Expert denies UFO hitting Shenzhou 9

Beijing Planetarium curator Zhu Jin has denied that the two flying objects swooping against Shenzhou 9 four minutes after its launch on June 16 were UFOs.

According to Zhu, who also the vice executive director of Beijing’s UFO Research Society, the two glistening objects caught onscreen during the live broadcast of China’s first manned space docking mission last Saturday, were probably birds, planes or other flying modules.

Yet Zhu elaborated that because of the temporary lack of access to the technological figures and infrared video images, it is difficult to identify the flying objects as well as to measure their velocities and actual distances to the spacecraft. The approximate-one-second television appearance of the objects is insufficient to provide any evidence backing up the UFO claims, Zhu said.

In stark contrast to Zhu’s scientific analysis, some Weibo users (China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform) were more imaginative in their assessments of the unidentified objects in the sky.

Many of them believed that the shining objects were indeed UFOs, while other bloggers suggested that the objects could be supernatural phenomena predicting disaster.

Sky-high and abyss-deep: China’s double record-breaker

China has reached two technological milestones spanning great depths and heights. In the earth’s orbit, the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft manually docked a space module while under the Pacific, a Jiaolong submersible dived to the bottom of the Marian Trench.

The symbolism behind the scheduling of the two historical events was far from coincidental. The three oceanographers manning the submersible during the 7,000 dive sent greetings to their three fellow “taikonauts” piloting the space capsule, wishing them luck in their mission.

The descent to a depth of 7,015 meters broke the Chinese national diving record. It was the fourth such dive in the mission, which started on June 15. The dive was conducted in heavy rain, according to a Xinhua report.

The space mission was also successful, with the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft undocking and again docking the Tiangong 1 module. For the first time, the procedure was performed manually rather than directed from the mission control center on the ground.

China became the third nation after Russia and the US to master the technology, which is crucial for the nation’s ambitious space program. The country wants to have a domestically-made manned space station operating by 2020.

The docking was the key part of the space mission. China launched the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, which carried the country’s first female astronaut, last Saturday. The mission will now continue for four more days.

China seeks to develop a completely independent space exploration program. Beijing sees it as part of the country’s growing global influence, as China strives to become the world’s largest economy and take a more prominent political position on the terrestrial stage.

Chinese Astronaut’s enters Space Orbiter for first time (航天員進入天宮一號過程片段)

Chinese spacecraft docks with national orbital module

A Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with three people on board has successfully carried out an automatic space docking mission on Monday. The Chinese are now a step closer to creating a national manned space station.

The spacecraft blasted off on Saturday for a 13-day mission. China’s first female space explorer, 33-year-old Liu Yang, is among the three crew members.

Monday’s docking with the Tiangong-1 orbital module is the third such maneuver performed by the Chinese, although it has not previously been done by a manned spacecraft.

Prominent Russian space expert Igor Lisov said the docking was very efficient, and the speed and accuracy was even greater than when Russian Soyuz and Progress spacrafts dock to the ISS. Lisov also noted that this latest success means that China is closer than ever to the two leading 'space nations' – Russia and the US.

The crew is expected to undock in six days and carry out a manual docking, which will be one of the highlights of the ongoing mission. The ability to perform the tricky procedure is essential for China’s ambitious plan to have a national manned space station operating by 2020.

China is pursuing a national space program independently from other space-faring nations as part of its resurgence as a leading global power.

Baltic ‘UFO’: New dive, new details

A “UFO-shaped” object, found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea last year, has puzzled many. And a Swedish expedition that plunged into the deep eventually surfaced with more questions than answers.

­Covered in soot, with little “fireplace”-like structures and lying at the end of a 300-meter “runway” – this is not something you would expect to find sitting on the sea floor. And whatever you think about extraterrestrial life, “the thing” is still there and there has to be an explanation. So what could it be?

On June 19, 2011, a team of Swedish treasure hunters was exploring the bottom of the Baltic Sea with their sonars when they noticed a bizarre, disc-like structure at a depth of 90 meters. Back then, international experts failed to explain the sonar images. In 2012, after months of preparation, the Ocean X Team, as they call themselves, went back in order to unveil the mystery.

“We've heard lots of different kinds of explanations, from George Lucas's spaceship – the Millennium Falcon – to ‘It's some kind of plug to the inner world,’ like it should be hell down there or something,” The Daily Mail quoted one of the founders of the Ocean X Team, Peter Lindberg, as saying.

The massive object rises three to four meters above the seabed and is about 60 meters in diameter. Members of the expedition describe it as something round, with rugged edges and concave sides – resembling a “huge mushroom” or, if you will, the Millennium Falcon spaceship from Star Wars.

The central part of the object has an “egg-shaped hole” leading inside. Surrounding the hole, they found odd-looking circular rock formations which looked almost “like small fireplaces” with stones covered in “something resembling soot.”

“Since no volcanic activity has ever been reported in the Baltic Sea, the find becomes even stranger,” said Lindberg in a press release at OceanExplorer.se. “As laymen, we can only speculate how this [could be] made by nature, but this is the strangest thing I have ever experienced as a professional diver.”

Another observation that the crew made in person was the 300-meter-long “trail” that they described as a “runway or a downhill path that is flattened at the seabed with the object at the end

The group says that they passed samples from the object to scientists for further examination. Other experts are studying the sonar images and processing the rest of the data from the ship. It is worth mentioning though, that sonar-based imagery has been known to become a source of confusion, when natural rock formations have been taken for foreign objects.

Being the scene of numerous battles in the past and remaining a busy maritime route, the Baltic Sea is a renowned treasure trove for shipwreck hunters. An estimated 100,000 objects are thought to rest on its floor.