BREAKING NEWS ~ Continuously Updated

[onawah]

What was that prediction?

Posted by Szymon (here)
Hi friends, I'm not sure where to place this on the forum or if it's even true. It needs verification. Maybe Chris Bledsoe's prediction is coming true.

[Szymon]

Posted by onawah (here)
What was that prediction?

Posted by Szymon (here)
Hi friends, I'm not sure where to place this on the forum or if it's even true. It needs verification. Maybe Chris Bledsoe's prediction is coming true.

Please watch the Easter 2026 video in this post from a few days ago.

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...=1#post1708924

[onawah]

Assuming that is Chris Bledsoe in the video, he doesn't really say what the prediction was, and his voice is cut off at the end when he says "the return of"...
A very obvious cliff hanger ploy to get more viewers, but I'm not really tempted.
In any case, though a red sandstorm by some would certainly be interpreted as a bad omen, in itself it isn't all that dangerous or worthy of a prediction portraying it as an important global event.

Posted by Szymon (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
What was that prediction?

Posted by Szymon (here)
Hi friends, I'm not sure where to place this on the forum or if it's even true. It needs verification. Maybe Chris Bledsoe's prediction is coming true.

Please watch the Easter 2026 video in this post from a few days ago.

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...=1#post1708924

[Szymon]

Posted by onawah (here)
Assuming that is Chris Bledsoe in the video, he doesn't really say what the prediction was, and his voice is cut off at the end when he says "the return of"...
A very obvious cliff hanger ploy to get more viewers, but I'm not really tempted.
In any case, though a red sandstorm by some would certainly be interpreted as a bad omen, but in itself isn't all that dangerous or worthy of a prediction portraying it as an important global event.

Posted by Szymon (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
What was that prediction?

Posted by Szymon (here)
Hi friends, I'm not sure where to place this on the forum or if it's even true. It needs verification. Maybe Chris Bledsoe's prediction is coming true.

Please watch the Easter 2026 video in this post from a few days ago.

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...=1#post1708924

All the information is in his "UFO of GOD: The Extraordinary True Story of Chris Bledsoe" book. Cheers.

[Abondance]

Chris Bledsoe have talked about the return of Christ. I think more in a spiritual sense.

But in his last interview, he said that the Easter timing was not clear ( for the Regulus event).
That calculations were pointing also to an autumn date. He is invited in Egypt in october.

Easter is just the time where it happens always something big to the Bledsoe family. This year, his son Ryan will have his first baby at that time ( I haven’t seen his last podcast, maybe the baby is already born).

So I wouldn’t be disappointing if nothing happens this Easter.

[John Hilton]

Which Path to Persia?
An Essay on the 2009 Blueprint for the Iran War You’re Watching Now
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/which-path-to-persia
Hmm.

[Ravenlocke]

Candace Owens

Hmmm…I wonder what these scientists could be discovering about NASA that would require them to be permanently silenced.
Gus Grissom might have a clue.

https://x.com/RealCandaceO/status/2041667766193717408

[John Hilton]

Occasionally, the following group provides an interesting perspective on what's happening, although "Burning Bright" is a master of circumlocution and I tend not to read his lengthy pieces:-

Badlands Brief - On-Ramps to Off-Ramps and the Beginnings of the Golden Age
https://badlands.substack.com/p/badlands-brief-a6b

Regarding Candace Owens, she appears to me to have become increasingly crazy this year and very anti-Trump.

According to Grok:-

"She's referencing a Daily Mail report on the mysterious deaths/disappearances of multiple NASA JPL scientists and defense-linked researchers (now up to 9 cases since mid-2024), many tied to advanced propulsion, satellite tech, and planetary exploration projects.

Candace speculates foul play to "silence" them over sensitive NASA discoveries. She ties it to Gus Grissom (Apollo 1 astronaut killed in 1967 capsule fire), whom some conspiracy theories claim NASA eliminated over program flaws or secrets."

NASA is controlled by the US military, so I wouldn't put anything past them. However, I think that things have changed for the good under the Trump administration.

[norman]

Posted by John Hilton (here)

Regarding Candace Owens, she appears to me to have become increasingly crazy this year and very anti-Trump.

According to Grok:-

"She's referencing a Daily Mail report on the mysterious deaths/disappearances of multiple NASA JPL scientists and defense-linked researchers (now up to 9 cases since mid-2024), many tied to advanced propulsion, satellite tech, and planetary exploration projects.

Candace speculates foul play to "silence" them over sensitive NASA discoveries. She ties it to Gus Grissom (Apollo 1 astronaut killed in 1967 capsule fire), whom some conspiracy theories claim NASA eliminated over program flaws or secrets."

Retired Air Force Gen. William "Neil" McCasland (February 2026): While not direct NASA staff, he is central to this group of cases, having overseen research involving rocket materials and worked with people at JPL and the Air Force Research Lab. He vanished after leaving his New Mexico home on foot.

Did he leave behind his phone?

Yes, according to reports regarding the disappearance of retired U.S. Air Force Major General William "Neil" McCasland, he left his phone, along with his watch and other electronic wearable devices, at his Albuquerque home when he disappeared on February 27, 2026

.

Monica Reza (June 2025): The Director of the Materials Processing Group at JPL, who also worked on advanced rocket technology, vanished while hiking in the Angeles National Forest.

Melissa Casias (June 2025): An administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory who vanished.

first of these to be known to be dead

Carl Grillmair (February 2026): A Caltech astrophysicist whose work was heavily supported by JPL on projects like NEOWISE and the NEO Surveyor telescope. He was found shot on his front porch in California

[John Hilton]

Promethean Action Reports:

"TRUMP'S CIVILIZATIONAL GAMBLE: The Iran Move That Empire and Netanyahu Can't Stop"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbiN0RCQPIs

Interesting perspective.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DbiN0RCQPIs

[John Hilton]

Interesting perspective from Twitter X:

Iran didn’t “violate” a ceasefire.
 That’s child-tier analysis.
 What happened was textbook regime schizophrenia...the exact pathology that has rotted the Islamic Republic from the inside out for decades. The negotiating politicians (the ones who still pretend they can play 21st-century chess) signed the two-week deal with Trump’s team. They saw the off-ramp: sanctions relief, reconstruction cash, a chance to breathe while the mullahs consolidate. But the IRGC cancer...those psychotic hardliner mother****ers with more missiles than brains...never got the memo. Or more likely, they did get it and simply didn’t give a ****. Because obedience to the Supreme Leader’s political theater is secondary to their divine mission: keep the fire burning, keep the blood flowing, keep proving they’re the only ones with balls in Tehran. So they lit the fuse. Missiles rain on Israel and Gulf states.
 Ceasefire? What ceasefire? 
The IRGC doesn’t do ceasefires. It does eternal jihad and cocaine-fueled power trips. Trump’s response is ****ing surgical poetry. He doesn’t cry about the violation.
 He calls it a “productive regime change.”
 Translation: “You just showed the world your own government is a schizophrenic cluster****. Beautiful. Now watch me carve the tumor out.” Then he drops the hammer: 50% tariffs on any nation arming Iran. Read between the lines, you geopolitical virgins.
 That’s not about Tehran.
 That’s about Beijing. China is the life-support system keeping the IRGC’s missile program on dialysis. The solid-fuel components, the guidance tech, the machine tools...they flow through Chinese ports and shadow networks like septic sludge. Trump knows it. He’s known it since 2016. Every single move in this theater...the tariffs, the sanctions, the public humiliation of the mullahs...is a scalpel aimed at Xi’s carotid. This isn’t random chaos.
 This is high-IQ economic warfare layered on top of psychological dominance. Trump is exploiting the IRGC’s own pathology against them: their inability to stop being rabid dogs even when the politicians are begging for a leash. By forcing the split into the open, he’s accelerating the regime’s internal rot while simultaneously choking the Chinese supply chain that feeds it. And the $500 billion US-China trade backdrop?
 That’s the real chessboard.
 Iran is the pawn. China is the king he’s stalking. The hardliners just handed Trump the perfect casus belli to squeeze Beijing without ever saying the word “China” on camera.
 Genius. Ruthless. Lethal. This is what real power looks like when a predator understands both human pathology and great-power competition.
 The IRGC thinks it’s playing 4D jihad.
 Trump is playing extermination chess with the lights off. Pay the **** attention. Or stay irrelevant.
Your choice.
https://x.com/grey4626/status/2041902195273040363

[rgray222]

Posted by John Hilton (here)
Interesting perspective from Twitter X:


 That’s not about Tehran.
 That’s about Beijing. China is the life-support system keeping the IRGC’s missile program on dialysis. The solid-fuel components, the guidance tech, the machine tools...they flow through Chinese ports and shadow networks like septic sludge. Trump knows it. This isn’t random chaos.

 Iran is the pawn. China is the king he’s stalking. The hardliners just handed Trump the perfect casus belli to squeeze Beijing without ever saying the word “China” on camera.

https://x.com/grey4626/status/2041902195273040363

It is my opinion that this assessment is extremely close to how Trump sees his Iranian "adventure". China is the intended target, and the Iranians are simply pawns, dangerous ones but no less pawns. The removal of Maduro in Venezuela was a strategic move by Trump to send a message and indirectly challenge Chinese influence in Latin America. Make no mistake about it Trump has undermined Beijing's geopolitical efforts in all of South and Central America and he is doing exactly the same thing in the Middle East thru Iran.

[Raskolnikov]

The Irish Have Had Enough – Efforts to Squash Protests Fail Miserably as They Increase in Size



The Irish have had enough!

“Ordinary Irish people — farmers, truckers, bus drivers — by the thousand have taken to the streets to protest high fuel taxes. They’ve blocked highways, a port, a refinery and even streets in the heart of Ireland’s capital.”

Here is more from Rebel News in Ireland:

Thousands of farmers and truckers bring Dublin to a standstill over soaring fuel taxes, as tensions rise between grassroots protesters and a government now under pressure to respond.

It’s 12 noon here in Dublin, Ireland. My videographer @EFloresMonsanto and I (@EzraLevant) flew all night from Canada because we could sense something very special happening — very special and very dangerous.

Ordinary Irish people — farmers, truckers, bus drivers — by the thousand have taken to the streets to protest high fuel taxes. They’ve blocked highways, a port, a refinery and even streets in the heart of Ireland’s capital.

They’re ordinary people with few friends in powerful places. Everyone’s against them — the political class, the media, Ireland’s countless NGOs. Everyone’s against them, except the people.

That’s the special part.

The dangerous part is obvious: these truckers and farmers are embarrassing Ireland’s political class. And there’s nothing politicians hate more than being embarrassed. Remember, that’s what spurred Justin Trudeau to invoke martial law against Canada’s trucker convoy: they embarrassed him, especially on the world stage. So he jailed them and seized their bank accounts.

Will that happen to these lovely truckers and farmers?

Here on the streets of Dublin, it’s calm. There are police around, but they’re casual and friendly. No riot gear, no snipers on rooftops. Many of the police support the call for lower fuel taxes. (Even the customs policeman who processed us at the airport said he supported the protesters.) But Ireland’s most senior politicians have threatened to deploy the army against the truckers and farmers. That’s downright shocking, especially compared to how meekly Ireland’s politicians treat illegal migrants who are convicted of crimes. Why do they reserve their rage for their own countrymen who are peacefully pleading for lower fuel taxes so they can continue to farm and feed the nation?

That’s the dangerous part: angry politicians, backed into a corner.

I’m told that, early this afternoon, senior government officials have agreed to meet with some of the protest organizers. That sounds promising — you’ll recall that Trudeau absolutely refused to meet with the truckers. In fact, he denounced them as racist.

I spoke with James Geoghegan, one of the protest leaders.

We’ll find out soon if the politicians blink and lower their fuel taxes — or if they’re just toying with the farmers. I promise I’ll keep you posted.

Please help cover the cost for me and my videographer Efron to fly to Ireland on short notice. Unlike Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTE, we don’t take any money from any government, which is precisely why we’re able to stand up for the farmers and truckers. If you value what we do, please consider chipping in at http://TheTruthAboutIreland.com — thanks!

The anti-Irish Globalists have lost control.

EPIC BACKFIRE IN IRELAND

The Irish Government sent in the MILITARY to CRUSH fuel protesters…but the Crowds EXPLODED in size. Now, huge parts of the country are RUNNING OUT OF FUEL.

Their Globalist Regime has COMPLETELY LOST CONTROL

Irish hero and former UFC champion, Coner McGregor shared the following:

McGregor showed his support for the protesters as well:

https://joehoft.com/irish-have-had-e...protests-fail/

[Ravenlocke]

HealthRanger

The State of Florida claims that Nature's Own bread contains over 190 ppb of glyphosate.

We tested Nature's Own Thick-Sliced White Bread, using our ISO-accredited lab with a $400K LC-QQQ instrument (mass-spec) and found less than 6 ppb.

We found the same pattern with all the other breads the State of Florida claims to have tested. ALL their numbers were wildly high, compared to what we found. And we've been doing this sort of testing for 10+ years across 10,000+ food samples.

Looks to me like the State of Florida has some explaining to do...

See the full video at brightvideos (dot) com.

https://x.com/HealthRanger/status/2043057454884225340

HealthRanger

Hey
@BimboBakery

@bimbo_bakeries
We have evidence that the State of Florida is posting false, inaccurate data about glyphosate in your Sara Lee bread products.

Where Florida says your bread contains 191+ ppb, the glyphosate tests in our lab (mass-spec, triple-quad) show < 10 ppb.

If I were you, I would demand the State of Florida provide details on its testing protocol, calibration standards and ISO accreditation status for its lab.

And I would hire 3 independent labs to conduct a new test (not my lab, we're too busy already) and call out the State of Florida for using a lab that's generating bad numbers which have been widely shared.

We've found similar disparities in MULTIPLE bread brands, and I'll be sharing those publicly too. My full video explanation of lab testing and results is found at BrightVideos (dot) com.

https://x.com/HealthRanger/status/2043023413418094615

https://x.com/HealthRanger/status/2042701610137120841

[John Hilton]

Another opinion piece. I find these generally more accurate and insightful than "the news".

GROK AI Summary: Barbara Boyd (Promethean Action) – "IT'S OVER: Trump's 'World's Most Powerful Reset' Just Ended Schwab's Great Reset"
(March 2026 video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K922koQgbWI

Core Message
Trump is executing a deliberate, comprehensive "World's most powerful reset" that directly reverses the globalist "Great Reset" promoted by Klaus Schwab, King Charles, Mark Carney, and the World Economic Forum. Instead of rationing energy, imposing world government, and de-industrializing nations, Trump's reset focuses on American energy dominance, sovereign nation-state cooperation, scientific and technological progress, and rebuilding productive economies — effectively dismantling the City of London/British imperial financial control system.

Key Points
1 The Old Great Reset (Schwab/World Economic Forum)
• Announced in 2020 using COVID as an "opportunity" to remake capitalism.
• Core ideas: ration energy, tax carbon, surrender sovereignty to global institutions, control populations through "net zero" finance (Carney's Glasgow alliance controlled ~$130 trillion).
• Result under Biden: pipeline shutdowns, drilling restrictions, inflation, loss of U.S. energy independence, and managed decline of Main Street America.
•
2 Trump's "World's Most Powerful Reset"
• Opposite direction: drill, build, export American energy to flood world markets, lower prices, and create partnerships rather than hostages.
• Venezuela and Iran actions are not just about oil or regime change — they are about breaking key nodes of globalist financial/logistical control (Iran as anchor for China's Belt and Road; Venezuela as drug-trade/financial hub).
• Strategic goal: Re-anchor global energy and finance around the dollar system for the next 50 years, but on American System principles (Hamilton/Lincoln/McKinley) of constant scientific progress and productive development — not the old Petrodollar looting model.
•
3 Artemis II & Space/Nuclear Future
• Artemis II splashdown symbolizes the new reset: moon colony powered by nuclear reactors as a stepping stone to Mars.
• Trump's science advisor emphasizes dreaming big and transforming reality through exploration and technology.
• This is the positive, expansive vision replacing the Malthusian "you will own nothing and be happy" ideology.
•
4 Broader Implications
• NATO (described as the "Victorian guard" of the old order) is finished in its current form.
• China and Russia are being brought into a multipolar framework of cooperation, not war.
• The old globalist system (City of London banks, net-zero finance, perpetual conflict) is collapsing.
• Midterms are critical to protect this reset from reversal.
•
Tone
Optimistic and strategic. Barbara frames current events (Iran, Venezuela, Artemis) as part of a long-term fight between sovereign nation-states (American System) and the imperial British/globalist system. She urges viewers to subscribe to Promethean Action's newsletter and get active, especially for the midterms.
The video is motivational, tying together energy policy, geopolitics, space exploration, and economic renaissance into a single coherent "reset" narrative.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by norman (here)
I'm not so convinced that ...

Posted by onawah (here)
It's definitely complicated...

Continuing with EM Burlingame, three months later - he has a very insightful take on what's going on in the Middle East (Iran vs Israel, the chaos, the money, the hidden powers, and so forth) in this interview yesterday with "Rich Does Politics". Well worth a listen or two:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=itgfHnGsDhI

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by John Hilton (here)
... I find these generally more accurate and insightful than "the news".

tsk tsk ... that's a low bar . (Yes - definitely more accurate and insightful.)

[Inversion]

This post/tweet is dated the 13th and the Bilderberg meeting ended on the 12th.

Bilderberg Group Conference - Washingston DC USA April 9 to April 12 2026

[rgray222]

It seems to me that this important issue did not get much in the way of media exposure.

This High School Student Invented a Filter That Eliminates 96 Percent of Microplastics From Drinking Water

Virginia teenager Mia Heller’s filtration system harnesses the power of ferrofluid, a magnetic oil that binds to microplastics in flowing water



A few years ago, teenager Mia Heller came across an article in her local newspaper about ongoing water quality issues in her neighborhood in Warrenton, Virginia. Tests had revealed that the water available for daily consumption was highly contaminated with PFAS and microplastic pollution. The article further reported that government agencies would not be providing any funds for filtering the water.

“It was up to people to provide their own filtration,” says Heller.

Not long after the article came out, Heller’s parents invested in an advanced water filtration system at her home. The system, however, required constant upkeep. Seeing her mother replace the water filter membranes time and again, Heller set out to find a better solution.

“It inspired me to design a filter without the use of membranes, to decrease the costs and maintenance needs associated with water filtration,” says the now 18-year-old student at Kettle Run High School. Through her school, she also attends a half-day program for math, science and technology at nearby Mountain Vista Governor’s School.

In the 2025 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, Mia Heller received a $500 award from the Patent and Trademark Office Society (PTOS) for her innovative, low-cost and efficient water filtration technology. Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair

The pervasiveness of microplastics
The Environmental Protection Agency defines microplastics as small particles measuring about 1 nanometer to 5 millimeters in size. These tiny particles pose a growing global concern as they infiltrate not just the environment but also humans and animals.

“Micro- and nanoplastics are getting into our bodies,” says Matthew J. Campen, a toxicologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. A recent study revealed that microplastics have been found in 1,300 species, including humans. So far, these pollutants have been detected throughout the human body, from the brain to the insides of bones; concentrations have also been found in testes, semen and the placenta of unborn fetuses.

Microplastic intake by organisms has increased sixfold since 1990, and plastic production continues to grow. A 2025 University of New Mexico study Campen co-authored revealed that concentrations of microplastics found in human brain tissue have increased by a sharp 50 percent in less than a decade.

“There are still a lot of questions as to whether these plastics are really impacting our health at this point,” says Campen, who also studies the effects of complex inhaled pollutant mixtures on respiratory, cardiac and vascular outcomes. He goes on to note the existence of evidence that “there might be issues for cardiovascular disease and potentially neurological disease.” The links, however, are not strong enough to be conclusive.

Though the exact impacts of microplastic consumption on human health are unclear, a number of recent studies have linked it to adverse health issues like cancers, respiratory and cardiac diseases, hormonal disruptions, Alzheimer’s disease and other noncommunicable diseases.

A new take on water filtration

While several water filtration systems are available, they aren’t all efficient and easily accessible to everyone. Traditional systems often rely primarily on chemical treatments and may also require labor-intensive upkeep and frequent membrane changes. They also come with high price tags and maintenance costs.

In the spring of 2024, Heller had the idea for her filtration system, but she really got working on it in the summer of 2025. By early January of that year, after tinkering in her garage and kitchen, she had a working prototype.

“It was essentially just a container,” she says. Within the container was her filtration system, what she called a “spinning magnified vial.” Heller harnessed a reusable magnetic oil called ferrofluid to selectively bind to microplastic particles as water flows through her filtration system. While her model successfully filtered out the microplastics from the water in two simple steps, the system still required constant maintenance, as it did not self-recycle the ferrofluid.

“But if I could create a system that was able to basically clean itself and reuse material," she explains, “the maintenance needs could go down by a lot.”

Determined to find an answer, Heller continued experimenting. One of the main obstacles she faced was figuring out how to place her units so that the ferrofluid—a liquid thicker than water—would be able to move into the water chamber above it without getting clogged. Along with the ferrofluid flow, the process of magnetic separation followed by the recovery of ferrofluid also needed to work together as one system rather than competing with each other.

Full Story: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innov...ter-180988363/

[Raskolnikov]

Submarine finds unknown structures beneath Antarctica, then loses contact and disappears

An unmanned submarine mapping West Antarctica’s Dotson Ice Shelf reported strange under-ice structures, then went silent after traveling underwater roughly ten miles towards the ice shelf’s center. The vehicle, called Ran, had spent weeks scanning an ice area roughly fifty square miles, revealing patterns that upend simple melt models.

Ran’s mission beneath Dotson ice shelf

The work was led by Anna Wåhlin, a professor of oceanographic physics at University of Gothenburg, coordinating the Ran missions in West Antarctica. Her research focuses on how ocean currents erode ice shelves from below, changing glacier stability and future sea level.

Ran is an autonomous underwater vehicle, a robot submarine that navigates alone under ice for hours. During a 2022 campaign, Ran spent 27 days weaving under Dotson’s floating ice, eventually reaching about eleven miles into the hidden cavity. The mission aimed to explain the sharp contrast between Dotson’s thick, slow-melting eastern side and its thinner, faster-melting western side.

Ran saw strange things then vanished

Using sonar, Ran mapped 54 square miles of ice underside beneath Dotson Ice Shelf. The maps revealed flat plateaus, terraced steps, and teardrop-shaped pits, all carved by basal melt, melting that attacks the ice from below. In the east and center, Ran saw icy terraces stacked like steps, while the west looked smoother, with channels and scooped depressions. None of these terraces or teardrop pits show up on satellite images, so they had remained completely hidden until Ran’s mission.

Warm deep water, uneven melting


Around Antarctica, Circumpolar Deep Water, a warm salty current from the Southern Ocean, moves onto the shelf and melts ice shelves from below. Satellite altimetry over Dotson shows that melt channels lose ice at about 40 feet per year, a thinning pattern linked to warm water. Analysis of measurements under Dotson indicates that this ice shelf added 0.02 inches to sea level between 1979 and 2017. The under-ice maps show that this warm inflow focuses erosion on Dotson’s western side, while colder water leaves the eastern flank protected.

Terraces, teardrops, and turbulence

Where currents move slowly, the base of the ice looks like stacked ledges, formed as melting eats away flats and leaves small steps. In the fast outflow region, currents create smoother surfaces with grooves, where shear-driven turbulence, mixing caused by sliding water layers, drives rapid melting. Some pits are teardrop shaped, 984 feet long and 164 feet deep, carved by currents near the ice base. Elsewhere, the terraced plateaus probably record bursts of slightly warmer water entering the cavity, slowly peeling away layers of ice over many years.

Fractures that widen from below

Ran also imaged full-thickness fractures that slice through the ice shelf, many of them widened and smoothed at their bases by melting. Satellite records show that some of these cracks have been open since the 1990s, and those older fractures carry the deepest melt scars. In these narrow slots, faster moving water can channel extra heat against the ice walls, turning fractures into hidden highways for ice loss. Because most computer models treat melt in broad strokes, they often overlook how fractures and channels steer warm water and concentrate damage.

Sketch showing the processes discussed in the paper on the Dotson Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Note that the vertical scale is exaggerated. Credit: Science/ITGC.

Implications for future sea levels

Combined satellite and climate data show that Antarctic ice loss has added about 0.55 inches of sea level since 1979. Much of that loss comes from West Antarctica, where ice shelves like Dotson float above deep basins that warm currents can reach. When those floating shelves thin or break, they stop bracing the land-based ice behind them, so glaciers accelerate and sea levels climb faster. Understanding how warm water eats away at Dotson’s base now helps researchers judge how quickly distant glaciers might respond as the climate warms.

Dotson Ice Shelf difficulties

Ran worked without real time contact, because radio waves and GPS signals cannot pass through hundreds of feet of solid ice. Instead, the vehicle relied on navigation systems and acoustic instruments to track its position against the seafloor and the underside of the ice. Typical missions ranged between several hours and more than a day, meaning problems deep under the ice stayed invisible until Ran surfaced again. Despite those hazards, the team completed 14 successful under-ice missions with Ran in 2022, bringing back a dataset for glaciologists and oceanographers.

When the Ran submarine disappeared

When the researchers came back to Dotson, Ran was sent on a mission beneath ice to extend maps and measurements. “To see Ran disappear into the dark, unknown depths below the ice, executing her tasks for over 24 hours without communication, is of course daunting,” said Wåhlin. When Ran did not appear at the pickup point, attempts to contact the vehicle failed and searches found no signals or debris. Because there was no feed, the team can speculate about the cause, ranging from mechanical failure to a collision with ice ridges.

Ran and the Dotson Ice Shelf

Despite the loss, Ran’s earlier missions transformed the team’s view of how ice and ocean interact in this remote cavity. Those maps show that the underside of an ice shelf can host terraces, channels, fractures, and teardrops, each responding differently to currents. Incorporating terraces, fractures, and melt channels into models should help narrow predictions of how quickly West Antarctica might lose ice in future climates.

For now, the detailed maps Ran sent home are a rare window on Antarctica’s hidden melt machinery, reminding scientists how much remains unexplored.

The study is published in Science Advances.


https://www.earth.com/news/ran-subma...lf-antarctica/