I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you’re around

Carole King was obviously referring to a guy in her iconic song, but today those same lyrics might apply to a newly-discovered world of “intraterrestrials” living deep under the feet of virtually every human in a pristine environment that excited researchers are calling a “subterranean Galapagos.” In fact, it’s making them “get hot and cold, all over, all over, all over, all over.” Let’s find out why.

Two types of microbes—bacteria and archaea—dominate Deep Earth. Among them are millions of distinct types, most yet to be discovered or characterized. This so-called microbial “dark matter” dramatically expands our perspective on the tree of life. Deep Life scientists say about 70% of Earth’s bacteria and archaea live in the subsurface.

Deep microbes are often very different from their surface cousins, with life cycles on near-geologic timescales, dining in some cases on nothing more than energy from rocks.

The genetic diversity of life below the surface is comparable to or exceeds that above the surface.

While subsurface microbial communities differ greatly between environments, certain genera and higher taxonomic groups are ubiquitous – they appear planet-wide.”

In a statement released prior to the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, over 1,000 scientists from 52 countries with the Deep Carbon Observatory unveiled the results of their 10-year project which involved drilling hundreds of deep (up to 3 miles/4.8 km) holes on the surface and under the oceans. They found that 70% of Earth’s bacteria and archaea exist in the subsurface, with many of them being alive for thousands of years, moving only when there are earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or plate shifts.

Not only are these organisms old and diverse, they’re strange. One found 1.5 miles/2.5 km down appears to live on methane instead of sunlight and doesn’t reproduce but instead has just been repairing itself for eons. Another lives in hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor at 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius), above the boiling point of water at 212 degrees F (100 degrees C).

And there’s not just a few of them in holes … there’s TONS of them everywhere – an estimated 2 to 2.3 billion cubic km (almost twice the volume of all oceans) with a carbon mass of 15 to 23 billion tons, which is 245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface.

Is your heart trembling at the thought of being outnumbered and outlived by so many subsurface intraterrestrials? Robert Hazen, a mineralogist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, thinks this study is just scratching the subsurface.

“We must ask ourselves: if life on Earth can be this different from what experience has led us to expect, then what strangeness might await as we probe for life on other worlds?”

How would that make Carole King feel?

I feel the sky tumbling down, a’tumbling down,
A’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, a’tumbling down, tumbling down!

Occasionally, I’m asked for my thoughts on the claims that there’s a huge “alien base” below Dulce, New Mexico. Well, I don’t think such a thing exists, but I can definitely see why people think there just might be. Dulce is a pleasant and inviting town that is situated in New Mexico’s Rio Arriba County. It’s a small town of less than 3,000 people and which is around thirteen square miles in size. It was founded in the latter part of the 19^th century and, today, is the home of the Jicarilla Apache Nation. There is nothing particularly unusual or out of the ordinary about Dulce – at least, not at first glance. Look a little bit closer, though, and you’ll find yourself in a world filled with dark secrets and terrifying tales of the cosmic and conspiratorial kind. And, “by closer,” I mean below your feet. Way below your feet; maybe even miles down.

Since the late 1970s, rumors have swirled to the effect that deep within the massive Archuleta Mesa, which dominates the town, there is a secret and futuristic facility that has been out of bounds to the U.S. Government since 1979. Today, it’s said that the installation is under the complete control of hostile and deadly extraterrestrials – the so-called “Greys” of UFO lore, those dwarfish, black-eyed, large-headed entities that are practically part of popular culture. So the story goes, it was in seventy-nine that a violent confrontation between military personnel and the aliens broke out – and we were the losers. The base, which was once a hub of human / alien interaction, is now theirs – and theirs alone. Witnesses talk of people going missing, and of vast, cavern-like rooms in which people are devoured by voraciously hungry aliens. Are the tales true? How did the rumors begin? Let’s take a trip back in time to the mid-to-late 1970s.

Paul Bennewitz was a scientist who, at the time, ran a company in Albuquerque called Thunder Scientific – a company that quite literally backed onto the well-guarded fences of Kirtland Air Force Base. It was around 1978 that Bennewitz – who had a pre-existing interest in UFOs – began to hear of more and more so-called alien abduction events in and around Albuquerque and further up into northern New Mexico. On top of that, strange signals were picked up by Bennewitz on his radio equipment. He saw weird-looking aircraft soaring silently across the skies over Kirtland late at night and in the early hours of the morning. He was given accounts of abductees being secretly taken to Kirtland and grilled by U.S. intelligence agents, who were deeply concerned about the growing number of people seemingly being kidnapped from their homes and subjected to terrifying and bizarre experiments of a genetic nature.

As the weeks and months progressed Bennewitz came to believe something incredible: that deadly ETs were secretly getting ready to take over the planet. They were planning on doing so from their command post deep below the town of Dulce. Worldwide invasion and the enslavement of the human race were lurking just around the corner – as Bennewitz saw it, at least. Suspecting that the end really was possibly getting nearer and nearer, Bennewitz prepared a dossier on his findings and theories. He called it Project Beta. Bennewitz mailed copies of the controversial report to the FBI, to the CIA, to the NSA, to every branch of the military, and even to the White House. People had to be warned – and warned now, Bennewitz said.

Notably, Bennewitz was not written off as a crank, as many might expect him to have been. In fact, quite the opposite was the case: intelligence agents at Kirtland Air Force Base quickly established a secret liaison with Bennewitz. They warned him about digging any further into things that could be dangerous – even to Bennewitz’s life, no less. But, those same agents also confided in Bennewitz something incredible: that he was on the right track. They did all they could to keep Bennewitz quiet, almost to the point of begging him to keep his mouth shut on what he knew. For Bennewitz, though, this was like a red rag to a bull: the somewhat veiled threats to keep his nose out of things only served Bennewitz to push further for answers.

As a result, U.S. intelligence fed Bennewitz more and more horror stories of what was supposedly going on several miles below Dulce, including tales of the aliens using captured people – in their thousands – as food. It’s no wonder – given the nature of the stories and that they were coming directly from the military – that Bennewitz became more and more paranoid. Eventually, he became completely unhinged, and to the point where he ended up spending time in a local medical facility, where he was treated for stress, anxiety, and, finally, what practically amounted to a complete mental collapse. Thankfully, he recovered, but was careful to keep his distance from Ufology.

Today, some UFO researchers dismiss Bennewitz’s theories and conclusions – preferring, instead, to suspect that Bennewitz had stumbled on not alien activity but top secret programs of the U.S. military and intelligence community. By steering Bennewitz down a path filled with fictitious tales of dangerous aliens, the government would be able to divert him away from the far more down to earth truth, so the theory goes. On the other hand, Bennewitz, who died in 2003, still has a huge following of UFO sleuths who are absolutely certain that below Dulce something abominable is going on – and has been for years. Maybe even for centuries.

While Bennewitz’s Project Beta report reads like something straight out of the early years of The X-Files, there is absolutely no doubt that Dulce itself is a very weird place, one where strange activity has been reported for years. For example, in the 1960s the area around Dulce became the site of a classified U.S. Atomic Energy Commission program called Gasbuggy. It was part of a larger operation code-named Plowshare. The plan was to explode a significantly-sized atomic device, underground, deep below the Carson National Forest, which just happens to be only a few miles from Dulce. The reason was to try and access massive and precious supplies of natural gas. The bomb was detonated on December 10, 1967 – more than four thousand feet below the surface. Although the Plowshare program continued in the area until the late 1970s, even today digging underground in the area is strictly forbidden.

In light of all of Bennewitz’s findings, it’s not at all surprising that there are those in the UFO community who believe that the Plowshare program was actually a cover story – one created to mask the fact that the U.S. Government had tried to destroy the alien base under Dulce with a nuclear weapon. That just such a weapon really was exploded, underground, and only a few minutes’ drive from Dulce, only ensures that the rumors of an alien presence in the area continue to thrive. And, that people are warned not to dig underground in the area only adds to the suspicions that there is something very sinister going on below Dulce.

Not only that, in 1989, and thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI declassified into the public domain its extensive files on so-called “cattle mutilations” in the Dulce area, most of which occurred in the 1970s. Such mutilations have been reported all across the county and since 1967, but Dulce is renowned for the huge number of cases in its midst, as the FBI learned. Cattle are found lacking major organs. Blood is removed from the bodies in astonishingly quick time. And, black and unmarked helicopters are seen in the areas of mutilation – as are strange lights in the sky, and UFOs too. Incredibly, all of these issues are discussed at length in the FBI’s official files on the mutilations in and around Dulce, all of which can be read online at the FBI’s website, The Vault. So, yes, there is definitely something strange going on at Dulce – and something which has been going on for an extraordinarily long time. But, that base? I’m saying “No.”

Among the many contentious sub-fields of phenomena associated with UFO research, perhaps none is quite so baffling as animal mutilation. Many of these apparent “mutilations” have been casually dismissed as the simple interventions of scavenging beasts, following the natural or otherwise mundane death of cattle or other livestock. Undoubtedly, this is true in some cases, although there are other instances where physical evidence points to a more complex phenomenon behind the mysterious deaths and mutilations.

The situation is complex enough that, during the 1970s, the FBI became involved in studies aimed at determining the possible factors underlying some of these incidents, although the depth to which they investigated the matter at the time has come under scrutiny. Writing for Skeptoid in 2015, Allison Hudson noted that, “[The FBI’s] investigation amounted to little more than collections of newspaper clippings because of jurisdictional issues, but they concluded that nothing seemed to be amiss in the deaths other than natural causes. This was a conclusion shared by other investigations.”

In a memorandum dated January 21, 1975, sent to the FBI Laboratory by the Special Agent in Charge of the Minneapolis Division, the mutilations were described thusly:

“For the information of the Bureau, animals, mostly livestock, have been reported as mutilated in the three-state area of this division and parts of their bodies missing. The parts listed as missing have been the sexual organs, ears, lips and udders, and in some instances, the blood from the animals was considered ‘completely drained.’ No evidence of value ever located at the scene.”

The briefing goes on to note that state veterinarians who examined the remains “contend dead animals were eaten by other animals or varmints, believed to be foxes due to their sharp side teeth.” However, the notion that “no evidence of value” was ever collected at the scene of such mutilations is particularly curious, as it appears to contrast sharply with some of the law enforcement investigations and lab work conducted on the State and municipal level over the years.

Around the same time the briefing above was issued, mutilations were occurring in other parts of the country, and were under investigation by law enforcement. In his Alien Contact: Top Secret UFO Files Revealed, researcher Timothy Good recounted such an investigation that was underway in early 1975, under the supervision of the Coryell County deputy sheriff and Department of Public Safety. The incident involved the remains of a calf that was discovered at Copperas Cove, Texas, bearing many of what would become staples of the mutilation cases: sex organs had been “bloodlessly” removed with surgical precision, and peculiar impressions were found in the soil approximately forty yards from the calf that formed concentric circles, approximately 30 feet in diameter. Similar markings were found elsewhere in the same field, along with circular dispersals of dried grass which appeared to have been depressed by some object using “tremendous force,” along with the apparent removal of surface soil and stones in some areas.

“The DPS officials speculated that an aerial vehicle had been used in the operation,” Good wrote. “It was later learned that several residents near Copperas Cove and Killeen had observed a yellowish-orange light hovering over the farmland at around the same time as the mutilation.”

As Good notes of the Texas mutilations, the FBI initially was hesitant to become involved (despite memorandums that show Agents in some regions were looking into the matter around the same time, as outlined earlier). With the FBI maintaining a low profile in relation to the mutilations in the mid-1970s, local law enforcement was left to carry out most of the investigations at that time.

Officer Gabriel Valdez of the New Mexico State Police participated in the investigation of a similar incident that transpired on June 13, 1976, at the ranch of Manuel Gomez near Duke, New Mexico. FBI documents pertaining to this incident were later released by the FBI, and detail the incident as follows:

At the scene, writer examined carcass of a three-year-old black White-Faced cow which was lying on its right side. The left ear, the tongue, the udder, and the rectum had been removed with what appeared to be a sharp precise instrument. No traces of blood were left on the skin of the cow. .. . Other evidence on the cow was a small puncture on the brisket. No other evidence was available as to cause of death.

Investigations continued around the area and revealed that a suspected aircraft of some type had landed twice, leaving pod marks positioned in a triangular shape. The diameter of each pod part was 14″. The perimeter around the three pods was 16 1/2′

(6′ x 5′ x 5 1/2′). Emanating from the two landings were smaller triangular-shaped tripods 26″ apart and 4″ in diameter Investigation at the scene showed that these small tripods had followed the cow for approximately 600 feet. Tracks of the cow showed where she had struggled and fallen. The small tripod tracks were all around the cow. Other evidence showed that grass around the tripods, as they followed the cow, had been scorched. Also a yellow oily substance was located in two places under the small tripods. This substance was submitted to the State Police Lab. The Lab was unable to detect the content of the substance. . . .

The details given thus far are interesting, to say the least, in that a very detailed account is given of the appearance and measurements of the “tripods” which Valdez believed had followed the mutilated cow for 600 feet, whereafter forensic evidence apparently indicates she had “struggled and fallen.” The recovery of the oily substance beneath the tripods was also of interest, in that physical traces were left at the scene, despite the State Police Lab’s inability to identify it.

The report continues:

On 06-17-76 writer contacted a Mr. Howard Burgess from Albuquerque, N.M., to proceed to the scene and conduct a radiation test. This was three days after the incident had occurred. His findings were that around the tripod marks and in the immediate tracks, the radiation level was twice the normal background reading. Mr. Burgess’s qualifications may be checked as he is a retired scientist from Sandia Lab, Albuquerque. It is the opinion of this writer that radiation findings are deliberately being left at the scene to confuse investigators. . . .

The above statement is particularly interesting, and little has been said of the assessment Valdez makes in the final sentence: that the presence of radiation, rather than being some hallmark or indicator of the phenomenon itself, had instead been intended to confuse or misdirect any ensuing investigation. This is merely Valdez’s personal opinion; however, it is important to consider its implications on those grounds, since there is an obvious stereotype that often becomes associated with such mutilation reports. This, simply put, is the tried and true assumption that either 1) extraterrestrials did it, or that 2) anyone who suggests that forensic evidence in such cases points to something more complex than simple, natural deaths and predation by scavengers must, therefore, also buy the alien explanation. Neither assumption is valid, although plenty of people—skeptics and believers alike—are guilty of falling into such traps, which are based on bias and presumption, rather than logic.

There were other very important clues obtained during Valdez’s investigation, as Good points out. “Officer Valdez noted that in all the cattle mutilations that had occurred in New Mexico and surrounding states at that time, ‘the object of the mutilations has been the lymph node system’.” This is quite in contrast to the preoccupation many researchers seem to have on the removal of sexual organs and soft tissues in cattle mutilation cases and strongly suggests that the focus of the mutilations (supposing there had been a medical basis for such procedures) had been on the immune system.

The emphasis on lymphatic functions was not all that Valdez noticed. In one instance, a mutilated specimen in New Mexico was examined and found to have high concentrations of a specific chemical agent in the bloodstream. “[A] high dosage of Atropine insecticide was analyzed in the blood system,” Good wrote. “Since Atropine is a tranquilizing drug, this would imply that either government agents or private individuals were responsible in this case, yet the presence of the drug need not necessarily be related to the mutilation, and investigations into later cases failed to confirm the presence of such drugs.”

The significance of this bizarre twist seems obvious, and as Good has already outlined for us, “this would imply that either government agents or private individuals were responsible in this case.” The problem, of course, is that atropine is not necessarily a common feature of cattle mutilations. However, my colleague Nick Redfern, who has looked into such cases for a long time (point in case, his work is referenced by Timothy Good in the aforementioned book, which was published in 1991), notes that the presence of Atropine at least appears to have been discovered in a few other instances of cattle mutilations.

“What are the chances,” Nick asks, “of aliens from some far-away galaxy utilizing atropine to sedate cattle before systematically butchering them? Personally, I’d say the chances are practically zero.”

He further notes:

“In other words, while it is unlikely to satisfy those who so desperately wish to believe that the mutilations are the work of bug-eyed aliens from distant worlds, the presence of atropine in a significant number of the reports coming out of Dulce suggests we may be looking at a definitively home-grown operation – but one that utilizes the alien-motif as a convenient cover – focused on matters relative to biological-warfare and, perhaps, concerns about such worrying, and growing, issues as Creutzfeldt-Jacob-Disease, or Mad-Cow Disease, as it is more commonly known.”

It would be interesting to look through available resource literature and see if similar reports of Atropine in the bloodstream of these cattle might have been noted elsewhere, although there could be simple reasons why, even if it had been present, it may not have been detected in all cases. As Valdez noted in a separate investigative report pertaining to one of the Dulce cattle mutilations from around this time, “Investigation of these strange mutilations has been hampered by an inability to find laboratories which will perform tests and report accurate findings.” Had resources not been so limited to the state and municipal agencies that were investigating the deaths, there indeed might have been more relevant information about the mutilations that could have been obtained.

On a final unsettling note, according to Dr. Howard Burgess, a retired Sandia Laboratories scientist who was investigating cattle mutilations around the same time, splotches of fluorescent material had been found on the backs of some of the live cattle in the region, which was only visible under ultraviolet light.

Burgess wrote:

“To our amazement, three four-year-old cows and two young heifers had bright fluorescent splashes on their backs or top sides, fitting the pattern of animal types being mutilated in that area at that period. No markings were found on their sides, underneath, or lower parts. We were not able to find any liquid or solid in the corral or pasture that glowed with the same color or brilliance as the marks on the animals. The fluorescent marking was not from material picked up locally. If the animals were marked in advance, how was it done? When? By whom?”

The implications of Burgess’s views discussed here are indeed pretty disturbing, especially when compared to the final thoughts of Officer Gabriel Valdez on the subject:

“It is writer’s opinion that these animals have been marked for some time before they are mutilated. . . . It is writer’s theory that these animals are picked up by aircraft, mutilated elsewhere, and returned and dropped from aircraft. This is indicated from bruised marks and broken bones on cattle. Identical mutilations have been taking place all over the Southwest. . . no eye witnesses to these incidents have come forward. . . . One has to admit that whoever is responsible for the mutilations is very well organized, with boundless technology and financing and secrecy.”

As Allison Hudson, writing for Skeptoid noted in 2015, “For many, [the cattle mutilation] scenario is all too believable. They fear that extraterrestrial spaceships are kidnapping unsuspecting ungulates, conducting horrid vivisections, and then dumping the bodies.”

It’s a fair criticism since there are certainly plenty of people in the UFO community who wholeheartedly believe in an “alien” presence behind such reports; if anything, they wouldn’t have it any other way, and remain unwilling to look at other, more down-to-earth explanations. However, to assume that there may be more to some of these cases than mundane predation does not have to equate to belief in extraterrestrial visitation; nor does it require further sad conflagrations between the idea of unconventional aerial technologies that may be involved, and extraterrestrial visits to our planet, which remain unproven. 

Whatever was really going on behind those cattle mutilations during the 1970s (and even still today), was probably far from being anything as unusual or “paranormal” as popular literature on the subject would suggest–although that’s not to say that some of the mutilations aren’t downright bizarre. On the other hand, popular skeptical interpretations that chalk the entire affair up to willfully ignorant “UFOlogists” and credulous farmers, who overlooked the telltale signs of foxes, insects, and other natural means by which the mutilations could be explained, fall equally short of the mark. And for all their hours spent clipping articles from newspapers in order to get around jurisdictional constraints, the FBI didn’t seem to notice fluorescent splotches, atropine insecticide in cattle blood, soil disturbances, radiation, and other physical data when they lamented about “no evidence of value ever located at the scene.”

There does seem to be more to some of the cattle mutilations, although getting to the bottom of what that might be would require ideological researchers learning to put aside their own “sacred cows,” and look at what the evidence actually says. 

Residents of the Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area were treated to a genuine airborne mystery this week when weather radar picked up a strange anomaly, puzzling meteorologists and weather watchers alike. Despite the fact that skies were clear and no storms were reported in the area, several weather stations reported a massive, extremely severe-looking storm on their radar systems. While an official explanation was given in the wake of the incident, we all know how official explanations go. What exactly happened in the skies over Indiana this week?

It all began late on the evening of Monday, December 12 when the National Weather Service office in Paducah, Kentucky reported a large anomaly over Southern Illinois which drifted across Southern Indiana and Western Kentucky. Whatever was on radar appeared to be as dense as a thunderstorm, but with the night clear and temperatures low, that theory was ruled improbable.

With little else to go on, National Weather Service believe the only other explanation is chaff released by a military aircraft. Chaff is a common countermeasure designed to fool radar and consists of small fibers or strands of metallized glass, paper, plastic, or aluminum. Clouds of lightweight chaff released by aircraft float on the air and are commonly picked up by weather radar.

Newer types of chaff in several different diameters.

However, this recent case appears different. National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Meffert says whatever caused this radar anomaly appeared to track as high as 10,000 feet but also at ground level. If it was chaff, Meffert adds, the weather service has “never seen it quite this hot.” Meffert went on to point out that he’s never before seen the Air Force conduct chaff exercises or tests in the Evansville, Indiana area.

A formation of C-130 Hercules aircraft fire off chaff and flare countermeasures over the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Furthermore, whenever nearby air bases have conducted drills with chaff, residents in the area have found the fibers strewn throughout their yards. In this case, no fibers were reported. Still, several news outlets report that air traffic control in Evansville were aware of a C-130 releasing chaff in the area on Monday. If this was chaff, why did it appear so different from prior tests? It could merely be a new type of countermeasure the weather service is unfamiliar with. 

Military aviation blog The Drive adds that chaff does not usually stay in such a tight pattern for over 10 hours like this radar anomaly did. The Drive‘s Tyler Rogoway reached out to all nearby Armed Forces bases to see which might have conducted the chaff test, but none claimed responsibility. Rogoway’s theory is that this was likely “a test involving a more exotic type of material that hangs in the air longer” than normal chaff. Why conduct a test in such an usual location over suburban Indiana and not on a test range, though?