The Lloyd Pye Podcast

In the latest installment of the Book of THoTH podcast, Jeremy Vaeni spends some quality time picking the brain of Lloyd Pye. For those who don't know, Lloyd Pye is an author of multiple books, fiction and non-fiction, and the holder of the Starchild skull.

The nearly hour long discussion touches on many topics, and primarily focuses on the Starchild skull provenance, testing and mythology. However, they begin with a particularly grizzly discussion of the details of the one and only Bigfoot Lloyd says to have ever seen; The Minnesota Iceman body. He explains exactly why he believes it was a real cryptid, along with some very precise details of the state of the body when he saw it.

From there they go onto the Starchild skull. Lloyd discusses the case from the very beginning back when it was found, and follows it through each phase of testing which has been done thus far. Lloyd says this proves that the mother of the Starchild was human, and the father was not. How far off from human is it?

The Starchild mythology and legend is also dissected. Once again, starting with the local legends from where the skull was found, and then going forward until modern UFO stories are discussed. The similarities are extremely interesting and tell a story all of their own, even without any scientific evidence.

Lloyd finishes the Starchild discussion by bringing the Book of THoTH listener completely up to date on the standing of the scientific evidence, and each of the anomalies, along with an interesting tie in to Roswell. Where does the testing go from here? How long will Lloyd continue to follow the case? What does he really believe the skull is?

They finish with an extremely interesting discussion on the intervention theory, and why Lloyd is convinced it's the correct explanation of our human past mostly based on a very educational discussion of the human genome and it's differences from our distant ancestors. Is it possible that the only way to account for the differences is in a genomic laboratory?

This is a fascinating podcast with an extremely dedicated, intelligent and well versed man. Don't miss this one.

http://www.book-of-thoth.com/book-of-thoth-podcasts.html

The Hunt for the Skinwalker Review

"The Hunt for the Skinwalker," for those who don't know, is a book about a Utah ranch that seems to have almost every paranormal occurrence all at once, and the scientists who have and are trying to study it. The book's written by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp, with Kelleher being a PhD scientist who took the lead on the study of the ranch.

The research was funded by the National Institute for Discovery Science, a scientific organization set up to scientifically study phenomena which would probably otherwise go unexplored by the scientific community.

The book gives excellent background of the area and the history behind the phenomenon in that location. The bizarre phenomenon there seems to go back at least 15 generations in Ute history, and for all we know might have been going on long before that. In short, in Native American lore the phenomenon is attributed to "skinwalkers" who are witches who use their power for evil. This ranch is said to be "in the path of the skinwalkers" and, therefore, the members of the local tribe will not step foot on the property for any reason.

Having asked many people I know who are familiar with the skinwalker phenomenon whether it's real or not, I can report that almost to a person, each came back to me with stories and legitimate fear for their own lives. Many people who have attempted to research skinwalkers have terrifying tales which scared them off of the notion of any legitimate research.

The nature of the occurrences on this particular property take the shape of everything from frightening poltergeist behavior, to telepathic communications, to UFOs of almost every variety reported from around the world, to Bigfoot, bulletproof animals including an extremely large wolf, to cattle mutilations, and even unknown creatures stalking the grounds.

The former residents of the ranch regularly ran into some of the strangest encounters I've ever heard of. For example, one of the most common occurrences was an orange "window" which would open up in full view of the house, up in the sky. Once, while watching the window, a resident of the ranch saw what looked to him like another sky through the window. Shortly thereafter a triangular shaped craft flew through from the other "sky" into the sky over Utah.

This seems to speak to the possibility that this ranch is located in an area where cross over from other dimensions or travel through a wormhole might be a reality. Many, if not all, of the other phenomena might possibly be explained by that as well, as strange as it seems. However, much of the happenings on the ranch seem to fall along the trickster motif; occasionally seemingly random occurrences with no obvious motive. That doesn't mean the motive doesn't make sense to whatever does it, but it's hard to come up with a reason why, for instance, a 75 pound post digger would disappear from a job site and show up later in a tree.

One of the more interesting points which I think was made in the book is the obvious intelligence of the behavior of what is often called an "entity" in the book. When the NIDS team showed up on the ranch at first, the occurrences were in full swing and happening regularly. They came in with a central command trailer, high tech equipment and people stalking the grounds on regular rounds. It was not exactly a low key operation, and it seems to have been obvious to the "entity" that it was being stalked. Almost at once, the occurrences dropped to near zero, with just hints of activity and strange phenomena here and there. While the research team certainly witnessed some things which they can not explain in everyday terms, they were mostly unable to come out of their experience with lasting proof of what happened. In most cases, it seems like that's because whatever was going on there simply didn't want to be filmed or caught on camera.

All in all, I found the book to be a fascinating read which did not disappoint from my previous stance that if they book lived up to the hype it might just help solve the mystery behind much of the paranormal. With such a wide range of happenings in one place it would seem unlikely that they aren't tied in together in some fashion. How is probably up to the likes of the Vallee's of the world to explain(who is on the board of the NIDS), but maybe the answers are closer now than they were before the NIDS spent over a year at the ranch in Utah. If you're interested in attempting to explain bits and pieces of the paranormal I'd certainly recommend making this book a part of that research.

The Free Lance-Star, out of Fredricksburg, VA, has an interesting article about a severed foot found at the local landfill. The local police were worried that the cleanly cut foot was evidence of a homicide, and began an investigation. It turns out that the foot is from an ape, but one which they were unable to identify.

As you might suspect, bigfoot believers from all over the world are proclaiming it as the next surefire piece of evidence, but, as of yet, there's no further details known about the foot. There are plenty of pictures at the site should you wish to take a look and make up your own mind. I do hope the local police department doesn't just let the whole thing slide since there's, apparently, no homicide involved, and that they continue to follow through and attempt to find out what the foot really is from, and where it came from. Seems to me, at the very least, there's the possibility of an animal cruelty case, which, as they stated, is well within their jurisdiction and should be a reason to continue on with the case.

Bigfoot and the so-called "Bigfoot professor" have found their way into the news a few times the last few days.

Jeff Meldrum, aka the Bigfoot professor, was the focus of a couple of articles that made some headlines recently. Both seem to make the same point that I have before, namely, that as long as he's doing real science, and searching for the truth, why is it that his fellow professors are so against him?

The first article, while I don't completely agree with it, centers around these three main points:

One, unlike the study of, say, intelligent design and other forms of creationism, researching bigfoot does not come burdened with a political or religious agenda that trumps the scientific method or leads a researcher to distort data. Meldrum is not hell bent on using his status as a public university professor to promote a sectarian agenda or “prove” some right-wing point.

Two, Meldrum’s research is not hurting anyone. Dr. John Mack, the late, controversial psychiatrist who taught at Harvard, became convinced that alien abductions were real and wrote several books on the topic. I think Mack committed a form of malpractice. The people who believe they are being abducted by aliens suffer from a form of neurosis, and Mack, instead of helping them, fed their delusions by saying, “Yes, you really are being sucked out of your window at night and probed by evil gray aliens.” This is irresponsible. Harvard never cracked down on Mack, but in my view the university would have been justified in doing so. Meldrum’s work looks harmless by comparison.

Finally, there is a small possibility that Meldrum’s research could result in significant findings. I believe the possibility that the sasquatch exists is very remote — but there is a case for the creature, and Meldrum should have the right to make it. By contrast, people who try to debunk Darwinism, prove that the Grand Canyon is only 6,000 years old or deny the Holocaust are wasting their time since there is no possibility their “research” will ever add anything of value to science or history.

So, by this author's definition, Professor Meldrum practices science.

The second article takes a very similar tone. What Professor Meldrum does is science in its purest form. He's searching for unknown answers to questions.

Recently in the media, a particular academic at a university in the United States has been called to task by many of his peers for his support of a Sasquatch event that was held at the university. Indeed, many of the comments from his peers were pretty disparaging to sat the least. The gist of their comments was that the investigation of the Sasquatch was not a topic for "serious" science, and any scientist who did such an activity was not a scientist at all but a quack. I have always been bothered by this attitude of most academics and scientists, as from my point of view, it seems to be in opposition to what their professions are all about, namely the searching for facts within the natural world to produce useful models of reality.

Well said, I believe. At least, in the end, while Professor Meldrum may have to deal with pretentious colleagues who refuse to believe what he's doing has any scientific merit, the dean of sciences at ISU believes in what he's doing, and that should keep Professor Meldrum at the university doing exactly what he's been doing for a long time to come.

While Professor Meldrum is getting most of the press in the Bigfoot research realm lately, there are other professionals looking into the phenomenon. Stanislaus National Forest's archaeologist Kathy Strain is, literally, digging for evidence of Sasquatch. While she's never seen a Bigfoot herself, she's collected countless eyewitness accounts, cast footprints, ancient pictographs and other evidence, and calls herself a believer. She has spent hundreds of off-work hours dedicated to researching the animal, and believes that eventually rock-solid proof will be found.

If proof is ever found, it will be because of hard work from professionals like these two dedicated scientists.

Over at Earthfiles Linda Moulton Howe has an interesting interview with Idaho State "Bigfoot professor" Jeff Meldrum, who has had a new book out since September; Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. In it he discusses many of the reasons why he is involved in research of this kind, and even takes the infamous "skeleton" question head on:

WHY DO YOU THINK WE DON’T HAVE A BODY OR A SKELETON?

It still is perplexing that we haven’t, that someone hasn’t stumbled on something. But we’re making discoveries all the time. In paleontology, new species are found. If this is a large body omnivorous primate, it probably has no natural predators. It would be at the top of its food chain. If it’s a large ape, it probably has a very long life expectancy of 40 to 60 years perhaps. It reproduces rarely, if we can extrapolate from the great apes. Births are rare and infrequent and widely spaced. An adult female orangutan may give birth to only 4 individuals in her entire lifetime with anywhere from 4 to 8 years between births.

So, given a very rare population with long life expectancy, with infrequent reproduction and no natural predators – when death occurs, it’s a rare event. Two, it’s going to be a natural event. Therefore, animals that die natural deaths as they become old and decrepit and ill, they secret themselves off and once they pass away, insects and other predators eat the remains and the skeletons are carried off by scavengers, by porcupines and rodents.

People don’t realize that a porcupine can make in very short order gnaw a large bone to nothing. I’ve found elk bones which have been chewed by porcupines and there is just not much left even to identify which particular bone it is. They are just chewed down to almost nothing.

Anyway, the second factor then is the physical environment. That is where these Bigfoot animals are most reported are wet, coniferous forests. Particularly in the Pacific Northwest, these are soils that are largely volcanic-derived that are notoriously acidic. Acidic soils and conditions are not conducive to preserving bones. So, what scavengers haven’t eaten, the physical environment quickly deteriorates and decomposes. In a short time, there is not much left.

If you stop and think that every year, literally thousands of deer die of winter kill from predators and succumbing to the rigors of winter. Yet, when you go out for a hike in the springtime, you don’t find the floor of the forest littered with deer carcasses. The carcasses are very efficiently recycled.

Be sure to check the entire interview out right here.