“Now first of all we must recall the fact that 9000 is the sum of years since the war occurred, as is recorded, between the dwellers beyond the pillars of Heracles and all that dwelt within them; which war we have now to relate in detail. It was stated that this city of ours was in command of the one side and fought through the whole of the war, and in command of the other side were the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was an island larger than Libya and Asia once upon a time, but now lies sunk by earthquakes and has created a barrier of impassable mud which prevents those who are sailing out from here to the ocean beyond from proceeding further.” 

One must wonder whether Plato could have ever known the controversy he would evoke–having lasted close to 2400 years by now–when he penned these words in Critias, one of his most curious philosophical treatises.

Taken by most scholars to have merely been a dialogue (as were his other writings, aimed at producing deeper truths with the aid of allegory), there have nonetheless been countless thinkers who have questioned whether the Atlantis Plato mentioned in the aforementioned text, along with the similarly-themed Timaeus, had not been a literal retelling of events from long ago, dating to a time far earlier than written history has survived to tell of.

Due to its lasting intrigue, every few years or so (and at times, every few months, it seems), someone else manages to “discover” what they believe to be the “real” Atlantis. The latest of the bunch, as reported recently, was a group of UK-based researchers (around whom a new documentary has been made, and is thus being promoted) who have claimed that Atlantis actually existed off the coast of Spain.

There have been countless similar theories that have arisen over the years, placing Atlantis in a variety of hypothetical locations: since Ignatius Donnelly wrote his landmark Atlantis: The Antediluvian World in 1882, popular theories have included the Azores, a series of mid-Atlantic islands occupied by the Portugese since their “discovery” in the early 14o0s (these islands were apparently known even prior to the 15th century, and in recent years have come to the attention of archaeologists for interesting features which could lend credence to the idea of settlement dating back as much as 2000 years, although this remains unproven).

São Jorge, part of the Azores as they appear today.

Other theories involve Santorini (known as Thera in ancient times), which was partially destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption between 1642–1540 BCE. Recent proponents of this theory include Gavin Menzies, whose fanciful theories of early circumnavigations by various cultures have received a fair amount of criticism, despite the popularity of his writings.

It is not entirely illogical to consider the historicity of the Atlantis theme in Plato’s writing. Not only does the story of Atlantis bear similarity to historical events like that of the eruption of Thera, but Plato also mentions numerous historical characters in his telling of the legend; namely Solon, the Athenian statesman who Critias cites as having been the first to share the story with his grandfather (who was also named Critias, a minor point that has led to some confusion over the centuries). However, other individuals Plato speaks of are less easily proven to have been real, historical figures. Sonchis, the elderly Egyptian priest to whom Solon attributed the Atlantis story, has never been confirmed to have existed through separate mention in other known historical texts (as was the case with Solon, for instance).

Much like enigmatic Egyptian elder Sonchis of Sais, separate mention of Atlantis in other ancient texts has remained curiously absent from the historical record. It remains possible that Solon’s exposure to Egyptian mythology could very well have been the real inspiration for something Plato later chose to expand upon in one of his dialogues; however, the fact that an element to history so seemingly important as the existence of an entire inhabited continent–let alone one renowned for a level of advancement that was mythic in proportion–makes its absence in other ancient writing particularly suspect.

Perhaps what is more fascinating about the Atlantis myth than the theories that have sought to explain or incorporate it into literal history are the similar notions of “lost” continents or ancient homelands that emerge in various world mythologies. Some appear in legends, like those of the Aztecs and their Aztlán, an ancient mythical home from which their culture derived (although it was not always depicted in their mythology as an island, per se). Others do appear in historical writings, like the fabled Hyperborea, land “beyond the north wind,” as mentioned by Herodotus and others in ancient times. Other examples include Mu, a hypothetical lost land similar to the Atlantis idea, which was “discovered” by French scholar Abbé Charles-Éttienne Brassuer from his misreading of Mayan symbols written of by Diego de Landa in his 1566 Relación de las cosas de Yucatán.

An early artistic depiction of Aztland featured in the 16th century Codex Boturini.

Countless other versions of the “lost continent” motif have come and gone over time, procured for reasons ranging from the spiritual, to the pseudo-historical, and stemming from an array of ideologies both well-intended and ill-conceived. “Thus,” noted L. Sprague de Camp in his highly entertaining Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme, “the Atlantis theme has been tied to communism, socialism, anti-socialism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, racialism, pacificism, romanticism, diffusionism, Roussellian primitivism, and Hörbigerism. When these tales are taken as a whole, I think the best entertainment is still provided by those which, like (Charles John Cutcliffe Wright) Hyne’s Lost Continent, have no ideological axes to grind but simply tell a lively story in competent, professional style.”

In truth, Plato’s own telling of the story had probably been something akin to this: while allegorical, it hadn’t been concocted for use as a pseudo-historic “origin story” for whatever occult doctrine was popular at the time. Equally true is that whether or not it had truly been borrowed from whispers of earlier Egyptian mythology, passed down to the likes of Solon and other “tourists” to the region, who may have been shown such things on the columns and temple walls by elders the likes of Sonchis and other Saisians, is beside the point. Allegorical though Plato may have intended it to be, the Atlantis theme has lasted for this long because it makes for damned good storytelling, and humankind is always in search of things that push our calendars back, bespeaking earlier origins for our myths and histories.

The Atlantis story in its various forms still fascinates us for all these reasons. With little doubt (and whether or not anything akin to Atlantis truly existed), others will continue to search for this long-lost, fabled continent of human myth, history, and the imagination.

“When you have a human that’s born on Mars, the environment will change the structure of the human body. In a few generations, what you are going to see is humans that are taller and skinnier, because the gravity on Mars is less than that of Earth.”

A Mars One (remember that?) astronaut is interviewed for a TV show and speculates on what may happen to her body and those of her fellow settlers and their descendants after just a few generations on Mars. An author appearing on the same show elaborated.

“If humans evolve long enough on the planet Mars, they could grow to be taller, they’d have the bigger heads, they’d have the spindly limbs. They might actually grow slightly larger eyes that were equipped to see better in the dark because you simply have less sunlight on Mars than you do on the Earth because it’s farther away from the Sun.”

Hmm. Tall, thin, big heads, big eyes. Sound like any humans you know? Sound like any ALIENS you know? Mars One astronaut and actress Sue Ann Pien and Mike Bara, author of Ancient Aliens on Mars and similar books, were being interviewed for the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series when they made these statements and more. Pien’s seem to make sense despite the fact that she’s an actress, not a space scientist, and her Mars One selection is probably due to more to her environmental activism and speaking ability than her knowledge ofMars. Mike Bara spent over 25 years as an engineering designer/consultant for major aerospace companies before becoming an author on conspiracy theories, space science, NASA, physics, UFOs and other topics and a regular on Ancient Aliens and other similar programs.

Why are my pants suddenly too short?

Together, Pien and Bara seem to be describing Nordic or Tall White Aliens, the alleged humanoid extraterrestrials said to have come from the Pleiades. Contactees say they’re tall and thin with big blue eyes, although they’re not often described as having big heads, just long blond hair. Nonetheless, they seem to resemble odd elongated humans. Could humans have at one time traveled to Mars, spent enough time there to become tall, thin and big-eyed, and then come back to be misidentified as Pleiadeans? Rather than pursuing that line, Bara and the next interviewee on Ancient Aliens suddenly take a religious turn.

“The fallen angels were giants – they were at least 10 feet tall, very striking to look at, [with] enormous eyes and no wings. They could also end up looking like representations of angels and various other God-like beings that we’ve read about in the Bible and other ancient documents.”

That’s Jonathan Young, a colleague of the late mythologist Joseph Campbell and a regular on Ancient Aliens, who adds fuel to Bara’s comment that these humans altered by Martian life could look like “representation of angels and other godlike beings that we’ve read about in the Bible and other ancient documents.” Really? This is the kind of U-turn that drives many UFOlogists and scientists researching alien life possibilities crazy … bringing religion into what could have been an enlightening scientific discussion on evolution, gravity, the future of Martian settlements, etc.

We still have a long way to go.

It’s sad when the most scientific member of a discussion about possible explanations for alien contact is an actress, yet Sue Ann Pien comes across the best of these three. She should make a good observer on the Mars One team and we’ll look forward to her missives from the Red Planet. Let’s hope Bara and Young are listening.

Are “superbugs” aboard the International Space Station (ISS) posing a risk to astronauts? While that sounds like a question asked in a dystopian sci-fi novel, it is legitimately being pondered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who published a study in BMC Microbiology regarding bacteria samples swabbed from surfaces within the ISS in 2015. Within those swabs dwelt the sort of genes bacteria developed to make themselves impervious to the effects of modern antibiotics – more than 100 in fact.

Enterobacter bugandensis, a species of bacteria responsible for several sorts of infections in humans was found aboard the ISS with a resistance to all nine antibiotics tested on it. By comparing these samples to samples of the same bacteria from Earth, researchers determined the strains were up to 79 percent likely to be pathogenic – or able to cause diseases.

Luckily, none of these strains tested have infected any of the astronauts aboard the ISS. This is probably a good thing as doctors do not make house calls in space. Even simple issues such as colds and the flu are more difficult in space as the lack of gravity causes sinus drainage to stay where it is instead of exiting the body as it does on Earth.

But, if they did become infected by one of the superbugs dwelling around them, astronauts already have a compromised immune system through just living. Some evidence is accumulating that these bacteria colonies may actually grow faster in space. In fact, one of the Space-X launches, conducted by Elon Musk’s space travel company, actually sent the superbug MRSA into space to test a hypothesis the lack of gravity will cause more rapid growth.

So what are superbugs, and how did they earn such an ominous name? Superbugs are evolved forms of everyday bacteria species known to cause illnesses in humans. With the dawn of antibiotics, humanity believed they were safe from several varieties of these infections because of a panacea of sorts, starting with the first growth of penicillin from simple bread mold.

MRSA was sent to the ISS aboard a Space-X rocket in order to test how the antibiotic-resistant bacteria would behave in space.

Unfortunately as Charles Darwin discovered through his writings on natural selection, and as Jeff Goldblum so eloquently stated in the first Jurassic Park film, “Life finds a way.” People who do not finish their entire regimen of antibiotics as well as bacteria not killed by them, which live on and reproduce, create superbugs. Usually it is a combination of both.

When an infection is treated with antibiotics, most of the bacteria causing said infection perish. The same can be said when hands are cleaned by sanitizers. Many people are familiar with advertisements promising products kill nearly 100 percent of germs. Superbugs are part of what remains. What remains can reproduce, and what reproduces can then spread its genes, which, through mutation, have evolved to resist most ways people have developed for killing them.

The panel further stated that its debunking goals should “be accomplished by mass media such as television [and] motion pictures…”  The extent to which the Robertson Panel’s recommendations were implemented is not entirely clear. However, even as late as 1966 the panel wielded a demonstrable influence over media representations of UFOs in the CBS TV broadcast of UFOs: Friend, Foe, or Fantasy?—an anti-UFO documentary narrated by Walter Cronkite. In a personal letter addressed to former Robertson Panel Secretary, Frederick C. Durant, panel member Dr. Thornton Page confided to having “helped organize the documentary around the Robertson Panel conclusions,” even though this was thirteen years after the panel had disbanded and despite the fact that he was personally sympathetic to the existence of flying saucers.

Also notable is the 1956 docudrama Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers. Neatly in line with the recommendations of the Robertson Panel, USAF to drew up contingency plans to counteract the anticipated fallout from the movie upon its release. The director of the USAF’s official UFO investigations unit Project Blue Book, Captain George T. Gregory, was tasked with monitoring not only the movie’s production process, but its public and critical reception. Believing the docudrama would stir up a “storm of public controversy,” the USAF set about preparing a special case file that would debunk every saucer sighting examined and even went so far as to have three of its Blue Book officers provide “technical assistance” to the filmmakers in an effort to control content.

Major Donald Keyhoe.

The mentality of the CIA-Robertson Panel was reflected in other productions during the 1950s. On 22 January 1958, the popular CBS television show Armstrong Circle Theatre presented an entire program dedicated to the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects, titled, “UFO: Enigma of the Skies.” Among the high-profile experts invited to speak on the show was retired US Navy Major Donald Keyhoe, Director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). Keyhoe was notable for his outspoken views on government secrecy surrounding the UFO phenomenon. Arguing against UFO reality on the program were astronomer and vehement UFO skeptic, Donald Menzel, and Air Force representative, Col. Spencer Whedon of the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC). Their task should have been an easy one as the show’s content had been scripted in advance by CBS in conjunction with the US Air Force (USAF), and all guests, especially Keyhoe, had been instructed to read their pre-approved material from a teleprompter.

When it came time for Keyhoe to speak, in frustration, he veered from his script and stated to the nation: “And now I’m going to reveal something that has never been disclosed before…” 1 The rest of his announcement went unheard by television viewers. Unbeknownst to Keyhoe, his microphone had been cut by the station. He continued:

“For the last six months, we have been working with a congressional committee investigating official secrecy about UFOs. If all the evidence we have given this committee is made public in open hearings, it will absolutely prove that the UFOs are real machines under intelligent control.”

After the show, CBS was inundated with calls and letters from viewers demanding to know why Keyhoe’s audio had been cut. “Call it what you like,” wrote one viewer, “but it appeared to be a very shocking display of censorship; and certainly offensive to the intelligence of the American public…” Nine days later CBS admitted it had been subject to official censorship. In a letter to a disgruntled viewer dated 31 January 1958, CBS director of editing, Herbert A. Carlborg, stated:

“This program had been carefully cleared for security reasons. Therefore, it was the responsibility of this network to ensure performance in accordance with predetermined security standards. Any indication that there would be a deviation might lead to statements that neither this network nor the individuals on the program were authorized to release.”

Yet another case in this vein relates to a UFO-themed episode of the Steve Canyon TV show (1958–1959). Backed by Chesterfield Cigarettes and produced at Universal Studios with the full cooperation of the USAF, the NBC show chronicled the live-action exploits of Milton Caniff’s famous comic strip character. The episode to which the USAF took objection, “Project UFO,” saw Colonel Steve Canyon investigate a spate of flying saucer sightings reported to a local Air Force base. According to aviation historian, James H. Farmer, “This was an episode that the Air Force did not really want to be aired,” because the UFO subject was “a hot potato.”

By the time the USAF had finished with the script, it was, according to Farmer, “pretty tame… compared to the earlier renditions.” In the episode as aired, the UFO sightings are attributed to a combination of hoax-induced hysteria and, in support of the USAF’s original Roswell cover story, misidentifications of weather balloons. Producer, John Ellis, of the Milton Caniff Estate (which owns Steve Canyon) told me, “Every single page got re-written, and re-written, and re-written…” David Haft, the show’s producer, was more to the point in his recollection of the USAF’s reaction when he submitted the first script draft for official approval, “Oh, oh, oh, oh! No, no, no, no!” Haft also noted that the USAF had difficulty in deciding what was acceptable for broadcast.

In one of the earliest drafts of “Project UFO,” Steve Canyon speaks to his Commanding Officer, Colonel Jamison, in defense of a civilian UFO witness, “Why call him a jerk?” asks Canyon, “Seems to me like he acted like a pretty solid, clearheaded citizen…” This dialogue was removed. Elsewhere in the draft, Canyon appears to be enthusiastic about flying saucers. At one point, when a fresh UFO report comes into the base from the local town, Canyon “Jumps to [his] feet, rushes to [the] door,” and cries “This I gotta see!” before making “a hurried exit.” In the final scene as originally written, Canyon is actually seen opening a book on flying saucers, “and sits there quietly reading…” This scene failed to make it into the final draft, and, in the version as aired, Canyon’s excitement about UFOs is replaced with skepticism or plain indifference. An entire plot strand concerning the recovery and scientific analysis of what is initially suspected to be flying saucer debris (shades of Roswell) was also predictably removed. The draft included dialogue like, “That thing [flying saucer] dropped a small metal ball enclosing an electrical apparatus so intricate, so ingenious, nobody yet has been able to figure out its purpose,” and, “the metal wouldn’t respond to any of the standard tests.”

Despite the rewrites, the USAF insisted that the episode not be aired at all. “It got stuck on a shelf,” Ellis explains in his Steve Canyon DVD commentary, “it was finished… but they held on until near the end of the series to air it.” Indeed, it was only through a last act of defiance on the part of the show’s producers toward the end of its run in 1959 that the episode was screened at all.

This is all just the tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to the history of government and military attempts to manage popular perceptions of UFOs. To document all such examples—from past to present—would require writing a book, which precisely is what I did. But the cases presented in this article at least provide a historical snapshot of just how seriously the powers that be have responded to what, for most audiences, would surely be considered harmless entertainment.

As the years have progressed, the activities of the CIA and military in Hollywood have evolved from debunking and demystifying to more subtle strategies of perception management. Heavy-handed censorship no longer plays well in liberal Hollywood, nor does it serve the evolving interests of the national security state in relation to UFOs.

In certain cases throughout the Cold War, the Robertson Panel’s recommendations may have been followed to the letter–using media to “debunk and demystify” UFOs. But CIA and military would soon have recognized this approach as illogical and unsustainable. It is impossible to disprove the existence of a phenomenon through media channels if the phenomenon persists in publicly and spectacularly manifesting itself–as has continued to happen in the United States and around the world. However, it is possible to manage how the public perceives the phenomenon. As such, as the Cold War thawed, the national security state began making concerted efforts to manage popular perceptions of UFOs by inserting itself into the production process of big and small screen entertainment products at every available opportunity, bringing their plots in line with their own mythologized, self-serving UFO narrative–a narrative that emphasises the potential threat of otherworldly visitors, justifying historical secrecy surrounding the subject while promoting the the the heroism and might of the American defense apparatus. In other words, officialdom’s attitude towards Hollywood eventually became “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and exert what influence you can from within.”

Of course, none of this should come as any real surprise. Governmental structures have long recognized the power of the media—especially entertainment media—to subtly mould our perceptions of the world around us. In his book, The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact, Professor Colin McGinn notes that “In the movie-watching experience we enter an altered state of consciousness, enthralling and irresistible.” And this, of course, makes cinema the perfect tool for perception management. When watching a film, says McGinn [or equally a TV show], “The critical faculties are reduced, the mind entering a state of dreamlike susceptibility and suggestibility—this is fertile ground for persuasion of one kind or another.”

More recently, a former head of the CIA’s Entertainment Liaison Office, Paul Barry, remarked to propaganda studies expert Professor Tricia Jenkins: “You cannot underestimate Hollywood’s influence… most Americans are content to accept Hollywood’s message… very few ever conduct any research to determine the truth.”

Today, the interlocking of Hollywood and the national security state is as tight as ever, as famed ex-CIA operative Robert Baer(whose life inspired the 2005 George Clooney thriller, Syriana) told me:

“All these people that run studios, they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody’s onboard.”

A sweeping statement, to be sure, and perhaps not intended to be taken literally, but it is now a matter of historical record that the US national security apparatus has gone to great lengths over the years to ensure that all those individuals it requires to be “onboard,” are. After all, film and televisual media are far too potent to be left unexploited, too powerful to be left unchecked.

Sometimes complexity can be the opposite of interesting. We’ve all read things that are just manage to use 500 obscure five-dollar-words without saying anything at all, and we’ve all heard guitar solos that use every single possible note without hitting any emotional resonance whatsoever. Complex is not always what you need. The same is true for anomalous sightings. What’s weirder, a flying craft with all sorts of bells and whistles, lights and widgets sticking off its sides, or just a big pink square sitting in the middle of the ocean?

It’s certainly debatable, but there’s something especially strange about geometric shapes and solid colors. While that last sentence reads like the internal dialogue of an infant musing over the mobile hung above his crib, it remains true. Certain things don’t show up in nature all that much, and when they do it can spark a sense of awe, excitement, and even fear, despite the likely mundane explanation. It’s just strange. Such is the case for a recent piece of footage, filmed in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

Uploaded to the YouTube channel Disclose Screen ‘The Grimreefar,’ the video (which you can watch in full here) was allegedly captured somewhere in the western Pacific by a crew of fishermen. It shows a very bright pink rectangle on the horizon that seems to morph and change shape. The cameraman and the rest of the crew are shouting excitedly. They aren’t speaking English, so I have no idea what they’re saying. However, the Disclose Screen narrator is. He calls the video the one of the weirdest pieces of footage he’s seen, and refers to the glowing rectangle as “a massive energy” (sic). He also says that it looks like a Viking ghost ship, despite it being nowhere near Viking territory. He says it could also be aliens or “the government” (which government? It’s the middle of the ocean.)  The narrator also says that he sees “Loch Ness monster-type things” popping out of the water, and other strange anomalies in the sky, including UFOs.

Wrong color scheme for a ghost ship, dude.

When the video is slowed down and these other anomalies are circled, there are a couple of dark saucer shapes that appear, however briefly, in the sky. They appear too briefly to give any reasonable analysis. That’s not the case for the rest of the claims, which we will now tackle one by one.

First, the Loch Ness monster-type things. What are they? We can answer that question with another: what do fishermen do? They fish. Those are fish. Or dolphins. Or birds. Or any other animal that lives in a part of the sea specifically targeted by fisherman, presumably on the knowledge that a lot of animals live there.

Next, the “massive energy” itself. You know, I think he’s right. It is “a massive energy.” It’s the sun! It looks like it’s changing shape because of the rolling of the waves, the reflection off the water, and the low resolution footage. It’s a beautiful sunset poking through the clouds on the horizon, captured by fisherman who are freaking out because it’s a stunning and beautiful natural phenomenon. If you can’t recognize when people are gushing about a fantastic sunset, then that is the canary in the coal mine, choking out it’s death rattle, telling you to go outside once in a while, for the love of all that is holy.

Look, on the horizon, a massive explosion of nuclear energy!

But that’s the thing. Sometimes nature appears in a way that seems utterly alien to us. It’s human nature to stand in awe and wonder when we see it. Otherworldly phenomena may indeed exist, but don’t let the search for it cheapen your appreciation for beautiful sunsets.

The unicorn might be a fantastical creature found only within the pages and filmstrips of fiction, but at least one real-life unicorn has walked the Earth before – that we know of at least. The Elasmotherium sibiricum, or “Siberian unicorn,” is an extinct type of one-horned ancient rhinoceros which once roamed the area that is now Eurasia from about 2.5 million years ago to right up until the Stone Age. In fact, there is some archaeological evidence that the Siberian unicorn and humans once lived side-by-side on the steppes of Western Siberia

The Siberian unicorn (light gray) would have dwarfed even the largest humans.

While scientists have known about the Siberian unicorn for around a century, they have had only a few scattered fossil records to go on. As a result, the creature has remained somewhat of a mystery. However, an international team of researchers were recently able to assemble a collection of 23 different Siberian unicorn bone specimens in order to try and uncover more about this relatively unknown creature. After performing radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses on the specimens, the team has now published a new study on Elasmotherium sibiricum which sheds some light on the lives of this “unicorn.”

Not exactly the cuddly rainbow-pooping unicorns of Lisa Frank.

According to the study, most of the Siberian unicorn fossil specimens were found to date to time rangers long after the animals were thought to be extinct, as recent as 35,000 years ago. Furthermore, the study determined that Elasmotherium sibiricum is not closely related to modern rhinoceroses as was previously thought, but instead split off of the rhino’s evolutionary lineage over 40 million years ago.

Paleolithic cave art from as far west as France suggests the animals may have roamed a much larger area than previously thought, too.

The new timeline for the Siberian unicorn also sheds some light on the likely cause for its extinction. During the time to which the most recent specimens were dated, a period of colder winters meant there was far less grass for the animals to graze on throughout Eurasia. According to Alan Cooper of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, the unicorn’s extreme specialization in eating grass meant that was its main food source died off, the animals likely starved to death:

It looks like this unicorn thing was so specialised to eat grass it couldn’t survive. Its head was a whopping great big thing, it was kind of extended really really low, sitting right at grass height, so it really doesn’t have to lift its head up. There’s question of whether it could even lift its head at all! It was highly specialist so once the environment shifted it appears to have died out.

Yikes. While the Siberian unicorn might have died out tens of thousands of years ago, this new timeline makes you wonder: if these “unicorns” and humans lived side-by-side for thousands of years, is that why unicorns are such a common legendary creature around the world? Depictions of unicorns are fairly ubiquitous worldwide. Like all beasts of lore and legend, the unicorn likely has its roots in the ancient human consciousness.