Swedish researcher Beatriz Villarroel and an international team of scientists found mysterious objects in photographs of the starry sky preserved from the 1950s that could be located in the immediate vicinity of the solar system. This was reported by The Guardian.
Villarroel looks for objects that resemble artificial satellites in old astronomical photographs. They have common features that are not typical for other celestial bodies: they suddenly appear, glow brightly and disappear too quickly. It is believed that they should not be in photographs of the starry sky taken before 1957, when the first spacecraft was launched, but they are there and, as the researcher believes, need an explanation.
“It seems to me that the search for such nearby extraterrestrial objects is very important, since the astronomical community mainly looks for objects that are very far away. In my opinion, it’s time to try something new,” the scientist said.
Villarroel’s latest research, published in the December issue of the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, describes three bright objects photographed by the Palomar Observatory on July 19, 1952. They were located 10 arcseconds apart and disappeared within 50 minutes.
The article discusses two versions explaining their appearance. Assuming these were three independent objects, they would have to be less than two light years away and likely within the inner solar system or even in Earth orbit.
According to another version, a short-term flash of light was distorted in the photographs due to the refraction of rays by a massive object, which ended up between him and the Earth and served as a gravitational lens. The cause of the flare and the nature of this gravitational lens are unknown.
The Guardian notes that the date when the pictures were taken is well known to ufology enthusiasts. On July 19, 1952, several unidentified objects were observed in the skies over Washington, including the White House and the Capitol. The case was widely reported in the American press. Repeated sightings a week later raised concerns among US President Harry Truman and the CIA.
The most interesting thing – and this cannot be ruled out – is that these are extraterrestrial probes that were hidden by a technologically advanced civilization.
In this regard, it is worth recalling that in the late 1950s, Jacques Vallee tracked an object in retrograde orbit from the Paris Observatory and that his boss destroyed the tracking data:
“The Americans would laugh at us!” he told him when Vallee wanted to share the data.
Another work by Villarroel describes nine light sources recorded in photographs of the starry sky in April 1950. They appeared and disappeared within 30 minutes.
“I think searching for such (nearby) extraterrestrial objects is very important because the (astronomical) community primarily looks for objects that are very, very far away. I think it’s time to try something new.” Beatriz Villarroel
Stockholm University
Now Beatriz Villarroel has discovered more than a hundred sources of very red lights appearing and disappearing at different times between 1950 and 1966 and another period from 1979 to 1993, which were captured in sky images by the United States Naval Observatory (USNO). Comparison with images from more modern catalogs has not yet found an explanation.
Villarroel is seeking funding for a telescopic sky scanning project to provide Earth orbit search equivalent to the Galileo project. The idea is to use special algorithms to search for any non-human satellite probes that are still orbiting our planet. If these objects are still there, a rescue mission could be launched into Earth’s geostationary orbit, which would remove any doubt as to whether they are technological objects or mere stars.
In a recent interview with John Michael Gaudier on Event Horizon, the astrophysicist said that if extraterrestrial “objects” are discovered, she expects a couple of years of opposition and skepticism from science, during which she will organize a space mission to capture the mysterious objects for study.
