TYB
Drone attacks surge in Iraq amid rising US security tensions, Iranian military presence
JULY 4, 2025 14:57
A drone was downed in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq on July 3. The drone was reportedly intercepted over Erbil on Thursday. This happened around 10 in the evening near Erbil International Airport.
The drone was said to be an explosive-laden drone or kamikaze drone. These are the kind used by Iran and Iranian-backed groups. It follows ten days of similar attacks in Iraq.
The drone “did not cause any casualties or material damage,” the Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD), which is part of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), said.
Rudaw media reported on the attack. “Earlier in the evening, Rudaw published CCTV footage showing the moment the drone fell in a village near the airport.” The attack came after another drone attack also took place in Sulimaniyeh’s Garmiyan area.
Sulimaniyeh and Erbil are two of the key cities in the Kurdistan region.
Similar drone attacks take place
Another drone attack occurred in Sulimaniyeh on July 2. There was also reportedly an attack on a Yazidi IDP camp on the same day.
Rudaw also noted that “remains of a suspected drone were found in Kirkuk late Thursday. It is not clear where these drones originate from, but they are believed to be related to the latest deadly war between Iran and Israel.”
Iranian-backed groups have used drones and rockets in the past.
They have targeted Israel with drones. Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq also killed three US service members in January 2024 in Jordan in a drone attack.
There have been other recent attacks in Iraq.
Kirkuk’s airport, which is also a military base called K-1, was targeted by Katyusha rockets on July 1. On June 24, the military airports at Camp Taji and Imam Ali were also targeted with drones.
The drones hit the radar sites at the bases. Another base near Baghdad was also targeted.
According to the Iraqi media Hatha Al-Youm, “Aan informed source revealed, on Friday, that US forces stationed at the Ain al-Assad base, west of Anbar, imposed strict security restrictions in the wake of the attack that targeted the Harir base in Erbil.”
American soldiers housed near base
The source told Baghdad Today that “the drone attack near the Harir base, which houses hundreds of American soldiers in Erbil, on Thursday evening, before it was shot down, prompted American forces at Ain al-Assad base to impose strict security measures in anticipation of any emergency."
The source said, “Security restrictions remain in place at the time of writing this report, despite the fact that hours have passed since the attack, which did not result in any human or material losses, according to available information."
The source indicated that "the measures are part of precautionary measures, especially in light of the recent recurrence of missile and drone attacks, amid growing questions about who is behind these attacks, whether in Erbil or Kirkuk."
Asad base is one of the few areas in Iraq where US military personnel are located.
The US withdrew from many sites in 2020 in the wake of numerous rocket attacks by Iranian-backed militias.
The US also has forces in the Kurdistan region. Iran carried out a ballistic missile attack on the Asad base in January 2020 after the US killed Iranian IRGC Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani.
Soleimani was killed by a US drone near Baghdad airport. Abu Madhi al-Muhandis, the leader of Kataib Hezbollah, was also killed.
Kataib Hezbollah is a key Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. It has carried out numerous drone attacks in the past and continues to do so.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-860012
or she'll kick ya square in the balls like nobody has ever seen
Russia damages Chinese consulate in Odesa as Chinese drone parts found in Kyiv following similar attack
July 4, 2025 6:37 PM
A Russian missile and drone strike on Odesa on July 3 damaged the building of the Chinese Consulate General, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on July 4.
"Following tonight's massive Russian air attack on Ukraine, we discovered in Kyiv a component of a Russian-Iranian Shahed-136/Geran-2 combat drone, which was made in China and supplied just recently," Sybiha wrote on X.
"And right on the eve, the Chinese Consulate General's building in Odesa suffered minor damage."
The July 3 assault on Odesa killed two people and injured six others. China has not publicly acknowledged the incident or reported any damage to its diplomatic premises in the city.
The Shahed-136 drone, a loitering munition used by Russia in its attacks on Ukrainian cities, has been assembled in large numbers in Russia with components sourced globally.
Ukraine has previously documented that Chinese companies have contributed electronics and materials used in the production of these drones.
Beijing remains one of Russia's key wartime partners, helping Moscow evade Western sanctions and emerging as the leading supplier of dual-use goods used by the Russian defense industry.
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly told EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on July 3 that Beijing cannot afford for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, according to the South China Morning Post, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the conversation.
The reported statement adds to growing concerns in Kyiv over China's expanding role in supporting Russia's war effort. President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly accused China of siding with Moscow.
As Russian-Chinese relations deepen, Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit China in September for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, where he is scheduled to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
https://kyivindependent.com/chinese-consulate-in-odesa-damaged-in-russian-attack-as-china-made-drone-parts-found-in-kyiv/
Internet shutdowns in Russia more frequent in the wake of drone strikes
July 04, 2025
Internet shutdowns in Russia have become more frequent in the wake of Ukrainian drone strikes.
According to Bloomberg, there were 654 intentional mobile data shutdowns across the country in June, which is nearly ten times the number reported in May.
The figures are reportedly taken from Na Svyazi, an internet forum with a focus on technology. DCD was unable to independently verify these figures.
These are unusually high figures. According to Cloudflare's Q1 2025 Internet Disturbance Summary, there were zero government-directed shutdowns across the world in that period.
The Q4 2024 report only notes one single government-directed shutdown - this took place in Mozambique - and the Q3 2024 report shows that there were a handful of shutdowns relating to protests and anti-cheating measures for national exams.
Drones rely on mobile signals in order to locate their target. Ukrainian drone strikes have become more frequent since the success of Operation Spiderweb, where drones smuggled into Russia were able to attack several air bases.
The strikes typically target factories or critical infrastructure. Three days ago, drones struck the Kupol Electromechanical Plant in the city of Izhevsk, which specializes in the manufacture of air defense systems and drones.
According to The Moscow Times, at least 30 regions in Russia’s southwest, northwest, and Siberian regions faced internet disruptions in mid-June, impacting the functioning of various services.
Disruptions became more common after restrictions imposed during the 80th Victory Day celebrations, which commemorate the Soviet victory in WWII.
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/internet-shutdowns-in-russia-more-frequent-in-the-wake-of-drone-strikes/
Drone footage reveals Australia's "unprecedented" coral mortality
04/07/2025
Drone imagery captured by scientists in Australia has revealed the alarming extent of coral mortality rates of 92% after last year’s bleaching event at Lizard Point on Queensland’s Barrier Reef, marking one of the highest coral mortality rates ever documented globally.
The footage has been published as a part of the study ‘Coral bleaching and mass mortality at Lizard Island revealed by drone imagery’ which has appeared in the scientific journal, Coral Reefs just this past week.
It was captured by a team from Griffith University in Queensland out on a mission to assess the impact of the Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event, declared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in April 2024 and the cause of extensive bleaching and mortality across the entire reef system.
The study’s lead author, Dr Vincent Raoult from Griffith University’s School of Environment worked with collaborators from Macquarie University, James Cook University, and CSIRO and GeoNadir to analyse 20 sections across the northern and southern reefs of Lizard Island.
The average bleaching mortality rate reached was 92% with bleaching affecting an average of 96% of living corals of the surveyed areas.
“This marks one of the highest coral mortality rates ever documented globally,” said Dr Raoult. “Despite lower heat stress at Lizard Island compared with other parts of the Great Barrier Reef, the mortality rate is unprecedented.
“These results highlight the fragility of coral ecosystems facing increasing stress from climate change, and the possible devastation resulting from the 2024 global bleaching event.”
Professor Jane Williamson from the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University, senior author on the study, said the findings underscored the urgent need for action on climate change.
The research team used high-resolution drone imagery to map coral bleaching in March 2024, returning in June to assess survival and mortality rates across the same reef areas.
“Using drone-derived imagery, we followed the amount of bleached and living coral during and after the bleaching event,” said Professor Williamson.
“Use of this technology lets us upscale the effects of the bleaching event over larger areas but still in high precision.”
The team recorded the highest coral bleaching mortality on the Great Barrier Reef, with over 92% of corals experiencing mortality.
“Our results are concerning for coral resilience, considering the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat events predicted for the near future, with potentially irreversible consequences for reef ecosystems such as those studied in our Great Barrier Reef,” Williamson added.
More alarming still is that coral mortality actually exceeded 99% in some areas measured.
Coral reefs at Lizard Island have experienced repeated disturbances over the past decade, including severe bleaching in 2016 and 2017, cyclones, and Crown-of-Thorns outbreaks.
These events have only compounded the ecosystem’s vulnerability, despite some signs of recovery in recent years.
The team behind the assessment are now running additional surveys at Lizard Island to track the recovery, if any, of corals into 2026 as part of an Australian Museum Lizard Island Critical Grant.
https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/drone-footage-reveals-australia-s-unprecedented-coral-mortality/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-025-02695-w
Astonishing images emerge from of Australia's MQ-28A Ghost Bat drone
Updated: 01:30 EDT, 4 July 2025
Australia's first combat aircraft designed and built in more than 50 years has completed its first flight outside a testing facility.
The MQ-28A Ghost Bat drone successfully completed its first flight - codenamed Exercise Carlsbad at RAAF Base Tindal, near Katherine in the Northern Territory.
The exercise was part of a broader series of trials to demonstrate the Ghost Bat's capabilities in a simulated combat scenario.
The MQ-28A is an AI-enabled, autonomous, uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft, designed to fly alongside traditional fighter jets and take on mission roles typically performed by pilots.
Developed by Boeing Australia in partnership with the Royal Australian Air Force, the Ghost Bat marks a major step forward in Australian aerospace innovation. Over 80 Australian companies contributed to the program.
'This is a huge achievement of the collaborative work between the Royal Australian Air Force and Boeing Defence Australia,' Wing Commander Phillip Parsons said.
'Our success has also been due to ongoing work with the Collaborative Autonomous Systems Project Office, Air Force Headquarters, Air Warfare Centre, and the local base squadrons at RAAF Base Tindal.'
Live fire testing of air-to-air weapons is planned for late 2025.
'What we're going to do this year is, we're going to accelerate into a weapon shot from the drone,' Boeing Defense, Space & Security interim President and CEO Steve Parker said.
'We'll definitely look at air-ground in the future, but our focus priority is air-to-air. And we'll talk about what the weapon is in the future, at a future point in time.'
Exercise Carlsbad tested the MQ-28A Ghost Bat's ability to be deployed, redeployed, and operated effectively in unfamiliar conditions.
'The main intent of Exercise Carlsbad was to understand all the fundamental inputs to capability in relation to the MQ-28A,' Wing Commander Parsons said.
Before the flight, a series of ground-based checks were conducted to ensure all systems were functioning properly.
Wing Commander Parsons said the aircraft would provide the combat mass needed to defend Australia and its national interests.
'Capabilities such as the MQ-28A are important as they will save Australian lives and provide us with the combat mass to defend Australia and its national interests,' Wing Commander Parsons said.
Canberra is optimistic that the Ghost Bat program will open up significant export opportunities for the Australian defence industry.
At least one Ghost Bat has already been seen in the United States.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14874285/MQ-28A-Ghost-Bat-drone-photos.html
Tsunami Alert Drones Deployed to Protect Surfers in Japan
Thursday July 3, 2025
When the devastating 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, the city of Ichinomiya was hit hard. According to The Asahi Shimbun, 30 homes were inundated with water above floor level.
However, in the aftermath of the disaster, authorities with the city were stumped with how to create a warning system to effectively disseminate information along its 4.7 miles of coastline.
That’s where the drones came in.
As The Asahi Shimbun reports, Ichinomiya decided the solution to the problem was to create a drone-based disaster alert system.
The system uses Japan’s existing national alert system, called J-Alert, which alerts citizens in the event of various crises, such as earthquakes and tsunamis.
Tokyo-based Blue Innovation Co. was selected for the project, based on its previous experience creating a drone-based tsunami alert system in Sendai, Japan.
Using a $275,000 USD budget, Blue Innovation Co. installed specialized drone stations on the rooftops of the municipal government office building and a local elementary school.
When a tsunami warning is issued, two drones autonomously take off and patrol separate areas of the coastline, disseminating the information via loudspeaker.
A successful test of the system was staged on May 20, during which a drone took off from the government office, flew up to a height of 25 meters and announced that a training exercise was in progress, before urging surfers and swimmers to evacuate to elevated land.
However, there are still some kinks to be worked out in the system.
Many beachgoers were unable to hear the drone-issued warnings, due to ambient noise from waves and wind, leading Blue Innovation Co. CEO Takayuki Kumada to cede that there is still some room for improvement.
However, officials remain optimistic about the promise of the automated system. “Our service could help labor-strapped local governments as well as communities with increasingly aging populations,” added Kumada.
“We will now work toward building and establishing unstaffed disaster mitigation infrastructure.”
https://www.theinertia.com/surf/ai-generated-surfing-gorilla-rips/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhIh0J495S8
US military concerned about UFO invasion of its bases 🚨 👽🛸
Jul 3, 2025
The debate continues unabated in the United States Congress. What are UFOs really? Drones of unknown origin, secret technology, or evidence of non-human intelligence?
In this episode of Interstellar, journalist and researcher Jaime Maussan analyzes the documents, testimonies, and political tensions surrounding these mysterious objects.
What is the government hiding? Why is media and scientific pressure increasing?
Join us for a revealing investigation where the impossible begins to seem inevitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjVMCONnb3Q
extra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCtM_51gyY (Jul 3, 2025 Join Paola Harris on a journey through her extensive career filled with fascinating stories about the UFO/UAP phenomenon.)
Watch: Odd UFO Vexes Police in Argentina
July 03, 2025
Cops in Argentina were confounded after a search for a UFO spotted on a security monitor failed to find the sizeable object.
According to a local media report, the curious case occurred shortly before dawn on the morning of June 24th in the village of Presidencia Roca.
An officer assigned to monitor an array of police security cameras overlooking the community did a double-take when he noticed a large glowing object had suddenly appeared in the sky over a forest.
Understandably concerned and curious about the anomaly, he quickly alerted patrol officers to the situation.
Despite their fast response to the call, cops arriving on the scene of the sighting found no trace of the large glowing object that had appeared on the monitor.
Subsequent interviews with residents around the area where the UFO was seen similarly failed to offer any additional insights into the eerie event.
The case likely would have remained simply chatter among the cops at the station were it not for the officer who spotted it on the monitor and then shared the video on Argentine social media, where it spread like wildfire.
Theories for what the weird object could have been include a drone, a meteorological phenomenon, a prosaic aircraft, and, of course, aliens.
What do you think was spotted over Presidencia Roca last week? Weigh in with your thoughts at the C2C Facebook page.
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/watch-odd-ufo-vexes-police-in-argentina/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odt1rij7Yb4
KERRY CASSIDY
@kerrycassidycamelot
THIS TV SERIES WAS BROADCAST IN 2010… BASED ON REAL EVENTS…
“THE EVENT” HAS NOT HAPPENED UNTIL NOW!!!!
COMING SOON. (just re-released on Apple+TV)
https://truthsocial.com/@kerrycassidycamelot/posts/114794817662458763
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582459/
https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-event/umc.cmc.27ip0akd7d7o0baa4qhpozm1s
https://www.kjzz.org/the-show/2025-07-03/his-arizona-ufo-abduction-story-became-legend-after-50-years-hes-sick-of-attempts-to-debunk-it
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106912/
His Arizona UFO abduction story became legend. After 50 years, he's sick of attempts to debunk it
July 3, 2025 at 12:50 PM MST
Arizona was the site of one of the most famous reported UFO abductions.
In 1975, Travis Walton was working on a logging crew in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, on the Mogollon Rim, near the tiny town of Heber-Overgaard, in the central part of the state.
According to Walton, who was 22 at the time, on the night of Nov. 5, encountered the blinding light of a UFO in a clearing in the forest.
The other members of the logging crew said they fled the scene in terror to go get help, and when they came back, Walton was gone.
Walton was missing for days. And then, around midnight on Nov. 12, the phone rang at Walton’s sister’s house. It was him — and he said he’d been abducted by aliens.
Walton’s story became national news — and he was interviewed extensively by, among others, Jim Lorenzen. Lorenzen later gave an interview about his conversation with Walton.
“Well, I was struck by the fact that he said these beings didn’t look quite human. He described them precisely the way another person who described them, who had a similar experience.
Now, this case has not been published anywhere and nothing like this case has been published anywhere. So, it’s something Travis could not have read anywhere,” Lorenzen said.
Walton ended up writing a book, which was later adapted into a film called “Fire in the Sky.” And while numerous questions have been raised about the veracity of the story Walton and his fellow loggers, he’s never wavered.
In 2015, filmmaker Jennifer Stein made a documentary about Walton that she hoped would counter the attempts to debunk Walton’s account. For the last few years, they’ve been traveling the country giving talks.
Walton and Stein joined The Show to talk about what it’s like to stick to a story that so many people simultaneously want to believe and disprove. Walton said he’s a little sick of it.
Conversation highlights
TRAVIS WALTON: Well, you know, it's continually having to prove myself and, you know, it wasn't anything that I could have foreseen and desired as a part of my life.
SAM DINGMAN: Jennifer, how did you first become interested in Travis' story?
JENNIFER STEIN: Well, I knew Travis' story, but when I finally got to meet him and I realized how genuine he was. I realized nobody had ever bothered to do a decent documentary about his case.
There was “Fire in the Sky,” Paramount Pictures film that really kind of told the story, but changed it and made it, you know, a horror scary, scary, story, especially the onboard craft experiences that Travis had.
And it really didn't legitimize any of what these boys had been through. And I had my own UFO encounter as well. So, I had a lot of respect for what they've been through, and for the ridicule they'd been through. And I just felt somebody really needed to tell their story.
DINGMAN: Travis, if I'm not mistaken, one of the things that must be difficult in terms of giving people the story they might want about this is, as I understand it from Jennifer's film, your memories of what actually happened, there's not that much to them, right?
I mean, you have a memory of being up in this craft, you have a memory of seeing this figure in a helmet. But, it seems like that's kind of all there is to it, right? It’s not like there’s enough content for a feature-length —
WALTON: I was unconscious or dead, most of those days. As far as the overall picture, you have seven people testifying and staying by their story for all these years.
And, if you had seven people testifying that they had witnessed a murder, I mean, even without polygraph tests, you would have an extremely airtight case.
But, only because it involves this particular subject, that people continue to try to find cracks in it, which they don't.
1/3
DINGMAN: Well, can I ask you, Travis, I mean, you've now been talking about this experience for 50 years.
I'm sure people have said all kinds of things to you over the years, but I'd love to know what are some of the things that have stayed with you over all the decades of talking about this, the most unique things people have brought up?
WALTON: Probably, you know, my perception of these beings' intentions was extremely negative at the time, but over the years I've realized that the intention was to, to save my life.
DINGMAN: And just to say for people who haven't seen Jennifer's film, that's a very remarkable moment in the film where you say, basically, and, and please correct me if I have this wrong, that you have come to this interpretation that you got swept up in in the beam from this craft that you say you had seen, and that the reason they took you into the craft was to to treat your wounds, basically.
WALTON: Yeah, and, you know, I was probably mortally wounded and that saved my life.
DINGMAN: One of the other things that the film talks about is the idea that after this happened, you were likely experiencing some symptoms of trauma, and that was one of the reasons that it was hard for you to speak out about it initially, to speak coherently about it, and those are obviously things that are much better understood now than they were back when this happened.
Jennifer, from your perspective, and if you'd care to speak about your own experience, did you relate to that? Is that one of the reasons you wanted to feature that in the film?
STEIN: Mine was in September of 1975, so it was before Travis's event.
And it was a rectangle of white light that was 90 feet long and about 6 feet high and made absolutely no sense at all, and it was less than 500 feet away from me, sort of in the middle of a forest land in Pennsylvania, Mennonite forest land where my parents' house was.
And for 25 years, I didn't really talk about it, because I thought I was the only one that saw it and I wasn't quite sure it wasn't the tail end of a dream or if it really happened or what.
And then, 25 years later, the person who was at my house at the time, who I knew very well, was visiting me, and he saw the same thing I saw, and he was asleep on the other leg of the house, another floor of the house. He saw the same thing I saw at 5:30 in the morning.
And we never talked about it at the time. But 25 years later, this friend said, “What happened? Like, do you remember that?” And, and I was like, “Wow.”
DINGMAN: Travis, how much do you feel, you know, at this point, there is less skepticism, I think it's fair to say, about the idea of unidentified objects in the skies, thanks to some declassifications that have happened over the past few years.
But, obviously a significant difference in your story versus the stories that other people have about just sightings is that your story is one of actual abduction and of seeing other beings.
How much do you feel like that has differentiated your experience from other folks who have had UFO encounters?
WALTON: I think that is a critical factor that I don't think it was an intentional abduction now, in hindsight. I'm thinking that my injury is what necessitated me being taken aboard.
They were the only ones in a position to rescue me. And, you know, they could have covered it up. They could have just dumped me on some asteroid somewhere and never, you know, left it up to the crew to be under suspicion of murder forever.
DINGMAN: And I should just say for, for listeners who aren't as familiar with the story, the other folks who were working on the logging crew that, you were a part of, Travis, during the five days or so during which you were missing, there was some suspicion that those other folks on the crew had been involved in your your death. But, obviously once it turned out you were alive, those suspicions went away.
WALTON: It was thought to be a cover-up for murder, but that was not the case.
2/3
DINGMAN: One of the other things that comes out in the film is this stat that one in 10 people who say they've had UFO encounters report those encounters. Is part of what you're hoping for, to encourage more people who've had these experiences to talk about them?
STEIN: Sure. The more people can deal with their issues, their trauma, no matter what it is, the better. This is one of those things that's usually the most profound experience someone has and they often feel like they can't talk about it with anybody.
And yet, they're really turned on or lit up by it. They're, you know, their lives are catapulted by it because their mind is opened up, their consciousness is shifted and changed, and they want to try to understand it and put it into perspective with a bigger understanding.
You know, I just encourage people not to let it freak them out or destroy their lives, but to find a place to have compassion for themselves and put it in the framework of their fuller understanding of the nature of reality.
DINGMAN: And it sounds like if I'm hearing you right, Jennifer, one of the things that you are advocating for is that in speaking about one's experience, something that you can get out of that is to find community, even if you might not necessarily get an answer to what happens in your own experience.
STEIN: Yes, correct. Correct. And many people look at going to UFO conferences as one of the most enlightening things to do, because you can kind of talk about almost anything at a UFO conference.
Because once you've already, you're at that level of discussion, you're not really gonna freak people out very much, you know.
DINGMAN: So, it can be a gateway to other things.
STEIN: Correct, exactly.
DINGMAN: Well, I do have to ask you both. I was reading about in 2021, Travis, one of the guys who was on that logging crew that you were with, told a film producer in this recorded phone call that the abduction was a hoax.
He later retracted that story. I imagine that must have been a complicated experience for you. What do you make of that whole, that whole situation?
WALTON: Well, you know, there's powerful jealousies involved, and, you know, these guys would come out and speak with me.
And then, people would rush right by them and ignore them and talk to me and, you know, after what they've been through and the emotional impact it had on them, I can understand the jealousy.
What happened was a dishonest investigator came to him and said, “Travis is getting ready to tell me the whole story was all made up, but I just can't meet his price. Can you match him?”
And that was how he leveraged Mike to get Mike to say that it never happened because he thought I was betraying us all by just being willing to say it didn't happen for the right price, which was not true.
I did not say any such thing to him. I told him to buzz off and, you know, that was the end of it. He had tricked Mike into believing that I was gonna claim it didn't happen just for money.
DINGMAN: I see. Well, I mean, I guess what's interesting to me about all this is less the question of, you know, “Who has their facts straight and who doesn't?”
But, the fact that after all these years and everything that has come out, It seems like these questions still give people such strong emotional reactions, like this is still something that people feel so strongly about.
WALTON: Either the facts can guide us to our conclusions, or we have some strong emotional thing that we wish was true and we'll grab at anything to support it.
And that's just a human frailty that we see everywhere we look everywhere you look, you know, they come up with a conclusion and then look for a way to justify it.
3/3
'Mysterious Black Goo' Found on Ship Docked in Cleveland — and Alien and X-Files Fans See the Writing on the Wall
Updated: Jul 4, 2025 9:50 am
An "unexpected life form" that has the look of a pitch black, tar-like substance was found on a boat docking in Cleveland, Ohio — and needless to say, fans of both the Alien and X-Files franchises are having a field day online wondering if this is the start of a new black goo-themed film or episode.
So, you’re definitely wondering three things right now: where, when, and how? So here we go!
A research vessel called the Blue Heron started having mechanical difficulties while observing harmful algae in Lake Erie last autumn, which led the ship to dock in Cleveland.
When it did, it was removed from the water to be examined for issues — and that’s when Captain Rual Lee noticed the unknown substance oozing from the ship’s rudder, which is something he would not have seen had he not taken the ship for dry maintenance.
He asked scientists at University of Minnesota Duluth to investigate after he found the substance left no sheen in water, nor did it burn when set aflame.
When the staff ran tests on the substance, they found “about 20 DNA sequences, or genomes, and ran them through a worldwide computer database” and “most of the sequences matched known genomes found elsewhere in the world… but a few were less identifiable, including one that was completely novel,” according to Cleveland.com.
The substance, which is thought to be a single-celled organism, is now being temporarily called ShipGoo1.
"The biggest surprise was that the ship goo had life in it at all," lead researcher Cody Sheik, a biologist at UMD and LLO, explained.
"We thought we'd find nothing. But surprisingly, we found DNA and it wasn’t too destroyed, nor was the biomass too low."
Naturally, fans of both beloved science fiction franchises had their curiosity piqued.
After all, with the Alien series, there’s a clear connection; the black goo is the key ingredient in the birth of the Xenomorph — the series’ central creature — as a species many years prior to the start of the franchise.
Ridley Scott's 2012 prequel Prometheus set the ball rolling on the Alien black goo, and fans have debated exactly how it works ever since.
Additionally, we come to find out down the line that Weyland-Yutani, the antagonistic corporation at the heart of the franchise, extracts black goo from the Xenomorphs to use for their own ends.
In the X-Files world, fans were probably reminded of the show’s alien virus called Purity, or Black Oil, which lived in petroleum deposits underground and was sentient.
It infected humans via their eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, and could take full control of the body with the intent to further their species.
The substance is first referenced in the franchise in the very first season of the show in the episode titled “The Erlenmeyer Flask,” but makes its first real appearance in Season 3, in the episode titled “Piper Maru.”
On Reddit, diehards for both franchises flooded the comments with funny quips on posts made about the mystery, proposing it might be the start of something worthy of either or both series.
“Is it LV-426 goo, or like X-Files black alien goo?” one Redditor asked in a post on r/LV426 about the discovery, while another wrote, “Scully and Mulder we need you.”
A third user made a hilarious observation that touches on the latest expansion of the Alien franchise, due to hit Hulu in August. “Hell yeah they are marketing the f—k out of Alien: Earth!” they wrote.
But ultimately, one fan really summed the whole thing up: “Do you want Xenomorphs? Because this is how you get Xenomorphs.”
Of course, we don't have much to worry about. Speaking to GreatLakesNow, University of Michigan professor Gregory Dick said scientists are nowhere near discovering all forms of life on earth.
“We don’t study those environments very well, so I think that’s fascinating that they’re finding novel microbes in there but I’m not too surprised.” he said.
https://www.ign.com/articles/mysterious-black-goo-found-on-ship-docked-in-cleveland-and-alien-and-x-files-fans-see-the-writing-on-the-wall
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/07/mysterious-life-form-found-on-ship-that-docked-in-cleveland.html?gift=3a6f07e6-dea3-4ea3-915b-d7f5a369fdc9
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/07/great-lakes-scientists-discover-new-lifeform-microbe-name-it-shipgoo1/
https://www.kjzz.org/the-show/2025-07-03/this-arizona-couple-complied-much-of-what-we-know-about-ufo-encounters-now-their-work-is-on-display
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_Phenomena_Research_Organization
https://web.archive.org/web/20080524071220/http://mimufon.org/1970%20articles/Apro_History.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20080524064917/http://mimufon.org/1970%20articles/Apro_Org_Chart.htm
This Arizona couple complied much of what we know about UFO encounters. Now their work is on display
July 3, 2025 at 12:49 PM MST
In the 1940’s and 1950’s, there was a dramatic rise in news reports and personal accounts of encounters with UFO’s and extra-terrestrials.
The “flying saucer” craze, as it came to be known, took root in cities and towns all over the country. Groups of concerned and/or fascinated citizens would get together to swap articles and stories from their own experience.
In Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, a woman named Coral Lorenzen had a UFO encounter of her own — she told her husband Jim about it, and the two of them quickly immersed themselves in the growing community of flying saucer enthusiasts.
But the more they read up on the subject, the more they felt like there was a bit of a disconnect. Clearly, there was widespread interest in learning more about the growing number of reported sightings, but the conversations felt diffuse and disorganized.
So, Jim and Coral decided to do something about it.
In 1952, they launched the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, or APRO.
The idea was to become a centralized clearing house for everything UFO — personal stories, evidence of military research on UFOs, and reports from local newspapers about unexplained encounters.
In 1960, they moved their operation to Tucson, Arizona.
In the world of UFO enthusiasts, APRO’s work is legendary.
But for decades, their archives were inaccessible — until a couple years ago, when David Marler, the executive director of the National UFO Historical Records Center, worked out a deal to bring them to New Mexico, where the center is located, and put them on public display.
Marler has examined every word in the Lorenzen’s archives, and he says that while the word “pioneer” is overused, in the case of Jim and Coral’s work with APRO, it’s the truth.
Marler joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
DAVID MARLER: For the most part, the organizations that had existed before — and I use that term loosely, it was usually just social clubs, would probably be a better descriptive — they were rather parochial in nature.
You might have a small group in Portland, Oregon. You might have a small group in Des Moines, Iowa, and they would all just talk amongst themselves about articles in the newspaper and magazines and maybe local sightings as well that had occurred.
What Jim and Coral did was create a nationwide network. They not only collected reports, they not only managed a team of investigators, they also issued a bimonthly newsletter.
They lectured across the country. They wrote numerous books on the subject. They were compelled and driven by much of what I am compelled and driven by.
And that is not just promoting the mystery of the UFO subject, but truly trying to gain answers.
And the only way we’re going to do that is by bringing puzzle pieces together in the form of case files, news reports, military accounts.
The more data we have, arguably with regard to any subject that you’re studying, the better off you’re going to be.
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SAM DINGMAN: And what do we know about Jim and Coral’s ultimate goal?
MARLER: They were very patriotic Americans, Jim and Coral Lorenzen.
And in fact, for a time period before they moved to Tucson, Arizona, they were actually based at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and both worked at Holloman Air Force Base and established really great ties with scientists, engineers, and military personnel.
No surprise, that’s how they obtained a lot of the UFO reports was by being at Holloman and hearing about local sightings by military personnel, engineers, etc. So they weren’t anti-government.
And so I think their primary goal really, in retrospect, was to educate the American public with regard to the UFO subject.
DINGMAN: That’s really interesting. Thank you for sharing that, David, because it aligns with a general sense I have in looking into Jim and Coral — and I wonder if you could confirm this —
that they don’t really seem to have been ideologues or, as you said, like anti-government conspiracy theorists necessarily. It almost seems sort of ethnographic.
MARLER: Yes. And I think they felt, to some degree — and again, I can’t speak with certainty. But again, when you look at their correspondence, you read their books, I think that they felt that there was a social responsibility.
DINGMAN: Well, this makes me think of a pair of quotes from Coral that I’d love to get your perspective on that I found really interesting and different from what one might expect.
She said, “We do not pretend to know the source or the substance of these objects,” referring to UFOs. “We just know that all these people surely could not have been having hallucinations, especially when groups of people all report the same observations.”
And for me, that sounds like something an anthropologist would say, like “There’s clearly some sort of social phenomenon happening here. Why wouldn’t we want to investigate it?”
MARLER: Absolutely. And people ask me, “So you believe in all this?” And I pause and I look at them and I say, “I don’t summarily believe all of this. But at the same time, as an educated, objective individual, I can’t summarily discount all of this.”
DINGMAN: Well, that makes me think of the other coral quote I wanted to — actually I don’t know if this was Jim or Coral.
But at one point, somebody asked them to weigh in on whether they really thought there was any such thing as a UFO.
And they said, even if there is no such thing as a UFO, “many people throughout the world then must be suffering from some sort of mental aberration, which is an equally disturbing thought.”
MARLER: Absolutely. Which requires additional research. And I often say whether you relegate UFOs to fact, fiction or folklore, it should be an area of focus.
Jim and Coral, one of the individuals that they corresponded with in the 1950s was Dr. Carl Jung. And Jung had a fascination with regard to the subject and, of course, wrote a book on the subject: “Flying Saucers.”
And Jung looked at it purely through a psychological perspective. He states in the in the letters that I’ve looked at to Jim and Coral, that he’s not a physicist.
He can’t speak to the physical reality. But much to what you were alluding to, there is an experience that people are having. And he was trying to look at it through the lens of psychology.
DINGMAN: In a similar vein to what we’ve been talking about another quote of theirs that I found really interesting is when they were asked how they felt about the fact that the CIA was evidently monitoring APRO and its members.
They said, “This is fine. They’d be derelict in their duty if they didn’t. We don’t resent this at all, and we’d be pleased if they asked to see our files.”
2/3
MARLER: Absolutely, yeah. That was Jim and Coral.
Again, they weren’t anti-establishment, anti-government. And in fact, it’s ironic because I can’t remember the date of that quote, but decades later — because I think that was from the 1950s or ’60s — decades later, we actually got the declassified Robertson Panel meeting notes.
The Robertson Panel was a Washington, D.C., think tank group that was established in January ’53. It was called the Robertson Panel, named after H.P. Robertson, a leading physicist at the time.
Sponsored by the CIA. And one of the recommendations stated that they should spy on UFO organizations and UFO groups.
DINGMAN: And do we know what the reason for that surveillance was? Did the CIA think that groups like APRO were, I don’t know, in cahoots with the Soviet Union?
MARLER: Yes. To be quite honest, unlike APRO, there were some smaller UFO organizations and groups that did have a lot of anti-government rhetoric. And a lot of it was also tied at the time — there’s the UFO Contactee Movement.
This is a group of individuals and groups that claimed that they were in touch with space beings and that people were coming from Venus and other planets to warn us about the ills of atomic testing and atomic weapons.
DINGMAN: But it seems like from what we’ve been talking about and some other things I was reading that Jim and Coral and APRO in general was consciously trying to stand in contrast to groups that had that sort of approach.
MARLER: Yes. And, unlike a lot of people in the UFO subject today, Jim and Coral Lawrenson did not do this for money.
Yes, they issued a newsletter. Yes, they wrote books. But they in no way, shape or form ever came close to compensating themselves for the time and money that they invested.
Jim and Coral were husband and wife and they spent their life together, but they spent their life together pursuing this passion: studying UFOs. They were pioneers in the field.
And no surprise, suffered a lot of ridicule, at least in some corners. When they were dying — Jim passed away in ’86, and Coral passed away in ’88.
Their wish was, “We want this material to be available to the general public, and we don’t want people to charge for it.” Thirteen file cabinets and 50 boxes of APRO material.
DINGMAN: Wow. Which you now have there at the National UFO Historical Record Center.
MARLER: We do. In June of 2024, we solidified a partnership with the Rio Rancho Public school system, who saw a value in the history that we were compiling, and they provided building space and grounds for us to expand and create a public-facing archive.
And it’s been an incredible partnership. The school system is not here to promote belief in UFOs or aliens, but they do appreciate the history that’s tied to Arizona, New Mexico, and many other Southwestern states.
But we’re using the UFO subject as a vehicle, a Trojan horse — if I can use that term — to engage students but in the process teach them about physics, military history, engineering like radar.
How does radar operate? Critical thinking skills, the investigative process, how to be objective, witness credibility, all of these things.
And it’s an interesting social experiment that both the school system and our organization have undertaken, and in large part due to the APRO files we now have the largest collection of historical UFO case files that has ever been assembled in the history of the United States.
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Harald Kautz(-Vella) Black Programmable matter-Black Goo
Feb 19, 2018
Harald Kautz (Harald Kautz-Vella) is a German independent researcher. He claims to have a family connection to Sarah R. Adams.
He says Sarah R. Adams is the host of an Artificial Intelligence that expresses itself through her with her CONSENT.
This AI was created by our ancestors who were absorbed by her.
From Illusion To Reality Conference in Prague, July 23, 2016, Lucerna Great Hall: .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTACLv18_Ko
https://www.youtube.com/@HaraldKautzArchive