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Greetings everyone, and welcome to Spacing Out! I'm Jason McClellan.
And I'm Maureen Elsberry. Thanks for joining us.
We took a few weeks off because of the holidays and because we're wildly
busy preparing for the 2014 International UFO Congress. But we're happy to be back
so we can get you caught up on some of the space and UFO stories that have made
headlines recently.
According to a new study, researchers believe that Earth-sized planets
can support life at least ten times farther away from their host stars than previously
thought.
Researchers from the University of Aberdeen and the University of St
Andrews recently published a paper asserting that cold rocky planets previously
considered inhospitable to life as we know it may actually be habitable beneath the
surface. Phys.org explains that the team of researchers "created a computer model that
estimates the temperature below the surface of a planet of a given size, at a given
distance from its star."
The abstract for the paper explains that the team looked at life on Earth,
pointing out that Earth has a deep biosphere. So why not include subsurface
environments on other worlds when considering habitability? Subsurface liquid water
maintained by internal planetary heat could potentially support life well outside
conventional habitable zones.
So the team introduced a new term: subsurface-habitability zone, which
denotes the range of distances from a star in which "rocky planets are habitable at any
depth below their surfaces up to a stipulated maximum, and show how [subsurface-
habitability zones] can be estimated from a model relating temperature, depth and
orbital distance."
PhD student Sean McMahon, one of the team's members, explains that
"The deepest known life on Earth is 5.3 km below the surface, but there may well be
life even 10 km deep in places on Earth that haven't yet been drilled." He continues,
"Using our computer model we discovered that the habitable zone for an Earth-like
planet orbiting a sun-like star is about three times bigger if we include the top five
kilometres below the planet surface . . . If we go deeper, and consider the top 10 km
below the Earth's surface, then the habitable zone for an Earth-like planet is 14 times
wider."
According to Phys.org, our solar system's current habitable zone extends out
as far as Mars, but taking subsurface habitability into account, "this re-drawn habitable
zone would see the zone extend out farther than Jupiter and Saturn."
The team's recent paper was published in the journal Planetary and Space Science.
A crop circle recently appeared in Salinas Valley, near Monterey,
California. The BBC reported that two friends discovered the crop circle just before
sunrise on Monday, December 30th. They claimed they noticed strange bursts of green
lights while driving south of Salinas. So they pulled over, started recording video,
and ventured into the field.
The formation had a large ring on the perimeter, with three circles of various
sizes on it. Inside the circle was a square shaped object with other strange shapes. The
next day, stories emerged about braille experts reporting that the formation repeated the
numbers 192 over and over in braille. Other people noticed that circles on the perimeter
of the ring were at the 1, 9, and 2 positions on a clock.
A local resident told NBC affiliate KSBW, "I'm a skeptic, but this could be
aliens, I don't know. I'm always willing to believe something, so I mean, and if there's
proof, you can't deny proof, but right now it looks like aliens to me." But crop circle
researcher Nancy Talbott immediately suspected the design was man-made. She told
the Monterrey Herald, "It looks very mechanical . . . It doesn't look the way most of the
genuine circles I've worked on look. That doesn't mean I'm right." British crop circle
expert Colin Andrews was also skeptical. He said he thought it might be a publicity
stunt.
It turns out that both Talbott and Andrews were correct. On January 5th, the
Nvidia Corporation wrote a blog explaining how they hired crop circle makers to create
the formation. They wrote, "We simply couldn't think of any other way to explain that
our new Tegra K1 processor, with 192 graphics cores, can do things no other
technology - on this planet, at least - could."
The blog also says the company was surprised by how much press their
crop circle got. They stated, "While we were hoping to get the word . . . we didn't realize
how big this thing would get. The story quickly went global, with websites and
television stations as far away as Mongolia and Hungary reporting the story."
Nvidia also posted a video explaining how and why they created the circle,
along with a healthy amount of promotion for their new processor. That video can be
seen on our website at OpenMinds.tv.
Travel was recently disrupted at Bremen airport in northwestern Germany
when a UFO appeared multiple times on radar.
According to German news site The Local, the UFO showed up on the radar
at Bremen Airport several times between 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Monday, January
6th. But the unidentified object was also reportedly seen by air traffic controllers
in the airport's tower, as well as by police officers.
The object was estimated to be flying at a height of approximately 1,000 feet.
Once police had been alerted to the UFO's presence, they attempted to
intercept and identify the craft. A police helicopter searched the area where the aerial
object had been reported, but the UFO could not be located.
Because of the UFO's presence in Bremen airspace, The Local reports that "a
flight from Frankfurt had to be canceled and a second flight from Munich was diverted
to Hannover," while "another plane coming from Paris had to stay airborne for a while
before it could land."
Although no physical description accompanied the original reports, media
outlets later amended stories to include witness descriptions stating that the object
"looked like a plane but was a lot louder." And, according to The Local, a spokesperson
from German Air Traffic Control described, "It had normal lights, red and green, and
an approach light on both sides."
Authorities in Bremen have been unsuccessful in identifying the
unauthorized intruder at Bremen Airport.
An Iranian news agency alleges that documents provided by former
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden prove that "an
alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda is driving US domestic and international
policy, and has been doing so since at least 1945."
The Fars News Agency asserts that the shadow alien government running
the United States is based in Nevada, and these aliens previously ran Nazi Germany.
The Washington Post reports, "As proof that aliens were secretly behind the Nazis, the
report explains that Germany built hundreds of submarines toward the end of the war,
far more than would have been possible with mere human technology." But the Post
continues, "It does not explain why aliens with access to interstellar travel built subs
that were so grossly incapable against the British navy, or why all-powerful
extraterrestrials were unable to help the Nazis resist an invasion by Allied forces
that are mere cavemen relative to their own technology.
So far, these are pretty unimpressive aliens."
It was apparently after losing the war that these aliens established themselves as the
secret controllers of the United States government.
Fars News claims that Snowden provided documents proving these
allegations to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). And Fars News further asserts
that the claims were recently confirmed by Canada's former minister of defence Paul
Hellyer.
The news agency alleges that Hellyer was given access to all of Snowden's
documents by FSB and he confirmed their accuracy. It was reportedly shortly after this
that he appeared on Russia Today's program SophieCo where he announced that
aliens have visited Earth for thousands of years, and that several are working with the
U.S. Air Force in Nevada.
But Hellyer's statements on SophieCo are hardly confirmation of recently
seen documents acquired by FSB from Edward Snowden. Hellyer has been outspoken
about his extraterrestrial beliefs for years. He even spoke about these same issues at
the 2013 Citizen Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
According to Fars News, Russian authorities are most concerned about the
"confirmation" that extraterrestrials controlling the U.S., known as the "Tall Whites," are
the same extraterrestrial race behind Nazi Germany's rise to power during the 1930s.
As the Washington Post points out, "Iran's semi-official news outlets have
something of a reputation for taking conspiracy theorism to the next level." The only
source Fars News Agency cites to support these incredible claims is conspiracy
website WhatDoesItMean.com.
and I think this is kind of a ridiculous story because I don't think that the government
has anything to fear about the US being controlled by the tall whites personally
yeah and these aren't new allegations or stories these theories have been around and it doesn't
need Edward Snowden documents to bring these up again but it's surprising how much press
this is getting because it came from a semi-official news source in Iran but you know I don't think
it has anything to do with Paul Hellyer's statements on the news because he's said those
over and over and over every chance he gets. so kind of a ridiculous story in my opinion
but a lot of people are taking it seriously
even forbes.com jumped on the bandwagon with reporting this news which i found interesting
when the Washington Post writes about it a lot of people are going to write about it
so really every mainstream outlet is going to write about this story and it's going to
make the rounds but it I wouldn't take it too seriously
no conspiracy
a story that I thought which was pretty interesting was the report of the Bremen airport in Germany
where this UFO was seen on radar, I love the radar reports where they actually get the
object on radar and more importantly we have these stories where we hear from people in
the towers and from local police because and we talked about this on Open Minds radio with
Alejandro, in the US specifically it in a lot of these cases we don't hear much from
the people at the airport when UFO sightings happen at the airport is kind of brushed under
the rug because they want to continue this illusion that oh there is no way anything
that unknown could be in our airspace everybody is save, everything is cool
right and I was really intrigued by this story as well and this came right after the UK airport
story where a pilot had ducked seeing some sort of unidentified object. I will say that
the descriptions that are now coming forward from witnesses are a little disappointing
in the fact that it sounds more like a conventional aircraft. but we still don't know where this
aircraft came from or what it is at this point
yeah they still have no identification who knows, and that's the case with a lot of these
foreign stories, we hear them or hear about them initially and then don't really say much
about them later, hopefully we'll hear more because they were investigating it. but another
interesting nugget with this story was the fact that when it was initially reported by
German media there was no description of the craft, absolutely no description from the
statements from air traffic controllers or the police. then later that day those stories
were amended to include comments with descriptions
Jason are you alleging conspiracy on this story.
This story has conspiracy written all over it. now there are people who are wondering
about that because I found that fascinating, they were speaking directly to these people
who had observed the object not only on radar but would their eyes yet there was no physical
description given
I found that odd as well
and then later all of a sudden we have a complete description of what it looked like, the color
of lights
it louder than a plane but looked exactly like a plane ride and is interesting because
like you pointing out are they going to continue to investigate this because like one of the
most famous UFO sighting that is still a mystery to everyone is the Chicago O'Hare 2006 sighting
which we still know don't know what that object was and was cited by air traffic controllers
and
Thats a prime example where you know those people saw it and can't we can hear from them
because it gets hushed up. but you mentioned the London incident and I got to give props
to the Airprox board there it's official government body there who is tasked with investigating
near misses and they do full on investigations of these cases and I think that's great I
hope other governments around the world take note and follow up with that because they're
really one of the only groups in an official capacity taking that stuff seriously and really
come on this is happening a lot where airplanes in the sky are almost crashing into things
and they don't know what those things are, so you would think people would want to find
out, look into that and see what's going on. exactly. so good job Airprox board
well that's all for this episode of Spacing Out! Remember to visit our website,
OpenMinds.tv, for all the latest news. And if you're a podcast listener, go to
OpenMinds.tv/radio and check out Open Minds UFO Radio with Alejandro Rojas. Make sure
to click on the LIKE button if you enjoyed today's show, and,
subscribe to our channel so you'll know when we upload new content.
Also, do not forget to register for the 2014 International UFO Congress. We are working
very *** it, its coming up in just a month. This is the largest annual UFO conference
in the world, and it's only a few weeks away: February 12th-16th in Fountain Hills,
Arizona. You can find all the information at UFOCongress.com.
Thanks again for joining us today. I'm Maureen Elsberry.
And I'm Jason McClellan. We will see you in the future.