Free Republic

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is accusing the Democratic Party of not yet performing a thorough autopsy on what went wrong in its devastating loss of the White House and Senate majority in November. In an exclusive sit-down interview with The Hill on Monday, Newsom said that if the party wants to find its way back from the wilderness, it has to be willing to look inward at what led to the losses — and the failure to win back the House majority. “We have not done a forensic of what just went wrong, period, full stop,” Newsom said. “I don’t...

Albert Ostman (April 21st 1893 – 1975) was a Canadian prospector who reported that he was abducted by a Sasquatch and held captive for six days. He stated that the event took place near Toba Inlet, British Columbia in 1924. Albert was born in northern Sweden, in Arnäsvall, to Abraham and Albertina Östman (nee Strandberg). He emigrated from Sweden to Canada in 1913. He did not come forward publicly with his story until 1957. ALBERT OSTMAN'S STORY I have always followed logging and construction work. This time I had worked over one year on a construction job, and thought a...

Once again, Zillow has downgraded its 12-month forecast for national home prices. On Wednesday, Zillow economists published their updated forecast model, projecting that U.S. home prices, as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index, will fall 1.7% between March 2025 and March 2026. Back in March, Zillow downgraded its 12-month outlook for U.S. home prices to +0.8%. In February, Zillow downgraded its 12-month outlook to +1.1%. And at the start of the year in January, Zillow’s 12-month national home price forecast was +2.9%. Why does Zillow keep downgrading its national home price outlook? | Fast Company Newsletters “The rise in...

NASA’s Perseverance rover has made a mysterious discovery during its exploration of Jezero Crater: a dark-colored stone with unusual features that “may have originated from elsewhere.” The unexpected discovery, which the Perseverance team has dubbed “Skull Hill,” was made last week while the intrepid rover continued its descent down the lower part of Witch Hazel Hill along the crater’s rim. At one point, the rover stopped at the boundary between a pair of distinct rock outcrops of contrasting coloration that were first revealed in orbital imagery of the crater. The intriguing location, which the Perseverance team had nicknamed “Port Anson,”...

A strange new planet has been found circling two stars at a right angle — like something out of sci-fi. It’s the first solid evidence of a so-called polar orbit around a binary system. Credit: SciTechDaily.com *************************************************************************** Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered a truly bizarre planet — one that orbits two stars at a perfect 90-degree angle. This “polar planet” circles a rare eclipsing pair of brown dwarfs, making it the first confirmed world with this kind of alignment. It was a surprising and accidental find, defying expectations and proving that planet formation in extreme orbital setups...

Scientists may be getting closer than ever to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe. According to The New York Times, a team of astronomers now claims to have found the strongest indication yet for extraterrestrial life. The location in question is a giant planet known as K2-18b, which orbits a star 120 light-years away. Repeated analyses of the planet’s atmosphere have found a high concentration of a molecule that, on Earth, is produced exclusively by living organisms like marine algae. “It is in no one’s interest to claim prematurely that we have detected life,” said...

A dramatic twist in cosmic storytelling: A Jupiter-sized planet didn’t get swallowed by an expanding red giant, as astronomers once believed. Instead, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope uncovered that the planet spiraled inward over time, ultimately plunging into its star in a fiery cosmic demise. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) ********************************************************************** Lingering Brightness Provides Evidence for How the Planet Met Its Demise Each year, scientists from around the world compete for a chance to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Proposals go through a rigorous review process, and approved projects are added to Webb’s observation schedule, which is...

This artist’s impression illustrates the mechanism that could be at the origin of the powerful bursts of X-ray light seen from a newly awakened black hole named Ansky. Credit: ESA A mysterious black hole in a distant galaxy just woke up after decades of silence—and it’s putting on a cosmic light show! **************************************************************************** ESA’s XMM-Newton and other X-ray telescopes are capturing massive bursts of energy known as quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs) that defy current theories. Unlike anything seen before, these powerful flashes may be rewriting the rulebook on how black holes behave, evolve, and interact with their surroundings. XMM-Newton Observes Rare...

MAGNOLIA, N.J. (WPVI) -- In the small town of Magnolia, New Jersey, there's a lot of talk about a giant boom heard early Wednesday morning. Around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, residents were woken up by the sound. When Sebastian Leonardo arrived at his auto body shop on Atlantic Avenue later that morning, he noticed a giant hole in the ceiling. When employees climbed up to look at the damage to the roof and ceiling, they saw where the unidentified object had made impact. "A sizable dent in a thick steel gage box. That's when I went to all of my cameras...

As a novelist, I am prone to obsessions. These are what I call “creative outbursts.” And as strange or off-putting as my creative outbursts may be to my family and friends, I’ve learned to follow them. ... So yeah, I’ve learned to follow my creative outbursts, even if that means spending my hard-earned PTO at a UFO conference in Houston, which is what I did last weekend. This wasn’t just any old tin foil hat convention at a Hampton Inn; this was “The Archives of the Impossible!” hosted by Houston’s brainy little jewel, Rice University. The speaker list had more...

Stick with me on this, I promise I’m going to deliver the goods! Does the United States already possess teleportation technology? You know, like “Beam me up, Scottie!” I know that sounds crazy at first glance, but you might just change your mind once you see what I’m about to show you. It all starts with this Tweet that caught my attention today, suggesting that President Trump has teleportation technology and so badly wants to let the cat out of the bag: Trump wants to tell people we can teleport stuff so badly.⚡️ https://t.co/4qmUhEEpyG pic.twitter.com/uPR5IF95St— Ashton Forbes (@JustXAshton) April 10,...

Experts Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp just released video showing four "Tic Tac" shaped UAPs zooming around the sky off the coast of California ... close to a U.S. Navy ship. The out-of-this-world encounter happened in February 15, 2023 ... and a weapons systems platform on the USS Jackson captured the UAPs in action. Jeremy says the craft were self-illuminated and one was seen emerging from the ocean and going directly into flight. He says the UAPs left the area together in an apparent coordinated, synchronized and instantaneous departure ... indicating shared communication.

In a rare announcement that has captured the attention of scientists and the public alike, NASA has issued a warning about an asteroid with a 4% chance of striking the Moon in 2032. The news, which has stirred both intrigue and concern, highlights the ongoing efforts to monitor near-Earth objects (NEOs) and assess potential threats to our planet and its natural satellite. Astronomers tentatively designated the asteroid 2025-XF47. NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program first detected it earlier this year. According to a statement from the agency, widely reported by outlets like CNN and BBC News, the object measures approximately 150...

A study in Nature finds that black holes in the early Universe go through short periods of ultra-fast growth, followed by long periods of dormancy. (Credit: Jiarong Gu) ******************************************************************************** In a nutshell * Astronomers have discovered a massive black hole from the early universe that’s barely feeding — suggesting these cosmic giants may spend most of their lives in a dormant, low-activity state. * The black hole outweighs its host galaxy’s stars by a factor of about 1,000, a ratio far higher than what we see in galaxies today, challenging our understanding of how black holes and galaxies grow together....

This image shows examples of galaxies in different shapes, all captured by Euclid during its first observations of the Deep Field areas. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by M. Walmsley, M. Huertas-Company, J.-C. Cuillandre ****************************************************************************** Euclid is on a quest to unravel one of the universe’s greatest mysteries: why it’s expanding faster and faster. With help from NASA, this space telescope is capturing sweeping views of billions of galaxies, allowing scientists to peer into the deep past. Using light that took billions of years to reach us, researchers are building 3D maps of the cosmos to track the strange force...

A bone-chilling document declassified by the CIA has exposed an alleged massacre by aliens from a crashed UFO who turned an entire military unit into stone. According to the report, Soviet troops shot down a flying saucer hovering over the Soviet military unit in Siberia roughly 35 years ago, and what happened next was truly terrifying. In the document, summarizing a 250-page top secret file acquired by US intelligence agents, eyewitnesses said five aliens climbed out of their wrecked craft, combined themselves into one creature, exploded in a burst of intense energy, and turned 23 soldiers into solid rock. One...

An Angara 1.2 rocket launches the Kosmos 2560 satellite, thought to be called EMKA-3, into orbit from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia on Oct. 15, 2022. Another trio in the Kosmos series — Kosmos 2581, 2582 and 2583 — launched in February 2025 and shortly thereafter released a mystery object into orbit. (Image credit: Roscosmos) ******************************************************************** A trio of secretive Russian satellites launched earlier this year has released a mysterious object into orbit, sparking interest among space trackers and analysts. The three satellites, designated Kosmos 2581, 2582 and 2583, launched on a Soyuz-2.1V rocket from Plesetsk cosmodrome early on Feb....

Some of the objects captured by ASKAP. (Author provided) ******************************************************************************* Radio astronomers see what the naked eye can’t. As we study the sky with telescopes that record radio signals rather than light, we end up seeing a lot of circles. The newest generation of radio telescopes – including the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT, a telescope in South Africa – is revealing incredibly faint cosmic objects, never before seen. In astronomy, surface brightness is a measure that tells us how easily visible an object is. The extraordinary sensitivity of MeerKAT and ASKAP is now revealing a new...

Last month, in an interview with Bari Weiss, venture capitalist and longevity researcher Bryan Johnson discussed "how not to die." While Johnson's theories on indefinite life extension are interesting, it was his comments about artificial intelligence that were more striking, "I think the irony is that we told stories of God creating us, and I think the reality is we are creating God ... in the form of superintelligence," he said. "If you ask yourself, 'What have we imagined God to be? What are its characteristics?' We are building God in the form of technology. It will have the same...

Some people who witnessed the mesmerizing and mysterious glowing spiral over the United Kingdom Monday night thought it might be an alien encounter, but the large swirl has been identified as the result of a SpaceX rocket launch. VIDEO at link.............. The blue spiral, visible for several minutes across Britain, sparked widespread curiosity and theories ranging from aircraft activity to extraterrestrial phenomena. However, experts say the spectacle is the result of a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and the stunning image is likely fuel from the rocket. The Falcon 9 is a reusable...