The following case was submitted to The Black Vault. Although there was no formal investigation or conclusion posted, it is archived here for reference purposes.

The photograph was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on 29 December 2006. It was originally posted and profiled by Jean Ward on YouTube. According to Mr. Ward:

Here I feature an anomaly I discovered at a new site in Ceti Mensa in the region Valles Marineris. The anomaly looks like a disc-shaped object which hit the surface of Mars at a very low angle and left a trench behind it. The disc-shaped object measures approximately 12 to 15 metres in diameter. Apart from removing a few sand dunes to highlight the object I didn’t change anything else in the photograph. To see the anomaly for yourselves please download the original JP2 from the NASA link provided below and download HiVIEW to open the JP2 (the anomaly is right there for anyone to see).

Alternatives: Could this possibly be a ramp leading into an underground entrance or is this an incomplete Project Ice-Worm structure? Or are we seeing a strange arc-shaped dune?

As always, until we get to see these anomalies up close and personal, I can only speculate as to what these objects might be.

In December of 2021, the image gained a lot of traction and was profiled on various sites making extraordinary claims. However, as Mr. Ward said, it is pure speculation at this point.

The Black Vault will add additional information, should it be presented, but for now – you can download the uncompressed image below, along with a .gif

The Evidence

The RAW data

Below, I have archived a .zip file of both the ORIGINAL and UNCOMPRESSED .JP2 file. These do need special viewers, which in this case, I used IRFANVIEW. In addition, I created a .png (no compression) copy, for much easier viewing, as that is a more generic format.

The RAW Data .ZIP download, .JP2 and .PNG files [1.26GB]

(Original sources files distributed by the University of Arizona)

The Official Caption

The below was written by Chris Okubo (8 December 2008). It explains the scientific breakdown of what we are looking at (with no note of the anomaly):

This image shows spectacular layers exposed on the bottom of Candor Chasma, a large canyon in the Valles Marineris system.

The floor here is approximately 4 kilometers below the canyon rim. The layers are made of sand- and dust-sized particles that were transported here by either wind or water. This canyon may have been filled to its rim by these sedimentary layers, subsequently eroded away, most likely by the wind. The elongate hills may represent areas of rock that are stronger due to differences in the size of the sedimentary particles, chemical alteration, or both.

One of the most eye-catching aspects of this scene are the intricate swirls that these layers form. Sedimentary rock generally accumulates in horizontal layers. These layers, however, have been folded into the patterns that we see today. Folding of the layers that are exposed here may have occurred due to the weight of overlying sediments.

Understanding the geologic history of this region may provide clues into the history of water on Mars, because these layers may have accumulated in shallow lakes and may have undergone chemical reactions with this water. The presence of certain kinds of chemical reactions between water and rock can release energy that could have sustained habitable oases in these areas.

The Analysis

Information Case Only; No Formal Investigation by The Black Vault.

The original discoverer did make a video analyzing the footage (there is no endorsement by The Black Vault on the speculation/conclusions/etc.). You can view that here:

Conclusion

Information Case Only; No Formal Investigation by The Black Vault.

The post Appearance of Crashed Disc-Shaped Object Appears In NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Photo, Taken 29 December 2006 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post Appearance of Crashed Disc-Shaped Object Appears In NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Photo, Taken 29 December 2006 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

The following case is used with permission from UFO Casebook.

by BJ Booth

There have been numerous legends about UFO crashes; some of them have quite a bit of documentation and eyewitness testimony. Others are based mostly on legend and folklore.

Two of these crashes alleged occurred in or near Spitsbergen, Norway. However, there is just not enough verifiable evidence to support either of these events, and here are the reasons:

1946 Spitsbergen UFO Crash

The 1946 case, more than anything else, is memorable for its characters. The legend goes something like this; In 1946, General James H. Doolittle was sent to Sweden by the Shell Oil Company, supposedly to investigate the mystery of the “Ghost Rockets.”

Why an oil company would investigate UFOs is beyond my understanding; unless they felt they could strengthen their profits somehow.

Somehow, Doolittle supposedly wound up in Spitsbergen. There are a number of Internet sites which claim that there was a short-lived article published in America of a UFO crash in the Norwegian city about this time.

Some people claim to have seen the article.

The really odd thing about the tale of this case is what does Doolittle have to do with anything, since he is only mentioned as being in the area, and that is the end of his involvement.

The only redeeming part of this particular case is that it was reported by Dorothy Kilgallen, celebrity for her years appearing on the “What’s My Line?” TV game show.

She claimed that someone in the upper echelon of the British government informed her that a UFO had crashed near Spitsbergen, and was under investigation by the British and American military.

Supposedly, this informant was Lord Mountbatten.

Some investigators claim that since no mention of the name Spitsbergen was found in the reports, that the location’s mention was to cover up a crash in Great Britain. A crash in Great Britain during the same time period has no basis in fact either.

In addition to being a game show regular, Kilgallen also was a journalist of a sort, having written “gossip columns,” but she also was well known for covering hard current events.

She had covered the headline-grabbing Lindbergh kidnapping story.

In the 1950s, she had covered one of the top stories of her time, the Sam Sheppard murder trial.

Her last real claim to fame was in the 1960s when she got an interview with Lee Harvey Oswald killer, Jack Ruby. This interview was carried by the “Los Angeles Examiner.” She told friends that she had information that would “break the case wide open.”

On 8th November, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates.

The notes of her interview with Ruby and the article she was writing on the case had disappeared.

Luckily, she had given a friend a draft of her interview. Kilgallen was probably fearful for her own life, since several other writers who had worked on the Oswald / Ruby case had died under “unusual circumstances.”

Kilgallen’s reputation and notoriety was the only thing that kept the weak story of the Spitsbergen crash of 1946 alive. The last hope of further research into the Norwegian crash died along with her, as her sources were never verified.

1952 Spitsbergen UFO Crash

by Loy Lawhon

The other Spitsbergen crash story first appeared in the German newspaper “Saarbrücker Zeitung” in June 1952. The article, entitled “Auf Spitsbergen landete Fliegende Untertasse”, was soon picked up by several other German newspapers, with many of them citing “The Stuttgarter Tagerblatt” as the original source.

The story was that jets of the Norwegian Air Force spotted a crashed UFO while flying over Spitsbergen on maneuvers. The craft was disc-shaped with a series of jets around the rim of the disc to make it spin.

According to the first article about the crash, the craft was an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle with Russian writing on the controls, but as the story was embellished with each retelling, it soon acquired seven alien crewmen who were burned to death in the crash.

The post The Legends of UFO Crashes at Spitsbergen, Norway, 1946 & 1952 first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post The Legends of UFO Crashes at Spitsbergen, Norway, 1946 & 1952 appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.

An unknown object exploded in a suburb of the Russian city of Chita, with some saying it fell out of the sky.

The incident took place in the Ugdan village earlier on Thursday. “I heard an explosion and saw a huge pillar of black smoke around 11 or 12 a.m.,” Vladimir Milovanov told the local Altes TV channel. No one was injured in the explosion but a nearby building sustained minor damage.
Policemen collected scraps of metal from the crater left by the blast and sent them for testing.

“The object could not be identified. It does not resemble anything. One of the theories [of what happened]– gas balloon explosion,” the press service of the Regional Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said

The post UFO Explodes in Russian City Leaving Behind Pillar of Black Smoke first appeared on The Black Vault Case Files.

The post UFO Explodes in Russian City Leaving Behind Pillar of Black Smoke appeared first on The Black Vault Case Files.