As it turns out, humans have been tracking planets like Jupiter much longer than originally thought- about five centuries longer, if not more. Does this mean that ancient alien theorists have been right all along? Have the Ancient Babylonians been receiving special help from their "Sky Gods" to decode the movements of our solar system? No. No, they have not. Don't be silly. Humans did this...we sorted this out on our own, and we should be proud. 

For those who read the last blog post, I made the claim that there will be a correlation between the re-boot of The X-Files and an increase in UFO sighting submissions. For more information, please click here to read the specific post. 

World famous ufologist and co-blogger, Chris Rutkowski, disagreed with my claim and suggested that there would be no increase in sightings reported due to show being relaunched.

As a respectable (not respected) academic, I took the only course of action available to me - "Yeah!? You wanna bet?"

In an article written for GeekWire.com, Alan Boyle, makes a fundamental connection between the upcoming X-Files mini-series and the "renewed attention" UFO's will be given by the general public.

Interestingly, he interviews a few names that pop up pretty regularly in the ufology field, including Seth Shostak of SETI and Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center. Boyle presents Davenport's "laissez faire" attitude towards shows like The X-Files. Boyle writes, "What Davenport can’t figure out is why it takes something like The X-Files to get the broader public interested in UFOs."

Davenport can not figure it out because he does not value the fundamental desires present in our collective cultural consciousness; that is, the broader public is interested in UFOs because of something like The X-Files.

It looks like our solar system may have just become a little bigger. In an article published in the Astronomical Journal, astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, may have proven that there is a large planet hiding at the outer edge of our system and its actually pretty big- much larger than Earth.

Using the orbits of six icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt, Brown found that they all move differently, but all face the same direction. They are all tilted about 30 degrees in the same direction- and, according to Brown, that means something is governing their orbits. Enter a new planet lovingly named Planet 9, at least until someone comes up with something better. 

I look forward to the first "articles" that come out suggesting its an alien megastructure. For now however, I'd like to be the first to welcome this new theoretical planet into our family. Welcome to our solar system Planet 9- long may you wander around our Sun.

Check out the original article here.

Although the X-Files TV show went off the air in 2002, interest in the series has continued unabated. There have been books, a spin-off TV series and several graphic novels. A “tenth season” done as a comic book continued the series until 2015, and “season 11” has just started. But the X-Files fanbase was part of the reason that helped encourage the miniseries revival that will air beginning January 24, 2016.
 
The X-Files followed the exploits of “believer” Fox Mulder and “skeptic” Dana Scully as they investigated otherworldly events (not all of them related to aliens) and battled a secret group trying to prevent their discovering “the truth.” The X-Files partially drew on case reports of tens of thousands of UFO sightings worldwide and the widespread belief that aliens are visiting Earth, abducting humans and working in secret with government agencies desperate to cover-up the “truth.” Among the memes and themes recurring often in the series are the following...

A few months ago, Seth Shostak wrote a piece for the Huffington Post entitled "UFOs: The Trail is Stale" exploring why modern ufology is not delivering "the goods". In other words, why isn't there a modern Roswell incident or Rendlesham Forrest? Where have all the aliens gone? Why are the reports and evidence showing up for modern day cases so...blah. 

According to Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist from Harvard University, humanity owes its existence to dark matter. Dark matter is the spooky and invisible matter that scientists claim makes up over 85% of the universe. It's the stuff "in between" all the rest of the universe that we can see.

So how does dark matter affect the fact that you can swipe left? Well, the general consensus among palaeontologists is that around 66 million years ago, a giant 14-km-long meteor slammed into our planet wiping out the dinosaurs and the vast majority of everything else too. However, there were survivors. A small shrew-like primate that eventually evolved to become you, me and your boss (maybe).