07 May 2014 by Jacob Aron
Magazine issue 2968. Subscribe and save
Mars
IN THE hunt for life on Mars, it’s time to pull out the heavy artillery. A non-profit group has proposed a mission that involves showering Mars with bunker-busting missiles that would penetrate deep into the ground but deliver probes, not warheads.
On Mars, preserved traces of microbes could lurk in deep subsurface ice, where they would be shielded from harsh cosmic radiation. NASA’s Curiosity rover has a drill, but it only penetrates a few centimetres. “Curiosity doesn’t go very deep – it is literally scratching the surface,” says Chris Carberry, executive director of the non-profit group Explore Mars, based in Beverly, Massachusetts.
Future missions will go deeper but will have limited capabilities. NASA’s InSight lander mission, set for 2016, features a “mole” designed to dig down 5 metres, but it won’t be searching for life. The European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover, due to launch in 2018, will drill down 2 metres in search of traces of life, but it can only explore a single Martian region.
That’s why Explore Mars last week appealed for funds for a project called Exolance, which would scatter small, lightweight projectiles across the Red Planet. Each missile would carry scientific instruments and would keep in radio contact with Earth.
Since it was first sighted in Puerto Rico, el Chupacabra or goatsucker, has become one of the greatest puzzles of the paranormal. Said to be around five feet tall with red eyes, fangs and powerful hind legs, it’s been sighted as far away as Chile in South America.
Animal X hits the Chupacabras trail to help unravel the mystery. Paranormal investigator Ted Loman and folklorist Jim Griffith give their expert assessments, while eye-witnesses offer first hand accounts of their terrifying encounters with the mysterious vampire like monster.
A prehistoric “Atlantis” in the North Sea may have been abandoned after being hit by a 5m tsunami 8,200 years ago.
The wave was generated by a catastrophic subsea landslide off the coast of Norway.
Analysis suggests the tsunami over-ran Doggerland, a low-lying landmass that has since vanished beneath the waves.
“It was abandoned by Mesolithic tribes about 8,000 years ago, which is when the Storegga slide happened,” said Dr Jon Hill from Imperial College London.
The wave could have wiped out the last people to occupy this island.
The research has been submitted to the journal Ocean Modelling and is being presented at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna this week.
Dr Hill and his Imperial-based colleagues Gareth Collins, Alexandros Avdis, Stephan Kramer and Matthew Piggott used computer simulations to explore the likely effects of the Norwegian landslide.
He told BBC News: “We were the first ever group to model the Storegga tsunami with Doggerland in place. Previous studies have used the modern bathymetry (ocean depth).”
As such, the study gives the most detailed insight yet into the likely impacts of the huge landslip and its associated tsunami wave on this lost landmass.
During the last Ice Age, sea levels were much lower; at its maximum extent Doggerland connected Britain to mainland Europe.
It was possible for human hunters to walk from what is now northern Germany across to East Anglia.
But from 20,000 years ago, sea levels began to rise, gradually flooding the vast landscape.
By around 10,000 years ago, the area would still have been one of the richest areas for hunting, fishing and fowling (bird catching) in Europe.
A large freshwater basin occupied the centre of Doggerland, fed by the River Thames from the west and by the Rhine in the east. Its lagoons, marshes and mudflats would have been a haven for wildlife.
“In Mesolithic times, this was paradise,” explained Bernhard Weninger, from the University of Cologne in Germany, who was not involved with the present study.
But 2,000 years later, Doggerland had become a low-lying, marshy island covering an area about the size of Wales.
The North Sea has given up wonderful prehistoric finds, like these bone points now kept at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, The Netherlands
This shaft-hole pick made from antler was found near Rotterdam in the Netherlands
The nets of North Sea fishing boats have pulled up a wealth of prehistoric bones belonging to the animals that once roamed this prehistoric “Garden of Eden”.
But the waters have also given up a smaller cache of ancient human remains and artefacts from which scientists have been able to obtain radiocarbon dates.
And they show that none of these relics of Mesolithic habitation on Doggerland occur later than the time of the tsunami.
The Storegga slide involved the collapse of some 3,000 cubic km of sediment.
“If you took that sediment and laid it over Scotland, it would cover it to a depth of 8m,” said Dr Hill.
Given that the majority of Doggerland was by this time less than 5m in height, it would have experienced widespread flooding.
These young Mesolithic women from Teviec, Brittany, were brutally murdered. As sea levels rose competition for resources may have intensified
“It is therefore plausible that the Storegga slide was indeed the cause of the abandonment of Doggerland in the Mesolithic,” the team writes in their Ocean Modelling paper.
Dr Hill told BBC News: “The impact on anyone who was living on Doggerland at the time would have been massive – comparable to the Japanese tsunami of 2011.”
But Bernhard Weninger suspects that Doggerland had already been vacated by the time of the Storegga slide.
“There may have been a few people coming with boats to fish, but I doubt it was continuously settled,” he explained.
“I think it was so wet by this time that the good days of Doggerland were already gone.”
Prof Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham, said: “I think they (the researchers) are probably right, because the tsunami would have been a catastrophic event.”
But he stressed that the archaeological record was sparse, and explained that two axes from the Neolithic period (after Storegga) had been retrieved from the North Sea’s Brown Banks area.
It is possible these were dropped from a boat – accidentally or as a ritual offering – but it is also unclear precisely when Doggerland finally succumbed to the waves.
Animal X is the original TV series that reports and investigates cryptozoology – strange animals and animal behaviour.
Animal X investigates strange and unexplainable sightings of creatures, monsters and unusual animal behaviour and phenomena from around the globe. Animal X attempts at getting to the bottom of the most baffling natural mysteries and phenomena.
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Explaining, investigating and challenging accepted science, Animal X Â investigating new innovations in thinking.
Animal X challenges its viewer to think. Then to think out side the box.
Animal X discusses and investigates sightings. Talks to eye witnesses and discusses and investigates alleged  cover ups that may exist.
As you venture in side this Animal X website you will find the classics; – Bigfoot, Yowie, Thunderbirds and Giant Squid stories. Investigate further and you will find other lesser-known cryptids such as the Jersey Devil, Beast of Bodmin Moor, Moa, Morgwar and Caddy, Hell Hounds and much more.
Phantom Black Dog
Other features inside include footage and pictures which never made it into the shows; full length interviews with Alien Abductees, Bigfoot eye witnessess and a lot more.
There is a news section where we post the latest stories we’ve heard about.
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Here you can post your own sightings, start a discussion, discuss the latest
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Use the navigation at the top to immerse yourself in the strange world that is Animal X.
There are a few hidden surprises, so be prepared. If you don’t come across this this time, well maybe next…. remember, there are stranger things in heaven and earth and you’ll see them on Animal X.
