay and the carbonate shells of microplankton, this sediment accumulates slowly, but steadily--up to 2 centimeters every millennium--and faithfully records changes in ocean chemistry. The layer of sediment deposited during the PETM, now buried hundreds of meters below the seafloor, tells a clear and compelling story of sudden change and slow recovery, he said.

During the PETM, unknown factors released vast quantities of methane that had been lying frozen in sediment deposits on the ocean floor. After release, most of the methane reacted with dissolved oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which made the seawater more acidic. Acidic seawater corrodes the carbonate shells of microplankton, dissolving them before they can reach the ocean floor and reducing the carbonate content of marine sediment.

Zachos led an international team of scientists that analyzed sediment cores recovered from several locations during an ODP cruise in the southeastern Atlantic. Collected at depths ranging from 2.5 to 4.8 kilometers (1.6 to 3.0 miles), each sediment core bore a telltale PETM imprint: a 10- to 30-centimeter layer of dark red carbonate-free clay sandwiched between bright white carbonate-rich layers.

By relating the thickness of the clay layer to the rate of accumulation of marine sediment, Zachos estimated that it took 100,000 years after the PETM for carbon dioxide levels in the air and water to return to normal. This finding is consistent with what geochemists have predicted using models of how the global carbon cycle will respond to carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

"We set out to test the hypotheses put forward by a small group of geochemists who model the global carbon cycle, and our findings support their predictions," Zachos said. "It will take tens of thousands of years before atmospheric carbon dioxide comes down to pre-industrial levels. Even after humans stop burning fossil fuels, the effects will be long lasting."

SOURCE: University of California, Santa Cruz
http://www.physorg.com/news10975.html


WATERWORLD: HOW LIFE ON EARTH WILL LOOK IN 1000 YEARS

By the next millennium the global map will have been redrawn by disastrous climate changes, according to a new forecast. An apocalyptic vision of life 1,000 years from now has been painted by a team of scientists studying the effect of global warming.

If mankind does not put its house in order, temperatures could have risen by 15C (27F) by the year 3000 and sea levels by more than 11 meters (36ft), flooding much of London, the team, from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, says in a report for the Environment Agency. Abrupt changes could make Britain much hotter, or even — such is the uncertainty of the predictions — first colder and then hotter.

This could happen if the North Atlantic current system collapsed, denying Britain the warming effect of the Gulf Stream. Ocean surface temperatures would fall by 3C (5.4F), but as the Arctic sea ice melted, they would rise again by 8C (14.4F) in an abrupt turnabout over a period of no more than about 20 years.

Climate Change on the Millennial Timescale is the first study to examine comprehensively the impacts of global warming beyond the end of this century. It calls for continued efforts to cut the emission of global-warming gases to prevent the changes from getting out of control.

Baroness Young of Old Scone, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, said: "We are running out of road on decision-making. Unless we dramatically change the use of fossil fuels then we will be committing future generations to the most severe impacts of climate change."

By the year 3000, the report says:
- Global warming could have more than quadrupled, with temperature rises of as much as 15C, if we continue burning fossil fuels

- Sea levels will still be rising at the end of this millennium and the total increase could reach 11.4 meters. This dwarfs estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that sea levels will rise by between 16cm and 69cm by the 2080s

- Anything more than a two-meter rise would flood large areas of Bangladesh, Florida and many low-lying cities, and displace hundreds of millions of people

- Abrupt climate changes are possible even after emissions cease because changes may be set in motion that cannot be stopped

- The acidity of the oceans will fall significantly, posing a threat to marine organisms such as corals and plankton. That, in turn, would affect the whole marine ecosystem

- The changes could be even greater than this if the climate turns out to be more sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than the study assumes.

The solution, the team says, is to reduce emissions to zero by 2200.

Tim Lenton, lead author of the study, said: "While most studies stop at year 2100 with temperatures and sea level rising, we explored where they are heading into the next millennium. Only by starting to reduce carbon dioxide emissions now can we avoid dangerous climate change."

The message is that the world can afford to burn only about a quarter of its known reserves of fossil fuels. This implies a small increase in global emissions up to 2025, and reducing and eliminating them by 2200.

"If we follow business-as usual then we will commit future generations to dangerous climate change," Dr Lenton said. The risk was that of returning the Earth to a hot state it had not been in since 55 million years ago.

Baroness Young said: "Tough decisions are needed soon. Many of our coastal towns could be in jeopardy and immediate action needs to be taken if we are to avoid many of these impacts.

"We need to get tough on energy efficiency. This means much tighter standards for buildings and government providing proper incentives for businesses from the transport sector if we are to meet our 2010 target of 20 per cent carbon reduction and tackle more strenuous targets for 2020."

Source: The Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2044465,00.html
Conspiracy Journal 2/24/06 #354
http://uforeview.tripod.com/conspiracyjournal354.html


VIDEOS HELP EXPLAIN MYSTERIOUS FLASHES ABOVE EARTH
Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com Thu Feb 16, 2006

Back in the 1980s, airline pilots were told they must have been seeing things when they reported flashes of light shooting toward space atop thunderstorms.

But in recent years, scientists have photographed the mysterious flashes and come up with interesting names for them: elves, blue jets, tigers and sprites. The flashes are associated with thunderstorms, and each type is incredibly brief and behaves differently.

A new effort has produced the best images and video of sprites ever obtained. http://www.livescience.com/images/060216_sprite_02.jpg

The research, to be detailed Feb. 22 in the online version of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, should help scientists better understand the physics and chemistry of the events.

"By analyzing the high-speed images in sequence, we've been able to clearly define, for the first time, the processes by which sprites develop and what happens inside of them," said Steven Cummer of Duke University. "This understanding of sprite structure is a necessary step to further elucidate sprite dynamics and their possible effects on the upper atmosphere."

You’re not crazy
Sprites were first imaged, by accident, in 1989, proving that airline pilots were not crazy. In the late 1990s, researchers began to make high-speed videos of the events.
(http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/red_sprites_991208.html)

Like lightning, sprites are electrical discharges. They are driven by a strong electrical field above a thunderstorm and so are associated with regular lightning, Cummer and his colleagues reported last year.

The duration of a sprite is literally less than the blink of an eye. They generally occur 20 to 50 miles above a thunderstorm, so spotting them from the ground requires a vantage point away from the clouds.

The new videos, shot last summer from a mountain in Colorado overlooking Kansas and Nebraska, were taken at 5,000 frames per second. The trickiest part: Because the cameras gather so much data, they could only be turned on when the researchers thought they spotted a sprite. Over the course of two months, the team captured 66 sprites on seven different nights.

New details
The observations show that sprites normally start nearly 50 miles high. Streamers rain down from the bottom of an initial, diffuse halo. The streamers branch out on the way down. As all this is unfolding in the blink of an eye, a bright column of light expands vertically from the starting point, reaching toward both Earth and space.

Bright streamers then shoot higher into the night. Bright dots appear. Other researchers have spotted these but nobody knows what they are. The dots glow longer than the rest of the sprite. Some of the dots occur where streamers collide, the new images reveal.

See the video in Quicktime http://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/news/sprites.mp4 or Real Video http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/video/sprites.ram; credit: Steven Cummer, Duke University

The dots might be important for understanding the chemistry of sprites and how they affect the atmosphere. "Electrons with enough energy to produce light can also produce interesting chemical species not normally generated," Cummer said. "Such chemicals might be long-lived and could be transported to other locations through the atmosphere."

Future research could yield insight into the connection between sprites and the traditional lightning we see below a storm, Cummer said.

See more images of elves, blue jets, tigers and sprites:

Image Gallery: Lightning
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?imgid=143&gid=12&index=0

Earth's Lightning Zaps Space, Too
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050308_lightning_space.html

Mystery Ocean Glow Confirmed in Satellite Photos
http://www.livescience.com/othernews/051004_sea_glow.html

First Artificial Neon Sky Show Created
http://www.livescience.com/technology/050202_light_show.html

The Science of Lightning
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/lightning_science.html

Copyright © 2006 SPACE.com.

SOURCE: http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060216_sprites.html 


EARTH'S WOBBLE HAS PAUSED
The Polar Motion Anomaly 2005/2006 Continues

At the moment the Earth has almost no net wobble motion, aside from very minor quivers such as are typically caused by atmospheric and tidal conditions. Chandler’s Wobble is virtually flat line. The daily track of the location of the Spin Axis is showing only tiny little rotations of a few days in duration in almost the same spot. Something has paused the normal spiral motion of the Spin Axis. We can now deduce that there is a relatively large, developing anomaly in the spiraling motion of the spin axis, including an huge phase shift, a shortening of the length of the normal 7 year cycle, the tightening of the spiral motion into an exceptionally small spiral, and a major acceleration in the drift of the Spin Axis (secular drift of the poles, or so-called True Polar Wander). This anomaly is on-going and portends major changes in tectonic activity during ensuing years.

(ECB – February 8, 2006, MWM) For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler’s Wobble. See an extensive analysis of the pause in the wobble as of February 8, 2006 at the website. It is also being sent to subscribers via email directly after this Bulletin. See the background report (as of Jan 18, 2006) and the latest plot: Go immediately and see the current wobble track. This introduction and all updates related to polar motion is written with the graph at
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/polarmotion/2006_wobble_anomaly.htm

UPDATE 2/18: EARTH'S WOBBLE MAY BE RESUMING

Earth's Wobble May Be Resuming, Spin Axis now on heading due South towards England down the X Plot

As previously discussed, this is likely a direction in which some portion of the previous wobble pattern will "recover". Still almost no relative motion on the Y Plot. To see the graphs, scroll down this page: http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/topten_monitor.htm

UPDATE 2/22: THE WOBBLE HAS MOVED MORE IN LAST WEEK
THAN DURING ALL OF JANUARY

The pace of motion of the Spin Axis in its wobble continues to appear to be normalizing. Based on computer projections for the likely path, which the track of the real wobble appears to be manifesting, it is highly probable that a major phase shift has occurred in Chandler's Wobble. It is also more likely than not that a significant jump in the average location of the pole has occurred but it is too early to define the amount. At the moment both the X and Y plots are showing the Wobble headed for another X Motion Peak but I am finding it difficult to believe that it will continue in that pattern. As Hotno predicted, it is likely to be nearly another two months before the new pattern is objectively clear.

SOURCE: EARTH CHANGES BULLETINS by MW Mandeville
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/


MYSTERY BLOB EATING DOWNTOWN L.A.
By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer

Los Angeles officials were still scratching their heads today over what caused a mysterious black goo to burble from streets downtown, forcing the evacuation hundreds of apartment dwellers.

A Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said investigators had yet to identify the "black tarry substance" more than 24 hours after it erupted at Olive Street and Pico Boulevard. But he said there might be "a correlation" with a petroleum company drilling operation nearby.

"The samples we have taken - this was determined to be (a) nontoxin, nonflammable, nonhazard," said fire Capt. Ernie Bobadilla. "We're looking to I.D. the scope of the problem. "This problem is not a simple fix."

About 200 residents were forced to flee as a hazardous materials team and dozens of firefighters worked throughout the day to identify what was first deemed "a black tarry substance" and later morphed into a "watery mud."

While outside temperatures struggled to break 60, sidewalks in the vicinity steamed at 103 degrees, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said. "It's worrisome in the fact that it will keep the street closed and residents will be evacuated till the building is considered safe," Myers said.

Firefighters were alerted at 3 a.m. by complaints of a sewer-like smell at an apartment house at 1220 S. Olive St. near Pico Boulevard, but found nothing. They returned at 1 p.m. to find a Slimer-like ooze lurking beneath central Los Angeles.

"We were called back because there was a gooey substance, a tarry-type substance, coming out the underground electrical vaults, out of manhole covers in the street, through the sidewalks and possibly in one older apartment building," Myers said.

A 120-foot stretch of Olive buckled 1 1/2 feet, he said. The pre-1933 unreinforced masonry apartment building shifted one foot from its foundation. Sidewalks were as hot as Jacuzzis. And a pressurized liquid shot from every street orifice located above what used to be a historic oil field downtown.

No one was injured in what amounted to a black lagoon. Hazmat and Urban Search and Rescue crews determined that the mysterious substance wasn't flammable, Myers said. "Incident commanders are evaluating some form of drilling operation one or two blocks away as the possible cause," he added.

"They told us to get out from the building, because, probably, I don't know, anything could happen. The basement was flooding," resident Mary Robles told KABC-TV, Channel 7.

By late afternoon, the American Red Cross had set up an evacuation center for the 150 adults and 50 children forced to flee the stuff of nightmares.

"We're opening a shelter," said Nick Samaniego, spokesman for the Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles. "We're looking for a place to put them."

Dana Bartholomew, (818) 713-3730  

SOURCE: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3529716


ATMOSPHERIC 'SPRITES' CAPTURED
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/08spritefrom_space50miles.jpg

NewScientist reports, "Mysterious flashes of light called "sprites", that occur above thunderclouds during powerful storms, have been captured on film in unprecedented detail by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. Sprites are fleeting events, which normally last between 10 and 100 milliseconds." In summer 2005, researchers from Duke University, and collaborators from FMA Research in Fort Collins, Colorado, kept a watchful eye on the skies above Yucca Ridge Field Station hoping to capture sprites in action using their 7000-frames-per-second camera. "The whole structure develops a lot in one millisecond. So by going with the faster video we really see all the pieces and how they develop in time," says Steven Cummer, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering.

And with so much energy being pumped into a small region, Cummer says sprites may drive atmospheric chemistry that does not normally occur. "The significance at this point lies in what chemical effects these [sprites] may have on the upper atmosphere." The researchers say sprites typically begin at an altitude of about 50 miles (80 Kilometers) in the sky in single spots where the electric field creates spark. Those produce falling "streamers" that branch out as they fall. Much brighter, thicker channels follow, expanding upward from the original spots.

Editor's Note – UFOs videotaped from the Space Shuttle often hover over the sprites apparently in an effort to take on energy. Thanks to Kimm Groshong New Scientist.com news service.

SOURCE: Filer's Files #8 - 22 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


SPACE ROCK REOPENS MARS DEBATE
By Paul Rincon, BBC News science reporter

IMAGES: Nakhla meteorite, Natural History Museum
The meteorite fell to Earth in Egypt in 1911;
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41313000/jpg/_41313250_nakhla_nhm_203.jpg

Dendritic material in the Nakhla meteorite is rich in carbon:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41306000/jpg/_41306428_nakhla1_lpsc_203.jpg

The same team brought claims about ALH84001 to the world's attention;
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41306000/jpg/_41306696_martian_203.jpg

A carbon-rich substance found filling tiny cracks within a Martian meteorite could boost the idea that life once existed on the Red Planet. The material resembles that found in fractures, or "veins", apparently etched by microbes in volcanic glass from the Earth's ocean floor. Details will be presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, next month.

All the processes of life on Earth are based on the element carbon. Proving carbon in Martian meteorites is indigenous - and not contamination from Earth - is crucial to the question of whether life once arose on the Red Planet.

Initial measurements support the idea that the "carbonaceous material" is not contamination, the scientists say. But the evidence so far is unlikely to convince the skeptics.

The research team includes scientists who brought evidence for microbial life in another Martian meteorite, ALH84001, to the world's attention in 1998.

The Martian meteorites are an extremely rare class of rocks. They are all believed to have been blasted off the surface of the Red Planet by huge impacts; the material would have drifted through space for millions of years before falling to Earth.

Fresh samples
The latest data comes from examination of a piece of the famous Nakhla meteorite which came down in Egypt, in 1911, breaking up into many fragments.

London's Natural History Museum, which holds several intact chunks of the meteorite, agreed for NASA researchers to break one open, providing fresh samples.

"It gives people a degree of confidence this had never been exposed to the museum environment," said co-author Colin Pillinger of the UK's Open University. "I think it's too early to say how [the carbonaceous material] got there... the important thing is that people are always arguing with fallen meteorites that this is something that got in there after it fell to Earth. "I think we can dismiss that. There's no way a solid piece of carbon got inside a meteorite."

Analysis of the interior revealed channels and pores filled with a complex mixture of carbon compounds. Some of this forms a dark, branching - or dendritic - material when seen under the microscope.

"It's really interesting material. We don't exactly know what it means yet, but it's all over the thin sections of the Nakhla material," said co-author Kathie Thomas Keprta, of Lockheed Martin Corporation and NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

'Indigenous component'
Peter Buseck, regent's professor of geological sciences at Arizona State University, told the BBC News website that he found no strong evidence of a biological origin for the carbon in the meteorite. He added that it was difficult to determine the origin of carbon in rocks based on microscopy.

Previous studies of the forms - or isotopes - of carbon in the Nakhla meteorite found a component of which more than 75% is lacking any carbon-14. Since all terrestrial life forms contain some carbon-14, this component was thought to be either indigenous carbon from Mars or ancient meteoritic carbon.

Professor Pillinger and colleagues are carrying out direct isotopic analysis of the carbonaceous material, but he admits terrestrial contamination is occurring when thin slices of the meteorite are made for analysis. However, the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the epoxy used to prepare the thin sections is very different from that of the carbonaceous material in the meteorite's veins.

If it is indigenous to Mars, the authors say the "carbonaceous material" came either from another space rock that smashed into Mars hundreds of thousands of years ago, or is a relic of microbial activity.

A resemblance between the material in the meteorite and features of microbial activity in volcanic glass from our planet's ocean floor further support the idea they are biological in origin, says the paper. If this is the case, the remains of these organisms and their slimy coatings might provide the carbon-rich material found in Nakhla, the researchers argue.

The 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference runs from 13-17 March in Houston, Texas.

SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4688938.stm


MARS: ARTIFICIAL SUBSTANCES

http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/06marschip.jpg
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/06marspottery.jpg
Photos courtesy of NASA/JPL.

Harold Carver writes, "I found what appears to be artificial substances on Mars taken by the Rovers. I have enclosed them inside the red boxes. One looks like a wafer or chip, and the other looks like a piece of pottery.

SOURCE: Filer's Files #6 - 8 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php

- - - - - - -

ADDENDUM: Thanks to NASA/JPL Mars-2M178564842EFFAE03P29772M1
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/06marschip_001.jpg

Bob writes from Australia, "I just wanted to point out something in first photo of Mars. Notice the rounded edge on the large piece of stone above the red box and also the rounded edge on the bottom of the piece to the left. They are smoothly rounded, as if plastered or shaped. Also on the large piece above the red square note the slightly raised edge at the back edge of the smooth surface. This is typical of a piece of
molding being broken away from an adjoining wall to which it was fixed.
Blessings, Bob
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/index.html

SOURCE: Filer's Files #7 - 14 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php

- - - - - - -

ADDENDUM 2: Mars Structures
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/08marslakefeb06.gif

Norman Bryden writes, "In this image section from a photograph taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, I have discovered what looks clearly like a large lake of liquid water." Notice the absence of rough craters in the image. This shows a fairly modern history of formation, and that the area is geologically active. Observe the lighter band left of center. This terrain is very different than the surrounding terrain. Take a look very closely at the shorelines. The shorelines that have not been disturbed are smooth and very well defined. They wave and meander just like any undisturbed lake found on Earth.

Now look at the light band between the two smoother and darker terrains. The shore line is very different. There are squared off corners and boxes, straightened lengths of shore and smaller boxes and crosses where the water fills what looks like bays. There is also a channel or river to the upper left that flows down to the lake. On both sides of this river channel the shore lines have been modified with straightened sides and corners. Various other areas of the lake have also been squared off into bays to the right. Other areas of the terrain look to be fairly recently modified in geological terms.

The lighter band also looks segmented into geometric capsules that look very much like populated housing in satellite images of Earth that you can see built near the shores of lakes and rivers. I have lived near the Charles River near Boston most of my life and have looked at satellite images of the coast and the river many times for comparison to the geography of Mars. This is very similar. Check out the satellite images yourself on Google Maps which works well for this purpose. This is strong evidence Mars is geologically active, has regions of lakes, rivers and in some images what looks like oceans or seas. This is also strong evidence that Mars has an intelligent species that has greatly modified the terrain differently than random acts of geological processes. So many well defined, structured and sharp right angled corners are strong evidence of intelligent design.

Link to NASA Image:
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r16_r21/full_gif_non_map/R16/R1601825.gif

SOURCE: Filer's Files #8 - 22 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


MARS: ENDURANCE CRATER HAS WATER

Images: Reservoir and Hieroglyphics
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/marsendurancedamff13.jpg
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/marsendurancedam2ff13.jpg

Harold Carver writes, "While looking at images that the Rover Opportunity took I noticed Endurance Crater lacks the profile of a crater, yet everything about it suggests that it was built to hold a body of water.

This water flows out of the sides of the crater into a reservoir. The angles are too precise to be a freak of nature and are suggestive of a purpose. Mars photos are at left and compare to a dam and spillway on Earth. The entire walls and floor of Endurance image seem to be made of fitted slabs of rock neatly put together. There is also evidence of artificially made spill-ways used for the collection of water.

Editor's Note: I was looking at some of Carver's JPL photos and noticed numerous petroglyph's on the crater walls that seem to depict writing or symbols. This is a JPL image taken by the Opportunity Rover of Burns Cliff inside Endurance Crater that show symbols similar to T, P, Y, I, A, I V, K
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/07marsendurancewriting400.jpg

SOURCE: Filer's Files #6 - 8 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


MARS SYMBOLS SIMILAR TO ROSWELL DEBRIS
P, Y I face R fish wing
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ROSWELL --Major Jessie Marcel the 509th Group Intelligence Officer picked up debris with rancher Bill Brazel at the Foster Ranch at the crash sight near Corona, New Mexico on July 7, 1947. Later that night Marcel showed his wife and son who is now an Army Colonel and medical Doctor (Jesse Marcel Jr.) the strange writing on the debris. Later others at Roswell Air Base including Lieutenant Robert J. Shirkey saw the debris.

Major Marcel showed the debris to his Commander William Blanchard, who then ordered a news release that stated the Army Air Force had recovered a Flying Disc. Colonel Blanchard ordered the debris to be immediately flown with Major Marcel aboard a B-29, to 8th Air Force Headquarters at Fort Worth, Texas. The debris package was carried in the bomb bay with three guards. Marcel was met at the flight line by the second highest ranking officer at Carswell Army Air Base Colonel Thomas DuBose. Together they drove to General Roger Ramey's office with the debris, and waiting for them was James Bond Johnson a Fort Worth Star Newspaper photographer who took these photos.

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- Blowup Photos courtesy of Neil Morris and RPIT

Johnson who is still alive told me, when the officers arrived the package was still wrapped and they unwrapped the metallic burnt debris and spread them out on the General's rug. He remembered the debris smelled burnt like it had been in a crash.

Shortly, General Ramey arrived holding a message in his hand. Six photos are taken of General Ramey, Colonel DuBose, and Major Jessie Marcel with the debris. Four of the 4 x 5 negatives are now stored in the Archives of the University of Texas.

Several years ago the Roswell Photo Interpretation Team (RPIT) was formed to enlarge and evaluate these photographs. The computer enhanced photos show that General Ramey is holding a message that appears to state, "THE VICTIMS OF THE CRASH ARE BEING TRANSPORTED TO FORT WORTH." URGENT. POWERS ARE NEEDED AT SITE TWO NW ROSWELL, N.MEX."

Clearly much of the debris has strange markings or writing on it. A close up of the debris shows some strange writing taken by photographer James Bond Johnson. If you compare the Mars symbols with the debris in General Ramey's office there are striking similarities.

Neil Morris from the University of Manchester discovered that three symbols have now been cross matched on the debris footage beam. The details discovered in over fifty year old photographs indicate an object of much greater complexity than a simple radar reflector. Space ships like our own Moon Lander are made from surprisingly flimsy materials. The cross matching of these symbols indicate the debris is from an object alien to Earth, or at least to our methods of writing and symbols. All involved admit the debris shown was part of a disc recovered from the Foster Ranch near Corona, New Mexico in 1947.

SOURCE: Filer's Files #6 - 8 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


MARS TWIN TOWERS
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Norman Bryden writes, "It is difficult to display an image at this file size where structures can be seen on Mars. I have selected this portion of the Mars Global Surveyor photograph I discovered to help people possibly see what kind of structures may be on Mars. Although this section is nearing the limit of resolution, identifiable structures of geometric and large scale proportions can be seen.

I know the image is not the best quality, but I asked NASA for better pictures and clarification, but for some reason NASA prefers black and white hard to process photographs, and they do not respond to email.

To the top left of the section below are two very light markings. This looks to be the top of two twin towers or buildings reflecting light. Rectangular shapes can be seen standing up next to each other below the light markings. These rectangular blocks appear to have segmented levels as would be seen on buildings on Earth. Just above and slightly to the left of the dark lower left marking is another tower shaped building.

What looks like windows or portals can be seen on the sides and top. If you follow the tube like structure to the upper right corner of the image, you can see a giant arm chair shaped structure.

Other structures can be made out at the intersections of the tubes. The standing structures can be identified by the shadows of one side to the lower right and the lighter sides to the upper left, with the lightest side on the top. Thanks to Norman Bryden Link to NASA image: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e07_e12/full_gif_non_map/E10/E1001841.gif

SOURCE: Filer's Files #7 - 14 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


MORE INTRIGUING MARTIAN OBJECTS

Mac (take me to Mars) Tonnies offers his opinion on the below discoveries - the first by an amateur Martian artifact hunter and the second by NASA: (1) "Intriguing forms, as always, but nothing that makes me seriously think we're looking at evidence of anything but geology. But the thing is, I could be wrong; I'm going with Occam's Razor on this." (2) "Crumpler's got that right. 'Home Plate' is downright psychedelic."

I found what appear to be artificial substances on Mars. I have enclosed them inside the red boxes. One looks like a piece of pottery and the other looks like a wafer or chip. http://www.rense.com/general69/arti.htm

NASA’s Spirit Mars rover has arrived at a site dubbed "Home Plate" within Gusev crater. But what the robot found has left scientists puzzled.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060210/sc_space/
spiritmarsroverreacheshomeplateformationhasresearcherspuzzled

SOURCE: PAG E-NEWS: February 15 www.pagenews.info


MOON EXPLOSION MIGHT INDICATE MINING
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NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on November 7, 2005. Several astronauts claimed to have seen construction and UFOs on the Moon an explosion could indicate mining or perhaps an accident.

"What a surprise," says Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) researcher Rob Suggs, who recorded the impact's flash. He and colleague Wes Swift were testing a new telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. On their first night out, "we caught one," says Suggs.

Lights are frequently recorded on the moon going back to 1540. Often the lights are noticed within or near craters for extended periods of time ruling out meteor strikes. Aristarchus is a large crater on the edge of a plateau within northern Oceanus Procellarum has had 448 recorded Transient Lunar events many before electric lights existed on Earth. Its at the upper left side at 10 o'clock just left of the red spot.

SOURCE: Filer's Files #7 - 14 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php

ADDENDUM: Moon Mining
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Keith Laney writes, enlargements made from both Apollo and LO photography show anomalous structures and sites of mining on the moon. I believe these are remnants of structures that used to be much larger and more defined. The solar wind from space has eroded down many of the sites.

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This photo taken during Apollo shows a close up of a possible mining site. If you look along the inside of the small crater, you might notice this little bit of what appears to be a technical remnant, or a very strange almost mechanically linear arrangement of rusty stone, or some other sort of mechanical debris. There are also other curiosities lying about, I've noted some of them by arrows.
Image Thanks to NASA.
http://keithlaney.net/

SOURCE: Filer's Files #8 - 22 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


ANOMALOUS STRUCTURES ON THE MOON
Stratton K Crater Moon courtesy of NASA
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Keith Laney writes, Enlargements made from both Apollo and LO photography show anomalous structures out of the path of further deposition and wasting that have walls and buttresses higher than the natural terrain. Meteoric rain degrades them but straight walls within walls simply don't appear on levels higher than the highest points of crater flanks which some of the ‘archeology’s I've found seem to do. I believe these are remnants of structures that used to be much larger and more defined.

If there is a single, ancient, long-abandoned edifice on the moon, if there is a single object indicating earlier intelligence, if there is still one recognizable rock drawing to be found, then just think what such a find would do to our conventional history.

A Soviet scientist who defected to the West claims that photographs taken by an orbiting satellite clearly show the ruined temples of a civilization—on the planet Mars!

The 58-year-old scientist was a high-echelon member of an elite team that has worked on Vostok I and carried Yuri A. Gagarin the first man in space. He reports in 1982, a Soviet satellite reached Mars and beamed back photographs of a large city.

SOURCE: Filer's Files #7 - 14 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


TOP TEN LIST OF HABITABLE PLANETS
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Washington -- Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institution released her "top 10" list of potential stars with planets having potential for life. They will be the first targets of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder, a system of two orbiting observatories scheduled for launch by 2020." This includes nearby stars of the right size, age and composition to have Earth-like planets circling them.

"There are 400 billion stars in the galaxy, and obviously we're not going to point the Terrestrial Planet Finder ... at every one of them," said Turnbull. So, on behalf of NASA and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, she narrowed down the list to stars with planets with liquid water orbiting them.

Variable stars, which grow hotter and cooler, probably would not be conducive to life, so they were thrown out, as were stars that are too young or too old. Some are too gassy to have spawned planets like Earth, which contains a lot of metal. Others have massive companions whose gravity could interfere with the steady conditions needed for life to evolve.

Turnbull's Top 10 List includes 51 Pegasus, where in 1995 Swiss astronomers spotted the first planet outside our solar system, a Jupiter-like giant. Others include 18 Sco in the Scorpio constellation, which is very similar to our own sun; epsilon Indi A, a star one-tenth as bright as the sun; and alpha Centauri B, part of the closest solar system to our own. "The truth is when looking at these so-called 'habstars,' habitable solar systems, it is hard to really rank them. I don't know enough about every star to say which one is the absolute best one," Turnbull said.

Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute, set up after U.S. government funding for the program was cut, said the current budget threatens other astronomical programs. Thanks to NASA.

SOURCE: Filer's Files #8 - 22 Feb 2006
http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/publish/article_57.php


SCIENTISTS SEQUENCE COMPLETE GENOME OF WOOLLY MAMMOTH
Sequence is the oldest mitochondrial genome determined to date
University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester
Feb 7, 2006

Some 10,000 years after the last of their kind wandered the North American and Eurasian wilderness, woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) remain a fascinating subject of study for scientists, with implications for understanding the evolutionary origins of present day mammals. Mammoths and elephants belong to one of the most ancient mammalian groups and various recent studies have debated the genetic relationships between them. Now, scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences have weighed in on the issue, with results supported by the oldest mitochondrial genome sequence determined to date from the remains of a mammoth that died approximately 33,000 years ago.

In "Complete mitochondrial genome and phylogeny of Pleistocene mammoth Mammuthus primigenius," published in the February 7 issue of PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science (PLoS), Evgeny I. Rogaev, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at U Mass Medical School and professor of genetics at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, with colleagues from the Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute at U Mass Medical School, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University and the University of California-San Diego, report the sequence of the complete mitochondrial genome (16,842 base pairs) of a woolly mammoth extracted from permafrost-preserved remains from the Pleistocene epoch, a period of time usually dated from between 1.6-1.9 million to about 10,000 years before present. Their study demonstrates that the woolly mammoth and the Asian elephant are a sister species that diverged soon after their common ancestor split from the lineage of the African elephant.

Dr. Rogaev and colleagues used extracted DNA from segments of a woolly mammoth leg with intact muscle and skin tissue that was found in the Enmynveem River valley in northeastern Siberia in 1986 and radio-carbon dated to be between 33,750 and 31,950 years old. They found that the DNA extracted from the well preserved tissue, while degraded, was nevertheless of remarkable quality and quantity. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques that allow for investigators to make a significant number of copies of a gene and thus create a template for sequencing, the scientists used different DNA extracts from the mammoth muscle tissue to reconstruct the complete mitochondrial genome in laboratories in Moscow in 2000, and independently, at U Mass Medical School a few years later.

While DNA is present inside the nucleus of every cell of the body, DNA in the cell's mitochondria offers investigators valuable information on evolutionary development. Distinct from nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA possesses its own genome of about 16,500 base pairs that exists outside of the cell nucleus. And whereas nuclear DNA undergoes the process of recombination, where sections of DNA from the mother and the father are mixed resulting in a more distorted genetic history, mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from the mother, allows for the tracing of a more direct genetic line.

Using the mitochondrial genome they had sequenced, Rogaev and his fellow scientists sought to uncover the evolutionary relationship between the extinct woolly mammoth and the Asian and African savanna elephants. Analysis of the creatures from the study of their biological form and structure have yielded conflicting results; for example, while dental characteristics suggest a closer relationship between the woolly mammoth and the Asian elephant, an examination of the structure of the trunk tip supports a grouping of the woolly mammoth with the African elephant.

To resolve this evolutionary mystery, Rogaev and colleagues sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes of the African and Asian elephants. Their subsequent analysis indicated that the woolly mammoth shared a common ancestor with the Asian elephant more recently than with the African elephant. This conclusion corroborates a paralleled and independent study of a younger mammoth (~12,000 years old) from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany as reported in Nature in December 2005.

Because the modern populations of African and Asian elephants are quite highly diverse genetically, the investigators also sought to determine if the same was true of different woolly mammoths living through the Pleistocene. Interestingly, in comparing the mammoth mitochondrial genome sequence to the longest mitochondrial DNA sequences available from other individual mammoths, the authors of this study found that the mammoths were highly similar, suggesting a relatively low genetic diversity of mammoth maternal lineages in a population spanning vast territory in Northern Siberia. These preliminary results suggest that Siberia was occupied by a relatively homogeneous population of woolly mammoth throughout the late Pleistocene. The scientists hope that further sequencing of mitochondrial genomes of other mammot