Now and again I’ll find myself on the receiving end of a report in which the witness encounters a large, red-eyed black dog or a giant wolf staring at them while in bed or on the bed. And usually in the dead of night; sometimes, however, during the day. Typically, the witnesses – awakened by the animals – are unable to move at the time of the encounters. A deep sense of dread suddenly envelopes them. Then, suddenly, after a few moments or even minutes, the creatures are gone. From a woman who as a young girl had a traumatic encounter with an infernal, supernatural hound at the height of the Second World War, we have the following: “At the time, because of the war, my mother and I usually stayed with an elderly gentleman, who had kindly taken us in as ‘refugees’ from London. We only went back to the capital when the bombing ceased. The cottage where we lived is still in existence, in Bredon, Worcestershire. My encounter took place one late afternoon in summer, when I had been sent to bed, but was far from sleepy.”

She continued: “I was sitting at the end of the big brass bedstead, playing with the ornamental knobs, and looking out of the window, when I was aware of a scratching noise, and an enormous black dog had walked from the direction of the fireplace to my left. It passed round the end of the bed, towards the door. As the dog passed between me and the window, it swung its head round to stare at me – it had very large eyes, which glowed from inside as if lit up, and as it looked at me I was quite terrified, and very much aware of the creature’s breath, which was warm and as strong as a gust of wind.

“The animal must have been very tall, as I was sitting on the old-fashioned bedstead, which was quite high, and our eyes were level. Funnily enough, by the time it reached the door, it had vanished. I assure you that I was wide awake at the time, and sat on for quite some long while wondering about what I had seen, and to be truthful, too scared to get into our bed, under the clothes and go to sleep. I clearly remember my mother and our host, sitting in the garden in the late sun, talking and hearing the ringing of the bell on the weekly fried-fish van from Birmingham, as it went through the village! I am sure I was not dreaming, and have never forgotten the experience, remembering to the last detail how I felt, what the dog looked like.” Moving on…

Dion Fortune was an occultist, mystic, and the author of a number of acclaimed works, and whose real name was Violet Mary Firth. Fortune, who died in 1946 at the age of fifty-five, was someone who was skilled at creating monsters in the mind and who then unleashed them into the world around her. Fortune made it very clear, however, that creating a mind-monster rarely has a positive outcome. It is something that each and every one of us should take careful heed of. Her story is as fascinating as it is disturbing:

“The artificial elemental is constructed by forming a clear-cut image in the imagination of the creature it is intended to create, ensouling it with something of the corresponding aspect of one’s own being, and then invoking into it the appropriate natural force. This method can be used for good as well as evil, and ‘guardian angels’ are formed in this way. It is said that dying women, anxious concerning the welfare of their children, frequently form them unconsciously. I myself once had an exceedingly nasty experience in which I formulated a were-wolf accidentally. Unpleasant as the incident was, I think it may be just as well to give it publicity, for it shows what may happen when an insufficiently disciplined and purified nature is handling occult forces.

“I had received serious injury from someone who, at considerable cost to myself, I had disinterestedly helped, and I was sorely tempted to retaliate. Lying on my bed resting one afternoon, I was brooding over my resentment, and while so brooding, drifted towards the borders of sleep. There came to my mind the thought of casting off all restraints and going berserk. The ancient Nordic myths rose before me, and I thought of Fenris [also known as Fenrir], the Wolf-horror of the North. Immediately I felt a curious drawing-out sensation from my solar plexus, and there materialized beside me on the bed a large wolf. It was a well-materialized ectoplasmic form. It was grey and colorless, and had weight. I  could  distinctly  feel  its  back  pressing  against  me  as  it  lay  beside  me  on  the  bed  as  a  large  dog  might.

“I knew nothing about the art of making elementals at that time, but had accidentally stumbled upon the right method – the brooding highly charged with emotion, the invocation of the appropriate natural force, and the condition between sleeping and waking in which the etheric double readily extrudes.”

Altogether, I have eleven cases in my files of sightings by the bed of large black dogs (with blazing red eyes) and supernatural wolves. Of course, the skeptic would very likely say that because the encounters occurred in bedrooms and so often well into the early hours of the morning, the witnesses were just having particularly vivid dreams. And as for the inability of the witnesses to move, it may be suggested that sleep paralysis is the culprit. Perhaps so. But, in all of the cases? And why so many deeply similar incidents, in terms of the specific appearances of the creatures that are encountered time and again?

Nightmares or nightmarish creatures? It’s a question I ponder on.

Spend any time in the world of UFOs, alien abductions and extraterrestrials and you’ll find all flavors of origin stories, beliefs and strange support organizations. It’s easy to fall into the trap of pointing fingers and calling others “odd,” especially now that these types of snap judgments so permeate the entire world of social media. One person’s religion is another’s cult and vice versa. And yet … there are some that cross the line. This is the story of one of them.

“Pocono Mountain Regional Police responded to the scene in the early morning hours of July 15, 2017, after (Barbara) Rogers called 911 saying that (Steven) Mineo had placed a gun in her hands, pointed it at himself and pulled the trigger in their Coolbaugh Township (Pennsylvania) home. Police at the scene discovered that Mineo had been shot in the forehead at close range with a .45-caliber handgun. Rogers was subsequently taken into custody and charged with Mineo’s murder.

Police said Rogers told officers that Mineo asked her to kill him because he believed the leader of the cult was a “reptilian” pretending to be a human.”

On July 15th, 2017, Barbara Rogers admitted killing Steven Rogers at his request because he could no longer deal with being kicked out of Sherry Shriner, a group founded by and named for its now deceased leader who claimed, among many other things, that reptilian aliens pose as humans and dump snakes down people’s throats to “scalp” their souls. Believers in Reptilians contend that these shapeshifting humanoids control many of the world’s leaders in their quest to take over humanity (apologies to believers for that bare-bones summary – there’s plenty of more detailed explanations available by Google search). According to an investigation reported in The New Republic, Mineo had followed Sherry Shriner since at least 2004, but his problems seem to have started when Rogers became his girlfriend and she wrote a Facebook post praising steak tartare – an indication to Shriner’s followers that Mineo was living with a raw meat-eating Reptilian … or in Shriner’s words — a “Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier.”

Mineo defended her, claiming that a substance Shriner recommends called Orgone is supposed to kill Reptilians and it had no effect on Rogers … ergo, she’s not one of them. That didn’t pacify Shriner, so Mineo and Rogers left the group and Mineo released derogatory videos about Shriner, which allegedly caused fighting between all parties and, according to Rogers, drove him to the suicidal state that she merely helped him accomplish.

Needless to say, Barbara Rogers’ lawyers had a tough time explaining all of this to a jury, which in March 2019 found her guilty of third-degree murder. On June 10, the mother of three with no prior criminal record was sentenced to 15 to 40 years in prison – a sentence her lawyers are expected to appeal.

“I don’t run a cult. You can turn on my video or turn it off. You can turn on my podcast or turn it off. I don’t have a list or a membership rule.”

Sherry Shriner defended herself and her followers in an interview prior to her death by natural causes in 2018. Her website, blogs, self-published e-books, Twitter and Facebook posts and large YouTube library are still popular, especially with those who see a link between the Reptilians and Zionism. As expected, this case falls smack in the middle of many conspiracy theory debates raging today.

Whatever you believe, murder is still murder and dead is still dead – that’s a line that must not be crossed because it cannot be uncrossed.

Did anyone ever expect the term “Reptilians” to be used in a U.S. court of law? In ANY court of law? Rogers’ lawyers are expected to appeal. How far will this go? Will we someday be hearing stories about whether some Supreme Court justices should recuse themselves from this case because they themselves are Reptilians? It seems farfetched … but so did the idea that the mainstream media would someday cover UFOs.

It’s a very strange world we live in, Master Jack.

New details keep emerging in the ongoing saga of To the Stars Academy and the U.S. Navy’s experiences with unidentified flying objects. Navy personnel continue to come forward to share their encounters with strange objects in the skies and on radar systems, yet we are no closer to understanding what this all means for our understanding of unidentified aerial phenomena – if it means anything at all. Is this what disclosure looks like, a psychological operation to sway public opinion, or just a great way to sell advertising space on cable TV? Could it be all three?

The Navy’s 2004 and 2014-2015 encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena have been well-documented in recent months – perhaps over-documented – and most of the information has been carefully controlled and released by To the Stars Academy. However, Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot Ryan Graves just this week went out on his own and shared new first-hand details of his and other pilots’ experiences during their 2015 deployment to the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

USS Theodore Roosevelt

Graves appears on the TTSA History Channel program Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation, and has come forward to help clarify some of the comments he made in the heavily edited series. Specifically, Graves contacted The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway to clear up some of the confusion concerning whether or not the USS Roosevelt continued to encounter anomalous radar tracks and incredibly fast flying objects while on deployment in 2015 to aid with the conflict in Syria. Graves says that his strike group indeed came into contact with what appeared to be the same UAPs while operating in both the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, but that due to the nature of their mission, the strike group could not waste time or resources investigating the objects:

While flying in the med [Mediterranean] during the transit, or while operating in the Gulf, the workload we have is significantly higher and we had less time to explore the phenomena, especially at this point where it was such a daily occurrence we essentially only gave them enough thought as to avoid hitting them. However, to answer your question, in the med I did occasionally see radar signatures that performed in ways that were consistent with our experiences back home, though at a significantly reduced rate.

Graves goes on to note that the air over the Syrian conflict zone “is very congested airspace, there is much more air traffic than one would expect, both friendly and otherwise, especially as we go through the straits,” which made it even more difficult to identify anomalous aircraft. Still, this firsthand account adds to the intrigue and mystery surrounding these accounts of these encounters. Does this mean that the objects were following the strike group around the globe, or does this show that perhaps that the Navy’s pilots and new technologies simply encountered the same ‘glitches’ while on deployment as they did during training?

F/A-18E Super Hornet

At the far end of the speculation spectrum, given all of the strange coincidences surrounding these accounts, could these encounters mean that the Navy brought some type of exotic new aerospace technology to the battlefield for the first time in 2015? Until we know the true nature of the objects seen by these pilots and other Navy personnel, everything remains total conjecture. Don’t hold your breath.

I’m far from alone in sensing that TTSA and/or the defense industrial complex probably have ulterior motives other than disclosure and aren’t telling us everything they know about these encounters or these objects. I still suspect that all of this is likely just a lead-up to a new arms race, recruiting propaganda for the Space Force, or the Navy prepping the public for a reveal of new paradigm-changing technologies; after all, much of the UFO waves of the mid-20th century are now regarded to have been a cover story for tests of formerly classified aerospace technologies like the first jet fighters, stealth aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and ultra-fast reconnaissance planes like the A-12 and SR-71.

All of this recent UFO news could very well be a means of obfuscating what’s really buzzing around in sensitive military airspace. If U.S. military personnel have seen and tracked these objects, chances are high that other nations’ militaries have as well. Maybe this is all the Department of Defense trying to muddy the waters surrounding what other nations know or think they know about these objects. Do we really trust “former” counterintelligence officers and “former” DoD spooks to tell us the truth on cable TV?

The top country-archeology song this week is “Looking For Nessie in All The Wrong Places” by Kris Kryptologist. At least it would be if there were such a musical genre (note to self: it may be time to get the old CW band back together). A group of dedicated researchers who have spent the last 15 years freezing in Antarctica can finally head someplace warm after completely excavating the fossil remains of a 15-ton dinosaur that looks an awful lot like what many people think the Loch Ness monster looks like – really long neck, 40-foot-long thin body and tail, four massive flippers and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Is it time for a Nessie song? Would a skiffle tune be more appropriate? With bagpipes?

“The presence of this specimen, located less than 2.5 meters below the K/Pg boundary, indicates the persistence of aristonectines at high latitudes short time before the mass extinction.”

That’s paleontology-speak for “We found a huge cousin of the plesiosaurs near the South Pole latitudes that survived to the end of the Cretaceous era before being wiped out by the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (a massive comet or asteroid impact a long way off in the Gulf of Mexico).”

According to their paper in Crestaceous Research, archeologists discovered the fossils in 1989 on Marambio Island off the coast of Antarctica, but the sheer size and significance of the skeleton and the freezing conditions on the island forced the team to carefully remove it over an 18-year period culminating in 2017. Paleontologist and study co-author José O’Gorman of the Museum of La Plata summarized its importance:

“It is the largest elasmosaurid in the world.”

The elasmosaurids have the longest necks of the reptiles in the family of plesiosaurs and this discovery indicates that they survived right up until the big extinction rock hit Earth 66 million years ago, meaning Antarctica was a pretty nice place to live at the time, with plenty of warm water and food for 15 ton creatures. The question is, could one of more of these elasmosaurids have somehow survived the K–Pg extinction event or perhaps reappeared shortly after it and moved north to Scotland?

“Even in Antarctica, there were lots of happy elasmosaurs. It’s definitely an indication that toward the end of the Cretaceous, [plesiosaurs] managed to expand their feeding repertoire.”

Anne Schulp, a vertebrate paleontologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, was not involved in the research but told the National Geographic that the southern elasmosaurs known as the Aristonectes (meaning “best swimmers”) were bigger than their northern cousins and size of the one discovered on Marambio Island may indicate it’s a separate and new genus. The mouth full of teeth may have helped it grow to record size … the researchers believe the southern elasmosaurs fed more like whales – opening their mouths wide to envelop fish-filled waters and then close their mouths and expel the water, catching the fish in their teeth. Unfortunately, that same feeding method is probably why they couldn’t have survived until today – the K–Pg extinction event killed off almost all of their food sources.

We probably won’t find Nessie in Antarctica and it’s unlikely the Loch Ness Monster is a lost southern elasmosaur. However, that kind of stuff never stopped country-western songwriters before. Grab a geetar and a pen and come up with some new “monster” lyrics for this classic from Urban Cowboy.

Our planet is one small part of the solar system, which is itself one infinitesimally small part of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way, possibly containing as many as 400 billion stars, is part of the Local Group, two linked clusters of over 54 galaxies. The Local Group is, in turn, part of the Virgo Supercluster, which contains at least 100 galaxy clusters. A 2014 study found that the Virgo Supercluster may in fact be a part of an even larger structure, the Laniakea Supercluster, which contains roughly 100,000 galaxies. There are about 10 million superclusters in the observable universe. These superclusters form cosmic filaments—threads of millions of galaxies weaved through the void like fungal mycelium through the forest’s soil. The resulting structure, what we believe the universe to look like, is called the Cosmic Web.

Until now, the Cosmic Web has been observed through the clusters and superclusters that, tied together by gravity, make up the cosmic filaments. A new study, however, has looked into the dark space between galaxy clusters and found a mysterious bridge of radio waves between two galaxy clusters almost 10 million light-years apart.

Abell 0399 and Abell 0401 are two galaxy clusters about 1 billion light-years from earth. They are slowly crashing together. Eventually they will merge into a larger structure, but considering there is 9.8 million light-years of space between them, it won’t happen for a long time.

It turns out Abell 0399 and Abell 0401 are already interacting in a perplexing way however. According to a paper published earlier this month in the journal Science, astronomers have observed a stream of electrons spiraling around magnetic fields at close to light speed linking the two galactic clusters. This is the first time an electromagnetic link between two beads in the Cosmic Web has been observed.

The Cosmic Web

The European telescope array LOFAR detected the radio waves emitted by this stream of electrons—a phenomenon called synchrotron emission. Astronomers now believe that this type of link is common between galaxy clusters, but is hard to detect with today’s telescopes. According to astronomer Tracey Clarke of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory:

“The signal detected in this study is a factor of up to a hundred times brighter than some theoretical predictions for the emission from the synchrotron web. This is likely because it is enhanced in this region between these merging clusters.”

Galaxies and galaxy clusters photographed by the Hubble telescope

As with everything spacey, one new discovery creates even more mysteries. For one, astronomers do not know how synchrotron emission could be produced over such a vast distance. Also, the mechanism for accelerating electrons to near light speed over 9.8 million light-years remains unknown. According to Tracey Clarke:

“This opens a whole new set of doors to begin exploring things like the particle distribution in the filaments, the magnetic field strength—and potentially its origin—as well as acceleration or reaccelerating processes at work within the filaments.”

Just as we keep seeing new complex interactions at the smallest levels, it seems we’re finding new complex interactions at the largest levels. And the lower and upper limits on those levels seems to be changing all the time. The great thing about outer space is that it will most likely always be a mystery, an endless frontier of curiosity and wonder. You have to think of it that way, because it’s either that, or sheer terror at how very, very small we really are.