Those oh so standoffish aliens

There are many among humanity who wonder if there is sentient life in the universe besides us.  Today, there are those that are convinced that aliens are visiting us.  There are others who are skeptical.  Many people are open to the possibility, but are not convinced.  There's probably some people that never even give it any thought.

One of the biggest question's people ask in regards to the subject is why the aliens don't make their presence known?  Of course, there are some people that claim the aliens have made their presence known...some claim to have communicated with them, others claim to have been abducted by them.  But why don't the aliens just make some grand appearance and announce their arrival to everyone?

Well many people have made various suggestions over the years as to why the aliens are seemingly so shy.  These are some of the ideas people have come up with over the years (along with some of my own thoughts).

(Note: Whenever I used the word "government," I'm not necessarily referring to any particular government.)

• The government knows about the aliens, but are afraid to release the information to the public out of fear that the public won't handle the information well.  Essentially, our rulers just don't think were ready to know about the existence of aliens yet.  

To a certain point, I like this suggestion....but ultimately, I think this suggestion gives people the wrong impression.  I don't think the government is concerned about us so much as they are concerned about themselves.  I'll go into more detail about what I mean by that in the last suggestion I list.

• Earth is just an interstellar rest stop or tourist destination.

This suggestion just reeks of 50s and 60s B movie sci-fi.  The idea that aliens are just zipping around space going about their daily grind is probably just us projecting our way of life on them.

• The aliens are just here to observe our behavior.  

Some people think the aliens just found us and merely want to observe our behavior and development.  The aliens purposely don't interfere because they want to see how we do it on our own.  This may be a plausible suggestion.  A variant of this suggestion says that the aliens didn't just find us, but we are actually their science project.  They created our civilization and want to watch how we develop.  Another variant says they are breeding us to be their slaves.  I think these latter two suggestions also sound like something from B movie sci-fi.

• The aliens don't make their presence known because they simply aren't there. 

Well bah humbug to you too.

• The aliens we see today are the same as the angels and demons of the past.

I like this idea.  In the past, angels, demons, and 'gods' rarely made a public appearance, and they usually only appeared to or communicated with certain people.  How convenient that the aliens of today only appear to or communicate with certain people too?

One thing I don't like about this idea is I think it gives some people the wrong impression.  Some people interpret this as ancient people 'mistaking' aliens for angels, demons, or 'gods'.  Well I don't necessarily think this was a 'mistake'.  If we are to assume for a moment that the aliens of today are the same as the angels and demons of yesterday, then I think it is more or less an issue of semantics.  If they are the same, then these beings are what they are regardless of what you call them.  I can call this bottle of Dr. Pepper I'm drinking a soda, a pop, or a soft drink, but regardless of what I call it, it still is what it is - a consumable beverage.

As for why the 'aliens' don't reveal themselves to everyone, I guess you can just insert your own beliefs about the angels, demons, and 'gods' of the past.  Whatever you think their reasons were for only revealing themselves to select individuals in the past would presumably be the same reasons they only reveal themselves to select individuals now.

And although I like this idea and think it's plausible, I'm not 100% convinced that it's a correct assumption.  It's also possible that it's only partially right...which would be to say that some 'aliens' are angels and demons, but not all of them.

• The aliens look like us and live among us.  

The aliens either look like us, or are at least able to disguise themselves into looking like us.  I suppose it's possible.  Maybe they just want to help us without us knowing it?

• The aliens have an agreement with the government that states they (the aliens) have to keep their presence a secret from the public.

Actually I thought this one up myself, but I'm not necessarily claiming to be the first person that ever thought of this.  Basically the gist of this idea is similar to the first one I listed, but the reason the government wants to keep the presence of the aliens a secret is because they are somehow benefiting from keeping the knowledge of the aliens a secret.  The benefit would most likely be a military advantage or something like that.  By keeping the alien presence a secret, the government doesn't have to share the knowledge they have gained from the aliens.  And as they say...'knowledge is power'.  As for how they convinced the aliens not to show anyone else their knowledge, I don't know.  Maybe they're just good negotiators.

• The aliens are totally peaceful and choose to avoid the potential conflict caused by them making their presence known publicly.

This one is similar to the first suggestion I mentioned.  But the difference is the reason for disclosure is not because the government thinks we aren't prepared to accept the reality of visiting aliens, but because the government just doesn't want us to know they exist.  In other words, the government is not concerned that knowledge of extraterrestrials will damage our psyches and confuse our view of reality, but concerned that it would shift the balance of power away from them (the government).  Simply put, public knowledge of extraterrestrials would be a threat to ruling elite's power.

Think about it...if everyone knew extraterrestrials existed, we'd be wanting to ask them a lot of questions.  Think of all the questions you'd want to ask them?  Essentially, power would begin to shift to the aliens.  The ruling elite don't want this.

This isn't about politics.  This is not about Democrat or Republican.  It's not even about liberal or conservative.  It's about elitism.  Elitists can be found in all areas of the political spectrum, whether it be the extreme left, the middle of the road, or the extreme right.  Elitism is basically a mixture of snobbery, pompousness, racism, and a 'survival of the fittest' attitude.  Most of history's prominent rulers could be considered elitists, and the same is true today.  Elitist rulers don't want anyone threatening their authority.  I think the best example to use is communism.  Communist countries take an official stance of atheism, and communist leaders love this because their authority isn't questioned by religious authorities or what a holy book says.  They don't want the people they rule to believe in a higher authority.  As such...they don't want the people they rule to believe in aliens either.  The presumably more advanced aliens would be a threat to the leader's authority.  People would no longer be interested in what their leader had to say, they'd be more interested in what the aliens have to say.  I mean come on, can you imagine Stalin or Mao just stepping aside and saying, "Yessir Mr. Alien, please give us your knowledge and tell us how we need to do things."  I think Stalin and Mao were perfectly content being in charge and telling everyone else how to live their lives.

To further clarify though,  were not just talking about elected government officials or dictators.  The world's ruling elite consist of much more than just elected officials.  Global politics are also influenced by international bankers, wealthy industrialists, and moguls of various sorts.

So what were talking about here would be a paradigm shift.  A paradigm shift that the ruling elite would not want.  The ruling elite are perfectly content with being wealthy and powerful.  They are perfectly content with having servants to do the things they don't want to do, while they do the things they want to do, whether it be deciding where to buy another mansion, or flying somewhere in their personal jet.  They fear the message the aliens may bring would be a threat to their wealth and power.

So with all this in mind...it may be that the aliens are aware that the ruling elite would attack if they attempted to relay whatever their message is.  The media would justify the attacks by portraying the aliens as invaders.  They aliens may very well be capable of retaliating, but it may be their choice not too.  Just because you have the power to retaliate doesn't mean you should.  If the aliens are peaceful by nature, it may be their desire to just avoid conflict altogether.

Now of course, it's not quite as simple as just blaming elitists that don't want their power threatened.  This is where it gets similar to the first suggestion I mentioned.  Inevitably, there would be much confusion on what the true nature of the aliens are.  Some people would go along with what the media and their leaders - whether religious or political - tell them.  If the leaders and the media tell them that the aliens are bad, they'll assume they're bad.  But others would want to listen to what the aliens have to say.  So the stability of the world would be threatened regardless.  The main difference between this suggestion and the first one though is the resulting conflict would begin because the ruling elite felt their power would be threatened and chose to instigate a conflict to maintain that power.  The ruling elite are not concerned about us, they are concerned about themselves.

I don't claim to know the answer to the question of why the aliens seem to be so shy, but it could very well be one of these scenarios.  It may be a combination of more than one of these scenarios.  It may even be something we haven't thought of yet.  Perhaps one day we will know.

Water on Mars

The other day I posted a link to an article about water on the moon.  Today I came across an article on NASA's website saying they've found water on Mars at a latitude lower than what they had expected.  Here's an excerpt from the article:

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed frozen water hiding just below the surface of mid-latitude Mars. The spacecraft's observations were obtained from orbit after meteorites excavated fresh craters on the Red Planet.

Scientists controlling instruments on the orbiter found bright ice exposed at five Martian sites with new craters that range in depth from approximately half a meter to 2.5 meters (1.5 feet to 8 feet). The craters did not exist in earlier images of the same sites. Some of the craters show a thin layer of bright ice atop darker underlying material. The bright patches darkened in the weeks following initial observations, as the freshly exposed ice vaporized into the thin Martian atmosphere. One of the new craters had a bright patch of material large enough for one of the orbiter's instruments to confirm it is water-ice.

The finds indicate water-ice occurs beneath Mars' surface halfway between the north pole and the equator, a lower latitude than expected in the Martian climate.

"This ice is a relic of a more humid climate from perhaps just several thousand years ago," said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Read the whole article here.

It seems like water is turning up in all kinds of places now.

Time Traveling with Music

Certain types of music have a way of putting us in a certain type of mood.  And it's not limited to just feelings of happiness, sadness, or anger.  Certain types of music can put us at ease, other types of can get us in the mood to party.  Some songs can bring up images of road trips or particular places in our mind.  Sometimes individuals may even associate a specific song with a specific place, person, event, or feeling.

As a history buff, I like it when music can also take us back in time.  Big band music doesn't just bring up images of New York and Chicago, but images of New York and Chicago from 1920s-40s.  Bluegrass music brings up images of the Appalachian mountains during the 1940s.  Music played on a nay and oud often bring up images of medieval Persia or ancient Egypt.  Bagpipes bring up images of medieval Scotland.

Many instruments are capable of playing different styles of music though.  It just depends on how the artist tunes and plays them.  What inspired me to write this post today is a song I heard a few days ago called "The Ancient Forest of Elves."  The artist, Luca Turilli, has essentially merge old English/Celtic sounds with modern rock and, in my opinion, did a good job of doing it.  The song brings up images of Arthurian England with a hint of Lord of the Rings legendarium.  Not only do I like the period of history, I think I find it even more appealing because of the time of the year.  Here in the American South, its very hot and humid here all summer, so it gets annoying to be outside for long periods of time over the summer (unless you're at the beach!).  So when autumn arrives and it starts to cool down, it's nice to be able to go outside and actually enjoy being outside.  It's the best time of the year to go on a hike in the woods.  I think that's why this song has been stuck in my head the past few days.

Do you suddenly feel like hiking through Sherwood Forest to find a sword to pull out of a stone now?

UFO shot down by Iran

An Iranian news service has reported that Iran has shot down a UFO.  Here's an excerpt from the report:

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has targeted and downed an unidentified shining object after sighting it over Persian Gulf waters. 

"Glowing objects were sighted over the Persian Gulf. IRGC air defense targeted one of the objects successfully, forcing it to plummet and sink in the seas off Boushehr (Province)," said top regional commander, Brigadier Ali Razmjou. 

Read the full report here.

There's been a lot of buzz on the internet about it, but I haven't found anything confirming what the UFO was.  I did come across one article stating that the "U.S. thus far has neither debunked or verified the shooting of 'something' over Iranian waters."

But in light of recent news about a secret nuclear enrichment facility in Iran, my guess is the UFOs were just some sort of spy aircraft.

I think what I found to be most interesting about this was that an international news source reported that a  government shot down a UFO...even if it does turn out to be something relatively mundane like a spy aircraft.  Usually you just get stories about weather balloons or meteors.

Astrology: A Very Long History

I'll admit, I've never been that interested in astrology.  When I was younger, I thought the whole thing sounded silly.  Even now I don't take it too seriously, but I do find the concept behind it more interesting.  Over the years I've come across a lot of things that have piqued my curiousity about it, whether it be personality profiles based on it, or accurate predictions made with it.  I'm also intrigued by how ancient people such as the Maya were able to make such a complex and accurate calendar based on astrological observations.  I've been thinking about it more lately because I've been thinking about cycles of time (I wrote about that the other day).  I also know that the sun and the moon effects us and the earth itself.  So with all that in mind, I've been considering how other stars and planets may effect us also.

No one is denying that stars and planets move through the sky.  But not everyone thinks the movement of the stars and planets has any real effect on us or society.  It occurred to me though that belief in astrology may be the oldest 'religion' (for lack of a better term) there is.  Typically, you can trace the origins of a religion to someone.  But, you can't really do that with astrology.  You can trace the various types of astrology back to specific regions, but you can't really trace it to any one person.  It's almost as if astrology in one form or another is as old as recorded history.  It's like it was just sort of 'there'. So where did it really come from?  Who was the first astrologer?  Who was the first person to notice all the movements of all the heavenly bodies and record what they thought it all meant?  And why did they think it meant what they said it meant?  How many different people figured it out?

I figure it began by one of two ways:

• It was taught to early man by an angel, demon, or alien.
• Someone merely observed how the stars moved at night, then recorded whatever events occurred afterwards and associated the observed movements with what events occurred (or didn't occur).

Now let's just assume for a moment that the latter is true.  Are the movement of heavenly bodies actually connected to the events that occur?  Or are they merely unrelated events that someone erroneously connected to the movement of stars?  What if there really was no connection between the movement of the stars and what events occurred?  

What if there was no connection, but a connection was created and entered into the collective sub-conscious. What if the collective sub-conscious causes events to happen in a certain way at a certain time based on the position of the stars?  In other words, what if the movement of the stars have nothing to do with the events that occur, but thousands of years of belief in astrology have resulted in people unconsciously causing the events to occur anyways?  Could it be so embedded into the collective subconscious that even people that don't know anything about astrology still unconsciously contribute to causing events to happen based on the position of the stars?  Is this why religions such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity condemn astrology?  Are these religions trying to free the collective subconscious from the belief that the movement of stars has some real significance?  Are they trying to tell us that our lives aren't dictated by the positions of stars?  Are they trying to break the cycle?

But then I'm also reminded of how the sun and moon effect us.  So I begin to wonder again if the other stars and planets can have a subtle effect on us to.  

I'm still not sure what I believe.  But it gives me something else to ponder.  

Water on the Moon

Here's an excerpt from an article on Space.com about water being found on the moon:

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

The moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but the water is said to exist on the moon in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, researchers said.  

"If the water molecules are as mobile as we think they are — even a fraction of them — they provide a mechanism for getting water to those permanently shadowed craters," said planetary geologist Carle Pieters of Brown University in Rhode Island, who led one of the three studies in Science on the lunar find, in a statement. "This opens a whole new avenue [of lunar research], but we have to understand the physics of it to utilize it."

Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

Read the rest here.

H/T

Stargate Universe

Normally I don't write about fictional television shows here.  I rarely even watch fictional television shows.  Currently, there's not any that I watch that are in season...but there's about to be.  The series premier of Stargate Universe is Friday, October 2nd.

Stargate Universe is going to be the third series of the Stargate franchise of television shows.  The first show, Stargate SG-1, picked up about a year after where the original Stargate movie left off.  After 10 seasons, Stargate SG-1 is the longest running sci-fi television show ever (although if Smallville goes into a 10th season, it will surpass it in total number of episodes).  It's also the longest running scripted cable television show ever.

I think the success of SG-1 is based on numerous factors.  It has an interesting concept, is written well, and has a great cast and characters.  One thing I really like about it is how they mix ancient mythologies and sci-fi.  In the original movie, the team travels through the stargate (a device that opens wormholes to other planets) to the planet Abydos and meet Ra, the Egyptian sun god, who just so happens to be an alien.  The stargate itself had been found buried in Eygpt....buried thousands of years ago and forgotten about.  In the show, they continue to go on missions through the stargate in search of new technologies, allies, and to fight the bad guys that threaten earth.

The successor to Stargate SG-1 was Stargate Atlantis.  Basically Atlantis followed a format similar to SG-1, but was a different team, based in a different galaxy, going on different missions.  Atlantis lasted for five seasons.

But Stargate Universe is going to be following a different format, and I'm very excited about it.  It's predecessors followed an action-adventure format, but this show is going to be a drama.  From what I've read about it and seen in previews, it appears that the show is going to be following the writing and production style of Lost and Battlestar Galactica, but will be remaining true to the existing Stargate mythology.  I think this was a good move too.  I doubt they would have been able to maintain the level of success they have had so far if they just did another show similar to what they've already done.

One thing that made the two previous shows successful is how well written they were.  Although they followed an action-adventure format, there was comedy and drama written into the series in all the right places.  It gave it a realistic feel.  In addition to that, Stargate takes place in the present day, so they also make references to current trends.  I think this makes it very easy to relate to the characters and the show.

The new series is going to be about a group of people that get stranded on a spaceship billions of lightyears from home.  The ship was set on a course millions of years ago by an ancient alien race and, sometime over the millions of years its been out there, was forgotten.  The ship is on autopilot and just travels the universe planting stargates in different galaxies.  The problem for the group of people that discover it is they don't know how to stop it.  So they can't just turn it around and try to go home.  They also don't know where they are in space, so they can't just use a stargate to open a wormhole and get back home.  The group of people are stranded there unexpectedly, and they aren't prepared to be there.  Some of them, such as an accountant and a politician's daughter, are completely out of their element there.  That will no doubt make for some exciting drama.

Tommorow (Friday, September 24), SyFy is running a Stargate SG-1 marathon.  If you've never seen it but you like sci-fi, I'd recommend you watch some of the episodes.  Next week, Stargate Universe premiers!

Here's a trailer for Universe.

Cycles of Time

The idea that time is cyclical is very old. To say that time is cyclical is to say that time just sort of goes round and round. It doesn't really have a beginning or end, it just progresses through various stages in the cycle and eventually gets back around to where you started at. Then you just keep going back around again and again. Today, most people typically think of time as linear. Basically it just appears we're going from point a to point b.

But time is cyclical, at least in the most basic form of the concept. The sun goes up and down every day. It's a cycle that continually repeats itself. If you count 365 of those cycles, you have a cycle of four seasons. Everytime you go through the 365 daily cycles, you go through the cycle of the four seasons….over and over again. Now most of us don't look to far beyond the cycle of four seasons, but if you're an astronomer or an astrologer, you can point out all sorts of other cycles, whether they're sunspot cycles on the sun, or cycles based on where a particular planet or star is in space at a particular point in time. All of these cycles just keep happening over and over again.

You could go into detail about the reasons why these things happen…position in space, the magnetism involved, and the speed heavenly bodies rotate and revolve at. But the reason why these cycles happen isn't the point I want to make, the point I want to make is that these things do happen, nevermind what is causing them to happen.

As for linear time, it's not really contradictory to the concept of cyclical time depending on how you look at it. Because even if time doesn't literally have a beginning and an end, you can still plot points on the timeline and draw a line from point a to point b. In other words, linear time can be used as a way to chart events, but linear time itself may not even exist. It may just exist as a way to keep records.

So with that said, what if there is more to cyclical time than just cycles based on positions in space? What if civilizations are based on cycles? As a history buff, I know that history definitely repeats itself – that's not just some old saying. Civilizations rise and fall, and you can find many parallels between them. But what if the cycle of historical civilizations rising and falling is just part of a much larger cycle – a cycle that isn't just limited to a tribe or geographic location, but a cycle of humanity? What if the rise and fall of civilizations is like the rising and setting of the sun, and the rise and fall of humanity as a whole is like the coming and going of the seasons of the year? Some people seem to think so.

Solon, an ancient Greek statesman, spoke of a time he visited some Egyptian priests and learned about the history of the lost continent of Atlantis. Plato later wrote about the history of Atlantis and described it as an advanced civilization that came to a cataclysmic end when the continent sank. The famous 20^th century psychic Edgar Cayce later claimed to be the reincarnation of an Atlantean. Cayce described Atlantis and its history, noting that before its demise, the Atlantean people were an advanced civilization. Some have suggested that the Atlanteans had technologies that rival or surpass our own technologies today. It's has also been said that they had a Great Crystal they used to transmit energies throughout the land, and later they inadvertently caused their own destruction by tuning the Crystal's energy to high. The destructive frequency it was tuned to caused volcanoes to erupt, mountains to melt, and ultimately submerged the continent. It's said that a remnant of Atlanteans survived, and they influenced the early civilizations of our recorded history.

The book of Genesis in the Bible doesn't specifically speak of a civilization of people existing before Adam, however, some have pointed out what may be subtle indications of a civilization existing prior to Adam. It's suggested that there is an undisclosed gap of time that occurs between verses 1 and  2 of Genesis.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 KJV)

It's suggested that the earth had existed for a long time, and verse 2 picks up after a catacylsmic event has occurred. While there is no way to prove that, the theory is based on how the events of the creation are described. In verse 1, it is said that God created the heavens and the earth. But in other parts of the story where God is in the process of forming the earth, the word 'made' is used numerous times. To us, these two words mean practically the same thing. But the words 'create' and 'made' are translated from two different Hebrew words with different meanings. In Hebrew, to 'create' something means to bring it into existence from nothing. However, something that is 'made' is something formed from something already existing. To clarify, think of sitting down at a table to eat a sandwich. If you just snap your fingers and a sandwich magically appears, then you created the sandwich. But if you have a loaf of bread, a package of ham, and a package of cheese and you put pieces of each of them together, then you've made a sandwich. So in other words, parts of the Genesis creation story seem to indicate that as God was creating the world, he was actually using some things that he had created at an earlier time and already existed.

That alone isn't proof of a fallen civilization that existed before Adam. But in the King James Version of the Bible, God tells Adam to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28). God later told Noah to do the same thing after the Great Flood. But if was Adam was first, then what was there to replenish? Later translations of the Bible don't use the word 'replenish' in this passage anymore.

J.R.R. Tolkien also used a concept of cyclical time in his writings. He describes a legendary time of prehistory, with three cycles being completed and, at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the fourth cycle starting. At the beginning of the fourth age, the Elves and other races sail to Valinor, while the race of men remains in Middle Earth.

A more recent example of the concept of cyclic time being used in story telling is the new 'reimagined' series of Battlestar Galactica. The prehistory of the series describes the history of humanity beginning on a planet called Kobol. The people of Kobol reached a high level of civilization before having to leave Kobol due to some unexplained event or environmental catastrophe. Twelve tribes of humans then went and settled twelve other planets and started over. The twelve human tribes eventually reached a level of advancement rivaling or surpassing the level of advancement their ancestors on Kobol had achieved. Their advancements and greed turned out to be their undoing though, because the Cylons, the sentient robots they created to serve them, eventually turned on them and nearly destroyed humanity completely. Humanity's ancestors on Kobol had apparently already built Cylons of their own during ancient times. The Cylons built on Kobol left Kobol and started their own colony 2000 years before the humans of Kobol left to start over. Ironically, the original Cylons apparently suffered the same fate as their human counterparts though…they built their own robotic servants who eventually turned on them! Towards the end of the series, some of the Cylons join with the humans and destroy the other Cylons. The rebel Cylons and the human remnant settle on a planet they decide to call Earth.  They destroy their technologies by setting their spaceships on a course towards the sun. At the end of the final episode, the story skips 150,000 years into the future to Times Square in New York. On a TV screen can be seen a documentary about advances in robotics. New York City is reminiscent of Caprica City, the capital of the former human colonies. Despite the efforts of the 'ancestors' to stop the cycle of destruction (by destroying their technology and starting over), it seems the message of the story is that humanity is still following that same cyclic path of destruction.

So if we are to assume that there was a human civilization prior to us, why have we forgotten it? Perhaps that is just part of the cycle. In the book of Isaiah in the Bible, we are told that God will create new heavens and a new earth and that the "former things" will not be remembered. What if this is just part of the cycle though? Are there "former things" that we have forgotten too?

I think one reason that people are so intrigued by apocalyptic predictions of destruction is because we seek to escape the way things are now. I think most of us know that the way society is now, is not the way it is supposed to be. There is not supposed to be hate, war, famine, and greed. Yet, it seems it is difficult for us to break away from this mold. Perhaps we think that an apocalyptic 'ending' will give us the opportunity to start over fresh and set things right. Even if we dimiss the claims some have made of a civilization prior to Adam, we can still see this theme in the story of Noah. In Noah's time, humanity had grown wicked and depraved, but Noah was found to be righteous. Noah and his family were then given the opportunity to start over fresh when the Great Flood wiped out the rest of humanity. We see this same theme in Battlestar Galactica. The remnant of humanity that survived the destruction the colonies sought to start over on a planet called Earth. Is this the opportunity we are seeking? Are we seeking the opportunity to start over? Are we seeking the opportunity to end inequality? The opportunity to end hate, wars, famine, and greed? Is this why we want the cycle to start over?

If time is indeed cyclical and humanity is stuck in a cycle of destruction, maybe one day the cycle of destruction will end…but hopefully it will be a happy ending. Hopefully when the cycle ends, humanity can finally enter into an eternal peace.

The Paul McCartney Conspiracy Theory

In case there's anyone reading this that hasn't heard of it before, there's long been a conspiracy theory that the 'real' Paul McCartney was killed in a car wreck in 1966.  According to the conspiracy theory, the Beatles feared this would interfere with their rise to fame, so they chose to cover up the accident and replaced the 'real' Paul with a look-a-like that was also a sound-a-like (and apparently a song writer too!).

The whole thing is a little silly and the Beatles have always denied the allegations, but the theory is backed up with all sorts of 'evidence'.  The 'evidence' is based on what the conspiracy theorists claim are 'clues' about Paul's alleged death.  Many of the clues come from lyrics in their songs or album cover art.  Some come from videos, others come from playing certain songs in reverse.

Well the reason I bring this up is because I found a really cool website about this conspiracy theory.  It lists all the various 'clues', but it also has a list disputing the validity of many of the clues (the site's author admits he doesn't believe in the conspiracy himself, but made the website because he was always "fascinated by conspiracies.").  While many of the alleged 'clues' are silly and some even come from albums released before Paul's alleged death, there are still a few 'clues' that are interesting.  The Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album has a lot of alleged clues, and the Beatles appear to be attending the funeral of a guitar made of flowers (said to be Paul's bass guitar).  I do find it odd that on many of the albums, Paul does seem to be the odd man out in some way, whether he's facing a different direction, wearing a zipper when the others are wearing buttons, or being shown on a red background while the rest are shown on a white background.

While this is one of the sillier conspiracy theories people have come up with over the years, it's nonetheless entertaining.  But I guess I'm just "fascinated by conspiracies" too.

Check out the website and all the clues here: paulisdead.co.uk/ (Update: Unfortunately that link no longer works...but you can still find an archived copy on the wayback machine.  Not all of the images are available on the archived copy though.  There is also a  Wikipedia entry if you want more information).

Swastikas - Past and Present

Most people associate the swastika with Nazi Party, but the symbol is actually an ancient symbol that has been utilized by various cultures all over the world.  It's been used in Asian, European, and Native American cultures.  The swastika is a sun symbol, and is typically associated with the sun cross symbol.  Prior to being associated with the stigmas of Nazism, the symbol was usually interpreted to mean "well being," "lucky," or "enlightenment."

 Here are a couple of ancient swastikas:

Swastika on a Buddha

Swastika on a Roman mosaic

          

I should also point out that not all swastikas look alike:

The Thule Society used what is known as a 'broken' sun cross.

Symbol on the flag of Hirosaki, Japan

Now some may think the swastika symbol has gone away in the modern Western world.  While it's true that the symbol has been banned in Germany and most of the Western world views the symbol negatively, that hasn't stopped major corporations/organizations from using it...although they use what I call 'veiled' swastikas because they are careful not to make it obvious.

Take a look at this one:

At first glance, this doesn't appear to be a swastika.  It just looks likes a bunch of letter Ss (esses?).  But I actually noticed that it was a swastika when I saw it on the taskbar on a computer where I used to work.  If you crunch the symbol down small enough, it does look more like a swastika than when you view it at normal size.  And...should I also point out that the name of the company is Sun Microsystems?

CU Service Center actually made theirs look like a sun:

JP Morgan Chase hid theirs by leaving the middle of it blank:

Columbia Sportswear uses a design  similar to Sun Microsystem's logo:

Oddly enough, some other companies with "Columbia" in the name use sun symbolism too:

Columbia Broadcasting System uses the All Seeing Eye:                        

                                                                                                                                                                                            
Columbia Records sort of merged what looks like a record into an All Seeing Eye symbol that also looks like it has the Egyptian hieroglyph for the sun (Not to be confused with the Eye or Ra symbol) adapted into it:

                                                                                                                                                                        
Columbia Pictures didn't use a sun symbol, but they did use a depiction of Columbia, which used to be considered the "feminine personification of America" in much the same way the Romans personified Great Britain as the goddess Britannia.  So I don't know...I guess that's kind of pagan?  Maybe?  Ehh...whatever.

Columbia University doesn't appear to have gone along with the theme though...they just use a royal crown as their logo.  The logo does look like the crown depicted in the logo for the British Intelligence agency MI5 though.  You can come up with your own conspiracy theory about that.

You can find a lot of conspiracy theories to go along with these on the internet, and you can find a lot of other examples of occult symbols in corporate logos (some are more of a stretch than others). Even if you're not the conspiracy theory type, I've found that it's fun to look and see what kind of symbolism you can find in the various corporate logos we come across in daily life.

(I adapted this post from a  post on another blog of mine.)

The All Seeing Eye

A lot of people don't realize it, but the top of the Great Pyramid is flat. It has no capstone. Most pictures of it are taken from a distance, and looking at it from far away, you may not even notice that it's missing the capstone. But it is. Here's a picture of the top of it.

No one knows what happened to it. The earliest historical records mentioning the pyramids point out the missing capstone. So if it was stolen, it must have been stolen thousands of years ago. Some have suggested that it never had a capstone in the first place. It was either not finished, or just purposely left off for some reason.

Well let's jump ahead in history to around the 18th century AD, when Freemasonry started to become a popular gentleman's fraternity. One well known Freemasonic symbol is a depiction of a pyramid with a glowing capstone with an eye on it hovering above the top of the pyramid. It is called the 'All Seeing Eye' (or is sometimes called the 'Eye of Providence'). They adapted the symbol for use on the Great Seal of the United States, and in the 20th century, they added the symbol to the back of the one dollar bill.

One popular theory conspiracy theorists have put forward for the meaning of the symbol is that the hovering 'All Seeing Eye' capstone symbolizes that the Freemasons haven't completed their master plan yet. In other words, the incomplete pyramid symbolizes their incomplete plan...although it appears to be nearly complete. However, I don't think this is the intended meaning of the symbol. To understand what I think the intended meaning of the symbol is, we must first take into consideration the missing capstone on the Great Pyramid. Essentially what the Freemasons have done is drawn in the missing capstone of the Great Pyramid as an all seeing eye of Ra, or Horus, or God, or whomever you want to associate with it. So symbolically, they've drawn in what we don't see when we look at the Great Pyramid....the All Seeing Eye. The All Seeing Eye can see you, but you can't see it. In other words, even though you don't actually see God with your eyes, God can still see you.

Now whether this is what the Egyptians intended it to mean, or if it's just how the Freemasons have seemingly interpreted it, I don't know.

The Prophetic Blackout?

As I was writing a comment on someone else's blog this morning in regards to 2012 prophecies (see the blog here), I got to thinking about predictions beyond 2012. Are there any? There doesn't seem to be many.

Now some prophecies regarding 2012 are just prophecies concerning the time around the year 2012, and don't necessarily pinpoint an exact date. What I was interested in is specific dates pinpointed after the year 2012 (or at least time periods well beyond the year 2012). Here is what I found:

• 2016 - Professor Lloyd Cunningdale and students find a time capsule in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that was left by the Donner party that includes predictions for the future. One prediction says that in the future, there would be biological warfare, and a disease from the biological warfare will eliminate humanity in the year 2016. This report comes from the Weekly World News...so it shouldn't be taken seriously.
• 2034 - This prediction is based on a time calculation that says the covenant God made with Abraham and the new covenant with Christ must be of equal length (2000 years). The year of Christ's death and resurrection is where the new 2000 years start, so the date calculated to be the end is 2034. There's of course, nothing in the Bible that says both covenants are supposed to be of the same length. And the precise dates for some of those events are hard to know for certain, so its hard to actually calculate the end if you don't know the exact moment in time you are supposed to start from. Besides, Christ said not to bother calculating the date of the end; only the Father knew that.
• 2047 - This prediction says the world will end at 3:28 AM, September 14th, 2047. Basically, this prediction isn't even intended to be taken seriously. It says that if people don't discard their plastic conformity and 'normalcy,' the 'gods' will withdraw their protection. At that point, rainbow colored alien lemurs will attack the entire human race and beat them to death with gigantic burritos.

I found those dates here.

I also found a question on Yahoo Answers regarding predictions after the year 2012. One person claimed Nostradamus said the world would end on 3797. It seems Nostradamus predictions have a tendency to get interpreted different ways though based on the vagueness of his predictions. Another person said that the year 2038 is when the Unix time keeping system wrapped around. Basically it would be like the Y2k problem, except it would only affect Unix and Linux operating systems.

So not much there either.

I looked up Edgar Cayce predictions to see if I could find anything specifically targeting a date after the year 2012, but the only thing I came across was a prediction that he would be reborn in the year 2100 AD (although he made like 14,000 predictions, so it's possible I may have missed something...but a lot of his predictions were for individuals anyways).

I also tried various google searches for end times dates after the year 2012, but it seemed that no matter how I worded the search, the results always focused on the year 2012 itself. When I tried searching without the year 2012 in the search terms, I found this website. But none of the predictions it lists are all that interesting. Mostly just more people trying to set a date for when the Biblical prophecies will happen, or when an asteroid 'might' hit the earth.

There are of course, predictions regarding the end of times where no specific date is set...the best example are the Biblical prophecies. If something does happen in 2012, I doubt it will be the return of Christ. Christ said not to bother trying to predict when he will return, so with so many people looking towards the year 2012, I doubt that will be the year of his return. However, that doesn't mean that something else big couldn't happen.

So it seems there are not that many predictions for the distant future. Nor are there all that many for the relatively near future after the year 2012. So again, I must ask, why is there so much pointing to the year 2012? I'm not really one to jump on the prophetic dating bandwagon...I realize there are many end time prophecies in the past that never played out, and I wasn't concerned about the Y2k problem around the year 2000. But I guess this 2012 phenomena intrigues me because there are so many cultures from the past that looked forward to this time or a time encompassing it. These predictions span different religions and cultures; it's not limited to any specific religious sect or regional superstition. There's also a lot of people today saying that we are on the verge of a spiritual awakening that is already in motion. So why 2012? And why doesn't there seem to be many predictions for the endtimes after 2012? Is it a prophetic blackout?

I imagine if the year 2012 comes and goes without incident, someone will come along and pull a new prediction out of the woodwork for the end of times though. But for those who are skeptical of anything significant happening in the year 2012, bear in mind there are plenty of psychos out there with access to nukes and deadly viruses. Someone could unleash these on the world in the year 2012 whether it was 'intended' to happen or not. They may just use the date as an excuse to unleash their wrath. Communication infrastructures could be sabotaged too. After all that...comes martial law. So yeah...that could be pretty bad.

Strange Babies

There are many reports throughout history of strange, abnormal looking babies being born. Some cases, such as an Indian girl born with four arms and four legs, are legitimate cases of a baby being born deformed. Other cases, such as the alleged case of the birth of the Jersey Devil, are more questionable. In reality, a baby being born deformed may be uncomfortable and unfortunate socially, but it's not unprecedented.

What I want to write about today though are a couple of links I found on one my favorite sites, paranormal.about.com. The site is frequently updated with links to news articles that have a paranormal twist, and two of today's links had to do with unusual babies.

One involved a goat, who allegedly gave birth to a humanlike kid. I'm not even going to bother and include an excerpt from the article because the article didn't bother to include a picture. I mean come on...it's not like this was bigfoot or nessie, where people usually only get a quick glimpse. This was a goat that allegedly gave birth to a humanlike kid....they had plenty of time to get a picture! The Greeks and Romans had stories of fauns, creatures with a human torso, goat legs, and goat horns on their head...if a goat gave birth to something like this...they certainly need to get a picture of it! Furthermore...I don't know much about the website that reported the birth. It was reported on talkzimbabwe.com...which may or may not even be a credible website.

But the birth of a 'faun' wasn't the only unusual baby in the news this week. There was also a report of alien baby in Mexico. Apparently this 'baby' was found a couple of years ago, but it made the news this week because scientists have just now released the results of their tests. Here's an excerpt:

Mexican TV revealed the almost unbelievable story - in 2007, a baby 'alien' was found alive by a farmer in Mexico.

He drowned it in a ditch out of fear, and now two years later scientists have finally been able to announce the results of their tests on this sinister-looking carcass.

At the end of last year the farmer, Marao Lopez, handed the corpse over to university scientists who carried out DNA tests and scans.

He claimed that it took him three attempts to drown the creature and he had to hold it underwater for hours.

Tests revealed a creature that is unknown to scientists - its skeleton has characteristics of a lizard, its teeth do not have any roots like humans and it can stay underwater for a long time.

But it also has some similar joints to humans.

Its brain was huge, particularly the rear section, leading scientists to the conclusion that the odd creature was very intelligent.

Read the rest of the article here. The article even includes video. The report comes from The Daily Telegraph, an Australian newspaper that is owned by News Corporation (the company that owns FOX). I looked around the website and it seems like it is a fairly normal news site. So either this 'baby' is a legitimate unknown lifeform, or a very elaborate hoax. Honestly, I thought the 'baby' look sculpted, but I guess if scientists have examined it and determined it to be some type of biological entity, then this ought to be big news. Whether or not it's an alien from outer space or just some genetically engineered creature from earth, this is still a big find if it is legit.

It's to bad the farmer drowned it. If it had been allowed to live, this could be an even more interesting find. I can't help but wonder though if a skilled taxidermist didn't create the 'baby' from the remains of other known creatures. The farmer may have even been in cahoots with the creator and made up a story of drowning it just to explain why it was already dead. But if it was artificially created, it would have had to been a very precise piece of work to be able to fool the scientists into thinking it was legit.

Hopefully we'll be hearing some more about this find soon.

The son of the morning

The post I made yesterday got me thinking about something that I think most people probably don't realize. Something that even most professing Christians don't realize.

What is it?

Lucifer can be seen. As in visibly, with your eyes...and without drugs. You just have to check the sky early in the morning before the sun rises, or right after the sun sets in the evening. 'Lucifer' is what is known in the Bible (Isaiah 14) as the 'morning star' that has fallen from heaven. We know the morning star (which is the same as the evening star) today as the planet Venus.

Venus is the brightest 'star' in the sky. The term 'Lucifer' loosely translates as 'lightbearer', or 'shining one'. In context, the passage in Isaiah 14 is referring to the King of Babylon, but the description is nonetheless an allegory for an actual supernatural (and perhaps astrological) event.

Throughout the rest of the Bible, the morning star is a reference to Jesus. In Isaiah, the reference to 'Lucifer' falling from heaven can thus be interpreted (at least) two ways:

• The devil, who masquerades an as angel of the light (2 Corinthians 11), falling from heaven.
• Jesus, who was from heaven but came down to Earth, where he was eventually executed. Jesus resurrected though. Venus may 'die' every morning after sunrise, but it 'resurrects' again in the evening.

I prefer the first explanation. The second explanation could still make sense though, if for no other reason than the fact that references to Jesus being the morning star come later in the Bible.

Sometimes I wonder if the devil originally came from Venus long ago. It's not a 'belief' I have per se, but it is something I wonder about in light of the description from Isaiah 14.

Visiting Venus

I've heard about people that claim to have been contacted by Venusians (that is, people from the planet Venus). I've also read about a lady named Omnec Onec that claims she is a Venusian living on Earth. It's said that Venusians typically appear to be what are referred to as "Nordic" aliens, because they appear caucasian and have blonde hair and blue eyes (though they are typically slightly taller than the average human). You may not take such claims seriously, but the wife of Japan's next Prime Minister does. In fact, she claims to have ridden to Venus on a UFO. Read this excerpt from an article on Reuters:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's next prime minister might be nicknamed "the alien," but it's his wife who claims to have had a close encounter with another world.

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of premier-in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama, wrote in a book published last year.

"It was a very beautiful place and it was really green."

Yukio Hatoyama is due to be voted in as premier on September 16 following his party's crushing election victory over the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday.

Miyuki, 66, described the extraterrestrial experience, which she said took place some 20 years ago, in a book entitled "Very Strange Things I've Encountered."

Read the rest of the article here. H/T

That's not something you read about everyday.

The UFO Hunters Petition

I just found out today that one my favorite shows, UFO Hunters, was cancelled. Up until now I just thought they were in a break between seasons. Apparently it was just cancelled though.

This sucks because it was one of the few TV shows that I enjoyed watching regularly and I'd make a point to watch it. I did find out that UFO Magazine is doing a petition to get the show back on the air. If you've ever watched it and enjoyed it, I recommend you go sign the petition. This was one of the few TV shows that took the UFO phenomena seriously. If you've never seen it but have even a passing interest in UFOs, I recommend you go find an episode online or look for a rerun on TV. And sign the petition!

Go here to see the announcement: http://www.ufomag.com/

Go here to sign the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/uf0hunt/petition.html

----The rest of this post is just going to be me ranting about this.----

I'm not just annoyed because a show I liked was cancelled, but because most of the shows on the History Channel now don't interest me. At one time, the History Channel was one of my favorite channels. What has happened to the History Channel? It seems they have gotten to much into the "reality" craze. Here's a list of a few of the History Channel's current shows:

• Ax Men: A reality show about a few logging companies in the Northwest that videotapes the loggers on the job.
• Ice Road Truckers: A reality show about truck drivers who drive on icy roads for a living.
• Pawn Stars: A show about owners of a pawn shop wheeling and dealing for interesting items that customers bring in (this show is actually mildly interesting to me, but it's not something that I would make a point to watch).

These shows don't really even have much to do with history. Pawn Stars does at least show some historical items, but the other two shows don't really seem to have much to do with history to me. I really don't see why shows like these would even be made into a regular series. I could see these topics being covered in a one time documentary episode, or perhaps even a miniseries...but a regular series with multiple seasons? The Discovery Channel even has a show called American Loggers that appears to be a show like Ax Men (I've never actually watched the show, but it looks like the same thing). Is there really a need for TWO of these shows?

Now at this point someone may say that UFO Hunter's was a reality show and didn't have anything to do with history. Well...there's some truth to that, but not entirely. While the UFO Hunters did occasionally investigate fairly recent UFO sightings, a lot of the sightings they investigated were historical UFO sightings. The format was sort of a hybrid of documentary film style and reality style. Nevertheless...I thought this show was much more interesting than the stuff they are showing now.

A few of their other shows are somewhat interesting, but none of them are shows I would go out of my way to see. One of the Discovery Channel's shows, The Colony, I think is an interesting concept for a reality show, but I haven't been able to get interested in it. Basically it's a reality show that has put a group of people into a setting that's supposed to be a post-apocalyptic era, and they are supposed to try and survive. The thing is though...they know they are a on a TV show...so what do they really have to worry about in the long run? The Colony is an example of a show I'd like to be a part of, but just don't care to watch.

So bring back UFO Hunters!

More on the tunnels beneath Giza

I found an article related to what I recently reported in my article called Beneath the Pyramids. They found tunnels beneath the Giza plateau which may lead to new discoveries (despite Zahi Hawass saying there was nothing new to find there). This article I found connects it to a prediction of the psychic Edgar Cayce who said there was a "Hall of Records" beneath the Sphinx that would be found one day.

Here is an excerpt:

Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment reported the following information from their headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia on August 25th 2009: Explorer and author Andrew Collins, funded by Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. Archeological Research Fund, has found and begun exploration of a subterranean network of previously unrecorded chambers and passageways beneath the Giza plateau, home to the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. Collins hopes that his discovery will eventually lead to finding a secret chamber alluded to by the ancient Egyptians as the “Tomb of God,” a structure known more popularly today as the “Hall of Records.”

The trail began in 2002 when the British Museum needed to relocate its library and archives of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan. During the move, the memoirs of Henry Salt, British Consul General in Egypt from 1815 until his death in 1827, were found again. Although previously catalogued, the contents had not been studied in depth. Some extracts were published in the nineteenth century, but it was only when the British Museum reproduced the complete work in The Sphinx Revealed, A Forgotten Record of Pioneering Excavations that full details of Salt’s amazing exploration of “catacombs” under the Giza plateau came to light. Salt, in the company of Italian explorer Giovanni Caviglia, conducted these explorations in 1817, exploring underground tunnels for a distance of “several hundred yards” before entering a spacious chamber that communicated with three others, from which went several “labyrinthick” passages, one of which was investigated by Caviglia for a distance of 300 feet. Although these passages are of natural origin (meaning caves), there are hints that some parts of this subterranean network of chambers and tunnels are man-made, and stretch beneath the plateau on which the Pyramids are located.

Read the rest here.