Author: paranormalpeop

In hot pursuit of my tepidly popular and rarely cited piece titled: 5 Simple Rules For Ghost Hunting, the following is a concerted effort to build the Second Law of Thermodynamics into a sequential blog post.  Success will be measured by a complete lack of response, precipitated by a total lack of comprehension and/or acute disinterest by my readership.

Ghost hunting has become something of a hobby these days, with popular media pretty much jumping ship on the likes of so-called reality TV stars of the paranormal genre.  Nonetheless, there are many hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts who, for whatever reason, decided to emulate their favourite wanna-be paranormal super sleuth, by founding their very own band of merry ghost hunters.

Well, since there seem to be few among the pseudo-intellectuals guiding the paranormal investigators of today with a desire to speak of methodology, I’ve decided that it would be prudent, if not terribly snide, to recommend that those who wish to “hunt ghosts” should adhere to a few basic scientific principals.  Though, the caveat in all this would be, simply, that these are real scientific principals as opposed to those offered by the likes of Chip Coffey et al.

Learn The Difference Between Correlation and Cause/Effect

I noticed when I flipped the light switch in my office, the light fixture in the room illuminated.

Is this a description of two correlated events, or is it a description of one event causing another?  Even the smartest among you will likely get this wrong.

It is clearly a description of the former, in that, to the casual observer there is no evidence that the switch I flipped was indeed connected in any way to the fixture that became illuminated.  Nor does it mention the delay between when I flipped the switch and when the fixture illuminated.  The above description affords only a glimpse at the causal effect between the switch and the fixture and thus the two elements can only be considered to be correlated.  In truth, the light could be controlled by a completely different toggle switch, or it could be controlled by photocell, or by a motion detector…or even a timer.

Had I included a laborious accounting of the wires connecting the two elements, the electrical charge controlled by the switch and thus used by the light fixture, and perhaps even a brief tutorial on electromagnetic theory, then it could have been considered the latter, though experimentation would be necessary to confirm this hypothesis.

The relatively common nature of the elements in question, light switches and light fixtures, notwithstanding, this is the easiest way to illustrate the fallacy of assumed causal relationships.  Proving (and thus claiming) a cause/effect relationship between any two elements of any situation is exceedingly difficult, and this relates to “ghost hunting” in a most unfortunate way.  From evidence of haunting – which can manifest in the form of sounds of any variety, optical effects, both real and photographic, and physical perturbances that may or may not leave quantifiable evidence behind – to EVP, to psychic phenomenon, all are bound by these same rules of observation.

A general rule to acknowledge and adhere to is: unless you can demonstrate a causal connection, in a repeatable manner, between all intermediate steps of each element of your observation, you cannot prove causation.  A causal connection, incidentally, must be demonstrable and must show a temporal break between events (causal events must happen before effects).  All paranormal investigators should hold this principal up as their cardinal rule.

Stop Buying Into The Technological Hype

There are very few segments of today’s culture that offer merchandisers so many opportunities to sell ineffective and, in some cases, ridiculous technology to an ever willing consumer base.  I have covered this before, several times in fact, and out of those other pieces and their accompanying commentary there is one bit of wisdom you should take away…there is no magic button.

Just the same as there is no “Easy Button” in any other area of your life, there is no technology available that will give you any realistic insight into the paranormal.  Whereas a device cannot be built upon knowledge that has not yet been achieved (Ovilus), it’s a suspicious thing to see high technology sold as toys and computer games instead of being heralded as cutting edge breakthroughs in physical science (Ghost Radar).  Better yet, it’s an annoyingly futile thing to see the layman using tools without even the slightest idea how they work or what they measure, and even yet, to see those same tools manufactured with this errant purpose in mind (K2 Meter).

The only tool a paranormal researcher need boast about having in their bag of tricks, is well informed methodology and accurate observation.

Educate Yourself, No One Else Will

It used to be thought that the paranormal research genre was a viable arena for Joe Layman to set up shop and carve out at least a way to pass his time productively.  But alas, I tell you this is not the case.  If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well, am I right?  So then why not take the time to educate yourself on the subject at hand?  And no, I don’t mean go get yourself a mail order degree in Parapsychology.  I mean read…read a lot.  Read anything and everything you can find on history and the physical sciences, after all, that is what you’re studying.

Take my word for it, whosoever happens to find proof of, say an afterlife, will not be an uneducated dullard.  Nor will they be a metaphysical guru, for the extraordinary proof mainstream culture requires, will not be stumbled upon absentmindedly or by magical means.  This is an endeavour of science, whether you want to admit it or not.

Empty Your Cup, Then Fill It Again

Once you’ve edumacated yourself, forget everything you know.  I know, its counter intuitive and oxymoronic, but – and I don’t think I can put this in a more concise way – as the fictional Tibetan movie monk says: “if your cup is already full, how can you fill it any further?”

And as an equally wise, albeit real, man once said “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing…” (Socrates – in a monologue on the virtue of justice), and such it should be for all those engaged in the pursuit of ghosts, for we have much to learn.  In fact we have everything to learn, so forget what you think you may know…and approach your subject with new eyes.

~~

In closing…For my troubles above, what do I expect to receive in return?  Accolades?  No.  Criticism?  Possibly.  Notoriety? Certainly not.  Perhaps it is not what I expect to receive that will surprise me most.  I expect little more than the barn yard neglect an ugly mule might receive, but if by any chance even one person is swayed by my words to act in a more logical manner, and in whom the world may find a better researcher and – dare I say it – scientist, whose insights and observations just might lead to an answer to these nagging questions of pseudo-scientific pursuit, I would say that I have received all that I ask.

Melodrama aside, do as you will, just please…do it better.

Tony Robins, Deepak Chopra, Oprah…I dare say there isn’t a soul alive in western culture who hasn’t heard these names.  And all who hear them associate them with good tidings, self-help, charity and the new American Dream.

These people and the many who stand beside them have more than one thing in common; they expound on the virtues of self-actualisation, visualisation, positive thinking and the idea that happiness is a place to be, a destination hard won after a tortuous journey of self-reflection and (in some cases) penance.  They have one other thing in common too…

Each and every one of them is filthy rich.

I love that term, “filthy rich”; it engenders the perfect notion of opulence, tempered with the ruthlessness that is necessary to reach such status.

Any way you slice it, self-help guru’s are at the pinnacle of an industry; a business sector that is poised to take the money of those who need it most, by offering instruction in methods of self-delusion and wish-thinking.  Though, they aren’t so much taking people’s money, as simply opening up their coffers and asking for a donation (with certain pointed exceptions).  But it is not their financially philandering ways I wish to speak about today, no it’s actually the fantasies they sell that I’m interested in.

Positive Psychology – as if the humanities ever needed to be supported by an unfounded value judgement.  The term itself is shrouded in relative mystery, proffering many vague and (apparently) deliberately ambiguous definitions, depending on who in particular is offering the explanation.

“We believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise that achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving in individuals, families, and communities.”[1]

It has been described as an endeavour: “to find and nurture genius and talent” and “to make normal life more fulfilling”[2].

As may not be apparent though, this wolf in sheep’s clothing is cunning.  But before I get to the myths let’s explore some of the truths.

Positive Psychology is, or rather was, the domain of the self-help guru – the mysterious and quirky eastern purveyor of introspective knowledge and personal wealth (al la The Love Guru?), but has recently become a widely studied domain of both the scientific establishment of psychology, and also that of TV talk show hosts.

The movement owes its existence to one Martin Seligman – an American psychologist and author (and quintessential self-help guru), who is now the Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania[3].  Though don’t let the idea that the mainstream establishment of psychology has accepted this questionable idea as a sign for its righteous inclusion as a valuable scientific pursuit.  Seligman wasn’t the first “Positive Psychologist” though, as the overall idea was the brainchild of Abraham Maslow[4] (Yes, the same Maslow responsible for the oft cited Hierarchy of Needs[5]).  Seligman however, is credited (by me) with the perversion of the original science – a model that has quite successfully been used over the years to describe and explain many instances of abnormal behaviour – into a money making machine, selling the wares of fantasy and wish-thinking to those who can afford it.

In layman’s terms Positive Psychology is the study of and eventual curricular pursuit of defining exactly what it is that makes one person successful (read: happy) and the next not-so-much.  It involves, or rather, has involved the much more laudable pursuit of wellbeing over health, emphasising the notion that modern medical science has typically been concerned with symptoms and illnesses as opposed to the overall welfare of the patient.  Some have incorrectly credited the positive psychology movement with the recent popularity of whole-body medical treatment in western culture; though in reality those recent trends are the result of a mixing of the philosophies of both western and eastern medicine as immigrants from eastern lands seek formal education in western medicine.

This, much as with many of my philosophical arguments, is highly semantic, all when there is a real world idea to identify and to vilify here.  Perhaps I fail to give credit where it is due; Seligman is a serious scientist, in pursuit of serious science…for the most part.  Where he and his science end, the grandiose charlatanism of the true self-help guru begins; there have been many willing to step into that role and to exploit any poor sap who happens to be looking for an answer.

A term I’ve used above, as well as in many other pieces, encompasses the true villainy at work here.  Regular readers won’t be surprised at my opposition to this particular idea, but either way, the idea bears explanation…though that will take some work.

Embedded deep within the subtle nuances of the Positive Psychology movement is a fundamental idea, on which the rest of the establishment rests as a foundation.  Namely, that everyone is capable of sustained happiness – and more to the point, that happiness is anything more than a physiological response to subjectively positive stimuli.  On top of this basic idea has been laid the notion that given certain assumptions – that sustained happiness is both achievable and desirable – one who is happy should be viewed as more successful than their competitors.  This position opens the door for exploitation on a grand scale, by allowing the purveyors of this “science” to package the tools needed to achieve such “happiness” and to market the erroneous idea that success or failure (supremely subjective and ambiguous terms) are contingent on this product.

Essentially, the packaging of happiness into sound bites and talking points, and in most cases, to volumes upon volumes of authority based books, preys on those who are already in a position of profound insecurity.  For why would they be seeking advice on ‘how to be happy’ if they had achieved that state on their own.  I call this predatory for a very specific reason: the “science” doesn’t work.

It has always struck me that the self-help (Positive Psychology) movement is unmistakably similar to the dogmatic product of mass organised religion.  In my view, as with many of my atheistic colleagues, blind faith leads only to wish-thinking.  This term (as alluded to above) is at the heart of this issue, it embodies the very nature of an intelligent, sentient being who strives to know more than what is currently knowable.  We as a species are driven it seems, to define our role in the greater scheme of the universe.  We have been obsessed with the idea for millennia; who are we, why are we here and what, ultimately, is our purpose.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe these are (and will remain) the ultimate questions for humanity to answer.  They are worthy of pursuit more than any other question we can conceive, however, since the nature of these questions is inherently spiritual (not to be read as religious), and the religious / scientific infrastructure in place for our time is incapable of addressing such spiritual notions, the inevitable outcome is a wish-thinking ideology.

The term describes precisely what it seems; a tendency to place responsibility for the outcome of life events in the proverbial hands of an outside influence.  Though in the context of the current discussion, it may seem somewhat counterintuitive, and to demonstrate, please indulge me in some literary pantomime.

If one is unhappy, as defined by the cultural meme of success, one needn’t take responsibility for their circumstance personally.  They may simply surrender to the idea that they haven’t been given the tools to be successful (read: happy) by their life teachers thus far.

Enter the self-help guru.

For the low price of whatever book, video or seminar is being sold at the time; this unsuccessful schlep can buy the instruction necessary to gain this success by practice, and in turn apparently takes responsibility for his or her own happiness.

This is false, and I’ll illustrate why.

Once indoctrinated with the vernacular and expectations of the Positive Psychology Establishment, the student (if you will), relinquished their entire faculty of logic and reason, and hands over their free will (in relation to their happiness).  This acquiescence to the tutelage of the “guru” puts all responsibility for the success of the teachings back in the hands of the instructor, even in spite of the usual fact that the specific instructions typically require the student to undertake the lifestyle changes, visualisations and reinforcements of the program themselves.  Ultimately, should the process fail, which it invariably does (and I’ll discuss this a little later), the blame for the failure rests not on the student, but on the instructor.  This fact is contrasted by the alternative; success in these teachings, however fleeting, is credited to the student and not to the teacher (though the money still flows to the teacher).

This is actually a feature of the ideology of the movement, in that the guru’s claim that everyone is capable of achieving “success”, but that those who don’t simply haven’t found the path.  It would be counter-productive for the process to lay blame for incremental failures on the student and so all failure is inherently absorbed into the process: ‘you can be happy, you just need to better understand the lesson’, as opposed to: ‘you can’t be happy, because, considering your life circumstances, you are currently incapable of happiness’.  All of this serves to displace responsibility for ones life circumstance from within their control, to entities, people and processes outside of their control, thereby avoiding any real culpability for the outcome.

One might suggest that this is only a problem in the cases where the student fails to achieve happiness, and to that I have a profound rebuttal.

As stated earlier; happiness is a physiological response to subjectively positive stimuli.  It is not a destination, nor should it be considered a perpetual state-of-mind.  To view it as otherwise is a potentially dangerous fallacy.  Hypothetically speaking, a person who is perpetually happy will fail to recognise and appropriately respond to stimuli that are subjectively negative.  Many may already be preparing to further rebut that we’re not talking about happiness, we’re talking about contentedness, and I wouldn’t disagree, but for the nature of reality.

“No man is an island, entire of itself…” – John Donne[6]

No human lives in a vacuum; we are all affected, influenced and perturbed by the world around us.  We are the collective product of our past experiences, and as such, where those experiences are subjectively positive or negative, a particular state of mind results.  Note that there is no such thing as universal value-polarity.  The value of an event or circumstance can only be judged by the experiencer.

The process, via Positive Psychology, of instructing students that happiness is a state of mind, to be controlled and generated in spite of life’s circumstances, is a potentially scarring fallacy indeed.  What is to happen to the devout student of a self-help guru when life invariably exerts itself on the student?  Humanity is endowed with a full compliment of emotional states, an array of feelings, intuitions and responses, all of which are necessarily present for reasons found in evolutionary development.  To deny the full potential of ones emotional self, is to set ones self up for emotional failure…and this is precisely what Positive Psychology portends.

The resulting dichotomy predictably presents us with an array of so-called abnormal emotional states and corresponding behaviours – depression, anxiety and stress for example.  While all of these things are present in the psyche of humanity to begin with, they are invariably exacerbated by the constant expectations presented by the incessant monologues of Positive Psychology proponents.  They cite success stories and herald them as examples of correct behaviour, as though unhappiness is something to be eliminated along with the common cold, all the while expanding the reach of their podium and, more importantly, increasing their bank accounts.

All this without even a cursory look at some of the unavoidable restrictions that go along with the self-actualisation ideas being offered in the same vein.  If anyone can become whatever they desire (including movie stars and sports legends), as long as they follow the visualisation techniques offered by the guru, then we, as a species, have a potential problem on our hands.  We already have enough celebrities and sportsmen, and notwithstanding the sobering fact that not all are capable of the job at hand, there simply isn’t room in Hollywood for 6.8 billion people.

I’m concerned though that this will all be taken in the wrong context.  Happiness is achievable, as long as we agree on a few important caveats.  Happiness should be cherished for what it is…a reward for making good choices.  It cannot be and should not be considered sustainable, and for Pete’s sake (whoever Pete is), when someone gets to be as rich as Oprah and all on the “happiness” of her fans, those fans should become suspicious of their real motives.

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[1] Seligman, Martin E.P.; Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2000). “Positive Psychology: An Introduction”. American Psychologist 55 (1): 5–14. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5.PMID11392865

[2] Compton, William C, (2005). “1″. An Introduction to Positive Psychology. Wadsworth Publishing. pp. 1–22. ISBN 0-534-64453-8.

[3] Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

[6] The opening line(s) of the most famous poem written by English Poet John Donne (21 January 1572 – 31 March 1631): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Donne

In the realm of psychic phenomenon, amongst the many teachings and talents and mysteries, there are some ideas that hold tight to the sympathetic fancies of certain subcultures.  Many of these ideas require, as a fundamental component of their practise, a suspension of the practitioner’s belief in certain scientific truths.

Past life regression is one such idea, in the eyes of the scientific world, those of psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and the like, past life regression is a broken shard of medieval medicine, something to be regarded as a parlour trick or carnival side show.

To believers however, past life regression is a powerful tool in the quest to understand one’s purpose, path and destiny in life.

Unlike many of the popular ideas within the spectrum of psychic phenomenon, past life regression is now, and has historically been synonymous with religious dogma and practice.  The concept of regressing ones self into the memories of a past life (or lives) is a particularly ancient teaching.  Reference to the subject has been found as early as the Second Century BCE in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  This ancient Hindu scholar taught that the human soul was burdened with impressions of previous incarnations, and that these impressions were connected to the soul’s karmic energy, influencing the specific form of it’s reincarnation on this plane.

Now obviously, belief in past life regression requires an intrinsic, if unspoken, belief in reincarnation on at least a basic level; though so many who feel curious about past life regression will deny such a belief on questioning.  It seems silly to hold even a passing interest in your memories from previous lives if you find reincarnation to be fanciful, but such is the case with these kinds of wildly infamous ideas.

Past life regression, or PLR, gained its infamous stature in the early to mid 1950’s, through the equally infamous Madame Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society.  From her teachings, many so-called credible practitioners popped up in western culture, and due to their credentials, which were often in completely unrelated fields and disciplines, the phenomenon gained momentum among the medium-crazy, death-obsessed upper-middle class of early America.

By this time, however, new techniques in hypnotism and mesmerism were widely used as tools for healing nearly any ailment even remotely concerning the conscious mind.  Combining these two concepts proved to be a fantastic pairing for the future of past life regression; hypnotism, especially in its early use, is a highly suggestive and unreliable means of recounting, uncovering or relaying memories, of past or current life situations.

The problem, then as with now, lies both in the practitioner and in the unreliable nature of human memory.  Hypnotism remains capable of planting, manipulating and creating memories that, once realised, are just as real to the experiencer as any actual memory.

History and science are really only a small part of the phenomenon of past life regression however, in recent times, the idea of bringing to bear any memories that might be retrievable from past lives has become a hugely popular part of earth based religious sub-cultures.  Within the purview of Wiccan teachings, there are many spells, incantations and rituals that deal with either bringing forward these repressed memories, or with protecting them from negative energies.

What’s now somewhat unique about past life regression, in contrast to its practise even a few decades ago, is that it requires little more than basic Wiccan ritual items and an ability to meditate.

In my research, I came across an interesting technique for brining forward memories and visions of previous life incarnations that requires nothing more than a table, a white candle and a fixed or handheld mirror.

I have transcribed the technique verbatim for your interest:

 Past Life Spells: Magic Mirror

Do not expect immediate results from this spell.  It takes practise; an extended period of time may be required before results are achieved.  It is more difficult than it seems; do not perform the ritual for more than fifteen minutes at a time, until a successful momentum is achieved. You will need a chair and a table, with a white candle and either a fixed or handheld mirror.

1. Take all spiritual precautions. Cast a [protective] circle around the table and chair.
2. Burn Mugwort and Sandalwood within the circle.
3. Light the candle and place it between you and the mirror.
4. Keep your mind clear and calm.
5. Gaze at your face in the mirror neutrally – this is not the moment to count pimples, wrinkles or despair at your nose.
6. Call your own name clearly and distinctly three times.
7. Eventually you may be tempted to call another name, or another name will simply fall from your lips.  Try it, ask the mirror to show you who you were.

Source: The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, by Judica Illes

Now, my own scepticism tends to get in the way of these types of ideas, and even though I personally know two people who claim to have achieved successful results from this “spell”, I still cannot help but wonder if wishful thinking played more of a role in their results than did magic or actual memory.

Regardless of what I think, I invite you all to try this simple recipe for reaching out to your previous self through the looking glass.

The following is an article found in the Canadian MUFON UFO Journal, it is the story of a UFO sighting in Southern Ontario, near Erin (which is less than 60kms north of Waterloo Region).  By all accounts, the story is real and the events did happen as described.

The article appears below, exactly as it did in its original publication within the October 1994 (number 318) MUFON UFO Journal.

TRACING SOUND TO UFO ENCOUNTERS
by
Lindy Tucker
P.U.R.E. Research

MUFON UFO JOURNAL
OCTOBER 1994 – NUMBER 318

UFOs are associated with bright, silent lights;
it’s nice to be reminded that bells & whistles
are sometimes attached.

There are plenty of sighting reports of unidentified flying objects, but very few reports of sounds associated with these sightings. This has been the major focus of my research as an independent investigator over the past few years. My observation that aerial and audio phenomena can be linked together is based on the fact that I was a direct eye and ear witness to the combined phenomena back in the mid 1970′s. It was that experience that started my research and it is due to the greater cooperation and interest available in this field that I have pursued this further.

I lived in a small, rural town called Orton, in Southern Ontario back then. It was part of an area that experienced a “flap” of UFO sightings. My husband at that time had given me a daily journal for Christmas, so I happen to have the events and dates recorded. Starting on March 3, 1975, my neighbours and I began to witness aerial phenomena: brilliant white, red, and green lights would do impossible aerobatic manoeuvres in the night sky, darting about in angular or triangular movements. Sometimes they would band together into one bright light, only to blink out, re-appear and split again into several more bright lights. One of the more spectacular displays looked like The Star of Bethlehem one night. The rays from this “star” took up a good 60 degrees of the horizon, and there was this tiny red light that kept darting in and out of it. My girlfriend Julie and I watched this display for a good two hours. I noted in my journal we both experienced headaches that night afterwards.

The sightings always seemed predictable, at least by me; I always seemed to be aware of when they would appear. On the evening of April 26, 1975, I heard a strange, loud, metallic beeping sound coming from the woods behind our home. It sounded mechanical, like the pings of submarine sonar, and it had a peculiar rotational quality to it, like a Doppler effect. I even wondered if someone was out in the woods- with some type of broadcasting equipment; the sound didn’t seem natural and it was too loud to be anything else. You could hear this sound from a quarter mile away and even from inside the house with the doors and windows closed.

Upon walking down to the woods to investigate this sound, I noticed my cats had beaten me down there and were sitting on fence posts facing the sound and listening attentively. I decided to tell my neighbours about it. I heard later they were making fun of me; not only was I seeing strange lights in the sky, but now I was hearing strange sounds in the woods.

Several weeks later, on the evening of May 19, 1975, my neighbours and I had been sitting around a bonfire in front of our large garden. There was a rest-less excitement in the air: you could feel. Even the animals were reacting to it. At 10:30 p.m. the roosters were crowing, the chickens clucking, and you could hear dogs barking and the pastured cows bawling for miles. I even remember remarking that Orton sounded like the introduction to an old TV series I watched as a child called “Rawhide,” starring Clint Eastwood. The program starts off in the middle of a cattle drive. It was that noticeable. We soon ended our conversation and went back to our homes. A couple of hours later, while taking the day’s garbage out, I noticed these loud, peculiar beeping sounds again and I decided to get my neighbours over to investigate. I called Bob and Lynn Adams from across the street and Cal Stodts, a paramedic who lived next to me. Standing there, we could see red lights in behind the trees while we faced the beeping sounds.

All of a sudden, the beeps stopped and everything got deathly quiet. Just as I pointed to the woods, a bright light rose out of the trees from the brush at the rear of our property and made a right-angle 90 degree turn, and started slowly to approach us in a wide arc. I ran behind a shed to get a better look at it, as our shadows were being cast over the yard by our back door spotlights, causing a glare. I could see that it was silver and disc-shaped with a soft white dome on top of it. It appeared to be larger than a long van, approximately 20 to 25 feet in length and maybe 8 to 10- feet wide in the middle. It was very low, not more than 100 feet up, and was coming in over my neighbours’ pine tree, about 150 feet from where I was standing. When I could count the several red lights moving about its perimeter counterclockwise, 1 started to become alarmed, thinking this thing was going to land in my back yard! I ran back to my neighbours who were just as alarmed as I was. We were ready to take shelter, when the craft shifted its flight path and passed slowly off to the east. We were all shaken, but I was exhilarated too. I noticed my knees felt weak.

OTHER LOCAL SIGHTINGS 

The UFO sightings persisted, along with the beeping sounds, but not necessarily together. Something unusual was happening in our little community and the word spread fast. One night, Harry Walker, who lived around the corner from us, had been putting his tractor in his drive shed when a disc-shaped object hovered over him beneath a low cloud ceiling. He hollered for his family to come outside and look at it, but his cries went unheard. His son Patrick came running down to tell me what his Dad had just seen and that he was “white as a ghost.”

I immediately went down to interview him and was slightly relieved that another resident had seen some-thing similar to the rest of us. I also talked with Jim Overland, a teenager back then who lived about a half mile from us on the same county road. He claims to have been out ploughing his field one day when a small, silver disc-shaped object came over him and his tractor. I believe he said that it chased him and that he ran into the house.

Recently I was sent a clipping from the Letters to the Editor of the Toronto Star from a fellow who lived near me during those years. He requested that “perhaps someone else residing in Orton could share their experiences with me.” I have since talked to this fellow and heard another story of a spectacular close encounter that he and his brother had 18 or 19 years ago. They had a boomerang-shaped craft hover motionless above them. They also saw the “light shows” along with their neighbours and described the aerial phenomena exactly as I remember it. This fellow plans to go back and interview our old neighbours. There will be more to this story as time goes along.

The editor of our local newspaper, Bill Doole, had wanted to print my story for some time. I was reluctant to let him write up a story for The Erin Advocate because of the ridicule I was getting from the neighbours who hadn’t seen anything. Finally, a year later, he ran a story on our sightings and was surprised by the number of calls he got from other local residents who had seen various types of craft flying around. Several described these UFOs as shining pencil-thin beams of light on to the ground. These articles caused some alarm and other articles were written trying to “explain it all away.” Talking recently with our old post mistress, Evelyn Nevifles, I learned that some of the village people still talk about the old sightings.

THE INVESTIGATION

I felt these unusual sightings should be documented so I contacted and met with J. Allen Hynek (then the Director of the Center for UFO Studies) and Henry McKay, who was then the MUFON Director of Canada. I invited Chris Purton, then a Professor of Astronomy at York University in Toronto to come over and record the sounds, as he lived not far away from me in the village of Erin, Ontario, and he could come over quickly should the sounds occur again.

The opportunity came the evening of June 14, 1975. The beeping sounds were loud and constant. At first, his tape recorder refused to work. Thinking perhaps we were in some type of electromagnetic field that might be affecting the batteries of his recorder, we moved further away from the source of the sound and were able to obtain a two-minute recording. This tape was the catalyst for me to start researching the audio phenomenon and has since proved invaluable to me. Others came out to investigate the sounds and the sights, bringing along with them parabolic micro-phones and infrared cameras. Biologists were called in to try to explain the beeps as a bird call, all to no avail.

Through the following year, the sightings continued on an irregular basis and so did the sounds. I was fascinated and would notice my heart start to race when-ever I heard the now familiar metallic sounds. I found I could approach the source of the sound. Having had by that time acquired aerial maps of my location, I was able to gauge how far away from me the sound was. I figured that I could get as close as 50 feet, then the sound would stop and instantaneously be in a location about 200 feet away.

The sound also appeared to have a biological response to your actions. if you approached the source of the sound slowly and talking quietly, the beeps would be low and steady. If, on the other hand, you were loud, excited and moving quickly, the beeps would get louder and faster in direct relation to your excitement. When I wonder about this many years later, I feel the sound was similar to a biofeedback machine, which I certainly didn’t know about then.

One night while investigating the sound with friends, Pat Walker claimed he couldn’t hear the beeps at a distance of about 200 feet because he thought the batteries in his hearing aid weren’t working. Directly in front of this “wall” of sound, which was about 50 feet. from us, he claimed he still couldn’t hear it, but that he could feel it in his chest. I thought this was a good observation as I had noticed on other occasions that the beeping sound seemed to penetrate the center of my chest as well. My friends then encouraged me to whistle the pitch of the beeps and after some prod-ding I decided to try. Immediately upon whistling the same pitch, we were astonished to experience the beeping sounds speed up and turn into a vibration that shook the ground we were standing on! I tried this several times with the same results until we were all huddled together in amazement and ready to get back to civilisation. It was just too much to take.

I noticed a compass spun rapidly in my hand when I got back to the house after this event. There were other unusual events happening at that time as well. I saw orange, gaseous balls of light in our backyard, drifting slowly along the ground. There was one occasion I re-member of long, gossamer threads of spider webs about 30 feet long flowing through the town of Orton. Since then, I have read about the “angel hair” seen in con-junction with some UFO sightings. After a while, living in Orton began to resemble something out of the “Twilight Zone.”

THE SEARCH

I moved out of the area in 1977 and didn’t encounter the phenomena for another 10 years. A series of events led me back into my search for answers. On a return trip to Canada in 1989, I met with Henry McKay in his home in Toronto, as he said he had a couple of tape recordings of UFO-related beeping sounds that might be similar to mine. I was very excited when I heard them, as they were the same as the ones I had recorded in my own backyard. I was relieved I wasn’t “alone” in my experiences; someone else was reporting and recording the same phenomena in other locations! The tapes Henry presented to me were from a flap of UFO sightings and audio phenomena that happened in Alberta and British Columbia in the late 1960′s. For a detailed report on these sightings and the subsequent analysis of the beeping sounds, see pages 177 to 206 in the 1979 MUFON Symposium Proceedings.

Quietly, I started making contacts and inquiries, looking for more cases. I attended a MUFON conference in New Hampshire in the fall of 1992 to meet with my friends Colin Andrews and Dr. Steven Greer of CSETI to compare notes and update our research. Dr. Greer plays a portion of my beep tape at his lectures. Cheryl Powell, then a MUFON investigator, was in the audience and was floored when she heard the recording! She had one just like it, recorded by a New Hampshire family on their camcorder during an encounter with a huge, triangular-shaped craft that flew over their house in the spring of that year. Unfortunately, only the audio- came out on the tape, the video part was black. Steven briefly introduced us and I was able to obtain a copy of her tape at a later date. I was stunned when I heard it; the phenomena was still happening!

I was really excited by now and wanted to know more. I placed an ad in the MUFON Classifieds and was immediately assisted by Ron Johnson, the late Deputy Director of Investigations for MUFON. He filled me in on the UFO flap in the Pacific Northwest that was accompanied by beeping sounds back in the 60′s and 70′s. The earlier cases from the 1960′s were thoroughly investigated by the Air Force and the Department of Civil Defence. These cases mostly occurred in the states of Washington and Oregon, along the Puget Sound.

Ron also introduced me to Dr. Ronald Stearman, an Aerospace professor who was interested in analyzing any recordings that might be UFO-related. Dr. Stearman has some of the most commercially advanced, acoustical analysis software currently available in the field. Now we should be able to get a better picture of how these various tapes from different locations in North America look on paper.

The basic procedure currently employed in analyzing these sounds is to sample them with a digital signal analyzer and then obtain a graph of the sound in the frequency domain. Further characteristics of the signals were also determined after filtering. This included variable speed analysis and strip chart time domain studies. The outcome of these preliminary results show that the sounds are remarkably similar! The peaks associated with the beep frequencies all match up at about 1050 HZ with the median beep-frequency interval occurring at approximately 1.7 HZ. (The assumption has been made that the Orton tape was recorded at a slower than normal rate due to the electromagnetic influences that initially stopped the recorder. A speed reduction of approximately 18% was made on the Orton sound to bring it into the range of the other tapes. Otherwise, the spectral peak associated with the beeping was found at 1350 HZ.) The beeps are roughly spaced at 0.6 to 0.7 seconds apart. The common spectral peak frequencies of the first four recordings varied only by 7 per cent. This variation was expected due to the various types of recorders and generations of source tapes available for use. The Professor and his students have just finished another 50-page report for me, which I haven’t finished absorbing yet. They are using newer, higher-order auto-bicoherence spectrum analysis software in this most recent study.

ANOTHER RECORDING 

Working with Greg Long, who is also interested in the phenomena that acoustics play in the UFO field, I was able to learn about the Yakima Indian Reservation sightings in Washington State that he wrote about in his recent book, Examining the Earthlight Theory – The Yakima UFO Microcosm (The J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, 1990). Beeping sounds were reported there as well, along with other locations in the state. While digging through his files, he found a cassette tape of beeping sounds recorded exactly one week to the day that they started for me in Orton, Ontario, over 2,000 miles away! Recent analysis of this last tape reveals that it is almost identical to the previous four.

OWLS & CONDON 

As I stated before, the UFO beeping noise cases from the 1960′s caused quite a stir in the Pacific Northwest. The Air Force commissioned the University of Colorado to do a complete investigation and their findings were published in the now famous Condon Report of 1968. They concluded that these beeping sounds were being produced by a Saw-Whet Owl. Professor Stearman obtained recordings of the Saw-Whet Owl and did a de-tailed analysis of the owl versus the five beeping recordings I had given him. His conclusions are completely different. He says we can rule out the Saw-Whet owl. But what the beeps are, or what they represent, is entirely up for speculation now.

WHERE TO? 

There are several things I want you investigators to know. Not only do these mechanical beeping sounds occur before and after UFO sightings, but they appear to produce electromagnetic effects as well. Battery and electrical failures have been noted on car radios and engines, flashlights, hearing aids, and indoor lighting. Most astounding of all is that the beeping sounds have been heard being broadcast over AM/FM, CB, long wave and short wave radios. That’s a pretty talented owl! In several cases that I have collected, those orange globes of light have been reported nearby. The beeps also affect the environment by causing excitement in animals, insects and humans, who report the unusual sounds to the police. Some note the date on their calendars or go out in search of the sound, which usually has no visible source. Others become afraid and return quickly inside because they “can’t stand it.” The earliest case I have is from 1962 and the most recent case is from 1992 – that’s at least 30 years of this phenomena. While detailing all the locations on a map of North America, I have noticed that crop circles are appearing in clusters within a 50 mile radius of where these beeping sounds have been reported.

This is even more intriguing. I have a reliable group of professionals to help pursue any other cases that might surface. Right now I would like more information on a case that comes from Bilbao, Spain (UFONS, #170, September, 1987). A family witnessed a UFO for 3 hours over their house and got a half-hour tape recording of this strange whistle, “similar to the sonar of a ship.” Apparently it was analyzed by audio frequency experts. This information was published in the Croniga, a newspaper in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 12, 1983. The exact date of the incident is unknown at this time. Anyone with knowledge of this case or others such as I have described in this article are encouraged to write to me at P.U.R.E. Research, P. 0. Box 627, Sebring, FL 33871

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for aiding me greatly with contacts or information: Michael Strainic, present Director of MUFON, Canada; Henry McKay, past Director of MUFON, Canada; the late Ron Johnson, MUFON Deputy Director of Investigations; Dr. Berthold Schwarz, MUFON Consultant in Psychiatry; and Greg Long, author of Examining the Earthlight Theory

© 1994

27.3 billion pounds of beef was consumed as a food product in the US in 2008, or roughly one trillion ¼ pound hamburgers.[1]  That number is actually down from the 28.1 billion pounds consumed in 2007, but even with some slight fluctuation (only in this discussion could we say that a difference of 800,000,000 pounds of beef could be a slight fluctuation) the consumer statistics of beef production are staggering, and considering that these numbers are related to US consumption only, this means every American has been personally responsible for consuming some 780 pounds of beef a year (Based on a population of 350 million).[2]

The domestic cattle rearing industry is by far the largest farming business sector in North America, and possibly the most expensive, with cattle ranging from $500-$5000 per head, depending on breed, lineage and location.  So when these expensive and market demanded bovine suddenly start falling dead with all sorts of inhuman mutilations and deformities, you’d think someone (not the least of whom should be insurance companies) would be asking some hard question, rather loudly.  Though it seems this isn’t the case.

The first known examples of cattle mutilation are born of early 19^th century England.  Charles Fort, the world renowned American writer and researcher and father of the Fortean school of thought in paranormal circles, collected reports of and documented several cases of livestock excision around the turn of the century in Great Britain, but the phenomenon didn’t reach North America until the early 1960’s.  The event commonly (though wrongly) known as the first documented case of livestock mutilation occurred in September of 1967, near Alamosa Colorado, and is often referred to as ‘The Snippy Mutilation’.  This is the case of an adolescent horse named ‘Lady’, having allegedly been excised by an unseen “alien” force complete with supposedly clear evidence of some type of aircraft having landed near the carcass of the dead horse.[3]

Though citable statistics aren’t available to accurately estimate the number of mutilation reports since 1967, some have estimated the number to be between 8000-100,000, which is an almost unusable estimate, but does provide some idea of the naturally mysterious nature of the cattle mutilation phenomenon. Though that mystery is less about the means by which the cattle meet their death, than it is about the unorganized nature of research into the phenomenon.

To date, two official US Government investigations have delved into Cattle Mutilation phenomenon, though some argue that they barely scratched the surface of the problem with their cursory look into only a few cases.  The FBI conducted their investigation beginning in May of 1979, and carried on until the submission of Agent Kenneth Rommel’s final report, which was heralded as a serious case of lunch bag let down.  While simultaneously offering absolutely no explanation for what was happening, Rommel also claimed that there was no reason for continued law enforcement interest.[4]

Prior to Rommel’s investigation, the ATF conducted an independent look at the phenomenon, coming to much the same conclusions, though they did suggest that further investigation was necessary and with a much larger scope of research.  One does tend to wonder though, how cattle mutilation might fall under the purview of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms administration.

It should be noted that many on-going local and state level investigations by both public and private sector investigators have provided intriguing results, such as the presence of tranquiliser and anti-coagulant compounds in the tissues of some of the animals, as well as describing a trend in pathology, wherein the mutilations seem to be growing more precise and professional as time goes on.  Though, as more media coverage takes place, the opportunities for disinformation and misnomer become much greater.

Canadian rancher and amateur researcher Fern Belzil has done much for the cause of finding a definitive answer to the sceptical cry of hoax, trickery and ignorance.[5]  Belzil has investigated an enormous selection of animal excision cases in and around western Canada and the North-western US, and though he is hesitant to offer any kind of hypothesis for what entity (whether alien or human) is responsible for the destruction of such valuable property, he is adamant that, with few exceptions, these cases are not the work of natural predation or post-mortem pathology.  His website, as with the many TV documentaries and viral videos he’s appeared in, offer an impartial look at only what can be seen and examined.  Belzil has compiled a startlingly gruesome and complete picture slideshow of many of the various cases he has personally investigated, and is adept at illustrating the unnatural similarities between each case, all the while maintaining a well earned air of respectability and credibility.

Conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense of the Jeff Rense Program draws connection between cattle mutilation and the obscure Indestructible Prions that are supposedly to blame for every major illness and disease known to modern man.[6]  He claims that the mutilations are a clandestine governmental conspiracy in the throes of testing and analyzing the effect of prions in the beef we consume; though his theory doesn’t account for the mutilation of horses, goats, sheep and deer.

Possibly the most popular answer to ‘why’ is the alien hypothesis, asserting that an extraterrestrial race is using their superior technology to inspect and analyze these cattle for means of either co-opting bovine DNA and engineering a genetic compatibility between aliens and humans, or as a pragmatic study of our climate and the effects of pollution on various forms of Earth life.  There seems to be an equal amount of supportive, albeit anecdotal, commentary for both cases, though one does wonder if repeated cattle mutilation is really the most efficient means for either scenario.

One other possible answer to ‘why’ is actually rooted in the age old military-industrial complex conspiracy of disinformation and social control through grand and sweeping sleight of hand.  This is the idea that the hidden cartel of super wealthy families and businesses behind the government is engineering these so-called mysterious phenomena in order to maintain a level of social control by way of a universal fear of what might be out there.  Majestic, as this group is typically called, is believed by many to be the controlling force on the planet, in areas such as commerce, manufacturing, fuel production, medicine and certain sectors of scientific research.  Such esteemed people as Dr. Steven Greer of The Disclosure Project fame have suggested that Majestic is responsible for nearly all negatively viewed UFO and alien phenomenon since the early 1950’s, including such peripherally connected ideas as Cattle Mutilation.[7]

Though it might be best to view these types of things with an eye toward more moderate explanations, taking the middle road and assuming without cause that these cases are benign and even natural is definitely not the right course either.  I would suggest we keep our minds open to the possibility that a combination of two or more of the above explanations is the truth.

At some point in our not-so-distant past the faculty of some unknown and mysterious entity or complex took to abducting and mutilating cattle for whatever purpose; whether every report of such activity is a true and accurate measurement of that entity’s scale and capacity is in question, but in-so-far as no plausible explanation has been put forward in the 40 some years since ‘Snippy’s’ unfortunate demise, we can safely say that whatever is going on, it remains organized and holds a consistent but evolving methodology.

Evidence is fairly clear for the argument that Cattle Mutilation is not a natural occurrence, in spite of certain government sources claiming otherwise, but no evidence exists to explain the problem beyond that point, which seems typical of such a conspiratorial subject.  All in all, the informational ammunition being gathered and inspected by people such as Fern Belzil and his colleagues will eventually amount to a smoking gun of evidence to be waved in the face of the so-called conspirators and sceptics alike.

 

---

[1] Source: http://www.ers.usda.gov/news/BSECoverage.htm

[2] These values are obviously skewed, as not all beef product is destined for human consumption; a portion is used in livestock and pet food as well.

[3] For a detailed telling of the Snippy Mutilation see: http://www.snippy.com/

[4] Rommel’s 300 page report is now available through the Freedom of Information Act, though it hasn’t yet been published for review.

[5] See: http://www.ufobc.ca/Fern/index.htm

[6] See: http://www.rense.com/general32/beef.htm (with a grain of salt)

[7] For information about Dr. Greer, see: http://www.disclosureproject.org/

In the history of the world there have been many periods of advanced enlightenment, the most intellectually compelling being the ancient Greek Scientific Awakening and the Renaissance of Italian History, though certainly there have been more periods of social development than most are aware.  Each step of cultural evolution has brought with it an influx of new ideas, altered perceptions and changing social tides.  In recent history, much like our ancient history, our ancestors of the turn of the 20^th Century witnessed such revolution in the form of war, scientific and technological advance, political strife and even mass emigration from areas whose controlling factions resist such change.

Alas, humanity has a selectively narrow focus and relatively short attention span; we see the changing tides of social evolution as a new and frightening phenomenon, though if we, collectively, were able to look past our own selfish perspective, we might notice that violent and tumultuous change is a species characteristic for mankind, one well document through the works of great philosophical, artistic and scientific masters.

Through the many ages of the earth – through the countless environmental, biological and even structural changes witnessed by man and by the innumerable species of life that our planet has therein been endowed – some suggest that our history has been permeated with a presence, a constant element through time, of an other-worldly companion that may be depicted through the most stunningly beautiful artworks of Antiquity.  Those who would make such a suggestion have gone further on occasion, they sometimes go so far as to say that even a cursory study of the art history of our global community exposes the watchful presence of someone not-of-this-world.

That someone being the stereotypical extraterrestrial influence so popularly bandied about in internet forums and on blogs such as this one.

While we use the infantile term, ‘Unidentified Flying Object’, as a label to form the syntax of our limited understanding, I think it hardly does justice to the scope of UFO phenomenon in our history.  This isn’t necessarily to say that every photo, every painting and every out-of-focus video is evidence of a greater conspiracy of aliens among us.  What follows is simply an examination of what many claim is an ever present cultural companion in extraterrestrial intelligence.

Regardless of our ability to understand the relationship between humanity and these so-called visitors, the artefacts of their existence may lay hidden in the fresco that is our colourful prehistoric, ancient religious and Renaissance art history.  The inclusion of UFO imagery in such great and studied pieces as those offered below is obviously not limited to any one race, sect or region of the globe.  For some it may not be necessary to suggest, but for those who would be sceptical of the following views, I ask simply that you try, in earnest, to suspend your disbelief and to consider the far reaching implications of what follows.  It would be easy to dismiss this thread of apparent connection between the ages and between many, many cultures on earth, but I ask only that you Sceptics leave your autodebunking nature by the wayside temporarily.  In any event, regardless of what you may believe is depicted in the following presentations, the artwork is stunning and worthy of awareness.

From early Sumerian depictions (between 4,000 and 5,000 BC) of Gods in strange dress, using what should have been unknown tools and objects, as well as Sumerian figurines of what are, presumably, alien greys and even reptilians; to ancient Nepalese (approximately 7,000 BC) ceremonial plates depicting alien and UFO story lines.

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Reaching even further into the past, we can see what appears to be the influence of technology depicted in cave drawings (Italy – approximately 10,000 BC); the above slide show brings into focus, a plethora of prehistoric evidence for the argument of extraterrestrial influence on early earth cultures.  We can clearly see, as each slide passes before us, that no race of culture on the globe has been spared.  We see examples of alien influenced art from Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Japan, Australia, China, Tanzania, and the Americas; pieces which span a swath of history longer than 11,000 years.

One might, if they had not heeded my earlier request for humility, argue on the infallible scope of the human imagination.  They might cite the vast array of zany, whimsical and often incomprehensibly odd examples of prehistoric and even modern art that are clearly not influenced by UFO’s or extraterrestrials.  While I would not hesitate to agree that in the vast majority of cases, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, especially when it comes to certain periods of artistic development, I find it more difficult to agree with anyone denying a certain consistency depicted in these images.

As will be illustrated in the following slideshow of more modern examples of such art, some of the more masterful works of religious artisans demand a more critical examination.

We know, as history tells us, that religious art holds a duality that can be deceiving.  The masters were keen to mix metaphor with truth, to show the face of one thing while offering a key to another.  Oppression of religious, artistic and personal freedom forced artisans, during enlightenment periods of our history, to conspire against their patrons and to building dual meaning into nearly every piece.  Seldom does a painting or sculpture offer only one perspective.  Yet throughout history, great works of religious significance seem to betray their true meaning to subtle and cryptic messages of what can easily be interpreted as alien influence.

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I invite you to spend some time viewing and reviewing the above images, for they are profound in their content and meaning.  Each image on its own can, for the most part, easily be explained away, though collectively one begins to see an inescapable pattern.  I refrain from a piece-by-piece examination and critique as all who read this are capable of the same on their own, though to offer my perspective on the phenomenon in its entirety seems fitting.

What strikes me immediately is the remarkable consistency, we are viewing a collection of artworks with origins spanning nearly the entire length of human culture – more than 12,000 years – and in that period there seems to have been no drastic change in the portrayal of these alien elements.  Disks, saucers, fireballs and spacesuits (arguably), as well as tools and possibly weapons which seem to be inconsistent with the period from which the images come.  There seems to be a complete inventory of science fiction technology readily available throughout the art-history of humanity.

I believe that there remain a certain number of alternate explanations for this cross-cultural, globally historic phenomenon.  Would persons of prehistoric, Renaissance or even Medieval mindsets view stratospheric events that are completely natural with similar or divergent imagery? I tend to think that depictions of cosmic events (which might explain a portion of the imagery found) would take on drastically different interpretations between the various ages and regions in question, though the above artworks don’t seem to show such divergence.  Some have said that the scientific principal of Occam’s Razor should be applied – the simplest explanation, however fanciful and strange, is the most likely.  However, the reality of such conspiratorial questions is of course, that it is better for one to make up ones own mind, until better evidence is available.

Unfortunately, since the arrow of time points only in one direction, we aren’t likely to be privy to any new evidence in this regard.  As such, I invite you only to consider the various implications presented above, using your own intellect and intuition to determine the answer for yourself.

Are we a culture obsessed with our own mortality? For centuries, and even millennia, man has documented, foretold, chronicled and prophesized over the end.  Our art, our history, and our literature have focused on apocalyptic visions and a future leading only to Armageddon.

Hollywood blockbuster films have offered us a grand selection of doomsday imagery and storyline; as far back as the early 1950’s, screenplay writers have been recording the product of their morbid and disturbed imaginations, all for the entertainment of the masses.

In most cases it’s an easy journey from real life to the apocalyptic vision of Hollywood’s jet set, and back again; but occasionally, there comes a story that is more difficult to reconcile with our fragile sense of reality and which becomes an icon within our culture, serving to shape our own understanding of what it means to be a human in our galaxy.

One such story, which admittedly was not made into movie form until many years after its debut, is said to have sparked the global pandemic of UFOism, Orson Well’s �?War of the Worlds’.  Most everyone is familiar with the basic outline of the story, both the written tale and its original telling, and since that time, the creative minds of storytellers worldwide have capitalised on the base fear that Mr. Wells accidentally preyed upon, to sell theatre tickets and concession stuffs.

Hollywood has pushed forth a plethora of fantastic and brutally grim fiction for our entertainment, all of it backed by big money and even bigger business.  No one would argue that the business of making scary movies is anything but a success, but the slight of hand magic of big budget movie houses may have pulled more wool over our eyes than you think.

In recent years there seems to have been an influx of movie scripts mixing Armageddon, or near apocalyptic threat with an alien presence.  Often the story line warns of an inability to control our own technology and/or progress and, whether by proxy or direct influence, we suffer confusion, attack or simple domination at the hands of an outside intelligence.

Zombie hordes brought on by genetic and chemical manipulation, alien invasion by malevolent DNA farming ET’s, and even heavy handed judgement of our ecological impact on the planet by an all powerful entity and its robotic bodyguard.  From the satirical to the horrific, we’ve been inundated by every vision of doom and gloom imaginable, and yet, in this process we happily integrate these new perceptions, new ideas and new horrors into our psyche, all the while maintaining our sense of self and carrying on with our lives as if nothing could sway us from the inevitable conclusion of our existence.

Art, imitating life, imitating art; this profound statement is used in various contexts, in various collegiate settings and with varying levels of understanding, but seldom is it used to describe the potential for Hollywood to pull the wool over our eyes, while feeding us little tidbits of truth and slowly desensitising the global masses to the real inevitability.

What better machine of dissemination is there, what group of companies, financiers, unions and regulatory commissions are in a better position to influence the mindset of the population at large than the big budget apparatus of Hollywood?

If, as conspiracy theorists the world over have suggested, the governments of the worlds major powers are capable of large scale cover-up and secret endeavours of an extraterrestrial nature, all without anything more than a whisper of a conspiracy, what would stop those same controlling regimes from manipulating the content of our beliefs through the ever popular Hollywood machine?

In a matter of two generations, the horror movie genre has gone from black and white depictions of vampires and werewolves, and strange spaceships made of cardboard and bottle caps, to multi-million dollar computer generated worlds and entirely believable monsters.  Generations following the X’ers and Y’ers may find themselves at the mercy of cultural manipulation, the likes of which have never been seen before.

But to what end you might ask, to which I must answer that we may never know, at least until it’s too late.  Though for our part we can hypothesise, and we may actually come up with a reasonable piece of conjecture, though we must be careful to always mind that the foundations for our conclusion remain without support.

Since the days of Orson Wells, the most popular and possibly the longest lived conspiracy theory in our history, has been one of government collusion with alien technologies and even extraterrestrial beings.  That old chestnut about area 51 and an alien effort to infiltrate the hierarchy of our leadership has become the foundation of nearly every paranoid and irrational fear of government control over the individual since the end of the cold war.  But if we concede the possibility that the above couldbe true, then we’re faced with the idea that such a government would be obliged to desensitise its population through whatever means are possible, effective and efficient enough to succeed.

Having gotten to this point, and either jumping into this pool of wild accusation head first, or toeing the water at the shore, we all must admit that there is both a ring of familiarity to this proposal, as well as a small bit of credibility.

With a list of movie titles ranging from; Fire in the Sky, Independence Day, Men in Black (I & II), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, War of the Worlds (remake), Battlefield Earth, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Knowing; one might be drawn to ask the question…are these works of pure fiction, or are we being led down the garden path?

Some might see this as entirely implausible and even a bit delusional, while others may be lining up behind me for their Government Issue foil hat.  Somewhere in between likely lies the truth, for what other global industry has the power to influence our beliefs, our ideas and our acceptance of new and even frightening circumstances, than the one we rely on for entertainment and even identity?

The 8-track is dead, but the ancient alien record-disc is very much alive

An amazing discovery, a Chinese conspiracy, Russian collaboration and a world class UFO mystery.  The year was 1938 and the place was the foreboding and remote mountains of BayanKara-Ula, on the borders of China and Tibet.

Chinese archaeologist, Professor Chu Pu Tei lead a team of intrepid explorers on an adventure to survey the many known interlinked caves of the area; little did he know, the caves are the least interesting part of BayanKara-Ula.

The good professor, while exploring the caves, found himself in the company of some of the strangest ancient graves, possibly ever found.  He and his team found a series of neatly arranged burial sites containing the skeletons of creatures with spindly bodies and enormous skulls.  Originally thought to have been some heretofore unknown species of Tibetan Ape, though as pointed out by Chu Pu Tei, ‘since when do apes bury each other?’; more modern examinations of the burial site have led experts to agree that the skeletons are those of some unknown race of humanoid, though the samples are far too degraded for DNA or other biological testing to take place.

Opinions vary slightly, but the general consensus is that these beings, whoever or whatever they are, existed approximately 12,000 years ago, and that their enormous cranial capacity indicates that they possessed a heightened intelligence.

But the discovery of the skeletons isn’t exactly the interesting part of this story.

While examining the site and the surrounding caves, Chu Pu Tei and his team also discovered what may be the most significant and tangible artefact in recent human history.  I’m speaking of course, about the Dropa Stones.

A collection of large, approximately 2-3 foot in diameter and 2-3 inches thick, stone discs with a hole in the center, which on initial inspection could be mistaken for an early model of wheel, but on closer examination are an unmistakable analog to the phonophile’s coveted vinyl record.  Even back in 1938, these Chinese Archaeologists knew they had stumbled onto something unique.

The stones, 716 of which were reportedly found, are rumoured to have tiny spiralling lines of unknown and seemingly undecipherable hieroglyphs, emanating from the center hole and terminating on the outer edge of the disc.  The original telling of this story references testing that was done to confirm the discs age as exceeding 10,000BC, which would make this the most significant archaeological find in history.  A finely tooled artefact, containing evidence of a written language and culture, in such a remote region of the BayanKara mountains…that kind of find would change everything we think we know about the evolution of mankind.

Unless…

In 1963, another Chinese professor, Tsum Um Nui declared that he had broken the Dropa Stone code, though as wouldn’t be surprising within the Chinese empire, was forbidden from releasing his findings by the Pei King Academy of Prehistory.  Two years later, Um Nui and four of his colleagues were given permission to publish their findings, which came in the form of the aptly titled “The Grooved Script concerning Space-ships which, as recorded on the Discs, landed on Earth 12,000 years ago”

“The ‘records’ told an astonishing story of a ‘space probe’ by the inhabitants of another planet which came to grief in the Bayan-Kara-Ula Mountain range. The strange, spiral script told how the peaceful intentions of the ‘aliens’ had been misunderstood and how many of them were hunted down and killed by members of the Ham tribe, who lived in the neighboring caves.

According to Tsum Um Nui, one of the lines of the hieroglyphs read, “The Dropas came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropas, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions… Another section expressed ‘regret’ by the Ham tribe that the aliens’ spaceship had crash-landed in such a remote and inaccessible mountains and that there had been no way to building a new one to enable Dropas to return to their own planet.”[1]

It seems, from further research, that the Dropas were not well received by the indigenous people of the BayaKara area, and may ultimately have been hunted and slaughtered to near extinction; but the story doesn’t end there.

In years since the discovery and subsequent translation of the discs, each of which is purported to offer it’s own story, history, technical information and astronomical driving directions, other archaeologists have explored and studied the area of the Dropa caves, and in a bizarre but predictable twist, there happens be both a Ham tribe and a Dropa tribe in the BayaKara-Ula Mountain range, and strangely enough, both tribes have uncharacteristically thin stature and larger skulls.

After Tsum Um Nui released his findings, Russian scientists became interested in the Dropa Stones and requested access, so that they might perform their own testing and research.  In what may be the only example of Chinese collaboration, the Pei King Academy of Prehistory agreed and released an undisclosed number of the discs to Russian custody.

To the surprise of many, the Russian Scientists found that the discs were comprised mainly of cobalt, an ore not found local to BayaKara; and as though they were acting with the thought of turning their tests into a feature movie, they somehow constructed a device for “playing” the disc like a record.  According to Dr. Vyatcheslav Saizev, who described the experiments in the Soviet magazine Sputnik – they vibrated or ‘hummed’ in an unusual rhythm as though an electric charge was passing through them.

So, what does all this mean?  Are we to believe the anecdotal evidence of long gone so-called scientists of an era where scientific advancement was in its infancy?  Why hasn’t this discovery been the flagship for academic investigation into UFO’s, aliens or extraterrestrial influence on early humans?

There may be many answers to those questions.

There is cause to be suspicious of the story on the whole; 716 artefacts recovered and not one available for public examination?  Previously published research papers suppressed and edited, and in certain cases, completely lost.

To many people this kind of discovery would be the most profound human development since the written word, so what gives?

As though any of us has forgotten, we are talking about the two most secretive and oppressive nations and cultures on the planet here.  China and Russia aren’t exactly the picture of free flowing information, especially where it concerns matters of potentially transformational findings.  Both countries have cause to suppress and exploit this discovery for their own purposes; and the both may have done just that.

Now, what I’m about to lay out for you, is pure and unadulterated conjecture, there is no factual basis for this theorising, nor is there any reference for the ideas behind it, beyond what is commonly known of the issues at hand.

The Real Conspiracy?

Let’s consider the so-called facts of this “case”…

Evidence of an alien craft crashing in the Chinese/Tibetan BayaKaran-Ula Mountain Range, evidence which provides a written record of the events leading up to and following said crash is found by Chinese archaeologists. That evidence is then suppressed, and later partially released, and then seemingly suppressed again.

In years following, certain details of the original evidence are confirmed through developed scientific processes, such as the dating and analysis of the discs and the discovery of tribes known by the same names as indicated in the translation of the hieroglyphs on the discs.

Is it pure coincidence that China is in dispute over the right to control Tibet?  Is it coincidence that Tibetan elders are revered world-wide as some of the most enlightened and learned scholars ever to have graced this planet?  Is it coincidence that the evolution of the Tibetan mountain people is reminiscent of the apparently alien skeletons found in the 12,000 year old burial site?

Recent news coverage has indicated that the Chinese Empiric hierarchy is of the belief that extraterrestrial life is not only possible, but that a great many of the UFO stories of the paranormal subculture are completely accurate and true.

Are we looking at Chinese hoarding of tangible scientific evidence of an alien presence and/or contact, do they believe that they have the one and only fast-track pipeline to alien assistance and protection?

Whatever the case may be, the truth of the Dropa Stones is out there.  The stones do exist, they do have some connection to a strange occurrence from 10,000BC, and they were found suspiciously close to the graves of some very strange looking skeletons.

 

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[1] Source: http://www.burlingtonnews.net/dropas.html Posted by John Winston johnfwin@mlode.com

Little green men, flying saucers and ricocheting laser beams fill your field of vision; explosions, screaming and the distinct odour of burnt dog fill the air. Your mind races, your heart nearly beats its way right out of your chest and you can’t get your feet to move even an inch.

A bad dream? Maybe. Or maybe it’s your worst dream come true. Aliens are attacking, and they’re winning! Think genius, what do you do?!?

Well, short of risking my own life to hold your hand and lead you to safety, here’s a quick field guide for saving your neck, getting the girl and just maybe kicking a little alien ass while you’re at it.

There are three rules to surviving a global attack by interstellar beings, and none involve making tin foil hats.

Rule #1 – Trust No One

These alien bastards are ruthless, highly advanced and decidedly non-communicative. So how did they know just where to strike and how hard. They might have disguised operatives on the ground, or they might be in cahoots with government officials; either way, you’re safer on your own.

Actually, being on your own is probably going to be your best bet anyway. An alien attack would most likely resemble a mass extermination, and like any good exterminator knows, you gotta hit the big ant hills first.

So get yourself out of town, as fast as possible. If you have to travel with others (friends, family or your parole officer), keep your groups to a minimum and travel by the road least taken. Main roads will become jammed with panicked Suits and Soccer Moms in no time, so use that keen sense of direction and uncannily male ability to get lost…and get lost!

Wherever you go, it better be deserted. Congregating in large groups may seem prudent for long term survival, but you’ve got a more immediate problem on your hands; avoiding the alien death ray to be precise. Large groups have different problems than small groups. Staying organised, finding shelter and food, caring for fallen members, all of these things are going to slow you down, and slowing down is going to get you killed.

Rule #2 – Know Your Enemy

Watching all those episodes of the X-files and Unsolved Mysteries is finally going to pay off, unfortunately, Skully and Mulder aren’t around to help you now. You need intel and you need it fast. This is no time to duck and run, well ok, maybe it is a good time for both those things, but while you’re high-tailing it for the nearest exit, look back over your shoulder and try to get a look at the big Meany you’re running away from.

A few of things you need to know are:

How are they surviving in our atmosphere? Exo-technology, bioadaption, or are they simply compatible with us, biologically?

Are they using their impressive technology to overtake the planet, or are they bringing the fight to the streets, so-to-speak?

By what means are they sorting the masses for slaughter? Are they targeting groups? Focusing in on movement? Or just laying waste to everything?

This may seem like a strange time to be making pointed observation, as though you’re about to ask for an autograph, but the more you know about these issues, the better chances you have for survival. Each of the above three items will give you very specific and possibly diametric information with which to make split second decisions.

Assuming you make it out the door, your continued survival will depend on your ability to assimilate and process tactical information about your enemy.

Possibly the worst mistake you could make at this point is running wildly into the madness without a plan, and coming up with a plan requires information, about the situation and about your enemy.It may have worked out well for Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Rule #3 Never Assume It’s Dead…Ever!

So you managed to get away, you fought your way, tooth and nail, through crowds of hysterical men and women, unruly mobs of soon-to-be-dead vigilantes, and of course, hoards of opportunistic looters. You survived frontal attacks, running escapes, close calls and near misses.You hid in dark corners, holding your breath and willing the creatures away.

And now you’ve come to it, a face-to-face encounter; hand-to-hand combat with a rogue alien assassin, and despite his technological advantage, you exerted your physical will on him and by the looks of it, you’ve won.

Or have you?

I’m telling you right now, if you fall for that old movie bit where the bad guy plays dead and then shoots the good guy in the back…I’m gonna come down there and gut you myself.

Forward momentum is your only advantage now, use it. This is one time when kicking a man when he’s down is called for. You keep firing that stolen ray gun until it runs out of batteries. Drop an anvil on his head, and then follow it up with a building. My point is…you make damn sure that thing isn’t going to get back up! I dare say, you should keep hitting him till he’s a steaming pile of green goo (unless of course, if that’s how he was to begin with).

Unfortunately for you, an alien attack pretty much means you’re on your own. Don’t expect to be rescued by your local fire department or National Guard. Don’t expect your knight in shining armour to show up and carry you off into the sunset. Your wits are the only help you’ll be getting from here on in, just remember, if a broomstick and a Twinkie can be a weapon in Jackie Chan’s hands, just imagine what you can do with a 2×4 and a tire iron.

So, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) wowed us with their highly anticipated press conference labelled as an explanation of an Astrobiology Discovery.  This, supported by what we’re supposed to believe was an unintentional leak of the information to a few strategic sources, was actually much less about astrobiology than it was about biology in general.

The NASA press conference, which was scheduled for 2pm (EST) today (December 2, 2010), was little more than a panelled monologue by a few desperate public scientists, standing before the world saying: “Hey, look at us, we’re still scientifically relevant.  We’re still productive and valuable to the international scientific discourse…please, please don’t cut off our funding and put an end to our potential!”

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression though; their discovery is profound, and poignant. In lay-terms, they found (or rather, created) a microbial organism, specifically a bacterium that is capable, it seems, of substituting arsenic for phosphorus in it’s genetic structure.

If you’re not well versed in bio-chemistry and molecular biology, this will hold little meaning for you.  Even if you are conversant in these fields, this discovery, while interesting, seems almost inevitable.  There is a bit of PR sleight of hand going on here though, and I’ll do my best to illustrate the trick.

This discovery is credited to Arizona State University Researcher Ariel Anbar and her team, who recently studied bacterial microbes harvested from Mono Lake in northern California, an area environmentally rich in arsenic.[1] Anbar and her team then grew these bacteria in laboratory settings, manipulating the levels of biological building blocks (specifically limiting the amount of phosphorus available to the culture, while adding what should have been a fatal dose of arsenic).  They ultimately found that the bacteria not only thrived in this environment, but that it had actually replaced the phosphorus in its DNA and RNA material with that of arsenic (a molecularly similar element to phosphorus).

You might be thinking…”Yeah?  So what?”  And you’d be more on the ball than you think.  What this discovery means is that Anbar and her team succeeded in confirming a hypothesis that, contrary to NASA’s PR machine, was actually fairly widely held throughout the biological sciences community, not to mention a notion that has been the foundation of the astrobiology “sciences” for decades.  That notion being, that life elsewhere, life on planets other than Earth, need not conform to the biological requirements of life on Earth.  Though personally, I fail to see how this discovery is any more relevant than the discovery of water on both the Moon and Mars.

I suspect that many lay-people will be somewhat disappointed with the results of all this fan fare, and I can’t say I’d blame them.  I had the misfortune of watching the press conference on CNN, wherein the host-of-the-hour, who seems to lack a basic understanding of science in any venue, was far less than charitable with the presentation than I would have expected, openly mocking Andar following the initial release, then handing over commentary to Bill Nye (The Science Guy) and a SETI Researcher, whom the CNN host claims (erroneously) was Carl Sagan’s inspiration for the screenplay for the movie Contact, staring Jodie Foster.

All-in-all, as I said earlier, this is a profound discovery, though twitter, facebook and many, many internet message boards will certainly now be a-buzz with chatter on the deeper, hidden meaning of this discovery.  Those meanings however, are bound to be fewer and far subtler than these conspiracy theorists will be willing to admit.  I reported mid last year on the discovery of water on the Moon by the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandraayan 1 probe, and then by subsequent NASA missions.  I exclaimed, without answer, about the media’s apparent lack of interest in such a profound discovery…apparently this press conference is an answer to that claim.  (As though NASA gives a damn what some obscure blogger says)

Either way, stay tuned for commentary and analysis by every Tom, Dick and Harry on the significance of this discovery, whether they actually understand it or not.

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[1] NASA Funded Research Discovers Life Built with Toxic Chemical, NASA.gov, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html