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ANOMALIST IS A WEEKDAY REVIEW OF WORLD NEWS ON MAVERICK SCIENCE,
UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES, UNORTHODOX THEORIES, STRANGE TALENTS, AND
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![]() February 14 Science Tackles the Problem of UAPs The Sentinel
A 30+ author, 160-page "article" covering "nearly a century of scientific research on UFOs around the world" has just appeared in pre-published form on arXiv. Baptiste Friscourt notes that its aim to "clarify the existing global and historical scientific narrative around UAP." Its emphasis upon "initiatives outside the United States" and its sixty pages of references promise to make this study especially worthwhile to UFO/UAP researchers. Friscourt also remarks that the concluding portion of this huge effort "will undoubtedly be of interest to the wave of citizen scientists who are beginning to take an interest in the subject." Dr. Kevin Knuth led the charge behind The New Science of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena (UAP), and the list of co-authors is truly mind-boggling. Isaac Koi has also provided an extraordinary work for the ufologist in his article My Previous UFO Timeline/Chronology (1,700 Pages Based on Reading About 900 UFO Books). Kudos to Isaac for this work, his suggestions as to incorporating some useful elements in "debates regarding UFO reports," and for his voracious and light-speed reading ability! We would also note and commend CUFOS' George Eberhart on his UFOs and Intelligence: A Timeline from the 8th century CE to the present week, with event summaries and live links to online resources as well as books. Isaac Koi also has completed and put online a Collection of VERY Rare 1950 UFO Newsletters (USA) Completed, Thanks to Someone [Bradley W. Plasier] Going To A Local Library. (WM) Injured On The Job by a UFO The Saucers That Time Forgot
Curt Collins starts us on a trip to the UFO Past with two cases of Night Watchmen/UFO "run-ins." Both encounters ended poorly for the human component. Tobias Wayland has another vintage experience as a Woman Reports Mysterious Multicolored Lights Near Holy Hill in Wisconsin. The sighting and its surrounding events are indeed unsettling, but be prepared for an element in the story's antepenultimate sentence that may evoke difficult memories having nothing to do with UFOs. A 35-year-old memory that's been revived in the past few years is covered in Daniel Lavelle's What Really Happened in Calvine? The Mystery Behind the Best UFO Picture Ever Seen. The "what" that the photographs showed and the "what happened afterwards" vie with each other for primacy in this tale's telling. And Graeme Rendall narrates Fireballs Over the Adriatic, a story about a late World War II encounter that may—or may not—have occurred. "Nothing in ufology appears to be straightforward," remarks Rendall about a riddle he can't solve. (WM) February 13 Doorbell Camera Films Woman Walking Past Ghost? Coast to Coast
Video footage captured by a doorbell cam in England seems to feature a ghost from the 1940s materializing then dematerializing as it walks down the street. The perplexed woman that initially noticed the anomaly contacted her neighbor who was also recorded on the cam, however, she had no memory of encountering anyone, spook or flesh and blood. An easier to debunk situation recently occurred in Malaysia where Social Media Stars Busted Hoaxing Disappearance During Forest Ghost Hunt. Their goal it seems was to convince their viewers that the ghost realm had nabbed one of their team. However they quickly changed their minds and miraculously "found" their associate when they were reminded by authorities that spreading false information was punishable by jail time. (CM) Archaeological surprises in the news include Christopher Plain's article about the possibility that prehistoric ground sloths carved out caves in Brazil and Argentina. The notion's been around for some time, but the discussion has heated up after a recent Nature article on the matter. Going back much farther than this, The Straits Times asserts that a Jurassic Fossil from China Rewrites History of Bird Evolution. The discovery of another bird from the Jurassic other than Archaeopteryx would itself be exciting, but there's a bonus in how different Baminornis is—and in some ways "more modern." This argues there may have been other avian species around at this time. Next: Harvard Researchers Discover Origin of Indo-European Language family. Two The Harvard Crimson staff writers summarize the Yamnaya Proto-Indo-European language group's importance, and the "spin" some groups are putting on it—unfortunately not for positive reasons. And Saiba Haque explains why an Ancient Roman Board Game Discovered to Have Eerie Similarity to Modern Favorite, that being backgammon. (WM) Recent claims of UFO encounters include this one, apparently without any other identification of the photographer. Rather surprisingly Tim Binnall's article doesn't include the faked possibility. On January 29th Türkiye Today headlined UFO Alarm in Istanbul Airspace: Pilots Report Unidentified Traffic. This one seems "for real," and scarily unexplained. From the sports world, Alexandra Snow recounts a Racing Legend's Near-Death Experience After UFO Came Within Inches of His Plane. Talk about scary! And on a "fake scary" but fun note, Ad Meter of USA Today says about the Doritos Super Bowl Commercial: Intergalactic Ad Won Creators $1 Million in Contest. The "Abduction" and its back story of a competition to choose the Frito-Lay Super Bowl commercial are thankfully less serious than our preceding articles, and we find the ad itself finished in 11th place in the Best 2025 Super Bowl Commercials: All 57 Ranked According to USA TODAY Ad Meter. (WM) February 12 Pentagon Releases AARO Report on 'Go Fast' Video Analysis The Black Vault
Important news bits include John Greenewald's summarizing the included All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) analysis of the famous January 2015 video that's sparked so much comment and debate since its "unofficial release" in March 2018. The report acknowledges and attempts to "factor out" uncertainties in location and aircraft headings. John notes differing reactions to the analysis's "no anomalous flight characteristics" conclusion with "High Confidence." Anthony Bragalia considers another huge debate in Mystery of "Underwater UFOs" Solved? Secret Navy Program Revealed. It's a fascinating piece arguing "transmedium" vehicles have been in development and service for decades. It also possibly sheds light upon the recent "drone dilemma" cases where such objects seem to have come over the New Jersey area from underwater. In Congressman Tim Burchett Comes Out Swinging Against New Whistleblower Jake Barber Patrick Scott Armstrong finds "predictable confusion" in Burchett's concerns about Barber being a "plant" as well of "CE-5" types of "psionic" communications with NHI vehicles, plus fellow Representative Eric Burlison's ignorance of Barber's claims. H/T to Deidre E. Hockin for this "heads up." And with Inside Skywatcher: Psionic Asset James Hodgkins Breaks His Silence we have sort of a rejoinder to Burchett's "demonic" issues. (WM) ‘The Square on Mars’: A Matter of Perspective? Daily Grail
The Mars Square, an anomaly on the surface of the Red Planet, was originally discovered in 2001. Images of that discovery have recently gone viral, and have some convinced it's an ancient structure, a belief made more solid with photoshopped enhancements emphasizing its "squareness." However, unretouched photos are indicative of a naturally occurring anomaly, rather than an ancient structure. Meanwhile, The Mystery of Water—and Potentially Life—on Ancient Mars May Have Just Been Solved. Apparently the abundance of hydrogen in the atmosphere could have blended with carbon dioxide, resulting in the water that has so perplexed scientists. There is still the unanswered question of how that hydrogen continuously renewed, as its lifespan is quite short. (SmallComets maybe?) It's hoped these findings will also shed some light on the conditions supporting prebiotic chemistry during the planet's alternating warm and cold spells. (CM) "Today is a great day for transparency in America," said House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, before introducing Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who will head up the "Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets." Though the beginning and end of the 16-minute press conference had partisan tinges, Luna was careful to emphasize that Democrats as well as Republicans would be working to unveil material that had been held by multiple administrations from the American people. And as Steph Whiteside notes, while this follows "an executive order issued by President Donald Trump calling for the declassification of all files related to the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.," the task list goes much beyond that. For our interests here, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and Unidentified Submerged Objects are not only included, but it's also highly likely that Rep. Luna's past leadership on the UAP subject launched her into the Chair of this new formal group. Its first hearing is to be held in March and regarding the JFK assassination, which Luna believes involved two shooters. It will include information previously unavailable to the JFK investigations. The hearings are promised to be open to the public. Media reaction to this initiative will be interesting, and in that regard the UFO-interested will likely be disappointed in the New York Post's Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Believes 'There Were Two Shooters' in JFK Assassination as GOP Rep Leads Task Force Probing 'Federal Secrets'. (WM) February 11 Rob Waugh's expert is Dr. Steven Greer, who as Waugh notes "published a video in December, pledging to provide UFO disclosure in 'early January', which has long passed." Greer does name some of the impediments to the President unravelling the UFO conundrum, and makes many of his standard claims about the whole thing, while saying the recent "drone sightings were a cover-up to hide the sightings were part of an alien invasion," apparently by non-hostile, concerned aliens. Jason Colavito has his own ideas about current events in his UFO News Roundup. Jason doesn't think much of the Ryan Graves claim about a possible purge affecting an "FBI UFO Task Force." Micah Hanks, however, has more on that subject and The FBI's UFO "X-Files". Micah notes a publicly-admitted FBI role in UFO/UAP investigations goes all the way back to the classified version of the June 25th Office of the Director of National Intelligence "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." There's also a "shout-out" to the late (and great) Dr. Bruce Maccabee and his seminal early work on "The FBI-UFO Connection." (WM) Bless This House Malcolm’s Musings: Anomalies
Malcolm Smith reviews Jason Bray’s book Deliverance, Everyday Investigations Into the Supernatural by an Anglican Priest. Bray, who as an Anglican priest is also a "Deliverance Minister" (read: exorcist) from the UK, recounts his experiences with paranormal phenomena. While Bray has never come across someone who is actually possessed, he has more than a passing familiarity with all kinds of paranormal experience. He first became a Deliverance Minister after an encounter in his own house with a restless pagan spirit; it turns out this was due to the unfortunate location of the house on a Roman graveyard. Bray has since gone on to address all kinds of spiritual nuisances, dealing with poltergeists though counseling the victims and kinds of hauntings through holding a requiem mass or house blessing. Elsewhere, Oli Genn-Bash interviews Dr Jack Hunter on the relationship between music, altered states of consciousness, and paranormal experiences: Can Music Really Summon Spirits? Music and Extraordinary Experiences with Dr Jack Hunter. Hunter, an anthropologist by training, notes the close connection between music, magic, and spirituality in many cultures, and the central role music often plays in spiritual and religious ceremonies round the world. The two also point out how music can lead to tangible changes in one’s mood, emotions, and even state of consciousness. Hunter comments that the role music plays in experiences of altered states is often part of a larger irreducible whole, precluding a more exact attribution and reduction of the different causal components.(JS) There's an area in Mexico known as the Mapimí Zone of Silence, in the Chihuahuan desert, where it's said any form of communication signal cannot be received. The area became known for high strangeness in the 1970s when a US rocket crashed in the area, purportedly due to magnetic issues in the area. The Zone is located in the midst of an area with notable biodiversity, so the plants and animals also lean toward the unusual. But is it paranormal, or alien, or just plain weird? The truth may surprise you. (CM) February 10 Mystery Brain Disease Affecting Hundreds in Canada: Memory Loss, Seizures, and Behavioral Changes Boing Boing
It's been going on since 2015. A strange neurological affliction has affected hundreds in New Brunswick, Canada, and stumped medical professionals for a decade. A provincial oversight committee was established but could find no common threads between victims other than symptoms, which included dementia, aphasia, hallucinations, and muscle and brain atrophy. Meanwhile, Scientists Uncover a 770,000-Year-Old Mystery Frozen Beneath the Canadian Arctic. Remnants of an ancient glacier were discovered in 2009, buried within permafrost for nearly a million years, providing an "unprecedented" peek at Earth's climate history. Scientists hope to learn about the role of permafrost in preserving this history, and also hope to understand more about how glaciers survive Earth's warming cycles. (CM) Chrissy Newton reports on some speculative research by a group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California seeking to identify star systems that they argue are good candidates for the concentration of SETI efforts. The study identified star systems within reach of messages transmitted from space probes including Pioneer 10, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons, and calculated by when any responses from alien civilizations in these star systems could be expected to be detected back on Earth. The study shows signals from alien civilizations responding to probe transmissions could arrive back at Earth as soon as 2029. The researchers acknowledge, however, that receiving any response is an outside possibility. Even if we were to receive a communication from an alien civilization, would it describe reality as we understand it? Would it be intelligible to us? In an essay for the Institute of Art and Ideas, theoretical philosopher Matti Eklund asks what might alien languages look like: The Metaphysics of Talking to Aliens. Aside from differences in the medium of communication (for example using smell to communicate) and differences in syntax, Eklund asks a deeper question of how languages might differ in meaning, and how this might relate to the understanding of reality. He argues that other possible, perhaps better, alien languages may exist, but they may entail a very different understanding of reality than the one we have. (JS) Roswell, Sheridan Cavitt and Project Mogul A Different Perspective
Another "one-off UFO magazine" treatment of the July 1947 Roswell sensation has caught Kevin Randle's attention—and ire. Kevin once again disposes of the "Mogul" explanation in several ways while noting the changing stories Sheridan Cavitt gave about his participation (or not) in the investigation. Kevin also has written recently on The Zamora Symbol Controversy. Here he says "There really isn't [a] way to resolve this dilemma" as to exactly what Officer Lonnie Zamora saw on the side of a strange craft on April 24, 1964. A picture would have been worth a thousand words... But The Mystery Behind the Oldest Photograph of a UFO perhaps indicates that even "a photograph's understanding is entirely based on one's personal history and what one wants it to be." A lesson to be learned against the background of the many UFO controversies (and others?) that are rife at this time. (WM) Copyright
1996-2025, The Anomalist
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