A Warning from a Personal Inspiration

Many individuals are concerned about a variety of potential natural catastrophes that may transpire here on Earth. I’ve been debating on whether or not to write about this particular one but the very recent coronal mass ejection from the Sun pushed me ever forward.

Ostensibly there was a time when human ancestors had not yet begun to speak. Wikipedia proclaims that “modern” humans emerged from Africa 300,000 years ago. There were proto humans prior to that date in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia/Oceana.

After speech evolved, objects were signified by an associated sound. This happens in other mammals as well. Domestic cats, for example, often make one sound if they see birds out the window and another when asking their humans for food. Chances are very great that human ancestors made associative sounds more than 300,000 years ago.

Then came writing which was a huge development for humans. The first writing was pictographs, a small somewhat standardized drawing of the object being communicated. This is commonly estimated to have happened around 9000 BC around the inhabited world but especially in Mesopotamia. I am persuaded that it actually happened somewhat earlier than that, before the end of the last Ice Age, but that is a story for a different day, fascinating though it is. Terence McKenna opined that pictographic writing is superior to phonic writing because it comes more directly from nature, while phonic writing associates a letter with a sound. Eckhart Tolle often uses the phase that this word or that merely points to the concept. It is important to remember that the word is not the object or idea itself, it just suggests or points to it.

During ancient times and the Middle Ages, countless hours were spent copying manuscripts by hand and were sometimes beautifully “illuminated” or illustrated with careful drawings. Many of these manuscripts were religious or devotional in nature. Prior to widespread writing people like Homer in ancient times, and today aboriginal singers in places like Australia and the Dogon people in East Africa have preserved knowledge and stories through memorized songs and chants that have changed little in millennia .

Everything began to change with Gutenberg’s perfection of moveable type in 1450. Moveable type was also developed in China and Korea perhaps 100 years earlier but not popularized nor as automated. Mostly Gutenberg printed Bibles. But soon other things were printed as well. In the mid 19th Century totally automated printing was developed in New York City by Richard M. Hoe and then the average American could afford to buy a book or a newspaper. Things were really changing. There were fewer illiterate people in developed countries. (This short narrative is not meant to be a definitive history of printing, but rather it is meant to establish a time line.)

Fast forward to around 1990 and personal computers have become affordable for the masses in industrialized countries. This was followed quickly by the Internet, which really revolutionized human interaction and socialization and it was followed quickly by cellphones which are owned by people all over the world in many disparate cultures. Now a rancher in Oklahoma can call or text an imam in Egypt who can call a factory worker in Thailand who can call a Saami reindeer herder in Northern Lapland who can call her stockbroker in London who can call me for an intuitive reading. :-D!

Up until at least 2000 many scholars and erudite people had large libraries of books some of which were rare and on arcane subjects not of interest to many, such as pastoral Bulgarian poetry of the 17th Century or Blood types present in Ecuadorian red parrots. 

I received an article from my friend Rox, about how people who were downsizing their book collections were not able to sell the books to used bookstores or donate them to libraries. Most of these books were unwanted due to “THE CLOUD”!!! Most of us know that the cloud is a place in cyberspace where one can store digital copies of books and archives. One can also store bunches of books and photos from one’s digital device (cell phone or computer). The cloud in cyberspace is a network of servers. To understand the cloud better, I recommend an article in Medium.

East Village Books owner Donald Davis pointed out that books bought from Amazon and similar sellers and stored on Kindle are only leased and not owned by you, the “buyer”, or more accurately the renter.

So what I have hoped to do above is to establish an ever quickening pace of collection, sharing and storage of human knowledge.

Language 300,000 years ago, symbolic writing more than 11,000 years ago, first printing perfected 600 years ago, mass printing 170 years ago, computerization of communication about 30 years ago and human knowledge stored in the cloud for about the last 10 years. Can you see the quickening?

So back to the idea that books are being discarded in favor of the cloud. This may not be best practice because on September 1, 1859 the Sun sent out coronal mass ejections from sunspots that fried much of the world’s telegraph systems. Telegraph was cutting edge technology at that time and a British astronomer named Richard Carrington saw the eruptions happen through his telescope and so the disaster bears his name, the Carrington Event. 

Since that time the world has depended more heavily on electromagnetic media in the cloud and nearly every home is on the electric grid of its country or state. Should that grid massively fail as it is very likely in a huge geomagnetic storm or an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack by a global adversary, civilization would be taken back to the Dark Ages or worse. A geomagnetic storm can fry the large transformers that carry electricity across a nation’s electrical grid. There is not a huge supply of new transformers out there to reinstall an entire nation’s grid and all information stored in the cloud would evaporate faster than a puff of smoke. It seems like a foregone conclusion that this will happen. The only question is when.

When it does happen much of human knowledge would be eradicated forever.

Of course this blog, Shattered Reality Podcast, online banking, and all your personal photos stored on your computer and in the cloud will also be irretrievably lost. Saving a hard copy of your favorite picture of your mother or your cat is recommended, however an event like this of great magnitude would likely be the end of civilization as we know it.

Though I would never say I channeled this blog spot, I was very pushed by something outside myself to write it.

Fahrusha is a blogger, podcaster and professional intuitive. She encourages all polite comments to this blog and endeavors to answer them in a timely fashion.

 

Extraterrestrial Evolution

Depiction of meteor crashing into the Gulf of Mexico in the late Cretaceous Period.

Extraterrestrial evolution is a topic of great interest to me in a number of ways. The thought of this may be bizarre to many people, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. There are four factors that come immediately to mind.

1. There are probably billions of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy and quadrillions in other telescopically visible galaxies. Scientists disagree on how many of these other worlds might generate life, but few think we are alone. Even the Vatican is very open to the concept of extraterrestrial intelligent beings.
2. Some great cosmological thinkers have posited the idea of panspermia, including Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe and the late Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001). Panspermia is defined by Google as the theory that life on Earth originated from microorganisms or chemical precursors of life present in outer space which were able to initiate life upon reaching a suitable environment. Today a scientist in the UK named Professor Milton Wainwright is sending up balloons to the stratosphere to discover microbial life from space. Think spores traveling on comets etc.
3. Though it seems to me that much evidence points to the idea that Earth has been visited multiple times by extraterrestrials, thoughts and theories about extraterrestrial evolution do not depend for their validity on extraterrestrial visitation.
4. The fourth factor is an open question: Would such life follow a set pattern similar to life on Earth, or would extraterrestrial evolution take an entirely different path or could both ideas be true?

This blog post will deal mostly with this fourth factor, that is, the open question. It has been both rumored and openly stated that NASA and JPL have quashed reports and evidence of life on Mars and other spheres. Most prominently I think of assertions made by Dr. John Brandenburg, formerly of NASA, about advanced life on Mars; and of evidence of certain findings of primitive organisms (crinoids) visually identical to Earth organisms discovered by Dr. Richard Hoover, 46 year veteran NASA astrobiologist and “Inventor of the Year”. In fact, I wrote a blog post about that a few years ago that can be accessed HERE. This is particularly important to the the rest of my thinking on this subject of extraterrestrial evolution.

If the organism found by JPL on Mars is, in actuality, largely identical to those found on Earth, it seems to point to the idea that extraterrestrial life might always or often evolve in the same or similar manner. One frequently discussed concept that follows in this direction is the controversial idea that some extraterrestrials who have purportedly visited the Earth are Reptilians. The theory goes something like this: if the dinosaurs who once inhabited the Earth were not killed off by a comet or large meteor which struck the Gulf of Mexico at end of the Cretaceous Period, would they have perhaps evolved into self conscious bipedal beings who might roam the galaxy? And if so, is it not possible or indeed likely that on other suitable planets in the galaxy or beyond such Reptilians might exist, if in fact, evolution follows a similar model everywhere? In this discussion somewhere, one must consider non-human very intelligent life forms right here on Earth that have not developed with bi-lateral symmetry. I am thinking here of cephalopods like squid. That might derail the similar evolution everywhere theory as the sole way life could evolve.

On the other hand, is it possible or likely that evolution throughout the cosmos looks nothing like Earthly evolution? I’d say certainly that is possible and in certain circumstances probable. One probable circumstance resulting in a different evolutionary pattern might be an environment where the building blocks of life are not carbon based or not dependent on water or oxygen. Dear Reader, does your definition of “life” depend on breathing or respiration? Furthermore, should it? Perhaps consciousness is a better definition of life than taking breath.

But are these ideas of evolution in the cosmos mutually exclusive? I don’t think so. Ponder this: perhaps life develops in a similar evolutionary pattern where carbon and water are available, and totally differently where they are not. I am not stating conclusively that this is the case, but it certainly provides food, no a feast, for thought.

Fahrusha is a professional intuitive and co-host of “Shattered Reality Podcast”.

 

Annihilation or the Triumph of Consciousness?

This post was inspired by two articles that I recently posted on Shattered Reality Podcast‘s fan page on Facebook.

The first article comes from the BBC and is entitled: Earth ‘entering new extinction phase’-US study. This article, frankly, makes all other news reports irrelevant and unimportant by comparison. You should click the link and read it for yourself, but briefly it outlines a Stanford, Princeton, and Berkeley study that states that Earth has begun the sixth mass extinction which will put an end to human kind and all large mammals, most birds and amphibians, due to human overpopulation, destruction of ecosystems and global warming. The loss of bees is particularly important. It is a very bleak picture indeed.

It is articles like this and being bombarded with news stories of humans perpetrating unconscionable acts on other humans, companion animals and the ecosystem that makes me frequently disgusted with, disappointed in, and wanting no part of the species to which I apparently belong. This is obviously not a good state of mind to be in, especially since it is most healthy to exist in a mental space of unconditional love. I spend much of my focused meditation time on projecting unconditional love to Our Planet Earth and the Sun and to numerous animal and plant species.

The second article: Evidence Group Consciousness May Have a Physical Effect on the World gives a little hope. Referencing the Roger Nelson’s PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) studies with Random Event Generators, this article points out that individuals can have a physical effect on the generators, couples exert a larger effect and groups of cohesive individuals can have the biggest effect recorded. Please read this excellent article by Daniel Lew to better understand Random Number Generators and Random Event Generators.

Roger Nelson, Ph.D. Head of the Global Consciousness Project (courtesy of noosphere.princeton.edu)

The idea that we as a group could have a tangible effect on physical reality may be mind boggling to some, but it is also the predictible flowering of the fruit of quantum mechanics. Though the PEAR lab at Princeton closed a few years ago, Roger Nelson has continued with his work now called The Global Consciousness Project. This may be the most important consciousness research going on in the world right now and our last best hope to save ourselves. I personally want to learn more about it and so should you.

Addendum: This article in no way means to imply that every human on Earth should not do her and his best to be as ecologically aware as possible to preserve our environment the Earth.

Update:

Fahrusha and Kate Valentine are proud to present Dr. Roger Nelson, former research director at PEAR Lab and head of the Global Consciousness Project.

https://shatteredrealitypodcast.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/54-dr-roger-nelson-and-the-global-consciousness-project/

Fahrusha is an intuitive reader, teacher of creative visualization, and co-host of the popular Shattered Reality Podcast. She welcomes comments on this blog. She can also be reached at: fahrusha@fahrusha.com

 

Trending on the Pathway to Contact

In the past on this blog I have pointed toward what I thought is/was the direction of “disclosure”. Now I am seeing a provocative new direction becoming widespread regarding contact with possible extraterrestrials. This is not entirely new, but the sudden widespread proliferation of these ideas on two entirely different fronts is to me a sign of things to come, a Zeitgeist if you will.

The two fronts are a.) the edge science community and b.) the ufology/experiencer community.

At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose (February 2015), Dr. Seth Shostak of SETI, expressed the opinion that the time has come to begin the proactive search for contact with extraterrestrials. Since 1960 (first incarnation) SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) has pointed an array of radio telescopes at the heavens in hopes of discovering a radio signal from another civilization in space. There have only been minor results. The criticism of this method is simply that the “radio age” on Earth has been short, beginning in the 2oth Century and tapering off in the 21st Century, so why radio waves? See Stanton Friedman’s argument here.

Shostak believes that we should attempt to send the contents of the Internet out toward “goldilocks” exoplanets that are being discovered currently. The assumption here is that these planets are most likely to harbor technologically advanced beings. (Forgive me, I digress here to multiple daydreams of gelatinous squid-like aliens reading my blog [and others], watching multiple cat videos, and seeing accounts of humans murdering one another and destroying their only environment.) This does not account for non-carbon based life forms that may exist and assumes a similar path of evolution. But that is a subject for another post.

 

Moon Anomalies

An example of purposely blurred photograph of the moon discovered by Ken Pfeifer.

Notice: I have spent quite a bit of time adding links to this post, while trying not to add too much of my personal opinion. If you are interested in lunar anomalies, you are well advised to follow these links, where you may find some compelling images and information. Then you can make up your own mind about these phenomena.

There’s a lot we know about the moon: It’s roughly one-sixth the size of the Earth, is about 4.6 billion years old, is approximately 238,000 miles distant from the Earth, has no atmosphere, and is covered with fine gray powder. There is more water in the moon than was once thought. Humans have walked on the moon during six Apollo missions, and we’ve sent many more probes there to map it and study it, but somewhat oddly NASA hasn’t sent humans back there since the 1970s. As I write this, China has an unmanned probe called Jade Rabbit (or Yutu in Mandarin Chinese) on the lunar surface.

But there’s much we don’t know about our nearest space neighbor, too. We’re not sure where it came from. Some think it might be a broken-off chunk of Earth. But this is unlikely because analysis indicates that the amounts of the elements in the Moon’s and the Earth’s compositions are sufficiently different to make it unlikely that the Moon formed directly from the Earth. And there’s evidence that the Moon once had active volcanoes, but we’re not sure if it’s still geologically active. There are so many theories about the origin of our celestial satellite from the prosaic to the bizarre that I could write numerous blog posts on that subject alone. It has been posited that the Moon may be a hollow, artificial spaceship from another civilization.

 

Who Speaks for Earth?

If you are a skeptic regarding life beyond the Earth and/or UFOs, suspend disbelief for a few moments and ponder the possibilities. If an alien race were to contact or visit our planet Earth with whom would they (or it) want to communicate? This would depend on several factors.

Certain people who study such things are drawn to the hypothesis that all evolution across the Galaxy, and perhaps across the Universe would follow a similar pattern. This hypothesis is bolstered by yet another hypothesis called panspermia. According to this theory, life is seeded throughout the galaxy by objects (often and most prominently comets) flying through the cosmos. When a comet, composed largely of ice, passes close to a star, a tail or coma is generated due to the gravitational and magnetic force of the star. The coma is the visible part of the matter ejected from the comet. The matter ejected could contain dormant spores and viruses which over time, as the planets circle their star, may rain down on them in small quantities when the planets pass through the trajectory of that comet. (Please read about the theory of panspermia by Hoyle and Wickramasinge.) So if all life originated on different planets from these same building blocks it might be expected to follow a similar pattern. I find this to be an attractive hypothesis but it has not been definitively proven.

It is plausible that there are several evolutionary paths that cause life to form on different planets. There could be a pathway that uses methane as a main building block or silicon in place of carbon. There could be life forms which neither breath nor respire. The possibilities are virtually limitless and depend on how we define life. Does life require breathing, breeding or consciousness; or all three?

Earth as viewed from NASA’s Apollo 8 mission. (courtesy of NASA)

Then we come to the question of size and purpose. The size of the beings would probably be in some way related to the gravitational force of the planet on which they evolved. If the beings chose to communicate with Earth from afar, size would not be a major factor. Purpose, however, would be. Since the first episodes of Star Trek, ufologists and other interested folks have been entranced by the idea of a galactic federation of humanoid beings. Such an idea postulates that advanced alien races have banded together in some manner for the good of the Galaxy or Universe. With such a worldview or Weltanschauung, the alien beings wish us here on Earth no harm and may even be following some form of anti-interference code.

Other prominent ideas include aliens visiting our solar system in order to mine or retrieve elements or compounds unavailable on their home planet or galactic neighborhood. High on the list of things that some say the visitors may have come for are water and gold. Another less savory theory (for humans anyway) is that aliens may come to abduct, mutilate, enslave or consume us and our animal companions (cattle mutilations). Or maybe there are different aliens and inter-dimensional creatures visiting or communicating for different purposes.

In ufology circles, one often hears a comment to the effect that in order for the truth to be revealed about UFOs, a space ship would have to land on the White House lawn. I find this rather comical in an anthropocentric and Americocentric way. Why do we think other beings would want to communicate with the American government or any other human government? Why would they want to communicate with humans at all? We have done such a piss poor job of maintaining the Planet that we are likely to become largely extinct within the next two hundred years. Why not speak to the cetaceans (whales and dolphins) or cephalopods (squids and octopi)? Both groups have highly intelligent member groups and the cetaceans appear very peace loving. Perhaps the visiting alien race has a “group mind” and certain insects such as ants, bees or termites would be the object of their communiques.

Or in a more sinister vein, suppose the world from which the strangers sprang never had a major asteroid collision? The dinosaurs were the dominant group on the Earth for more than 180 million years before the asteroid hit (theory) and wiped them out, far longer than humanity has been the dominant (and now over-populating) Earth species. I am not the first person to speculate that reptilians could be visiting, or insectoids, for that matter.

Any species capable of travelling or communicating across the light years of interstellar space would certainly be more technologically advanced than humanity, and could be sending out self replicating robots to do their dirty work (can you spell Greys? :-)) It is also possible that they have learned to communicate mind to mind and do not require radio waves (So much for SETI!) or other physical means of communication. Furthermore they could logically be capable of affecting our minds into seeing what they want us to see and be seen or not seen as they wish it. After all, octopi and other earth based life forms practice effective camouflage and they have never even invented the wheel.

But supposing these aliens wanted to communicate, who would they choose? I maintain that it would depend on their purpose. Benevolent aliens would not choose to communicate with violent beings who are destroying their environment unless they had a means by which to alter this rapacious behavior.

Fahrusha is a professional intuitive who thinks a lot about cosmology.

 

Happy Earth Day 2013

Grape hyacinth & primrose
All rights reserved © R. Shaw

Happy Earth Day, everyone! This year Earth Day has fallen on a Monday so this past weekend there were many events and ecological protests in many places including huge hearts from around the world, aerially photographed and dutifully posted on FaceBook. But how far have we come? Have people changed their habits to benefit our environment?

This morning I took a yoga class at a very nice studio. The place was clean, the staff was friendly and the instructor knew her subject. It seemed like a wonderful way to celebrate Earth Day with a good stretch. The instructor even wished us all a Happy Earth Day! After which several women (the class was composed of 90% women) cracked open their personal-sized water bottles. It simply ruined my class. Here I was, in what should have been a bastion of ecological consciousness. I wanted to shout expletives at them. I did not.

Do I ever drink bottled water you may ask? Yes, I have. Sometimes at event jobs that is all that is provided. I do not choose it. I have even been seen running to the ladies room to refill the bottle rather than take a new one. It seems to me that these yoga students could have planned other options, such as filling a metal water bottle from home with filtered water, or even having a refillable water bottle with a filter. The filters are good for 300 refills and thereby keep 300 plastic bottles out of the environment. Bobble and Brita are inexpensive brands.

Here is a very good article on why disposable water bottles are so bad:

http://flourishonline.org/2010/08/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-plastic-water-bottles/

In short they are bad for your health when the plastic leaches into the water, the bottles are mostly made of petroleum keeping us petroleum addicted, and they are hell on the environment because they do not easily disintegrate. Plus the companies that produce much of the bottled water make chumps out of the people that buy it, because most of it is just tap water anyway.

I do not bring water to exercise classes, I simply use the water fountain before and/or after. That is tap water too.

 

Life as we don’t know it

Life as we don’t know it…

If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black…it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white. ~William James

At this point in time on this planet Earth millions of people are wondering if we are alone in the Universe. They think about this when they go out at night and look upward at the glistening jewels of the Milky Way, our galaxy. They ponder it occasionally as they lay in bed waiting for sleep to find them. They eat up science fiction movies about alien invasions and whisper how their brother, aunt, neighbor or co-worker saw an unidentified flying object last summer.

As of January 17, 2013 there are 859 confirmed planets and 1235 candidate planets orbiting other Suns in our galaxy. Of these, 60 or so are Earth-like rocky planets.  NASA scientists working with the Kepler telescope recently said there may be 50 billion planets in our Milky Way alone. Some of these scientists are searching for a Goldilocks planet, a planet just the right size and temperature to harbor life as we know it. But what about life as we don’t know it?

The new Hubble Extreme Deep Field is the deepest view into the Universe we have. From what has been observed we know that there are at least 176 billion galaxies in the Universe, and maybe even close to a trillion galaxies in the observable Universe when the Hubble study concludes. What about the unobservable Universe? Our galaxy is not considered to be a huge galaxy only small to medium, so if there are 50 billion planets in our galaxy and more than 200 billion galaxies (maybe a trillion) how many planets does that likely provide. Fifty Billion times two hundred billion, my mind boggles at this point. Is it possible that life as we know it exists out there in some (many) of these places? But what about life as we don’t know it?

What about extremophiles on Earth? These are examples of life on our planet of which most of us could not conceive. There are 10 foot long tubeworms at the bottom of the sea living in absolute darkness on thermal vents shooting out highly pressurized water in the temperature range of 240° Fahrenheit. Before seacraft were developed that could plummet into the ocean’s pressurized and crushing depths, most if not all oceanographers would have told you that conditions at these deep thermal vents could not support life when in fact they are teeming with life. And so what about life as we don’t know it elsewhere in our solar system, our galaxy, our Universe, the Multiverse?

There is a theory called panspermia which contends that life did not originate on Earth but was transmitted from elsewhere in space. In this theory, life is dispersed throughout the Universe by meteors and space rocks containing microbes and/or amino acids and colliding with planets bringing the building blocks of evolution for life as we know it. Scientists have evidence of a heavy bombardment of earth by meteors about four billion years ago. There was probably a another planet in the solar system located between Mars and Jupiter in the orbit of the current asteroid belt. The destruction of this planet could have been the cause of the heavy bombardment.

German scientists sent bacterial spores mixed with red sandstone into space on a Russian rocket and those spores were returned back to earth and proved to be still viable. Bacterial spores can remain viable for as much as 250 million years under adverse conditions on Earth. On Earth, in the Arctic regions, the reasonably common permafrost is known to harbor bacterial spores and eukaryotic cells which are viable over thousands of years. When comets pass the sun they bring with them icy particles from beyond the major planets. An analysis of the heat radiation from dust particles from Halley’s Comet matched that of bacteria and nothing else, so the evidence for panspermia is mounting. By extrapolation so is evidence for life as we know it outside our solar system. But what about life as we don’t know it?

Well some of the answer to the question lies with one’s definition of life. Many define life as respiration. Respiration is ” the process by which organisms exchange gases, especially oxygen and carbon dioxide, with the environment. In air-breathing vertebrates, respiration takes place in the lungs. In fish and many invertebrates, respiration takes place through the gills. Respiration in green plants occurs during photosynthesis.”  But others including myself define life as consciousness, particularly self awareness.

There is a prevalent theory that the Earth, our Mother, is a living being. It is called the Gaia Hypothesis and I subscribe to it. But what if the heavenly bodies are conscious beings? Now we are getting closer to what could be part of life as we don’t know it. Vaguely related to this, because of their ubiquity in the Universe, are dark matter and dark energy which astrophysicists believe compose the majority of the Universe. Could the dark matter exist on a different dimensional plane or at a different frequency unmeasurable by our instrumentation? Is dark energy the life force of the Universe? I cannot answer these questions, but I do like to think about them. For if life is consciousness and consciousness is non-local then life is everywhere in the Multiverse and beyond.

Why do I write about this you may ask? There are at least two reasons. The first is to change the minds and hearts that harbor antiquated paradigms about the Earth being the center of the Universe and the only place capable of nurturing life. The second reason is because when I think about this I feel so ecstatic I want to sing along with Dominico Medugno (below). If you think about this seriously ten minutes a week, I’ll bet it will change your view of your life for the better and your place in the Universe forever.

Basil Bristow, who has channeled several beings with great wisdom has emailed me the following message from Pretorius, who is speaking through him currently, regarding my blog post above:

January 20, 2012

Today I heard from a reader:  Millions of people on Earth are wondering if we are alone in the Universe. They think about this when they go out at night and look upward at the glistening jewels of the Milky Way; where, as of January 17, 2013, scientists report there are 859 confirmed planets and 1235 candidate planets orbiting in our galaxy. I wondered if Pretorius would care to comment; here is his reply:-Basil

The scientific community on Earth; while they are to be admired for their advances during the past 100 Earth years, in reality are still learning their A.B.C.s which is akin to children in 1^st Grade.  However, advancement is advancement and I again congratulate them.  But, I must also add that what is done with their newly acquired knowledge, and how well it is administrated, remains to be seen.  Indeed, it is as if the Earth stands on the brink of self-destruction (as has happened on Earth in the past) or if common sense becomes the watchword.

Now, regarding the postulations regarding Earth-sized planets that could maintain life in both your own Milky Way galaxy and in the Universal cosmos in general.

First, as I have said many times, mankind must get away from considering “life” as life that requires air, water and food … as is needed by the population on Earth.  If that word “life” is to remain your criteria for defining “life” throughout the Universe then your consciousness will remain extremely limited.

“Life” as construed by the Universe is that which contains the essence of The Supreme 1 and, of course, that includes everything.  Whether that essence needs air, water and food to survive is immaterial – what is material is that the essence has the “breath” of life given to it by The Supreme 1 – and, I assure you that everything in the Universe has received that “breath” of life.

To answer the question as to whether or not the human creature that lives on Earth has “Brothers and Sisters” living elsewhere in the Universe then the answer is yes, it does.  There are countless areas in the Universe where such “life” exists.  It would seem scientifically logical that, providing Earthly human-life does not annihilate itself, then “Earthlings” may one day meet colonies of those brothers and sisters.  However, if I may quote an Earthly phrase – “Don’t hold your breath,” for that day is, without a doubt, far, far into the future.

However, I must add a qualification to that statement because many of the human-like societies elsewhere in the Universe are more advanced spiritually, scientifically  and in general knowledge.  But still, many other human-life societies are not as advanced as you on Earth.

I do not make a practice of predicting the future but it would seem to be logical that at least one or two of those more advanced societies would visit Earth before Earthlings visits them.  Indeed, such visitations have occurred many times in the past and Earth’s humanity has benefited spiritually, physically and intellectually from those visits.

It is spiritual growth that will define Earth’s humanity – not scientific  growth (although that is most certainly important!) for it will be the spiritualness of Earth’s humanity as a whole that will define its longevity.

Thus, if I may, I urge you all to go within and bring forth the love and peace that has lain imprisoned in the human breast for so long.  Let it free and bring new “life” to your Earth – not just life that requires air, water and food, but life which blossoms on its spirituality.

Until next time,

Pretorius

Update 04/14/13 Shadow Biosphere

 

Astronauts, The US Space Program and My Trip to the Moon.

Neil Armstrong b. August 5, 1930 d. August 25, 2012 Photo courtesy of NASA

Sally Ride b. May 26, 1951, d. July 23, 2012 Photo courtesy of NASA

This article is dedicated to the memory of Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, both of whom passed into the great beyond this year. They both were incredibly brave American heroes.

In 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the Moon and Sally Ride was the youngest person to travel into space and the first American woman in space.

If you have ever been to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida and have seen the space capsules up close and personal, you may begin to understand the amazing bravery of our astronauts. Most of us would not have the courage necessary to step inside and blast into the cosmos in what looked to me like a large metal can. One must immediately acknowledge the possibility of not returning to Earth alive, knowing the many perils that might beset the delicate capsule and trusting the ground crew implicitly. Yet they both volunteered without hesitation.

There are many articles on the internet about both Sally Ride and Neil Armstrong which I invite you to explore. I was an admirer of both and as a child wanted more than anything else to be an astronaut. One point I wish to explore currently is why the US apparently never has returned to the Moon after the Apollo 17 mission on Dec 7, 1972. I do not contend that I know the answer. The official story (which could be true) is that it proved too costly. There are two alternate theories which state that either the astronauts were warned off the Moon by aliens or that the US did indeed go back to the Moon and beyond but they did so as part of a deep black (ultra-secret) space program. The most interesting aspect of the latter theory is the information related by British hacker Garry Mc Kinnon about what he found on NASA websites.

The blog author and NASA Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center.
All rights reserved.

The Moon is a fascinating place for me and I have spent some time contemplating Moon mysteries. As a student of remote viewing (I find that the study of remote viewing enhances psi functioning.), one of my strangest targets was given in a class I attended at the Omega Institute in 2002 taught by David Morehouse, a former government RVer. It was toward the end of a seven day course. As always, we in the class were blind to the target. In my viewing I went back to the summer of 1969 and Woodstock. In my current terrestrial life I am not very musically talented and only have learned to play finger cymbals, but I am always getting musical cues while remote viewing (go figure). So for this target I went back to the time of Woodstock through the music. To make a long story short the target turned out to be the first manned lunar landing which occurred during the same summer, the Woodstock Festival was August 15-18, 1969 and the lunar landing occurred on July 20, 1969. In remote viewing the target can be anywhere in time or space and in Morehouse’s class we had some targets from ancient times. I think it was notable since the entire history of humanity is a long time, that I was only about 3 weeks off in discerning the time of the target but I could not understand why I went so off course in terms of the place. Morehouse commented the following day that he had used the target in other classes and the results were always weird and odd. The Moon was full on the night our class attempted that remote viewing target. For some reason I took a photo of the full Moon after I left class that night. The target was not revealed until the following morning. Side note: Here is a link to the Kate Valentine UFO show in which I am interviewed about my remote viewing studies. Scroll down to Friday Nov. 30, 2012.

An actual picture taken by me the night of the lunar landing target at the Omega Institute in June 2003 but before the target was revealed the following morning. All rights reserved.

A second interesting event involving the Moon occurred in my life surrounding the NASA bombing (LCROSS) of the Moon October 9, 2009, at 11:31 UTC  (6:31 EST). Purportedly NASA was attempting to discover how much trace water was in the lunar soil for possible future lunar missions. A few weeks before the event occurred I was already quite upset with the idea of bombing the Moon. Hadn’t we humans already bombed our beautiful Earth enough? How do we know that the Moon is not a living entity like Gaia, our Earth? Now we had to start bombing other heavenly bodies? It seemed like a very bad idea to me.

I set my alarm to wake early that morning and watch the bombing live on NASA TV on the internet. I was upset but as it turned out there was almost nothing to watch. The expected plume of Moon dust from the explosion never materialized, though some folks said the Moon rang like a bell. How they knew this I do not know.

Having awoken earlier than usual to witness this explosion, I decided to go back to bed to meditate and ask forgiveness of the Moon on behalf of the creatures of the Earth. I went into an alpha state of awareness, mind awake, body still. And though I was aware of being physically in my bed, my mind travelled to the Moon. As I drifted above the chiaroscuro surface at a  height of approximately 20-30 feet or so it seemed to me though there was nothing familiar on which to base that calculation. In the upper left corner of my vision I became aware of an object or assemblage of objects. As I began to focus on it, it looked like a disused piece of machinery resting in a “valley” area. Generally oblong in shape, it appeared to be metal, somewhat wrecked and in the shape of a very short train, though it was not a train. My “astral vision” was attempting to make sense of the object when suddenly I heard a voice behind me. It was a male voice with a soft Southern (US) accent. He or it said, “You have to leave here immediately, Ma’am. You have no clearance to be at this location.” Immediately I was back in my bed.

I thought I was remote viewing the surface of the Moon, but now I think I went there astrally, because it seems I was detected. But by whom or what? The voice that startled me could have been that of a military intelligence officer or even stranger, something that wanted to sound like someone reasonably familiar to me. I was NOT asleep. I have not attempted to go back there, so frightening it was to me. Later that day or the following, I wrote a blog post about the experience. Around the beginning of 2012 I went back to reread what I had written, but it was no longer there nor were any of the drafts. All that remained of the post was a category that I created for it called “save the moon”. Who or what removed my post I doubt I’ll ever know.

A very famous remote viewer named Ingo Swann has a published account of a visit he made to the Moon and I suggest that if you have interest in this topic that you read it.

Ufologist Ken Pfeifer has been examining NASA photos of the moon for anomalies and I present one of his discoveries here.

There are a number of others who study moon anomalies including Don Ecker, host of Dark Matters Radio Show and podcast. A number of astronauts have reported seeing anomalous moving objects while aloft or on the Moon but most have retracted their statements or become enigmatic on the subject. Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell is most outspoken on the subject of aliens but does not say that he saw them while on the Moon.

Following are a few links to more information on the subject: (more to come)

http://www.astrosurf.com/lunascan/

http://www.theparacast.com/podcast/now-playing-august-28-2011-don-ecker-and-david-hatcher-childress/

 

Pay Attention to the Intuitions of Your Body

A female human receiving inspiration. From an oracle deck called The Rainbow Bridge Tarot by visionary artist Lauren Raine. See end of article for link to this deck.

Sometimes while in a light meditative state certain things occur to me out of the blue. I have learned to pay attention to these unusual but seemingly random thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts are about my health and my body and I feel these thoughts may not originate in my brain but in my body parts and they are sent to the brain where they are brought gently into my awareness.

This idea is given life by studies which indicate that other organs, principally the heart, have their own intelligence and by other findings about the amazing awareness of certain animals without highly developed brains in the mammalian sense, such as the squid and octopus.

The first memorable incident of this odd personal medical intuition came a number of years ago when I was diagnosed with mildly elevated cholesterol levels at a rather young age. In my case this is not primarily a lifestyle and diet problem but a hereditary issue. I was musing over this situation and it occurred to me somewhat out of the blue that I should eat eggplant everyday for lunch. I was even given a recipe: make a slice halfway through the eggplant after washing it and cutting off the stem. Do not remove the skin of the eggplant. Put a couple of cloves of peeled garlic into the slice. Wrap the eggplant in aluminum foil and bake in the oven until soft. Remove from the oven and mash the eggplant and garlic adding cayenne pepper. Salt is allowed. Put on Scandinavian style whole grain flat bread and eat. Do not use any oil at all.

I followed this pretty faithfully every day for about a month. I went back to have my blood tested and discovered that my cholesterol levels had dropped by over 30 points! I gave my recipe to a number of people including my father and his brother, my uncle. My uncle said he had added this food to his diet and also experienced a drop in his levels. Though both men are now deceased, neither died of heart or circulatory disease and both lived into their late eighties and both had hereditary high cholesterol. My father did not take statins and neither did my uncle to my knowledge.

I personally still prepare this recipe and find it healthful, although I must admit I do not eat it often enough. I was shown a scene from inside my body by Spirit (I guess) in which I saw the eggplant in my intestine pulling fat molecules from my intestine wall. Recently I read about a new medical discovery that uncovered dried apples as a food that reduces cholesterol levels in women. I imagine that the mechanism is similar.

Warning: I am not a medical professional. This account is anecdotal.

Another instance of this odd intuition came to me some years ago while I was cleaning my ears in the manner one is cautioned against- with a Q-tip! I had noticed for awhile (this is sort of gross) that my earwax was copious and oily. All of a sudden this thought popped into my mind (almost verbatim): “This is probably not a good sign, the next thing you know ‘they’ll’ (researchers) probably say that this kind of earwax predicts a susceptibility to breast cancer.” A month or two later I read just such an article in a magazine. Thankfully I no longer have this sort of earwax.

Most recently I noticed skin tags (acrochorda) in one of my armpits. These are little bits of extra skin which are raised from the surface. In my case they were more annoying than disfiguring. I went to a dermatologist who cut them off and biopsied them. No problem, but then they grew back. More annoying after spending a considerable sum to remove them. Again an idea popped into my mind. Put tea tree (Melaleuca Alternifolia) oil and thuva oil on them regularly. I do not like the smell of thuva as much as tea tree oil so I began applying tea tree oil to the tags every morning after washing. At this point I am happy to say they are nearly gone. At some point during my self imposed treatment I decided to check on the internet for natural remedies for skin tags and also to see if what I was doing would be deemed safe. Both tea tree oil and thuva oil are prominently mentioned as remedies but the kicker is that there is a product for sale, by Dermisil, a proprietary formula of sorts for skin tags whose primary ingredients are…you guessed it…tea tree oil and thuva oil.

Now these experiences are not radical. My being is not taken over by the entity of the famous Doctor Fritz (an extraordinarily compelling story). My guess is that this is my own body speaking to me. Other plausible theories would include that these messages come from my higher self, the collective unconscious or universal mind (God), or a disembodied entity (back to Doctor Fritz).

While I have not come up with the cure for all disease I am sure that humanity could lessen suffering thru banning nuclear reactors (The unresolved Fukishima incident will cause millions of cancer deaths in the next twenty years.) and having much more respect for Our Mother Earth.

Postscript: To learn more about the Rainbow Bridge Tarot click the link.

 

The Answer, Or How I Would Save the USA Ecologically and Economically

Simple pencil drawing of a cross-section of the train.

I totally admit that it sounds absolutely vain to have a title of this nature, but many good solutions can come from common folk who think deeply about a problem. I encourage you, dear reader, to make suggestions on how to make this idea work better. My intention is to put America to work and end dependence on fossil fuel and thereby clean up the environment and make the air cleaner to breathe.

America needs better mass transportation. we lag behind much of Europe, Japan and China (and probably other places too) with our train system. Those places have high-speed bullet trains. I think we should go them one better. If America had better and more attractively priced public transportation we would drive less and create less pollution and use less fossil fuel.

My idea is for the government, in conjunction with the train companies, to build a high-speed train to connect America’s hub cities. This would be no ordinary train. It would be solar-powered by panels set on top of the tube through which it would move. This could be a similar application to solar roadways that I cited in an earlier blog post.The train would be set about one-third into the ground with the tube built around it and it would have a modified octagonal shape with rounded corners. It would have only one track and might work by the maglev system. The most famous maglev train is in Shanghai, China.

Sitting the train in a ditch and surrounding it with a tube would make it safer and faster as inertia could be modified within the tube through a suction like effect. There would be no collisions possible due to the train being inside the tube. No animals would be killed on the track because the train would be totally enclosed. Because it is only in a ditch and not in a subway tunnel the cost would be lower to build.

Thousands of American workers would be employed improving the grassroots economy of the country. Building the train system would provide construction jobs. There would also be maintenance jobs and service jobs running the complex rail system. There would be hundreds of engineering jobs in creating the plans and execution of this idea as well as thousands of peripheral jobs in train station services. Using the solar-powered train would lower the dependence on fossil fuels. It is a win-win situation for the country. No longer would we lag behind China, Japan and Europe.

This rough idea that has excited my imagination came to me all in one piece in an open meditation.

Update 11/28/12: Thanks to Stephan A. Schwartz via the SchwartzReport: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9702521/310mph-floating-trains-unveiled-in-Japan.html

The first photo in this article bears a resemblance to my drawing especially in the area of the furrow in which the train runs.

 

 

Revelation of Time

Several days ago I was having a conversation with a friend about the function of time in the time-space continuum as it was shown to me in an ecstatic revelation in March 2000.

It is a convoluted tale which began late in December 1999. It was pre-9/11 in New York City and there had been quite a number of company holiday parties at which I had read a prodigious number of cards and palms. I was physically and psychically exhausted, but still a spiritual seeker in my down time. I wanted to practice creative visualization, at which I had already had some considerable success.

For the uninitiated, creative visualization is a mental discipline wherein, one visualizes and sensualizes (“pictures” if you will) oneself in the situation in which one would like to be, and by doing so enables the situation to occur in one’s life in the material 3-D world. This is a shorthand definition.

Have you ever heard the saying: “Be careful what you wish for.”? This is particularly true with creative visualization, because if you are at all good at it, your visualizations are likely to materialize. So you must be very sure that you want the thing or situation you are visualizing. I tried to think of something I would like to happen and would potentially be very interesting, but in which I had little if any emotional investment and about which I could think of no significant downside for myself or any others. It had to be something which was not likely to happen to me otherwise, so if it happened I could be reasonably sure that my visualization had had an effect.

I had long been a fan of Deepak Chopra and at that time I was thinking a lot about the concept of time itself and whether it was uniform on Earth and in other places and whether it could truly be characterized as a fourth dimension. So I decided that my visualization would be that I should have the opportunity to speak to Deepak Chopra one on one about the concept of time. The rules would be that I would visualize this three times over the course of ten days, which incidentally would encompass New Year’s Day 2000. I would do nothing extraordinary to make this happen, such as running off to an expensive seminar at which he would be featured, but I would go with the flow and take what opportunities were presented.

After I had done the visualization twice, I received a telephone call from a female New Age author. She wanted an intuitive reading at her home on New Year’s Eve during the day. I prefer not to go to see my clients, but rather to have them come to see me. For some reason I assented to her request, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps because she was persuasive. She was very friendly but clearly wanted the reading done her way, which I found somewhat curious, because I was doing the reading, and I found it trying, because I could clearly tell what she wanted to hear. That is an entire story unto itself perhaps best kept to myself.

But the interesting thing was that she told me without being asked that she knew Deepak Chopra. I was taken aback that seemingly my visualization was already working. I expressed interest in her connection while carefully not asking to be introduced or anything of that nature. She totally misread my interest and told me flatly that he was a married man whose wife was always looking on. Wow! I told her clearly that my interest was NOT romantic, but she seemed adamant that it must be. This was simply embarrassing. I was very happy to scurry away after that, but sad that this was a dead end in terms of my visualization.

So I did the visualization one more time, the third time, and then nearly forgot about it as I took an interesting vacation to California. Shortly after my return I received an email from a friend in Florida in mid February asking me to sign a petition involving a TV show. Deepak Chopra was supposed to be featured on a news-magazine type format show but the network (ABC, I recall) thought the interview was too highbrow to appeal to the audience. My friend requested that I sign a petition asking the network to air the interview anyway. This brought my visualization suddenly back to mind. Although my friend is a yoga and tai chi instructor who might be assumed to like his books, we never had any specific conversation about Dr. Chopra and she was not in the habit of asking me to sign petitions and in fact I don’t think I had even spoken to her at all in the new year.

I went to the website and signed the petition. As I was reading the web page I noticed toward the bottom, that my old friend Alan Colmes was scheduled to interview Dr. Chopra on his radio show and it provided a link to click through to Alan’s show. I clicked through and sent an email note simply saying that I thought it was wonderful that he (Colmes) was interviewing someone in the spiritual (rather than the political) arena and wanting to know how I could tune in. At that point I hadn’t spoken to Alan in several years.

Quickly I received a response from Alan saying that unfortunately the show was not broadcast in the New York market, but elsewhere all around the US. I would not be able to listen, but would I be willing to be the first call-in contributor to the show as I was familiar with Chopra’s books?!!! I was dumbfounded. My visualization was going to come true. Alan told me that the reason for the interview was a new book that Deepak Chopra had written called How To Know God. Needless to say I wrote back that I’d be more than pleased, I’ll read the book, and please tell me what number to call and when. He responded that the show would call ME on that evening in March and I’d be the first caller. I got a scare when the show was postponed by a week, but that only gave me more time to read the book. I did not want to sound like an idiot when I spoke to Dr. Chopra, who I think is a very intelligent man.

The penultimate part of the story is I did get to speak to Dr. Deepak Chopra both about the nature of time and about his excellent book. He was very easy to speak with and I enjoyed our conversation immensely. My visualization had miraculously come true and proved to me the immeasurable value of visualization. I’ve not spoken to him since, although I’d welcome the opportunity, he does not regularly circulate in my environment. 🙂

What happened to me the night before the radio show was even more amazing. It was intensely personal and words alone, I am sure, will fail to accurately describe the experience. I had been thinking a lot about the nature of time as well as reading the book, in preparation for participating in the interview. Slightly before my normal bedtime I decided to retire early with the intention of meditating on the topic of time.

I had just quieted my senses to begin the meditation when I had what can only be called a Revelation with a capital R. I was spoken to inside my head by a calm clear male voice that was comforting. It allowed me to simultaneously realize that my body was lying safely in my loft bed while my astral body was being transported into Space. I was shown that time was caused by motion in Space. First I saw the Earth rotating on its axis, then revolving around the Sun. Then I saw the Sun with its solar system in concert with other solar systems traveling around the hub of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Galaxy itself was on its own journey with lots of other galaxies. Everything was traveling at enormous speeds in relation to one another. Movement in space created time. Living creatures on Earth are respiring beings with a birth, a life and a death and travel in one direction only in time, literally from birth to death. And in the corporeal sense one cannot go back in time, because every second the Earth is in a totally different space in the Universe and all the stars and planets have gotten to a different relative position. To go forward or backward in time inside one’s physical body one would literally have to move the entire Universe. Outside one’s body exploration in time is possible.

As I feared this description in no way conveys the awesomeness of the Revelation. You may or may not understand the words I wrote, and possibly have not had this sort of experience and for all I know you may not even believe me.

Two Postscripts

1.) Several years previous to this experience (above), I had lunch with Alan Colmes on University Place and Ninth Street at the Knickerbocker. During our meal the conversation wandered toward  personal paranormal experiences. I honestly do not remember the specific experiences about which we talked. After lunch we walked north on University Place where a now defunct gallery was located and we decided to look inside. We descended a small metal circular staircase to the lower level to see the exhibition there. As we walked down we heard the clatter of a piece falling off the wall. The gentleman in charge down there was quite perturbed. Not only had a framed piece fallen off the wall, but it had inexplicably fallen outward about two feet from the wall before it fell downward. I think there are some persons with which paranormal thing are more likely to happen, some sort of synergy.

2.) During the recent conversation I had with my friend that brought this revelatory experience to mind I had a flash insight as to what one sort of hell might be: After death the soul is spun off into the vast, lonely cold abyss of space left to wander by itself in absolute zero cold always conscious but never to encounter another being for the rest of eternity.

 

Fukushima, the Media, and the Reality-based Worldview

I have not wanted to write about Fukushima, because I have nothing good to say. My grandmother used to tell me “If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” Sadly, I have not entirely lived up to her words, but I have tried. The Japanese people have much to overcome in their current situation and I do not wish to make their lot any worse than it is, and that would be difficult to do in any case.

I have been following closely the situation involving the nuclear reactors which were affected so disastrously by the earthquake off the coast of Japan last spring. The site from which I have gotten most of my information is Arnie Gundersen’s Fairewinds Associates. Mr. Gundersen and his wife have been steadfastly reporting the bad news that is horrible to hear, but it is bad news that we must force ourselves to hear. His is a wake-up call to all Americans that nuclear power is inherently horribly dangerous and that danger once unleashed is complete and lasting annihilation. American nuclear reactors are mostly old and past the date which they were originally intended to be taken off line. This adds to the danger as leaks are more likely from old reactors. The single piece of good news is that solar power has surpassed nuclear power in energy production in the United States.

In a nutshell, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is far from being over. The site is still red hot with nuclear particles. Tokyo itself, 148 miles away from the Fukushima reactors, should probably be evacuated. The level of contamination of random ground samples in Tokyo would be considered hazardous nuclear waste in the US.  The officials of TEPCO (Tokyo Electrical Power Company?) who run the Fukushima facility and the Japanese government have been lying to their citizens and to the world. TEPCO is even burning nuclear waste and putting hot particles in the atmosphere that we all breathe. They have become mass murderers as many innocent people and animals around the world who unwittingly breathe those particles will die horrible deaths from various cancers. This is not supposition, this is fact.

The US is in collusion with the cover-up of the facts. Please read the following articles:

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-radiation-warnings-you-wont-get-from-the-mainstream-propaganda-machine_04022012

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/fukushima-radiation-spreads-worldwide.html

I am extremely disappointed in Hillary Clinton in that she signed an agreement to the effect that the US would continue to import goods from Japan without subjecting them to testing for radiation.

Why has the media chosen to ignore the obvious danger coming from Fukushima and why do the government and various states continue to champion the building of these reactors, these machines of certain doom, although there are other cleaner energy options such as solar, wind, water and geothermal energy available? Many European countries whose populations may be more awake than Americans have begun the phasing out of all nuclear power from their borders. In fact the nuclear industry is greatly tax subsidized by the American taxpayer: See this Alternet story by US Senator Bernie Sanders and Ryan Alexander.

The Fukushima situation is worse than the disaster of Chernobyl in the Ukraine. Take seven minutes out of your busy life to look at the legacy of Chernobyl here. Notice that Chernobyl is estimated to have caused nearly a million cancer deaths worldwide.  Now realize that the Fukushima disaster will continue to cause cancers for the next 100,00o years. Yet our mass media outlets continue to ply us with vacuous stories and little to no information on this very real menace.

Please keep checking these internet news resources for valuable information, it may be the most important thing you can do for yourself, the environment and generations to come.

Fairewinds Associates

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

The SchwartzReport

The Fukushima Diary

Update 4/24/12:

Mutations in Michigan-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AupyLDGHKk

Hunger strike demonstrations in Tokyo-

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/4968/Tokyo-hunger-strike

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hunger-Strike-for-the-Future-in-Tokyo/255751377792291?sk=info

Doyle Plillips sends this update: http://soundcloud.com/flashpoints/flashpoints-daily-newsmag-05-6

& http://blog.imva.info/world-affairs/4495

 

Weird sounds and Earth changes

Fire Island Sunset, August 22, 2011

On August 23, 2011 between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. I was travelling on a ferryboat from Fire Island N.Y. to Long Island N.Y. after a too short holiday. There was a small girl about four years old who was also on the boat with a group of relatives. We were both riding on the open top level of the ferry. Towards the end of the ride I was gazing at the shore in anticipation when the level of the Earth seemed to shift. The sea was very calm and this was not a wave in the water. The child noticed it too and pointed and cried out to her fellow travellers who had not seen it. I mentioned it to my companion with a bit of anxiety but he hadn’t noticed it either.

Soon I was in a car driving west toward Manhattan and Massapequa where we would stop for lunch at the All-American on Merrick Road. The event on the ferry probably would have passed totally from memory had it not been for the news I heard on the radio when I returned to the car after lunch: THERE HAD BEEN AN EARTHQUAKE IN NYC!!! Totally surprising, and as it turned out the actual epicenter of the quake was in Virginia, but it was clearly felt in New York City. The visual anomaly seen by myself and the child had been approximately an hour before the earthquake struck. Was there any connection? I do not know.

During two recent but different summers at a location in western Morris County NJ I heard a low mechanical consistent fast rumbling sound that lasted for over an hour both times. It was also heard by another person who was with me. I went outside though it was after midnight in both cases. I could not determine the location of the sound. It seemed to have come slightly southward of my location and I suspected underground tunneling.

On Monday, February 02, 2009 at 10:34:19 PM and Tuesday, February 03, 2009 at 03:34:19 two earthquakes were felt just to the south of the location where I had been. I was not present for either of them but was told by several persons who were, that the sound was like that of a large truck that had been dropped from a great height.

Recently I have become aware of the mysterious sounds which a variety of people from many places around the world have heard. There are purported recordings of these sounds on YouTube, some of which are probably hoaxed, but I think not all. Most of the sounds are slightly metallic in nature and people sometimes compare them to “Archangel Gabriel’s Trumpet” which is thought to herald the “endtimes”.

What I think may be happening is related to global warming and some earthquakes. As the Earth’s temperature is rising quickly (in geologic terms) perhaps on average a degree a decade, the polar ice caps and many glaciers are melting causing a displacement of water. Simply put, large amounts of water in the form of ice are melting and the water in liquid form is going elsewhere. In the North Arctic/Atlantic region the melting fresh water being dumped into the sea seems to have affected and diverted the Gulf Stream causing Europe to have a record cold winter. With the Himalaya glaciers melting there is abnormal flooding in Pakistan and Bangladesh in the rainy monsoon season. Small islands are being lost in the Pacific. In other places the lack of snow/ice/glaciers are causing the land to rise very slowly and unevenly causing some of these sounds and earthquakes. Water is extraordinarily heavy even when it is only a few feet thick. Think of massive amounts of rock under considerable pressure shifting against one another for perhaps miles on a seam under the surface of the Earth. Granted, this explanation is somewhat simplistic, but generally speaking this is what I believe to be happening.

It would seem that it is The Mother Gaia speaking to us.

For an interesting compilation of these trumpet-like mechanical sounds heard worldwide and some back stories from experiencers go to http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1940&category=Environment which is Linda Moulton Howe’s Earthfiles website.

Friday August 24, 2012 Update

I am vindicated on my theory of how global warming is causing more earthquakes!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Link-Between-Global-Wa-by-Paul-from-Potomac-120823-777.html

 

Ufology This Summer 2011: I’m Sad, Glad and Mad!

This summer has seen several big moments in the field of ufology. The first is a very sad occasion. On August 21st Budd Hopkins, 80, passed on after a long illness. He was a multi-talented artist who was known for his geometric paintings and sculpture. He was also an alien abduction researcher, giving compassionate attention to experiencers for many years though his Intruders Foundation. He wrote a number of excellent books including Missing Time and Intruders which substantiate the phenomenon of alien abduction through relating the experiences of ordinary individuals and finding patterns in them.  I was supposed to meet Mr. Hopkins several times at conferences and at his foundation meetings, but alas, to my great disappointment, this was not to be. Ufology has lost a valiant researcher. Rest in peace, Budd.

New York Times obituary.

On a different topic, (the glad part), ufology has made a wonderful advancement with the release of Break Thru Films documentary “Secret Access: UFOs on the Record” by filmmakers Ricki Stern and Annie Sudberg seen on the History Channel in a 2 hour special on August 25th. It is based upon Leslie Kean’s book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and 344Government Officials Go On the Record and Ms. Kean is featured prominently in the presentation.  Leslie Kean has had a long history as a clear eyed researcher and investigative journalist who co-founded the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi) and was a producer with James Fox for the independent film I Know What I Saw. This documentary is a must see for anyone even vaguely interested in the subject of unexplained aerial phenomena. Its irrefutable evidence from sterling sources will turn anyone who is on the fence about the reality and importance of ufology into an advocate for more research into this paradigm shifting subject. In addition to the information also presented in the book, the film had some new data about the Phoenix Lights from NUFORC and a new research project, UFOtog, by special effects master Douglas Trumball.

Finally, I’m angry (mad) about the revelation that author and UFO researcher Philip Imbrogno has completely faked his credentials (bad). It was revealed by skeptic Lance Moody in his blog What the Hell Was That that Imbrogno’s degrees from MIT and elsewhere were entirely bogus. UFO researcher Don Ecker of Dark Matters Radio followed up by checking out his military bona fides. Imbrogno claimed he was a Green Beret in a select group executing missions in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Ecker discovered it was a total fabrication.  This is a real shame because ufology is a study not given credence in all quarters because it is seen as a fringe topic. Any tinge of  dishonesty casts major doubt on any research on which the liar has worked. Furthermore it damages the entire field.

I will end this post on a bittersweet note sending my deepest sympathies and profoundest thanks to Leslie Kean who was both the personal companion of Budd Hopkins and the inspiration for this astounding groundbreaking documentary.

Please follow the links in this post if you want more information on the topics discussed herein.

Leslie Kean and Budd Hopkins

Thanks to les-repas-ufologiques.com

POSTSCRIPT: He says it better than I can.

Thoughts about the Budd Hopkins Memorial

by David Biedny on Tuesday, 11 October 2011 at 16:01

I wanted to briefly comment on the memorial held Saturday, October 8, 2011 for Budd Hopkins, at the 15th Street Friends Meeting House. The weather could not have been better, it was a clear, perfect day for this lovely affair celebrating the life and work of this wonderful man – one I’m proud to be able to call a true friend – and it primarily focused on his work in the art field, clearly demonstrating that Budd was really one of the most respected Abstract Expressionists of the famed New York School.

Leslie Kean started the proceedings with her cool, professional demeanor, even though it was obvious that she misses her partner, friend and love. Any of us would be blessed to have that kind of tenderness in our lives, and something that was plain to see was the depth of respect and love that these two people had for each other, it was both reassuring and inspiring.

His daughter showed slides of many of Budd’s artworks, which were bold, colorful and as direct as the man himself. Another thing that many spoke of was Budd’s sense of humor, and I can personally attest that he loved laughing like few others, and there was some really nice footage of Budd being, well, Budd.

Peter Robbins delivered an eloquent eulogy, describing working with Budd, and how much influence Budd had on his own way of thinking and dealing with others. Randy Nicherson played a video tribute to Budd, full of poignant, heartfelt scenes – there was another video compilation presented towards the end, done by Seth Keal and Charles Miller, with some really heartwarming footage of Budd dancing with his granddaughter. Another picture of Budd, his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter clearly demonstrated the uncanny resemblance of Budd and his daughter’s daughter. He will live on in her.

David Jacobs spoke about Budd’s work in the field of abduction research, but what really came through was how much David loved Budd as a human being and close friend. That was also evident in the way that people spoke about Budd afterwards, small conversations overheard during the subsequent reception confirmed that there was not a bad thought about Budd anywhere near the event.

There are many more details – some interesting UFO folks were in attendance, but they were outnumbered by the artist friends, thankfully – but suffice it to say that any of us would be happy and fulfilled to have this much love manifest at our departures.

To those who would attack his research, and accuse him of being a flawed human, of not being 100% hardass about his dealings with alleged abduction victims and potential hoaxers – I personally witnessed the degree of comfort this brave man gave some very distraught people, folks who were scared, confused and who didn’t have anyone to turn to without being marginalized or ridiculed, and for that work alone, he should be celebrated and respected. If he was fooled by some unscrupulous folks, his decision to err on the side of kindness and compassion is perhaps a byproduct of his intensely powerful humanity and sincere desire to help others. Those who would vilify him would be well advised to check their own glass houses for hidden piles of large, rough stones.

Budd Hopkins was a great man, and I for one will miss him something urgent.

 

Earth Day Update and Concerns

Remnants of Ancient Troy

It has been a while since I have written a post. I’ve been very busy with my life in general, but also very intensely concerned with the Earth and the ecological devastation that has taken place increasingly over the past year. I don’t like to write a post that is infused with hopeless negativity even if what I am writing about is true.

Last year we had the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a totally preventable man-made disaster, that was so destructive to other species and human livelihoods. It really made me furious and I could not write about it constructively, so I did not write about it at all. Instead I wrote some posts about energy solutions. I hope to continue to do this, but of course this is primarily a blog about the anomalous and the paranormal.

The Earth has also experienced a number of violent earthquakes around the world in many places such as Haiti, Chile and of course, Japan. I fear that the western coast of North America will not be spared. My heart goes out to all people and other creatures affected by these calamities. I am aware that earthquakes are a continuous phenomena across geologic time. It does seem to me that the severity and number of these quakes are increasing in recent years. A higher population density worldwide intensifies the destruction to humans. A theory concerning greater earthquake frequency to which I currently ascribe is that as glaciers and polar ice caps continue to melt due to (mostly man-made) global warming, the placement of water changes around the globe. There is, for instance, less water ice resting on the Himalayas and therefore a whole lot less weight holding them down, while there is perhaps more water, therefore more weight, in the South Pacific, especially around the equator. When this weight is redistributed in this manner, especially in a very geologically active area, such as the Ring of Fire, it may boost the number and severity of quakes on fault lines. The extent of the weight of water in this equation should not be underestimated. Think about how attentive one must be to water pressure when scuba diving only a relatively few feet down.

Now in addition to the devastation caused by the earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis, another man-made catastrophe has occurred. The nuclear reactors at Fukishima have been severely damaged by the quake and tsunami and are now in various states of partial meltdown. Unfortunately the reactors were unsafe from their inception. Nuclear energy is inherently unsafe due to human fallibility which is always present along with human greed which causes planners to cut corners, and because the spent fuel remains highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and there is no where to put spent fuel that is safe.

Sadly, the situation is far from under control, though brave workers at the plant have repeatedly attempted to shut down the reactors at the cost of their own (workers) health. It is not the object of this blog to go into detail about the various radioactive substances still being manufactured and spewed forth from Fukishima and which are a hazard to all biological life on this planet. A smart consumer of information will be well advised to look into this on his or her own. An excellent starting place is Arnie Gunderson’s site Fairewinds Associates. I personally would like to see all nuclear facilities fazed out starting with reactors in large population areas, on or near geological faults or subject to violent weather extremes.

Of course we should all do what we can to help the victims of these multiple tragedies. One action we can take to prevent this tragedy being repeated, is to lobby our elected officials to shutdown nuclear power plants and withdraw tax subsidies to build new ones. Go ahead…write those letters…get off yer duffs and go out and demonstrate! Do something proactive instead of stewing in existential depression which is pointless.

 

Extraterrestrial News and A Paradigm Shift

New Solar System (image credit- Tim Pyle NASA)

This is a very exciting time for astronomers, amateur astronomers, astronomy buffs, ufologists and aware citizens of the world.

First and foremost this week a new solar system with six planets has been discovered along with an additional 1200 exo-planetary candidates by the NASA Kepler Spacecraft. Probably as I am writing this, the number will change in the upward direction. This information is being added to daily. The Kepler Spacecraft has been a wonderful success for NASA. I urge all my readers to click on my links to detailed information at NASA on this fascinating program and the mechanics of the Kepler Spacecraft.

The star with the newly found solar system, Kepler 11, is said to be Sun sized. The amazing thing here is that five of the six planets found around Kepler 11 are in very close orbits around Kepler 11 and all six are thought to be rocky objects like the Earth and Mars and the Moon. In the beginning of the discovery of exoplanets, almost all the planets discovered were gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn but much larger and closer in to their stars- not what would be considered to be hospitable to life as we know it. That all changed in Autumn 2010 with the discovery of a rocky planet only 20 light years away orbiting a red dwarf star, Gliese 581, in the so-called Goldilocks or habitable zone – a region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface.

So it begins to seem that habitable planets may be relatively common in our galaxy. This idea was considered to be foolish in scientific circles within very recent history. We add to this idea that the Universe is proving to be larger than anyone expected and appears to hold three times the number of stars many astronomers might have estimated only a year ago. We are poised at the brink of a paradigm shift comparable to or greater than the one Galileo started with his non Geocentric model of the solar system. (The earliest heliocentric model of the solar system was by Philolaus in the fifth century BC, but was not widely adopted. Philolaus was a Sun worshipper. Is the Sun a conscious being? I think so.) In short, our beloved Solar System appears to be one of trillions out there. There are probably millions of solar systems in our Milky Way Galaxy and there are billions of galaxies. There is no reason not to believe that many other galaxies have stars with solar systems. Similarly there is no reason not to postulate that many of these solar systems have rocky planets in the habitable zone with water on them.

Where there is water there is likely to be life. Meteorites have told us that the building blocks of life exist in space. Rudimentary life can exist in extremely harsh conditions. There are stars in this galaxy that are far older than the sun, and galaxies that are far older than the Milky Way. It does not require a big leap from these facts for us to expect to find advanced civilizations on some of these rocky, watery planets. If some of the civilizations out there are tens of thousands of years more advanced than ours, might they not be visiting our habitable rock with it’s cruel warlike dominant ape species we like to call “human beings”? It is indeed an exciting and frightening time to be alive!

 

Mammoth Prediction

Wooly Mammoth

When I was younger and more foolish I made a list of predictions for the coming year. It was in the late ’80s and my late great friend, Captain Haggerty was organizing a new year’s publicity event around his dog training business and asked me if I wanted to take part. He was making predictions about what would be happening in the dog fancier’s world and displaying some of his dogs. I was to bellydance for the cameras and make some predictions about what would happen in the world at large.

Most of my predictions did not transpire in that year, but in some permutation many of them became pivotal in future years.  Last week I noticed in the news that Japanese scientists were actively working on recreating a mammoth from genetic material retrieved from the Siberian permafrost. I had predicted just that in the late ’80s. It is claimed that the mammoth will be born of an elephant surrogate mom by the end of the decade. The elephant is the closest surviving relative of the mammoth.

Since the time I made that prediction, I have thought long and hard about the business of making predictions. I have noticed that predictions I’ve made often occur but seldom in the time frame I expected. Often people are looking for predictions about the personal lives of the rich and famous. I have no interest in that whatsoever.

I am concerned that in making a specific public prediction one can change the course of events. Simply put, if I write that Mr. X will be killed and a sizable group of individuals read that and think about it, does that make it more likely that Mr. X will perish? I suspect it will. It will affect the collective mind of humanity.

There is another reason I am not making a lot of predictions: my world view has become increasingly dark and I do not wish to infect others with my state of mind. I am not depressed, really, I’m actually fairly happy. It’s just that my “Weltanshauung” (world view) is very negative.

What I have to say next is going to sound very politically partisan but in actuality it is not. I was very hopeful about the world until the day after the 2000 US Presidential election. I was never very politically active previous to this time. I was and am an active environmentalist. Yes, I admit it I am a treehugger. After “W” was elected it seemed as though the whole world went to hell in so many ways, both related to the election and not related to it at all, and it has not recovered.

I will make only one prediction now, and it will be very general. The more you do to improve or save the environment, the happier your future will be; and conversely if you degrade the environment you can be sure the future will be awful for your old age and those that follow you.

Sometimes I wonder how people (are they really humans?) can be anti-environmental. I do understand a certain shortsightedness on the part of those who might lose their incomes as sanctions are put into place which would cause them to lose their jobs. There is a fairly simple answer for this. They should be retrained for green jobs. There is lots of money to be made in renewable energy, for example, and this is just the beginning.

It is a fantasy of mine that those who are politically active against the environment are reptilian alien shapeshifters who want the Earth to be turned into a hot awful wasteland so that they can immigrate their population from their wasted reptilian planet light years away and enslave the few remaining humans. In reality those belonging to the anti-environment group are probably simply greedy and rapacious sociopaths who don’t care a whit for anybody or anything beyond dying with the most toys.

 

Important Ecological Solutions

Here in the USA we could easily use the flatulance coming out of the mouths of politicians to power massive electrical plants. But seriously, we need more forward thinking ideas like those outlined in the following article. The answers are out there to save warm-blooded species on our planet (That includes us.) If we don’t we’ll all perish and take all the large mammals and many birds with us. Make no mistake the Earth will go on, without us. Witness the dinosaurs!  Congratulations to California and Wisconsin for leading the way in the USA to break our dependency on foreign oil and the noxious byproducts of fossil fuel. Thanks to NY Times and Frank DeMarco (see links in my blogroll). Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use

ELISABETH ROSENTHAL – The New York Times

Here is a positive story of what can be done when the will to overcome entrenched special interests is strong enough.

Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.  But this area in southern Sweden, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind turbines for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines. A hulking 10-year-old plant on the outskirts of Kristianstad uses a biological process to transform the detritus into biogas, a form of methane. That gas is burned to create heat and electricity, or is refined as a fuel for cars. Once the city fathers got into the habit of harnessing power locally, they saw fuel everywhere: Kristianstad also burns gas emanating from an old landfill and sewage ponds, as well as wood waste from flooring factories and tree prunings. Over the last five years, many European countries have increased their reliance on renewable energy, from wind farms to hydroelectric dams, because fossil fuels are expensive on the Continent and their overuse is, effectively, taxed by the European Union’s emissions trading system. But for many agricultural regions, a crucial component of the renewable energy mix has become gas extracted from biomass like farm and food waste. In Germany alone, about 5,000 biogas systems generate power, in many cases on individual farms. Kristianstad has gone further, harnessing biogas for an across-the-board regional energy makeover that has halved its fossil fuel use and reduced the city’s carbon dioxide emissions by one-quarter in the last decade. ‘It’s a much more secure energy supply – we didn’t want to buy oil anymore from the Middle East or Norway,” said Lennart Erfors, the engineer who is overseeing the transition in this colorful city of 18th-century row houses. ‘And it has created jobs in the energy sector.” In the United States, biogas systems are rare. There are now 151 biomass digesters in the country, most of them small and using only manure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. estimated that installing such plants would be feasible at about 8,000 farms. So far in the United States, such projects have been limited by high initial costs, scant government financing and the lack of a business model. There is no supply network for moving manure to a centralized plant and no outlet to sell the biogas generated. Still, a number of states and companies are considering new investment. Last month, two California utilities, Southern California Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric, filed for permission with the state’s Public Utilities Commission to build plants in California to turn organic waste from farms and gas from water treatment plants into biogas that would feed into the state’s natural-gas pipelines after purification. Using biogas would help the utilities meet requirements in California and many other states to generate a portion of their power using renewable energy within the coming decade. Both natural gas and biogas create emissions when burned, but far less than coal and oil do. And unlike natural gas, which is pumped from deep underground, biogas counts as a renewable energy source: it is made from biological waste that in many cases would otherwise decompose in farm fields or landfills and yield no benefit at all, releasing heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. This fall, emissaries from Wisconsin’s Bioenergy Initiative toured German biogas programs to help formulate a plan to develop the industry. ‘Biogas is Wisconsin’s opportunity fuel,” said Gary Radloff, the initiative’s Midwest policy director. Like Kristianstad, California and Wisconsin produce a bounty of waste from food processing and dairy farms but an inadequate supply of fossil fuel to meet their needs. Another plus is that biogas plants can devour vast quantities of manure that would otherwise pollute the air and could affect water supplies. In Kristianstad, old fossil fuel technologies coexist awkwardly alongside their biomass replacements. The type of tanker truck that used to deliver heating oil now delivers wood pellets, the major heating fuel in the city’s more remote areas. Across from a bustling Statoil gas station is a modest new commercial biogas pumping station owned by the renewables company Eon Energy. The start-up costs, covered by the city and through Swedish government grants, have been considerable: the centralized biomass heating system cost $144 million, including constructing a new incineration plant, laying networks of pipes, replacing furnaces and installing generators. But officials say the payback has already been significant: Kristianstad now spends about $3.2 million each year to heat its municipal buildings rather than the $7 million it would spend if it still relied on oil and electricity. It fuels its municipal cars, buses and trucks with biogas fuel, avoiding the need to purchase nearly half a million gallons of diesel or gas each year. The operations at the biogas and heating plants bring in cash, because farms and factories pay fees to dispose of their waste and the plants sell the heat, electricity and car fuel they generate. Converting to Renewables Articles in this series examine innovative attempts to reduce the world’s dependence on coal, oil and other carbon-intensive fuels, and the challenges faced. A blog about energy and the environment. Kristianstad’s energy makeover is rooted in oil price shocks of the 1980s, when the city could barely afford to heat its schools and hospitals. To save on fuel consumption, the city began laying heating pipes to form an underground heating grid – so-called district heating. Such systems use one or more central furnaces to heat water or produce steam that is fed into the network. It is far more efficient to pump heat into a system that can warm an entire city than to heat buildings individually with boilers. District heating systems can generate heat from any fuel source, and like New York City’s, Kristianstad’s initially relied on fossil fuel. But after Sweden became the first country to impose a tax on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, in 1991, Kristianstad started looking for substitutes. By 1993, it was taking in and burning local wood wastes, and in 1999, it began relying on heat generated from the new biogas plant. Some buildings that are too remote to be connected to the district heating system have been fitted with individual furnaces that use tiny pellets that are also made from wood waste. Burning wood in this form is more efficient and produces less carbon dioxide than burning logs does; such heating has given birth to a booming pellet industry in northern Europe. Government subsidies underwrite purchases of pellet furnaces by homeowners and businesses; pellet-fueled heat costs half as much as oil, said Mr. Erfors, the engineer. Having dispensed with fossil fuels for heating, Kristianstad is moving on to other challenges. City planners hope that by 2020 total local emissions will be 40 percent lower than they were in 1990, and that running the city will require no fossil fuel and produce no emissions at all. Transportation now accounts for 60 percent of fossil fuel use, so city planners want drivers to use cars that run on local biogas, which municipal vehicles already do. That will require increasing production of the fuel. Kristianstad is looking into building satellite biogas plants for outlying areas and expanding its network of underground biogas pipes to allow the construction of more filling stations. At the moment, this is something of a chicken-and-egg problem: even though biogas fuel costs about 20 percent less than gasoline, consumers are reluctant to spend $32,000 (about $4,000 more than for a conventional car) on a biogas or dual-fuel car until they are certain that the network will keep growing. ‘A tank is enough to get you around the region for the day, but do you have to plan ahead,” Martin Risberg, a county engineer, said as he filled a biogas Volvo. Here is a great idea from the USA thanks to Scott and Julie Brusaw: http://solarroadways.com/main.html Check out their incredible and marvelous website! Lots of great ideas here on good uses for solar energy on the USA’s massive road system. Thanks to NHNE for bringing the solar roadways to my attention (and yours).

 

Stargazing Part 1

 

One of the reflecting telescopes at Jenny Jump State Forest. Photo by Gordon Bond

 

There is a wonderful dark sky location convenient to Metro NYC and Philadelphia, as well as Northern NJ, Eastern PA and Southern NY State. Within the Jenny Jump State Forest in Hope, NJ, the site is run by UACNJ, the United Astronomy Clubs of New Jersey. Every Saturday night they have a featured speaker with audio-visual extras inside a small museum/clubhouse and the fee is a donation. After the speaker is finished one can go outside and look at the skies. There are people on hand with telescopes and if the night is clear amazing things can be seen.

The evening I attended, the lecture was by an astronomy professor Lonny Bunis from Raritan Valley Community College, another time I spoke with an astronomy professor from NJIT, Dr. Dale Gary, who had discovered an exoplanet. I was very impressed! I also saw Jupiter and her four Galilean moons including a shadow cast on the surface of Jupiter by one of them. So for a portion of Jupiter there was an eclipse at that time. Jupiter has 63 known moons so these little lunar eclipses must be a common occurence. The comet Hartley 2, a nebula, Uranus, and the Andromeda Galaxy were other things I saw through the 16″ reflecting telescope. A club member ably manned and focused those sights in the telescope for visitors to see. Light from the Andromeda Galaxy takes two and a half billion light years to reach the Earth. Light from our Sun takes approximately 20 minutes to reach us. So everything that you see in the sky exists in the past. For all we know the Andromeda Galaxy is no longer there! I also saw three meteors careening through the night sky.

The environmental issue here is that we are losing the ability to see the stars because artificial lighting is polluting the night sky so it never really gets dark enough in most places to see these celestial marvels. Artificial lighting can be made less strong and so that its light reflects downward toward the Earth causing less light to escape upwards towards the sky.

The International Dark Sky Association works to combat light pollution.