One of the most fascinating things about LiDAR is how often similar landscapes emerge from completely different processes. The Pimple Mounds of Arkansas, the Mima Mounds of Washington, and the Prairie Mounds of Colorado all produce these strange fields of evenly spaced earth hummocks. They look related but geologists still debate parts of their formation. Archaeologists generally do not consider them human-built.

Thunderbird eyewitnesses are rare but I have interviewed several in IL, the Ozarks, Appalachia, AK, the Bridgewater Triangle, and more. Mark A. Hall interviewed others in his tour of the Black Forest of PA and trips throughout the Midwest. Jerry Coleman has too. @CryptoLoren

Let’s go back in time to the scorching heart of the Mojave Desert, May 1957, something extraordinary unfolded beneath the shadow of Giant Rock a seven-story freestanding boulder said to be the largest in the world. There, at the makeshift Giant Rock Airport, 1,200 earthlings gathered for the 4th Annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention. By day they swapped tales of saucer encounters and Venusian visitors. By night they scanned the starlit skies, hearts open to the possibility of contact. The organizer was George Van Tassel former aircraft mechanic, flight inspector, and self-proclaimed contactee who emceed the event while living in an underground home carved beneath the massive rock. He brought together veteran “saucer researchers” and fresh voices like the Mengers, whose New Jersey farm had reportedly hosted a Venusian scout craft and its peaceful occupants. One of my favorite accounts comes from Truman Bethurum of Prescott, Arizona. He claimed eleven rides aboard spaceships crewed by “thirty-two men and a woman captain.” These beings warned against atomic destruction, urged world peace, and even suggested he start a “Peace on Earth” organization offering to help him raise funds from the very crowd assembled there. The night brought its own drama: a distant explosion rattled the desert, sending conventioneers racing toward what they hoped might be a genuine landing. It turned out to be a prank Cal Tech students setting off dynamite to stir the believers. No little green men materialized… or if they did, they chose to remain unseen. These remarkable photographs, captured by Ralph Crane for LIFE magazine, transport us straight back to that hopeful, earnest moment in American garage-lab dreaming. It was an era when ordinary mechanics, farmers, and weekend stargazers dared to ask the biggest questions. The parables from the Atomic Age about contact, peace, and humanity’s place among the stars.

At first glance, this looks like a lost script from an ancient civilization. It's actually the shell of a marine clam called Lioconcha hieroglyphica.

I’ve been on a six month deep dive about the circled cross that’s featured on that cover.

Compasses fail on Tietuo Mountain because of iron ore in the ground. Locals call it the "Beijing Bermuda Triangle."

My latest book, "Albion - Chalk Landscapes of the South Country" is now out. Please follow the link below for further information or to order a copy. amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H3R6ST1K/r…

Sox disc magnets are shaping the ring magnet’s field into a multi-petal or hexagonal-looking interference pattern on the ferrocell. In other words, it’s not just one magnet showing a field; it’s a coupled magnetic system whose symmetry becomes visible.

How did oral navigators encode routes across thousands of kilometers before writing? We tested straightness in 14 documented songline paths. 10 of 14 are significantly straighter than chance. osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/fa…