TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
September 16, 2024
Mercury's Vivaldi Crater from BepiColombo
Why does this large crater on Mercury have two rings and a smooth floor? No one is sure. The unusual feature called Vivaldi Crater spans 215 kilometers and was imaged again in great detail by ESA's and JAXA's robotic BepiColombo spacecraft on a flyby earlier this month. A large circular feature on a rocky planet or moon is usually caused by either an impact by a small asteroid or a comet fragment, or a volcanic eruption. In the case of Vivaldi, it is possible that both occurred – a heavy strike that caused a smooth internal lava flow. Double-ringed craters are rare, and the cause of the inner rings remains a topic of research. The speed-slowing gravity-assisted flyby of Mercury by BepiColombo was in preparation for the spacecraft entering orbit around the Solar System's innermost planet in 2026.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
How a Trump-Musk government efficiency commission might affect NASA
09/15/24 10:00 AM ET
Former President Trump’s suggestion that a government efficiency commission be formed to examine the workings of every part of the federal government is a brilliant one.
The idea that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk be in charge of the commission would seem to be a no-brainer.
Such a commission would be the perfect vehicle for looking at NASA, an agency with a storied history beset with a slew of problems.
One of the major problems NASA faces is its difficulty with bringing projects on schedule and on budget.
Examples over the past few decades include the International Space Station and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Some projects, such as the Mars Sample Return and the VIPER lunar rover have gone so far off the rails that they face cancellation or at least a lengthy process of rescoping.
The tale of the Space Launch System, key to the Artemis return to the moon, remains depressing.
NASA is not unique in its inability to complete projects on time and under budget, The large number of weapons systems the Defense Department has funded that cost more and took longer to develop than originally planned goes back many decades.
The F-35 is an example.
Civilian infrastructure projects have not been immune to government waste, such as the $7.5 billion the Biden administration has spent to build just seven electric car charging stations.
An article in Quartz, citing a study in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, noted that projects at NASA have suffered an average cost overrun of 90 percent. By comparison, projects undertaken by SpaceX have had an average cost overrun of 1.1 percent.
One reason for SpaceX’s relative success is that NASA concentrates on “one-off projects focused on ‘quantum leaps’ — the Space Shuttle or the Space Launch System,” whereas Musk’s company climbs up “the launch value chain, from the small Falcon 1 rocket, to the expendable Falcon 9, to the reusable Falcon 9, to the Falcon Heavy.”
NASA reinvents projects every time, while SpaceX evolves its hardware, improving on what came before.
The fact that SpaceX doesn’t have layers of bureaucracy or direct congressional mandates as NASA does is helpful, as well.
Public policy experts have known that something was wrong with NASA for decades. The White House, dating back to the second Bush administration, responded by commercializing parts of the space agency’s functions.
Thus, several commercial initiatives, including Commercial Orbital Transport Systems (COTS), Commercial Crew, Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), Human Landing System and several private space stations to replace the International Space Station were undertaken.
Commercialization, with the exception of the problems encountered by the Boeing Starliner, has been successful, suggesting that two solutions exist for what troubles NASA.
One solution would be to commercialize as many functions of NASA as possible, including planetary science and Earth science. In effect, the space agency would do little to nothing in-house. It would hand out contracts on a fixed-price basis to control costs.
The other solution would be to figure out ways that NASA could borrow from the corporate cultures of its commercial partners.
The space agency would streamline the decision-making process and would collapse layers of bureaucracy.
The proposed commission’s task concerning NASA would be to reimagine how the space agency functions and to develop a plan to implement it.
Finally, the role of Elon Musk in the government efficiency commission raises questions.
On the one hand, the idea of appointing Musk would seem to be a brilliant one. Musk, the richest man on the planet, has a proven record of doing the impossible, doing it relatively cheaply, and making a lot of money doing it.
If he can teach the federal government, including NASA, the secrets of his success, the United States will benefit immeasurably,
On the other hand, Musk’s involvement in the commission raises conflict of interest questions.
SpaceX, especially, makes a lot of money on government contracts and its activities are heavily regulated by the government.
Even if the commission’s proposals are found to be sound, some will raise questions if Musk and his companies stand to benefit.
Reforming the federal government, including NASA, would be worth the argument.
If Musk can save taxpayers trillions of dollars, perhaps erasing the deficit and beginning to reduce the national debt, his personal benefit would be a small price to pay.
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4878617-elon-musk-government-efficiency/
Aurora alert: Powerful geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights across US and Europe tonight
September 16, 2024
A combination of powerful solar events has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) to issue a geomagnetic storm warning for today (Sept. 16).
This is great news for those wishing to see the northern lights the predicted geomagnetic storm could spark auroras deep into mid-latitudes (around 50°) and as far south as California, Missouri and Oregon.
This culprit? In this case, there are actually two.
The first is a large plume of plasma and magnetic field known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) that was released from the sun during a colossal X-class solar flare — the most powerful class of solar flare — on Sept. 14.
The X4.5 solar flare peaked at 11:29 a.m. EDT (1529 GMT) and was the fifth largest solar flare of the current solar cycle.
The CME released during the X-flare is currently barreling toward Earth and is predicted to arrive today (Sept. 16). CMEs carry electrically charged atoms known as ions.
When they collide with Earth's magnetosphere, they can trigger geomagnetic storms. During these storms, the ions interact with gases in Earth's atmosphere, emitting energy as light.
It is this light that we view as the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or the aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.
The second culprit is a coronal hole on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Coronal holes appear as dark regions in the sun's corona (outer atmosphere).
They have an open, unipolar magnetic field line structure which essentially allows the solar wind to escape more readily into space.
This stream of relatively fast solar wind and the influence of the incoming CME have resulted in the G3 geomagnetic storm watch being issued.
NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale that measures their intensity, ranging from G1 for minor storms to G5 for the most extreme ones.
Powerful G3 conditions are predicted for today (Sept. 16) which means we could be in for quite the aurora show as previous "minor" G1 conditions on July 29/30 still managed to spark dazzling northern lights across the U.S. and Canada.
Current forecasts predict G3 geomagnetic storm conditions will arrive on Sept. 16, though the exact timings are uncertain.
Similar to Earth's weather, space weather is unpredictable and challenging to forecast. While geomagnetic storm warnings of this level are uncommon, they can still sometimes fizzle to nothing.
"NOAA & NASA predictions indicate arrival anytime from 0600 UTC to 1800 UTC September 16.
Likely the storm will arrive on the late side, possibly deflected further east by a fast solar wind stream," space weather physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.
If you use X, I recommend checking out space weather forecaster Sara Housseal's account for regular "CME arrival" updates and general space weather information.
"CME Update: We've reached the point where we could expect the CME to [arrive] at any time, based on model outputs, but there is still no sign that an arrival is imminent," Houseeal wrote in a post on X this morning (Sept. 16).
"Now the fun begins of will it arrive later than expected or not at all? Stay tuned!" Housseal continued.
If you want to keep a watchful eye on the space weather conditions and know when (and where) to look out for auroras, I recommend downloading a space weather app that will let you know the predicted conditions based on your location.
I use an app called "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts" available on iOS and Android. But any similar app should do the job. I then couple this with the Space Weather Live app available on iOS and Android.
This app is great as it gives you more of an insight into whether the space weather conditions are looking promising for aurora activity.
https://www.space.com/aurora-alert-northern-lights-september-mid-latitudes-south
Deep space transmission reaches Earth 8 billion years later
September 15th 2024 at 2:34 AM
A deep space transmission reached Earth eight billion years later.
According to Earth.com,astronomers recently discovered a mysterious and powerful burst of radio waves that reached the Earth after traveling through space for eight billion years.
Fast radio burst (FRB) 20220610A is believed to be the most distant and energetic radio signals ever observed, according to the outlet, which described FRBs as very powerful flashes of radio waves that last for only milliseconds.
According to Earth.com, the exact origins of FRBs both intrigue and perplex scientists, as we're still unsure what, or who, is sending those bursts of energy.
The outlet added that the nature of the signals challenges our current understanding of the universe due to their origins from far beyond the Milky Way galaxy, which indicates events and processes that researchers are only just beginning to understand.
FRBs were first discovered back in 2007. Since then, they have been a source of fascination to the scientific community across the world, per the outlet.
Dr. Stuart Ryder, an astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia, is working alongside a team of scientists to unravel the mysteries behind FRBs, telling Earth.com that the team used the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) to detect the bursts and locate their origins.
According to Earth.com, researchers said FRB 20220610A emitted energy that was equivalent to what the sun produces in 30 years, and believe it may have been linked to magnetars, which are highly energetic remnants that are left behind after a star explodes.
Professor Ryan Shannon said that FRBs could help scientists "weigh" the universe, as the amount of matter that we can detect isn't the amount cosmologists theorize should exist.
"More than half of the normal matter that should exist today is missing,” Professor Shannon told the outlet.
According to Earth.com, FRBs possess the unique ability to "sense" ionized material in nearly vacant space, which could allow scientists to measure any matter located between galaxies.
When speaking to the outlet, Professor Shannon said that "missing" matter could exist outside our visual spectrum, in spaces where it's too hot and diffuse to observe with conventional methods.
The outlet reported that FRBs are believed to be common cosmic events, with Professor Shannon hoping that future radio telescopes, which are currently under construction, will be able to detect thousands more.
https://local12.com/news/nation-world/frb-20220610a-deep-space-transmission-reaches-earth-8-billion-years-later-cincinnati-energetic-most-distant-challenges-understanding-deepest-origins-frbs-macquarie-university-decode-process-fundamental-processes-science-human-interest-diligent-work-find
Anduril targets space domain with AI and autonomous systems
September 16, 2024
Anduril Industries, a defense technology firm known for its use of artificial intelligence in weapons systems, is now setting its sights on the space domain.
Fresh off the introduction of next-generation drones and autonomous cruise missiles for the U.S. Air Force, the company announced plans to design, build, and launch its own fully integrated space systems by the end of 2025.
“We are expanding our advanced, AI-powered hardware and software capabilities into the final frontier: space,” Gokul Subramanian, Anduril’s senior vice president of space engineering, said Sept. 13 in a news release.
The company intends to develop spacecraft for applications like space domain awareness, on-orbit sensor data processing, and satellite defense.
Plans to test payloads
The space mission planned for 2025, according to Subramanian, will act as a testbed for Anduril and third-party payloads, with further details to be revealed in the coming months.
Anduril’s expansion into space builds on the company’s broader strategy of developing autonomous systems that require minimal human intervention.
The company developed a “Collaborative Combat Aircraft,” an autonomous system designed to operate alongside U.S. Air Force piloted aircraft.
And it recently announced plans to mass-produce air-breathing, autonomous cruise missiles using commercially available components.
Central to Anduril’s technology is its Lattice software, which integrates various sensors and systems for real-time decision-making.
Subramanian said Lattice will be used “to autonomously monitor and manage space-based assets, improving situational awareness and reducing operator workload.”
Computer vision tech
The software’s computer vision technology, which processes and interprets visual data from cameras and other imaging systems, allows for real-time object identification and classification, the company said.
This technology, crucial for autonomous decision-making in drone operations, could be applied to satellites in orbit so operators on the ground can respond to threats faster.
Anduril’s expansion into space builds upon its previous work with the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), operated by the U.S. Space Force.
The company has won contracts to leverage its Lattice platform to manage data from this global network of sensors, which is designed to detect and identify objects in orbit.
The company said the integration of Lattice with the SSN has transformed the legacy communication system into a modern mesh network, providing a more comprehensive operational picture of the space environment.
https://spacenews.com/anduril-targets-space-domain-with-ai-and-autonomous-systems/
Breathtaking Night Views From Space: Korea’s Stark Economic Divide
September 15, 2024
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photo of the Korean Peninsula showing the distribution of nighttime light.
North Korea (extending beyond the top of this image) lies on the upper part of the peninsula and is almost devoid of nighttime lights.
In contrast, South Korea lies on the lower part of the peninsula and exhibits night lights from many cities of different sizes.
The seas on either side of the peninsula appear very dark in nighttime images, although cloudy areas reflect some light.
The largest and brightest cluster of urban lights is South Korea’s capital city, Seoul (population 9.67 million), located on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
Only two small clusters of lights are easily visible in North Korea: the capital Pyongyang (population 3.16 million) and Yangdŏk in the country’s center.
Just north of Seoul, a thin line of lights crosses the peninsula from the Yellow Sea to the Sea of Japan, marking the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.
The DMZ border, established in 1953 by the United Nations, is about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide and 250 kilometers (155 miles) long.
Differences in the brightness and expanse of city lights illustrates the distinction between the population sizes—South Korea with about 52 million people and North Korea with about 26 million—and between the extent of urban development in the two countries.
Images of nighttime lights have also been used for studying economies and gross domestic product (GDP).
Because of its dynamic industrial growth since the 1960s, South Korea has been termed one of Asia’s four “economic tigers” along with Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
https://scitechdaily.com/breathtaking-night-views-from-space-koreas-stark-economic-divide/
ESA tests Neuraspace traffic management services
September 16, 2024
The European Space Agency plans to test space traffic management services offered by Portuguese startup Neuraspace.
Under a contract announced Sept. 16, ESA’s Space Debris Office will integrate Neuraspace services with its existing tools to assess conjunctions at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Germany.
The Neuraspace contract shows ESA’s “strong commitment” to supporting the commercial space sector, “enhancing space sustainability, and innovating future orbital safety,” Klaus Merz, senior collision avoidance analyst for ESA’s Space Safety Program Office, said in a statement.
ESA’s Space Safety Program is focused “on the perils in space that threaten critical components of our modern society,” Merz added.
“If not managed properly, resident space objects ultimately threaten the economically vital Earth orbits to become unusable.”
By relying on commercial services from Neuraspace and others, ESA seeks “to reduce risks and contribute to protecting our space assets,” Merz said.
Enhanced Services
For Neuraspace, collaboration with ESOC will provide an opportunity to “refine and enhance our existing solution for both institutional and commercial needs,” Neuraspace CEO Chiara Manfletti said in a statement. “It will also allow us to benefit from ESA’s expertise and operational insights as a long-time and important space actor.”
The value of the ESA contract was not disclosed.
On Sept. 10, Neuraspace announced work with the Portuguese Air Force focused on space situational awareness, surveillance and tracking.
Neuraspace unveiled its first optical telescope at an airbase in Beja, Portugal. Funding for the telescope was provided by the European Commission as part of Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan.
In March, Neuraspace released a free version of its space traffic management platform to encourage collaboration among spacecraft operators.
https://spacenews.com/esa-tests-neuraspace-traffic-management-services/
NGSO revenue to overtake geostationary market by 2028
September 15, 2024
Constellations in non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) are set to overtake geostationary satellites in revenue by 2028, according to Novaspace research published Sept. 15.
The geostationary Earth orbit market represented around 85% of the $12 billion in total satellite capacity revenue in 2023, despite a recent slowdown in GEO orders from operators waiting to see how the rise of Starlink and other NGSO constellations shake out.
However, Novaspace expects NGSO capacity revenues to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27% to around $18 billion by 2033, representing more than two-thirds of the market as Amazon’s Project Kuiper and other large constellations join the fray.
Total satellite capacity revenue from all orbits is projected to more than double over the decade to about $25 billion, Novaspace manager Dimitri Buchs said, driven mostly by the aviation, enterprise, land mobility and government connectivity markets.
Flood of supply
In just the past three years, the supply of global satellite capacity soared eightfold to around 27 terabits per second (Tbps) in 2023, thanks mostly to SpaceX’s Starlink, which accounts for more than 80% of this.
Novaspace estimates Starlink — currently the world’s largest constellation with more than 6,000 satellites in orbit — accounted for 70% of high-throughput satellite traffic last year.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently said Starlink will “probably deliver over 90% of all space-based internet traffic next year.”
NGSO satellites can provide high-speed broadband at lower latency than spacecraft operating farther away in GEO, which is important for video calls, gaming, and using the latest virtual tools and applications hosted in the cloud.
Satellites in lower Earth orbits can also cover the poles to keep airlines connected during international flights, unlike their geostationary peers fixed above the equator.
Still, GEO spacecraft are better at delivering larger amounts of capacity to high-traffic areas.
Novaspace said high-throughput GEO satellites are continuing to gain significant traction in aviation, military, enterprise and other premium market segments where stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are popular.
Falling prices, rising demand
According to Novaspace, global satellite capacity is expected to reach 240 Tbps by 2028.
The flood of NGSO satellites entering the market, in particular, is also set to continue lowering the average revenue per user (ARPU) for capacity.
Satellite capacity ARPU fell 40% year-on-year in 2023 to around $150 a month per megabit per second of data, Buchs told SpaceNews, and is on course to fall below $100 for most segments by 2033.
Plummeting prices are expected to help unlock new markets for satellite connectivity in areas difficult to connect by terrestrial means, including near urban centers and over oceans.
The shifting competitive landscape has also led to a surge in multi-orbit services, partnerships and acquisitions as legacy GEO operators adapt to the rapidly evolving market.
Still, Novaspace projects multi-orbit service revenues to reach $5 billion by 2033, compared with $117 billion in total service revenues.
Buchs, who is also the editor for Novaspace’s latest annual Satellite Connectivity and Video Market report, expects capacity demand from all orbits to grow from 6.5 Tbps in 2023 to 73 Tbps in 2033.
However, multiple uncertainties cloud these projections, including how much Amazon could leverage its significant financial firepower to break into the market with significantly lower prices.
Production, launch, regulatory and other factors often responsible for delaying constellation deployments could also dramatically affect the outlook.
https://spacenews.com/ngso-revenue-to-overtake-geostationary-market-by-2028/
Earth about to pull tiny space rock into its orbit as temporary ‘mini moon’, scientists say
September 16, 2024
A small asteroid will be pulled into orbit around the Earth as a “mini-moon” later this month before the space rock departs into other parts of the solar system.
The 10m-wide asteroid, dubbed 2024 PT5, will become a mini-moon from 29 September until 25 November, astronomers said in a new study published in the journal Research Notes of the AAS.
Earth tends to pull asteroids into partial or full orbits around it regularly before they are flung back out into space.
For instance, one such space rock 2022 NX1 was a short-lived “mini-moon” in 1981 and again in 2022.
The asteroid 2024 PT5 as the name suggests was only discovered last month by scientists who are part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System.
This space rock was likely a fragment of the Moon, researchers speculate.
By following its current size, speed and path, scientists could estimate the asteroid’s path for the next few months.
It is expected to follow a horseshoe-type orbit to become a “mini-moon” of Earth on 29 September only to return to a path orbiting the Sun about 57 days later on 25 November, according to the study.
After orbiting around the Earth for a few days, it will leave the planet’s neighbourhood “shortly afterwards”, until its next return in 2055, scientists say.
The current path of the asteroid also enabled researchers to trace its origins.
They suspect it comes from the Arjuna asteroid belt, a sparse population of small near-Earth space objects orbiting the Sun.
This is a secondary asteroid belt in the Solar System surrounding the path followed by the Earth-Moon system.
In some previous cases, asteroids anticipated to become Earth’s mini-moons have turned out to be misidentified space debris or human-made spacecrafts.
However, in the case of 2024 PT5, researchers say it is “unlikely” to be an artificial object as its short-term orbit path closely resembles that of 2022 NX1 – a confirmed natural object.
“We show that the recently discovered small body 2024 PT5 follows a horseshoe path and it will become a mini-moon in 2024, from September 29 until November 25,” scientists wrote.
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/earth-moon-mini-space-rock-b2613559.html
Drone disrupts air traffic in northern China
Update : 12.09.2024
A drone disrupted air traffic operations in northern China, affecting more than two dozen flights and over 3,000 passengers on Wednesday, state-run media reported on Thursday.
Around 29 flights were delayed and canceled on Wednesday night due to safety concerns caused by the drone at North China’s Tianjin Municipality, according to the Global Times.
However, the daily didn't provide further details about the drone.
All flights departing from and arriving at the Tianjin Binhai International Airport stopped taking off or landing at evening and some flights diverted to Beijing, according to the report.
The flight operations at the airport resumed Thursday morning.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/drone-disrupts-air-traffic-in-northern-china/3328318
Kimball police: it's a weather balloon, not a UFO
Sunday, September 15th 2024, 9:15 PM CDT
Kimball County authorities received multiple reports of a strange object in the sky this weekend.
The Kimball Police Department says a weather balloon was spotted in the region Sunday and was not a UFO.
According to an article from the Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences, weather balloons, also known as radiosondes, are designed to measure atmospheric conditions, including wind, temperature, humidity, and pressure.
These balloons, typically made of latex, expand as they ascend through the atmosphere, gathering valuable data that helps meteorologists make more accurate forecasts.
The Kimball County Sheriff's office said the U.S. Air Force was aware of the balloon, reportedly from a company based in Arizona.
https://metro.newschannelnebraska.com/story/51435262/kimball-police-its-a-weather-balloon-not-a-ufo
“Collision” with an alien star changes the face of the Solar System forever
September 16, 2024
Billions of years ago, the Solar System may have come close to another passing star.
In theories, this would explain the anomalous orbits of some objects on the outer edges of our system, as well as strange moons of neighboring planets.
According to new research published in Nature Astronomy and The Astrophysical Journal Letters, this star could have come as close as 110 astronomical units (a.u.) to the Sun, much closer than the Voyager 1 probe, which is now 164 a.u. away from Earth.
Although the nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, is more than four light-years away, billions of years ago such a strong proximity was quite “dramatic.”
The event could have perturbed the orbits of objects in the outer part of the Solar System, beyond Neptune.
Astrophysicist Susanne Pfalzner notes that many trans-Neptunian objects, with eccentric orbits tilted relative to the general plane of the planets, could have been formed precisely due to the impact of a nearby star.
To test this hypothesis, scientists performed more than 3,000 computer simulations. The results have confirmed the possibility of an intruder star influence, which not only explains the strange orbits of some objects such as the dwarf planet Sedna, but also the orbits of retrograde moons such as Saturn’s moon Phoebe.
Study co-author Amith Govind believed that this star was about 20 percent lighter than the Sun and could have approached us at a distance four times greater than the distance to Neptune.
This meeting could also have led to the entry of some trans-Neptunian objects deep into the Solar System, which were then captured by the gravity of the giant planets.
“This would explain why the outer planets of our solar system have two different types of moons,” notes Simon Portegies Zwart, co-author of the study.
The discovery could mark a stunning episode in the history of our Solar System that has previously been unremarked.
https://universemagazine.com/en/collision-with-an-alien-star-changes-the-face-of-the-solar-system-forever/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad63a6
https://www.southsoundmag.com/profiles/i-want-to-believe-are-ufos-in-the-south-sound-fact-or-fiction/article_7c0716be-6f9c-11ef-9b50-bb267c4c2238.html
https://mibbbfest.squarespace.com/
'I Want to Believe': Are UFOs in the South Sound Fact or Fiction?
September 16, 2024
Why do we look up at the stars? Maybe we just love to watch them twinkle. Or perhaps we are looking for the meaning of life or the answer to some unknowable question.
Or possibly, we just find it hard to believe that in the vastness of space, we’re alone in the universe.
There are those in the South Sound and beyond who believe and allege that we are not alone. They may even assert to have seen an unexplained aerial phenomenon — or UFO, in more colloquial terms.
The Washington-based and -founded National UFO Reporting Center, or NUFORC as it is known by UFO enthusiasts, exists to “receive, record, and to the greatest degree possible, corroborate and document reports from individuals who have been witness to unusual, possibly UFO-related events.”
Since the center began posting its reports online around 1995, it has accumulated more than 170,000 accounts of contact with UFOs.
Washington state ranks third for the most reports (7,284) behind California (16,399), and Florida (8,382).
In fact, between the beginning of 2024 and press time, the online database already has seen close to 50 sightings.
Many of these seem to have been spotted in Yakima and Spokane; however, there are several sightings over the South Sound.
A March 20 observation in Centralia revealed a low-flying black cylinder with an orange light and a yellow center.
On May 11, a reflective craft of undetermined shape was seen hovering stationary over Tacoma at a very high altitude for several minutes before disappearing.
In Tumwater on May 22, a report alleges at least half a dozen yellow and white “dots traversing east to west” in loose formation across the night sky. On June 1, a disc shape moving slowly across the sky with multiple blue and white lights was spotted in Tacoma.
Accounts even come in from pilots who spot anomalous activity in flight. A pilot of a January flight from Denver to Pasco reported curious activity over Yakima.
The anonymous pilot said they and their first officer spotted two lights moving in a usual pattern.
“After watching for 10-15 minutes, I asked air-traffic control if there were some fighter aircraft practicing dog fights at our 11 o’clock high,” the pilot wrote in their account.
“ATC said there was nothing in that direction. We were at 34,000 feet, so the object(s) must have been 40,000 to 50,000 feet or higher.
The movements seemed too abrupt and aggressive to be tanker practice. The controller said he had no such activity in that direction.”
Thanks to the advent of the internet and smartphones, accounts of these types certainly have become more prevalent, but it isn’t a new phenomenon.
In fact, documented sightings of these curiosities date back to at least the late 1940s and have roots right here in the Pacific Northwest.
Cue a mental wavy flashback transition and old-timey mid-century music.
The year 1947 was known as the “Summer of Saucers,” or the “Flying-Disc Craze.”
From late June through early August, reports of flying saucer sightings flooded in from across the country and were reported wide by the Associated Press.
One of the earliest of these purported encounters happened on June 21 on the Puget Sound.
It is known as the “Maury Island Incident,” named for the small South Sound landmass off the larger Vashon Island where the event took place.
Local lawyer and screenwriter Steve Edmiston has spent countless hours researching what transpired that day on the Puget Sound, combing through unclassified government documents and other accounts after he learned of the event from a well-meaning stranger in a coffee shop.
The findings of his research became a 30-minute, award-winning eponymous film about the event, written by Edmiston, directed by Scott Schaefer, and produced by John White.
“A man named Harold Dahl lives in Tacoma, and he takes this boat — the North Queen, it’s like a 50-foot working trawler — and he brings his son, Charles, and he brings the family dog, Sparky.
They pick up two unidentified dockworkers in Tacoma and they head north about three miles until they’re just off Maury Island,” Edmiston said, adding that Dahl was scavenging for errant logs that had fallen off ships heading to local sawmills.
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It was there that Dahl allegedly encountered six donut-like discs approximately 100 feet wide hovering above his boat. One of the discs was lower than the others and it appeared to be failing, according to Dahl’s accounts.
There is then an explosion and hot debris and “slag” — as it is later referred to in government documents — rained down on the boat, injuring Dahl’s son and killing the dog.
“They take that really big boat — that 50-foot working trawler — and run it aground on Maury Island, get off the boat, and hide in what was then kind of gravel mines and cliffs there so that they’re not getting hit by what's happening above them,” Edmiston said.
“And then the discs leave, all of them, even the one that appeared to be failing.”
The next day, Dahl is reportedly visited by a man dressed all in black and driving a black 1947 Buick.
The mysterious man takes Dahl to a diner where he supposedly tries to quiet Dahl through intimidation. This is the first instance, to Edmiston’s knowledge, of a man in black.
The man in black and the following events involving a local FBI agent, a downed U.S. Air Force B-25 and the deaths of both pilots, and the influence of famed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover himself are pieced together and dramatized in Edmiston’s “The Maury Island Incident” film.
“On June 24, just a couple days later, the famous Ken Arnold sighting around Mount Rainier happens,” Edmiston said.
“Ten days later, Roswell, New Mexico — you probably heard about that one — that happens. And really, there are just thousands of reports over the summer.”
In fact, it was Arnold’s Mount Rainier sighting that first coined the term “flying saucer,” according to history.com.
“The civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects, glowing bright blue-white, flying in a ‘V’ formation over Washington’s Mount Rainier.
He estimated the objects’ flight speed at 1,700 mph and compared their motion to ‘a saucer if you skip it across water,’” the account reads, noting that Arnold seemed a credible witness as an experienced pilot and respected businessman.
Though a prospector on nearby Mount Adams asserted Arnold’s story, U.S. Air Force investigators concluded that both men witnessed a phenomenon known as mountain-top mirages.
In the case of Dahl’s sighting, the Tacoma resident later admitted his story was a hoax, however, the FBI records Edmiston located that had been unclassified after 50 years purportedly showed that Dahl insisted in private that he only recanted his story because he no longer wanted to be mocked.
“The evidence in those sealed records was that the hoax was fabricated, that Harold Dahl never backed down when he was interviewed by the FBI,” Edmiston said.
“(He) always said he saw what he saw, but that he was going to inject and fabricate that it was a hoax. … His quote is actually, ‘I’d rather be known as the biggest liar that ever lived, than to be ridiculed.’”
In the years since, Dahl’s and Arnold’s experiences have been referenced in innumerable pop-culture references across myriad media.
And, in 2017, in time for the 70th anniversary of the Summer of Saucers, the Washington State Senate passed and adopted Resolution 8648.
“On the 70th anniversary of the seminal UFO sightings events, the Washington state sightings should be recognized for both their prominence and primacy in the modern era of UFO popular culture,” the resolution reads, adding specific recognition of the events that transpired in Washington state that summer.
For believers, the local lore is celebrated each summer during the Burien UFO festival, where a screening of Edmiston and company’s “The Maury Island Incident” is shown.
The film also can be rented or purchased on Vimeo. Edmiston also created an event to commemorate June 22 as the birthday of the men in black.
The annual event is held in Des Moines.
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