UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

In early 2005, the late Rob Riggs – the author of the book In the Big Thicket, and who I had first met in the summer of 2003 – telephoned me and asked if I would be interested in speaking at a conference he was planning on soon holding in the city of Austin, Texas. The subject was “ghost lights,” and the links between that same phenomenon and sacred sites, stone circles, and Bigfoot-like entities. I replied that, yes, I would definitely be interested. And thus was born the Texas Ghost Lights Conference. It was held at Austin’s First Unitarian Universalist Church on Saturday, June 11. Precisely what the God-fearing folk of the Church thought about a group of Bigfoot-hunting, ghost-light-seeking adventurers descending upon their property, I never learned. But, they didn’t seem to mind at all.

Marfa Lights

In addition to Rob and me, the other lecturers were James Bunnell and Paul Devereux. James has an interesting background: the author of two books on the famous “Marfa Lights,” namely Night Orbs and Seeing Marfa Lights. he was an aeronautical and mechanical engineer by profession, and retired in 2000 from BAE Systems as Director of Mission Solutions for various U.S. Air Force programs. Like me, Paul is a Brit. He’s a longstanding, prestigious figure in the field of ghost-light style phenomena.

Big Thicket National Preserve

In addition to organizing the conference, Rob had also put into place something that he termed the Bragg Road Project. Essentially, it was a road-trip to the Texas-based Big Thicket (a hotbed for “ghost lights”)that he had planned for the day after the Austin gig. The idea was to travel down to the woods of east Texas and hang out in the area for two nights, in the event that something – be it a ghost light or a Bigfoot, or both if we were that lucky – decided to make an appearance.

Early on what turned out to be a bright and sunny Sunday morning, me, Rob, James, Paul, S. Miles Lewis of the Austin-based Scientific Anomaly Institute, and two conference attendees, Renee and Nancy, met at a prearranged location for our journey into the unknown. I can hardly say that the trip was one of proportions that would have made Jack Kerouac proud. But nevertheless, we were on a mission and everyone was fired up about what we might uncover, and so our convoy set off in earnest. It was late afternoon when we finally arrived in the town of Kountze, where all of us had reservations at the local Super 8. And, after a shower and a Mexican dinner, we were forest-bound. And this was where, as was so often the case, things got very strange.

The Real Saratoga Ghost lights

Bragg Road can be an eerie location during daylight – as I had found to be so when I ventured deep into the Big Thicket with Rob in the summer of 2003. At night and under the spotlight of a full moon, however, it was truly spooky. Not in a scary sense, as I always relish the opportunity to check out such places, but just from the perspective of believing that quite possibly anything could happen here. Of course, it’s important to note that more than a few people have mistaken distant car headlights for the legendary lights (as Andy Collins notes at this link). But, given that some sightings have occurred within just a feet of eyewitnesses demonstrates that not all cases can be written off so easily.

With flashlights in hand, we began a walk through the darkened woods, with Rob pointing out to us various locations where wild men, Bigfoot, and, of course, ghost lights had been seen and reported for decades. For twenty minutes or so, we walked around, seemingly forever trying to avoid the overwhelming mass of mosquitoes that surrounded us, while at the same time negotiating the thick blanket of ancient and mighty trees that dominated the area. And then, suddenly, it happened. We were on our way back to the vehicles to grab a bite to eat and some drinks when, as we entered a clearing in the trees, a basketball-sized bright light floated over us at a height of about thirty-five feet. It was moving from right to left, and sailed slowly yet purposefully on its journey. The ghost light was present for barely a handful of seconds, but it was definitely there.

Due to work, I was unable to stay for the second night, but when I got back to Dallas and turned on the computer, I read an email from Rob that was of true jaw-dropping quality. The odd experiences of the first night in the Big Thicket were apparently not isolated. As Rob said: “Renee had a frightening experience Monday night. We split up into teams of two and spread out about a mile apart. Renee was paired with Nancy. Nancy walked down the road briefly away from Renee. Renee said she then heard something walking in the woods off the road directly behind her that sounded large. She said whatever it was, was large enough to snap twigs, and she said that it seemed to be moving stealthily, as if it were trying to sneak up on her. She panicked, locked herself into her van and drove off, leaving Nancy to fend for herself.”

Rob continued: “Several hours later she was still shaken and still had goose bumps. Such irrational panic is not characteristic of Renee. She is a ghost hunter and has many times been in creepier situations than being on Bragg Road. She has even gone to cemeteries alone just to test her mettle. There are theories that the creatures deliberately provoke such panic reactions through chemicals in their scent or by mental projection of energy.”

He concluded: “Renee, Nancy and I also saw a peculiar light. It looked somewhat like a firefly but actually left a solid streak 10 – 15 feet in length that was brilliant bluish-white in color. It happened near a power line, and it was suggested that it might have been some kind of surge on the power line itself. But what could cause such a surge? That, in itself would be suggestive of a electromagnetic anomaly.”

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Rob’s research into the matter of Texas’ ghost lights continued until his death in 2015.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

Mysterious radio signals have long been a mainstay of science fiction tales, but lately they’ve also been the subject of serious scientific scrutiny. Radio bursts originating from deep spacehave become a hot topic in the astronomy world, and while most of these appear to be naturally occurring, you never know when one of them turns out to be something far stranger. At least, we can hope one of them will. Here on boring planet Earth, mysterious radio signals often pop up in the form of pirated transmissions broadcasting strange, cryptic messages. While most of these turn out to be merely hoaxes or pranks, many of them also remain unexplained.

A radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory.

Just this week, physicists studying cosmic rays in Antarctica have uncovered a strange radio signal that appears to have a mysterious origin. The physicists are part of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) program, a project which uses balloons to locate and identify signals produced by strange particles travelling from deep space as they collide with the Earth. However, this latest signal appears to originate from deep within the Earth itself. Is this a lost race of molemen and molewomen’s attempt at communication with us surface dwellers?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear so. Or maybe fortunately, those things look like they could eat a human brain or two. According to a press release issued by Physics World, the strange radio signal is likely the product of neutrinos colluding with atomic nuclei deep within Antarctic ice sheets. These collisions produce explosions of charged particles which emit radio waves that then bounce through 7,000 kilometers of ice and the Earth’s crust and into the air where ANITA balloons detect them. Neutrinos are a little-understood cousin of the other subatomic particles which don’t seem to interact with other particles and fields as much as other elementary particles do. Scientists believe neutrinos might someday be used in deep space communications, as they are capable of travelling through matter and across long distances unscathed.

Peter Gorham of the University of Hawaii is one of the ANITA researchers behind this discovery. Gorham notes that while it’s possible human activity created these anomalous radio signals, the data more likely point to this extremely rare interaction between deep space neutrinos and Antarctic ice sheets. “It’s still possible that the events are due to two isolated people, each transmitting a single radio pulse very far from the nearest Antarctic base, Gorham says. “But that seems very unlikely at this stage.”

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory located 2100m underground in a mine in Canada.

It’s pretty amazing to think about: strange, exotic particles flying through unimaginably vast reaches of space only to penetrate deep within the Earth and explode into a shower of radio waves which are then detected by a weather balloon. I consider myself a proponent of science and scientific explanation, but the history of science and scientific knowledge proves that each explanation isn’t necessarily the definitive answer, but only the best answer we have at the time given current methods, instruments, and data. Could there be an even more exotic explanation for these anomalous radio signals originating from deep within the Earth that we haven’t even considered yet?