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An upcoming documentary is set to shed light on the mysterious tale of a Manhattan housewife and mom-of-two who claimed she was abducted by a UFO in the late 80s.

The docuseries, titled The Manhattan Alien Abduction, tells the story of Linda Napolitano, who is convinced she was abducted from her bedroom in New York on November 30, 1989.

The series attempts to uncover the true story behind the UFO communities biggest mysteries - with Napolitano, who used the pseudonym Linda Cortile initially - directly involved with the documentary's creation.

The trailer, which was recently released online, contains interviews with Napolitano recalling what happened on the night that she said changed her life, as well as archival footage from the years following the alleged extra-terrestrial experience...

The late Queen dispatched her chief scientific advisor in the dead of night to investigate the latest crop circle formation, claims a new documentary.

Her Majesty is said to have sent a scientist to find out more about a new crop circle, widely said to be linked to UFOs, according to a new Prime Video film.

The King of UFOs, by UFO expert Mark Christopher Lee claims senior royals, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip and King Charles are passionately interested in the phenomenon.

And Lee recounts how, in the late 1980s, crop circle researcher Colin Andrews was with a Japanese film crew in Wiltshire when he got word that the Queen was interested in what was happening.

Just a couple of hours later Andrews saw a Rolls Royce turn up. Lee said Andrews half expected her Majesty to get out of the car, only to find out it was actually her chief scientific advisor...

The beach walkers and their playful dogs running in arcs on the rippled sand seemed blind to the casual alien in their midst. Anchored above the tideline, it wobbled slightly in the breeze, spiny green pods raised like medieval weapons.

“Casual aliens” are non-native species that occasionally escape from cultivation, grow for a while and then die off without establishing a population. Botanical jargon aside, the term’s otherworldly weirdness particularly suited this plant. Its thick, branching stems, jagged leaves and menacing seed cases reminded me of the man-eating specimen in Little Shop of Horrors. Though not carnivorous like the one in the musical, it could still kill.

Thornapple (Datura stramonium) is one of the most poisonous plants in Britain. It contains three potent alkaloid toxins that block the body’s neurotransmitters, causing intense nausea, delirium, coma and death. Originating in Central America but now widespread round the world, it’s part of the Solanaceae family, which includes potatoes, tomatoes and deadly nightshade. It’s relatively common in North America, where it’s known as jimsonweed...

Google's latest flagship smartphone raises concerns about user privacy and security. It frequently transmits private user data to the tech giant before any app is installed. Moreover, the Cybernews research team has discovered that it potentially has remote management capabilities without user awareness or approval.

Cybernews researchers analyzed the new Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphone’s web traffic, focusing on what a new smartphone sends to Google.

“Every 15 minutes, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL sends a data packet to Google. The device shares location, email address, phone number, network status, and other telemetry. Even more concerning, the phone periodically attempts to download and run new code, potentially opening up security risks,” said Aras Nazarovas, a security researcher at Cybernews...

... “The amount of data transmitted and the potential for remote management casts doubt on who truly owns the device. Users may have paid for it, but the deep integration of surveillance systems in the ecosystem may leave users vulnerable to privacy violations,” Nazarovas said...

Wildfires are burning through the carbon budget that humans have allocated themselves to limit global heating, a study shows.

The authors said this accelerating trend was approaching – and may have already breached – a “critical temperature threshold” after which fires cause significant shifts in tree cover and carbon storage.

“Alarmingly, the latest temperature at which, globally, these impacts become pronounced is 1.34C – close to current levels of warming [above preindustrial levels],” said the UK Met Office, which led the research...

... Climatologists say the already dire situation will deteriorate until humankind, particularly in the wealthy global north, stops burning fossil fuels.

"A warming world combined with deforestation has made for a dire drought situation in Brazil. Latin America's largest country is enduring its most intense and widespread drought in history.

What's happening?

Brazil's worst drought on record has helped fuel wildfires in the Amazon rainforest. The Pantanal, a region that encompasses the world's largest tropical wetland area, in August experienced a 3,901% increase in its fires compared to August 2023, Greenpeace noted, based on reporting by the country's National Institute for Space Research.

Smoke from wildfires made Sāo Paulo, one of the world's most populous cities with over 11 million residents and a metro area of 21 million, one of the top 10 most polluted major cities in the world in early September. According to Igarapé Institute authorities, over 50,000 wildfires were active in early September, per ABC News.

One of the factors behind Brazil's crisis is an overheating planet that just had its 15th straight month of record-breaking global temperatures. Deforestation in the Cerrado region, an expansive tropical and subtropical biome that covers over 20% of the country, is making matters worse. Trees help hold moisture in forest soil. A study published in Nature showed a direct link between deforestation and droughts.

Brazil relies on cascading moisture recycling for rainfall. CMR "describes moisture transport between two locations on the continent that involves re-evaporation cycles along the way," according to a paper published by the European Geosciences Union. This hydrological cycle is breaking down because of deforestation.

"You can put this in capital letters," said Luciana Gatti, a climate researcher at the space research facility, per The Washington Post. "It will get worse and worse. We are heading toward an apocalyptical situation, and unfortunately we only wake up at the last minute"...

Two environmental activists who glued themselves to a J.M.W. Turner painting at Manchester Art Gallery in July 2022 were acquitted today in a Manchester court. The pair affixed themselves to the frame of Tomson’s Aeolian Harp (1809) by Turner and sprayed “No New Oil” and the Just Stop Oil logo on the floor with chalk...

... “The district judge found that the action was proportionate in view of the climate crisis,” a Just Stop Oil statement says. "By contrast Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland received sentences of 24 months and 20 months respectively from Judge Hehir at Southwark Crown Court last week for throwing cans of soup on the glass cover of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in 2022.”

Lake Superior is known for its pristine waters, but a combination of nutrient additions from increasing human activity (including farming and development), warming temperatures and stormy conditions have resulted in more frequent blooms of potentially harmful algae...

Two Harvard students have created an eerie demo of how smart glasses can use facial recognition tech to instantly dox people’s identities, phone numbers, and addresses. The most unsettling part is the demo uses current, widely available technology like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and public databases.

AnhPhu Nguyen, one of the two students, posted a video showcasing the tech in action that was then picked up by 404 Media. Dubbed I-XRAY, the tech works by using the Meta smart glasses’ ability to livestream video to Instagram. A computer program then monitors that stream and uses AI to identify faces. Those photos are then fed into public databases to find names, addresses, phone numbers, and even relatives. That information is then fed back through a phone app.

In the demo, you can see Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, the other student behind the project, use the glasses to identify several classmates, their addresses, and names of relatives in real time. Perhaps more chilling, Nguyen and Ardayfio are also shown chatting up complete strangers on public transit, pretending as if they know them based on information gleaned from the tech...

A research group at the Finnish Museum of Natural History is investigating the adaptive potential of plant species amid a warming climate. Their recent study investigates the Siberian primrose, a plant species that occurs on the coasts of the Bothnian Bay and Arctic Ocean. Climate change is threatening the viability of the species...

The latest season of Doctor Who was very much a mixed bag, but we can all agree that the episode "73 Yards" was one of the finest installments. The episode stepped away from science fiction to tell a chilling British folk horror story.

Set in rural Wales, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) is left alone after the Doctor vanishes. But exactly 73 yards away at all times, a mysterious lady follows her. The distant lady may not be an immediate threat, but she creepily lingers at the same distance. After folk in an inn put fear into her that she's disturbed an old fairy circle, Ruby learns that she must've let loose an ancient curse. Whoever Ruby speaks to about the lady either becomes incredibly hostile or flees in terror.

The episode was a high point for the series. It's currently the highest-rated episode of the new season on IMDb with a rating of 8.2/10. The secrets within its plot remain a mystery; even months after it premiered, fans are still trying to uncover elements of the story...

The rise of Spiritualism in the mid-19th century saw with it an increase in the popularity of seances. The belief system and its practices offered something more present and tangible than the clear fiction of the Romantic and Gothic literature of prior years, a push for supernatural belief during a period of technological and scientific innovation, and a way to contact loved ones who had been killed in the wars that enveloped much of the western world.

These otherworldly endeavors took various forms. Sometimes, these would be stage performances where a medium would communicate with spirits related to members of the audience–for those in my particular age group, this would be like Crossing Over with John Edwards. Oftentimes they would have a small group in a single dark room, and the medium leading the seance would fall into a trance that allows spirits to communicate with the other participants vocally or through methods like automatic writing; or they would guide the spirits into performing acts like rapping on the walls or ground to communicate, or levitation of objects. And then there’s the looser seances, where there is no specific medium but groups use Ouija boards and similar methods to communicate, and have become more popular since the Victorian era...

... Although it is the time for horror and there is little more horrifying than an unwanted history lesson, I will cut short this deep dive into the practice and shift over to how it is depicted on screen–a juicier topic that offers examples of many of the aspects of historic seances, as well as modernized versions of them. There’s such a variety of methods for the seance, and those are amplified and made even more compelling either due to the narrative stakes provided by these films or the style in which they’re done. I’d like to briefly explore some great examples of seances on screen–from the traditional to the modern, the fraudulent to the unguided nightmare scenarios...