TYB
Star Wars Day
May 4, 2025
The 1977 release of “Star Wars” changed Hollywood forever. Four decades later we’re still enthralled. Just last December, “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker”, was released in theaters.
Following the previous two movies of the sequel trilogy, “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi”, the main Star Wars film franchise has come to a conclusion. So — Happy Star Wars Day this May 4!
It’s party time on Tatooine.
The first organized Star Wars Day took place in Toronto back in 2011.
The event included an Original Trilogy Trivia Game Show, a costume contest, and a showing of fan-made tribute films, mash-ups, parodies, and remixes.
In late 2012, Disney purchased Lucasfilm and has officially observed the holiday at Disneyland and Walt Disney World ever since.
History of Star Wars Day
The “Star Wars” universe is a massive achievement. It is hard to think of a time when “Star Wars” didn’t exist, given its extraordinary influence and popularity in pop culture. It all started with the book “Dune” by Frank Herbert.
First published in 1965, it is widely regarded as the base inspiration for “Star Wars,” given the huge similarities between characters and the storyline of the two.
Either way, George Lucas set his story in outer space and took the risk of producing a sci-fi movie in 1977, a time when the genre was pretty much dead in Hollywood.
Nobody expected the first “Star Wars” movie to do as well as it did. Backed by a meager $9.5 million for production, it had a limited theatre release and was expected to bomb at the box office.
There was no way that this sci-fi opus would be a hit. On May 25, 1977, “Star Wars” (later renamed to “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope”) was released.
Through word of mouth and raving reviews, “Star Wars” enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame and changed the entire landscape of cinema, leaving studios completely bewildered by its success.
The world was introduced to the Skywalker-family saga, and beloved characters like Han Solo, Yoda, Chewbacca, and perhaps the darkest villain of all time — Darth Vader.
Grossing over $100 million by the end of the summer, the first installment of “Star Wars” won six Academy Awards and a Special Achievement Award for groundbreaking accomplishments in special effects.
For its time, and considering the limited budget, George Lucas pulled off a massive feat by creating advanced effects and filming impressive space sequences using only small-scale figures and setups.
The success of the first movie was followed by two sequels, “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back,” in 1980 and “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi,” in 1983.
The franchise branched out into different commercial lines as well.
20 years after the debut film, Lucas released the second trilogy of films, the ‘prequel trilogy.’
With a new cast of popular actors like Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor, “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” was released in 1999, followed by “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones” in 2002, and “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” in 2005.
The storyline wasn’t as acclaimed as that of the original trilogy, but the digital technology and effects of the movies had significantly improved and, subsequently, they were overall box-office successes.
The marketability of the franchise became more extensive, with a book series, animated TV series, action figures, video games, and clothing lines created for the new generation of “Star Wars” lovers.
Walt Disney Studios acquired the franchise in 2012, and set forth to produce a third trilogy, the ‘sequel trilogies.’ The seventh film, “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens,” was released in 2015.
The universe was further expanded with new characters while staying faithful to the true essence of “Star Wars.” “Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi” was released in 2017, followed by “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019.
Several stand-alone movies were also tied-in with the main story, “Star Wars: Rogue One” in 2016, and “Solo” in 2018.
So if you are a newbie to the Star Wars universe, here is the viewing order to watch the movies in:
The original trilogy: “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), and “Return of the Jedi” (1983)
The prequel trilogy: “The Phantom Menace” (1999), “Attack of the Clones” (2002), and “Revenge of the Sith” (2005)
The sequel trilogy: “The Force Awakens” (2015), “The Last Jedi” (2017), and “The Rise of Skywalker”
https://nationaltoday.com/star-wars-day/
https://www.starwars.com/star-wars-day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUXbvaQSeDc
>The original trilogy: “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), and “Return of the Jedi” (1983)
Episodes 4, 5, and 6. Anybody have that Q post with the movie posters outside the theater?
tyvm
'Falcon' flies on Star Wars Day: SpaceX launches Starlink satellites from Florida
May 4, 2025
Living up to its Star Wars' namesake, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took flight again, delivering 29 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) on Sunday, May 4th, 2025 — Star Wars Day.
The launch occurred at 4:54 a.m. EDT (0854 GMT) from Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
About 8.5 minutes later, the rocket's first stage came back to Earth, acing its touchdown on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas."
It was the 20th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a company mission description.
With 29 Starlink satellites on board, this was the largest number of the broadband-providing spacecraft on one Falcon 9 launch to date.
SpaceX has now launched nearly 8,500 Starlink satellites to date, more than 7,300 of which remain operational in LEO, according to satellite tracker and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/falcon-flies-on-star-wars-day-spacex-launches-starlink-satellites-from-florida-photos
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-6-84
This ‘Star Wars’ Day, check out a moon that looks like iconic space station
May. 04, 2025, 5:45 a.m.
“That’s no moon. It’s a space station.”
So were the words uttered by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi when he gazed upon the doomsday weapon, the Death Star, in 1977’s “Star Wars,” later subtitled “Episode IV: A New Hope.”
The spherical “technological terror,” as Darth Vader called it, is a gray, tiled defense system with trenches and a massive dish with a laser capable of destroying a planet.
Although the Death Star appeared a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, it resembles something seen in nature — within the solar system.
First discovered by astronomer William Herschel in 1789, Mimas is one of the many moons orbiting Saturn, according to NASA.
It was not until 1980, when the spacecrafts Voyager I and II, and the craft Cassini, all took images of Saturn’s smallest, innermost moon.
Besides their lack of color and textured appearances, there’s a massive crater on Mimas that makes the space object resemble the Death Star.
The Herschel Crater is 80 miles across, caused by an impact that could have broken Mimas apart, NASA stated.
Mimas can be seen from Earth using a powerful telescope.
While Mimas and the Death Star resemble each other, there’s one big difference. The moon is 400 kilometers, or 250 miles, in diameter, according to EarthSky.
The Galactic Empire’s superweapon is much smaller at 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, in diameter, according to the fan website Wookieepedia.
Recent studies of the moon also present a dichotomy with its fictional “twin.”
While the Death Star was a harbinger of destruction, Mimas could harbor life, BBC Sky at Night reported in 2024. A subsurface ocean may have formed in the last 25 million years.
“This is possibly the youngest place in the solar system that could be habitable,” French astronomer Valéry Lainey, whose team discovered the moon’s ocean in February 2024, told the BBC magazine.
https://www.masslive.com/weather/2025/05/this-star-wars-day-check-out-a-moon-that-looks-like-iconic-space-station.html
https://thedebrief.org/infrasound-technology-proves-critical-for-planetary-defense-against-threats-from-outer-space/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.13972
https://www.egu.eu/media/filer_public/3c/84/3c845388-f6d1-4ba1-aa3e-496bfd1af87d/egu25_press_release__space_junk_falling_to_earth_needs_to_be_tracked__meteoroid_sounds_can_.pdf
Infrasound Technology Proves Critical for Planetary Defense Against Threats from Outer Space
May 3, 2025
A Sandia Labs scientist specializing in tracking the angle of objects entering Earth’s atmosphere has demonstrated how an existing network of infrasound technology-based sensors designed to detect potential nuclear weapon tests can be adapted for planetary defense.
The novel use of this technology can provide a defense against potential dangers from outer space, including discarded tools, defunct satellites, and other pieces of space junk currently encircling the planet.
With future missions expected to add to the volume of hazardous material that may cause damage when falling back to Earth, and diplomatic efforts to solve the problem still ongoing, using infrasound technology to determine where and when an object is likely to impact could prove increasingly valuable.
This technology could also protect against natural objects like falling meteors or potentially against objects launched intentionally at a ground target in a future space war.
How Infrasound Technology Aids Planetary Defense Against Incoming Space Objects
In an email to The Debrief, Sandia Labs scientists Elizabeth Silber explained how the infrasound technology behind the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) worldwide sensor network works.
“The CTBTO’s worldwide network of infrasound sensors is designed to detect minute disturbances in the atmosphere, including signals from events occurring thousands of kilometers away,” Silber explained.
“These sensors are highly sensitive by design. Their effectiveness lies in their ability to register very subtle atmospheric pressure changes caused by distant, impulsive sources.”
In the same email, Silber said that her curiosity was initially piqued by the fact that the CTBTO network and NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) database would often identify slightly different locations for a bolide, or a meteor exploding as it enters the atmosphere.
Described by Silber as “one of the most important existing resources” for studying these types of events, NASA’s CNEOS database contains records of around 1,000 atmospheric events detected by U.S. government space-based sensors.
Because the two systems use different technologies, Silber wondered if the data captured by the infrasound technology-based sensors could offer additional information that was confusing the NASA network.
Specifically, the Sandia Labs scientists said she looked at how a fireball’s path through the atmosphere, particularly the object’s angle of entry, might explain the mismatched readings.
“Shallow entries travel longer distances and can send out sound from many points along the way, which can throw off the apparent direction of the signal by several degrees,” Silber told The Debrief. “Steeper entries are much more straightforward.”
A press release announcing the research said that using this data to pinpoint potential impact locations more accurately is critical and could play a vital role in planetary defense.
“If you don’t know where something is going, then you have a hard time preparing for it,” the release explained.
Predicting the Path of Entry for Space Objects
Silber developed a customized computer model to test the hypothesis to show how these different atmospheric entry trajectories affect what the infrasound systems “see.”
Called BIBEX-M, or the Bolide Infrasound Back-Azimuth Explorer Model, Silber says her customized model uses the subtle variances in sound detected by the CTBTO sensors to calculate the likeliest path of meteors, pieces of space debris, or even planned reentry events “which follow similar extended paths.”
“Understanding this effect helps us better locate where these events happen, and makes global monitoring more accurate,” she explained.
In a published study detailing the findings, Silber said objects entering the atmosphere at angles above 60 degrees were the most likely to give different locations depending on the sensors used to track them.
Because infrasound technology tracks signals over time, they are uniquely equipped to calculate entry angles and locations.
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When asked how much advanced warning time this application of infrasonic technology could provide to people in potential impact locations, Silber said that the lead time before atmospheric entry events varies widely.
For example, the Sandia scientist noted how in 2013 the 18-meter-wide Chelyabinsk asteroid went undetected right up until it entered the atmosphere because it was approaching Earth from the direction of the Sun.
Another cited example was the Ribbeck fireball over Germany in 2024, which Silber says wasn’t detected until approximately three hours before entry.
Unlike natural events, Silber told The Debrief that artificial objects returning to Earth from interplanetary missions have precisely calculated trajectories known “far in advance.”
Along with successful, coordinated reentry tracking campaigns like NASA’s Stardust and Genesis missions and the Japan Space Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 sample-return missions, Silber cited the 2023 atmospheric reentry of NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex mission as examples of multiple sensors working together to determine accurate reentry coordinates.
That event, she explained, was the “largest geophysical observation to date, leveraging a wide range of ground-based and atmospheric sensors,” including those based on infrasound technology.
“These campaigns provide a rare opportunity to validate and refine our detection capabilities under controlled conditions,” Silber told The Debrief.
Improving Object Tracking with Newer Technologies
Although tracking smaller objects is still the most significant challenge for any sensor systems involved, Silber said that predicting the orbits of some of the largest and most dangerous objects in space can occur “decades in advance.”
She also said that efforts to improve early detection of smaller objects are “ongoing.”
When asked if there are potential ways of improving the planetary defense capabilities beyond CTBTO infrasound technology, Silber offered several examples.
“This is a great question!” she replied. “While the global ground-based network remains the backbone of atmospheric monitoring, there is growing interest in complementary technologies to enhance planetary defense capabilities.”
According to Silber, high-altitude platforms, such as stratospheric balloons equipped with infrasound sensors, “have shown significant promise.”
For example, balloons carrying infrasound sensors operating at these extreme altitudes captured clear infrasound signals from the OSIRIS-Rex reentry.
This success, the scientist noted, demonstrated the technology’s potential to monitor high-altitude atmospheric events “with remarkable sensitivity.”
When asked about planned improvements to the existing infrasound CTBTO system, Silber told The Debrief that the organization operating and maintaining the sensors would best answer the question.
However, she said the system undergoes regular maintenance, just like “any sophisticated global monitoring system.”
She also noted that continued advances in all sensing and signal processing areas could also improve systems using infrasonic technology.
Ultimately, the Sandia scientist says her findings are important because they are the first to quantify the difference between sensor readings that can be attributed to any incoming object’s trajectory.
She also said the work offers researchers studying planetary defense efforts a new tool to protect from space debris by scanning for infrasound signals “out to distances of 15,000 kilometers.”
“The results show that for shallow-entry fireballs, the common assumption of a single point source doesn’t always hold, even at long range,” Silber told The Debrief.
“This has important implications for how we interpret infrasound data from both natural fireballs and space debris reentries, leading to more accurate event localization and improved global monitoring.”
Silber’s research paper “Investigating the relationship between bolide entry angle and apparent direction of infrasound signal arrivals” and the BIBEX-M tracking model were presented in full during a special session of the European Geophysical Union General Assembly 2025, which took place from 27 April to 02 May 2025.
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Three Guardians Recognized for Rendering Aid Following Rollover Crash
May 2, 2025
On April 16, three Guardians assigned to the Vosler Academy—Sgt. Benjamin Kremer, Tech. Sgt. Robert Camblin, and Master Sgt. Jessica Morgan—were en route to lunch near Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, when they encountered a vehicle that had flipped onto its roof.
Without hesitation, the Guardians exited their vehicle and began rendering aid to the driver, who was trapped inside and suffering from a serious arm injury.
Despite signs of shock, the team worked quickly to keep the driver calm and stabilize the injury using improvised supplies until emergency responders arrived.
Colorado Springs School Resource Officer VuongVu Le was the first law enforcement official on scene. He secured the area and provided the Guardians with a medical kit to continue administering care.
“They deserve all the recognition,” Officer Le said. “Their teamwork allowed me to secure the scene, knowing the driver was in good hands.”
The three Guardians were formally recognized for their actions during a ceremony at Peterson SFB on May 1, 2025, where each received the Air and Space Achievement Medal.
They were also coined by leadership from Space Delta 13, including the commander and senior enlisted leader, in appreciation of their readiness and response.
Officer Le and representatives from the Colorado Springs Police Department were also in attendance to recognize the Guardians for their efforts.
“We just wanted to make sure they were stable until first responders arrived,” Morgan said. “You never know how you’re going to react in a moment like that, but I couldn’t be more proud of my team.”
Their actions reflect the Guardian commitment to service, character, and community—on and off duty.
https://www.starcom.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4173222/three-guardians-recognized-for-rendering-aid-following-rollover-crash/
500 Years of Space Drawings
May 3, 2025 AT 6:00 pm
“Flowers of the Sky” is a stunning collection of celestial art throughout the ages from the Public Domain Review.
The artwork in this collection covers nearly a millennium of illustrations (chronologically) depicting comets, meteors, meteorites, and shooting stars.
The earliest work in the collection is a shooting star, drawn in what looks to be pen and ink, from 1493.
The latest is a surrealistic painting of space with a skull and large heads floating in the sky from 1910.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/03/500-years-of-space-drawings-spacesaturday/
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/flowers-of-the-sky/
Punjab: BSF recovers pistol parts, narcotics and drone on border
May 4, 2025
In a coordinated series of operations on Sunday, the Border Security Force (BSF) recovered pistol parts, a heroin packet, and a drone from different locations along the Punjab border.
The recoveries were made in Ferozepur, Amritsar, and Tarn Taran districts, following actionable intelligence inputs.
According to an official statement, BSF troops today recovered pistol parts, a heroin packet and a drone in three separate incidents on the Punjab border.
“Today in the morning hours, a search operation by BSF troops was conducted in the suspected border area of Ferozepur, following an intelligence input.
The troops successfully recovered a packet containing one pistol body (without slide) with two magazines from a farming field adjacent to Lakha Singh Wala Hither village in Ferozepur district,” said the release.
As per the release, in the second incident, based on the information of BSF intelligence wing, a search operation was launched by BSF troops in a suspected area, and at about 12:35 pm, the party recovered one packet of suspected heroin (Gross weight- 550 Grams) from a farming field adjacent to village- Mahawa of district Amritsar.
The packet was wrapped with white cotton cloth, and an improvised loop with two illuminating strips was found attached to it.
According to the release, in yet another incident today, a joint search operation by BSF in collaboration with Punjab Police was conducted based on information provided by the BSF intelligence wing.
The search culminated in the recovery of a DJI AIR 3 S drone from a farming field adjacent to the village, Mehdipur district of Tarn Taran.
Reliable input from the BSF intelligence wing and swift action of the troops once again foiled the smuggling attempt of arms and narcotics from across the border.
https://thenewsmill.com/2025/05/punjab-bsf-recovers-pistol-parts-narcotics-and-drone-on-border/
New Ukrainian Kursk assault repelled – Chechen leader
4 May, 2025 07:09
Russian forces have repelled another Ukrainian assault on Russia’s border region of Kursk by hitting the enemy with an artillery barrage, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said, releasing a video of the strikes.
In a post on Telegram on Saturday, Kadyrov stated that “the Nazis from the Armed Forces of Ukraine” tried to penetrate Russian territory from the neighboring Sumy Region, but were thwarted by the Akhmat Special Forces, with support from assault groups from the 2nd special forces brigade and the 15th tank regiment.
”They [the Ukrainians] just won’t calm down after their shameful expulsion from Russian soil,” he added.
Kadyrov described the tactics used to stop the incursion as “extremely simple.”
“Drone operators detect the Nazis and their fortifications on the ground and relay the coordinates to assault troops, artillerymen, or, as in this case, tank forces. Then, their positions get pounded,” he wrote.
The one-minute clip filmed from a drone shows a group of Ukrainian soldiers walking through a forested area and being hit by several artillery strikes. The video later shows several corpses strewn on the ground.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Ukrainian forces, which launched a full-scale incursion into Kursk Region in August 2024, were completely driven back after months of fighting.
According to Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, total Ukrainian losses in the area totaled over 76,000 personnel killed and wounded, as well as hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles.
Kiev has denied the statement that its forces have been routed and expelled from Kursk Region, but acknowledged that they found themselves in a “complicated” situation.
When Ukrainian forces previously occupied part of Kursk Region, Moscow accused Kiev of committing numerous atrocities against Russian civilians and prisoners of war.
https://www.rt.com/russia/616718-new-ukrainian-kursk-assault-repelled/
Ukrainian drone strikes Russian Orthodox church
3 May, 2025 16:23
A Ukrainian drone has targeted a Russian Orthodox church in Belgorod Region, setting fire to the building, the local governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has reported.
Since the escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, the Russian border region has repeatedly come under artillery and mortar fire, as well as UAV attacks, by Ukrainian forces.
In a post on his Telegram channel on Saturday, Gladkov wrote that the “the enemy is striking our holy sites again – an enemy drone has attacked Saint George Church in the village of Tolokonnoye,” not far from Belgorod.
According to the official, the building’s domes caught fire as a result of the incident. The governor thanked local self-defense forces for swiftly responding to the attack and extinguishing the flames quickly, which prevented further damage to the church.
In a separate post on Saturday, Gladkov estimated that over the past 24 hours, Kiev’s forces have launched over 40 drones and fired nearly 150 artillery shells at multiple localities in Belgorod Region, resulting in material damage. There have been no reports of casualties.
Last Thursday, the iconic New Jerusalem Orthodox church complex in the region burned down following a Ukrainian drone strike.
Commenting on the incident at the time, Gladkov described it as a “deliberate” attack and also accused the Ukrainian military of subsequently targeting the firefighters who were trying to contain the blaze.
The metropolitan bishop of Belgorod Region, Ioann, similarly characterized the attack as “intentional,” saying that Kiev’s troops had deployed incendiary bombs.
He also accused Ukrainian forces of targeting the first responders at the scene. The New Jerusalem complex, a wooden reproduction of biblical Jerusalem, was built in the early 2000s.
In late February, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that “it’s clear that the Kiev regime doesn’t shy away from anything… There’s nothing sacred [for them].”
He made the remarks after Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported that it apprehended two suspects who had allegedly planned to assassinate Metropolitan Tikhon, the head of the Simferopol and Crimean diocese, with a bomb, presumably at the behest of the Ukrainian intelligence services.
Metropolitan Tikhon is purported to be a close spiritual adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, though neither man has ever confirmed this.
https://www.rt.com/russia/616698-ukrainian-drone-strike-orthodox-church-belgorod-region/
RSF launches drone attack on military base inside Port Sudan airport
May 04, 2025
Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Sunday attacked with drones a military airbase that is part of the international airport at the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, the first attack of any kind on the de facto capital since the Sudanese civil war broke out two years ago.
Military spokesman Brig Gen Nabil Abdullah said the suicide drones attacked an ammunition depot, triggering a series of explosions.
They also hit a warehouse and several civilian installations he did not specify. There were no casualties, he added.
Videos shared online and shot minutes after the drones struck purported to show a large ball of fire followed by a cloud of dark smoke near the airport's tarmac.
The National could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.
Sunday's attack on the air force's Osman Dukna base in Port Sudan signals a dangerous shift in the course of the war between the RSF and the armed forces.
While the use of drones by the RSF will not win territory for the paramilitary, it will have a psychologically disturbing impact on civilians in army-controlled areas and undermine the military's image as the nation's protector.
Port Sudan lies about 650 kilometres from the nearest known RSF positions on the outskirts of Khartoum to the West.
On Saturday, Kassala airport was also targeted by RSF drones, according to witnesses in the city in the eastern region of Sudan.
Officials said flights were temporarily suspended at Port Sudan airport pending a review of the security situation at the site.
Already, a Port Sudan-bound flight from Addis Ababa scheduled for Sunday afternoon was cancelled, according to a passenger who spoke to The National.
Five domestic flights also scheduled for Sunday were cancelled, said the officials.
Port Sudan has been the de facto capital of Sudan since not long after the RSF overran most of Khartoum in the early days of the war.
Army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan escaped there following months of being besieged by RSF fighters at the armed troops headquarters in Khartoum.
Port Sudan now is the seat of the military-backed government and is home to the only international airport in areas controlled by the army. It is also used as the main base for foreign diplomats and UN agencies.
The army regained control of Khartoum international airport in March as part of an offensive that rid the city of the RSF, but it remains closed to this day.
The RSF, which has not commented on Sunday's attack, has in recent weeks attacked power stations in army-controlled locations in central and northern Sudan, causing power cuts and raising speculation that the paramilitary might take the fighting to parts of Sudan that had not been touched by the war.
The recent spate of drone attacks followed the RSF's withdrawal from the sprawling, Nile-side capital and appear to make good on pledges by RSF commanders that no place in Sudan would be safe from the paramilitary.
Sudan's civil war, the latest in a series of domestic conflicts to plague Sudan since independence nearly 70 years ago, broke out when months of tension between the army and RSF, led by Gen Mohamed Dagalo, turned into open conflict. Both generals profess to be fighting for Sudan's democracy and prosperity.
The army controls the capital as well as north, east and central Sudan, while the RSF controls most of the vast western Darfur region and parts of Kordofan to the south-west and the south.
The war has left tens of thousands dead and displaced at least 13 million people. About 26 million in Sudan, more than half the population, face acute hunger, with pockets of famine surfacing across the vast, Afro-Arab nation.
The war, according to experts, carries the potential of turning into a regional conflict, drawing in some of Sudan's neighbours, like Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2025/05/04/rsf-launches-air-strike-on-military-base-inside-port-sudan-airport/
https://www.jns.org/hamas-linked-vessel-marooned-without-flag-after-alleged-drone-strikes/
Hamas-linked vessel marooned without flag after alleged drone strikes
May 4, 2025
A Gaza-bound ship that was reportedly hit by drones last week is unable make port after the Republic of Palau revoked its flag rights, the Hamas-linked Freedom Flotilla Coalition claimed on Saturday.
Authorities in Malta, Greece and Turkey have threatened to confiscate the vessel if it docks at their ports, Tighe Barry, a U.S.-based anti-Israel activist with the CodePink group, told the Associated Press.
“To get a new flag will take months, so they’re just stuck out there,” said Barry, an octogenarian who was supposed to board the vessel before it would attempt to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Barry said the Pacific island nation, which often votes with Israel at the U.N., revoked the flag of the ship, named Conscience, before the drone attack.
Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela stressed on Sunday that while his country would not let the Conscience dock, “especially since it doesn’t have a flag and insurance,” his government was offering to repair the damage if it is truly carrying aid.
“We are offering to pay for the repairs after we confirm the ship is, indeed, carrying humanitarian aid,” Abela told reporters, the Times of Malta reported.
“That’s another fact that must be established, as the crew is yet to provide a list of what is on board the vessel. The moment we confirm it’s humanitarian aid for Gaza, we will take care of the repairs.
“The captain is refusing to let the surveyor on board,” the Maltese prime minister said. “We also offered to take all crew and passengers in, but the offer was refused.”
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has said that the vessel was struck twice by suicide drones 17 nautical miles (19.5 miles) east of Malta overnight on Thursday, “causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull.
“The drone strike appears to have deliberately targeted the ship’s generator, leaving the crew without power and placing the vessel at great risk of sinking,” according to the statement on Friday morning.
The coalition noted in the statement that its latest attempt to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza had been organized “under a media blackout to avoid any potential sabotage.”
Volunteers from 21 countries were aboard the ship, “including prominent figures,” the group said.
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Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya channel reported, citing a Western security source, that Hamas was behind the vessel and that passengers had planned to attack IDF soldiers as they approached Gaza’s shore.
There were no casualties from the alleged strikes. Maltese authorities sent a tugboat and brought the fire on the vessel under control.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition includes several Turkish NGOs, among them the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation and the Mavi Marmara Association, responsible for the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, in which nine activists were killed after they attacked Israeli naval commandos.
The coalition has accused Jerusalem of launching the drone strikes on the Conscience, saying that “Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”
A JNS request for comment to the Israel Defense Forces regarding the allegations went unanswered as of press time on Sunday afternoon.
An Israeli Air Force plane left Israel on Thursday and circled Malta hours before the alleged attack, the Times of Malta reported on Friday.
According to the report, which cited flight tracker data, the C-130 Hercules spent around three hours in the country’s airspace.
“What happened is very serious. Israel appears to have flown an unauthorized military aircraft over Malta, an E.U. state and in breach of our neutrality. This is very serious,” a local military source told the daily.
The Israeli government stated in response, “At no point in time, during the past 48 hours, did any aircraft or vessel, currently mentioned in local and foreign media in relation to the case of the vessel Conscience, enter Maltese Sovereign Airspace or the territorial sea.”
It added, “The territorial integrity of Malta was never compromised at any stage.”
In March, Israel Katz, Jerusalem’s minister of defense, instructed the Israel Defense Forces to refrain from blocking foreign pro-Palestinian protesters seeking to enter the Gaza Strip by sea, but rather to seize their vessels.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, the March 6 announcement came in response to intelligence suggesting that protest groups were preparing renewed attempts to breach the blockade of the enclave.
“Whoever comes to demonstrate on the shores of Gaza, we will send them into Gaza and use the ships to evacuate Gaza residents who are interested in leaving voluntarily,” Katz said.
His office added, “The defense minister instructed the IDF to allow the protest flotillas to reach Gaza’s coast, disembark the protesters in Gaza, and seize the ships and transfer them to Ashdod Port so that they can be used to evacuate Gaza residents who are interested in leaving Gaza.”
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Russian drone attack on Kyiv injures 11, causes fires in housing blocks, Ukraine says
May 4, 20251:41 AM PDT
A Russian overnight drone attack on Ukraine's capital injured at least 11 people, including two children, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Sunday for a real ceasefire lasting at least a month in the more than three-year-old war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week declared a three-day ceasefire for May 8-10 to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War Two, a move appeared aimed at signalling that Russia is still interested in peace.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-launches-air-attack-kyiv-ukraine-says-2025-05-03/
Inside Thailand’s Mysterious Khao Kala: Locals Claim Daily UFO Sightings And Telepathic Contact With Aliens
Sun, 04 May 2025 05:51 PM (IST)
A mysterious hill in Thailand is drawing global attention after villagers claimed to have frequent encounters with unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
American vlogger Travis Leon Price recently visited Khao Kala in Nakhon Sawan province—dubbed Thailand’s Area 51—to uncover the truth behind the astonishing reports.
Khao Kala, located just three hours north of Bangkok, has earned its reputation as a UFO hotspot due to persistent claims from locals.
Many residents say they have seen flying saucers or strange lights in the sky, with some asserting these sightings are a nearly daily occurrence.
The hill is nestled in a region known as Nakhon Sawan, or "City of Heaven," adding to the mystique of the location.
According to a report by CNN, villagers believe that telepathic communication with aliens is possible, especially during meditation sessions in front of Buddha statues found on the hill.
Vlogger Documents Claims And Mysterious Lights
Intrigued by the reports, Travis Leon Price visited the site and recorded his journey in a video shared across his social media platforms.
During his exploration, Price was guided by a local who passionately described frequent alien encounters.
The area even features a UFO club, where like-minded believers gather to exchange stories and engage in group meditation.
Towards the end of his visit, Price joined a nighttime watch session. His footage captured twinkling lights moving oddly in the sky, something many believe to be evidence of alien activity.
While sceptics may argue otherwise, Price left viewers to draw their own conclusions.
A Cultural Blend: Buddhism And Aliens?
Some locals do not see conflict between their Buddhist faith and extraterrestrial beliefs. In fact, they interpret alien messages as spiritually aligned with traditional religious teachings.
In 2024, a local sect even hosted Thailand’s first UFO music festival, drawing believers and curious visitors from across the country.
Festival attendee Siwadon Chantanasewi told the South China Morning Post, “I thought the aliens might fly past, maybe just pop by for a moment. I had this strong feeling they knew about the festival.”
Government Concerns And Access Rules
Due to growing crowds of UFO seekers, Thai officials have expressed concern about Khao Kala’s status as a protected forest area.
While visitors are welcome to hike up the hill and visit religious sites like the large Buddha statue and the Buddha footprint, camping or overnight stays are strictly prohibited.
https://english.jagran.com/world/thailand-mysterious-khao-kala-villagers-claim-daily-ufo-sightings-and-telepathic-alien-messages-10234961
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGSnB9fpzi4/
Eerie UFO footage from family barbecue shows white orb hovering in the sky for 25 MINUTES in broad daylight
Updated: 20:42 EDT, 3 May 2025
A Florida family was left stunned after spotting a strange white orb hovering silently in the sky for nearly half an hour during a backyard barbecue in Lakeland - but Redditors believe they found what it is.
The sighting occurred around 3.30pm on April 20, 2025, according to a Reddit post by user u/JoeBeeff, who captured the mysterious object on video and shared his observations online.
While enjoying the sunny day with his brother, they noticed something odd: a circular object hanging motionless in the sky.
In the footage, the man can be heard saying, 'How long have we been looking at this thing, like 25 minutes in the exact same spot?' He later adds, 'It's not moving,' clearly baffled.
u/JoeBeeff elaborated in his post: 'The object is still in the sky as of writing this, it doesn't move from what we can tell, not even a little.
'My brother got out his binoculars and it looks circular in shape, almost like you can see through it, and had defined edges visible from the sun's light.
'It was difficult to keep the binoculars steady enough to clearly make out what it is, but I feel like even if I could I couldn't identify what it was.'
He added that a high-altitude jet flew near the object at one point, making the orb seem unusually large or strangely positioned.
'It appears to me like the object is at a lower orbit than the jet was, that or it is a massive object,' he said, emphasizing that the orb didn't drift with the wind.
'With the naked eye you can clearly tell it's circular shape, but it doesn't move.' The sighting quickly garnered attention on Reddit, where users began analyzing the phenomenon.
User u/attsci identified the object on FlightRadar as HBAL728, a Raven Aerostar high-altitude balloon.
Another user, u/Abrodolf_Lincler_, corroborated this by referencing data from SondeHub, indicating a weather balloon above Lakeland at that time.
Despite the initial mystery, the consensus among the Reddit community points to the object being a high-altitude balloon, likely used for scientific or meteorological purposes.
Such balloons can appear stationary due to their altitude and the observer's perspective from the ground.
This strange sighting comes as another so-called 'orb' sparked an online frenzy - this time in space.
On Monday, NASA released footage from its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) showing a dark, circular object drifting across the face of the sun.
The video went viral, with conspiracy theorists insisting the orb was a UFO, claiming it 'stopped, hovered for a bit, moved closer to the sun,' then vanished.
'I guess we'll just have to settle for no answers - and watch this get swept under the rug, just like the obvious UAPs we see every day,' one X user lamented.
Some even went so far as to suggest the celestial object triggered the widespread power outages recently reported in Spain, France, and Portugal.
In reality, NASA confirmed the sighting was nothing more than a lunar transit - a routine celestial event in which the moon passes between a spacecraft and the sun, visible only from space.
On Sunday, the moon covered 23 percent of the sun in a partial eclipse, visible only to NASA's SDO.
Another clip from NOAA showed the moon as a glowing orb zipping through space, adding to the confusion.
But NASA scientists emphasized that the apparent 'hovering UFO' was simply the moon blocking the sun's light.
The SDO even captured detailed views of the moon's mountains as it moved across the sun's surface.
The latest transit lasted about 30 minutes and is part of a series - more are expected on May 25 and July 25.
During the final transit, the moon is expected to cover 62 percent of the sun's face.
Meanwhile, the next solar eclipse visible from Earth won't arrive until September 21, 2025, and will only be seen from parts of New Zealand, the South Pacific, and Antarctica.
NASA's SDO has been monitoring the sun since its launch on February 11, 2010, capturing continuous high-resolution images to better understand solar activity - and occasionally sparking a UFO rumor or two along the way.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14664421/ufo-footage-family-barbecue-white-orb-hovering-sky-daylight.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1k3uutf/anyone_else_seeing_this_white_object_in_the_sky/
US should pony up to solve UAP mystery: Scientist
May 4, 2025
With some U.S. House members promising transparency on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon, or UAPs, Harvard professor and theoretical physicist Avi Loeb says it’s time for the U.S. to dedicate resources to finally get answers.
“Even if it’s not extraterrestrial, that would allow us to have a better defense system,” Loeb tells “NewsNation Prime.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWS7aILZIxI
https://avi-loeb.medium.com/a-vision-for-a-uap-manhattan-project-9408819b6127
A Vision for a UAP-Manhattan Project
May 4, 2025
Most of our adult life, we invent stories or believe in stories told by others, rather than seek supporting evidence for these stories. The reason is simple.
Evidence-based reasoning is hard and story-telling is easy. But in the words of John F. Kennedy during his speech at Rice University in 1962 (which happens to be my birth year):
“We choose to […] do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
The tendency to tell stories rather than do the hard work of collecting evidence applies also to some scientists.
When I led an expedition to retrieve meteoritic materials from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean based on NASA data, some scientists published papers arguing that they do not believe the data about this meteor and that we will not find anything.
Once we retrieved meteoritic materials with an anomalous chemical composition, they argued that we retrieved coal ash and probably went to the wrong place.
These scientists preferred to tell stories without access to the materials we actually retrieved, instead of pursuing the hard work of evidence-based science that my research team carried out.
The attraction to story-telling is even more prevalent in the realm of politics.
During my recent visit to Washington DC, I heard stories that the U.S. Government is in possession of vehicles manufactured by alien civilizations.
In order to believe these stories, we must see the vehicles for the same reason that we would hesitate to buy a used car without an inspection.
A millennium ago, numerous people were willing to testify under oath with great conviction that the Earth is at the center of the Universe.
A popularity poll back then would have concluded that their consistent views must be correct beyond a reasonable doubt.
Yet, in 1992 even the Vatican admitted that this widely-believed story in ancient times was wrong.
Yes, we can make progress in our knowledge, as long as we are curious and courageous enough to collect evidence that might contradict our preconceptions.
Gaining new knowledge requires funding for the related research effort. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary funding.
The Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb, cost 2 billion dollars by 1945 — equivalent to over 30 billion dollars today.
Like nuclear weapons, UAPs could represent new technologies of utmost importance for national security.
Figuring out their nature deserves 3% of the Manhattan Project budget or about a billion dollars today.
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In an interview with the brilliant Natasha Zouves from NewsNation last night, I argued that congress should allocate a billion dollars to a “UAP-Manhattan Project” that will develop artificial intelligence (AI) software to search for outliers among the objects detected by state-of-the-art sensors, in a nationwide effort to figure out the nature of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).
Under the conservative assumption that all technological vehicles are human made, the Department of Defense will benefit from a new alert system to national security threats.
We must be able to identify objects smaller than the 2023 Chinese spy balloon, and avoid the embarrassment of admitting UAPs in multiple congressional reports that were filed by the director of national intelligence in recent years.
All objects in our sky must be identified in order for taxpayers to feel safe and rest assured that the trillion-dollar defense budget for Fiscal year 2026 is protecting American citizens from the drones and balloons of adversarial nations.
As the cherry on top, the UAP-Manhattan Project also holds the potential for discovering a rare extraterrestrial vehicle and answering the question:
“Are we alone?” It would be unwise to invest 10 billion dollars in NASA’s Habitable World Observatory and search for microbes on distant exoplanets, without allocating 10% of this expenditure to the study of anomalous technological artifacts near Earth.
Given the potential for discovering extraterrestrial vehicles, I am confident that a UAP-Manhattan Project will attract the best minds in science to the task.
The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in the Pentagon focused mostly on past data which is of limited utility because it cannot be verified.
In addition, AARO does not currently employ the best and the brightest in the scientific community.
The UAP-Manhattan Project will develop new AI tools for multi-modal analysis of the vast amount of data accessible with state-of-the-art cameras and multi-wavelength sensors.
With a billion dollars in funding, the UAP-Manhattan Project will collect new evidence and transform UAPs from the category of “unidentified anomalies” to that of “identified phenomena”.
Getting the Nobel Prize by answering the biggest question in science would be a welcomed bonus.
But at the very least, American taxpayers will sleep better at night knowing that we understand all objects flying in our sky.
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ICYMI
Pentagon sits on secret trove of UFO images, whistleblower claims
Updated: May 3, 2025 / 03:02 AM CDT
Matthew Brown, who claims the Pentagon has a secret program to collect footage of UFOs, is the first of several whistleblowers who will come forward soon to release new information about unexplainable technology, podcaster and journalist Jeremy Corbell says.
Brown, a former national security professional, appeared this week on Corbell and George Knapp’s “Weaponized” podcast to say the Defense Department has covertly amassed an archive of UFO videos and pictures from military sources under a program called “Immaculate Constellation.”
Secure government servers purportedly contain UFO images and lengthy clips the public has not seen.
Brown previously sought to disclose the information through proper channels and only now has stepped forward to identify himself, Corbell said.
“Matthew Brown, he’s a courageous person, and I think the public needs to protect and support him,” he told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” on Friday.
Brown says the objects he saw in the videos aren’t necessarily extraterrestrial or nonhuman, but he described them as “exotic and unexplainable” and beyond conventional technology.
“We are talking thousands of videos and photos … that the American public hasn’t seen of these advanced craft we call UAP that are of unknown origin,” Corbell said, referring to the phrase “unidentified anomalous phenomena” that sometimes is used in place of UFOs.
Corbell said he hopes Brown will be allowed to testify before Congress about what he discovered.
In the meantime, the podcaster said, he and Knapp have already interviewed several other whistleblowers who have new information about the craft.
“We have already recorded with other firsthand whistleblowers that we have yet to release. So, I can promise you, people are coming forward, an army of people are coming forward,” he said.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/vargasreports/pentagon-secret-trove-ufo-images/
https://www.weaponizedpodcast.com/episodes-3/episode-74
Frolicking around in the National Archives, I found this. Was the first search result, right at the top.
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2017/07/05/see-something-say-something-ufo-reporting-requirements-office-of-military-government-for-bavaria-germany-may-1948/
“See Something, Say Something”: UFO Reporting Requirements, Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Germany May 1948
July 5, 2017
In May 1948 the Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Germany, issued instructions for reporting sightings of “flying discs.”
These instructions were issued as a result of requirements from higher headquarters in Germany and in the United States. They were the result of the flying saucer phenomena that began in 1947.
During the last week of June 1947 people in the Western United States began seeing “flying discs” in the sky.
The United States Army Air Force announced on July 3rd that preliminary inquiry into report that strange “flying disks” had been whizzing at 1,200 miles an hour over the Western United States “has not produced enough fact to warrant further investigation.”
The Air Force spokesman said that Air Force personnel were inclined to believe either that the observers just imagined they saw something or that there was some meteorological explanation for the phenomenon.
However, Wright Field public relations officials said that the Air Material Command was making an investigation of “saucer-shaped” missiles seen recently in the Pacific Northwest and Texas.
On July 4, The Washington Post reported that “flying saucers” reports had prompted the U.S. Army to begin an investigation, noting that persons in 10 states reported they had seen “flying saucers.”
The paper observed that the air research center at Wright Field was looking into the reports and all service intelligence agencies were at work on them.
“Army experts,” the paper indicated, “suggested, as a bare possibility, that some civilian inventor had been making experiments of some kind” and an Army Air Force spokesman at Washington said “‘If some foreign power is sending flying discs over the United States, it is our responsibility to know about it and take the proper action.”
Two days later The Washington Post reported that the Nation had been baffled the previous day by “flying saucers” reported seen in 28 states by hundreds of persons and that a check with the War Department and other agencies the previous night resulted in no new information being available in Washington, “but a new tendency to take the reports a bit more serious was apparent.”
Then came the Roswell Incident, when on July 7, about 75 miles north of the town of Roswell in New Mexico, debris from a highly classified project used by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) to detect atomic bomb tests in the Soviet Union, was recovered from a ranch.
Ranch worker William Brazel, who had first seen the debris on June 14, and subsequently gathered up part of it on July 4th. On July 5 Brazel heard about the flying disks, and wondered if what he had found might be the remnants of one of them.
So on July 7 Brazel took some of the debris to Roswell where he told Sheriff George Wilcox about his find. Wilcox immediately reported the encounter to the USAAF base at Roswell.
Major Jesse A. Marcel, the intelligence officer of the 509th Bombardment Group, accompanied Wilcox from the base to the sheriff’s home where they retrieved the debris.
Marcel would take the debris to the airfield. Either that day or the next morning Marcel and a detail from his office went to the ranch and recovered the remainder of the debris.
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The public information officer at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), Lt. Warren Haught, released a statement to the press the following day, that read:
The many rumors regarding the flying disks became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th (atomic) bomb group of Eight air force, Roswell army air field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disk through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chaves county.
The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell some time last week. Not having phone facilities the rancher stored the disk until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jess A. Marcel of the 509th bomb group intelligence officer.
Action was immediately taken and the disk was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell army air field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters,
At noon on July 8 the intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment Group at Roswell Army Air Field announced that the field had come into possession of a flying saucer.
According to information released by the office that the “disk” was recovered on ranch after a rancher had notified the Sheriff, and Marcel and a detail from his office went to the ranch and recovered the “disk.”
The Roswell Daily Record on July 9 reported that the intelligence office had no details “of the saucer’s construction or its appearance had been revealed” and that after the intelligence office had inspected it, it was flown to “higher headquarters.”
Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commander of the Eight Air Force, with headquarters at Fort Worth, Texas, on July 8 said the debris had come to him and he described it as of “flimsy construction, almost like a box kite” and stated it as “apparently some sort of tin foil.”
He reported that the debris was being shipped by air to the Air Force research center at Wright Field.
Quickly, the story became that the debris was not from a flying saucer, but from a weather balloon.
Brazel, told the press that he had previously found two weather observation balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of them.
“I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon” he said.
On July 9 the New York Times reported that “Celestial crockery had the Army up in the air for several hours yesterday before an Army officer explained that what a colleague thought was “‘a flying disk” was nothing more than a battered Army weather balloon” and noted that “This denouement closes the New Mexico chapter in the ‘flying saucer’ saga that already had contributions from forty-three other states in the Union as well as from Australia, England, South Africa, Mexico and Canada.”
It added that much confusion began with the startling announcement from an Army lieutenant that “‘a flying disk” had been found on a ranch near Roswell, near the scene of atomic bomb tests.
The officer, Lt. Warren Haught, public information officer of the Roswell Army Air Field, made no bones about the discovery in his detailed report as carried by the Associated Press.
The New York Times reported on July 10, that the United Press recorded that a ‘blistering rebuke” had been sent from Army Air Forces headquarters to the Roswell Air Base for having somewhat prematurely “discovered” a disk.
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“The flying saucer story, it seems to us, has got a little out of bounds” began an opinion piece in The Washington Post on July 11:
We don’t want to be uppity about this business, but it seems to us that the boys have only themselves to blame that the story has got out of hand. Some of them are pretty bitter about Lieut.
Warren Haught, USA, official press agent for the Army Air Forces command near Roswell, N. Mex., because he sent out a story beginning,
‘The many rumors regarding the flying disk became a reality yesterday when—‘ It seems to us that Lieutenant Naught was only doing his job according to his lights, and, after all, he got the name of Roswell Field into the first pages of almost every newspaper in the country before the thing that was found there turned out to be some kind of meteorological kite.
In the days following the Roswell Incident, reports of flying saucers being seen were made in 44 states, various locations Canada, the Netherlands, England, Chile, Iran, Australia, Manchuria, France, and other countries.
When asked about the flying saucers, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, in the United States for an United Nations meeting, said “Some attribute it to the British for exporting too much of their Scotch whisky into the United States.
Some say it is a Russian discus thrower training for the Olympic games who does not realize his own strength.” Gromyko said he believed these explanations were correct.
The United Press asked Orville Wright for his opinion. He responded that “It is more propaganda for war to stir up the people and excite them to believe a foreign power has designs on this nation.”
But reports continued through the remainder of 1947. That fall the United States Air Force took official notice of reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), the so-called “flying saucers,” because they represented a possible threat to national security, and had become a subject of public concern. The Air Force was designated the responsible agency due to the fact that most of the objects were reported to be flying.
On December 30, 1947, the Air Material Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was directed to establish a project to collect and evaluate all available facts concerning sightings of UFOs.
The objectives of this project were to determine if those objects constituted a threat to national security; determine if any scientific and/or technical information was available from the sightings; and, identify and/or explain all UFO sightings.
From 1947 until February 1949, the program was identified as Project SIGN. In February 1949, the name of the project was changed to GRUDGE, remaining so until March 1952, when it was further changed to BLUE BOOK.
During January and February 1948 reports of “ghost rockets” continued to come from air attachés in foreign countries near the Baltic Sea. People in North Jutland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany reported “balls of fire traveling slowly across the sky.” The reports were very sketchy and incomplete, most of them accounts from newspapers. According to Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of Project Blue Book, “In a few days the UFO’s were being seen all over Europe and South America. Foreign reports hit a peak in the latter part of February and U.S. newspapers began to pick up the stories.” He added that “All during the spring of 1948 good reports continued to come in. Some were just run-of-the-mill but a large percentage of them were good, coming from people whose reliability couldn’t be questioned.” It would be that May that the Office of Military Government for Bavaria would issue its instructions and cautionary note.
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https://qalerts.app/?q=see+something
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2025/05/01/congress-revisits-ufos-nevada-has-1700-reported-sightings/83386959007/
https://nuforc.org/webreports/ndxlNV.html
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2025/05/01/congress-revisits-ufos-nevada-has-1700-reported-sightings/83386959007/
Congress takes up UFOs again. Nevadans know the topic well — 1,700 sightings logged
Updated May 1, 2025 11:06 a.m. PT
Congress is expected to revisit the topic of UFOs, its first major public discussion in six months.
A late 2024 meeting marked only the second time in years that elected officials seriously considered the possibility that extraterrestrials — or some other force — were not only invading U.S. airspace, but that the military knew about it.
The May 1 event is not a formal hearing, but a public briefing without sworn testimony.
It will feature open discussions with members of Congress about the unexplained objects the government now refers to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.
In fact, three of those scheduled to appear during the briefing, hosted by the nonprofit UAP Disclosure Fund, testified in November 2024 before subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee.
The Disclosure Fund, which advocates for government transparency about UAP, said the session will "offer a science‑driven perspective" about the phenomena, as well as the implications for national security.
Nevadans are no strangers to government secrecy and unexplained airspace activity, given the state’s proximity to military test sites.
Here's a look at what federal officials are saying about UAPs and what alien activity Nevadans have reported seeing in the skies over the Silver State.
What did witnesses tell Congress about UAPs / UFOs in November?
During more than two hours of testimony Nov. 14, 2024, four witnesses described to Congress reports of strange craft out-maneuvering U.S. military aircraft and flying in ways beyond the capabilities of known human technology.
In his opening remarks, Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official, lambasted the intelligence community for its decades of "excessive secrecy" around UAP reports – "all to hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos," he said.
Elizondo resigned and went public in October 2017 after 10 years of running a Pentagon program to investigate UFO sightings.
Timothy Gallaudet, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy; and Michael Shellenberger, a journalist who publishes the “Public” newsletter on Substack, also alluded in their testimony to images of UAP in the government's possession that have yet to be made public.
Michael Gold, a former NASA associate administrator, was the fourth witness to testify.
Elizondo, Gallaudet and Gold are all scheduled to appear May 1 during the UAP briefing. Elizondo is on the Disclosure Fund's board of directors, while Gallaudet joined the organization's advisory board in February 2025.
"I believe we as Americans can handle the truth," Elizondo said in November, "and I also believe the world deserves the truth."
What did the leader of the Pentagon's UAP office say?
Days after the hearing – which also included reinforced claims of an active military program to retrieve downed alien spacecraft – the leader of the Pentagon's office to investigate UFOs provided testimony of his own.
That agency, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) came under heavy fire at the hearing when the witnesses blasted it for what they claimed were secrecy and spreading misinformation.
Many sightings AARO has historically investigated are reported by military fighter pilots, some of whom have captured footage on jets' cockpit gun cameras of UAP.
But so far, the agency has repeatedly denied finding any evidence that the craft were extraterrestrial in nature.
Jon T. Kosloski, the newly-appointed director of AARO, reinforced those findings when he testified Nov. 19 in a Senate hearing, saying the office "has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology."
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What information does the National Archives have on UAPs / UFOs / alien life?
The impending briefing also comes after the National Archives released in late April some records related to reports of UFOS.
The National Archives was required to release the trove under a provision included in an annual defense policy bill directing the executive branch to declassify certain records.
But not all who have long pushed for UFO transparency were happy with what was made public.
That includes Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University who made headlines in August 2023 when he claimed that remnants of a meteor he and a team recovered in the Pacific Ocean were interstellar in origin.
The reports "contain limited data that cannot be verified," Loeb, who is among the scheduled slate of speakers at the UAP Disclosure Fund event, wrote in a post on Medium.
"Since the sky and oceans are not classified, it makes more sense to collect new and better data on millions of objects."
When was the first UFO sighting in Nevada? What was the first modern-day UFO sighting?
The Nevada State Journal reported a UFO sighting in July 1947, including a firsthand account from an editor.
A pilot flying over Washington state reported seeing "flying saucers" in the sky near Mt. Rainier on June 24, 1947, now recognized as the first modern-day UFO sighting.
Over the next several weeks, people from across the country called in to newspapers and public officials to report their own sightings.
Nevada had its first recorded UFO sighting less than two weeks later on July 6.
A man stopped by the Nevada State Journal offices in Reno to report "one of the contraptions" had crashed into the mountain near the Sparks "S" and sent up a cloud of dust when it hit.
He said he wanted to remain anonymous, and added that he had no plans to go up the mountain to look for the object.
The following day, Journal city editor John Brackett and his wife reported a flying disc crossed the horizon over Reno twice "at an almost unbelievable speed" before disappearing over the eastern horizon near the mouth of the Truckee River Canyon.
He knew his story would have skeptics.
"At least eight other persons in Reno saw the same thing we did," Brackett wrote in the July 8 edition of the Journal.
"I'm glad of that, because the kidding one takes is terrific. I personally don't think these hundreds of tales going around about them are so funny anymore."
How many UFO sightings have there been in Nevada?
More than 1,700 UFO sightings have been reported throughout Nevada, according to the National UFO Reporting Center website, nuforc.org. That puts Nevada among the top 30% of states reporting UFOs.
Among those reported since the beginning of 2025:
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Sparks, Jan. 4: "About 3 to 7 lights varying in brightness and order. There was about 3 to 7 lights that were visible at varying brightness.
They would move close and apart, getting brighter and dimmer, but always hovering in the same general area."
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Las Vegas, Feb. 12: "The past few days around the same time 6:30 PM we have seen multiple UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena).
These have had interesting characteristics like flying lower than planes lower than clouds, creating synchronized flashing patterns in the sky, and yesterday there was one that got really close.
When they’re not in a synchronized pattern, they are scattered in the sky flying in strange patterns. They seem to be aware of our presence watching them, as they will fly right above us and one came really close last night."
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Reno, March 7: "Sphere heading north at steady pace and trajectory. I looked up when I heard a small plane (Cessna size) flying by and saw sphere at a faster pace above the plane.
I pointed it out to my mom and we watched it continue until it disappeared behind clouds. No noise was heard. It was very steady with speed and direction."
Some of the sightings align with rocket launches and Starlink satellite formations.
Why are there so many UFO sightings in Nevada?
Perhaps there's a good reason Nevadans see lights in the sky and immediately think of extraterrestrials. Consider:
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The secretive military base commonly known as Area 51 has been used by the Air Force since World War II, and has been the base of operations for testing aircraft.
It's also rumored to be where alien aircraft are stored, including the remains of the flying saucer that allegedly crashed at Roswell, New Mexico.
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John Lear, a onetime Nevada State Senate candidate, claimed in 1987 that the U.S. had made contact with space aliens and was promoting films like "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" to prepare the public for the introduction of aliens.
He later claimed that the government had forged a treaty with the Gray aliens, a specific subset of extraterrestrials.
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"Coast to Coast AM," a Pahrump-based syndicated radio broadcast focusing on the paranormal — including, yes, UFOs and aliens — debuted in 1988, with host Art Bell credulously interviewing "experts" and callers about their encounters.
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In May 1989, a man named Bob Lazar appeared on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to report that he had been hired to work at Area 51 to reverse-engineer a captured alien spacecraft. (George Knapp, the reporter who first interviewed Lazar, is currently one of the rotating guest hosts for "Coast to Coast AM.")
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The state once had a registered lobbyist — David Venus Solomon, aka Ambassador Merlyn Merlin II — who claimed to represent the interests of space aliens at the Nevada Legislature in the late 1990s.
Longtime Nevada Sen. Harry Reid used his position as U.S. Senate majority leader to push for the public release of Pentagon files on UFOs, telling the New York Times in 2017, “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this going.”
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Rural southern Nevada has leaned in hard to UFO culture, designating a lonely stretch of State Route 375 the "Extraterrestrial Highway" due to its proximity to Area 51. Tiny Rachel, Nevada, to the north of Area 51 is home to the Little A'Le'Inn, an alien-themed motel, bar and restaurant.
And in Amargosa Valley to the southwest, there's the Area 51 Alien Center with an alien museum and gift shop. (Behind the gift shop is the extraterrestrial-themed Alien Cathouse Brothel.)
But despite congressional testimony and pop-culture references to UFOs, people are still tentative about reporting their own close encounters.
The National UFO Reporting Center (nuforc.org), one of the internet's largest databases of UFO sightings, assures those who file a report that their contact information "will not be published and will be kept strictly confidential."
Among the 1,600 anonymous reports from Nevada:
Someone who said they were stationed at NAS Fallon in the 1960s said another man in his squadron reported a saucer-shaped craft with a white light. He entered the report into the night watch log.
"The witness took a lot of flack over the sighting," reads the report, "and the next day in the log someone wrote, '2100: no saucers sighted.'"
Another report, this one from the mid-1980s, said "a giant silver ball-shaped object" was spinning in place over McCarran Boulevard near Idlewild Park, but it disappeared after it was approached by two jet fighters.
On May 17, 2023, a NUFORC user said they saw "flashing red and blue emergency lights" along Highway 160 near Pahrump.
"As the lights got closer I realize that there were no headlights or other forward facing white lights of any kind but what appeared to be a total of 8 red and blue flashing lights in the shape of a cross … it appeared to be hovering just above the road surface."
And sometimes, the reports go beyond lights in the sky.
In 2023, Las Vegas police officers investigated reports of two unknown entities falling from the sky on the same night that a family reported something "not human" in their backyard.
One officer drove to a home on the night of April 30 and interviewed the family who called 911 after making the sighting, according to body camera footage obtained by USA TODAY.
One of the family members told the officer they saw “a big creature” that was “long, 10 feet tall.”
“I’m not going to BS you guys. One of my partners said they saw something fall out of the sky, too, so that’s why I’m kind of curious,” the officer said. “It’s weird just the fact that our partner saw something at the exact time."
Las Vegas Metro investigated the property for days following the alleged paranormal incident before closing the case, Las Vegas TV station 8 News Now reported.
Now that UFO sightings are being discussed in serious settings and a significant portion of the world population is walking around with smartphone cameras at all times, are we any closer to resolving things one way or another?
Not likely. Many of the recent sightings filed with NUFORC are accompanied with photos, none of which show anything clear and definitive.
Still, those who claim to have seen something otherworldly may not feel quite so alone now. One NUFORC user in the late 1990s logged an encounter from the mid-1970s, and ended the post with a plea.
"If anyone else saw it too," they wrote, "Please email me. It has haunted me for all these years. "I just wish I could make anyone believe how important it was. No one will know what it's like until it happens to them."
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