Greetings, fellow Coppertops! This week’s mission of discovery will let us explore strange chemical mysteries and magnetic remedies, glimpses of the not-so-distant future along with reminiscences of our folkloric past, and the most serious revelations might just be hidden under the veil of comedy. So everyone take positions and be on the lookout for squiddies.

(10) Electro-magnetism is the most effective defense against those damn sentinels, and it looks like it might also be the key to defend ourselves against some of Earth’s most feared predators: sharks. American chemist Eric Stroud says magnets can be very effective repellents against the razor-toothed leviathans, since their snouts possess tiny electrical sensors that get saturated by the strong fields of the magnets.

Although this looks like promising research, I cannot help thinking we as humans have ALL our priorities ass-backwards. Sure I got traumatized for life like everybody else thanks to Spielberg and his giant rubber carcharo-bot, but if we look at the statistics we find that the odds of being killed by a shark are 3 hundred million to one —chances of being on an airplane with a drunken pilot? 115 to 1. Good luck with magnets helping you with that, Ben!

(9) The scariest thing about shark attacks is that you can rarely see them coming, but when it comes to spontaneous human combustion, they are still completely unpredictable. The latest of these infamous ignitions was suffered by a 43-year-old woman in San Clemente Calif, and authorities suspect two rocks which the victim had previously gathered at the beach and kept in her pocket were behind the near-tragedy:

“There is phosphorous that naturally occurs on the sand at the beach, but no one has ever heard of pants catching fire,” Stone said.

Stone is the name of the OCFA capt. that attended the victim, Twilight language once again. Saint Clement BTW happens to be the patron saint of blacksmiths & metal workers, and ‘Old Clem’s night’ “started literally with a bang and showers of sparks during the ritual “firing of the anvil,” according to Wikipedia —not to mention the hour of the event: aprox. 3:30 pm, quite close to 333, my personal number of the Trickster. Curiouser and curiouser…

(8) They say the desert is the ocean of fire, and for a poor WWII pilot stranded in the middle of the Sahara, it must have been Hell on Earth. As The Daily Mail —and our own Aaron Wright— reported this week, an RAF Kittyhawk P-40 fighter plane that crashed-landed 70 years ago has been found in a surprising state of preservation, which quickly prompted British archeologists to ask the MoD for its immediate recovery. The pilot, Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping, is presumed to have tried to walk out of the desert; a sadly fruitless attempt which, nevertheless, speaks volumes about the courageous determination of the men and women who valiantly served their country in the greatest conflagration in human history.

A fight where you lose while still standing is never a defeat.

(7) A name reminiscent of another great man is Kennedy, and this week said name was linked once again with yet another tragedy, which causes some to invoke a multi-generational curse plaguing the famous lineage. This time it was the turn of Mary Kennedy, 52, the estranged and troubled wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who was found dead of suicide (by hanging) last Wednesday.

Who knows. Maybe it’s the karmic result of the Faustian pact that the leader of the clan, Joseph, signed to secure his son’s rise to power. Or maybe it’s the cosmic ripples caused by how close we came to our self-annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis. Whatever the case, it seems like the name Kennedy is still mired with quite a lot of bad mojo.

(6) When it comes to curses and names which convey scenes of great affliction though, few in the New Age lexicon can pair with Nibiru. After all, a bullet you might get to dodge, but a whole planet? Not even The One would pull that off!

And as far-fetched as the idea of a rogue planet might be, it’s hard to repress such imagery for a second or two after reading the news that an astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro is proposing the existence of a new unseen planet, in order to explain the celestial mechanics governing the objects inhabiting the farthest domains of our solar system. Based on the calculations by Robert Gomez, either our hypothetically new neighbor is 4 times the size of the Earth, with an orbit 140 million miles away from the Sun, or it could also be the size of Mars but with a highly elongated orbit —an orbit that would occasionally bring the body sweeping to within 5 billion miles (8 billion kilometers) of the sun. You just know this is going to eventually be mentioned in some new episode of Ancient Aliens, which will undoubtedly unleash large quantities of mouth-frothing upon the keyboards of many a skeptic.

(5) Speaking of drooling, it seems our ancestors were used to do plenty of that inside their caves; at least according to some archeologists who think they’ve found the oldest depiction of female genitalia. The alleged paleo-vulva was found in France —of course— at a cave called Abri Castanet, a site full of symbolic engravings considered to be as old as the ones we discussed last week in Chauvet, where beautifully artistic depictions of mega-fauna were found. So I guess Castanet is where they sent all the exiled pervs to live?

Or maybe it’s the archeologists the ones that need to leave their excavation sites more often, because honestly —and not that I’m bragging to be an expert or anything — but that er, thing doesn’t look like a vagina to me! It’s waaay to round for starters, man… unless our great-great-great-great-grand daddies used to be more um, well endowed shall we say, back in those ages—Hmm… maybe *I* need to get out my cave more often too.

(4) But when it comes to tripods, you really can’t beat modern Science. Meet Cathy Hutchinson, a 58-year-old paralyzed woman who can command a robotic arm with the power of her thoughts:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Boy I bet that coffee was the sweetest thing she’s ever tasted

Might we also see the day when healthy individuals decide to upgrade their own physicality, without restricting themselves to anthropomorphic conventionalities? If that’s the case, ‘being human’ is a term that will turn fuzzier and fuzzier.

(3) Science Fiction is turning into Science Fact quicker than we can seem to manage, but what of the time when we used to believe in magic and coexist with fantastic beings? That time never faded away in Iceland apparently, with people from all professions and walks of life still believing in the existence of elves. Case in point: MP for the Independence Party Árni Johnsen, who arranged for the relocation of a 30-ton boulder which he believes is the home of three generation of fairie folk. The rock was moved from Sandskeið in southwest Iceland to his home in the Westman Islands last Tuesday.

“I had Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, a specialist in the affairs of elves from Álfagarðurinn in Hellisgerði, Hafnarfjörður, to come look at the boulder with me,” recollected Árni. “She said it was incredible, that she had never met three generations of elves in the same boulder before.”

“She said an elderly couple lives on the upper floor but a young couple with three children on the lower floor,” the MP described

Well, isn’t that nice? Elvish condos!

Now it would be easy to mock these sort of folk beliefs, but I’m not going to do that. Regardless of the possible existence of invisible pixies with a penchant for monolithic dwellings, this news got me thinking about the current assumptions we members of the Fortean community have re. things like Disclosure: Right now we all are under the impression that *if* Disclosure were to happen, it would be an immediate & universal paradigm shift; yet what guarantees do we have that would be the case? What if Disclosure happens in a gradual fashion, with some communities adopting an absolute certainty in the existence of non-human entities, and slowly expanding until some global turning point was finally reached?

(2) But in order for that to happen, we may first need to break the code of silence preventing Military personnel from sharing their UFO experiences. And that’s exactly what Ex-Army Colonel John Alexander is seeking with his plea for amnesty to anyone in the military who has been previously sworn to secrecy about UFOs. Now this is something of a tricky situation —or would that be trickstery?— because it’s well known Alexander’s position that although yes, some UFOs are genuine signs of alien intelligence, he not only thinks the US government is not withholding any secret & explosive information about flying saucers, but that the general attitude it takes when faced with the few truly unexplainable cases is a collective & bureaucratic ‘Meh’.

So why the plea for amnesty then? Well it’s simple really (or is it?): this way Alexander thinks it would show once and for all that “there’s no policy of [UFO] secrecy” and sway the suspicions of the UFO community & the American people, finally proving their government isn’t hiding anything from them. Because with the amnesty obviously no one in the Military would have any fear of coming out with the UFO secrets they’ve been allegedly ordered not to reveal, and since no one will ever come out —per John’s rationale— then there weren’t any UFO secrets to begin with, right?

Well, I only have two things to respond to Alexander: Bradley Manning, and Code Red.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(1) Alexander is fond of always finishing his UFO presentations by putting on a pair of sunglasses and flashing a toy neuralizer in front of the audience, jokingly mimicking the MIB characters made famous by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the 1990s. This summer the black-suited duo will return to the big screen, and during a promotional stunt on a radio program for the BBC, Will Smith happened to reveal a very suggestive little anecdote: During a private tour to the White House, Smith’s son Jayden had a rather other-worldly inquiry for president Obama —a question he strikingly anticipated:

“The aliens, right? OK, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of extraterrestrials but I can tell you if there had been a top secret meeting and if there would have had to have been a discussion about it, it would have taken place in this room.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obviously this little ‘intimate’ moment between Obama & lil Jayden is so deliciously ambiguous you can take it any way you want. One can easily just regard it as a LOL take showing the President is a man smart enough to know when to lie back and not be serious. BUT… with all the previous examples we have where Obama’s predecessors seemed to have taken a light-hearted approach as a way to downplay a real personal interest in the UFO phenomenon, it does make you wonder…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Maybe the actual fantasy is to imagine the person living in the White House would ever be entrusted with whatever knowledge about UFOs all the soup-letter agencies have gathered through the decades, when they don’t even share the stuff they know with each other! Need-to-know is the real glue holding that house of cards together :-/

Until next time, this is RPJ jacking out & wishing everyone a safe return to Zion.

Greetings, fellow Coppertops! Our weekly sojourn to the very matrix of reality will show us ancient crimes and modern secrets, monstrous things both big and small —some small enough to burst out of your own chest!— and the light at the end of the rabbit tunnel might signal the dawn of a new era. So pay attention, and stop looking at the woman in the red dress.

(10) The last space shuttle is getting moth-balled at the Smithsonian as we speak, and while many Americans woe at their nation’s apparent loss of their foothold in the final frontier, they forget the fact that there’s always been two space programs: the public NASA-directed space program which has suffered numerous set-backs and cuts; and a secret space program maintained by the Military that doesn’t answer to the Congress, which is very much alive and doing well. Extremely well I should say, now that the USAF robotic X-37B space plane continues to break records with its nearly 430-day mission in orbit. The fact that the Air Force has kept mum about the mission objectives and capabilities of this mini-me unmanned version of the iconic shuttle has stirred all sorts of controversy and speculation: is it a spy drone or a weapons platform? And what has it been doing up there all these months exactly?

Whatever the case, the X-37B seems to be a clear example that all those wild rumors about the incredible capabilities of the secret space program —with the famous ARV and clandestine off-world bases at the extreme end of the spectrum— might still contain a teeny-weenie kernel of truth behind them. A kernel that keeps sucking billions of dollars from the US annual budget…

(9) Arthur C Clarke used to say dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t develop a space program, but a new study suggests that the demise of the mighty lizards was brought up by their mighty farts. British scientists have calculated the methane output of sauropods (giant four-legged behemoths like the Brontosaurs) and estimate that the dino population as a whole produced 520 million tonnes of gas annually; and since methane is one of the most powerful green-house gases, this could have been a key factor in the warm climate of the late Jurassic 150 millions of years ago.

After recovering from that oh-so lovely picture of a Flatu-calypse in Earth’s ancient past, which might or might not have been worsened by the arrival of a big-ass incandescent space rock —like those Youtube clips we’ve all seen… times a trillion!— it occurs to me we should consider this valuable info next time we try to find the elusive Mokele Mbembe. Memo to all monster-hunters visiting the Congo Basin: stop asking the locals or showing them pictures, and just follow your nose.

(8) Farting dinos is a rather colorful image, but not nearly as colorful as the wondrous cave-art paintings in Chauvet, France; which have been confirmed to be the oldest & most elaborate known to-date with an age of about 32,000 years. For a long time scholars believed these dynamically vivid images of bear, rhinos, horses, lions and other fine examples of paleo-fauna could only be 12 to 17,000 years old at the most, because of their great level of sophistication; yet aside from previous radiocarbon dating evidence a new geological analysis has shown that an overhanging cliff began collapsing 29,000 years ago and did so repeatedly over time, definitively sealing the entrance to humans around 21,000 years ago. So once again our pre-conceptions about what the ‘primitive’ ancients were capable of doing come tumbling down like a pile of pebbles.

If time-travel becomes a reality some day in the distant future, then meeting the GENIUS —or group of geniuses— that painted this masterpiece should definitely become a priority mission.

(7) Then again, maybe they were so good at it because they had nowhere else to go? Scientists with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory mission, a space-based telescope keeping tabs on our home star, have detected a massive solar structure mentioned as a “monster sunspot” in a recent Twitter announcement. “With at least four dark cores larger than Earth, AR 1476 sprawls more than 100,000 km from end to end, and makes an easy target for backyard solar telescopes,” the website Spaceweather.com reported last Monday.

For me it’s impossible not to think of all the ancient legends which talk about how a large chunk of the human race took refuge deep underground due to a massive cataclysm long ago, like the Hopi oral tradition describing how they traveled below the Earth seeking shelter with the Ant people while fire rained down upon the world. Is history about to repeat itself?

(6) Monsters come in all shapes & sizes , and one who used to terrorize the streets of London during the Victorian era was the famous Jack the Ripper, with his bloody murders that kept Scotland Yard scratching their heads; or should that be ‘her’ bloody murders? A Birmingham writer’s new book, Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman, has shocked historians by proposing Welsh-born Lizzie Williams as the Whitechapel monster, choosing women as victims out of spite for her own sterility.

Lizzie was wife of royal physician Sir John Williams, himself seen as a prime suspect by many other crime experts; another suspect was Sir William Gull, an eminent physician also along with heavy masonic connections, who was portrayed as the Ripper in Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell; but as the old saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Jack or Jackie? the game’s still afoot methinks…

(5) Those dark London alleys were pretty insecure, but now it seems that many individuals can’t even find safety in the sanctity of their own homes, with thousands of people claiming to have suffered painful medical procedures at the mercy of non-human entities, after being removed from their bedrooms under the cover of night. Many skeptics have tried to propose different scenarios which would expound these bizarre anecdotes in purely mundane terms, ranging from plain hoaxes to repressed memories triggered by a sexual assault at an early age; the latest attempt is trying to explain abductions as lucid dreams, and that the surreal imagery of the dreams was fueled by Sci-Fi and other manifestations of pop culture, such as the classic TV program The Outer Limits.

I’m not really sure if little bug-eyed aliens are taking human beings from their homes to perform procedures that may or may not involve genetic experimentation, but frankly I find all these debunking exercises a bit frustrating and, well, annoying even! Sure, you can find plenty of imagery that resembles some of the elements of the archetypal abduction scenario —and even this is deceiving since there doesn’t seem to be something like a ‘typical’ abduction— in the pages of comic books or in the scenes of cheesy B-type movies; it would also be naive to assume that witnesses do not address a hypothetically fantastic experience from the perspective given by their own cultural bias. But there are several authors who think this chicken/egg pursuit is more complex than we realize, and ultimately pointless; like Jeffrey Kripal with his book Mutants & Mystics, in which he shows how Culture and the Anomalous cross-pollinate each other back and forth; and they will keep doing so as long as the Culture keeps churning out new methods of narrative expression.

We shouldn’t really be asking about the intentions and procedures of the aliens behind these events; what we should first be asking is this: “is there an external factor behind the triggering of these accounts?”, and “Is that factor sentient?”. After that the provenance of these factors and the state in which the contact with the abductees takes place might be easier to elucidate. Or not.

(4) Another fascinating mystery that has escalated to apocalyptic proportions is of course the coming end of the 13th Mayan baktun, which has many people in the western world fearing for the worst. But a recent find at the Xultún (Guatemala) archeological site of a 1,200-year-old room filled with wall paintings and astronomical markings will probably help some folks to breathe easier —and stop buying all that damn freeze-dried food from Alex Jones. Along with the richly detailed paintings depicting important figures identified as “Younger Brother Obsidian”, “Older Brother Obsidian”, some scribes and a Maya king seated and wearing an elaborate headdress —although not nearly as elaborate as this other ‘adornment’ IMO— rows of numbers an hieroglyphs denoted lunar cycles of 177 or 178 days, along with calculations related to the periods for Venus, Mercury and Mars. These wide scales of time suggest the Maya were expecting many more baktuns following the end of the 13th:

“It’s very clear that the 2012 date, this end of 13 baktuns, while important, was turning the page,” David Stuart, an expert on Maya hieroglyphs at the University of Texas at Austin, told reporters today. “Baktun 14 was going to be coming, and Baktun 15 and Baktun 16. … The Maya calendar is going to keep going, and keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future.”

Ok, so no end of all life as we know it, but I still think it’s interesting how the Maya considered the coming end of the long-count cycle as having a special significance. I also find interesting the name of the archeologist in charge of this recent finding: William Saturno, from Boston University. Playing a bit of Twilight language here, ‘Saturno’ means Saturn in Spanish; and as we all know Saturn is the name of the Titan that used to rule the Earth and devour his sons as soon as they came out from their mother’s womb, until one day he was defeated by Jupiter who then proceeded to found the Golden Age of the gods —things that make you go Hmmm…

(3) One of the few titans who helped Jupiter was none other than Prometheus, a name that has turned *extremely* popular this year thanks to the piling expectation for Riddley Scott’s upcoming movie. So far all the released trailers & bonus material, along with Scott’s personal disclosures in recent interviews, suggest that Prometheus will turn out to be much more than your usual Summer blockbuster, and it might just transform into the best campaign instrument UFOlogy in general —and the Ancient Alien theory in particular— has had in a very, VERY long time.

The latest evidence of this is a recent featurette in which Scott says:

“The planet where they go is called Zeta(2) Reticuli, and what they find there is an establishment that is not what they expected it to be,” adding, “this story kind of walks around the truth of what there may be out there… It presents some big questions.”

[Video]

Ok, granted: Mr. Scott’s astronomy knowledge is a bit subpar, and Zeta Reticuli is not actually a planet —nor a moon just off Io— but a binary star system 39-light-years away from Earth… but COME ON! Zeta ZOMG! Reticuli. I can already picture Stan Friedman with a beaming smile standing in front of the line in some Canadian movie theater

(2) Alas, we’ll still have to wait a couple of weeks to watch the silver light of Zeta Reticuli projected on  a cinema screen. But the light of a Super-Earth alien planet has already been detected for the first time thanks to NASA’s Spitzer space telescope. The planet, called 55 Cancri, is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. And although the infra-red light emitted by the exo-planet shows it’s sun-facing side is way too hot to support life —at least, life as we know it— this is nevertheless a very exciting achievement, because it means that the day when we’ll finally detect a life-bearing world outside our solar system is getting nearer. And when that day comes, the news will be so huge and shocking it will drown out any other thing happening at that particular moment. A true paradigm shift, just like my buddy Micah likes it.

(1) Paradigm shifts can be brought about with the aid of advanced technology, or sometimes with far simpler means —like a bullet, for instance. Yes, I’m talking about our favorite hirsute wanderer the Bigfoot, and that endless Byzantine discussion among crypto-fans: To shoot or not to shoot.

And now it seems the moral dilemma has been somewhat eased for would-be Sasquatch hunters, if they happen to live in Texas, that is. Oregonian Squatcher John Lloyd Scharf recently contacted the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department inquiring about the possibility of hunting unknown creatures. He received a somewhat dry response from Chief of staff Lt. David. Sinclair, who focused not on the possible existence of the mythic cryptid, but rather on precisely how the government would label it:

“An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent.”

As far as the law is concerned therefore, if Bigfoot is Texan it can be killed.

But put the safety on for just a minute: what if Bigfoot is a migratory species that travels not only across different states, but maybe even across different sovereign nations? If Bigfoot was to receive protection as an endangered species in Canada, wouldn’t that trigger a nasty diplomatic debate?

Besides, this rationale that you need to kill an animal in order to protect it seems a bit odd and, well… primitive. Although I concede snatching a body might be the only think that would erase the mischievous smirk from another type of bipedal specimen that also happens to dwell in the Texas territory—one with a penchant for The Ramones

Until next time, this is RPJ jacking out & reminding each and everyone: no matter how long they keep telling you, Ignorance is NOT bliss.

Greetings, fellow Coppertops! This week’s exploration of the Fortean Matrix will reveal both ancient & modern mysteries, the deceptions brought by terror as well as the hope brought by ingenuity. So sit back, relax, and please report any repeating black cats you might find.

(10) Our first stage in our ride turns a bit bumpy, with all the seismic activity registered in the past weeks along the Pacific coast, including a recent 6.1 tremor off the coast of Mexico last Tuesday (May Day indeed!). Adding to this the fact that Mount Popo, North America’s 2nd largest volcano which is just 70 km southeast of Mexico city, has decided to wake up from its slumber the same way I do it every Monday morning, and you might start to understand why it’s not that easy for me to dismiss all the ‘Mayan Doomsday’ hoopla. Now, before y’all start thinking I’ve been watching too many reruns of Roland Emmerich’s Ragnarockfest on cable, allow me to explain that in the Aztec cosmogony –which was largely copied from more ancient cultures living in Central Mexico– the world has experienced 4 major cycles of destruction with each culminating with the rise of a new Sun; according to this myth we’re all living under the cycle of the 5th Sun, named Tonatiuh Ollin, with ‘Tonatiuh‘ meaning ‘Sun’ in the old Náhuatl dialect, while ‘Ollin‘ means… ‘Movement’ *Gulp!*

But hey, maybe we’re all overreacting and Dec. 21st will not be the end of the entire world as we know it –maybe just the end of Mexico. “Think globally, worry locally” is my motto.

(9) All this Age of Aquarius & Kali Yuga business is the very stuff that fuels the big machinery of the New Age movement, which is harnessed by many people in the Western world as a gateway to a more spiritual way of life. But ‘spiritual’ & ‘life’ can turn into a deadly oxymoron if taken to extremes; which is what a Swiss female practitioner of the controversial discipline of ‘Breatharianism’ found out, and tragically she paid for this knowledge with her life by trying to follow the instructions laid out in Ellen Greve’s book, a 54-year-old Australian woman who has become a celebrity in the ‘living of light’ movement. Her autopsy revealed that she simply died of starvation, the kind of death more commonly found in the under-developed nations of the world. While I am not ready to dismiss the feat of sustaining the human life without any physical nourishment as pure poppycock just yet, I personally fail to see the point of it; as human beings I would assume that we are endowed with a body gifted with 5 (or more) wonderful senses for a reason, and that perceiving the joy these senses can bring to us as inherently evil and something that ought to be utterly renounced for the sake of our higher selves seems almost like being impolite to the Universe.

Remember: even the Buddha saw asceticism as a false path to Enlightenment, and Jesus might have fasted for 40 days in the desert, but he didn’t decline the invitation to par-TAY during the wedding in Cana.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(8) But eating light is something that works really REALLY well to a black hole, and recently some astronomers got the rare chance of witnessing one of these gaseous cousins of Galactus feast on a gullible star that got too close to its orbit, an event that occurs only once every 10,000 years –and I thought *I* had a slow vowel movement!– While the scientists that observed this stellar buffet thanks to the Galaxy Evolution Explorer space telescope were thrilled to have the chance of studying this rare spectacle, I’m betting that if there were intelligent beings living in a planet orbiting that star, no doubt they would have rather re-schedule the dinner plans.

(7) We may have some new toys now, but star-gazing was practiced by all the ancient civilizations; and among those it’s the Egyptians the ones who tend to capture our collective imagination more often. And it seems that the pyramid-fetishists’ astronomical abilities were even greater than we previously imagined: the star Algol in the constellation of Perseus was first shown to have a variation in its brightness on a 2,867-day cycle in 1667, and the celestial mechanism which explains the dimness was proposed in 1783 by astronomer John Goodricke; yet a new paper by researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, claims that the Egyptians may have recorded Algol’s periodic variability –the result of being an “eclipsing binary system” with one dimmer star passing in front of its brighter sister– 3000 years ago, based on their statistical analysis of a bit of papyrus known as the Cairo Calendar. This document was used by the Egyptians to mark the ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky’ days in their calendar, and the Finnish scientists determined that there are two significant periodic cycles in it, the second cycle seeming to correspond with Algol’s variable period. And this is where we once again touch upon a topic much disclosed at MU lately: how ‘primitive’ cultures barely come out of the Stone Age were able to have such advanced knowledge –it’s a doggone Dogon conundrum ain’t it?

(6) Mysteries & conundrums have always fascinated us and invited us to solve them, even if the task proves to be impossible. That’s certainly been the case with the famous Voynich manuscript, which is about to celebrate its 100th year of discovery. The15th-century cypher, filled with strange astrological symbols, alchemical diagrams and elaborate herbal illustrations is either the work of an arcane adept or the best example of Renaissance trolling, but in May 11 a Fanvoynich gathering will take place in Rome; the program includes a number of presentations about the history of the Voynich manuscript, forensic investigations, word structure and statistical analysis, and an interpretation of its unusual drawings. Maybe after his long Sabbatical since dealing with the Solomon key, Robert Langdon should try and solve the riddle once and for all? *wink wink*

(5) Dan Brown’s novels wouldn’t be as fun if they didn’t show a crime to solve at the heart of them. Let’s face it, we all like a good murder mystery, which is probably the reason why so many years have been devoted to solving the enigma of Ötzi’s death. Since he was found in 1991 in the Alps bordering Austria with Italy, this incredibly well-preserved mummy of a Neolithic European has been submitted to countless studies in order to learn who he was and how he died. Now Scientists have announced they have managed to recover blood cells from Ötzi’s tissue, making them the oldest samples of human blood ever found. I say enough fooling around with the cold jerky: let’s clone the guy so he can tell us who punk’d him. Who’s with me?

(4) From the Alps we now fly to the British Isles, where the final preparations are being made to receive the attendants to the Olympic games this Summer. But what about um, undesirable visitors? well, fear not: the Londoners seem to be sparing no expenses, and the MoD it’s evaluating placing surface-to-air missiles on top of residential buildings to serve as protection against terrorist threats. What’s that you say? who would come up with the idea of considering an urban area as the ideal location for tactical weaponry? well obviously a loyal Otaku of the classic anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, that’s who! Tokio-3 2015 ain’t got nothing on London-1 2012, fool!

You’ve gotta admit, a missile would be quite the original method to light up the Olympic cauldron –and it’s not like they have not used other weapons in the past…

Click here to view the embedded video.

(3) Blame it on the Boogeyman I guess, and If the world has turned into such an Orwellian nightmare is mostly because of former #1 public enemy, Osama Bin Laden. It was one year ago when president Obama announced to the American people that Bin Laden had been finally killed by a special forces team during Operation Geronimo –named after another notorious enemy of the United States– and now a treasure hunter by the name of Bill Warren is bragging that he knows exactly where Osama’s body is… and he just needs 300 grand to bring it up from its aquatic tomb.

Listen Billy boy: if you wanna impress me then leave Osama to the sharks and find me the body of Bigfoot; I’ve gotta warn you though –we’ve already have a trio of con-men who tried to fool us with a smelly costume filled with possum meat. Makes you think that perhaps the reason we haven’t yet found the lair of the hairy giant is because, unlike Osama, he’s never been betrayed by Mrs. Bigfoot; which probably tells you something about the sturdiness of hominin’s relationships when compared to the ones between us hairless chimps.

(2) The photo of dead Bin Laden will remain unseen by the American people, but now the hottest pics on the net are those of alleged abductees, taken at Arizona’s MUFON convention by Steven Hirsch. The New York photographer claims he doesn’t want his audience to have any preconceptions about his subjects, yet I can’t help thinking he deliberately used a weird set of photo filters and lighting to make them look fringier than they already are. It doesn’t really help that most people are so cynically ignorant about Abductions that they wasted no time making stupid jokes at their expense –“LOL why do aliens come  to probe only old white people?”– without considering the fact that attendants to these kind of gatherings represent only a very small sample of the total number of individuals claiming to have experienced encounters with non-human entities  (and also that the reason most of these people are Caucasian & over 50 is because those are the kind of folks with enough time & resources to spend a couple of days in a UFO convention). But looking at the photos of Cynthia, Jeffery, Jocelyn & other self-proclaimed abductees, it’s really hard not to assume that meeting the Reticulans would give you a nasty case of conjunctivitis –wait a minute… maybe the practice Breatharianismin Zeta Reticuli?

Click here to view the embedded video.

(1) Those that are sure to turn wide-eyed with wonder are the astronauts aboard the ISS, when they finally get the visit of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule some time next week if all goes according to plan. Although the mission has been delayed a couple of days due to technical issues & software reviews, there is a general excitement with the realization that the International Space Station is about to receive it’s first non-governmental spaceship, giving NASA a much needed respite now that the only chance to take its astronauts up into orbit was via the purchase of a Soyuz ticket.

The sooner we can turn space-flight into a banal activity, the more people might get the chance to experience the same sense of Samadhi –one with the Cosmos– as reported by astronaut Edgar Mitchell. And if they also get to spot a few UFOs once in a while, so much the better!

Until next time, this is RPJ jacking out & wishing everyone a pleasant stay in Wonderland.

Greetings, fellow Coppertops! Our journey down the rabbit hole this week will take us from the farthest reaches of our galaxy to the depths of our lakes & oceans, and from the birth of our species in this planet to the promise of what lies ahead and beyond.

So buckle your seat-belt Dorothy –’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.

(10) If we compress the age of our universe to a single year, then we humans have just appeared in the last hour of Dec 31st. Yet in such a small amount of time we’ve been very busy out-competing any other species, as revealed by a recent study presented at a workshop on climate change and human evolution at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; no soon as we started roaming the plains of Africa 2.5 million years ago, we drove all the major carnivores to extinction just one million years later. Maybe that was the real reason we got kicked out of the garden of Eden? I bet our friend Scotty Roberts didn’t think of that.

(9) What’s that you say? You have no patience for silly stories about an invisible man in the sky? Well, then you must be really good at Math! That’s at least the theory behind a study to be published in the next issue of Science, where a couple of Canadian scientists proposed that analytic thinking –the kind that helps you get A’s in Geometry and Algebra– decreases religious belief, which is supposed to be fueled by right-brained intuition. Now, pardon me for saying this, but I really don’t have much faith –there, I said it!– in these kind of studies; not only one can easily find throughout history a plethora of brilliant scientists who also happened to be of a religious mindset –Sir Isaac Newton, for example– but there’s also plenty of evidence that some of the greatest scientific discoveries were made by not following a rationalistic methodology. Case in point: German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé, who once had a dream of a serpent biting its tail –a typical alchemical symbol– that helped him discover the structure of benzene.

So if you’re a hardcore atheist but still have to use your cell-phone calculator when you go to the grocery store, don’t be sad: Math forgives you.

(8) Speaking of faith and beliefs, our next stop deals with a very hot topic in scientific circles for which there’s still no direct detectable evidence (sound familiar?): Dark matter. Turns out our galaxy the Milky way has no observable concentration of the shadowy stuff that should be needed in order to account for the way the rest of the ‘normal’ matter is bound. Now, some people like my personal friend & esteemed colleague Micah Hanks will point this out as an example of how materialistic science is also guilty of holding principles that are treated as dogmas; no doubt many would scoff at such a notion and rebuke that it’s precisely the contesting of theories that which makes Science different from Religion. Regardless of these debates, what I personally think is that dark matter & dark energy are clear examples of how humanity has taken their prejudice & bigotry to cosmic proportions: 70% of the universe is made of stuff we can’t see, and we have the arrogance to call it dark? It is WE who are made of cosmic residues, folks!

And just think: what if the majority of intelligent life in the universe was made of dark matter? wouldn’t that be a reasonable explanation for the Fermi paradox –that they haven’t contacted us because they don’t believe we exist?

(7) But when it comes to dark entities, you could hardly find more popular than the infamous Men in Black. And they have recently cast their shadow over the Fortean blogosphere with a recently released video purportedly showing two of their nefarious agents as they were taken by a hotel security camera. Since most of the folklore surrounding the MIB is mostly made up of anecdotal evidence and hearsay –with the possible exception of a single photograph taken by Timothy Green Beckley decades ago– the video took the UFO community by storm; and while there have already been some who question its authenticity, I for one think the MIBs should really consider upgrading their Dragnet outfits for some hipster t-shirts and tight pants –that way their spindliness & cadaveric tone would look almost normal.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(6) If the phantom agents were trying to silence the release of a UFO case, they certainly did not seem overtly concerned with the attention gathered by DARPA’s hypersonic plane. The mad-scientist branch of the US military has recently revealed that the crash of their prototype glider last summer was the result of its skin peeling off when it reached Mach 20. What should this type of news tell us about the alleged capabilities of the Air Force to reproduce many of the astounding maneuvers & speeds reported by credible UFO witnesses? Is there really a case for ‘man-made’ flying saucers that could give ET a ride home, as the late Ben Rich famously declared?

(5) Flying from Tokyo to L.A. in just over 20 minutes would be an incredible feat, but it almost seems like child’s play compared with the goal set by Planetary Resources, the company backed by James Cameron, Peter Diamandis & Google’s Larry Page who finally confirmed that Yes –space mining is the name of the game. It seems as if the entire Internet has been abuzz with both rants and raves concerning the feasibility of such a task, and you can certainly count me among the fans of the project. Yes, these people intend to make a shit-ton of money if all goes according to plan; but like Robert Anton Wilson said, to say we’re running out of natural resources is the same as saying we’re running out of brain matter; if we manage to make space a profitable venture then other big problems like curing cancer or fixing climate change would not look as insurmountable as they seem right now.

(4) Besides, think of all the side benefits: If you can have an automatic space probe smart enough to find platinum inside a hard rock on outer space, then you can certainly have a platinum-haired robot smart enough to  keep you rock-hard in the space between your pants. Yeah, baby! I’m talking fem-bots, the future of the sex industry according to a recent paper which envisions A.I. as a means to combat human trafficking & the spread of STDs. I think it’s high time we were honest with each other and admitted that in the history of humanity it’s been porn, and not war, the most dominant driving factor in the development of new technology –cinema, television, video-cassettes, DVDs & Blu-rays. Wot? you think back in the day of 28.8 modems we wished for fiber-optic landlines so we could finally had the chance to watch Citizen Kane online? yeah, right…

Click here to view the embedded video.

I only wish those fem-bot are designed in better taste than this wacky Ukranian girl, who has paid for countless surgeries to fulfill her dream of becoming a living Barbie doll. I’m telling you friends, that sterile vacant stare is probably the reason why Ken looks so… emasculated @_@

(3) From alien-like beings living in Europe we move on to explore alien beings that might live in Europa. And Dr. Evil would feel very happy because once again robots with freaking lasers are just the thing we need to discover the secrets hidden inside the ice core of Arthur C. Clarke’s favorite Jovian world. The robot, a 10-inch-wide, six-foot-long cylinder called VALKYRIE –yeah, that sounds more the name of a fem-bot than a cryo-bot, but what are you gonna do– would use its 5,000-watt lasers to melt the 250-meter crust of ice and reach the extra-terrestrial ocean. Science + Robots + Pew Pew = Awesomeness.

(2) But maybe instead of worrying about other oceans we might want to take a better look to the ones we have right here, because once again hundreds of dead dolphins have washed ashore in the coasts of Peru, in what might very well become the worst environmental disaster of the year. Initially the deaths of the cetaceans were attributed to noises generated by the oiling industry, yet now Peruvian authorities are considering a possible outbreak of Morbillivirus or Brucella bacteria as the fatal cause. First the bees, and now the dolphins; just how many canaries we need before we get the hell out of the coal mine, I wonder?

(1) Perhaps something affected the sonar of the dead dolphins, and now it seems that sonar has brought an all-time favorite cryptid back from the dead. Nessie, the most popular lake monster is back on the news thanks to boat skipper Marcus Atkinson, who managed to capture a rather enigmatic reading from his fish-finder sonar and captured the moment for all posterity using his cell-phone camera. Throughout the search of enigmatic creatures inhabiting the Scottish loch the use of sonar has yielded the most compelling evidence, yet I can’t help pointing out my pet peeve with Nessie hunters, in that whenever they are trying to capture these plesiosaurs, giant eels, mega-seals or whatever you think Nessie might be, all of them make one fatal flaw: they all use motor vessels. Now, I’m no biology expert but it seems to me that if there’s a large animal living in that lake, it might not be such an outrageous idea to consider that it uses some form of echo-location to move and find sustenance amid its murky waters; how do you suppose you’ll ever get a glimpse of the timid beastie while cruising aboard a noisy craft??

Memo to all would-be monster hunters: get your fat ass in a simple boat with no motor, and row, row  ROW! Or use the Montgomery Burns’ method, if you’re too lazy.

Until next time, this is RPJ jacking out & wishing everyone a nice weekend without any agents crossing your path.

Greetings, fellow Coppertops! If you have ever visited The Daily Grail, then I probably need no introduction — and for those who haven’t (Buuuu!) you might have stumbled upon some of my comments thoroughly disseminated throughout the Fortean bloggosphere.

I’m utterly thrilled to become the new addition of the MU gang, and I hope my future contributions will effectively amuse you, inform you, and maybe even help you free your minds.

So, with all the formalities out of the way, swallow up and let’s get busy.

(10) Our first stop on our journey down the rabbit hole this week examines all the collective head-scratching caused by scientist Ronald Breslow, with a paper he submitted to explain the consistency of the biochemical orientation found in our planet’s lifeforms; so far it all appeared consistently sciency (and boring) but from chemical chirality Breslow went to speculate about the possible existence of super-intelligent dinosaurs in some other planet –what the…!

Far be it from me to deny the possibility of space-faring saurians exploring the Cosmos in ginormous dino-motherships, but personally I suspect Breslow’s musing was the result of spending too many a Saturday morning ingesting large quantities of sugary cereal while watching cheesy 80′s cartoons –ah… those were the days.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(9) Speaking of terrible lizards challenged by evolution, our favorite soup-letter agency the CIA made the delight of all conspiracy theorists by insisting to refuse the release of its final official volume concerning the infamous Bay of Pig’s failed invasion, arguing that the document “will confuse the public.” That’s why Hollywood Western heroes always had to wear a white hat: to keep things simple for the audience. Sadly, until the powers at be keep treating their citizens as dim-witted children, many more decades will pass until that pigsty gets cleaned up.

(8) From white hats we switch to black hats, and there’s no blackest than the furious Führer and his Nazi minions. Sure, Iron Sky created great expectations yet it wasn’t as Heilarious as we hoped for, but to all obsessed with discoidal Wunderwaffen there’s good news: A second 3rd Reich invasion will strike the world, not from the Moon but from the mythical Hollow Earth –2 German UFO movies in one year? I did Nazi that coming!

Click here to view the embedded video.

(7) Schauberger & the Horten bros. may be obscure figures, but Buckminster Fuller is a more popular type of genius –considering his work is the symbol of one the most popular places in the world– and now it seems he may indirectly help us attain or dreams of immortality, now that a group of scientists discovered that feeding mice with large amount of carbon 60 molecules –dubbed buckminsterfullerene in honor Mr. Fuller & his big balls– increases their life span dramatically. This news would not surprise anyone living in Latin America, since everyone here already believes the secret of life has the shape of a soccer ball.

(6) But that is life as we know it. What about life as we don’t know it? Every living thing you see around you –including that funky mold adorning the bread in you kitchen– is composed of DNA; but now a team of biologists at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge have come up with a completely synthetic form of nucleic acids, XNA, which has the potential not only of expanding our search for extraterrestrial life, but also opens the door to the creation of new artificial life forms in our own planet. It won’t be long before David celebrates his 1st. birthday.

(5) Until that day comes, eggheads can spend their time playing around with good ole DNA in accord with the mix & mash trends of our days. Like with those 150 human-animal hybrids secretly created in British labs over the past 3 years –a castle in Transylvania would have been way cooler– to explore possible cures for a wide range of diseases. I for one welcome our future Furry overlords.

(4) Mammals are cute… but bugs are even cuter, at least for UFO skeptics who were eager to use them as an explanation for the Chilean UFO video promoted by Leslie Kean in her Huffington Post column. Kean has tried to stop all the negative buzz by making it clear there were multiple video-cameras which captured the unknown object from different positions that day, and that because of this the CEFAA –the official Chilean UFO investigation agency– ruled out the possibility of an insect flying close to the camera. “Stay tuned” writes Leslie, who has been the subject of a veiled smear campaign after all the success gathered by her best-selling book. We sure will.

(3) Bugs will keep flying around, but the space shuttle Discovery has soared the skies for the last time, marking the end of an era in space exploration. While some pooh-pooers yell “good riddance!” by pointing out the ‘space taxi’ was little more than a glorified delivery van by the end of its career, there are many who still praise the shuttle as one of the most complex machines ever devised by Man –possibly one of the reasons why the white gal was such a UFO magnet.

(2) With the retirement of the shuttle fleet, the way is clear for dot-com billionaires and other private ventures to pick up the baton and boldly cash-in where no one has cashed-in before. And with an schedule announcement by James Cameron & co. for April 24th to explain “a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity’s prosperity”, everyone is thinking ‘space mining!’. While those would certainly be exciting news indeed, one fears it might well open a veritable (ehem) Pandora’s box of legal issues concerning the ownership & exploitation of celestial bodies.

(1) Such are probably the growing pains of becoming an interplanetary species, and in those plans Mars will always carry a pivotal role. Our red companion in the solar system has always lured us with the veiled promise of finding we’re not alone. A promise that was considered forfeit when our robotic probes found no evidence of life –no loosely clad Martian babes, no green multi-limbed warriors, not even a god-damned microbe. “Tough luck” said Mr. Sagan in his corduroy jacket; “hold on!” say a neurobiologist from California & an Italian mathematician, who re-analyzed the Viking’s data and claim the probe did find signs of life in 1976.

Now, allow me to dust off my tinfoil hat and speculate that maybe in 1976 finding life in another planet would have been too much of a cultural shock. It’s hard not to think of a baby-steps conditioning program designed to slowly acclimatize us into the idea that Mars was a planet just like Earth: full of water, life… and maybe even intelligent Martians with a fetish for pyramids –and monoliths?

But if Mars is a living planet then… who does it belong to: Us, or the Martians?

Until next week, this is RPJ jacking out & wishing everyone of you happy spoon bendings.

UPSTATE NY, USA – A long time MU Plus member of the Australian based podcast Mysterious Universe recently shared with his wife a tweet showing an image of a long lost Bigfoot board game. SG’s [redacted] wife secretly tracked down the discontinued board game, and surprised him on Father’s Day with the gift.

“I was so impressed that the hosts dug up this image,” recalled SG. “I happened to show my wife the image and we had a good laugh…a few weeks later I was surprised over Father’s Day breakfast as she had magically tracked one down.”

Experts believe bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) to be a fearsome 7 to 8 foot creature, that eludes mankind by living deep in forests throughout the world.

However, this board game portrays the beast as a sweet-smiling puffball who inappropriately touches tiny, unsuspecting children.

After ripping the packaging off, the family of five decided to play. That is where the fun ended.

“A plastic Bigfoot is moved around the board, effectively pooping out chips from his backside,” explains SG. “Then, with no rhyme or reason, players are encouraged to roll a set of dice and move aimlessly around the board…it made no sense.”

SG explains that after 2 minutes, his teenagers showed signs of agitation, a drastic loss of attention (began texting), and left the table abruptly.

“It’s bad enough keeping my name out of the press for a sighting,” explained SG. “But playing the game is completely humiliating…I can never let anyone in my life know about this. My Father’s Day was ruined. It’s hard enough to get my kids together for a meal these days…thanks alot Bigfoot you F*****!”

The Milton Bradley Company has declined comment, pending further investigation into the matter.

[Thanks Steve]

Hey MU Groovers!

We want to wish you all a happy and safe Easter and give an extra big thanks to Plus+ members for supporting the show.

Just a little FYI – There is no regular show this week. The Plus+ episode will come out on Thursday and a Music Special for all listeners will be released on the weekend.

Thanks from all the MU Team

As many of you will know, my love affair with the positive effects of negative ions generated from items like salt lamps is still going strong. However I have a new ionic mistress… her name? Elanra

Would you like some salt with your lamp? No? Well then perhaps you should seek your negative ions from The Elanra by the Australian based company Bionic Products. I have longed to buy an Elanra as it has been long touted for its incredible health benefits. I finally I bit the bullet and purchased one. So far my experience with it has been incredible.

First, let me explain. When I was a child my parents insisted on running this monstrous machine in the bedroom that made noises that I could only attribute to it containing horrific childhood monsters. This was the ionizer of the 80′s. Despite its noises my parents insisted on running it through the winter to ensure I didn’t get a cold. Surprisingly, it was very rare that I missed school because of colds or flus. The Elanra of today is much different.

The Elanra has done away with these giant horrific machines of the 80′s and compressed an incredible machine into a compact portable health improving device. Elanras produce small biologically active negative ions of oxygen which can be ingested into the body.

PROS

Inhaling the small negative ions of oxygen produced by the Elanra Ionizer helps your body to regain its own natural balance. Restoring this balance has been shown to produce many positive benefits including:

• Less susceptibility to colds and flu
• Less fatigue
• Natural detoxification of the body
• Improved sleep, relaxation and meditation
• Comfortable breathing
• Relief from allergies and hay fever
• Relief from sinus congestion and inflammation
• Enhancement of the body’s natural defence mechanisms
• Decreased stress, irritability and tension
• Increased alertness
• Increased work productivity
• Improved concentration
• Maintenance of normal functioning of all body systems

So what of these claims? Do they really work? In my experience… YES

I really wanted to do a through review of this device so I have carried it around in multiple situations for the past week. First I ran it the second night of the Nexus conference in the hotel room. I woke up refreshed and felt strangely full of energy.

Once I got home, I put the Elanra next to my bed and ran it while I slept. Again, I woke up feeling great. One of the most compelling experiences I has was when I ran Episode 407 by myself. I was up until 4.30am recording, yet while I felt tired, I didn’t feel exhausted. I then got up the following morning at 9am and felt so energetic that I went out and got a heap of errands done that I had been putting off for a long time.

On top of everything else, with the Elanra running in the studio by day and near my bed by night, I have finally rid myself of this nagging cold that has been affecting the production of our shows recently.

The Elanra is available in 3 different models (I picked up the MKIII) and can be purchased from negativeions.com Each device has multiple user selectable programs and there is a model to suit your needs.

Don’t believe it? Check out the scientific peer reviewed articles which back the Elanra. Additionally, the Elanra by Bionic Products is the only ionizer approved by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration. Trust me, they don’t approve anything without strict scrutiny.

CONS

One drawback that may stop you from purchasing the Elanra is the price. The smaller units start in the $200 price range with the largest units sit around $700-800. I must say though, the build quality is incredible and you really do “get what you pay for”.

I had noticed that I was waking up feeling slightly dehydrated, however I think it was just the fact that I don’t drink enough water in the first place. Since placing a glass of water by my bed and drinking more during the day, this feeling of dehydration has dissipated.

Finally, this is a electronic device that does produce charged particles, hence it must be kept away from electronic devices. The other day I witnessed Ben get a large shock when he touched the device after running around on our highly static studio carpet. It’s not dangerous and the device adheres to the high Australian electrical device standards. It was just a bit shocking (pun intended).

In Conclusion

While the Elanra isn’t cheap, the high quality of the build and the amount of health care costs it will save you, its worth every penny. You can check out my interview with Josh Shaw the inventor on the Elanra in Episode 407 of Mysterious Universe. Please also note, Bionic Products have not paid us for any advertising and I purchased the MKIII myself.

The benefits of this device just need to get out there!

Check them out at www.negativeions.com

At the beginning of our week off Aaron and I sat down with Joe and Lando from the The Ozone Nightmare for a fun two part recording with no particular topic or agenda.

Plus+ subscribers will find Part 1 of the show in their feeds while Part 2 is hosted over at The Ozone Nightmare.

Keep in mind this is not a Mysterious Universe episode and the subject matter is pretty “off topic” from our regular bread and butter. Expect video games, comics, movies etc.. oh and there’s a lap dance in the first 30 minutes.

Note: Language Warning on this show for sensitive listeners!

Breaking News: Aaron just called me to let me know that he has captured what may be the most important wildlife footage ever recorded. I am absolutely astonished at the quality of this new video.

It is in my mind clear, undeniable proof, that the Yowie, Australia’s Bigfoot, is real and roaming the Australian wilderness.

The ground breaking video is after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We are now in talks with our new parent company, Fox News, to bring the truth of the Yowie to the world in a Fair and Balanced way.