JULY 22, 2013 - UNITED STATES - Are we alone?
Exactly 66 years ago, the Roswell Daily Record shocked the American public with its headline, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region." Decades later, there are still conspiracy theories and questions surrounding the legendary Roswell UFO incident in New Mexico.
According to the July 8, 1947 edition of the local paper, a rancher told authorities at the Roswell Army Air Field that he'd discovered a crashed flying saucer on his property. Army Maj. Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer, reportedly recovered the "disc" and flew it to headquarters. It was never seen again, and the air field issued a press release later stating that the saucer was actually a weather balloon.
READ THE FULL ROSWELL DAILY RECORD STORY HERE
Marcel's son, Jesse Marcel Jr. later told HuffPost Weird News reporter Lee Speigel that he was shown pieces of the UFO by his father.
"There were these I-beams about 12 to 18 inches long, and the most unusual part of that was the symbols or writing on the inner surface," he said previously. "I thought, at first, it was like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but when I looked closer, it seemed more like geometric symbols of some kind -- it was very strange."
Last year, an ex-Air Force official told Speigel that there were two crashes, not one, in the Roswell incident.
Today, the crash conspiracy continues. Google's homepage features a game in which you help a tiny extraterrestrial recover the parts of his crashed ship in, presumably, Roswell. - HUFFINGTON POST.
Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Today's news:
g STARS - In September 2003, astrobiologist Maggie Turnbull from the University of Arizona in Tucson identified a shortlist of 30 stars that were screened from around 5,000 that have been estimated to be located 100 ly of Earth, as the best nearby candidates for hosting complex Earth-type life. One of them is 37 Geminorum: http://www.solstation.com/stars2/37gem.htm.
g ABODES - An atmospheric study shows similarities in the Sun's effects on Earth and Mars. See http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.htmlpid=19956.
g LIFE - Would life forms on other worlds have to possess eyes, ears and limbs like higher organisms on Earth? Would they have to have a similar genetic code? Or can life exist not as we know it? These questions may be unanswerable now, but astrobiologists are anxious to answer the underlying question: How do you define life? See http://www.msnbc.com/news/389080.asp?cp1=1. Note: This article is from 2000.
g INTELLIGENCE - An international team, led by researchers at the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, have extracted and sequenced protein from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq dating to approximately 75,000 years old. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329133310.htm.
g MESSAGE - Most SETI programs scan the sky looking for strong radio signals. Any signals that are deemed interesting are put on a list for follow-up observations weeks, months - even years later. Long delays in verification of potential ET signals sometimes generate tantalizing, but ultimately frustrating, stories. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti backus rhythm 030320.html. Note: This article is from March 2003.
g COSMICUS - Research based at The University of Queensland is taking journalism where it hasn't gone before by asking the question: How will people stay in touch in outer space? See http://www.physorg.com/news67839914.html.
g LEARNING - What are SETI scientists doing to foment the study and understanding of astrobiology in our schools? See http://space.com/searchforlife/seti phspace 051117.html.
g IMAGINING - Here are 10 alleged alien encounters - those brushes with aliens (or supposed aliens) that have been definitively debunked over the years. See http://www.space.com/top10 alienencounters debunked.html.
g AFTERMATH - In a cross-cultural study conducted several years ago, to scientists looked at the attitudes of college students towards the possibility that extraterrestrial life might exist, and if it does, what it might be like for people to learn that it exists. See http://publish.seti.org/general/articles.phpid=54. Note: This article is from 2002.
Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g ABODES - A switch from predominantly undersea volcanoes to a mix of undersea and terrestrial ones shifted the Earth's atmosphere from devoid of oxygen to one with free oxygen, according to geologists. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g LIFE - Extraterrestrial life is life originating outside of the Earth. It is the subject of astrobiology and its existence remains hypothetical, because there is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life which has been generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community. See article.
g INTELLIGENCE - A research team has discovered a part of the brain crucial for counting and performing arithmetic. The new finding could lead to a better understanding of dyscalculia, a psychological disorder that makes it nearly impossible to deal with numbers, much less complicated math. See article. Note: This article is from 2006.
g COSMICUS - Quote of the Day: "...in our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think, how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world." - President Ronald Reagan, United Nations General Assembly, (Sept. 21, 1987)
g LEARNING - Here's a neat new set of afterschool activities for elementary school students: "Astrobiology." This new resource guide from the American Museum of Natural History brings astrobiology activities to the afterschool arena. As part of an 18-month project, AMNH collected NASA materials originally developed for the formal education setting, and adapted them for use in afterschool programs for participants aged 5-12. Members of NAI's NASA Ames Research Center Lead Team served as science advisors to the guide.
g IMAGINING - What about the invading aliens from the X-Files: Are they plausible? A book released a few years ago that addresses the topic is "The Science of the X-Files" by Jeanne Cavelos.
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