11/11/11  #645
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The darkness, like living flesh corrupted, envelops us with its icy embrace. Thoughts that once burned fire-like in their complexities, now smoulders in the stygian emptiness. Invisible terrors, once consigned to the back roads of consciousness, now eagerly seek prey to feed an eternal hunger.  Horrors of the night now reach out across the threshold into the once safe light.

But there is one light that pierces the darkness, one shining example of freedom of information. One weekly, e-mail newsletter that is not afraid to publish that which everyone else fears to even think. That's right! Conspiracy Journal is here once again to split the darkness of ignorance and fill your world with the pure, white light of truth.

This week, Conspiracy Journal takes a look at such eye-popping stories as:

- White House Says: "No UFO Cover-Up" -
-
Crews Rush to save Russian Mars Probe -
- 'Zombies, Werewolves, Vampires, Aliens Oh My...' -
A New Theory Of The Aliens' Point Of Origin -
AND: Hidden Face of the Devil Discovered in Giotto Fresco

All these exciting stories and MORE in this week's issue of
CONSPIRACY JOURNAL!

~ And Now, On With The Show! ~


NEW FROM CONSPIRACY JOURNAL

Alien Space Gods Of Ancient Greece And Rome - Revelations Of The Oracle Of Delphi


WAS THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION OF OUR PLANET VISITED BY A RACE OF "SUPER BEINGS" IN ANCIENT TIMES?

WAS THE ORACLE OF DELPHI A CONDUIT FOR PROPHETIC MESSAGES FROM OUTER SPACE -- PERHAPS THE FIRST TELEPATHIC CHANNELER?

British historian W. Raymond Drake is one of the most careful researchers of the "Ancient Astronaut" theory which maintains aliens arrived on earth and interacted with the human race throughout antiquity and in all parts of the globe. Author of a dozen works on the Space Gods phenomenon, Drake's work complements that of Chariots of the Gods? by Erich Von Daniken, his first book appearing in print prior to Von Daniken's international bestseller.

In this work about the ancient Mediterranean's strange relationship with the Sky Gods, Drake utilized over fifty writers of antiquity and scrutinized their main works through a UFO "lens." His astute contributions regarding the Land of the Gods have been expanded upon and updated by contemporary researchers Timothy Beckley and Sean Casteel.

Questions That You Will Find Answered. . .

Did giants from space establish a UFO base atop the picturesque Mount Olympus?

Were they the gods and goddesses of "Mythology" idolized and given names such as Apollo, Hades, Athena, Hermes, Zeus, Artemis and Hestia?

Did the powerful deities of Greece help save Athens from being invaded by the mighty armies of Atlantis in 10,000 BC?

Is there reason to believe that the Greeks and Trojans were inspired to fight for the beauteous Helen, surely a space queen?

Do the great plays and sublime philosophies of the supreme thinkers of the ages show a reverence for the gods' who intervened at Marathron and Salamis, sending flying shields to aid Alexander storming the walls of Tyre?

Did a UFO encountered near Troy save the army of Lucullus from destruction?

Were omens observed in the sky just before the murder of Caesar?

How does one explain the manifestation of mysterious voices and apparitions in the heavens as Hannibal ravaged Italy?

In a marvelous update, recent activities, including encounters with humanoids and men in black-like individuals, are taken into consideration offering proof that the ancient aliens of antiquity are returning to their original haunts and are guaranteed to make open contact soon! 

If you order right now you will also receive a free DVD: "Everything You Wanted To Know About Wendelle Stevens But Were Too Intimidated To Ask."
An exclusive interview with his daughter, Ce Ce Stevens

ALL OF THIS FOR THE SPECIAL PRICE OF ONLY $20.00
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- WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT DEPARTMENT -

White House Says: "No UFO Cover-Up"

The White House has responded to two petitions asking the US government to formally acknowledge that aliens have visited Earth and to disclose to any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings.

“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” said Phil Larson from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, on the WhiteHouse.gov website. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

5,387 people had signed the petition for immediately disclosing the government’s knowledge of and communications with extraterrestrial beings, and 12,078 signed the request for a formal acknowledgement from the White House that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race.

“Hundreds of military and government agency witnesses have come forward with testimony confirming this extraterrestrial presence,” the second petition states. “Opinion polls now indicate more than 50% of the American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence and more than 80% believe the government is not telling the truth about this phenomenon. The people have a right to know. The people can handle the truth.”

These petitions come from an Obama Administration initiative called ‘We the People’ which has White House staffers respond and consider taking action on any issue that receives at least 25,000 online signatures. Regarding these two petitions, the White House promised to respond if the petitions got 17,000 or more signatures by Oct. 22.

Larson stressed that the facts show that there is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth. He pointed out that even though many scientists have come to the conclusion that the odds of life somewhere else in the Universe are fairly high, the chance that any of them are making contact with humans are extremely small, given the distances involved.

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t searching, there is just no evidence yet. Larson mentioned SETI (correctly noting that this at first was a NASA effort, but is now funded privately) keeping an “ear” out for signals from any intelligent extraterrestrials, with none found so far. He also added that the Kepler spacecraft is searching for Earth-like planets in the habitable zones around other stars, and that the Curiosity rover will launch to Mars this month to “assess what the Martian environment was like in the past to see if it could have harbored life.”

Regarding any evidence for alien life, all anyone has now is “statistics and speculation,” said Larson. “The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.”

Whether or not this will appease or satisfy any conspiracy theorists or UFO believers is yet to be seen, but it is gratifying to see the White House respond in such a no-nonsense manner.

UPDATE: The Paradigm Research Group, one of the organizations sponsoring the petitions, has issued a statement saying, “As expected it was written by a low level staffer from the Office of Science and Technology Policy – research assistant Phil Larson. The response was unacceptable.”

Source: Universe Today
http://www.universetoday.com/90717/no-alien-visits-or-ufo-coverups-white-house-says/

- CURSE OF THE RED PLANET DEPARTMENT -

Crews Rush to save Russian Mars Probe

The Russian Mars curse has struck again.Since 1960, the Soviet Union and, later, Russia have launched 18 unmanned missions to Mars. Sixteen failed completely, and two returned data from the planet only briefly.

Now engineers are scrambling to save the country’s latest attempt.

Known as Phobos-Grunt, the spacecraft, loaded with scientific instruments, lifted off early Wednesday Moscow time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The ambitious mission marked Russia’s first attempt to send a spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit since a 1996 Mars probe crashed shortly after launch.

Phobos-Grunt was to land on one of the Red Planet’s two small moons, scoop up half a pound of dirt (“grunt” is Russian for “soil”), and return this scientific prize to Earth.

But after reaching orbit around the Earth, the 15-ton spacecraft failed to fire its upper-stage rocket as scheduled. The craft is circling the Earth as mission engineers try to diagnose the problem and light the rocket.

“I’d bet even money these guys will pull it off,” said James Oberg, a retired space shuttle engineer who closely watches the Russian space program. “Nothing irreversible has happened, they haven’t burned up any fuel or jettisoned any tanks. They are in a safe parking orbit, so they’re good for a few weeks.”

Oberg said Russian mission controllers will attempt to start the rocket late Wednesday.

The Russian news service RIA quoted Vladi­mir Popovkin, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, as saying the rocket failure could be a software problem, which might be fixable. “This error can be corrected, and the flight can be continued,” RIA quoted Popovkin as saying.

But if there is a hardware problem, the “flight may no longer be continued,” Popovkin said.

“If there is a problem with the engine itself, and the command was in fact sent to the engine and the engine did not fire, very little can be done,” said Anatoly Zak, a Russian space historian, journalist and publisher of Russian­SpaceWeb.com.

A dearth of mission-tracking resources makes recovery work more difficult. Just one communications station in the world — at Baikonur — can send commands to the craft as it passes overhead.

“They need to download data, analyze data, upload data,” Zak said. “So they have a very narrow window of opportunity to save the mission.”

Early Wednesday, Roscosmos called on amateur satellite trackers to follow the troubled craft. The first of two crucial rocket burns was scheduled while Phobos-Grunt sped over South America, but observers in Brazil dd not see the engine fire, Oberg said.

Likewise, astronauts on the international space station, including American Mike Fossum, awoke early to watch one of the rocket burns, said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries. The astronauts also could not spot a telltale flare.

Planning for the $170 million mission began in the 1970s but was interrupted by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It later became an international mission after China added a small, detachable craft, Yinghuo-1, that was to orbit Mars. The French contributed several scientific instruments, and the U.S.-based Planetary Society provided a small disk carrying hardy microbes to see whether life could survive the 34-month round trip to Mars.

Thirty tiny tubes of bacteria, yeast, and near-microscopic animals known as tardigrades, or water bears, are now trapped in space, going in circles.

“It’s not a failure yet,” said Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society scientist leading the $500,000 Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, or LIFE. “It’s in limbo. It’s a little stressful. It’s a feeling of helplessness.”

The Russian romance with Mars extends back more than a century, said Cathleen Lewis, a Russian space specialist and curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

“Some of the earliest Soviet and pre-Soviet era science fiction stories of space exploration were about going to Mars,” Lewis said. She pointed to a 1908 novel, “Red Star,” by Alexander Bogdanov, as especially influential. In the book, a Russian engineer solves the social problems of a Martian race by introducing the aliens to socialism.

If engineers can’t light the Phobos-Grunt rocket, the huge spacecraft will eventually crash to the ground.

“If it comes in, it’s going to be a nightmare,” Oberg said. “It will probably be the most toxic satellite ever. It’s got at least five tons of toxic fuel aboard.” The craft carries tanks of hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide fuel. Both are “nasty substances,” Oberg said.

THE GREAT GALACTIC GHOUL

Traveling to Mars is fraught with difficulty; a number of accidents over the years can prove it. In 1964, NASA’s Mariner 3 was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In space, its solar panels failed to open and the batteries went flat. Now it’s orbiting the Sun, dead. In 1965, Russian controllers lost contact with Zond 2 after it lost one of its solar panels. It lifelessly floated past Mars in the August of that year, only 1,500 km away from the planet. In March and April, 1969, the twin probes in the Soviet Mars 1969 program both suffered launch failure, 1969A exploded minutes after launch and 1969B took a U-turn and crashed to earth.

More recently, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter crashed into the Red Planet in 1999 after an embarrassing measurement unit mix-up caused the satellite to enter the atmosphere too low. On Christmas 2003, the world waited for a signal from the UK Mars lander, Beagle 2, after it separated from ESA’s Mars Express. To this day, there’s been no word.

Looking over the past 48 years of Mars exploration, it makes for sad reading. A failed mission here, a “lost” mission there, with some unknowns thrown in for good measure. It would seem that mankind’s efforts to send robots to Mars have been thwarted by bad luck and strange mysteries. Is there some kind of Red Planet Triangle (much like the Bermuda Triangle), perhaps with its corners pointing to Mars, Phobos and Deimos? Is the Galactic Ghoul really out there devouring billions of dollars-worth of hardware?

The “Galactic Ghoul” has been mentioned jokingly by NASA scientists to describe the misfortune of space missions, particularly Mars missions. Looking at the statistics of failed missions, you can’t help but think that there are some strange forces at play. During NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission, there was a technical hitch as the airbags were deflated after the rover mission landed in 1998, prompting one of the rover scientists to mention that perhaps the Galactic Ghoul was beginning to rear its ugly head:

    “The great galactic ghoul had to get us somewhere, and apparently the ghoul has decided to pick on the rover.” – Donna Shirley, JPL’s Mars program manager and Sojourner’s designer, in an interview in 1997

Well, there are plenty of answers that explain the losses of these early forays to Mars, putting the Galactic Ghoul to one side for now.

Beginning with the very first manmade objects to land on the Martian surface, Mars 2 and Mars 3, Soviet Union-built Mars lander/orbiter missions in 1971. The lander from Mars 2 is famous for being the first ever robotic explorer on the surface of Mars, but it is also infamous for making the first manmade crater on the surface of Mars. The Mars 3 lander had more luck, it was able to make a soft landing and transmit a signal back to Earth… for 20 seconds. After that, the robot was silenced.

Both landers had the first generation of Mars rovers on board; tethered to the landing craft, they would have had a range of 15 meters from the landing site. Alas, neither was used. It is thought that the Mars 3 lander was blown over by one of the worst dust storms observed on Mars.

To travel from Earth to Mars over a long seven months, separate from its orbiter, re-enter the Martian atmosphere and make a soft landing was a huge technological success in itself – only to get blown over by a dust storm is the ultimate example of “bad luck” in my books! Fortunately, both the Mars 2 and 3 orbiters completed their missions, relaying huge amounts of data back to Earth.

This isn’t the only example where “bad luck” and “Mars mission” could fall into the same sentence. In 1993, NASA’s Mars Observer was only three days away from orbital insertion around Mars when it stopped transmitting. After a very long 337 day trip from Earth it is thought that on pressurizing the fuel tanks in preparation for its approach, the orbiters propulsion system started to leak monomethyl hydrazine and helium gas. The leakage caused the craft to spin out of control, switching its electronics into “safe” mode. There was to be no further communication from Mars Observer.

Human error also has a part to play in many of the problems with getting robots to the Red Planet. Probably the most glaring, and much hyped error was made during the development of NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter. In 1999, just before orbital insertion, a navigation error sent the satellite into an orbit 100 km lower than its intended 150 km altitude above the planet. This error was caused by one of the most expensive measurement incompatibilities in space exploration history. One of NASA’s subcontractors, Lockheed Martin, used Imperial units instead of NASA-specified metric units. This incompatibility in the design units culminated in a huge miscalculation in orbital altitude. The poor orbiter plummeted through the Martian atmosphere and burned up.

Human error is not only restricted to NASA missions. The earlier Russian Phobos 1 mission in 1988 was lost through a software error. Neglecting a programming subroutine that should never have been used during space flight was accidentally activated. The subroutine was known about before the launch of Phobos 1, but engineers decided to leave it, repairing it would require the whole computer to be upgraded. Due to the tight schedule, the spaceship was launched. Although deemed “safe”, the software was activated and the probe was sent into a spin. With no lock on the Sun to fuel its solar panels, the satellite was lost.

To date, 26 of the 43 missions to Mars (that’s a whopping 60%) have either failed or only been partially successful in the years since the first Marsnik 1 attempt by the Soviet Union in 1960. In total the USA/NASA has flown 20 missions, six were lost (70% success rate); the Soviet Union/Russian Federation flew 18, only two orbiters (Mars 2 and 3) were a success (11% success rate); the two ESA missions, Mars Express, and Rosetta (fly-by) were both a complete success; the single Japanese mission, Nozomi, in 1998 suffered complications en-route and never reached Mars; and the British lander, Beagle 2, famously went AWOL in 2003.

Source: The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/crews-rush-to-save-russian-mars-probe-stranded-in-earth-orbit/2011/11/09/gIQAVHEx5M_story.html

- A TALK WITH BRAD STEIGER DEPARTMENT -

'Zombies, Werewolves, Vampires, Aliens Oh My... '
By Alexandra Holzer

In a Supernatural world comes much responsibility like being a Superhero of a much needed to-be-saved city like Gotham, when spinning tales and stories of the dead, the un-dead and beyond taking precedence where validation and explanation are in need. Let me take you back in my Paranormal time-machine to the early sixties when author Brad Steiger, was one of the influential writers of our time for creating stories based off of research that my father, Dr. Hans Holzer had pioneered. Of course simply not foregoing the plain weirdness factor of getting to the truth of it and what is divided up to become folklore, myths and/or creepy tales.

This noted long-time famed spooky veteran author of such said stories, shares a few intimate moments with me from how he got started to his latest e-book series where the price is just right! For around under $4 you get sixty gripping and artfully designed pages depicting the supernatural real to unreal. Grab a warm bed or chair and blanky, something strong to drink and open up your mind to Steigerisms envisions beginning circa 1965.

Steiger wrote numerous short stories for such magazines as Fantastic, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Saint, Exploring the Unknown, and Fate. His first book was Monsters, Maidens, and Mayhem: A Pictorial History of the Hollywood Monster Movie, followed by the sequel, Master Movie Monsters, later that same year. Next was a collection of articles on the paranormal published as Ghosts, Ghouls, and Other Peculiar People. He has written more than two thousand articles with paranormal themes. Many of his fans began reading his work as youngsters. Steiger left teaching and became a full-time paranormal researcher and writer. Read why below as it gets creepier...

The Steiger Invasion

HOLZER: What inspired you to write about the Supernatural?
 
STEIGER: I guess I was born this way.  I grew up in a house with continuing spectral manifestations; I encountered an elf-like being spying on my parents when I was five; I had a near-death experience when I was eleven that presented me with an awesome glimpse of the workings of the mysteries of time and space.  If only I could remember all that I was shown, but I recalled enough to set my course as one who would seek to share the awareness that we humans and our minds are other than physical things.

AH: As a fellow writer, we write what we know. Is this true of any of your body of work and if so, which ones?
 
BS: Of the 170 books that I have authored or co-authored, the vast majority of them have been in the paranormal, metaphysical, or UFO areas of research.  Because of my own experiences and my continuing research, I have always written what I know to be my area of expertise.  Fortunately, readers have responded to my sharing for over 50 years now.

AH: Can you describe your most impressionable moment in the literary field?
 
BS: When I sold my first articles on the paranormal in 1956 and in 1966 when I went to New York for the first time and met the editors and writers with whom I had been corresponding for so long.
 
AH: You often times write with your wife, Sherry. How did that come about?
 
BS: I have been blessed to have married a woman who is as bright and creative as she is beautiful.  Sherry had a rich background of experiences in both the spiritual and paranormal fields. From our first meeting, I was delighted to discover that she had researched, written, and lectured about so many of the same areas that I had and that we shared the same sense of purpose. She is my muse, as well as my partner.

AH:  A number of reviewers have referred to you as the "original" Mulder and Scully and suggested that you had well established your own X-Files long before the television series began. You were featured in twenty-two episodes of the television series Could It Be a Miracle?, and together some of your television appearances and specials include: The Joan Rivers Show, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Hard Copy, Hollywood Insider, and specials on HBO, USA Network, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, and Arts and Entertainment (A&E), among others. Do you think writers of today get as much attention or has it become to commercialized and hand-picked as to who gets known for such said work?
 
BS: Since our earliest childhoods, Sherry and I have been driven by a sense of mission to share a vision of a greater reality.  I emphasis "share."  We do not seek to persuade anyone to accept any of our theories or philosophy.  We only ask that people keep an open mind to the other worlds of thought and experiences open to them.  For us, the media simply offered another opportunity to fulfill another aspect of our mission.  The new eBook series is another new tool that I am using to reach the contemporary hi-tech generation.

AH: You were a high school and college English teacher. What was that like?
 
BS: I taught high school in the golden Fifties.  I loved getting the kids excited about learning and literature.  David Drake, the highly successful science fiction author who is on his way to write as many books as I have, was one of my high school students.  A few years ago when Sherry and I were autographing books at the American Booksellers Association, I had the pleasure of sitting just a few tables away from another of my high school students who was autographing her book .
 
AH: You've written many gripping stories in the Supernatural genre, yet you also wrote 'Real Miracles, Divine Intervention and Feats of Incredible Survival.' Can you tell us what inspired this story as it is very different from your other body of works.
 
BS: What can be more "supernatural" than men and women pushed beyond their limits to survive seemingly impossible conditions?  Individuals who have survived falls out of airplanes at high altitudes; men and women who have survived floods, tornados, tsunamis,wild animal attacks, and ostensible fatal diseases.  On one level, the supernatural is simply the world we all live in but do not yet fully comprehend.  On another level, it would appear that benevolent beings from other dimensions of reality are genuinely concerned about our future as a species.

AH: Have you any interest and/or aspirations for Hollywood so-to-speak in turning any of your books into teleplays for television/film or do you feel comfortable to keep writing the way you have for so long?
 
BS: I respect screen writing as another form of artistic expression.  I am pleased to continue to practice the craft of writing in my own style of communication.

AH: As a child what did you feel to be when you were to grow up, if indeed you have?
 
BS: Ha!  Yes, I guess I am what you would identify as someone who strives to remember the enthusiasm of the child-self that still exists in my psyche.  The only thing I ever wanted to be was a writer, sharing the insights and experiences that I hoped would be of interest to others.

AH: You have begun a new series of short stories in e-book format 'Real Nightmares' which I had the pleasure of reading. One's called 'Real Nightmares: True and Truly Scary Unexplained Phenomena' . This is the new thing is it not, e-books?
 
BS: For years I have been a steadfast disciple of linear type, but now I must pay heed to one of my guiding mottos: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was 'adjust.'"

AH:  In closing, I have to say I love the new Zombie book, 'Real Zombies, The Living Dead And Creatures Of The Apocalypse'. Brilliant! You certainly have something for everyone in your writing library I must say! What's next on the horizon for you and Sherry?
 
BS: We are currently working on the Second Edition of our Conspiracies and Secret Societies, then I will be engaged in the Second Edition of my Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places.

Steiger's books are printed by Visible Ink Press at www.visibleinkpress.com
Brad and Sherry Steiger can be found at www.bradandsherry.com
 
Follow Alexandra Holzer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlexandraHolzer

Source: The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexandra-holzer/brad-steiger-interview_b_1077990.html

- BOOK REVIEW DEPARTMENT -

Author Steve Pearse Presents A New Theory Of The Aliens' Point Of Origin
By Sean Casteel

In a new book called "Set Your Phaser To Stun," lay scientist Steve Pearse challenges what he calls the "sacred cow" of the star map first drawn by abductee Betty Hill in the early 1960s. When that same map was later verified by amateur astronomer Marjorie Fish, it was heralded by even the mainstream publication "Astronomy Magazine" as a significant contribution to the understanding of nearby stars.

But let's go back to the beginning. Betty, along with her husband Barney, were the unwitting passersby chosen to be abducted by the usual gray aliens in 1961. Their abduction case is the first to be thoroughly documented and has stood the test of time in the 50 years since it first occurred. The Hills worked through their experience with a Boston psychiatrist named Benjamin Simon, who specialized in treating victims of shell shock, what we would today call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Simon's efforts with the Hills established what would become the familiar pattern of abduction memories being retrieved sometime after the actual events through the use of hypnotic regression.

During one of her sessions with Dr. Simon, Betty relived the moment when she asked the alien leader where he was from. In what seems like a comic bit of understatement, she says, "I know you're not from around here."

In reply, the alien shows her a three-dimensional star map consisting of points of light connected with different sorts of lines to indicate both light and heavy trade routes and various occasional expeditions. Betty then asks, "Well, where are you on the map?"

The alien responds by saying, "Well, do you know where YOU are on the map?" Betty replies that she has no knowledge of astronomy. At which point, the alien tells her that since she doesn't know where she is on the map, it wouldn't do much good to tell her where he is.

When Dr. Simon heard this story, he gave Betty a posthypnotic suggestion to draw the map later but only if she felt she was remembering it accurately. Betty did as she was asked and drew the map, presumably accurately.

Enter Marjorie Fish, who doubted the Hill's story because she felt the aliens the Hills described looked too humanoid. But Fish did venture to make several three-dimensional models based on Betty's map using the best available distance-between-the-stars data available at the time. After a lot of trail and error, Fish succeeded in matching Betty's map to the actual locations of various stars cataloged in the then-current astronomical reference works. Her conclusion was that the aliens had told Betty that they originated from a binary star system called Zeta One and Zeta Two Reticuli. Some people have been calling the aliens "Zetas" ever since.

Fish presented her findings to Dr. J. Allen Hynek at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and at a MUFON conference. When the article about her work appeared in "Astronomy Magazine," it received more reader reaction than anything the magazine had published before or since. Clearly something important was happening here.

There were other competing theories to Marjorie Fish's work, and the author of "Set Your Phaser To Stun," Steve Pearse, does a very thorough job of digging into the history of the controversy. In fact, his in-depth coverage of the entire star map phenomenon is immaculately fair and reasonable.

But now comes Pearse's own theory. As well known abductee and author Kay Wilson recounts in her foreword to Pearse's book, "It was a beautiful summer night in the Pacific Northwest in July of 1993 when my husband had an exchange with a being that has come to be known in the vernacular as a Grey. I also saw them that night, but he was chosen by this Being as the person to converse with. As my husband Erik relayed his account of the conversation to me, I wrote down everything he said verbatim, because in my heart I understood the importance of what I was hearing."

Erik's conversation with the Grey is recorded by Pearse thusly: "We go on the deck," Erik says, "and I ask him, 'Are you from the Pleiades?' The Being adamantly replies, 'No.' I ask him where he is from. We look in the sky to see the Big Dipper. He says, 'See the Ursa Major?' I reply, 'Yes.' The Being then tells me, 'The star cluster to the right and below. The one with the triangle to the left and the little stars in between . . . we're from that one. The fourth planet from our sun.'"

Pearse would seemingly randomly run across this information on the Alien Jigsaw website that Kay Wilson maintains in the year 2000. It so piqued his curiosity that he has been researching the star map phenomenon ever since. Pearse believes that the "verbal map quest" that Erik Wilson received from the Grey perfectly dovetails with Betty Hill's original star map, particularly in the matter of the triangular star cluster found in both Betty and Erik's version of what they were told.

In order to understand Pearse's theory, one has to bypass the Marjorie Fish model as well as the theories of others who took paths similar to hers. Pearse makes his argument in voluminous detail, and some of it is very technical and perhaps over the head of the casual reader, which I must admit includes me. But one doesn't have to know how to crunch the numbers in order to be fascinated by what may be a genuine and crucial piece of the overall puzzle. The Greys have to be from SOMEWHERE, and Pearse's reasoning could be completely on target. It remains, of course, impossible to know one way or another at this point.

Prior to the publication of "Set Your Phaser To Stun," Pearse approached people like the Mutual UFO Network and others in the UFO community and was completely ignored. It seems no one wanted to challenge the authenticity of the Fish-Hill map and its convenient Zetas, and the more normally open minds on the UFO subject were apparently summarily closed in this case.
 
Perhaps the newly named Hill-Wilson star map will find its adherents and its place in the general scheme of things, perhaps not. But "Set Your Phaser To Stun" deserves to be read in any case, not only for its groundbreaking new approach to the point of origin for the UFO occupants, but also as a story of the very human need to find real-world answers to a phenomenon that so far has given us more questions than we can comfortably bear.

["Set Your Phaser To Stun" by Steve Pearse is available on Amazon.com as both a paperback and a Kindle book. The book can also be ordered from the Xlibris Corporation at 1-888-795-4274 or by emailing Orders@Xlibris.com

If you enjoyed this article, read more articles and interviews at Sean Casteel’s “UFO Journalist” website at www.seancasteel.com  

- HERE THERE BE MONSTERS DEPARTMENT -

Chasing the Dragon
By Nick Redfern

For three years Richard Freeman worked as Head of Reptiles at Twycross Zoo, England and, today, is the Zoological Director of one of the world’s premier cryptozoological investigation groups: namely, the Center for Fortean Zoology. And while Freeman has a passion for all aspects of cryptozoolgy, it is the dragon that fascinates him most of all.

“I started my career as a zoologist – so I had a grounded training,” says Freeman. “But cryptozoology was my passion. Now, I have had a particular passion – an obsession, I suppose – for years with dragons. But there was something that always puzzled me: no-one had ever thought, for more than a hundred years, to publish a definitive, non-fiction book on the subject. And as I am a qualified zoologist, I thought: why not me?”

Why not, indeed? In fact, that is precisely what Freeman has done in his book, Dragons: More Than A Myth?

I asked Freeman about his theories and discoveries with regard to dragons. He replied: “Well, that’s a bit difficult to answer because there are several things going on. It’s important to note that I’ve traveled the world pursuing these creatures – the Gambia, Mongolia, Thailand, and right here in England with some of the old legends from past centuries. And of one thing I can be certain: there isn’t just one answer to the question of what dragons are or what they may be.”

Freeman continued: “There are many creatures that have become linked to the lore and legend of what today we perceive and view as dragons, and some of these creatures are distinctly different to each other. But that should not take away from the fact that dragons are a real phenomenon.”

On this latter point, Freeman elaborates: “I am absolutely certain, having reviewed many ancient reports of dragon activity, that many sightings – perhaps two or three hundred years ago and probably further back – were genuine encounters, but where the witnesses were seeing what I believe to have been huge snakes, giant crocodiles, and the Australian ‘monster lizard’ Megalania.”

Freeman makes a noteworthy, and thought-provoking, point: “Any mention of dragons always conjures up images of fire-breathing monsters, and there are definitely reports that fall

into that group. But, when you look into many of the earliest, ancient legends, you find that the dragon is more often associated with water. So, I have a theory that some of the better lake monster accounts from centuries ago may well have influenced dragon tales.”

On this point, he adds: “Personally, I also believe that some classic tales of dragons in England in Medieval times, and tales of beasts such as the Lambton Worm, probably have their origins in lake monster accounts, giant eels, etc., that have then mutated into tales of dragons on the loose. But the important point is that this shouldn’t detract from the fact that people did see something.”

I asked him: “You mean that the ancients were seeing lake monsters and, having been exposed to dragon legends, believed them to be – or interpreted them as – dragons, too?”

“Exactly,” Freeman replied.

Of course, the biggest question of all was: are there creatures still living today that Freeman believes have helped perpetuate the image of the dragon? He is certain there are: “I would pretty much stake my life on the fact that Megalania still exists – or did until very recently – in the large forests of Australia, and that also roamed New Guinea. This was a huge, killer-beast; a massive monitor lizard that exceeded thirty feet in length. In literal terms, this was a classic dragon-type animal.”

I questioned Freeman about his research into an animal known as the Naga of Thailand that he believes is responsible for some dragon tales. He told me: “There is no excuse for not getting out into the field and doing firsthand investigations; none at all. In fact, it’s vital. I have no time for the armchair theorist. And one of the experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life was traveling to Thailand with the Discovery Channel in 2000, where we chased giant snakes – the Naga – in the caves and tunnels that exist deep below Thailand.

“It’s very easy to see why the inhabitants in times past considered them to be dragons. The Naga is apparently a large snake, a very large one – maybe in the order of literally tens of feet in length, oil-drum-sized bodies, and definitely big enough to take a whole man.”

And similar accounts abound elsewhere, too: “There have come reports from the Congo of an animal known as Mokele-mbembe. Again, it has cross-over qualities with dragon legends, but I’m sure that it will be shown in time to be some sort of giant monitor lizard, too.”

But what of the definitive, fire-breathing dragons of legend: does, or did, such a creature exist? Freeman makes a very intriguing observation: “Back in 1979 Peter Dickinson wrote a book that was titled The Flight of Dragons. Dickinson had come up with this idea – an excellent theory, in fact – that real-life dragons did exist and that they were the descendants of dinosaurs such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Dickinson suggested that these animals developed large, expanded stomachs that would fill with hydrogen gas, which would come from a combination of hydrochloric acid found in the juices of the digestive system that would then mix with calcium found in the bones of their prey.

“Then, from there, the hydrogen – a lighter-than-air gas – allowed these creatures to take to the skies and then control their flight by burning off the excess gas in the form of flame. Anyone seeing this would be seeing the closest thing to the image of the dragon that we all know and love. Dickinson’s theory is an excellent one, and may well be a perfect explanation for sightings of real dragons – in times past, and perhaps today, I believe.”

I leave the final word to Freeman: “The dragon has its teeth and claws deep into the collective psyche of mankind, and its not about to let go. Our most ancient fear still stalks the earth today. Beware: this is no fairytale. When your parents told you that there were no such things as dragons, they lied!”

Source: Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/chasing-the-dragon/

- CALLING OCCUPANTS OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT DEPARTMENT -

Alien Probes Could be Within Solar System, Say Researchers

The Fermi paradox asks why, if intelligent life is common, no technological civilizations have ever been observed.

As human beings send out probes into outer space, it's notable that we've never discovered evidence of other civilizations doing the same. Is this a sign that there really isn't anybody out there?

Not necessarily, say two postdoctoral researchers at Penn State, who have approached the problem mathematically. They say we simply haven't looked in enough places to be certain that no extraterrestrial artifacts exist in our solar system.

"The vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial origin would likely remain unnoticed," say Jacob Haqq-Misra and Ravi Kumar Kopparapu.

Alien probes, like ours, would be small and could be hidden in a variety of places. In the asteroid belt, for example, they would probably go unnoticed.

"Extraterrestrial artifacts may exist in the solar system without our knowledge simply because we have not yet searched sufficiently," say Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu. "Few if any of the attempts would be capable of detecting a 1 to 10 meter probe."

The two researchers used a probabilistic method to determine if we have looked closely enough anywhere in the solar system to definitively say there are no nonterrestrial objects here.

They calculated how much of the solar system would need to be thoroughly searched, and conclude that most searches to date haven't been fine enough to rule out - well, anywhere really.

"The surface of the Earth is one of the few places in the solar system that has been almost completely examined at a spatial resolution of less than three feet," said Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu.

Even here, there are still caves, jungles and deserts as well as the ocean floor and subsurface areas that have not been explored. However, says the team, there's a high probability that no nonterrestrial artifacts exist here.

The moon has been searched to some extent, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter should soon be able to tell us if there are any nonterrestrial objects on the moon.

Mars, though, is still mostly unsurveyed and the researchers' confidence in the probability of no nonterrestrial artifacts is low. Similarly, locations like the Earth-moon Lagrange points, the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt might also shelter probes.

"Searches to date of the solar system are sufficiently incomplete that we cannot rule out the possibility that nonterrestrial artifacts are present and may even be observing us," say Haqq-Misra and Kopparapu.
 
"The completeness of our search for nonterrestrial objects will inevitably increase as we continue to explore the moon, Mars and other nearby regions of space."

STRANGE SIGNALS FROM OUTER SPACE

There is the possibility that we may have already detected an extraterrestrial presence in our solar system, but failed to understand the significance
of these mysterious events.

Official records state that the first radio transmissions directed specifically at the stars were dispatched from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, in 1974. But this was not, in fact, our earliest attempt to attract the attention of other worlds. Well before the term 'extraterrestrial intelligence' was coined, two men had received intelligent signals - at a time when theirs were the only functioning radio sets on the planet earth.

The first man was the eccentric genius Nikola Tesla. In 1899 he was working his own, employing dangerously high voltages in an attempt to develop a means of transmitting energy by radio and thus eliminate the need for wiring systems. Throughout that long, hot summer he loosed artificial bolts of lighting into the sky from a 200-foot (60-metre) tower at his base in Colorado Springs - in an intelligible sequence. The began a mystery that still puzzles scientist. Having succeeded in making the lights and other electrical equipment work without wiring, Tesla saw his radio equipment inexplicably begin to register signals - in which, he later said he could discern 'a clear suggestion of number and order not traceable to any cause then known to me.' He was entirely familiar with the natural phenomena of solar disturbances, earth currents and aurora borealis, and he dismissed them all, adding: "The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.'

At the time of Tesla's startling 'other worlds' announcement, Guglielmo Marconi was developing radio as a means of communication, busily sending the letter V in Morse code to his fellow workers over a 50-mile (80-kilometre) distance. And by 1921 he, too, had announced that he had received inexplicable signals, which he quickly identified as some kind of cipher. He later noticed a very strange feature. Within the cipher, there appeared a measured recurrence of the Morse V he had been transmitting to his assistants back in 1899.

In the New York Times of September 2 1921, Marconi was reported as believing that the mysterious signals, or some of them, originated on Mars. Incredible as it seems, no one made the connection with the signals Tesla had received 22 years earlier.

Freak signal continued to come in throughout the 1920's and 1930's particularly on the 30,000-metre wavelength. And in the late 1930's a new factor entered the puzzle: a wave of reports of strange aircraft - today we would call them UFOs seen in the skies of Scandinavia and northern Europe. During the sightings, short-wave receivers in the 'flap' area would alive with strange cries and voices. The language used caused many a headache for philologists, because what they heard often seemed to be a mixture of Swedish and other tongues. But, if translated setting aside rigid rules of grammar, it often seemed to have some kind of intelligible sequence, even if its actual meaning remained obscure.

The dawning of the space age brought with it more strange phenomena. On 16 May 1963, in his Mercury capsule above Hawaii, astronaut Gordon Cooper was talking to mission control on a special frequency channel when extraneous voices broke in. Later examined on tape, these were found to correspond to no language known on Earth. The phenomenon was repeated on the Apollo VIII Borman-Lovell-Anders mission on 21 December, when UFOs were seen in the lunar orbit and more voices broke into the communications channel with mission control.

This, not unnaturally, caused some consternation back on Earth. The frequency channel they were using is such that it is virtually impossible for any amateur operator to intrude. Controllers were left with a problem that they could not explain, but at the same time could hardly ignore - the security risk was too great.

But, as far back as the 1927, two Americans, Taylor and Young, had taken such phenomena seriously enough to try and locate the source of the radio signals They had identified an echo-periodicity of 0.01 seconds originating from a distance of between 1800 and 6250 miles (2900 and 10,000 kilometres), and were comparing their observations with those of Marconi. By December 1928, a number of scientist were interested Jurgen Hals of Philips's Eindhoven laboratories in Holland had discussed his findings with Professor Carl Stormer of Oslo, mentioning three-second delays he had experienced with an experimental radio transmitter. After another year, on 28 October 1929, Dr van der Pol, also of Philips, confirmed that he had noted further odd echoes from a planned emission of impulses at the same time every morning. It was van der Pol's analysis of the delay between emissions and the receipt of their echoes, always on the same wavelength, that effectively excluded ideas that they may have been bouncing off the moon or the inner Van Allen belt, or that they might have been somehow stored and reflected from layers of ionized gas.

A Scottish science writer, Duncan Lunan, studied the records of these anomalous radio echoes over a period of some years, and eventually came up with the assertion that they originated from an alien space probe. He also commented on the misfortune that the signals 'happened to be received at a time when they would as a matter of course be attributed (by a majority of people) to some natural phenomenon.'

Working on the assumption that the signals constituted some intelligible message, Lunan proceeded to try to crack what he envisaged as a coded pattern. His report, published in the April 1973 issue of Spaceflight, is extremely complex and has to be read in the original to be appreciated. But what it boils down to is a graphical diagram of the constellations of the northern hemisphere - a picture that contains one startling incongruity: the binary star epsilon Bootis is wrongly aligned. Using astronomical measuring techniques, Lunan has deduced that the binary star appears in his diagram as it would have been 13,000 years ago - a hint that this was the time when the probe first reached our solar system.

Unfortunately for Mr. Lunan, there are a number of serious objections that can be raised to his theory. First and most serious as Robert Sheaffer has pointed out in his book The UFO verdict - Lunan's map does not correctly represent the echoes published by van der Pol, as Lunan claims. And, even allowing for alterations in the positions of epsilon Bootis that Lunan claims, the map is only a very crude approximation to the actual positions of the stars in the Bootis region. As Sheaffer says, 'one would not think it too difficult for advanced, space-faring civilization to make its interstellar probes capable of transmitting its star maps correctly.'

But perhaps the most damming indictment of Lunan's theorizing is his own reaction to criticism. If the map does not depict the stars of the constellation Bootis, then perhaps, he argues, it is the constellation Cetus - an extraordinary claim, given that Lunan once believed that the map showed the epsilon Bootis solar system down to the smallest moon, and that epsilon Bootis is a double sun whereas tau'Ceti is single, something that one would expect to be apparent from so detailed a man.

But Mr John Stonely of the London Enquirer, at least, has taken Lunan's claims seriously enough to calculate mathematical odds, of 10,000 to 1, against delayed echoes producing such a diagram merely by chance. Of the nature of the probe, Stonely writes that it must be some kind of incomparably advanced computer. 'As soon as the existence of the probe is definitely established, we should interrogate it...it might lead to the release of information from its certainly immense store of data.

n 1953, four years before the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik I, an object of unknown origin was sighted by Dr Lincoln La Paz of the University of New Mexico orbiting the earth. As more reports of sightings trickled in from around the world, the U.S. Department of Defense appointed distinguished astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh(best known for his discovery of the dwarf ‘planet’ of Pluto in 1930) to run a search for the mystery object. The blip became known as “Black Knight”.The Pentagon never formally released the results of Dr Tombaugh’s study.

No more was heard about the object until December, 1957, when Dr Luis Corralos of the Communications Ministry in Venezuela photographed it. The first modern satellites, Sputnik I & 2, had been launched just a few months earlier. Dr Corralos was taking pictures of the second of these modern marvels as it passed over Caracas, and his photos caught the unknown object shadowing the Russian craft.

“Black Knight” was observed once again in 1960, this time by one of the stations that formed the Northern American Air Defense System. The object was in a polar orbit, something that neither the Americans or Soviets were capable of at the time. Several times larger and heavier than anything capable of being launched with 1960, rockets, it shouldn’t have been there, but it was. The observance sent panic through the U.S. military. Not only did the intelligence agencies have no idea that the USSR had launched a new satellite, nothing in their reports on Soviet space activity suggested they had the capacity to place an object into a polar orbit, or to launch something that was estimated to be in excess of 15 tons. The military scientists were horrified, since they were at least four years away from achieving polar orbits and getting payloads that large into space.

Similar waves of shock and anxiety were spreading through the Soviet ranks. They had not launched the satellite and knew they were years away from being able to accomplish such a feat, they also knew that the Americans could not do it either. No one knew where it came from, but it was definitely there.

In 1960 Radio Astronomer Ronald Bracewell of Stanford University speculated on life elsewhere in the galaxy. An article published in Nature offered the theory that an advanced civilization might not necessarily use long-range radio signals to communicate with other intelligent beings. Such signals would be considerably weakened over interstellar distances. Instead, Bracewell said, those far-off beings might employ robot space probes as their message bearers. Sent to a promising nearby star, such a vehicle could swing into an orbit around it at approximately the right distance to encounter a planet with life-supporting temperatures. If it picked up telltale radio signals, the probe might then bounce them back to advertise its presence, thereby producing an effect like the echoes of the 1920s. Finally, as its first message, the robot might transmit a picture of the area of the heavens from which it came.

Source: TG Daily
http://www.tgdaily.com/space-features/59509-alien-probes-could-be-within-solar-system-say-researchers

- SECRET MESSAGES DEPARTMENT -

Hidden Face of the Devil Discovered in Giotto Fresco

The smirking face of the Devil has been discovered hidden in a fresco by the Italian medieval artist Giotto after remaining undetected for more than 700 years in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi.

The Satanic image went unnoticed until now because it is artfully hidden in the folds of a cloud and is invisible from ground level.

The discovery of the face, in a fresco which depicts the death of St Francis, was made by Chiara Frugoni, a medievalist and an expert on the saint.

"It's a powerful portrait, with a hooked nose, sunken eyes and two dark horns," Ms Frugoni said in an article in a forthcoming issue of the St Francis art history periodical.

"The significance of the image still needs to be delved into. In the Middle Ages it was believed that demons lived in the sky and that they could impede the ascension of human souls to Heaven.

"Until now it was thought that the first painter to use clouds in this way was Andrea Mantegna, with a painting of St Sebastian from 1460, in which high up in the sky there's a cloud from which a knight on horseback emerges. Now we know that Giotto was the first (to use this technique)."

Sergio Fusetti, the head of the restoration work in the basilica, said the devil face may have been a dig at somebody the artist had quarrelled with.

Claudio Strinati, an art historian, said it was not unusual for Renaissance artists to include hidden meanings in their works. "Paintings often had two facets – an explicit one and an implicit one."

Millions of pilgrims and tourists have trooped through the basilica in Assisi, in Umbria, since the fresco was painted in the 13th century without noticing the devil's face.

It was only discovered during restoration of the fresco, the 20th in a series of images of St Francis's life and death by Giotto.

Born near Florence in the late Middle Ages, Giotto di Bondone became one of the most important figures of the Early Renaissance.

Among his most celebrated works are a series of frescoes in Padua, frescoes and altarpieces in Santa Croce church in Florence and a painting of the Madonna which is on display in Florence's Uffizi Galleries.

Source: The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/8872780/Smirking-face-of-the-
Devil-discovered-in-Giotto-fresco.html


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