Billions of Years Before the Dinosaurs, Strange Creatures Inhabited In Earth

The evolutionary history of life on Planet Earth continues to be traced, how organisms live and their emergence. Earth formed about 4.5 Ga (billion years), it is estimated that there will be life on its surface within a billion years afterward. 

The existence of similarities with organisms living in the present era, indicates a common ancestor, which later evolved in length. More than 99% of all species, or more than five billion species, that have ever lived on earth are estimated to have become extinct. Current estimates of the number of Earth's species range from 10 – 14 million species, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and more than 86% have not been described. 

A discovery that is not good for the fate of mankind. In addition, this discovery also states that the search for inter-planetary life will be more complex than we imagined. The discovery itself was made by a group of academics from the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle led by Michael Kipp, as reported by the Itech Post. "The recognition of an interval in Earth's past, an era when Earth may have had different oxygen levels, and also very different living creatures, could mean that the detection of oxygen-rich distant planets is not necessarily a prerequisite for the existence of microorganisms and the biosphere. complex," said Michael Kipp in a statement on the UW website. 

Planet Earth began the process of becoming an oxygen-rich planet about 800 million years ago. So far, experts have concluded that biologically complex creatures, breathing oxygen, emerged as the planet became richer with oxygen. Thus, it was concluded that the life of ancient animals was possible because of the increased oxygen levels in the atmosphere. However, there was an era when oxygen levels were much higher. This happened in the era before the appearance of the first dinosaurs. 

The Lomagundi Incident: The “Oxygen Disaster” 

Earth suddenly became a planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere as a result of the so-called Lomagundi Event, also known as the “Oxygen Disaster” or the “Great Oxidation”. That is, when oxygen levels reached their highest point in the oceans between 2.3 billion and 2.1 billion years ago, before dropping again for less certain reasons. The Lomagundi incident could have provided an opportunity for 'strange' creatures to evolve over billions of years into the 'ancestor' of today's creatures. However, oxygen levels then drop again, and the various creatures are then also wiped out. This can illustrate that perhaps, the fate of mankind will experience the same thing.

To determine oxygen levels during the Lomagundi Event, Kipp and his team plan to analyze selenium in rocks that formed at the bottom of the ocean during the Lomagundi Event. Selenium is released when rocks in the soil are eroded in the presence of ox
ygen and metabolized by microbes in the ocean.

The large numbers in the Lomagundi rocks suggest that the amount of organic carbon buried in the deep sea suddenly spiked, as written in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

source : here

Stone-Age skeletons found In Sahara desert

Archaeologists have uncovered 20 Stone-Age skeletons in and around a rock shelter in Libya's Sahara desert, according to a new study. Skeletons dating back between 8,000 and 4,200 years have been discovered in the desert in Libya. Archaeologists believe that the site was a burial ground used for 4,000 years and must have maintained long-term significance with the local people. 20 skeletons were uncovered in total, 15 of which were buried around 8,000 years ago and a further five around 4,200 years ago underneath large stone heaps. At the time of these burials the Sahara was more temperate than it is now with seasonal green patches and support for animal herding. "It must have been a place of memory," said study co-author Mary Anne Tafuri. "People throughout time have kept it, and they have buried their people, over and over, generation after generation.".

Source : unexplained-mysteries

Water detected in exoplanet's atmosphere

Astronomers have conducted the most detailed examination yet of a Jupiter-sized planet's atmosphere. Located 130 light years away, planet HR 8799c can be directly observed because it is large and located at a significant distance from its parent star. Using the Keck Observatory telescopes and instrumentation astronomers have been able to analyze the composition of the planet's atmosphere, revealing the presence of water vapor and carbon monoxide. "We have been able to observe this planet in unprecedented detail because of Keck Observatory’s advanced instrumentation, our ground-breaking observing and data processing techniques, and because of the nature of the planetary system," said lead author Quinn Konopack. It is hoped that the information will help scientists understand the processes behind the planet's formation.
(source : unexplained-mysteries )

Amazing Phenomena Crop circle in Sleman, DI Jogjakarta, Indonesia

On sunday ( January, 23, 2011) Amazing crop circle with diameter of 50 to 70 feet printed on the rice field in Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In this case will be investigated by Indonesian Air Force and National Institute of Aeronautics and Space Indonesian ( LAPAN ). Now you can believe it or not ? only you who can judge in this case.

source pic : here

The mystery of the Elephant Bird By Sir David Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough has returned to Madagascar to discover what happened to the elephant bird.

The massive bird was 10 feet tall and weighed half a ton but its extinction has always remained a mystery, while its unlikely they were hunted to extinction it is very possible that early humans would have assisted their demise through the collecting of their huge eggs that could feed whole families. Here is the story :

As souvenirs go, the giant fossilised egg that Sir David Attenborough keeps wrapped up for safe-keeping in the cellar of his London home is not bad for someone with a 60 year career as Britain's foremost natural history documentary maker.

Now in a bid to find out more about the foot long egg he collected on the island of Madagascar 50 years ago and the birds that laid them, Sir David has returned to the island off the east coast of Africa for a new BBC documentary on a quest to discover what happened to the largest birds to ever live on the planet.

The egg was laid by an elephant bird, which were more than 10 feet tall and weighed around half a ton, but what caused the huge birds to die out has remained a mystery, with some claiming they were hunted to extinction by humans and others blaming climate change.

But Sir David claims there is now compelling evidence that suggests the birds were gradually killed off by the early human inhabitants on the island stealing the giant eggs for food. He believes the birds themselves were revered by the indigenous populations, but the use of their eggs for food, combined with the destruction of the forests where the elephant birds lived, led to their eventual demise.

Recent archaeological evidence has revealed the fragments of elephant bird egg shells among the remains of human fires, suggesting that the eggs, which are 180 times bigger than a chicken egg, regularly provided food for entire families.

Sir David says: "I doubt it was hunted to extinction – anyone who has seen an ostrich in a zoo knows that it has a kick which can open a man's stomach and an enraged elephant bird, many times the size of an ostrich, must have been a truly formidable opponent.

"I suspect it was its egg. They may not have been able to tackle an adult bird, but they could have taken its eggs which would have been a huge source of food.

"Even if the bird itself was held in awe or fear by the people here, it's unlikely the eggs were – and that would have meant the gradual disappearance of this unique giant."

Sir David first travelled to Madagascar in 1960 when he was filming for the TV series ZooQuest. While there he discovered a few fragments of thick shell around the camp where he was staying in the south of the island and began offering a reward to the locals if they could bring him more.

He said: "A little boy brought in some big pieces that looked as though they fitted together, which indeed they did."

Using sticky tape he pieced together the fossilised egg, which is bigger than a rugby ball, before having it professionally stuck together when he arrived back in London.

As part of the new BBC documentary, Attenborough and the Giant Egg, Sir David returns to Madagascar to trace the story of what happened to the elephant birds by revisiting some of the places he went to on his original trip while also looking at some of the most recent scientific evidence. Radiocarbon dating of bones and shells have suggested that the birds were still present on the island around 1,000 years ago. Humans are thought to have arrived on Madagascar around 2,000 years ago.

European sailors visiting the islands during the 1600s brought back stories of the giant birds and came back with the huge eggs while some reports state the last of the giant birds died out in the 1700s. Experts, however, believe the birds largely vanished from the island around 1,000 years ago, although they may have clung on in small remote pockets on the island.

During the programme charting his quest to discover more about the bird, Sir David has his own egg dated using radiocarbon dating and discovers it is much older than he had thought – around 1,300 years old.

Dr Tom Higham, deputy director of the radiocarbon accelerator unit at Oxford University's research laboratory for archaeology, said: "We have done dating on quite a few elephant bird eggs and when we looked back at the dates we were getting, the youngest were around 900AD. The populations of humans on the island increased around that time too.

"Sir David had read a lot of the literature that suggests the birds were still around until much more recently, so I think he was surprised by how old it was."

Sir David also fears that the fate suffered by the elephant bird provides a cautionary tale for the damage being done to the environment in modern Madagascar, which is leaving many other species, including rare Lemur, critically endangered.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, he said: "This is the first film I have made where I deliberately go back to a place I knew long ago and chart the changes that have taken place.

"I go back to a place where there was forest 50 years ago when I was there and it has all been knocked down the only thing that is there is an abandoned saw mill. It was sad to go back and see that.

"It is an example of the way the island has changed over the years. There are now three times as many people living on the island since I was there 50 years ago. The only places they can live and grow food were the only places that were wild. The wild places are being taken over by people building villages on them and rice fields."

* Attenborough's Giant Egg will be shown on BBC Two in the New Year along with the series Madagascar.


Source : here

"Cosmic bruises" suggest other universes

Scientists have discovered evidence that parallel universes 'jostled' our own in the very distant past.

Patterns found in the background microwave radiation are believed to indicate where other universes collided with our own at least four times, it is a significant find in favour of the idea that ours is not the only universe in existence. Here is the story :

Scientists say that they have found evidence that our universe was 'jostled' by other parallel universes in the distant past.

The incredible claim emerged after they studied patterns in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) – the after-effects of the Big Bang.

They say they may have found evidence that four circular patterns found in the CMB are 'cosmic bruises' where our universe has crashed into other universes at least four times.

The findings are based on the complex theory of eternal inflation for our universe. This theory holds that out universe if only one bubble in a larger cosmos and that other universes,which will have different physics to our own, all exist at the same time. This is also know as the the multiverse theory.

Where these universe bubbles crash against each other they leave signature traces in the background radiation, some scientists believe.

The findings, by Stephen Feeney from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London, are likely to be controversial. A number of cosmologists have already written in response to the paper that it is too easy to jump to conclusions about what can be seen in the CMB.

The team behind the paper accept that 'it is rather easy to find all sorts of statistically unlikely properties in a large dataset like the CMB'.

But they add: 'If a bubble collision is verified by future data, then we will gain an insight not only into our own universe but a multiverse beyond.'

The paper, published online yesterday, comes just a month after a similar study of the background radiation claimed to have discovered evidence that the universe existed before the Big Bang.

Most scientists believe the universe was created in the Big Bang around 13.7 billion years ago. Stars and galaxies started to form around 300 million years later. Our Sun was born around five billion years ago, while life first appeared on the Earth around 3.7 billion years ago.

The CMB dates back to 300,000 years after the Big Bang and has now cooled to around -270 degrees Celsius.
A paper posted online on the website arXiv.org by respected scientists Professor Roger Penrose from Oxford University and Professor Vahe Gurzadyan from Yerevan State University, Armenia, suggested the universe could be much older han previously thought.

Penrose and Gurzadyan argue that evidence unearthed by Nasa’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotophy Probe in the CMB shows imprints in the radiation that are older than the Big Bang. They say they have discovered 12 examples of concentric circles, some of which have five rings, meaning the same object has had five massive events in its history.

The rings appear around galaxy clusters in which the variation in the background radiation appears to be strangely low.

The research appears to cast aside the widely-held 'inflationary' theory of the origins of the universe, that it began with the Big Bang, and will continue to expand until a point in the future, when it will end. They believe the circles are imprints of extremely violent gravitational radiation waves generated by supermassive black hole collisions in a previous aeon before the last big bang.

Continued read and Source : here

Baboon god statue found in Egyptian ruins

The remains of statues including those of a pharoah and an Egyptian baboon god have been unearthed.

The find was made during an excavation at Amenhotep’s mortuary temple, the largest in ancient Egypt. The baboon statue is believed to be that of the god Hapi who was depicted as a baboon by the ancient Egyptians. Here is the story :

Archaeologists have discovered fragments of a statue of a pharaoh and an ancient god during a routine excavation at what was once the largest temple in ancient Egypt, culture minister Farouk Hosni said on Thursday.

According to Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the fragments -- the legs of King Amenhotep III and a bust of the god Hapi depicted as a baboon -- were uncovered in the ruins of Amenhotep’s mortuary temple on the west bank of Luxor, Upper Egypt.


Work has been ongoing to uncover the ruins of the once powerful king’s funerary complex, the largest of its kind before it collapsed over 2,000 years ago during the Late Period. Although the blocks were reused in the construction of other temples, it is believed that the northern side of the temple served as a burial spot for broken.

"Because the statuary were ritually significant, they could not be destroyed," said antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, who headed the excavation.

"The excavation team is still digging to find fragments of the double statue. It is the first of its kind as it depicts the king seated with the god Hapi, one of the four sons of Horus, beside him."

In the last two years, five double statues of King Amenhotep III accompanied by the deities: Re-Horakhti, Khepri, Horus, and Hapi have been found.

source : here

The ancient Egyptian was essentially a passport to paradise

Ancient Egyptians' spells were 'passport' into paradise. The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead was essentially a passport to paradise for the deceased.

The Egyptians had strong beliefs about life after death and the underworld, their Book of the Dead was a collection of spells that was designed to fast-track the dead through the underworld in to paradise.

London, England (CNN) -- If you've ever wished that there was a guidebook to get you into heaven, no matter what your exploits in this life, you're not alone.

In fact, so strong was the desire for eternal life for the ancient Egyptians that they took things a step further, in the shape of a collection of spells, known as the Book of the Dead, designed to fast-track them through the underworld into paradise.

For the ancients, the journey through the underworld after death was filled with obstacles and tests, including knife-wielding gods, monsters and perilous gateways - and that's where the spells came in.

"It's a kind of repertoire, a pool of about 200 hymns to the gods, magical spells. You could choose from these a number of texts to put onto a roll of papyrus to take with you into your tomb and that would be your passport, your guide, to the next world." John Taylor, curator of a new London exhibition, "Journey Through the Afterlife: Egyptian Book of the Dead," told CNN.

The gods that had to be overcome are depicted on a number of fragile papyri on display in the British Museum, where the exhibition is being held. They include one with the head of a hippopotamus and the body of a lion, wielding a giant knife.

"If you couldn't speak the correct words to this god then it would leap at you with the knife and you would be killed and you would not have the afterlife," Taylor explained. "So, knowing these spells was absolutely crucial."

Ancient Egyptians also believed they would have to endure a ritual known as "the weighing of the heart" before a monster in the underworld known as the Devourer. If their hearts were pure, they could pass into the next life; if not, the heart would be eaten.

Mark Smith, a professor of Egyptology at Oxford University, explained that treatment of the body was also a crucial part of the funerary process.

See full article : here

Top 3 The Natural Phenomenon in the World

1. Pink and White Terraces

Nature Phenomena White Terrace

Nature Phenomena Pink Terrace

New Zealand's Pink and White Terraces, or Otukapuarangi ("fountain of the clouded sky") and Te Tarata ("the tattooed rock") in Māori, were considered a natural wonder until they were destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption in 1886. The natural phenomenon of warm water that formed by geysers that blast down the hillside across the thickness of ice left, the largest pool of warm water was recorded around 3 acres. Before the destruction of this phenomenon, It belongs to ” The Eighth Wonder of the World “.

2. Cave of the Crystals

Giant Crystal Cave

Cave of the Crystals or Giant Crystal Cave located at the mining sites in Chihuahua, Mexico. The main chamber contains giant selenite crystals, some of the largest natural crystals ever found.


3. Red Tides

Amazing natural Phenomenon Red Tides

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon more correctly known as an algal bloom (large concentrations of microorganisms), an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column and results in discoloration of the surface water. A natural phenomena occurs because gathering of microorganisms in the coastal area from the mouth water, sea or river water and make the water purple and red.

2012" End Of The Earth " Does Mayan Calendar True?

A new book argues that the conversions of Mayan dates may be off by as much as 100 years.

If so then the concept of the end of the world being in 2012 is also inaccurate, even if we were to accept that something will happen the exact date could be out by almost a century and might have already passed.


Here is the news about this (source from yahoo) :
End of the Earth Postponed

It's a good news/bad news situation for believers in the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. The good news is that the Mayan "Long Count" calendar may not end on Dec. 21, 2012 (and, by extension, the world may not end along with it). The bad news for prophecy believers? If the calendar doesn't end in December 2012, no one knows when it actually will - or if it has already.

A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events. (The doomsday worries are based on the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, much as our year ends on Dec. 31.)

The Mayan calendar was converted to today's Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter's author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus.

"He took the position that his work removed the last obstacle to fully accepting the GMT constant," Aldana said in a statement. "Others took his work even further, suggesting that he had proven the GMT constant to be correct."

But according to Aldana, Lounsbury's evidence is far from irrefutable.

"If the Venus Table cannot be used to prove the FMT as Lounsbury suggests, its acceptance depends on the reliability of the corroborating data," he said. That historical data, he said, is less reliable than the Table itself, causing the argument for the GMT constant to fall "like a stack of cards."

Aldana doesn't have any answers as to what the correct calendar conversion might be, preferring to focus on why the current interpretation may be wrong. Looks like end-of-the-world theorists may need to find another ancient calendar on which to pin their apocalyptic hopes.

10 Unexplained Mysteries Phenomena Part 2

6.The Out of Body Experience
An out of body experience happens when your awareness is transferred beyond your physical body. When it happens during severe bodily trauma, it's often called a near death experience (NDE). And when it's induced at will and used to travel to other planes or dimensions, it's called astral projection (AP).
explains the three conditions surrounding this phenomena:
1. It's a normal dream. You can tell if you are only dreaming that you are in an astral state because you won't experience the separation process.

2. It's a lucid dream. You can consciously induce an out of body experience from within a lucid dream, but it's still only a dream inside your mind.

3. It's a real OBE. You know that you are awake in your real bedroom when the separation process begins. There are no dream characters or constructs. There's a strange, unearthly quiet about it and you feel a bit like a ghost.

Dr Robert Monroe famously documented his out of body experiences in his groundbreaking book, Journeys Out of the Body. He was at first incredulous when he began having OBEs against his will but soon traveled to places far removed from the material and spiritual realities of life on earth.

The concept compels us to rethink our ideas about life and death - and maybe even induce an out of body experience for ourselves.

7. The Mayan Prophecy


According to an increasingly large number of people, the Mayan Prophecy states that the world as we know it will change on December 12, 2012. This is not a new phenomena; as landmark dates draw near, end of the world theories creep out of the woodwork with astonishing popularity.

However, this particular theory has been around for more than 5000 years. It began when the ancient Mayans plotted our position in the Milky Way and launched the Mayan calendar.

The Mayans believed that in the year AD 1999, mankind would have 13 years to recognize our own patterns of self destruction. Then, starting December 12, 2012, our entire lives would be tested and only those most in touch with their spiritual sides would survive (as some interpretations have it). Many people take this as a sign that a natural or manmade disaster will occur, tearing apart the civilized world and taking us back to hunter-gatherer days.
There are other interpretations too: from sun storms to the eruption of a super volcano; from a magnetic field reversal to a meteor impact. Some people even point to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland as the bringer of doom.

While the world may come to an abrupt end any time, any day, without warning - one thing is for sure: our modern society, like all civilizations before us, is geared to postulate over end-of-the-world mysteries with gusto.

8. Stonehenge
Stonehenge is one of the greatest unexplained mysteries of the world. It's certainly no hoax (estimated to be more than 5,000 years old) and is probably the most important prehistoric monument in the whole of Britain. When you visit Stonehenge, you'll find yourself driving for miles through rolling hills and countryside until, suddenly, you catch sight of this bizarre structure. There's an eerie feel to the area around Stonehenge, and for thousands of years it has soon silently, giving away few clues as to the meaning of its existence.

Excavations have revealed that Stonehenge was built in three parts. First, a series of holes were dug around 3100 BC as part of a religious ceremony. Then, more than 1,000 years later, the most dramatic stage of building took place. Huge bluestones from mountains in Wales were lugged more than 240 miles to the Stonehenge site. Why would anyone do this in the age before the wheel? It wouldn't have been hard to find rocks closer nearby. The stones were set up to form an incomplete double circle, aligned perfectly with the midsummer sunrise.

The third stage in 2000 BC saw the arrival of the more stones, transported by land from the Marlborough Downs some 25 miles away. Then, after a further 500 years had passed, someone felt the need to rearrange the massive Welsh bluestones into the familiar horseshoe and circle we see today.

One of the great unexplained phenomena, the meaning of Stonehenge is still not clear today. Was it a temple, a burial ground, an observatory, or an ancient calendar? Without a time machine to go back and ask, we may never know.

9. Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is a prehistoric creature thought to inhabit the Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. As lake monsters go, Scotland has tales of a fair few, with Nessie gaining the most popularity of all on the back of anecdotal evidence.

Nessie hit the headlines in 1933 when a story was published in the Inverness Courier. The report quoted a Londoner who had visited a few weeks earlier as seeing: "a most extraordinary form of animal... the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life."
After that, more sightings were reported and this unexplained phenomena hit international headlines. That same year, one motorcyclist claimed to nearly hit Nessie late one night as it lumbered across the road and slid back into the loch. Soon, apparent photos of the Loch Ness Monster were being published...

In 1960, an aeronautical engineer filmed a hump crossing the water in Loch Ness in a powerful wake unlike that of a boat. Years later, digital enhancement of the footage revealed what seemed to be the rear body, flippers, and two more humps of a plesiosaur-like body. The technician said: "Before I saw the film, I thought the Loch Ness Monster was a load of rubbish. Having done the enhancement, I'm not so sure."

There's no doubt that the story of Nessie has drawn huge tourist interest to the famed Loch Ness. And while some suggest it's a living plesiosaur, New Scientist points out that such a creature could never lift its head up out of the water like the photos and anecdotes suggest. What's more, the loch is only 10,000 years old and was frozen solid for about 20,000 years before that.

10. The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle is one of the great unexplained phenomena of the 20th century. It is held responsible for the disappearance of countless airplanes and boats in the ocean between Florida, San Juan, and Bermuda. This area is one of the most heavily sailed shipping lanes in the world, with vessels crossing through daily for ports in the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean Islands.
So why do people think there's weird stuff going on in the Bermuda Triangle? Because there are a huge number of disappearances that happened in very mysterious circumstances, falling beyond the possibilities of human error, equipment failure or natural disasters. Many theories attribute a paranormal explanation, like a suspension of the laws of physics.

The first unexplained phenomena occurred in the 1950s when the story of Flight 19 came to light, detailing a group of five US Navy bombers on a training mission. The flight leader was reported to have said: "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." It was also claimed that Navy officials said the planes "flew off to Mars", linking the Devil's Triangle with the supernatural.

Skeptics say that such incidents have been embellished, and the Bermuda Triangle is responsible for no more disappearances than any other area of ocean. However, fans of paranormal phenomena say many incidents remain unexplained to this day, despite considerable investigation.

source : world of lucid dream

10 Unexplained Mysteries Phenomena Part 1

Here is 10 Unexplained mysteries phenomena of the world, and that's still a mysteri.

1. Crop Circles


The original crop circles were exactly that - circular patterns of flattened crops, often created in mysterious circumstances overnight. During the last 20 years, though, crop circles have evolved into complex geometric shapes, like the DNA double helix or the nautilus shell. In 1966, an Australian sugar cane farmer said he saw a saucer-shaped spaceship rise up from a swamp before flying away. When he looked at the landing site, he found the reeds intricately woven in a clockwise direction on top of the water. There are many other anecdotal accounts of crop circles appearing in alien UFO literature, where sometimes the crops were burnt, otherwise flattened.

But in 1991, two men from Southampton, England, admitted they conceived the whole idea as a prank some 15 years earlier. They made their masterpiece using planks, rope, hats and wire - and could create a 40-foot circle in 15 minutes. The only reason they came clean was because one of the men, Bower, was running up considerable mileage on his car and had to convince his wife he wasn't having an affair. He continues to demonstrate the art of crop circles today.

Many people still claim that while some crop circles are almost certainly fakes, others are genuinely created by alien intelligence. They point out that the arrangements are too complex to be created by hand in such a short time...

2. The Pyramids of Egypt
When it comes to unexplained mysteries of the world, the pyramids of Giza in Egypt really take the biscuit. The largest pyramid of all, also known as the Great Pyramid of Cheops (or Khufu), was built around 5,000 years ago - but how?
The Pyramid of Cheops is the size of a 40-storey building and covers an area big enough to fit 10 football fields in it. More than 2 million stone blocks were used to make the pyramid, each weighing 2-5 tons and cut from a distant limestone quarry on the other side of the Nile. Experts reckon it took a whopping 400,000 men some 20 years.

Engineering feats aside, there is also some weird paranormal phenomena going on at the Pyramid of Cheops. In the 1940s, a French hardware dealer spotted some mummified animals exactly one-third up the height of the pyramid. The remarkable thing was they showed no signs of decomposition. He deducted that the pyramid shape was responsible for preserving these creatures. Attempts to mummify dead organic matter under small cardboard pyramids have produced the same result - as if there is some kind of energy within the pyramid shape.

Later, a Czech radio engineer conducted a series of experiments in which he placed a brand new razor blade inside a 1:1,000 scale model of Cheops. He aligned his pyramid on a north-south axis exactly like the real thing. After getting 50 shaves from the razor, he was forced to conclude that it was only getting sharper, just from being inside the pyramid. It took him 10 years to obtain a patent for this remarkable device, which still has no scientific explanation today.

3. Bigfoot (better known as Sasquatch)

He's big, he's hairy, and he's starred in his own TV show! Bigfoot is world-famous for spooking the bejesus out of hikers and hunters in North America. Scientists consider Sasquatch to be the result of folklore, misidentification and a whole lot of hoaxes. However, some people believe many of these humanoid creatures exist around the world, just like the Yeti of the Himalayas.
Bigfoot has been described as an ape-like creature, some 6-10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or reddish hair. Witnesses give him large eyes, a heavy brow ridge and a crested head, much like a male gorilla. Footprints allegedly belonging to Bigfoot are 24 inches long.

Is Sasquatch really one of the great unexplained mysteries of the world? Somewhat disappointingly, the most famous footage of Bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California, was shot down by a man called Bob Heironimus. Years after the event, he claimed he wore an ape costume for the filming.

Scientists also point out there is slim chance that a prehistoric, bipedal, apelike creature could exist, simply because the breeding population of such an animal would have to be so large that many more sightings would be reported.

Nevertheless, Bigfoot's cousin - the Yeti (aka the Abominable Snowman) - has a strong alleged presence in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. Teams of scientists continue to seek out photo evidence, and many locals accept the reality of a breeding Yeti population as read.

4. UFO's/ Area 51

Unidentified Flying Objects can usually be explained away as airplanes, helicopters, weather balloons, comets, meteors and even the five planets which can be seen with the naked eye. In photographs they are usually deemed as dust on the camera lens or simply all-out hoaxes. But sometimes they fall into the category of true unexplained phenomena, as is the case with alien UFOs.
The first reported UFO sighting happened in Texas in 1878, when a local farmer reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object flying "at wonderful speed". Another famous early sighting occurred in the UK in 1916, when a pilot reported seeing a row of lights that rose and disappeared into the sky.
After UFOs were popularized by science fiction in the 1950s, the number of sightings went through the roof. Theories to explain the paranormal phenomena range from the good old Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, where aliens are visiting us from another planet; to the Interdimensional Hypothesis, where alien UFOs are crossing the fabric of space-time from a parallel universe.

Meanwhile, UFO conspiracy theories center around Area 51 in Nevada, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The site houses a large air base that was selected in the 1950s for testing of a U-2 spy plane. It has since become America's testing ground for secret "black budget" aircraft before they go public.

The UFO stories began when, in 1989, Bob Lazar claimed on Las Vegas TV that he had worked on alien spacecraft just south of Area 51. The combination of government secrecy and unexplained phenomena happening in the sky above the desert has sparked UFO conspiracy theories ever since.

5. The Belmez Faces

The famous Belmez faces have been described by parapsychologists as "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomena in the 20th century."
In 1971, in the small Spanish village of Belmez, Maria Pereira claimed a human face spontaneously appeared on her cement kitchen floor. It wasn't long before she destroyed the floor and replaced it - and a new face promptly appeared.

More and more faces continued to appear on the floor of Maria Pereira's kitchen, attracting thousands of visitors every day. Some were male, some female, some large, and some small. In time, she discovered that the house, built around 1830, stood above a graveyard used by the Romans, Spanish Muslims and then Medieval Christians.

Did Maria Pereira paint the faces herself? If so, she never benefited financially from all the attention. She lived a simple life in that same house and eventually died in 2004, after which the house was put on the market. Besides ghostly apparitions, paranormal experts suggest a second theory - that the faces were manifested on the floor by telekinesis. Apparently, the expressions on their faces used to change with the mood of Maria Pereira...

However, skeptics point out that it is possible to analyze the molecular changes in the whitewash and prove that some level of fakery was involved. Many believe that the 'paintings' were actually created by Maria's son, Diego Pereira. source : here

to be continue...

Mysterious Nature Phenomena Ribbon at Edge of Solar System is Changing

A year ago, researchers from the IBEX mission – NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer – announced the discovery of an unexpected bright band or ribbon of surprisingly high energy emissions at the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space. Now, after a year of observations, scientists have seen vast changes, including an unusual knot in the ribbon which appears to have ‘untied.’ Changes in the ribbon — a ‘disturbance in the force,’ so to speak, along with a shrunken heliosphere, may be allowing galactic cosmic rays to leak into our solar system.

“We didn’t understand where the ribbon came from in the first place,” said David McComas, IBEX principal investigator, during a press briefing. “It’s even more confounding now, to know the structure can change on incredibly short timescales.”

Researchers believe the ribbon forms from the interactions between interstellar space and the heliosphere, the protective bubble in which the Earth and other planets reside. The heliosphere is inflated by the solar wind, and acts as a protective shield from galactic cosmic rays that would otherwise bombard planets and perhaps prohibit life.

The interaction of the solar wind and interstellar medium creates energetic neutral atoms of hydrogen, called ENAs, that zip away from the heliosheath in all directions. Some of these atoms pass near Earth, where IBEX records their arrival direction and energy. As the spacecraft slowly spins, the detectors gradually build up pictures of the ENAs as they arrive from all over the sky.

IBEX produces global maps of the outer region of our solar system every six months. From the first map of the ribbon, released a year ago, scientists saw the unexpected ribbon, with a knot feature seen in the northern portion of the ribbon, as the brightest feature at higher energies.

The new, just-released map shows the large-scale structure of the ribbon, and another surprise: the distribution changed significantly. Overall, the intensity of ENAs has dropped 10% to 15%, and the hotspot has diminished and spread out along the ribbon.

McComas says the dropoff in intensity between the two all-sky maps perhaps makes sense, because the Sun is only now emerging from an unusually long period of very low activity and a correspondingly weak solar wind. The fewer the solar-wind particles that reached the heliosphere in recent years, meant the bubble may have shrunk. A smaller bubble allows more galactic cosmic rays can make their way into the inner solar system

“If we’ve learned anything from IBEX so far, it’s that the models we were using for interaction of the solar wind with the galaxy were just dead wrong,” said McComas.

With previous missions in our solar system, scientists have been able to get a handle on the medium inside termination shock, learning about the solar wind and how it is tied to structures on the sun.

“IBEX is first mission to give us definitive information about the medium that lies just beyond the heliosphere,” said Nathan Schwadron IBEX science operations lead. “The ribbon is tied in some ways to direct the orientation of the local field, giving us constraints how galactic medium affects the whole system. This is critical information that we have been missing.”

The scientists are hopeful IBEX will continue to operate through an entire solar cycle so that they can track the changes in the ribbon as solar activity is expected to increase in the next few years.

The paper, “The evolving heliosphere: Large-scale stability and time variations observed by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer,” was published online Sept. 29 in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research.

The lead video shows how the heliosphere is a bubble that surrounds our entire solar system and is inflated by the outward solar wind, which pushes out and deflects the material from the part of the galactic medium through which our Sun and solar system continually moves. This animation starts at our sun and quickly zooms out from the solar system to reveal the heliosphere and its collision with interstellar gas. The two Voyager spacecraft are currently exploring this interaction region. Credit: Goddard Conceptual Image Lab/Walt Feimer

The second video compares the first and second maps to reveal whether there are time variations in the Ribbon or the more distributed emissions around the ribbon. This animation fades between the first and second IBEX maps. We see that the first and second maps are relatively similar. However, there are significant time variations as well. These time variations are forcing scientists to try to understand how the heliosphere can be changing so rapidly. Credit: IBEX Science Team/Goddard Space Flight Center.

source : NASA, Southwest Research Institute, universe today

The 7 (Seven) Wonders in Rusian Land; very Beautiful and interesting

Russia organized a national contest to select the seven most beautiful destinations the country has to offer.

1. The Lake Baikal


Lake Baikal ( meaning "nature lake" ) is the world's oldest and deepest lake. Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia the body of water is also known as the "Pearl of Siberia".(wikipedia)

2.The Valley of the Geysers


The Valley of Geysers is the only geyser field in mainland Eurasia and the second largest concentration of geysers in the world. This place list of UNESCO World Heritage.

3. Mother Motherland monument


Mother Motherland monument is the name of several monuments in various cities of the former Soviet Union. Motherland is a symbol made during the World War II to mobilize Soviet people.

4. Peterhof Palace


The Peterhof Palace is actually a series of palaces and gardens located in St Petersburg, Russia, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great. These Palaces and gardens are sometimes referred as the "Russian Versailles". The palace-ensemble along with the city centre is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site(wikipedia). This place is regarded as the best tourist attractions in all of Russia.

5. Saint Basil’s Cathedral


The Cathedral of Intercession of Theotokos on the Moat ( popularly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral ) is a Russian Orthodox cathedral erected on the Red Square in Moscow in 1555–1561. The cathedral has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990.(wikipedia)

6. Poles of the Komi Republic


No one knows how long ago they were created, but for sure scientists know that only nature could create such a thing. Estimated age is 200 million years and their height is 42 meters at most (~140 feet.)

7. Elbrus


The mountain is the highest point in Russia and some people believe that it is also the highest point in Europe. Lots of tourists, ski and snowboaring lovers visit this place yearly. Its height is 5600 meters which is 18600 feet. (link)

Warning "Solar Tsunami" to Hit Earth

NASA scientists have issued a tsunami warning. But this is not just any tsunami. Nasa scientists braced for 'solar tsunami' to hit earth. This wil disrupt the communication system on earth. Astronomers around the world who monitor the Sun, reported there had been a big explosion at the sun.

The Daily Telegraph revealed in June that the space agency's senior scientists believe the earth will be hit by solar flares magnetic energy at a rate unprecedented after the sun got up from a long sleep sometime around 2013.

The earth could be hit by a wave of violent space weather as early as Tuesday after a massive explosion on the sun, scientists have warned. The solar fireworks at the weekend were recorded by several satellites, including Nasa’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory which watched its shock wave rippling outwards. Astronomers from all over the world witnessed the huge flare above a giant sunspot the size of the Earth, which they linked to an even larger eruption across the surface of Sun.
The explosion, called a coronal mass ejection, was aimed directly towards Earth, which then sent a “solar tsunami” racing 93 million miles across space.

Images from the SDO hint at a shock wave travelling from the flare into space, the New Scientist reported.

Experts said the wave of supercharged gas will likely reach the Earth on Tuesday, when it will buffet the natural magnetic shield protecting Earth.

It is likely to spark spectacular displays of the aurora or northern and southern lights.

"This eruption is directed right at us," said Leon Golub, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

"It's the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time."

Scientists have warned that a really big solar eruption could destroy satellites and wreck power and communications grids around the globe if it happened today. Nasa recently warned that Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”. The Daily Telegraph disclosed in June that senior space agency scientists believed the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013.

It remains unclear, however, how much damage this latest eruption will cause the world’s communication tools.

Dr Lucie Green, of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Surrey, followed the flare-ups using Japan's orbiting Hinode telescope.

"What wonderful fireworks the Sun has been producing,” the UK solar expert said.

“This was a very rare event – not one, but two almost simultaneous eruptions from different locations on the sun were launched toward the Earth.

"These eruptions occur when immense magnetic structures in the solar atmosphere lose their stability and can no longer be held down by the Sun's huge gravitational pull. Just like a coiled spring suddenly being released, they erupt into space.” She added: "It looks like the first eruption was so large that it changed the magnetic fields throughout half the Sun's visible atmosphere and provided the right conditions for the second eruption.

"Both eruptions could be Earth-directed but may be travelling at different speeds.

“This means we have a very good chance of seeing major and prolonged effects, such as the northern lights at low latitudes."

source : here

White Desert 'Sahara el Beyda' in Egypt, Farfara

Egypt is really wonderful touristic destination with many attraction for tourists. We all know about Egypt’s main features like pyramids and other historical monuments. But Egypt is not only rich with historical monuments it also has many valuable natural features which deserve to be placed in touristic guides. One of such places is the White Desert which is also known by its original name "Sahara el Beyda".
It is placed near the smallest oasis in Egypt, Farfara. As most of us know, sand in deserts is yellow, however, the sand in White Desert is surprisingly white and that is how this place got its name. At the nights, this place looks like some snowy landscape.This place has became pretty popular in several last years. The fact that it is not far away from Black Desert and Crystal Mountain has made significant contribution to its popularity amongst tourists. It is known as a place where unusual chalk rocks can be found. Such rocks are shaped by low-level wind erosion. One of the most famous rocks which can be found here is so-called Mushroom Rock which incredibly reminds to giant mushroom. Despite the fact this place is protected nature reserve, visitors from different parts of the world are not so careful while staying there and they often make huge damage to those rocks.

Source : Here