When there is nothing to say, say anything

Photo courtesy of SidneyRigdon.com

I'm not new to the paranormal. I've been trying to find answers since I was six. For some reason people expect you to come out of the womb with a Ph.D. and a piece of an Extraterrestrial craft tucked into your umbilical cord.

When you open your mouth to speak, it damn well better be good. If you have something to say, whether in writing or on a stage behind a podium (in front of a screen with flashy graphics), it better sound plausible, smart and most of all commercial.

If you should happen to be so lucky, you get a book deal. Maybe a few. That's not to say everyone with a book deal is a snake oil salesman, but c'mon, we aren't all selling truth here. I'm not saying we're lying either, but we rely on the human ability to REMEMBER things as they were and that is some pretty shady stuff to adhere to. Scientists will tell you that what we remember isn't always what WAS/IS, so even if we aren't doing it on purpose, by default, we are selling bullshit.

Bunk. Crap. Hearsay. Speculation.

But some people sell it better than others.

I could write an ENTIRE book on every experience I have had in my life, from the haunted house I grew up in, to the things under my bed, to the Werewolf/Beastman I encountered some years ago. But just because I can close my eyes and see those things as I 'remember' them, does that mean they were real? Does it make me a liar to tell you they happened with as much conviction as I can muster?

No.

But if I tell it to you so that you are intrigued enough to want to KNOW more, than that surely makes me far better off than the boring dude on my right who can drone on for hours about UFO crashes in deserts.

Truth is, when UFOLOGY is dry and there's nothing to report, perhaps it's best to just keep talking. Because when we say nothing, there's essentially a huge sign on our foreheads and it reads, "Nothing to see here folks. Move along." And then people stop giving a shit.

Whereas, when the kooks come out the wood work and say anything just to get a rise out of the media, all eyes are on us. Good attention. Bad attention. Seriously, can we afford to be picky? Because in the end, when the bullshitters are done talking and all the smoke has cleared, the audience that is left is gonna want to know more, and guess what? If they dare to stick around long enough; digging through the pile that is our line of work, then that my dears, is when they come across the true gems. The good shit. The truth. The things worth saying.

We just have to figure out a way to get them to stop watching 'Jersey Shore' for two seconds.

Martians see it every morning and now you can too!

The best Mars map ever made is now available online for planetary scientists and armchair astronauts alike.  And citizen scientists are invited to help make it even better.

Websites developed recently at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility, in collaboration with NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Microsoft, make it easy for anyone to trek the craters, volcanoes, and dusty plains of Earth's small red neighbor world.

"We've assembled the best global map of Mars to date," says Philip Christensen, Regents' Professor of geological sciences in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "And we made it available via the Internet so everyone can help make it better."

THEMIS 100 METER GLOBAL DAYTIME MOSAIC.

Anybody got an old Speak N' Spell I can cannabalize???

So SETI is going about it the wrong way. Naw really? What this article narrows down to is the idea that signals from Advanced, Intelligent ET's would be short and sweet, like text messages (only without all the misspellings). Because they're trying to to keep the costs of their GREAT, VAST, INCREDIBLY GOD-LIKE technological advances at an all time low. They're saving all that money for FUEL!

The Benfords suggest a continuous signal blared at thousands of stars would simply cost too much energy. They say aliens might use short bursts say, anywhere from a second to an hour long and point these signals in narrow beams at one star and then another in a cycle involving up to thousands of stars that repeats over days or years.

For civilizations that constantly watch the skies, the bursts would convey enough data to be recognized as undeniably artificial. As observant civilizations concentrated on this simple beacon, other beacons could broadcast more complex data at lower power (assuming the aliens were still pursuing a frugal strategy).

If I don't expose the 'stupid' then who will? Oh right...the smarter people.

An AWESOME old MAP of the MOON

Flickr.

Gravity doesn't ex---wait... What?

According to Erik Verlinde (String Theorist and Professor of Physics @ The University of Amsterdam *cough*), gravity is an illusion. You can read his paper on the subject here. What I think he is saying is that Gravity as we know it just isn't, well, Gravity. And the ideas we have about it are hindering our progress as far as understanding the way the Universe works goes.

He's not smoking anything. I don't think. He's just saying it like it is and of course the media is blowing it out of proportion. He didn't say the Earth was flat people. All he said was the reason you are rooted to the surface of the Planet needs to be re-defined and refined in order for further and future endeavors to be made.

We must make strides my fellow humans (and Robots, Aliens, Dolphins and Unicorns). It all starts with revolutionary thought. Read what the man actually has to say. Word for word.

Is it true?

The Rumor 

It reached my ear, from two different, possibly independent sources, that an experiment at the Tevatron is about to release some evidence of a light Higgs boson signal. Some say a three-sigma effect, others do not make explicit claims but talk of a unexpected result. That the result comes from the Tevatron is for sure, since the LHC experiments do not have nearly enough data yet to search for that elusive particle, and other particle physics experiments in the world have not nearly enough energy to produce it. However, I am unable to understand whether the rumor comes from CDF or from D0. 

Lest you jump at conclusions too early, I need to explain something more: despite being a CDF author, I unfortunately do not follow actively the works of the Higgs Discovery Working Group within CDF, so a Higgs excess in CDF data could well have escaped me. In principle, if I now took on digging hard enough in the internal pages of the CDF experiment I might be able to find out if this signal is coming from there, and maybe learn more about it. But there are at least a dozen analyses to dig into! Too much work - while wild speculation is more fun! 

read more here.

Chupa or really ugly dog?

Syfy's attempt to delve into the mystery of Area 51 made of FAIL

Maybe I'm just disenchanted altogether. I can accept that. But what I can't accept is the fact that I watched "Inside Secret Government Warehouses: Shocking Revelations" on Syfy, and was anything but shocked. Annoyed maybe. Perplexed. Not shocked.

And why would I be? I've heard and seen all this shit before. Maybe it shocked a few arm chair newbies who up until tonight thought 'Wright-Patterson' was a Rock band. And I will say that the effort to get more from the Government (as far as answers go) was kind of noble, but still. Same. Recycled. Garbage.

No offense to Lester Holt and the Researchers who stepped in to get some answers, but c'mon...they tried this like 15 years ago and some years later, they still got nowhere. I do applaud the effort. I do applaud the interest. But for the life of me I seriously don't get it.

Area 51 is like a bad itch that won't stop irritating me. It's the gangrene cousin of Roswell. The things that seem to always captivate you but for all the wrong reasons. The secrets that are meant to be secrets. The Pandora's box of our lifetime. At the end of the say I just want to turn off the tv and ask, "Who gives a shit?"

But that sad thing is I do give a shit. I just don't have the power to do anything about it.
If there was one intriguing aspect that kind of compelled me to pull the chair a little closer to the tv, it was the 'Mandible of Unknown Origin'.

The lower jaw cast taken of an unknown creature (one that even an expert couldn't identify)---after death. The story of the Dentist who made the cast. The fact that it was in a vault, waiting for someone to ask, " Hey, you got an alien mandible in here?"

Like I said, intriguing.

Then there's the Vatican and its 'special-not-so-super-secret-library'. I am not going to lie...someday I want to walk in there, smell all those old parchments and sit down as a scholar run my hands over half of those priceless bound mysteries. But still... Dan Brown is a bad influence. He writes about a Vatican Library and all'a'sudden it's the stuff of legend like the imaginary Pentagon Warehouse from Indiana Jones.

I must say Hollywood kind of fucks everything up. It sets the bar too high for mysteries that really aren't that mysterious. Independence Day did Area 51 in. For good. Now we will always think there are spaceships from some Galactic empire being R&D'd down there.

"You let us fuck around on your planet and we'll let you take apart our really old and useless shuttles that even the Queen of the Universe wouldn't be caught dead driving. Sure..."

Yeah. I'm bitter.

Blame Syfy.

Sucker Free Summer In Danger of Sucking

No seriously though. According to WFAA (Dallas/Fort Worth), El Chupacabra is rampaging Texan Cattle, dressed like a Chihuahua. A hairless Chihu---

Okay, ya know, I can't even get serious about this. It has nothing to do with Farmers who are losing livestock or the mythical Chupa itself. It has everything to do with the fact that damnit, not one good picture...not one video. Not one honest-to-true corpse. Just...annoying shit like this: "I saw a Chupacabra and it ate my dog."

I refuse to take this shit serious anymore.

The Nine

Philip Coppens dives, headfirst into the 2012 phenomena and with surprising results. I've been equally disturbed and intrigued by the "9". The idea that Nine Demi-gods have been visiting Earth for ages and leaving chaos, mayhem and destruction in their wake.

You can read Coppens assessment here.

The question nevertheless remains as to who these Nine Gods truly are. Indeed, “Nine Gods” are not just an ingredient of the Mayan culture. There were also Nine Gods in the ancient Egyptian religion, as well as many others (e.g. India). To the Egyptians, they were also known as the Nine Principles and they were directly linked with their Creator Deity, Atum. 
Control over these Nine Principles was deemed to be instrumental in the successful rule of a Pharaoh: proper control over them meant that balance – linked with the deity Ma’at – was maintained and all was well with Egypt, the world and the universe. We can therefore see that The Nine in an Egyptian or Mayan setting, were closely related; in both instances, they determined the ruling of an era, whereby their consultation was of extreme importance to the success of the nation.

Finally...my REAL parents are coming to get me!

A mystery object 500 light years away, in the Constellation of Scorpius (incidentally a topic of discussion last night at my Bat Mitzvah), shouldn't exist. But it does. And why? Oh yeah...because Science can't dictate what SHOULD and SHOULDN't exist.

Did these people not learn anything from Einstein?

Here's an excerpt:

"There is no theory for how a true planet can form at 300 AU (astronomical units, with one unit equal to 93 million miles, the mean distance between Earth and the sun). It's not really a lack of imagination. It's a lack of physics," California Institute of Technology astronomer John Johnson told Discovery News.

Current theories, observations and computer models show that planets form from a disk of gas and dust that circles young stars. Less material is available as the distance to the parent star grows.

"You actually have to have material out there to have the planet forming," Johnson said.

Another option is that the object, designated as 1RXS J160929.1-210524 b and located about 500 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is a new type of failed star — something akin to a brown dwarf, though about half the size — which formed along with the primary star about 5 million years ago.

But scientists similarly are at a loss to explain how such a relatively small object could have survived the stellar birthing process.

"The models show it's difficult to successfully produce a low-mass object next to a much more massive object," said University of Montreal astronomer David Lafreniere, who lead a team that photographed the object in 2008, the first time a planet beyond the solar system was directly imaged.

There is more at DISCOVER NEWS.

I said it before and I'll say it again... if I was gonna scope out the universe, I wouldn't do it in a fancy-schmancy spaceship that attracts attention. I'd do it in a vehicle that resembles something ordinary in space, like a planet, asteroid or comet.

Things that make ya go...'What the frak, yo!?'...

Ball Lightning: All in your head (Like Bad Porn)...

Ever seen 'ball' lightning?

Ever wonder if it was just your electromagnetic superpowers interfering with the Maestro's Universal Master Plan? Basically you're hallucinating. And get this...the same cause for 'hallucinatory ball lightning' is going to be the next (but not new), explanation for why we see UFO's.

Science. Gotta love it. Especially when it's used to propagate an agenda.

Alien Mom or just the norm...

Granted, there are a lot of weird looking people in the world. I know some of them personally. But do I think they're aliens? No. Unless they are. Which I wouldn't
know. Of course.

Anyhow, the above picture is 'supposed' to support the theory of Hybridization
or the interspecies mingling/interbreeding between EBE's and Humans. I'm not
so sure how this is possible if they aren't anything like us genetically. So, for
arguments sake, if they can breed with us, then we have to be related. Which
all goes back to my belief that they are us.

So, in essence. She's not an alien at all. She's just ... a weird looking human. Or,
if you're from that region of the world...she's very normal looking(?)...

...and, I need a coffee.

Curiouser and curiouser...

The picture above depicts what is considered by some to be an Ancient Astronaut. There's a few of them standing there, actually. Up until last night, I always perceived the squiggly lines on either side of the first figure to be representations of serpents. But now I am almost positively certain they are representations of either a force field or some kind of energy being expelled from the beings body.

The ANGELS of the Bible were described as glowing, or emanating a sort of energy that was later depicted in the guise of HALO's. I wonder if this isn't the same kind of energy. Anyhow, I came to this conclusion early this morning, after a dream in which I was approached by beings in armor of some type. They were emitting a shimmery, almost mirage-like energy from their bodies.

Maybe next time I won't eat so late at night. Maybe...

Stupid rocks

No offense to the MARS enthusiasts. You know the kinds---they have entire websites dedicated to MARTIAN ANOMALIES---who can see something in every picture. Chances are I've been to your site and I've seen the pictures, over and over. Not only because the Martian surface is beautiful and awe-inspiring.

I visit and I stay and I stare until I go blind, because I'm trying to see the shit that isn't there. The things you say are there that no other person can see. The wishful-thinking-rock-that-looks-like-something-but-isn't.

There's the 'supposed' Robot in the Victoria Crater. There are the 'beings' that have been airbrushed out of the Rover images, so all you see are rocks and smudges and...rocks. In fact, all I see are rocks!

Do the rocks shape-shift? Is Mars home of the shape-shifting monster rocks? Is that any stranger than most of the other things people claim to see on the Martian surface? And don't get me wrong, because I am not knocking you. Maybe you do see something? My eyes---your eyes---are different.

Maybe that little alien in the top hat, driving a BMW is there and I am just not gifted enough to see him/her/it. But then again, maybe you're just looking too hard. Maybe your seeing things that aren't there at all.

The worst part is, this isn't helping to elevate research into Mars and the anomalies I am certain exist there. It just makes Martian enthusiasts look crazy. Crazy isn't bad, really it isn't. But crazy and Mars in one sentence... it's just ammo for those who don't believe in anything at all.

So next time, hold back until you're certain. Most of the time, no matter how anthropomorphic they may be, they're just ROCKS.

Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni @ BOA

It's 2 hours and 28 minutes of pure insanity, as Jeff and Jeremy talk to Tim about saying 'farewell' to the "classic' Paratopia. Out with the old and in with the new, as the latest incarnation of Paratopia takes off.

Jeff and Jer talk about their beginnings and the conception of Paratopia; delving into some of the classic episodes of the program. Special topics in Ufology are discussed, as well as the Paratopia Ghost Hunting Trip and their adventures in X-Conference Land.

It's a few hours that will leave you wanting more. Thank goodness the boys show no sign of going completely off the grid.

Jason Offutt @ BOA

ournalist and paranormal investigator Jason Offutt returns to the program for a discussion on his latest book, What Lurks Beyond: The Paranormal in Your Backyard, which profiles an amazing array of esoteric events and tales that can be found within a 100 mile radius of his home in Missouri. Among the topics discussed are haunted locations like college campuses and the 'Axe Murder House,' 'Mad Man' Markham and his alleged time machine, the Black Eyed Kids phenomenon, Window Zones, ghost hunting, Ouija Boards, a psychic dog, Jason's Paranormal Journalism course, as well as an update on his research into Shadow People.

It's a perfect episode for Summer time camping trips as Jason Offutt shares some terrifying tales tailor made listening around the campfire.

Monsters...Monsters and Monsters. Oh my!

It's no industry secret that decades of movie magic have initiated us all into the realms of the Paranormal. Some have speculated the popularity and rise in UFO sightings began with Hollywood. Whatever may or may not be the truth, the fact of the matter is MONSTER movies have inspired generations to believe in Monsters.

Hollywood Monsters range from viruses that mutate and turn humans into flesh-eating zombies, to Giant creature of unknown Origin who rise from the ocean to destroy Manhattan. What we know today about Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves and Aliens comes from Hollywood.

Hollywood has taken old tales from the old world and spun them into Blockbuster gold, and at the same time, successfully conditioned generations to look under the bed and in the closet. Just think about it...if you had a fear of the dark, was it because something actually happened to you in the dark, or was it more likely a movie you saw as a kid that stayed in your head, festering until it became a belief of its own?

Chances are many of our phobias came from nights spent watching Dario Argento's DEMONS, or George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Our monsters, the ones we spend time checking corners for were not invented in Hollywood, but they sure were adopted, refurbished and sent back out onto the road on shiny new tires...thanks to Hollywood.

My Grandmother comes from the old country. The monsters she talks about were very real back in her day. They were there before Hollywood. They were there back when stories were spoken word. Oral traditions. They lived in caves. They took over human bodies. They consumed flesh. They transformed in the darkness. They shunned the light of day. They flew in the air, close to the moon. You name the cliche, the old monsters from back before celluloid did those things.

In fact, the original, old school monsters of yore were far superior and scarier than the sexy Vampires and Werewolves and Witches we've come to know. They were scarier because they were the 'unknowables'. They were the hidden things that people of that time speculated about. Caught glimpses of. Heard stories about. But never saw.

It's no different with the majority of us. Yes, some people have their experiences to back up their phobias, but most of us have never seen a real Vampire. Never been chased by a Werewolf. Never had to outrun a shambling Zombie, and yet, deep down we believe.

We still come home from work, just as the sun is going down, to check the closets and under the beds. We still sleep with some of the lights on. We still have weapons sequestered in certain places in close proximity to where we spend a majority of our time. Some of us are far more afraid of the things we can't prove exist than we are the real threats...the human beings who can actually harm us.

But one thing I have learned is: Never Say Never. If we can think it, dream it, imagine it, ponder it or express it... then who's to say it isn't real? Monsters. They lurk in hidden corners of our minds, day and night, and for some unfortunate souls they are a truth some of us are lucky to never come face to face with.

Monsters, whether they be conjured in a studio or on a dark night in the woods, by dark souls looking to do evil deeds. Monsters exist. If you believe.

The Ufology Hate Meme

Recently, David Biedny referred to the Paranormal as no different than, "...any other form of Entertainment." I was already accepting the idea that many people were and still are turning their collective backs on the Paranormal until the comment, "Ufologists eat their own," (not verbatim) was directed at Paul Kimball. That comment coupled with Biedny's thoughts ---all too readily solidifying the contempt for the field---makes me feel like it's time I put my two cents in.

All of a sudden, it has become popular to denigrate the field. Now everyone from every corner of the field is turning their back and turning up their nose. When did this start exactly? Who was the first person to knock down a domino? And why is it that the Ghost Hunting Field isn't following suit?

In fact, even the Cryptozoologists are separating themselves from the negativity, which has me considering a new field in which to focus my time and energy. But everytime I entertain the thought of leaving Ufology, I think about all the other people walking away and I start to see Ufology as this once full house that is now almost empty and on the verge of collapse.

The researchers who were the foundation aren't doing their job. The researchers who furnished this great house of Ufology have left dust in their place. You would think younger researchers would rally together and proclaim this a small blemish on the field that can be easily fixed. But no, instead half of them are growing weary with the backstabbing, the lack of viable information and worse, the fallen (once) heroes of the field.

It is now acceptable for Ufologists/Paranormal researchers and investigators to talk shit about the field with no consequence. And why should there be? It's not a 'real' field of study. It's just a hobby for rejects. It's one of those fields you 'fall' into when you're a kid, dabbling with the occult and getting your ass kicked in the school yard for being a little too smart.

It's the red-headed stepchild of Science. The Paranormal is where all the freaks go when they want to feel special. I get it now. It's reject central. So if you make it out of freakdom---if you write a book, or two---if you start a successful blog---if you get a TV Show/Radio Show---you become too cool to be in the Paranormal field. You just have to get out and spread your wings.

Right?

I so totally get it now!

The problem is, I don't think many of you should be allowed to walk away so easily. In fact, I think some of you should be held accountable for what you have done. This is the Paranormal Fields version of Arthur Andersen. There is plenty of fraud in the field, committed by the people who 'supposedly' helped to build it in the passed few decades.

Some cases that were absolute bunk were given too much attention. Other cases weren't explored enough. Some researchers backed fraudulent claims and hoaxers and even created hoaxes. I am not going to waste time naming names, because frankly, right now I just don't give a shit. But I am trying to make a point, and the point is the people who started this shit need to clean it up.

It has become acceptable to just walk away from the field and turn a blind eye at what previous generations have done to a field that could have gained more respect, if not for certain people's inclination to share the spotlight and make shit up as they went along. Ufology/The Paranormal could have been something more. And it's not like I didn't see it gaining ground.

Heck, the Vatican said, 'Yes, there might be ALiens!' And then their are various projects enacted for Disclosure, like the Freedom of Information Act. And no, we didn't exactly figure out what happened at Roswell, but everyone and their mother has heard about it. Alien Invasion films are usually blockbusters. Little kids follow the adventures of Invader Zim and every other animated Alien.

And why? Because Ufology/The Paranormal broke ground somehow. The field slowly but surely seeped into the Global subconscious so that many more people believe in other life in the Universe. More people report UFO sightings. More people talk about their Haunted houses. More people want to know about Life after death, and that curiosity is why shows like 'Medium' and 'The Ghost Whisperer' have ratings.

The fact that some researchers have been on Larry King and that NOVA and the History Channel cover UFOLOGY (no matter how biased, warped or critical it may all be) is enough to confirm we have come a long way baby and we are making great strides. But somehow, somewhere, people started getting weary and greedy and dispassionate. Fine. I am not saying no one has the 'right' to walk away.

That was never point to begin with. My point is, clean up your shit on the way out. And once you are gone, stop talking about it. We don't need your bad vibes, and we certainly don't need any more ill repute because the only thing you can find to talk about is how much Ufology/The Paranormal sucks. Because it doesn't. It is just another outlet for solving the mysteries of this world we live in. Until someone can definitively give us all the answers, I suggest we stop acting like one method or one particular field is more important and respectable than the other.

Because at the end of the day, whether you leave UFOLOGY/The Paranormal behind or not, it's still a part of your legacy. The shit storm you left behind will haunt you.

*Disclaimer: This is not a personal attack on Biedny or Kimball. I just wanted to cite how the two of you got the ball rolling on my decision to write this. Thanks.

MAN.BEAR.PIG.(NOT).

Loren Coleman was on the case. No, it was not a baby Sasquatch. Nor was
it a member of the Hilton Family.

It was, in fact...ba-dum-bump...a mink. Anyone wanna coat?

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