July 2006 Archives

They've been invading the forums. Because of what they have done, they are no longer usable. I don't like this, but I will be taking them down, and removing them. Hopefully I will find a suitable replacement soon. Everything else on the site will remain.

Image Above: This illustration shows the thick dust torus that astronomers believe surrounds supermassive black holes and their accretion discs. When the torus is seen edge-on’ as in this case, much of the light emitted by the accretion disc is blocked. However, the sharp X-ray and gamma-ray eyes of INTEGRAL can peer through the thick dust and locate "hidden" black holes. INTEGRAL's survey of the local universe searched for hidden black holes but found few, which implies these kinds of black holes are largely in the more distant (earlier) universe.

The observation implies that if these hidden black holes exist---and most scientists are convinced they do---they must be from the more distant, earlier universe, a concept that has interesting implications for galaxy evolution.

This work constitutes the first census of the highest-energy part of the X-ray sky, where the most dust-enshrouded black holes are thought to shine. A team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., conducted the census, comprised of nearly two years of continuous data from the European Space Agency's International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, or INTEGRAL, satellite.

"Naturally it is difficult to find something we know is hiding well and which has eluded detection so far," said Volker Beckmann of Goddard and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, lead author on a report in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal. "INTEGRAL is a telescope that should see nearby hidden black holes, but we have come up short."

The X-ray sky is thousands to millions of times more energetic than the visible sky familiar to our eyes. Much of the X-ray activity is from black holes violently sucking in gas from their surroundings.

By Mike Swain

THE first men to walk on the Moon reported seeing a UFO, a new TV documentary reveals.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon's surface after Neil Armstrong, says space agency bosses covered up their sighting.

And the Apollo 11 astronauts were also careful not to talk about it openly.

He said: "There was something out there, close enough to be observed, and what could it be?

"Now, obviously the three of us weren't going to blurt out, 'Hey, Houston, we've got something moving alongside of us and we don't know what it is, you know?

"Can you tell us what it is?'

"We weren't about to do that, because we knew that that those transmissions would be heard by all sorts of people and somebody might have demanded we turn back because of aliens or whatever the reason is."

The documentary, tonight on Five, also reveals that the astronauts had to repair the lunar module with a ballpoint pen after the historic landing in July 1969.

In the cramped conditions, someone's bulky spacesuit had snapped off a circuit breaker essential for starting up the engine.

To this day, Aldrin treasures the everyday object that saved their lives.

He said: "I used a pen, one of several that we had on board that didn't have metal on the end, and we used that to push the circuit breaker in."

The programme also draws on classified documents made public for the first time.

They don't have to be just ghost stories. I enjoy reading them, other people enjoy reading them, and it's fun to share stories back and forth.

Here is how it's works. You send me your story. I will read it, and then most likely post it here on the main page, and it'll also be in the archives. People will be able to leave comments on each story. I will assume by default that you want to be anonymous. Otherwise simply tell me along with your story that you want your name, website and such shared.

So I'll start it off, with one of mine. When I was between ten or twelve, I saw a ghost in my utility room. It was summertime and the middle of the night. I had gone into the kitchen to get some ice tea. Once I had my drink I started walking back to my room, I looked into the utility room for whatever reason. Right there in front of the back door, was a women wearing a dress that looked like something from the early part of the 1900s. She was transparent, and just staring out the door. I was freaked out, so I went into my room and closed the door.

New radar images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft revealed geological features similar to Earth on Xanadu, an Australia-sized, bright region on Saturn's moon Titan.

These radar images, from a strip more than 4,500 kilometers (2,796 miles) long, show Xanadu is surrounded by darker terrain, reminiscent of a free-standing landmass. At the region's western edge, dark sand dunes give way to land cut by river networks, hills and valleys. These narrow river networks flow onto darker areas, which may be lakes. A crater formed by the impact of an asteroid or by water volcanism is also visible. More channels snake through the eastern part of Xanadu, ending on a dark plain where dunes, abundant elsewhere, seem absent. Appalachian-sized mountains crisscross the region.

Image Below: Radar movie of Titan, showing a variety of geologic features, including impact craters, wind-blown deposits, channels and cryovolcanic features. Image credit: NASA/JPL
+ Go to movie

While I was looking around Area 51 with Google maps, I found a strange thing on it.

Is that a water tower, or maybe a satellite dish? It would be fun to say it was a flying saucer. Yet I can't imagine they would just have one floating around for everyone to see.

Ok here is another picture, close by, with a dish in it. Very similar shadows.

Here are some black test planes, and here are some of the black helicopters, that everyone sees? I assume these are the Janet Airline planes. And are these white U2 spy planes?

Image above: STS-121 crew inspects tiles on Space Shuttle Discovery after their mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA/KSC

The six-member crew of STS-121 has left Discovery. The astronauts took their first steps out of the orbiter at Kennedy Space Center to move into the Crew Hatch Access Vehicle, where they were given a brief medical exam to ensure they're healthy. After receiving a clean bill of health by doctors, Commander Steve Lindsey and his crew took a walk around Discovery to examine the orbiter. The seventh crew member, Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency, remained at the International Space Station.

Image above: Astronauts Stephanie Wilson, STS-121 mission specialist, and Mark Kelly, pilot, float on the middeck of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Photo Credit: NASA

The Mission Control Center told the STS-121 crew this morning that engineers have cleared Space Shuttle Discovery for landing after completing a review of post-docking inspection data.

The crew members received the word while eating lunch. They are preparing today for landing by stowing items, testing engines and checking out shuttle systems.

The astronauts took a break from their work to talk to reporters with CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and the Fox News Channel at 12:03 p.m. EDT.

Landing is set for 9:14 a.m. EDT Monday at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The crew is scheduled to fire the shuttle’s engines at 8:07 a.m. to begin Discovery’s descent to Florida.

A second landing opportunity in Florida also is available for Monday. The crew would fire the engines at 9:43 a.m. for a landing at 10:50 a.m. Weather forecasts call for a chance of showers at the landing site. Flight controllers do not plan to consider any landing site other than Florida on Monday.

Discovery delivered supplies, equipment and a new Expedition 13 crew member to the International Space Station. During three spacewalks, the crew performed maintenance on the station’s mobile transporter and tested orbiter heat shield repair techniques.

Both the Alien Name Generator, and the Indian Name Generator, have been updated. Now they have even more possible combinations of strangeness.

This image of the Earth and moon in a single frame, the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft, was recorded on Sept. 18, 1977, by Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as viewed by Voyager.

In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic. Voyager 1 was directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude) when the picture was taken.

The photo was made from three images taken through color filters, then processed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Because the Earth is many times brighter than the moon, the moon was artificially brightened so that both bodies would show clearly in the prints.

Image credit: NASA

The two larger, light-colored rocks seen by the Spirit rover at "Low Ridge" have unusual morphologies and miniature thermal emission spectrometer signatures that resemble those of a rock explored by Spirit's twin, Opportunity. Opportunity's analyses of the rock at the Meridiani site revealed it to be an iron meteorite.

It seems silly to even have to post this. Better safe than sorry though. Please keep in mind, that someone owns most haunted places. They probably don't want you trespassing on their property. Get permission first. I don't want anyone getting hurt or arrested, trying to find a ghost.

That said though, I highly doubt people seriously investigating hauntings, are going around vandalizing places. That would be a very stupid career move. Most are very respectful people. More so than most naysayers any day.

Image above: Mike Fossum, attached to the end of the space station robotic arm, moves into position to replace the reel assembly of the mobile transporter. Photo credit: NASA TV

From our forums, this report came in last night.

I'm here in Spring Texas. Appoximately 900 PM I saw a green globe shoot down verticly across the east sky. A neighbor that was there but ndid not see it said it was probably fireworks. I gat a good 3 second look at it and it was aboove the haze and was not fire works or an airplane.
Anybody else see it.
I'm sure it is something that can be explained.

Feel free to discuss further at this link.

Map of Saturn's moon Titan

This map of Saturn's moon Titan shows the location mapped with the Cassini radar mapper using its synthetic aperture radar imaging mode on April 30, 2006.

The global map shows the areas mapped so far by radar. The top radar swath was mapped during a flyby on Oct. 26, 2004. The middle swath was taken during the Feb. 15, 2006, flyby.

Labels represent the approximate longitude. The radar swaths are superimposed on a false-color image made from observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Cassini's radar has revealed a variety of geologic features, including impact craters, wind-blown deposits, channels and cryovolcanic features.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL/HST

I saw the stealth planes again. Yesterday morning I saw them twice, and heard them probably four or five more times. I could see them well enough to see that they were the F-117A, that triangle like shape, and the two tail wings. They were high enough up, that a dime in an outstretched arm would cover it. The sound from it was way behind where it was.

I wish I had my camera with me, at the time. I'm curious as to what they are doing, in this area. I wonder if they are test flights out of the white sands area, to get the pilots used to desert flying. If anyone knows, or has an opinion about it, please leave a comment.

http://johorhominid.org/home/

The Peninsular Malaysia houses some of the world's oldest rainforests. Older than either the Amazon or the Congo, some remained undisturbed for 130 million years. Housing the chirping drongos, hornbills and argus pheasant; the forest is also home to butterflies and fruit piercing moths and of course the Nannophya Pygmea, the smallest dragon fly in the world. Within this context, the remnants of our prehistoric human ancestors were found alive and kicking.

We shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees and gorillas as recently as four to seven million years ago. They have about 95 to 99 percent of their DNA similar with humans. It has been proposed that troglodytes and paniscus belong with sapiens in the genus Homo, rather than in Pan. Given this context, we theorized that the Johor hominid is even closer related to humans compared with Pan. They walk upright, their facial morphology resembles sapiens and their hand structure is very similar to human which is an indication for tool manipulation. Let us be ready to welcome the new family member.

Very strange news.

First let me state. That what I am about to type, is what I was told by a trusted individual. I'm doing some research to validate this information. So in the mean time, I'm passing it on as what I heard. Not as proven facts.

Ok, so it goes that there is no paperwork to prove that Gary McKinnon is sought after by the US government. And I also gathered from this same conversation, that the UK had no public paperwork, of any kind of his case.

Can this really be true? So much media publicity, yet no kind of proof at all that he did it?

If you are reading this, please do me a favor. Ask around, and get back to me with any links, or evidence, of his case being real. I'll post that too. In the mean time, I'll post anymore I find out on this.

Update: Any Records below

United States v. Gary McKinnon Nov 2002 (pdf)

Date: 10.12.1962

Title: Proposed Ames M2-F1, M1-L half-cone, and Langley lenticular bodies.

Description: Dale Reed, who inaugurated the lifting-body flight research at NASA's Flight Research Center (later, Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA), originally proposed that three wooden outer shells be built. These would then be attached to the single internal steel structure. The three shapes were (viewer's left to right) the M2-F1, the M1-L, and a lenticular shape. Milt Thompson, who supported Reed's advocacy for a lifting-body research project, recommended that only the M2-F1 shell be built, believing that the M1-L shape was "too radical," while the lenticular one was "too exotic." Although the lenticular shape was often likened to that of a flying saucer, Reed's wife Donna called it the "powder puff." The wingless, lifting body aircraft design was initially conceived as a means of landing an aircraft horizontally after atmospheric reentry. The absence of wings would make the extreme heat of re-entry less damaging to the vehicle. In 1962, Dryden management approved a program to build a lightweight, unpowered lifting body as a prototype to flight test the wingless concept.

By Anél Powell, Cape Times

Thanks to Hollywood and the X-Files, most people know something about unidentified flying objects.

But few people would know how, or where, to report a sighting.
Cristo Louw, a "ufologist" from Bellville, discussed this and other issues about extra-terrestrials at a UFO conference, held at the University of Cape Town on Saturday.

About 50 people who claim to have had close encounters with aliens and mysterious objects attended the "Unbind your mind" conference, held to mark World UFO Day, celebrated internationally on Sunday.

For more..

Image above: Discovery lifts off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA

At an evening press conference Tuesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Space Shuttle Program Wayne Hale reported that the external tank's performance was greatly improved during the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery at 2:38 p.m. EDT.

"I have a good report," Hale said. "The tank performed very, very well indeed."

Based on early analysis of photographs taken during ascent, just a few items have been identified for further study. Some involve debris particles shed by the massive orange tank, which supplies liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to the orbiter's three main engines during the climb to orbit. The particles observed are small, and all occur after the time frame -- up to two minutes, 15 seconds into ascent -- that engineers consider to be the most aerodynamically sensitive time for the shuttle.

About fifteen minutes into the flight, astronauts on board Discovery filmed a large piece of ice tumbling away from the orbiter. The ice, which forms on the exterior of the main engines, has been observed on previous flights and is not considered an issue.

"We don't see any concern for the orbiter," Hale reported, and added that in the coming days, the STS-121 crew will take a closer look at Discovery using the orbiter boom sensor system as well a slow back flip that will allow further photography of the orbiter from the International Space Station.

Yes, I did go back. There was not much to see. They were closing up shop in the mid afternoon.

Click either picture to be taken to the gallery area, for the photos I took.

In the wrong place at the wrong time, a bird is silhouetted against the clear blue Florida sky (upper left) as it falls away from Space Shuttle Discovery after hitting the external tank during liftoff of mission STS-114 in July 2005. NASA hopes an avian radar detection system will help avoid such strikes in the future.

Image credit: NASA