Who Will Be First: SpaceX or JPL?

https://ift.tt/38wuIYW

MARCH 5, 2020 – Today, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, a NASA Associate Administrator, announced that the Mars 2020 rover will be named Perseverance.  NASA’s next Mars rover won’t just explore the Red Planet; it will be the “first leg of the first round-trip mission” to return Martian soil samples to Earth. Known as the Mars 2020 mission, the upcoming rover will hunt for signs of habitable environments on Mars while searching for signs of past microbial life. According to Space.com, this robotic traveler will also cache a series of samples that can be returned to Earth with a future mission.  Based upon the television announcement today, the return mission will be in about 10 years, making that 2030.
 
How does that work?  A future mission around 2029 would deliver a return rocket to the surface of Mars where a soil sample will have been collected by this Mars rover ( that is, if we can interpret the above literally).  According to the JPL announcement, the return mission will be executed using that rocket launched from Mars with the samples of Martian soil. 
 
Will that mission offer a real payout in terms of discovering microbial life?  Maybe not.  Elon Musk and SpaceX plan to land a manned mission on Mars around 2024.  That means that there will be a human SpaceX astronaut awaiting the arrival of the robotic JPL mission in 2030 (!).  Somehow, I’d say that just won’t happen the way JPL anticipates.  Of course, if the SpaceX mission fails, then the Mars 2030 mission will probably be a successful backup.  We’ll all just have to wait and see.

READ MORE

from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/38v38LJ
via IFTTT

Dramatic Japanese USO Rescue?

https://ift.tt/3cCKCnW

Case 106561: In the Sea of Japan, off the coast from Tokyo, a UFO was seen by two witnesses who were on night watch (between 12 midnight to 4 AM) aboard a (presumably) US Air Force, ocean-going ship. 1  The UFO (see drawing below) was 40 to 50 feet in diameter and had a height of approximately 20 feet.  There were at least five windows that were emitting a soft-white or smoke-colored glowing light.  It had a coloration of “silver-white-blue.”  According to the report made to MUFON, the UFO came “really close to the ship.“  The UFO then became a USO (Unidentified Submersible Object) entering the ocean at an unspecified speed (!). 2
 
Then, a second UFO is reported to have appeared and followed the USO into the ocean.  After an unspecified period of time, both UFOs emerged from the ocean.  The first UFO was somehow attached to or held by a “magnetic connection” to the second UFO.  According to the report, one (or both) of the objects emitted a “beam” (tractor beam?).   Both then departed in a straight flight path toward the Moon.
 
This report was apparently made by a third party.
READ MORE

from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/32YMySY
via IFTTT

If We Find Life on Europa or Enceladus, It Will Probably Be a “2nd Genesis”

https://ift.tt/2GyNqngPicture

By Mike Wall

San Francisco – It would be very hard for microbes to get all the way from Earth or Mars out to the ocean moons, a new study suggests. If there are creatures swimming in the buried oceans of the outer solar system, they’re probably not related to us, new research suggests.
Some scientists believe that life has hopped from world to world around the solar system, aboard chunks of rock blasted into space by comet or asteroid impacts. Indeed, there’s a school of thought that the life teeming here on Earth is actually native to Mars, which likely boasted habitable conditions earlier than our own planet did. (This rock-riding idea is known as “lithopanspermia,” a subset of the broader panspermia notion, which envisions spread by whatever means, either natural or guided by an intelligent hand.)

But what are the odds that such putative pioneers could colonize the habitable real estate much farther out — specifically, the Jupiter moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus, both of which harbor big oceans of salty liquid water beneath their ice shells?

READ MORE


from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/2RAtx5q
via IFTTT

Naval officers claim “Unknown Individuals” erased evidence

https://ift.tt/2v0DFLQPicture

As reported in the February 2018 issue of The MUFON Journal, the USS Princeton, a guided missile cruiser sailing about 100 miles from San Diego detected unusual radar signals from an object in the region.  The signals were erratic and did not correspond to any known aircraft.  Two F/A-18s from the USS Nimitz were launched to intercept the object.  Commander David Fravor, a 24-year veteran in the U.S. Navy pursued to the object and took video images of what he described as a “Tic Tac”-shaped object, about 40 feet in length.  The “Tic Tac” is shown in the center of the image on the left.

Recently, five Navy veterans were interviewed by Popular Mechanics magazine about their experiences following the engagement of Commander Fravor with the object.  Unusual radar signals came from the object as it would immediately alter its altitude, sometimes at 80,000 feet and at other times at 30,000 feet.  The UFO gave off a phosphorescent glow at night and would “dart around in various directions,” said Gary Voorhis, who witnessed the object through binoculars aboard the USS Princeton


from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/30CSOie
via IFTTT

Alien Life Discovered on Mars?

https://ift.tt/2RfDa8dPicture

Was there and could there still be life on Mars?  After examining a series of NASA Rover photographic images, an Ohio professor claims that there is likely evidence of both insect and reptilian life still exists on Mars.  Professor R. William Romoser, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of arbovirology (the study of viruses transmitted by arthropods).  Professor Romoser, in a formal statement at the University of Ohio, says that there is an insect form of life now living on Mars.  The photograph to the left was taken by a Mars Rover.  To the left of the Rover’s track, Professor Romoser claims is an insect-like, creature (see insert).
 
READ MORE

from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/2QRjoAN
via IFTTT

Arizona: Multi-Generational Missing Time

https://ift.tt/36HxJFr

​Arizona MUFON Field Investigators: Shane Hurd and Tara Diulus

Picture

Case 103775: One of the most bizarre missing time episodes comes from Arizona in 1995 . . . and thereafter.  Here are the words of the primary witness, the mother of a 14-year old daughter:
 
“In Tucson, my daughter and I were sitting in the living room one night in the 1990s when she grabbed her chest and started screaming.  I rushed her to the [emergency room] where they said her muscles had been dislodged from her chest which was like a football injury when a player gets their chest wall slammed, but I told them we were watching TV, and they said it was impossible to happen by watching TV.  I talked to another mother there, and the exact thing happened to her 14-year old daughter while watching TV.
 
“[We] left [the hospital] at midnight, exactly, and are only three minutes from the hospital.  I was driving on the overpass, I vaguely remember a blinding light engulfing my car and my daughter screaming, when suddenly my car was under the overpass facing the wrong direction, engine idling and the car clock flashing 1:30 AM.  1.5 hours of lost time.  I found my bearings and drove back up the overpass, and there was a UFO about 7 feet above my hood.  It was round, about 8 feet wide, made no noise, had red, blue and white lights spinning on the bottom of it.  I was in awe driving slowly, and it followed me home.  My daughter was terrified and screaming, ‘Go! Go! Go!’  We get to the house and my son and cousins are there and awake, and they see it hovering over the trees behind my house for over an hour.  My car had electrical problems. My cousin said someone had been on the roof trying to get in, and she dreamed it was tall, blonde aliens. 

READ MORE


from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/2uCH83b
via IFTTT

The Fort Dix/McGuire AFB Incident (New Jersey)

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Case 102608: A USAF medic and his sergeant were assigned to patrol between Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, during nighttime, training operations.  The primary witness then “saw the crafts flying around” and reported it to his sergeant who accompanied him in their ambulance.  Scared, the sergeant directed him to not stop and continue driving, but the witness pulled over and stopped.  Then, he “heard a couple of shots”. . .  “Then I saw the craft and at the same time heard, then saw military vehicles, along with civilian police cars, which weren’t supposed to be on post.  I was now on the fence between bases and observed an entity crossing the fence, maybe through some opening, [I’m] not sure.  All I know was that now we were face to face.”  According to the witness’s statement, he felt the entity’s anxiety, apparently through mental telepathy.  “It impressed [on me] the urgency it had to return with others [who] were [being chased by military personnel] trying to harm it.” . . .  “I could almost see everything that was going on through its thoughts.”  During this period of time, there was a “tremendous commotion going on in McGuire AFB, with MP [military police] vehicles driving erratically fast, up and down the airfield too.”

READ MORE

from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/36yU1ZM
via IFTTT

U.S. Space Command is Official

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

“At the direction of the President of the United States, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper established U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) today as the eleventh Unified Combatant Command. Gen. John W. Raymond is its Senate confirmed commander.
“To ensure the protection of America’s interests in space we must apply the necessary focus, energy, and resources to the task – and that is exactly what Space Command will do,” said Secretary Esper. “Gen. Raymond is acutely aware of the vital role that space plays in U.S. national security and our way of life and is an ideal choice to lead this new command.”

READ MORE

from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/2RWDJ8Y
via IFTTT

Oval-shaped Object over British Naval Base

https://ift.tt/36DYwSO

Case 104558: A resident of Portsmouth, UK, the witness was on his balcony overlooking greater Portsmouth, a major British naval base in the southern England.  At first, he noticed an object’s odd movement and assumed it was a small, civilian drone.  The witness took four photographs as it hovered motionless at an uncertain distance.  Suddenly, as he was taking his fifth photo, it moved far too fast for a drone of any kind and just disappeared from sight.
 
Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Portsmouth is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy. Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is located on the eastern shore of Portsmouth Harbor, north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. 

READ MORE

from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/35rbm6B
via IFTTT

Ohio witness sees shiny triangular object

https://ift.tt/32jPYi8Picture

An Ohio witness in Hilliard reported watching a triangular object with bright lights and a dark aura around it in the sky, according to testimony in Case 102793.

The witness was out walking her dog on August 2, 2019, at 8:30 a.m.

“I was in a field walking my dog when I saw a bright light coming low from the north.  I couldn’t hear any sound coming from what I thought was a plane.  I started to run thinking a plane was about to crash.  I stopped when I saw it kept the same altitude.  It flew right above me and it was a triangular shape, about the length of a helicopter.  Too big to be a drone.

READ MORE


from MUFON – UFO News https://ift.tt/2Bt8Fo1
via IFTTT