UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

Throughout human history we have strove and endeavored to push out past the horizon and the limits of what we can see, to go out into the world and indeed the universe to explore new realms in our innate, insatiable quest for discovery. We have gone out past the hills or mountains in the distance, over the vast sea that sprawls out as far as we can see, into the thickest jungles and down into the deepest, darkest abysses of our oceans. We have gone out past the blue skies above, launching out into space to our moon and the planets beyond, and one day we may go even further still, into the corners of our observable universe and beyond to who knows what. Yet, for all of the mysteries that lie out there in the seas and wildernesses of our planet and beyond our world, it is interesting to think that some of the more baffling frontiers lie not out beyond us, but rather within us, and the human body is in many ways just as unexplored and misunderstood as any far away realm.

Some of the puzzling mysteries of the human body are everyday things that we take for granted, and which no one really gives much thought to. Take yawning for instance, you have probably done this countless times today, hopefully not too much while reading this article, whether it be because you are tired, bored, or just because the person next to you did it. But have you ever thought about “why” we yawn? Or why it should be contagious? There are lots of ideas for why we yawn, such as that it regulates the temperature of our brains, or helps us shift from one condition to another, such as from sleep to wakefulness or alertness to boredom, or maybe it just gives us a physiological boost, but the fact is we don’t really know. Making it all more mysterious is the fact that yawning seems to be infectious, as you have no doubt already surmised from your own experiences, but why should this be? The closest we have to an answer for any of this is that it is some ingrained social bonding trait, a subconscious show of empathy, of which neuroscientist and professor of psychology, Robert Provine, has said in a statement to Healthline:

Yawning may be a primitive form of empathy that binds tribal members together and coordinates their physiology, such as synchronizing arousal and bedtimes. Diminished contagion, whether from yawning or laughing, may be a novel measure of social disorders as in autism or schizophrenia.

That is a rather unromantic and coldly scientific way of saying that yawing brings us together. It is interesting to note that contagious yawning is seen mostly only in social animals such as dogs, lions, chimpanzees, and humans. However, again we just don’t know, and yawning, one of our most common behaviors, remains little understood. Another contagious behavior that we do all of the time is laughing, which if you are lucky you have also done many times today already. Laughter, and its ability to infect others around us with its mirth, is also actually a rather mysterious trait, with no real concrete commonly accepted reason for why we should do it or why it should spread to others. The most widely accepted theory is that, like yawning, it is a sort of social behavior. In this case, it is likely an evolutionary trait designed to specify that we are playing and not engaging in threatening behavior or feeling threatened. In this way, our laughter puts others of our group at ease and they too laugh to show others around them that there is no immediate danger. The social angle helps explain why we laugh far less when we are alone, but the true reason for laughter and its contagious nature remains murky. It doesn’t, however, explain why some people laugh at some things while others don’t, or why in some cultures laughing is actually sometimes a sign of discomfort or even alarm.

So we have these behaviors and reactions so far of when we are sleepy, bored, or conversely happy and amused, so what usually happens when you are embarrassed? Do you blush? Well a lot of people do, and if so, there is another mystery we still don’t have an answer to, made all the more intriguing by the fact that humans are the only animals that do it. We know the “how” part of the equation. Blushing is basically caused by blood vessels dilating in reaction to the adrenaline stirred up by stress, and this allows the adrenaline to flow through your system faster and more smoothly. In the face, this results in that redness we call blushing, but this redness shows up nowhere else on the body. This stress can be caused by embarrassment, but it can also be caused by positive emotions such as being thrilled or receiving a compliment.

This we know, but more confusing is the “why” of it all. Why should only our faces turn red in these situations? What possible purpose or advantage could our faces turning red have, and why does it happen even in positive situations such as meeting the man or woman of your dreams? It is so baffling that Charles Darwin himself once said of it, “Blushing is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions.” Again, there are many ideas for why we might blush, but no definitive answers. One of the main theories is that blushing serves as a social nonverbal form of apology, meaning that when you do something you know was a mistake or wrong you subconciously visibly blush to show others that you realize it and are sorry about it, visually representing your regret and remorse for all to see. This has actually been tested, and studies have shown that people who blush are indeed more likely to be forgiven than those who don’t. However, like the others we have looked at so far, nobody really knows for sure.

Another thing many of you might take for granted and do every day is write, throw a ball, or use a fork or knife with either your right or left hand. For most people it is just one of those “just because” things, yet the fact that we have a dominant hand at all, as well as why most people should have that be the right hand, have long been a baffling mystery of the human body. Wouldn’t it make more evolutionary sense for us to be able to use both hands equally? Yes, it would, and although a small percentage people are ambidextrous (able to use both hands equally), scientists can’t seem to agree on why this isn’t the case for everyone, or why it should 7 to 9 times out of 10 be the right hand that is favored, no matter the culture or country.

One idea is that because of our advanced speech capabilities there are more brain resources dedicated to the complex wiring of the speech producing region of our brains, which is also linked to motor skills and which usually sits on the left hemisphere, but not always. However, many right-handed people have been found to have speech centers on the right hemisphere and many left-handed people have speech centers on the left as well, making this an unreliable indicator at best. There is also the fact that animals without the complex speech wiring and fine motor skills of humans have also been shown to have preferred dominant appendages as well. In the end, it is not fully understood, and it is difficult to study as many societies take naturally left-handed people and force them into right-handedness, making it difficult to get a fix on. The subject of the nature of handedness continues to be debated and discussed, and we are no closer to an answer.

Other mysteries of the human body have more to do with our actual anatomy and the make-up of our bodies. Some of these are external and you can see them right now. For instance, look at your hands and you’ll see that not only do you have fingerprints, but you may also know that their particular patterns of whorls and ridges are completely unique to you and you alone. Have you ever thought about why that should be, or indeed why you should have fingerprints in the first place? If you have been paying attention so far you can probably see where this is going. That’s right, we don’t know.

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” you might be thinking right about now. “They are for gripping things, right?” you may be asking. Well, here’s the thing about that, while indeed it was long thought that this was the purpose of fingerprints, that the ridges create friction, this has since been seen as more and more doubtful. In the June 12, 2009 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biologya report was published by Peter Warman, from the University of Manchester in England, that showed that fingerprints don’t seem to improve grip at all, and actually may even make our grip worse. It was found that considering that our skin behaves almost like rubber when producing friction with an object, we need more of the skin in contact with the object to get a better grip. In our case, those fingerprints of ours actually make sure that we have less of our skin in contact than we would if we didn’t have fingerprints, worsening the grip, although they are still seen as perhaps helping to grasp rougher surfaces. Other theories for why we have fingerprints include that they help drain water from our fingers to keep our grip dry, that they could have a role to play in helping to prevent blisters, or that they somehow increase touch sensitivity, but at the moment those unique prints of yours are an evolutionary mystery.

Moving within the body we come to other inscrutable mysteries. Probably the one most people will immediately think of is the appendix, a seemingly pointless organ that is apparently only good for getting infected and having to be removed. Indeed, many of you reading this right now are probably without an appendix and also without any ill effects, and indeed even the word itself “appendix” in common usage denotes something that is sort of tacked on as an afterthought. One would think that after all of these years we would by now have discovered just what it is supposed to do, but actually no. All we have are ideas, such that it is a vestigial remnant of an organ that helped our ancestors digest food, that it helps develop the immune system of fetuses, or even that it plays an important role in attracting and providing a living environment for the “good bacteria” in your gut, but we are basically just as perplexed by this anomaly of the human body as we always have been.

The very blood that runs through our veins also holds mysteries. All human beings can be classified into different blood types, which have different enzymes that determine the types of sugars that stick to blood cells, and the main four types are classified as A, B, O, and AB. The differences between these types is such that for blood infusions it is a necessity that donors with compatible types be found. Yet why human beings should have different blood types in the first place has long remained an enigma. The closest we have come to an answer is that certain blood types and their antigens may be more useful for fighting off pathogens found in particular geographical areas of the world or that they have evolved for some other function, but there is no definitive reason and they are a mystery.

There is also the question of the very make-up of our bodies. It is no mystery that much of our body is made up of foreign agents, such as microbes, which compose around 1-3 per cent of our total body weight. This we know, and we even know the functions of some of the bacteria living in our bodies, such as helping with digestion, aiding healing, fighting infection, or keeping our skin clean, but there are vast numbers of these microbes that coexist with us and make up our bodies whose purposes we have no idea of. The fact that we have no clue what many of the microbes that make up so much of our bodies do is a sobering thought, and making it even more mysterious still is that among all of the bacteria permeating our bodies there are also quite a few viruses permanently floating about, even in healthy people, and it is a total mystery as to what function they are serving or why this should be.

Perhaps the biggest human body mystery of all, and the one we take for granted most, is the one that sits up in your head, the brain. It is a vast, supremely complex network of trillions and trillions of neural connections, a mind-boggling web that somehow runs and regulates our bodies, facilitates our mental functions, and bestows us with consciousness and self-awareness. How can this be? The full extent of the human brain and its workings are still little understood, and the most perplexing mystery of all is how this blob of jelly in our skulls gives us consciousness, spirituality, appreciation, self-awareness, love, art, literature, and everything else that makes us human. Neuroscientists still don’t know, and one neuroscientist, V.S. Ramachandran, has famously and eloquently summed it all up:

Any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and chance brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate — your brain — that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, is the greatest mystery of all.

It is spooky and profound to contemplate, indeed. Here we have looked at a selection of some of the baffling mysteries of the human body that, while they may be things that you take for granted every day, are nevertheless just as unknown, uncharted, and indeed impenetrable as the deepest unexplored sea, jungle, or the faraway landscape of some alien planet. Such aspects of our bodies and indeed who we are may one day be more fully understood, just as we will discover more of our universe as we continue our inexorable drive of exploration, but for now they remain strange frontiers that lie not out over the horizon or out past the stars, but right here with us now.

A couple of days ago, I wrote an article on a strange MIB-themed case from the 1960s that Robert Goerman investigated. The article began as follows: “Born on March 3, 1952, Robert A. Goerman is a native of New Kensington, Pennsylvania. As an investigative scholar of unknown and unexplained phenomena, he has been fortunate enough to have his writings featured in national magazines and serve as source material for many books and popular television shows such as Unsolved Mysteries, The Unexplained, History’s Mysteries, Animal X, MonsterQuest, and Dark Matters: Twisted But True. Founded in June of 2012, his Nonhuman Research Agency explores encounters with mysterious strangers, beings, and creatures and studies interspecific relationships. Robert offers his very own insights into the Men in Black mystery, based upon his firsthand investigations of a very weird case from the 1960s that is steeped in menace of the black-colored kind. It is a case that has led Robert to some thought-provoking theories concerning the nature and actions of the MIB, too.”

Robert has generously given me permission to use the accounts he has sent me. The following from Robert demonstrates just how downright weird the MIB phenomenon really is. It’s an account that is focused on an MIB experience he had in the dream state. Interestingly, I receive from people a lot of very graphic, dream-based experiences with the Men in Black. It’s a situation which has led some witnesses/victims to suspect the MIB can literally “invade” their dreams and turn them into downright nightmares.

Over to Robert:

“Before you continue reading, let me preface this post by confessing that the MiB ‘visit’ was merely a dream shard. I would never even publish my experience if not for its curious physical aftermath. It is also necessary to point out that I have resided at my present residence for much of my life. This was my childhood home. It was inherited upon the passing of my parents. The bedroom that I now occupy as an adult was at one time shared for many years with my younger brother. There was barely enough room for two twin beds and a tiny writing nook where I documented my early research on a vintage Smith-Corona typewriter.

“The dream that I had shortly after midnight on Monday, July 18, 2016 found me seated at my writing nook as a young man (1969 or 1970) at night. I was typing a report about the Men in Black and uttered to myself that these scenarios echoed the MIB cases reported by Brad Steiger. My desk lamp was the only light source in the room. Movement off to my left caught my attention and I turned my head. Two Men in Black, wearing the classic fedoras, stood not six feet away, between the twin beds, blocking any hope at escape. The closest one was about my height. His companion was a head taller. Both were no more than silhouettes. There were no details. Escape was the last thing on my mind.

“I remember saying, ‘I have been looking forward to this,’ jumping up, and grabbing the shorter MIB by his arms between the elbows and shoulders. (Anecdotal information suggests that the MIB hate being touched by humans. I knew this.) BIG MISTAKE. It was like grabbing a high voltage tornado! In fact, the MIB became a whirling blur of time and space. My left arm was being ripped from its socket. I screamed that high-pitched scream that only excruciating pain can create. Pain beyond pain. Folks that have experienced certain traumatic accidents know exactly what I mean.

“Hearing my cries for help, my wife awakened me. I snapped fully awake to the horror that the pain in my left arm and shoulder was quite real. (My firsthand relationship with pain comes from the agony of a herniated disc that required spinal surgery and too many kidney stones.) I understand pain. This was real pain. Maybe not quite as extreme as those two previous examples… but still, as real as it gets. It took a healthy dose of Ibuprofen and the gentle working of the tender arm and shoulder to make things tolerable. Traces of soreness lasted most of the day. It is what it is.”