Image: Villarroel et al
A group of astronomers studying 70-year-old photographic plates have discovered tantalizing evidence of extraterrestrial objects in Earth's orbit. The images in question were taken from the Palomar Observatory as part of the institution's Sky Survey, an ambitious project which ran from 1949 to 1958 and covered much of the northern hemisphere sky in search of so-called "transients."
In the aforementioned photographic plates, nine distinct luminous objects are seen in one of a long sequence of plates taken at specific time intervals on April 12, 1950. According to Beatriz Villarroel, the principal investigator reviewing the old images, the mysterious dots of light vanished within thirty minutes of the first exposure, indicating some kind of fast-moving unidentified objects not following the expected orbital mechanics of known celestial bodies.
Because at the time of the survey there were no man-made satellites or space junk polluting the orbit of our planet, Villarroel believes this discovery could potentially indicate the presence of technosignatures in our galactic neighborhood. Although she is careful not to jump into any conclusions, she is enthusiastic about the possibility that smoking gun evidence of extraterrestrial visitation could be hidden in one of these archaic astronomical photographic plates.
Exploring nine simultaneously occurring transients on April 12th 1950 - Scientific Reports
Nine point sources appeared within half an hour on a region within $$\sim $$ 10 arcmin of a red-sensitive photographic plate taken in April 1950 as part of the historic Palomar Sky Survey. All nine sources are absent on both previous and later photographic images, and absent in modern surveys...
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