NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Nov 3, 2023

Jupiter by Moonlight

That bright beacon you've seen rising in the east just after sunset is Jupiter. Climbing high in midnight skies, our Solar System's ruling gas giant was at its 2023 opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky, on November 2. But only a few days earlier, on October 28, the Moon was at its own opposition. Then both Full Moon and Jupiter could share this telephoto field of view. The celestial scene is composed from two exposures, one long and one short, blended to record bright planet and even brighter Moon during that evening's partial lunar eclipse. Moonlight shining through the thin, high clouds over northern Italy creates the colorful iridescence and lunar corona. Look closely and you'll also spot some of Jupiter's Galilean moons.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

UFO Nonprofit Brings Together Hollywood Storytellers With Phenomena’s Researchers

October 31, 2023 6:00am

EXCLUSIVE: The truth is out there, as that famous line from the TV classic The X-Files told us. But now, some insiders are bringing it to Hollywood.

A group of Hollywood storytellers and many of the top UFO researchers in America are joining forces to launch the nonprofit Hollywood Disclosure Alliance.

The goal of the new group is to provide a more unified voice in the media leading up to and following what researchers have long been waiting for – disclosure of the presence of extraterrestrial life by the U.S. President. The group is a media-centric resource teaming those actively working within the research side of what some call “unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)” with those actively working to create film, TV, online, and multimedia content.

Founded and created by Dan Harary, a veteran Hollywood publicist, and Stephen Bassett, founder of the Washington, DC-based Paradigm Research Group, the group’s official launch is Nov. 2.

Its board of directors includes Sean Jablonski (TV producer of Nip/Tuck, Law & Order, Suits, and the Project Blue Book TV series); Jeff Stein (music video director and producer who has worked with The Who, The Cars, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and Little Richard,); Serena de Comarmond (an Emmy Award nominated filmmaker whose We Are Not Alone just debuted on Amazon,); Earl Grey Anderson (Director of the Mutual UFO Network’s (MUFON) Southern California Chapter); Paul Hynek (son of Project Blue Book’s Science Officer J. Allen Hynek, UFO Consultant to Steven Spielberg on Close Encounters.

Founding Members with the HDA include Dee Wallace (ET – The Extra-Terrestrial); Thomas Jane (The Thin Red Line, Deep Blue Sea, The Expanse); Dania Ramirez (X-Men: The Last Stand, Once Upon A Time); filmmakers Jack Roth/Jamie Sernoff/Jon Sumple of J3 Films; and Emmy Award-winning visual effects artist Kevin Kutchaver, along other producers, directors, and writers, including Craig Campobasso, Antony Corel, David O’Leary, Lori Wagner, and Alec Wells.

“Since the dawn of the motion picture age, over 600 feature films have been produced depicting ‘aliens’ and ‘flying saucers,’ said Harary. “Those films have generated many tens of billions of dollars in global box office receipts. These films, all based on fiction, remain wildly popular. We imagine the day when they can be based on fact. As a three-time UFO experiencer myself, and the son of a late military scientist who worked on top-secret drone technology projects for the U.S. Army for 45 years, I am quite convinced that many of the UAP sightings around the world during the past 80 years have literally come to Earth from out of this world.”

Bassett adds, “By bringing UAP/ET researchers, authors, documentarists, lawyers, scholars and experiencers together with content creators working across every aspect of the global entertainment spectrum, the HDA is very well-positioned to become the ‘go-to Organization’ in Hollywood by which to provide a limitless amount of original story content, and to close the long-standing gap created by a government-imposed truth embargo that began in 1947.”

https://deadline.com/2023/10/ufo-nonprofit-brings-together-hollywood-storytellers-phenomena-researchers-1235586705/

https://www.hollywooddisclosurealliance.org/

EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon UFO chief Dr Sean Kirkpatrick will be REPLACED by end of the year as whistleblowers accuse him of lying to the public and ignoring witnesses

UPDATED: 07:20 EDT, 3 November 2023

The Pentagon's UFO chief will resign by year's end — amid a wave of complaints accusing him of making false statements about UFO whistleblowers and fostering an 'atmosphere of disinterest,' the DailyMail.com understands.

'Four major candidates' have been interviewed to replace the current director of the Pentagon's UFO office, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, following months of heated public sparring between the former CIA physicist, UFO whistleblowers and activists.

The Pentagon appears to have already 'made the decision' on Kirkpatrick's unnamed successor, according to one former Pentagon official with past involvement in related UFO investigation programs, who spoke with the DailyMail.com.

'Given their public affairs track record,' this ex-official said, 'they may not put out anything to the press until well after the change, but who knows? They might surprise us.'

The personnel shift marks the culmination of months of accusations and counter-accusations traded between Kirkpatrick and former intel officer David Grusch, who has alleged widespread illegalities stemming from a long-secret UFO program.

This week, Grusch publicly accused Kirkpatrick of lying about his office's efforts to investigate these claims, which had been laid out by Grusch last July under oath before Congress.

Previously, Kirkpatrick had described Grusch's same testimony, made before the House Oversight committee, as 'insulting […] to the officers of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.'

But fellow UFO whistleblowers working with Grusch, some past and present DoD and Intelligence Community officers themselves, reportedly 'don't trust and never did trust Sean,' according to an attorney aiding their efforts.

While the precise reasons for his alleged departure remain murky, Dr. Kirkpatrick has faced vehement public criticism in recent weeks, from UFO enthusiasts and so-called 'disclosure' advocates seeking government transparency on UFOs and aliens.

A citizens' petition calling for Dr. Kirkpatrick's 'immediate removal,' hosted by Change.org, has garnered 1,739 signatures since its posting on October 22, 2023.

The petition's author, Lisa Fine, accused Kirkpatrick of operating 'a secret committee which directs the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)'s actions and public statements.'

'Dr. Kirkpatrick has repeatedly lied to the American people about a lack of evidence concerning UFOs/UAPs,' according to Fine, referencing the updated terminology for 'unidentified flying objects.'

In recent years, Pentagon brass, NASA experts and others have taken to calling what were once known as flying saucers 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' or UAP.

The petition's allegation that Dr. Kirkpatrick had assembled a secret advisory panel to run AARO, while still unproven, first emerged that same day via reporting by Matt Ford, host of 'The Good Trouble Show' YouTube channel, who had cited an anonymous source.

But the other recent accusations that Kirkpatrick has 'lied to the American people,' have come much more directly.

This Halloween, AARO hosted a conference call Q&A session between reporters and Dr. Kirkpatrick, in which the physicist fielded multiple questions about David Grusch and his allegations of a covert UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering program.

On the call, Kirkpatrick told assembled media that he had interviewed 'a whole range of people, over 30 people now' in relation to the allegedly secret and illegal activity.

'I think we've interviewed most of the people that he [Grusch] may have talked to,' Kirkpatrick added, in reference to investigative work that Grusch reportedly performed while assisting AARO's predecessor, the Pentagon's UAP Task Force.

'We have extended an invitation at least four or five times now for him [Grusch] to come in over the last eight months or so,' Kirkpatrick told journalists on the call, 'and have been declined.'

But Grusch quickly accused Kirkpatrick of inventing these outreach efforts by his AARO team in their entirety.

'I have zero emails or calls from them,' Grusch told reporters for NewsNation the following day. 'That is a lie.'

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Similarly, one retired US Air Force Captain David Schindele, a former Minuteman ICBM launch control officer who reported his UFO encounter to AARO, said he felt that its personnel projected an 'atmosphere of disinterest.'

Schindele told viewers of Matt Ford's Good Trouble that Kirkpatrick and his AARO team were 'not people I want to talk to again.'

The Mail's former intelligence official — who has intimate knowledge of the military's ever-evolving UFO/UAP investigation portfolio — cautioned against drawing a direct line between these controversies and any plans for Kirkpatrick's departure, however.

'Sean has directly told folks he is leaving by the end of the year,' this former intelligence official told the DailyMail.com, under the condition of anonymity.

'I think it's completely a planned departure, he probably gave them a timeline when he took the job,' according to this source, citing geographical stress on Dr. Kirpatrick's family life.

'I am sure he's ready to go. I wouldn't read into it any more than that, honestly.'

The source added that he has heard AARO's first and current director would be moving on to a position with Oak Ridge National Laboratory — which briefly hosted the kernel of an apparent staff bio for Kirkpatrick before it mysteriously disappeared.

Veteran Australian TV news broadcaster and investigative reporter Ross Coulthart, who conducted the first televised interview with David Grusch, said that this staff bio 'requires explanation' in a series of posts to X (formerly Twitter).

'The AARO boss is presumably also investigating possible @Battelle links w crash retrieval/engineering programs,' Coulthart said, referencing military contractor UT–Battelle, which helps run the Oak Ridge lab on behalf of the Department of Energy.

Recent reporting by Daily Mail contributor Christopher Sharp and others has alleged that Battelle board member Stephanie O'Sullivan 'has knowledge of a UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program,' only to hide it from Senate investigators.

During her past years of government service, O'Sullivan was an associate deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), following successes managing parts of the US spy agency's Directorate of Science and Technology.

Nevertheless, when reached for comment, Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough stated that, whatever his future plans may be, Dr. Kirkpatrick is not currently moonlighting for Battelle or ORNL in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

'Dr. Kirkpatrick remains the director, AARO,' Gough said. 'He is not currently employed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory'

'We have no AARO personnel announcements to make at this time,' she added.

Outside official channels, however, news of Kirkpatrick's planned departure have reached Daniel Sheehan, the Harvard-trained lawyer who represented past UFO whistleblower Luis Elizondo in his formal complaint to the DoD's Inspector General.

'He's out at the end of the year — and that's a big deal,' Sheehan told the DailyMail.com, adding that he understands 'four major candidates' are up for the job opening at the top of AARO.

Sheehan, whose history litigating progressive civil rights law cases dates back to the Vietnam War-era 'Pentagon Papers,' is now chief counsel, president and co-founder of the New Paradigm Institute.

The institute, a branch of the 501(C)(3) nonprofit Romero Institute, describes itself as dedicated to public policy advocacy on 'societal, environmental, and cosmic objectives,' which presumably includes UAP transparency.

Chris Mellon, a former official with the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and a passionate advocate for increased government diligence and transparency on the UAP issue, told the DailyMail.com that he too heard of similar developments at AARO.

'As to Sean, I've heard some of the same rumors,' Mellon wrote via email, 'but they're just rumors, I really don't know his plans.'

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Earlier this summer, prior to Grusch's sworn Congressional testimony, Mellon told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo, 'I've been told that we have recovered technology that did not originate on this Earth, by officials in the Department of Defense and by former intelligence officials.'

Sources with similar firsthand testimony to give, have become even more skittish about delivering what they know to AARO, despite the office's new 'second phase' efforts to faithfully investigate hidden UFO crash retrieval programs.

'This phase of the reporting mechanism is for current or former US government employees, service members, or contractors with direct knowledge of alleged US government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945,' Kirkpatrick told reporters this Halloween.

But with the future of AARO's leadership in limbo, Sheehan told the DailyMail.com that many trepidatious UFO whistleblowers have opted to deliver their testimony to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, for now, instead.

'What they were doing is they were going straight through to the Senate Intelligence Committee,' Sheehan said.

'That's where the queue is forming of people who have real direct immediate knowledge — and Dave Grusch is in communication with these people, and our people are in communication with these people.'

'We know that they don't want to go into into Sean's AARO group until it's resolved as to who is going to take his place,' Sheehan emphasized.

'None of the whistleblowers want to go in there, because they don't view it as stable or safe.'

The former intelligence official, who confirmed word of Dr. Kirkpatrick's departure, weighed in with the opinion that 'the public push back from Dave [Grusch] was probably unexpected.'

Despite a long summer of contradictory timelines detailed by both Grusch and Dr. Kirkpatrick, in other words, the official suspects that AARO likely did not expect to have its director called a liar in public.

Among other inconsistencies, Grusch testified under oath before Congress this July that his last personal interaction with Dr. Kirkpatrick occurred in 2022.

'Him and I had a classified conversation in April 2022 before he took over AARO in July 2022,' Grusch told Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, under oath during the hearing.

Grusch added that he had provided Dr. Kirkpatrick with 'some concerns' he had, related to national security issues relevant to AARO's UAP mandate.

But, during AARO's Halloween conference call on Tuesday, Kirkpatrick asserted that the two had not spoken in nearly five years.

'The last time I believe I spoke with Mr. Grusch was when I was in the J2 [Directorate for Intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff] at US Space Command,' Kirkpatrick said, 'about five years ago.'

'And it was not on this topic,' he added.

When faced with these and other discrepancies, the ex-intelligence official told the DailyMail.com, 'I believe Dave.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12703835/Pentagon-UFO-chief-AARO-Kirkpatrick-REPLACED-whistleblowers-accuse-lying-public-ignoring-witnesses.html

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UAP spotted over Arctic Circle days before Chinese spy balloon

Updated: NOV 2, 2023 / 06:31 PM CDT

Three days before a Chinese spy balloon appeared over the U.S., an unidentified object was seen over the Arctic Circle, with fighter jets being sent to take the object down, sources told NewsNation.

Exclusive reporting from Ross Coulthart, investigative journalist reporting for NewsNation, calls into question whether the country has been given the full story when it comes to a series of mysterious flying objects that captivated the nation in February.

Four incidents were reported publicly, including one involving a giant Chinese spy balloon, but sources told NewsNation there was actually a fifth incident before all of the others.

Americans were shocked when the Pentagon admitted a massive, high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon was able to enter U.S. airspace unhindered.

The balloon drifted across North America for days before being shot down by U.S. fighters off the coast of South Carolina.

Six days later, it happened again. On Feb. 10, 2023, around 1:45 p.m. ET, the first of three objects were shot down by U.S. fighters near the northern Alaska town of Deadhorse. All three of the objects are still officially acknowledged as unexplained.

Officials launched a massive air and ground search to find the objects. Within hours of shooting them down, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted they had no idea what the objects were.

“We’re calling this an ‘object’ because that’s the best description we have right now. We do not know who owns it, whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately owned,” he said. “We just don’t know.”

The incursions kept happening. A second cylindrical object was shot down over Canada’s Yukon the following day, Feb. 11. On the 12th, a third object was downed over Lake Huron near Michigan, that object described as octagonal in nature.

Three sources told NewsNation there was an earlier, publicly undisclosed incident over the Arctic Circle on Feb. 1, 2023, three days before the Chinese balloon was shot down.

The defense and intelligence sources said eight or nine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) were detected over the Arctic Circle, and fighter jets were sent up in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept them.

Fighter jets deployed from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to engage the objects, sources said, but the UAPs were seen maneuvering away at high speeds.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon independently confirmed the story.

“I’ve heard the same thing, from an individual who would have plausible reason to know. But this really speaks to a much larger issue, which is the lack of information from the Air Force about UAPs generally,” Mellon said.

NewsNation reached out to the Pentagon and NORAD. NORAD denied allegations that fighter jets were scrambled to intercept UAPs.

NORAD did say it had aircraft flying in the area but that they were returning to home bases as part of a training operation.

Sources also told NewsNation that the object the U.S. shot down on Feb. 10 was also anomalous. There has been silence in the eight months since it was shot down, though in February, the White House assured the public it was confident the Alaska object debris would be recovered.

“It fell not only within our territorial space but on what we believe is frozen water. So a recovery effort will be made,” Kirby said.

https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/uap-arctic-circle-chinese-balloon/

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Hubble Provides Unique Ultraviolet View of Jupiter

NOV 02, 2023

This newly released image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope shows the planet Jupiter in a color composite of ultraviolet wavelengths. Released in honor of Jupiter reaching opposition, which occurs when the planet and the Sun are in opposite sides of the sky, this view of the gas giant planet includes the iconic, massive storm called the “Great Red Spot.” Though the storm appears red to the human eye, in this ultraviolet image it appears darker because high altitude haze particles absorb light at these wavelengths. The reddish, wavy polar hazes are absorbing slightly less of this light due to differences in either particle size, composition, or altitude.

The data used to create this ultraviolet image is part of a Hubble proposal that looked at Jupiter’s stealthy superstorm system. The researchers plan to map deep water clouds using the Hubble data to define 3D cloud structures in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Hubble has a long history of observing the outer planets. From the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts to studying Jupiter's storms, Hubble's decades-long career and unique vantage point provide astronomers with valuable data to chart the evolution of this dynamic planet.

Hubble’s ultraviolet-observing capabilities allow astronomers to study the short, high-energy wavelengths of light beyond what the human eye can see. Ultraviolet light reveals fascinating cosmic phenomena, including light from the hottest and youngest stars embedded in local galaxies; the composition, densities, and temperatures of the material between stars; and the evolution of galaxies.

This is a false-color image because the human eye cannot detect ultraviolet light. Therefore, colors in the visible light spectrum were assigned to the images, each taken with a different ultraviolet filter. In this case, the assigned colors for each filter are: Blue: F225W, Green: F275W, and Red: F343N.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-provides-unique-ultraviolet-view-of-jupiter/

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