Martine "Frederique" Darragon fell under the spell of an elusive phenomenon scattered across the foothills of the Himalayas. Old stone towers, some vaguely star-shaped and some more than 100 feet tall became a near obsession for Darragon as she found their origin to be a mystery.
Darragon told Smithsonian magazine's Richard Stone that when she asked local residents about the towers -- Who built them? When? Why? -- nobody seemed to have a clue. What she had stumbled on was rare indeed: a riddle in plain sight.
Over five years, she journeyed nine times to western China, where she saw nearly 200 of the towers in Sichuan Province and Tibet. She photographed and measured them, climbed into them when possible and carved off bits of wooden beams for analysis. Local monks told her they'd found no mention of the structures in centuries-old monastery documents. Still, she did find a few references to the towers in some Chinese annals and in the diaries of 19th-century Western travelers to the region.
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Posted by aussiET on Sunday, April 04, 2004 @ 01:09:01 CST
So many of the sword-and-sorcery tales of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) were inspired by vivid dreams that some researchers have wondered if REH was experiencing a phenomenon called retrocognition, i.e. dream-channelling or psychic glimpses of the remote prehistoric past.
Nowhere is the suggestion of this stronger than in Robert's unfinished Kull story, Black Abyss, which was never published in his lifetime.
The story is set in "languid Kamula," a prehistoric city somewhere in Europe, "this dreamy pleasure city of snowy marble and lapis lazuli that crowned the crest of the hill." In Kings of the Night, a story published in Weird Tales in November 1930, REH reveals that his King Kull character lived "a hundred thousand years ago."
Click Read More (long article)
Posted by aussiET on Saturday, January 31, 2004 @ 22:35:35 CST
In the mid 1950's, Jose Luis Jordan Pena was elaborating the theory that paranoia was much more widespread among the population than psychiatrists of the time were willing to admit. Jordan Pena believed that no less than 79% of the population was afflicted, and proceeded to demonstrate the validity of his theory by concocting the UMMO affair -- the story of tall, blond and friendly aliens who had landed near the French locality of Digne.
The belief in superstitions such as astrology, flying saucers, spiritism, shamanism, etc., was considered as proof of this paranoia by the Spanish psychiatrist.
A believer in the concept of "systematical paranoia," Jordan Pena put forth beliefs which, in his own words, were imbued with a certain logic. He didn't limit himself to the theoretical framework, but actually took steps (by his own admission) to create a false landing in the Madrid suburb of Aluche, leaving bogus landing marks behind, and adding to the confusion by availing himself of a few sheets of polyvinyl fluoride which were unknown in Spain at the time (a material known as TEDLAR, manufactured by E. duPont de Nemours for the U.S. space program).
And they call us crazy ! Click to Read More about the infamous Ummo Letters with links to the history and the actual letters people received.
Posted by aussiET on Saturday, January 31, 2004 @ 18:20:10 CST
"At around 2 a.m. on the morning of May 22, 1949, America’s first Secretary of Defense, James Vincent Forrestal, fell to his death from a small window of the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital.
The decline and death of Forrestal is an unresolved problem of history. There is no question that he suffered from a spectacular mental breakdown during 1948 and 1949. Exactly why he did so is less certain, but the answer may have relevance to American national security – and the pesky topic of UFOs."
So begins the account of James Forrestals life leading to his 'suicide', it is a political tale with more twists and turns than your average bowl of spaghetti ;-)
What sent Forrestal to his death? Was it because he found something out he shouldn't have? Read the excellent article by Richard Dolan on this, in the reference section, or discuss it in the Forums.
Click Read more for the links
Posted by aussiET on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 @ 21:33:03 CST
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