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Giant Structure in Deep Space Challenges Our Understanding of The Universe
02 May 2025
A colossal structure in the distant Universe is defying our understanding of how the Universe evolved.
In light that has traveled for 6.9 billion years to reach us, astronomers have found a giant, almost perfect ring of galaxies, some 1.3 billion light-years in diameter. It doesn't match any known structure or formation mechanism.
The Big Ring, as the structure has been named, could mean that we need to amend the standard model of cosmology.
The discovery, led by astronomer Alexia Lopez of the University of Central Lancashire, was presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 2024, and has been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
It's the second giant structure discovered by Lopez and her colleagues. The first, called the Giant Arc, is actually in the same part of the sky, at the same distance away.
When the arc's discovery was announced in 2021, it puzzled astronomers. The Big Ring only deepens the mystery.
"Neither of these two ultra-large structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe," Lopez said in January 2024.
"And their ultra-large sizes, distinctive shapes, and cosmological proximity must surely be telling us something important – but what exactly?"
The most immediate link seems to be with something called a Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO). These are giant, circular arrangements of galaxies found all throughout space.
They're actually spheres, the fossils of acoustic waves that propagated through the early Universe, and then froze when space became so diffuse acoustic waves could no longer travel.
The Big Ring is not a BAO. BAOs are all a fixed size of around 1 billion light-years in diameter. And thorough inspection of the Big Ring shows that it is more like a corkscrew shape that is aligned in such a way that it looks like a ring.
Which leaves the very unanswered question: What the heck is it? And what does it mean for the Cosmological Principle, which states that, in all directions, any given patch of space should look pretty much the same as all other patches of space?
"We expect matter to be evenly distributed everywhere in space when we view the universe on a large scale, so there should be no noticeable irregularities above a certain size," Lopez explained.
"Cosmologists calculate the current theoretical size limit of structures to be 1.2 billion light-years, yet both of these structures are much larger – the Giant Arc is almost three times bigger and the Big Ring's circumference is comparable to the Giant Arc's length."
But the size is just one of the problems. The other is what it means for cosmology, the study of the evolution of the Universe.
The current model is the one that currently fits the best with what we observe, but there are some features that are challenging to explain under its framework.
There are other models that have been put forward to address these features.
Under one such model, Roger Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology, in which the Universe goes through endless Big Bang expansion cycles, ring structures are expected – although it's worth noting that conformal cyclic cosmology has significant problems of its own.
Another possibility is that the structures are a type of topological defect in the fabric of space-time known as cosmic strings.
These are thought to be like proton-wide wrinkles that emerged in the early Universe as space-time stretched, then froze into place.
We've not found much physical evidence of cosmic strings, but the theoretical evidence is pretty promising.
At the moment, nobody knows for sure what the Big Ring and the Giant Arc signify. They could just be chance arrangements of galaxies twirling across the sky, although the likelihood of that seems pretty small.
The best hope would be to find more such arrangements of galaxies, scattered throughout the Universe, hiding in plain sight.
"From current cosmological theories we didn't think structures on this scale were possible," Lopez said.
"We could expect maybe one exceedingly large structure in all our observable Universe. Yet, the Big Ring and the Giant Arc are two huge structures and are even cosmological neighbors, which is extraordinarily fascinating."
The findings are reported in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. An earlier version of this article was published in January 2024.
https://www.sciencealert.com/giant-structure-in-deep-space-challenges-our-understanding-of-the-universe
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1475-7516/2024/07/055
US Buzzes China's Military Satellites in Unfolding Space Rivalry
May 02, 2025 at 3:20 AM EDT
An American military satellite was reportedly "buzzing" its Chinese counterparts as China rapidly advances in a new space race to challenge U.S. leadership in this domain.
Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Space Force and the Chinese Defense Ministry for comment.
Why It Matters
The U.S. Space Force was established in 2019 during the first administration of President Donald Trump, who said American superiority in space was "absolutely vital."
One of the missions of the new service branch is to protect and defend U.S. interests in space, including satellites.
China, which has several ambitious space programs, including a space station and a manned mission to the moon, was spotted using its satellites to conduct "dogfighting" maneuvers, the U.S. Space Force reported in March, practicing orbit operations from one satellite to another.
COMSPOC, which is a commercial provider of space situational awareness software in Pennsylvania, said USA 324, a U.S. Space Force Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) satellite, was "checking out" two Chinese satellites recently.
The American satellite was tracked making two close passes to China's TJS-16 and TJS-17 satellites on April 26 and 29, with a distance of 10.5 miles and 7.4 miles, respectively. It was not immediately clear why the U.S. Space Force's satellite maneuvered around the targets.
USA 324, which was launched in January 2022, and other GSSAP satellites can track and observe objects in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator, NASA said.
The U.S. Space Force said the GSSAP satellites support its space surveillance operations by conducting "Rendezvous and Proximity Operations," in which the satellites maneuver near a space object, enabling characterization for anomaly resolution and enhanced surveillance.
Meanwhile, the TJS-16 and TJS-17, which were launched into space on March 29 and April 10, respectively, are part of the Chinese satellite program Tongxin Jishu Shiyan, meaning "communication technology experiment," according to SpaceNews.
While China said both satellites were designed for satellite communication technology verification, SpaceNews said they were viewed by Western analysts as conducting classified missions, which included satellite inspection activities, to support the country's armed forces.
What People Are Saying
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote on X, formerly Twitter:
"To be clear, I do not object to [U.S. Space Force] making such maneuvers. I object to the U.S. complaining when other countries do the same things we are doing."
The U.S. Space Force said on its website: "GSSAP satellites collect space situational awareness data allowing for more accurate tracking and characterization of man-made orbiting objects.
From a near-geosynchronous orbit, it has a clear, unobstructed and distinct vantage point for viewing Resident Space Objects (RSOs)."
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen whether the American and Chinese military satellites will have further maneuvers around each other for close inspection and observation.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-china-news-military-satellites-close-encounter-orbit-2067071
https://x.com/COMSPOC_OPS/status/1917299841039831248
FAA grounds Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket until failure investigation is complete
May 1, 2025
Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket has been grounded until further notice.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is requiring an investigation into Alpha's latest flight, an April 29 launch from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base that ended in failure.
"A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety," the agency wrote in an update the day of the mishap.
"In addition, Firefly may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements."
The April 29 mission, which Firefly called "Message in a Booster," was the sixth to date for the two-stage, 96.7-foot-tall (29.6-meter-tall) Alpha.
The rocket was supposed to deliver a prototype version of Lockheed Martin's LM 400 multi-mission satellite bus to low Earth orbit, but that didn't happen.
Just after its two stages separated, Alpha suffered a mishap "that led to the loss of the Lightning engine nozzle extension, substantially reducing the engine’s thrust," Firefly wrote in a post-launch update. (Alpha's upper stage is powered by a single Lightning engine.)
"Initial indications showed Alpha's upper stage reached 320 km [199 miles] in altitude," the company added.
"However, upon further assessment, the team learned the upper stage did not reach orbital velocity, and the stage and payload have now safely impacted the Pacific Ocean in a cleared zone north of Antarctica."
Firefly will lead the mishap investigation, though the FAA will be involved "in every step" and must approve the company's final report, according to the agency.
Alpha debuted in September 2021. Just two of its six flights have been fully successful.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/faa-grounds-firefly-aerospaces-alpha-rocket-until-failure-investigation-is-complete
https://fireflyspace.com/missions/alpha-flta006/
These 5000-year-old Egyptian coffins depict the Milky Way galaxy, astrophysicist says
May 1, 2025
Ancient depictions of the Egyptian sky goddess Nut may represent one of the earliest visual interpretations of the Milky Way galaxy, a new study suggests.
In a recent study, astrophysicist Or Graur analyzed 125 images of Nut (pronounced "Noot") across 555 ancient Egyptian coffins dating back nearly 5,000 years.
In only a few depictions, however, Nut is shown with a black curve bisecting her star-studded body. Graur says that curve could be an early depiction of our home galaxy.
"I think that the undulating curve represents the Milky Way and could be a representation of the Great Rift — the dark band of dust that cuts through the Milky Way's bright band of diffused light," Graur, who is an associate professor at the University of Portsmouth and research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. "Comparing this depiction with a photograph of the Milky Way shows the stark similarity."
In these depictions, Egyptian goddess Nut can be seen arching over the Earth god Geb, forming the sky.
With her hands and feet touching the horizon, her body forms a protective dome over the world. According to Egyptian mythology, Nut swallows the sun god Ra each night and gives birth to him each morning, symbolizing the solar cycle.
Nut is often covered in stars in Egyptian imagery, representing the night sky and, in some instances, possibly the twinkling arc of the Milky Way stretched across the skies above Earth.
However, Graur argues that while there appears to be a connection between Nut and the Milky Way, the two are not one and the same because the sky goddess is not always drawn with the dark undulating curve believed to represent the galaxy's Great Rift.
"Nut is not a representation of the Milky Way," Graur added. "Instead, the Milky Way, along with the sun and the stars, is one more celestial phenomenon that can decorate Nut's body in her role as the sky."
This builds on Graur's initial study published last year connecting Nut and the Milky Way, and is part of a larger project focused on multi-cultural mythology of the Milky Way.
Graur's latest findings were published April 30 in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/these-5000-year-old-egyptian-coffins-depict-the-milky-way-galaxy-astrophysicist-says
https://www.sciengine.com/JAHH/doi/10.3724/SP.J.140-2807.2025.01.06
Lohmeier defends qualifications for Air Force post as senators question past remarks
May 1, 2025
WASHINGTON — Matthew Lohmeier, President Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of the Department of the Air Force, faced pointed questioning during his confirmation hearing May 1 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, as Democrats expressed concerns about his fitness for the second-highest civilian position overseeing the Air Force and Space Force.
Lohmeier, a former Space Force lieutenant colonel who was removed from command in 2021 after publicly criticizing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the military, told senators he would push for a politically neutral military while sidestepping criticism over his past public remarks.
“I speak the language of both the Air Force and the Space Force,” Lohmeier told the committee. “I am air minded and space minded.
I understand the necessity of United States superiority in both of those war fighting domains. Space in particular, is a strategic domain. It is a theater where we pursue many objectives, and where the United States must prevail.”
The position Lohmeier seeks would help shape policy for approximately 700,000 active-duty, National Guard, reserves and civilian personnel within the Department of the Air Force.
Committee members appeared sharply divided along party lines, with Republicans supporting Lohmeier’s nomination while Democrats questioned his suitability based on past statements.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the committee, voiced strong opposition: “I have deep concerns about your fitness to represent these men and women.
While I appreciate your past military service, your record of troubling conduct in uniform, extreme partisanship, and animosity toward military members with whom you disagree politically is, in my view, disqualifying to be undersecretary.”
Some Democratic senators read aloud Lohmeier’s previous public comments that suggested he might seek retribution against officers who supported DEI programs if confirmed to the position.
Lohmeier during the hearing sought to distance his current nomination from those past statements, and argued that his views as a private citizen should not disqualify him from returning to public service.
He added that he did not anticipate returning to public service when he made those comments and asked that they not be used to evaluate his suitability for a civilian leadership post.
“I reserve the right to be wrong about any of my views,” Lohmeier said. “I believe private citizens have the right to express their views, as mean or as wrong as they might be.”
Lohmeier insisted his intent as undersecretary of the Air Force, if confirmed, is to remove “political distractions” from military activities. “I share this committee’s commitment to an apolitical military,” he said. “We should focus on the mission.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) countered that the undersecretary position “should not be a platform for ideology or grievance. It’s a demanding leadership position that’s responsible for overseeing a budget, personnel, and institutional integrity.”
If confirmed, Lohmeier pledged to advocate for increased funding for the air and space military branches, noting that “combatant commanders are calling for more air and space power capacity, not less.”
The hearing also featured testimony from Justin Overbaugh, nominated to be deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, and Daniel Zimmerman, nominated as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Neither nominee faced the same level of scrutiny as Lohmeier.
https://spacenews.com/lohmeier-defends-qualifications-for-air-force-post-as-senators-question-past-remarks/
https://spacenews.com/white-house-budget-proposal-would-phase-out-sls-and-orion-scale-back-iss-operations/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf
White House budget proposal would phase out SLS and Orion, scale back ISS operations
May 2, 2025
WASHINGTON — The White House is proposing major changes to NASA in its fiscal year 2026 budget request, seeking to phase out the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft as well as reduce operations of the International Space Station.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a top-level budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 May 2.
The so-called “skinny” budget includes overall funding levels and some details, but without the same level of detail as a full budget proposal.
The full budget is expected in late May.
For NASA, the skinny budget requests just $18.8 billion for the agency, a cut of nearly 25% from the $24.9 billion the agency received in the full-year continuing resolution for fiscal year 2025.
“This proposal includes investments to simultaneously pursue exploration of the Moon and Mars while still prioritizing critical science and technology research,” acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro said in an agency statement.
“I appreciate the President’s continued support for NASA’s mission and look forward to working closely with the administration and Congress to ensure we continue making progress toward achieving the impossible.”
That overall cut includes a new focus on both human missions to the moon and Mars.
“The Budget refocuses National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funding on beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars,” a fact sheet accompanying the bill states.
“By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient.”
That shift would affect two of the central programs in the current Artemis architecture, the SLS and Orion.
“The Budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after three flights,” the budget document states.
“The Budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions.”
Jared Isaacman, nominee to be NASA’s administrator, committed to the current Artemis architecture in his April 9 confirmation hearing as the fastest way to return humans to the moon.
However, he said at the hearing and in subsequent questions for the record he would support moving away from those systems in the future.
“The commercial launch market is more capable than ever, with numerous American providers investing in heavy-lift capabilities,” he wrote in response to a question for the record from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
“NASA should take advantage of that competition and eventually refocus its world-class talent and infrastructure on what no one else is doing: developing the next generation of exploration technologies.”
The budget would also cancel the lunar Gateway, the international facility orbiting the moon that would be part of later Artemis missions.
The budget did not give a reason for doing so, but the proposed cancellation could upend cooperation with Europe, Japan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, who have agreed to contribution Gateway elements in exchange for seats for their astronauts on missions to the moon.
“I am not aware of any plans to cancel Gateway,” Isaacman told Cruz in response to another written question, but added that “if such a situation arose, I would work closely with our partners—as I have done in countless complex international negotiations in my business career—to find an acceptable path forward.”
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ISS, technology and science reductions
The bill would cut the budget for the International Space Station, about $3 billion for operations and transportation in 2025, by half a billion dollars.
“The Budget reduces the space station’s crew size and onboard research, preparing for a safe decommissioning of the station by 2030 and replacement by commercial space stations,” it states, but does not includes specifics on the cuts in crew size or research activities.
Crew and cargo launches to the ISS would also be reduced. “The station’s reduced research capacity would be focused on efforts critical to the Moon and Mars exploration programs.”
Isaacman told Democratic senators in written responses to questions that NASA should “ignite a thriving space economy by maximizing the remaining life and utility of the International Space Station.”
That included a “need to prioritize the highest-potential science and research on the ISS that could help ‘crack the code’ on a sustainable orbital economy.”
The skinny budget confirms deep cuts in NASA science programs that leaked out in an OMB budget “passback” document to NASA three weeks ago.
The only mission specifically mentioned in the bill for cancellation is Mars Sample Return, although it notes that the “gold-plated” Landsat Next program would also be restructured.
Isaacman, in a response to written questions from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he was unaware of the proposed science cuts but added that “a ~50% reduction to NASA’s science budget does not appear to be an optimal outcome.”
The proposal cuts NASA’s space technology portfolio by about 50%. Those cuts include “eliminating failing space propulsion projects,” but does not give specifics.
It would also cut unidentified programs “not needed by NASA or are better suited to private sector research and development.”
As with the first Trump administration, this budget proposal seeks to terminate NASA’s education programs, now known as STEM Engagement.
“NASA will inspire the next generation of explorers through exciting, ambitious space missions, not through subsidizing woke STEM programming and research that prioritizes some groups of students over others and have had minimal impact on the aerospace workforce,” the budget document states.
Those earlier efforts to cancel NASA education programs were rejected by members of both parties in Congress.
Isaacman told senators in response to written questions that he supported NASA efforts like Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and Space Grant.
“Programs like EPSCoR are essential because they help connect students and researchers from underserved regions and institutions to the opportunities that NASA provides,” he told Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.)
Both EPSCoR and Space Grant are in the STEM Engagement budget line that the OMB proposal zeroed out.
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Space Force Special Operations Command is on its way
May 1, 2025 5:27 PM EDT
Space Force already has at least one ‘Space Ranger’ and several “Space Cowboys” who’ve completed an infamous “spur ride” with 1st Infantry Division cavalry scouts. But now the newest military service will have its own special operations component.
First reported by Hope Seck for Sandboxx News, the smallest branch plans to stand up its own component inside U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, which oversees the missions and operations of elite units like Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets.
The Guardians won’t be crawling through mud or eating snakes, but they will be teamed up with and work to support special operators under SOCOM’s operational control as part of Space Force Special Operations Command.
“There is no definite timeline associated with the standup of other service components, including the Space Force service component to SOCOM, [Space Force Special Operations Command], but the Space Force will continue to identify requirements to meet the growing demands of combatant commanders’ space needs,” a Space Force spokesperson told Task & Purpose.
“Currently, there is a Space Force Special Operations Element at MacDill Air Force Base that supports SOCOM.”
According to a March 26 statement for the record of testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, in 2025 SOCOM “established the Space Force Special Operations Command to deliver specialized space personnel and capabilities to our units responsible for campaigning, our [theater special operations commands].”
A Space Force spokesperson clarified for Task & Purpose that while the command was technically “established” in 2025, it has not been stood up or fully manned.
Though the air-conditioned control centers where Space Force guardians watch radar scopes and interpret intelligence signals don’t immediately bring to mind the grubby reality of special ops missions, leaders in the special operations world have long seen space ops as their next frontier.
The Army’s top special operations commander, Lt. Gen. Jonathan P. Braga, has made a habit of appearing at conferences and other public events with his counterparts who command the Army’s space and cyber commands.
Teaming up the brawniest troops with the techiest, Braga said, will be a key in future conflicts.
“The Cyber-Space-SOF Triad provides one of these solutions,” Braga said in an Army release.
“It is a ‘Modern-Day Triad’ designed to converge unique accesses, capabilities, authorities, understanding and effects in many of the same ways we have implemented combined arms operations.”
In other words, when special ops guys go charging into a fight, they want as much space-based intel and as many sneaky digital tricks as possible.
The service is also establishing components to support other commands.
“The Space Force is standing up service components to the combatant commands, with six service components activated thus far including [U.S Space Forces – Indo-Pacific], [U.S. Space Forces – Central], [U.S. Space Forces – Europe and Africa], [U.S. Space Forces – Space], [U.S. Space Forces – Korea ], and [U.S. Space Forces – Japan],” a Space Force spokesperson told Task & Purpose.
“These standups are a critical step in normalizing the presentation of space forces and providing clarity of command relationships, roles, and responsibilities in the Joint Force and across all theaters.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/space-force-special-operations-command/
https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025_solic_-socom_posture_statement-_hasc-iso_26mar2025.pdf
Activist aid ship hit by drones on way to Gaza, NGO says
May 2, 20258:39 AM PDT
VALLETTA, May 2 (Reuters) - A ship bound for Gaza carrying humanitarian aid and activists was bombed by drones in international waters off Malta early on Friday, its organisers said, alleging that Israel was to blame.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an international non-governmental group.
The Maltese government said the vessel and its crew were secured in the early hours of the morning after a nearby tug assisted with firefighting operations.
Turkey's foreign ministry said Turkish nationals were on board at the time of the incident and it was working with Maltese authorities to transfer them to a safe location.
"We condemn in the strongest terms this attack on a civilian ship," it said, noting that there were "allegations that the ship was targeted by Israeli drones".
"All necessary efforts will be made to reveal the details of the attack as soon as possible and to bring the perpetrators to justice," it said.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg told Reuters she was in Malta and had been supposed to board the ship as part of the Freedom Flotilla's planned action in support of Gaza, which is under blockade and bombardment by Israel.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas broke down in March, with both sides blaming each other, and Israel sent troops back into Gaza and resumed airstrikes.
The NGO published video footage, filmed in darkness, showing a fire on one of its ships, the Conscience. The footage showed lights in the sky in front of the ship and the sound of explosions could be heard.
"Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade (of Gaza) and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters," it said.
The Maltese government said maritime authorities had received a mayday call shortly after midnight local time from a vessel outside of territorial waters, with 12 crew members and four civilians on board, reporting a fire.
It said a nearby tug headed to the scene and launched firefighting operations and a Maltese patrol vessel was dispatched. After several hours, the vessel and its crew were secure, it said, adding that crew had refused to board the tug.
'BREAK THE BLOCKADE'
A spokeswoman for the NGO, Caoimhe Butterly, said the attack took place as the ship was preparing for activists to board from another vessel.
A transfer at sea had been planned rather than the ship going to harbour, for bureaucratic reasons, she said.
Thunberg said the attack had "caused an explosion and major damage to the vessel, which made it impossible to continue the mission".
"I was part of the group who was supposed to board that boat today to continue the voyage towards Gaza, which is one of many attempts to open up a humanitarian corridor and to do our part to keep trying to break Israel's illegal siege on Gaza," she said in a Zoom interview.
Thunberg and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said there were 30 people on board, not 16 as the Maltese government said.
The coalition said it had been organising a non-violent action under a media blackout in order to avoid any potential sabotage.
The Gaza war started after Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza in the October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel's offensive on the enclave killed more than 52,000, according to Palestinian health officials.
Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the enclave, and food stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out, according to international aid agencies.
Israel accuses the Hamas militants who have run Gaza of exploiting aid - which Hamas denies - and says it must keep all supplies out to prevent the fighters from getting it.
Another coalition ship on a similar mission to Gaza in 2010 was stopped and boarded by Israeli troops, and nine activists died.
Other ships have similarly been stopped and boarded, without loss of life. Hamas issued a statement about the incident off Malta, accusing Israel of "piracy" and "state terrorism".
Reporting by Christopher Scicluna in Valletta, Ilze Filks in Stockholm and Jonathan Spicer in Istanbul; Writing by Estelle Shirbon and Alvise Armellini; Editing by Saad Sayeed, William Maclean and Alex Richardson
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/ship-carrying-activists-aid-gaza-attacked-by-drones-ngo-says-2025-05-02/
Bakes, there's a boo boo
should be
>>22982545 US Buzzes China's Military Satellites in Unfolding Space Rivalry
>>22982549 President Trump establishes Religious Liberty Commission during National Day of Prayer ceremony
Ukraine Says Drones Targeted Russia's Space Surveillance System
May 2, 2025
Ukrainian officials said Friday that "unknown drones" had targeted a Russian military intelligence station that spies on foreign satellites and electronic signals.
The governor of southern Russia's Stavropol region, Vladimir Vladimirov, said drone fragments fell in the village of Moskovskoye without casualties or other damage early that morning.
But the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's center for countering disinformation said that the drones had "successfully reached" the Russian GRU military intelligence agency's facility for intercepting and analyzing satellite communications.
The center's spokesman Andriy Kovalenko said on Telegram that the facility is part of a network of satellite eavesdropping stations called Zvezda.
"The Zvezda facility is not only a technical base, but also part of the strategic architecture of Russian intelligence, which is used both for monitoring the situation in war zones and for preparing information for information and psychological operations," he wrote.
According to the online publication The Space Review, the Stavropol region facility was among at least four Zvezda stations to be attacked by Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.
The Zvezda station in the Stavropol region's Moskovskoye village was last attacked on July 4, 2024.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/02/ukraine-says-drones-targeted-russias-space-surveillance-system-a88952
Malta becomes first European country to permit fireworks from drones
May 1, 2025
The International Fireworks Festival came to spectacular close on Wednesday night with a pyrotechnic display featuring 550 drones that were permitted to launch fireworks in a European first.
The Civil Aviation directorate within Transport Malta said on Thursday Malta was the first country in Europe to authorise the launching of fireworks from drones.
Pyroemotions, the pyrotechnics company responsible for organising this type of show in Europe is registered in Malta and has recently produced similar shows in Aosta, Italy and Burgio in Sicily.
It will shortly be producing more shows in Montenegro and other places in Italy.
The directorate said it has been collaborating with the European Uinon Aviation Safety Agency, of which it is a member, to introduce new concepts for drone swarms and now for such drone swarms to be equipped with pyrotechnics.
https://timesofmalta.com/article/watch-malta-becomes-first-european-country-launch-fireworks-drones.1109027
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Maritime Security Committee is meeting and investigating the alleged drone attack on vessel
Friday, 2 May 2025, 16:44
The Maritime Security Committee is meeting and investigating the alleged drone attack on a Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel.
Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri confirmed that the committee, which he said brings together entities from different ministries and whose role is to conduct these kind of investigations, met on Friday morning and is again meeting on Friday afternoon.
"I assure you that all the investigations will be made," he said.
He was responding to a question as to whether, from the information he has so far, there is any possible connection between the Freedom Flotilla's claim that it was attacked by drones, and the reports that an Israeli Military plane hovered over Malta.
He also reiterated that a statement was issued on Friday morning providing information related to the support given to the vessel overnight, and also said that presently, in the vicinity of this vessel there is an AFM patrol boat that is continuously surveilling what is happening, even if outside territorial waters.
Asked if potential Israeli involvement is one of the things being investigated, he said "the role of the Maritime Security Committee that emerges from the law is to investigate. It has to conduct all the investigations so that then it can communicate its conclusions."
Earlier in the afternoon, The Times of Malta reported that a military aircraft left Israel on Thursday and hovered around Malta, saying that this happened hours before Gaza Freedom Flotilla said that it had been the subject of a drone attack.
The newspaper identified the aircraft as a C-130 Hercules, saying that its movement was reported by an online flight tracker ADS-B exchange.
The Times reports that it showed the Israeli aircraft hovering above Malta prior to making manoeuvres over Hurd's Bank at around 5,000 feet, and says that around 7 hours later the plane returned to Israel, quoting flight-tracking data.
Questions have been sent to the Maltese government. There is no confirmation of a link between the Israeli military plane and what happened to the Flotilla.
A ship belonging to the Gaza aid group Freedom Flotilla Coalition suffered a fire overnight in what the NGO had said was an armed drone attack in international waters just outside Malta’s territory.
The group said in a statement on its website that it had come “under direct attack in international waters.”
Maltese authorities said in a statement on Friday morning that a tugboat had responded to the emergency and that an Armed Forces of Malta vessel was also dispatched to the site.
https://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2025-05-02/local-news/Military-aircraft-from-Israel-hovered-around-Malta-hours-before-vessel-drone-attack-report-6736269797
More than 100 Ukrainian drones repelled over Crimea – Moscow
2 May, 2025 06:34
The Russian military repelled a series of Ukrainian drone raids overnight on Thursday, downing a total of 121 UAVs, the Defense Ministry has said.
In a statement on Friday, officials reported no damage to the port city of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, following the attack.
The majority of the aircraft-type drones – 89 in total – were intercepted over Crimea, and another 23 over the Black Sea, according to the statement.
In mainland Russia, four drones were downed over Krasnodar Region, two over Oryol Region, one over Bryansk Region, and one over Belgorod Region. Another drone was intercepted over the Sea of Azov.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, reported a “massive combined attack” on the city, which he said was defeated by the fleet and local air defense forces.
He added that no damage was done in the city, and that all emergency services remain on high alert.
Ukraine routinely launches drone raids into Russia, with strikes often targeting critical infrastructure and civilians.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian military launched a drone strike on the town of Aleshki in Russia’s Kherson Region, killing at least seven and injuring more than 20.
https://www.rt.com/russia/616652-100-ukrainian-drones-repelled-crimea/
The Airbike by Volonaut is a real flying motorbike. No wings. No runway.
May 1, 2025
The Airbike by Volonaut is a new kind of personal air mobility vehicle that brings the sci-fi dream of flying motorcycles closer to reality.
Designed for a single rider, this fully electric hoverbike can take off vertically and hover with ease, requiring no wings, no runway, and no spinning propellers.
It’s a major innovation for those who have ever imagined flying freely and independently.
Jet Propulsion and Advanced Materials
Unlike traditional drones or helicopters, the Airbike relies on compact jet propulsion, possibly ducted fans or turbines to generate real lift.
This design not only allows it to fly through tight spaces safely but also offers a quieter, safer flying experience.
Thanks to its advanced carbon fiber construction, 3D printing techniques, and minimalistic design approach, the Airbike is seven times lighter than a typical motorcycle.
Futuristic Design with Real-World Testing
Still in the prototype stage, the Airbike has already shown real flight potential in test footage.
The design clearly draws inspiration from science-fiction vehicles, with a sleek, angular frame and a unique riding position that offers an unobstructed 360-degree view.
It’s designed to hit speeds of up to 200 km/h, or 124 mph, giving it serious capabilities for short-distance solo travel.
Built for Urban and Confined Spaces
Because it doesn’t use large spinning propellers, the Airbike is ideal for navigating confined or urban environments where traditional aircraft can’t operate safely.
Its vertical takeoff and landing capabilities open the door to more flexible personal transportation, especially in areas without traditional airstrips or road infrastructure.
The Vision Behind the Project
The Airbike is the work of Polish inventor and entrepreneur Tomasz Patan, known for his forward-thinking approach to mobility technology.
With the Airbike, Patan aims to push the boundaries of what personal flight can be light, efficient, and accessible.
https://www.thesuperboo.com/airbike-by-volonaut-real-flying-motorbike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqUxtinjtHY
Long Island launches drones in desperate search for missing Democrat whose car, clothes found near beach
May 1, 2025, 5:14 p.m. ET
Nassau County launched drones in an aerial search for a missing Long Island Democratic candidate whose car and clothes were found near a local beach, officials said Thursday.
Petros Krommidas, who is running for a seat on the Nassau Board of Legislators, vanished April 23 when he went for a training swim at Long Beach, cops and family said.
Police later found the 29-year old’s locked car by the Allegria Hotel, just near the beach he had regularly visited to train for a triathlon, his family said. He had appeared to have taken a towel with him.
County Executive Bruce Blakeman said Thursday he ordered the mobilization of Nassau’s Community Emergency Response Team and drone team to conduct an aerial search that began in Atlantic Beach.
The drones are searching “along the coast and nearby areas” while a command post was set up at Catalina Beach Club, Blakeman added.
“The safety and well-being of our community members is our highest priority, and we are doing everything possible to locate Petros and bring him home safely,” Blakeman said.
https://nypost.com/2025/05/01/us-news/long-island-launches-drones-in-desperate-search-for-missing-democrat-petros-krommidas/
CIA psychic Uri Geller drops apocalyptic bombshell: Terrifying Donald Trump premonition and chilling date for global catastrophe
Last Updated: 05 April, 2025 00:28 AM -7 GMT
Uri Geller, the contentious CIA-linked psychic, is raising a serious alarm. Geller, known for previous accurate predictions, claims to have seen a terrifying vision, a nuclear apocalypse caused by Iran.
In a message addressed to Donald Trump, he states that only immediate action can prevent a global catastrophe.
What exactly did Geller predict?
He urges Donald Trump not to sign any nuclear deal, citing vivid visions of destruction, warning that it could spark a global disaster.
Geller insists that his previous predictions were correct, and that this one is on the verge of happening.
However, the most terrifying vision to date has been lingering in his mind for the past few days, he asserted, as quoted in a report by the Daily Mail.
The United States of America is the only country in the world with the firepower to stop this nightmare from coming true.
Any agreement that allows Iran to continue developing its nuclear weapons must be rejected by the US. Stopping Tehran's bomb production now is the only safe option.
Geller is urging President Trump to pay attention to General Anthony Cotton, the head of US Strategic Command, who believes Iran could gather enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in less than a week if it so desired.
Why is Iran at the center of this warning?
Cotton informed the US Senate last month that Iran's "breakout time," or the amount of time required to enrich enough uranium for one bomb, is now only a few days away, as per a report by the Daily Mail.
Geller worries that the regime in Tehran, which is led by vile fanatics, is only interested in detonating a bomb in the center of Western society. They could bring a bomb into Israel illegally and set it off in the middle of a city.
They might also decide to ship their nuclear weapon to Europe or even the United States, detonating it in the ports of Miami, New York, or Philadelphia.
Even though it might result in a global nuclear holocaust and the end of human civilization, Iran's leaders, who refer to the US as "the Great Satan," may believe that destroying an American city is God's will.
In the past, Geller has had premonitions. For example, at the age of 24, he was aware that Egypt's president, Nasser, had died from a heart attack.
His announcement created such a stir that some people thought I must have been part of a covert plot to kill me. But Nasser passed away naturally.
Additionally, Geller participated in the initial US Stargate project, a Cold War spy operation that mapped enemy positions and plans using "remote viewing."
Stargate is still going strong today, but under a different name. Since psychics are an inexpensive form of espionage, they can be found sitting in dimly lit rooms across America today.
Because of his background in espionage, Geller has flown in jets that are nearly as fast as sound over suspected nuclear sites and mapped tunnels that run beneath the border from North Korea and were later demolished by Seoul's forces.
He is convinced by this experience that Iran's deep-seated nuclear program serves military objectives. Although the future has not yet been written, Geller has powerful predictions. Iran is vying for the bomb and will stop at nothing to achieve it.
The regime is aware that it needs the ultimate deterrent to survive, but it hasn't arrived yet. President Trump needs to stop this right away.
He must avoid signing any agreements with Iran because a new nuclear deal would spell the end of the world. A deal with the United States will be the ideal cover for the ayatollahs to lie their way to a bomb, as quoted in a report by the Daily Mail.
FAQs
What exactly did Uri Geller see in his vision?
He claims he witnessed Iran launching a nuclear bomb, resulting in global devastation.
What does Geller want Donald Trump to do?
He begs Donald Trump not to sign a nuclear deal with Iran, warning that it could have catastrophic consequences.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/cia-psychic-uri-geller-drops-apocalyptic-bombshell-terrifying-donald-trump-premonition-and-chilling-date-for-global-catastrophe/articleshow/120024617.cms
this too
UFO congressional hearing bombshells as ex-NASA boss shares possible UAP not investigated
May 1, 2025
The US has been accused of hiding evidence of UFOs from the public during a bipartisan congressional hearing on Thursday (May 1).
A number of experts spoke to government officials from a "science‑driven perspective" at the briefing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) - as it is becoming more commonly referred to these days - about the possibility of alien life in the universe.
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, with help from the UAP Disclosure Fund, held the event called 'Understanding UAP: Science, National Security & Innovation.'
Scientists told the members of Congress that they required a bigger part in the role of investigating UAPs and other unexplained phenomena.
Key speakers included former Pentagon official turned UAP whistleblower Luis Elizondo and Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb.
Below are five bombshells that came out of the meeting:
UAP whistleblower's photo
Ex-Pentagon official Luis Elizondo held up an unvetted photo of what he said was a UAP taken by a civilian pilot.
He went on to emphasise the uncertainty that military, commercial and civilian aviators all face when they either witness or document UAPs in US airspace.
"Do they report it to the FAA? Do they report it to NORAD? Maybe the air force? Once again, you would think this information would be important for somebody to look at,' he said.
"If these are over sensitive military installations, whose are they? What are their capabilities? What is the intent?"
Private sectors using 'alien technology'
A founding partner of technology investment company American DeepTech, claimed that private sector firms are building new inventions based on alien systems.
Dr Anna Brady-Estevez, who once worked with NASA on space economic policy, said she had helped fund entrepreneurs with UAP-inspired inventions.
She said: "They were working on advanced energy. They were working on advanced communications. I funded companies working on what the entrepreneurs later described as UAP-adjacent or UAP-inspired technologies.
However, thee investors were forbidden to give away too much detail about their technology due to the research's classified nature.
Ex-NASA boss claims UAP not investigated
Mike Gold, an ex-NASA associate administrator, revealed some stunning photos just sitting in the space agency's archives that have yet to be investigated as potential UAPs.
Gold, now the president of civil and international space at tech company Redwire, shared a number of unexplained images taken by NASA on Mars and the Moon.
One included another sighting of the so-called 'Tic Tac' UFO, which recently appeared on the surface of Mars after several sightings over the Pacific Ocean.
He asked: "Why are we not investigating this? It's certainly worth the effort to investigate and we're not doing it!"
'Secret program' recovers alien spaceships
Research physicist Dr Eric Davis said the US government has been operating a secret program recovering crashed UFOs since the 1950s when Dwight Eisenhower was president.
Dr Davis worked as a subcontractor and then a consultant for the Pentagon UFO program since 2007. He claimed that the program began after the discovery of a crashed UAP in 1944.
Since then he said that a lot of the technology recovered over the years from these wreckages have been secretly moved to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, without any congressional oversight or approval.
In addition, project code names have changed every few years to cover up the Defense Department's actions. He once concluded that "we couldn't make it ourselves" after seeing some of of the recovered materials himself.
Huge 'disinformation' campaign by US government
A retired US Navy rear admiral blasted the US intelligence community for a 'disinformation' campaign in covering up alleged military sightings of UAPs. Tim Gallaudet said that the Navy "has a trove" of data on UAP from pilots and other personnel.
Yet none of it has officially been released. Gallaudet called on the White House to share this information with the public and noted that he had just received reports from Navy members who had seen UAPs.
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/ufo-congressional-hearing-bombshells-as-ex-nasa-boss-shares-possible-uap-not-investigated/ar-AA1E0P9e
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14672283/shocking-truth-ufo-image-released-pentagon-whistleblower.html
https://futurism.com/military-whistleblower-ufo-crop-photo
https://x.com/MickWest/status/1918018307237789803
https://x.com/blackvaultcom/status/1918135339480449499
Shocking truth behind incredible UFO image that stunned Congress
Updated: 13:15 EDT, 2 May 2025
Internet sleuths have already discovered the stunning truth behind a 'UFO' image shared on Capitol Hill yesterday by a Pentagon whistleblower.
Former military intelligence official Luis Elizondo spoke before Congress Thursday morning, revealing a never-before-seen image of a cruise ship–sized craft he claimed was spotted hovering 21,000 feet in the air over the western US.
The image quickly flooded social media and was debunked in less than 24 hours.
Users analyzed the photo and located the object, discovering it was actually a snapshot of two irrigation circles in rural Colorado.
Mick West, a British-American science writer and conspiracy theory investigator, wrote on X: 'This UFO photo shows two irrigation circles.
'The roads are perfectly aligned, and the 'shadow' is in the wrong direction.' West also noted that this isn't the first time Elizondo, who led the Pentagon's program investigating UFO sightings for 10 years, has made a major UFO blunder.
One glaring mistake involved a high-resolution image of a supposed 'mothership' in 2022, which appeared to be piercing through clouds over Romania.
It was later debunked as the window reflection of an indoor chandelier lamp. 'It makes you wonder why Elizondo gets fooled by things like this,' West added in his post on X. 'Is he just really bad at analyzing UAP?'
John Greenewald, the creator of The Black Vault, a website archiving millions of declassified government documents, added that a Reddit post revealed the circles in the newest image were sitting on County Road X, in Colorado's Lincoln County.
'I've said it a million times. The internet, and (some) of the users within it, are an amazing resource,' Greenewald tweeted.
Others in the Reddit thread were less forgiving toward Elizondo, with many accusing him of spreading disinformation.
'Trying to clown all of us,' one user wrote. 'If any of the people coming forward are serious, they'll distance themselves from him.'
'Really brings into question what they are doing with disclosure. Starting to think that Elizondo and co. are just disinformation agents,' another added.
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Elizondo served as the moderator at the congressional briefing, which featured well-known figures in the UFO community, including Harvard scientist Avi Loeb and Tim Gallaudet, a retired Navy Rear Admiral who has long claimed the existence of underwater alien bases.
Despite his role as moderator, Elizondo took a moment to present the image, which he implied was a UFO. 'You would think this information would be important for somebody to look at,' Elizondo said, challenging the US government to take UFO sightings more seriously.
He told the room of government officials that a civilian pilot had captured the photo while flying over the Four Corners — where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet at a single point.
'It makes you wonder why Elizondo gets fooled by things like this,' West added in his post on X. 'Is he just really bad at analyzing UAP?'
He described it as being up to 1,000 feet long and metallic.
Despite the criticism, Elizondo doubled down on showing the photo at Thursday's hearing, saying on X Friday that it was an unvetted image he used to prove a point about civilian pilots lacking access to UFO-reporting resources.
'The purpose of me showing the photo was to illustrate the need for civilian and commercial pilots to have a central reporting mechanism to report potential anomalous sightings,' Elizondo posted on X Friday.
'In this case, the pilot who took the photo, using his own camera, did not have a way to report what he believed was anomalous,' he continued.
'The ones who are screaming about it (instead of discussing respectfully it as I hoped) missed the entire point of the photo and are not helping other pilots in the future from coming forward,' the whistleblower added.
Some on social media understood how the pilot and Elizondo could have mistaken the irrigation circles as a UFO, as even the full-color maps of the area tricked some viewers on Reddit.
'Even this one kinda gives the optical illusion effect makes it look like the green circle is floating,' one person admitted.
DailyMail.com was able to track down this area of Colorado on Google Maps, revealing that there are actually several center-pivot irrigation fields all in a row next to the ones in Elizondo's photo.
In this method of farming, a central pivot point anchors a long irrigation arm that rotates around it, watering crops in a circular pattern.
The fields can reach up to a mile in diameter. The ones in the photo shown to Congress are approximately between 1,300 and 2,600 feet long, which would fall in line with the reports of the size of the now-debunked UFO.
Thursday's hearing was led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican congresswoman from Florida charged by President Trump with overseeing the disclosure of several classified events, including UFO sightings.
Loeb, an Israeli-American astrophysicist at Harvard, said at the hearing that 'there are objects in the sky that we don't understand' while explaining the need for increased funding for UFO detection.
The Harvard scientist said that at least one billion dollars needs to be committed to improving America's efforts to track and monitor the movements of UFOs and UAPs.
Meanwhile, several speakers at the hearing claimed that the US intelligence community was actively suppressing reports about extraterrestrial sightings.
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Alleged secret UFO program has video evidence: Journalist
Updated: May 2, 2025 / 05:08 AM CDT
Whistleblower Michael Brown has said he learned of a top-secret Pentagon UFO program called “Immaculate Constellation.”
Journalist Michael Shellenberger, who first reported on the program, told NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that the Pentagon is “sitting on a significant body of photographic and video evidence” of UAPs and UFOs.
He said multiple sources have confirmed the existence of “Immaculate Constellation.”
“What they’re saying is that the Pentagon, it’s not just a few of these little videos coming out in dribs and drabs,” Shellenberger said.
Videos he has seen reportedly show “orbs coming out of the ocean near Kuwait.”
“I think everybody agrees there’s a huge amount of information that the Pentagon is sitting on … that hasn’t been released,” Shellenberger said.
Congress formed a task force on UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, but the published reports were heavily redacted.
“The UAP task force has collected a ‘redacted’ number of reports from this many — the number of years is redacted — and then potential explanations, they say it could be weather,” Shellenberger, who testified before Congress, said.
Lawmakers held a hearing Tuesday, demanding answers from Department of Defense officials on increased drone sightings, which some have said could be UFOs.
“We’re just being treated like children. It’s time for the Trump administration to really take disclosure seriously, “ Shellenberger said. “We want this information.”
https://www.newsnationnow.com/vargasreports/alleged-secret-ufo-program-has-absurd-amount-of-evidence-journalist/
Jacques Vallée: Project Blue Book, space travel and military secrecy | Reality Check
May 1, 2025
In this episode of "Reality Check," Ross Coulthart sits down with researcher, scientist and author Jacques Vallée.
Vallée has been researching the UAPs since the 1960s. Together, they dive into Vallée’s research, theories of NHI origins and military UAP crash retrieval programs.
Vallée also shares stories from investigations, his time working closely with Robert Bigelow and his firsthand account of witnessing a UAP.
Vallée also discusses his latest book in his Forbidden Science series, “Scattered Castles: The Journals of Jacques Vallée 2010-2019.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqptVKs7wbc
New UAP legislation in the works as Congress prepares for more hearings
May 1, 2025
Lawmakers are drafting new legislative proposals and preparing to host two hearings as part of their ongoing campaign to enhance the U.S. government’s investigations into reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) that are increasingly threatening national security, according to three House Republicans involved in what they referred to as bipartisan, bicameral efforts.
The Congress members are looking to institutionalize more accountability and disclosure from federal agencies on the historically taboo topic.
“This is not a one-time thing. It’s clear this is not a one-time data dump.
This is a systemic change to the process in the way that we are transparent with the American people, and with that we’re working on legislation that will put that into practice,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said Thursday.
Burlison, as well as Reps. Anna Luna, R-Fla., and Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., unveiled those plans during a multi-session congressional briefing on “Understanding UAP: Science, National Security and Innovation,” hosted on Capitol Hill by the UAP Disclosure Fund in collaboration with the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
There, the Congress members heard presentations and participated in open-table discussions from a range of high-profile scientists and former government officials, including Harvard University Professor Dr. Avi Loeb, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon and former oceanographer of the Navy retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet.
“I’ve spoken to [U.S. military personnel] that are still in active duty and their sightings of UAP have become so numerous that they are desensitized to the phenomenon.
My point being that the Navy possesses a trove of video evidence and data regarding UAP, and I see no reason why [certain] footage of UAP [on] Navy training ranges cannot be declassified and shared with the scientific community,” Gallaudet said.
At various points during the hours-long event, the lawmakers expressed aims to continue to build momentum for UAP transparency in the U.S. government, including via two upcoming congressional hearings Luna announced.
“One is going to be government-focused. We are asking various appointees, I don’t want to release the names yet, but we have been getting good responses from them and we will make those names known soon — as well as military and former military that will be coming forward,” Luna said.
“Also I want to note that we were told by one of Mr. Burleson’s staffers that’s helping us to lead up this investigation about someone that wants to come forward in regards to a crash retrieval program. So that’s pretty interesting to hear someone going on record about that,” she added.
On the sidelines of the event, Burchett told DefenseScoop that the committee will continue to host briefings with the UAP Disclosure Fund and other advocates to raise awareness, gain insights from experts and inform future policy moves or legislation.
“We’re just going to get more support and maybe make [the legislation] more precise and concise — and I think that that’s going to help a lot,” Burchett said.
https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/01/new-uap-legislation-congressional-hearings-planned/
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/the-afterglow-of-a-uap-congressional-briefing-1ea309c3ae48
https://www.youtube.com/live/_yFwUdbSpko?si=NKeh3hy3aiUAiM0X
The Afterglow of a UAP Congressional Briefing
May 2, 2025
My 20-minute presentation at the UAP congressional briefing on May 1, 2025 (of which the full video, including presentations by other panelists, is accessible here) started with the following statements.
Let us be honest: there are objects in the sky that we do not understand. When we do not understand what 85% of the matter in the universe is, we invest billions of dollars to find out the nature of that dark matter.
Given that the U.S. government reports about Unidentified Anomalous Objects (UAPs), I say: let us invest a billion dollars in figuring out their nature through rigorous scientific research.
If we find that all UAPs are human made, some by adversarial nations, then at the very least we will have at our possession state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and sensor systems that are of great value for national security.
On the other hand, even if one in a billion of these UAPs happens to be extraterrestrial in origin, its discoverers will be awarded the Nobel prize. This is a win-win situation.
On the day before the congressional briefing, I visited the Pentagon and echoed these sentiments.
If we do not find evidence for extraterrestrial technologies, I will be proud that the AI tools and sensors being developed will be used to protect our nation against human-made terrestrial threats.
The scientific study of UAP offers a unique opportunity to spend a billion dollars on AI and frontier science and make taxpayers happy.
There is no bigger scientific question that the public cares about than “Are we alone?” If there are smarter kids on our cosmic block, we can learn from them.
Recovering an extraterrestrial gadget might provide us with access to advanced technologies faster than it would take us to develop them from scratch. Our current scientific knowledge is an island in an ocean of ignorance.
A civilization that benefitted from millennia of science after discovering quantum mechanics, might have quantum-gravity engineers that attach a negative mass to a payload and allow it to escape gravity without fuel.
The briefing was attended by the honorable House Representatives Anna Paulina Luna, Nick Begich, Eric Burlison and Tim Burchett.
I showed the cover page of a New-York Times Magazine feature story: “How a Harvard Professor Became the World’s Leading Alien Hunter?”
and mentioned that I was not happy with that reporting and told the editor: if we cannot trust what you publish about science, how can we believe what you post about politics?
New scientific knowledge does not fall into our lap.
I reiterated a new variant of my bet with Elon Musk, namely I am willing to put 1% of my net worth against 1% of his net worth and check whether Elon is the most accomplished space entrepreneur since the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago.
Subsequently, I described the extensive work done by the Galileo Project team, including the construction and operation of three new UAP observatories that will collect new data on a few million objects per year by monitoring the sky in the infrared, optical, radio and audio, and searching for outliers using state-of-the-art AI software.
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>https://www.youtube.com/live/_yFwUdbSpko?si=NKeh3hy3aiUAiM0X
bad link, sorry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yFwUdbSpko
The Galileo Project is also planning to search for large pieces of the interstellar meteor IM1 using a robot with a video feed.
I concluded with a sunset photo of me with Art Wright, who served as party chief of our first ocean expedition to retrieve spherules from IM1’s fireball site in the Pacific Ocean.
Art is a problem solver, an admirable outlier in today’s culture of virtue signaling. His approach is the one I embrace for resolving the mystery of UAPs.
In a podcast interview earlier this week, I was asked: “What would you like to be remembered for?” My answer was: “For my future work. The best is yet to come.”
Many of my colleagues adopt what they regard as the voice of reason in avoiding UAPs.
At the same time, they brush anomalies under the carpet, by cataloging near-Earth objects with unusual trajectories as “Empty Trash Bag Objects” — implying that they are broken pieces of human-made satellites pushed by sunlight, and by labeling anomalous interstellar objects like `Oumuamua — which exhibited a similar push away from the Sun, as “Dark Comets”.
Starting this summer, the Rubin observatory in Chile, funded by NSF and DOE, might find family members of `Oumuamua that could be studied further with the Webb telescope.
Labeling anomalies with names that imply conventional interpretations and then insisting that there is nothing anomalous about them, is not a wise long-term strategy.
Reality does not care about our ignorance. While most humans insisted that the Earth is at the physical center of the Universe, the Earth continued to revolve around the Sun.
This was captured by the phrase attributed to Galileo Galilei: “Epour si mouve.”
Following the scientific tradition established by Galileo, we must seek more evidence in figuring out anomalies. With the investment of a billion dollars in resolving the nature of UAPs, we are likely to gain new knowledge.
In reply to a question by the moderator, Lue Elizondo, I highlighted my hope that the younger generation will find the nature of UAPs out of raw curiosity and without being trapped in prejudice.
This is why I am excited to construct a Galileo Project observatory in a new science education campus near Purdue University, Indiana, aimed to inspire the next generation of curious kids.
I choose every day to think like a kid and not interpret anomalies as manifestations of known things.
It is not an easy choice, being surrounded by colleagues who pretend to behave like the adults in the room and insist that they know the answer in advance.
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Secret CIA files ‘expose locations of three alien bases’ and two of them are on Earth
11:43 2 May 2025 GMT+1
For as long as humanity has been able to gaze up at the cosmos we've been wondering 'Are we alone in the universe or is there any life out there?'
It's a question which has dominated our collective thoughts - and the science fiction genre - for decades, but, if claims from one declassified CIA report are to believed, it would appear that aliens not only exist, but have been living among us for quite some time.
So grab your tinfoil hats and unfurl your 'welcome aliens' banner, as its time to unpack the latest arguments for extraterrestrial life existing.
During the height of the Cold War, agents at the CIA left no stone unturned when it came to investigating methods to one-up the Soviet Union.
This meant exploring some pretty whacky avenues, including research on mind control and fitting cats with listening devices.
One such project which falls under this category is 'Stargate Project', which saw the CIA explore the possibility of 'remote viewing' — an idea which individuals with psychic abilities could gather information about distant objects or people.
Files from the Stargate Project would later be declassified in 2000, which meant the public were able to learn about 'Description of Personnel Associated 'ET' Bases' and the documents are fascinating.
According to one document, a test subject claimed to have experience of remotely visiting three alien bases, two of which were supposedly on Earth.
A description of the two bases lists one as being in Mount Hayes, Alaska, while the other was either in South America or Africa. Meanwhile, the third base was on the Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
"So far have run into three types of entities associated with bases at various locations within the solar system," the document reads.
The test subject then goes on to describe the 'entities' working inside each base, with some of the beings appearing to be more humanoid than others.
On the Titan base, they encountered what appeared to be human scientists, while the two bases on Earth were staffed by beings with more extraterrestrial features, such as one being with 'a very large, rounded-shaped head' and another individual who was almost human but 'lacked definitive facial features'.
The test subject doesn't go into specific detail about what the bases look like, but adds that all beings were working on a variety of tasks, including working at a 'circular console'.
They also described one of the beings as an 'attractive female' with 'brown shoulder length hair' - because this is obviously the most important details of intelligence gathering.
The project was ultimately scrapped in 1995 after it was concluded that physic powers aren't a useful tool for intelligence gathering, which seems a little obvious in hindsight but hey, times were tough.
But don't feel too disheartened, as researchers recently unveiled an exoplanet which shows the most promise of being hospitable to alien life.
Just don't be expecting to find green men in suits.
https://www.ladbible.com/community/weird/cia-files-expose-alien-base-locations-on-earth-453251-20250502