The Maya civilization has thrived for almost 3,000 years in Central America. They were known for having the only full written language during the pre-Columbian Americas as well as creating exceptionally advanced architecture and art. They were able to build structures that helped greatly with their agriculture. Additionally, they are well known for their incredible understanding of math and astronomy that went into building some structures like the pyramid at Chichen Itza. During the spring and fall equinoxes, the setting sun makes the pyramid cast a shadow on itself which makes the serpent appear as though it’s slithering towards the ground.

Chichen Itza

The newly discovered structure is quite unique because most other Mayan temples contain stone sculptures that depict ancient rulers and elite members of society, however, Aquada Fénix doesn’t have those. This suggests that those who constructed the temple were firm believers that everyone was equal and they didn’t have to create sculptures of those in a higher social standard.

The team used lidar technology to find the temple back in 2017 but their findings were only recently published in the journal Nature and can be read here. When the laser-emitting equipment mapped out the temple, the team began excavating the area. After radiocarbon-dating 69 samples of charcoal, they were able to confirm that the structure was built between 1,000 BC and 800 BC. Prior to this discovery, the Mayan site of Ceibal was the oldest ceremonial center which was constructed in 950 BC.

As for the newest discovery, the team said, “This area is developed – it’s not the jungle; people live there – but this site was not known because it is so flat and huge. It just looks like a natural landscape. But with lidar, it pops up as a very well-planned shape.”

One of the study’s authors, Takeshi Inomata, said that this new discovery shows the change in Mesoamerica during that time period. It was initially believed that the Maya civilization gradually developed with villages starting to show up between 1000 BC and 350 BC. And while the structure looks similar to the Olmec civilization center in San Lorenzo, it doesn’t have rulers depicted on the sculptures.

Mayan Calendar

Inomata explained this further, “There has always been debate over whether Olmec civilization led to the development of the Maya civilization or if the Maya developed independently.” “So, our study focuses on a key area between the two.”

He went on to say, “During later periods, there were powerful rulers and administrative systems in which the people were ordered to do the work,” adding, “But this site is much earlier, and we don’t see the evidence of the presence of powerful elites. We think that it’s more the result of communal work.”

The team plans to conduct a more detailed lidar scan of the site to find out as much information as possible about Aquada Fénix and the ancient Maya culture. Aerial pictures of the site can be seen here.

Everyone knows (or will eventually find out) that nothing disappears on the Internet. That’s apparently also the case in Central Italy at the foothills of the Italian Alps where a medieval ghost village pops out of a lake every few decades to allow locals a trip down 13th century memory lanes.

“So soon, from the bottom of the artificial reservoir, the stone village and the church of San Teodoro with its square bell tower could emerge again. And with them a story that has its roots over the centuries. And that became important with the conquest of the village by the Este family and with the construction of the via Vandelli, which connected Modena to Massa.”

“Artificial reservoir” gives you a hint as to why the village of Fabbriche di Careggine lies at the bottom of Lago di Vagli (Vagli Lake) but that is but a waterlogged blip in the rich history that it had before becoming the Atlantis of Italy. The village was founded in the thirteenth century by a colony of blacksmiths from Brescia, an ancient Italian city dating back over 3,200 years with a rich history in manufacturing, metalworking, textile making and other industries. The blacksmiths most likely made the 250 km (155 miles) move for better weather, easier access to the coast or an abundance of iron ore. The mills and factories they built in this new village near the town of Careggine gave it its name: Fabbriche di Careggine – the factories of Careggine.

Iron ore mining today

Under the powerful Este ruling family, Fabbriche di Careggine became the largest iron supplier in the area – helped by the construction of the Via Vandelli, a major military and industrial road. The road eventually lost its prominence under new political leaders and so did Fabbriche di Careggine. However, Vagli became a source for marble in the early 1900s and a small hydroelectric power station was built on the Edron river to serve it. Everything was fine again … until the Fascists arrived.

Italian marble quarry

The government electric company decided to dam the Edron, resulting in the creation of Lago di Vagli and the sinking of Fabbriche di Careggine. However, they built nearby Vagli Sotto in a reproduction of the urban layout of the medieval village and moved the 146 inhabitants, who said their final goodbye to their homes, the church of San Teodoro and its square bell tower in 1953.

What was that you said about the Internet and submerged Italian villages?

While living in their replica town and homes, the former residents had a chance to see Fabbriche di Careggine whenever the lake was drained to perform maintenance on the dam. That was four times — in 1958, 1974, 1983, and 1994. (Photos and slide show of previous appearances here.) And now, over 25 years after its last appearance:

“… among the proposals considered within the initiative there are the opening of sites used for digital indoor museums , the creation of museum institutions in the area and local history, the redevelopment of the natural environment, including the cleaning of the Vagli reservoir through a series of activities that, through the possible emptying of the basin, provide for the implementation of maintenance activities on hydraulic works, environmental interventions with naturalistic engineering works and tourism enhancement projects.”

The current power company is considering draining the lake in 2021 for maintenance, but with the additional noble causes of promoting environmentalism and the tourism boost the reappearance of Fabbriche di Careggine will generate, assuming they go through with the draining.

Just think how much tourism business Atlantis would generate. Keep looking!

On the surface of it all, it wouldn’t seem that the job of UFO researcher should be too dangerous. They read up on the lore and cases, perhaps go check things out, and they are investigating a phenomenon that many people don’t believe in to begin with. However, judging by some of the cases, it seems that there is a very big risk to be had indeed, as many researchers seem to have the habit of turning up dead. From conspiracies and strange “suicides,” to mysterious illnesses and more, UFO researchers seem to have more occupational hazards that one might initially suspect.

People who investigate UFOs have been turning up dead for decades. In 1959, we have the case of a very well-known astronomer, archeologist, and UFO researcher by the name of Morris K. Jessup. He was known in the UFO community mostly for his unorthodox theories, early postulation on the ancient astronaut theory and alternative history, and for his books The Case for the UFO (1955), UFOs and the Bible, The UFO Annual (both 1956), and The Expanding Case for the UFO. (1957). Jessup is known for having influenced the growing field of ancient astronauts, with his work forming the basis of other books that would follow in this vein, including the classic Chariots of the Gods, by Erich von Däniken, and others. He is also well-known for his involvement with the notorious Philadelphia Experiment, which purportedly sought to render a US Navy vessel invisible, and also for his mysterious death.

1958 was a rough year for Jessup. His books hadn’t been selling well, his wife left him, and he was involved in a car accident in Florida that left him seriously injured. On April 19, 1959, Jessup made arrangements to meet with a researcher named Manson Valentine, allegedly because he wanted to give some classified information on the Philadelphia Experiment. He never got the chance, because on April 20 he was found dead in his car in Dade County, Florida, a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the window. Although it was ruled a suicide, there has long been talk of conspiracies and things that don’t add up.

Morris K. Jessup

One is that a police detective who investigated the case would claim that it seemed a bit too professional. There is also the fact that it would turn out that Jessup had been plagued with strange calls in the days leading up to his death, and that he had just met with the mysterious Carlos Allende, who had written the letter that was instrumental to bringing the Philadelphia Experiment to public knowledge. More ominous still was that no autopsy was ever performed on the body, which is not only strange, but also apparently against Florida law. The idea here is that this was no mere suicide at all, but rather an orchestrated hit designed to keep him quiet about the secrets he knew about the Philadelphia Experiment. It must be added that no one is sure that the Philadelphia Experiment was ever even real or not, as well as the fact that friends and family have said that his troubles in the year leading up to his death had caused him to sometimes mention suicide. What happened here? Was this just a simple suicide or a nefarious assassination? Who knows?

Similarly, we have the case of the American writer, broadcaster, and radio pioneer Frank Allyn Edwards, who also happens to have become very well-known for his various books, articles, and research on UFOs and other unexplained phenomena, which he also frequently discussed on his popular syndicated radio program, Stranger Than Science. On June 24, 1967, Frank Edwards succumbed to a sudden heart attack, which has been orbited by strange mysteries ever since. One unusual coincidence, or not depending on your angle, was that his death fell exactly on the 20th anniversary of once of the most famous UFO sightings ever, the Kenneth Arnold sighting, in which pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Washington’s Mount Rainier at high speeds, in one of the first of the modern era of UFO sightings. Making things even more ominous is that the death coincided with the “World UFO Conference,” which was being held in New York City and chaired by UFO researcher and author Gray Barker. Eerily, Barker would claim that he had received threats by phone and mail that had promised that Edwards would not see the end of the conference alive. They were right. Again, what are we dealing with here? Insidious plots or just a plain heart attack?

Kenneth Arnold

Moving into the 70s we have a few high-profile deaths of UFO researchers. In 1971, a physicist at the University of Arizona and advocate of more serious studies into UFOs by the name of Dr. James McDonald was in the process of trying to convince U.S. Congress that UFOs were a phenomenon that deserved a closer look and more investigation. He was never successful, because he came down with a bad case of a gunshot to the head in an apparent suicide. Two years later, in 1973, beloved cryptozoologist and UFO afficionado Ivan T. Sanderson was taken out by an unusually fast-spreading cancer. This is curious, because strangely aggressive cancers and tumors are a common theme in the deaths of these doomed researchers, which we can see from a string of mysterious deaths in the 80s.

The astronomer Dr. Allen J. Hynek is a famous fixture of UFO history, having once been a major consultant and investigator for Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force’s official investigation into the UFO phenomenon. In 1986, Hynek was admitted to the hospital for prostrate surgery, but would never leave, as he was soon found to have an incredibly vicious brain tumor that ended him. According to those who knew him, in the days leading up to his death he had allegedly spoken of and seemed unsettled by some newly acquired information he had received on UFOs. Could this have had something to do with his death? Two years later, in 1988 notable investigative radio host Mae Brussell died of a fast-acting cancer in California. She was known as a major conspiracy theorist and for her no holds barred radio program on these topics called Dialogue: Conspiracy, later renamed World Watchers International.

Mae Brussel

The 1990s continued these shady deaths, with 1993 seeing astronaut Deke Slayton die of cancer conveniently right before he was expected to come forward with his inside knowledge and experiences of UFOs. In 1994, an investigator for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), Ann Livingston, died of an extremely aggressive form of ovarian cancer. Rather spookily, this happened just 2 years after she claimed to have been harassed by ghoulish faceless, pale, and sinister Men in Black. Also in 1994 was the death of another MUFON investigator, Ron Johnson, who was actually the deputy director of investigations for the organization. He would die under very strange circumstances when after a slide presentation at a conference in Austin Texas, the lights came on and he was found unresponsive in his seat, with blood coming out of his nose and a weird purple coloration to his face. 1996 saw the death of UFO author Karla Turner, who died of breast cancer. Turner was known for constantly attributing her cancer to actions taken by aliens due to some of the things she had written in her books Masquerade of Angels, Taken, and Into the Fringe. In 1999, author of numerous UFO and conspiracy books, Jim Keith, also died when a blood clot stopped his heart as he was receiving routine surgery for a broken leg.

Moving into the 2000s we have several more strange cases. In April of 2001, prolific author of unexplained phenomena, Ron Bonds, mysteriously died of a common food poisoning bacterium that rarely leads to death, but for some reason turned deadly for him. More sinister still was the death of prominent UFO researcher Paul Vigay in 2009. In February of that year, the 44-year-old was found bobbing about in the churning sea off the coast of Portsmouth, Hants, leaving a series of strange cryptic passwords behind on his phone that no one could figure out. Although authorities were quick to label it as a suicide, Vigay’s friends and family are adamant that he was not suicidal, and the coroner was also not able to verify whether it was suicide or not, saying “I cannot say beyond reasonable doubt that yes Paul has taken his own life. The only person who could tell us what was going on in his mind and what happened that night is sadly not here to tell us.”

Perhaps one of the weirdest cases of all is also the most recent. Conspiracy theorist and UFO expert Max Spiers was well-known for delving into government cover-ups, and in July of 2016 he was in Warsaw, Poland, visiting a friend and also planning on attending a conference on conspiracy theories and UFOs. On July 16, Spiers’ friend found him on the sofa, unresponsive and apparently having vomited up a viscous “black liquid.” It would turn out that there were some pretty suspicious details surrounding the death, one being a text message he had written to his mother just before his death, which reads, “Your boy’s in trouble. If anything happens to me, investigate.” Also odd is that there was never any actual official autopsy done on the body, and adding to this was that Spiers was a healthy young man with no history of physical issues, making it odd that he should just drop dead on that sofa. There would be very little word on the state of the investigation until 2019, when authorities would rule the death as being caused by drug use and pneumonia. Max’s mother would say of it all:

Max was a very fit man who was in good health and yet he apparently just died suddenly on a sofa. All I have is a death certificate from the Polish authorities that it was from natural causes, but no post-mortem was done so how can they tell that? They are also refusing to release any paperwork about it to me because, absurdly, I don’t have his written permission. Apparently, he had not suffered any obvious physical injuries but he could have been slowly poisoned, which is why the results of toxicology tests from his post-mortem are so important.

Again, we are left to wonder, if this really was an accident, or did some nefarious agency deem him to be a threat and have him erased? The main conspiracy idea behind all of these deaths is that these people were removed from the equation by nefarious parties, with government agencies and even the Men in Black coming into play. Skeptics would point out that people die, it is a fact of life, and that of course UFO researchers are going to fall victim to this as well. Yet, with the strange circumstances and details surrounding some of these cases it really makes one wonder what is really going on. Is this all just coincidence and reading things into it all, or is there something more sinister going on? The question remains, and if you are one of those who delves into UFOs it might be best to keep a set of eyes on the back of your head. You just never know.

Exodus: a mass departure

The word “exodus” comes from the Greek ‘exodos’ which means ‘the road out’. However, when it’s time to get out of town, most people will take any way possible – by land, by air and by sea. Most animals too, as researchers have recently discovered. A new study of world habitat shifts among more than 12,000 different species of animals, plants, fungi and bacteria found that a large majority of them are heading for the North and South Poles at rates never before seen, with marine animals making a veritable underwater sprint for colder waters. Why? Do we really need to ask?

“There is mounting evidence of species redistribution as climate warms.”

When that’s the opening line of a new scientific study in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, you know it’s not going to be good news. (Then again, is there ANY good news these days?) Researchers led by Jonathan Lenoir and Romain Bertrand of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, compiled a database of over 30,000 species range shifts — permanent moves of an entire group of animals from one location to another. They then linked these range shifts to isotherm shifts — an isotherm is a line connecting points on a map that have the same temperature.

Isotherm of the Arctic Circle (red line)

“In the review, amphibians were found to be moving up slope at over 12 metres a year, while reptiles seem to be headed towards the equator at 6.5 metres a year. Insects, which incidentally carry many diseases, were found to be moving poleward at 18.5 kilometres per year. Relatively, that’s a lot, but in the bigger picture, marine species were moving towards the poles at an average pace of nearly 6 kilometres per year, while land animals were only shifting upslope at a mean pace of nearly 1.8 metres per year (slightly faster than previous estimates for land species, but still comparatively slow).”

It’s no surprise that animals, like humans, have a temperature range preference that they will move to stay within. It’s also no surprise that climate change is a major driving for in temperature ranges moving north or south. What surprised the researchers was the rapid movement by marine animals in comparison to land creatures, since the temperature shift should conceivably be moving at the same rate across land and sea. (The fast movement of the insects didn’t seem to bother them.) According to ScienceAlert, they speculated that marine animals are cold-blooded, making it harder to adapt to temperature changes, and water has less physical impediments than land (mountains, lakes, buildings, humans), allowing them to complete the move quickly.

“These complex interactions need to be accounted for to improve scenarios of biodiversity redistribution and its consequences on human well-being under future climate change.”

Climate change is moving the warm bands of isotherms towards the poles, causing the melting of ice as well as the movement of animals. The shift in marine animals is already affecting the fishing industry, but that’s not the most dire consequence humans need to deal with. The Permian-Triassic Extinction was the most calamitous event in Earth’s history – causing the extinction of 96% of all marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species and over three-quarters of all insects. While the cause of that global climate change event is still unknown, the effect is not, and the evidence shows that species tried but were unable to shift habitats fast enough. The researchers admit their sampling is small, not the entire collection of species, but they expect the same results when it’s expanded.

The most famous exodus ended well enough to get a biblical book named after it. The current exodus to the poles may not – for animal nor for humans.

Can we change it before another Book of Exodus has to be written?

You’ve probably heard of the Bermuda Triangle, the area of the North Atlantic where ships have disappeared and paranormal theories are born. You may have heard of the Devil’s Triangle, the Pacific counterpart off the southern coast of Japan. Until this week, this writer had never heard of areas in the South China Sea and off the west coast of South Africa where groups of ships have suddenly been forced into traveling in tight circles, sometimes in scary ever-decreasing spirals. More underwater alien bases? Ghosts? Climate change? Something else? Place your bets now.

“Ships appearing to sail in circles have become an increasingly common and mysterious phenomenon near a number of ports on the coast of China, especially near oil terminals and government facilities – but nothing had been seen where the Willowy was.”

Yes, that’s a ship in a circle, but not the kind were talking about

Let’s start with incidents in the South China Sea. (The Willowy related to the South African anomaly.) They were first detected not by ships but by groups tracking ship traffic via their AIS (automated identification system) which broadcast a ship’s unique identifier and its GPS location, course and speed to nearby ships. One such group is SkyTruth, an environmental group monitoring offshore drilling, oil spills and tanker traffic. AIS is dictated by international law but ship owners don’t like it for a variety of reasons – including the fact that they’re often manipulated by smugglers, illegal fishing boats and illegal oil traders. According to Sky News, Phil Diacon, the chief executive of the marine intelligence firm Dryad Global, agrees that the Chinese circles are anomalies caused by signal jammers.

“But according to a global analysis of this data by environmental groups SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, a number of circling incidents have also occurred quite a distance away from Chinese ports, with some impossibly appearing miles inland near San Francisco. SkyTruth found the real locations of these ships often thousands of miles away from the circular sailing tracks. The ships were again were often actually near oil terminals or in locations where GPS disruption had been reported before.”

SkyTruth points out there was once a major U.S. Coast Guard communication station at nearby Point Reyes, but that doesn’t explain this or other GPS disruptions over major shipping locations. That includes an incident off the coast of South Africa on May 31.

“At approximately 1am on Sunday morning, the Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker, operated by Singaporean business Executive Ship, suddenly swung starboard and began actually sailing in circles. The ship was unable to steer and the crew reported that four other vessels in its vicinity were caught in a similar spiral, slowly converging on each other for an unknown reason.”

As you can see, something forced the Willowy and four other ships into a circle. While they could have been on auto-tracking and made the moves themselves (until human pilots took over), that doesn’t explain what caused it. Sky News says the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has used a similar GPS manipulation on vessels entering their waters, but the Willowy is a long way from Iran. Sky News suggests something else – a different anomaly that has also been in the news recently.

“Nobody knows why, but the Earth’s magnetic field – which has lost almost 10% of its strength over the last two centuries – is growing particularly weak in a large region stretching from Africa to South America, impacting satellites and spacecraft. Known as the South Atlantic Anomaly, the field strength in this area has rapidly shrunk over the past 50 years just as the area itself has grown and moved westward. And over the past five years a second centre of minimum intensity has developed southwest of Africa, very near to where the Willowy was sailing.”

It was reported recently that the South Atlantic Anomaly is breaking apart, with a second anomaly forming near Africa. Could the breakup or the new junior anomaly have caused the forced circling of these ships? As expected, the owners of the Willowy were quick to provide an ‘alternate’ explanation to Sky News.

“The crew, alongside the company’s shore-based marine superintendents, investigated and identified that the ship’s primary gyrocompass was indeed malfunctioning. The ship resumed its course safely when it switched to using the secondary gyrocompass, along with an old-fashioned magnetic compass for good measure. Asked what caused the failure, the company described it as “an incidental breakdown” and added “repair will be done at the next port where the cause will be identified by shore technicians”.”

OK, that may explain the Willowy’s strange behavior, but what about the other ships, which were not owned by Executive Ship?

“The initial presumptive cause of circling for the Willowy was considered to be strong currents which also led the crew to perceive that other ships were circling too.”

A look at the AIS for those vessels would be helpful, but neither Sky News nor SkyTruth seemed to have checked those. Also, it seems fishy that the Willowy crew switched to “an old-fashioned magnetic compass” since those don’t work in the area of the South Atlantic Anomaly – an area of disruption of the electromagnetic kind.

This is worth keeping an eye on. One of these days, you can say you were there when the Circle joined the Triangles.