US Navy Reveals ‘Failed’ Anti-gravity Propulsion Experiments”After reporting on the bizarre saga of the Navy’s ‘UFO’ patents by Dr. Salvatore Pais for over a year and a half, The War Zone has finally gotten an on-the-record comment…”
Conspiracies
Real world X-Files conspiracy and beyond.
What we thought was our actual history may not be true
AS SOPHISTICATED TECHNOLOGICALLY as we have become on this planet, we are still pretty much in the dark when it comes to matters of our own existence. Where do we come from? What is our purpose here? What happens after we die?
These are the age-old questions. Science attempts to answer the first question only and doesn’t yet know how to deal with the other two. Religion, in its many forms, provides as many “certain” answers to all three questions, but with little or no evidence. A multitude of other philosophies have their own ideas.
With all our investigation, pondering, faith and meditation, however, we are no closer to knowing. The more we dig for answers to these questions, it seems, the more questions are raised.
Many fascinating questions are raised with regard to “where do we come from?” in Brad Steiger’s book,Worlds Before Our Own. First published in 1978 and out of print for several years, the book has recently been reprinted by Anomalist Books (along with several other of Brad’s titles, including Strange Guests and Shadow World, all of which I can heartily recommend).
Obviously, I have always been fascinated by discoveries and human experiences that don’t fit into the standard templates of what conventional science and even religion would have us accept. Thus, my preoccupation with ghost phenomena, psychic experiences and sightings of Bigfoot, to specify a few. This fascination also includes archaeological discoveries that do not fit neatly into the timelines currently laid out in scientific texts. (See “The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts”.) Yet these discoveries exist, annoying as they may be to the commonly accepted theories.
Brad shares my excitement and wonder about these anomalies, which is why I gleefully relish books like Worlds Before Our Own. These anomalous findings – and there are thousands of them – stand out as real evidence that there very well may have been civilizations (possibly advanced) that pre-date any we are aware of. They may stretch back hundreds of thousands or even millions of years further than conventional histories.
IMPOSSIBLY OLD HUMAN REMAINS AND TRACKS
- In the 1880s, anthropologists found the remains of a modern-looking man, woman and two children in glacial strata that were dated at 10 million years old – far older than the currently accepted model, which says modern man (homo sapiens) has only been around for about 200,000 years.
- In 1971, while exploring a mine, an amateur geologist and archaeologist found a human tooth embedded in strata that was dated as 100 million years old.
- In 1932, an experienced trapper found human footprints imprinted in the gypsum rock at White Sands, New Mexico. More astonishing, the prints measured 22 inches long!
GIANTS
- Two brothers digging into ancient Indian mounds in Minnesota unearthed the skeletons of men that would have stood over eight feet tall.
- In 1930, the New York Times reported the discovery by a mining operation in Mexico of human remains “averaging eight feet in height.”
PREHISTORIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- In 1968, a Russian archaeologist found a large-scale metallurgical factory dating back to some unknown civilization 4,500 years ago, where they made vases, knives, bracelets and more of copper, gold, iron and bronze.
- In Haifa, Israel in 1966, researchers found in a cave a piece of manufactured glass measuring 11 feet long, 7 feet wide and 1½ feet thick and aged at 1,400 years old. Such a feat of glass making was not matched until the creation of the mirrors for the Mount Palomar telescopes in the 20th century.
- The ancient Peruvians may have invented ballooning. In 1690, a Portuguese Jesuit priest recorded that he had actually seen the Peruvians flying about in hot-air balloons.
Again, this is just a small sampling of the wealth of intriguing anomalies Brad Steiger has assembled in Worlds Before Our Own.
Of course, we call them “anomalies” only in relation to current scientific belief. More correctly, they should be regarded as concrete evidence that we know very little about the true history of humankind on Earth – a history that is almost certainly far richer and older than we have imagined. Who knows what other astonishing discoveries await us in the coming years.
UFO over Scotland?
It’s hard to imagine the industrial town of Bonnybridge near Falkirk as a portal to another dimension but the everyday hustle and bustle of the area hides a more mysterious and sinister background.
Nicknamed the ‘UFO capital of Scotland’, Bonnybridge is a hotspot for extra-terrestrial activity and people from around the world have come to the town to gaze at the skies above. Some reports state there are over 300 UFO sightings a year in the town alone.
UFO expert and author of Beyond the Falkirk Triangle Ronald Halliday believes that Scotland’s twilight zone isn’t just restricted to the Falkirk area and there are strange lights to be seen all over the country. Is there something strange going on in Scotland’s skies?
Speaking to The Hour Ronald said: “People do have close up encounters and people do claim to have seen things that are very hard to explain right away.
“There have been thousands of reported sightings in Scotland and in fact the country has been labelled the UFO capital of the world. There has even been some suggestion that Scotland acts as a window into another dimension.
“Again, there have been thousands of reported sightings of UFOs in Bonnybridge over the years and all sort of strange things have been happening. People from all over the world have gone there to see if they can spot something. If you want to see a UFO come to Scotland.”
The release of previously confidential MOD files by the National Archive in 2008 unravelled further suspicions of potential unidentified objects in Scotland’s skies. From 1940 onwards various eyewitness accounts have included everything from mysterious beams of light in Lennoxtown to an alleged abduction in Livingston.
Despite its reputation as a hotspot for alien activity, Ronald insists that it has never been more important to validate potential sightings and check for signs of false or natural explanations.
“I think we have got to be critical about the whole thing. You can’t accept every claim that someone has seen something strange unless there is real evidence; you have to evaluate it and take a look to see if we can explain it through science or natural phenomenon.
“People think they have seen something strange but when you take a look and investigate it you find out that really there is nothing behind it.”
However one would be advised to keep your eyes on the Scottish skies for now. As the use of camera-phones and handheld recording equipment grows, so too does the chance of spotting a UFO – just make sure to wear a warm jacket.
“I’d advise [UFO hunters] to take a very warm coat and be prepared to spend some time in an isolated spot. You don’t want to be near a city.”
SCOTLAND’S X FILES:
ANCIENTS IN AMERICA?
| History Mystery: Ancients in America | |
Long before Columbus sailed to North America, this hemisphere may have been visited by other Europeans, ancient Romans, Chinese and Japanese – even the ancient Egyptians!
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue…
Many of us learned that rhyme, part of a longer history poem, when being taught in school that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Although nothing can be taken away from Columbus’ daring voyage, he certainly was not the first to arrive on the shores of the Americas. For one thing, there were already people here – many Native American nations inhabited what later became North and South America and even the Caribbean islands where Columbus landed. Columbus probably wasn’t even the first “white man” to make it here. It’s fairly well documented that Icelander Leif Ericsson successfully sailed to North America in the year 1000 – almost 500 years prior to Columbus’s voyage.
In fact, there’s a growing amount of proof suggesting that a lot of the familiar history of human exploration and “discovery” by our ancestors as we were taught it may be quite wrong. There is hard evidence of ancient civilizations making their mark in places where, according to traditionally accepted history, they just shouldn’t be. Here’s an overview of some of the most remarkable and fascinating cases.
Greeks and Romans in the New World
- Coins:
- Roman coins have been found in Venezuela and Maine.
- Roman coins were found in Texas at the bottom of an Indian mound at Round Rock. The mound is dated at approximately 800 AD.
- In 1957 by a small boy found a coin in a field near Phenix City, Alabama, from Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, and dating from 490 B.C.
- In the town of Heavener, Oklahoma, another out-of-place coin was found in 1976. Experts identified it as a bronze tetradrachm originally struck in Antioch, Syria in 63 A.D. and bearing the profile of the emperor Nero.
- In 1882, a farmer in Cass County, Illinois picked up bronze coin later identified as a coin of Antiochus IV, one of the kings of Syria who reigned from 175 B.C. to 164 B.C., and who is mentioned in the Bible.
- Pottery: Roman pottery was unearthed in Mexico that, according to its style, has been dated to the second century A.D.
- Inscriptions:
- In 1966, a man named Manfred Metcalf stumbled upon a stone in the state of Georgia that bears an inscription that is very similar to ancient writing from the island of Crete called “Cretan Linear A and B writing.”
- In the early 1900s, Bernardo da Silva Ramos, a Brazilian rubber-tapper working in the Amazon jungle, found many large rocks on which was inscribed more than 2,000 ancient scripts about the “Old World.”
- Near Rio de Janeiro, high on a vertical wall of rock – 3,000 feet up – is an inscription that reads: ‘Tyre, Phoenicia, Badezir, Firstborn of Jethbaal…” and dated to the middle of the ninth century B.C.
- Near Parahyba, Brazil, an inscription on Phoenician has been translated, in part, as: “We are sons of Canaan from Sidon, the city of the king. Commerce has cast us on this distant shore, a land of mountains. We set [sacrificed] a youth for the exalted gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of Hiram, our mighty king. We embarked from Ezion-Geber into the Red Sea and voyaged with ten ships. We were at sea together for two years around the land belonging to Ham [Africa] but were separated by a storm [lit. ‘from the hand of Baal’], and we were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, on a… shore which I, the Admiral, control. But auspiciously may the gods and goddesses favor us!”
- The Kensington Stone, discovered in Kensington, Minnesota in 1898 contains an inscription describing an expedition of Norsemen into the interior of what is now North America. It’s estimated that this expedition took place in the 1300s.
- In 1980, P.M. Leonard and J.L. Glenn, from the Hogle Zoological Gardens, Salt Lake City, visited a rock outcropping in Colorado that was reputed to be inscribed with “peculiar markings.” Leonard and Glenn believe they are excellent examples of Consainne Ogam writing – a type ascribed to ancient Celts. One of the many inscriptions was translated as: “Route Guide: To the west is the frontier town with standing stones as boundary markers.”
- A fist-sized, round stone was found during the early 1890s in an cemetery near Nashville, Tennessee. Its front was inscribed with symbols thought to be Libyan, pre-100 A.D. style. It translates as: “The colonists pledge to redeem.”
- Pictures: An experienced botanist has identified plants in an ancient fresco painting as a pineapple and a specific species of squash – both native to the Americas. Yet the fresco is in the Roman city of Pompeii.
- Statues: In 1933, in a burial at Calixtlahuaca, Mexico, archaeologist José García Payón discovered a small carved head with “foreign” features in an undisturbed burial site. It was later identified by anthropologist Robert Heine-Geldern as “unquestionably” from the Hellenistic-Roman school of art and suggested a date of “around AD 200.”
- Structures: Many stone chambers dot the New England countryside and most archaeologists insist they are all potato cellars built long ago by farmers. Others argue that they are too sophisticated for such a mundane application. One, is built into a hillside at Upton, Massachusetts, has sophisticated corbelling that follows they style of Irish and Iberic chambers. It’s theorized that it was really built by Europeans around 700 AD – long before the Leif Eiriksson.
- Ships: In 1886, the remains of a shipwreck was found in Galveston Bay, Texas. Its construction is typically Roman.
- Toys: A doll made of wood and wax was found deep in a “Well of Sacrifice” at Chichén Itzá, Mexico, on which is written Roman script.
- Tombs: In the Mayan ruins of Palenque, a stone sarcophagus was found that is very much in the style of the ancient Phoenicians.
The Far-Traveling Egyptians
- Statues: In 1914, archaeologist M.A. Gonzales was excavating some Mayan ruins in the city of Acajutla, Mexico when he was surprised by the discovery of two statuettes that were clearly Egyptian. One male and one female, the carvings bore ancient Egyptian dress and cartouches. They are thought to depict Osiis and Isis.
- Inscriptions: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs have been found in New South Wales, Australia. Located on a rock cliff in the National Park forest of the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, the enigmatic carvings have been known since the early 1900s. There are more than 250 carvings of familiar Egyptian gods and symbols, including a life-sized engraving of the god Anubis. The hieroglyphs tell the story of explorers who were shipwrecked in a strange and hostile land, and the untimely death of their royal leader, “Lord Djes-eb.” From this information, scholars have been able to date the voyage to somewhere between 1779 and 2748 BC.
- Fossils: In 1982, archaeologists digging at Fayum, near the Siwa Oasis in Egypt uncovered fossils of kangaroos and other Australian marsupials.
- Language: There are striking similarities between the languages of ancient Egypt and those of the Native Americans that inhabited the areas around Louisiana about the time of Christ. B. Fell, of the Epigraphic Society, has stated that the language of the Atakapas, and to a lesser extent those of the Tunica and Chitimacha tribes, have affinities with Nile Valley languages involving just those words one would associate with Egyptian trading communities of 2,000 years ago.
- Artifacts: Near the Neapean River outside Penrith, New South Wales, a scarab beetle – a familair Egyptian symbol – carved from onyx was unearthed. Another was found in Queensland, Australia.
- Tombs: The April 5, 1909 edition of The Phoenix Gazette carried a front-page article about the discovery and excavation of an Egyptian tomb in the Grand Canyon by none other that the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian has since denied knowledge of any such discovery.
The Scattered Tribes of Israel
- Inscriptions:
- In 1889, the Smithsonian’s Mound Survey project discovered a stone in a burial mound in eastern Tennessee on which is inscribed ancient Hebrew lettering. Known as The Bat Creek Stone, experts have identified its letters as being Paleo-Hebrew dating from the first or second century A.D. Some of the letters spell out: “for Judea.”
- An abridged version of the Ten Commandments was found carved into the flat face of a large boulder resting on the side of Hidden Mountain near Los Lunas, New Mexico. Known as The Los Lunas Inscription, its language is Hebrew, and the script is the Old Hebrew alphabet with a few Greek letters mixed in.
- Artifacts:
- In June, 1860, David Wyrick found an artifact on the general shape of a keystone near Newark, Ohio that is covered in four ancient Hebrew inscriptions translated as: “Holy of Holies,” “King of the Earth,” “The Law of God” and “The Word of God.”
- In November of that same year, Wyrick found an inscribed stone in a burial mound about 10 miles south of of Newark, Ohio. The stone is inscribed on all sides with a condensed version of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, in a peculiar form of post-Exilic square Hebrew letters. A robed and bearded figure on the front is identified as Moses in letters fanning over his head.
Asians on the West Coast
- Stories:
- Indian traditions tell of many “houses” seen on Pacific waters. Could they have been ships from Asia?
- Chinese history tells a charming account of voyages to the land of “Fusang.”
- Old Spanish documents describe oriental ships off the Mexican coast in 1576.
- Coins: In the summer of 1882, a miner in British Columbia found 30 Chinese coins 25 feet below the surface. The examined coins of this style were invented by the Emperor Huungt around 2637 B.C.
- Artifacts:
- Japanese explorers and traders left steel blades in Alaska and their distinctive pottery in Ecuador.
- Underwater explorations off the California coast have yielded stone artifacts that seem to be anchors and line weights. The style and type of stone point to Chinese origins.
- Structures: California’s East Bay Walls, ancient low rock walls east of San Francisco Bay, have long been a mystery. No one knows who built them or why. In 1904, Dr. John Fryer, professor of Oriental languages at U.C. Berkeley, declared: “This is undoubtedly the work of Mongolians… the Chinese would naturally wall themselves in, as they do in all of their towns in China.”
News from the paranormal side
CREATURES:
Sasquatch face print
Cryptomundo : The folks at Sanger Paranormal put out a news release, and now AOL News has broken the story in the mass media. But despite Sanger’s desire to keep the imagery secret until their news conference of the 23rd, in a move that is strangely similar to the leaks of the “Georgia Bigfoot” under ice hoax of 2008, Sanger has leaked the face print of the Sasquatch early. It was found on their site, and then quickly removed. But here’s what they posted, which was saved by a Cryptomundo reader, Rick Sheen and forwarded to Cryptomundo…
Bigfoot investigators hope DNA test will confirm existence of two man-beasts
California Bigfoot investigators were shocked over Memorial Day weekend when they found strange markings and hair on their pickup truck windows. Now, they’re hoping DNA tests will prove once and for all the existence of the legendary man-beast…
Daniel Boone’s Yahoo = Bigfoot?
Long before it became the brand of a search engine, the creature whose uttered cry gave it a name haunted Kentuckians. Daniel Boone told tales of “killing a ten-foot, hairy giant he called a Yahoo,” says John Mack Faragher in a 1992 biography of Boone. The Yahoos are hairy man-like creatures in Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” one of Boone’s favorite books…
io9 Offers $2000 bounty for authentic photos of cryptids
This summer, io9 is going cryptozoological. We’re offering a $2000 bounty to the person who sends us the best authentic photo or video of a “cryptid,” or mystery animal. And that’s just the beginning of Cryptid Summer…
Looking for Bigfoot? County has had its share of mysterious sightings
If you happen to see an eight-foot-tall, very hairy fellow wearing sunglasses, a straw hat and strings of old Mardi Gras beads at this week’s Handy blues festivities, don’t be alarmed. It’s merely Bigfoot, a.k.a. Sasquatch or Yeti, who has snuck into town to enjoy the music, eat some red beans and rice, and watch folks lose their inhibitions and break into impromptu dance.
GHOSTS, HAUNTED PLACES AND POLTERGEISTS:
Marlins reliever spooked at ‘haunted’ hotel
With the Marlins in Tampa to start a weekend series against the Rays, relief pitcher Steve Cishek felt an eerie presence at the team’s hotel, and let his Twitter followers know all about it. Too bad he didn’t find out whether the ghost could help the team break its ongoing losing streak…
Sandra Bullock fears home is haunted
Sandra Bullock reportedly fears that her temporary home in London is haunted. The 46-year-old actress is in town filming sci-fi thriller Gravity with George Clooney, and is apparently being kept awake by things that go bump in the night…
Spirits said to inhabit former jail
Laugh if you please, but Medina County Judge Jim Barden isn’t joking when he says an other-worldly spirit has made its presence known in the former jail building that now houses his staff. He recently was spooked into leaving by the sound of unexplained footsteps as he worked alone, after hours…
PSYCHIC PHENOMENA:
“Psychic sheep” detects cancer, saves farmer’s life
A shepherd claims her ‘psychic sheep’ saved her life by detecting that she had breast cancer. Alfie, a five-year-old sheep is being hailed a hero by some in the UK and now has a following of hundreds of friends on Facebook…
Dogs likely born with canine telepathy
Dogs are so in tune with us that they can read our minds, according to a new Learning & Behavior study that also determined canines are probably born with the ability. Practice makes perfect, however, so the more a dog hangs around humans, the better he or she becomes at “canine telepathy,” which actually relies upon hyperawareness of the senses…
EARTH MYSTERIES:
Wichita, Kansas experiences bizarre “heat burst”
At 12:22am on June 9 temperatures in Wichita, Kan., rocketed from 85 degrees Fahrenheit to 102 F in the space of twenty minutes. What caused this heat burst?
Ancient artifacts found!
This video can be found in the previous post for new paranormal links. Another reason why we all should be asking a very important question…”What is our TRUE history?” I have a feeling that one day we will find out that our true history contains more than what we’re ready to accept!
Ancient American Artifacts
About the video:
Fascinating evidence in the form of artifacts from northern Michigan that provide evidence of European habitation of North America long before Columbus. Thousands of clay, slate, copper and stone artifacts were unearthed in ancient mounds.
Men in Black – Unmasked
BY M. LEE
WHEN WE HEAR “Men in Black,” most of us probably think of the 1997 motion-picture hit starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. But what many people do not realize is that the origin of the movie surrounds real-life encounters with “Men in Black.” There have been many paranormal, anomalous and supernatural reports throughout the years, and with these reports come encounters with intimidating men in black suits who are thought to belong to a secret organization with a secret agenda.
The Men in Black (MiB) were first reported in the 1940s, and books about them soon followed. Initially, the first reports of Men in Black involved witnesses of UFOs or extraterrestrial encounters. One of the first reports of MiB was in 1947 when Harold Dahl reported that he saw six UFOs when he and others were on a boat. After the encounter, Dahl said an intimidating muscular man wearing a nondescript black suit took him out to breakfast and threatened him and his family if he spoke of the encounter.
Dahl later declared his UFO report was a hoax, but some believe that he recanted to protect himself from MiB. Further research into other types of paranormal and anomalous phenomena, such as poltergeists, space-time disturbances, telepathy and psychokinesis, and Bigfoot, just to name a few, also reveals encounters by agents in black who collected information and silenced those specific witnesses who claimed to have experienced these phenomena.
Government agents or something weirder
MiB started gaining popularity in the 1950s with books such as Gray Barker’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, and are still in the mainstream today with the Men in Black movies, which are based on a comic book inspired by the phenomenon.
Over the decades, MiB have taken somewhat different forms, but their similarities are undeniable. Stiff black suits, intimidating size and black Cadillacs are often associated with MiB. Some reports of MiB described them as being eerily inhuman, taking on characteristics of an unearthly nature. Some theorists propose that many of these reports of MiB were allowed to be disseminated in order to create an air of “unbelievability” among those who reported them. One thing is for certain: their apparent objective is to track down true paranormal encounters and control the situation and information to suit their agenda.
UFO connection
Throughout history, MiB have been primarily associated with UFOs and extraterrestrial phenomena because of the simple fact that these phenomena are primarily aerial events in the atmosphere and widely viewed by many witnesses. Therefore, when reports of MiB follow reports of UFOs or extraterrestrials, they are given more credence and attract a wider audience. But make no mistake, MiB have been monitoring, analyzing and researching every type of anomalous and paranormal phenomena imaginable.
Since the first reports of MiB, many have tried to discover the true identity and agenda of these dark agents, with little success. And for those who do know their true identity, either by association or as a “subject” of one of their operations, it has been strongly suggested that the means utilized to maintain total suppression of all information is disturbingly successful.
Mysterious organization
More recently, however, startling new information has surfaced that finally may reveal a significant fragment of the agency’s true identity. The shadowy MiB may in-fact be one in the same as a non-descript organization known as The Office of Scientific Investigation and Research (O.S.I.R.).
Created in the early 1940s as a byproduct of a top-secret government program, the O.S.I.R. is an ultra top-secret organization whose far-reaching operations can be found in every corner of the world. The Dahl encounter was also in 1947, and this was one of the first reports of MiB.
The O.S.I.R., among other things, conducts scientific research and investigations surrounding anomalous phenomena (also known as paranormal, parapsychological, supernatural and metaphysical phenomena). The organization is said to have significant power, utilizing their far-reaching authority to suppress and maintain their operations and very existence. They operate independently from all governments and private organizations, and while their true agenda is unknown, it is conjectured that the study of anomalous phenomena and its potential applications might be their focus.
With significant funding and resources, rumored advanced technology and influence with various governments, the O.S.I.R. infiltrates many aspects of society and government, scanning for phenomena and conducting their scientific operations. Aspects of science, law, medicine, religion, business/corporate world and government are permeated with their operatives.
And for anyone who might be involved in any of their clandestine operations, be it an experiencer of a phenomena or an individual recruited to partially assist their operations, the O.S.I.R. utilizes disturbingly unorthodox all-encompassing means of intimidation, coupled with techniques to suppress or cover up any and all information. It is these modus operandi of the O.S.I.R. that reveal without any doubt that they are indeed the notorious MiB.
Now you see them…
In order to conduct their clandestine operations, the organization takes on various aliases and “cover identities,” choosing to hide in plain sight.
The O.S.I.R. came into the public eye in 1990 when the organization opened a public affairs department. For a decade, by means of this department, the O.S.I.R. interacted with the general public and media, openly stating that their primary focus is “anomalous phenomena”. In 2000, the O.S.I.R. closed its public affairs department and terminated all contacts with the outside world.
Some conspiracy theorists state that the O.S.I.R. was conducting some sort of research or experimentation surrounding the “millennium,” which might explain why they disappeared just after 2000. But no confirmed explanations were ever given for why the organization re-immersed into obscurity or why they went overt to begin with.
The MiB, alias O.S.I.R., are suspected to be the shadow organization and work-horse behind countless above top-secret projects in every country, including U.S.’s own Majestic, Stargate and Area 51. To this day, they continue to infiltrate our world, seeking-out, analyzing and concealing at-all-costs extraordinary phenomena of every type for their ultra top-secret agenda.
Real weird science
From human invisibility to amazing demonstrations of levitation, these strange devices, weird experiments and impossible observations – if true – challenge conventional scientific knowledge
Electrodes flash and spark, illuminating the dimly lit laboratory. Vials of eerie glowing liquid bubble and spit. The scientist, with a mad glare in his eyes, closely watches the progress of his secret experiment. Something weird is happening in this dark, cold basement – something the scientist hopes will finally prove what the rest of the scientific world said was impossible.
We’ve all enjoyed the image of the mad scientist in the movies as he toiled away in his creepy lab, working on the very edge of scientific knowledge. There really have been such independent scientists, of course. And although they might not quite be mad, their pursuits have been unconventional. Perhaps impossible.
Here are a few intriguing tales of “mad scientists” and their wild inventions. They may be true, exaggerated, hearsay, legends or outright hoaxes – we may never know for certain. But the possibility that they are real is irresistible.
THE INVISIBLE MAN
Human invisibility is a fun idea, one that has been the subject of several sci-fi books and movies, including H.G. Wells’ classic The Invisible Man and the more recent Hollow Man. Has some obscure scientific genius actually achieved it? Consider this story found on Keelynet:
The scene is a public hall in London England. The year is 1934. A young scientist, claiming he has discovered the secret to electromagnetically induced invisibility, steps into an open-front cabinet on a brightly lit stage before a curious audience. On his head he wears a device he calls an Electro-Helmet along with some other paraphernalia. He reaches up and touches two contacts above his head with both hands, then gives the signal for the switch to be thrown. The switch allegedly sends a current of electricity to his strange devices… and his body gradually vanishes from his feet to his head!
According to the story, spectators could touch and feel his body within the cabinet, but they could not see him. “All one could see,” the story goes, “was the development of a cone of light such as might be projected between the two poles of a powerful transmitter.” Naturally, the inventor refused to reveal how his contraption worked, stating only that it was the result of many years of experimentation.
Was he a brilliant scientist? Or a clever magician? The demonstration sounds very much like illusions performed by top magicians today. The part of the story that makes it most intriguing, if it is accurate, is that his body vanished from toe to head “gradually.”
The U.S. military in recent history is said to have experimented with creating invisibility by bending light through electromagnetic means, and may have been one of the goals of the legendary “Philadelphia Experiment.” Was this “young scientist” decades ahead of them?
ANOMALOUS TRANSPARENCY: THE FAILE EFFECT
Dr. S.P. Faile doesn’t believe he can make himself invisible, but he does think things around his laboratory sometimes inexplicably become partially transparent. In a curious article titled “Observations of Anomalous Transparency: The Faile Effect,” author Nicholas Reiter writes about the weird observations Dr. Faile began making around his home in 1997 and 1998.
Faile, a semi-retired materials research engineer and scientist noticed the strange effects after he had been conducting experiments in “new energy.” According to the article, “the effect seemed to mainly consist of occasional circumstances where common, normally opaque objects ranging from one’s forearm, to sheet metal, to furniture, would seem to turn partially transparent. More distant objects seemed to be visible through these structures, even to the extent of such details as printed characters.”
Was it just an optical illusion? Failing eyesight? Or had Dr. Faile stumbled upon a new phenomenon?
At first, Faile too wondered if the effect was just an illusion, but dismissed that possibility after numerous experiments and corroborating observations by colleagues. In numerous tests, he was able to observe this transparency both indoors and out, in various kinds of lighting. The effect is not the common observation anyone can make if they hold their hand or an object close to one eye and allow the other eye to see past it, resulting in an illusion of transparency.
So what is it? “At present it seems to be a phenomenon in search of a definition or methodology,” the article states. “One model would place the effect into the realm of anomalous human talent, such as clairvoyance or remote viewing. However, other individuals, with only a minimum of technique refinement, have been able to confirm the effect. Additionally, because a number of ‘real world’ factors such as lighting, location and certain material structures can greatly affect its magnitude, it seems to more properly belong in the realm of optics, and probably quantum mechanics.”
JOHN KEELY’S FLOATING MINI-SOLAR SYSTEM
John Worrell Keely (1827-1898) was a rogue inventor who tirelessly experimented with free energy, something called a “compound disintegrator” and numerous other devices on the fringe of mainstream science. He still has a devoted following today of like-minded experimenters who are convinced that free energy is out there somewhere, just waiting to be tapped.
One of the most fascinating stories about Keely concerns his encounter with John Jacob Astor, heir to the Astor fur-trading fortune (and who later perished on the Titanic), at the World’s Fair in the late 1880s. Keely was demonstrating a device he called “The Musical Globe.” This sphere (the story does not mention its size) was painted black on one side and white on the other and was said to contain some secret arrangement of vibrating components. When properly tuned, the sphere would react to the playing of a harmonica and begin to spin of its own accord.
Astor was so impressed by the demonstration that he sought Keely out. Allegedly, Keely told Astor that The Musical Sphere was only part of a much more fantastic discovery – the the “good stuff,” he said, was in his laboratory, if Astor would like to see it. Of course, he did.
In Keely’s lab was a very curious device that consisted of a large metal sphere centered on a large ring. An outer, larger ring was supported by the first and in it were nested smaller spheres of various sizes. The appearance was of a mini solar system – planets surrounding a central sun. When Keely turned on his machine and fiddled with some dials to make the necessary fine tuning, the large sphere began to rotate on its axis. Soon the small spheres began to rotate too, and also to orbit the large sphere.
So far this demonstration could be explained by any number of mechanical means, but what happened next enters the realm of the impossible. In just a few minutes, the large sphere, still spinning, rose off of the ring, as did all of the smaller spheres in their orbits. When reaching a certain height, the smaller spheres spread out to their optimum orbits. So what Astor stood looking agape at was a completely free-floating, moving representation of our solar system.
Supposedly, Astor reached up and grabbed one of the smaller spheres – and was carried around the room by it. His touching it had no affect on its height or speed of rotation.
Had Keely truly discovered some fantastic unknown force? Or was it a trick? Or is this just a tall tale passed around by Keely’s fans? If it’s true, how and why would news of such a miraculous device have been kept secret?
There will always be such independent, free-thinking “mad scientists” in our midst. And perhaps one day one of them will incontrovertibly demonstrate a device from his basement workshop that will change the world, and make the impossible possible.
Want to know more about John Keely?
For more on the amazing life of John Keely, please check into this book titled, Free Energy Pioneer
Evidence for a New History
AS SOPHISTICATED TECHNOLOGICALLY as we have become on this planet, we are still pretty much in the dark when it comes to matters of our own existence. Where do we come from? What is our purpose here? What happens after we die?
These are the age-old questions. Science attempts to answer the first question only and doesn’t yet know how to deal with the other two. Religion, in its many forms, provides as many “certain” answers to all three questions, but with little or no evidence. A multitude of other philosophies have their own ideas.
With all our investigation, pondering, faith and meditation, however, we are no closer to knowing. The more we dig for answers to these questions, it seems, the more questions are raised.
Many fascinating questions are raised with regard to “where do we come from?” in Brad Steiger’s book, Worlds Before Our Own. First published in 1978 and out of print for several years, the book has recently been reprinted by Anomalist Books (along with several other of Brad’s titles, including Strange Guests and Shadow World, all of which I can heartily recommend).
Obviously, I have always been fascinated by discoveries and human experiences that don’t fit into the standard templates of what conventional science and even religion would have us accept. Thus, my preoccupation with ghost phenomena, psychic experiences and sightings of Bigfoot, to specify a few. This fascination also includes archaeological discoveries that do not fit neatly into the timelines currently laid out in scientific texts. (See “The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts”.) Yet these discoveries exist, annoying as they may be to the commonly accepted theories.
Brad shares my excitement and wonder about these anomalies, which is why I gleefully relish books like Worlds Before Our Own. These anomalous findings – and there are thousands of them – stand out as real evidence that there very well may have been civilizations (possibly advanced) that pre-date any we are aware of. They may stretch back hundreds of thousands or even millions of years further than conventional histories.
Following is a glimpse of the amazing and tantalizing discoveries Brad documents in the book.
Here is a glimpse of the amazing and tantalizing discoveries Brad documents in the book:
IMPOSSIBLY OLD HUMAN REMAINS AND TRACKS
- In the 1880s, anthropologists found the remains of a modern-looking man, woman and two children in glacial strata that were dated at 10 million years old – far older than the currently accepted model, which says modern man (homo sapiens) has only been around for about 200,000 years.
- In 1971, while exploring a mine, an amateur geologist and archaeologist found a human tooth embedded in strata that was dated as 100 million years old.
- In 1932, an experienced trapper found human footprints imprinted in the gypsum rock at White Sands, New Mexico. More astonishing, the prints measured 22 inches long!
GIANTS
- Two brothers digging into ancient Indian mounds in Minnesota unearthed the skeletons of men that would have stood over eight feet tall.
- In 1930, the New York Times reported the discovery by a mining operation in Mexico of human remains “averaging eight feet in height.”
PREHISTORIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- In 1968, a Russian archaeologist found a large-scale metallurgical factory dating back to some unknown civilization 4,500 years ago, where they made vases, knives, bracelets and more of copper, gold, iron and bronze.
- In Haifa, Israel in 1966, researchers found in a cave a piece of manufactured glass measuring 11 feet long, 7 feet wide and 1½ feet thick and aged at 1,400 years old. Such a feat of glass making was not matched until the creation of the mirrors for the Mount Palomar telescopes in the 20th century.
- The ancient Peruvians may have invented ballooning. In 1690, a Portuguese Jesuit priest recorded that he had actually seen the Peruvians flying about in hot-air balloons.
Again, this is just a small sampling of the wealth of intriguing anomalies Brad Steiger has assembled in Worlds Before Our Own.
Of course, we call them “anomalies” only in relation to current scientific belief. More correctly, they should be regarded as concrete evidence that we know very little about the true history of humankind on Earth – a history that is almost certainly far richer and older than we have imagined. Who knows what other astonishing discoveries await us in the coming years.
Nazis and the Hollow Earth
THE ALLIES ARE closing in. Berlin is crumbling under the weight and impact of hundreds of Allied bombs. Deep in his fortified bunker, Adolf Hitler, once unshakable in his confidence in Nazi world domination, now admits that defeat is at hand. But Hitler is determined never to suffer the humiliation of being captured by his enemies.
There is only one escape route – one he has planned for should he ever face just such a turn of events. Suicide is out of the question. Instead, Hitler and his corps of elite traverse through an underground tunnel to an isolated airstrip. There they board an unmarked plane and fly south. South to the pole. To the opening at the South Pole where they will enter the hollow Earth and disappear from history.
Based in fact
This alternate scenario to history is actually accepted as fact by some proponents of the hollow Earth theory. And as incredible as it sounds, the genesis of this story lies in some facts that carry some merit: some of Hitler’s top advisors – perhaps even Hitler himself – believed that the Earth was hollow; and there was at least one expedition by the Nazi military to exploit that belief for strategic advantage during the war.
As with all such stories, it’s often difficult to sort out facts, exaggerations, and outright fabrications. But it’s an intriguing tale, and one that requires a little background.
Several theories
There are several hollow Earth theories. The most prevalent one holds that there are great but hidden openings at both the North and South poles, and that it is possible to enter those holes. Some – including the respected Admiral Byrd – claimed to have entered those holes. According to the legends, other civilizations live within the Earth on it’s inner surface, warmed and lit by an interior sun. The idea has inspired novels by Edgar Allen Poe (MS Found in a Bottle), Edgar Rice Borroughs (At the Earth’s Core), and Jules Verne (A Journey to the Center of the Earth).
A second theory, call the “inverted Earth” theory, claims that we – our civilization – actually exists on the inside of the globe. We are held fast to the ground not by gravity, but by centrifugal force as the Earth rotates. The stars, so goes the theory, are twinkling chunks of ice suspended high in the air, and the illusion of day and night is caused by a rotating central sun that is half brilliant, half dark. Cyrus Teed, an alchemist from Utica, N.Y., was one of the first people to popularize this idea. So obsessed was he with the idea that he founded a religion based on it, changed his name to Koresh, and established a commune for Koreshanity in Chicago in 1888. In Germany, independently of the Koreshans, another group also was founded that adhered to the inverted Earth idea, and it was this concept that was accepted by some segments of the Nazi hierarchy.
The scenario told at the beginning of this article accepts one hollow Earth theory, while the facts seem to show that some Nazis actually believed in the other.
Hitler’s Nazis were convinced that they were destined to rule the world, and they came to this warped conclusion through the acceptance of many occult beliefs and practices, including astrology, the prophecies of Nostradamus, and the hollow/inverted Earth theory… hohlweltlehre.
Because they suspected that our surface is on the interior of a concave Earth, Hitler sent an expedition, including Dr. Heinz Fischer and powerful telescopic cameras, to the Baltic island of Rugen to spy on the British fleet. Fischer did so not by aiming his cameras across the waters, but by pointing them up to peer across the atmosphere to the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition was a failure, of course. Fischer’s cameras saw nothing but sky, and the British fleet remained safe.
Escape to Antarctica
Then there’s the legend… that Hitler and many of his Nazi minions escaped Germany in the closing days of World War II and fled to Antarctica where at the South Pole they had discovered an entrance to the Earth’s interior. According to the Hollow Earth Research Society in Ontario, Canada, they are still there. After the war, the organization claims, the Allies discovered that more than 2,000 scientists from Germany and Italy had vanished, along with almost a million people, to the land beyond the South Pole.
This story gets more complicated with Nazi-designed UFOs, Nazi collaboration with the people who live in the center of the Earth, and the explanation for “Aryan-looking” UFO pilots.
While the evidence for either hollow Earth theory is close to nil (although some folks claim to have proof in the form of photos), the story involving Nazis, war, and the romance of exploratory adventure sounds like the makings of a great Indiana Jones story. In fact, it is! In the novel Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth by Max McCoy, Indy comes into the possession of a mysterious journal hinting at the existence of an underground civilization that he and the Nazis race to find. The fate of the world – hollow or not – is in Indy’s hands!
Stalin, Mengele, join cast as Roswell plot thickens
DEVOTEES of science fiction have been convinced for decades that an alien spacecraft crashed in the desert of New Mexico – and that the American government covered up the recovery of extraterrestrial bodies.
The so-called Roswell Incident of 1947 spawned conspiracy theories by the score.
But now, sadly for UFO spotters, a new book offers an entirely man-made and even more bizarre explanation, featuring two of the greatest villains of 20th century history: the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and the infamous Nazi ”Angel of Death” Dr Josef Mengele.
During a powerful storm in July 1947, an object crashed near a rancher’s home in Roswell, New Mexico.
Roswell army airbase initially said that a ”flying disc” had come down but, hours later, as government scientists arrived, it was stated that a weather balloon had crashed. The incident went largely unreported until books and documentaries in the 1970s made allegations of alien life forms.
Area 51, the new book by Annie Jacobsen, is based on interviews with scientists and engineers who worked in the top-secret test base in the Nevada Desert.
It dismisses the alien story and puts forward the theory that Stalin was inspired by Orson Welles’s famous radio adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds, which provoked hysteria across America when broadcast in 1938.
According to the book, the plot started after the Soviet Union seized from Germany at the end of the war the jet-propelled, single wing Horten Ho 229 – a fighter said to be the forerunner of the modern B-2 stealth bomber.
This is where Mengele enters the story. The Nazi doctor, who experimented on prisoners in Auschwitz and fled to South America after the war, was supposedly enlisted to create a crew of ”grotesque, child-size aviators” in return for a eugenics laboratory.
The book says that the plane was filled with ”alien-like” children, aged 12 or 13, who Stalin wanted to land in America and cause hysteria similar to the 1938 broadcast. But the remotely piloted plane crashed and the Americans hushed up the incident. Jacobsen’s source, a retired engineer from the former defence company EG&G, said he was put on to the Roswell project in Area 51 in 1978.
Jacobsen, a journalist with The Los Angeles Times, writes: ”They found bodies alongside the crashed craft. These were not aliens. Nor were they consenting airmen. They were human guinea pigs. Unusually petite for pilots, they appeared to be children.
”Each was under five feet tall. They were grotesquely deformed, but each in the same manner as the others. They had unusually large heads and abnormally shaped oversized eyes.”
Two were supposedly found ”comatose but still alive”.
A spokesman for the US Air Force said: ”We have not yet read this book so we are not able to make a comment on it.”
Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds
The breadth and depth as well as the downright far-out strangeness of the information in Brad and Sherry Steiger’s book Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds brings the subject solidly into the realm of the paranormal.
Weird and Weirder Still
For those who think the UFO phenomenon consists only of flying saucers, little gray beings, Roswell, and the occasional abduction, you have no idea how utterly strange and far-reaching it really is. And the Steigers’ book will educate you in short order with case after case of bizarre encounters and high strangeness.
Yes, there are the traditional flying saucer reports and “the grays,” to be sure, but the cases that intrigue me the most are the ones that don’t come out of the conventional mold:
- In 1979 in Huntsville, Alabama, a woman with car trouble stops on the side of the road where she encounters a four-foot-tall being that seems more robot than flesh and blood. She later finds that her car’s engine has practically been melted.
- March, 1967 near Butler, Pennsylvania, a father and daughter witness globes of light descend from the sky and transform right before their eyes into blond-haired expressionless humanoids.
- March, 2010 in Santiago, Chile, a bus-load of passengers see a glowing UFO emerge from the sea, and then a luminous being of some kind surrounded by flashes of light walks toward the highway.
- October, 1973 on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi, two fishermen see a fish-shaped UFO and then are abducted by three aliens with wrinkled skin, crab-like claws and pointed ears.
This is only a small sampling of the dozens upon dozens of encounters the Steigers have assembled. Then there are UFO cases that have a Bigfoot connection, the claims of human-alien hybrids, the strange alien messages and warnings, alien sex, and the mystical experiences claimed by contactees.
What’s Going On?
I don’t think anyone can come away from reading this book with the simple idea that aliens from another planet are visiting Earth. There is something deeper and more mysterious going on.
The people who have these encounters, are they all crazy? Hallucinating?
To account for the sheer number and variety of aliens and craft reported over the decades, the Earth would have to be visited by dozens of races from dozens of planets outside our solar system. Is this likely? What are these creatures and where do they really come from? Other dimensions? Our own imaginations and subconscious?
How can we possibly account for all of this impossible strangeness?
Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds forces you to consider all of these questions for which there are no cut-and-dried, easy answers.
I suspect that the answers and explanations are, for the present, beyond our understanding. In addition to all of these queer aliens and craft, this planet is also beset with the ghost phenomenon, poltergeist activity, astonishing psychic connections and synchronicities — all of which take place every day! We have no choice but to conclude that the universe truly is stranger than we can imagine and that science has so far brought us knowledge of only the thinnest surface of our true reality.
We don’t really have a clue, I’m afraid, of the true nature of life, reality and our existence. We’re not smart enough, nor do we yet have the tools to perceive what lies beneath the veneer of our daily lives.
An Important Book
For anyone who has even the slightest interest in UFOs, the paranormal, or the unexplained, Real Aliens, Space Beings, and Creatures from Other Worlds should be a welcome addition to their bookshelves. Yes, it’s a fun and exciting read, but it’s also important.
To my mind, books like this (and others such as The Mothman Prophecies, The Holographic Universe, Hanz Holzer’s ghost books, and other Steiger books) should be read right along side of the latest science books on astronomy, psychology and quantum physics. The science books, as important as they are, only give you half of the story. Books on the paranormal provide a view of the other side of the human experience that cannot necessarily be brought into the lab for analysis — but are just as “real.” They happen. All the time.
And whether they are physical, psychological, interdimensional, or something else in nature, they cannot and should not be ignored. Instead, as the Steigers do in this book, they should be reported, explored, and examined — objectively — to the fullest extent possible. How else are we going to get to the bottom of it all?
The MIB – The Real Men In Black
Men in Black – Unmasked
Are they part of a mysterious, sinister organization?
BY M. LEE
WHEN WE HEAR “Men in Black,” most of us probably think of the 1997 motion-picture hit starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. But what many people do not realize is that the origin of the movie surrounds real-life encounters with “Men in Black.” There have been many paranormal, anomalous and supernatural reports throughout the years, and with these reports come encounters with intimidating men in black suits who are thought to belong to a secret organization with a secret agenda.
The Men in Black (MiB) were first reported in the 1940s, and books about them soon followed. Initially, the first reports of Men in Black involved witnesses of UFOs or extraterrestrial encounters. One of the first reports of MiB was in 1947 when Harold Dahl reported that he saw six UFOs when he and others were on a boat. After the encounter, Dahl said an intimidating muscular man wearing a nondescript black suit took him out to breakfast and threatened him and his family if he spoke of the encounter.
Dahl later declared his UFO report was a hoax, but some believe that he recanted to protect himself from MiB. Further research into other types of paranormal and anomalous phenomena, such as poltergeists, space-time disturbances, telepathy and psychokinesis, and Bigfoot, just to name a few, also reveals encounters by agents in black who collected information and silenced those specific witnesses who claimed to have experienced these phenomena.
Government agents or something weirder
MiB started gaining popularity in the 1950s with books such as Gray Barker’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, and are still in the mainstream today with the Men in Black movies, which are based on a comic book inspired by the phenomenon.
Over the decades, MiB have taken somewhat different forms, but their similarities are undeniable. Stiff black suits, intimidating size and black Cadillacs are often associated with MiB. Some reports of MiB described them as being eerily inhuman, taking on characteristics of an unearthly nature. Some theorists propose that many of these reports of MiB were allowed to be disseminated in order to create an air of “unbelievability” among those who reported them. One thing is for certain: their apparent objective is to track down true paranormal encounters and control the situation and information to suit their agenda.
UFO connection
Throughout history, MiB have been primarily associated with UFOs and extraterrestrial phenomena because of the simple fact that these phenomena are primarily aerial events in the atmosphere and widely viewed by many witnesses. Therefore, when reports of MiB follow reports of UFOs or extraterrestrials, they are given more credence and attract a wider audience. But make no mistake, MiB have been monitoring, analyzing and researching every type of anomalous and paranormal phenomena imaginable.
Since the first reports of MiB, many have tried to discover the true identity and agenda of these dark agents, with little success. And for those who do know their true identity, either by association or as a “subject” of one of their operations, it has been strongly suggested that the means utilized to maintain total suppression of all information is disturbingly successful.
Mysterious organization
More recently, however, startling new information has surfaced that finally may reveal a significant fragment of the agency’s true identity. The shadowy MiB may in-fact be one in the same as a non-descript organization known as The Office of Scientific Investigation and Research (O.S.I.R.).
Created in the early 1940s as a byproduct of a top-secret government program, the O.S.I.R. is an ultra top-secret organization whose far-reaching operations can be found in every corner of the world. The Dahl encounter was also in 1947, and this was one of the first reports of MiB.
The O.S.I.R., among other things, conducts scientific research and investigations surrounding anomalous phenomena (also known as paranormal, parapsychological, supernatural and metaphysical phenomena). The organization is said to have significant power, utilizing their far-reaching authority to suppress and maintain their operations and very existence. They operate independently from all governments and private organizations, and while their true agenda is unknown, it is conjectured that the study of anomalous phenomena and its potential applications might be their focus.
With significant funding and resources, rumored advanced technology and influence with various governments, the O.S.I.R. infiltrates many aspects of society and government, scanning for phenomena and conducting their scientific operations. Aspects of science, law, medicine, religion, business/corporate world and government are permeated with their operatives.
And for anyone who might be involved in any of their clandestine operations, be it an experiencer of a phenomena or an individual recruited to partially assist their operations, the O.S.I.R. utilizes disturbingly unorthodox all-encompassing means of intimidation, coupled with techniques to suppress or cover up any and all information. It is these modus operandi of the O.S.I.R. that reveal without any doubt that they are indeed the notorious MiB.
Now you see them…
In order to conduct their clandestine operations, the organization takes on various aliases and “cover identities,” choosing to hide in plain sight.
The O.S.I.R. came into the public eye in 1990 when the organization opened a public affairs department. For a decade, by means of this department, the O.S.I.R. interacted with the general public and media, openly stating that their primary focus is “anomalous phenomena”. In 2000, the O.S.I.R. closed its public affairs department and terminated all contacts with the outside world.
Some conspiracy theorists state that the O.S.I.R. was conducting some sort of research or experimentation surrounding the “millennium,” which might explain why they disappeared just after 2000. But no confirmed explanations were ever given for why the organization re-immersed into obscurity or why they went overt to begin with.
The MiB, alias O.S.I.R., are suspected to be the shadow organization and work-horse behind countless above top-secret projects in every country, including U.S.’s own Majestic, Stargate and Area 51. To this day, they continue to infiltrate our world, seeking-out, analyzing and concealing at-all-costs extraordinary phenomena of every type for their ultra top-secret agenda.
The Ely UFO Crash
Roswell wasn’t the only crash site! ELY, NV – Visit Roswell, New Mexico, even Rachel, Nevada, a stop on Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway,and you’ll find both proudly claim a spot in UFO history. You won’t find that in Ely, Nevada, but maybe you should.
If you google Ely and UFO you’ll immediately find a link to flying saucer legend and lore. It appears in every listing of a supposed crash of an unidentified flying object.
Nearly six decades ago, it is claimed a UFO crashed near Ely. That’s nearly the whole story. You’ll find a date: August 14, 1952 and 16 bodies recovered.
That’s the highest body count claimed for any UFO crash anywhere by the way. Both claims consistent on all listings, but no other details.
We first heard this story in November when we journeyed to Ely chasing the claims of fresh sightings in eastern Nevada. Out of curiousity we started looking for more.
We weren’t the first. A few years ago Kent Harper of the Ely Times came across the same reference and asked his readers if any could shed any light on the account. He didn’t get a lot of feedback. Years later, he says, he hasn’t learned much more.
“I even went down to Rachel and talked with some folks down there,” he says, “but it just seems to have been on the internet forever and no one adds to it, no one deletes from it.”
Harper wouldn’t have found any clues in the files of his own paper.
We checked the microfilm on the Ely Times from August of 1952 in three different libraries with the same result. The issue from August 15th, when any such event would have been reported, is missing.
That’s enough to jump start the musings of any conspiracy theorist worth the title, but finally in the White Pine County Library we found perhaps the only remaining copy of the August 15th issue.
On the front page: a baseball tournament, an approaching festival, news from the Korean War, even a planned flyover by Air Force bombers. Nothing that could give rise to a rumor of a UFO crash.
Mention any of this nearly six decades later to anyone on the street here and you’ll likely get a puzzled stare and a shrug.
So this incident whatever it was, if it was, does not play a prominent role in local memory, but if you start asking questions stories do emerge.
The stories from the ’50’s are now third hand, but the most intriguing links the crash story to a spot just west of Ely along Highway 50 called Copper Flat.
Mary Sorenson is a lifelong resident and local historian of White Pine County. Growing up here she heard no stories of UFO crashes, but a few years ago, looking for material for a collection of local ghost stories, she came across the same information we did and mentioned it to a longtime resident, who said he had heard it first hand from a close friend, a respected security guard working for the nearby copper mine.
“He told my friend he witnessed a UFO crash and the government swore him to secrecy, that he was not to divulge to anyone.”
A UFO crash, not a plane crash?
“A UFO crash is what he said.”
The man, by all accounts, a responsible, respected member of the community took whatever else he might have known including the exact location to the grave.
Ironically years after the reported crash, this location would have a unrelated connection to aerospace. In 1959, NASA located a tracking station on Kimberly Mountain overlooking Copper Flat, part of Project High Range, to track the flights of the X-15 rocket plane. The empty building still stands amidst a collection of communication sites.
As a 12 year old staying with his grandparents in East Ely that same summer of 1952, Claude House says he and others in the neighborhood had their own close encounter. At 4 in the morning, a bright object lit up the sky above the house, letting out a low hum.
Neighbors gathered and watched, joined by a deputy and the sheriff himself.
“I seen what I seen and I know I’m not crazy,”:insists House. Over a number of minuites maybe a dozen people witnessed the object, he says.. “And they agreed. It was a UFO.”
A few days later he recalls a dinner table conversation, the adults talking about a crash.
“They said a few of their friends from Kennecott went hp there to see what the could, see if any stuff that might be lying around and it was blocked off and it was a light plane crash.”
We’ve been unable to verify any incident involving an aircraft of any type near Ely or anything else that would morph into a reported crash of a UFO.
So, inevitably we are left with a mystery. Where did this story come from? It’s a question without an answer and likely to remain that way. The coldest of cold cases in the UFO file.
UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities
Case File: Creatures of Dry Fork Canyon
Gus B. says he’s had many strange experiences in his life, but nothing comes close to the peculiar encounters he and four friends were met with in the Utah wilderness. This is Gus’s story….
Near the end of May, 2003, my younger brother and I were attending a wedding reception, as a good friend of ours was married that day. The reception was held in Remember The Maine Park, a rural area in Dry Fork Canyon, which is a fifteen-minute drive outside Vernal, Utah.
This canyon has a dark history. There were two suicides in the same year that baffled authorities and the relatives of the deceased. Both men undressed and folded their clothes in a neat stack, then jumped off the cliff side that faces the park. Both men dated the same woman, but at different times, as there was a six-month gap between the “suicides”. Even the police were suspicious of this, as the woman in question was a meth dealer, but I remember nothing ever coming of it. Even so, my friends and I often hung out in this park, practicing martial arts and swordplay. Thus, it was the locale for the reception.
We had fun at the reception, eating, laughing, dancing and generally enjoying the day of celebration. However, a few friends of mine, as well as my brother, wanted to go exploring the woods beyond the park boundaries. My friend Cassidy had mentioned that the area was known for “freaky” occurrences, as he described it. So Cassidy, Brian, David, my brother Tony and I began trekking into the woods. We left around 5 p.m., and the sun was still shining bright at this time.
Unsettling feeling
We traveled for about fifteen minutes or so when we came to a fairly wide clearing. By this time, the temperature had dramatically dropped. And we began to experience an odd, unsettling feeling that seemed to pierce my stomach and make it cold. Cassidy made a comment to the effect that this was “the entrance”.
As we started walking farther, I was struck with the sharp feeling that somehow the ground itself did not want me treading there. I also noticed that the ground for about a hundred yards was littered with the bones of cattle, which gave me the chills. Brushing this feeling aside, we continued our trek for another ten minutes or so.
Something huge
We came to an area in the woods that was thick and a little too dark for the day. My brother tapped me on the shoulder and quietly said to me, “Do you see that?” About fifteen yards away in the thick woods was a distinguishable dark shape that was huge. It looked like a gorilla sitting on its knuckles, but it was completely black, and far too tall to be a bear, as it was about seven feet tall in this crouching position!
At about this time, everyone else in the group took notice to the huge, dark shape. With some quiet caution and a leery eye, we continued our trek into the woods – in a different direction, I might add. The trees were rustling and swaying, but there was no wind; the air was at a dead standstill. This spooked Tony, so my brother decided he had seen enough, and my friend Cassidy agreed to take him back to the park. That left Brian, David and I behind to wait for him.
By this time, nightfall had already descended upon us. This disturbed me considerably, as we had left at 5 and weren’t even an hour into our “journey”.
Suddenly, we began to hear odd hooting sounds coming from the trees. Brian called them “Indian hoots,” but I suggested that it was an owl. My suggestion proved incorrect, as the hooting sounds intensified and came from places where I knew there was no source, like a spot a few feet away from my head in the air, and the ground next to my feet.
At this point, things were definitely getting weird, but it was about to get worse.
Panic attack
As we continued to wait for Cassidy to return, David seemed to be having an odd sort of panic attack. He could barely speak, almost as if some entity was trying to keep him from speaking, and he seemed genuinely terrified by something. Brian held his hand and tried to talk him down, without much success.
While this was happening, their backs faced the woods, with me facing into it. Out of nowhere, red eyes flashed out of the darkness at me. It was gone before I could ask if anyone else had seen it. Brian was still trying to help David, when a few minutes later eyes flashed at me from the darkness again, only the eyes were ten more yards or so to the right than last time.
I asked Brian if he saw the eyes, and indeed he had caught it out of the corner of his eye. David seemed to be calming down just a bit, when both Brian and I saw the eyes for the third time, another good distance more to the right in the woods. Somehow, we were behind enemy lines, and I had a feeling that if we didn’t leave soon, something really bad might happen. The fact that David’s fragmented tirade centered around demons didn’t help at all.
Finally, Cassidy returned, and I noticed that things were a little brighter. As fate would have it, there was a full moon shining down on us, and I was once again flabbergasted that the moon was out, when we had only been in the woods a little over an hour. Cassidy then asked us if we wanted to continue deeper into the woods. Brian, David and I all agreed that it was best we return to the park.
Humanoid beings
Once again the trees began swaying and rustling, as if there were a strong wind blowing, except there wasn’t even the slightest of breezes blowing at all. We started walking back, and my friends began running suddenly. I was about to yell at them for running off, but I got a “twinge” as I call them.
I turned around to see a good number of grayish-white humanoid figures running, blinking and just basically freaking out. The thing that got me running is that they were rapidly heading our way!
It was a miracle I caught up with the guys at all. And it seemed that the wide open clearing we passed through a little over an hour ago had shrunken so drastically. I am confident it was no trick of the eye. The woods were actually closing in.
After running for about fifteen minutes or so, we were back in the park. Fortunately, a few of our friends at the reception remembered that we took off, and had waited around for us. Imagine my shock when I learned it was 11:15 p.m.! I know for a fact that the amount of time we spent in there could not have exceeded an hour and a half at the very most! And yet, six hours had gone by!
We rode home, relating the events to some of our other friends who happen to be Wiccan. All of the Wiccans I spoke to who are familiar with that area agree that some thing very bad happened there, and local legend has it that several years ago 200 head of cattle dropped dead of mysterious circumstances in that place. Whatever the case may be, something intense calls that area home, and I am not eager to return there anytime soon.
The Paranormal Effect 