
Mysterious white sphere crashes into Indiana street during storm, turns out to be...
An Indiana neighbourhood was left in shock when a large white sphere, later identified as a radome, suddenly came crashing down onto a residential street during a powerful storm that swept across the Midwest on Wednesday night. Radomes are designed to shield radar systems and antennas from harsh conditions.(X/@Stuntman_Mik3)
The mysterious object, which resembled something out of a sci-fi film, sparked confusion and concern among residents who initially couldn't identify it. According to neighbours who spoke to CBS4, the dome had apparently blown away from a nearby property during the extreme weather.
Also read: 'Bangalore is slowly killing us': Entrepreneur couple on moving out of city after 2 years What are Radomes?
Radomes are designed to shield radar systems and antennas from harsh conditions. They are typically used in aviation and military settings. This particular one had visible scuff marks from the fall, and a side hatch was found partially open.
'It kinda looks like an eyeball,' observed CBS4 news anchor Chelsea Helms.
The aerospace and defence company V2X, which has a facility located about a mile from where the object landed, later confirmed the radome belonged to them. However, the circumstances surrounding its unexpected flight remain unclear.
'I think it probably got turned over and caught in the wind and unfortunately, it flew away. We're really thankful no one got hurt or anything. No one got injured. But that's what it is, I can confirm it's not an alien satellite or an alien spaceship,' said Andrew Belush, a site executive at V2X.
The company clarified that the radome had not been in use and was stored off to the side of their building before the storm hit.
Also read: Canadian rapper slammed for dressing up as Maa Kali in explicit video: 'Stop appropriating Hindu culture'
The bizarre incident adds to a string of strange environmental occurrences in the last year. In late 2024, residents of New Jersey reported seeing inexplicable drone fleets hovering across the skies for weeks. More recently, in February, beaches in Florida were littered with black tar balls, raising health concerns and questions about environmental safety.
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Will humans go extinct if people stopped having babies?
In many countries, women are having fewer babies than their previous generations. As birth rates fall, how long will it take for humans to vanish if people do not reproduce anymore? read more Very few people live beyond a century. So, if no one had babies anymore, there would probably be no humans left on Earth within 100 years. But first, the population would shrink as older folks died and no one was being born. Even if all births were to suddenly cease, this decline would start slowly. Eventually there would not be enough young people coming of age to do essential work, causing societies throughout the world to quickly fall apart. Some of these breakdowns would be in humanity's ability to produce food, provide health care and do everything else we all rely on. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Food would become scarce even though there would be fewer people to feed. As an anthropology professor who has spent his career studying human behaviour, biology and cultures, I readily admit that this would not be a pretty picture. Eventually, civilisation would crumble. It's likely that there would not be many people left within 70 or 80 years, rather than 100, due to shortages of food, clean water, prescription drugs and everything else that you can easily buy today and need to survive. A catastrophe in the making To be sure, an abrupt halt in births is highly unlikely unless there's a global catastrophe. Here's one potential scenario, which writer Kurt Vonnegut explored in his novel 'Galapagos': A highly contagious disease could render all people of reproductive age infertile – meaning that no one would be capable of having babies anymore. Another possibility might be a nuclear war that no one survives – a topic that's been explored in many scary movies and books. A lot of these works are science fiction involving a lot of space travel. 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Experts who study population changes predict that the total will peak at 10 billion in the 2080s, up from 8 billion today and 4 billion in 1974. The US population currently stands at 342 million. That's about 200 million more people than were here when I was born in the 1930s. This is a lot of people, but both worldwide and in the US these numbers could gradually fall if more people die than are born. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD About 3.6 million babies were born in the US in 2024, down from 4.1 million in 2004. Meanwhile, about 3.3 million people died in 2022, up from 2.4 million 20 years earlier. The population will peak at 10 billion in the 2080s. Pixabay/Representational Image One thing that will be important as these patterns change is whether there's a manageable balance between young people and older people. That's because the young often are the engine of society. They tend to be the ones to implement new ideas and produce everything we use. 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Hindustan Times
16 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Mysterious white sphere crashes into Indiana street during storm, turns out to be...
An Indiana neighbourhood was left in shock when a large white sphere, later identified as a radome, suddenly came crashing down onto a residential street during a powerful storm that swept across the Midwest on Wednesday night. Radomes are designed to shield radar systems and antennas from harsh conditions.(X/@Stuntman_Mik3) The mysterious object, which resembled something out of a sci-fi film, sparked confusion and concern among residents who initially couldn't identify it. According to neighbours who spoke to CBS4, the dome had apparently blown away from a nearby property during the extreme weather. Also read: 'Bangalore is slowly killing us': Entrepreneur couple on moving out of city after 2 years What are Radomes? Radomes are designed to shield radar systems and antennas from harsh conditions. They are typically used in aviation and military settings. This particular one had visible scuff marks from the fall, and a side hatch was found partially open. 'It kinda looks like an eyeball,' observed CBS4 news anchor Chelsea Helms. The aerospace and defence company V2X, which has a facility located about a mile from where the object landed, later confirmed the radome belonged to them. However, the circumstances surrounding its unexpected flight remain unclear. 'I think it probably got turned over and caught in the wind and unfortunately, it flew away. We're really thankful no one got hurt or anything. No one got injured. But that's what it is, I can confirm it's not an alien satellite or an alien spaceship,' said Andrew Belush, a site executive at V2X. The company clarified that the radome had not been in use and was stored off to the side of their building before the storm hit. Also read: Canadian rapper slammed for dressing up as Maa Kali in explicit video: 'Stop appropriating Hindu culture' The bizarre incident adds to a string of strange environmental occurrences in the last year. In late 2024, residents of New Jersey reported seeing inexplicable drone fleets hovering across the skies for weeks. More recently, in February, beaches in Florida were littered with black tar balls, raising health concerns and questions about environmental safety. -


Time of India
4 days ago
- Time of India
Which Indian temples are known for floating statues
The legends and mysteries surrounding Sanatan Dharma and its temples often travel into realms far beyond human understanding. These stories have been passed down through generations, and frequently describe the stories of Indian Scientific thought, mentioned in the Purana and sacred books before the Western world could even discover it. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Yet there are several events and structures that challenge our basic understanding of physics, engineering, and the natural world without going into great detail. While temples are seen as places of worship, some ancient Indian temples are actually threads of philosophy, cosmology, and science woven into the fabric of time and mysteries. In the Hindu tradition, where God is believed to reside in everything from the vast cosmos to the tiniest atom, such marvels provide for both spiritual and intellectual wonder. Still, there are some legendary stories of places which remain unproven by science and whose origins are not defined or registered in history books, be it the floating stones used to build Lord Rama's bridge or the gravity-defying idols. Among such are two extraordinary legends of the levitating Shiva-Linga of Somnath and the floating Sun idol of Konark, which continue to ignite interest in the minds of historians, scientists, and devotees. The levitating Shiva-linga of Somnath The Somnath temple, situated on the western coast of Gujarat, is one of the twelve sacred Jyotirlingas of Lord Shiva. While history remembers it mainly for Mahmud of Ghazni's infamous raid in 1025 AD, a lesser-known yet astonishing aspect is the legend of its levitating Shiva-Linga. A Persian geographer Zakariyah Al Kazvini said as mentioned in research , 'Unlocking the ancient secret of the levitating Shiva-lingam of the Somnath Temple', published in International Journal of History, 'This idol was in the middle of the temple without anything to support it from below, or to suspend it from above… whoever beheld it floating in the air was struck with amazement…' As mentioned in the same article, the idol floated in mid-air, likely due to a clever arrangement involving a canopy made of lodestone or a natural magnet and the Linga made of a strongly magnetic iron-nickel meteorite. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now This was not just legend; historical sources such as Abulfeda and Farrukhi Sistani confirmed the idol's extraordinary material hardness, consistent with meteorites. Scientific analysis in the article explains that this phenomenon may have involved a magnetic levitation system. Due to the restrictions of Earnshaw's Theorem, stable magnetic levitation is only possible when diamagnetic materials like bismuth are used. The article also mentions that bismuth, often mistaken for lead due to its appearance, was used in the temple's structure, 'The edifice was built upon fifty-six pillars of teak, covered with lead,' said Zakariyah Al Kazvini. Modern comparisons show bismuth has a much stronger diamagnetic property than lead. This diamagnetic reaction could have stabilised the magnetic field, allowing the heavy Shiva-Linga to levitate. The theory is based on references to ancient Indian metallurgical expertise, like the famed wootz steel and ancient zinc smelting at Zawar. Bismuth, although rare, was likely extracted as a byproduct of lead from mines in nearby Rajasthan. The floating Sun Idol of Konark Temple The Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, which was built by King Narasimhadeva I between 1243–1255 AD is another mystery laced with legendary stories. The temple was originally situated by the sea and was said to house a Sun idol that floated in mid-air within its main sanctum. According to the Konark official website, 'The statue of the Sun God inside the temple was built of a material with iron content and was said to be floating in air, without any physical support, due to the unique arrangements of the top magnet, the bottom magnet and the reinforced magnets around the temple walls. ' The temple's architectural design had embeddings of iron plates between stone layers and a massive 52-ton lodestone, which was placed at the top of the temple's main tower. The magnetic field, legend says, held the iron-rich idol suspended in mid-air. The alignment was such that the first sunray would fall directly on the deity through the Nata Mandir, reflecting off a diamond placed on the idol's crown. Another widely circulated belief claims that the magnetic field disturbed the navigational compasses of passing ships. To prevent disruption, Portuguese sailors allegedly removed the lodestone, leading to the collapse of the temple's main tower, or Deul. Though no concrete evidence remains of the lodestone today, local guides still tell these legends to visitors, and the mystery persists. Certainly, what modern science is now slowly catching up to explain is something marvelous that our ancestors may have achieved centuries ago!