You can also phone in your credit card orders to Global Communications
24-hour hotline: 732-602-3407

And as always you can send a check or money order to:

In This Fantastic Issue:
Mental Armageddon: The Quest for Mind Control
Radionics: Mind Machines for Better Health
Mark David Chapman: Lone Nut or CIA Assassin?
America and Bio-Weapons: A Troubling Ethos
The Healing Sounds of Jonathan Goldman
And so much more, including book, music, and movie reviews, exhibit  listings, your fall horoscope, and conference listings!

Controversial celebrity U.S. scientist Craig Venter has announced he is on the verge of creating the first ever artificial life form which he hails as a potential remedy to illness and global warming.

Venter told Britain's The Guardian newspaper that he has built a synthetic chromosome using chemicals made in a laboratory, and is set to announce the discovery within weeks, possibly as early as Monday.

The breakthrough, which Venter hopes could help develop new energy sources to combat the negative effects of climate change, would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species," he told the newspaper.

However the prospect of engineering artificial life forms is highly controversial and likely to arouse heated debate over the ethics and potential ramifications of such an advance.

Pat Mooney, director of the Canadian bioethics organization ETC Group, told the paper that Venter was creating "a chassis on which you could build almost anything.

"It could be a contribution to humanity such as new drugs or a huge threat to humanity such as bio-weapons."

The chromosome which Venter and his team has created is known as Mycoplasma laboratorium and, in the final step of the process, will be transplanted into a living cell where it should "take control," effectively becoming a new life form.

The single cell organism, which ETC has coined "Synthia," is piloted by a chromosome with just 381 genes, the limit necessary to sustain the life of the bacteria so it can feed and reproduce.

The new bacteria will therefore be largely artificial, though not entirely, because it is composed of building blocks from already existing organisms. The idea is to make it into a universal tool for biologists by according it the genes necessary to accomplish certain tasks.

The project, which Venter has been working on for five years along with a team of researchers, has been partially financed by the US Department of Energy in the hopes that it could lead to the creation of a new environmentally friendly fuel.

"We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before," Venter said.

A Venter spokeswoman however declined to confirm any breakthrough.

"The Guardian is ahead of themselves on this," Venter spokeswoman Heather Kowalski told AFP.

"We have not achieved what some have speculated we have in synthetic life," Kowalski said. "When we do so there will be a scientific publication and we are likely months away from that."

Venter's laboratory, the J. Craig Venter Institute, filed in 2006 for a US patent on the organism, claiming exclusive ownership of a set of essential genes and a synthetic "free-living organism that can grow and replicate."

The ETC group publicized the patent application, which would apply in the United states and 100 or so other countries, in June.

"Venter and his colleagues have breached a societal boundary, and the public hasn't even had a chance to debate the far-reaching social, ethical and environmental implications of synthetic life," Mooney said in a statement at the time.

The group also added that "patent experts consulted by the ETC Group indicate that, based on the language used in the application, the Venter Institute researchers had probably not achieved a fully-functioning organism at the time of the filing."

Nevertheless, "many people think that Venter's company has the scientific expertise to do the job," Mooney added.

Source: Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071006/ts_alt_afp/ussciencebiotech_071006195751;
_ylt=AlOBtwi_oCh8UCMgXOJBbnVrAlMA

They may not look like much to us, but these very dark, nearly circular features found in images taken by NASA’s Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) orbiters are special. They are so special, in fact, that the scientists who discovered them have named the “Seven Sisters” after loved ones: Dena, Chloe, Wendy, Annie, Abbey, Nikki and Jeanne.

What makes these “ladies” so intriguing? “If there is life on Mars, there is a good chance you’d find it in caves,” Jut Wynne, an NAU graduate student in biological sciences and project leader for the USGS Earth-Mars Cave Detection Program, explained in an April Science Daily report.

More recently the Sisters have revealed hidden depths. Last week researchers hypothesized that they may be “windows into underground spaces.”

“Whether these are just deep vertical shafts or openings into spacious caverns, they are entries to the subsurface of Mars,” said co-author Tim Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff. “Somewhere on Mars, caves might provide a protected niche for past or current life, or shelter for humans in the future.”

Past or current life on Mars? Now that is intriguing. It wasn’t so long ago that no “serious” scientist would have risked making such a claim.

In 1998, when the orbiter first sent back pictures that appeared to depict a structure bearing a human-looking face, the scientific community met speculation of life –ancient or otherwise–on the Red Planet with ridicule. Mac Tonnies, Posthuman Blues blogger, esoteric researcher, and author of the 2004 book After the Martian Apocalypse, was one of the first to enter the “face” fray in his journal Cydonia Imperative.

In 2000, he speculated that the large pyramid-type structures near the face might have the same protective use as scientists are now suggesting for the Seven Sisters caves.

“Assuming that the “Martians” were biological creatures with needs not unlike our own, what would we expect them to build in order to maintain their presence on an inhospitable world? This is a question of increasing relevance as plans to send our own crewed mission to Mars become more mature and practical,” Tonnies wrote in Thoughts on Extraterrestrial Archeology.

So, what does Tonnies think of the new cave “skylight” images, and the scientific community’s altered pro-life attitude? MU asked him in an email interview:

MU: Are these skylights and/or cave openings something that you’ve seen before?

Mac Tonnies: They’re new to me, but that’s not to say they haven’t been making the rounds among anomalists for years. That was certainly the case in the case of the “seeps,” which are apparently new to NASA but old news to anyone who’s been actively seeking out Mars findings since 2000 or so.

MU: The Science Daily story makes it sound as though these skylights could indicate some kind of underground habitat that has either been in use or perhaps could be used to protect life. Has your research turned up anything relating to or speculating upon an underground domain for Martian life?

Mac Tonnies: Given the vast amount of subsurface ice on Mars, I’d be willing to bet we could find extremophiles in the caves. If there was ever an intelligent civilization on Mars, it’s tempting to wonder if it migrated underground, perhaps using ready-made features like the skylights as entry-points. You could argue that the skylights themselves are artificial, but I think it’s more likely they’re geological.

MU: What’s your reaction to a story like this that suggests the scientific community has changed its mind about the possibility of life on Mars?

Mac Tonnies: I’m hardly surprised. I suspect NASA/JPL has been forced to entertain the possibility by the sheer number of discoveries made in the last several years. We know there’s liquid water on Mars and possible biomarkers in the atmosphere, so it’s politically sensible to at least pretend to be agreeable to the presence of life.

MU: Do you think they know more about this than they are telling us?

Mac Tonnies: Probably. They seem to deliberately release “discoveries” in piecemeal fashion. To me, this suggests an overarching agenda, even if they don’t know for a fact that there’s life on Mars.

We could be ancients ourselves before we are able to do first-hand Martian archeology, but thanks to a new project underway at the European Space Agency, we may learn within the next 10 years if the Seven Sisters have any further secrets to share.

Based on technology similar to that used in pregnancy test kits, the Mars “life chip” is designed to detect trace levels of biomarkers, which should be able to reveal if life currently is, or ever was, present on Mars. The ESA hopes to launch the kit with its Exo-Mars robotic mission in 2013.

Source: Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/?p=1614%20

Whether they are the Isles of the Blest, Elysium, the Fortunate Isles or the surviving mountaintops of fabled Atlantis, the Canary Islands--an archipelago off the coast of northern Africa--remain enshrouded in mystery, a fact overlooked by its burgeoning tourist trade, more interested in the cloudless skies and fine beaches. The islands of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Palma, Gomera and Hierro, which have belonged to Spain since the archipelago's conquest by Norman mercenaries in the 14th century, were a point of interest to all the chroniclers of antiquity and medieval Christianity. The religious and occult significance of the seven volcanic isles has been handed down from the earliest dynasties of Ancient Egypt to our own UFO-minded times.

The association with an earthly paradise is not difficult to understand. A spectacular landscape awaited the mariners of yore: the twelve-thousand-foot peak of Mount Teide presiding over a cobalt-blue ocean festooned with flying fish. Flowers, chestnut trees and rich green valleys covered the seaward landscape, while the landward side (facing Africa) revealed nightmarish vistas of lava flows and beaches of black volcanic sand. The Canaries offer surprises galore, with trees unique to the islands; giant lizards--now nearly extinct--that gave the Spanish conquistadores quite a surprise; enormous ravines and canyons that become raging rivers during the wet season, and arid plains where camels are used to pull the plough. Contrary to popular belief, the islands were not christened after the bird of that name, but due to the abundance of local dogs (canes) encountered by the Conquistadores.

Who were the Guanches?

The Guanches, the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands, were a warlike race, according to chroniclers. Tradition claims that Saint Avitus, an early Christian martyr, met death at the hands of the Guanches during his attempt to evangelize the islands.[i] The Guanches possessed no weapons or boats--the latter being a very unusual feature for island dwellers--wore goatskins, and were subdued by the European invaders' use of the horse, which was unknown to them. Ignatius Donnelly pointed out in his groundbreaking book on Atlantis that stones had been uncovered in the isles of Hierro and Palma that bore sculptured symbols closely resembling those found in archaeological digs near Lake Superior, prompting an association between the enigmatic Guanches and the cultures of North America.[ii]

The tall, fair-skinned Guanches, believed by many to be the last surviving specimens of the Cro-Magnon Man, employed a curious language consisting of whistles when communicating with one another across gorges or hilltops. They also practiced the art of mummification to an extent known only to the Incas and the Egyptians, believing in the immortality of the dead, and going as far as leaving dead rulers mummified and unburied to provide "assistance" to the living monarch. They lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world, and indeed, from one island to the other.[iii] Spanish chroniclers state that the Guanches presumed that the rest of humankind had been lost in the Flood, and that they were its only survivors.

Certain cultural aspects found in the modern Canaries are believed to be part of the Guanche legacy: cockfights, the agricultural methods which were later imported to the Spanish Caribbean and even a culinary contribution, gofio, a form of cereal that is still consumed today.[iv]

Ancient Seafarers

The Canary Islands were known to the Carthaginians and to other sea-faring peoples of the Mediterranean. The Roman chronicler Marcellus, describing the "land of the Aethiopians" mentions a cluster of seven islands in the Atlantic Ocean, whose inhabitants preserve memories of a much greater island which held sway over them for ages; They are the seven Hesperides made famous in mythology by the labors of Hercules, and described in the Book of Ezekiel as the isles of Elysium (Ezek. 27,7). In the 1st century B.C., an unsuccessful bid to conquer the island was made by King Juba II of Mauretania.[v]

But all evidence points to signs of an earlier occupation by unknown quantities. On the isle of Hierro, there exists a wall of basalt facing the ocean, far above sea level which is carved with a number of undeciphered glyphs, among which are prominently displayed discs, labyrinth-symbols and sunbursts. The gorges of Tejeleite and Candia also contain rock shelters with petroglyphs presumably etched into the rough basalt by the aboriginal occupants of the archipelago. Elaborate cave systems--like that of Belmaco, on Palma--are filled with the same insistent petroglyphs and images of discs and sunbursts. The Zonzama Stone, unearthed on Lanzarote, provides more intricately carved symbols: messages from a past we unable reconstruct.[vi] Who were the original carvers of these symbols, and what was their purpose? It is true that the oceans were being navigated by Neolithic mariners whose voyages may have well inspired those of the Phoenicians or the Cretans. They left no traces of their existence aside from the "cyclopean" stone walls, tumuli, fortresses and memorials can be found on the coasts of the continents bordering the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast of Europe as well as on the Canary Islands and Malta, and perhaps even as far south and inland as Zimbabwe. Two German scholars,

Hermann and Georg Schreiber, have pointed to the existence of a "heliolithic" cultural sphere (borrowing a term coined by H.G. Wells), owing to the fact that solar worship, personified by the disk symbols, is common to all these sites).  The Canaries were important to them, following this line of thought, as an important center of solar worship. Or perhaps for other reasons...

A Wealth of UFO Sightings

Unexplained lights have soared above the volcanic peaks of the Canary Islands throughout history. Commercial airliners have been repeatedly intercepted over Lanzarote as they prepare to land on Gran Canary or Tenerife. Could these brilliant lights be the discs represented on the ancient Guanche stellae, and the reasons for the islands prominence not only in recorded history, but also in the days of lost Neolithic realms?

In 1975, coinciding with a global increase of UFO sightings, a group of contactees from Santa Cruz de Tenerife allegedly established contact (by means of an improvised Ouija board) with the occupants of the enormous flying craft which had hovered every night over their skies at La Tejita, a beach not far from the slopes of Mt. Teide. On one of these instances, the Canarian investigators were able to witness an enormous light some 1200 feet away from the beach. Double rows of windows emitting a purplish light could be made out through the use of binoculars. The spectators experienced a "missing time" interval during their sighting, and were assured later on by the light's "crew" that they had been brought aboard for an hour and a half.[vii]

A year later, a driver on a lonely stretch of road saw a perfectly round orb, silhouetted in a bluish light, which flew over his car at low altitude, causing the engine to stall. The witness was able to see two tall humanoids in attired in red garments through an aperture in the noiseless sphere, which landed on the roof of a nearby farmhouse before taking off again in the general direction of Tenerife. Shepherds had encounters of a grislier nature with a "robotic entity" that sliced a mountain lion to pieces and walked in a stilted, crab-like manner.

By 1979, UFOs had started to interfere with the regular operations of commercial airliners flying in Canarian airspace. A DC-9 flying between Lanzarote and Grand Canary was intercepted by an oval-shaped craft as it took off, flying over the airliner and "escorting" it for 20 minutes until it became lost in the clouds. A smaller commuter plane was equally intercepted and escorted for ten seconds at an altitude of 9000 feet by another object, which bathed the plane in a bluish-green light.[viii]

In a world where it is increasingly harder to keep a secret, particularly in the post Cold War era, surprisingly little coverage has been given to a recent "crash/retrieval" scenario which took place in 1992. Two Canarian youths and their friends claim that the Spanish military, in conjunction with unnamed foreign powers, retrieved a mysterious artifact that fell from the skies on the evening of October 12, 1992.

Sergio and Mario, whose surnames remain undisclosed, were on their way to Las Cañadas del Teide Park, an expanse of wilderness on the island of Tenerife, with another acquaintance and his girlfriend, when they found the narrow road leading to the natural landmark barricaded by armed personnel in yellow Jeeps with "ET" license plates (Ejército de Tierra, the infantry). The would-be tourists were told in no uncertain terms to turn around and not to attempt re-entering through the park's southern entrance, either. The officer in charge of the barricade told them that landslides had wiped out the roads ahead.

Their curiosity piqued by the suspicious roadblock, the foursome decided to park their vehicle and try to enter Las Cañadas on foot, finally managing to reach a hillside from which they were able to see another detachment of military vehicles. A powerful beam of light swept the sides of Mt. Teide, as if searching for a particular object. But what was it?

According to investigators, the Canaries Astrophysical Institute had placed a call earlier that evening to the Spanish Army, claiming that "an artifact" had crashed in the Ucanca Valley, at the feet of Mt. Teide. Whatever "it" was, it possessed a tremendous mass, having apparently snapped off a 450-ton lava projection jutting from an outcrop close to the summit of Mt. Teide itself, which can be reached by cable car from the ground.

Rescue helicopters from the Spanish Air Force base at Gando were dispatched to the area in question the following morning, unable to find anything at all after five separate sorties. The airbase's radar claimed not to have picked up anything unusual on the night of October 12 or the early hours of the 13th.

On the island of Grand Canaria, across the water from Tenerife, a couple in the village of Almatriche had witnessed the descent of strange lights, which they were unable to identify, and which appeared to be heading straight toward them. The lights changed course in mid-air and headed toward Tenerife. The time of the sighting was 10 p.m.--just prior to the Canarian youths' arrival at Las Cañadas.

The evening's excitement wasn't over for Sergio and Mario. Once back in their car and returning home, they were surprised to encounter a convoy of ten large military container trucks with balloon tires, darkened but for their intermittent hazard lights. The convoy moved slowly, and the onlookers were given the impression that materials of great weight were being carried aboard the sealed vehicles.

The allegations of the four witnesses aside, the fact remains that all approaches to Las Cañadas park were blockaded for two weeks until authorities announced that the "landslides" had been cleared. A hunter who had been spending the night of October 12 at El Refugio, a natural shelter on the slopes of Mt. Teide, claimed having seen "a brilliant cloud" come within six meters of the peak's summit and spin around it at tremendous speed, giving off bursts of energy before flying away. Local UFO researchers Asunción Sarais and Francisco Padrón initiated what promises to be months of research into this possible "crash/retrieval" incident, which is merely the most recent episode in a long history of sightings. In spite of official silence on the incident, it has since become known that employees from the Canaries Astrophysical Institute were threatened with the possible loss of their jobs if they discussed the incident.

In the U.S., increasingly greater attention has been paid to the folklore and traditions of our native peoples with regard to manifestations of the UFO phenomenon. The same is beginning to happen in Spain, where anthropologists have experienced a renewed interest in searching for Guanche artifacts and possibly even locating surviving Guanches in isolated communities on the smaller islands.

[i]. Atienza, Juan G. En busca de la historia perdida. Barcelona: Ediciones Martínez Roca, p. 207.

[ii]. Donnelly, Ignatius. Atlantis: Myths of the Antediluvian World,Chicago, 1882.

[iii]. Berlitz, Charles. Atlantis: The Eight Continent. New York: Fawcett, 1984.

[iv]. Llorens, W. El Habla Popular en Puerto Rico. Rio Piedras: Editorial Edil, 1981.

[v]. Bailey, James. The God Kings and the Titans. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.

[vi]. Atienza, Juan G. En busca de la historia perdida.

[vii]. Benítez, J.J. 100,000 kilómetros tras los ovnis. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1978.

[viii]. Benítez, J.J. Encuentro en Montaña Roja. Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1981.

Source: Inexplicata