>Black Triangle UFOs

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“Black triangles” is the name given to a class of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) with certain common features which have reportedly been observed from the 1940s (and possibly earlier) to the present. They have appeared most commonly over cities of the United States and England, but have been spotted worldwide, including a mass sighting over St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 19, 1997.

Since that event, hundreds of observers have reported enormous, totally silent, black triangular craft hovering or slowly cruising at low altitudes over cities and highways, usually at night and making no attempt to evade detection. The craft are even described by many observers as having some sort of “running lights”, either bright white lights or pulsing colored lights. These lights usually appear at each corner of the triangle. Sometimes a red pulsating light is seen at the center.

These objects are also sometimes known by the names “big black deltas” (BBDs) and “flying triangles”. No conclusive explanation has been found for black triangles. Accordingly, their origin and existence remain shrouded in mystery. – wiki

See my UFO article for a nice picture of what seems to be a military black triangle parked on the ground.

>Silent Craft Overhead

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A friend of my family once told me that he had spotted dark aircraft at night flying down along the Salinas Valley.  This was a couple of decades ago.  He associated his sitings with military aircraft flying to and from various military bases in California.  One story he told me struck me as most memorable.  One night, a silent aircraft hovered a couple hundred feet from the ground over his neighborhood.  He saw the aircraft beaming down a search light pointed as various places as it quietly moved overhead his location.  It couldn’t have been a helicopter because he would’ve heard and even felt it at that distance.  He associated this experience with secret U.S. military aircraft.  I don’t know what he saw, but given my limited knowledge about aircraft, I don’t know of any now or then that could hover nearly in place without making some sort of loud noise.  He took this experience as evidence that UFO sightings where spotted secret military planes. – zeta

>Laser triggers electrical activity in thunderstorm for the first time

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You may remember hearing about China’s plans to control the weather during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing by attacking shady clouds with artillery and aircraft. Along similar lines, scientists in New Mexico decided to mess with thunderclouds, but with fancy lasers.

A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal. They did this by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. – dvice

At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity akin to Benjamin Franklin’s silk kite string. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves.

“This was an important first step toward triggering lightning strikes with laser beams,” says Jérôme Kasparian of the University of Lyon in France. “It was the first time we generated lighting precursors in a thundercloud.” The next step of generating full-blown lightning strikes may come, he adds, after the team reprograms their lasers to use more sophisticated pulse sequences that will make longer-lived filaments to further conduct the lightning during storms.

Triggering lightning strikes is an important tool for basic and applied research because it enables researchers to study the mechanisms underlying lightning strikes. Moreover, triggered lightning strikes will allow engineers to evaluate and test the lightning-sensitivity of airplanes and critical infrastructure such as power lines.

Pulsed lasers represent a potentially very powerful technology for triggering lightning because they can form a large number of plasma filaments – ionized channels of molecules in the air that act like conducting wires extending into the thundercloud. This is such a simple concept that the idea of using lasers to trigger lightning strikes was first suggested more than 30 years ago. But scientists have not been able to accomplish this to date because previous lasers have not been powerful enough to generate long plasma channels. The current generation of more powerful lasers, like the one developed by Kasparian’s team, may change that.

Kasparian and his colleagues involved in the Teramobile project, an international program initiated by National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France and the German Research Foundation (DFG), built a powerful mobile laser capable of generating long plasma channels by firing ultrashort laser pulses. They chose to test their laser at the Langmuir Laboratory in New Mexico, which is equipped to measure atmospheric electrical discharges. Sitting at the top of 10,500-foot South Baldy Peak, this laboratory is in an ideal location because its altitude places it close to the high thunderclouds.

During the tests, the research team quantified the electrical activity in the clouds after discharging laser pulses. Statistical analysis showed that their laser pulses indeed enhanced the electrical activity in the thundercloud where it was aimed—in effect they generated small local discharges located at the position of the plasma channels.

The limitation of the experiment, though, was that they could not generate plasma channels that lived long enough to conduct lightning all the way to the ground. The plasma channels dissipated before the lightning could travel more than a few meters along them. The team is currently looking to increase the power of the laser pulses by a factor of 10 and use bursts of pulses to generate the plasmas much more efficiently.

Lightning strikes have been the subject of scientific investigation dating back to the time of Benjamin Franklin, but despite this, remain not fully understood. Although scientists have been able to trigger lightning strikes since the 1970s by shooting small rockets into thunderclouds that spool long wires connected to the ground, typically only 50 percent of rocket launches actually trigger a lightning strike. The use of laser technology would make the process quicker, more efficient and cost-effective and would be expected to open a number of new applications.

Paper: “Electric events synchronized with laser filaments in thunderclouds,” Jérôme Kasparian et al, Optics Express, Vol. 16, Issue 8, April 14, 2008, pp. 5757-63; abstract at http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?id=157189. – ea

>UFO ‘gave me the heebie-jeebies’

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A RING’S End man has described how a strange light in the sky gave him the ‘heebie-jeebies’ on Thursday night.

Andrew Warren and his son, Stephen Whitrod, spotted a series of lights in the sky over their March Road home at around 11pm as they were checking on their chickens.

Mr Warren said he initially thought the lights were from the police helicopter, but then realised there was no noise.

“It was low enough and near enough for there to be noise, but there wasn’t much. There was a slight engine noise, but nothing you could really identify,” said Mr Warren. He said initially there

was a diamond pattern of lights, which were like nothing you would normally associate with an aeroplane, and again the lack of noise made him dismiss it as being a military aircraft.

Then a second and third set of lights appeared from different directions and these were different to the first set. One set was in a V-shape.

Mr Warren said they seemed to hover before moving off and disappearing.

He said the lights were red, and also a blue-white colour and certainly did not fit the patterns normally seen in the skies when there are jets doing flying exercises.

“We have a lot of jets and other military aircraft flying over here, so I know what they look like and I also know there is a lot of noise, and this was just not normal.

“Whatever it was it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I tried looking at the lights through binoculars but I still couldn’t see very well,” said Mr Warren. – fc

>Ice-cream stick ship sails for England

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A Viking ship made from ice-cream sticks set sail for England from the Netherlands on Tuesday.

The 15-metre (50-foot) long ship, named after the Norse god Thor, is made from 15 million recycled ice-cream sticks glued together by U.S.-born stuntman Robert McDonald, his son and more than 5,000 children.

“If you can dream it you can do it … I want to teach children that anything is possible,” McDonald said.

Badly injured as a child in a gas explosion that killed the rest of his family, he has loaded his ship with cuddly toys and plans to reach London and visit children in hospitals.

He and his crew hope to cross the Atlantic later on the ancient Viking route to North America via Iceland and Greenland. – yahoo

>Mystery ship revealed deep in sand on Ore. Coast

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Wind, heavy rain and high surf have uncovered an historic treasure along the Oregon Coast. A mountain of sand slowly shifted day after day, eventually uncovering the 35-foot-long bow of a wooden-hulled vessel.

“It’s kind of awesome to think about this thing, it has been sitting there buried underneath the sand, and we’re just now learning about it,” one onlooker said.

The bow’s sides protrude up from the sand below a towering foredune. They’re more than a foot thick. Vertical timbers that run through the walls are lined on both sides by planking. All are tied together with iron bars and pins. There appear to be square portholes cut through the sides every six feet or so.

Curved chair-sized ribs rise out of the sand on the insides anchored by more iron bars, but the top deck is gone. It was a two-deck vessel. A schooner at least for a time. But its use is unclear.

While exciting for locals and historians, there is a problem with the unveiling; the sand that used to cover the wreckage provided a barrier and preserved it for the last century. Now, that protection is gone.

Scientists are unsure how much of the boat is still covered in sand. They think there may still be about 15 feet of it underneath the shoreline.

The bow points west to the ocean, which is unusual for shipwrecks. It’s on a legally fuzzy dividing line between Oregon State Parks and U.S. Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction. There are no plans at this point to save it.

BLM officials said they can not physically move away the sand. Instead, they’ll have to wait for it to wash away naturally.

“It seems to be from the late 1800s and early 1900s. There’s some evidence it was a sailing ship, but then there’s some evidence it was converted to a coastal barge,” said Steve Samuels, BLM’s cultural resource coordinator.

Some have speculated the bow is part of the Czarina that foundered on the Coos Bay Bar and drifted north toward Horsfall 98 years ago. But that ship was metal-hulled. Others have suggested it’s the lumber-carrying C.A. Smith, which ran aground and broke up at the North Jetty in 1923.

But there may not be much time for on-the-sand research.

Come March 15, the end of the spit, the dry sand portion and upland will be closed for the six-month snowy plover breeding season. There won’t be special permits for archaeologists. Come September, they will have the short window before winter to learn all they can about the ship.

“We would appreciate any marine architects with historical knowledge to contact us. It might have been something that was built here, but we don’t know,” Samuels said.

And locals, too, are encouraged to share their historical knowledge and stories. – kgw

First there was that strange swarm of earthquakes, and now beaches are being washed away revealing ghosts ships and forests.

>Beachgoers find ‘ghost forest’ along Oregon Coast

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Beachgoers during this sunny April weekend are in for a treat, thanks to Oregon’s wild winter.

High winds, heavy rain and powerful surf pounding the Oregon Coast recently uncovered a ghost forest known mostly through legendary tales in the small community of Neskowin.

The ancient tree stumps are usually covered in deep sand. But recent storms washed away a great deal of the beach and once again uncovered the ancient tree stumps that locals call “the ghost forest.”

An article in the Oregon Coast Beach Connection described the ghost forest as a “downright spectacular oddity.”

“They [tree stumps] look somewhat like old, ragged pilings leftover from something manmade – but they are, in fact, stumps of a forest some 2,000 years ago or so. As many as 100 are sometimes visible in various shapes and sizes.”

Slideshow: More photos of ‘ghost forest’

According to the article, the theory is that “around 2,000 years ago a massive, cataclysmic earthquake abruptly dropped this forest possibly more than 25 feet. Then, somehow, they [tree stumps] were preserved by sand and mud, rather then being destroyed and scattered, as natural erosion might’ve done… Either a tsunami brought the sand in or the earthquake rattled up so much soil and sand it covered the forest.”- kgw

>101-year-old runner’s age questioned by Guinness

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With “Buster” Martin’s straggly beard, dry wit, and advanced years, his attempt to run the London Marathon was always going to present PR people with an irresistible feel-good tale.

At 101 years old, he would be the oldest man to complete the punishing 26-mile course. But as the alleged centenarian hobbled his way through the London drizzle yesterday, his story was beginning to unravel.

On Saturday, The Times disclosed that Guinness World Records had refused to verify his claim to be the oldest marathon runner. Now it has emerged why the world record guardians will not be featuring Mr Martin in its publication. Correspondence between senior officials at the organisation shows that Guinness has evidence that Mr Martin is not as elderly as he claims but is a mere spring chicken of just 94 years old.

Guinness received information that Mr Martin, whose real name is Pierre Jean Martin, told NHS staff that he was born on September 1, 1913, not 1906, as he now claims.

Guinness World Records was advised: “There is also downside risk associating Guinness with a questionable claim … more than just his age is in question, as ‘Buster’ Martin ‘likes to tell stories’.”

When confronted about the dispute about his age, Mr Martin said: “I know how long I have lived. There are always rumours from a lot of people who are jealous.” – ind

>Gut bacteria species becoming one

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Humans may have helped organisms shack up inside animal intestines. Chicken farms may be, in part, responsible for the rapid merging of two different Campylobacter bacteria species. Like lovers reunited after a cruel world tore them apart, two species of bacteria have found each other in the guts of domestic livestock and are becoming one.

Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli, as the intestinal organisms are known, aren’t just consummating their microscopic love by exchanging genes — they’re merging into a single species, scientists say.

The researchers think the marriage of the creatures represents a profound example of how people can affect evolution. “What we’re seeing here is hybridization, and it’s only been recently acknowledged as an important part of evolution,” said Samuel Sheppard, an evolutionary microbiologist at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. “It’s really exciting stuff.”

Sheppard and his colleagues detail their findings today in an advance online version of the April 11 issue of the journal Science. The team reached their conclusions by analyzing DNA, or genetic information, from the bacteria found inside both wild and farm animals.

Ancient split
C. jejuni and C. coli are thought to have shared a common ancestor, or parent, in the ancient past. When the microbial descendent split up and evolutionary pressures stepped in, two new species began to take shape and fill different niches within the guts of wild chickens, pigs and other animals.

Although the definition of a species is one of the most hotly debated topics among biologists, Sheppard said the two microbes are strikingly different, despite sharing about 85 percent of their genetic code.

“Chimpanzees and humans are known to be about 98 percent genetically similar, so the bacteria’s converging toward becoming a single species, as we think, is pretty impressive,” Sheppard told LiveScience. “That’s a big genetic gulf to leap. Maybe like a lobster mating with a fly.”

Sheppard said the bacteria likely began reversing their growing divergence, or genetic separation, when human agriculture came along.

Under pressure
He thinks the bacterial merger has accelerated in recent years, as the world has become more industrialized and the demand for food has prompted crowded farms. – msnbc

>Young fire ants curl up and (pretend) die

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possums do it, some snakes do it and even big bison do it. Now a new study now shows fire ants do it, too.

When threatened by danger, the young insects will play dead to fake out an attacker.

“No one has ever reported this before, and it was a big shock to me,” said Deby Cassill, an evolutionary biologist at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. “Ants from an attacking colony will come up to inspect them, and they’ll be curled up just like a dead ant. Then moments later they uncurl and walk away.” – msnbc