The first time that Jason Martell ripped off my article, I sent him an e-mail. He never responded, but when Michael Bourne, owner and webmaster of Book of THoTH contacted him, he basically replied that he'd take it down, but he was glad that people thought he had written my article.

Well, that didn't last long. He took it down from his main site, and has now posted it on his blog, again, having taken off my name and used the entire article, insinuating that it's his own.

I'd appreciate it if anyone who cares, which, I'm sure is very few people, take the time to e-mail Jason(who makes his living off of his "research", mostly stolen, and speaking engagements in person and on TV) and give him a piece of your mind for all the authors he's ripped off to prop up his fake career. Then tell him that Dustin sent you. Thanks.

Jason@xfacts.com

Up at the Book of THoTH front page there's three new articles.

First up is an article by Gary David called "The Tau (or T-shaped) Cross: Hopi-Maya-Egyptian Connections".

Next one is an article titled "Ancient Indian Vimanas" by Ashini Pandit.

And, last, but hopefully not least, "Mythology, the Ages of Man and the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis" written by me.

Thanks to Jezzie for pointing out that I had a link to Renderosity for the other winners of the cover competition which you had to be registered there to see.

Of course, we have the winners in the Book of THoTH gallery as well, and you can look at them without registering. Enjoy! They were all really good.

I've finished another article for the Book of THoTH. I'm never sure I like my writing, and I always tweak and change things until I simply get tired of seeing it anymore. Sometimes I think that leads to disjointed stories, but you can all have a look before(hopefully) it gets to the front page.

"Mythology, the Ages of Man and the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis"

Philip Gardiner has tentatively booked the latest speaker for the upcoming Forbidden Knowledge Conference 2007 in California.

I'm proud to announce he's someone that most readers of this blog should be quite familiar with...Mac Tonnies! Tentatively scheduled for December 13th of 2007, Mac will speak on the topic of his choice, yet to be decided I'm assuming. Congratulations Mac! A great choice by Phil on this one.

Of course, there will be plenty more speakers and announcements over the next few months as the schedule for the conference is finalized, so keep an eye out here for all the news.

Two big announcements today!

The cover for the upcoming book The Book of THoTH: Wisdom of the Ages has been chosen in the cover competition hosted by Renderosity. The first place winner, and the featured cover is right here:


(Image copyright BoT 2006)

I know Philip Gardiner and Michael Bourne had a hard time deciding on a winner, and six other entries each received prizes as well.

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the competition, the entries were amazing, and we ended up with over 200 of them!

Don't forget, there's still time to get your article entered into the competition to get it published in the book. That competition ends December 31st, and we've had some wonderful articles submitted so far. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes in over the last five weeks. With any luck I'll even get an article or two of my own entered this week.

Over at Mac Tonnies' blog I saw a link to an article that shows exactly where Fox News and many in the republican party stand on environmentalism and global warming. I think the way to put it would be "Let God handle it." Honestly...

James Inhofe, the outgoing Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, told Fox News in an interview(with the tag line "Is Global Warming a Hoax? below him) that we shouldn't worry about global warming because, "God's still up there." I can't even begin to put into words how I feel about that, so I'll just let you read the article here.

Philip Coppens has posted a new article at his site. This one's on The Lament, an ancient prophecy describing the end of Egyptian civilization, and it's titled "Corpus Hermeticum".

Linda Moulton Howe at Earthfiles has an interesting story with a twist on your typical cattle mutilation story. Apparently while out working with a team from the upcoming series Best Evidence, they came across a story of a mutilated cow which had, apparently, been dropped from high enough up in the air to bounce before coming to its final resting place.

Author Philip Gardiner's got a new article on his blog by Derek Skhane titled "Number" which takes a thoroughly in-depth look at ancient mysteries, the dimensions of monuments, and how numbers tie in.

Having studied the Ancient Mysteries, likewise Plato, Herodotus, and abundant others for numerous years, a belief, long held since my childhood days spent gazing intently at the majesty of the night sky became confirmed in my psyche that all number is integrated.
...

Further research into the dimensions of the splendid monuments bequeathed to humankind so strategically sited the world over. In particular, the Great Pyramid of Giza combined with my research into the Hebraic and Greek systems of Gematria, in concert with the codification of number, left me convinced that the entire are linked via a manner that we at present are only currently beginning to comprehend.

Researchers have just discovered the secret behind crucibles made in the Hesse region of Germany since the Middle Ages. It turns out the 500 year old recipe using kaolinitic clay, which was fired at 1,100 degrees, was making a very modern material known as mullite, which is used in advanced ceramics today.

Just recently it was found that swords made in Damascus nearly 1,000 years ago were so sharp because the edges contained carbon nanotubes. Unfortunately, the method for making those swords has been lost for hundreds of years.

Much like mythology has something to teach us in the modern day, many alchemical recipes have been found to harbor secrets to modern day materials over the last few years. Scientists who take the time to study the past often have insights into the way things work that the modern era seems to have forgotten.

BBC News is reporting this week that new video and photographic evidence shows CIA agents were present at the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Some of the agents were apparently based in Asia at the time, and had no known reason for being present at the assassination scene. This, of course, is renewing speculation that Robert, and perhaps even his brother, were killed by agents of their own government. The theory furthered is that Sirhan Sirhan was just used as a decoy during the killing.

The report is the result of a three-year investigation by filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan. He reveals new video and photographs showing three senior CIA operatives at the hotel.

Three of these men have been positively identified as senior officers who worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA's Miami base for its Secret War on Castro.

David Morales was Chief of Operations and once told friends:

"I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard."

The video's on the BBC site at the link provided above, and I'll warn you it's a bit disturbing to watch.

It seems there's pretty good evidence that the jet and disc-shaped object which was claimed to have been found in the Great Lakes by a dive company may have been a hoax. I wrote a little bit about this one a few weeks back, and it seemed hopeful. However, now it looks like while the sonar images may be real, the rest of the story around the discovery is falling apart.

An international online survey of the paranormal is getting a huge response just six weeks in. So far over 2,000 people have participated, with 96% of them claiming to have had at least one paranormal experience in their lifetimes. While the data may be skewed by the fact that people who've never had a paranormal experience are probably less likely to participate, a gallup poll also concluded that three quarters of Americans believe in at least one "paranormal" subject.

This survey is trying to put some numbers and statistics onto paranormal experiences such as premonitions, out-of-body and near-death episodes, telepathy and apparitions. If you'd like to participate you can do so by filling out the survey at this link.

OK, to change the tone after my rant just a bit, here's a great little clip of Mac Tonnies talking about UFOs for Paul Kimball's upcoming film Best Evidence.

Very well said Mac! That's something I've tried to say, fairly unsuccessfully perhaps, so many times, and you put it into a short, concise clip. I'm certainly looking forward to getting a look at Best Evidence when it comes out.

You might have noticed an optimistic, almost cheerful tone to my posts today. Well, that's over. You see, we made the mistake of running out of cat food on, of all days, Black Friday. Not thinking too deeply about it, I decided to go to the local pet food store. Unfortunately, this pet food store happens to be next to a Wal-Mart and a Target...

Wow people. Get a frigg'n clue. Let me try to clue you folks in a few things...

If you drive an SUV out to Walmart today to spend god knows how much money on completely and totally worthless crap, may I suggest professional help? That professional help I'm speaking of, of course, would be in the form of sterilization so I don't have to witness...

...If you drive the biggest, smelliest, nastiest car ever created to roam the roadways(a Hummer, of course), let me tell you sir, this does NOT entitle you to swerve back and forth across the road shoving smaller cars out of your way so that you can drag your plastic surgery addicted wife and your 12 year old daughter both wearing tight, denim mini-skirts and thigh highs through Target buying worthless crap. Please sir, STOP REPRODUCING!

If you get rear-ended hard enough to push your trunk through your back window, the proper thing to do is NOT to simply push your car off the road into the median, abandon it, and proceed to walk over to the strip mall to get in on the shopping orgy. Lady, get a clue. Please. Your car is still sitting in the median. On a positive note, however, there were no obvious signs that you've ever reproduced. Thanks.

OK everyone, thanks for letting me rant. If you're still here, you can go ahead and scroll down to proceed with your regularly scheduled postings.

Some big news from author Philip Gardiner was released at Book of THoTH on Wednesday. It seems that the Forbidden Knowledge Conference UK(FKCUK) will be expanding beyond the UK this year. On December 12th to the 15th, 2007, there will be a Forbidden Knowledge Conference in the US, specifically in California. So far the only names which he's released as confirmed speakers are Ellis Taylor, Clinton Deyer and Nick Pope, but he promises there are many big stars yet to be named on board. I'll be sure to post more info on this as I get it. I'm sure this is going to be a big event, and one to look forward to! I know I'm going to do my best to be out in California in mid-December next year.

Finally, a little good news on the environmental front. Global atmospheric methane concentrations seem to be leveling off. If the trend continues, predicted global warming temperature rises won't be as dramatic. Maybe people really can make a difference still. Here's hoping, at least.

Sorry folks. Seems like the cat and dog in Brazil didn't really have kuppies or pittens. They're just cats that look a lot like dogs. I really did find this quote to be in bad taste, though:

"People who aren't experts often imagine things," said Pacheco, director of the Institute of Biological Sciences of the University of Passo Fundo.

Wow. I nominate him for most pompous scientist of the year.

Edit: OK, I must admit, after reading the little article again, I think they're saying that the cat adopted the puppies as her own, so they're not kittens, they're puppies, which are being nursed by a cat. Confused yet?

Ever since I switched to the new beta blogger I've only had one issue. Sometimes someone leaves a comment, I get an e-mail telling me about it, but it never actually shows up on my blog. Anyone else having problems with comments not publishing?

I hope everyone in the US had a nice Thanksgiving. I certainly did. Even though it was a non-traditional food holiday, it was certainly nice in its own way. For the first time in many years, I think I actually enjoyed a winter holiday. Maybe there's hope for Christmas after all!

I hope everyone in the US has a very Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow. I haven't posted much the last couple of days because I've been trying to get ready for the holiday, interview at new jobs, and put the finishing touches on an article I've been writing that looks at Hopi mythology. Here's a little preview of a rough draft of the section about the First World to have a look at until I manage to get the whole thing finished and entered into the Book of THoTH article competition. I'll be back on Friday!

The First World

The newly created people are living in it, and they follow the way of the Creator, at first. However, as they advance, and as they grow farther apart from the "Gods" who made them, many of them begin to stray from the way of the Creator. As they grow out and form different villages they begin to fight. While they were originally taught that they are all brothers, "The Talker" who looks like a bird, tells them all that they are different. Then Katoya, who has the form of a snake, teaches them to be warlike.

At this point Sotuknang came with the "sound as of a mighty wind and suddenly appeared" before the ones who still followed the ways of the creator. He told them, "We have decided this world must be destroyed and another one created so you people can start over again. Your inner wisdom will give you the sight to see a certain cloud, which you will follow by day, and a certain star, which you will follow by night." They followed the star by night, and the cloud by day, facing ridicule from the ones who had strayed along the way, until they came to a big mound where the Ant People lived. They opened up the anthill, and the good people lived in there for a while where the light came from "tiny bits of crystal" which "had absorbed the light of the sun"

Once again, this is an interesting part of the story which seems to tie into other stories, and hints at a fantastic ability by these "Gods" and how they travel. How is it that Sotuknang manages to simply appear before them, and why the distinctive sound each time? How does he manifest a cloud that they can follow each day, which then turns into a moving star to follow each night? Are the "Gods" simply using some sort of a flying craft?

For those in the Western world who tend to be more familiar with the Bible than any other stories or mythology, this might very well sound similar to the Star of Bethlehem. This "star" is said to have appeared, and moved differently than any other star in the sky. From the bible, in Matthew 2:

"After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed."

Just as in this story, people followed it, and in the Bible the Magi ended up at the birthplace of Jesus; here, they end up in a slightly different location.

Another story that seems to tie in very well with this one is in the ancient Indian text "The Vimaanika Shastra" in which ancient flying machines, called Vimanas, are discussed. One of the ways in which it states that the flying machines can be disguised is as a cloud. Perhaps what is being discussed here is a flying craft which can be disguised as a cloud by day, and can illuminate during the night time so that it can continue to be followed.

Also, what struck me in this part of the story is how the people described the source of light which they lived with while underground. It seems to me this is how people with very little technological knowledge, having never seen indoor lighting, might describe electric lights, or even solar powered lighting. Solar technology "absorbs" the sunlight, and then gives it back on command. Perhaps if this technology were described to a non-technological society, this is how they would then relate to it.

When the people who continued to follow the ways of the Creator are safe in the anthill, the destruction of the first world commenced. "Fire came from above and below and all around...until there was nothing left except the people safe inside the womb of the earth." It had not taken him long to destroy the world, nor would it take long before he created another, but it was taking a long time for the world to cool down. Finally, with the world cooled enough for the people to come back out they noticed just how different the new world was. "He changed its form completely, putting land where the water was, and water where the land had been."

Here's a very interesting article on how electronic voting went in the latest elections.

Some really sad news today. PEAR, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory, is shutting down. PEAR has done a lot of really great research, illuminated quite a few strange occurrences, and really published some terrific papers. Their research will really be missed in the paranormal/parascience realm.

There's two new front page articles on BoT today, part one and two of an article by Derek Skhane. They're titled "Pyramid Angles" part one and part two.

I've basically got a bunch of interesting articles, and news, from Book of THoTH today, so I thought I'd wrap it all into my 200th post.

Have I really babbled that much in such a short time? Apparently I have...I hope everyone's enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it so far.

First up, IlluminatusRex, a BoT member, has written a new article titled "Why Are Aliens So Shy?" This articles takes a look at the extraterrestrial hypothesis from the stand point of them visiting, but not revealing themselves to people as a whole, and then explores the implications. IR did a nice job on this one and whether you agree with him or not, give his article a read and see what you think.

In the realm of extraterrestrial study there are few questions asked as often as the most natural one: "Why don't they reveal themselves?". Many theories have been created as an explanation for why this hasn't happened.

These 3 are probably the most prevalent ......

1. Revealing themselves would cause mass hysteria amongst us and/or we'd attack them.
2. Mankind is too unevolved and disappointing for them to associate with us.
3. They don't want to interfere with our natural course of development as a species.

Next up is Sol's new article "The Players of Null-A" which takes a look at philosophy, thought patterns, utopian society and auto-suggestion. This is a thoroughly researched article which is really quite enlightening. A must read.

Towards the middle of the 20th Century a novel and original system of thought arose, which was to have far-reaching implications on today's thinking patterns. It was a philosophical theory whose precise didactic argumentation was not readily accessible to laymen, which caused it to remain in the musky realm of scholars and tenured Humanities professors. It had furthermore been criticized as being an incomplete and distorted picture of our reality, and has been largely discounted in its original form by the philosophy establishment, except as a curious historical trend.

Thus the influence of this theory has largely escaped public notice. And yet from its inception, it had been used by its proponents for such a wide range of pursuits as treating shell-shocked soldiers or stopping college riots. It has also spawned several very interesting "cult-like" doctrines, such as Dianetics. Most curiously, many of this theory's tenets have been accepted for granted in the New Age era, though in an entirely different way than what its creator envisioned.

Such was the theory of General Semantics, as outlined by Count Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book, "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics."

There's also some new news on Philip Gardiner and Michael Bourne's upcoming documentary which I wrote about before. The new article includes quotes from Phil and Michael, along with the official announcement of Nick Pope's involvement.

Last up, but certainly not least, is the official launching of Beyond the Cosmos, which Philip Gardiner and I accidentally broke the news of a little early a couple of weeks ago.

Beyond The Cosmos is the brainchild of Philip Gardiner and THoTH from the Book Of THoTH. The site itself belongs to Angela Davies (Angel) and Philip Gardiner. In here you will find plenty of things to keep you informed and entertained, whilst being able to directly purchase items specifically geared to your interests.

The new site will focus on articles ranging from the paranormal to Ufology, from the esoteric to ancient mysteries. The internet is today's voice of the people. No longer do we need to impress the publishers or agents, now we can share our knowledge with the world. The team behind Beyond The Cosmos want this to be a portal for everybody so come along and join in. Bring your thoughts, your ideas, your knowledge and share with the rest of the world.

I saw an article a few days ago titled "Do UFOs Exist in the History of Arts?" I wanted to share this article because it's always been something that fascinated me, honestly. I think there's many very obvious examples of the types of UFOs reported throughout time up to the modern era represented in many works of art, far more than are featured in this article even. One thing that has always interested me in this area of research, is that so many of these artworks are religious and also feature biblical characters. Just something to think about this weekend.

I saw an article today linked from The Debris Field Blog on the Costa Rican stone balls. It's a translated article, so it doesn't always make the most sense grammatically, but you'll get the idea.

These stone balls, as seen in the image above taken from the article, have been found all over the place, on hills, in the jungle, and they're always amazingly spherical. I always wondered if they were found in the locations at which they were placed, and then mapped out, if you'd find a correlation to constellations, or some other noticeable pattern. Unfortunately, over the past couple of decades it became fashionable for upper-class citizens to use them as lawn ornaments, and most of them have been moved from their original resting places by now.

I've heard this morning that the student from the video below is suing the UCPD, no big surprise there, and that the UCPD has hired an independent investigator to look at the case and recommend any procedural changes that he might feel are necessary. I sincerely hope that it's obvious to him that some kind of change is necessary. I'm sure we'll all be hearing a lot more about this along the way.

Don't press play on the video below unless you're ready to watch, and hear the screams of, an unarmed college student repeatedly dragged around and tasered by UCPD "officers" on the UCLA campus. His crime? Not having his ID card at the library. At this point I'm sure you're asking why, as am I. I imagine his name may point us in the right direction, but I'm not sure. His name? Mostafa Tabatabainejad. There are some other new posts below this, so even if you don't want to watch this video, go ahead and scroll down. It won't start playing unless you click play. I just thought this was an important video to show what's going on in some parts of this country today.

The red rain of India is back in the news again. This time the BBC has an article about the latest scientific studies, which once again seem to suggest a non-terrestrial origin for the phenomenon.

The more it's studied, the more it looks as though this might be the proof that bacteria can travel through space, furthering the Panspermia theory. Panspermia being the theory in which life on Earth originated elsewhere in the universe. As a scientist says, "Bacteria seem to me to be born space travelers."

There's a guest article at The Daily Grail from Colm Kelleher, co-author of "Hunt for the Skinwalker" which is basically an excerpt from the book.

“It’s still moving” he was muttering. All of a sudden he yelled. “Its got me”, “its saying: “we are watching you” he continued, his voice rising a couple of octaves. Then there was silence. I continued trying to take increasingly longer exposures to try to catch whatever he was talking about. Every time I looked up from my camera to see if I could see what was causing him such intense anxiety, I could see nothing except the dark shadows of the tree line directly in front of me. The feeling in the pasture was very spooky, a chilling desolate feeling. Then he said:”its getting smaller”. Then: “its gone”. He kept muttering “Jesus Christ” “Jesus Christ”. He repeated the same phrase over and over again. His voice betrayed that he was very freaked out.

I asked him what had happened. It was obvious that he was still shaken. “Something big was in the trees just in front of us, it blotted out all the stars through the binoculars,” he declared. “It took control of my mind”. “It told me it was watching us”. He sounded very confused and bewildered. This guy was a Ph.D level physicist. He had spent time on the famous NASA Voyager missions, when the celebrated remote Voyager probes had mapped the surfaces of Saturn and Jupiter for the first time in history. This guy was not prone to sudden nervous breakdowns. But now, he was almost babbling. He definitely had not met anything like this before in his academic career. As team leader, I was concerned.

Be sure to check out he rest of this article, it's certainly interesting. The book's been on my "things to read" list for a while, but I've heard it's a great book.

For those who aren't familiar with the story of the ranch, there's an entry on it here.

Jeremy Vaeni, a Book of THoTH member, whom I've written about before, has gotten a write-up of his self-produced movie in ufos.about.com. Congratulations Jeremy!

Over at Book of THoTH we're pround to announce that Philip Gardiner along with THoTH and Reality Entertainment are about to join forces again to create a new documentary on the UFO / Alien phenomena, and they're on the look out for evidence. If you have, or know of, something that you think will help, they could use it. If you want to contribute to this DVD, they're looking for new videos, photographs, stories, artifacts, and anything else new and lesser known that would help in the search to find answers. This isn't going to be one that repeats the same famous incidents over and over, this one aims to focus on new evidence and the different theories out there.

If you have anything to offer, please hurry because they are hoping to start filming in the next few months. If what you provide is used in the DVD, Reality Entertainment will provide some nice free goodies as payment. To submit any material, please contact Philip via the contacts page on his site.

For more discussion on the documentary and any questions, please see Philip Gardiner's thread in the UFOs section at BoT.

Be sure to check out the new press release, too!

Best selling author Philip Gardiner has written another excellent article for the front page of the Book of THoTH. This one is titled "Spirals, Symbols and Snakes" and it takes a look at some of the most prolific symbols in history, what they mean, and how universal many of them really are on our planet.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to explore some parts of Florida that I'd never seen before. I took some pictures along the way and I thought I'd share some of them.

First up are pictures from the Crystal River Archaeological State Park, which contains a Pre-Columbian mound complex on the edge of the Crystal River.



This is a look at the Crystal River itself.



This is the largest mound at the site, and from the looks of it where it has eroded thus far, it looks like the side of it that's closest to the river is mostly made of clam shells.



This is one of the mounds in the middle of the site.

Next up was the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park. This park is full of native Floridian wildlife species, and many of them are free to come and go as they wish. A river runs through the park which houses native fish and manatees, and most of the bird area is wide open allowing the birds to come and go as they wish, although most of them seem quite content to just hang out and get regular feedings.



This is the park's hippo. While I've seen hippos before, this one is really quite huge, and you can get really close at the park.



Not being a native Floridian, this is the very first manatee I've ever seen. This one is the park's biggest, and weighs 3200 pounds. It was a lot of fun to watch them feed three of the park's manatees some lettuce and carrots and bananas.



The bird area at the park is huge and has, probably, thousands of birds. In the middle this flock of flamingos was just hanging out.



Being Florida there's lots of gators, and this one was enjoying the water while the rest were sunning themselves on the edge.

That's it for today and I think I'll be taking tomorrow off of blogging for my birthday, so I'll try to be back Wednesday. Be sure to click on a couple of the sites over on the right side in the meantime.

I've been reading a couple of scary articles today on the danger of the industrial pollutants and chemicals to which we're all exposed to on a regular basis, and have been since birth. Some of the stats are simply amazing. An article from The Guardian which discusses the topic is aptly titled "Danger: chemical hazards" and in it they quote from a recent scientific study published this week in Lancet:

"Almost all children born in industrialised countries between 1960 and 1980 were exposed to substantial amounts of lead from petrol that could have reduced the number of children with far above-average intelligence (IQ scores above 130 points) by more than 50% and might likewise have increased the number with IQ scores below 70"

Scotsman.com news backs up this article with one of their own with the title "Chemical pollution 'responsible for silent pandemic of brain damage'" which quotes one of the authors of the paper as saying:

"The human brain is a precious and vulnerable organ. And because optimal brain function depends on the integrity of the organ, even limited damage may have serious consequences. Most chemicals are not regulated to protect the developing brain."

Many of the problems that we have in the world today may be directly related to disorders and mental and physical problems which we're causing ourselves through the continuing exposure to chemicals used in everything from cleaning fluids to pesticides to the output of the smokestack down the road. Neurodevelopment disorders are on the rise, and it's entirely likely that everyday chemicals may play some role in that. The National Academy of Sciences is quoted as saying that between the known chemical causes, and the suspected chemical causes, over a quarter of these disorders can be explained already, with more research on the way.

Most people probably don't realize that there's over 30,000 industrial chemicals which are frequently used, and research hasn't been done to determine the longterm effects of exposure to most of them. In the research paper the authors have suggested that over 200 chemicals, each of which carry some evidence of neurotoxicity, should be immediately put under stricter controls so that the next generation doesn't have to deal with the effects. When the WWF recently did blood work on 400 people in the UK, each was found to have a virtual cocktail of industrial chemicals in their systems, and even though in most cases the levels were low, the proof of continuing exposure is there. This is not the first study to show this. I remember a study of pregnant women in the US showing virtually identical results in blood and then later on in breast milk, while a Swedish study showed a particular fire retardant concentration in breast milk doubled every five years between 1972 and 1998 before being banned.

All of this also, in part, ties into a study I read about in New Scientist last week about obesity. In their article they list ten reasons why people are getting fatter, and one of the reasons is pollution. In studies with mice just a small amount of a pesticide, dieldrin, caused the mice to more than double their body fat. Exposure to hexachlorobenzene caused rats to gain significant amounts of weights compared to controls, even when eating half as much, and a human study on people eating fish contaminated with PCBs showed that the more PCBs in the people, the greater their body weight.

The bottom line, to me, here is that we're all exposed to massive amounts of chemicals that humans have just never been exposed to before. No one really knows what they all do to us, but the anecdotal and scientific evidence is that many of them are bad for us. As the effects are studied, it'd be nice if greater controls were put on just how much we're exposed to. Down here in Florida, where I now live, the use of pesticides is higher than most anywhere on the planet, and accordingly, so are the incidences of brain and lung cancer. What's the point of living the benefits of an industrialized society if we're killing ourselves to be here?

From Mehr News there's news of an interesting archaeological excavation going on in which they're hoping to finish unearthing a 5000 year old temple from the "burnt city" in Iran. There's been some intriguing artifacts found at the site so far, including a ruler which is accurate to half a millimeter.

Thanks to The Daily Grail I saw a rather interesting article from Astrobiology Magazine on extremophiles and how their existence here on Earth may play into the search for life on other planets. Titled "Earth's Hidden Biospheres" it discusses the recent discovery of a colony of microbes far below the surface, in a mine in South Africa, which lived off of sulphur compounds formed by radioactive decay from the surrounding rocks, as well as other recent extremophile discoveries, and what their existence could mean for life elsewhere in the universe. While this has been a fairly hot topic lately, I found their concluding paragraph to be particularly interesting.

What are all these diverse organisms doing? In a sense, they are not very successful, since they are far outnumbered by more familiar species. Yet they persist in small numbers. Perhaps they represent a kind of natural back-up system or reserve force that can swing into action if environmental conditions change in ways that threaten the dominant ecosystem. They could be part of lifes strategy to survive even catastrophic environmental changes. The next challenge is to estimate the global patterns in this rare biosphere and to begin to characterize its individual species.

Perhaps this is a logical and obvious conclusion to most people, but I have to admit I'd never really thought of these very different forms of life as being a potential back-up system should the ecosystem that the predominant life forms live in become contaminated in some way. If this were to happen in any complex system of life, on any planet, then maybe finding small pockets of live microbes on another planet would signal the existence a larger biosphere in the past. Perhaps one that may have suffered some kind of disaster, which in turn ended the lives of a predominant life form leaving only a trace of life leftover.

I found a really cool site today, it's over 400 images of Machu Picchu put together at 1.5 gigapixel resolution which you can zoom around in. It's very cool, and fun to play with. I've always wanted to go there, and this seems like the next best thing to being there to me.

Finally today, before I head back to bed, I'd like to thank The Daily Grail and Unexplainable.net for linking to my article over the last couple of days.

After thinking quite a bit about it, as well, I'd like to give the name of the site that ripped off my article and tried to put their own name on it. That'd be AncientX.com, and the only reason I'm giving their address now is so that other authors can go check the site for their own work. Yesterday, in just an hour or so, I found a few articles from other authors that I'd read before, and so I'm guessing there's plenty of ripped off articles on their site which Jason Martel seems more than happy for everyone to believe that he wrote.

Speaking of Bigfoot, here's a short video I saw on Cryptomundo taken from a BBC news program about sightings in Malaysia.

Jeff Meldrum, the professor I wrote about a couple of days ago who studies Bigfoot, was a guest on "Talk of the Nation" during their regular "Science Friday" program on NPR yesterday. You can listen to the broadcast here.

There's a guest blog making the rounds today at Aliens Ate my Buick from a former UFO researcher named Matt Graeber titled "Is Ufology a Legitimate Scientific Endeavor?" From what I could tell, it didn't really explore, much less explain, that question, however, it did seem to give some fascinating psychological hints toward what drives Mr. Graeber. While professing to believe in the phenomenon of UFOs, he manages to suggest that there are ten reasons why people believe in/study UFOs, which are:

Ufology as a means to emotional fulfillment
Ufology as a money-making venture
Ufology as a social activity
Ufology as a “second career”
Ufology as a “devotional”
Ufology as medium for apocalyptic visions
Ufology as a source of adventure
Ufology as an anti-social/anti-science “enclave”
Ufology as a hobby
Ufology as a mental/emotional imbalance

Since he spent 34 years in Ufology perhaps he'd be so kind as to share which one of his categories he fits into? Of course, he didn't, and he didn't answer the question he set out to ask, either, so I'll endeavor to answer it myself.

I'd simply ask one series of questions in an attempt to solve this mystery. Have people drawn and painted objects in the sky for thousands of years? It seems that they have. Have people been describing unknown objects in the sky for just as long, right up until modern day? Once again, it seems so. Finally, do huge numbers of people, despite being called crazy, continue to report strange sightings and encounters? One last time, it seems like the answer is yes. So what do those answers mean? To me, as a scientist, it seems like that means there's something worth investigating, without being told that you are lacking and/or disturbed in some fashion.

I'm kind of down and out with a cold/flu thing today, so if I don't make it back to the computer today, here's a couple of things to read.

If any of you great people out there happen to run across an article titled "Ancient Native American UFO Sightings" or "Ancient Native Indian UFO Sightings" it's just a rip off of my article "Ancient Beliefs and UFOs" which another site has taken and renamed, and I'd appreciate a comment here telling me where you found it.

Over in the UK the former MoD chief warns that aliens could attack at any moment, and the British military isn't taking the threat seriously enough.

Mac's also got a fairly depressing, but entirely plausible, look at what he thinks might happen over the next 75 years.

Back to bed now...

The article I wrote on Ancient Beliefs and UFOs for the front page of Book of THoTH has been up for a couple of days, and I'd really like to thank everyone for checking it out. Coast to Coast picked up the link and put it on their daily news, and The Anomalist did as well. I never imagined that nearly 8,000 people would read it in the first couple of days it was up, and it's been a lot of fun seeing what people think about it. I owe a huge thanks to THoTH for, I'm sure, encouraging those other sites to link to it. If you haven't checked it out yet, here's a little preview.

Each of these petroglyphs seems to tie into a belief in extraterrestrial life, which in turn points toward the common belief in an ancient flood having wiped out much, if not most, of humanity in antiquity. For today, I'd just like to give some minimal background, present a few petroglyphs, and give what I know of the story that goes along with them. Each of the ones that I'm showing here are from the Americas, almost all from the American southwest, although there are examples from around the world that I'd like to eventually write about, as well as many archaeological artifacts that go along with this story.

The Anasazi were the predecessors to the modern day Hopi, and are believed to have settled the American Southwest as long as 3,000 years ago, although their heritage has been traced back much further than that. Modern day scientific classification only recognizes the people there as a distinct culture starting in 1200 BC. This is considered to be the beginning of the "Basketmaker" era, and the beginning of the Anasazi culture itself, as a distinct culture. However, the "archaic" classification traces the people themselves back to approximately 8000 BC, currently, and continues to be pushed back further as more scientific evidence is gathered. Just recently a scientific expedition has begun in the hopes of collecting evidence of long lost civilizations under water off of the east coast of the United States. The Hopi, in particular, have maintained many ancient traditions and beliefs throughout the years, much of which has been publicized as "The Hopi Prophecies" on the internet and in books.

In short, the Hopi believe that we are currently in the fourth age of man. Each age ends in a cleansing of sorts, and that now we are nearing the Purification Day. The first age was ended in fire, the second in ice, and the third from a flood. This most recent cleansing coming approximately 11,000-12,000 years ago. Since the people have currently been traced back over 10,000 years in the American southwest, this date seems to make cultural sense, and also may tie into the Mayan tradition which says that one of the Gods destroyed the third creation in a great flood and we are now living in the fourth creation. This exactly mirrors the Pueblo belief in which the third world is ended in a flood by one of their gods and only a few people are rescued and are able to move on into the fourth world.

This idea of a great flood also seems to make some sense to people raised in the western world, since so many were raised with the Bible, which, of course, has a quite famous flood itself. Interestingly, this also ties in with the stories told in the ancient stories from India, specifically the Ramayana, which tells of major "Earth shifts" approximately every 10,000 years. Along with this, it dates the last Treta Yuga, or the ending of one of the "age(s) of man", at 10,000BC. Of course, this matches up remarkably well with the Hopi idea of the last cleansing having come 12,000 years ago and approaching again in the not too distant future.

In fact, most every society worldwide, not just in the Americas, have some sort of flood myth. Most, however, don't give as specific of time references as these above do. For instance, the Toltec story simply states that the original creation lasted for 1716 years before being destroyed by a great flood. While it's interesting that they put such a definitive length of time on it, it's fairly ambiguous as to how long ago the flood is said to have happened.

But don't just go read my article. There's two other new front page articles, one by BoT member Sol, and one by member Carbonek, each of which have some really great information.

Sol wrote an article titled "Bastet, Sex, and Women's Roles" and Carbonek wrote one titled "The Scientist and Dharma".

Previously, I wrote about a traditional medicine that turned out to be a potent anti-HIV drug. I said that I would keep an eye out in New Scientist for more info on it, and I found it yesterday. There's an interview with Paul Alan Cox, the founder and director of the Institute for Ethnomedicine in Hawaii, and in it, he describes finding the drug and the novel approach they're taking to splitting the profits.(link for New Scientist subscribers only)

Thirty per cent of the patent royalties from the NCI go to the village. The AIDS Research Alliance has agreed to give back 20 per cent of any profits it makes, split between the government of Samoa and the village. And the University of California, Berkeley, which is trying to clone the prostratin gene, has agreed to give back 50 per cent of its proceeds; we came up with that scheme because cloning the gene would cut the legs out from under the plant cultivation industry. In addition, the AIDS Research Alliance has agreed to source the drug from plants grown in Samoa.

I think this is an interesting partnership that might encourage more study into traditional cures while also helping the people who have used these cures in lieu of modern drugs. So far the trials of the new drug, called prostratin, have apparently been extremely encouraging.

This is an actual picture I took yesterday of the front door of the local crafts store here. I've seen this on their door for a few months now, and I kept expecting someone to take it down, but, once again yesterday, there it was. I had my camera handy this time and had to snap a picture of it.

This is the best reason I've seen to go vote this year. So go ahead...go vote. Besides, if you don't, I think you might have to deal with Jezzie.

I saw this video today and took a look through the first 15 minutes, or so, thus far. It looks like it's a review of some of Zecharia Sitchin's research and some of the evidence for his theories. If that's your kind of thing, give it a shot. It looks like it's called "Phenomenon: The Lost Archives" and it seems like it was probably an hour long TV show or documentary at some point.

I think most people know the lengths that pharmaceutical companies will go to get their drugs out there to more people. Accusations of disease mongering, or making healthy people think they're sick to sell them prescription drugs, have been around for a long time. Generally, a drug company will target the media with scary information about a particular problem which is intended to make people think they're sick when they're really not, and then they go and buy the drug that solves this non-existent problem.

I also think that most people realize that the major pharmaceuticals are the biggest lobbying force in Washington, which, of course, has led to many favorable laws and bills over the years. This culminated with our new medicare bill, which the drug companies paid $141 million in lobbying to get passed. According to the senior researcher for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch that amount of access led to, "The revolving door between the White House and [the pharmaceutical lobbyists] has made the Bush administration indistinguishable from the industry."

Another extremely common occurrence, unknown by most people, is the same drug companies buying doctors lunch while they talk about their latest drugs, and then buying those doctors free office supplies, bearing the name and logo of their drugs, and giving them free samples of their drugs to give to people before finally finishing buying the doctors off with free trips and gifts for the doctors who prescribe certain amounts of their drugs.

However, despite all of that, what I didn't know about, nor did I suspect, is that the drug companies have also been financing many patient groups, which are supposed to be "grassroots organizations representing the interests of people with serious diseases." When I recently read this in my copy of New Scientist I can't say that I was shocked, but I was really disgusted that the drug companies have seemingly infiltrated each and every place that people can get information about their health at this point. Something simply has to be done. People can't trust their doctors, because they might be in the drug companies pockets. They certainly can't trust the media or the government, because they were both bought a long time ago. Now, it seems, they can't even trust many patient groups.

I don't really have anything lined up for the blog here today, because I was doing a little writing for the Book of THoTH on an article. It really just started off as an outline for a couple of articles that I was planning, but then I decided to give it to THoTH just the way it was and then write more on a couple of the topics later. Hopefully you'll see an article or two of mine in the upcoming book, but since we're limited in the use of images in articles for that one, the petroglyphs wouldn't really work.

Anyway, if you want a sneak preview of my article on ancient beliefs in the Americas and UFOs before it hits the front page, check it out right here.

Also from The Anomalist I saw an article about a professor at ISU who studies Bigfoot. The article is generally about all the other pretentious professors who seem to hate him, and, honestly, I was getting a little angry about the whole thing until I read a quote from the dean of arts and sciences there:

"He's a bona fide scientist," Kijinski said. "I think he helps this university. He provides a form of open discussion and dissenting viewpoints that may not be popular with the scientific community, but that's what academics all about."

It's about time someone said it. I always thought that's what science and academics were both supposed to be about.

Thanks to The Anomalist today I ran across a pretty interesting little blog. It's called A Different Perspective and he's got some pretty interesting articles. Check it out.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...enjoy your "cheap" gas while you can, it's only around for the election. Gee, I wonder who the oil cartels want to win the elections?

Remember when gas cost $1.46 a gallon? Yeah...the pre-Bush days.

According to Science Now scientists in France have taken on an interesting, but possibly dangerous, new line of research. They've resurrected a retrovirus that infected our ancestors millions of years ago. I have some qualms about bringing back anything that's been capable of infecting humans in the past, for obvious reasons, I think. Especially when the article states:

The researchers showed that the newly crated virus could infect a variety of human cell lines and replicate.

Even if we've adapted over the years to have some resistance to such a virus, I think it's always scary when these things from the past are brought back. There's really very little known about such viruses, thus the scientific interest in bringing them back, but also the risk. At least they call this one "a wimpy one", but what's to say the next one isn't a little different than what they think they're getting? Being a scientist I'm all for the advancement of science, but from what the article says, it seems like there was very little oversight on this project, and the risks may not have been fully contemplated before the work was done. I hope this serves to make people think about what could happen, so that science of this variety is carefully monitored in the future.

THoTH, from the Book of THoTH, has rolled out an oldie, but a goodie, on the front page. The Appletreewick UFO still defies explanation, as he puts it. The picture is of an unidentified, large orb-like structure, and appears to be unseen by the people in the picture. Analysis and a photo work-up have failed to determine exactly what it is, but seem to suggest that it's not a hoax or a photo artifact. Check it out and see what you think.

Scientists are looking to answer the question, "When did Native Americans first arrive on the North American continent, and where did they settle?" Although they're looking in locations that might surprise some people...under water. The scientists are taking a research vessel off 100 miles off shore to look for evidence of ancient settlements.

This article was a nice find for me, personally, because one of the two articles I've been researching and attempting to write recently revolves, at least partially, around Native Americans and what happened almost 12,000 years ago. It's actually hard to get some "Bering Strait disciples" to acknowledge that they might have even been in North America 12,000 years ago and before, so it's nice to know that some scientists are open minded enough to search for evidence. I will be eagerly awaiting some more information on their search.

I read an interesting little article today about a Samoan healer who might have found a natural concoction that could cure HIV. In the 80's an American scientist went to this healer to find out some of her remedies, and ended up with 121 remedies made from the local plants. One of them was a cure for hepatitis which also turns out to have some ability to flush HIV out of its hiding place inside of healthy cells so that other drugs can then wipe it out.

Cures like this are actually quite abundant in nature, and known by "traditional healers", but despite that we continue to wipe out the natural diversity on the planet and ignore traditional healing as "prescience" and of no use to us.

I haven't seen the article they reference in New Scientist yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

Paul Kimball has posted the finalists in each category for the 2006 Zorgy Awards. I see that Book of THoTH is up for two awards! Go check out the entire ballot, and make your votes between now and the end of the year.

I just noticed that The Anomalist linked to a more permanent location for an interesting ghost video caught in the basilica at the Vatican.

This video was actually filmed by Book of THoTH member Pandora's friend's brother while on vacation. She's seen the original video and thinks it's real. Having seen the on-line footage of what seems to be a robed figure floating across the room a couple of times myself, I can't figure out what it could be other than the paranormal. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Philip Coppens has posted another article on his site. This one's a review and analysis of the movie "V for Vendetta". I only saw this movie a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed it. Even if you don't go for all the terrorist versus freedom fighter, politics and intrigue, and government versus oppressor themes, lets face it, it still has Natalie Portman. Go check out the article, and then the movie. I think you'll be glad you did.

I think blogger is actually working while I'm in front of a computer!

So, anyway, looking around the 'net today, I found out that Philip Gardiner and THoTH, from the Book of THoTH, have released a new website, called Beyond the Cosmos, which bills itself as, "the brainchild of Philip Gardiner and THoTH from The Book of THoTH website, here you will find plenty of things to keep you informed and entertained, whilst being able to directly purchase items specifically geared to your interests.

Come and add your stuff, get free website tools, check out the position of the planets, latest news, latest UFO sightings and much much more! Come and help us make it grow."

I'm curious if Philip broke the news a little early on his blog, or if they just weren't ever planning on telling me about it(maybe I'm not invited...hehe)...but either way, check it out. With those two behind it, it should end up being a very cool new site.