Scientists "Solve" Mystery of Death Valley's Moving Rocks

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By Adelle Nazarian 

kb5wia.blogspot.com

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, have solved the mystery-phenomenon of Death Valley's moving rocks, which have for years moved across the desert on their own.

Theories which have been floating around since the 1940s surrounding the movement of the rocks, which zig-zag across California's Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, have finally been proven with the formal discovery that the rocks are propelled forward by winds "on sunny, clear days, following nights of sub-freezing temperatures." That according to a report which was published by researchers, and cousins, Richard Norris and James Norris in the online scientific journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

The pair concluded that on rare occasions when the desert would receive overnight rains, the cold temperatures – which are common during the winter months – would freeze the moisture, creating ice sheets. Those ice sheets would then be melted by the rising desert sun, resulting in a muddy and slippery surface on the flat and ordinarily hard ground. The slippery surface moisture in conjunction with light winds would then propel the rocks forward.

"We were sitting on a mountainside and admiring the view when a light wind kicked up and the ice started cracking. Suddenly, the whole process unfolded before our eyes," said Richard Norris to the Los Angeles Times.

In December of last year, the cousins Norris compiled a list of 60 rocks which they noticed had moved across the Death Valley's playa surface, which used to be a lake bed. Following that, and with permission from the National Park Service, they reportedly installed a weather station along with 15 "GPS stones" which were engineered to record movement and velocity, notes the AP.

According to their report, the rocks would move at an average of 15 feet per minute.

The "GPS stones" were placed in the same area of the playa where the mysterious moving rocks would begin their journey after they would come tumbling down from the cliffs. Upon their return to the site at the end of last year, the Norris's noticed "fresh rock trails near shards of thin ice stacked up along the shoreline." That is when they witnessed first-hand the phenomenon unfold before their eyes.

¿Qué pasó con la ciudad sumergida de Cuba?

lagranepoca.com

Por April Holloway - www.ancient-origins.net

Cuba visto desde el espacio en el mapa de América del Norte. (Shutterstock*). La flecha apunta a la costa oeste de Cuba, donde en 2001 descubrieron estructuras de piedra bajo el agua, por Pauline Zalitzki y Paul Weinzweig. (Captura de pantalla/The Cosmos News/Youtube)

El descubrimiento se hizo en 2001, cuando Pauline Zalitzki, ingeniera naval, y su esposo Paul Weinzweig, propietarios de una empresa canadiense llamada Advanced Digital Communications (ADC)

Hace poco más de una década, un equipo de exploradores estuvo trabajando en una misión de exploración y estudio en la costa occidental de Cuba. De ponto su equipo de sonar detectó una desconcertante serie de estructuras de piedra, situadas a unos 650 metros bajo la superficie.

Las estructuras parecían completamente similares a un árido ‘desierto’ en el fondo oceánico, y las piedras simétricamente organizadas parecen ser restos de algún desarrollo urbano. De pronto se produjo una ráfaga de medios en sitios de noticias deportivos con títulos como ‘Descubrimiento de la Atlántida en Cuba’ y, “Fue encontrada la ciudad perdida del Caribe”.

De todos modos, el hallazgo también atrajo la atención del gobierno, del Museo Nacional, y de National Geographic; todos hicieron promesas para investigar las extrañas imágenes del sonar. Ahora, diez años más tarde, la historia se perdió en la oscuridad. ¿Qué pasó con las ‘ruinas’ hundidas de Cuba? ¿Fueron alguna vez plenamente investigadas?, y ¿por qué los medios de comunicación se quedaron en silencio ante este inusual descubrimiento?

El descubrimiento se hizo en 2001, cuando Pauline Zalitzki, ingeniera naval, y su esposo Paul Weinzweig, propietarios de una empresa canadiense llamada Advanced Digital Communications (ADC), trabajaban en una misión de estudio en conjunto con el gobierno cubano frente a la punta de la Península Guanahacabibes en la provincia de Pinar del Río en Cuba.

ADC fue una de las cuatro empresas que trabajaron en conjunto para una empresa del gobierno del presidente Fidel Castro con el fin de explorar aguas cubanas que contienen cientos de barcos cargados con tesoros de la época colonial española. El grupo usaba un equipo de sonar avanzado para escanear un área de 2 kilómetros cuadrados de fondo marino, cuando se dieron cuenta de una serie de estructuras de piedra simétricas y geométricas, similares al de un complejo urbano.

Al estudiar las imágenes de sonar, Zalitzki observó lo que parecían ser formaciones inusuales de bloques lisos, crestas, y formas geométricas. Algunos de los bloques parecían estar construidos con formas piramidales, otros eran circulares.

En julio de 2001, volvieron al sitio con el geólogo Manuel Iturralde, principal investigador del Museo de Historia Natural de Cuba; esta vez estuvieron equipados con un vehículo operado a control remoto para examinar y filmar las estructuras.

Las imágenes revelaron grandes bloques labrados en piedra semejantes al granito, que miden cerca de 8 a 10 pies (2,44 m a 3,05 m). Algunos bloques deliberadamente parecían estar apilados uno encima de otro, otros parecían aislados del resto. Zalitzki dijo que las imágenes parecen reflejar ruinas de una ciudad sumergida, pero era absurdo sacar conclusiones sin tener más pruebas.

“Se trata de estructuras muy peculiares, y que han captado nuestra imaginación” dijo Iturralde, que ha estudiado innumerables formaciones submarinas. “Pero si a ésta tuviera que explicarla geológicamente, me sería un problema difícil”.

Estimando que si hubiera tomado 50.000 años para el hundimiento de este tipo de estructuras, a la profundidad que dicen encontrarse, Iturralde añadió, “hace 50.000 años no había la capacidad arquitectónica para construir edificios complejos en ninguna de las culturas que conocemos”. Un especialista en arqueología subacuática de la Universidad Estatal de Florida añadió: “Sería genial si estuvieran en lo cierto, pero no sería verídico en lo que concierne a ver eso en el Nuevo Mundo. Para ese periodo, las estructuras están fuera del tiempo y de lugar”.

En la tormenta mediática que siguió al anuncio del descubrimiento, los sitios de noticias se apresuraron en establecer paralelismos con la legendaria ciudad perdida de la Atlántida. Sin embargo, Zelitsky y Weinzweig, no estuvieron dispuestos hacer este tipo de comparaciones. La historia es un mito, dijo Zelitsky. “Lo que hemos encontrado son restos más probables de una cultura local”, que una vez fue el “puente de tierra” de 100 millas que unió a la península de Yucatán de México con Cuba.

Iturralde agregó que hay leyendas locales de nativos mayas y yucatecos que hablan de una isla habitada por sus ancestros que desapareció bajo las olas. Sin embargo, Iturralde no descarta la posibilidad de que las formaciones rocosas son simplemente el maravilloso resultado de la madre naturaleza. “La naturaleza es capaz de crear estructuras realmente inimaginables”, dijo él.

A pesar de los cientos de medios de comunicación que informan sobre ciudades sumergidas con civilizaciones avanzadas, la ciudad perdida de la Atlántida, y ruinas sumergidas, hay quienes no están tan dispuestos aceptar este punto de vista.

Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, del sitio web Bad Archaeology (Mala Arqueología), afirmó que la profundidad de los supuestos restos es el mayor problema para los defensores de la ciudad hundida. Durante el Pleistoceno, se caracterizó por una serie de edades de hielo, los niveles del mar se redujeron significativamente, pero la máxima caída fue de alrededor de 100 metros.

“En ningún momento durante la edad de hielo habría estado sobre el nivel del mar, a menos que, por supuesto, los terrenos en los que se destacan se hubieran hundido”. Esta es la afirmación hecha por Atlantis, según el relato de Platón, que fue destruido “por terremotos e inundaciones violentas”.

Sin embargo, si tomamos la palabra de Platón, como deberíamos, si asumimos a Atlantis haber sido un lugar histórico, la violencia de su hundimiento hace improbable que una ciudad entera podría haber sobrevivido el hundimiento a más de 600 metros en el abismo”, escribe Fitzpatrick-Matthews.

Si asumimos que él tiene razón, y que estas estructuras de piedra no reflejan una ciudad antigua sumergida, sino que simplemente son productos de la naturaleza, entonces seguramente los geólogos y otros científicos estarían apresurados para saltar en el hallazgo e investigar cuál es el evento extravagante de la naturaleza que causó tan peculiares formaciones.

Extrañamente, sin embargo, no han existido reportes de investigaciones, ni han tenido comunicados de agencias de noticias que se apartaron con un silencio sepulcral sobre el asunto. ¿Qué pasó con todas las promesas del gobierno, Museo Nacional, National Geographic, y otros científicos para llevar a cabo nuevas investigaciones?

El despido rápido de la historia ha llevado a algunos a preguntarse si se ha producido una supresión de información sobre el hallazgo. Sin embargo, Fitzpatrick-Matthews afirma que la historia simplemente quedó congelada y finalmente los expertos no estuvieron convencidos que Zelitsky realmente había descubierto una ciudad sumergida.

Theories Fly Over Giant Black Hole in Siberia

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Hitler viajó por Sudamérica con el apellido Kirchner - Investigador

ABC.es

www.taringa.net

Los rumores en el sur de Argentina siempre fueron constantes y hasta quedaron reflejados en un libro del periodista Abel Basti. Éste lo cuenta todo en «Tras los pasos de Hitler», donde asegura que el Führer no se suicidó sino que huyo a la Patagonia Argentina y a Paraguay donde utilizó, entre otros nombres, el apellido Kirchner para mezclarse con la población.

Según Basti se trata de una investigación seria de veinte años que empezó por el cúmulo de habladurías de la gente. «Al principio no lo creía porque tenía metida en la cabeza la verdad oficial», pero «en la medida en que me movía en círculos alemanes del sur y de otras partes del país, comencé a considerar otra posibilidad», observa sobre la presunta estancia de Hitler en Argentina. Finalmente, reconoce el autor del libro, «terminé creyéndolo cuando empecé a entrevistar a testigos que habían estado con Hitler en Argentina», asegura en declaraciones a la agencia Efe.

De acuerdo a esos testimonio, Hitler se movía con total libertad por Bariloche y hasta visitó otros países de Sudamérica como Paraguay, Brasil y Colombia. En aquellas travesías se manejaba con diferentes identidades pero una de ellas cobra importancia en estas fechas: Kurt Bruno Kirchner. Bajo ese nombre viajaría a Asunción tras el derrocamiento del general Juan Domingo Perón en 1955, máximo valedor del «exilio» de los jerarcas nazis en Argentina.

Entre los testimos recogidos por el periodista argentino figura el de Eloísa Luján, una de las «catadoras» de la comida que -asegura- le servía a Hitler para garantizar que los alimentos no estaban envenenados. También el de Ángela Soriani, la sobrina de la cocinera del Führer, Carmen Torrentegui.

«Tras los pasos de Hitler», recoge muchos testimonios per hay uno, de un exmilitar brasileño hijo de un jerarca nazi, que asegura que el Führer falleció el 5 de febrero de 1971 y está sepultado en una cripta en un antiguo búnker subterráneo nazi en Paraguay. Verdadero o falso, nada está demostrado.

Meteorite strike may have caused loud boom in Quebec, Ontario

cbc

A meteorite strike may have been seen and heard on Montreal's West Island, the Vaudreuil region and the Ottawa area on Tuesday night, according to multiple reports.

Social media in parts of Quebec and Ontario were buzzing with reports of a loud boom on Tuesday at about 8 p.m. E.T.

Quebec provincial police said they received several calls about the incident, and had no reports of explosions or fires.

Andrew Fazekas, a spokesman for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, felt the tremor from his home.

He told CBC it possibly could have been a shock wave caused by a meteorite entering the atmosphere. Experts will analyze the data Wednesday, to confirm whether it was a sonic boom.

No reports of damage

Fazekas speculates that a meteor, the size of a sofa to a compact car, may have fragmented with some bits making it to the ground.

He says on his website that scientists will now comb through the reports along with any photo and video evidence in order to triangulate the trajectory of the possible meteorite.

Although the fall of a meteor can often be detected by seismographs, Earthquake Canada says it has not registered any such event.

Fazekas added this appears to be a minor event since there are no reports of damage.

18-Foot-Long Sea Creature Found Off CA Coast

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By CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES
It took more than 15 people to help haul the catch of a lifetime out of the Pacific -- the silvery carcass of an 18-foot-long, serpent-like oarfish.

Marine science instructor Jasmine Santana of the Catalina Island Marine Institute was snorkeling off the Southern California coast when she spotted the giant sea creature with eyes the size of half dollars on Sunday.

Staffers at the institute are calling it the discovery of a lifetime.

Because oarfish dive more than 3,000 feet deep, sightings of the creatures are rare and they are largely unstudied, according to CIMI.

The obscure fish apparently died of natural causes. Tissue samples and video footage were sent to be studied by biologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

UFO? Astro ghost? Find out what that spooky space cloud really was

ZL OI

НЛО октябрь 10.2013 

NBC News.com

Alan Boyle, Science Editor/

Luca Parmitano / ESA via Twitter

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano captured this picture of a spooky space cloud on Thursday, and tweeted it out as http://pic.twitter.com/PshgE1W7CJ ... Parmitano knew right away what it was. "An immense cloud forms outside the atmosphere after the disintegration" of a missile stage, he wrote.

UFO reports from Russia and spooky pictures from the International Space Station have been traced to the same phenomenon: a Russian missile launch that took place last Thursday.

One of the spookiest things about the UFO sightings is that they were predicted in advance.

"Russia just test-fired a Topol ICBM from the Kapustin Yar range on the lower Volga, to the Shary Shagan impact zone in Kazakhstan," NBC News space analyst James Oberg reported Thursday on the Above Top Secret forum. "In the past, such launches have been seen over a wide area, as far away as Israel and Syria, and reported as UFOs. ... If the weather was clear, we might expect some spectacular videos to show up on YouTube and RUTube."

Sure enough, UFO sightings streamed in from Russia, accompanied by amazing videos of cometlike flare-ups.

A UFO ("NLO") video from Yekaterinburg shows the glow from a missile test launch, flaring up in the sky and then dissipating into a briefly shining cloud.

But Oberg didn't predict that the blast would produce some eerie pictures from the space station as well: NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano both snapped pictures of a hazy space cloud with Earth's rim in the background. Parmitano even got a picture of the trail left behind by the Topol missile's ascent.

Luca Parmitano / ESA via Twitter

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's picture from the International Space Station shows the trail left behind by a Russian missile launch. "A missile launch seen from space: an unexpected surprise!" Parmitano wrote. The picture was distributed via Twitter as http://pic.twitter.com/mbWI209ELv

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait has a bit of fun with the sighting, imagining it as a deleted scene from "Gravity." And it does make you think: The spooky, jellyfish-shaped cloud of gas from the Topol missile looks mighty close.

"The missile plume is not symmetric or evenly distributed," Oberg acknowledged in an email. "It seems to have some shape, even though it is composed of gas particles moving at perhaps 10,000 feet per second. They are visible because they are glowing hot, but also because they are in sunlight."

The shape reflects how the hot exhaust expanded as it left the rocket, with "four circumferential notches that must be a consequence of plume expansion from four nozzles, or of four steering vanes," Oberg said.

The rocket blast put on a good show for the shooters on the space station, but Oberg said the launch posed no hazard to the astronauts. "This wasn't anywhere near a 'Gravity' Hollywood space debris cascade-triggering possibility," he said. "Topol's altitude, even while thrusting, was far higher than the ISS's, but in terms of accidental collision, [the phrase] 'you can't get there from here' applies. It never went fast enough to catch up."

Some questions remain, however: What were the space station's three Russian cosmonauts doing while the Topol was being launched? Was the launch deliberately timed so they could observe the performance of the missile and its test warhead? Let the conspiracy theories begin ...

Mistery as jet dented at 26,000 feet

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Mysterious stone structure found beneath Sea of Galilee

science.nbcnews

Shmuel Marco

The circular structure was first detected in a sonar survey of part of the sea in the summer of 2003.

By Owen JarusLiveScience

A giant "monumental" stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.

The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons, the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.

Rising nearly 32 feet (10 meters) high, it has a diameter of about 230 feet (70 meters). To put that in perspective, the outer stone circle of Stonehenge has a diameter just half that with its tallest stones not reaching that height. [See Photos of the Mysterious Sea of Galilee Structure]

It appears to be a giant cairn, rocks piled on top of each other. Structures like this are known from elsewhere in the world and are sometimes used to mark burials. Researchers do not know if the newly discovered structure was used for this purpose.

The structure was first detected in the summer of 2003 during a sonar survey of the southwest portion of the sea. Divers have since been down to investigate, they write in the latest issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. 

"Close inspection by scuba diving revealed that the structure is made of basalt boulders up to 1 m (3.2 feet) long with no apparent construction pattern," the researchers write in their journal article. "The boulders have natural faces with no signs of cutting or chiselling. Similarly, we did not find any sign of arrangement or walls that delineate this structure." 

Diagram courtesy of Shmuel Marco

Putting all the data together researchers found that the structure is cone shaped, about 230 feet (70 meters) in diameter and nearly 32 feet (10 meters) tall. It weighs an estimated 60,000 tons.

They say it is definitely human-made and probably was built on land, only later to be covered by the Sea of Galilee as the water level rose. "The shape and composition of the submerged structure does not resemble any natural feature. We therefore conclude that it is man-made and might be termed a cairn," the researchers write.

More than 4,000 years old?Underwater archaeological excavation is needed so scientists can find associated artifacts and determine the structure's date and purpose, the researchers said.

Researcher Yitzhak Paz, of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Gurion University, believes it could date back more than 4,000 years. "The more logical possibility is that it belongs to the third millennium B.C., because there are other megalithic phenomena (from that time) that are found close by," Paz told LiveScience in an interview, noting that those sites are associated with fortified settlements. 

The researchers list several examples of megalithic structures found close to the Sea of Galilee that are more than 4,000 years-old. One example is the monumental site of Khirbet Beteiha, located some 19 miles (30 kilometers) north-east of the submerged stone structure, the researchers write. It "comprises three concentric stone circles, the largest of which is 56 m (184 feet) in diameter." [Gallery: Aerial Photos Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures]

An ancient cityIf the third-millennium B.C. date idea proves correct it would put the structure about a mile to the north of a city that researchers call "Bet Yerah" or "Khirbet Kerak."

During the third millennium B.C. the city was one of the biggest sites in the region, Paz said. "It's the most powerful and fortified town in this region and, as a matter of fact, in the whole of Israel."

Archaeologist Raphael Greenberg describes it in a chapter of the book "Daily Life, Materiality, and Complexity in Early Urban Communities of the Southern Levant" (Eisenbrauns, 2011) as being a heavily fortified 74-acre (30 hectares) site with up to 5,000 inhabitants.

With paved streets and towering defenses its people were clearly well organized. "They also indicate the existence of some kind of municipal authority able to maintain public structures," Greenberg writes.

The research team says that, like the leaders of Bet Yerah, whoever built the newly discovered Sea of Galilee structure needed sophisticated organization and planning skills to construct it. The "effort invested in such an enterprise is indicative of a complex, well-organized society, with planning skills and economic ability," they write in their journal paper.

Paz added that "in order to build such a structure, a lot of working hours were required" in an organized community effort.

Future explorationPaz said that he hopes soon that an underwater archaeological expedition will set out to excavate the structure. They can search for artifacts and try to determine its date with certainty.

He said that the Israel Antiquities Authority has a research branch capable of excavating it. "We will try to do it in the near future, I hope, but it depends on a lot of factors."

"From the AIRCAT Files" - Dr. Richard Haines Testimony

csetiweb

Dr. Haines has been a NASA research scientist since the mid 1960's. He has worked on the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs as well as several others. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Haines has compiled over 3,000 cases of unusual visual and radar sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena -- known as the AIRCAT files.

Starling murmuration: Rare phenomenon in the skies above Israel

itnnews

Mystery ground shaking rattles South Jersey

USGS Intensity Map of New Jersey shaking

By NBC News/

South New Jersey residents felt the ground shaking Saturday morning, but no earthquakes or military training exercises were reported in the region.

The U.S. Geological Survey suggested a possible sonic boom was the cause.

"I'm in LEH [Little Egg Harbor] and my basement door shook violently for 15 sec or so long enough to creep me out. Sounded like someone was trying to get out," posted a person identified as Dana Re on the Jersey Shore Hurricane News Facebook page.   

Another comment, posted by a person identified as John Tefankjian, said he felt his Brigantine house shake, but differently from when fighter jets go by in training.

More >>

Mysterious Sounds Reported Around the World

Discovery News/

People around the world have reported hearing strange sounds from the skies over the past month. Sometimes they describe it as a hum or low rumble; other times it’s a whine, thump, or even a melody. Often the sounds have been recorded and posted online, fueling rumors and conspiracy theories.

One blogger wrote, "either the world is ending, aliens are landing or everyone is getting hoaxed. Or, possibly, there’s an actual scientific explanation for the mass amount of YouTube videos capturing bizarre sounds that are being heard around the globe. Are we witnessing the beginning of a full-scale alien invasion?"

So, what are people hearing (and recording)?

Natural Explanations

The explanations are almost as varied as the sounds themselves. There's not a single blanket explanation for all the mysterious sounds, though many have been identified. For example there's the recent "midnight roar" reported in Malaysia:

According to a Borneo Post report, the "Sky Roar" had been heard over Kota Samarahan from around 2am or 3am till dawn on both days. Terrified residents, the report added, described the noises as a "loud hushing" or "snoring" sound. The sounds were also recorded that night, and were later uploaded on YouTube. The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation has a very simple explanation – it was created by an oil palm factory testing their boiler pressure on Jan 11 and Jan 12.

In other cases the strange sound is still being researched; last week the Canadian government was asked to investigate a low-frequency hum that has intermittently plagued citizens in Windsor, Ontario for months. (If the conspiracy theorists are right, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper may soon get an unofficial visit from Men in Black-type agents warning him not to investigate.)  Read More >>

What Is the 13-Pound Metal ‘Space Ball’ That Left a 12.5-Foot Crater in Namibia?

dailymail.co.uk

It is a mysterious ball that looks like a prop from a science fiction film - and nobody can explain where it came from.

Police have been left baffled after a strange metal sphere fell to the ground in a remote area of northern Namibia, Africa.

It weighs around 13lbs, has a diameter of 14 inches and its rough surface looks like ‘two halves welded together’, said police forensics director Paul Ludik.

The baffling metal sphere, pictured made a crater 12 inches deep where it fell

When the ball came down it caused a crater 12 inches deep and 13ft wide, although it was found some 60ft away.

Locals claimed to have heard several explosions in the days before it was discovered by a farmer on his land.

The find sparked speculation on the internet that it could finally be proof of extra terrestrial life, even though it bore a passing resemblance to the head of a character from the children’s series Teletubbies.

Some claimed that it could be an escaped particle from the Large Hadron Collider, reindeer droppings or a Quaffle from the Harry Potter films.

Others - arguably with more accuracy - guessed it was a hydrazine tank, which are used on space satellites to store the flammable chemical.

Mr Ludik however was quick to point out that more tests need to be done and that NASA and the European Space Agency had been notified.

The sphere could be a hydrazine tank used on satellites such as the one pictured

He said that the ball was discovered a month ago but it has only now been made public. Whilst it was made of a ‘sophisticated material’, it was something that was known to mankind.

He explained that the explosion heard by locals could have been the sonic boom when it broke the sound barrier coming down to Earth, or by the impact on the ground.

The compound appeared to be a ‘metallic compound normally used in space vehicles,’ although he would not be surprised it it was actually from a normal aircraft.

Police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka added that the sphere, which landed 480 miles from the Namibian capital Windhoek, did not pose any danger.

He said: ‘It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first’.

The mysterious metal sphere landed on dry land in an area of northern Namibia, pictured

Earlier this year Britain and the rest of the world was put on alert when one of NASA’s satellites broke up and crashed to Earth.

Huge chunks of titanium up to 350lbs from car-sized Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite tore through the atmosphere at 1,800mph but the best NASA could guess was that they landed somewhere south of Inverness on the equator.

To try and reassure the public it also revealed that the odds of being hit were one in 3,200 - more likely than getting a hole-in-one in golf.

Weeks later Germany’s Roentgen satellite crashed to Earth and split up into 30 huge chunks including one which weighed 880lbs.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077708/Metallic-spaceball-Metal-sphere-fell-Earth-sparks-alien-speculation.html#ixzz1hOR7R6c9

Unsolved Mysteries Redux The Unexplained Nazca Lines [Documental]

Mystery of the Romanovs [Documental]

Top Documentary Films

Bones thought to be those of Grand Duchess Anastasia and Tsarevich Alexei are discovered by archaeologists in a Yekaterinburg forest in 2007, and scientists from all over the world work to provide the most conclusive DNA analysis in 21st Century History.

As over a century passes, mystery still plagues the final moments of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Amid a mess of skeletons unearthed in a desolate Siberian forest and proven to be those of the Tsar, his wife and three of their children, two remain missing.

Could Anastasia and the Tsarevich Alexei have cheated death and escaped the night when Bolsheviks executed the last Imperial Family of Russia? Will the discovery of two more skeletons in 2007 only 60 meters away from skeletons found in 1991 seal the Romanov mystery?

Why Is China Building These Gigantic Structures In the Middle of the Desert?

Gizmodo

This is crazy. New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes. Is this a military experiment?

Update: readers are finding more weird stuff.

They seem to be wide lines drawn with some white material. Or maybe the dust have been dug by machinery.

It's located in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Gansu, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau to the west into the Kumtag Desert. It covers an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide.

The tracks are perfectly executed, and they seem to be designed to be seen from orbit.

Perhaps it's some kind of targeting or calibrating grid for Chinese spy satellites? Maybe it's a QR code for aliens? Nobody really knows.

You can check it out yourself in Google Maps here.

The second structure seems to be some kind of giant targeting grid, also north of the Shule river.
If you zoom in, you can see vehicles destroyed. It's west of what seems to be a fairly big electrical station or a radio station similar to HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program located near Gakona, Alaska, and funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska, and DARPA.
You can investigate here and tell us what you think in the comments.

The third one I don't know what the hell it is either, and it's perhaps the craziest of them all: Thousand of lines intersecting in a titanic grid that is about 18 miles long. Another targeting grid? A big practical joke? You can inspect it here. [Google Maps, Google Maps and Google Maps via Reddit]
Update: Readers are finding more weird stuff.

A grid similar to the first one is located here.

This one seems like another target, this time arranged radially, with planes and obstacles.

Unsolved Mysteries - Arson - The King of Arsonist

UMHQ

Unsolved Mysteries - The Unexplained - Iceman

The Far Side of the Soviet Moon: Ten of Russia's most disturbing unsolved mysteries

By David E. Hoffman

The 20 years since the Soviet collapse have been a gold mine for historians -- gold because of the valuable discoveries in archives and memoirs, and a mine because of the intense, frustrating labor that's often required to bring them to light. In many ways, we've still only scratched the surface of Soviet history; what we've found so far has made for engrossing accounts taken from records and testimony about once-secret events. But there's so much we still don't know.

Consider a hefty and valuable new volume, Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe. The book is like a secret vault that lays out the most fascinating top-secret documents about the revolutions of 1989. Vladislav Zubok, one of the volume's editors, compared it to the observable side of the moon -- there is still a far side that has not been seen.

In that spirit, here is my entirely arbitrary list of 10 Soviet mysteries waiting for us on the far side of the moon.

1. What happened to the billions of dollars' worth of gold and cash supposedly held by the Communist Party after the Soviet collapse? Some foreign press reports at the time suggested it was swiftly spirited away to foreign bank accounts, but there has never been any evidence. Yegor Gaidar, Boris Yeltsin's prime minister, once hired the international private detective firm Kroll Associates to help find it, but to no avail. How much was involved, and where did it go?

2. Did the Soviet Union ever develop a portable "suitcase" nuclear weapon? There has been lots of wild speculation, but never any proof. The Russian general Alexander Lebed said in 1997 that there were 100 Soviet-era suitcase nukes built and that about half were missing. But Lebed's account was vague and inconsistent, and others denied it or claimed he may have confused them with nuclear land mines. Who was right?

3. In the first weeks after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in late April 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was strangely silent. He didn't speak out about it until May 14, more than two weeks later. What was said and done at the highest levels in those early days of the emergency? Why did this man of action seem so paralyzed?

4. From the early 1970s, Soviet leaders approved a secret biological weapons program. We know broad outlines of the research, but there is almost nothing known about the military side. Was there a "concept of use," or a military doctrine, for germ warfare, against whom, and on what battlefield? Were special-purpose weapons created for it? What happened to all of it after the Soviet collapse?

5. We're still missing key information about the Cuban missile crisis, like just what was said during visits to the Soviet Union by Cuban revolutionaries such as Raúl Castro and Che Guevara before the 1962 crisis, and Fidel Castro afterward. Although records have emerged of Politburo meetings and cables during the crisis, their talks with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev before and after could shed new light on why they deployed the nuclear weapons and what lessons they drew from it.

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