Since the release of Dr. Steven Greer’s latest documentary film, Sirius, the primary focus remains on the series of tests featured in the movie, regarding a small humanoid nicknamed “Ata”. Greer presents it, rather hopefully, as evidence of extraterrestrial life that has visited Earth.

However, the general consensus among the media, of course, has been that the small creature is of human origin,based on results that appear in Greer’s film that seem to lead to this conclusion. My pal Lee Speigel, writing for the Huffington Post, even noted following the film’s release that, “now that the film is available to everybody, and DNA analysis shows that Ata was human, was that early PR hype about the humanoid a bit premature?” It remains a fair question.

I had expressed previously here at Mysterious Universe that the miniature humanoid, if proven to be anything but human, would still not actually prove the existence of extraterrestrials. If anything, it would prove the existence of anomalies here on Earth, which may challenge conventional views held in the fields of archeology, anthropology, and the scientific study of our evolution as a species… perhaps even the evolution of other humanoid beings believed to exist, as represented largely in the more “fringe” literature of today.

Either prospect–an extraterrestrial, or a tiny nonhuman earthling–would have been fascinating. But as we’ve mentioned, the evidence seems to suggest that the diminutive mummy is indeed of human origin. Still, what does this prove for us at this stage in the game, and are there elements that would still warrant a suspension of disbelief until further information is provided? Indeed, perhaps the verdict is still out on the Atacama humanoid, and here’s why.

Over at The Gralien Report, a very thoughtful comment about this was recently made by Tyler Kokjohn, Ph.D, in relation to both the merit of Greer’s treatment thus far, as well as why we may wish to withhold harsh criticism of the so-called “humanoid” until further information is provided:

The analyses of the entity are incomplete, tentative and not yet vetted by peer review, the gold standard for scientific data… When scientists issue ‘preliminary’ findings, be careful.  That means they are subject to revision.  If they comport with your opinion, be even more cautious because that is when you are most likely to make the error of being insufficiently critical.

Unless and until the complete data are available for scrutiny, this story remains a story, not scientifically established fact.  Dr. Greer has found competent collaborators who should be able to meet the customary requirements to produce a quality scientific publication detailing the full data and results.  Until that happens I believe neither Dr. Greer nor his scientist collaborators.  Maybe each and every assertion made to date will turn out to be the absolute truth.  And maybe none of it will hold up to external, independent scrutiny.  Time will tell all.

Indeed, scientific process (especially in the world of publication) requires not just the serious, technical and skeptical treatment of such subjects, but also in a manner that features the work of qualified experts which is then peer-reviewed by other qualified experts. As Kokjohn points out in the commentary above, we should note that Dr. Greer, to his credit (and despite making somewhat sensational claims about the “alien” find early on), nonetheless followed through with arranging study of the anomalous mummy by qualified individuals. Whether this goes on to be studied further, questioned, reevaluated, and then presented for peer review remains to be seen… but if it does, and despite the outcome, perhaps Greer’s work will help set new (and truly scientific) precedents with regard to the serious (or should I say “Sirius”) study of the unexplained.

Greer’s presentation can be more than a bit biased, at times, toward belief in the extraterrestrial component regarding UFOs. And of course, his meditative remote-viewing sessions for purposes of creating CE-5 “encounters” borders on being outright kooky. And yet, when presented with possible evidence of the imposible, he also managed to raise funding for proper scientific testing, and then released his findings, to date, in a documentary film. Arguably, this is more than most in the field have managed to achieve, and thus perhaps it warrants a suspension of our disbelief until further scientific information can be presented about the final determination on the Atacama Humanoid.

In 1975, Robert K. G. Temple authored the first authoritative manuscript on what has become known, sharing the title of his book, as “The Sirius Mystery,” in reference to the unexplained methodology Africa’s ancient Dogon tribe had employed to solve an interstellar mystery.

The story goes that the Dogon had somehow possessed knowledge of Sirius B, a white dwarf companion to the star known as Sirius A, long before modern astronomers had confirmed the existence of a smaller star which is, curiously, invisible without the aid of telescopes.

However, more recently the term “Sirius” in relation to ancient astronaut and UFO mysteries has been a hot word in relation to an upcoming documentary produced by Dr. Stephen Greer of the Disclosure Project. According to Greer, the film will not only deal with the important global economic issues of today as they relate to the UFO enigma (and of course, from an exopolitical standpoint), but the film is also alleged to reveal new information about a small, mummified humanoid which Greer says, rather hopefully, may indeed prove the existence of extraterrestrial life.

Late last year, Greer noted publicly that he and his colleagues “traveled to the country that is now home to this small possible ET body and were able to successfully obtain extensive X-Ray and CT Scans of the entire body. We were also able to obtain DNA samples under sterile, surgical conditions. These DNA samples are now being studied by one of the world’s top geneticists.” According to Greer, X-Ray and CT scans of the small anomalous mummy appear to reveal that its organs, such as lungs and possibly a heart, can be seen in addition to a fully intact skeleton.

So will this discovery prove, once and for all, that extraterrestrials have visited planet Earth? Maybe that’s just a bit of a stretch… and here’s why: even in the event that the creature in question were found to be a specimen of some creature other than a human being, or possibly an early human ancestor, this still does not prove that the body belonged to anything extraterrestrial. If anything, it more strongly suggests by its “alien” appearance that there could potentially be (or at very least, perhaps there once were) non-human entities in existence here on Earth, and beings which also were much smaller than modern day humans.

This in itself is exciting, since it may suggest that there is far more to planet Earth than we can presently account for in terms of the varieties of life that have existed here over the last several hundreds of thousands of years. In a recent article on the subject, I also noted that Greer’s “alien”, rather than being a one-of-a-kind discovery, actually may represent one example in a much longer lineage of “alien dwarf” discoveries; similar discoveries in modern times have occurred dating back to the 1930s, though in almost every case, the origin of the alleged “alien” body has been somewhat questionable.

Perhaps Greer will prove us wrong… but much like the quandary that arises with regard to appending an “extraterrestrial” origin to all instances of UFO phenomenon, we should be careful with how we define any similar anomalies… just because something looks “alien”, does not mean that it actually came from outer space!

Click here to view the embedded video.

My interest in the myths, symbols, and the unusual aspects of life often leads me into some fairly strange sub-adventures that underly my day-to-day life. There are even certain points where I begin to feel that there is something of a continuum between them, and that particular themes will begin to emerge over and over again, until they finally command my attention. And interestingly, these sorts of instances often will yield the most fruit in terms of insights I am able to come away with regarding odd bits of esoterica. 

One such instance involves a rather strange series of events surrounding the historic figure known as John Dee, a scientist, advisor, and spy for Queen Elizabeth I, in addition to having undertaken a variety of magical workings in his day. Knowing my interest in (and aptitude for) matters involving symbology, a woman had contacted me a while ago to ask whether I might know the meaning behind a certain strange little symbol: it resembled a stick man, with what resembled horns protruding from the head. Indeed, I did recognize the symbol, and within a few minutes, after initially mistaking it for being associated with the magician Aleister Crowley, I managed to confirm that it was the Monas Hieroglyphica of John Dee. In doing so, I also managed to spark a strange debate about the origins of symbols and information that the human mind seems capable of accessing at times… a process which some feels has ties to the otherworldly.

Once it was revealed that I had given the correct answer (which was posted on a Facebook group where others were attempting to solve the same riddle), I was subsequently contacted by a woman who wished to know how I had deciphered the symbol. She then told me she was a psychic, specializing in remote viewing, and wondered if I too, as she had done, managed to decipher the riddle “by consulting with the Akashic Record.” For the moment, I had somehow managed to give the impression that I was in touch with some kind of extra-bodily universal intelligence… but where, in fact, did my knowledge of the Hieroglyphica come from?

I found this question rather strange, and while I had to admit that I had not knowingly been in direct contact with a nonphysical “library”, of sorts, which stored universal knowledge, I had been intrigued by symbols like Dee’s Monas (pictured right) for quite some time, and had merely stumbled across the image at some point. But the question of whether I had been able to consult with “Akashic Records” was somewhat synchronistic all the same, since I had only recently been contacted by a friend, who after reading my book The UFO Singularity, asked me whether I thought artificial intelligence in the future might be able to solve the UFO riddle by accessing the Akashic Records.

For those unfamiliar with the topic, the so-called “Akashic Records” refers to a concept found in the mythos surrounding many spiritualist and religious teachings, believed to contain “all knowledge of human experience and all experiences,” along with the complete history of the cosmos. This information is “written”, woven, or encoded into the very fabric reality, a state sometimes referred to as the ”aether.” The name itself is derived from the old Sanskrit “akasha,” a word used to express similar aether-like concepts of an all encompassing “substance” that permeates all creation.

Edgar Cayce, the great “sleeping prophet,” was actually said to have attained his knowledge of ancient lost civilizations by directly accessing the Akashic Records while in a trance state, though this was not asserted by Cayce himself, but revealed later in the first book in an odd series, called The Law of One, where it is stated that Cayce obtained the information (here again, this “answer” is channeled in similar fashion), revealing that humans occasionally access such realms of knowledge that exist beyond the mind alone. The relevant passage reads as follows:

“We have explained before that the intelligent infinity is brought into intelligent energy from eighth density or octave. The one sound vibratory complex called Edgar used this gateway to view the present, which is not the continuum you experience but the potential social memory complex of this planetary sphere. The term your peoples have used for this is the ‘Akashic Record’ or the ‘Hall of Records’.”

But the notion that humans may be capable of accessing information they would otherwise not be capable of attaining is mirrored in the study of psychology as well, particularly in the works of Carl Jung. In his essay, Confrontation with the Unconscious, he notes the appearance of an archetype he calls “Philemon,” which was an older male figure he refers to as a guide throughout his various imaginary visions. At one point, Jung begins to recognize the information imparted to him by Philemon as seeming to emanate from someplace other than his own mind:

Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with him. and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, “If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.” It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. Through him the distinction was clarified between myself and the object of my thought. He confronted me in an objective manner, and I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me.

It is a very strange notion indeed, that some aspects of human existence may be rooted within a complex collective unconsciousness, as Jung supposed; even more strange and perplexing is the idea that the human mind might even draw information from elsewhere… places or planes of thought and imagination that exist beyond the mind itself. I certainly don’t feel that I’ve done this myself, especially in my modest ability to reflect upon seeing, at one point, John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica; let alone do I acknowledge that there are components within the mind that, in scientific terms, might be capable of extending beyond the physical. But the prevalence of this concept in various cultures and traditions, along with allusions to similar processes expressed by Jung, do provide some compelling and challenging notions about the inner workings of the human mind.

Who were the nephilim? The word nephilim appears twice in the Old Testament of the Bible. They are first mentioned in chapter 6 of the book of Genesis and then again in Number 13:33. But their brief mention in the Bible has led to an ongoing debate as to who or what the nephilim were. Much of this debate stems from the passage in the Bible that states:

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterward – when the sons of God went in to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. Genisis 6: 1-4

The traditional definition of Nephilim is giant. Some dictionaries describe the nephilim as being giants who also possess super human strength. The Greek Septuagint, an ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible, refers to them as gigantes, which actually means “earth -born”, a concept we will be coming back to as we continue. It is believed that the word Nephilim comes from the root word “Naphal” which means to fall. In biblical circles this definition has quickly put the Nephilim into the role of the children of the fallen angels. The word Naphal, however, is never directly associated with the concept of fallen angels. Its meaning in context is more closely associated with the idea of lying prostrate or of prostrating oneself. There are also ties in this word to the concept of failure, falling short or being cast down.

Over the years a mythos has developed around the concept of the nephilim. It alleges that these giants were the offspring of the “Sons of God” and the “Daughters of Man”. Are the nephilim the children of the untoward relationship?

The connection between the biblical text and this claim, although commonly pointed to as the basis of this belief, is unfounded. The document in which we find statements that support this claim actually comes from the apocryphal Book of Jubiliees.

 And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. The Book of Jubilees – Chapter V: 1

Is the claim that the nephilim were the offspring of the sons of god and the daughters of men supported by sources outside the Judeo-Christian tradition? In other words, does mythology worldwide support this belief?

The notion of giants roaming the earth can be found in cultures worldwide. Greek mythology tells us that the Titan Cronos castrated his father Uranus in order to gain control of the Greek pantheon.  It is from the blood of the castrated Uranus that fell upon the earth that the giants, the “earth-born”, were created. The Earth-born were, when compared to us, were giants. The giants, under the rule of Cronos lived during the golden age, in a time that was free from sorrow or care and everyone lived happy and joyous lives.

It was only after Cronos’ son Zeus fought for control of both the heavens and the earth that everything changed. Zeus in his new role, according to Greek myth, put the giants to work. It was just a matter of time before the giants starting ignoring the god’s mandates. They were no longer prostrating themselves to the will of the gods. Their lack of complete servitude and their failure to comply with the gods demands incited the “children of god” into a full blown rebellion against the heavenly gods. Heavy losses were taken on both sides, but their revolution was finally suppressed by the gods. A truce was declared. As part of their reparations to the giants it was decided to create a new race to handle the burdens that were cast upon the giants – man.

Padraic Column in his book entitled Orpheus, Myths of the World, relates this tale about the creation of man. Aztec legend recounts how the Earth-mother, Citlalicue, gave birth to a flint knife. When the knife was flung down onto the Earth, it was transformed into sixteen hundred “earth-gods”. (Is there connection between the flint knife, flung down by Citlalicue, and the sickle used by Cronus to castrate his father?) These newly formed earth-gods lived as men and women and labored in search of food. After some time, the Earth-gods began to think that this work was below their station. They were, after all, the children of the Sky-father and Earth-mother. They asked their mother Citlalicue to make a race who would serve them and bear the burdens they faced. With the help of Citlalicue, mankind was created.

Based upon these mythological traditions it seems clear that the earth-born giants, the nephilim, existed long before man first inhabited the earth. Thus when you read the line “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterward” it seems clear, from this perspective that the authors were not being vague. Instead they were just making a statement of fact – that the Nephilim, the earth-born were on the earth at that time.

So who were the offspring of the sons of god and the daughters of man?  The Hebrew Bible refers to them as gibborim. The inferred meaning of this word is men of great stature, heroes, men who are valiant or brave. The Greek Septuagint identifies them as the renominati or men or renown. In Greek mythology the gods have a long history of having relations with humans. The names of some of these “demi-gods”, or semi-human individuals, whose names have withstood the tests of time include were Hercules, Perseus, Achilles. In India they are called Hanuman and Garuda and in Sumer Gilgamesh and Adapa.

 Interestingly, a parallel myth to this biblical narrative does exist. It comes to us from the pages of the Hindu epic the Ramayana. The Ramayans is the epic tale of Rama, the 7th avatar of the supreme god Vishnu. Rama lived during the Treta Yuga. It was an age where the world was filled with giants. Around the same time as Rama’s birth, the supreme god Vishnu, knowing what was in store for him requested that all of the gods descend to the earth and mate with the apes and the bears. This request was made in order to, when the time was right, to provide Rama with an army he could use to help hi conquer Ravana the giant demon king of Lanka.

The offspring of these unions obtained a array of impressive skills from their divine parents. The mighty Sugríva was the ruler of the vanara, the ape-men). His father was Surya, their chief solar deity. The demi-god Hanúmán was the son of the wind god and is described as being able to travel very fast, while Nala was the son of the god of building and construction and is the vanara that helps Rama to build a bridge from mainland India to Lanka.

These thousands did the Gods create
Endowed with might that none could mate,
In monkey forms that changed at will;
So strong their wish the fiend to kill.

Are the nephelim the offspring of the sons of god and the daughters of man? No. They were the race of earth-born giants who lived before the creation of man. They are the group who revolted against the gods in antiquity. They are also the ones responsible for the creation of mankind. Additionally, based upon the references that come to us from the Ramayana it does seem clear the when the gods mated with “ape-men” that their offspring were men of renown, heroes or individuals who are valiant or brave.

About The Author:

Bestselling author and Medical Intuitive, Dr. Rita Louise is the host of Just Energy Radio and the Founder of the Institute Of Applied Energetics. She is the author of the books Man-Made: The Chronicles Of Our Extraterrestrial Gods, Avoiding The Cosmic 2X4, Dark Angels: An Insider’s Guide To Ghosts, Spirits & Attached Entities and The Power Within as well as hundreds of articles that have been published worldwide. She has appeared on radio and television and has spoken at conferences covering topics such as health and healing, ghosts, intuition, ancient mysteries and the paranormal. For more information about Dr. Rita please visit http://www.soulhealer.com or listen to her live at http://www.justenergyradio.com.

This article originally appeared at www.soulhealer.com and has been reprinted here with permission.
© Copyright Body, Mind & SoulHealer – www.soulhealer.com 2013. All rights reserved.

We all have our favorite books that we can (and do!) read over and over again. I can certainly name several: Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur; Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles; and Keith Waterhouse’s Billy Liar. And then there’s The Lurker at the Threshold, a big favorite of mine, which was widely credited to acclaimed horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. First published in the 1940s by Carroll & Graf, the book was, in reality, almost solely the work of Derleth, with barely a couple of thousand (if even that) of its approximately 50,000 words having been contributed by Lovecraft.

The Lurker at the Threshold is a most intriguing book, to say the least. Although presented to the reader strictly as an entertaining work of fiction, it deals with certain issues that are central to many topics that crop up in the real world of Forteana, and with which I have crossed paths, time and again, during the course of my studies and writings of the paranormal kind.

Namely, dark invocations in mysterious areas of woodland and forest; the summoning up of supernatural beasts and oppressive entities from other realms of existence; encounters with the unknown in the vicinity of ancient stone circles and sites of archaeological significance; and the relevance of at least some of these entities to Native American Indian legends and prehistoric cultures.

Not only that: Derleth’s descriptions of a number of the creatures that the characters in the book describe – such as a vile bat-winged, monkey-faced entity to name but one – sound startlingly like several of the unknown animals cited within the pages of numerous non-fiction books devoted to cryptozoological puzzles. In addition, The Lurker at the Threshold also cites the work and books of Charles Fort – the acclaimed chronicler of all-things weird in the real world, and after who the magazine Fortean Times is, of course, named.

In other words, Derleth was just as acquainted with real-life tales of the paranormal, as he was with those of a purely fanciful nature. In view of this, I often wonder: was Derleth’s work really just a piece of fiction? Or was he the possessor of secret, arcane knowledge of a genuine nature that he decided to present to his readers in the form of a thinly-veiled novel? Let us take a closer look at the life and work of Derleth.

Born to William Julius Derleth and his wife Rose Louise Volk in 1909, August Derleth grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin, and, sold his first fantasy story – while still a teenager – to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth wrote regularly and enthusiastically while at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was awarded a B.A. in 1930. And it was during this period that he worked, for a while, with Mystic Magazine.

With Lovecraft’s passing in 1937, Derleth and fellow fantasy writer Donald Wandrei put together a collection of the acclaimed author’s stories and attempted to find a suitable publishing house for them. Having summarily failed to do so, however, the pair founded Arkham House in 1939 and published Lovecraft’s work for themselves. In 1941, Derleth took on the position of literary editor of the Capital Times newspaper in Wisconsin’s state capital of Madison. He remained with the Times for almost twenty years. Derleth died suddenly on Independence Day, 1971 and was buried in Sauk City’s St. Aloysius Cemetery.

Interestingly, the city of Madison, as well as its surrounding area, has been a veritable hotbed of diabolical weirdness for years. For example, in her book Hunting the American Werewolf, author Linda Godfrey revealed the details of a number of highly intriguing, strange beasts seen in the vicinity of Madison, including large ape-like dogs, giant hounds, and even creatures that reportedly had the ability to “morph” or shape-shift.

Not only that: Godfrey’s research into werewolf-like entities seen in Wisconsin revealed another interesting factor: many such reports emanated from areas dominated by effigy mounds constructed between 800 and 2,800 years ago by the ancestors of today’s Ho-Chunk Native American Indian tribe. Not unlike the stories linking similar beasts seen at ancient sites in Britain (such as at Castle Ring on the Cannock Chase), and eerily similar to the scenarios presented by August Derleth within the pages of The Lurker at the Threshold.

Did Derleth perhaps uncover some horrific secret about frightful beasts, other realms of existence and ancient rite and ritual in darkest Madison, Wisconsin all those years ago? Almost four decades have now passed since Derleth’s death and so we may never know the full story.

I do not rule out the possibility, however, that perhaps the answers that I, Linda Godfrey and so many other investigators of mysterious creatures seek, may well have been known to a long-dead novelist who took some of his unsettling secrets to the grave, but who also elected to present at least a part of his arcane knowledge in fictional form within the pages of The Lurker at the Threshold.

There’s an old adage with which pretty much everyone is familiar: truth is stranger than fiction. In the case of August Derleth, they just might have been one and the same.

Traveling west out of Asheville, North Carolina and crossing the border into Jackson County, one can trace the Caney Fork River along toward the little Tuckasegee community, following NC Highway 107 heading out of the nearby campus town of Cullowhee. There, off a gravel road running between two pastures, is one of the most underrated–and often overlooked–wonders anywhere in the Eastern United States.

Known today as “Judaculla Rock”, the strange stone mound protrudes from the earth just as it did centuries ago, much earlier even than the Cherokee Indians had begun to inhabit the region. According to most estimates by geologists, the stone’s markings date back as much as 3000 years, though on Raliegh-based group a number of years ago supposed that some of the petroglyphs covering the boulder could be twice as old as previous estimates, if not more.

Of all the curious symbols that appear along the stone’s surface, one particular image stands out among the rest, resembling vaguely a hand-like imprint. According to legend, this portion of the stone marks the place where an ancient Cherokee god of the hunt, known as “Tsul’Kalu’,” had leaped from a nearby mountain, and landing within the valley below, had steadied himself against what is now Judaculla Rock. This is, in fact, merely one of several legends regarding Tsul’Kalu’ that still exist, many of which have some fairly remarkable tie-ins with mysterious discoveries of “giants” alleged to have existed in the ancient Americas.

What got me thinking about this initially was a recent interview with researcher Mike Mott, where he discussed repeated allegations that the Smithsonian Institute has engaged in cover-ups regarding anomalous discoveries in the Americas. In at least a few instances, these involved the bones of what appeared to be “giant” bodies recovered from a number of burial mounds throughout the Eastern United States. While many such discoveries have been reported, and were even discussed in the reports of the Smithsonian’s Ethnology Bureau throughout the late 1890s, it seems very strange that such information nonetheless seems to have simply “vanished” from record after that period. Conventional modern explanations claim that soil displacement and erosion had caused the bones of normal-sized bodies to move over time; however, it seems odd that trained scientists with the Smithsonian Institute would have been responsible for such faulty judgement in the official reports they had given, even if it had been more than 100 years ago.

So what does any of this have to do with “Tsul’Kalu’,” a mythic Cherokee god of the hunt, and the seldom discussed stone in Western North Carolina alleged to bear his handprint? In the anthropologist James Mooney’s book Myths of the Cherokee, on page 391 of modern editions he detailed a strange story of “The Giants from the West”:

James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had beard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil’kälû’, “The Slant-eyed people,” because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul’kälû’… They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west. The story may be a distorted historical tradition.

Tsul’kalu’, of course, was said to be the mythic giant with slanted eyes associated with the initial legend of Judaculla Rock (Judaculla also being a Westernized variation of the earlier “Tsul’kalu’” name). But I found it quite interesting that there was this additional legend associated with “slant eyed giants” that also had to do with this region. Additionally, some modern folklorists have drawn a parallel between Tsul’kalu’ and the Eastern varieties of alleged “Bigfoot” encounters, noting that the Cherokee god of the hunt was believed to live near the summit of steep mountains, and often in caves, which bears similarity to Sasquatch reports and legends more prominent in the Pacific Northwest.

Above: researcher Casey Fox and I scale the mountainside above Judaculla Rock in search of caves rumored to exist there. Photo by Brian Irish.

While it is easy enough to accept these stories as being mere myths or legends the Cherokee people had once told, it still seems strange that, in conjunction with such odd stories, there remain these troubling reports of “missing” skeletons that the Smithsonian Institute was said to have recovered time and time again… skeletons of very large stature. Could there be any more to the stories pertaining to the possible existence of giants in the Ancient Americas, some of which were well known to the Cherokee hundreds of years ago? Even more troubling, if these beings did actually exist, what would be the Smithsonian’s reason for keeping this information from the public, if they had in fact recovered such large, anomalous specimens?

Although the Second World War came to a decisive and bloody conclusion way back in 1945, it was a six-year-long and carnage-filled event that still provokes major discussion and commentary to this very day. One of the many notable reasons for that same commentary relates to the secret, wartime actions of the Nazis in relation to: (a) priceless historical treasures plundered by Adolf Hitler’s hordes as a means to fund its war-effort, and (b) Nazi-Germany’s over-riding fascination with religious and priceless artifacts.

Just like the maniacal Hitler himself, a significant body of high-ranking Nazis, such as Richard Walther Darré, Rudolf Hess, Otto Rahn, and Heinrich Himmler had major, unsettling obsessions with matters of a supernatural and mystical nature. Rahn, for example, who made his mark in a wing of Nazi-Germany’s greatly feared SS, spent a significant period of time deeply engaged in a quest to find the so-called Holy Grail, which, according to Christian teachings, was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the legendary Last Supper.

That the Grail was said to possess awesome and devastating powers spurred the Nazis on even more in their attempts to locate it, and then utilize those same powers as weapons of war against the Allies. Thankfully, the plans of the Nazis did not come to fruition, and the Allies were not pummeled into the ground by the mighty fists of God.

Acknowledged by many historians with being the ultimate driving-force behind such research, Heinrich Himmler was, perhaps, the one high-ranking official in the Third Reich, more than any other, most obsessed with the occult. In 1935, Himmler became a key player in the establishment of the Ahnenerbe, which was basically the ancestral heritage division of the SS.

With its work largely coordinated according to the visions of one Dr. Hermann Wirth, the chief motivation of the Ahnenerbe was to conduct research into the realm of religious-themed archaeology; however, its work also spilled over into areas such as the occult – the latter, primarily from the perspective of determining if it was a tool that, like the Holy Grail, could be useful to further strengthen the Nazi war-machine.

Then there is Trevor Ravenscroft’s book The Spear of Destiny, which detailed a particularly odd fascination Adolf Hitler had with the fabled spear, or lance, that supposedly pierced the body of Jesus during the crucifixion. Ravenscroft’s book maintained that Hitler deliberately started the Second World War with the intention of trying to secure the spear – again as a weapon to be used against the Allies – and with which he was said to be overwhelmingly obsessed.

So the account went, however, Hitler utterly failed. Ravenscroft suggested as the conflict of 1939-1945 came to its end, the spear came into the hands of U.S. General George Patton. According to legend, losing the spear would result in nothing less than death – a prophecy that that was said to have been definitively fulfilled when Hitler, fortunately for the Allies, committed suicide.

But, perhaps not every ancient artifact remained quite so elusive to Hitler. One rumor suggests that an attempt on the part of the Nazis to locate the remains – or, at least, some of the remains – of nothing less than the legendary Ark of Noah was actually, and incredibly, successful. It’s a strange and secret story indeed.

The Bible states: “God said unto Noah…Make thee an ark of gopher wood…And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” A cubit roughly equates to twenty inches – thus making the Ark five-hundred feet in length, eighty-three feet in width and fifty-feet in height.

In addition, it is said the Ark was powerful enough to withstand the cataclysmic flood that allegedly overtook the globe and lasted for forty terrible days and nights. So the legend has it, when the flood waters finally receded, the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat.

Precisely why Hitler was apparently hot on the trail of the Ark is tantalizingly unclear; however, that he was certainly after it is not a matter of doubt. Intelligence files generated by Britain’s highly secret MI6 in 1948 state that, in the closing stages of the War, rumors were coming out of Turkey to the effect that German military personnel were then engaged in a secret program that involved flying a sophisticated spy-balloon – based upon radical, Japanese designs – over Mount Ararat, as part of an attempt to photograph the area.

And, if the operation proved successful in locating the Ark, to recover it, or whatever remains still might be left, given the lengthy passage of time and the harsh conditions that exist on the permanently snow-capped mountain.

The secrets of the ancient past may be only a locked vault away…

And what would result would be a hoax that would continue to baffle paleoanthropologists for close to four decades, before the items put forth as a relic hominid ancestor of humankind, the so-called “Piltdown Man,” were finally dismissed as a hoax. But in truth, the mystery isn’t all that much different from a number of silly hijinks that still occur in the various fields of hominology today. Not surprisingly, this would also include the modern field of cryptozoology.

We are all familiar with the infamous Bigfoot hoax of 2008 that took place in Georgia, in which two men claimed to have possessed the remains of a large Sasquatch corpse, preserved in a large block of ice. While even many in the various areas of cryptozoology had remained hopeful, the story was later, quite sadly, proven to be a poorly executed hoax that, somehow, managed to receive national attention. And now, sources are describing that Rick Dyer, one of the very individuals involved in the initial hoax, is claiming that he has, in fact, shot and killed yet another Bigfoot, which is similarly being kept on ice (eyes roll).

I can’t help but wonder what kinds of motivations could lead a person toward perpetrating (and knowingly doing so!) such mishaps. Is it merely in order to gain five minutes of fame? Is it for the sole purpose of planning carefully, obfuscating and trail-covering, and profiting from the sensationalism surrounding interest in the subject, while keeping the real facts of the deception away from public view?

I was thinking about this recently with regard to the famous case of the Piltdown Man which, unlike the modern Bigfoot hoaxes, involved treachery of a similar sort, though the suspect participants in this case were, in many cases, academics. One of them, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, was actually a clergyman; but in Teilhard, I feel there is a particularly interesting case that emerges.

In an article I’ve written for the upcoming article of FATE Magazine, I focused a bit on Teilhard’s supposed involvement in the plot, and looked at what kind of role his personal quandaries may have played in his choice to become involved:

“In Teilhard we find a Jesuit priest whose written works the Roman Holy Office denounced altogether, on account of the progressive viewpoints they espoused. For instance, Teilhard had challenged the concept of “original sin” as delivered by Saint Augustine, and had also felt that mankind’s spiritual development was, essentially, a mirror of his physical growth and development. In other words, evolution had not been a subject that must exist apart from a religious viewpoint toward mankind’s origins. Furthermore, Teilhard held that the eventual future of man would trend toward possibilities that nearly escaped the imagination, an early nod toward what have emerged in modern times as “transhumanist” concepts; such would be the obvious byproducts of human cognitive development, as well as both natural and, perhaps, a somewhat “enhanced” evolution as augmented by the future innovations of the human species.

And thus, when brought into question before the Catholic Church, Teilhard’s progressive ideas remained in the minority, to put it nicely. Again, the fact that Teilhard had been the discoverer of an ape-like canine tooth at Piltdown—a key to the puzzle that assisted sharply in supporting Woodward’s reconstruction of a creature whose brain had begun to change prior to it’s diet—would also have been in keeping with Teilhard’s vision of man’s progression throughout time and, eventually, the cosmos. This is not to say that Teilhard, if he had been guilty at all, had acted alone. But it is curious indeed that he, of all people, would assist in the discovery of one element to the hoax that would have such a singular capacity to influence how the anthropological community might view the “discovery.” And despite the presence of the modified canines (recall again the microscopic analysis that revealed filing marks on some of the Piltdown teeth), the supposition that canines had existed in the Piltdown skull at all had prompted Professor Arthur Keith to first question the legitimacy of Woodward’s reconstruction, arguing that such canines would have made it virtually impossible for Homo piltdownensis to perform side to side movement of the jaw, which would have been necessary for the visible wear to have occurred as-seen on the existing molars in the lower jaw fragment.

Of course, within days of his alleged discovery of a primate canine while following Dawson and woodward out to the Piltdown site, Teilhard rather curiously disappeared, relocating to France and choosing to have no further involvement in the matter. Had his conscience gotten the best of him in the end, and he opted to merely disassociate completely from the unfolding fiasco? Or had his involvement indeed been intentional, and aimed at helping promote an agenda, of sorts, which would have helped facilitate a greater acceptance of his own views by the Roman Church?

At least in the case of Teilhard, we see that there was, perhaps, a legitimate motive behind his potential involvement, rather than the usual silliness that seems to pervade the modern variety of hominid hoaxes.

The year was 1898, and in a tomb located near Saqquara, Egypt, a 2000-year old relic was discovered that, to this day, shakes our concept of what the ancient world may have really been. While some would argue that the object in question here had been a very crude representation of a bird, by our modern standards it can only be likened to resembling one thing: an airplane.

As a researcher who gravitates more toward the skeptical center myself, I have often in the past found myself leaning more toward the notion that certain artifacts from the ancient world are abstract pieces of art, perhaps designed to vaguely resemble fish, birds, or other things in nature, which causes them to more closely resemble the more geometrically appeasing imagery associated with modern avionics and heavier-than-air flying craft. But with relics such as the Saqquara Airplane, chalking such curious ancient models up to being “birds” becomes a bit more difficult when looking at the mechanics of such an object (which we’ll examine more closely in a moment).

Altogether, it does seem that there is merit to the notion that ancient people may have harnessed far greater technology than most realize (or will accept) today. But does this line of thought also cater effectively to notions of intervention in ancient times, that occurred between early humans and beings from other worlds?

When we look at an object like the plane model discovered at Saqquara, it does become rather difficult to state that some knowledge of aviation hadn’t been implemented in the design for whatever this object was meant to represent. Obviously, the little model, constructed of wood, is not designed for achieving flight itself, let alone doing so in a way that would be efficient or practical for human travel. However, key features the object includes are that of a modern pusher-glider, capable of flying at slower speeds, when necessary. The shape of the wings on this model follow a curvature that points slightly downward at either tip, which is referred to in modern avionics as being reverse-dihedral. Again, we find that a number of modern aircraft implement this design, which supports maximum lift without further compromising the speed the craft is actually capable of traveling.

Such design attributes have prompted scale recreations of this craft, which in flight tests managed to prove that a proportionally larger model of this same design can indeed glide along very efficiently. Was this design merely stumbled onto by ancient thinkers? Could ancient Egyptian engineers have been planning modes of transportation that would carry them through the air, rather than on land? It is a remarkable prospect… and for many, such notions seem almost impossible to entertain, if not for the potential that such ancient minds were influenced by the technologies of others, who were perhaps not only further along in their technological advancement, but also from someplace other that here on Earth.

It would be true to say that modern science had debated the veracity of such claims for decades now; however, it is also accurate to state that, while mainstream academia does not support the notion of “Ancient Astronauts” visiting Earth, many of the fundamental questions regarding mysteries put forth and popularized by the “Ancient Aliens” camp remain unanswered just as well. Those who endorse ideas such as paleo-contact with extraterrestrials argue, with obvious merit, that there are many questions that remain about our ancient past, and that these mysteries no doubt could be better understood if innovative new ways of thinking were applied to their study. Those positioned among the academic skeptic side of things, on the other hand, will often discredit not only the claims of the Ancient Astronaut theorists, but also the questions themselves, arguing that for serious scientific inquiry to take place, we must first have serious subjects underlying them, and valid questions about these phenomenon. Hence, a majority of the mysteries pertaining to the ancient world remain hidden away, and even widely unknown to the majority of the academic world, left to be pondered by those heretical “miscreants” the likes of Giorgio Tsoukalos, Erich von Daniken, and others of the Ancient Aliens ilk.

Following an event called the Paradigm Symposium, which I hosted with my associate Scotty Roberts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I am personally as skeptical as ever regarding the Ancient Astronaut theory. This does not mean that I doubt extraterrestrials could have visited in ancient times, or that I choose, like the majority of mainstream academia, to simply overlook the obvious presence of advanced technologies that existed in ancient times. Furthermore, coming to personally know Tsoukalos, von Daniken, and others, I find them hardly to be men lacking character or passion for what they study, as well as an obviously keen intellect that is applied to the mysteries they pursue. And for the most part, they are also far less touchy about the attacks leveled against them from “the other side” than the academic skeptics out there, who cling to their refusal to acknowledge the mysteries of our world with proud passion and exuberance.

But rather than taking the obvious presence of technology in our midst and saying that, since it could not have existed in ancient times… but it does… then we must be dealing with aliens (hey, that was almost a meme), I prefer instead to observe the information presently at our disposal, and then attempt to reconcile with it only through a focused decision not to come to premature conclusions. In the archaic sense of the word, the term skeptic hails back to a group of early Greek philosophers whose choice in abstinence from conclusion-drawing, they felt, would only grant them a more objective perspective of the phenomenon. There is indeed logic to this, in that once we commit to a particular line of thought (i.e. the “aliens” taught us how to do it), we will begin to move amidst relics from other portions of the ancient world, and then consider how this, too, might have been inspired by extraterrestrial intervention. Arguably, television programming geared toward such ideas often do a lot to assist in this sort of point-click thinking.

And thus, rather than watching the TV specials, or even reading all the popular books on the subject, it is fascinating to sit and talk with a person who advocates such ideas, and rather than choosing either to side with them, or to level attacks at them instead, simply listen to what they have to say, thus removed from the “sixteen-second sound byte” culture that modern television has popularized. There is incredible depth to the arguments many put forth regarding our ancient world, and the only truth we can adhere to, with certainty, is that we do not know what their mystery may entail. Those mysteries persist nonetheless, however, and therefore it is impossible for us to dismiss them, simply on the grounds that they may appear to defy our concept of what history “should be.” To do so is to engage in a willful dismissal of aspects of our ancient past that, without question, remain very real… and point to aspects of our progression as a civilization that have yet managed to elude us for centuries, or even thousands of years.

Even the most cursory study of worldwide folklore reveals that numerous, if not all, cultures, have stories attached to them of magical balls of floating light, seemingly under intelligent control, or perhaps even supernatural, sentient forms of life in their very own right. They travel the skies by night, while amazing, perplexing and sometimes even terrifying those that encounter them, very often in the vicinity of marshes, bogs and other watery bodies.

The specific, repeated locations of many such sightings has given rise to the not unreasonable notion that at least some of the lights may be nothing stranger than the results of methane bubbling up out of the marshes and mixing with Phospine, a flammable gas, and an inorganic compound called Diphosphane, which, when combined with the air, can briefly and spontaneously catch fire in spectacular fashion.

Others suggest the culprit may be a rare phenomenon known as ball lightning. A technical report published in 1949 by the Air Force’s UFO investigative unit, Project Grudge, detailed its findings with respect to ball lightning which, the military believed, was connected to regular lightning and electrical discharge. The phenomenon, it was noted, was “spherical, roughly globular, egg-shaped, or pear-shaped; many times with projecting streamers; or flame-like irregular ‘masses of light.’ Luminous in appearance, described in individual cases by different colors but mostly reported as deep red and often as glaring white.”

Thus, the ghostly lights, and their attendant legends, are well and truly born. These two, particular down to earth theories have not, in any shape or fashion, dispelled the belief that the majority of such lights have far weirder origins, however.

England, for example, has its very own squadron of ghostly lights. Depending on the particular region of the country that you care to examine, they go by the ancient names of the Pixy Light, Will o’ the Wisp, and Rolling Fire. The people of Wales have their own equivalent: it is known as Fairy Fire. The Chir Batti is an identical entity that haunts the land in and around the India-Pakistan border. Bengal is the domain of the glowing and flying Aleya. Brazil can claim the Boi-tata.

Throughout much of eastern Australia, tales are told of the Min Min Light. The Naga Fireballs are a regular phenomenon along the length of Thailand’s Mekong River. And in the United States, one can find entertaining stories of the Marfa Lights of Texas, and the Brown Mountain Light of North Carolina, amongst numerous others.

Many of these legends, despite originating amongst wildly varying cultures and countries and across numerous centuries, have one notable thing in common: the mysterious lights are near-unanimously believed to be the tormented souls of people who, having committed heinous crimes in life, or the victims of deep tragedy and / or suicide, are destined never to rest in peace and harmony.

And that goes, too, for Vietnam’s Han River, which has its very own ghost light. It is said to be the ethereal form of a rich nobleman who held sway over much of the area from the latter years of the 18th Century to the early years of the 19th Century. Furious at his teenage daughter’s relationship with a poor, young blacksmith in a small and equally poor village on the river itself, the man, one day, ordered one of his servants to secretly follow the girl’s lover to his place of work and spike his supply of drinking water with a deadly, fast-acting poison, which the servant dutifully, and appropriately cold of heart, did.

The servant then found a shadowy place to hide in the nearby bushes and kept a careful watch on the boy; patiently and eagerly awaiting the moment when thirst from working under the hot, morning sun guaranteed the blacksmith would take a large gulp of water and death would soon overtake him. But, fate and disaster intervened in a catastrophic way that none could ever have foreseen.

Suddenly, and to the horror of the servant, the nobleman’s daughter appeared on the scene – evidently having clandestinely slipped out of the spacious abode in which she lived with her father. She flung her arms tightly around her boyfriend, gave him a loving kiss, and then, dehydrated from her long walk along the riverbank, took a big swig of water from the poisoned container. In just mere moments she collapsed to the floor, proclaiming her eternal love to the devastated young blacksmith as she took her very last breaths.

The servant raced out of the trees to try and help, but it was all too little and far too late. The Grim-Reaper already had the girl in his vice-like grip. And he soon came to call upon her father, too. On hearing the tragic news, the distraught old man flung himself from the highest balcony of his palace, ensuring his violent and bloody death on the stone pavement below. But, he soon returned. Not, however, as a chain-rattling, moaning specter, but in the form of a glowing ball of light forever fated to wander the skies of the Han River by night.

And if you should ever visit the area and you are lucky enough to see the ghostly phenomenon for yourself, spare a deep thought or several for all those whose lives were snuffed out, or forever scarred, by this harrowing series of events. It must be said that a story like this might simply have been a story and nothing more. But, even if that is so, a strong argument can still be made that the tale was created to try and explain the presence of a very real and perplexing phenomenon: the ghostly, flying and floating balls of light that haunt just about each and every part of our paranormal planet…

Beyond any shadow of doubt, of the many and varied architectural achievements of the Human Race, the pyramids of Egypt must surely top the list in terms of provoking deep awe and amazement. And a great deal of unbridled controversy and debate, too. Conventional Egyptology suggests that the pyramids were built during what are today termed the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt. That’s to say from around the third millennium BC to roughly 1650 BC. The reason for their construction: Almost certainly to act as tombs for the pharaohs, so convention tells us. Convention also tells us the pyramids were built by sheer brute-force, man-power and technology of a very down to earth nature. But is that really the case?

One Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Mas’udi, otherwise known as the Herodotus of the Arabs, was a prolific 10^th Century writer born in Baghdad in 896 AD who faithfully and carefully prepared an immense, 30-volume series of texts that told the history of the world, based upon his personal, extensive travels to lands far, wide, and exotic. To say that al-Mas’udi was a well journeyed fan of road-trips is a veritable understatement of the highest order. His impressive and dedicated treks took him to such varied parts of the globe as India, East Africa, Egypt, Syria, and Armenia.

He was also a skilled seaman who traversed the Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean. And it was during his many excursions to such places that al-Mas’udi collected the equally many tales, stories and legends that made their way into that aforementioned and priceless multi-volume work. Its collective title, translated into English, was The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems. But, for all of the fascinating data that al-Mas’udi amassed during the course of his numerous wanderings, one piece stands out as being particularly illuminating.

Within the pages of his writings, which were completed in 947 AD – nine years before his death at the age of sixty – al-Mas’udi noted that in very early Arabic legends there existed an intriguing story suggesting that the creation of the pyramids of Egypt had absolutely nothing to do with the conventional technologies of the era. Rather, al-Mas’udi recorded, tantalizing, centuries-old lore that had come his way during his explorations strongly suggested the pyramids were created by what, today, we would most likely refer to as some form of levitation.

The incredible story that al-Mas’udi uncovered went just like this: When building the pyramids, their creators carefully positioned what was described as magical papyrus underneath the edges of the mighty stones that were to be used in the construction process. Then, one by one, the stones were struck by what was curiously, and rather enigmatically, described only as a rod of metal. Lo and behold, the stones then slowly began to rise into the air, and – like dutiful soldiers unquestioningly following orders – proceeded in slow, methodical, single-file fashion a number of feet above a paved pathway surrounded on both sides by similar, mysterious metal rods.

For around 150 feet, Al-Mas’udi noted, the gigantic stones moved forward, usually with nothing more than the very gentlest of prods – from the keeper of the mysterious rod – to ensure they stayed on-track, before finally, and very softly, settling back to the ground.

At that point, the process was duly repeated. The stones were struck once more, rose up from the surface, and again traveled in the desired direction, for yet another 150 feet or so. And so the strange, repetitive task continued, time and time again, until all of the stones finally reached their ultimate destination. Then, in a distinctly far more complex feat, the stones were struck a further time, but this time in a fashion that caused them to float even higher into the air. Then, when they reached the desired point, they were carefully – and with incredible ease – manipulated into place, one-by-one, by hand and nothing else, until the huge pyramid in question was finally completed.

Such a scenario sounds manifestly astonishing. Certainly, many might laugh at such amazing assertions. Others might dismiss the whole thing as the ravings of a madman, or the stuff of nothing more than distorted legend and fanciful folklore. But, just perhaps, the old tale tells nothing less than a fantastic truth about amazing, now long lost technologies of the ancients…

Of the many and varied, multifaceted theories that have been advanced to try and explain what lies at the heart of the UFO puzzle, one of the most controversial suggests that rather than representing bug-eyed intruders from far-away star-systems, the assumed aliens are really nothing of the sort. So, what, then, might they be, if not extraterrestrials?

Well, according to some researchers of the UFO phenomenon, our elusive visitors may be the last, possibly even the waning, vestiges of a very ancient, but very terrestrial, race of advanced entities that originated right here on Earth in our distant past. They have chosen – or have been forced – to live outside of human society, and within huge, cavernous underworlds far below the surface of our planet. Yes, it does sound just like wild fantasy. But, incredibly, maybe it is not.

Right up until the point of his tragic passing in October 2009, at the age of thirty-four, author Mac Tonnies was hot on the trail of these ancient, underground humanoids, which he chose to call the Cryptoterrestrials. Tonnies told me, only a couple of months before his death:

“After devouring countless books on the UFO controversy and the paranormal, I began to acknowledge that the extraterrestrial hypothesis suffered [from] some tantalizing flaws. In short, the ‘aliens’ seemed more like surreal caricatures of ourselves than beings possessing the god-like technology one might plausibly expect from interstellar visitors. I came to the realization that the extraterrestrial hypothesis isn’t strange enough to encompass the entirety of occupant cases.”

So, if E.T. wasn’t weird enough for Tonnies, then what was? The under-dwellers – that is what: “If we’re dealing with humanoid beings that evolved here on Earth, some of the problems vanish. I envision the Cryptoterrestrials engaged in a process of subterfuge, bending our belief systems to their own ends. And I suggest that this has been occurring, in one form or another, for an extraordinarily long time. I think there’s a good deal of folkloric and mythological evidence pointing in this direction, and I find it most interesting that so many descriptions of ostensible ‘aliens’ seem to reflect staged events designed to misdirect witnesses and muddle their perceptions.”

On the matter of what have become known as Contactees – those to whom the very human-looking Space-Brothers of the 1950s and 1960s appeared – Tonnies noted: “Commentators regularly assume that all the Contactees were lying or else delusional. But if we’re experiencing a staged reality, some of the beings encountered by the Contactees might have been real; and the common messages of universal brotherhood could have been a sincere attempt to curb our destructive tendencies. The extraterrestrial guise would have served as a prudent disguise, neatly misdirecting our attention and leading us to ask the wrong questions; which we’re still asking with no substantial results.”

Even what is, without doubt, the most famous – and infamous – of all UFO cases, Roswell, plays a role in this saga of the Cryptoterrestrials. Former U.S. Air Force Intelligence operative, Walter Bosley, has made a highly valuable contribution to the particular issue of ancient humans, their strange underworld, and secret, governmental knowledge of this potentially-worrying matter.

Bosley’s father served in the U.S. Air Force in the late-1950s, on matters relative to the U.S. space-program. Significantly, during the period of his employment with the military, Bosley Sr. received at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio – perhaps within the cosmic confines of the secret Hangar 18 – a classified briefing relative to the reported UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947.

Bosley said that by the time of his father’s briefing, the U.S. Air Force had come to a startling conclusion: neither the strange aerial device nor the bodies found in the desert outside of Roswell at the time in question had alien origins. Very significantly, Bosley revealed, his father told him the entities and their craft come from inside our planet. Their civilization supposedly resides within a huge, underground system of caverns and tunnels beneath the southwest portion of the United States.

Bosley was additionally told by his father that: “They are human in appearance, so much so that they can move among us with ease with just a little effort. If you get a close look, you’d notice something odd, but not if the person just passed you on the street.”

In view of the words of Tonnies and Bosley, if you are ever fortunate enough to have a profound UFO encounter – perhaps even one involving entities – you should give at least some consideration to the idea that perhaps the phenomenon originated far closer to home than most people might ever imagine possible…

It’s a saga that many have heard of, but not so many know the story behind it. It’s the weird tale of the “Mowing Devil” – a strange legend that had its origins more than 300 years ago in England, and which has led to suggestions that Crop Circles have been with us for longer – far longer, actually – than many suspect. And it goes like this…

Jim Schnabel, Crop Circle researcher and author of the book Round in Circles, wrote that in 1989, Jenny Randles, a well-known British investigative writer on many things Fortean “…received a surprising piece of information from a local historian named Betty Puttick, from St. Albans, Hertfordshire [England]. Mrs. Puttick had just read Randles and [Paul] Fuller’s Controversy of the Circles, and it had reminded her of a seventeenth-century woodcut she had come across in a recent book on Hertfordshire folklore.”

Schnabel added, somewhat significantly, that the woodcut in question “…depicted a small, black, horned figure, scything down oatstalks along a circular path, leaving what appeared to be flaming stalks in his wake.”

It was dated 1678, and titled The Mowing-Devil: Or, Strange News out of Hartford-Shire. Written in the distinct (and very odd, as you’ll see!) style and spelling of the 1700s, it stated:

“In the said County lives a Rich industrious Farmer, who perceiving a small Crop of his (of about three Half-Acres of Land which he has sowed with Oats) to be Ripe and fit for Gathering, sent to a poor Neighbour whom he knew worked commonly in the Summer-time at Harvest Labour to agree with him about Mowing or Cutting the said Oats down.

“The poor man as it behoov’d [sic] Him endeavour’d [sic] to sell the Sweat of his Brows and Marrow of his Bones at as dear a Rate as reasonably he might, and therefore askt [sic] a good round Price for his Labour, which the farmer taking some exception at, bid him much more under the usual Rate than the poor Man askt [sic] for it: So that some sharp Words had past, when the Farmer told him he would Discourse with him no more about it.

“Whereupon the honest Mower recollecting with himself, that if he undertook not that little Spot of Work, he might thereby lose much more business which the Farmer had to imploy [sic] him in beside, ran after him, and told him that, rather than displease him, he would do it at what rate in Reason he pleas’d [sic]: and as an instance of his willingness to serve him, proposed to him a lower price, than he had Mowed for any time this Year before. The irretated [sic] Farmer with a stern look, and hasty gesture, told the poor man

“That the Devil himself should Mow his Oats before he should have anything to do with them, and upon this went his way, and left the sorrowful Yeoman, not a little troubled that he had disoblig’d [sic] one in whose Power it lay to do him many kindnesses.

“We will not attempt to fathom the cause, or reason of, Preternatural events: but certain we are, as the most Credible and General Relation can inform us, that same night this poor Mower and Farmer parted, his Field of Oats was publickly [sic] beheld by several Passengers to be all of a Flame, and so continued for some space, to the great consternation of those that beheld it.

“Which strange news being by several carried to the Farmer next morning, could not but give him a great curiosity to go and see what was become of his Crop of Oats, which he could not imagine, but was totally devour’d [sic] by those ravenous Flames which were observed to be so long resident on his Acre and a half of Ground.

“Certainly a reflection on his sudden and indiscreet expression (That the Devil should Mowe [sic] his Oats before the poor Man should have anything to do with them) could not but on this occasion come into his Memory. For if we will but allow our selves so much leisure, to consider how many hits of providence go to the production of one Crop of Corn, such as the aptitude of the Soyl [sic], the Seasonableness of Showers, Nourishing Solstices and Salubreous [sic] Winds, etc., we should rather welcome Maturity with Devout Acknowledgements than prevent our gathering of it by profuse wishes.

“But not to keep the curious Reader any longer in suspense, the inquisitive Farmer no sooner arriv’d [sic] at the place where his Oats grew, but to his admiration he found the Crop was cut down ready to his hands; and if the Devil had a mind to shew [sic] his dexterity in the art of Husbandry, and scorn’d [sic] to mow them after the usual manner, he cut them in round circles, and plac’t [sic] every straw with that exactness that it would have taken up above an Age for any Man to perform what he did that one night: And the man that owns them is as yet afraid to remove them.”

Somewhat intriguingly, the reference to the field being “all of a Flame” the night before the curious formation was found in the field, was highly reminiscent of a similar incident from 1964 that occurred in the north of England. During the early part of 1995, while digging through a then-recently-declassified collection of British Ministry of Defense files on UFOs that were held at the National Archive at Kew, England, I was startled to find the following letter, submitted to the MoD, via the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, on March 23, 1964. The subject matter was a curious, circular area of flattened ground found on land in the town of Penrith, Cumbria, England.

The Reverend T.E.T. Burbury – who took a personal interest in the affair – wrote:

“Does an apparent column of blue light about eight feet in diameter and about fifteen feet high which disappears and leaves a mark of very slightly disturbed earth, the same diameter, mean anything to you? I examined the ground which is about one hundred yards from the nearest building and there are no pylons near. There was no sign of burning, either by sight or smell; the grass growing between the exposed ground appeared quite normal. There were no signs of bird tracks or droppings: the ground simply appeared to have been lightly raked over in an almost perfect circle.”

For its part, records revealed to me, the Ministry of Defense dismissed the case as having no bearing on the defense or safety of the British Isles and wholly forgot about the matter. But, how notable, I thought: a Crop Circle-style formation that was believed to be the work of the Devil had appeared in southern England in 1678 – the night before which the field in question was seen to be “all of a flame” – and almost three hundred years later, something of a strikingly similar nature occurred in the north of England.

Maybe Crop Circles really are much older than many assume…

Available now is my new book, The Pyramids and the Pentagon: The Government’s Top Secret Pursuit of Mystical Relics, Ancient Astronauts, and Lost Civilizations, which focuses on what the official world knows – or suspects – about a whole range of mysteries of the fog-shrouded past. They are mysteries that cover such issues as the construction of the Pyramids of Egypt, the Atlantis-related beliefs of Edgar Cayce, the nature of Noah’s Ark, a possible Face on Mars-Egypt connection, and much more of a so-called “ancient astronauts” nature. And there’s another, equally weird saga I cover in my book…

In terms of key and integral world events, 1947 was a year of profoundly deep and significant proportions. United States President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act, which paved the way for the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The first, priceless collection of what have famously become known as the Dead Sea Scrolls was found in caves at Qumran, an ancient and historic site on the West Bank. At the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, a collection of fruit-flies made history when they became the first living creatures to reach the fringes of space, after being blasted into the skies above aboard a captured German World War Two-era V-2 rocket.

The age of the Flying Saucer was famously ushered in, after an American pilot – Kenneth Arnold – witnessed nine strange-looking aircraft flying close to Mount Rainier, Washington State. And, many UFO researchers believe, an alien spacecraft crashed on harsh, remote desert land outside of the small New Mexican town of Roswell. Singular, unconnected events in a world constantly in a state of change, development, and wonder, or integral parts of a greater, and very old, puzzle guided by the mysterious hands of destiny, fate and grand design?

Most people would probably say the former. But, sometimes, the majority are wrong, devastatingly so, even.

Close to 1,000 in number the Dead Sea Scrolls – as they have become popularly and famously known – represent a veritable treasure-trove of early written material from almost every book of the Old Testament, chiefly dating from around 150 BC to 70 BC. Their amazing discovery dates back to February 1947, when, along with his young cousin, a certain Muhammad edh-Dhib, then only a teenager, stumbled across a series of caves at Qumran, on the northwest side of the Dead Sea – which borders Jordan to the East, and Israel to the West. Upon exploring one particular cave, edh-Dhib was amazed to find within it a number of ancient texts, carefully and faithfully recorded on aged parchment.

edh-Dhib excitedly scooped up the items and, with his cousin in-tow, raced back home to his family’s Bedouin camp to show them his discovery. It didn’t take long before word got around that something unusual had been unearthed. In fact, matters began to spiral with extraordinary speed when talk of the scrolls began to heat up in and around Bethlehem – particularly so when yet more scrolls were found in the area, collectively at no less than eleven caves, and throughout a period of time that extended right up until to 1956.

Those immediate times after edh-Dhib’s discovery were distinctly wild and turbulent ones. The Syrian Orthodox Church expressed its firm interest in seeing the scrolls, as did representatives of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Interested parties in the Vatican secretly negotiated to buy up some of the scrolls, others – in the field of biblical archaeology – scrambled to see them and examine them, and some scholars called for the scrolls to be placed under official control and oversight – lest they might be spread far and wide, possibly even becoming catastrophically lost or destroyed. Fortunately, this latter scenario did not happen.

What did happen, due to circumstances provoked by the turbulent Arab-Israeli War of 1948, was that the scrolls were hastily transported to Lebanon for safe-keeping. Six years later, they were up for sale – and were ultimately sold for $250,000 and transferred to the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. Then, after the Six Day War of 1967, the scrolls ended up at the Shrine of the Brook – an arm of the Jerusalem-based Israel Museum – where they continue to reside to this very day. There is, however, yet another story of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is one filled with, and fueled by, dark conspiracy and involves none other than the CIA.

While extraordinary findings were being made at Qumran, historic events were unfolding in the United States. Back in late 1944, one William J. Donovan – who was the founder of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), arguably the earliest incarnation of what eventually became the CIA – mused upon the idea of establishing the ultimate intelligence-gathering agency.

It was designed to act as the nation’s focal point for securing and analyzing data relevant and vital to U.S. national security and the defense of the nation. The ambitious idea was of great interest to the president of the day, Franklin D. Roosevelt. With the battle still on to defeat the hordes of Adolf Hitler, Italy, and Japan, however, survival was the primary name of the game.

The result, it was not until July 26, 1947, two years after world peace had been restored that this ultimate secret agency finally came into being, when Roosevelt’s successor in the White House, Harry S. Truman, passed the National Security Act. The Central Intelligence Agency was duly born.

The very idea that the newly-created CIA might have played an integral, albeit deeply clandestine, role in the saga of the Dead Sea Scrolls sounds manifestly bizarre in the extreme. But, in this particular case, the old adage about truth being far stranger than fiction really does apply, as my book, The Pyramids and the Pentagon makes very clear…