News Briefs 20-10-2020

• Voyager spacecraft detect an increase in the density of space outside the solar system .
• Related : Comics @ @ @ @ @ our attempts to contact aliens might attract a ‘ tiger ’ – so he designed @ @ @ @ @ NASA gave Nokia $ 14.1 million to build a 4G network on the Moon .
@ @ @ @ @ the first time .
• A spacecraft could get to Titan in just 2 years @ @ @ @ @ .
Quote of the Day : I know it ’ s easier to portray a @ @ @ @ @ anger , where problems are solved with violence…It ’ s an easy out .
What @ @ @ @ @ tougher is to offer alternatives , to present other ways conflicts can be resolved , @ @ @ @ @ have a positive impact on your world .
To do that , you have to @ @ @ @ @ limb , take chances , and run the risk of being called a do-gooder .

Cleanliness is next to…
Quote of the Day:
I know it’s easier to portray a world filled with cynicism and anger, where problems are solved with violence…It’s an easy out. What’s a whole lot tougher is to offer alternatives, to present other ways conflicts can be resolved, and to show you can have a positive impact on your world. To do that, you have to put yourself out on a limb, take chances, and run the risk of being called a do-gooder.
Jim Henson


News Briefs 21-10-2020

• NASA ’ s Osiris-Rex spacecraft just played tag with an asteroid .
• A handful of asteroid could help decipher our entire existence .
• This guy says he was the source of the Pentagon ’ s UFO videos .
• Related : A 1949 science fiction novel by legendary rocket designer Wernher von Braun names the leader of Martian civilisation as ‘ Elon ’ .
• Quantum tunnels show how particles can break the speed of light .
• Early Christians might have been high on hallucinogenic Communion wine .
• Related : The Immortality Key – Graham @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rogan about ancient drug use .
• New evidence found of the ritual significance of a Classic Maya sweat bath in Guatemala .
• Artificial intelligence reveals hundreds of millions of trees in the Sahara .
• Doctors may have found secretive new organs in the centre of your head .
• QAnon is primed to be a linchpin of efforts to delegitimise the U.S. election if Trump loses .
• The mystery of the immaculate concussion : the CIA , Russia , and the growing number of American diplomats and spies who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Day : A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both .

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News Briefs 22-10-2020

If you still manage to be kind to strangers , you ’ re amazing .
• James Randi finally found out whether there ’ s an afterlife or not .
• New research claims that consciousness itself is an energy field .
• Televangelist Pat Robertson says God told him Trump will usher the End Times — “ Antichrist 2020 ” is the mother of all slogans !
• In the old days , Vikings exposed their newborns to the freezing cold .
Nowadays we expose them to pollution .
• CIA agents claim to have been attacked by ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late last year .
• Could brain implants ever make telekinesis possible ?
I sure hope so because that TV remote feels sooooo far away… • Tesla ’ s ‘ Starman ’ just zipped past Mars in his rapidly-decaying Roadster .
• So NASA is about to drop some ‘ exciting news ’ about the Moon tomorrow .
I ain ’ t no Nostradamus but I guarantee it will not involve UFOs or ancient lunar cities… • First Demi Lovato , now Miley Cirus claims to have had a UFO close encounter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gulf Breeze UFO sightings .
• JurASSic Perk : We finally know what a dinosaur ’ s butthole looked like ( alas , no pics in this article ) .
• Scientists have just discovered a new human organ .
• A.I .
reveals hundreds of millions of trees in the Sahara .
• Lea Thompson talks about the 35th anniversary of Back to the Future , the passing of Eddie Van Halen and the Mandela effect .
• Red Pill of the Day : Is QAnon an online LARP game gone wrong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see a World in a Grain of Sand Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour .

If you still manage to be kind to strangers, you’re amazing.
Thanks to Rick.
Quote of the Day:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
~William Blake


News Briefs 23-10-2020

” We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
” @ @ @ @ @ so do islands .
• When Earth is the alien world .
• These don @ @ @ @ @ .
Quote of the Day : “ We live in a society absolutely dependent on @ @ @ @ @ have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology .
That @ @ @ @ @ for disaster .
”

”We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”
Quote of the Day:
“We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That’s a clear prescription for disaster.”
C. Sagan


Review: The Phenomenon

The Phenomenon has landed .
Years in the making , James Fox ’ s epic UFO documentary elevates that once kookiest of subjects—flying saucers—from the bowels of conspiracy culture into the light of legitimacy and popular debate .
It caused such a stir following its release on streaming services earlier this month that it prompted Fox News to put Donald Trump on the spot , with anchor Maria Bartiromo citing details from the documentary and asking the President : “ Are there UFOs ?
” Trump ’ s answer was evasive and somewhat disturbing , implying that , if UFOs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equipped to emerge victorious from any future military conflict .
So , what sets The Phenomenon apart from previous UFO documentaries ?
In terms of content , not an awful lot .
But it ’ s the clarity and sobriety with which that content is delivered by narrator Peter Coyote that makes this one hard to write off as mere sensationalism or wishful thinking .
Fox grounds his historical , chronological narrative firmly in the facts , sticking for the most part to cases that remain unexplained after decades of fierce scrutiny—sometimes by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best efforts to explain them away as “ swamp gas , ” “ temperature inversions ” and the like .
Even when dealing with the infamous Roswell Incident , Fox allows not so much as a whisper of the persistent rumour that non-human entities were captured , focusing instead only on the clearly established fact that something highly unusual crashed in the New Mexico desert in July of 1947 and was recovered by the US Air Force ( which would farcically change its official story of the event several times over the ensuing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s talking heads is also notably higher than in the typical UFO fare .
Rather than the questionable input of self-described “ UFOlogists ” ( who are usually little more than hobbyists ) , the line-up here includes political heavyweights such as Senator Harry Reid , former Obama advisor John Podesta , former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson , and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon .
Also featured are journalistic hard-hitters Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal for the New York Times .
Additionally , Fox makes compelling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Gordon “ The Right Stuff ” Cooper and moonwalker Dr. Edgar Mitchell , as well as numerous highly respected scientists from various disciplines .
All share a clear message : the UFO phenomenon is real , and seemingly representative of an intelligence far beyond that of 21st century Homo sapiens .
This apparent superior intelligence is evidenced in aerodynamic capabilities exhibited by the phenomenon that have repeatedly been captured on radar and witnessed directly by world-class military aviators going back seven decades .
Such technologies would seem to exceed our own by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The phenomenon has persistently toyed with humanity ’ s most sophisticated military hardware , effortlessly out-manoeuvring America ’ s most expensive fighter jets and shutting down nuclear weapons at some of the country ’ s most sensitive military installations .
It may sound like science fiction , but Fox backs it all up with reams of official documentation and with vivid , on-camera testimony from the military witnesses themselves .
Again , little of this information is new , but the intent and clarity of its delivery will pack a sledgehammer blow to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subject with implications simply too profound and troubling for most to even contemplate .
Fox takes us methodically through the decades , from the 1940s through to present day , where considerable attention is focused on the much publicized UFO revelations of 2017 when the New York Times brought to light the Pentagon ’ s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program ( AATIP ) —essentially a secret UFO study group that had recently been operating through the US Department of Defense at a cost to the taxpayer of some 20 million dollars .
By @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the US government—or more accurately the US military-industrial-complex—continues to closely monitor the phenomenon and to regard it with grave concern .
How could it not when top Navy pilots continue to report UFO incursions into military airspace ; when craft of unknown origin continue to make a mockery of America ’ s cutting-edge war machines in cat-and-mouse aerial encounters ( reconstructed in dramatic detail in the documentary ) ; when all of this continues to be captured on radar ; and when leading , government-affiliated scientists are now actively studying physical materials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claim could not have been manufactured by any nation on Earth ?
For those who are new to the weird world of UFOs , it ’ s enough to make one ’ s head spin ; and yet , The Phenomenon barely scratches the surface of the UFO enigma .
Fox succeeds in what he set out to do , which clearly was to legitimize the subject beyond all reasonable doubt .
But his film is narrow in scope , essentially reducing a multifaceted , philosophically challenging , global phenomenon to an American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the best way to grab our attention .
Still , in focusing so heavily on the defense implications of UFOs , Fox sidelines the human dimension .
Beyond dusty government documents and ambiguous photographic evidence , the reality of the phenomenon is measurable most clearly in its effects on the human being—psychologically , emotionally , and spiritually .
The UFO experience—whatever it represents—is often a transformative one for the human witness , and historical accounts of inexplicable aerial wonders ( or what we now term “ UFOs ” ) have influenced human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and culture worldwide .
This sociological component of the UFO enigma was explored most recently in the book American Cosmic by Diana Walsh Pasulka , a Religious Studies professor at the University of North Carolina , Wilmington .
Pasulka contends that the decline of traditional religiosity in Western culture and the thriving belief in UFOs and alien visitation in the 21st Century is creating fertile ground for the growth of a new belief system rooted in the promise of technological salvation by a higher intelligence—and the seeds have already been planted .
Sadly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Phenomenon .
Her approach to the subject is oblique , and perhaps therefore incompatible with the ultimate goal shared by most UFO researchers : “ Disclosure ” —that one heart-stopping moment in time when the powers that be finally and fully reveal everything they know about UFOs , or at least acknowledge that we are being visited by extraterrestrial entities .
But are we ?
The popular assumption among UFOlogists has always been that true UFOs are nuts-and-bolts extraterrestrial spacecraft , piloted by biological beings from elsewhere in our galaxy .
However , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ) is appealing for obvious reasons , it fails to account for many aspects of UFO phenomena reported by hundreds-of-thousands of witnesses worldwide .
In many cases , the phenomenon seems to tailor its manifestations to the expectations of the individual perceiver , based on personal and cultural conditioning .
Indeed , in many if not most reported close encounter cases , the UFO experience seems to be co-created by the observer and some unknown external stimulus that can tap into human consciousness and literally shape what we perceive in the moment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ role in all of this , but it would be a mistake to consider ETs as a definitive solution to the UFO riddle .
The Phenomenon pays lip service to the ETH , contemplating the vastness of our universe and the ever increasing likelihood that we share it with other civilizational intelligences .
Beyond this , however , Fox does not dwell on the question of what the phenomenon actually represents—what it actually might be—only that it most assuredly is .
This is a wise approach , reflective not only of its director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the subject , but also that of its co-producer and chief advisor , Dr. Jacques Vallée .
Along with the late Professor J. Allen Hynek ( noted astronomer and chief scientific advisor to the Air Force ’ s Project Blue Book ) , Vallée is one of the foundational figures of ufology .
A respected astronomer and computer scientist , Vallée helped NASA create its first detailed map of Mars , and his work as an engineer on ARPANET—the Advanced Research Projects Agency—helped lay the foundations for the Internet .
He was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Spielberg ’ s Close Encounters of the Third Kind , immortalised in the performance of Francois Truffaut .
In the early years of his career , Vallée had championed the ETH .
As time wore on , however , the maverick scientist began to re-examine his own perspective .
In his groundbreaking 1969 book , Passport to Magonia , Vallée argued that the ETH was too simplistic to account for many aspects of UFO phenomena that seemed too bizarre to be merely extraterrestrial .
Innumerable UFO reports from across the decades include @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the idea of mere alien visitation .
UFO encounters have long been reported as occurring on astral levels and in conjunction with paranormal and even cryptozoological phenomena , from spectres to Sasquatch .
Thus , Vallée laid out the interdimensional hypothesis ( “ IDH ” ) , positing that the intelligences behind the UFO phenomenon exist beyond our current understanding of spacetime and can flit in and out of our reality at will , assuming a multitude of forms , from the faeries , goblins , and incubi of ages past , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Their interactions with us are representative of what Vallée speculates may be an age-old “ control mechanism , ” perhaps designed to test us , trick us , and to encourage us to question the nature of our own reality .
Think along the lines of the godlike supra-intelligence in 2001 : A Space Odyssey , which periodically and subtly prods us across the expanse of time in an effort to raise the consciousness of humanity .
Vallée is a strong onscreen presence throughout The Phenomenon , so it ’ s disappointing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little if any consideration .
Disappointing , but perhaps not surprising .
For many viewers , it will be hard enough to accept the idea that we are not alone on the universe , never mind the notion that we may have fundamentally misunderstood the very nature of our universe .
Most UFO researchers tend to ignore the so-called “ high-strangeness ” aspects of witness reports—and certainly they are ignored in this documentary—probably because if the phenomenon really is that weird and multifaceted , what hope have we of understanding it in our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that understanding ?
If , on the other hand , it ’ s just biological beings from elsewhere , and if the powers that be really do have some of those beings in pickle jars at Area 51 , then surely it ’ s only a matter of time before the truth outs and the UFO buffs can cry a collective “ TOLD YOU SO !
” The reality is that full UFO disclosure is not something that the US government has ever seriously entertained , despite what die-hard UFO Truthers would have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evidence would suggest that the American government is still far from certain as to the underlying nature of the phenomenon , which isn ’ t to say that special interest groups in the corridors of power haven ’ t formulated their own theories on the matter .
What is clear , however , is that America ’ s military-intelligence apparatus has spent considerable time and effort over the decades trying to manage how the public perceives the phenomenon—and not necessarily for the reasons you might expect .
Historical UFO perception management campaigns have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of authors Mark Pilkington and Greg Bishop , for example ) and some of them demonstrably have related to psychological warfare campaigns against individuals and nations of concern , exploiting the potency of UFO belief in service of agendas entirely unrelated to UFOs .
I watched The Phenomenon with my wife , who near its end asked : “ why is it all just old white men in suits ?
” To be fair , the documentary does feature a smattering of women and faces of colour , especially in the final and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost as the credits roll , introduces some much-needed emotional content into Fox ’ s endeavor .
But on the whole , my wife ’ s observation was valid , and it ’ s applicable to the UFO research field more broadly , which has always been something of an old ( white ) boys ’ club ( although the demographic is now very slowly beginning to diversify ) .
Indeed , there are old white men aplenty in Fox ’ s documentary , uttering stony-faced assertions about government documentation , physical trace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a glance , this kind of sums up The Phenomenon , but it doesn ’ t come close to summing up the actual phenomenon , which is ultimately about people .
Humans .
Us .
Not politics , not secret study programs , not the US military machine .
In this sense , there is still room for a truly profound documentary about UFOs .
The Phenomenon may not be it , but certainly it kicks the door wide open for more thoughtful explorations of a subject that is now boldly and immovably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Phenomenon is available to rent digitally worldwide .

The Phenomenon has landed. Years in the making, James Fox’s epic UFO documentary elevates that once kookiest of subjects—flying saucers—from the bowels of conspiracy culture into the light of legitimacy and popular debate. It caused such a stir following its release on streaming services earlier this month that it prompted Fox News to put Donald Trump on the spot, with anchor Maria Bartiromo citing details from the documentary and asking the President: “Are there UFOs?” Trump’s answer was evasive and somewhat disturbing, implying that, if UFOs are real, America is more than equipped to emerge victorious from any future military conflict.
So, what sets The Phenomenon apart from previous UFO documentaries? In terms of content, not an awful lot. But it’s the clarity and sobriety with which that content is delivered by narrator Peter Coyote that makes this one hard to write off as mere sensationalism or wishful thinking. Fox grounds his historical, chronological narrative firmly in the facts, sticking for the most part to cases that remain unexplained after decades of fierce scrutiny—sometimes by the US government itself, despite its best efforts to explain them away as “swamp gas,” “temperature inversions” and the like. Even when dealing with the infamous Roswell Incident, Fox allows not so much as a whisper of the persistent rumour that non-human entities were captured, focusing instead only on the clearly established fact that something highly unusual crashed in the New Mexico desert in July of 1947 and was recovered by the US Air Force (which would farcically change its official story of the event several times over the ensuing decades).
The calibre of Fox’s talking heads is also notably higher than in the typical UFO fare. Rather than the questionable input of self-described “UFOlogists” (who are usually little more than hobbyists), the line-up here includes political heavyweights such as Senator Harry Reid, former Obama advisor John Podesta, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon. Also featured are journalistic hard-hitters Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal for the New York Times. Additionally, Fox makes compelling use of archival interviews with legendary astronauts like Gordon “The Right Stuff” Cooper and moonwalker Dr. Edgar Mitchell, as well as numerous highly respected scientists from various disciplines. All share a clear message: the UFO phenomenon is real, and seemingly representative of an intelligence far beyond that of 21st century Homo sapiens.
This apparent superior intelligence is evidenced in aerodynamic capabilities exhibited by the phenomenon that have repeatedly been captured on radar and witnessed directly by world-class military aviators going back seven decades. Such technologies would seem to exceed our own by hundreds if not thousands of years. The phenomenon has persistently toyed with humanity’s most sophisticated military hardware, effortlessly out-manoeuvring America’s most expensive fighter jets and shutting down nuclear weapons at some of the country’s most sensitive military installations. It may sound like science fiction, but Fox backs it all up with reams of official documentation and with vivid, on-camera testimony from the military witnesses themselves. Again, little of this information is new, but the intent and clarity of its delivery will pack a sledgehammer blow to those previously on the fence about a subject with implications simply too profound and troubling for most to even contemplate.
Fox takes us methodically through the decades, from the 1940s through to present day, where considerable attention is focused on the much publicized UFO revelations of 2017 when the New York Times brought to light the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program
(AATIP)—essentially a secret UFO study group that had recently been operating through the US Department of Defense at a cost to the taxpayer of some 20 million dollars. By this point we are in no doubt that the US government—or more accurately the US military-industrial-complex—continues to closely monitor the phenomenon and to regard it with grave concern. How could it not when top Navy pilots continue to report UFO incursions into military airspace; when craft of unknown origin continue to make a mockery of America’s cutting-edge war machines in cat-and-mouse aerial encounters (reconstructed in dramatic detail in the documentary); when all of this continues to be captured on radar; and when leading, government-affiliated scientists are now actively studying physical materials allegedly recovered from UFOs which they confidently claim could not have been manufactured by any nation on Earth? For those who are new to the weird world of UFOs, it’s enough to make one’s head spin; and yet, The Phenomenon barely scratches the surface of the UFO enigma.
Fox succeeds in what he set out to do, which clearly was to legitimize the subject beyond all reasonable doubt. But his film is narrow in scope, essentially reducing a multifaceted, philosophically challenging, global phenomenon to an American national security issue. Maybe that’s the best way to grab our attention. Still, in focusing so heavily on the defense implications of UFOs, Fox sidelines the human dimension. Beyond dusty government documents and ambiguous photographic evidence, the reality of the phenomenon is measurable most clearly in its effects on the human being—psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
The UFO experience—whatever it represents—is often a transformative one for the human witness, and historical accounts of inexplicable aerial wonders (or what we now term “UFOs”) have influenced human belief systems for millennia, shaping religion and culture worldwide. This sociological component of the UFO enigma was explored most recently in the book American Cosmic by Diana Walsh Pasulka, a Religious Studies professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Pasulka contends that the decline of traditional religiosity in Western culture and the thriving belief in UFOs and alien visitation in the 21st Century is creating fertile ground for the growth of a new belief system rooted in the promise of technological salvation by a higher intelligence—and the seeds have already been planted.
Sadly, Pasulka does not feature in The Phenomenon. Her approach to the subject is oblique, and perhaps therefore incompatible with the ultimate goal shared by most UFO researchers: “Disclosure”—that one heart-stopping moment in time when the powers that be finally and fully reveal everything they know about UFOs, or at least acknowledge that we are being visited by extraterrestrial entities.
But are we? The popular assumption among UFOlogists has always been that true UFOs are nuts-and-bolts extraterrestrial spacecraft, piloted by biological beings from elsewhere in our galaxy. However, while the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (“ETH”) is appealing for obvious reasons, it fails to account for many aspects of UFO phenomena reported by hundreds-of-thousands of witnesses worldwide. In many cases, the phenomenon seems to tailor its manifestations to the expectations of the individual perceiver, based on personal and cultural conditioning. Indeed, in many if not most reported close encounter cases, the UFO experience seems to be co-created by the observer and some unknown external stimulus that can tap into human consciousness and literally shape what we perceive in the moment. Extraterrestrial intelligences may well play some role in all of this, but it would be a mistake to consider ETs as a definitive solution to the UFO riddle.
The Phenomenon pays lip service to the ETH, contemplating the vastness of our universe and the ever increasing likelihood that we share it with other civilizational intelligences. Beyond this, however, Fox does not dwell on the question of what the phenomenon actually represents—what it actually might be—only that it most assuredly is. This is a wise approach, reflective not only of its director’s privately more nuanced understanding of the subject, but also that of its co-producer and chief advisor, Dr. Jacques Vallée. Along with the late Professor J. Allen Hynek (noted astronomer and chief scientific advisor to the Air Force’s Project Blue Book), Vallée is one of the foundational figures of ufology. A respected astronomer and computer scientist, Vallée helped NASA create its first detailed map of Mars, and his work as an engineer on ARPANET—the Advanced Research Projects Agency—helped lay the foundations for the Internet. He was the inspiration for the character of Claude Lacombe in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, immortalised in the performance of Francois Truffaut.
In the early years of his career, Vallée had championed the ETH. As time wore on, however, the maverick scientist began to re-examine his own perspective. In his groundbreaking 1969 book, Passport to Magonia, Vallée argued that the ETH was too simplistic to account for many aspects of UFO phenomena that seemed too bizarre to be merely extraterrestrial. Innumerable UFO reports from across the decades include characteristics that are hard to reconcile with the idea of mere alien visitation. UFO encounters have long been reported as occurring on astral levels and in conjunction with paranormal and even cryptozoological phenomena, from spectres to Sasquatch. Thus, Vallée laid out the interdimensional hypothesis (“IDH”), positing that the intelligences behind the UFO phenomenon exist beyond our current understanding of spacetime and can flit in and out of our reality at will, assuming a multitude of forms, from the faeries, goblins, and incubi of ages past, to the UFOs and aliens of modern times. Their interactions with us are representative of what Vallée speculates may be an age-old “control mechanism,” perhaps designed to test us, trick us, and to encourage us to question the nature of our own reality. Think along the lines of the godlike supra-intelligence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which periodically and subtly prods us across the expanse of time in an effort to raise the consciousness of humanity.
Vallée is a strong onscreen presence throughout The Phenomenon, so it’s disappointing that his own provocative theories are given little if any consideration. Disappointing, but perhaps not surprising. For many viewers, it will be hard enough to accept the idea that we are not alone on the universe, never mind the notion that we may have fundamentally misunderstood the very nature of our universe.
Most UFO researchers tend to ignore the so-called “high-strangeness” aspects of witness reports—and certainly they are ignored in this documentary—probably because if the phenomenon really is that weird and multifaceted, what hope have we of understanding it in our lifetime and of reaping the benefits of that understanding? If, on the other hand, it’s just biological beings from elsewhere, and if the powers that be really do have some of those beings in pickle jars at Area 51, then surely it’s only a matter of time before the truth outs and the UFO buffs can cry a collective “TOLD YOU SO!”
The reality is that full UFO disclosure is not something that the US government has ever seriously entertained, despite what die-hard UFO Truthers would have you believe. In fact, the evidence would suggest that the American government is still far from certain as to the underlying nature of the phenomenon, which isn’t to say that special interest groups in the corridors of power haven’t formulated their own theories on the matter. What is clear, however, is that America’s military-intelligence apparatus has spent considerable time and effort over the decades trying to manage how the public perceives the phenomenon—and not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. Historical UFO perception management campaigns have been well documented (see the work of authors Mark Pilkington and Greg Bishop, for example) and some of them demonstrably have related to psychological warfare campaigns against individuals and nations of concern, exploiting the potency of UFO belief in service of agendas entirely unrelated to UFOs.
I watched The Phenomenon with my wife, who near its end asked: “why is it all just old white men in suits?” To be fair, the documentary does feature a smattering of women and faces of colour, especially in the final and most dramatic case examined, which, almost as the credits roll, introduces some much-needed emotional content into Fox’s endeavor. But on the whole, my wife’s observation was valid, and it’s applicable to the UFO research field more broadly, which has always been something of an old (white) boys’ club (although the demographic is now very slowly beginning to diversify).
Indeed, there are old white men aplenty in Fox’s documentary, uttering stony-faced assertions about government documentation, physical trace evidence, and aerodynamic performance. At a glance, this kind of sums up The Phenomenon, but it doesn’t come close to summing up the actual phenomenon, which is ultimately about people. Humans. Us. Not politics, not secret study programs, not the US military machine. In this sense, there is still room for a truly profound documentary about UFOs. The Phenomenon may not be it, but certainly it kicks the door wide open for more thoughtful explorations of a subject that is now boldly and immovably in the arena of legitimate public debate.
The Phenomenon is available to rent digitally worldwide.


News Briefs 26-10-2020

One psy-op to rule them all… • The murder hornets are here .
• First a plague , now pestilence…it @ @ @ @ @ End Times are upon us .
Oh… • Egypt ’ s Great Pyramid and Sphinx @ @ @ @ @ ’ papers of ‘ first dig ’ .
• Related : Megaliths in south-east Asia @ @ @ @ @ Borneo • Cryo–electron microscopy breaks the atomic resolution barrier at last .
• New research @ @ @ @ @ an energy field .
• Monkeys may have self-domesticated , just like humans did .
@ @ @ @ @ .
• Can cat genes explain their nine lives ?
• Image of the Day @ @ @ @ @ what they seem .
Quote of the Day : We have a deficit of wonder @ @ @ @ @ questions now , they get out their phone .
I say , nooo !
I @ @ @ @ @ know the answer .
I just want to wonder about it a while .

One psy-op to rule them all…
Quote of the Day:
We have a deficit of wonder. When I ask people questions now, they get out their phone. I say, nooo! I don’t want to know the answer. I just want to wonder about it a while.
Tom Waits


The Contemplative Brain

I ’ m pleased to announce a new book from Daily Grail Publishing : The Contemplative Brain : Meditation , Phenomenology and Self-Discovery from a Neuroanthropological Point of View , by Charles D. Laughlin Ph.D ( available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK ) .
The book is a deep-dive into meditation and contemplation , from the brain processes at work through to a survey of the various contemplative traditions around the world .
And I do mean a deep-dive : this isn ’ t a ‘ how-to ’ book , nor is it light New Age fare – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ topic , written by an expert who has spent most of his life investigating it , both on a theoretical level and a practical level .
Charles D. Laughlin , Ph.D. is an emeritus professor of anthropology & religion in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology , Carleton University , Ottawa , Ontario , Canada .
He has carried out ethnographic fieldwork among the So ( Tepes ) people of Uganda , Tibetan lamas in Nepal , Chinese Buddhists in Southeast Asia , and the Navajo Indians of the American southwest .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monk and is one of the founders of transpersonal anthropology .
He is the author of two previous books with Daily Grail Publishing : Communing with the Gods and The Power of Ritual ( with Robbie Davis-Floyd ) , as well as the seminal The Spectrum of Ritual .
Here ’ s the summary of the book : The Contemplative Brain offers a comprehensive exploration of the cultural neurophenomenology of contemplation .
The book is written by a neuroanthropologist who spent years as a Tibetan Tantric Buddhist monk and who has practiced many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vipassana , Tantric arising yoga , Zen Buddhist zazen , Husserlian transcendental phenomenology , Western Mysteries esoteric Tarot , dream meditation , shamanic journeys , and other approaches to self-discovery .
Over the course of half a century of contemplative experience , the author has learned to separate the practices and experiences of meditation traditions from their cultural , ideological , and religious trappings .
He discovered that the brain-mind that seeks truth about the external world can be redirected to an exploration of the vast world of the inner Self—the truth-seeking brain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explains how the brain works to penetrate , understand , and eventually realize its own internal processes .
This includes a detailed account of how the brain ’ s sensorium portrays the world and the Self to itself in various alternative states of consciousness .
A cross-cultural examination of methods and institutions used by contemplatives in the past and present to achieve self-awareness shows that humans have been interested in phenomenology for thousands of years .
Methods for calming , centering , focusing and realization may or may not involve the use of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , quests , ascetic lifestyles , hyper-awareness in dream states , and pursuit of mystical episodes , but all involve inherent capacity of the contemplative brain to discover its own nature .
Interested in learning more ?
Grab a copy of The Contemplative Brain from Amazon US or Amazon UK !

I’m pleased to announce a new book from Daily Grail Publishing: The Contemplative Brain: Meditation, Phenomenology and Self-Discovery from a Neuroanthropological Point of View, by Charles D. Laughlin Ph.D (available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK).
The book is a deep-dive into meditation and contemplation, from the brain processes at work through to a survey of the various contemplative traditions around the world. And I do mean a deep-dive: this isn’t a ‘how-to’ book, nor is it light New Age fare – it is an academic-level survey of the topic, written by an expert who has spent most of his life investigating it, both on a theoretical level and a practical level.
Charles D. Laughlin, Ph.D. is an emeritus professor of anthropology & religion in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He has carried out ethnographic fieldwork among the So (Tepes) people of Uganda, Tibetan lamas in Nepal, Chinese Buddhists in Southeast Asia, and the Navajo Indians of the American southwest. He spent six years as a Tibetan Buddhist monk and is one of the founders of transpersonal anthropology. He is the author of two previous books with Daily Grail Publishing: Communing with the Gods and The Power of Ritual (with Robbie Davis-Floyd), as well as the seminal The Spectrum of Ritual.
Here’s the summary of the book:
The Contemplative Brain offers a comprehensive exploration of the cultural neurophenomenology of contemplation. The book is written by a neuroanthropologist who spent years as a Tibetan Tantric Buddhist monk and who has practiced many different traditions of contemplation, including Buddhist vipassana, Tantric arising yoga, Zen Buddhist zazen, Husserlian transcendental phenomenology, Western Mysteries esoteric Tarot, dream meditation, shamanic journeys, and other approaches to self-discovery. Over the course of half a century of contemplative experience, the author has learned to separate the practices and experiences of meditation traditions from their cultural, ideological, and religious trappings. He discovered that the brain-mind that seeks truth about the external world can be redirected to an exploration of the vast world of the inner Self—the truth-seeking brain in its contemplative mode. The book explains how the brain works to penetrate, understand, and eventually realize its own internal processes. This includes a detailed account of how the brain’s sensorium portrays the world and the Self to itself in various alternative states of consciousness. A cross-cultural examination of methods and institutions used by contemplatives in the past and present to achieve self-awareness shows that humans have been interested in phenomenology for thousands of years. Methods for calming, centering, focusing and realization may or may not involve the use of entheogens (psychoactive drugs), ordeals, quests, ascetic lifestyles, hyper-awareness in dream states, and pursuit of mystical episodes, but all involve inherent capacity of the contemplative brain to discover its own nature.
Interested in learning more? Grab a copy of The Contemplative Brain from Amazon US or Amazon UK!


News Briefs 27-10-2020

• NASA confirms water exists on the sunny parts of the Moon .
• The hell of humans in heaven @ @ @ @ @ space technology and habitation .
• How US Intelligence community insiders got the Senate ’ @ @ @ @ @ • This surreal Colorado city is a magnet for spiritualists and UFOs .
• The @ @ @ @ @ strategic passageway was lost for 700 years .
• Insect tool use : to escape @ @ @ @ @ ants built syphons out of sand that moved the water to a safer spot .
@ @ @ @ @ : the most famous mythical creature of every country in the world , illustrated .
@ @ @ @ @ It has to start somewhere It has to start sometime What better place than here @ @ @ @ @ now ?

Covidy comedy…
Thanks to @AnomalistNews.
Quote of the Day:
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here?
What better time than now?
Rage Against the Machine, ‘Guerilla Radio‘


News Briefs 28-10-2020

• Are the brain ’ s electromagnetic fields the seat for consciousness ?
• Pagan complacency and the birth of @ @ @ @ @ • Four llamas sacrificed in Inca ritual found preserved 500 years later .
• New @ @ @ @ @ of light ’ phenomenon in declassified documents .
• Australian rock band AC/DC once drunkenly @ @ @ @ @ find the Loch Ness Monster .
• The myth of the Were-hyena and the fear @ @ @ @ @ Horn of Africa .
• Related : The Werewolf – examining the history behind one @ @ @ @ @ myths .
• Weird astronomical structures found to be ancient leftovers of violent Milky way @ @ @ @ @ 1000 nearby stars could see us , new study suggests .
• Video of the @ @ @ @ @ light is actually pretty darn slow once you leave Earth ’ s gravity well .
@ @ @ @ @ Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good , but that @ @ @ @ @ seek out that greatest good .


Vale James Randi (1928-2020)

People have a tendency to view the world in dichotomous ways – left and right in politics , people being simply either bad or good , etc .
– often based on how they sit in relation to their own beliefs – rather than in the way the world actually is , a spectrum of positions that are sometimes contradictory and often confusing .
And this is certainly the case when viewing the tributes – or alternately , the condemnations – that have been posted since the passing of James ‘ The Amazing ’ Randi on the 20th of October @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Randi was a defender of truth and honesty , a cold-blooded mercenary wielding the sword of the scientific method against paranormal hucksters and New Age gurus .
To his opposition , he was just an angry , hate-filled publicity whore with a closed mind .
The reality of Randi , though , was far more complicated .
His long history suggests something else : less a skeptic or believer , more a showman in the tradition of the great magicians who he grew up idolising , who searched for quite a while to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it with the skeptical movement .
And while he ‘ played for his audience ’ – and well and truly made them an adoring fan-base who believed in the persona of Randi the uber-skeptic – the truth behind his famous career is far more interesting .
For most skeptics , Randi ’ s life story begins in the second half of his life , as he came to fame in the 1970s debunking Uri Geller on Johnny Carson ’ s Tonight Show and made headlines with the infamous CSICOP .
But the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tale .
Despite Randi ’ s account of his youth – pure myth-making in which he is a child prodigy with an IQ of 168 who by his mid-teens was leaping on stage to debunk Spiritualists – there is documentary evidence that he himself worked as a ‘ woo merchant ’ well into his 20s , telling fortunes and writing an astrology column for a newspaper ( see Tim Cridland ’ s “ The Real James Randi ” , in The Anomalist 14 for more details ) .
After moving to the States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a stage magician/escapologist began to shine , gaining more and more renown .
At the same time , he became a regular guest on Long John Nebel ’ s radio show – a lightly more skeptical 1950s equivalent of Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM – before taking over his spot when Nebel left .
According to Tim Cridland : At this point we see both sides of Randi – the magician with a bullshit detector , but someone also happily at home in the woo camp ( how much it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time , to promote himself , is difficult to say ) .
But then in the ’ 70s , in his mid-40s , Randi found his niche with his Geller debunking and CSICOP attack dog personality , shifting quickly to the role of the vociferous skeptic employing a scorched earth strategy to lay waste to anything with a whiff of the paranormal .
Where Randi shone and did ‘ good work ’ in this role was in showing up con-men and snake oil salesmen who used tricks to fool , defraud and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – his exposé of Peter Popoff stands out in particular as an excellent piece of work that showed the value in having a professional magician/mentalist/trickster involved in evaluating these sorts of claims , rather than a scientist lacking the mindset for knowing , and detecting , deception .
And his takedown of the ‘ miracle bomb detector ’ is the sort of thing that could have quite literally saved lives .
But Randi ’ s skeptical reputation was built as much on his showmanship and publicity strategies than on the effectiveness of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Many of his celebrated stings were far less impressive than most people realise .
A mythology has grown around much of Randi ’ s work – or more accurately , has been built up by Randi and the skeptical movement – that does not stand up to close inspection .
One such example is the ‘ Carlos Hoax ’ , perpetrated on the Australian public and media in 1988 , which has assumed legendary status among self-described skeptics in the intervening decades , despite it not really fooling media or the public at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s ability to promote himself was his famous ‘ Million Dollar Challenge ’ – in which Randi offered to pay anybody that could prove psychic abilities $ 1,000,000 .
The MDC became a cudgel used by skeptics and scientists to quickly beat down any discussion of paranormal or psi claims – “ if telepathy is real , why don ’ t parapsychologists just take Randi ’ s million dollars ” – despite it being largely without scientific value , given its one-off nature and correspondingly steep p-value requirement ( scientists often talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggestive of something worth further investigation ; the MDC required an ‘ entry ’ test surpassing 0.001 , and then the ‘ real ’ test requiring 0.000001 ) .
Instead , the Million Dollar Challenge was a magician ’ s sleight ; the huge financial bounty was the hand flourish that grabbed skeptics ’ and the general public ’ s attention , distracting them from the almost complete lack of scientific merit to the test , hiding the fact that it was instead simply a publicity tool to sell them brand Randi .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as Professor Dick Bierman did , and worked out a way to construct a series of tests that could possibly satisfy the stringent p-value requirement , Randi simply ignored those genuine applications , while remaining happy to exploit the vulnerable in a dog-and-pony show for the faithful if it helped to promulgate the myth of the Million Dollar Challenge .
Furthermore , despite his reputation as a defender of truth , Randi was actually a habitual liar – and not of the ‘ honest ’ type , as the title of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For example , when Randi contacted the University of Arizona about having an ‘ Independently Qualified Panel ’ review the raw data of Dr Gary Schwartz ’ s investigations of mediumship , he said parapsychologist Dr Stanley Krippner was one of the panelists ( along with a number of high-profile skeptics ) .
But when Dr Schwartz was informed of this and contacted Dr Krippner to check , Krippner said he had not agreed to be on the panel .
Another scientist who caught Randi out in a lie was Dr Rupert Sheldrake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a possible ‘ sixth sense ’ in dogs gained widespread publicity , Randi was asked his opinion and replied “ We at the JREF have tested these claims .
They fail.
” When Sheldrake emailed Randi to ask for details of this JREF research , he didn ’ t reply , so Sheldrake went straight to the Scientific Advisory Board of Randi ’ s foundation , who advised Randi to reply .
Randi told Sheldrake that the tests with dogs he referred to were not done at the JREF , but took place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ informal ” .
He said they involved two dogs belonging to a friend of his that he observed over a two-week period .
All records had been lost .
Given the flimsiness of his ‘ experiments ’ , Randi wrote : “ I overstated my case for doubting the reality of dog ESP based on the small amount of data I obtained.
” Furthermore , despite previously having commented on a video tape of one of Sheldrake ’ s experiments , Randi admitted that he had never seen the video .
I became @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ overstating ” things in a personal email conversation .
In a post criticising my article on his Million Dollar Challenge , Randi apparently mistakenly put some of my words into the mouth of a paranormal researcher who he proceeded to attack .
When I emailed Randi to inform him that the words were mine , Randi wrote back that he knew that , but had a grudge against that particular researcher so wasn ’ t go to correct it .
Randi ’ s modus operandi was exposed beautifully in the 1980s when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alpha hoax , Randi was hoaxed right back – and not only fell for it , but laid bare his dishonesty .
As Randi ’ s fellow CSICOP co-founder Marcello Truzzi wrote : Not all psi researchers were put on the defensive by Alpha .
Dennis Stillings , director of a Minneapolis group called the Archaeus Project , which puts out a newsletter by that name , was outraged and initiated a retaliatory hoax which started as a small joke but escalated into something more significant .
Stillings felt that Randi was trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the psi researchers and was , in effect , blaming the victims .
Stillings believed that any person could be deceived by lies and that Randi was just as susceptible to such human error as anyone .
So , Stillings ( 1983a ) issued a phony , one page , special issue of his group ’ s newsletter ( of which only two copies were mailed out and these to Edwards and Shaw with the expectation that they would show it to Randi ) .
The ersatz issue contained a short , two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Project had just been given “ a fund of $ 217,00O…as seed money for a program in PK research and education ” .
It said the funds were for “ grant money to PK investigators , especially those interested in ‘ metal bending ” ‘ and for “ developing a program of educating children in the range and nature of parapsychological phenomena.
” Finally , it said that “ Those applying for grants , as well as those gifted with paranormal abilities ” should write to Stillings .
Stillings also separately wrote a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shaw was a fraud , he should not apply for any of the money.To stretch the joke even further , Stillings also published a warning “ Advisory Notice ” ( Krueger , 1983 ) – to parallel Randi ’ s similar advisory notes – in a previous real issue of his group ’ s newsletter .
Though Stillings ’ original prank struck me as being a bit silly ( after all , Randi never claimed to be immune to trickery , and conjurors fool one another all the time ) , what happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and turned the matter into a significant episode .
Upon seeing the phony announcement , and apparently without properly checking things out , Randi decided to give one of his annual psi-mocking “ Uri Awards ” to this receipt of a phony grant .
Thus , on April 1 , 1983 , Randi ’ s Discover news release gave a “ Uri ” in the funding category : ‘ To the Medtronics Corporation of Minneapolis , who gave $ 250,000 to a Mr. Stillings of that city to fund the Archaeus Project , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at parties .
Mr. Stillings then offered financial assistance to a prominent young spoon-bender who turned out to be one of the masquerading magicians of Project Alpha — a confessed fake.
” In this incredible award statement , Randi managed to falsely identify a major corporation as the funding source ( when no source was ever mentioned in the original announcement ) , escalated the award from $ 217,000 to $ 250,000 , misdescribed the purpose of the phony award , and falsely claimed one of his associates had been offered funds !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the numerous times he he appears to have lied , Randi quite candidly admitted that was the case : “ Oh I agree .
No question of that .
I don ’ t know whether the lies are conscious lies all the time .
But there can be untruths.
” Randi found his niche in not just being a leading skeptic , but being a nasty skeptic .
He was part of an era where skeptics who were nasty gained many followers .
He and others of his ilk , typified by CSICOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defined more by mockery and an appeal to intellectual superiority than in properly following the science .
Just as Donald Trump appeals to many people ’ s baser emotions and instincts , so too did Randi supply fuel to the fires of intellectual ego burning within many , by leading ad hominem attacks on targets for their stupidity or penchant for ‘ woo ’ .
This extended to credentialed scientists , just for the simple crime of investigating paranormal or fringe topics .
Take for example the respected academic Professor Daryl Bem , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case for a precognitive ability in humans .
The experiments gained widespread publicity based on their apparent positive results in quite rigorous scientific design .
Randi ’ s response : not to try and replicate the experiments , but instead to award Bem his 2012 ‘ Pigasus Award ’ , which Randi reserved for “ the most deserving charlatans , swindlers , psychics , pseudo-scientists , and faith healers ” .
This was a regular activity for Randi .
On the plus side , he no doubt kept psi researchers honest , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experiments that could not be exposed by a Randi sting or criticism .
On the negative side , his mockery and viciousness probably stopped a lot of scientists from engaging with psi research – or even discussing the topic publicly – for fear of being put on Randi ’ s ‘ woo ’ list and the likely hit on their scientific reputation .
The nasty side of Randi ’ s personality is perhaps most visible in his tendency toward a Social Darwinist philosophy .
Many years ago I pointed out that in one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particularly abhorrent comments about the legalisation of drugs , saying he was all for it because it would kill off drug addicts : “ the principle of Survival of the Fittest would draconically prove itself for a couple of years , after which Natural Selection would weed out those for whom there is no hope except through our forbearance.
” I was perhaps even more stunned that these comments barely raised a ripple in skeptical circles – a testament to the strength of the cult of Randi by that stage , as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ superiority ’ I previously noted among his followers .
It wasn ’ t until Will Storr questioned Randi about these comments ( for his book The Heretics : Adventures with the Enemies of Science ) – and Randi actually doubled down on his opinion – that there was some pushback from skeptics .
Randi told Storr : How Do We Solve a Problem Like Randi ?
Let ’ s be clear : this article is slanted against Randi .
I do that not to dance on his grave , but to add some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and skepticism at a time when many obituaries will act as hagiographies .
I actually kind of liked him .
He was certainly a raconteur , a character that brought colour and attention to the topics he engaged with , who lived a fascinating life even once you strip away all the fairy tales he made up about it .
But it ’ s easy for me to say that , when I ’ m a fairly easy going person without a reputation to protect ( Randi once called me an “ anti-scientific @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laugh a bit ) .
Those scientists who attempted to honestly investigate paranormal and psi topics , and copped the public vitriol of Randi and his minions , and corresponding effects on their reputation , funding or other aspects of their professional life , no doubt have far less charitable thoughts about him .
Randi likely had a positive influence upon the world by instilling critical thinking in many people – or at least acting as a gateway drug toward that mindset – something that is sorely needed in our current age .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of those newly-minted skeptics to actually just be insulting trolls who cared more for thinking they were right , rather than following the scientific evidence – something that we really need less of these days .
If you ’ re a servant to the cult of Randi , then spread the myths .
If you ’ re a servant to the truth , then acknowledge he was a flawed man who did some good .

People have a tendency to view the world in dichotomous ways – left and right in politics, people being simply either bad or good, etc. – often based on how they sit in relation to their own beliefs – rather than in the way the world actually is, a spectrum of positions that are sometimes contradictory and often confusing. And this is certainly the case when viewing the tributes – or alternately, the condemnations – that have been posted since the passing of James ‘The Amazing’ Randi on the 20th of October at age 92.
For skeptics, Randi was a defender of truth and honesty, a cold-blooded mercenary wielding the sword of the scientific method against paranormal hucksters and New Age gurus. To his opposition, he was just an angry, hate-filled publicity whore with a closed mind.
The reality of Randi, though, was far more complicated. His long history suggests something else: less a skeptic or believer, more a showman in the tradition of the great magicians who he grew up idolising, who searched for quite a while to find his ‘gig’ before finding it with the skeptical movement. And while he ‘played for his audience’ – and well and truly made them an adoring fan-base who believed in the persona of Randi the uber-skeptic – the truth behind his famous career is far more interesting.
Woo Origins
For most skeptics, Randi’s life story begins in the second half of his life, as he came to fame in the 1970s debunking Uri Geller on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and made headlines with the infamous CSICOP. But the first half of his life tells a different tale. Despite Randi’s account of his youth – pure myth-making in which he is a child prodigy with an IQ of 168 who by his mid-teens was leaping on stage to debunk Spiritualists – there is documentary evidence that he himself worked as a ‘woo merchant’ well into his 20s, telling fortunes and writing an astrology column for a newspaper (see Tim Cridland’s “The Real James Randi”, in The Anomalist 14 for more details).
After moving to the States, in the 1950s his star as a stage magician/escapologist began to shine, gaining more and more renown. At the same time, he became a regular guest on Long John Nebel’s radio show – a lightly more skeptical 1950s equivalent of Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM – before taking over his spot when Nebel left. According to Tim Cridland:
Randi’s show would sometimes cover the “way out” topics that Nebel was known for. Jim Moseley, publisher of Saucer News, was a regular guest on Randi’s show and a friend during the mid-1960s. Moseley wrote: “At the time, Randi was relatively open-minded about saucers and other weirdness.” Randi would eventually buy a house in Rumson, NJ, with profits from the radio show. In fact Randi was also a regular at Moseley’s flying saucer meetings and conventions. He made an appearance at Moseley’s most infamous flying saucer convention in June of 1967. Randi was on the bill with people like Rev. Frank Stranges, “The Flying Saucer Evangelist” who claimed to know a man from Venus. In his lecture Randi was quoted as saying “Let’s not fool ourselves. There are some garden variety liars involved in all this. But in among all the trash and nonsense perpetrated in the name of ufology, I think there is a small grain of truth.”
At this point we see both sides of Randi – the magician with a bullshit detector, but someone also happily at home in the woo camp (how much it was just lip service for his audience of the time, to promote himself, is difficult to say). But then in the ’70s, in his mid-40s, Randi found his niche with his Geller debunking and CSICOP attack dog personality, shifting quickly to the role of the vociferous skeptic employing a scorched earth strategy to lay waste to anything with a whiff of the paranormal.
Where Randi shone and did ‘good work’ in this role was in showing up con-men and snake oil salesmen who used tricks to fool, defraud and sometimes cause outright harm to their audiences – his exposé of Peter Popoff stands out in particular as an excellent piece of work that showed the value in having a professional magician/mentalist/trickster involved in evaluating these sorts of claims, rather than a scientist lacking the mindset for knowing, and detecting, deception. And his takedown of the ‘miracle bomb detector’ is the sort of thing that could have quite literally saved lives.
But Randi’s skeptical reputation was built as much on his showmanship and publicity strategies than on the effectiveness of his debunkings or on their scientific basis. Many of his celebrated stings were far less impressive than most people realise. A mythology has grown around much of Randi’s work – or more accurately, has been built up by Randi and the skeptical movement – that does not stand up to close inspection. One such example is the ‘Carlos Hoax’, perpetrated on the Australian public and media in 1988, which has assumed legendary status among self-described skeptics in the intervening decades, despite it not really fooling media or the public at the time.
The exemplar of Randi’s ability to promote himself was his famous ‘Million Dollar Challenge’ – in which Randi offered to pay anybody that could prove psychic abilities $1,000,000. The MDC became a cudgel used by skeptics and scientists to quickly beat down any discussion of paranormal or psi claims – “if telepathy is real, why don’t parapsychologists just take Randi’s million dollars” – despite it being largely without scientific value, given its one-off nature and correspondingly steep p-value requirement (scientists often talk of 0.05 being a p-value that is suggestive of something worth further investigation; the MDC required an ‘entry’ test surpassing 0.001, and then the ‘real’ test requiring 0.000001).
Instead, the Million Dollar Challenge was a magician’s sleight; the huge financial bounty was the hand flourish that grabbed skeptics’ and the general public’s attention, distracting them from the almost complete lack of scientific merit to the test, hiding the fact that it was instead simply a publicity tool to sell them brand Randi.
And even when parapsychologists did the maths, as Professor Dick Bierman did, and worked out a way to construct a series of tests that could possibly satisfy the stringent p-value requirement, Randi simply ignored those genuine applications, while remaining happy to exploit the vulnerable in a dog-and-pony show for the faithful if it helped to promulgate the myth of the Million Dollar Challenge.
A Dishonest Liar
Furthermore, despite his reputation as a defender of truth, Randi was actually a habitual liar – and not of the ‘honest’ type, as the title of the documentary about him would have it. For example, when Randi contacted the University of Arizona about having an ‘Independently Qualified Panel’ review the raw data of Dr Gary Schwartz’s investigations of mediumship, he said parapsychologist Dr Stanley Krippner was one of the panelists (along with a number of high-profile skeptics). But when Dr Schwartz was informed of this and contacted Dr Krippner to check, Krippner said he had not agreed to be on the panel.
Another scientist who caught Randi out in a lie was Dr Rupert Sheldrake. When Sheldrake’s research into a possible ‘sixth sense’ in dogs gained widespread publicity, Randi was asked his opinion and replied “We at the JREF have tested these claims. They fail.” When Sheldrake emailed Randi to ask for details of this JREF research, he didn’t reply, so Sheldrake went straight to the Scientific Advisory Board of Randi’s foundation, who advised Randi to reply.
Randi told Sheldrake that the tests with dogs he referred to were not done at the JREF, but took place “years ago” and were “informal”. He said they involved two dogs belonging to a friend of his that he observed over a two-week period. All records had been lost. Given the flimsiness of his ‘experiments’, Randi wrote: “I overstated my case for doubting the reality of dog ESP based on the small amount of data I obtained.” Furthermore, despite previously having commented on a video tape of one of Sheldrake’s experiments, Randi admitted that he had never seen the video.
I became aware of Randi’s penchant for “overstating” things in a personal email conversation. In a post criticising my article on his Million Dollar Challenge, Randi apparently mistakenly put some of my words into the mouth of a paranormal researcher who he proceeded to attack. When I emailed Randi to inform him that the words were mine, Randi wrote back that he knew that, but had a grudge against that particular researcher so wasn’t go to correct it.
Randi’s modus operandi was exposed beautifully in the 1980s when, in the wake of his Project Alpha hoax, Randi was hoaxed right back – and not only fell for it, but laid bare his dishonesty. As Randi’s fellow CSICOP co-founder Marcello Truzzi wrote:
Not all psi researchers were put on the defensive by Alpha. Dennis Stillings, director of a Minneapolis group called the Archaeus Project, which puts out a newsletter by that name, was outraged and initiated a retaliatory hoax which started as a small joke but escalated into something more significant. Stillings felt that Randi was trying to reap advantage from lies told to the psi researchers and was, in effect, blaming the victims. Stillings believed that any person could be deceived by lies and that Randi was just as susceptible to such human error as anyone. So, Stillings (1983a) issued a phony, one page, special issue of his group’s newsletter (of which only two copies were mailed out and these to Edwards and Shaw with the expectation that they would show it to Randi). The ersatz issue contained a short, two paragraph, fraudulent announcement that the Archaeus Project had just been given “a fund of $217,00O…as seed money for a program in PK research and education”. It said the funds were for “grant money to PK investigators, especially those interested in ‘metal bending”‘ and for “developing a program of educating children in the range and nature of parapsychological phenomena.” Finally, it said that “Those applying for grants, as well as those gifted with paranormal abilities” should write to Stillings. Stillings also separately wrote a letter to Shaw telling him that since Shaw was a fraud, he should not apply for any of the money.To stretch the joke even further, Stillings also published a warning “Advisory Notice” (Krueger, 1983) – to parallel Randi’s similar advisory notes – in a previous real issue of his group’s newsletter. Though Stillings’ original prank struck me as being a bit silly (after all, Randi never claimed to be immune to trickery, and conjurors fool one another all the time), what happened next went far beyond Stillings’ expectations and turned the matter into a significant episode. Upon seeing the phony announcement, and apparently without properly checking things out, Randi decided to give one of his annual psi-mocking “Uri Awards” to this receipt of a phony grant. Thus, on April 1, 1983, Randi’s Discover news release gave a “Uri” in the funding category: ‘To the Medtronics Corporation of Minneapolis, who gave $250,000 to a Mr. Stillings of that city to fund the Archaeus Project, devoted to observing people who bend spoons at parties. Mr. Stillings then offered financial assistance to a prominent young spoon-bender who turned out to be one of the masquerading magicians of Project Alpha — a confessed fake.” In this incredible award statement, Randi managed to falsely identify a major corporation as the funding source (when no source was ever mentioned in the original announcement), escalated the award from $217,000 to $250,000, misdescribed the purpose of the phony award, and falsely claimed one of his associates had been offered funds!
When journalist Will Storr confronted Randi about the numerous times he appears to have lied, Randi quite candidly admitted that was the case: “Oh I agree. No question of that. I don’t know whether the lies are conscious lies all the time. But there can be untruths.”
Nastiness Before Science
Randi found his niche in not just being a leading skeptic, but being a nasty skeptic. He was part of an era where skeptics who were nasty gained many followers. He and others of his ilk, typified by CSICOP – created an organised skepticism that was defined more by mockery and an appeal to intellectual superiority than in properly following the science. Just as Donald Trump appeals to many people’s baser emotions and instincts, so too did Randi supply fuel to the fires of intellectual ego burning within many, by leading ad hominem attacks on targets for their stupidity or penchant for ‘woo’. This extended to credentialed scientists, just for the simple crime of investigating paranormal or fringe topics.
Take for example the respected academic Professor Daryl Bem, who conducted some provocative experiments exploring the case for a precognitive ability in humans. The experiments gained widespread publicity based on their apparent positive results in quite rigorous scientific design. Randi’s response: not to try and replicate the experiments, but instead to award Bem his 2012 ‘Pigasus Award’, which Randi reserved for “the most deserving charlatans, swindlers, psychics, pseudo-scientists, and faith healers”.
This was a regular activity for Randi. On the plus side, he no doubt kept psi researchers honest, to the point of terror, in designing experiments that could not be exposed by a Randi sting or criticism. On the negative side, his mockery and viciousness probably stopped a lot of scientists from engaging with psi research – or even discussing the topic publicly – for fear of being put on Randi’s ‘woo’ list and the likely hit on their scientific reputation.
The nasty side of Randi’s personality is perhaps most visible in his tendency toward a Social Darwinist philosophy. Many years ago I pointed out that in one of his newsletters Randi had made some particularly abhorrent comments about the legalisation of drugs, saying he was all for it because it would kill off drug addicts: “the principle of Survival of the Fittest would draconically prove itself for a couple of years, after which Natural Selection would weed out those for whom there is no hope except through our forbearance.”
I was perhaps even more stunned that these comments barely raised a ripple in skeptical circles – a testament to the strength of the cult of Randi by that stage, as well as to that urge to ‘intellectual superiority’ I previously noted among his followers. It wasn’t until Will Storr questioned Randi about these comments (for his book The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science) – and Randi actually doubled down on his opinion – that there was some pushback from skeptics. Randi told Storr:
I’m a believer in Social Darwinism… These are stupid people. And if they can’t survive, they don’t have the IQ, don’t have the thinking power to be able to survive, it’s unfortunate; I would hate to see it happen, but at the same time, it would clear the air. I think that people with mental aberrations who have family histories of inherited diseases and such, that something should be done seriously to educate them to prevent them from procreating. I think they should be gathered together in a suitable place and have it demonstrated for them what their procreation would mean for the human race.
How Do We Solve a Problem Like Randi?
Let’s be clear: this article is slanted against Randi. I do that not to dance on his grave, but to add some balance and try and demythologise his life and skepticism at a time when many obituaries will act as hagiographies.
I actually kind of liked him. He was certainly a raconteur, a character that brought colour and attention to the topics he engaged with, who lived a fascinating life even once you strip away all the fairy tales he made up about it. But it’s easy for me to say that, when I’m a fairly easy going person without a reputation to protect (Randi once called me an “anti-scientific grubbie”, which just made me laugh a bit). Those scientists who attempted to honestly investigate paranormal and psi topics, and copped the public vitriol of Randi and his minions, and corresponding effects on their reputation, funding or other aspects of their professional life, no doubt have far less charitable thoughts about him.
Randi likely had a positive influence upon the world by instilling critical thinking in many people – or at least acting as a gateway drug toward that mindset – something that is sorely needed in our current age. However, his manner also inspired a lot of those newly-minted skeptics to actually just be insulting trolls who cared more for thinking they were right, rather than following the scientific evidence – something that we really need less of these days.
If you’re a servant to the cult of Randi, then spread the myths. If you’re a servant to the truth, then acknowledge he was a flawed man who did some good.


News Briefs 29-10-2020

• How to live with dying .
• New measurements suggest asteroid Apophis could still hit Earth in 2068 .
• 80 % of Australians now believe their country is experiencing the effects of climate change .
• Trump is now pushing for herd immunity , which could result in the death of many thousands of more Americans .
• Joe Rogan lets his friend Alex Jones use his new massive Spotify platform to spread misinformation .
• Capitalism 101 : Why protect the environment , when you can make money out of its destruction ?
• Hubble examines massive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jizz in his pants .
• If you lived your life as a stoic , you ’ d realize how little is enough .
• Chaos magician/writer Grant Morrison surveys the situation in “ the Age of Horus.
” • The State Department is now warning of impending drone attacks and how to survive them .
• After years of detective work , the second touchdown site of Rosetta ’ s Philae lander has been located .
• ‘ Weird molecule ’ detected in Titan has never been found in any other atmosphere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Unseen , Mike Clelland interviews Shanelle Schanz , granddaughter of Kenneth Arnold .
• Over at The Black Vault , John Greenewald obtained evidence that in March of this year , the US House of Representatives ’ Committee on Armed Services received a briefing on UAPs .
I wonder how much TTSA charges for consulting fees… • Robots are teaching us a thing or two about school swimming .
• Red Pill of the Day : White House touts Trump ’ s 5 science accomplishments , including ‘ ending the pandemic ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Day : I do not fear death .
I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born , and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it .


News Briefs 31-10-2020

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”I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
Quote of the Day:
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
Thomas Paine


News Briefs 02-11-2020

• First Denisovan DNA outside Siberia puts the mysterious archaic humans on the Tibetan Plateau from 100,000 to 60,000 years ago .
• The Giant ’ s Causeway – where geology blends with mythology .
• James Randi did good things…but he was no ‘ prince of reason ’ .
• James Randi and the horror of the skeptic movement .
• Elon Musk ’ s SpaceX says it will “ make its own laws on Mars “ .
• We ’ re safe from Skynet for now : Soccer match ruined when AI-controlled camera mistakes referee ’ s bald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a robot is conscious , is it okay to turn it off ?
The moral implications of building true A.I .
• A spiritual emergency can be wild – this is how to ride the wave .
• The science behind why people claim to see ghosts .
• The mystery of the platypus deepens with the discovery of its biofluorescent fur .
• Video of the Day : In a remote town near Area 51 , UFO believers and locals contemplate the beyond .
Quote of the Day : When I despair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way of truth and love have always won .
There have been tyrants and murderers , and for a time , they can seem invincible , but in the end , they always fall .
Think of it – always .

Today I learned…
Quote of the Day:
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.
Mahatma Gandhi


News Briefs 03-11-2020

• Ice Age mining camp rich in treasures ‘ frozen in time ’ found in underwater cave .
• As @ @ @ @ @ melts , large numbers of perfectly preserved ancient artefacts are being revealed .
But time @ @ @ @ @ glacial archaeologists ’ are racing to find these fragile treasures • Neanderthals and humans were @ @ @ @ @ years , evidence shows .
• One of Dracula ’ s often overlooked inspirations is @ @ @ @ @ the vetala .
• Why do we see dead people ?
• How many alien @ @ @ @ @ A new galactic survey holds a clue .
• Doubts over a ‘ possible sign @ @ @ @ @ show how science works .
• Image of the Day : Earth , photographed from @ @ @ @ @ Day : All tyrannies rule through fraud and force , but once the fraud is @ @ @ @ @ on force .


News Briefs 05-11-2020

America , you owe us all a box of TUMs !
• The United States is eerily retracing ancient Rome ’ s steps to a fall .
• Oregon becomes the first state in the United States to decriminalize possession of street drugs and also legalize psychedelic mushrooms .
You ’ re soooo gon na need this , Oregonians… • The US has officially left the Paris climate deal .
What next ?
• Here ’ s the TikTok influencer who wants us to go gaga for nuclear energy .
• Scientists just fired up an experimental fusion reactor .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moon ’ s ‘ long lost twin ’ —near Mars .
• Mother Jones writer AJ Vicens is glad he can now openly talk about UFOs without being laughed at .
• Notable UFOlogist Larry Bryant –who represented the group Citizens Against UFO Secrecy in many litigations– passes away .
• On Where Did the Road Go ?
Seriah is relaunching old shows that might have gone under your radar .
Here ’ s his interview with George Hansen , author of The Trickster and the Paranormal .
• Bigfoot is alive and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Massachusetts .
• Mostly Harmless : The case of the anonymous dead hiker nobody can solve .
• Red Pill of the Day : Republican candidate who died of COVID-19 wins election .
This pretty much summarizes American Democracy .
Thanks to Rick and David .
Quote of the Day : Despots prefer the friendship of the dog , who , unjustly mistreated and debased , still loves and serves the man who wronged him .

America, you owe us all a box of TUMs!
Thanks to Rick and David.
Quote of the Day:
Despots prefer the friendship of the dog, who, unjustly mistreated and debased, still loves and serves the man who wronged him.
Charles Fourier


News Briefs 04-11-2020

Just another completely normal day in 2020… • A QAnon supporter has been elected to Congress for the first time .
• Experts fear lab-grown brains will become sentient , which is upsetting .
• These are truly exciting times for the science of brain zapping .
• The strange case of the Kaikoura Lights of New Zealand .
• Japanese towns use this robotic wolf to scare off bears , and it ’ s terrifying .
• After 20 years in orbit , ISS is approaching retirement .
Here ’ s what might replace it .
• Around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jupiter will merge to become a single star in the sky , their closest approach since 1623 .
• Video of the Day : Exploding star from the time of the dinosaurs !
Quote of the Day : I ’ ve often heard people say : ‘ I wonder what it would feel like to be on board a spaceship , ’ and the answer is very simple .
What does it feel like ?
That ’ s all we have ever experienced .
We are all astronauts on a little spaceship called @ @

Just another completely normal day in 2020…
Quote of the Day:
I’ve often heard people say: ‘I wonder what it would feel like to be on board a spaceship,’ and the answer is very simple. What does it feel like? That’s all we have ever experienced. We are all astronauts on a little spaceship called Earth.
R. Buckminster Fuller


News Briefs 08-11-2020

” We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will.
” • Unraveling the @ @ @ @ @ • Collecting the first Moon rocks in 40 years .
• A planet with supersonic @ @ @ @ @ vaporized rock .
Quote of the Day : “ The Universe has shouted itself alive @ @ @ @ @ the shouts .
”

” We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will.”
Quote of the Day:
“The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.”
Ray Bradbury


News Briefs 09-11-2020

• Newly found ‘ Megahenge ’ may have been the ‘ last hurrah ’ of stone-age builders .
• Druids @ @ @ @ @ set for Stonehenge bypass .
• Archaeology excavates the layers of meaning we leave behind @ @ @ @ @ 300 million ( or more ) Earth-like planets in our galaxy .
• Sci-fi master @ @ @ @ @ wrongs ) of AI .
• Adventures in space travel remind us how imprecisely we @ @ @ @ @ ’ s no good evidence that psychedelics can change your politics or religion .
• @ @ @ @ @ of Alzheimer ’ s Disease ?
• An infamous ‘ hoax ’ artist is behind @ @ @ @ @ ’ voter-fraud conspiracy theory .
• The occult has returned to art .
• ‘ @ @ @ @ @ quarter of British army by 2030s ’ .
Quote of the Day : We know @ @ @ @ @ power with the intention of relinquishing it .


News Briefs 10-11-2020

Laugh and the whole world laughs at you… • Getting high and doing psi : research on hallucinogens and psychic ability .
• Two million-year-old skull of human cousin found in South African cave .
• Rare ancient burial contains child whose arms and legs were removed .
• A fast radio burst in the Milky Way .
• Related : Research suggests mysterious fast radio bursts could be a sign of alien civilisations .
• Skipper thinks the Loch Ness Monster is an eel after spotting creature on sonar .
• A second cable has failed at the famous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pfizer says early data shows that its coronavirus vaccine is more than 90 % effective .
• How an Australian COVID cure conquered the world , despite no robust evidence that it works .
• QAnon is here to stay , even though Trump lost .
• Two suspected QAnon supporters were arrested after the discovery of a Hummer full of rifles and pistols near a Philadelphia ballot-counting center • Video of the Day : Fifty years ago , the Oregon Department of Transportation decided it was a good idea to use a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rotting whale carcass .
Quote of the Day : If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile , even when it can ’ t have any result whatever , you ’ ve beaten them .


News Briefs 11-11-2020

• Speculation swirls around the possibility that Donald Trump will declassify UFO files .
• Nobel Prize winner Sir Roger @ @ @ @ @ universe begin ?
• The most famous paradox in physics nears its end : physicists @ @ @ @ @ can shed information .
• Image of the Day : Alien-like photo shows snake eel @ @ @ @ @ s stomach in midair .
Quote of the Day : One of the criticisms I @ @ @ @ @ years is that I ’ m not aggressive enough or assertive enough , or maybe @ @ @ @ @ m empathetic , it means I ’ m weak .
I totally rebel against that @ @ @ @ @ that you can not be both compassionate and strong .

Doh!
Quote of the Day:
One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.
Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand Prime Minister)


News Briefs 12-11-2020

…And you thought our telenovelas were too long and overly dramatic .
• Disaster prepping has become mainstream again .
• Wearing masks with exhalation valves is really a bad idea .
• San Francisco just banned natural gas in new buildings .
But how are Silicon Valley execs gon na heat up their pools and jacuzzis now ?
• Central Florida to build aviation facility for Jetsons-like ‘ flying cars ‘ .
With Florida it ’ s not The Jetsons but Wacky Races that comes to mind .
• Now you can own the first space selfie taken by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own the NYC rooftop where John Lennon claimed to spot a UFO .
• The UFO phenomenon as an hyperobject .
• What was Bigelow ’ s “ Center for Advanced Cognitive Science ” ?
• NASA says our galaxy could have at least 300 million habitable planets .
• Skipper thinks Nessie is an eel after spotting creature on sonar .
• An interview with Shelli Renée Joye , author of the book The Electromagnetic Brain .
• Military carrier pigeon message turns up 110 years after it was sent .
Still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Red Pill of the Day : Those wacky Spanish art restorers are back at it again !
Quote of the Day : If there is one fact we really can prove , from the history that we really do know , it is that despotism can be a development , often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic .
A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy .
As fatigue falls on a community , the citizens are less inclined for that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the price of liberty ; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep .

…And you thought our telenovelas were too long and overly dramatic.
Quote of the Day:
If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.
G.K. Chesterton


News Briefs 13-11-2020

• Apophis asteroid ’ s appearance in 2068 gets second glance .
• Another look at the EmDrive .
• @ @ @ @ @ to the world .
• Music minus headphones .
What could possibly go wrong ?
@ @ @ @ @


News Briefs 16-11-2020

We are all Bunny… • Stonehenge was part of a multi-monument complex .
Here ’ s how it fit together @ @ @ @ @ where lightning strikes ?
• The rings of ancient trees may hold tales of epic @ @ @ @ @ launches four astronauts to the International Space Station .
• Also : SpaceX ’ s @ @ @ @ @ into space means being responsible for their safety .
• Facebook , QAnon and the @ @ @ @ @ on reality .
• A new study offers the strongest evidence yet of “ time @ @ @ @ @ .
• Radioactive elements may be crucial to the habitability of rocky planets .
Quote @ @ @ @ @ simply can not invent any conspiracy theory so ridiculous and obviously satirical that some people @ @ @ @ @ believe it .


News Briefs 17-11-2020

Intermittent reminder that if you get something of value out of the Grail , please consider a $ 1/month ‘ voluntary subscription ’ via our Patreon to help pay for our time and effort ( or you can give a one-off donation easily at PayPal.me/DailyGrail ) .
Thanks !
• The lonely universe : is life on Earth just a lucky fluke ?
• Asteroid ‘ Apophis ’ might be more likely to strike Earth in 2068 than thought .
• Samples of anything coming from Mars , are a billion for one , he said .
( Sung to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reveals the original pigments of 2000-year-old astronomical inscriptions at the ancient Egyptian Temple of Esna .
• The age-old question of whether we all see colour the same way may now have an answer .
• Where does our consciousness overlap with an octopus ’ s ?
• Related : The amazing brains and morphing skin of the cephalopods .
• What happens when psychedelics make you see God ?
• Orbits of ancient stars prompt rethink on Milky Way evolution .
• Life with purpose : Biologists balk at any talk of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – but a bold new research agenda has put agency back on the table .
Quote of the Day : Isolated material particles are abstractions , their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems .

Intermittent reminder that if you get something of value out of the Grail, please consider a $1/month ‘voluntary subscription’ via our Patreon to help pay for our time and effort (or you can give a one-off donation easily at PayPal.me/DailyGrail). Thanks!
Quote of the Day:
Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.
Niels Bohr (1934)


News Briefs 18-11-2020

Come for the Tool meets Tubular Bells musical goodness , stay for the Les Paul eye candy… • Why America is ripe for election conspiracy theorizing .
• New theory of why our dreams are so weird .
• Delerium or psychosis ?
The strange death of Edgar Allan Poe .
• Irish judge rules in favour of demons in assault case .
• Study shows mindfulness might not work as you expect .
• Could the Air Force X-37B become a laser and missile-firing space drone ?
• The military is calling in A.I .
for support .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already… • Files from the Black Vault : Hypnosis in Army aviation , a case study .
• New device puts music in your head – no headphones required .
• Did life on Earth begin with an asteroid impact ?
• As above , so below : scientists say the human brain has odd similarities to the entire universe .
Thanks to Samuel , David , Steve , Deb , Rob , Frank , Natasha , and Network Systems , for your support of the Grail !
Quote of the Day : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of consciousness must be willing to risk being transformed in the process .

Come for the Tool meets Tubular Bells musical goodness, stay for the Les Paul eye candy…
Thanks to Samuel, David, Steve, Deb, Rob, Frank, Natasha, and Network Systems, for your support of the Grail!
Quote of the Day:
The scientist who would explore the topic of consciousness must be willing to risk being transformed in the process.
Willis Harman


News Briefs 19-11-2020

If you believe the US election was rigged click here .
• A journalist spent 3 hours in Parler , to see if it was rapidly becoming a hot-bed of climate change denial .
• The Utility Monster : A philosophical thought experiment that might be about to come true .
• The way we train AI is fundamentally flawed .
• The greatest unknown intellectual of the 19th century .
• Two rival theories of consciousness are put to the test .
• Study maps the odd structural similarities between the human brain and the Universe .
• The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of life on Venus .
• UFC legend Diego Sanchez claims he saw a UFO and had the distinct feeling of ‘ being watched ’ .
• Age is decisive for positive or negative effects of the diabetes drug metformin .
• Where was the birthplace of modern humans ?
• Dinosaurs would have continued to thrive had it not been for that pesky asteroid –so maybe those ‘ Reptilian ’ aliens come from a parallel Earth ?
• Red Pill of the Day : Tiny owl rescued from the Rockefeller Center ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ omen or the start of a Dr. Seuss book .
Quote of the Day : Strange as it may seem , no amount of learning can cure stupidity , and formal education positively fortifies it .

If you believe the US election was rigged click here.
Thanks to Dolly Parton.
Quote of the Day:
Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.
Stephen Vizinczey


dailygrail--2020-11-21--Anomaly Archives: Streamathon 2020

Anomaly Archives: Streamathon 2020

Here is a non-zero sum game situation for the Grailer community : My friend SMiles Lewis and the good people of Anomaly Archives –a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and dissemination of scientific research into anomalous phenomena– are holding a fund-raising online festival called the Streamathon 2020 , which will feature a wide variety of speakers ( including yours truly ) giving presentations which will be totally free to watch , either on YouTube or Facebook , with the purpose of gathering donations so their wonderful organization can stay afloat during these troubling times .
The image above will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cook all sorts of rad merch and memorabilia intended to help them in their fund-raising efforts .
And for those of you curious to learn more about the kind of rare books and magazines they have in their catalog , here ’ s a video filmed by UFO Garage in which they visit the headquarters of Anomaly Archives in Austin , Texas ( curious trivia — at the beginning of the video you may get a glimpse of the very first book cover I ever designed ) : Streamathon 2020 begins tomorrow , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ webpage to learn more about the speakers ’ lineup and the possible ways in which you may be able to lend a hand to this wonderful organization –we weirdos need to stick together after all !

Here is a non-zero sum game situation for the Grailer community: My friend SMiles Lewis and the good people of Anomaly Archives –a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and dissemination of scientific research into anomalous phenomena– are holding a fund-raising online festival called the Streamathon 2020, which will feature a wide variety of speakers (including yours truly) giving presentations which will be totally free to watch, either on YouTube or Facebook, with the purpose of gathering donations so their wonderful organization can stay afloat during these troubling times.
(Image designed by yours truly. Can you spot all the Fortean eggs in it?)
The image above will be used by the AA folks to cook all sorts of rad merch and memorabilia intended to help them in their fund-raising efforts.
And for those of you curious to learn more about the kind of rare books and magazines they have in their catalog, here’s a video filmed by UFO Garage in which they visit the headquarters of Anomaly Archives in Austin, Texas (curious trivia — at the beginning of the video you may get a glimpse of the very first book cover I ever designed):
Streamathon 2020 begins tomorrow, so be sure to check out their webpage to learn more about the speakers’ lineup and the possible ways in which you may be able to lend a hand to this wonderful organization –we weirdos need to stick together after all!


News Briefs 20-11-2020

” One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven ’ t and @ @ @ @ @ This is your brain .
This is your brain on universe .
• Plant evolves @ @ @ @ @ humans .
• Anybody out there ?
Us .
• Lab inserts human genes into @ @ @ @ @ ethical issues– Have they never seen a movie ?
Quote of the Day : “ @ @ @ @ @ the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say , and then to say @ @ @ @ @ .
”

”One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven’t and don’t.”
Quote of the Day:
“My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.”
G. B. Shaw


News Briefs 23-11-2020

• Famed Arecibo telescope , on the brink of collapse , will be dismantled .
• Should we seed life on other planetary bodies ?
• The first alien civilisation we contact will have been around much longer than us .
• First fast radio burst to be discovered in the Milky Way is now found to be repeating after being traced back to highly magnetic dead star 32,616 light-years away .
• Do magnetic pole reversals cause mass extinctions ?
Scientists are still investigating .
• Related : New research suggests mysterious fast radio bursts could be a sign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wants to build a city on Mars , but Werner Herzog says the plan is unequivocally a “ mistake ” .
• Are we wired to be outside ?
A neuroscientist searches for the roots of feeling innately connected to nature .
• The last children of Down Syndrome : Prenatal testing is changing who gets born and who doesn ’ t .
This is just the beginning .
• How artificial neural networks paved the way for a dramatic new theory of dreams .
• Video of the Day : Why our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ travel .
Quote of the Day : We have been trained to believe “ there is enough for me , or enough for you , but not enough for both of us.
” That conditioning is so powerful that we automatically think in terms of me or you , not both , so we don ’ t notice that the whole species is now capable of success .

Family…
Quote of the Day:
We have been trained to believe “there is enough for me, or enough for you, but not enough for both of us.” That conditioning is so powerful that we automatically think in terms of me or you, not both, so we don’t notice that the whole species is now capable of success.
Buckminster Fuller


dailygrail--2020-11-24--Dreaming to Some Purpose: A Documentary on the Life and Times of Colin Wilson

Fans of the late Colin Wilson , acclaimed author and explorer of alternative theories of consciousness and history , will be thrilled to learn that there is currently a crowd-funding campaign to produce a documentary about the ‘ outsider ’ writer ’ s fascinating life journey .
Our good friend Gary Lachman , who wrote a biography on Wilson ( Beyond The Robot : The Life and Work of Colin Wilson ) , sends word about the effort : A much needed documentary about the life and work of Colin Wilson , one of the major explorers of consciousness in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help .
With two weeks left on our fund drive , we are only at a quarter of the finances needed for the project .
Various gifts and rewards are on offer for major donors , such as manuscripts and personal items of Wilson ’ s .
Philip Pullman is on board to participate , as are other readers and devotees of Wilson ’ s enormous body of work .
If you profited from reading The Outsider , The Occult , Mysteries , The Mind Parasites or any other of Wilson ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this much needed documentary possible .
Here ’ s a short video introduction to Colin Wilson , and the planned documentary : To learn more about the project , the rewards available for supporters , and how to contribute , head to the Indiegogo page .

Fans of the late Colin Wilson, acclaimed author and explorer of alternative theories of consciousness and history, will be thrilled to learn that there is currently a crowd-funding campaign to produce a documentary about the ‘outsider’ writer’s fascinating life journey. Our good friend Gary Lachman, who wrote a biography on Wilson (Beyond The Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson), sends word about the effort:
A much needed documentary about the life and work of Colin Wilson, one of the major explorers of consciousness in recent times, is in need of help. With two weeks left on our fund drive, we are only at a quarter of the finances needed for the project. Various gifts and rewards are on offer for major donors, such as manuscripts and personal items of Wilson’s. Philip Pullman is on board to participate, as are other readers and devotees of Wilson’s enormous body of work. If you profited from reading The Outsider, The Occult, Mysteries, The Mind Parasites or any other of Wilson’s thought provoking books, please help make this much needed documentary possible.
Here’s a short video introduction to Colin Wilson, and the planned documentary:
To learn more about the project, the rewards available for supporters, and how to contribute, head to the Indiegogo page.