That does it

 

Trump wants to change the name of New Mexico to "New America". Not sure if he mentions their flag, but *nobody fucking touches the best state flag in Murica* so I´m officially off the Trump train now, yeah.

Now, disclose what really happened at Roswell, dude. 

Green fireballs

 

This is an almost one-hour long presentation by our "house ufologist" Richard Dolan on the latest (fourth) tranche of released UFO files c/o the Trump admin. Despite the frankly boring format, it does contain some very interesting information. Although of course no "disclosure" sensu stricto.

For instance, the air force was aware of at least two UFO observations *before* that of Kenneth Arnold. One of these involved multiple trained observers of weather balloons, who also saw a very large metallic object shaped like a disc. The military also noted that many UFOs were observed around Los Alamos, various nuclear facilities and air force bases. Trained balloon observers in New Mexico saw strange objects making impossible maneuvers. 

In 1949, high-ranking members of the military, the government and even the FBI held a classified conference at Los Alamos to discuss the "green fireballs" which had appeared around the research facility. None other than Edward Teller was there, trying to explain away the UFOs as meteorites, but eventually admitting that they couldn´t be so - provided the reports were accurate. Teller still thought that the physics of the fireballs made no sense!

The main suspect was (surprise) the Soviet Union. The military believed that the objects such be intercepted and identified. The matter is treated as a legitimate security / intelligence problem. Many of the witnesses were high quality: air force officers, air line pilots, astronomers, police officers. But in public, Project Grudge said that all UFOs have conventional explanations and that many witnesses are kooks or hoaxers!

Can all "skeptics" please go home now?

Frankly, none of this is super-surprising, but I suppose it´s good to finally get official confirmation. On a funnier note, the secret files also mention the avrocar, an actual attempt by the US military to build...ahem...a flying saucer. This in a CIA report dismissive of UFO observations?!

More disturbing is a 2015 case, during which an unknown flying object was spotted over the Pantex nucelar power plant, the most sensitive military installation in the United States (where the nuclear missiles are assembled). It could have been a drone, but if so, who was daring enough to send it there? Let´s hope it was just a drill! 

On YouTube, everyone concentrates on a number of fairly bizarre videos, but Dolan is unimpressed by these. One probably shows a deformed balloon (something even the observer himself suspected), while the "star-shaped UFO" is just an artefact of the tracking equipment.

We´re either subject to some kind of next level disinfo, or objects far exceeding human technological capacity have been observed in "our" airspace (and in "theirs" too) since at least the end of World War II.

Hmmm...

The XYZ files

 

- I don´t know, Zorgon-Globb, I think these released UFO files are a nothing-burger, probably a diversion from the Strait of Hormuz situation. Besides, everyone already believes in aliens after that unfortunate little incident of yours at Roswell...

- Nah, my dear Amida, that wasn´t us, it was a human weather balloon!

The alien interview

 

A weird spin on the Roswell mythos. In this version, the crashed alien is female. Her message sounds like a syncretic blend of New Age, Scientology, David Icke, John Keel and some kind of Neo-Gnosticism. It´s surprisingly elaborate and "consistent". Evidence? None. But then, the entire point of the exercise is that we´re the victims of a grand cosmic conspiracy only known to a select few. Think Gnostic prison planet, false memory implants, that kind of thing. 

Fascinating after a fashion. But probably not, you know, true. Indeed, skeptics suspect that this new space opera *is* a front for the "Church" of Scientology...

Silver Alert

 

This is probably a nothing-burger, but it´s making waves on-line as we speak. "General who knew all the UFO secrets mysteriously missing". Even a Swedish tabloid has entered the fray. Obviously a tie-in to Trump´s UFO/UAP disclosure statement. 

FBI joins search for missing retired Air Force general with ties to UFO-linked military base 

Roswell debunked?

 

The real evidence is stashed away in a top secret hangar, bruh. Of course that little piece of alloy isn´t extraterrestrial. Failed experiment indeed!

Or am I just being ironic? Self-ironic, maybe...

Thriving before Armageddon

 

Here we go again. New evidence confirming that the (non-avian) dinosaurs weren´t in decline before the asteroid hit. Nupe, they were thriving and doing just fine, making that impact a genuine disaster. 

Dinosaurs were thriving before asteroid annihilated them all

Encounter at Farpoint

 

Copilot Designer has huge problems imagining the Socorro UFO case. This was the closest proposal...  

Home to Socorro

 

I always considered the Socorro incident to be one of the best UFO cases on record. However, it´s also one of the most "physical" UFO cases, which is compatible with both the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (nuts-and-bolts) and some kind of earthly explanation. The fact that the military were so keen on investigating the case can likewise be given both sinister and more mundane explanations, the most obvious being that what police officer Lonnie Zamora saw in 1964 was a classified NASA test flight. The White Sands Missile Range is in the same general area of New Mexico. 

The explanation favored by the content-creator who posted the video linked to above is that it was all a hoax, orchestrated by students at the nearby New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Zamora had previously worked at this university and was apparently not popular there. The problem with this scenario, as even the content-creator admits, is that it would have to be the hoax of the century! 

As far as I can tell, none of the "natural" explanations can give a credible account of how the UFO could move away from the area with incredible speed, once it was up in the air...

Fairies?  

Reverse aging

 

A comb jelly
Credit: Steven G Johnson

A kind of weird experiment, would probably have been considered cruelty to animals had it not been a primitive/basal jellyfish-like organism, so the RSPCA and the ALF don´t give shit! Still, I suppose the ability to "reverse aging" is...interesting. What a pity it´s only cnidarians, comb jellies and the dog tapeworm (!) that has this unusual ability. 

This sea creature can age in reverse

The next link goes to a Wiki article about "Ming the Mollusk", a quahog clam and the oldest animal ever recorded. Or rather "the oldest individual (non-colonial) animal ever discovered whose age could be precisely determined". Yes, it was 507 years old when it was captured and killed (!) off the Icelandic coast. So this damn mollusc was older than our industrial civilization?!

Ming (clam)  

And if you absolutely want to read Wikipedia´s confusing list of the oldest organisms ever-ever-forever (many considerably more ancient than poor old Ming), you can find it here. I *think* the absolutely oldest living "things" ever were bacterial spores found in New Mexico which were revived after 250 million years. And then there´s the story about the scientist in California who sold "Amber Ale" produced with a 45 million year old revived yeast!

Somehow, I find that hard to believe. 

List of longest-living organisms

Forbidden archeology

 

"Yes, I´m George F Carter.
I´m an ascended master now!"

 

 

INCREDIBLE HISTORY is a moderately alternative history channel on YouTube. The content-creator, William Brown, is open to speculations about hyper-diffusionism, ancient aliens and ditto giants, but doesn´t go as far as, say, "Ancient Aliens". 

The clips above feature Hopi legends about ant-people from the sky, Utah´s Great Gallery, the Los Lunas Decalogue stone and the Bat Creek inscription. The usual suspects feature Mormons, Masons, Marranos and - you guessed it - aliens. 

Funny how all cultures around the world have legends about spirit-like beings coming down from the sky or up from the underground, I´m sure that´s just a co-incidence... 

Satanic panic

 

Has everyone lost their minds, or what? Both the author and the people he is writing about. Some kind of world breaking record, this one. Premonition of things to come?

"Cosmopolitan" admits abortion is Satanic 

The Why Files deception

 

Warning! Contains major spoilers!

Not sure what to make of this content. The Why Files talks about the Roswell incident as if it was true...until they don´t. Do they believe in Roswell or don´t they? I for one believe the government is telling the truth...well, kind of, at any rate.

Make of that sagely statement what ye wish!

 

Richard Doty strikes again

 

Richard Doty is a notorious disinfo agent inserted into the UFO-logy community by some Amerikan intelligence service. Unless he is auto-planted, LOL. Doty was involved in the so-called Bennewitz case (see my review of “Project Beta” by Greg Bishop). I didn´t know he was also behind the Project Serpo legend. Well, the quasi-cultish UFO and Roswell enthusiasts had it coming if you ask me, so I can´t say I fault Mr Doty for his ops. Hats off to the guy!

The details of the Serpo saga varies a bit depending on the source of your (real?) info, but the bottom line is that Doty fed it to the UFO-logy community in order to create conflict and pandemonium. The story is an expansion of the Roswell mythos. It essentially claims that a dozen human astronauts were allowed to visit “Serpo”, the supposed home planet of the aliens that crashed at Roswell. The material then describes life and technology on Serpo in some detail, and even contains a photo of the planet´s two suns. The whole thing reads like a boring scy fy novel. Apart from the almost obligatory double star system, there are accounts of human cloning, mysterious electronic devices, pills containing all the nutrition you need, and so on. The aliens are surprisingly “human” in their lifestyle, despite looking like stereotypical Greys. They have nuclear families, pray to some kind of god, their females are less aggressive and more nice towards the astronauts than their males, and their planet was previously threatened by overpopulation. And just like the contactee stories of the 1950´s and 1960´s, the aliens have certain “hippie” traits, such as being vegetarian.

Apparently, Doty or whoever is behind this actually got the idea from a science fiction writer, Alice Bradley Sheldon (a.k.a. James Tiptree jr.), who also worked for the CIA! That would indeed explain a thing or two. The video above is from the Why Files, an entertaining YouTube channel devoted to exploring various paranormal and alternative claims. Apart from telling the story of Project Serpo and kind of debunk it, the channel also makes some *really* weird claims about why the Serpo lore was created in the first place (won´t spoil your fun by disclosing it here). If the claims are true, then Doty simply recycled the story decades later to fool the UFO-logy community.

We can´t say we haven´t been warned!

Kill all the brutes

 

Credit: Jonathan Chen

"Mystery of the Ice Giants" is a German documentary about the relatively sudden disappearence of the Paleolithic megafauna at the end of the "Ice Age". Was it due to naturally occuring climate change? Or did humans hunt the mammoths and other megafaunal species to extinction? The film team follows a group of paleontologists as they trek around the world, trying to shade some light on the mystery. White Sands in New Mexico, the Yukon in Canada and Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic are visited. The culprit is soon identified: yes, it was Stone Age human hunters. 

The megafauna had already survived several periods of severe climate change. When a glacial period ended, the so-called mammoth steppe where most of the megafauna lived shrank considerably, replaced by huge forests. However, the animals dependent on a steppe habitat simply moved to the few refugia where such an environment still existed, staging a comeback when the interglacial was over and the steppes became great again. Why didn´t this happen again at the end of the latest glaciation? The new factor simply must be Homo sapiens. At Dolne Vestonice, virtual "mass graves" filled with mammoth bones (usually from young specimens) have been found. There is also evidence from North America that humans hunted ground sloths and cave bears. Personally, I was fascinated by the Yukon, where the paleontologists can simply pick up fossils as they walk around the riverside, including well preserved mammoth tusks! 

Mammoths were hunted for the meat, but also for the fat, apparently a necessity in a cold climate with very little plant-based food available Over 60% of the food intake of Paleolithic humans was mammoth meat. One of the scientists featured speculate that the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe were dark-skinned (they were originally from Africa, after all) and therefore couldn´t produce enough vitamin D naturally from the sun light. This made it even more necessary to hunt mammoths, presumably to harvest the fatty tissue. (I suppose somebody somewhere might find it uncomfortable that Blacks and the ancestors of the American Indians were behind the first mass extinction in human history, but there you go.) 

When mammoths and other large herbivores were gone, the carnivores preying on them also went extinct. The sabre-toothed tiger known as smilodon was evidently specially adapted to hunt and kill such animals. With them gone, the weird-looking feline with its huge canines (sorry, couldn´t help myself) was doomed. Climate change also played a role, however. What made the impact of human hunters extra severe was that the end of "the Ice Age" reversed the climate yet again, dramatically shrinking the traditional grazing and hunting grounds of the megafauna. A few mammoths actually survived in Siberia, but where stuck on Wrangel Island when sea levels rose, eventually starving to death when food sources got scarce. 

But I´m sure "primitive" peoples have something important to teach us about "conservation ethics", right? Right.  

Environmental destruction began during the Stone Age. 

The other Roswell

This is an incredibly dragging documentary about a once famous UFO case, the 1948 saucer crash in Aztec, New Mexico, United States. It happened after the 1947 Roswell incident and was actually more famous for a number of years. The main reason was that the Aztec crash was seriously treated by journalist Frank Scully in two articles and a best-selling book, “Behind the Flying Saucers”.

Unfortunately for Scully, the case was exposed as a hoax just a few years later. It seems Scully´s main sources, Silas Newton and Leo A Gebauer, were notorious conmen who had tried to sell a “doodlebug” supposedly based on alien technology from the downed saucer! (A doodlebug is a miraculous device with the help of which one can supposedly find oil faster than with any standard method.) Newton and Gebauer were convicted of fraud in 1953, and after this the Aztec incident faded into obscurity…until now. UFO researcher Scott Ramsey has reopened the case and believes it to be a genuine one. He is interviewed in this documentary, together with Stanton Friedman (who popularized the Roswell crash) and Nick Redfern, British author of books about things occult and paranormal. Weirdly for a UFO documentary, a non-token skeptic is also featured, a certain Karl Pflock.

My conclusion after watching this material is that it´s *possible* that something crashed in Aztec that day, and that the two con artists knew too much about it, which may explain why the FBI were keeping tabs on them. But what was it? Roswell was a classified weather balloon used by USAF to spy on the Soviets, so chances are that Aztec was something similar, perhaps a spy plane of some sort. As usual, the story didn´t lose anything in retelling, Newton and Gebauer got wind of it, and then tricked Scully to promote it. After reading John Michael Greer´s “The UFO Phenomenon” and Greg Bishop´s “Project Beta”, I believe that many UFOs are really earthly military aircraft and similar gadgets. Sometimes, UFO lore is used as a smokescreen *by the military itself* to hide the fact that what crash landed was really a piece of USAF hardware (non-enhanced by alien tech). This has been misinterpreted by US ufologists as a conspiracy to hide the truth about aliens!

That being said, my main objection to “Aztec 1948 UFO Crash” is that it´s quite boring and contains a lot of filler. You probably need to be a hard line UFO buff to enjoy this production. If you are, I readily concede that you will find it interesting.

And yes, the X-Files character Dana Scully is named after Frank Scully.

I'm not saying it was the government, but it was the government

I admit I was somewhat skeptical when I read John Michael Greer's “The UFO Phenomenon”, which argues that many UFOs are secret military craft (not controversial in itself) *and* that the US government promotes belief in UFOs and aliens as a way to cover up the fact. This sounds like a farfetched conspiracy of a kind the gargantuan bureaucratic colossus known as the federal administration simply isn't fit to pull off. Right?

That's where you're wrong, kiddo.

Besides, it wasn't the government bureaucratic apparat. It was the military's spook community, a very different animal altogether. Greer knew this, of course, and now I'm wiser, too.

“Project Beta” by Greg Bishop tells the bizarre but mostly true story of Paul Bennewitz, a true believer in UFOs, aliens and alien-government conspiracies and his interaction with a host of military-related intelligence agencies. Bennewitz, who lived and worked literally door-to-door (or rather fence-to-fence) with the Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, believed that hostile aliens from outer space had infiltrated the area surrounding the base, perhaps with the help of human turncoats. The aliens abducted people, mutilated cattle and prepared an alien invasion of planet Earth. Usually, the authorities would have regarded Bennewitz as a harmless crank and thought nothing more of it. However, there were some problems. First, Bennewitz was a competent businessman and inventor who provided the military itself with various gadgets. Second, the problem of cattle mutilations was real and had gotten the attention of a Congressman at federal level. Third, Bennewitz had photographed “UFOs” flying around inside the military parameters, and partially decoded mysterious signals sent from somewhere inside the base area. At this time, the UFO research community was heavily infiltrated by agents working for a number of US agencies, but also by KGB assets. Both groups suspected - rightly, as it would turn out – that the harmless cranks of ufology might inadvertently have come across information about top secret Cold War defense projects.

This was definitely the case with Bennewitz. His photos really did show secret experiments with stealth planes, laser beams etc. The decoded signals were, of course, also highly classified. Under “normal” conditions, a man like Bennewitz could presumably be arrested (or even made to quietly disappear), but air force intelligence (AFOSI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) wanted to know exactly how much he knew and how. They hired another ufologist, Bill Moore, to spy on Bennewitz, while also contacting Bennewitz directly, pretending to be concerned about the “alien invasion” while feeding him disinformation of a highly advanced nature. Moore was also fed disinformation (and perhaps a few tidbits of real info) in return for his work as a mole. The military actually transmitted phony “alien messages” to Bennewitz' TV, showing “alien” faces, pictures from the alien “home planet”, etc. In reality, these were scrambled versions of old science fiction flicks! His communication devices were manipulated to pick up “alien transmissions” in badly garbled English, really random phrases spewed out by a computer at the Kirtland base. Bennewitz was also given guided tours of a restricted area around Dulce, at safe distance from the Kirtland military base where the real action was going on. A number of cloak-and-dagger burglaries into Bennewitz' home made most of the *real* evidence disappear. The unfortunate ufologist eventually became clinically paranoid and ended up in a mental asylum…

Much of the disinformation fed to Bennewitz and Moore to cover up the (man-made) secrets at Kirtland have become standard UFO lore and then found its way into broader pop culture, most notably the supposed existence of “Majestic-12”, a secret government cabal that knows “the truth” about the impending alien invasion. In this way, the NSA, AFOSI and other spooks seeded much of the conspiracy theories enthusiasts in the UFO research community assume are sensational “disclosures” of government secrets. The real truth (including the existence of the Stealth bomber) remained under wraps, until such time the US government and military saw fit to disclose it for real. Thus, the government follows a two-pronged strategy: on the one hand, deny and perhaps ridicule all UFO observations (or simply refuse to comment). On the other hand, promote belief in extraterrestrial craft and exotic conspiracies to lure ufologists off the track, while making them even easier to ridicule (see prong one). Which makes me wonder how much UFO belief today is really intelligence service disinfo? The so-called Phoenix Lights comes to mind here, including the peculiar gyrations of Arizona governor Fife Symington over the issue. Of course it's military craft.

“Project Beta” is an interesting read about a seemingly unrealistic conspiracy theory which happens to be true. Ironically, it will remain a fringe-of-the-fringe belief for another generation or so. I can hear both skeptics and true believers laughing derisively at this review. Another win for the Deep State, right there.

Made me feel like a UFO

A review of "Hangar 1", posted on December 25, 2014. 

I've watched a couple of episodes of this misguided series, aired at "History" Channel. It might be interesting for those completely obsessed by the UFO mythology, or those completely new to it. Personally, I was simply tired by it. Once again, we get to meet Bob Lazar and the MIBs, hear about Majestic-12 and Forrestal's suicide...and then there's Roswell, Roswell, Roswell, the true Jerusalem of UFO-logy.

Get real, guys, Roswell really was a "weather" balloon (actually, a classified spy balloon against Ivan). Many classical UFO observations were experimental balloons of this kind, or other kinds of secret craft. Some have proposed that the U.S. military deliberately engineered belief in "aliens" to more easily cover-up their own, very earthly, secrets. Thus, both the debunkers and the "believers" are working for Uncle Sam! I originally didn't believe the U.S. authorities were capable of pulling such a double bluff, I mean they couldn't stop Uncle Joe from stealing the bomb, but then it struck me that...well, how come so many people are ready to believe everything aired on History? There's your answer, right there. A stupid administration tricks an even more stupid people (the same people who elected it in the first place). As for MUFON, I wouldn't be surprised if *they* are in on the conspiracy. Perhaps some of their financers are "assets" of the intelligence community...?

I don't think there is a single phenomenon known as "UFOs", except in the culturally constructed minds of ufologists and the UFO-believing part of the public. In reality, we are dealing with many different phenomena, some of whom may be truly "paranormal" or "spiritual", while others are probably unknown natural phenomena, hallucinations or (surprise) misidentified, secret military craft. That's why the UFO phenomenon is so unwieldy, and simply makes no sense - not if you really start looking into it. Its because it's really about a dozen different phenomena, from out-of-body experiences to Stealth bombers, from earth lights to quasi-religious cults. Add commercial TV and some paranoia, and voilà, you have the modern UFO phenomenon! Makes me feel like a UFO...

Good books on the stuff: John Michael Greer's "The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation", Paul Devereux' "Earth Lights: Towards an Understanding of the UFO Enigma" and Albert Budden's "Electric UFOs".

Merry Christmas! :D

Macho dragonflies

(A review of the book "Dragonflies and damselflies of Texas and the South-Central United States" by John C Abbott) 

This is an extensive field guide to the odonates of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. It covers 263 species. Rather than illustrations, it features color photos of all species covered. I'm not sure if field guides with photos are better than the usual ones - I suspect they might actually be somewhat worse. But then, I don't commute to the Deep South looking for dragonflies...

Otherwise, the book contains the usual features of a field guide: checklists, keys, drawings of the appendages of similar species, etc. The species presentations include information on size, regional distribution (both the biotic province and watersheds), flight season, identification, similar species and references. The extensive list of references makes the book valuable for advanced students of entomology. Thus, it could function both as an identification guide and a reference work. There are also range maps. Both vernacular and scientific names of the various species have been included.

This is the only book on odonates I've seen which claims that dragonflies can actually hurt humans. The author claims that female dragonflies occasionally mistake the leg of a wader or river rafter for a plant when laying her eggs: "Though I have never experienced this first-hand, those that have confirm that having a dragonfly attempt to lay eggs in you is painful". Why haven't we been told this before? Are even the beautiful, sweet-looking, multi-colored dragonflies dangerous to our health?

Or are dragonflies in Texas particularly macho?

I'm not sure how to rate this book, since I haven't been anywhere near the Alamo, but I'm sure it's useful as a reference and general presentation of the species found in South-Central United States. For that reason, I give it four stars.