"Join the Adventure" (Updated February 19, 2018)

An image from a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two
Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets and an unknown object.
Photo by U.S Department of Defense.

"The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.

The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space.

On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth."

- Excerpt from the NY Times article: Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program.

"Join the Adventure"
The original Bigelow Aerospace logo.

"His signature quirk, however, is an obsession with space that extends beyond his business interests. In addition to the $100million Bigelow has already put into Bigelow Aerospace (and the $400million more he has promised), he has doled out millions to fund research into alien abductions and UFO sightings. He’s done some of the work himself, personally interviewing hundreds of people who claim to have had extraterrestrial encounters. In fact, one of the main reasons he’s so eager to get his stations launched is that he thinks they might provide a step toward making contact."

- A reference to Robert Bigelow from this Wired page.

***

Well, according to the Daily Galaxy, apparently SETI's Seth Shostak wasn't terribly impressed, but the latest bombshell regarding the Pentagon Defense Department's Secret UFO program has loads of other tongues wagging.

Similar to the CIA's unexpected confession in January of 2016, it seems the Defense Department had - and, possibly, has - its own covert UFO investigation in existence: the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

I think the most intriguing aspect of the story is the involvement (and investment) of Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, a man who, among other things, claims to be an experiencer. Mac admitted having "his eye" on Bigelow in 2004, and judging by a few PB posts, seemed to admire him.

There are a number of recent articles regarding the Pentagon's disclosure... here are a few:
Newsweek's WE MAY NOT BE ALONE,’ FORMER PENTAGON UFO OFFICIAL SAYS ABOUT EVIDENCE OF ALIEN LIFE; Live Scence's Do You Want to Believe? Government UFO Search Never Stopped; the BBC's Pentagon ran secret multi-million dollar UFO programme; The Times' follow-up On the Trail of a Secret Pentagon U.F.O. Program, and, lastly the Huffington Post which may have been the first to break the story.

As luck would have it, however, there's more end-of-the-year news...

A Red Sun Named Trappist-1

"PLANET HOP FROM TRAPPIST-1e
Voted best "hab zone" vacation within 12 parsecs of Earth"
A new NASA tourist poster done in that terrific retro style we first saw here.
(Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech)

"NASA made the announcement in a live press conference after triggering much speculation over their big "discovery beyond our Solar System".

The new exoplanets have been detected orbiting an ultracool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1, which is located about 39 light-years away from our Sun in the Aquarius constellation.

Astronomers led by Michaël Gillon from the University of Liège in Belgium first detected three exoplanets around the star back in May 2016, using Earth-based telescopes.

But it wasn't until the team studied it more closely using NASA's Spitzer space telescope that they discovered an additional four planets in the system."

- Excerpt from a Science Alert article posted earlier today: BREAKING: NASA Announces the Discovery of a Potentially Habitable 'sister Solar' System.

***

I have a severe case of anxiety-produced writer's block these days but, while the angels continue to be left hanging in the air over at The Other Blog, it seemed imperative to finally move Post-Mac Blues past Christmas, 2016!  Ya think?

I had another post planned altogether - and was having a bitch of time with that one, too - when Google came to my rescue with one of their fun animations featuring a bunch of little bug-eyed planets begging for attention. I (dutifully) clicked on the animation and, presto, I was presented with another option for this post; not a better post, but, happily, a shorter one! And, actually, it might be quite exciting: seven new exoplanets have been discovered orbiting a dwarf star named Trappist-1 (named after the telescope which found it).  Moreover, they are earth-sized, possibly fit for bearing water... and, well, possibly life as well, although it never pays to get too excited about these things.

For more info, try this NASA page: NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star.

As for the other post, well, it'll get here eventually... ;-)