EXCLUSIVE Mystery of America's 'lost colony' that haunted Stephen King is SOLVED as new evidence unlocks 400-year-old secret
The tiny hammerscales are a byproduct of metal forging, and the archaeologists who dug them up say they show what befell the famed 'lost colony' of Roanoke in the late 1500s.
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Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Forget Oppenheimer... the real brains behind the atom bomb were BRITISH: 'Hidden' history of WWII's deadly weapon revealed
It was two years ago that the Oscar-winning blockbuster ' Oppenheimer ' sent the message that it was the Americans, or rather one American in particular, who was responsible for the atomic explosion that brought the Second World War to an explosive close. The man in question was native New Yorker Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project's top-secret programme of nuclear bomb-making deep in the New Mexican desert. By August 1945 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' were ready to be loaded on to B-29 bombers, flown halfway across the world and dropped on two of Japan 's major cities to devastating effect. Not so fast, writes Gareth Williams. In this myth-busting book, he reveals that, without the involvement of British physicists at an early stage, the all-American 'Manhattan Project' would never have got off the ground. And the consequences of that would have been catastrophic, leaving the USA and most of Europe at the mercy of German scientists who were rushing to develop their own weapons of mass destruction. In which case it could so easily have been London or Washington rather than Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were engulfed in a giant mushroom cloud. The world's first atomic bomb (above) was detonated in New Mexico in July 1945. In the second afterwards, Oppenheimer said: 'I am become death, destroyer of worlds' Williams is a retired university professor and, as he explains, a member of CND, who was first alerted to Britain's forgotten contribution when he encountered declassified papers that referred to a mysterious 'MAUD committee'. Digging further he discovered that MAUD had been set up in 1940 to investigate the feasibility of Britain producing an atomic bomb in the immediate future. The nudge had come from a memo written by two German-Jewish physicists who had escaped from Nazi Germany and were now working at the University of Birmingham. In their document, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls hypothesized that by using an isotope called Uranium-235 they would be able to build a 5 kg bomb with the explosive power of thousands of tons of TNT. Ironically as 'enemy aliens ' the pair were not allowed to sit on MAUD, which was staffed by British scientists, including several Nobel Laureates. Even so, it didn't take long for the committee to excitedly confirm their findings. From now on it was all systems go on a project that would henceforth be known by the deliberately dull name of 'The Tube Alloys Directorate'. Initially Prime Minister Winston Churchill was insistent that Britain should go it alone. At this stage the Americans were dragging their feet on the nuclear option, complacently believing that their stockpile of conventional weapons would be enough to defeat the Germans. This was despite Albert Einstein, the world's pre-eminent physicist, writing urgently to President Roosevelt as early as 1939 to warn that America needed to throw everything behind the atomic bomb if it were to have a hope of beating the Germans to the finish line. Just in time, the Americans came to their senses and started to play catchup. Simultaneously, British scientists were realising that, while they had the theoretical knowhow, they lacked the material resources to build a bomb: plutonium and uranium were astronomically expensive. Eventually, the two countries agreed to co-operate, and 84 British scientists made the dangerous journey across the Atlantic to turbo charge the Manhattan Project. The rest, as they say, is History. Gareth Williams understands every detail of the science, from 'heavy water' to 'cyclotron' by way of 'gaseous diffusion'. There's a helpful cheat sheet of terms in case you get stuck but, luckily, Williams writes with the clarity and pace of John Le Carré. So even the most scientific dullard will be able to follow along. Strip out the science and what you are left with is a thrilling human drama, told in pacey chapters like 'Whoddunit' and 'On the Run'. It's all underpinned by the terrifying sense of how different Britain's fate might have been if it hadn't been for what Williams stirringly describes as 'the most significant international collaboration of the 20th Century.' The Impossible Bomb: The Hidden History of British Scientists and the Race to Create an Atomic Weapon, by Gareth Williams, is published by Yale University Press.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Medical museum in Philadelphia overhauls policies on human remains to meet modern ethical standards
A medical museum in Philadelphia has redrawn its policies on the collection and display of human remains, limiting its acceptance of additional specimens and working to follow 'evolving modern medical ethical standards' in how it handles the 6,500 organs, bones and other body parts in its collection. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, which owns the Mutter Museum, announced this week it is restricting the taking of photos and videos of human remains, allowing it only with the museum's permission. Photography by the public will remain prohibited. The museum 'will allow photography as long as it sort of serves an educational purpose,' said Sara Ray, its director of interpretation and engagement. 'But education itself is a pretty broad net that we're working through.' The great majority of the remains were collected from about 1840 to about 1940, mostly from Philadelphia, largely body parts and organs that were considered to be helpful in medical education and taken during autopsies or surgery. Such collections were not uncommon among medical societies at a time when specimens were critical to understanding how the body is structured and how it works. But most of those museums are long gone. The Mutter Museum said it is also working to 'de-anonymize' its collection by looking into the personal histories of its human remains to figure out who they are, if possible, and to 'do justice' in how it displays them and tells their stories. The goal is to exhibit them in the context of the history of medicine, bodily diversity and the tools and therapies used to treat them. Museum researchers are using a variety of records to piece together those histories, focusing on where and when the remains were collected, but they are not employing DNA analysis. In some cases, the museum has information about the person that was recorded by the physician who collected the specimen. 'The goal is not finding an identity for finding an identity's sake,' Ray said. 'The goal is to find an identity so that we can build a richer biographical profile, through which we can then ask questions about the way that this person navigated the world. And so that's going to look very different for every single specimen.' The museum's new human remains policy says that many were 'obtained in unacceptable circumstances including through force or duress' and may have been used for research or in displays that are now considered to be examples of scientific racism. About 50 of its specimens are thought to be of Native American people. Since April 2024, nine remains have been repatriated to two tribes and one Native Hawaiian group. The remains will not be loaned out to other institutions, and research access to them must be approved by a group consisting of several top museum leaders. Research involving the collection tends to be about the history of medicine, not for purely biological study. The policy changes follow a two-year review, designed to engage the public in planning for the museum's future. As a result, hundreds of the museum's videos regarding items in the collection and on educational topics that were removed from YouTube in January 2023 are being restored to the streaming service after being reorganized, with out-of-date material removed. The museum plans to 'sharply limit' its future acquisition of human remains. It will consider accepting them from living primary donors or through a bequest but may decline such gifts. Museum visitor Ashley Davis, 47, said Thursday she appreciated the museum's efforts to educate guests on the difficulties people have endured and the lives they lived. 'I think it's important to know where these come from. These were human beings,' Davis said. The museum, which gets about 100,000 visitors annually, began as the collection of surgeon Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter, who in 1859 donated 1,700 objects and $30,000 to hire a curator and construct a fireproof building. His goal was to improve medical education. The collection now includes more than 35,000 objects with some half-million objects in the associated medical library. ___ Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Mysterious 'UFO' caught hovering over Disney World before vanishing into the darkness: 'It's aliens'
Visitors at Disney World's Epcot got an unexpected sight recently when a glowing orb appeared over the amusement park. Morgan Huelsman, digital director of The Bobby Bones Show and a Tennessee resident, told the radio show that she and her boyfriend were sitting on a patio waiting for the fireworks when a very bright light suddenly appeared. After searching online and finding no information about drones or satellites in the area, Huelsman described the object as a ' UFO,' adding, 'definitely a UFO with aliens.' The video she captured quickly spread online, sparking speculation from social media users. One user noted that a rocket launch from nearby Cape Canaveral had occurred earlier in the week, suggesting it could explain the sighting. The Bobby Bones Show's X account also commented, emphasizing, 'It was never moving.' The clip shows a bright light hovering over Huelsman's head in the black night sky. However, it is unclear whether the object was moving, as the video was not shot steadily, and the date of the recording is unknown. SpaceX did launch a batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral on August 18, about 60 miles from Disney World. The park has long been a hotspot for UFO reports, likely due to its proximity to NASA's launch sites. This is not the first unusual sighting in Epcot. In December 2024, visitors reported a glowing red orb in the sky. A Falcon 9 rocket launch that night at 7:52pm ET coincided with the sightings, and the reusable first-stage booster reportedly returned to Earth about 8.5 minutes later, landing on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Another Disney patron, who goes by Armand Luigi, Esq. on social media, reported seeing a similar red streak across the sky on December 23, 2024, which he later identified as a SpaceX launch. Despite the plausible explanation, many remain unconvinced. Some social media users suggested the video could be doctored, claiming, 'It's called CGI.' Others continued to speculate about UFOs and extraterrestrial activity. Experts note that Florida's combination of clear skies, frequent rocket launches, and highly populated tourist areas makes it a prime location for misidentified aerial phenomena. . @webgirlmorgan saw this hovering over EPCOT at Disney World for several minutes before it just blipped away. She thinks it's a UFO after doing research to find it's not a drone or a satellite, what do you think it is? — Bobby Bones Show (@bobbybonesshow) August 21, 2025 Amateur astronomers and UFO enthusiasts often record similar events, fueling online discussions and debates about their origin. Disney officials have not commented directly on the sightings, but the park has long embraced curiosity about unusual occurrences, often encouraging guests to share their experiences on social media. Whether the glowing orb was a SpaceX rocket, a satellite, or something else entirely, the video has captured the imagination of park visitors and the public alike. The incident is the latest in a series of unexplained aerial phenomena reported over Florida theme parks, highlighting both the popularity of UFO lore and the visibility of space activity in the region.
