Uri Geller in Greece

 

Final Stage: Lightning and the Savant

 

By Peter Fotis Kapnistos (2010)

 

Metal bending celebrity Uri Geller first became conscious of his strange ability when he was approximately five years old. He was playing in a neighbor’s yard in Tel Aviv when “a light from the sky” hit him and knocked him to the ground. Soon after that, he was having a bowl of soup — when his spoon bent and broke.

Years later, an Israeli man named Yaakov Avrahami recalled in the past going to a Tel Aviv bus station and seeing a ball of light: “At that certain moment I noticed a little boy with a white shirt come out from the building to the left.” Avrahami said he saw the ball of light trail the youngster.

The exact cause and composition of ball lightning has yet to be determined. There may be several different varieties. But it usually appears as a grapefruit-sized sphere of light moving slowly through the air, which may end by fizzling out or exploding.

Prominent witnesses have observed ball lightning in previous times. In Acts 2:3, “tongues of fire” seemed to float around on the day of Pentecost. Czar Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, reported seeing a ball of light float into the window of a small church while in the company of his grandfather: “The ball (it was of lightning) whirled around the floor, then passed the chandelier and flew out through the door into the park.”

The Dutch News agency recently reported that on July 19, 2009, at least 100 homes in a district of the town of Soesterberg were hit by ball lightning. The lightning, a rare atmospheric phenomenon, wrecked hundreds of televisions, computers, telephones and central heating systems, the report said. In some households, flames came out of electronic equipment. In others, electric sockets sprang off the wall. “I saw the lightning shoot through the street,” one eyewitness told reporters. “The fireball hit a large fir tree and then went into a house,” he said.

* * *

Before Uri Geller finished his ten-week Greek reality show TV series “O diadohos tou Uri Geller” (The Successor of Uri Geller) introduced on October 24, 2009, I had the opportunity to attend his 8th program. I was in the ANT1 TV Athens studio audience on December 12.

In the studio cafeteria I bumped into Uri’s wife, Hanna, encircled by a group of young people with soft drinks and sweets. The senior editor of Focus magazine Christos Tsanakas chatted about statistics and dark matter with iconographer Giannis Tsolakos and his son Dionysus close by. Escorted by production assistant Laura Neri, I briefly greeted Uri Geller in his dressing room. But the situation there was far too rushed and jumping with folks for Uri to manage any of my mind testing.

Antenna TV host Christos Ferendinos and his creative director Kostas Grigorakis carefully reviewed last-minute details before the live broadcast. Countess Vanessa Kosta Pomponi with her husband Paolo and a few friends were also in the audience, keenly waiting for the show to get underway. Guest stars that gathered on the stage included model and presenter Vicky Kaya, and other national television celebrities.

The ANT1 TV studio was well designed and up to date. I walked around a multiplex of rooms specifically constructed for recording live to video. I unconsciously sensed that Zakris would finally win the Greek mentalist talent show. But I was also concerned that some observers were cautious about Uri Geller, accusing him of misleading the public with claims of supernatural powers.

* * *

What happens to you when you get struck by lightning? In “Act of God,” the Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal portrayed real-life stories to examine the jarring subject. In his book “Struck by Lightning,” mathematician Jeffrey Rosenthal endeavored to find out how often a result will happen just by chance. Some traditional beliefs suggest that people who miraculously survive lightning strikes can develop extraordinary talents.

Convincing proof emerged in the United States in 1994, when 42-year-old orthopedic surgeon Tony Cicoria was struck by lightning and quickly developed a passion to play the grand piano. He is depicted in the book “Musicophilia” by neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, whose acclaimed “Awakenings” was made into a film with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Tony Cicoria wasn’t musically gifted before the lightning strike. But ever since, his aspiration to play the piano has been fervent. Now, he plays to sold-out audiences and lately premiered his “Lightning Sonata,” a tour de force motivated by Cicoria’s weird incident. In the 1996 film “Phenomenon,” John Travolta was struck by lightning and realized extraordinary powers.

Savant Syndrome is a rare, but amazing condition in which persons exhibit almost unimaginable mental powers –– including musical, mathematical, artistic, verbal, and calendrical “savantism.” The website of the Wisconsin Medical Society lists 29 savant profiles. As described by leading researcher Darold Treffert, the Acquired Savant has extraordinary intellectual abilities as a result of traumatic brain injury or autism and developmental disability. But the Sudden Savant is an otherwise normal person who suddenly and unexpectedly acquires savant-like talent.

The autistic genius Kim Peek was the basis for the 1988 academy-award-winning film “Rain Man,” with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. It brought international attention to the Savant syndrome. Nowadays, Daniel Tammet is a well-known numerical savant who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. Stephen Wiltshire has the ability to draw exact replicas of what his eyes have seen after a quick glance, down to the exact number of windows in tall skyscrapers. Albert Einstein was a math savant who had slight autism symptoms. Benjamin Franklin, the explorer of electricity, was also a gifted savant –– evidently struck by lightning.

Medical research is presently looking into lightning’s possible effects on the human brain’s electrical circuitry. In the BBC documentary “Lightning: Nature Strikes Back,” a lightning strike victim received magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Even though there was no apparent physical damage, the electrical impulses revealed that his brain functions were re-wired by the lightning. In another analysis of human cognition, Allan Snyder discovered that people undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) could for a few minutes suddenly exhibit savant intelligence –– exceptional surges of brilliant mental ability –– as a short-term effect of magnetic brain stimulation.

Associate professor Koichi Takaki at Iwate University in Japan recently tested DNA’s reaction to high-voltage lightning –– with 50,000 to 100,000 volts for a 10-millionth of a second. During the artificial lightning process, Takaki found that “secreted protein and enzymes initially decreased but then multiplied dramatically.” He said lots of lightning yields a good harvest of everyday farm crops such as shiitake mushrooms. (“Lightning prods shiitake to multiply,” Japan Times, January 1, 2010)

Scientists at Florida’s Scripps Research Institute have shown for the first time that “lifeless” proteins, devoid of all genetic material, can evolve just like higher forms of life. Charles Weissmann, who led the study, said: “In viruses, mutation is linked to changes in nucleic acid sequence that leads to resistance. Now, this adaptability has moved one level down –– to prions and protein folding –– and it’s clear that you do not need nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) for the process of evolution.” (“Lifeless prion proteins are capable of evolution,” BBC, January 1, 2010)

If protein and enzyme secretions can significantly multiply via lightning processes, and “protein folding” is able to evolve as higher life forms do, an electromotive force might also critically alter the optical discharges or “biophoton emissions” of DNA molecules. Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute led by Ian Spielman have recently created “synthetic magnetic fields” using visible light. With the metal bending ability of Uri Geller, biophoton emissions evidently convey a charge on neutral atoms and create a synthetic magnetic field to which they respond –– even though no field is present.

* * *

On a warm, windy day, stand and shuffle your shoes briskly on an acrylic carpet –– then touch a metal object. You’ll hear, feel and may even see a spark. For reasons still unclear, certain individuals can store not only sparks, but also large amounts of electricity in their bodies, discharging it with consequences ranging from humorous to extremely dangerous. (“Supercharged People,” By Mark Hall, hubpages.com)

In 1988, British newspapers featured Pauline Shaw, 46, who claimed that her body was so full of electricity that her touch could damage household appliances. She was reported to have destroyed 25 irons, 18 toasters, 15 kettles, 6 tumble dryers, 10 washing machines, 12 television sets, 12 radios, 3 VCRs, and at least 250 light bulbs. She said that she once damaged her bank’s computer by leaning on the terminal. Doctors who examined Pauline theorized that hypersensitivity or stress might have somehow been responsible for her condition. She had destroyed every appliance in her house –– but her strong point was light bulbs. When she walked beneath one, it exploded.

In 1980, Cheshire woman Jacqueline Priestman, at the age of 22, suddenly noticed she was changing the channels on her TV set without touching it. Sparks would leap from electrical sockets when she moved toward them. When Jacqueline touched something made of metal, she’d get an electric shock. By 1984, Jacqueline had wrecked more than 24 vacuum cleaners and local service men refused to visit her home.

Sally Wallbank of Lancashire is another supercharged being listed in the UK, where there are about 40 people similarly able. She had blown the motors in 6 washing machines and 5 vacuum cleaners, wiped her mortgage record from her bank’s computer, and caused a cash register to charge two thousand dollars for a lettuce. Sally immobilized every car she had traveled in due to electrical system failures.

Related reports are so frequent that Street Light Interference (SLI) Syndrome is now routinely alleged to be a person’s interference with electrical items. People that cope with this condition are known as “SLIders,” a phrase coined by Hilary Evans, a British archivist and writer. According to Holly Beth Anderle: “Computers may malfunction, batteries go dead, sound systems blow, and cell phone batteries refuse to hold a charge or the phones themselves go haywire. Most SLIders have no idea what is happening to them or what is causing the problem.”

Could the Street Light Interference syndrome be a kind of mental savantism related to biological electromagnetic fields?  During his research, Hilary Evans quoted a leading Hungarian physicist who is an authority on ball lightning:

“In my opinion during such incidents some special, presently not known type of magnetic field is created around the body, which has an effect upon the structure of the materials. Consequently their fundamental properties are changed temporarily: like their tensile stress, electric conductivity, magnetic momentum, optical properties, etc. The same effects are detected in the case of ‘metal bending,’ or similar features are observed sometimes around ball lightnings.”

As for the case of ‘metal bending,’ professor George Egeyly, a Budapest physicist at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Central Research Institute for Physics, in recent times put pen to paper saying: “I put the spoon that Uri bent into my pocket and kept checking it every 3-4 minutes. It gradually bent to about 90 degrees in 15 minutes while in my own possession with no one around me. The spoon was later examined by electron beam scattering.”

* * *

I met with Uri Geller in Athens once more before the New Year. He came with his manager Shipi Shtrang to the Image Design Centre wax museum, run by Dimitris Hasekidis and Stella Ioannidou. But just as Uri embarked on bending a spoon, I suddenly experienced the SLIders condition. After only five photos my digital camera screen said: “Replace Batteries.” Yet the batteries were by all accounts freshly charged. The mix-up led to some finger pointing.

Uri’s critics fail to recognize that the real meaning of the “Geller Effect” is that metal bends without him touching it. In November, I had seen a spoon’s handle slowly bend by itself for almost a minute as it lay on a floor.  A former officer of the US National Security Agency also once said: “As he talked, the spoon continued to bend and fell on the floor.” Dr. Wernher von Braun of NASA renown likewise reported: “Geller has bent my ring in the palm of my hand without ever touching it.” Astronaut Edgar Mitchell said that Uri is not a magician, and those who claim he plays with slight of hand or other trickery are in fact ignorant of the Geller Effect.

My mind suddenly raced back to the 1970s. I had a daydream about windmills, the isle of Mycone, and Mr. Landon Kite, Staff Assistant to the President of America. He once considered “remote viewing” and a Near East corsair’s well –– sealed with seven metal seals.

For the benefit of Mr. Kite
There will be a show tonight on trampoline
The Hendersons will all be there
Late of Pablo-Fanques is there, what a scene
(“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” The Beatles, 1967)

Why is Bohr’s model of atomic hydrogen (water-maker) inscribed on a very old well seal? Don’t ask. If you think this is a hoax, you’re out of time. It describes the Rydberg formula for the spectral emission lines of the deuterium atom.

Remind us to show you how the well seal is a tryblion, as said by the Bruce Codex. What’s a tryblion? An ancient spoonful. Who broke the metal seal? If you think this is a hoax, you’re out of time.

We’re searching for a small rod in the center, the meson or quark-antiquark pair. It looks like the “f”-shaped sound-hole of a violin. Like an atomic lightning bolt, that nuclear boson filament is the strongest force in nature. The missing “God particle” vibrates to create quantum mass, and the ground of all material being. We call it a mathematical string.

Who broke the well seal? Now you see it. Now you don’t. Like a thief in the night, a spectral Prometheus stole the fire of heaven. Have you seen a comely stranger, a Man in Black? Who is worthy to open the seals? The one of Israel, whose mind melts steel.

Our search went on for over 20 years, until a cold war finally ended. And now the sixth seal is no longer in its place. It was a limited offer. Discontinued. Withdrawn. The mysterious metal tryblion on an antiquated well system for many generations is gone. Missing from the waterfront castle gate.

As the Tzolkin and Haab calendar completes another cycle, Alexander and Darius once again must meet. But Darius opens hostilities on too many fronts. They will be holes in his sinking ship. Nations await the quantum entanglement of two singularities, one known, and the other hidden.

In Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider prepares to breed the fêted God particle –– the technological singularity of longevity and eternal life. But Darius has his own nuclear reactors hidden in the far-flung mountains of Persia and Babylon. They are copycats of the Large Hadron Collider, with other components called Atlas, Alice and CMS. The Western bigots and deniers who sit with Darius aren’t his guests. They’re his bosses. How else could he get a hadron collider? Designed by IG Farben fugitives. He wants to create a man-made black hole, with a screen dump of the Higgs particle.

Darius’ scheme is an imitator experiment based on the 1945 German “Uranium Engine” by Heisenberg, a founder of quantum mechanics. It was not a bomb. His time machine of biblical hell. Uranium deuteride can be used as a nano-trigger, injected into a human target assembly. Darius seeks guinea pigs to sit in the pathway of binary fission, the warp of space-time, fully awake:

And there came up out of the bottomless pit a wheel having a sword flashing with fire, and in the sword were pipes. And I (he) asked him saying; What is this sword? And he said: …into this pipe are sent they that through their gluttony devise all manner of sin; into the second pipe are sent the backbiters which backbite their neighbor secretly; into the third pipe are sent the hypocrites and the rest whom I overthrow by my contrivance. (Fragments of the “Questions of Bartholomew” dated to the 5th Century)

Regrettably, the sixth seal is no longer in its place. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Yet beneath an olden fountain lingers a channel of quantum entanglement, like a book of life. Just what did you think the sacred tryblion was, a trophy you could steal and put on your bookshelf? The tryblion has its lawful owner. Have you not known? The seventh seal is your mind, which only he can open.

Well, baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
I said, baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
You are all left out
Out of there without a doubt
‘Cause baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time
(“Out of Time,” The Rolling Stones, 1966)

What happens to you when ball lightning strikes you?  Ball lightning is up till now an unfamiliar phenomenon. A standard hypothesis currently suggests that ball lightning consists of vaporized silicon burning through oxidation. Another theory is that some ball lightning is the transfer of microscopic primordial black holes through the atmosphere, as proposed by Mario Rabinowitz in “Astrophysics and Space Science.”

“I must emphasize that there is a slight possibility that some of my energies do have extraterrestrial connection.” (Uri Geller)

* * *

http://reporter.blackraiser.com/

(JANUARY 2010)  PETER FOT K KAPNISTOS, ICARIAN SEA, GR, 83300.

 

 

 

Uri Geller in Greece

Part 2: Zorba and Biophoton Magnetism

 

By Peter Fotis Kapnistos (2009)

The formation of synthetic magnetic fields using visible light could correspond to the Geller Effect.  Biophoton emissions are linked to the body’s metabolism.

In December 2009, physicists for the first time used laser light to generate “synthetic magnetism,” an exotic condition in which neutral atoms suddenly begin to behave as if they were charged particles interacting with a magnetic field –– even though no such field is present and the atoms have no charge. (“Synthetic magnetism achieved by optical methods,” Eureka! Science News, Dec 2, 2009)

Research has shown that the body emits visible light 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. Living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals. To discover more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan recently employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. In July 2009, they revealed, “The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day.”

* * *

After meeting with Uri Geller in November at the Argo Gallery in Athens, I noted his telepathic friendship with the musician Sting, a royal ark found in a Macedonian tomb, and two sudden network blackouts –– on the streets where I live and work. Rick Stokes, the news editor of The Anomalist website joked, “We can’t wait for Part Two!” My second meeting with Uri Geller in Athens was on December 10, at the Hilton hotel.

With us was Giannis Tsolakos, a familiar Greek artist and iconographer (hagiographer) praised by Mikis Theodorakis, composer of the musical score for the film “Zorba the Greek.” Tsolakos’ mural painting of Mikis Theodorakis is in the Megaron Athens International (Athens Concert Hall).

Dimitris Hasekides, the futuristic designer of Image Design Centre (Athens’ wax museum), was also there. The museum had appointed the iconographer Tsolakos to create a portrait of Uri Geller as a birthday gift, and we were at the Hilton to present it to him.

Almost as soon as the iconographer finished stirring his coffee cup, Uri respectfully took the Hilton teaspoon and lightly rubbed it. Its handle began to curve. Uri gave the spoon back to Tsolakos and it continued to twist in the iconographer’s hand. When it finally stopped bending at about ninety degrees, Hasekides took the teaspoon and tried to uncurl it, but he said that it felt too rigid.

Another friend Uri Geller met that evening was Manolis Rassoulis, famous in Greece as a songwriter and singer. Music fans had lately flocked to see Beyonce present a concert in Athens. Also at hand was publisher Antonis Limberis and reporters from the Espresso newspaper, who were in high spirits after filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola recently came to town. Uri bent a few more spoons for his visitors while they sat for press photographs.

Vicky Kaya is a Greek model, television presenter and actress featured in numerous fashion magazines. Vicky hosted the 2009 Star Hellas beauty pageant and is now hosting the Greek version of Top Model. She gave a recent account of sitting next to Uri Geller on an airplane flight. He amazed Vicky by straightforwardly bending her airline meal spoon with his intent gaze and then inquired if she’d ask for another spoon.

When I first saw Uri Geller mentally coil a teaspoon in person, by luck it fell to the floor. The outlying spoon twirled and persisted to bend and move around on the ground by itself. For a fleeting moment, I imagined an army of spoons –– walking along an ocean floor.

The weirdness of coincidental backdrop events was also riveting. Uri Geller predicted on his live ANT1 TV show that the economist and politician Antonis Samaras would become the next leader of Greece’s opposition New Democracy party, although Samaras was trailing behind in the polls. On November 29, Antonis Samaras was elected the new leader of Greece’s conservative opposition party.

On December 9, UFO enthusiasts, military analysts, and scientists around the world were looking for answers to bizarre early morning lights that were visible across the sky in Norway. Visible for almost two minutes, the spiraling tentacle dragged a sphere of mysterious light that captivated awestruck Norwegians. It resembled a spoon winding in the sky. According to some reports, the unexplained lights may have been caused by the failure of a Russian missile test.

On December 14, a day of remembrance was observed for Cyprus’s former president Tassos Papadopoulos, a few days after thieves stole his body from his grave. Leaving no clues, tomb raiders used the cover of darkness, a thunderstorm and a power cut to dig up the former president’s corpse after removing a 250kg stone slab. Cyprus requested Interpol’s help because in truth such a ruthless offense had never been committed in the island. State television interrupted normal programming to broadcast live reports and reactions to the humiliation. Uri Geller cancelled public visits on that day. Uri had moved with his family to Cyprus at the age of 11, where he attended a Catholic high school in Nicosia and learned English.

As I tracked Uri Geller online with his December Twitter posts, I observed that the Twitter time stamps did not match the sky brightness in a number of Uri’s photos. Were they due to a computer glitch, or were they deliberately made to misinform? On the early hours of December 18, the Iranian Cyber Army claimed that it had hacked into Twitter, leaving millions exasperated and annoyed. The motive behind the cyber attack was not known.

* * *

How Does Uri Geller Bend Spoons?

The above-mentioned experiment using laser light to generate magnetism was a clear indication that an optically induced “synthetic magnetic field” had been created for the first time. Other findings suggest that light emission is linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

Dan Eden recently reported that, as said by the Russian scientist Pjotr Garjajev, one of the most essential sources of light and biophoton emissions is DNA. Garjajev purportedly managed to intercept communication from a DNA molecule in the form of ultraviolet photons –– or simply light.

“There are about 100,000 chemical reactions happening in every cell each second. The chemical reaction can only happen if the molecule that is reacting is excited by a photon… Once the photon has excited a reaction it returns to the field and is available for more reactions… We are swimming in an ocean of light.” –– “The Real Bioinformatics Revolution: Proteins and Nucleic Acids Singing to One Another?” (Paper available at report@i-sis.org.uk)

Research group leader Ian Spielman, the physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) who conducted the synthetic magnetism experiment said, “The achievement provides unprecedented insights into fundamental physics and the behavior of quantum objects, and opens up entirely new ways to study the nature of condensed-matter systems that were barely imaginable before.”

Fritz-Albert Popp, a theoretical biophysicist at the University of Marburg in Germany, had been teaching radiology — the interaction of electromagnetic (EM) radiation on biological systems. Using a sensitive photomultiplier, it become apparent to Popp that biophoton emissions had a purpose outside of the body. Wave resonance wasn’t only being used to communicate inside the body, but between living things as well.

With biophoton emissions, Popp believed he had an answer to this question. This phenomenon of coordination and communication could only occur in a holistic system with one central orchestrator. Popp showed in his experiments that these weak light emissions were sufficient to orchestrate the body’s repairs. The emissions had to be low intensity because these communications took place on a very small, intracellular, quantum level. Higher intensities would have an effect only in the world of the large and would create too much “noise” to be effective. (“Are humans really beings of light?”  Dan Eden for viewzone.com)

Additional tests with a photomultiplier showed that water fleas were sucking up the light emitted from each other. Popp tried the same experiment on small fish and got the same result. He also examined the effects of stress. In a stressed state, the rate of biophoton emissions goes up –– a defense mechanism designed to restore the body’s equilibrium.

Biophoton emissions seemingly confer a “charge” on sub-populations of neutral atoms and create a synthetic magnetic field to which they react. This unlocks an incredible possibility to realize totally new states of matter.

* * *

Why Does Uri Geller Bend Spoons?

When asked why he bends spoons, Uri Geller replied: “The spoon is an ancient tool.” He told us that he owns a very antiquated spoon –– thousands of years old –– from the time of the pyramids.

“The spoon is sensual,” Uri continued. We put the spoon in our mouth. It sends us a subconscious signal of flavor and pleasure.

“And the spoon gives us nourishment,” Uri Geller said. We use the spoon to receive our food and our sustenance.

I added that a particular kind of ancient spoon didn’t have a handle. It was known as the tryblion.

The household or Megista Tryblion was a flat disc-shaped plate with a concave well in its middle. It was a curved bowl–– like the interior of a sphere –– used to measure regular “cupfuls.”

But the Ieron or Sacred Tryblion was a smaller cast-iron mortar plate in which ingredients were pounded with a pestle into minuscule amounts of “spoonfuls.” Doctors used it to measure out quantities for prescriptions. It also became a standard weight and measure for the seals and outlets of ancient water springs, according to Epiphanius of Salamis.

In languages descended from Latin, another name for Ieron Tryblion is Holy Grail. The 12th Century story told by Chrétien de Troyes, based on an unknown book from Count Philip of Flanders, combines biblical lore with myths of a cauldron or well. In medieval romances Uri-ens is the guardian of the Grail.

* * *

http://reporter.blackraiser.com/

(DECEMBER 2009)  PETER FOT K KAPNISTOS, ICARIAN SEA, GR, 83300.

 

The Men Who Stare at Zygotes

 

By Peter Fotis Kapnistos

 

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) is a book by Jon Ronson about the U.S. Army’s investigation of psychic theories and the possible military uses of the paranormal. Its title alludes to efforts to kill goats by staring at them. In a Nov 7, 2009 online Twitter post, the well-known mentalist Uri Geller referred to actor George Clooney, saying, “His latest film is about my work.” In a Nov 12 Twitter post, Geller added:

“George Clooney is Uri Geller in the movie The Men Who Stare At Goats? I believe I ignited the story when I told Jon Ronson about some of my adventures with a certain intelligence agency.”

Jon Ronson’s book examines the links between paranormal military programs and psychological techniques used today. The book follows the development of secret psychic activities over the past decades and explores how they are used today in U.S. security and military operations.  Project Stargate, the CIA-run program that used remote viewing for psychic spying, came to an end in 1995, and thousands of pages of formerly classified material were released. Journalist Gary S. Bekkum has researched those secret government documents, as well as UFO information and psychic explorations.

According to Bekkum, The Men Who Stare at Goats (the 2009 comedy film) is more or less consistent, with polished performances from a first-rate cast headed by George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey. The America government has been involved in using the paranormal since the beginning of the Cold War. Bekkum now has 89,900 pages of documents about the psychic effort provided by the CIA:

In the 1970s, the American Intelligence Community, including but not limited to CIA, DIA, NSA, Army intelligence, the USAF, the Navy, and others, engaged in secret research to determine the usefulness of psychic phenomena. This is true, and this larger effort is mostly ignored by the film, which tells the story from the point of view of the characters, some who were inspired by real persons and events.

In the 1980s, Army intelligence did train operational military psychic spies, who were tasked against real targets of interest, including several high profile cases, such as the hostage crisis in Iran. Tasking for the units was handed down from highest levels of the U.S. government, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to declassified government files.

Jon Ronson’s book focused on one group of psychic spies in the U.S. Army. But if famed paranormalist Uri Geller is somehow related to Ronson’s observations, perhaps we ought to also look into Geller’s military background. Uri Geller was a paratrooper in the Israeli army. He fought in the Six Day War of 1967 and was wounded in action.

Geller’s biographers disclosed a rather intense incident when Uri supposedly tried to “duck and dive” on military service: “His working out of a cunning plan of deception in the paratroopers was not only foolhardy at the time – for what he did, he could have been flung in a military prison for months and suffered a stain on his record for the rest of his life.”

What actually happened to Uri Geller in the Israeli army? According to Uri, a miraculous switchover incident took place, with a machine gun. (‘Ben Gunn,’ says you, ‘has reasons of his own.’) But there was no one he could tell. “His first thought was that God had intervened, and as he has never had any other explanation for it, that tends to remain his belief.”

Although Geller took a bullet through his left hand in the Six Day War, he still headed a crack unit to knock out a pillbox. After being shot at twice, he fired his gun and killed a Jordanian soldier. Shortly later, slices of metal flying off a stricken tank, or possibly bullets, hit Geller again. “He felt a blast, sensed something entering his right arm and the left side of his forehead, and, as he blacked out, assumed with resignation that he was dead.”

Is there anything in the army records to suggest that Uri Geller might be able to stop someone’s heart by staring at him or her? Uri has been filmed staring at fertilized cells (zygotes) and plant seeds in order to make them germinate and sprout. But do certain psychic techniques involve martial arts and self-defense? Why does Geller relate to the men who stare at goats? Should we take a more careful look at Gary Bekkum’s files?

Uri Geller once said he had a dream he would die during a paratrooper jump: “He appreciated that dreaming of dying on a jump was a fairly normal thing for a paratrooper to do.” Did something weird happen to Uri Geller when he jumped as a paratrooper in the Six Day War? Did he in some way set off from this life? Was Uri’s miraculous switchover incident a reference to an out-of-body experience (OBE), or a significant UFO intrusion?

In the Second World War, UFO sightings were called “foo fighters.” Nowadays, if the blip of an unidentified paratrooper shows up on a radar screen, it’s sometimes called a “Mary Poppins” (the one-liner joke is that someone jumped down from the sky).

When the 11th blip abruptly arrived on Israeli radar in June of 1967, it was far more life threatening than a pathetic joke of duck and dive. Ten Israeli soldiers had volunteered for a critical mission to defend Israel’s right to exist. The radar screens showed eleven. Who was the 11th paratrooper of the Six Day War?

For what he did, he could have been put in prison. His mind raced beyond the limits of past and future. His body was a weightless force, faster than a speeding projectile. His right hand was outstretched. A shock wave roared and thundered in the sky behind him. The eleventh paratrooper was descending to the Mount of Olives.

There would be no picnic tables set with refreshments or well-dressed pastors waiting with Bibles at the moment. Jerusalem was a battle zone with heavy fighting –– a desert theater of fortifications and tanks. Pieces of someone’s dismembered leg marked the burning ground. “Where’s your parachute?” asked another soldier. “Over there,” the eleventh replied and pointed to a near graveyard. His shirt was saturated with color, dipped in his own blood.

He projected phases of his life as several dimensions, from a playful child to an elderly peacekeeper. Those aspects he embedded into terrestrial reality –– past and future –– when his feet touched the ground, and his body descended to the Mount of Olives. Who was the 11th paratrooper?

* * *

Cause tonight for the first time

Just about half-past ten

For the first time in history

It’s gonna start raining men.

It’s Raining Men! Hallelujah! – It’s Raining Men! Amen!

(The Weather Girls, 1982)

* * *

The eleventh paratrooper was at last identified and a background check was conducted. The niece of Sigmund Freud became a refugee when book burning and violent outbursts of anti-Semitism began in Vienna. Sigmund Freud and his family received visits from the Gestapo. Many would perish in the Holocaust.

The niece of Sigmund Freud was put at great risk with numerous forced abortion incidents –– enough to bring about female infertility. It would have been a medical wonder for her to be his biological mother.

The “SS Exodus” was a ship that carried Jewish emigrants from France in 1947 with the goal of taking its passengers to Israel. Most of the emigrants were Holocaust survivors who had no immigration certificates. Homeless orphans had no legal birth certificates or given names.

* * *

Uri Geller said that his paratrooper switchover was under the protection of some outside force, which was unfathomable. His first thought was that God had intervened. The American psychic Ingo Swann worked with Uri in the 1970s.  Russel Targ and Harold Puthoff conducted experiments with them at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). They believed that Uri Geller, retired police commissioner Pat Price, and artist Ingo Swann had genuine psychic abilities. The CIA and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), directed by Andrija Puharich, allegedly worked with Geller, Price, and Swann to develop psychic powers for the military.

In November 2009, NASA scientists made the thrilling discovery that the moon has lots of water and could probably support life. NASA’s October 9 mission involving the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite provided the stunning confirmation of water in the forms of ice and vapor. “Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go,” said John Logsdon, a space policy researcher for George Washington University.

In 1998, Ingo Swann wrote of water on the moon and said the moon also supports life. Swann claimed that men in black had taken him into the wing of a covert black ops survey into lunar anomalies to learn what aliens were doing there. Swann said he had made government connections with human looking moon visitors that were living on earth.

“VALIS” is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. (The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System.) Dick’s theory was that we have been contacted by a transcendental mind he called VALIS:

In 1973 world-famous psychic showman Uri Geller had also been receiving messages and regular UFO sightings from something calling itself SPECTRA, which claimed to be a super computer in orbit around the earth. Not normally reticent about his bizarre beliefs, Geller has been suspiciously quiet about his experiences of SPECTRA – which may or may not relate to the publicly recorded interest the CIA paid to this particular aspect of his unusual career. However, the maverick, but world-renowned physicist, Dr. Jack Sarfatti, was prepared to commit almost certain professional suicide by publicly declaring that he too had been contacted by, in his own words, “a VALIS-like being.” Despite knowing he was going to face ridicule and scientific crucifixion, Sarfatti went on record to recount how, in 1952 at the age of 13, he had received a telephone call from an inhuman, metallic voice. The voice declared himself a sentient computer on a spacecraft from the future and instructed him to pursue a career in science.

After Sarfatti went public about his phone call from VALIS as a teenager, it emerged that he was not the only scientist to have had a similar experience. In recent years, researchers have discovered that at least a dozen other senior players in the international scientific community received a mysterious call claiming to be from a computer or other being from the future encouraging them to study science.

(David Southwell and Sean Twist, “Conspiracy Files: Real-life Stories of Paranoia, Secrecy, and Intrigue” 2004)

Tim Boucher freshly considered Philip K. Dick’s premise and said that Geller is also responsible for stories regarding John Lennon’s UFO contacts. Today, the prospects for life on the moon are better than ever before. “Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one,” said Greg Delory, a researcher for the University of California.

Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin recently said in an interview that there’s a “monolith” on a moon. Benjamin Creme, a writer of esotericism for Share International magazine, claims that the modern “Messiah” already entered the earth’s atmosphere –– decades ago –– and is now living in England. The modern messiah-figure is making his policies known to the world as the current global systems give way.

As the “megachurch” movement spreads worldwide and “televangelists” make use of home entertainment media to provide teaching and support to believers, a new inquiry has been put forward: “If Jesus had a TV show, what would he broadcast?” The men who stare at quotes think he should probably instruct Bible and Sunday school studies. The men who stare at notes think he should explore lost archeology, ancient biology or stellar explosions in space. But the men who stare at votes think he should perform more miracles –– in harmony with our current laws. Today it is unlawful for a layman to heal without a medical license (very soon, it might also be forbidden for one to offer security related help).

“Another world,” the stranger said to the small crowd of men. “Why do you stand there, looking up at the sky? He will return in the same way that you saw him go.”

According to Benjamin Crème (and maybe Dan Brown), the modern messiah-figure’s intention is to marry and live the dream of Eden. His legendary wedding feast is supposed to last for a thousand years, to mark the “technological singularity” or scientific era of eternal life.

Some critics may perhaps argue that men who stare at goats use the evil side of the mind. But a more angelic inspiration for Jon Ronson’s weird tale can be found in Acts 5:

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

* * *

http://reporter.blackraiser.com/

(NOVEMBER 2009)  PETER FOT K KAPNISTOS, ICARIAN SEA, GR, 83300.

Magnetic “Woo” and James Randi

Peter Fotis Kapnistos

 

 

“The Amazing Randi” recently poked me for a million-dollar award he has promised to anyone with proof of paranormal powers (shrugged off as “woo” by skeptics). Numerous theorists describe the collective subconscious, a sense of the greater good, or the trust of instinct as what mainly determines humankind´s evolving nature.

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A tall man wearing an officer´s uniform courteously entered the ship´s dining room. He introduced himself as an admiral of the Dutch navy and said he was an emissary for a top-secret committee of the United Nations. “We need you to decipher something for us,” he cautiously requested.

“What is it?” the Oxford cryptologist inquisitively asked.

“A blank page,” the admiral softly replied.

“But I´ll need a symbol,” the professor objected. “At least a line, or a few dots, something…”

Nightfall touched the horizon after a day´s journey. A group of persons trekked along a tapered footpath into untried woodland.

“Why must we meet here?” the weary professor asked.

“A blank page,” replied a Canadian voyager clutching his field glasses.

They sat by a campfire and continued their discussion. “I was a firmware engineer for a global digital provider,” the clean shaved Canadian said. “During maintenance I found a blank web page that was receiving a huge amount of daily visits.”

“Did you check the IP addresses of the visitors?” The professor inquired.

“At first it seemed to be another dirty bunch sharing raunchy erotica,” the engineer carefully watched the footpath trail as he spoke. “They used an odd astronomy recipe, like Morse code. If a recurrent IP failed to visit the blank page or made more than one visit per day, a communication port would robotically open. I think that may have allowed them to exchange sex-torture subject matter.”

The sound of a crowd drawing near invaded the evening stillness. The Chinese negotiator and an Italian envoy remained standing at a tent porch as the familiar admiral paced into the campsite without airs, wearing grubby khakis and a snug jacket. “We need to know what´s behind the CIA tortures,” the admiral tersely beckoned the professor.

Thus began the unlikely mission of the Oxford cryptologist and an undisclosed group of United Nations representatives from assorted homelands such as Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Turkey, Japan, and Russia –– to name only a few. At long last it was discovered that the CIA had made use of “psychics” during the 1970s. But due to the affluent demands of lobbyists, some influential “skeptics” were eventually substituted instead, partly because they supposedly knew more about how to tackle and resolve religious overloads. Opportune cynics scorned straight morals. They effortlessly became the foremost producers of explicit representations of sexual activity. Paradoxically, the leading consumers of pornography according to later press reports were excessive religious traditionalists. The ominous partnership of supply and demand traded immense stockpiles of capital. Members of an intelligence sector of the US government were charged with sex abuse and torture in interrogations. Behind closed doors, the CIA destroyed nearly 100 graphic videos of such interrogations.

Margie Schoedinger was a young woman from Houston, Texas who made a complaint in 2002 that she had been repeatedly drugged and raped by clandestine US government agents that wore face covers. They purportedly exposed her to indignity and trauma. But due to the “far-fetched atmosphere” of her allegations, the local authorities presumed that Margie Schoedinger was in all probability psychologically disturbed.

Two years later, horrible Abu Ghraib prison photos were seen around the world. Images of US government agents wearing face covers while fiendishly afflicting prisoners looked just like Margie Schoedinger´s original descriptions. Evidently, she had counseled us wisely. But by then, Margie had passed away from a gunshot wound in an apparent suicide.

A medical helicopter waited above the isolated encampment to airlift a photographer who had suffered a head injury. The Oxford professor examined some photos an Australian supervisor had given him. A Brazilian mediator watched on. They were demonstrations of water boarding. “Notice anything absent?” The Australian abruptly asked and paused for a long moment. “There are no boards in these photographs,” the Brazilian finally pointed out.

“They didn´t let slip ––on how they joined together two wooden boards,” the professor remarked. “One of the earliest reported victims died of asphyxiation and had water and blood flow out of his lung when his side was pierced.”

A new boss looked out of a window over Washington D.C. An advice-giver selected a list of files and speculated: “Freeze the Sandstone Foundation´s assets? Probably more witnesses might be made known with new disclosures of entrenched elements.”

At length, the rundown Abu Ghraib prison would finally serve as a museum. Near the secluded entry of a dim corridor flickered a single candle on a small plaque that said: “Memorial of Margie Schoedinger.”

 

But she would not think of battle that reduces men to animals,
So easy to begin and yet impossible to end.
For she the mother of our men did counsel me so wisely then
I feared to walk alone again and asked if she would stay.
(Uriah Heep, “Lady in Black,” 1971)

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James Randi recently posted an article on his “Swift Blog” with the title, “A Champion Grubby Speaks Out” (April 22, 2009). In that article, Mr. Randi automatically criticized me for a story I had published on the Internet about “Uri Geller and the YouTube Video Smear.”

I must admit that Randi did pay me a Freudian accolade by calling me a champion of sorts. The slang word “grubby” is regularly used to describe dirty work clothes. Perhaps James Randi instinctively compared me to a blue-collar protagonist (unless he meant Myxocephalus aenaeus, a fish that looks like a red bass).

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be.
(John Lennon, “Working Class Hero,” 1970)

 

 

For readers who don´t know who James Randi is, the Amazing Randi (an 80-year-old native Canadian who merrily sports a Charles Darwin style beard) is a stage magician and professional skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims. One of his much-loved objects to complain about is Uri Geller, an Israeli-British performer who claims to be able to bend spoons with the psychic power of his mind.

James Randi began his blitz of opposition with: “I hardly know where to start…” And that´s a good sign for working class enthusiasts. From the onset, the challenger is confused, bewildered and disoriented. He hardly knows. Randi claimed that “a neodymium magnet contained in a plugged-on thumb tip” can move the needle of a compass at an outlying distance. Randi even said he would demonstrate how it´s done. Indeed, if I had further evidence of such a gadget, I would certainly have mentioned it in my original article. I have nothing to lose by exposing swindlers. I only said that the video Randi refers to is not sufficient evidence to prove that Uri Geller cheated. The swollen thumb visual impression in the YouTube video that many observers have commented on was due to blurred motion-capture and appeared on both of Uri´s thumbs (something Randi didn´t seem to get but nonetheless badgered me for).

In one part of the video clip, Uri Geller rubbed his left thumb. Randi and his followers claim that´s where Geller plugged in a magnetic thumb tip. But if you watch the video again you will notice that Geller actually made three attempts to move the compass needle. It slightly moved during the first two tries, but moved more after he rubbed his thumb and asked everyone in the audience to join hands. So, how did the compass needle shift in the first shots if Uri was not allegedly wearing a thumb tip yet? Of course we can speculate all we want. Perhaps Uri Geller rubbed his thumb for a perfectly innocuous reason –– because it just so happened to itch. Or, as Uri´s fans might claim, because students of acupressure regularly massage their finger tips to remove blockages from their meridians and to increase the circulation of Qi (bioforce) through their hands. Of course, with the first mention of “Qi” James Randi and his loyal cohorts will cry, “woo” aloud, and call it a “scientific howler” because in their opinion, bioforce simply doesn´t exist. It´s too bad for them, however, that the Japanese Ministry of Health regulates a thumb technique developed by Tokujiro Namikoshi as a licensed bioforce medical therapy. For centuries now, watchmakers have reported cases where common people halted timepieces only by touching them.

Perhaps Randi made the supreme sacrifice of wrongness when he insisted, “There is no such thing as a human magnetic field,” and called me an idiot and an ignorant reporter for mentioning it. Regrettably, the so-called leader of an “educational club” is apparently still bootstrapped to the world of 19th century mechanics. There is definitely such a thing as the human magnetic field. Researchers began to systematically measure the magnetic fields produced by the human body in the 1970s, after the first accurate measurement was made in 1963 (see: Baule G.M, McFee R. “Detection of the magnetic field of the heart,” American Heart Journal, 1963). Today, international conferences in magnetobiology are held every two years with hundreds of important scientists attending. Most conferences focus on MEG (magnetoencephalogram), or the measurement of the magnetic field of the brain.

We shouldn´t be too harsh on James Randi for lagging behind with his bio-magnetic reviews. Although he claims to lead an informative institute, we shouldn´t forget that the Amazing Randi is perhaps the top professional conjurer of our times. Having started off as a carnival and nightclub magical performer, Randi soon managed to sway entire departments of the US government (via the MacArthur Fellowship) and leading scientists to stop funding research in pioneering fields. America has now fallen behind China in the scientific study of psi phenomena. What more could be said of a head teacher misguidedly claiming knowledge? In a squabble, James Randi suggested that I go back to being a “fashion photographer.” If the popular demand grows, perhaps I will release some never-before published photos of famous personalities. But I certainly won´t return Randi´s boorishness. Asking James Randi to revisit his old playing field of debased nightclubs and saw dust restaurants would be too unkind.

Peter Fotis Kapnistos worked with Professor Spyridon Marinatos, the archaeologist who excavated the ruins of Akrotiri on the island of Thera (Santorini). Peter was the assistant of Spiros Tsavdaroglou, an official photographer for the National Archaeological Museum of Greece. They photographed Minoan and Mycenaean sites and artifacts for Professor Marinatos, who was one of the premier Greek archaeologists of the 20th century (his name is mentioned in the video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis). Peter also assisted the team that photographed the royal tomb of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, discovered in the 1980s by the archeologist Manolis Andronicus. If you happen to come across encyclopedias or history books with monochrome pictures of small trinkets from the Tomb at Vergina depicting the father of Alexander the Great, you can be sure those photos came out of Peter´s darkroom work.

It would be thoughtless of anyone to deny that James Randi has done a good turn to modern society by exposing the trickery of some religious pretenders who have robbed the wealth and dignity of many believers. But Randi is neither a scientist nor an educator. He and his committed followers make the mistake of assuming that if there´s a reported phenomenon that can´t be reproduced or explained, it must be a clever trick.

For example, if one of Randi´s young fans were to dive into a tank filled with freezing water at a temperature below zero Celsius, they would suffer cardiac arrest almost immediately according to modern scientific literature. That´s a medical fact. Thus, anyone able to do this without injury, according to Randi´s pointed logic, must somehow be cheating. But Lewis Gordon Pugh, a British lawyer, would strongly disagree. Pugh is perhaps the only man in the world that can increase his core body temperature at will, only by thinking about it. Scientists are now trying to explain how it´s achievable and are absolutely astounded that Lewis Pugh “the ice-man” doesn´t even shiver (an involuntary reflex for mortal humans) while swimming almost naked at the North Pole.

Shrewdly enough, James Randi completely avoided talking about Pugh in his criticism of my original article. Randi has promised to give a million dollars to anyone who can prove paranormal powers. Lewis Pugh says that he can alter his body temperature simply by “visualization.” Ironically, one of Randi´s supporters (who doesn´t even believe in psi) sent me a frenzied message in a befuddled attempt to redefine the dictionary meaning of psi. Others thought they could at last solve the enigma by declaring that William Tell never existed.

But what exasperated James Randi the most was none of the above. He wound up when I wrote that someone using the name “Randi Schimnosky” was posting on the Internet message boards concerning atheism, kinky sex, and child abuse and making at least some people wonder if it had anything to do with James Randi. This is absolutely true. I made up not an iota of what I reported. Instead of thanking me for tipping him off that a potential cyber teaser might be pestering his prestige, James Randi intimidated me. (I assure you I´m not Randi Schimnosky.)

The weird Schimnosky character emerged through a Canadian Internet service provider and could prompt attention for building fake profiles because Randi Schimnosky sometimes poses as a man and sometimes as a woman. Nevertheless, James Randi apparently believes I should be hauled over the coals for mentioning it. The Amazing Randi agitatedly recalled a time when he had the gratification of “flooring a nasty chap” and intimidated me on his Swift Blog:

“One shot, to the chops. He went down, and was carried out. VERY satisfying, I assure you. Want some, Mr. Kapnistos? I got some…”

How am I supposed to answer that menacing question? Of course, I don´t think an elderly man might be waiting to mete out a serious head injury to me the minute I walk out of a restaurant or movie theater. But I´m not sure about his messy group of tough followers. “Rule No. 5″ of the James Randi Forum website states: “You will not post anything that demonstrates a clear and present danger to the welfare of another person, or otherwise tends to create alarm or apprehension that the welfare of any person is in imminent jeopardy.” James Randi did not obey his website rules but instead threatened physical harm. Being a resident of the European Union, I sought qualified opinions. I watched the marvels of an English lawyer that just might make James Randi and his group of heavies “shudder.” His name is Lewis Gordon Pugh.

I looked to Lewis Pugh´s paradigm because it coincidentally asked for “two birds with one stone.” Lewis Pugh could lift a (cool) million from James Randi for his evidence of the power of the mind. I could take a shot to the chops and turn the other cheek to prove that those who show off violence are not leaders in education, but dishonor the MacArthur Fellowship. Fist bullying is an endorsement to harm.

Harassment by computer is a crime in several U.S. states –– especially if the communication threatens bodily harm. In “Destructive Crowds: New Threats to Online Reputation and Privacy,” Danielle Keats Citron from the University of Maryland School of Law says that online attackers can release the sense of a mob thrashing. Persons who are driven by fear sometimes find short-term relief by expressing their rage. Statements of annoyance and dislike that swamp some web forums might sway a number of confused school bags, but they can´t stand up in a court of law or influence a genuine educational organization. Scientific advances come about by exploring the unknown. Those who fear and spurn the unfamiliar can hardly contribute new research.

Since Lewis Pugh says that his one-in-a-billion talent to withstand sub-zero contact is mostly because of mind over matter, James Randi and his team could possibly attempt to debunk him. Like the fire walking “stunt,” (which Randi says is due to wood ash under the feet that has very low specific heat and is similar to a heat shield ceramic), Pugh´s paranormal defiance to freezing could be imagined as a clever stunt by some professional skeptics. For example, they could say that something in Pugh´s swimsuit produces heat from the combustion of metallic elements, to warm the water around him.

If that doesn´t work, Randi´s team might assail the scientists who bear witness to the newly discovered phenomenon of “anticipatory thermogenesis.” As Randi did to the Stanford Institute researchers who investigated the Geller Effect in the 1970s, the skeptics could accuse Lewis Pugh´s researchers of a controlled deception to promote the awareness of climate change and global warming, which he represents in the media. The various wires and monitoring devices strapped to Pugh´s body could be alleged to function somewhat like a neodymium heat apparatus, warming up the icy waves as he swims.

In contrast, scrupulous researchers seeking to scientifically confirm Lewis Pugh´s resistance to freezing are studying molecular groups that rotate within vacuum cavities in such a way that thermalization occurs. The possible existence of long-lived rotational states of some molecules inside protein structures (the electromagnetic partitioning of DNA) could be responsible for increasing core body temperature. Pugh´s paranormal ability may in truth be a variant of the Geller Effect, because excitable tissues are now regarded as true generators of thermalization and magnetic fields.

Despite the top-notch skeptics´ best efforts, today many common people are happy to accept the possibility of magnetic “woo.” But faith certainly includes an undeniable “weirdness.” For example, a portrayal of Jesus as a merchant selling jewelry and promoting cosmetics certainly seems pretty weird: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.” (Revelation 3:18). Even more weird is the ceremonial buzz that he´s forecast to arrive with space clouds and a completely different name: “And I will write upon him my new name.” (Revelation 3).

Is the magnetic attraction of “woo” a strange spot in the pursuit of happiness? Or could the extraordinary sense of a greater good actually determine life´s evolving nature?

I’ve paid my dues –
Time after time –
I’ve done my sentence
But committed no crime –
And bad mistakes
I’ve made a few
I’ve had my share of sand kicked in my face –
But I’ve come through
(Queen, “We Are The Champions,” 1977)

http://reporter.blackraiser.com/

http://www.alienseekernews.com/articles/magnetic-woo-james-randi.html

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/100377

http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0409/randi.php

 

(APRIL 2009) PETER FOT K KAPNISTOS, ICARIAN SEA, GR, 83300.

 

 

 

 

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Uriel: The Well Seal and the Man of the Island

The well seal was a very old atomic symbol of heavy hydrogen or deuterium. Its broken nucleus signifies binary fission, the strongest force in nature. Full Story…
 
 

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Uri Geller and the YouTube Video Smear

 

By Peter Fotis Kapnistos (copyright 2009)

 

Some years ago, Uri Geller became the world’s best-known psychic celebrity. The belief that Soviet telepathic phenomena could in fact pose a grave danger to the Western world was taken rather seriously in the 1970s. Uri Geller was at the heart of the related uproar. Even “Nature” magazine, the world’s most respected science journal, published a detailed report on Geller’s remarkable talents.

Fatefully, after the Soviet Union collapsed so did scientific concern for psychic phenomena. Israeli-born Geller promptly came under ever-increasing attacks by the established media. Leading the hardened criticism was James Randi (Randall James Hamilton Zwinge), a stage magician and professional skeptic. In 1973, Johnny Carson asked Randi to secretly prepare a spur-of-the-moment test for Uri Geller’s scheduled TV appearance on the “Tonight Show.” Geller later said that Johnny Carson’s skepticism blocked his powers. Could a public figure recognized by prestigious scientists and “Nature” magazine fleetingly lose his intuitive ability?

Perhaps we might find a parallel to Uri Geller’s quandary in the famous story of the Swiss figure, William Tell. Whether by a coincidence or a striking synchronicity, the expert marksman was a native of Uri, one of the Swiss forest provinces. According to tradition, in the 13th or early 14th century William Tell defied Austrian authority and was forced by the hated Austrian governor to shoot an apple from his son’s head with a crossbow at a distance of 80 paces, or else both would be executed. At that remote distance the average human cannot make out an apple, let alone aim a crossbow at it. We can therefore only imagine that William Tell aimed somewhere vaguely over the top of his son’s head.

William Tell split the apple with a single arrow from his crossbow, without mishap. But if the skeptical Austrian governor had distracted him with peripheral mayhem and noisy commotion, would Tell have lost his instinctive talent? According to the Swiss narrative, William Tell carried a second arrow in his quiver. If he had ended up killing his son in that test, he would have turned the crossbow on the governor himself.

Today, over half of the Swiss population believes that William Tell really lived. A modern scientific view of the Tell account implies that any healthy adult male should be able to reproduce his success. But in reality, William Tell represents one in a million. The strict scientific premise of controlled repeatability does not apply in his particular set of circumstances. And that perhaps is also a major reason why many scientists shun Uri Geller. His psychic abilities do not conform to the scientific principle of repeatability.

More recently, it was alleged that Uri Geller was caught cheating in an Israeli TV documentary that has lately also circulated on YouTube. The accusation was that a slow motion shot revealed him producing a small magnet from behind his ear or out of his hair to influence a compass needle. In other words, he purportedly put on a magnetic false thumb. The claim was carried by major news agencies and repeated in several publications, including Wikipedia and some prominent science-oriented magazines. I found it rather puzzling because I’m a photographer and the Israeli documentary in question was actually Uri Geller’s own TV show. Why would he do such an unnecessary thing on camera? And if he did, why wasn’t the unsightly scene finally edited out of his finished video product?

To satisfy my curiosity, I finally confronted Uri Geller about the accusation. In a telephone conversation, Uri, who speaks three languages, bluntly told me that he never used a thumb magnet. “More ridiculous,” he exclaimed, “is that I plucked it out of my hair!” There was a time in Geller’s early career when he did use some crude magic tricks at the suggestion of one of his promoters. Uri actually wrote about it in his autobiography. But why would he admit to that –– and not the thumb magnet? What difference did it make? Those things led me to suspect that Uri Geller’s critics were perhaps wrong about the cheating accusation. So I decided to do a frame-by-frame analysis of the controversial video clip.

 

The Disingenuous Video Scene

 

  Photo 1

In “Photo 1” we see a wide overall view of the controversial Israeli TV video scene where Uri Geller’s critics accuse him one way or another of allegedly plucking a slightly thick “hidden magnet” from the edge of his hairline. Notice the fingertips of the young man standing to the right. It is clearly identifiable that motion blur and not some conjuring glove or terminal projection causes the bent deformation of the young man’s extended hand.

 

 Photo 2

In “Photo 2” we see a close-up view of the young man’s bizarrely distorted hand. The Incredible Hulk-like transformation is not a trick of magic but a common effect of motion blur. Notice also the bright highlight on the young woman’s fingertip.

 

  Photo 3

In “Photo 3” we see two separate frames from the same Israeli video scene showing similar chunky distortion effects on the tips of both of Uri Geller’s thumbs. But the video footage makes it readily understood that Uri could not possibly have placed pointlessly thick thumb magnets on both of his hands. Bright studio lighting (spectral highlights) and motion blur (slow shutter speeds) are the actual reasons for the apparent fingertip swelling. Notice how it also disfigures the ears of the subjects.

I spent several days studying the Geller video over and over, frame-by-frame, and came to the unexciting conclusion that the thick fingertip effect is nothing more than ordinary motion blur. Uri briefly touches his forehead and rubs his left thumb in the video scene but there is nothing out of the ordinary observable in his hair or behind his ears.

I’m sorry to report that after I posted my video analysis results on Wikipedia, persons who aren’t really interested in objective truth (but would rather smear what they dislike) promptly deleted my posts. I’m even sadder to testify that the mainstream media has bought into and carried this piece of intellectual dishonesty for some years now, without the slightest concern for accuracy or scientific facts.

I don’t really claim to know how Uri Geller can influence the magnetic needle of a compass. But if you think he visibly cheated in the video, please excuse me for proving you are wrong.

Well-known examples of motion blur are astronomers’ time exposures of the night sky in which the Earth’s rotation causes stars to appear as bright smear-lines or wide concentric circles. It’s the very same principle that makes rapid hand movements look like fingertip swelling in the Uri Geller video frames.

And if you’re still not sure about my video analysis, mull over this: In December of 2008, I received an e-mail from someone named Oscar in Sweden who is not really an Uri Geller fan but remarked, “I think it’s wrong of skeptics to claim that he cheats without any proof.” Oscar suggested that he could post a video reply and said, “I have tested it at home and in a lab, and also have had a huge interest in magnets for several years, and no magnet of that small size can affect anything that far away. So get a small magnet, like a fridge magnet (10 gauss) and a standard compass, bring it over the compass and you can show that you have to go closer than 5 cm. or something like that to be able to control the compass, but it still does not move like it does in the video.” In other words, a magnet small enough to hide in someone’s hairline can’t possibly make a compass needle shift as much as it does in the Uri Geller video.

According to some observers, the YouTube transmitter of the disingenuous video clip is connected with Brian “Sapient” Cutler, ostensibly a young apprentice of James Randi. Brian Sapient is a co-founder of the online Rational Response Squad (and the Blasphemy Challenge), an atheist activist organization that has also posted a video of the Bible covered with dog excrement. Why the mainstream media should side with him and prop up a defamation video for years without first analyzing its actual focus material remains a mystery. In fact, Uri Geller was almost labeled a villain against the freedom of expression on the Internet when he tried to thwart the misleading video shots for being phony and underhanded. In the meantime, James Randi had an asteroid named after him (Asteroid 3163 Randi) by the astronomer Charles Kowal at the Palomar Observatory in California, for disproving claims of the paranormal. Of course, it’s a well-known fact in the global film industry that photographic tricks were used in some product TV spot commercials featuring Uri Geller. Yet Geller constantly rebuffs the accusation of using a thumb magnet to fool his audience, in a way weirdly reminiscent of William Tell’s intrepid defiance –– in the alpine region of Uri.

 

William Tell’s Second Arrow

 

Before the media could finally discredit the idea of psychic powers, a British lawyer named Lewis Gordon Pugh suddenly surfaced. Pugh is an arctic swimmer who holds world records for the longest swims in the coldest waters. “New Scientist” magazine recently published a fascinating article, “Superhuman: The secrets of the ice man,” describing Pugh’s severe physical and mental preparation for his gripping cold-water achievements. In 2007, Pugh took a 1-kilometer swim at the geographic North Pole, where the water was 29º F to 32º F (minus 1.7º C to 0º C).
 

 

 

Nearly all scientists attribute Lewis Pugh’s amazing capability to a phenomenon known as “anticipatory
thermogenesis,” which is just a technical name for mind-over-matter. There is little doubt in most researchers’ minds that his talent is actually a psi ability based on “superior mental powers.” Pugh can raise his core body temperature to 101 degrees without any physical exertion. It should therefore be evident that Uri Geller, in a similar way, can raise his core body magnetism. Yet some of the mainstream press today continues to mock Geller while presenting Pugh as some kind of Aryan superman. Uri Geller is Jewish.

Not long ago, “Discover” magazine published a short interview with James Randi in which Uri Geller was pointlessly mocked before Israel’s Knesset, referring to derogatory statements that were false. In its most recent issue, “Discover” printed a formal apology to Geller (although you might need a magnifying glass to see it).

James Randi has said he aims to ruin Uri Geller’s reputation. But perhaps Randi should be more worried that a distant person using the name “Randi Schimnosky” is pointing back to his website.

The Schimnosky eccentric is now and again either a woman or a man, who posts on “Mother Jones” and many other message boards concerning sex and atheism. It’s not clear if Randi Schimnosky is a real person, except for a pen name for weird child-sex and antireligious discussions, as well as unsympathetic letters against the church. In one forum debunking radio host Stephen Bennett, a member wondered if Schimnosky was in fact James Randi. Schimnosky irately replied that his or her accuser is “a lying poser if not actually Stephen Bennett.”

Schimnosky’s preferred topic is Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT). In one unsettling post Randi Schimnosky said: “I don’t agree with you that the definition of child abuse is something that is legally actionable.” In another odd post Schimnosky wrote: “N— said ‘LGBT Randi doesn’t think it’s child molestation to keep and view sexual torture porn on the bedroom computer of her ten year old son. LGBT Randi doesn’t think it’s child molestation to have lurid chat with a twelve-year-old, trying to lure them somewhere so you can teach them sexual techniques and have them use them on you.’ Obviously those things aren’t child molestation and you are a liar because you said these two people had molested children. Child molestation requires actual physical sexual contact and there was none in these cases.”

Schimnosky also mysteriously published a bare and vacant blog called “sch957” (http://sch957.blogspot.com/). One might assume the blog title is the abbreviation of his or her name. But in the view of science, sch957 stands for “Polytopes of Type 957.” A regular polytope is a geometric figure with a high degree of symmetry. SCH957 is named after the 19th century Swiss mathematician, Ludwig Schlafli, who characterized regular polytopes in higher dimensions. The catch-22 dilemma is that a search engine listing of polytopes returns a surprising number of links (almost a thousand) to James Randi’s own website. The SCH957 polytope is apparently a mathematical reference to “Asteroid 3163 Randi.”

In 1993, James Randi accused Uri Geller of blackmailing him with a transcript and a tape that appeared to be of Randi having intimate sexual conversations with teenage boys. Randi later said that he had been working on behalf of the telephone company in its attempt to track down a minor who had been making obscene calls. It seems that at various times Randi has said that this tape was made by his enemies to blackmail him, that he made it himself, or that the police asked him to make it in an attempt to track down a teenager making obscene calls to his home.

On May 22nd, 1999, Randi gave a public lecture at Cal Tech, in California. At that time Randi read from a formal statement that he had apparently already sent to some people, and for which he invited others to write to him. This statement consisted of Randi’s explanation for the infamous “Blackmail Tape” and repeated his version of the events that led up to the production of the tape. Randi claimed that he made the tape under the direction of the police chief of Rumson, New Jersey, to entrap harassing obscene callers.

James Randi fearlessly went to the trouble of producing a recording of himself chatting about sex with wayward boys. Perhaps he should also be complaining in public that a wacky sex promoter is using the Randi name on different web forums and cryptically pointing back to James Randi’s “scientific” website.

 

 

 

As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)

(APRIL 2009)  PETER FOT K KAPNISTOS, ICARIAN SEA, GR, 83300.

 

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Uriel: The Well Seal and the Man of the Island

The well seal was a very old atomic symbol of heavy hydrogen or deuterium. Its broken nucleus signifies binary fission, the strongest force in nature. Full Story…
 
 

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Uri Geller and the YouTube Video Smear 

Some years ago, Uri Geller became the world’s best-known psychic celebrity. The belief that Soviet telepathic phenomena could in fact pose a grave danger to …
http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0409/uri-geller.php

American Chronicle | Uri Geller and the YouTube Video Smear

We are an online magazine for national, international, state, local, entertainment, sports, and government news. We also provide opinion and feature …
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/99135

The Alien Seeker News - 

Uri Geller and the YouTube Video Smear19 Apr 2009 … Uri Geller and the YouTube Video Smear, by Peter Fotis
Kapnistos.
http://www.alienseekernews.com/articles/uri-geller-youtube-video-smear.html?VivvoSessionId=3422e81149ec9e623e46f

 

   

Strange Things I Don´t Talk About

By Peter Fotis Kapnistos

In my lifetime I have experienced a few incidents that might be described as Fortean because they remain outside the recognized theories of science. Altogether, there were really only four or five such anomalous occurrences in my whole life and they took place years apart. But even so, I remember them in detail because they remain unexplained. I suspect that many ordinary people also experience extraordinary things but don´t talk about them for fear of being laughed at.

I personally don´t have a problem with making people chuckle. The way I see it, it´s a lot better than making people weep. So if you have a psychological need to giggle at something you can´t explain, go right ahead. It´s an excellent fear-repression mechanism. But listen closely to what I have to say.

Paul Dale Roberts, a paranormal investigator and writer recently interviewed me. He put forward a range of questions on the subjects of UFOs and Men in Black (MIBs) that I encountered several years ago. I also touched upon research in remote viewing conducted by the US Navy from 1972 until 1995. L.R. Bremseth, then a Navy commander, described it as a broad-based “transcendent and asymmetrical” research program. But there were some other matters that Paul Dale Roberts didn´t ask me about because they have no obvious link to UFOs. There are a few strange things I don´t talk about.

A most baffling incident happened to me one warm summer evening when I was walking alone. It was somewhere around three or four o´clock in the morning. The streets were empty and the neighborhood was silent as I nonchalantly made my way home after a get-together with a few friends. When I arrived at the intersection lights of two small streets near my house, I carefully looked in each direction to make sure no cars were coming. The junction was undisturbed and the narrow streets were abandoned. Nobody was outside except me. But I suddenly noticed something dim and small rapidly moving toward me from about half a block away. I was standing in the middle of the intersection and thought it could have been a dark cat or perhaps even a large rat running after me. The small dark thing was moving fast and when it approached me I quickly jumped in the air to prevent it from biting my foot. It abruptly stopped next to me. I cautiously crouched down to see what it was and was absolutely amazed by what I saw. It was a big cluster of muddy grapes. Where it came from, I do not know. How it scuttled along the street, I have no idea. There are some things I don´t talk about.

I realize there´s much symbolism to the grapevine. But I´m the type of person who looks for scientific explanations for bizarre experiences. This one really had me stumped. The only rationalization I am able to provide is a long shot. In 2008, researchers discovered single-celled organisms about the size of a grape on the seafloor near the Bahamas. These large single cells (called Gromia sphaerica) can actually scurry along the seafloor. Cosmologist Paul Davies recently speculated that a space-faring civilization could build miniature probes to explore the galaxy, perhaps no bigger than your palm. Such so-called “von Neumann probes” may act as roaming life forms the size of grapes from an extraterrestrial civilization. I told you it was a long shot. But if you can come up with a better explanation that doesn’t involve phantasms, please let me know.

About two years later, I visited Israel during the summer months because I wanted to see the old town of Jerusalem. Entering the ancient walled city was like taking a journey into the past. Unfortunately, there was much political tension in those days and soldiers with machine guns patrolled the streets at night. But that didn´t stop me from slipping past the guards and climbing up to the Mount of Olives where I found a comfortable spot to sit and gaze down upon Jerusalem and meditate every night. After doing that for a few consecutive evenings, one night I saw a small ball of light suddenly materialize in front of me as I sat in the grass. It seemed slightly larger than a ping-pong ball but looked smaller than a tennis ball. It was a bright sphere of continuous white light, not flashing, and seemed to float about four or five feet off the ground. It drifted slowly in front of me, from my right to my left, and traveled approximately thirty or forty feet before it abruptly evaporated.

Unlike the grape cluster, there is scientific recognition of this fact. It´s called ball lightning. According to Dr. Keith Heidorn, a similar phenomenon called St. Elmo’s fire can also appear on leaves, grass, and even at the tips of cattle horns. Prof. Colin Price, head of the Geophysics and Planetary Sciences Department at Tel Aviv University, said thunderstorms are the catalyst for a newly discovered natural phenomenon he calls sprites, described as flashes high in the atmosphere.

The exact cause and nature of ball lightning has yet to be determined; there may be several different types, confusing matters further. But generally it manifests as a grapefruit-sized sphere of light moving slowly through the air which may end by fizzling out or exploding. (David Hambling, “Scientist Looks to Weaponize Ball Lightning,” WIRED, February 20, 2009)

Even though scientists don´t know what causes ball lightning, at least they have a name for it. It seems that it may be a sporadic phenomenon in Israel. Uri Geller, the world´s most investigated paranormalist, said that at the age of four he had an encounter with a mysterious ball of light while in a garden near his house in Israel. He said that he chased after it and was actually hit in the head by the “sphere of light.” This might sound like a childhood flight of the imagination, but many years later an elderly Israeli man named Yaakov Avrahami recalled that while he was once walking to a bus station he witnessed a ball of light. “At that certain moment I noticed a little boy with a white shirt come out from the building to the left. This light ball stopped like it sensed him. Suddenly it moved backwards towards the little boy.”

Journalist Anthony Bragalia says that UFOs are both amorphous and solid. They appear as “lightforms” as often as they appear to be constructed of metal. Bragalia claims that in the coming months newly discovered information will be released revealing that the US government conducted some very interesting studies which, when published, will provide stunning insights.

Some of the aerial “plasma light” phenomena appears to be self-organized and self-directed, even exhibiting some type of intelligence. They can hover, move instantly, morph shape, blink out then reappear elsewhere… or fade into nothingness. Explanations have been proffered that the lights are unknown natural earth or atmospheric events or processes. Maybe they somehow relate to piezoelectricity, ions, earth lights — or unique combinations of these things. Or even still, some feel they may be some sort of unknown aerial life forms. (Anthony Bragalia, “UFOs and the States of Matter,” The UFO Reality, February 12, 2009)

The coincidental timing of my ball lightning experience is what symbolically matters to me. I can now say that “I saw the light” while meditating on the Mount of Olives over Jerusalem. But Uri Geller apparently caught it right between the eyes. Since the nature of ball lightning still remains unknown to scientists, we can´t rule out the possibility of a von Neumann probe in this case either. Observing a celestial probe might be amazing, but having one transferred into your forehead would truly be remarkable.

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is a 2004 non-fiction book by Jon Ronson, and a movie based on the book, starring George Clooney, about the US Army’s exploration of the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them. According to David Hambling of WIRED magazine, Dr. Paul Koloc briefly obtained funding in 2002 from the Missile Defense Agency to create stable “magnetoplasmoids” or ball lightning a foot in diameter which would last between one and five seconds and accelerate to two hundred kilometers a second. This would make an idea anti-missile weapon, generating an intense electromagnetic pulse on impact. The USAF´s Phillips Laboratory supposedly examined a very similar concept in 1993.

Shortly before my father´s death, the hands of a small clock in my kitchen started moving counter-clockwise. We assumed that it was because the clock needed new batteries. When my father was placed in an intensive care unit after enduring a heart attack and a broken hip, I remained at home to watch over my ailing mother. As I prayed for my father´s health, I suddenly felt a mild breeze of air move from the left side of my body to the right. I sensed at that moment that my father had passed away. I looked at the clock in the living room. It was eight-twenty in the evening and I said so to my sister. When we later got our doctor´s hospital report, the exact hour of my father´s death was 8:20 PM. A few days later, our next-door neighbor happened to be visiting us. Because she was near the telephone, she answered it when it rang. It was a man´s voice. He asked about a family member. When my neighbor asked who the caller was, he replied that he was my father — and promptly hung up. Unless that was a heartless prank, it resembled various reports of so-called “dead ringers,” or phone calls from the dead. In many instances the cell or landline numbers had even been disconnected. But they still appeared on caller ID.

Every time the living picks up the phone all they hear on the other end is static. There have been instances of those who receive the calls recording them only to find voices in the recording that were not perceptible to the human ear at the time. (Pastor Swope, “Dead Ringers,” The Paranormal Pastor, November 30, 2008)

The Death and Resurrection of Mars

A popular website has built a minor-league reputation regularly nit-picking about “UFOs and the Death of God.” Citing Nietzsche´s schizophrenia and welcoming an existentiality that it presumes to be real, its most recent report claims “some in the UFO community replace God with UFOs for psychological reasons.”

That argument vaguely reminds us of the “Death of Mars” attitude. Scientists have long reflected on the possibility of life on Mars. In the 17th century, after telescopic observation by some observers of apparent Martian canals, it was natural to suppose that some form of life may inhabit Mars. But in 1894, U.S. astronomer William Campbell wrongly showed that water and oxygen were not present in the Martian atmosphere. By the early 1900s, the canal theory was no longer supported. In 1965, NASA scientists unhappily described a parched Mars without rivers, oceans or any signs of life. Mars was officially dead. But today all that has changed. The discovery of abundant sources of water on Mars, together with vast stores of methane gas have most researchers believing once again that Mars is alive and well.

Advocates of the “God is Dead” hypothesis may also be in for a big surprise. According to Paul Davies, there could be microbes that do not have the standard biochemistry of Earth-dwelling organisms. Davies and other leading researchers now think that an amazing realm of “life as we don´t know it” may exist around us. Scientists would never have identified such “weird life” because the techniques they use for studying microbes are based on the familiar biological processes that drive the living things we understand.

Some microbes may also have a means of carrying genetic information and replicating themselves that is not based on DNA, or that has extra DNA “letters.” These microbes could exist in extreme environments such as deep underground or in hot springs, or they could even live inside other organisms, including ourselves. “They might be right in front of our noses, or even in our noses,” Professor Davies said. (Mark Henderson, “Aliens ‘may be living among us’ undetected by science,” Times Online, February 15, 2009)

As one observer noted, the Bible clearly talks about life that is not based in DNA, realms of created beings that are not physical. Over eighty percent of the US population believes in God because that inkling appears to be hard-wired in our genes. The remaining twenty percent don´t believe because they have a psychological need (or guilt) not to. They argue that God is “too good to be true.” It is ironic that the English name God actually stems from the words “the good.” If you remove the possibility of an ultimate good, then you´re left with an ultimate banality. Are you good at what you do? Are you good at your job? Are you good in bed? Twenty percent of the US population has abandoned all trust in “the good” and by extension even attempts to identify the entire universe as an object of banality and mayhem. But they can only speak for themselves.

The “God is Dead” campaigners say God cannot possibly exist because he abandoned his people many times over the millennia, and more unspeakably during the Holocaust. Sir David Attenborough, a prominent agnostic and distinguished BBC television naturalist, recently said he rejects the Bible because a loving God would not allow an innocent child in Africa to have its eye destroyed by a parasitic worm. However, he failed to mention that there is still hope for that child if modern science turns away from warfare and concentrates on the healing arts. Perhaps what Sir David really means is: why would God allow an innocent Jesus to be crucified? The answer to that, we are told, is to teach us the importance of courage. Modern man has become a cowardly creature that destroys innocent life in underprivileged nations with push-button ease, while he gradually becomes a vile object of morbid obesity and banality. God´s death was to teach us the worth of valor — and that death cannot hold Him.

It is argued that many “deranged people in the UFO community” have taken to hallucinating about being taken to Him. But can you think of a medical specialist on appendicitis who has never actually seen a human appendix? Or how about a certified critic of hip hop music that´s never heard a single African American or Latino American song? They would probably be regarded as con artists, not authorities. Why then, are there so many official “UFO investigators” that have never seen a UFO — and really don´t want to because they fear it will make them appear to be unreasonable? Where is the expert common sense in that?

Imagine being a civilian in the Iraqi war (or any war for that matter). One day you look out your front door and see a large armored vehicle parked directly outside your house and perhaps a few soldiers patrolling your street with cameras and searchlights. Would you really suppose that the soldiers don´t notice you and that they don´t know who you are? You´d have to be pretty naïve to think that. It would be far more realistic to assume that they know exactly who you are — and they will probably keep tabs on you from time to time. This is how I interpret UFO experiencers: They are known and made use of by intelligent extraterrestrials to circulate and publicize particular facts of the UFO enterprise.

What is happening now appears to be a bizarre form of psychological warfare. We are being literally bombarded with countless sightings and photographs of unidentified aerial objects to drive home the intimidating point that something beyond the scope of human science is watching over our planet. There are simply too many reliable reports flowing in to be dismissed as hallucinations or frauds. Why then, doesn´t the government just admit that UFOs are real? Perhaps because the largest part of taxpayer money goes to an overwhelming defense budget. The last message the Defense Department wants to convey is the likely fact that it cannot defend us from potential UFO upheavals (as if we didn´t know by now). That would be an outright acknowledgment that billions of our dollars are being wasted. So instead, it plays the flightless ostrich game of hiding its head in the sand. Sixty years ago, the Japanese government chose to ignore warnings that America was developing a secret weapon. Japan´s ostrich game suffered a legendary defeat and the state religion of Emperor worship was banned. I don´t have a problem with making people laugh. But there are some things I don´t talk about. 

(FEBRUARY 2009) PETER FOT K KAPNISTOS, ICARIAN SEA, GR, 83300.

 

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