What goes around, comes around.

Would that roundabout description of karma still hold true if the Earth was flat? A group of Flat Earthers trying to prove earthy flatness got a big dose of comes-aroundness when the $20,000 gizmo they purchased for that purpose kept coming up “round.” They could have spent far less with the same result by using a Magic 8-Ball … if those were flat. What does karma have against Flat Earthers? Let’s find out.

A documentary currently showing on Netflix called “Behind the Curve” follows members and leaders of the Flat Earth movement as they attempt to prove their beliefs and gather new followers. One of those leaders is Bob Knodel, who claims his background as an engineer and a pilot have convinced him that the Earth is folat and inspired him to create a YouTube channel cleverly named “Globebusters.” If anyone should know how to prove the globe is a flat glob, it’s an engineer and a pilot … right?

According to Newsweek, Knodel and his followers managed to purchase a gyroscope … not one of those fun spinning toys you played with as kids but a $20,000 highly-accurate laser gyroscope that they planned to use to disprove the scientific fact that a round Earth spinning at 15 degrees per house causes a gyroscope to drift the same 15 degrees per hour. Knodel fired up the gyroscope and stood back. When he saw the results, he said:

“We don’t want to blow this, you know? When you’ve got $20,000 in this freaking gyro. If we dumped what we found right now, it would be bad? It would be bad. What I just told you was confidential.”

That doesn’t sound anything like “Eureka!” That’s because it was more like a “Eureka … not!” moment for Knodel. What he saw that was “bad” and should be kept “confidential” was the laser gyroscope drifting 15 degrees per hour just like it was supposed to. So, Knodel had an awakening, admitted the Earth really is round, shut down his YouTube channel, picked up his flat globes and went home … right?

“Now, obviously we were taken aback by that – ‘Wow, that’s kind of a problem.’ We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for easy to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth.”

If you don’t like the results, blame the machine! (See a video clip here.) Knodel should have gone into politics … on second thought, maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t. Ignoring the drift and refusing to drift away from his non-scientific belief, he kept repeating it, hoping to get a different result. Many of you will recognize this as a popular definition of insanity … Knodel probably believes that this only applies to Round Earthers. Needless to say, the drifting $20,000 gyroscope wins again and again.

The documentary also shows Knodel’s channel co-host Jeran Campanella conducting a different experiment using a light pointed through three circles cut into boards at the same height, with the boards being far apart. If the Earth is flat, the beam will pass through all three holes. And if the Earth is round? Campanella saw the beam miss the last hole and said:

“Interesting. That’s interesting.”

At least he didn’t blame the boards … or the saw … or the laser pointer. (See a clip here.)

At this point, even a flat Magic 8-Ball would say, “Don’t bother asking again.”

{https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-03-2019 om 17:23 geschreven door peter  

It’s that time again, readers: the weekly mystery boom round up. These unexplained, powerful explosion-like sounds have been shaking the ground around the world with a worrisome increase in frequency lately, and if you ask me, not enough attention is being paid to them. While there are many different possible explanations for these anomalous sounds, the similarities among them are striking and seem to suggest one overriding phenomenon may be occurring. What could be causing these booms, and why are the ‘official’ channels so silent?

Probably because they’ve got much bigger fish to fry these days.

In my home state of North Carolina, residents of Johnston County have been reaching out to law enforcement for answers about the earth-rattling booms which have been shaking their homes for weeks. This week, one of the booms was so powerful it seemed to disturb the air. “It was a little bit of a weird atmosphere then, boom a loud bang,” said Clayton, North Carolina resident Rocky Hall. “When I mean loud, I mean it took the air out of your chest… it sucked right out of you and then everybody came running out of the houses and stuff.” The Wake County and Johnston County Sheriff’s Offices say their phones have been “ringing off the hook” this week due to the booms, but so far no evidence of their origin has been found.

Mysterious booms have been reported 64 times this year, in locations including Michigan, Lapland, St Ives, Swansea and Yorkshire. Incidents are becoming more frequent according to some reports.

Much farther north, people in southern Idaho have been reportedly hearing and feeling booms for weeks. The booms have been so prevalent that local radio station KEZJ has begun polling residents to see just how widespread this unexplained phenomenon may be. One local professor of geology believes the mysterious “skyquakes” are related to a nearby bombing range, but a spokesperson for the Mountain View Air Force station says the base had no aircraft in the air at the time the “skyquakes” were reported. However, the same spokesperson added that they “could not confirm that a separate military outfit wasn’t responsible for the noise.”

Idaho. How could you not want to visit this place? Just watch out for those skyquakes.

This next incident seems to close the case of the mysterious explosions which have plagued neighborhoods in northwest Phoenix, Arizona since last November. In that case, mysterious booms were accompanied in some cases by unexplained flashes of light and even flying debris, two details which seemed to suggest someone was testing improvised explosives. Those suspicions were confirmed this week as Phoenix Police recently arrested Houston Willis, a man they say has been detonating explosives all over town including on the grounds of an elementary school.

Last July, the FBI helped arrest the owner of a chemical supply company who had also been detonating homemade explosivesthroughout Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Are more of these mystery booms being caused by would-be bomb makers? Why are so many people constructing homemade explosives? Given the current sociopolitical climate in the US and the fact that several would-be terrorist plots have already been foiled, these developments are worrisome to say the least.

It’s been a tumultuous couple of years, that’s for sure.

Still, it seems that not all mystery booms can be chalked up to idiots playing with combustible materials. In central Missouri, residents reported a loud boom on the morning of March 4. Columbia Police and Emergency Management officials scrambled to locate the source of the noise before aerospace giant Boeing claimed responsibility. It turns out Boeing was performing a “functional check on a military aircraft” in the area, and while the company’s statement did not include the term “sonic boom,” it’s pretty clear that they broke the sound barrier as part of the test.

I’ve suspected for a while now that many of these booms are caused by military aircraft, but this is one of the few times that anyone has actually stepped forward to claim responsibility. Here we are hundreds of cases later with explanations provided in only a few incidents. Are these mystery booms not as related as they seem? Are there more would-be terrorists testing improvised explosive devices throughout the country? Is the military industrial complex testing new aerospace technology in secret? While a few cases have now been closed, the mystery only increases in terms of the hundreds of cases which still remain unsolved.

WHAT COULD THEY BE? 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-03-2019 om 17:14 geschreven door peter  

Mars and The Great Galactic Ghoul

Great Galactic Ghoul or Human Error?

The Number of Failed Mars Probes is Uncanny

Ever since biblical times, mankind has been making astute observations of all of the known planets within the solar system. While many of the outer planets have only been discovered in more recent history, ancient civilisations have been fascinated with the inner solar system. The overwhelming passion for these ancient astronomers has been Mars. However, successfully getting any probe there has proven to be a bizarrely daunting task. This is the basis for what some people call the Great Galactic Ghoul.

The article Exploration of Mars in Wikipedia explains:

The phrase “Galactic Ghoul”or “Great Galactic Ghoul”, referring to a fictitious space monster that subsists on a diet of Mars probes, was coined in 1997 by Time Magazine journalist Donald Neff, and is sometimes facetiously used to “explain” the recurring difficulties.

Is there such a thing as the Great Galactic Ghoul? This illustration depicts a concept for NASA’s Mars Telecommunications Orbiter.

NASA.

Popular science fiction authors have long considered Mars to be the source for alien civilisations that have come to Earth in order to do us harm or take over our home. Most familiar of these tales is likely to be H.G. Wells ‘The War of the Worlds’. Such is the appeal of this timeless work that it has never been out of print in over a century.

Failed Mars Missions

It was only recently that technology firmly caught up with man’s curiosity. The last fifty or so years has seen plenty of probes and spacecraft make their way to our closest and best known neighbour. While not alone in humanity’s desire to learn more about the solar system we reside in, Mars is far and away the most popular planetary destination for our thirst for knowledge. Given this fact, it should be expected that, at times, something will go awry with any mission at any time. Statistics suggest that only a third of all missions sent to the Red Planet are actually successful. Scientists can’t fully understand why the other two thirds fail. To NASA and the Soviet Union, this goes beyond all expectations. While Mission Controllers can expect at least some failure, the sheer volume of unsuccessful launches is cause for some concern.

Strange Interference

Is there something on Mars that someone, or something, doesn’t want us to discover, and are interfering with most of our efforts to learn more? This is what proponents of the Great Galactic Ghoul theory maintain. Of the missions that have made it to Mars, plenty of images have made it online that show a whole host of features and formations that defy explanation. The Cydonia region is a mystery all of its own. Mars landers have sent back images of Sphinx-like statues, pyramids, apparent life forms, fossils and unknown lights.

Cydonia (The City), Mars. The famous face of Mars in upper right corner.

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera Release, published by NASA.

Failed Mars Missions Mount

The long list of failed Mars missions began with the first half a dozen probes sent there. All but one of these were Soviet missions that were only supposed to fly-by the planet. Several of these missions broke apart once Earth orbit had been established. Failures like these might be expected, given that the human race had never tried anything of this ilk before.

The first mission that made it as far as Mars was Mariner 4, NASA’s second attempt made in 1964. 21 images were sent back to Mission Control. Russia attempted numerous times to send a probe to Mars, but didn’t make a successful trip until 1971. This probe, Mars 2 Orbiter/Lander, made it as far as it’s intended destination but the lander was destroyed and no data was received. The Russians assumed that this probe was lost like so many others before it. Subsequently, the Mars 3 mission was the first Soviet success story. The lander touched down but only recorded several seconds of data, while the orbiter maintained contact for 8 months.

Over the course of the next four years, several missions were launched. Two of these missed Mars entirely and are probably still adrift somewhere within the solar system. One, Mars 7 Lander, is said to be in solar orbit. In 1975 a breakthrough in Martian exploration was achieved when NASA sent a pair of probes which likely made all previous failures worth it. The Viking probes were the first real success story, sending back in excess of 16,000 images, including the notorious Cydonia photos. It seemed the Great Galactic Ghoul was at work. It would be almost 20 years after this that another probe was a success.

Mars probe, Viking 2 Selfie on Mars. Sept. 3, 1976, NASA.

Japan Attempts a Mars Mission

In 1998, a new nation tried their luck with a probe, however they too had a failed Mars mission. The Japanese probe, Nozomi, was lost when fuel problems contributed to the probe’s failure to properly insert into Mars orbit. To date, this marked the beginning and end of Japan’s efforts to study the Red Planet. Since the launch of Nozomi, both the European Space Agency (ESA) and India have made launches toward the Red Planet. Both were deemed to be a success, but the ESA Beagle 2 lander failed to touch down on the surface of Mars. The India probe was the last mission that was sent to Mars back in 2013.

Mars and The Galactic Ghoul in Action

In the early days of Martian exploration, an idea began to develop that intent was behind these failures. What started as a probable joke quickly gained recognition outside of space agencies and an entire conspiracy theory was built up behind the so-called Great Galactic Ghoul. There can be little doubt that plenty of unforeseen technological issues may have plagued hardware such as a planetary lander and something not expected to happen had happened. Other causes could be nothing more than basic human error. This could explain fates that befell certain probes or missions, but some of these historic probes have disappeared completely.

Could the Great Galactic Ghoul have ushered them away from Earth control? NASA launched the Mars Observer in 1993 and when the probe was just 3 days from arriving, it ceased all transmissions. Officially, the propulsion system sprung a leak and the probe spun out of control as a result. All electronics were switched into safe mode and no transmissions were possible after this.

Cursed Mars Movies

If there is indeed a curse connected with all things Mars, then it extends beyond mere probes sent towards fact finding missions to the planet. There have been quite a few films made within a Martian setting. Mission to Mars, Red Planet, John Carter and Last Days on Mars never fared well with either cinema-goers or critics alike. The original release of Total Recall and the recent hit The Martian did much better at the box office, the latter being credited by The Washington Post as ‘having saved NASA and future space exploration’.

The Great Galactic Ghoul. From the novel, War of the Worlds. 1906.

Public Domain.

Video games are not immune to a possible curse either. In 2012, Bioware released the third game in their acclaimed Mass Effect trilogy. While not set on Mars, there was a mission early in the game that required Commander Shepard to visit an outpost on Mars. The conclusion of this game caused a severe backlash from many gamers about the ending. So much so, that Bioware developers were encouraged to supplement the ending with additional downloadable content to satisfy gamers later that same year. A more recent title based solely on Mars is the updated version of the classic Doom franchise of 1990s. Generally the reviews of this updated version have been positive. Video games do tend to transition to film, mostly to the chagrin of critics. Doom was no exception to this rule when it was released in cinemas in 2005.

Man vs. The Great Galactic Ghoul

The next stage of Martian exploration is, of course, to send astronauts there. These intrepid souls will have to face a whole host of challenges from a logistical and physical perspective. Schedules have yet to be finalised, but the current estimates is that man will set foot on Mars in 10-15 years time. Hopefully, we have all the Great Galactic Ghoul kinks worked out. Who could be waiting for them and what will they find there?

Sources:

• Universe Today
• The Week
• Seeker
• NASA Mars Mission Log

{ https://www.historicmysteries.com/}

08-03-2019 om 16:46 geschreven door peter  

Is there such a thing as the Great Galactic Ghoul? This illustration depicts a concept for NASA’s Mars Telecommunications Orbiter.

NASA.

Mars, also often called “The Red Planet,” due to the reddish tint of its atmosphere, gets its name from the ancient Roman god of war, and is the 4th planet from the sun, as well as the second smallest in the solar system. For a very long time it has held a certain fascination for astronomers, and has over the century become quite a fixture in science fiction stories, once a very popular origin for alien invaders and all manner of bizarre creatures, most famously depicted in the H.G Welles science fiction classic War of the Worlds. In recent years it has become a major destination for exploration and an envisioned future of manned missions. The planet even now incites wonder and speculation, as we debate whether there is life there and the Internet pores over pictures often purported to show alien spacecraft, fossils, living organisms, spaceships, evidence of some ancient Martian civilization such as pyramids and other structures, and all manner of assorted bizarreness. There is also the idea that it is actually cursed or protected by alien forces from beyond our understanding.

There can be no doubt that Mars holds its share of mysteries, and one of the more curious of these is the persistent idea that for whatever reasons the planet itself seems to be cursed. The seed of this bizarre notion lies in the fact that despite all of the efforts, technology, and money poured into Mars exploration, it has stubbornly and persistently proven to be inordinately difficult to successfully reach and investigate, with a long list of freak mishaps, problems, and malfunctions that have conspired to keep us years behind where we should actually be in our stage of Mars exploration considering our best efforts.

The history of the exploration of Mars is littered with failed missions. The first half a dozen or so probes that were sent out there were all total failures, either malfunctioning, suffering miscalculations, or breaking up completely, or simply disappearing without a trace. In 1964, the Mariner 4 did manage to reach the planet and take a series of photographs, but in the meantime Russia suffered a string of failures, only managing to finally put a probe on the surface in 1971, the Mars 2 Orbiter/Lander, which made it to its destination but promptly and mysteriously lost contact with its handlers without any data being transmitted at all. Undaunted, the Mars 3 program was carried out, but the lander once again mysteriously cut out after transmitting only a few seconds of video.

Other failures followed at an alarming rate, with several other lost probes, on some occasions missing the planet entirely to go careening off out into space, including the Mars 7 lander. It wasn’t until 1975 that any real success was found with exploring Mars, with the Viking program, which was able to gain thousands of images of the planet’s surface. After that there would be another string of various failures to even reach the Red Planet that proved to be both enormously frustrating and expensive. One of these was NASA’s doomed Mars Observer, which was just 3 days away from its destination when it suffered a freak propulsion leak that caused it to spin out of control and cease transmissions. In 1998, Japan managed to send its Nozomi probe, but even this mission suffered various difficulties, as although it made it to Mars it had a fuel shortage that kept it from achieving orbit. So costly and disappointing was this failure that Japan hasn’t tried to send another probe since. The European Space agency had a similarly crushing failure when they managed to get its Beagle 2 lander into the Martian atmosphere, only to have it fail to land.

In 2004, NASA managed to land its robotic rover Opportunity on the surface, where it performed admirably for years before suddenly losing communication after a 2018 dust storm. At the time it was thought that the rover would resume operation after the weather cleared, but it never did, staying dark for reasons no one is quite sure of. The same sort of fate was suffered by Opportunity’s twin, Spirit, which had landed on the other side of the planet just a few weeks before the Opportunity. This lander functioned well until 2009, when it suddenly got stuck on something on the landscape and ceased to transmit. These are just some of the numerous misfires with Mars exploration missions, with errors, malfunction, mishaps, freak accidents, and even craft that have just sort of vanished for no discernible reason.

Of course this is not to say that every single mission has failed, as there are currently 6 orbiters in successful orbit around Mars and two functioning probes on its surface, the rover Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and the lander InSight, and even the Opportunity mission was considered a success considering it had functioned far past its estimated lifespan before contact was suddenly lost. However, it is worth pointing out that it really is quite odd just how frequently failures have occurred considering all of the effort put into it all, with only one third of all attempts to reach Mars finding any appreciable success at all. This sheer number of failures versus successful missions is so pronounced that even the space agencies behind them have had trouble explaining why this should be.

Leave it to the media and Internet to pick up the slack. In 1997 there was an article published in Time Magazine by journalist Donald Neff, who jokingly suggested that the failures of the Mars missions were due to a nefarious alien creature he called the “Galactic Ghoul,” a space monster that basically runs amok attacking any probes that approach its home world. It was all meant to be in jest, but this got people to thinking that, while of course there wasn’t a literal enormous monster trashing Mars probes, could there be some force or presence on the planet that doesn’t want people snooping around? Is there maybe something that is trying to interfere with our efforts to photograph and explore the Red Planet? As absurd as this may seen, the idea has been picked up on many Internet forums, talking about the “Mars curse,” and the “Galactic Ghoul,” a stand-in for whatever presence does not want us there, and it has all become known as the Great Galactic Ghoul Theory, the idea that we are being pushed back and warded away.

Of course the rational explanation for all of this is that these setbacks were all caused simply by the fact that with these vast distances involved, the sheer complexity and logistics of it all, and the wealth of opportunities for technical problems it only makes sense that Mars is not an easy nut to crack even with all of our modern technology. Is that what this all is? Is this just technical difficulties mixed with a little human error, or is there something that does not want us there? In the coming years we can be sure to expect ongoing efforts to put people on Mars, so it is obvious that they will need to iron these problems out, correct our horrible track record of exploring the Red Planet, and possibly keep an eye out for rampaging alien monsters.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-03-2019 om 16:26 geschreven door peter  

"Guardian Angel" high in the sky above New Windsor, New York

What is going on with all of the strange sightings in the sky.

This time a strange anomaly has been recorded hovering high in the clouds over New Windsor, New York on March 8, 2019.

It is not clear what the anomaly could be, but some people suggest that it is a flying humanoid or an interdimensional being, while others say that it is a guardian angel that is assigned to protect the country.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

08-03-2019 om 16:14 geschreven door peter  

Ed Araquel/History

How 'Project Blue Book' Production Designers Evoked the Golden Age of UFOs

To transport “Project Blue Book” viewers into the top-secret world of the U.S. government’s Cold War-era U.F.O. investigations, production designer Ross Dempster and his team were tasked with conjuring a moment in time—from scratch. The drama series, in its first season on HISTORY, is based loosely on the real-life story of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a brilliant astronomer recruited by the U.S. Air Force to scientifically scrutinize the growing number of saucer sightings, alien-abduction claims and more during the early 1950s.

HISTORY talked with Dempster, whose credits also include the recent reboot of “Lost in Space,” about how he creates environments that bring mid-century history to life onscreen and evokes the anxiety of the Atomic Age and the mystery of the unknown.

What does a production designer do?

Production design is the world in which our characters inhabit. It’s my job, along with the director and director of photography [DP], to make sure we come up with something creative that pushes the story along, makes it believable, and absorbs the audience.

How would you describe the setting for ‘Project Blue Book’?

We’re in 1951-52, so you've got this post-war thing that all the characters are living in. Rather than making it scream out as stereotypically '50s, I wanted to keep it in the realm of reality and show the time periods before that. In Dr. Hynek’s house, for example, there are antiques in the bedroom that were meant to be pieces that might have been handed down to the couple by their parents. Alongside that, you have modern furniture that they've purchased more recently. All of that tells a story, and makes the characters more real.

• READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. Government

What mood were you trying to evoke in the key sets? Were you given a specific brief?

Other than the script, I didn’t have a brief to follow. I wanted my set design to evoke the period: the Project Blue Book HQ shows government frugality—plain enough with just enough period details to keep it visually interesting. For the Majestic 12 meeting room, the inner sanctum of the secret government team investigating the UFOs, we created a robust circular design with four entrances and heavy blast doors, evocative of the fear and planning, made from that fear, that would keep the seat of power intact no matter what happened in the arms race above ground.

The UFOs that appear throughout are all designed with the period aesthetic in mind so that the audience doesn’t feel removed from the moment. Again, people were scared of these saucers and lights, and my challenge was to reference the designs seen in comics but ensure they weren’t comical to a sophisticated audience. I wanted our audience to also be afraid of these ships.

What is your research process for a project so rooted in history?

I cover the walls in the art department [with period ads, artwork, movie stills and such]… I live in that world, and it is a constant inspiration. It's especially important when you're doing a period piece, that you understand the nuances of the period, the finer details.

The internet is a great source, but it doesn't cover all the specialist stuff. We ordered up a whole bunch of period interior magazines, Arts & Architecture, from 1935 into about 1955, to see where things were culturally and aesthetically, and where they were headed. We had a clear idea of everything that was going on in that period: curtain fabrics, laminate choices, appliances, all those kind of things. The look of films like L.A. Confidential and the Hong Kong-based In the Mood for Love [helped inform the design, with their rich evocation of] secrets, the good kind of historic nostalgia—and the mystery and look of a noir detective story.

Can you share a specific ad and how it ended up in the set?

To illustrate some of Mimi’s frustration with society’s expectations of women, we created an ad for the Hoover vacuum (“Moms Love the Hoover Upright”), that appears [in a store window] in the first episode. That fit with numerous references from the period—[specifically, all the ads we saw extolling how home appliances would bring happiness to women].

Any artists whose work informed the design?

Edward Hopper’s wonderful use of light and strong color in the darkness [was something] I wanted to apply to the scenes. The best example is the gas station scene from the “Abduction” episode. I also took color palettes from his work and used them frequently in the show, for example, in the backstage green room of the radio theater in the “Lubbock Lights” episode.

This is such an interesting transitional period, design-wise, when modernism is starting to creep into people’s lives. Where did that aesthetic best serve the story?

I approached the Blue Book Headquarters, which were on the air base, to look like something that had been built earlier, beginning in the '30s into the '40s, this federal Art Deco look. In contrast to that, I thought the Hynek house could be a lot more modernist.

It also fits in with Mimi’s character...she was finding herself—it was the beginning of women freeing themselves from the home. I added in the idea that she had this modernist eye, and the furniture items that she picked were the beginnings of her emancipation. Those are the kind of details that a designer creates a story around. Then you push it forward and run with it.

Are there any specific pieces that illustrate that part of her character?

No individual piece speaks to this. It’s much more about separate items forming a whole—a larger picture—and together helping to push along a story arc. We sourced a period sofa and chose a fabric that was slightly more contemporary to brighten the mood in the [living] room. A lot of the fabrics in the period were dull browns and greens, and I wanted to have the mood lighter in the home than other sets. Warmer wood tones throughout also contrasted with the other main sets. We learn enough of Hynek’s character to guess that he isn’t the type to be picking furniture, so therefore it has to be Mimi’s choices. So it works on a subliminal level to the audience; when we see her character push for further freedoms in her life, it comes together to tell the story.

• READ MORE: Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO 'Close Encounters'

How much of what you’re sourcing is original to the period and how much is re-creation?

We try to get the real stuff wherever possible, but one thing you have to be careful of is in the period [of the show], they're supposed to look new. A lot of times you go around to second-hand stores, collectors' rooms, prop houses and there’s vintage stuff, but it’s in superbad condition. It's not going to look right.

For the Majestic 12 room, we wanted these leather and aluminum chairs, so we got in touch with the CEO of Emeco [a modernist furniture company founded in the 1940s], who is the son of the founder and is revitalizing that company. Emeco actually went back and remade the chairs especially for us.

What’s something you needed to recreate?

We have the Russian agent character, who was using the radio listening device. I always try and find pieces that are going to add something aesthetically. We knew about it on a Wednesday, I found [an image on the internet] on a Thursday or Friday, and by Monday my prop master had the device built and on set.

What are some original items you were able to source?

There were quite a few. The telephone in the Hynek house was something super-nice from the period. We got it from the widow of a collector of vintage phones—she supplied almost all the phones on the show, including a vintage phone booth. We’re always looking for stuff that stands out as a nice piece [like the iconic Kit-Cat Klock in the kitchen], but being careful it's not something that overtakes what’s going on in the scene. We didn’t pick specific designers for the Hynek house; we found stuff that was similar. We don’t want the audience thinking, "Oh, I recognize that as so-and-so’s chair."

Even simple stuff, like finding the correct oven: Storyline-wise, it had to work, so we had specialist gas fitters come in and make this wonderful vintage-looking piece actually work.

I have a wonderful set decorator, Janessa Hitsman, who loves to get into the finer details of things, making sure that a typewriter is exactly 1951 and not '52. We want to get it right. Sometimes you can get away with little things, but it’s all about making the period feel correct and keeping the audience in the story, believing where they are.

Lighting plays such an important role in the show; it’s so moody and noir-ish. How did you think about it? 

Lighting is not something I completely leave to the DP; it becomes a discussion. It’s something I’m cognizant of from the beginning, giving them as many different tools in their box as possible to use.

That can be the difference between certain practical lighting on the desk or something that's a lot more built-in, such as in the Majestic 12 set. There's a very typical bulkhead light that appears in 100 different shows every week, but I didn’t want it to be like that… I wanted it to feel designed for that space, period correct and that it had something that made it cool and different. They're actually from old British trains [and salvaged from a factory in the Midlands]. They’re built bulletproof, they can withstand a bomb blast, and the Majestic 12 room is supposed to feel like a bunker, so they had an ideal aesthetic with all this protection around the light.

Coming from England, I’m a big fan of James Bond movies; Ken Adam is an amazing production designer [who designed the James Bond films in the 1960s and '70s and the famous war room in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove]. I wanted to pay some small homage to him with the Majestic 12 room, so we designed that light to be reminiscent of the one in Dr. Strangelove.

What other lighting elements were important?

Thinking about the lights on the desk, we wanted to give this vibe that there were several people in the room [whose faces you may never see], just unknowable people in the darkness. There are a couple of scenes when you first see it where they lean forward and reveal themselves in the light through the cigar smoke. It gave this secretive vibe to the whole room.

In the Hynek house, it was about using the windows and the skylight above the kitchen. I came across the work of several period architects, but one of my favorites was [Los Angeles modernist] A. Quincy Jones. There was a particular house [of his] that inspired the Hynek house, which had a skylight with a nice wooden grill detail over it. But there was actually a practical element to it; it meant we could light the characters without having to push them right against the sink and the outside windows.

What other practical concerns do you need to think about?

Film school taught me about cinema, lighting and angles, so I tend to visualize sets from within the frame of a camera, and plan for shots in my head. They don't always have to use them, but they're there. I'm planning ahead right from the beginning. 

{ https://www.history.com/ }

08-03-2019 om 01:55 geschreven door peter  

OVNI - Commandant Jean Gabriel Greslé

Le commandant Greslé , pilote de chasse, pilote de ligne à Air France fut témoin de vol d'Ovni en France et aux USA.

Categorie

• Mensen & blogs
  

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

08-03-2019 om 01:37 geschreven door peter  

08-03-2019 om 01:31 geschreven door peter  

Cattle Mutilations: The History and Mystery Behind Them

Freya Kuka

Cattle mutilations have been plaguing the farmers that suffer from them since the early 1600s, and an end to these unexplained incidents does not seem to be in sight.

In case you are reading this and are unaware of cattle mutilations, these are incidents that have been reported regarding dead animals mostly in farms with certain organs missing and no proof of anyone coming or going.

Investigators in the 1960’s started taking it as a strong indication of alien involvement, and stories spread far and wide about extraterrestrial beings lifting creatures up into their spaceships to conduct gruesome experiments on them before sending back the mutilated carcasses.

First Cattle Mutilations

The first occurrences in the 1600s were said to be of similar nature to what happens today, where the sheep that were found had very specific organs missing. People who spoke about the cattle mutilations at the time said it was a satanic force that was causing it or something that was of an unearthly nature.

The first reported incident was witnessed by Alexandra Hamilton who on April 21, 1897, said that he heard humming noises that he followed only to witness what he describes as an airship hovering over his cattle.

He described it as a cigar-shaped craft that carried six of the strangest creatures he has ever seen. This is a snippet of some of the exact words Alexandra used to describe the incident that later spread like wildfire:

It seemed to pause and hover directly over a two-year old heifer, which was bawling and jumping, apparently fast in the fence. Going to her, we found a cable about a half-inch in thickness made of some red material, fastened in a slip knot around her neck, one end passing up to the vessel, and the heifer tangled in the wire fence. We tried to get it off but could not, so we cut the wire loose and stood in amazement to see the ship, heifer and all, rise, slowly, disappearing in the northwest.

Unfortunately, this incident was later admitted to being fake, and only spread because of the time period that it happened in. The only reason people continue to talk about it today is because it so closely matches the facts that surround mutilations seen now.

The first modern incident was seen in 1967 with the infamous “Lady mutilation”, wherein press really seemed to focus on the possibility that it was extraterrestrials behind the occurrences.

Agnes King and her son found there horse, Lady, mutilated with certain organs missing, which led to subsequent press involvement.

The articles during that time focused on the fact that there were unearthly reasons behind the death of the horse and that the cuts were far too precise for it to be an animal.

There were also no footsteps leading to or away from the horse, which gave more attention to the possibility that aliens and UFOs are conducting gruesome experiments in the name of science.

The FBI and their role in what we believe in today

Like many aspects of modern society, when people become too paranoid, officials are forced to step whether they deem it worthy or not.

This is precisely what happened in the 1970s when the FBI had to begin investigations regarding cattle mutilations, because there were simply too many people complaining. The conclusions that the FBI came to gave absolutely no credence to the conspiracy theories that were being talked about.

The FBI came to the conclusion that foxes were responsible for the attacks where genitals, lips, ears and other soft body parts went missing in particular.

The final 32-page report explained the smooth, precise cuts as being the work of the smooth teeth that worked like scissors for foxes because they were small and swift creatures.

The FBI ended the investigation a little half-heartedly as well, due to the fact that at the time there was no law against cattle mutilation, which made the investigation low on the priority list.

Even though the FBI narrowed the incidents down to natural death and scavengers, conspiracies still persisted, insisting that these organs were taken in specific because soft tissue is more easily attracted to natural inorganic substances in the environment which makes them great test subjects for, you guessed it, extraterrestrials.

fbi cattle mutilation investigation

The conclusion is that there are far too many incidents with unexplainable factors surrounding them for all of the incidents to be because of foxes and scavengers. This leaves room for other guesses to be made.

Cattle mutilations today and what has changed

Fast forward to 2018. The idea of a cow floating up into the sky with a mysterious light surrounding it, and its tongue gaping out is still believable for a lot of people around the world.

In Argentina, history seemed to be repeating itself in August of 2018 when farmers were convinced that aliens were making cuts and marks over the bodies of mutilated animals, far too precise for any other explanation.

Farmers in the area were blaming a South American mythical creature or aliens for the mutilations which shows that the way the incidents are perceived has not changed all that much.

These samples were then sent for further research and no proof of the cow being shot and poisoned seemed to further convince the farmers that it was an unearthly cause.

Experts on the subject did end the argument by saying that a hocicudo, which is an animal native to the region, is the most logical cause since these ‘natural scavengers’ seem to target the softer parts of the body for food.

In regard to the cause of death, experts said exposure to the changing weather and lack of food is probably what caused the deaths.

This answer is also extremely similar to the one given by the FBI during the investigations in the 70s.

Although this explanation is logical, it is not exactly satisfactory for the farmers.

They and other believers insist that the cuts are too precise and the mutilations happen at different times during the year. So as logical as the explanation is, it does seem to leave certain parts of the mystery clouding cattle mutilations unexplained, which leaves room for more speculation.

• Originally published on TopSecretWriters.com

{ http://www.topsecretwriters.com/ }

08-03-2019 om 01:13 geschreven door peter  

Hundreds of children and llamas were sacrificed in ghastly 15th century ritual

BY MIHAI ANDREI

Archaeologists working at a site in Peru have uncovered a horrifying mass sacrifice, with over 140 children and over 200 llamas being slaughtered in a ritual. This is the largest known sacrifice of children (and llamas) in the Americas — if not in the entire world.

Image credits: John Verano.

A horrifying sacrifice

Archaeologist Gabriel Prieto was excavating an old temple near the seaside in Peru when he got word of an unusual occurrence: coastal erosion was uncovering human remains nearby. They spent the next few years excavating and preserving this site, and when Prieto and colleagues were finished, they had uncovered more than 140 sets of child remains and 200 juvenile llamas.

All these lives were sacrificed in one single event, explained John Verano, who also worked at the site and is an author of the new study. In an email to ZME Science, he explained that no child graves cut into or disturb others, so it seems like they were all buried at once. The way there were buried is also indicative of a sacrifice.

The children, aged 5 to 15, were generally buried facing west, towards the sea, whereas the llamas were buried towards the Andes mountains in the east. Three additional sets of remains (a man and two women) were found in close proximity, carrying signs of blunt-force trauma to the head. Researchers suspect that they probably played a role in the sacrifice and were dispatched quickly after.

Cut marks transecting the sternums and bone displacement suggests that both the children and the llamas have suffered a similar fate: they had their chests cut open and pulled apart, possibly followed by the ritual removal of the heart.

Unwilling victims

Excavations at the site.

Image credits: John Verano.

“The discovery was a surprise, and of course it kept growing in size,” Verano told ZME Science. “We had not seen anything like this before, and there was no suggestion from ethnohistoric sources or historic accounts of child or camelid sacrifices being made on such a scale in northern coastal Peru.”

In addition to the remains, which were well-preserved by a dried mud layer covering the sand dune, archaeologists also discovered a myriad of footprints, belonging to sandaled adults, dogs, barefoot children, and young llamas. Deep skid marks illustrate that the llamas tried to resist being dragged to the sacrificial site and were forcibly pushed.

Judging by the footprints, it seems that the children and llamas were led to the site from both the north and the south. Some were brought from far away, as indicated by the cranial modification exhibited by some of the children, a process which was practiced  They were sacrificed systematically, by someone who was well-versed in this sort of ritual: the cut marks are clear, indicating no hesitation.

Most of the children and llamas were buried, but some of them were simply left out in the wet mud.

Appeasing the gods

The authors of this grisly ritual belong to the Chimú culture. The sacrifice site, called Huanchaquito-Las Llamas, lies just half a mile away from Chan-Chan, the former administrative center of the Chimú. At their peak, the Chimú controlled an empire: a 600-mile-long territory along the Pacific coast, extending into valleys and areas close to today’s Peru-Ecuador border. They developed a thriving culture from about 900 AD and on the continent, were second only to the Inca empire, which conquered them in 1470, fifty years before the arrival of the Spanish in the region. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the sacrifice was carried out around 1450 AD, at the peak of their power, right before they started a losing war with the Inca.

Of course, the question of why is painfully present. What would motivate the Chimú to do such a thing?

Human sacrifices have emerged in one form or another all around the world — though they do seem to be more prevalent in South America than most other areas. The common theme around these sacrifices is appeasing the gods. Whether it’s to negotiate favor from them or improve environmental conditions, people sacrifice what they hold dear to get something else that they want. In this case, the telling clues might be in the mud layer in which the children and llamas were buried in.

The layer is probably the result of severe rain and flooding, which would have been a rare occurrence in a largely arid landscape. These events were probably associated with El-Niño— the warming of the sea’s surface that occurs every few years, especially in the equatorial Pacific area.

“The site has evidence if flooding indicating heavy rainfall that only occurs during sporadic El Niño events, so this is possibly the reason to make such a huge offering,” says Verano.

The flooding would have probably disrupted the agricultural systems, while in the seas, El Niño would have disrupted important fisheries. The Chimú were potentially faced with famine, and researchers believe this was the driving cause for the sacrifice.

Unbeknownst to them, however, the Chimú would crumble under the Inca attacks just decades later. It’s unclear if these weather events led to their demise, but even if they would have survived the war with the Incas, the Spanish arrival was also just decades away, and this event would alter the fate of South American culture in an unprecedented way — one way or another, the Chimú demise was bound to happen.

But while their culture came to an end, for archaeologists, this is only the beginning. Verano says he has dug so many sacrifices in Peru that he almost got used to it. But one can only wonder how many more such sites still remain uncovered in Peru and in the world.

“This site opens a new chapter on the practice of child sacrifice in the ancient world,” Verano concludes.

• Journal Reference: Prieto G, Verano JW, Goepfert N, Kennett D, Quilter J, LeBlanc S, et al. (2019) A mass sacrifice of children and camelids at the Huanchaquito-Las Llamas site, Moche Valley, Peru. PLoS ONE 14(3): e0211691. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211691

{ https://www.zmescience.com/ }

08-03-2019 om 00:41 geschreven door peter  

Melkweg weegt ongeveer 1,5 miljard miljard keer de Zon - HLN.be

Bron: Belga

Hoeveel ons sterrenstelsel weegt is een vraag die wetenschappers reeds lang bezig houdt. De meningen liepen fel uiteen: van 500 miljard keer de massa van de Zon tot 3 miljard miljard keer.

De grote moeilijkheid was de distributie van donkere materie, die ongeveer 90 procent van de massa van ons sterrenstelsel uitmaakt, uit te klaren. Maar met de hulp van de GAIA-telescoop van het Europese Ruimteagentschap en de Hubble ruimtetelescoop van NASA, konden wetenschappers nu uitrekenen dat het Melkwegstelsel 1,5 miljard keer de Zon weegt. 

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

08-03-2019 om 00:15 geschreven door peter  

Israëlische robot vereeuwigt maanmissie met selfie - HLN.be

Bron: Space.com

Beresheet, een maansonde zo groot als een wasmachine, maakt deel uit van de allereerste maanmissie van Israël. Bijna twee weken geleden werd de robot richting de maan gelanceerd. Intussen reisde hij al zo’n 37.600 kilometers: een goed moment om een mooie foto te maken.

Lees ook

Israëlische sonde succesvol naar de maan vertrokken: eerste privémissie ooit

Op het kiekje pronkt de maanlander op de voorgrond, en hij lijkt wel te zwaaien met de Israëlische vlag. Daarop staan de woorden “am Ysrael chai” geschreven, vertaald betekent dat “het volk van Israël leeft”. En daarachter onze aarde: België is jammer genoeg niet zichtbaar, Australië wel als je goed kijkt.

Mislukte selfie
Zoals bij elke geslaagde selfie ging er bij Beresheet overigens ook een mislukt exemplaar aan vooraf. Daarop is vooral de vlag duidelijk te zien, en van de aarde zie je niets meer dan een dun zilverkleurig lijntje.

(Lees verder onder de foto)

Eerste private maanmissie

De eerste private maanmissie van Israël werd bijna twee weken geleden gelanceerd door een Falcon 9-raket van Elon Musks SpaceX. Aan boord de robot ‘Beresheet’ die een (relatief) kleine metalen disk met zich meedraagt. Daarop staan zo’n 30 miljoen pagina’s gebrand met informatie over de menselijke beschaving. De bedoeling is dat die schijf achterblijft op de maan en er zo’n zes miljard jaar zal overleven. Op die manier kunnen onze verre afstammelingen leren uit de fouten die hun voorouders al maakten. 

Vermoedelijk landt Beresheet op 11 april 2019. Dan zal Israël het vierde land in rij zijn – na de VS, Rusland en China – om een robot op de maan te zetten.

Bekijk ook:

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

08-03-2019 om 00:11 geschreven door peter  

FAA RELEASES RECORDINGS OF OREGON UFO EVENT THAT SCRAMBLED F-15S

On October 25, 2017, the FAA picked up an unidentified target moving rapidly across radar from northern California toward Portland, Ore. Several commercial pilots were able to visually confirm the object from their aircraft, stating they could not make out any identifying markings, but that the craft appeared to be entirely white and moving at high speed.

Now, the FAA has disclosed documentation and audio files between the pilots and air traffic controllers, giving more detail about the UFO that remains shrouded in mystery still to this day.

{ https://www.gaia.com/articles/latest }

07-03-2019 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

07-03-2019 om 22:47 geschreven door peter  

German U-Boat Allegedly Spotted in Antarctica on Google Maps (PHOTO)

A YouTuber studying various anomalies and conspiracy theories, named MrMBB333, has published a video in which he shared his bizarre findings in Antarctica, where, he thinks, melting ice is revealing the frozen continent's secrets. The video blogger specifically pointed to two spots on Google Earth, where the ice has melted in unnaturally straight or circular lines, which, he claims, looks like a U-boat.

© PHOTO: MRMBB333 // YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT

Alleged image of U-Boat in Antarctica

• READ MORE: Dead Snow: Abandoned, Long-Lost Nazi Base Discovered in Arctic

In one of the screenshots, a tube-like greyish object can just barely be seen under a layer of ice and snow. MrMBB333 thinks it could be a submarine. In another spot, another greyish object can be seen in a more ellipse-like pattern of melting snow. The YouTuber suggested that it could be a U-boat, or in other words a German submarine.

"If you look at the top of it, you can see what looks like a greyish type of steel colour. You can see a set of straight lines through the centre which doesn't look like a completely random act of nature. That has an intelligently designed structure to it", he said.

Previously, Russian researchers found Nazi secret meteorological station in the Arctic in Alexandra Land, a thousand kilometres from the North Pole. It was established in 1942 and functioned for two years, but was only discovered recently.

{ https://sputniknews.com/ }

07-03-2019 om 22:42 geschreven door peter  

07-03-2019 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

Bad news for Loch Ness Monster fans … two Loch Ness Monster experts (I know, skeptics say that’s an oxymoron) are casting doubts on the three sightings this year, including two in just five days, that put 2019 on pace to be a record-breaking year for Nessie views. Is this dispute scientific, paranormal, political or just plain spite? Or could it be soul-searching, as both experts seem to be questioning their own existence?

Lisa Brennan believes she took a photo of the monster's head emerging from the water 

(Image: Deadline News)

“The fact is that well over a thousand honest and sober people have seen monsters in Loch Ness. Yet over 80 years of expeditions have failed to find them. Either we’re fairly bad at what we do or there’s another reason for that. I think it’s fair to say we’d all like there to be a Loch Ness monster. But equally there are people who will see what they want to see.”

It’s tough to find someone who has devoted more of their life to finding the Loch Ness Monster than Adrian Shine. He’s been looking for it since 1973 and is currently the Loch Ness and Morar Project and the possessor of a giant beard long before ZZ Top or David Letterman. In 1987, he organized “Operation Deepscan” which used 24 boats equipped with echosounder sonar to search the entire loch. Needless to say, no monster was found by Operation Deepscan, but Shine has never been deterred in in his search. However, the first three sightings of 2019 don’t float his Loch Ness boat.

There have been over 1,000 sightings of Nessie in Loch Ness

“In fact the huge majority of sightings are caused by the illusions that the loch is capable of creating, precisely because of the monster legends.”

So, what does Adrian think these sightings might be?

“My best guess is that what people are seeing is a fish like a sturgeon, which is very primitive and reptilian in appearance and can grow very big.”

Anyone who’s ever researched the Loch Ness Monster knows the name Steve Feltham. The self-proclaimed Nessie Hunterhas been living in a converted van on the shore of the loch since 1991, searching daily for Nessie and reviewing photos and videos taken by others. He is, or at least was, far more enthusiastic about the existence of the creature than Adrian Shine.

“When I arrived here full-time nearly 30 years ago I was looking for plesiosaurus, those dinosaurs with long necks. But now I’m not looking for dinosaurs, I’ve ruled that out, which is disappointing for me as I’ve had a lifelong fascination with Nessie. There are people out there who are incredibly gullible and believe every picture they see and bit of evidence. The internet has made it very easy for people to upload photos and cause a Nessie sensation with many believing it really is Nessie until proven otherwise. Every day there are many two or three decent interesting photographs, bit of films or pieces of evidence to study, but there are 10 times as many false alarms.”

So, what does cynical Steve think the three sightings of 2019 might be?

“My favourite is the wels catfish, the second-biggest freshwater fish in the world, although we’re no where nearer to saying it is definitely this or that. It doesn’t mean that it will turn out to be a catfish, but it’s my best guess at the moment.”

A sturgeon or a catfish? While Shine and Feltham seem to have resigned themselves to these ideas, they will surely disappoint the businesses dependent on the search for an actual monster. These two legendary Loch Ness Monster experts both hope that the results of the DNA testing of the loch last year, if and when they’re finally released, will solve the myth, or at least push the needle closer to an answer.

Do you?

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-03-2019 om 22:25 geschreven door peter  

Is it aliens? Strange lights were seen in the waters off Bangor in County Down, Northern Ireland. In fact, numerous people reported seeing the mysterious lights in the water and a few of them even captured pictures of the strange phenomenon and posted them online.

A woman named Jackie is one of several people who took pictures of the lights, and underneath the Facebook post of her photograph, it said that she walked around trying to figure out what it was since there were no divers or bubbles or anything left on the shore line to indicate that someone was in the water. Apparently, the lights flickered, turning off and on at random times and intervals.

While it’s possible that it could have been divers in the water, nobody has yet to come forward. Mark Piper, who is a local diver, said that he had asked around if anyone was in the water as it’s a very popular location at this time of year, but nobody claimed that it was them.

Eve O’Connor, who also witnessed the unexplained lights, said that they just appeared after a “strange fog” had lifted. “It was like two pinky peach sheens on the water that were concentrated in the middle,” she explained, adding, “There had been a strange on-off fog as soon as we had left for the coastal path. I thought maybe it was the sun breaking through in a strangely specific way.”

• You can see a picture of the mysterious lights by clicking here.

The lights were spotted in the waters off Bangor in County Down, Northern Ireland.

Credit: Pen News

Ireland is no stranger to alleged UFO sightings. Just a few months ago, in November of 2018, several pilots reported seeing an unidentified object in the skies over Ireland. The pilot of the British Airways flight BA94 contacted air traffic controllers to ask them if there were any military exercises in progress off the west coast of Ireland as she witnessed an unidentified flying object moving past the plane. It was confirmed that there weren’t any military exercises going on at that specific time.

Another pilot who was flying a Virgin Airlines aircraft spotted something unexplained that he described as a “meteor or another object making some kind of re-entry,” also adding that there appeared to be “multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory – very bright from where we were.” In addition to those two witnesses, another pilot chimed in by expressing, “Glad I’m not the only one.”

While the alien theory is a popular explanation as to what those lights were, several Brexit jokes were also included as a possible explanation. One person commented by saying, “It’s Theresa May trying to find somewhere useful to put the Irish border after Brexit,” while another claimed that it was probably a “dreadnought class British submarine getting ready for Brexit.”

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-03-2019 om 22:17 geschreven door peter  

As someone who writes books, gives lectures, and posts articles here and there, I get a lot of feedback. For the most part, it comes via emails, phone-calls and Facebook messages, from people who want to share their experiences, ask questions, or offer their opinions on the things I have written about. Occasionally, however, I’ll find myself on the receiving end of a communication (or several) from someone claiming an “Insider”-type background. A whistle-blower, in other words.  There have been a few occasions when my path has crossed with those of enigmatic characters whose backgrounds did indeed place them in the world of certain, covert activities – all connected to UFOs, in one way or another. This occurred most graphically when I was researching and writing my books, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, Body Snatchers in the Desert, and Final Events.

On March 2, 2017, it happened again. In this case, it came in the form of an “Unknown Caller” phone-call in the early afternoon. The elderly man at the other end of the line said that he had read my books Men in Black and Women in Black and wanted to share something relevant. It all revolved, he said, around the Philadelphia Experiment of 1943 and the MIB. This was certainly a new one on me. And I thought I had heard it all! I clearly had not. Like me, he had no time for the teleportation- or time-travel-based scenarios. But, what he did believe (or, rather, claimed to know) was certainly just as controversial. Perhaps, even more so. He said that in the early 1980s he was given the opportunity to read a particular batch of classified U.S. Navy files that told the “real” story of the Philadelphia Experiment. He was extremely cagey on verifiable facts (no surprises there, I have to say…), but maintained that the experiment had a bearing on the aforementioned MIB and Women in Black. I asked: “In what way?”

His reply was that the experiment – the precise nature of which he would not comment on – created what he called “a shift.” It was a shift that allowed those aboard the ship to see certain things that, in a normal state, they, you and I would not be able to see. But, which are supposedly around us all of the time. We’re talking about the MIB, WIB, and even what have become popularly known in recent years as the Shadow People, one-dimensional entities that are considered highly dangerous. So the tale went, the stories of crew-members vanishing, or becoming fused into the metal of the ship itself, were very wide of the mark. They were, I was assured, wildly distorted accounts of the crew seeing not sailors, but encountering MIB, WIB and Shadow People walking through walls, becoming invisible, and then reappearing. It didn’t take long, though, before the “truth” of the matter became a tale of vanishing and reappearing sailors. The man claimed – even more controversially – that this particular event at sea marked the first moment when the U.S. Government became “aware” of the Men in Black phenomenon.

USS Eldridge

The man stressed that he used the word “aware” for a very good reason. He wanted to make it clear that the government’s awareness did not mean they fully understood the nature of the MIB (and related) phenomenon. And, then, he stressed yet again that awareness and understanding should not be confused. Yes, I got it, jeez. Interestingly, he also said that the stories of some of the crew going insane were absolutely true. He explained that this was caused by the strange ability of some of the men to randomly see the MIB, the WIB, and the Shadow People for up to at least several years later. True or not, I could understand why people might well flip their collective lids under such circumstances. Imagine being endlessly faced with ghoulish, pale creatures in black swarming all around you, all the time, and in somewhat ethereal form. And your friends and family are completely oblivious to what’s going on around them. That would surely be enough to send anyone completely off the rails.

Creepiest of all, he said that when the creatures realized they could be seen by the sailors, they would respond by endlessly tormenting them. They would point their bony fingers at the men and grin in manic style. Others would “dance” around them, in wild, crazed fashion, while wailing and howling. It was a definitive bedlam, one from which there was no escape whatsoever. A Danse Macabre, one might say. Minds were lost, destroyed and never recovered. Having listened to all of that, I felt like I needed a drink. Was 3:00 p.m. on a weekday too early for hard liquor mixed with chilled Coca-Cola and ice? No, it was not. Of course, the most logical explanation for all of this is that the source was a nut-job. But, what if he wasn’t…?

The story is not quite over. Part-2 will soon follow…

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-03-2019 om 22:07 geschreven door peter  

Part-1 of this article began as follows: “As someone who writes books, gives lectures, and posts articles here and there, I get a lot of feedback. For the most part, it comes via emails, phone-calls and Facebook messages, from people who want to share their experiences, ask questions, or offer their opinions on the things I have written about. Occasionally, however, I’ll find myself on the receiving end of a communication (or several) from someone claiming an “Insider”-type background. A whistle-blower, in other words.  There have been a few occasions when my path has crossed with those of enigmatic characters whose backgrounds did indeed place them in the world of certain, covert activities – all connected to UFOs, in one way or another. This occurred most graphically when I was researching and writing my books, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies, Body Snatchers in the Desert, and Final Events. On March 2, 2017, it happened again. In this case, it came in the form of an “Unknown Caller” phone-call in the early afternoon. The elderly man at the other end of the line said that he had read my books Men in Blackand Women in Black and wanted to share something relevant. It all revolved, he said, around the Philadelphia Experiment of 1943 and the MIB.”

There the extract from part-1 of this article ends. Now, it’s time for part-2. As interesting as this almost crazed story admittedly was, I quite naturally asked the man for something to back up his extraordinary claims. He told me to keep a look out for something that would be arriving in a couple of days. The phone then clicked. He had hung up. I thought: how can something be coming to my apartment when he didn’t even have my address? Two days later, on March 4, 2017 I found out. Apparently, he, or someone associated with him, did have my address. Around noon, I went down to get the mail. As I opened my apartment door, I saw a yellow envelope sitting on my “Welcome” mat.

What was particularly odd about the envelope was its complete lack of stamps or address: the entire envelope was blank. It wasn’t even sealed; the flap had just been pushed inside the envelope. I looked around, but didn’t see any unfamiliar faces wandering around. That was not surprising: it could only have been placed there some time after I last returned to the apartment, which was around 10:00 p.m. on the previous night, after I had helped a friend haul a new recliner into his second-floor apartment, one block down from mine. Logically, though, I figured it was probably delivered in the early hours of the morning, when there would have been hardly anyone awake or in a position to see the person who made the stealthy delivery.

So, I took the envelope inside and sat down on the couch. I opened it and could see what looked like an old book. That’s exactly what it was. I took it out. What I was holding in my hands was an original, 1950 edition of a book published by the Bureau of Ships, U.S. Navy Department. Its title was Microwave Techniques. It had been prepared by the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On the “Acknowledgments” page, it said: “Microwave Techniques is a Bureau of Ships edition of the report T-13, Microwave Technique as of May 1943, issued by the Radiation Laboratory.” It was signed “D.H. Clark, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, Chief, Bureau of Ships.” Interestingly, Rear Admiral Clark was the Commander of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Why is that of interest? Well, because in the legend, the “teleported” ship turned up at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. And although I don’t buy into the wild tales of teleportation (or of time-travel, too), it was clear to me that someone was trying very hard to make a point.

When, back in the 1980s and the early-to-mid-1990s, I used the Freedom of Information Act to a significant degree, I was used to receiving government-, military-, and intelligence-based documents through the mail. But, this was very different: via FOIA you would always get photocopied material. And, of course, it would be delivered in conventional fashion. On this occasion, though, I was the recipient of an original military document. Plus, it wasn’t delivered by the mail, by UPS, or FedEx. On this occasion, someone had climbed the stairs to my apartment and had very quietly placed it right outside of my door (in the dead of night, I concluded), knowing that I would soon find it. Also, there was the not insignificant fact that the “Acknowledgments” section of the Microwave Techniquesdocument referenced 1943 – the year of the Philadelphia Experiment. The report didn’t mention the legendary experiment, but there was no doubt in my mind that it came from the old man on the phone two days earlier. Or, at the very least, from an associate of his.

After perusing the book for an hour or so, I went outside and scanned the apartment blocks. Everything was as normal as it ever was. Or, rather, it seemed to be. Beneath the veneer of normality, though, I detected a sense of something else. Of dark machinations and of an unclear, masked agenda.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

07-03-2019 om 22:00 geschreven door peter