Author: paranormalpeop

“An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.”  – Samuel Butler

What really do we know about this character, Satan, whether by another name or face?

A red skinned imp, sporting short stubby horns and spaded tail, and carrying the trident of Poseidon; a mighty demon, winged and menacing, wreathed in fire and who, with the power of the Almighty, casts his will upon the earth and below.

Some say he’s a figment of our imagination, or is that, as Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) mused, the punch line of his finest trick?

Lucifer, Beelzebub, Bael, whatever name he may be known by, he remains the embodiment of sin, evil, pain and malice; he is the fallen angel and reigning King of Hell.

But isn’t all of this just dogmatic semantics?  Isn’t it just watering down the real issue?  When we mention his name or acknowledge his influence, are we paying homage to an antiquated idea of damnation, or are we in fact, referring to a known entity, with a real history and a legacy that will live on well past the last breath of man?

Though many learned men and women believe they know the answer to these questions, as they recite chapter and verse, and regurgitate passed down seminal teachings and warnings of damnation and sin, what really do we know?

As is the mantra of the creationist view of history, the earth is said to be only 6000 years old (give or take a decade), and in the apologist view of Christianity, the Devil is just as real as their One True God.  Theisticaly speaking, regardless of one’s personal belief as it relates to creationism or Christianity, one must acknowledge the fact that, without exception, every religion on earth, now and in the past, has had some incarnation of Satan in its teachings or lore.

Though, as many of my fellow atheists would hastily point out, mass belief in an idea, does not make proof of the idea’s merit or existence.  And in the same breath I must acknowledge that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (as much as I loath to provide ammunition for the apologist agenda).

Where is all this going you ask? (Yes, I know you’re asking.)

Some 15,000 years ago in a remote cave, known to palaeontologists as Lascaux, one of the three brothers, or Les Tres Frere (a grouping of deep Palaeolithic caves located in what is now southern France, specifically in Montesquieu-Avantès, in the Ariège département) an ancient artist rendered what may be the first depiction of the character known to us as Satan.

Before I explain myself, let’s let that sink in a minute.  15,000 years ago, somewhere around 13,000BC, well more than twice as old as any Creationist theology can account for, and yet, as some claim, there exists a clear depiction of the Devil in the form of a charcoal drawing with etched detail; part man, part beast, hoofed feet and a horned crown of antlers.

Discovered in 1914, the cave contains over 280 drawings and engravings, and deep in an interior chamber called the “Sanctuary”,  protected from the elements and preserved for posterity for many an era, is this posthumous illustration of what scholars regarded as the earliest known depiction of any deity in any form.

Some of you are already picking apart my dialogue, some of you picked up on that subtle hint of uncertainty, and I promise I’ll get to that, but first, let’s explore what the discovery of this Devil Drawing means.

A detailed drawing of Satan, carved into the wall of a cave 15,000 years ago, 13,000 years before the birth of Christ, and nearly 7,000 years before the so-called creation of the universe.  The artist known only by the epic scale of his life’s work, saw fit to devote more than 15 feet of granite, in the deepest, darkest and most protected part of the entire cave network, to the masterpiece of his fresco; a hunched, grotesque and oddly familiar figure.

Henri Breuil, a turn of the century Renaissance man, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist, endeavoured to reproduce the cave drawing on canvas.  His drawing, known as “the Sorcerer” was regarded as solid evidence of early man’s awareness of deity relationships, and with that assumption came wild assertions that the artist was indeed paying homage to the Devil, and/or providing warning to those who would come after.

Breuil initially regarded the cave drawing as a depiction of a shaman or magic man, and later adopted the deity explanation at the behest of Margaret Murray, a prominent British anthropologist; though Murray’s motives were less than academic, in at least this one instance.

Recent studies of both the cave drawing and of Breuil’ sketch have cast doubt on that original assessment, and as promised, we’ll get to that in a moment.

It should first be noted that Murray, once famed for her academic mastery in archaeological study, eventually became an aggressive proponent for the early horned man neo-pagan religious trends of the early 20th century, a movement which eventually evolved into what is now known as Wicca.

One can surmise that either Murray was struck with spiritual inspiration through her study of “the Sorcerer”, or, that her own growing religious predilections at the time of Breuil’s sketch, were her motivation for convincing Breuil to abandon his initial assessment, in favour of her deity explanation, thus adding to her own professional credibility at the time.

This leads us back onto the path of reason and logical evaluation.  What lies inscribed on the wall of the “Sanctuary”, deep in the bowels of Lasceux, is a Palaeolithic depiction of a tribal shaman.  Features of the drawing are easily, or at least relatively easily, explained as part of communally important ritualistic practises of a wizened and mystical shaman.  This character would have been critically important to its tribe and thus regarded with higher status than typical citizenry.

The man-beast depiction is likely a literal telling of the typical connection between shamanism and animal spirits.  Even today, shamanism widely makes use of animal skins, horns and animal behaviours in ritual and in practice.  This may have been an early, if not the first, example of spiritual worship, but it was certainly not worship of the Devil, or of a God for that matter.

So what does that mean for the ideas that brought us this far?

Think about that for a moment…for some of you at least, my earlier remarks were enough to send your idea’s of religion, God and the Devil into a spinning confusion (ok, maybe I’m kidding myself), and whether or not you were following me into that dark corner, anyone can see how a convincing story backed up by minimal facts can be taken too far, and ultimately adopted as gospel.

What if there was this type of evolution in the deities we currently know as God and Satan?  The horned man idea has been prevalent in most neo-pagan religious teachings since before Margaret Murray, though she certainly helped the cause along; and since her time, the stories, legends and rumours of the horned man have evolved, many believe that the Wiccan deity Green Man is a variation of the horned man archetype.  And even as I lay that idea before you, many of you are accepting the idea that pagan cultures have adapted their beliefs over time, but isn’t the same true for the monotheistic religions as well?

Isn’t it possible that our current idea of Lucifer is actually an amalgamation of many, many different folk lore depictions of similar shamanistic rituals?  Apologists and Creationists (if there is any separation between them), will loudly oppose that idea, but if we understand the corruptions of pagan and neo-pagan ideals that took place over the last 1000 years of Christianisation, can we not see how ancient ritual lore could have been adopted, perverted and distorted into the epitome of evil in our culture?

In the end, I’m not sure I even understand where I was headed with this, except that I hope to call for people to begin opening their eyes; opening their minds and realising that some of the proverbial sketches they may be shown, could in fact be misinterpreted cave drawings in the hands of those with religious agendas.

Editor’s Note: The following post, written by Guest Author Dr. Vhitz of Monster Digest (drvhitz.com), is a rebuttal to the speculation presented in our previous post The Many Faces of the Derenberger Incident, wherein a connection was drawn between the characters Indrid Cold and the Grinning Man.  Dr. Vhitz is a popular blogger at Monster Digest and is something of an authority on characters such as are included in these tales.

For at least six months I have been studying everything I can find dealing with the Point Pleasant Mothman case for a project I’m working on.  I read John Keel’s “The Mothman prophecies” years ago and thought I had a good understanding of the story, but there is much more to the Mothman mythos than just the Keel book, and there are many questions and misunderstandings.  One of these issues involves the connection between the so-called “Grinning Man”, and the strange man who seemed to come from nowhere, “Indrid Cold”.

John Keel was traveling around the country interviewing UFO witnesses for a series of articles he was writing for Playboy magazine when he learned about a story involving two boys in Elizabeth, NJ.  The boys had reported an encounter with a very large Grinning Man.  The tip came from a guy named Gray Barker.  Barker was an early UFO investigator and a known hoaxer, Barker was also the one who investigated the Flatwoods Monster case back in the 1950′s.  After hearing of the story Keel and two others traveled to NJ to interview the two boys, Martin Munov and James Yanchitis.  The boys said that they were walking near the NJ Turnpike at about 9:45 pm on October 11th, 1966, when they saw a man standing behind a tall chain link fence.  At first the man had his back towards the boys, but then he turned around and the description given by the two is bizarre.  The Grinning Man was said to be very tall, over 6ft 2in, with a broad build and wearing a sparkly green one piece jumpsuit with a big black belt.  Strangest of all however was his face, the man had a broad ear to ear grin which the boys said appeared to be permanently fixed and did not seem to have ears or hair, just broad set beady eyes.  Keel seemed to have been impressed with Munov and Yanchitis and believed they were relating a real event as they had experienced it.  The John Keel account of the Grinning Man is the beginning and the end.  If you search for more you will find no other story of the Grinning Man, only a retelling of Keel’s story and perhaps recent urban myth that has no connection to the original report.

About three weeks after the Grinning Man report, a man named Woodrow “Woody” Derenberger was returning to his home in Mineral Wells, West Virginia, after a successful sales trip to Athens, Ohio, it was about 7:30 pm on November 2nd, 1966, Derenberger was driving on Interstate 77 and he could see the lights of Parkersburg in the distance.  Derenberger then noticed a vehicle approaching from behind at a high rate of speed and as it passed he could see that this was no ordinary vehicle, it had no wheels, it was floating a short distance above the road.  The strange-looking craft was like a cylinder with a big bulge in the middle and fire shooting out both ends according to Woody.  The craft moved over into Derenberger’s lane and forced him to stop.  A man then exited the craft and approached Derenberger’s truck.  Woody described the man as being close to 6 ft tall with dark brown hair combed straight back and having a good suntan.  Woody said the man had a smile on his face and was wearing a dark overcoat and a dark blue suit that was somewhat shiny.  Derenberger made it clear that the man whom he would later call Indrid Cold was a very normal looking guy.  John Keel spoke with Derenberger on several occasions and did not believe his story and I would have to agree with Keel.  Woody’s story continued to grow, eventually Woody even claimed to have been taken by Indrid Cold to a non-existent planet called Lanulos.

As you can see the Grinning Man and Indrid Cold are not related in any manner.  In the end I think while both stories are interesting, there’s really not a lot of substance.  Munov and Yanchitis saw a big strange-looking man and got scared.  Woody Derenberger either made up a story or was suffering from some rather serious mental illness.

If you’ve been following the news in the last while, you may have read about the recent unexplained booms in Flint, Michigan, among other places around the world.  The sound, likened to thunder or a sonic boom, is described by witnesses as loud and startling, and it has the world scratching its proverbial head.

These mysterious and thunderous sounds are nothing new however, in Flint –where they’ve been heard on a weekly basis for over a year now- and all over the world.  Reports of loud unexplained booms date back to the mid 1800’s and earlier; early white settlers in North America were told by the native Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) that the booms were the sound of the Great Spirit continuing his work of shaping the earth.  The booms have garnered a few nick names, from Seneca Guns to Mistpouffers, Moodus Guns and Fog Guns, but the phenomenon has never officially been named.  These terms generally come from the geography of the place they are experienced, while others (especially in foreign countries) are named for traditional superstitions and culture.

The mystery boom phenomenon has been experienced all around the world, from the US and Canada, to islands in the Adriatic Sea, Australia, Ireland, Belgium and many other countries.  In the more recent occurrences, people have described the sounds as loud enough to shake windows and dishes in cupboards, though no damage has been attributed to the phenomenon to date.

Aside from native spirit gods, there have been many theories put forth to explain the phenomenon and some instances of the boom have been labelled as solved (though some argue with that status).  Some of the more obscure explanations range from such mundane ideas as exploding gas tanks -as cars are crushed at junk yards close to the areas of the booms- to erupting gas pockets under deep lakes and in sewers and solar or magnetic resonance in the upper atmosphere (how that would work is beyond my scientific knowledge).  The more mainstream explanations and the ones most widely accepted are:

• Sonic booms caused by military aircraft (though this doesn’t do much to explain those occurrences before the invention of the aircraft, let alone the first supersonic flight)
• High altitude or distant lightning (though this fails to account for booms heard on cloudless days)
• And even meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Low-magnitude earthquakes are the leading explanation (possibly).  This theory suggest that quakes of a low magnitude, around 1.5 on the Richter Scale, cause low frequency vibrations, called infrasonic booms, that can cause intermittent high volume booms.  Volcanoes and deep level tectonic movement can also cause this kind of low frequency sound.[1]

Of course, the paranormal community, which is largely responsible for the collection of unexplained boom data, has its own theories to share.  As you would expect, aliens and UFOs are prominent in this discussion, but the most oft cited culprit is HAARP or the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.

HAARP, as I’ve previously written, is based in Gakona, Alaska and is funded by The US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA, which, I might add, garners its own fair share of conspiracy attention).  HAARP’s official function is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance.[2]  But as all conspiracy theorists know, that’s just a front for all manner of nefarious and covert scientific-military operations; from a targeted earthquake generating machine to a base for chemtrail population (or mind) control programs.

Despite having a website that fully explains their mission and purpose, in a culture of government mistrust, HAARP is widely blamed for much of the domestic military-industrial subterfuge, and, as mentioned, is the leading suspect in the unexplained booms phenomenon.  Some believe that the booms are a bi-product of HAARP surveillance efforts while others are convinced it’s the result of some kind of weather control device (as many booms are heard in advance of large storms).

Having never heard a boom, either sonic or unexplained, I’m not really in a position to debunk or support any of these explanations, but I think the likelihood that the US Government has the technical ability to make such a ruckus is slim at best.  But hey, I’ve been wrong before.

What do you think…about the booms or about HAARP?  Let me know in the comment section below.

A time portal, an inter-dimensional rift, a spiritual mecca; what exactly is the purpose of this strange collection of standing stones in the English county of Wiltshire?

I am of course referring to the world famous prehistoric monument known as Stonehenge.  Mystery has long surrounded this spectacular example of prehistoric ingenuity; how was it built, when was it built, who built it?  All these questions are still very much up-in-the-air.

Located approximately 3 kilometres west of Amesbury and 13 kilometres north of Salisbury in southern England, Stonehenge has been the focus of much speculation and examination. Many theories have been put forward to explain its many features, and few scholars are able to agree on points of construction techniques and technology, and purpose.

The leading theories regarding construction describe the use of rolling logs, shear legs and sledges, all of which were available to prehistoric populations of England.  Some of these techniques were tested by a retired construction worker from Michigan, one Wally Wallington, who, in 2003, achieved some measure of success in building his own version of Stonehenge using only materials and techniques available at the time.  It is thought that the large stones were floated up the river Avon until reaching Salisbury, where they were then transported, possibly using woven wicker rollers, to the site at Wiltshire.

Of course, conspiracy theorists and ancient alien advocates have their own fair share of theories about how it was constructed.  Aliens, acoustic and/or magical levitation, ancient power tools and even divine intervention top the list.  Though no one theory holds any more water than the next.

What is known with a reasonable amount of accuracy is its age: the result of at least seven periods of construction, the early site is believed to have consisted of wooden posts and possibly a thatched roof.  The first period of construction took place circa 3100 BC, consisting of a circular bank and ditch enclosure made of Late Cretaceous Seaford Chalk.  The next period was circa 3000 BC wherein several post holes indicate an intricate system of wooden posts.  Next, circa 2600 BC, came the first examples of igneous rock used on the site.  The next phase, circa 2600-2400 BC, saw the erection of the 30 enormous Oligocene-Miocene sarsen stones.  The final three periods of construction were largely rearrangements and small additions to the site.

What Stonehenge was used for is another story entirely.  Over the years hundreds of theories have been proffered to explain its purpose, ranging from an elaborate calendar to an astronomical observation tool and even to a place of worship for the Druids.  But all of these theories are based more on speculation than fact.  It is curious how accurately the layout conforms to both astronomical and seasonal events, such as the winter and summer solstice, and in light of that, some of these theories seem more plausible than others.  In celebration of the so-called ancient pagan rituals of the solstice many people embark on an annual pilgrimage to Stonehenge, paying homage to its builders and the sacred air the location is said to embody.

Recently however, a new theory has been suggested for the purpose of Stonehenge.   Roughly 500 years prior to the construction of the Stonehenge monument, a larger circle of stones was erected around what researchers now believe was a massive community burial ground.  The site is thought to have been large enough to hold the bodies of nearly 300 individuals.  Researchers from more than a dozen universities across Britain concluded that the original ancient Stonehenge structure was used as a grave site for entire families based on the study of cremated human remains excavated from the site.

According to Mike Parker Pearson, of the University College London, the remains, thought to have been buried at the site around the time of its construction, were found to be that of men, women and children.  So it’s safe to conclude that this was a community based burial site, rather than that of a dynasty of kings, as had previously been asserted.

In addition to this revelation about its purpose, the group of researchers believe they have explained, at least in part, the construction of Stonehenge.  They assert that more than 4000 individuals participated in the construction effort, living in a nearby settlement, also recently unearthed near Durrington Walls.

By analyzing the teeth and bones of livestock brought to the settlement, researchers concluded that the animals born in springtime were typically slaughtered between the ages of nine and 15 months. Suggesting that food consumption took place in the settlement, in the mid-summer and mid-winter months, which would support the idea that construction efforts took place in seasonal spits and spurts over the span of a decade. Parker Pearson concludes: “It’s not that they’re coming to worship, they’re coming to construct it.”

Read more at The Inquisitr.

Well, the madness continues.  It seems there’s an all new technological wonder on the market, one that might give you a sense of déjà vu.  With all the fanfare of a root canal, Digital Dowsing presents its 2013 ghost hunting line-up, staring the Ovilus III.

A remake of the original Ovilus I and cousin to the I-phone app I-Ovilus (I’m never disappointed by the creativity of their product naming strategy), the Ovilus III is the most recent version of the famous ghost box or puck.  Paranormal Investigators have been using the Ovilus as a mainstay of their technological bag of tricks for years now, touting some quite unbelievable results.

I’ve previously written about the Ovilus and was less than charitable with my review of the product, and today will be no different.  In its current iteration, the Ovilus III boasts some technological updates that will make its users happy:

“The Ovilus III features a built in 6 line display for words No DTD need , Multiple operating modes Including Dictionary and Phonetic Modes. Built in Word Display for Dictionary mode. Built in Thermal flashlight changes color to indicate different tempertures !”[1] (Spelling and grammar is theirs, not mine)

In case you couldn’t tell from the above description, Digital Dowsing, the company responsible for the Ovilus in all its glory, does a bang-up job of marketing their wares.  The original Ovilus enjoyed a great deal of popularity among the paranormal community, but was unavailable for purchase except through Ebay and Craigslist for used units for quite a long time, to the disappointment of many I’m sure.  This new incarnation will surely fill a desperate need for quality ghost hunting technology, as though it did anything more than blink and beep in random fashion.

The Ovilus III, with its blinking lights, its six line LCD screen and its highly satisfying knobs and buttons, much like the Ovilus I, is a useless piece of crap.

Yes, you read that right…a useless piece of crap.  As I explained in my first and second critiques of this technology, the Ovilus is a scam, it cannot possibly do what Bill Chappell and his cronies at Digital Dowsing claim.  Well, actually, they don’t claim that it can do anything really…it’s the Ovilus consumers who make most of the claims, and they do so with a high degree of credulity.

It is not possible to build a device that detects or communicates with ghosts, because no one, and I mean no one in the entire world, has any idea how to prove that ghosts exist, let alone how they communicate.  I may not have the technical expertise to fully analyse and explain how the Ovilus comes up with its output results, but as discussed in the comments of my article Ovilus I – 21^st Century Snake Oil, one doesn’t need a degree in electronic engineering to see that it’s a random output generator with some other clever bells and whistles incorporated for added value.

Now, I fully expect a litany of verbal backlash for my comments, but I believe if you think about it for a minute, you’ll see that I’m right.  That is unless you need to believe that the Ovilus and other devices like it have harnessed the supernatural in some fantastical way.

Do ghosts exist? Maybe, and truthfully this is as far anyone can go with that question.  As much as some people, or even many people, believe that they do exist, their belief does not constitute proof.  There may be a great deal of anecdotal or circumstantial evidence to support the assertion that there is such a thing as ghosts, but none of it provides any explanation for what, exactly, they may be, what they might consist of, where they come from or how, or even if, one can communicate with them.  To quote myself (from my first post on the Ovilus): “We cannot have a machine that defines an unknown phenomenon, when a definition of the phenomenon is required to build the machine in the first place.”

In closing, I simply ask you; if Bill Chapell or any of his colleagues has found a way to empirically detect and communicate with ghosts, which is precisely what the Ovilus III and its predecessors are purported to do, wouldn’t that technology qualify them for a Nobel prize, or at least a nomination?

In the evolution of engineering principals and technology, it is well known that the long march to our technological opulence began in the mid 14^th century, with the introduction of the first finely tooled mechanisms in the form of astronomical clocks in Western Europe…or did it?

What if I told you that such devices were made more than 1000 years before?  Well, hold onto your hats!

I give you the Antikythera Mechanism. Found by sponge divers in the Aegean Sea near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900, the Antikythera Mechanism (pronounced antik-e-thera) is an engineering curiosity that has baffled researchers for the better part of a century.

While there is some argument about its purpose, the general consensus is that it is an astronomically based ancient analog computer.  Yes, you read that right, a computer.  Efforts to date the device, which contains many finely constructed gears and inscriptions, have placed its construction to around 87 BCE.  Again, yes, you read that right.  Built at a time when man’s understanding of the universe was more than somewhat primitive, prior to the discovery of gravity and theories of planetary motion, this computer is the earliest known example of a complex gear mechanism.  Other examples of which weren’t seen for another 1000 years.

Retrieved with the mechanism were numerous artefacts, including bronze and marble statues, pottery, glassware, jewellery, and coins which were transferred to the National Museum of Archaeology in Athens for storage and analysis. The mechanism itself went unnoticed for 2 years; it was a lump of corroded bronze and wood and the museum staff had many other pieces with which to busy themselves. On 17 May 1902, archaeologist Valerios Stais was examining the finds and noticed that one of the pieces of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it.

While a curiosity, serious scientific scrutiny of the piece didn’t occur until 1951, when physicist and historian of science Derek J. de Solla Price took notice and began subjecting the device to more pointed scientific examination.

All of the mechanism’s instructions are written in Koine Greek, and the consensus among scholars is that the mechanism was made in the Greek-speaking world. One hypothesis is that the device was constructed at an academy founded by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius on the Greek island of Rhodes, which at the time was known as a center of astronomy and mechanical engineering; this hypothesis further suggests that the mechanism may have been designed by the astronomer Hipparchus, since it contains a lunar mechanism which uses Hipparchus’s theory for the motion of the Moon. However, recent findings of The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project suggest that the concept for the mechanism originated in the colonies of Corinth, which might imply a connection with Archimedes.

Mainstream science, while unable to agree on some of the details, is largely unanimous in its assertion that this, while a piece out of time, is definitely man-made.  As much as conspiracy theorists might have different ideas, the marvel of this artefact is the fact that nothing like it has ever been found of the same period.  The mechanism itself is broken up into 82 different fragments, seven of which, considered major fragments, contain inscriptions or gear and dial components.  Several reconstructions and duplications have been made over the years and many can be found in museums around the world.

Among such curiosities as the Baigong Pipes –a network of strange pipes drilled into the mountainside about 40 km southwest of the city of Delingha, in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China dated to a time before Zeus- the Antikythera Mechanism is thought by some to be an artefact of one or more unknown and technologically advanced civilizations.  There’s even some talk of this mechanism being the product of alien-human technology and information sharing.

Whatever your particular bent, it’s clear that the Antikythera Mechanism has one hell of a story to tell, and The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project should be releasing some very interesting findings in the very near future.

What do you think the Antikythera Mechanism is?

ET phone…us?  If you were to believe the assertions of science fiction TV and movies, communicating between the stars is as easy as connecting a child’s See & Say toy with an old school TV antenna and…KABLAM!  You’ve got a good old interstellar phone call on the go.

OK, maybe that’s a little simplistic (if not entirely unrealistic), but perhaps we can be forgiven, with the understanding that we grew up watching such classics as Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extraterrestrial with its long range cell phone call, and even Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek with its sub-space communication, enabling messages from between the stars.

Seems a fanciful thing really, but there just might be some real world applications for such technology.  In fact some people right here on Earth are using the principals employed in the above science fiction all in an effort to communicate with whoever might be out there.

SETI or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has been both searching for alien signals and sending their own signals to ET since November 1984.  The bulk of their efforts have been in receiving and analysing radio signals from all over the universe, most of which are caused by natural cosmic goings on, but over the years there have been a few surprises.

At the top of the list are two events that, in their time, garnered a great deal of attention:

Radio source SHGb02+14a

Discovered in March 2003 by SETI@home –an Internet-based public volunteer computing project employing the BOINC software platform, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley- SHGb02+14a is considered to be a candidate for an intelligent extraterrestrial signal, coming from an area located between the constellations Pisces and Aries.  This region is peculiar as it contains no visible stars within 250,000 light-years of Earth, but the signal has been detected three separate times from that location, the last of which being considerably stronger than any other.

The signal was observed at a frequency of 1420 MHz, considered to be a part of the waterhole region –an especially quiet section of the electromagnetic spectrum- which is theorized to be a good candidate for an extraterrestrial intelligence to broadcast a signal.

SHGb02+14a was announced through the science journal New Scientist in September of 2004, and as might be expected, mainstream science is sceptical of the nature and origin of the signal, citing the signals rapid drift and explaining that it could be an artefact of random chance, cosmic noise or a glitch in the technology.

Even though SETI@home leaders deny the likelihood of the signal being that of an alien civilization, many people see SHGb02+14a as a leading candidate for extant extraterrestrial contact.

The WOW! Signal

Detected August 15, 1977 by American astronomer Jerry B. Ehman, the Wow! Signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected at  the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University then located at Ohio Wesleyan University’s Perkins Observatory, Delaware, Ohio.

While working on the SETI Project, Ehman was amazed to find the signal when going through a readout from the telescope.  Designated by the alphanumeric code 6EQUJ5, shown circled in the famous photograph associated with the find, Ehman was so astounded that he wrote “WOW!” in the margin of the document.

Originating from the region of the constellation Sagittarius, roughly 2.5 degrees south of the fifth-magnitude star group Chi Sagittarii, and about 3.5 degrees south of the plane of the ecliptic (Tau Sagittarii is the closest easily visible star), the signal lasted a whopping 72 seconds and was received at a frequency of 1420.356 MHz (again within the waterhole range). However, it was never detected again, despite the Big Ear radio telescope, as well as many others, targeting that particular region on many subsequent occasions.

As with SHGb02+14a, mainstream science is sceptical of the idea that the WOW! signal was that of an extraterrestrial intelligence, even though the UFOlogy community largely holds this signal as proof that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

This communication is by no means a one way effort however, and SETI is just as active in the transmission of signals as it is in the detection of them.  Operating under the umbrella of the SETI Project, CETI or Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence has undertaken a number of experiments intended to put us that much closer to our potential ET neighbours, the most famous of which is the Arecibo Message.

The Arecibo Message

The brain child of the late Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Frank Drake (creator of the famous Drake Equation, which you can read about here: The Drake Equation, Counting the Stars), the Arecibo Message was an attempt to broadcast a single FM radio signal into space at a ceremony marking the remodelling of the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico on November 16, 1974.  The signal was directed at globular cluster M13, which is 25,000 light-years away, but where it was sent is less interesting than what was sent.

Dr. Frank Drake, then at Cornell University wrote the message, with help from Carl Sagan, among others.  The message consists of seven parts that encode the following (from the top down):

1. The numbers one (1) to ten (10)
2. The atomic numbers of the elements hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which make up deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
3. The formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA
4. The number of nucleotides in DNA, and a graphic of the double helix structure of DNA
5. A graphic figure of a human, the dimension (physical height) of an average man, and the human population of Earth
6. A graphic of the Solar System
7. A graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope and the dimension (the physical diameter) of the transmitting antenna dish

The message, most often represented in its famous diagram form (the original without colour) was a binary code, and will take 25,000 years for the message to reach its intended destination of stars (and an additional 25,000 years for any reply), the Arecibo message was more a demonstration of human technological achievement than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials. In fact, the stars of M13, that the message was aimed at, will no longer be in that location when the message arrives.

In spite of the apparent purpose of the message, much of the UFOlogical community is ardent in its belief that someday a response will be received, whether in the form of a return signal or even a visit from our first galactic neighbours.

Whatever your particular bent on the nature of these signals, are these efforts worthwhile, or are they a giant waste of time, money and resources?  Voice your opinion in the comments section below.

One winter evening many many years ago, I walked to my friends house after supper. Thick snow on the ground and the lack of any cars or people made the stillness so eerily quiet that I could hear the beating of my child-size heart in my ears. My friend’s house was not even 100 metres away but before I was halfway there I stopped in my tracks, suddenly feeling irrepressibly drawn to look up at the wide open expanse of the dark sky, spectacularly glittering with millions of stars. And as I stood there, my friend’s house forgotten, head back (and probably with my mouth hanging open) I just knew. To me the secret of the universe had been revealed to me, and only me. And the secret was that everything is connected and there is far, far more to life than we can see, and that it is only one small part of our entire existence. I felt so safe, so secure, and as if nothing was beyond my reach.

I’ve never forgotten that moment, and until recently I’ve kept the experience to myself. Looking back on that incident, it’s clear just how incredibly significant it was, given that in the following years, and perhaps as a result of a long bout of depression I was going to find that out for myself.

My fascination with science and space from around that age was obvious to me, and I read books about the moon landing and watched Cosmos on T.V., as I debated in my mind on other things, such as whether god existed or not.  Even then I could see there was a huge divide between the scientific community and the religious. But I noticed that Mr Sagan seemed to see a connection between science and spirituality (something I’ve come to learn is far, far different than religion). From that moment he was my hero, because I felt the same.

My sense that there was more to life than we could see never left me. As I grew older I became aware I was occasionally seeing things out of the corner of my eye. I kept them to myself, so no-one would think I was insane, and I wasn’t even sure myself. Usually I just shook them off and tried to ignore them.

These sightings came to a scary head when in my 20′s. I was a few years into a long depression and living in a flat above a shop. One day whilst I was washing dishes, I heard a crack beside me in the quiet kitchen. Looking for the source of the noise I saw a glass canister that was waiting by the sink had cracked and split near the bottom. What was weird was that my hands had been in the sink at the time, nowhere near it, and I was alone in the apartment. That on its own had me rattled enough. I told my boyfriend about the incident but I could see he wasn’t quite convinced. A couple of weeks later, we were sitting quietly on the couch watching TV when a glass sitting on the table just cracked and split near the bottom, just like the canister. This time I had a witness, needless to say we were a little freaked out. But soon we forgot about it, until one day listening to a local radio station. The DJ asked people to call in with any ghostly experiences they’d had and, just for a laugh we called in. We got on air – which was nothing significant, given the size of the audience. He listened with interest and then after the call ended a frightened sounding woman called in to warn us that it wasn’t the apartment that was haunted but it was me.

Well this wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, as I wasn’t quite sure what I could do about it. But fortunately those glass-breaking incidents stopped, as if simply acknowledging the incidents had been all the attention the spirit responsible had needed. Life moved on, and so did I – several times.

Every home that I’ve moved into since then I’ve been aware of being watched on arrival. I’ve seen a ghostly figure pass behind me reflected inside the glasses I wear, and when I’ve whipped around, and not being surprised to see no-one there. I’ve even seen a washing machine dial spin endlessly on its own – suddenly stopping when commanded to. But they haven’t always happen in a place where I’m living. Even as recently as a few weeks ago as I turned around from being served at a convenience store counter, I quickly had to jump out of the way to avoid crashing into an old lady who, on second glance, was never there

But the realisation that the sightings hadn’t stopped since moving away from that flat forced me to face the uncomfortable fact that there was probably a lot of truth to what the woman caller on the radio had told me. If the spirit or spirits were haunting me, what could I do about it and what did it or they want with me? My scientifically-inclined mind wanted the answers more than it frightened me.

Probably the very same reason I can see and sense spirits was most likely connected to the reason I had to stop going to crowded places in amongst all the moving. Being “sensitive” is what I found they call it, in spiritual circles. I found it excessively distressing to visit crowded places due to a disturbing ability to pick up on other people’s energy, all their anger, anxiety and even excitement. This was unfortunately doing absolutely nothing to alleviate my depression.

This was the point I made the decision to utilise my lifelong love of reading to recover. I started with a visit to the self-help shelf in our local bookstore. I did my best to search out the less mainstream volumes, and let my intuition guide me to something that would help. I did manage to find some lesser known self-help books, and those led seamlessly to others at an almost alarming rate, which were notably much more esoteric in nature. Exercise to yoga, to meditation, to Buddhism. Ancient Egypt, spiritual books and the afterlife according to aforementioned ancient Egyptians and others. Interestingly the books on the afterlife mostly seemed to concur that there are actually no evil spirits, just misguided and unhappy ones, and yes they can be damn terrifying when they want to be. They could very well be attracted to living souls who were, like me, very depressed. It made an interesting correlation between people’s energy and hauntings and even how energy can stay trapped in houses and buildings years after unhappy incidents such as death and murders. A couple of books on how to use our own power through visualisation to affect our reality came into my attention. From those and other reading I was even presented with the suggestion that perhaps it was my own befuddled and distressed energy that had broken those glass items all those years ago, albeit unconsciously.

But without even realising it, I’d stumbled back onto what had enthralled me when looking up at those stars all those years ago. I began to unavoidably see the common thread – the invisible thread – that binds us all.

Now some years later I am through my depression, thankfully but still on the course that the determination to recover had set me. My beliefs have not changed at all, I still reside in the perceived gap between science and spirituality with my hero Carl – and I am so pleased to see that more than a few notable scientists now seem to share the same thoughts.

The honest truth as I see it is that I’ve not even scratched the surface of what we can learn about our universe. Though I may never even know exactly what caused the breakages whether it was actually me or another spirit, I can’t say it really matters. But everything I’ve read between then and now from whatever genre, the general consensus suggests that there is a far stronger connection out there than a lot of us are aware of. My poltergeist story is just a teeny tiny piece of a much bigger puzzle. Though, between you and me, if it was me that broke those glasses, and I could harness that power there would really be no stopping me..

A fellow Earthling, Emma Beeken

 

Be sure to visit Emma at her own blog: emmabeeken.co.uk

Heated debate between the believer and the non-believer always produces a significant amount of friction, but few arguments have been as vitriolic as the on-going disagreement between those who support Bob Lazar and those who don’t.

Lazar, as many of my readers are completely aware, is a UFOlogical mega-star, a living legend. He is the one and only seemingly credible former Area 51 whistleblower…or is he?

Lazar claims to have been involved with reverse engineering alien technology at a top secret government facility labelled S4, which is believed to be a subsidiary of the Groom Lake Nevada test facility known as Area 51.  Allegedly working at S4 from 1988 to 1989, Lazar says he saw nine different extraterrestrial vehicles there and has provided detailed information on the mode of propulsion and other technical details of a disc-shaped vehicle he called the sport model.

Of course, Mr. Lazar isn’t without his detractors.  His credibility has been called into question over his alleged education and his involvement in the scientific community.  He claimed to hold degrees from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), though neither institution has any record of his attendance, as has been investigated by the likes of Stanton Friedman and the investigative team at the Los Angeles Times.  But a lack of records doesn’t necessarily discredit him completely, as many believe the government has been systematically erasing Lazars history, all in an effort to reduce his story into a steaming pile of misinformation.

Among the tales he’s told, one of the more technologically plausible is that of the propulsion system used by some of these alien craft, namely element 115.

Element 115 or Ununpentium, which sounds like something you might find on an alien moon called Pandora, is actually a real thing, believe it or not.  Currently known to mainstream science as a synthetic superheavy element in the periodic table, that has the temporary symbol Uup and has the atomic number 115; ununpentium is a candidate for the island of stability, which is not some tropical destination but rather a grouping of isotopes with stable half-lives.[1]

According to mainstream science, element 115 was discovered in 2003 and cannot be found be found in nature.  Officially it is said to be very unstable with a half-life of only 200 milliseconds or so, much like its periodic table neighbours (with half-lives ranging from several nano-seconds to a few minutes).  It has only been synthesized in very small amounts, about 50 atoms to date.  But Lazar says otherwise, he stated that the US government has (or had) at least 500 pounds of the stuff, given to them by the Reticulan EBE’s (extraterrestrial biological entities).  According to Lazar, the ununpentium was processed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, eventually creating several milled cones or wedges of the element that could then be used as fuel for the craft in question.  In its milled form, according to Lazar, it is highly stable and provides a gravitational force field that can be used to propel the craft.

To some in UFOlogy circles, Lazars description of the characteristics and effects of element 115, provides a plausible explanation for the flight characteristics of some, or well, most UFO reports and there are those who have put a great deal of effort and thought into the ununpentium question.[2] Analysis of the element is far beyond my chemistry knowledge, so I leave the scientific scrutiny up to the reader.

As is consistent with their mission, RationalWiki.com describes Lazar as an out-and-out liar, citing his missing educational records and sketchy work history as cause to doubt his claims.[3] [4] But support for Lazar and his story has been unwavering in the UFO and paranormal communities and there does seem to be some verifiable scientific endorsement, at least for his element 115 narrative.  The argument will continue for sure and likely we will never see a resolution of the facts at hand, but, as with all of these type of stories, the truth behind the legend is probably stranger than any one of us can imagine.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, especially lately, you’re probably already aware that I have a thing for ancient archaeological sites, particularly megaliths.  I find them fascinating and am in awe of the historical beauty and engineering mystery that they embody.  Were I financially independent, I would likely spend my time visiting the many hundreds of Neolithic sites around the world.

Today though, I’m interested in one site in particular, a site that, according to some, is the most important archaeological site ever discovered, if not the oldest.

Up until 1964, it was widely believed that the earliest megalithic constructions dated from around the 7^th millennium BCE, and those sites were pointedly primitive and unrefined.  More sophisticated megalithic examples, such as Stonehenge in Wiltshire England, didn’t start popping up in our culture until 3000-2000 BCE.  One possible explanation for the emergence of such constructions is the free time afforded to our early ancestors by the advent of agriculture.  Now, not to lead you astray, by free time I don’t mean that they spent their days sitting on a rock doodling messages for their friends, 140 pictographs long.  I mean simply that the demands on their time shifted from seeking food and resources to cultivating them, thereby allowing the first inklings of social culture to creep into their days.

Of course, the move from hunter-gatherer to farmer began about 10,000 years ago, coinciding nicely with the first examples of megalithic structure, which were largely religious in nature.

A survey conducted by the Istanbul University and the University of Chicago shattered that belief however.  That survey marked the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, a Neolithic settlement in the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey, some 15 kilometres northeast of the town of Şanlıurfa, one that contains the oldest known human-made religious structure in the world.

What’s special about this location is the fact that researchers have found that the religious monument was built in the 10^th millennium BCE, a full 2000-3000 years before any other similar construction.

The site, located on a hilltop known as “Potbelly Hill”, contains 20 round structures which had been buried, four of which have been excavated. Each round structure has a diameter of between 10 and 30 meters (30 and 100 ft) and all are decorated with massive, mostly T-shaped, limestone pillars that are the most striking feature of the site. The limestone slabs were carried from bedrock pits located around 100 meters (330 ft) from the hilltop, with Neolithic workers using flint points to carve the bedrock.

A few humanoid figures have surfaced at Göbekli Tepe, they include the engraving of a naked woman posed frontally in a crouched position that archaeologist Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute of Istanbul likens to the Venus accueillante figures found in Neolithic North Africa, and a decapitated corpse surrounded by vultures in bas-relief.  Other carvings, of animals, and of human hands and stylized arms are thought to give the entire site an anthropomorphic identity.

Göbekli Tepe is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change our understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human societies.  It suggests that this type of construction was available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, rather than exclusively to the more sedentary farming communities.  To quote Schmidt: “First came the temple, then the city.”

That explanation sits well, as long as you buy the idea that it was our ancestors who built these megaliths.  Not to doubt the good Doctor Schmidt but some ancient alien theorists are quite sure that Neolithic man lacked the tools, both physical and mental, to build such things.  Opting instead for the somewhat fanciful idea that aliens or inter-dimensional beings were responsible.  Despite the fact that all current information points to this being a man-made structure, there does exist the possibility however unlikely.

Beyond the question of who is why and there again, the ancient alien theorists have their hand up.  Mainstream researchers are confident that Göbekli Tepe was built for religious worship, likely of shamanistic gods, and that the settlement was constructed after the temple, possibly indicating that the site was initially the destination of a desert pilgrimage and later became home to hundreds.  This reasoning isn’t really in question, what the AAT’s (ancient alien theorists) believe that those shamanistic gods weren’t the focus of Göbekli Tepe.  They claim that this site, among many others, was a place for worshiping the sky gods, or in other words…ancient astronauts.

Whatever you believe, whether aliens, Mothman or Bigfoot were responsible for building Göbekli Tepe, it remains an interesting topic, and the repercussions of its excavation could be far reaching in the academic world, not to mention the world of ancient alien theory.

Voice your opinion in the comments section below.