The following is a newsletter which will be updated every week. Probably (not sure!) I will delete the old one than, because otherwise it will take to much space.:)

With regards to Louise Lowry, http//:www.worldofthestrange.com

If you have an article or story to tell feel free to send an email to: SHnSASSY1@aol.com


This Issue's Site - March 4 2002: http://www.worldofthestrange.com/Archives/20020304.htm
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No more newsletters will be deleted... :)

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CONTENTS
#1. Will ET Be Hostile? Alienated People Are More Likely to Say 'Yes' by: Doug Vakoch
#2. The Tunguska Incident - An Overview by: James L. Choron
#3. I, Chip? Technology to Meld Chips into Humans Draws Closer
by: Paul Eng, #4. March's Award Winner Of The Month! Conspiracy Journal..Featuring an article "Paranormal or Extraterrestrial?
#5. Shamed Star's "Aliens Claim"
#6. Odd Goings-On Haunt Capitol Halls - Lawmakers Report 'bizarre' Incidents by: Trent Seibert #7. The X-Files Come To Inkerman by: David Stonehouse
The Ottawa Citizen
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#1. Will ET Be Hostile? Alienated People Are More Likely to Say 'Yes' by: Doug Vakoch SETI Institute http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_hostiles_020221.html

Astronomer Frank Drake, the Father of SETI, has argued that ET will likely be altruistic, rather than malevolent. Drake reasons that if extraterrestrials are hostile, then their civilizations wont last very long, and were unlikely to make contact with them. Only extraterrestrials with a long-lasting, stable society will be around long enough to be detected by our SETI programs.

And yet, extraterrestrials we encounter in movies such as Alien and Independence Day are certainly not friendly. But is the possibility of malevolent aliens really just a matter of overworked imaginations in Hollywood? And to the extent that these images are held by people in general, might concerns over hostile aliens say more about ourselves than about ET?

Recently, the SETI Institute and SPACE.com conducted an informal survey of Internet users to answer just that question. The exercise was in part a demonstration of the sort of research methods that social scientists use to further our understanding of SETI. Indeed, all of the standard caveats that apply to Internet polls apply to this
survey as well. For example, the fact that the poll was conducted through the SPACE.com web site means that people who participated are more likely to have pro-space attitudes than the average Internet user. Nevertheless, when the numbers were all in, we found a very strong connection between peoples beliefs about extraterrestrials and their feelings about how meaningful life is. What makes the results even more compelling is that they match the findings of an earlier study conducted under more stringent testing conditions.

When someone is confronted with ambiguous information, what he or she makes of the information can sometimes say a lot about the person. Thats the basis for what psychologists call projective tests. One classic example of a projective test is the Rorschach. In this test, people are asked what they see in a series of inkblots. When skilled examiners study the patterns and themes in a persons responses to the inkblots, they can sometimes begin to understand how the examinee sees the world.

If the event that some day our radio telescopes pick up signs of intelligent life beyond Earth, its unlikely that that the signals will contain a clear, unambiguous message. For starters, current search strategies look for strong artificial signals, rather than searching for small variations in these signals that may tell us about the knowledge and views of alien civilizations. And even if we do detect information-rich signals, it could take considerable time to
understand what extraterrestrials are trying to say. Thus, its likely that well know that ET exists long before we have any clear-cut evidence of what they might be trying to tell us.

In the face of missing information, however, people have a tendency to fill in the blanks. Even if people may not be sure what ET is like from scientific evidence, they will tend to form opinions, in part based on their habitual ways of seeing life.

In our Internet survey, we tested the hypothesis that if people feel like the world is cold and cruel, theyre more likely than other people to imagine extraterrestrials as being cold and cruel as well. Thus, we set up the survey so we could measure two things. First, to what extent do people feel "alienated," and second, how hostile do these
people imagine extraterrestrials would be?

For starters, we reviewed the research literature in psychology and sociology to find an existing method to assess how alienated people feel. The measure we chose, the Margins of Society Alienation Scale, was described by Robert Travis in the journal Social Indicators Research in 1993. This scale taps peoples feelings of alienation by
asking them to respond to the following statements:

- I feel all alone these days.
- My whole world feels like its falling apart.
- I wish I were somebody important.
- Its hard for me to tell just what is right and wrong these days.
- I dont like to live by societys rules.
- I often feel discriminated against.
- Ill never find the right person to care enough about me.

While no single one of these statements can capture a persons overall feelings of alienation, as a group of statements, they do a quite good job. We asked each participant in the survey to indicate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with each statement, which provided us with a quantitative method to identify people who were feeling very alienated, those who didnt feel alienated at all, and those who fell somewhere between those extremes.

Similarly, to assess peoples beliefs about how hostile aliens are likely to be, we used a set of statements that psychologist Yuh-shiow Lee and I developed to measure just that. Specifically, we asked people who completed the survey to imagine that we had received a radio signal with a message from intelligent life in outer space. They
were then asked to rate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with each of the following statements on a six point scale. If they agreed completely, they were to rate the item a "6". If they disagreed completely, they gave the statement a "1." And if they were somewhere in between, mildly or moderately agreeing or disagreeing with the
item, they were to choose an appropriate number. Here are the statements that they rated:

- ETs are probably looking for planets they can take over for themselves.
- We should not reply to the message from ETs because they might be hostile.
- ETs would probably look at humans like we are nothing more than animals that belong in their zoos.
- Humans would probably not be able to understand the message from ETs because humans and ETs are just too different.
- If we reply to the message from ETs, they might come to Earth and take over our world.
- We should not believe what the message says, because the ETs may be lying.
- ETs would probably want to make humans their slaves.
- The message from ETs may contain a hidden message that could be harmful to humans.

Again, we tallied up peoples total scores for all the items in the scale, then calculated their average score for the scale. Thus, each respondent provided an average ratinga number between 1 and 6of how hostile they imagined extraterrestrials would be. People with average ratings near 6 thought extraterrestrials would be very hostile. People
with ratings near 1 were not concerned at all about ET malevolence.

The critical question is whether more alienated people are more likely to view ETs as hostile. As we hypothesized, the answer is "yes". To understand this better, lets compare the responses of the most alienated people and the least alienated people. As the graphs to the right show, people who dont feel at all alienated were very unlikely
to view ET as hostile (bottom graph).

On these graphs, the average ratings of ET hostility are shown across the bottom. Since we are looking at the average ratings of several items that tap attitudes about ET hostility, many peoples ratings fall between even numbers. The height of the bars shows how many respondents had scores in the corresponding range. For example, 109 of the least alienated people had average ET hostility scores between 1 and 1.5. In contrast, only 15 of the most alienated people thought extraterrestrials would be this harmless.

As we examine the graphs as a whole, we can see a strong pattern. First, for both groups, most people thought extraterrestrials would pose no great danger. If we look at the number of people who fall above and below 3.5 on the hostility scalewhich is the "neutral point" between 1 and 6we see a much higher percentage of people who think that extraterrestrial motivations will be malevolent when we look at the group of alienated people. Fully 20 percent of the alienated people score above 3.5 on the ET hostility scale, as compared to a mere 4 percent of the non-alienated people. In fact, not a single person in the non-alienated group scored above 5 on the ET hostility
scale. The pattern is clear: people who feel alienated are much more likely to be concerned that ET has evil intentions.

These figures show the differences between the most and the least alienated people among the 3000 respondents to our survey. But what about all the restthe majority who fell somewhere between these extremes? Isnt it arbitrary to look at only the most and least alienated people?

Indeed it is. When we look at every one of the respondents, not just the extreme cases, we see the same pattern. Of course, its always possible that the patterns we see in studies like this are due to chance, but with some basic statistics, we can even measure the likelihood of that. As it turns out, the pattern we detected between peoples level of alienation and their views about ET hostility is such a strong pattern that the probability it occurred due to chance alone is less than one in a trillion. In short, the pattern we found is really there, and not just an artifact of the study.

If some day SETI succeeds in detecting a signal from extraterrestrials, we will be faced with the frustration of not
knowing as much about the senders of the signal as we would like. As with all scientific experiments, it will be vital for us to sift through the data, always careful not to jump to hasty conclusions. By better understanding how our own biases might creep into our interpretation of the data, we will be better prepared to remain as objective as possible. Humankind will face many important decisions upon detecting ET, such as whether or not we should reply. It would be unfortunate indeed if those decisions were based more on personal prejudice than on well-reasoned analysis.

©1999 - 2002 SPACE.com, inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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#2. The Tunguska Incident - An Overview by: James L. Choron
kommissar@mtu-net.ru http://WinterSteel.homestead.com/Home.html

At 7.00am on 30th June 1908 near the lower Tunguska River, Siberia, a large explosion occurred. The explosion was so massive that it caused damage 400 miles away, and was heard even further. Even the heat that came out from the explosion was felt hundreds of miles away. The blast was so intense that hundreds of square miles of Siberian forest were flattened and burned by a mysterious fireball. Only now, nearly a century decades later, are we learning what really happened… and not a minute too soon a vast fireball raced through the dawn sky over Siberia, then exploded with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. The heat incinerated herds of reindeer and charred tens of thousands of evergreens across hundreds of square miles. The effect was much like that of a great volcanic eruption, yet there had been no eruption. The only objective indication of the extraordinary event was a quiver on seismographs in the Siberian City of Irkutsk, indicating a moderate quake some 1,000 miles north in a remote region called Tunguska.

For several nights all over northern Europe, the sky glowed enough to light the street of London, and as far away as western Europe people were able to read newspapers at night without a lamp.
At first it was assumed that a massive meteorite had collided with the earth.

In about 1500 BC most of the island of Thera in the Aegean disappeared in a blast. Tidal waves from the explosion swept across 70 miles of sea, rolling over the palaces and temples. There is a theory that in the sudden destruction of Thera and the related Cretan empire may lie the beginnings of the legend of Atlantis.

No similar catastrophe, of this magnitude, affected history until AD 62, when an earthquake caused by the eruption of Vesuvius toppled much of the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum near Naples. The same thing happened 17 years later.

The Vesuvius blast was dwarfed by the destruction of the volcanic island of Krakatoa between Java and Sumatra. On the early afternoon of August 26th 1883, the volcano began to explode, eventually discharging a 17-mile high cloud of dark ash, and at 10 a.m. on the following morning the whole island was shaken by a cataclysmic blast. Ash fountained 50 miles into the sky. The sound was heard 2,200 miles away in Australia. Tidal waves more than 100 feet high killed 36,000 people. The dust so saturated the upper air that it lowered the world temperature 0.5 ëF for many years.

None of these explosions could surpass the sheer force of the Tunguska blast in 1908. Even the Hiroshima blast and the nuclear tests of the early 1950s are dwarfed by it. The estimated energy output of the Siberian blast- 10^23 ergs -would be comparable only with the explosion of the heaviest hydrogen bombs. Also, all of the earlier disasters are completely explainable… There is no mystery in the eruption of a volcano, and there is certainly no mystery in the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The year after the Tunguska blast, in 1909, an expedition was dispatched to the area by Tsar Nicholas II, to investigate the occurrence. This expedition found an area of near complete devastation, in which trees were carbonized where they stood, and the sand near the center of the "blast" area was fused into beads of glass. No cause for the blast could be determined, although the scientists of the expedition theorized the impact of some "celestial" body with the Earth… possibly a small comet or a meteorite.

Given the remoteness of the area it was not until 1927 that another expedition was mounted to investigate the crash area. This expedition could not locate any bits of meteorite, or other "foreign" debris, which puzzled them due the size that the meteorite or other object, would have to have been to create such a large explosion.

Another puzzle, for both of the expeditions, was the way the tress were felled in an outward motion and that in the center, a fairly large area of trees were still standing, although completely carbonized, and all their bark and branches have been destroyed.

These observations, taken together, indicated to those examining the area, that whatever had caused the blast had not, in fact, impacted with the earth, but had, rather, exploded some distance above it. In this way, debris would necessarily be scattered over a wide area, and not readily locatable. It also led those investigating the site to believe that the object had been, contrary to the original theory, rather small in size.

It is interesting to note that of both these expeditions, the scientists and other personnel involved all developed symptoms of a strange illness, which, in time, claimed the life of each participant. In it's early stages, the "sickness" was characterized by "wasting away" and a loss of hair. Onset was fairly sudden, and the illness progressed rapidly, with each person dead within six months of visiting the site. No treatment of the time was effective in either curing, or slowing the advance of the disease.

After the Second World War and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, photos of the cities were compared with aerial photos of the Tunguska blast, and they were stunning similar. This not only included the conditions around the area of detonation, but also the symptoms of radiation poisoning suffered by survivors of the blasts, and those who had worked in contaminated areas. As a result of this, various scientists speculated that a nuclear explosion had taken place over the area, hence explaining the tree formation, and because no nation possessed nuclear device the logical conclusion was that it was from an exploding alien nuclear, or antimatter powered craft.

This theory is supported by the fact that many of the witnesses to the original crash spoke of seeing and oval-shaped mass moving across the sky, as well as seeing the object change course, and of having a very low speed. This description fits, almost hand in glove, with other reports of Unidentified Flying Objects of that time, which were primarily "cigar shaped" or "oval"… such as the Aurora, Texas "Airship" of 1897. Also… since the time of the blast, researchers have found embedded in Tunguska trees tiny particles of matter, which have an extraterrestrial signature.

In 1956, as part of the activities of the "International Geophysical Year," then Soviet Premier Nikita Khruvschev authorized yet another expedition into the Tunguska region. This group, equipped with the most up-to-to date of equipment protective clothing, found, some fifty years after the blast, that the conditions at the epicenter of the blast had changed little, if at all. Extremely high levels of radiation were found in the area, and, once again, no sign whatever of a meteorite, or any other "foreign" object. As was the case with earlier expeditions, every member of this team began exhibiting symptoms of radiation induced illness almost immediately, even though they were in possession of, and used, protective clothing similar in nature to that issued to members of the military assigned to function a radioactive, battlefield environment, and by workers in the core area of a nuclear power plant. Although none of the members died immediately, since the time of the expedition, each member of the team has subsequently passed away from some form of cancer, the most prominent being Leukemia.

The radioactivity in the area seems, according to most experts, to be decreasing, at a slow, but normal rate, and has lessened dramatically since the time of the original blast. Still, unusual levels of radioactivity are present, and apparently will be for some time to come.

In the early 1980's, Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov authorized a similar expedition, equipped with a vastly enlarged array of protective equipment and recording instrumentation which observed similar results as those of the 1956, team. Radiation levels at the site are still over twenty times normal for other parts of the region, and toward the epicenter of the "blast" are over one hundred times that of any naturally occurring phenomenon. It should be noted that radiation levels of this nature, while not immediately fatal, would, in fact, produce the symptoms noted in all of the previous expeditions, and would be, if not immediately treated, fatal. Exposure for lesser periods of time, or in the presence of first-generation protective equipment, such as used by the 1956 expedition, would, according to experts, most probably account for the high incidence of cancer among the returning team members.

At this point, other theories started to be proposed, each becoming more and more far-fetched, ranging from pinpoint black holes, and "free existing" antimatter particles. The point is, no one really knows. Most of today's "scientific community" believe, or profess to believe, that what happened in Tunguska was simply the impact of a meteorite, or perhaps a small comet, whose composition was such that it exploded, well before impact, several thousand feed abode the Siberian forest. Naturally, those who espouse other theories are ridiculed, and their theories called "absurd."

Still, in light of known facts, the alien craft theory still has a much credibility, in that it would explain, at least to some degree, the high levels of radiation which are still present at the site, not to mention the fact that the explosion seems to have been an "air blast" with the exploding object making no physical contact with the earth. Bear in mind that the explosion, whatever it's nature, occurred in 1908, long before even the theory which made controlled nuclear chain reaction, and the atomic bomb possible.

Likewise it happened at such an early point in the Twentieth Century, that one must also raise the question as to whether or not the mostly illiterate Siberian Peasants of this point in time (a group which constituted the majority of witnesses to the "object sightings") would fabricate stories of seeing objects in the sky… something which they almost certainly had never seen before… not even the primitive flying machines of the day, which had been invented only five years before the incident, and certainly had not been introduced into Siberian Russia. The nature of the people of that time, their basic character, and the conditions under which they lived run contrary to the thought that such a story would be simply "dreamed up." The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, especially the sect known as "Old Believers", which is the predominate religion of the area, is, and always has been, opposed to "frivolous" reading and entertainment, which would generally preclude the notion that these people, event the five (5%) percent, or so, which was at that time literate, would have encountered similar stories, such as existed, through literature. As is the case with the earlier "Aurora Incident," in which an "Airship" allegedly crashed in the small Central Texas town of Aurora, the citizens of this remote region were not prone to "tall tales" unless they were plainly stated to be such, as there would be nothing whatsoever to gain from the activity. The telling of such tales would instantly label them either mad, drunken, or "possessed of the Devil" in the culture of the area, as it existed at that time. Nor would such people be particularly open to repeating such stories to the authorities, especially considering the fact that the questioning authorities were the infamous 'Okrana", the Tsar's Secret Police, an organization which believed in the old Roman axiom that "Pain is the mother of Truth" and whose methods were considered by those who sampled both, to be worse than those of the "Cheka" or it's descendant, the "NKVD."

What actually caused the Tunguska blast. That it happened is beyond question, the scars remain, even today. Was it, as the majority of the "scientific community" would have us believe, the impact of a meteor or a small comet? Was it the explosion and crash of an Unidentified Flying Object? Was it something else entirely? As with most of these cases that occurred long ago, we shall most likely never know for sure.

What is known fro sure is this… Even today, when strange lights dance in the distant Siberian skies, as they often do, the children and grandchildren of those who knew the force of the Tunguska blast look to the skies and cross themselves… mumble a quiet, fervent prayer… and shudder.
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#3. I, Chip? Technology to Meld Chips into Humans Draws Closer
by: Paul Eng, ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/chipimplant020225.html

It's 10 p.m. You may not know where your child is, but the chip does.

The chip will also know if your child has fallen and needs immediate help. Once paramedics arrive, the chip will also be able to tell the rescue workers which drugs little Johnny or Janie is allergic to. At the hospital, the chip will tell doctors his or her complete medical history.

And of course, when you arrive to pick up your child, settling the hospital bill with your health insurance policy will be a simple matter of waving your own chip — the one embedded in your hand.

To some, this may sound far-fetched. But the technology for such chips is no longer the stuff of science fiction. And it may soon offer many other benefits besides locating lost children or elderly Alzheimer patients.

"Down the line, it could be used [as] credit cards and such," says Chris Hables Gray, a professor of cultural studies of science and technology at the University of Great Falls in Montana. "A lot of people won't have to carry wallets anymore," he says. "What the implications are [for this technology], in the long run, is profound."

Indeed, some are already wondering what this sort of technology may do to the sense of personal privacy and liberty.

"Any technology of this kind is easily abusive of personal privacy," says Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "If a kid is track-able, do you want other people to be able to track your kid? It's a double-edged sword."

Tiny Chips That Know Your Name

The research — and controversy — of embedding microchips isn't entirely new. Back in 1998, Brian Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University in London, implanted a chip into his arm as an experiment to see if Warwick's computer could wirelessly track his whereabouts with the university's building.

But Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. in Palm Beach, Fla., is one of the latest to try and push the experiments beyond the realm of academic research and into the hands — and bodies — of ordinary humans.

The company says it has recently applied to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to begin testing its VeriChip device in humans. About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip can be encoded with bits of information and implanted in humans under a layer of skin. When scanned by a nearby handheld reader, the embedded chip yields the data — say an ID number that links to a computer database file containing more detailed information.

Building a Built-in Digital Guardian

Keith Bolton, chief technology officer for ADS, says that VeriChip is only the beginning.

According to Bolton, the company has already started experimenting with
combining the Verichip with another ADS product called Digital Angel. That pager-sized device allows caregivers and parents to monitor the health and whereabouts of seniors and children through the use of space-based Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.

"In the migration path, those two products that can be bundled together," says Bolton. The resulting product would be about the size of an American quarter coin and offer an improved way of monitoring patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, for example.

Safety Against Terrorists?

And the interest in testing embedded chips has been steadily increasing
— especially since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Dr. Richard Seelig, a former surgeon but now a medical consultant for ADS, became the first to embed a VeriChip in his arm and hip on Sept. 16. He says his decision to become a willing guinea pig came when he saw World Trade Center rescue workers scrawl information on their skin as an identifying marker should they get hurt in the wreckage.

"There is a clear need for a more secure [form of] identification," says Seelig. "This was another useful application for VeriChip and to move the process along and [help] evaluate the possibility, I had the chips inserted."

And Seelig isn't the only one who feels this way.

According to ADS' Bolton, about 50 people have already signed up with the company to become part of the VeriChip experiments. Some volunteers, such as the Jacobs family in Boca Raton, Fla., believe that the technology will provide for a much needed additional security and safety.

"What it does for me is give me a peace of mind because it speaks for you when you can't," says Leslie Jacobs, a journalist in Boca Raton, Fla. Her 14-year old son, Derek, had first heard of the VeriChip on a local newscast and had persuaded Leslie and her husband that this new chip technology would be the wave of the future. And after looking into the technology, she believes that her son was right. "I really think this could help make the world safer in the future," she says.

Chipping Blocks

But making the world safer or allowing missing children to be found easily won't happen anytime soon. In addition to waiting for FDA approval — a process that may take years — some experts point to many other obstacles that would need to be cleared.

Most embedded chip designs, such as ADS's VeriChip, are so-called passive chips which yield information only when scanned by a nearby reader. But active chips — such as the proposed Digital Angel of the future — will need to beam out information all the time. And that means designers will have to develop some
sort of power source that can provide a continuous source of energy, yet be small enough to be embedded with the chips.

Another additional hurdle, developing tiny GPS receiver chips that could be embedded yet still be sensitive enough to receive signals from thousands of miles out in space.

In addition to technical hurdles, many suspect that all sorts of legal and privacy issues would have to be cleared as well.

Tien of the EFF is concerned that while embedded chip technology may be
beneficial in locating lost loved ones, he worries that it could be easily abused. "Once this thing is in you, what's the guarantee that not just anyone won't be able to track you?" asks Tien.

Tien is also concerned that the "benefits" of being able to track people clandestinely may be forced upon others. "If it works here — finding lost loved ones — so then we'll use it for released prisoners and sex offenders," says Tien. "If the choice is offered to a person to either stay in prison for another year or to go on parole as long as they have this monitoring chip in them, then that's not really much of a choice in my opinion," he says.

And while the EFF isn't openly condemning embedded chip technology, "Our critique of proposed technology solutions — whether they be chip implants or national ID cards — is that people will abuse them," says Tien. "That's the fundamental issue of human nature."

Crawling Toward a Race of Cyborgs?

Such qualms over privacy, whether real or overblown, are likely to keep any mass "chipping" from happening in the near future. And that may be the ultimate problem for the technology overall.

"It's a chicken and egg problem," says Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future, a research firm in Menlo Park, Calif. "Hospitals and ambulances aren't going to invest in new detectors [for these chips] until people start using the chip, but people aren't going to use these chips until there's a wide availability of readers," he says.

Still, Saffo and others don't doubt that one day we may become a race of cyborgs — part man and part machine.

"We put all sorts of implants in [our bodies] today," says Saffo. "If we have metal hips, it only makes sense to have chips in, too."
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#4. March's Award Winner Of The Month! Conspiracy Journal..Featuring an article "Paranormal or Extraterrestrial? by: Tim Swartz trswartz@hotmail.com http://www.conspiracyjournal.com

Conspiracy Journal is the web home for Timothy Green Beckley's Global Communications. Global Communications and Inner Light Publications have been the leading publishers of books about UFOs, conspiracies, the paranormal, New Age etc., for more than thirty years.

The Conspiracy Journal website, along with its free, weekly e-mail newsletter, is produced and edited by Tim Swartz. The exciting new venue of the internet has allowed writers such as Commander X, Tim Swartz, Brad Steiger, Sean Casteel and Diane Tessman to reach and inform a whole new audience from all across the planet.

Conspiracy Journal is dedicated to uncovering news and information of UFOs, conspiracies, the paranormal, and everything else weird and strange that might not be published in the local morning newspaper, or seen on the nightly six o'clock news.

If you have never read "The Conspiracy Journal" I would suggest that you sign up, what can I say is that it is free of charge and you will get some very fine stories along with a dash of commentaries..as for Tim's Books that is another Story, I myself have mostly all of them and I find them totaly enlightening..so make sure you check out the website!

Some of Tim's Books are:
The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla : Haarp - Chemtrails and Secret of Alternative 4 </exec/obidos/ASIN/1892062135/qid=1014849737/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5880062-0827222>

Evil Agenda Of The Secret Government </exec/obidos/ASIN/1892062003/qid=1014849737/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-5880062-0827222>

Teleportation How to Guide : From Star Trek to Tesla </exec/obidos/ASIN/1892062437/qid=1014849737/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-5880062-0827222>

Time Travel: A How-To Insiders Guide </exec/obidos/ASIN/1892062046/qid=1014849737/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/002-5880062-0827222>

Secret Black Projects of the New World Order </exec/obidos/ASIN/0938294806/qid=1014849737/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/002-5880062-0827222>

Paranormal or Extraterrestrial? By Tim Swartz trswartz@hotmail.com

There seems to be a fine line between certain UFO experiences and classic haunting's. That is not to say that all UFO sightings will lead to paranormal experiences. However, based on a number of reliable reports, there does seem to be a certain aspect of the UFO phenomenon that either closely parallels psychic occurrences, or originates from the same source.

In other words: Some UFO incidents can be considered the same as haunting's and other paranormal events – with the same sorts of phenomena, such as: ghostly figures and visits from seemingly physical, yet bizarre people, unexplained noises, teleportations, the psychokinetic moving of objects and furniture, and even possession.

One such case that blurs the line between UFOs and the paranormal was investigated by Timothy Green Beckley and Brad Steiger. Brian Scott claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials and taken to a secret underground base within the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.

The Superstition Mountains has a long and colorful history of unusual events and hauntings. There have been several reported cases where strange voices have driven treasure-hunters insane and, in some cases, driving them to kill their partners. Brad Steiger, in his book The UFO Abductors (1988., Berkley Books., N.Y.) describes Brian Scott's experiences as follows:

Brian Scott's first abduction reportedly occurred in the Arizona desert near Phoenix in 1971, and he claimed that another had just occurred on December 22, 1975, in Garden Grove, California. In between, Scott said, there were three other terrifying sessions with the aliens and repeated visits to his home by balls of light and a transparent being that called itself The Host.

Incredibly, Scott found that a friend of his was already inside the craft. The two of them were taken into a small room that began to fill with a fog or a mist. Then they were confronted by four or five 'very horrifying' creatures. Scott described them as having gray skin like that of a crocodile or a rhino, with a thicker patch of hide over the front torso. The beings were seven feet tall, according to Scott, and, had three fingers and a thumb kicked over to one side.

In his book, Steiger detailed a fascinating conversation between noted author and UFO investigator Timothy Green Beckley and Brian Scott.
Tim Beckley: What happened on the day when your wife was sent to the hospital?

Scott: She had been to work, pretty much handling everything that was going on around her. Then I got a call that she wasn't feeling very well. I brought her home, and after about fifteen minutes of sitting there talking with her, she was saying several things, none of which made any sense to me or to her. She said that she had been in the bathroom and suddenly felt hands all over her body. It was as if someone had broken into the house and molested her. When she calmed down and started making explanations to me about what the hell was wrong with her, it was as if, from her description, the guys I had seen aboard the craft in 1971 had visited her. This is odd, because she has never seen nor shown any interest in the sketches that I made of those entities.

Beckley: So this was an actual materialization – if you want to call it that – of the entities in the house?

Scott: I don't know what is was.

Beckley: But she was so upset that you decided to take her to the hospital?

Scott: Later that evening, it seemed as if she was okay. I was on the phone, and the baby was getting into everything so I couldn't carry on the conversation. I got up and went looking for my wife. I heard a bumping sound and a moan coming from the bathroom. My wife was on the floor, hyperventilating. I got her up and onto a chair in the living room. I was on my way to call her mother when she just fell flat on her face. I called the paramedics, and while they were on the way, she got up and fell down again. Then she began to become hysterical. It took four paramedics to hold her down. She was throwing people around as if they were tissue paper. Guys were thrown backward against the furniture. Finally they loaded her up in the ambulance. I came back in the house, and the baby was not in the playpen. I panicked, because I couldn't find our one-year-old baby who got out of a playpen!

Beckley: Who is The Host?

Scott: There is one entity that comes through that calls itself The Host, whatever that means. It speaks in what sounds like some kind of computerized language. The voice seems to come out of me, an inner voice that is not mine. The entity says that I am one with it. It says, ‘I am; I am,' or ‘You are one with me.' When I asked if it has a name, it will just come back and say, ‘I am; I am.' The other night we heard some strange sounds coming from the bedroom, and I began to speak in a foreign language that we later found out was Greek. Where that came from, I don't know. I wrote in Greek BACKWARD. On top of that, I was writing with my left hand, and I am right-handed. This voice was talking. We asked who it was, and the name Ashtar came out. Then it began to use the name Ashtar and speak to my wife. It told her things about her past that only she could know. This went on for a while, then it went on to say it would give her all the money in the world. It only wanted one thing in return – her soul.

Beckley commented that it sounded as though diabolical entities might be coming onto the scene, attracted by the extreme vibrations. He also observed that ASHTAR, which has surfaced often in the strange world of UFOs, sounded very much like ISHTAR, an ancient Babylonian goddess.

Tim Beckley later asked J.D. (an investigator associated with a civilian UFO investigations group who studied the Brian Scott incident) how he would differentiate between what may have originally been an abduction case and the various types of poltergeist phenomena that now seemed to prompt Scott's resultant trance state. Are they one and the same? Are they closely related mysteries? Or are they entirely different aspects of a more general phenomenon?

J.D. indicated that he was aware that there had been other cases such as Scott's. The manifestations of balls of light streaking through the homes of contactees and abductees apparently are more frequent than many investigators realize. J.D. mentioned that one voice, a horrible voice, came through and claimed to be Beelzebub, the Devil. J.D. was convinced that the entity was simply trying to frighten away the investigators.

Aside from the 3-fingered, 7 ft. tall "Crocodilian" creatures encountered by Brian Scott, there was another group involved in his abductions as well.

According to Steiger: "The secondary group was composed of beings who were small, with frail bodies, milky white skin, large bald heads, thin lips, and enormous eyes... supposedly this group, perhaps from the sixth or seventh planets around the star Epsilon Bootes, have the power to veto actions planned by those beings of the secondary world, the reptile creatures."

In reference to the supposed mission these creatures had chosen for Brian Scott, Steiger states: "Scott was to design a transportation technology that would move matter through space. He was to master quantum displacement physics and begin to develop a mind transference machine to be used to unite all humans. Such a machine would help to develop a philosophy of cosmic brotherhood. The above tasks, of course, would seem impossible for a combination of Einstein and Superman, but they are typical of the type of grandiose mission(s) assigned to so many contactees and abductees."

The name Ashtar appears often in UFO contactee literature. One cannot help noting the ancient origin of the name Ishtar, Ashtar, Asta, described always as a god of evil and negativity in the Bible, but whose roots as a highly respected god go back to the beginnings of recorded history. Ashtar seems to belong more to the contactees than the abductees, but there are instances where those who claim to have been forcefully taken aboard UFOs describe an interaction with beings who represent themselves as emissaries of Ashtar's Grand Plan.

The Brian Scott case is just one of hundreds, maybe thousands of nonsensical interactions with nonhuman entities. As noted in Brad Steiger's book, often UFO experiencers will be given some supposedly monumental task by the extraterrestrials, who solemnly tell their chosen emissary that the fate of the world depends on the successful completion of his mission. In the case of Brian Scott, his building of a super-scientific teleportation machine would help unite all of mankind with the aliens in a cosmic brotherhood. So far, Brian has yet to accomplish his goal, but he is optimistic that he will help pave the way to a new way of life for all of mankind. A way of life that will involve not just the people of planet Earth, but also a myriad of other intelligent races from all across the universe.
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#5. Shamed Star's "Aliens Claim"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/funny_old_game/newsid_1842000/1842050.stm

A triple gold medallist who was kicked out of the Winter Olympics for
failing a drugs test claims he is being told what to do by aliens.
Cross-country skier Johann Muehlegg said the mysterious beings have had
a profound effect on his life.

"I have seen them," he declared, before insisting he had not taken any
drugs.

German-born Muehlegg, 31, defected to Spain in 1999 - apparently on the
instructions of the aliens.

He said: "I was contacted and told what to do by people from the other
side.

Blood booster

"You might think it's funny but it has paid off. I'm now an Olympic
champion and the record books will show it."

Muehlegg denies drug claims

Muehlegg, who failed a second dope test on Tuesday, has only been
ordered to hand back one of his gold medals - for Saturday's 50km.

The International Olympic Committe have no power to seize the gongs
given out for the 10km and 30km events because they took place before he was tested.

But Muehlegg will face a two-year ban if the positive results for blood
booster darbepoetin are upheld.

If that happens, he might still get a call to compete....in the Other
World Championships, due to be held on Mars in July.
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#6. Odd Goings-On Haunt Capitol Halls - Lawmakers Report 'bizarre' Incidents by: Trent Seibert tseibert@denverpost.com
Denver Post Capitol Bureau http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E424317,00.html

Monday, February 25, 2002 - Ghosts and guillotines and thieves and threats.

These and a rash of other unexplained crimes and hauntings at the Capitol have legislators buzzing about how this year is so, well, weird.

"I've been here 11 years and I've never seen anything like it," said Vickie Agler, a former legislator who now serves as assistant to the House speaker. "There are some bizarre things going on."

Lawmakers have been menaced by interest groups, with one even threatening to bring a guillotine to the Capitol.

Add to that a drug bust on the Capitol steps, a flasher roaming the grounds, a senator's flashy pickup stolen right off the statehouse lot and the return of one of the Capitol's infamous ghosts, and suddenly politics has become a lot more paranormal.

One of those "bizarre things" is the group of people that is leaving voice mail messages with lawmakers, threatening to sue them for malfeasance. They say they will be showing up at the Capitol with their guillotine.

This group, led by a nurse named Betty James, protests for more civil rights. In a recent phone message to House Speaker Doug Dean, she demanded an "immediate display in the rotunda of the people's last resort: the guillotine."

Indeed, she even called the State Patrol, which is in charge of security at the Capitol, asking for the best way to bring her guillotine into the statehouse. Officials said she wasn't allowed to bring it at all.

Why ask for permission?

"I wanted to give them a heads-up," James said.

It's not uncommon for lawmakers to be threatened, and it happens several times a month. But since the legislature opened for business in January, legislators and the State Patrol officers who protect them concede those threats seem odder than usual.

Some speculate that it stems from the country being so united over the war and the Olympics, that protesters have to make more of an effort to be noticed.

"People are becoming more dramatic, trying to make a bigger statement," said State Patrol Capt. Doug Shelton.

One example of a dramatic statement came during a recent shut-down of a committee hearing.

A group of people identifying themselves as journalists showed up at the hearing. However, they turned out to be activists who blocked the committee room's doorways, grabbed a sergeant-at-arms, and broke into an off-key rendition of "God Bless America."

Another apparent threat came as recently as Tuesday during a committee hearing. Lawmakers say they felt uncomfortable after threatening statements made during testimony by a man named John Walker, the ominous namesake of the American Taliban.

"With his body language and his tone, it certainly felt like a threat," said Rep. Debbie Stafford, who's considering getting a restraining order against Walker.

It's not just threats. There's weird crime, too. Sen. Ken Chlouber's 1998 black Chevy half-ton pickup, adorned with painted flames on each side, was stolen from the state Capitol parking lot, right under the eyes of the State Patrol and security cameras.


The weirdest occurrence, some say, is the return of one of the Capitol's legendary ghosts.

The night janitors report seeing the spectre floating in the ornate lobby outside the Senate. They describe her as an older woman in a hood, garbed in black, with her arms crossed.

"I have no idea who she is," said Ron Enriquez. "I was shocked. I was scared."

Sen. Ed Perlmutter said he wonders if the ghost is behind the recent spate of bad karma that seems to have descended over the gold dome like a dark cloud. He says he just might ask her.

"I think I'll stay here late one night and see if she shows up," he said.
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#7. The X-Files Come To Inkerman by: David Stonehouse
The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/story.asp?id=%7BBB38DCF4-CB98-4484-B832-16F9013E6991%7D

If UFOs have indeed been hovering in the skies above this tiny New Brunswick town, as the many sightings suggest, the folks here aren't bothered. Except, of course, for those who say they've actually seen the alien spacecraft.

INKERMAN, N.B. - It was a crisp, clear January night, and 22-year-old Mathieu Robichaud was at the wheel of his Chevy Cavalier, his girlfriend next to him holding his hand, headed for the video store the next town over.

They were looking forward to a quiet Saturday night -- just the two of them nestled together, watching movies back at the apartment they shared in the basement of her mother's house.

The conversation between the two had fallen to silence. The familiarity of the road, the music on the radio and the tranquilizing hiss of the car heater cranked on high had lulled them into a quiet comfort.

Then: "Jesus!" he exclaimed. "What's that?"

Two lights low in the sky.

Jenny Laplante noticed them just at that moment, too. "It's a plane," the 17-year-old high school student thought, "and it's about to crash."

But as they drove closer, the details became clearer: two lights morphed to four white lights -- translucent, like light spilling through a distant window. Smaller blue lights were set between the white.

There was no way, they thought, that it was an airplane: it wasn't the right shape and it moved too slowly.

Craning his neck to follow it as it approached, Mr. Robichaud also noticed white lights on bottom. He quickly pulled into the nearest driveway and jumped out of the car.

He figured it was only about 15 metres above him. He couldn't see the body of it in the dark, but the arrangement of lights made it appear as if it was shaped like a diamond. It looked to be about twice the width of his car and four times as long.

He was struck by the silence -- the thing made no noise. He watched as it banked into a sharp turn over the house to his right and floated off toward a neighbouring thicket of forest.

He jumped back into the car. His girlfriend was frightened, crying. He raced down the road, trying to follow it. He lost it over the woods.

He remains convinced that what he saw that night at about 9:30 p.m. was not an earthly invention, but a spacecraft from another planet. A genuine alien-owned-and-operated Unidentified Flying Object.

"I'm sure it was," he says, driving the same two-lane stretch of mottled road weeks later. He is a confident young man, square of jaw, unassuming, earnest. He earns his living outdoors, cutting back trees that encroach on hydro lines. A black leather jacket hides the athletic build on his six-foot-plus frame. His hair is short and ink-black, his eyes framed by small, metal-framed glasses. He sports a wispy moustache.

He has come without his girlfriend. She would like to forget it all. She went to bed that January night and dreamed about coming face-to-face with a big-headed alien with red eyes that chased her through a neighbour's yard.

He has agreed to talk about what he saw only if his real name is not revealed, nor that of his girl. He says he has talked to none of his friends about the incident -- he has disclosed this to only a select few, for fear others will think he is a lunatic.


He is not alone -- in either the sighting or his fear. There have been more than 15 other reports of similar objects in the sky over this stretch of northern New Brunswick since -- making Inkerman, a fishing village of 900 souls on the Acadian Peninsula, the new UFO capital of Canada.

Like Mr. Robichaud, most folks who are reported to have witnessed a UFO in the skies above the village will not talk about it if their real identities are revealed. Either that or they flat-out refuse to discuss it.

"I don't want to talk about that," firmly declared one reported witness when called at home.

Those who weren't eyewitnesses themselves don't mind chatting about it.

"My brother saw it three weeks before Christmas," says Nicole Gagnon, a 27-year-old who works at the 30-bed nursing home in the village. "He saw it with two of his friends."

A friend of hers also saw it, she says. It came in low and falling as if it were about to crash. "It's strange," Ms. Gagnon says. "Very strange."

Almost all of the sightings have been over Pallot Road, a two-lane stretch of asphalt dotted with modest homes, barren farms and thick brush. It cuts through Inkerman's main intersection -- a four-way stop home to the only gas station, along with an auto parts store and a convenience store-deli, the Marché Inkerman. "Try our hot'n'Tender Pressure Fried Chicken," suggests a white banner tacked to the front of the store.

Ask the attendant at the Shell what else the village has to offer, he mentions the nursing home, the peat moss plant and "and the strip club over the bridge." He forgets to mention the Catholic church.

Declared one New Brunswick newspaper in its dispatch on the Inkerman sightings: "If an extraterrestrial explorer wanted to check out the planet Earth without attracting a lot of attention, this is a pretty good place to do it."

Indeed, the folks in this village -- unfailingly polite and friendly -- go about life without paying much care for the reason behind their new notoriety. If alien spacecraft have indeed been hovering the skies above, it doesn't bother them. Their reaction is neither excited nor scornful, only nonchalant. Life meanders along as normal.

The UFO was supposed to have sailed right over Cyrus Robichaud's farm.

"It could be," says the 68-year-old, his face heavily creased, weathered by all those years working the railway. "If I had seen it, I'd tell you the truth. But I didn't see it."

A mother who lives the next farm over seems unfazed.

"I can't say I don't believe it," she says, standing in her doorway of her well-kept farmhouse as three children do homework at the kitchen table behind her. "I can't say I believe it, either. I'd have to see it."

The village started attracting attention after L'Acadie Nouvelle, the province's French-language daily newspaper, wrote about the first eyewitness account. Others started coming forward saying they had seen the same thing. In at least one case, it was a sighting three months earlier, but most were in mid-January.

Gaëtane Caissie read the newspaper report and called over her 11-year-old daughter, Janick. "That's what I saw," the girl said.

She was outside the hockey arena in Baie-Sainte-Anne -- roughly 150 kilometres south of Inkerman -- with a girlfriend on Jan. 13, the day after the first reported sighting. Their brothers were playing a bantam game inside, their folks cheering from the bleachers.

The girls were bored of the game and went outside to grab some fresh air. It was about 3:30 p.m. Janick noticed a black, diamond-shaped object in the sky. It looked bigger than a car. She watched as it cleared the arena rooftop. If it made any noise, she could not hear it.

The girls ran back to get their parents and convinced them to come outside. They made it out in time to see it sail out over the mouth of Miramichi Bay.

"I watched it until it disappeared," Ms. Caissie, a 41-year-old mom and part-time tree farm worker, says from her home in Neguac, a coastal community roughly halfway between Baie-Sainte-Anne and Inkerman. "It was weird."

To this day, she still wonders what it was. She is skeptical that it could have been a craft from outer space. She says she doesn't quite believe in such things.

"Not really," she says. "Do they come out in the daytime?"

Chris Rutkowski would say yes. The Winnipeg science writer, schooled in astronomy, tracks UFO sightings across Canada. He has been collecting reports and keeping statistics for more than a decade as part of his research into unidentified flying objects. He received the initial report from Inkerman and doesn't know what to make of the others -- he is waiting for documentation on those.

"At this point in the investigation of the Inkerman cases," he says, "we do not yet have enough data to understand the breadth of the flap."

A flap is a sudden surge in sightings in one area, and this one has pushed Inkerman over the top. There have never been so many sightings in New Brunswick in such a short space of time.

According his records, the highest number previously reported was nine -- in one year, for the whole province. In all of last year, there were five. None were from the Inkerman area.

He took the first Inkerman call, phoned in by the distress line that Mathieu Robichaud's father called that night after his son dropped in to tell him what happened, body trembling.

After getting the call, Mr. Rutkowski says he checked with the Coast Guard's Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax to see if it could have been an aircraft and was told no -- there were none in the area at the time.

He also called Stanton Friedman, a renowned UFO researcher and lecturer who just happens to live in Fredericton, some 300 kilometres southwest of Inkerman.

Since that call, Mr. Friedman has been collecting reports of other sightings from Inkerman. He doesn't tend to get excited over reports of lights in the sky. After all, his work is largely focused on what he calls the "cosmic Watergate" -- a government coverup of an alien ship crash landing in the desert at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

"Is there a bigger story than visits to planet Earth by alien spacecraft, and successful coverup of the best data, bodies and wreckage by the government for 55 years?" he says. "I don't know a bigger story than that."

The New Jersey-born nuclear physicist was the first to begin documenting Roswell. He's written books about it, including The Roswell Incident and Top Secret/Majic, a volume of classified government documents from the late 1940s and early 1950s belonging to a top secret group of scientists, military leaders, and CIA officials that dealt with Roswell and provided briefings to the White House. The United States government has insisted the documents are bogus and that no such group existed.

Mr. Friedman, 67, is firm in his belief that aliens exist and they have visited Earth -- though he hasn't seen any himself. He has given more than 700 lecturers around the world, debated the subject at Oxford, and given countless media interviews.

After interviewing witnesses to the Inkerman sightings, he remains intrigued -- even though they are just lights in the sky, not crash sites. He says the witnesses impressed him. They did not appear to be attention-seekers, he says, their claims were not outlandish, and they all had others with them at the time that also saw the lights.

He is convinced a UFO was hovering over the Acadian Peninsula.

Airplanes don't have the same lights, he says, nor are they able to turn so sharply or cruise so slowly.

"It is a good unidentifiable flying object," he says. "Certainly not anything conventional," he says. Still, he cautions, that doesn't mean that he believes quite yet that there were extraterrestrials looking to land in Inkerman.

"I can't guarantee that the drug-runners of the world haven't come up with a new kind of vehicle," he says and laughs. "But it's unlikely."

As for Mathieu Robichaud, he went back out with his father that January night to try to find the flying object. But now, he says he would be happiest if this stayed a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

"I would like to see it again -- if I had a camera and some film," he says. "But if I don't have that, I don't want to see it."

© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
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"World of the Strange"
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: Permission is granted to reproduce or redistribute this edition provided that attribution is made to the Author or Authors noted. In order to reprint or reproduce any copyrighted material contained herein, if not using the FULL newsletter, you MUST obtain permission from the copyright holder noted. For their permission in use of their said article.

CONTENTS
#1. Missouri Mystery Mound by:Charles Teague
#2. Different Child © 2001 by Sandy Nichols
#3. New Web Site Sheds Light on "Indian" UFOs
#4. A Tone From The Deep by: Seth Shostak Senior Astronomer, Project Phoenix
#5. Let's Do The Time Warp Again by: Scott Mowbray
#6. Study: Left-handers Have Different Brains by: Robert Lee Hotz
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#1. Missouri Mystery Mound by:Charles Teague SabolTeague@aol.com http://missourimysterymound.tripod.com

The beginning of my search for an ancient mound in the backwoods of Middle America began quite innocently several years ago while listening to the late night talk show with Art Bell. Since that time, I have been trying to ascertain if my quest was going to lead me to ancient caves and a trove of lost artifacts. Even today I'm not sure what it is I have found and what its significance is. What first piqued my interest was the interview with an Indian shaman and mystic who was on a life quest to find and explore ancient sites in North America. His goal was to map these ancient sites and use this knowledge to protect them and also to achieve a higher level of spiritual awareness.

He began the show speaking about an ancient site located in Middle America that he said was one of the ancient Halls of Records. This was a depository of artifacts from many ancient cultures around the world. He talked about going to this site and taking away artifacts for some special purpose. I was totally blown away by this revelation. Because I lived in Memphis, TN and was aware of many ancient archeological sites along the Mississippi River, I surmised that if there were such a place, it must be located somewhere in the same geographic area. The Indian mounds of lower Ohio and Illinois, the Serpent Mound in Ohio, the pyramid outside St. Louis, MO and many other sites too numerous to mention, all of these places are located near the Mississippi River or its tributaries.

But where does one go to get information to start such a search? Having no expertise in archaeology, little experience in hiking, tracking, or mapping, I knew I had to use another method. The first thing I tried to do was contact the Indian shaman and his partner. Neither one could be found. Of course I didn't expect him to tell me where the Hall of Records was but, if he could see that I meant no harm to him and his friends and only wanted to join the quest and share the mystery, then I was sure if he would help me as much as he could. At this point I decided that there was no use in pursuing this search any longer.

Now we shall venture into an area most people would not accept as a legitimate science. This is the world of Reverse Speech. I have been an advocate of this strange and exciting science for several years after hearing about it on the Art Bell show. The technology was discovered and developed by David John Oates, a true originator. I immediately ordered the correspondence course and later took the follow-up course as well. While not certified as a Reverse Speech Therapist, I have developed a degree of efficiency in interpreting reversals. Reverse Speech, in a nutshell, is the process whereby you record and play a person's conversation in reverse, listening to the reverse speech patterns. What you hear is the unconscious mind speaking. It comes out in short phrases every 10-20 seconds. They reveal what the unconscious mind is processing. You don't actually hear the person's thoughts but hear the motivational processes behind the unconscious thoughts. What is revealed is what is kept secret from the world and the individual? Who we are and what we think, feel and do is controlled by the unconscious mind. It speaks the truth and does not lie. This concept is a very frightening thing for people to accept or even to get their mind around. Most people fear what they don't understand and sometimes with good reason. The truth can set you free, but it also can scare the hell out of you. I won't go into the mechanics that are involved but state that you receive snippets of the unconscious mind that reveal the truth.

Well, I thought why not apply Reverse Speech and see if my Indian friend would reveal to me clues to the whereabouts of this ancient mound. Little did I know where this search would lead me and the fun I would have in the process. Clues! Getting clues to the location of this site was my goal, and also could I find out where the site was, how to get there and explore it. What could the reversals tell me and how could I plot a course of action? This was the center of my focus over the next few months. Normally you could decipher a two hour tape in several days, but I wanted to make sure I missed no clues. So with this in mind I carefully went through the tape time and time again. I reasoned if this was a valid and reliable technology then my Indian friend would provide hints to its location. The only information the Indian shaman provided was that the site was located in Middle America. Well, that was a big help!

What I found was a wonderful revelation that has led to seven forays into the backwoods of America. Now I will reveal for the first time some of the clues that were revealed to me. I would like to first state that I will not reveal the location of the site for obvious reasons but, the clues have not been changed or altered in any way. I was led to this site by a higher power and if fate or God leads you there, so be it. Here now are a group of reversals that are interesting as well as revelatory. Many are metaphoric in nature with several interpretations.

Reversal ®

® 1. "Maps yield it"
This told me that the location could be found on a map. Whether it was a general map or a personal map, I wasn't sure.

® 2. "Seize the fault in America"
I surmise that the site was along a fault line.

® 3. "Missouri, you fear it"
This confirmed it was located along the New Madrid fault in Missouri.

® 4. "You seize the fault in it"
Find the fault and seize your goal.

Now I would like to turn your attention to a group of metaphoric reversals that reveal a mystery and a promise.

® 5. "The owl sitting in the shaft"
Owl means knowledge.

® 6. "My ark, sit by Bael"
Possibly religious and pagan treasures.

® 7. "Ark, the missing share"

® 8. "Be ark, here benefit, he open it"

® 9. "Me and my bow and that Ozarks. There where found it"
The site was found in the Ozarks.

All of these reversals suggest some sort of storage of records located somewhere in the Ozarks. Now I realized that the location was somewhere in the Missouri Ozarks along the New Madrid fault.

Now these reversals note key characteristics of the site itself:

® 10. "Mill"
Denoting mines of ore and minerals.

® 11. "Rock, there it's hiddeth"
The Hall of Records is under a rock or the entrance is.

® 12. "Mile de wet"
There is a mile of wet ground or water or swamp, possibly a ravine, canal or stream.

® 13. "You realize the igneous mountain shape"
I went to the dictionary to get a better definition of igneous - deposits of ore minerals with igneous rocks typically originating along volcanic arcs in zones of plate convergence (fault lines).

® 14. "Mill is lizard"
The location of the site has something to do with a lizard. This totally confused me. What did a lizard have to do with the Hall of Records?

® 15. "Moss make gather"
"We all soily and knows it"
"See bury gift"
"The wig go wet"
"Moss may gather"
this group of reversals reveals that the location of the site is covered in moss, lots of soil and wet ground. So to see the buried gift one must get wet and dirty. One must go down a "shaft" to reach the Hall of Records.

® 16. "Alsup dug the site"
Who is Alsup? Has an Egyptian ring to it.

® 17. "How to get to old Missouri"
"the grid ox-bow"
"they reached down below the roots"
"heal the mirror doll"
"hid the palace"
The site is on the oxbow grid map. You have to go underground past the Reflective Statute and then you find the palace or ancient temple.

® 18. "Cedar up and near the box sitting off head"
There is a cedar tree near the entrance to the tunnel sitting off to the side of the head.
What head? The head of the mound.
® 19. "see lunus - the arch that gives to the cactus"
Apparently they approached the entrance went under an arch that is sided by a cactus? Image of a cactus? See the light of the moon?

® 20. "the monkey hurt ya"
Monkey? What's going on here? Monkeys in the Ozarks?

® 21. "walk hornets"
"needers bend on the belt lay"
Possibly hornets in the woods. Some sort of bend on a belt, like a beltway.

® 22. 'see elk foot"
"greasy horse head"
More clues.

® 23. "the east dude's secret hall"
I know exactly what this means.

® 24. "it's in swamp"
It certainly is in a swamp.

Now here is a group of very strange reversals:

® 25. "he charm the bark in it"
"a sea in the hornets"
"they must do right"
"sit down, see luna"
"the alps peaking in the woods"
"moss lay over the shaft"
"the knoll dubs a girth slope"
Moss lays over the entrance and there is a wall running round the slope of the mound.

® 26. There is a lion reversal but I will not reveal it.

Interesting Note: The Mormon's believe that Missouri was possibly the original Garden of Eden. The revelation given to them was to go to the land of Missouri where the Lord would reveal the Center Place of Zion. The final temple of the Mormon's will be built on this site in Missouri. The site has not been finally selected yet but several places are being considered.

Having grown up near Memphis and near the banks of the Mississippi River, I was well aware of the sacred Indian mounds. Could these mounds hold a clue to the mystery of the Hall of Records? I decided to find out. I studied the history of the mounds and found a fascinating story that would aid me in my search. General Hernando Desoto in his quest for the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola had stopped here when he came upon the Mississippi River. While trying to get the uncooperative Indians to help him, he kidnapped the Chief's daughter. She was returned to her tribe but not till concessions were made. Was General Desoto given information to help him in his quest? You be the judge.

He built rafts to cross the river, but the hostile Indian tribes on the other side would not let him land there. So instead of traveling by land he forced the rafts upstream against the stiff and dangerous currents and landed at a bend in the river called Greasy Bend. (Note the reversal word Greasy.)

I suggest the reason for this was the many Indian mounds located there and information provided from the Indian nation. Today all the mounds have been plowed under by farmers, except for one that was spared because it was a cemetery. The site today is near he town of New Madrid, Missouri. It is quite beautiful and I felt a kinship with the past when I stood high on the mound's plateau and gazed off into the far distance. I found no exact record of where he went next other than the recorded record of going south to Hot Springs, Arkansas and suddenly turning back east traveling to the mounds near Earle, Arkansas. Unfortunately, Desoto caught yellow fever and died on the banks of the Mississippi River. I also suspect that he was going to head back north because of the information he had was in error.

Now I will reveal the tale of the "Peacemaker" and where it fits into this puzzle but first I want to tell of the other trip General Desoto made. Because of the information known to me by the Peacemaker's legacy, I was able to find historical records of where Desoto went when he left New Madrid, Missouri.

According to the records, he lead his band to a certain area and then ascended to within a few miles of this site when for some inexplicable reason he veered east and then went south until he ended up around Hot Springs, Arkansas. Since he was traveling in a straight line and was nearing the site, what would have caused him to backtrack and then go in a southward direction? This was very strange indeed. I think he was either fought off by the Indians or was given incorrect directions to lead him astray. When I discovered this information, I was positive I was on the right track.

How did I finally find the site? Well, that's a whole another kettle of fish. From the clues I had deciphered before the Peacemaker revelations, I knew the general location within a 100 mile radius or so. Still this would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Wow! Talk about frustrating. I was temporarily stuck even though I knew the clues were there. I just didn't know how to decipher them.

Well, guess what? Providence reared its beautiful head. Are you getting the feeling yet that someone or something was leading me? Here the story starts to get unreal. My friend Eddie Middleton, UFO paranormal researcher and radio host occasionally brings speakers to Memphis. He told me that he was having a lecture featuring a noted expert on American ancient culture and mythology and asked me to attend. I said sure, can't wait to hear him. Little did I know he would provide the key to the mystery. We attended the lecture and heard all about the Peacemaker. There have been many peacemakers but he was speaking of one in particular. I make a note to find out everything I could about him.

I checked the library and came across a biography of the great man, a little known but important figure in our fight for independence from Great Britain. It was a fascinating read, and what I discovered would lead me on my first step in my incredible journey. Encoded in the book was information that would lead me to a certain area in southeastern Missouri. I was amazed to see how this information was encoded, and in a way awe struck at the ingenuity of the Peacemaker. Why he had left these clues and for what purpose I'm still not sure.

My next step was to go to the maps of the area and look for points of reference. This was very time consuming and tedious because there were many areas that fit the code and the area itself was so large and backward. Over the next few weeks I mapped many points but was no closer to finding the site. Finally I went back and reviewed my reversals looking for some additional clues.

I noticed that several clues could have been talking about towns. With this in mind I plotted several courses of towns that fit my map grid. Now I could proceed with caution as well as a little educated guessing. My next inspiration came from an unexpected source. While browsing through BookStar, I came across a magazine called "Ancient American." This intrigued me since I also was looking for an ancient American site. There was an article by an archaeologist about an ancient grid code spread across America in the form of pentagrams. When I studied the pentagrams, I noticed some startling correlations between points in the grid and areas I was looking at. I immediately went to the University of Memphis Library and spent several days studying grid maps of the area. Viola! I not only found a match for my hypothetical site it was a perfect match to the grids and angles. One further note of interest, the site lies in the 33rd grid. If you are acquainted with esoteric lore, then you realize the significance of this.

Now my next step was to talk my wife and daughter into journeying into the backwoods of Missouri to see what we could find. Neither of them expressed a great desire to do this but I convinced them it would be a grand adventure. It turned out to be a mini-nightmare. I'm not saying we didn't have fun, we did, but Murphy's Law was in full bloom. We made reservations at a resort and loaded up the van and headed out. The temperature was near 100 degrees and our air conditioner was on the blink, so you can imagine that any hint of trouble would be magnified with the heat. That night I stood on the bank looking across the river in the direction where I hope to find that ancient mound and wondered what awaited me. The resort manager told us that there were many people digging illegally for artifacts along the river bank.

Bright and early the next morning we took off and drove an hour to the woods that we suspected held the secrets. We were lost in the woods and couldn't make heads or tails of the map we had. We found a house and asked for directions. The owner asked us what we were looking for since there was nothing there but woods. We told him we were exploring the woods. We traveled down some dirt side roads but couldn't decide which way to go. Finally, I found a road that held promise and we traveled down it till it dead ended at a swamp.

Our German Shepard "Al" jumped right in the water and was having a ball cooling off. Meanwhile I looked across the swamp and decided we had to get to the other side to continue our search. Now we started hiking along the edge of the swamp and continued fighting through thick bushes, thorns and brambles in our quest to find a way across. After about 45 minutes, we came to a tree that had fallen across the swamp. I was ready to crawl over and continue but protest was heard. My young daughter could not take the heat any longer and wanted to go back to the air-conditioned resort cabin. Did I mention it was close to 100 degrees and we were in a swamp. We decided to go back to the resort and try another time. Hardly Indiana Jones types, we decided the risk was too great in the heat. The next day we headed back to Memphis, but I was already planning my next trip.

A short time later I decided I might need a little more information to find the site so I called the archaeologist who had written the article for Ancient American Magazine. Well, imagine my surprise when he told me he was going to be in the area that weekend visiting with a Native American nation doing some research. I made plans to meet him at the Indian village and my brother, Freddie, agreed to go with me. The village was in a remote area of the forest and we arrived late Saturday afternoon. We met the archaeologist and the Indian families. That night we viewed many Indian artifacts and attended Indian ceremonies. We discovered that our paternal grandmother may have been a member of their family. When we told them our purpose they were very interested and two of the teenage boys wished to travel with us. We spent the night in the village and the next day Freddie, the two teenagers, the archaeologist and myself set off in search of an ancient site. We followed the swamp till we reached the fallen tree and crossed over. The heat got to Freddie and he returned to the van. Next we walked through the woods where we found two undisturbed Indian graves and signs of a canal dug in the woods. We found no mound but caught a ride with a farmer in a pickup truck that saved us hours of walking. On the way out of the woods the archaeologist pointed to a high hill and stated that's where we should look for a mound. I filed that fact for future reference. Although we didn't find anything major we knew we were getting closer to our goal. Plans for my next trip were already formulating in my brain.

One curious note was while were parked at the dead-end of a cul de sac miles from anywhere, camouflaged men in a large white pickup truck came by to check on us. Their questions and the fact they were carrying shot guns made us suspect that they had more than the usual interest in this part of the woods. You never know what people may be hiding in the backwoods of Middle America.

Several months later we put together another trip. This time Freddie, my son Stephen, and myself made plans to stay at the Indian village. We were happy to see them.

Scott, one of the village elders, had a computer and decided to download a picture of the area. When he received it we were pleased to see three mounds. We took off immediately for the mounds. It was late in the day when we finally reached the area, so we decided to check out the smallest one first. We marched across a wide open field and climbed to the top of the hill, exploring all the while. We found a deer stand and so interesting rock but little else. Disappointed but not discouraged, I thought about the trips I had made and wondered when I would find any clues that would draw me closer to my goal. The only thing we that found was a stone head of a tomahawk that Freddie had given to the archaeologist. Other than that zilch.

We decided for the next trip to made it there and back in one day so we didn't have time to pick up our Indian friends. Freddie, Larry, and myself went to check out one of the larger hills. We walked up the front of the hill where there was thick bushes, briars, and overgrown trees. There at the top we found a circular ditch maybe a hundred yards in circumference. It was very unusual to say the least. From the top we walked down the middle of the mound till we reached the bottom. There we saw the most exquisite snake shaped stone path. It was a dried up stream that ended when it reached a deep crevice. It was like a magical walkway through the woods. The beautiful clearing of green trees and grass caused me to stop and admire God's handiwork. Walking back south from here about fifty feet we found a circular depression some 30 feet round with a flat squared stone in the middle. What was this and what could it represent. The most revealing discovery was that the whole area was covered in moss. It was everywhere and cedar trees dotted the landscape. I was getting excited and wondered what we would find next. We searched but didn't find any entrances to any caves so we climbed down the slope into the ravine and headed back the direction we had come, all the while looking for anything that would catch our eye. Well, the first thing I noticed was down the center of the ravine was a road or wall that extended as far as the eye could see. This reminded me of the reversal of a wall that ran in front of the Hall of Records. So far I was very gratified to have found many of the reversals coming to life before my very eyes. As we walked down the wall or road my brother exclaimed that there where cliffs extending out from the side of the hill. Well, we scurried up the sides of the slope as fast as out feet could carry us. Man, we were having a ball! We found two small caves and a pathway between the cliffs. Again Freddie made a discovery. He exclaimed " Hey! That rock sticking out from the side of the cliff looks like the head of a lizard or something." You could have knocked me over with a feather. I had not mentioned to either of them about my reversals regarding a lizard. I took out my trusty camera and took a series of pictures. We explored some more but by this time the sun was getting low on the horizon and I didn't relish the thought of being in the woods after dark. As we traveled down the wall I was sure I had found my mound and knew it would be only a matter of time before I found the entrance.

Several months later we contacted the Native American Group and made arrangements to meet them for our next adventure. The Chief and the Medicine Man decided to come along and check the mound out for themselves. We took them down the ravine wall and showed them the lizard head and the circle. They marveled at the stone head and did ceremonies in the circle. The snake shaped path was now flowing with water and we took off our shoes and waded in it having a wonderful time. Next we took them down to the bottom of the mound where we discovered many holes with mounds of dirt piled beside them. The Chief told us he believed that these were ancient graves or they were holes dug by thieves trying to find artifacts. He pointed out the absent of any bone fragments in the area led him to believe the later was true. Next we walked along the ravine wall heading back to our cars, but all the while looking and scanning the sides of the slopes for new clues or anything unusual.

About half way back I noted an overhang extending several hundred feet above us on the opposite slope and rushed up, slipping and sliding all the way. What we found made the trip well worthwhile. In front of the overhang was a 10 foot high freestanding rock with an unusual shape. I then noticed to the rear a framed door in the side of the overhang and went over to investigate. Looking inside the cave I saw beautiful red colored rock covering the inner chamber Everyone came running and stumbling up the slope to check out this new find. We found three caves in all, but the first cave was the largest. It had a framed door and window for ventilation of a fireplace that had been built inside the first chamber. There was a wall built inside the first room with a window looking into a circular room resembling a kiva. Darkness again had come upon us as we were making new discoveries and we had to depart. On the way down the slope to the southern side I found a large flat stone some 8 ft by 6 ft that resembled a head of a helmeted warrior. It seemed to have slid down the slope and to have suffered some damage. I'll leave it to the reader to form their own opinion as to whether it is natural or not. Wow! That trip turned out to be a blast and after 5 trips into the backwoods I was finally making some progress.

On the next trip we explored the caves that turned out to be much smaller than we had hoped. However I did find and photograph something on the ceiling of one of the caves that has an appearance of a painting. We made fire in the fireplace and it vented through the cave window. Whoever built this place sure went to a lot of trouble because a hunter could stay at a lodge or cabin and be way more comfortable. Could this place have been used for another purpose altogether? Well, by now we had pretty much explored one side of the mound and our next sojourn was a family outing. My wife, daughter, son, niece, and brother made a day's picnic to the backwoods. While there I wanted to explored one small area that had caught my attention earlier. This small area was about 100 by 100 ft and it contained several small mounds. What I found was a rock shaped like the head of an alligator or lizard sticking out of the ground at a 45 degree angle. Near it was a flat rock with the imprint of an elk or deer embedded in it. Despite all my looking I came no nearer to finding the entrance to the HALL OF RECORDS.

Now a very curious aspect of this investigation will be revealed. The mound itself when seen from the air resembles the head of an animal. I know this seems unlikely but it's a fact…We couldn't reach a consensus on what kind of animal it was but further research has provided an entertaining alternative. Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara have been doing some interesting research on the FACE ON MARS and have revealed that the FACE is half humanoid and half lion-like. This is known as an anthropomorphic representation. There are numerous examples of this kind of art found in many cultures around the world. Because the mound appeared to be asymmetrical, I wondered if it might be a double image also. I took an image of it to a photo shop and had negatives made and reversed the images. Then I split the two images and recombined them. This created two separate images with the two halves of the one original image What we finally ended up with was a zooanthropomorphic representation. We created the head of a lioness and the head of a baboon like creature. The almost funny part of this was the mosaic of Rorschach Images that also were created. I'll leave it to your imagination to interpret what these are and what they mean. On one further note, the mound is over a quarter mile long and wide. This is an enormous enigma. As for now, I await further developments before I proceed to the next level. We must proceed carefully, but not tarry in our quest, because there are ominous signs on the horizon that behooves us locate this ANCIENT HALL OF RECORDS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!! .
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#2. Different Child © 2001 by Sandy Nichols wsmith51@aol.com
http://www.differentchild.com

Reviewed by Katharina Wilson Kwilson@alienjigsaw.com
http://www.alienjigsaw.com

(Editor's Notation: This review was featured in the February Issue of the "MUFON Journel" No. 406)

"He wondered if he were 'crazy,' he wondered if he was just making it all up, he wondered if his fascination with UFOs had influenced his thinking, and he wondered if he would ever find peace," writes Patricia McCormack Kerr, M.A., a licensed professional counselor in the Foreword for Different Child.

Pat McCormack worked with Sandy Nichols in order to help him try to make sense of the strange memories and recurring dreams he was dealing with. She states,

"Because we are still working toward his healing, and at the same time,
continuing to uncover information, I am continuing to keep most thoughts to myself. What I am willing to share at this time is that his experience appears to be genuine in regard to affect and consistency."

As I read Different Child, I found Sandy Nichols to be a sensitive, sincere and apparently honest individual who deeply wants to understand what has happened to himself. And, because he also wanted to help others, Sandy started Alien Research Group (ARG) in 1998 and with a close network of friends, helps people who believe they have had abduction experiences find counseling and support groups.

One of the many interesting things about this book that I immediately noticed was its beautiful cover. The artwork and the title tie in together with the abduction phenomenon in a way that touched me deeply and I believe it will have the same effect on others.

Sandy keeps a journal and like many abductees, he states that by periodically reading his journal, he is able to remember small, but important details that he originally thought were inconsequential when he wrote the events in his journal. After reviewing his journal from time to time, some of the details now appear to hold a deeper meaning than before. He views his abductions as something that occurs against his free will and for the present, he does not feel that abductions are for the good of the abductee.

Each chapter in Different Child has a quote beneath the name that gives the reader a hint as to what the chapter will be about. There is also poetry in this book written by Sandy and other abductees like Michelle Guerin. Incidentally, Sandy has actually had several of his poems purchased by publishers, which attests to his writing abilities.

While fighting the idea that abductions were really occurring to him, he also tried to prove to himself that he was not "doing this to himself" as debunkers incorrectly believe. He wore gloves to bed at night to prevent the cuts, scrapes and scratches from occurring. He hung Christmas bells on his door to awaken himself in case he was sleepwalking. He set his alarm clock at one-hour intervals to prevent strange dreams from invading his sleep, but nothing seemed to change things. He still found himself in strange places, he still awakened with cuts and bruises and he still had the strange memories.

Sandy then asked his doctor to conduct a physical examination to determine if he had weak blood vessels in his nose to account for nosebleeds, and to examine his skin to determine if he bruised more easily than most people did. Nothing seemed to explain his memories or cuts and bruises except for the fact that unusual things were indeed happening to him and the possibility of abduction by unknown beings became a distinct possibility.

Another thing that touched me early on in this book was reading something that my mother said to me a long time ago and finding out that Sandy's mother said the same thing to him:

" 'You have always been my different child,' shaking her head as [my mother] slowly turned around and waked down the hallway toward the other end of the house. I could read her thoughts as easily as I had heard her words and they sent a chill cascading through my entire body. For the first time in my life, my mother had verified the way that I had felt for a long time. With the challenge that parents face in shaping and molding their children for life's journey, I was a piece of the puzzle that did not quite fit."

Sandy shares his feelings that deal with the difficulty of low self-esteem, which many abductees experience because of their abduction encounters. There are the familiar feelings of failure and the difficulty of living in two separate, but coexisting worlds: one is the "status quo" world and the other is a "secret" world that is not supposed to exist.

One of the consistencies about all abductees, no matter how they view their experiences, is the fact that they all appear to go through an Awakening. Sandy's Awakening revolved around having three different dreams on the same exact days of the month for four-and-a-half years with all three dreams involving strange dancing lights.

Sandy navigates his way through his Awakening and finds support from his wife and two couples he met at Shoreline Park near Gulf Breeze, Florida. He finally breaks his silence and shares his "terrible secret" with the Morrisons and the Pollocks of the Gulf Breeze Research Team, four people who listened when no one else would or could.

Sandy describes meeting them, "It was like reuniting with lost family members or long forgotten friends who had my best interest at heart. The kindness they showed me was unlike anything else I had ever felt from strangers." Speaking from experience, I know that the Morrisons, Pollocks and other members of GBRT have been listening to and trying to help abductees for many, many years and I commend them for their kindness and effort.

Different Child also contains a list of 58 possible "indicators" to help an individual determine if they might be an abductee. To his credit, Sandy does state that everyone has at one time or another experienced some of the indicators on his list and they do not necessarily prove you are an abductee. The indicators are really only guidelines that may indicate the "possibility" of being an abductee.

I also found Sandy's description of his interaction with the beings
excellently articulated when he states "…the beings actually merge with my conscious and unconscious thoughts. With this merging it is almost as if they can read my thoughts before I even think them."

It would not be a fair and unbiased review if I did not mention the fact that this book has several editing mistakes, but Sandy is a good writer and they can be easily overlooked because of his interesting case, good descriptions, clarity and sincerity.

Different Child is packed with information including a substantial listing of helpful Web sites and a list of Sandy's favorite books. I also came across new abduction related information I had not read about before which I hope everyone will find as interesting as I found it to be. After Sandy's personal story ends, he shares with us several submissions from other abductees and these expose the reader to additional fascinating and very touching encounters with extraterrestrial and interdimensional beings. These submissions are exceptionally interesting and are left unedited so you feel the nuances from each individual personality sharing their encounter.

Sandy Nichols boldly shares his abduction experiences with us for the first time and I believe his story and the submissions from several other abductees he has faith in, are honest and sincere representations of what is occurring to many people on our planet. There are similarities to other cases, but Sandy is a unique individual and as with all abductions and abductees, each case and each person is special and has something new to teach us. Different Child will teach you something new and I believe you will find Sandy Nichols' journey a very interesting one!


Different Child © 2001 by Sandy Nichols, Write to Print, P.O. Box 1862,
Merrimack, NH 03054: 209 Pages, $16.00 + s/h. All inquires about this book should go to: Sandy Nichols, 551 Turtle Creek Drive, Brentwood, TN 37027

Katharina Wilson is the author of The Alien Jigsaw, The Alien Jigsaw
Researcher's Supplement, and a monograph, Project Open Mind.
http://www.alienjigsaw.com
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#3. New Web Site Sheds Light on "Indian" UFOs
http://www.hindustantimes.com/neweconomy/internet050302b.shtml

Most reports explain UFO objects as disc-shaped flying saucers like the one pictured above. Ufoindia.org is the first Indian Web site to bring India's UFO sightings to the world.

The Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have inspired science, fiction and Hollywood, and while the mystery persists, a new venture has provided Indian UFO enthusiasts a platform to exchange information on sightings of these 'flying saucers.'

A new website ufoindia.org serves as a forum for Indians to share experiences of 'alien' interaction - even as scientists refuse to believe their existence, while not entirely ruling out possibility of extra-terrestrial life.

Prashant Solomon, who runs the website, India's first such forum to share UFO sightings, has received considerable response from India and abroad, going by the sightings reported. But unlike "monkeyman" and "milk-drinking Ganapati idols'" UFOs remain an unsolved mystery.

"My aim is not to spread rumours, but to create a forum for discussion as we are not yet sure if such things as alien intelligence and UFOs exist," says Solomon, a former journalist.

UFOs caught the American imagination from the 1940s onwards when some people saw strange 'flying saucers' moving in the sky. There were even stories that UFOs brought alien creatures, which sometimes got killed. Some claim to have "photographed" them, and a number of magazines and journals on the subject came up which led to a sub-cult of other worldly alien.

Numerous organisations working on this include NASA's Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Programme and FBI's undercover department which looks into such strange occurances, which inspired the hit TV serial 'X-files'.

Alien interactions have inspired a host of movies- many of them blockbusters like "ET', 'Star Wars', 'Species', 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'Contact', to name a few. Soon there will be an Indian version - 'Koi Mil Gaya' directed by Rakesh Roshan and starring Hritik Roshan and Preiti Zinda- which would feature flying saucers.

Solomon insists there should be some truth in the similar sigtings of UFOs or alien-like creatures by people who do not even know one another adding the "monkeyman" who caught Delhi's fancy last year, could well be one such incident.

"One cannot dismiss something as supernatural just because he or she does not have proper explanations for it."

But Dr Ratnasree, Director of Jawaharlal Nehru Planatarium, New Delhi says it is a mix of ignorance and media attention which leads to claims of such sightings by "those who do not know much about the sky."

"I myself had seen one such object in my childhood and was very excited about it, only to learn later that it was just a weather baloon."

Even if one accepts these are some objects mistaken for UFOs, what could these 'objects' be?

"They could be some planets which become bright against the night sky, or satellites, weather baloons or even some aircraft," says Dr Ratnasree.

Sometimes the artificial satellites are closer to earth and people may notice it. In any case, there is no possiblity of radars not intercepting UFOs, before the naked eye could see them, she says.

But then how does one explain the early recordings of such extra-terrestrial encounters much before artificial satellites came into being, or for that matter the many Biblical allusions?

Try this from Ezekiel 1:4: "...Behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself and a brightness was about it... Out of the midst of fire...

...Out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures... They had the likeness of a man... They sparkled like the colour of burnished brass."

Mere divine symbolism or something more?

In India too, the research on the sightings pre-date the advent of weather balloons and artificial satellites. Reports include from all parts of India, from Bihar to Pune to Coorg in Karnataka to Kerala. The latest is from Pune in January this year.

"On January 17, 7.30 pm, I and a friend were travelling on a motorbike in Deccan, Pune. Then we saw an UFO, which was disc-shaped. The lower half was rotating and the upper half was made of a red-coloured circle. There was red light emitting from its edges," says Uttam Chakraborty of Pune.

Chakraborty claims the UFO hovered at between 80 and 100 metres altitude. "There was no sound. It rotated in a circular pattern for about 40 seconds and then remained stationary for about 15 to 20 seconds at one spot, and vanished."

Last year, Sunila Tandon of New Delhi spotted a similar object in the skies. "On August 15, I observed a huge dark silver grey flying saucer-shaped UFO for 7 or 8 minutes, flying low," she says.

"The object looked like two saucers inverted over each other and moved slowly across the sky," she adds.

While it is interesting that the shape and descriptions of UFOs are of near-universal nature, Dr Ratnasree says people have reported such experiences in the Planetarium, but wavered when asked further questions to explain what they saw.

People come to us insisting they have seen UFOs. But when we try to pin them down with specific questions on the nitty- gritty, often they are unable to explain what they had seen, she says.

While the mysterious UFOs can be traced back to early times, the present obsession with UFOs started in the 20th century, when Kenneth Arnold reported a sighting.

Using 'flying saucer' as a word to explain UFO sighting for the first time, Arnold, from Mount Rainier, Washington described what he saw in June 1947 as discs which "moved like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water."

This was followed by the famous UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico, which later became a sort of pilgrim centre for UFO enthusiasts, complete with a museum.

Such incidents have finally led to NASA's SETI programme, which uses radio waves to listen for possible signals emitting from the outer space.

But from the SETI programme what emerges is that while the possiblity of life outside earch is not totally ruled out, the galaxy is not teaming with such forms of life, maintains Dr Ratnasree.
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#4. A Tone From The Deep by: Seth Shostak Senior Astronomer, Project Phoenix http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_diary1_020307.html

Once again, members of the Project Phoenix team have returned to the
big antenna on the small island of Puerto Rico, continuing their
search for radio whispers from distant civilizations. Outside the
window of my office, only a few dozen yards away, hulks the Arecibo
radio telescope. It is a twenty-acre nerve ending of aluminum mesh,
exposed to the sky and carefully attuned to regularities in the radio
noise that pervades the cosmos. For three weeks, we will aim this
enormous metal neuron at nearby star systems, hunting for signals
produced by extraterrestrial intelligence.

The Phoenix equipment - specialized digital electronics capable of
sifting through 57 million channels at a time - sits in a trailer
outside the Arecibo control room. We never move the trailer, but
simply fire it up each time we come to the telescope. This requires
both time and expertise, as the Phoenix team coaxes a mass of
squirrelly electronics out of dormancy. A crucial part of the
startup is to make tests, to be sure that this complicated system is
working as advertised.

The most compelling of these tests are the short observations of the
far-off planetary probe, Pioneer 10. Launched in 1972, NASA's first
emissary to the outer solar system is still capable of making weak
radio broadcasts, and its distant signal is a perfect ping for our
system.

Unfortunately, Pioneer 10's on-board reference oscillator failed in
2000, twenty-eight years into a five-year mission. The craft's radio
squeal became unpredictable and impossible for us to find. But
thankfully, not all was lost. NASA can still prod Pioneer 10 into
transmission by sending it a reference tone from Earth. Of course,
since Pioneer 10 doesn't speak unless spoken to, we have to rely on
the space agency to turn on its cheeky chirper.

In anticipation of our return to Arecibo, Phoenix team leader Peter
Backus rang up NASA's Pioneer office in December, to see if they had
plans to bestir the spacecraft. "No dice," was the reply. NASA's
world-wide phalanx of communication antennas - the Deep Space Network
(DSN) - was already heavily booked, with no opportunity for any
wakeup call to Pioneer 10. It looked as if our best test was simply
not going to be available.

This discouraging story took a turn for the better when someone at
NASA realized that March 2 would be the 30th anniversary of the
spacecraft's launch. Why not make a celebratory contact to mark
humankind's first mission to Jupiter and beyond? The DSN managed to
paw some room in their schedule, and prepared for a three-hour
broadcast to Pioneer 10.

Hearing the news, Backus sought permission for some extra telescope
time at Arecibo and at our confirmation telescope at Jodrell Bank,
England. He got it. The next step was to cajole the Phoenix hardware
back to life, while simultaneously dealing with such major annoyances
as a dead power generator at Arecibo and a mechanical failure at
Jodrell Bank. Large radio telescopes are, after all, complex devices
that sit out in the weather. Malfunctions and mechanical difficulties
come with the territory.

Despite the hurdles, all systems were "go" at Arecibo on March 2, and
the signal from Pioneer 10 came booming in like a Valkyrie. It was
not E.T., but the signal from this spacecraft was still impressive: a
broadcast from 7.4 billion miles away, nearly twice Pluto's distance,
and one that takes 11 hours to make its way to Earth. Thanks to the
Pioneer test, the Phoenix team can now search for alien transmissions
with confidence. Watch this space for additional reports that will
chronicle our current observing run.

"It was like seeing an old friend," says Peter Backus, speaking of
the Pioneer 10 test. But can you call a thirty-year old spacecraft
'old'? "Sure," Peter says with a smile. "After all, it's not the
age - it's the mileage."
####################

#5. Let's Do The Time Warp Again by: Scott Mowbray
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,211042,00.html

Dreamworks' remake of The Time Machine, which opens this month, is the latest expression of our fascination with time travel.

The science and the fiction of time travel are weird. But the science is weirder.

When H.G. Wells sent the hero of The Time Machine into what Wells called "futurity," it was on a grim 30-million-year round-trip to pretty much the end of Earth time, when the last, poorest excuses for life were flopping around like squid under a darkening sun. Wells wasn't the first writer to imagine time travel, but he advanced the idea that a machine, rather than an angel or a bonk on the head, could accomplish it, and he pushed his machine to the limit. It moved through futurity like a bucking bronco: "I have already told you of the sickness and confusion that comes with time travelling," Wells' hero remarks. "And this time I was not seated properly in the saddle ..."

To Wells in 1895, time was a dimension much like forward and back, or up and down, but he gave no clue as to how the machine might move a human being through the fourth dimension into the future: He just wanted to get there. Einstein offered an answer seven years later, in 1905, with his Special Theory of Relativity. Time, by Einstein's equations, was not a fixed property of the universe (moving in one direction at the same rate for everyone, which was Newton's view), but a relative property of things in motion. A clock in motion ticked slower than a stationary clock; a moving clock traveled into the future relative to the clock at rest. It turned out that we'd been time traveling all along, we just didn't have clocks precise enough to show it. (Later we built such clocks, and they did.)

So began a century of strong, almost gravitational, attraction between physics and fiction, as both orbited around an idea that seems fantastic whether tackled by Rod Serling or by Einstein's heirs. The neatest, and certainly the most famous, example of the synergy may be that of Carl Sagan and his novel Contact. In the early 198os, Sagan turned to a physicist friend, Kip Thorne of Caltech, when he needed to jump a character through space. Thorne developed a theory whose byproduct was, essentially, a blueprint for a time machine that would require a "supercivilization" to build. Sagan's book became a movie starring Jodie Foster. Thorne's so-called wormhole theory was published in the eminent journal Physical Review Letters.

Nearly every time travel theory offered by physicists, such as black holes, wormholes, or multiple universes, has been taken up by storytellers. Time travel gives good box office; Arnold Schwarzenegger will reportedly get $30 million to star in the third Terminator film. Time travel makes for a nifty plot device, a catalyst that works across genres, including comedy, romance, horror, fantasy, and detective story; in the film Time after Time, H.G. Wells himself chases Jack the Ripper through 1970s San Francisco. In print, Bradbury, Dick, Heinlein, and their successors filled the shelves with time-travel variations. But the greatest success may have come to a romance writer. Diana Gabaldon has reached the bestseller lists several times by sending the 20th century heroine of her Outlander bodice-ripper novels into the arms of 18th-century hunky Scotsman Jamie Fraser.

Which brings us to the present. This month we can enjoy the curious fact that Dreamworks' remake of the classic 1960 film The Time Machine is directed by H.G. Wells' great-grandson, Simon Wells. It retains the original film's Victorian decoration—a time traveler in tweed vest, a time machine with brass fittings and steam-era dials—as well as the Hollywood happy ending: Handsome Guy Pearce battles Morlocks in 800,000 A.D. and gets the girl, although both the girl and the special effects have been spectacularly jazzed up. As fascinated as he was by the conundrums of time travel, Simon Wells says he knew the darker end-of-history aspects of the original novel would not yield a blockbuster; he pitched the movie as "an essay into the nature of causality in which we blow a bunch of stuff up."

This is what the good time travel stories and the physics share: interest in the nature of causality. Time travel yields paradoxes with the narrative power of Greek myth, causing scientists to ask questions like, "What would happen if you journeyed back in time to kill your grandfather before you were born?" Well, a good story would happen, and that's what fuels the time travel fiction. What fuels the scientific interest is that time, since Einstein, has been entwined with the problems of gravity, quantum mechanics, and the search for a unified theory of everything. And time travel—into the past, where the paradoxes spring up—appears not to be in conflict with the laws of the universe.

I Canna Get No Power, Captain!

If we're all time travelers, the problem is that we can't get very far using current technology. Spending just over two years in Mir's Earth orbit, going 17,500 miles per hour, put Sergei Avdeyev 1/50th of a second into the future, according to Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III, and "he's the greatest time traveler we have so far."

To move through time at a serious clip, you have to go very fast—say, 99.995 percent of the speed of light. At that rate, if you "go out 500 light-years, then come back at the same speed," Gott notes, "when you arrive back the Earth would be 1,000 years older and you would only have aged 10 years."

But to attain this sort of velocity you have to overcome what Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, calls the "gasoline" problem: the need for an almost inconceivably powerful energy source. This problem crops up constantly in time-travel theory, from simple extrapolations of relativity (go really fast so you can travel to the future) to more complex ideas such as the wormhole engineering that Kip Thorne theorized for Carl Sagan.

"Back to the Future is one of my favorite time travel stories," says Kaku. "The DeLorean is energized by plutonium. But that's not enough. To really energize your time machine, you need what's called the Planck energy ... roughly a quadrillion times more powerful than our most powerful atom smasher." Physicist Paul Davies—author of How to Build a Time Machine, which will be released in the United States this month in happy synchronicity with the Wells movie—notes: "At the moment it looks like making a wormhole ... would require something like a particle accelerator bigger than the solar system. So if you just look at current technology, then it looks to be pretty hopeless."

The foundation of time machine physics is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, completed in 1915, which describes gravity as a warping or curving of space and time by matter. "If," as Gott says, "space and time are curved, you can have a situation where space and time are sufficiently twisted that you can circle back and visit an event in your own past." (Picture an ant crawling along the edge of a piece of paper, trying to get from one corner to the far corner; then fold the paper so that the corners are brought together and the ant's journey is drastically shortened. To travel in time, just fold space and time in the same way; the time machine does the folding.)

It takes a lot of gravity to significantly warp time. A black hole has such enormous gravitational force that it creates a tear in space-time itself, but a black hole is no portal because it will suck a would-be time traveler into the cramped quarters of infinite density, forever. A properly engineered wormhole, however, theoretically creates a passage between two black holes that leads to another place in the universe through the space-time tear; a bit of galactic-scale fiddling with one end of the wormhole turns it into a time machine (more on wormhole engineering).

"What Kip Thorne and his colleagues noted," says Gott, "was that if you moved the wormhole mouth correctly, Jodie Foster (in the film version of Contact) could have come back before she left... . Jodie Foster would have been waiting at the same spot to shake hands with Jodie Foster when she arrived." The notion of creating a hopeless causal loop in time is childishly easy to understand. In Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox finds himself fading from existence after journeying back in the souped-up DeLorean and attracting his mother's romantic interest at a time when she was supposed to be falling in love with Fox's future father. (According to one academic paper, this "is the first science fiction film to make explicit the incestuous possibilities that have always been at the heart of our fascination with time travel.")

Davies says the paradoxes of time travel have repelled some physicists, who were afraid of being ridiculed. Igor Novikov, a Russian astrophysicist who has written extensively on the subject, says that for decades, "very serious mathematicians, very serious physicists were not brave enough to declare that time travel is possible."

Many resolutions to the paradox have been proposed. One simply maintains that the universe won't let paradoxes be created: If you try to kill your grandfather, you won't be able to. You'll change your mind, or the gun won't go off, or you'll be a lousy shot. This notion, it will be noted, has serious implications for the existence of free will. Other approaches say there really are no paradoxes; every problem can be solved mathematically without producing a paradoxical inconsistency.

But the paradox problem does not bother David Deutsch, a theoretical physicist at Oxford University. Deutsch dislikes the violent aspect of the grandfather paradox, which he says is only confused "by the issue of human conflict that people put into the story to make it more interesting." Deutsch has instead created a gentler paradox.

In this experiment, a person watches a time machine to see whether a copy of himself emerges on, say, Tuesday. If it does not, on Wednesday he journeys back in time one day—emerging from the time machine on the same Tuesday when he had not emerged before. The experiment can be reversed: If, in the opposite scenario, he does emerge on the Tuesday, he simply waits until Wednesday and chooses not to get in the time machine. In either case, a paradox is created: The time traveler is there on Tuesday and not there at the same time—a phenomenon that, intriguingly, echoes some of the fundamental mysteries of particle behavior at the quantum level.

Indeed, Deutsch reaches into quantum mechanics for an explanation of the paradox. He is a leading proponent of the many worlds theory, in which multiple new universes are triggered by each quantum event. If two subatomic particles collide, for example, one of the particles does not go either right or left, but rather it goes right in one universe and left in another universe that is instantly created in the so-called multiverse. In the Deutsch experiment, one universe contains the lab in which the experimenter did not journey back, another the lab in which he did: paradox resolved.

In any case, a hundred years after the Special Theory of Relativity, time travel is theoretically possible, and therefore theoretically in the future of human development. So the big question is: When will we have a ma