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'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

VOL. 13, No. 1

WINTER,1980

Publisher
Robert C. Warth
Managing Editor
R. Martin Wolf
Assistant Editor
Steven N. Mayne
Consulting Editors
John A. Keel
Sabina W. Sanderson
Senior Writer
Curtis Sutherly

PURSUIT.
THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY
FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED
FOUNDED BY IVAN T. SANDERSON
Devoted to the Investigation of "Things" that are Customarily Discounted
CONTENTS

Associated Editors
John Guerrasio
Ziaul Hasan

Page
A Developmental Schema
for Telepathy
by Libbet Cone and Loren Coleman ...................................... 2

Editor for the

United Kingdom
Robert J.M. Rickard

A Conditional Criterion for Identity,

Leading to a Fourth Law of LogiC
by Thomas E. Bearden ................................................. 6

Contributing Writers
Charles Berlitz
Jerome Clark
Lucius Farish
Vincent Gaddis
Brad Steiger
Staff Artists
Britton Wilkie
Michael Hartnett
R. M. Wolf
Production
Martin Wiegler
Fred Wilson

Cover drawing
by R. M. Wolf

An Open Letter from John White

to Dr. Arlen Keith Andrews Regarding
"What to Believe-or,
Paring Down the Paradigm" ................................................ 10
A Model Solution to the
Unified Field Problem
by T. B. Pawlicki ..................................................... 14
The Celts and Early America
by L. E. Schroeder ................................................... 18
UFOs and Mysterious
Deaths of Animals
by Sebastian Robiou-Lamarche ......................................... 23
The Tomb of Khufu: Mysteries of the
Great Pyramid: Part II
by Norman Gholson .................................................. 33
How Relativity Theory
Conflicts with Reality
by Harry E. Mongold ................................. : ................ 37
In SITU ...................................... ..... 39
Symposium .............................................................. 41
SITUations .............................................................. 42
Book Reviews ............................................................ 44
The Notes of Charles Fort .................................................. 47

The SOCiety for the Investigation of The Unexplained

A DEVELOPMENTAL SCHEMA FOR TELEPATHY

by Libbet Cone and Loren Coleman

.IN and
the effort to understand the mind, its mental processes
its desires and feelings, the exploration of the
psyche often takes unusual turns down untrod paths.
Even Sigmund Freud frequently had doubts about the
route he had chosen. In 1921, Freud wrote: "If I had my
life to live over again, I should devote myself to psychical
research rather than psychoanalysis." (Jones, 1957,
p.392)
In recent years the examination of psychic phenomena .
has grown and a fair body of literature presently exists
denoting that a serious study of the subject is underway.
Of special interest to theorists and therapists alike is the
wide-ranging topic of telepathy. Rhine (1947; 1961) and
others have given ample demonstration for the acceptance of a recordable phenomenon occurring between
individuals. Specifically, telepathy has been defined as
"the perception by a person of another person's mental
processes, without the aid of (known) sensory channels."
(Ehrenwald, 1948, p. 13)
Freud felt in 1933 that telepathy may be "the original
archaic method by which individuals understand one
another, and which has been pushed into the background
in the course of phylogenetic development by the better
method of communication by means of signs apprehended
by the sense organs." (Fitzherbert, 1960, p. 1560) Since
Freud's time, there have been many popular theories,
stories, and events which have directly or indirectly alluded
to the existence of telepathy. The process for us has been
to review the literature and to examine telepathic abilities
in terms of early childhood development. We found we
were not alone in the evolution of such an approach.
In 1971, Jan Ehrenwald, a Denver psychiatrist, proposed
a theory which was at once controversial, and yet, as the
research into the subject would lead one to feel, valid.
Ehrenwald began by looking at the early symbiotic relationship, initially proposed by Mahler between mother
and child, suggesting that "the efficacy of interaction
between mother and baby seems to exceed the limited
repertoire of whatever conventional signaling code joins
them together as one functioning whole." (Ehrenwald,
1971, p. 455) He goes on to say that traditionally theorists
have looked to the rationale that sublimal sensory cues,
or unconscious expressive movements, or even empathy
and intuition, give us the explanation for this phenomenon.
Ehrenwald suggests that these answers serve only to cover
a gap in our understanding, and he proceeds to introduce
a "telepathic hypothesis" into the symbiotic model of the
parent-child relationship. This hypothesis suggests that
telepathy is in itself a physiological function which is the
"modus operandi of the exchange of an infinite variety of
primitive or proto-messages, preverbal instructions and
injunctions between mother and child." (Ehrenwald,
1971, p. 457)
PURSUIT Winter 1980

Ehrenwald, furthermore, suggests this use of telepathy

stops as the child begins to use other more sophisticated
forms of communication, such as babbling and cooing.
This use of speech in itself begins the separation process,
which by the nature of the child's struggle to individuate,
necessitates a repression of the telepathic ability. As the
child's boundaries become more delineated. as it learns
the difference between itself and another, as it experiences unmet and met needs, any telepathic event is a regression from this work. Ehrenwald draws a parallel
between the repression of telepathy and the repression of
primary process thinking. He notes that there is also a
cultural repression of both these phenomena which ultimately keeps either from resurfacing too frequently.
(Marginally and importantly, he does observe that both
recur in psychoanalysis, as have other researchers: Ehrenwald, 1948; Schwarz, 1971, 1974; and Eisenbud,
1970.)
We agree with Ehrenwald that telepathy finds its first
expression in the early mother-child relationship. Furthermore, we see it as an ability which, unlike our other senses,
does not yet have an understood physical correlate.
However, we feel that as we expand our understanding
of telepathy, we will discover physical, measurable manifestations for this phenomenon beyond the hints of it now
coming forth. For example, in an experiment in ophthalmological-related responses to flashing lights, Duane and
Behrendt (1965) discovered telepathic electroencephalographic induction between identical twins. Duane and
Behrendt were able to elicit alpha rhythms in one pair of
identical twins as a result of evoking the rhythms by means
of the light response test in the other twin who was in
a separate room six meters away. To date, this apparently
is the best electronic indicator that information is exchanged
between individuals by other than known means.
But the overwhelming evidence which exists issues
from the indicators we find in the interactionalist literature.
As we note telepathy emerging early in the mother-child
symbiotic relationship, likewise we observe the manifestations of this phenomenon bubbling up in later parentchild communications_
Dorothy Burlingham in 1935 felt the "power of unconscious forces is especially marked in the interplay between
parent and child. It is so subtle and uncanny that it seems
at times to approach the supernatural." (Devereux, 1953,
p. 188) Burlingham, who we find significantly was later
to become a researcher on twinning, observed that these
examples of telepathic communication between parents
and children was "a phenomenon which demands investigation." (Fitzherbert, 1960, p_ 1562)
Current investigators most frequently begin their examinations of the phenomenon in their own families. Often
the aware individuals involved in such research come up
with some amazing results. A New Jersey psychiatrist,
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, recorded more than 1500 cases
of alleged telepathy between his two children, Lisa and
Eric, and he and his wife, Ardis. Schwarz included 500 of

3
these incidents in his book, Parent-Child Telepathy. The
opus is filled with examples such as the following: One
Sunday morning. Dr. Schwarz was at the kitchen table
reading a portion of a tomato juice can label which advertised initialed drinking glasses. lisa, then two and a half,
was sitting in a high chair at some distance from him, and
unable to see the can. Suddenly she said. "New glasses,
new glasses."
Although the repression of telepathic abilities occurs to
a large extent after separation and individuation. episodes
of telepathy in later childhood interactions with parents
tend to occur and be remembered around emotionally
laden and complex psychodynamic events. In interviews
with allegedly psychic individuals, frequently the percipients
describe "visions" they had when children, of family members who were in danger. Schwarz terms this "crisis telepathy" and comments that it aids in our survival. He observes it surfaces again and again throughout life (Schwarz,
1974). For some children, however, still developmentally
learning what to do with the flow of telepathic images
coming to them, the sharp and intense emotional input
from their parents gains priority as a prototype to crisis
telepathy. An excellent illustration of such an occurrence
is found in the early writings of Ehrenwald (1948, pp. 4546):
It dates back to 1940 when the arrival in this country
(Great Britain) of a letter from the U.S.A. was something of a sensation, particularly when containing
news from distant friends and relations. My wife had
actually received such a letter from Clarence, her
half-cousin, with whom she had spent a happy time
in America a few years before her marriage. He, too,
had married in the meantime and there was a photograph of Clarence's wife, Mathilda, attached to his
letter, showing her in the company of two more
ladies all unknown to my wife. She was engaged in
housework and was just thinking of the photograph.
while my little daughter Barbara, aged four, was
absorbed in play by her side. At the very moment
the child, for no apparent reason, uttered the name
Mathilda. I may add that this name, in its English
version was quite unknown to Barbara at that time.
When asked on the next day whether she remembered the name she replied: "Yes, I was having
a game with mummy."
Ehrenwald's wife had been thinking of Mathilda's upcoming
baby at the time Barbara spoke the name. Ehrenwald felt
his wife's identification with Mathilda "provided the emotional stress which was in the last outcome responsible for
the telepathic transmission of the name."
The relationship between mother and child, as we
have seen, early fosters a channel by which the telepathic
impulses are easily exchanged. As the child matures, the
ability is repressed, but through the emotionally active
agent, usually the parent, a child frequently experiences
telepathic events. Part of our understanding of the relationship between twins, like that of mother-child symbiOSiS, can best be reexamined and pursued if we extend
the hypothesis of telepathy into this sphere. Significantly,

with twins, we fin.d separation and individuation taking on

some important and different twists which have been seen
as part of the "twinning reaction."
Joseph and Tabor (1961, p. 277) defined the "twinning
reaction" as consisting of "(1) mutual interidentification
and (2) part fusion of the self-representation and object
representation of the other member of the pair." These
authors note this response often occurs in closely aged
siblings as well as a wife and husband who have been together for a long time. The literature on what Shopper
(1974) termed "pseudotwinning" is scant. Shopper's
own addition to the discussion centers on the twinning
reaction in non-twin siblings, illustrating telepathy can
function, we think, in closely symbiotic individuals. However, it is the interactions of twins which brings forth the
most c1earcut examples of the twinning reaction, and thus
telepathy.
In Tabor and Joseph's simultaneous analysis of a pair
of identical twins, frequent incidents of the twinning reaction occurred. Looking at the similarities in the material,
the therapists found their patients "shared experiences
which are described as though they had happened to both,
regardless of who was involved in the experience . . .
Both show a relative lack of reality testing, manifested,
for example, by a failure to know to whom individual experiences had happened." (Joseph and Tabor, 1961,
pp. 291-292)
What we find happening here in this psychiatrically investigated twinship of Joseph and Tabor's is the collapse
of ego boundaries and the free exchanging of telepathic
material without the ability for the twins to differentiate
themselves from each other.
Similar to one of its components, telepathy, "the 'twinning reaction' is opposed in the course of maturational
growth by a drive toward separation and individuation.
It is the interplay between the 'twinning reaction' and the
striving for individuation that forms the matrix for the
behavior of twins and for understanding the nature of the
twinship." (Joseph and Tabor, 1961, p. 297)
In non-psychiatric situations much documentation
exists for the extraordinary rapport between twins, and
the psychic framework within which it occurs. For twins,
the separation and individuation from their mother is not
a time at which their telepathic abilities cease to actively
function, as is the case for most children. Twins appear
to reinforce telepathy in each other in about a third of the
pairs (Gaddis, 1972, p. 98).
Most people who have looked into the subject of twins
and telepathy note some of the most dramatic examples
appear when the pairs enter the external world in school.
One such researcher, a Denver obstetriCian, Robert A.
Bradley, has gathered many such stories which illustrate
"the ability of identical twins to perceive each other's
thoughts." For example:
An aware, thinking, alert grade school teacher noticed
that her young identical twin pupils took turns taking
home books. On questioning them, she found her
suspicions confirmed-they were taking turns studying, yet each passed the tests!
Two handsome, sixteen-year-old twin boys in one
PURSUIT Winter 1980

4
group described how they did the same and bragged
the twin who didn't study got the best grades 'on exams!
(Gaddis, 1972, p. 111)
At the University of Chicago, Professor H. H. Newman
found, in a separate study he observed, "a pair. of girls
who seemed able to telepathically communicate answers
to one another during school exams. In one instance,
they had been so pressed for time while studying for the
exam, so each twin reviewed half the course material.
Their test answers were so similar that they might have
been accused of cheating had they not taken the precaution
of sitting far apart in the examination room." (Young,
1977, p. 8)
As in educational endeavors, sporting activities frequently produce vivid examples of the twinships' telepathic abilities. One high school football coach told of
how he was always unable to place twin brothers on opposite teams. He found that no matter what play was to be
made, the other team's twin would know exactly where
the player was going and tackle him immediately (Gaddis,
1972, p. 112). In sports, this telepathic sense of what the
other twin is doing is useful if not mildly taken for granted.
One twin discovered this was especially true when he and
his twin played basketball and hockey. "I never have to
look to know where he is," he said, "I just shoot the puck."
(Young, 1977, p. 7)
The symbiotic ties of twins appear to reinforce and
extend the telepathic phenomenon far past the point
where it disappears in most developmental schema. The
repression which occurs in normal maturation of this impulse is frequently felt to be, furthermore, lacking in the
psychopathology of various disturbed people, and the
regressions and fixations at or to certain developmental
stages for these individuals may cause a resurfacing of
telepathy.
In the symptomatology of schizophrenics, there exist
a variety of phenomena which resemble telepathy: auditory
hallucinations, thought broadcasting, the belief that others
are telling you what to do; delusions; the experiences of
many therapists with these people that "they sometimes
act as though they can read my thoughts," or the unnerving feeling that indeed, they are doing so.
However, there is, at present, no conclusive evidence
that schizophrenics are more susceptible to telepathic ability
than others (Ehrenwald, 1960; Ullman and Krippner,
1973, p. 52).
Ehrenwald approaches this controversy from the viewpoint that schizophrenia is, in part, "attributed to the
failure of the process of organic repression. It is contingent
on the breakdown of ego barriers designed to ward off
the intrusion of what I described as heteropsychic material
into the patient's consciousness." (Ehrenwald, 1960, p. 52)
In other words, telepathic ability is an organic process, it
follows developmental lines, and in the course of its development, at the first separation/individuation stage
described by Mahler (1952), the telepathic ability is repressed in order to continue with the process of individuation. (Others have called this process infantile amnesia.) However, in schizophrenia, symbiotic psychosis or
autism, this repression is incomplete or non-existent, and
PURSVIT Winter 1980

the patient either experiences telepathy as it infiltrates

other thought process, or the patient uses as a primary
source of communication, his telepathic ability.
The assumption behind this is that a continuation of
telepathic ability after the separation/individuation stage
results from a "breakdown" of the repressive system.
Dr. Montague Ullman and Dr. Stanley Krippner (1973)
have a somewhat different explanation. They feel that
the psychotic, autistic or schizophrenic does not experience telepathy, but rather their symptomatology reflects
a "remembrance" of telepathic communications which
were experienced as they progressed into the psychotic
state. These telepathic communications were "last ditch
efforts" as other means of communication were cut off.
This is plausible if we consider that the first signs of telepathy show themselves before other forms of communication emerge in the human infant. In either case, telepathy shows itself in a pathological way when its normal
development is interrupted.
It is our hypothesis that, in fact, telepathic ability, like
any other perceptual/sensory ability, can be developed,
refined and used constructively in later childhood and
adulthood; that it takes a back seat while other developmental processes occur is perhaps a cultural phenomenon
or a necessary one; cultural in that few of us exercise that
ability, and thus perhaps it does intrude with the separation
process, and can only develop after this process is underway. In any case, it's impossible to say at this point as
there needs to be much more observation and study done
to determine the developmental stages of telepathy and
to discern how telepathy interfaces with other developmental lines of childhood.
Although it is total conjecture at this point, we have
developed a possible developmental schema for the telepathetic response. Initially, there is a biological, perhaps
genetiC transmission of the ability; its first manifestation is
at birth, as a part of the mother-child symbiotic relationship. As the infant begins to separate, making sounds,
experiencing gratification and frustration at the lack of
need gratification, he finds less need for telepathy; in fact,
telepathic communication may interfere with his need to
experience himself as separate. However, once the child
accomplishes this first step, and can experience himself as
an individual, he/she experiences the next step in telepathic development: that the child is receiving or sending
his/her own thoughts to another. In that the communication occurs early, between parent and child or between
siblings-twin and non-twin, when the separation process
is still fairly new, the question is raised as to whether the
telepathic ability is related to the separation process.
By the age of eight, telepathic ability again takes a back
seat, as cognitive development takes the forefront. This
may not be coincidental. as our rational, cognitive understanding of our world, especially at this point in our development, does not allow a great deal of room for this
phenomenon.
However, at the onset of adolescence, another crucial
phase of the separation/individuation process, we find
an outburst of psychic phenomena in certain individuals.
Nandor Fodor reviews case histories of teen-agers who
experience strange events which are "extremely hard"

5
to explain by normal physical laws. He notes that adolescents are in a "particularly vulnerable or sensitive state,
which makes them available for unconscious mediumship."
(Fodor, 1959, p. 69)
Our hypothesis introduces the notion that telepathy is
a developmental process, interwoven with the other lines
of maturation, that perhaps it is closely connected with
the process of separation, and one which continues to
develop despite its early repression at the earliest stage of
individuation.
As Nandor Fodor states (1959, p. 311): "The addition
of the psychoanalytic method of approach promises a
greater understanding of psychic manifestations than the
exclusive utilization of objective methods of research, as
used in parapsychology and psychical research."
We feel much insight into the subject of telepathy can
be gained in the future through an examination of the
phenomenon via the prism of developmental awareness
and the separation/individuation process.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alberti, Georgio
1973 "Psychopathology and Parapsychology: Some Possible
Contracts," Parapsychological Review, Vol. 4, No.3,
MayJune, pp. 1114.
Brewster, Henry H.
1959 "Twinlike Behavior in Non-Twins, Psychosomatic Med
icine, Vol. 21, No.3, MayJune.
Devereux, George
1953 Psychoanalysis and the Occult, International Universities
Press. New York, New York.
Drake, Raleigh
1938 "An Unusual Case of Extra-Sensory Perception," The
Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 2, No.3, September,
pp.184199.
Duane, T. D. and Thomas Behrendt
1965 "Extrasensory Electroencephalographic Induction Between Identical Twins," Science, October 15, p. 367.
Gaddis, Vincent and Margaret
1972 The Curious World of Twins, Hawthorne Books, New
York.
. Ehrenwald, Jan
1948 Telepathy and Medical Psychology, W. W. Norton and
Company, New York.
1960 "Schizophrenia, Neurotic Compliance and the Psi Hypothesis," Psychoanalytic Review: Vol. 47, No.2, Sum
mer, pp. 4354.
1963 Neurosis in the Family and Pattern of Psychosocial
Defense, Hoeber Medical Division, Harper and Row,
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Research, Vol. 62, No.4, October, pp. 366380.
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"Mother Child Symbiosis: Cradle of ESP," Psychoanalytic

Review, Vol. 58, No.3. pp. 455-466.
Eisenbud, Jule
1970 Psi and Psychoanalysis, Grune and Stratton, New York.
Fitzherbert, Joan
1960 "The Role of Extra Sensory Perception in Early Child

hood," The Journal of Mental Science, Vol. 106, No.

455, October, pp. 1560-1567.
Fodor, Nandor
1947 "Telepathy in Analysis," Psychiatry Quarterly, Vol. 21.
The Haunted Mind: A Psychoanalyst Looks at the
Supernatural. Helix Press, New York.
Jones, Ernest
1957 The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Basic Books, Inc.,
New York.
Joseph, Edward D. and Jack H. Tabor
1961 "The Simultaneous Analysis of a Pair of Identical Twins
and the Twinning Reaction," The Psychoanalytic Study
of the Child, Vol. 16, pp. 275-299.
Leonard, Marjorie
1961 "Problem in Identification and Ego Development in
Twins," Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 16,
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1959

Mahler, Margaret S.
1952 "On Child PsychOSiS and Schizophrenia," The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 7, pp. 286-305.
_ _ _ _ _ , and Bertram Gosliner
1955 "On Symbiotic Child Psychosis," The Psychoanalytic
Study of the Child, Vol. 10, pp. 195-212.
Meerloo, J. A. M.
1964 Hidden Communion: Studies in the Communication
Theory of Telepathy, Garrett Publications, New York.
Nash, Carroll B. and D. E. Buzby
1964 "Research Briefs," Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 28,
No.4, December.
1972 "Medical Parapsychology," Parapsychology Review,
Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan.-Feb., pp. 13-18.
Reiser, David E.
1963 "Psychosis of Infancy and Early Childhood, as Manifested by Children with Atypical Development," New
England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 269, No. 15, pp. 790798,844-850.
Rhine. J. B.
1947 The Reach of the Mind. William Sloane Associates, New
York.
Rhine, Louisa E .
1961 Hidden Channels of the Mind, William Sloane Associates,
New York.
_ _ _ _ _ and Robert Briar
1968 Parapsychology Today, Citadle Press, New York.
Schwarz, B. E.
1971 Parent-Child Telepathy. Garrett Publications, New York.
1974 "Psi and the Life Cycle,' Journal of the American Society
of Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine, Vol. 21.
No. 2,3.4, Vol. 22, No. 1,2,3.4.
Shopper, Moisy
1974 "Twinning Reaction in Non-Twin Siblings," Journal of
the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, Vol. 13.
pp.300-318.
Ullman, Montague and Stanley Krippner
1973 Dream Telepathy, Macmillan Publishing, New York.
Young. Samuel H.
1977 Psychic Children, Doubleday and Company. Garden
City. New York.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

A CONDITIONAL CRITERION FOR IDENTITY,

LEADING TO A FOURTH LAW OF LOGIC
by Thomas E. Bearden

1979 by Thomas E. Bearden

All rights reserved

A RISTOTLE'S three laws of logic, on which foundal"'\ tion rests all mathematical, physical. and rational
thinking, can ordinarily be stated as

1. A:= A
2. A

=F A

3. AVA
Table 1. Aristotle's three laws of logical thought

A variety of arguments can easily be produced to show

that these laws are incomplete; i.e., they do not specify
all reality, for parts of reality can be shown to contradict
one or more of Aristotle's laws.
Indeed, all "observed" or "observable" reality can be
shown to violate all three laws.
E.g., the most direct violation is posed by the problem
of change, a problem originally propounded by Heraclitus
about 500 B.C., and unsolved to this day. Heraclitus
pOinted out that, for a thing to change, it must turn into
something else, and then asked how a thing could be
something other than itself?
E.g., we may think of a thing-sayoc,some feature
"A" of which is said to change. If A changes, it turns into
A, thus violating logic laws one and two. Further, we are
considering A as the "changed thing, A," i.e., something
which is somehow both A and A. so logic law three is
violated as well.
Thus, if Aristotle's three laws are taken to be all the
fundamental laws of logic, then logically there can be no
change whatsoever, because change negates ALL THREE
LAWS. I.e., either change does not exist or it is totally
illogical.
Since all measurements, detections, thoughts, and
perceptions are simply changes, then it follows that these
operations logically cannot exist. Or, if we assume the
"operations" to exist, their outputs cannot exist. If the
operations do not exist, then again their outputs do not
exist.
So if the products or outputs cannot exist, then by this
reasoning no perceived, detected, measured, conceived
thing exists. If we then insist that such things do indeed
exist, then all is paradoxical and illogical. This is essentially
the nature of the paradox posed by Heraclitus.
Heraclitus's change paradox has not been satisfactorily
resolved to this day, and rigorously all the rational science
of the Western world, being based on paradoxical change
(detection, perception, observation) is itself totally illogical by its own logical standards.
However, the conditions necessary to resolve the problem of change can be stated simply by inspection of the
PURSUIT Winter 1980

problem as follows: (1) Aristotle's three laws must specify

or apply to only that which is not changing, since change
violates or negates all three laws; (2) If change is to logically
exist, there must exist at least a fourth law of logic, one
which applies to change; (3) This fourth law must contain
the negations of each of the first three laws, since change
negates them; (4) To be consistent, in any particular logical case, either the three laws explicitly apply or the fourth
law explicitly applies (i.e., either change explicitly exists
in that particular case or it does not); (5) Since all four
laws must apply at all times, then when the three laws
apply explicitly, the fourth law must be implicit-and
when the fourth law applies explicitly, the first three laws
must be implicit.
With the five stated conditions, a fourth axiom of logic
can be written simply by writing down the negations of
Aristotle's three laws, and synthesizing these negations
into a single fourth law. Thus
Aristotle's law

Negation

Explicit statement
of negation

AEA

A=.A

A"l-A

A:=A

AVA

A=Aor[A,A]
These negations Lmply
state that A and A are
totally undifferentiated.

Table 2. Negations to Aristotle's laws.

However, even though we can synthesize the negation

into a single law-the old "identity of opposites" ideawe still have the problem of understanding such a law.
Though at first glance the negations and the synthesized
fourth law seem bewildering, we can readly comprehend
them ifwe carefully consider the temporal nature of the
process that occurs in logical thinking.
SpeCifically, a finite interval of time is required to perceive, think, detect, or observe an entity-regardless of
whether we refer to "physical" or "mental" detection,
because both physical and mental processes are temporal.
Indeed, we flatly state without further discussion that
ultimately the identifying or mapping of physical and
mental operations onto each other is what time is a priori.
At any rate, we now carefully account for each individual time interval required to think, conceive, detect,
perceive, or observe an entity-whether that entity is
physical or mental-and we also account for the finite
time interval required to perform a logical operation. So
we rewrite Aristotle's three laws as shown in Table 3, with
subscripted numbers indicating the separate time intervals
in each law.
The resolution to the entire mystery so long inherent in
these axioms of logic now stands simply revealed: Whether
one of Aristotle's laws holds or its negation holds is determined solely by the nature of the logical operation in time

7
Negation

Aristotle's law
1. A I =3 A2

A I =3

1\2

or AI"-3

2. A I"1.3 A2

A I =3

A2

A II\3

A2
A2

or.

3. A IV 3

A2

[A I ,A21

Table 3. Temporally accounted laws and negations.

interval three. I I.e., the operation in interval three may

be regarded as an algorithm comprised of subsidiary
(assumed) operations in separate time subintervals that,
taken together, comprise the overall operation implied by
the logic symbol.
Thus in the first law. if temporal tags (time snapshots)
are not accounted (i.e., if they do not apply), then Aristotle's laws hold, for the snapshot 1 of A is not differentiated in algorithm 3 from snapshot 2 of A. This then
rigorously holds for spatial (Ll) entities, but not for spacetime entities. The snapshots in this case for Aristotle's first
law (and the others as well) are spatial snapshots. On the
other hand, if snapshots 1 and 2 of A are themselves
temporally differentiated in algorithm 3, then the negation of Aristotle's law applies. because the spacetime
snapshots Al and A2 are different. This is immediately
apparent, e.g., in a Minkowski geometry representation,
where the second snapshot of A will have a time coordinate different from the time coordinate of snapshot 1.
This is represented as shown in figure I, where "A" is
taken as a simple magnitude, in this case 5.
As can be seen from figure 1, 51 is not identical to 52
unless we imply the operator 10 T in the time interval
three algorithm.
The negation of the second law may also be simply
understood if we use temporal accounting. E.g .. suppose
we take Al = + 1, 1\2 = -1. and then pose the absolute
value operator II for potential use in algorithm 3. If II is
not used, then
(+1)1$3(-1)2
and Aristotle's second law holds. If II is used, then

(+ 1) I

= I (- 1)
3

and in that case

AI =3 A2
Note we are taking the view that there is nothing "absolute" or "inherent" about identity or non-identity; instead,
each is a conditional result that can only be established by
some logical, comparative set of operations. If the suboperations comprising the decision algorithm for the
identity/non-identity determination are changed, the
finding of the algorithm (the decision) may often change.
Specifically, one can have the cases
=1~3=2
1-1

~3 ~2

Thus we advance a conditional identity criterion to be

incorporated into formal logic: "Identity" or "non-identity"
is defined by a decision made as a result of applying an
operational algorithm; changing the internal operator
components assumed inherent in the algorithm can change
the decision. We are stating a fundamental principle that

"identity" and "non-identity" are conditional and only

conditional; they are never absolute.
With these pOints made, we now turn to the third law.
From Table 2, on examination it can be seen that the
third law actually is a statement for monocular perception,
detection, observation, thought, or conception. Indeed,
this law says that only a single thing at a time can be perceived, detected, observed, thought, or conceived.
As we pointed out in a previous paper, 2 there is a very
good reason for this "law." Primitive man lived almost
exclusively in a reality detected by light, by the photon
interaction. Even in the absence of visible light, all bodies
have temperature, and man is immersed in a "sea" of
continual electromagnetic photon interactions. The photon
interaction is monocular-only one at a time interacts
with a particle of mass. Further, photon interaction constitutes the operator % T invoked upon LlT spacetime.
Photon emission carries away time (the photon is made
of (~E~T), leaving behind an Ll spatial reality, as we
have previously pOinted out. 3
So all our primitive concepts, ideas, and notions about
reality have come from over four million years of hominid
and human experience in the photon-detected partial
reality ("physical", "objective," or "spatial" reality) that
remains when the time "dimension" (fundamental variable)
is destroyed from L3T spacetime, leaving only L3 space
behind. Specifically, our observed macroscopic reality
consists of large temporal (mental) aggregates of such
spatial results, where we cannot distinguish the tiny temporal separations of the pieces. Thus all our observed/
perceived entities are spatial. and further, each perception/
observation snapshot results in a frozen, unchanging spatial
entity (resulting-in physical detection-from the so-called
"collapse of the wave function." The loss of a wave function
is simply the loss of time.) We vaguely sense "time" and
"change" as the relation between these snapshots-i.e.,
by causality, or the ordering of the spatial changes-much
as we see "movement" in movie frames rapidly projected
onto a screen one-at-a-time.
Thus our primitive observations, from which have painfully been formed our relational concepts and ideas, are
monocular, unchanging, and spatial. Aristotle's three
laws of logic-which indeed may be taken to be only a
simple synthesis of our primitive observation and correspondingly relational concepts-then exhibit the same
6

5
MAGNITUDE

1
oL---~--~--~--~--~--~

2
3
TIME

Figure 1. Spacetime snapshots of A.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

8
characteristics; they are monocular, unchanging, 3-dimensional, spatial, non-temporal rational statements. Any
statement that is temporal, changing. or 4-dimensional
will thus appear as a logical paradox to this logical shorthand.
But from Young's two-slit experiment, we already
know that reality and the relationships between its parts
are quite different if the photon interaction is not invokedi.e .. if 010 T is not invoked. Classical reality (as prescribed by Aristotle's laws) is directly violated by an electron
in the two-slit experiment, e.g., if and only if photon
interaction with the electron is not invoked. Again, this has
been simply explained by the present author 4 , and Charles
Muses as early as 1957 pointed out the absence of any
mystery in Young's experiment if the chronotopological
aspects were considered. S
However, what is normally referred to as the "conscious,
thinking mind" is simply a functioning temporal (rigorously,
chronotopological) mechanism that is painfully built up in
the individual's awareness (his mind in the greater sense
of both thought and awareness, whether monocular or
multiocular) by training, conditioning, and experience.
Its functioning is largely conditioned by one's 90% or so
attention to visual stimuli (to the partial reality remaining
after photon interaction has been invoked, and to the
memory-collated ordering of vast numbers of such photon
interactions) and by one's cultural conditioning-which
itself has been almost exclusively conditioned and shaped
by the monocular photon interaction at base root.
Thus, since the beginning of man, his conscious, rational
mind has been trained and constructed to function almost
exclusively in basic correspondence with the photon interaction, and his experiential reality consists of the partial
reality stripped from fundamental reality by photon inter
action.
All "perceived differences," e.g., are created by this
deep mindset. As has been previously pOinted out,6 the
solitary human problem responsible for all man's inhumanity to his fellow man is directly dependent upon man's
almost exclusive detection, observation, perception, and
conception of "difference" between humans, these "differences" being due exclusively and totally to the fitting of
men's conscious minds to the photon interaction's monocular separation of spatial reality from nonspatial reality,
i.e. to

0/0 T (LJT) :;. LJ

Such well-nigh total devotion to, and enslavement by,

the photon interaction also is responsible for the scientist's
well-nigh total devotion to, and enslavement by, the
present imperfect and incomplete three laws of logic, as
presented by Aristotle. The depth of that devotion and
enslavement is evidenced by the fact that the resolution
of such paradoxes as Heraclitus's problem of change
have eluded the best minds of humanity for several thousands of years. Indeed, these paradoxes cannot be resolved
by the conscious, rational mind in its present state. for it
has been most firmly constructed and fitted to function in
accordance with the photon interaction. 7 One cannot
hope to resolve any logical paradox by using only those
same logical methods that found the situation to be paradoxical in the first place!
PURSUIT Winter 1980

That we need not be constrained by such universal

delusion is already shown by binocular vision. SpeCifically,
in viewing a three-dimensional object, each eye never
detects a "third dimension." but detects only an l2 2dimensional picture. By taking two slightly different 2-dimensional snapshots and superimposing them, the third
dimension is gained. One then essentially sees the resultant superposed pictures as "almost the same but not
quite." I.e., the Aristotlean identity algorithm, if satisfied,
yields "no difference, hence one object," and if not satisfied, yields "difference, hence multiple (extended) object(s)." So if the two snapshots are almost Aristotleanidentical but not quite. we get an extended two-dimensional (three-dimensional) object. Otherwise we see two
separate, two-dimensional snapshots blurred together
(the reader is urged to try this and see).
The point is, "dimensionality" and the identity algorithm are directly related, and geometrically one follows
from the other.
In very similar manner, we can only gain cognizance or
awareness of "time" (as a fourth dimension) by the superposing of two slightly differing (Aristotlean-wise) 3-dimensional snapshots. As is well known. e.g., time is not an
"observable" in quantum mechanics; it is a "parameter."
Rigorously, the only place such snapshots-each of which
is "past" (spatially separated by the annihilation of time in
the collapse of the wave function) -can multiply exist is
in the "mind" in its most general sense. In a rigorous
sense, mind and time can be taken as identical, and the
"flow of time" can be taken as the "flow of mind connections or superpositions" of its spatial components.
I.e., measuredl detected/ observed/ "physical phenomena" are a priori 3-dimensional and spatial, while a mind
is four-dimensional and hyperspatial. 8 Spacetime exists
mentally but not observably. Time is logically implicit, not
explicit.
Now we return to the temporal aspects of logic. Each
perceptual part of each Aristotlean law is fitted to the
photon interaction. hence monocular. The logic operation,
inherent in the logic symbol in each statement, involves
temporal superposition or comparison of spatial perceptual
objects. Hence the logic operation is hyperdimensionally a function of mind, and injects mind/time into
the statement. Yet these laws, being fitted to or synthesizing photon interaction, attempt to prescribe the absence
of time, even though writing down the logic operation
rigorously invokes time. They are thus totally contradictory,
since as written they implicitly violate themselves.
Figure 2 summarizes the operations now to be permitted in the time-three algorithm, in developing a new
four-law logic:
Rules one and two simply state that. when snapshots
1 and 2 are superimposed (subtracted) in time interval 3,
the resultant snapshot 3 may be zero or non-zero. If zero,
snapshots 1 and 2 are said to be identical, and if snapshot 1 is to be labeled A, then snapshot 2 is to be labeled
A.1f snapshot 3 is non-zero, snapshots 1 and 2 are said
to be non-identical; if snapshot 1 is labeled A, then snapshot 2 is labeled A.
Rule 3 says that snapshot 3 is a "memory" snapshot,

9
~.

1. 15), 5213

(zerolJ

2. 15), 5213

(non-zerolJ

lidentitylJ
~

(non-identityh

lsi

3.

= 1lSI

monocular
separation,
differentiation
internally

4.

non-separation. no
differentiation
internally
Figure 2. Conditional identity rules.

and it may be particulately examined to monocularly separate snapshots 1 and 2.

Rule 4 states that snapshot 3 is not a "memory snapshot" and may not be further separated.
Note that in logic we repeatedly apply these rules in
combination, serially or compositely. Note further that
Rule 1 must serially apply both rules 3 and 4, as must
rule 2 also.
If we take 413 to mean "rule 4 applied conditional to
rule 3 also being applied," and 41"3 to mean "rule 4 applied
conditional to rule 3 not also being applied," we may
write:

41"3 1\ 1

identity (5). 52)

413" 1\ 2

non-identity (5), 52)

413"

413

oneness without separate-ones;

oneness, extraordinary and unperceivable;
thing-in-itself
"ordinary" one, perceivable separation
"thing-as-separated-from-others"

Figure 3. Conditional identity, non-identity, and oneness.

As can be seen, this type of reasoning also sheds a great

deal of light on the long-standing problem of the "thingin-itself," but that is beyond the scope of this paper.
Now we write the fourth law of logic as follows:

where all we have said is that, by rule 4. in snapshot 3

no memory process is allowed. and no separation/differentiation whatsoever of A) and A2 is permitted. Under
these operational conditions for identity, what had previously been called A) in snapshot 1 and what had been
called A2 in snapshot 2 are indistinguishable, hence identical.
Thus the age-old philosophical dilemma posed by the
illogical identity of opposites has a simple resolution if one
considers temporal aspects, and introduces temporal
conditions for identity or non-identity decisions.
We now write the new four law conditional identity
logic as:

1.

A) =3 A2

2.

A =/= 3 A2

3.

A)V 3 A2

4.

A) =3 A2

Figure 4. Four law conditional identity logic.

Further, we point out that all four laws now apply ..

I, 2, and 3 are the laws of explicit monocular perception, with implicit binocular perception. Law four is
the law of explicit binocular perception, with implicit
monocular perception. Both monocular and binocular
perceptions must be and are used in each law. So in any
situation, either the triad applies explicitly and the fourth
law applies implicitly, or the fourth law applies explicitly
and the triad applies implicitly.
Indeed, one can even take the view that we have prescribed a five-law logic, the fifth law being taken as
L~ws

5.

l,2,3/\(4)V41\(1,2,3)

where ()

implicit

Figure 5. A possible fifth law of logic.

In a previous paper, 9 the author has already presented

methods to apply this new logic to resolve present paradoxes. At least hypothetically, every present paradox
should be simply a statement of the explicit fourth law,
and it should be resolvable by explicit application of that
law.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Specifically, by whether or not exclusivity applies.
I.e., we may read Law 1 as "In snapshot (time interval) 3,
what was A in snapshot 1 is exclusively identical to (unseparated from) what was A in snapshot 2." Law 2 may
be read as "In snapshot 3, what was A in snapshot 1 is
exclusively not identical to (is exclusively separated from)
what was not-A in snapshot 2." Law 3 reads, "In snapshot 3, what was A in snapshot 1 and what was not-A in
snapshot 2 are exclusively separated." Thus it can be
seen that the three laws simply are statements involving
whether or not two former perceptions are to be separated in a third perception. These three statements presently prescribe the total separation of the two previous
perceptions and prohibit any admixture of the two-the
so-called "excluded middle." Thus the three laws prescribe monocular, one-at-a-time perception.
What we call a "wave" exists in time and is considered
to contain an admixture of timeless, static spatial states
(such as "wavelengths."). The prohibiting of admixtures
thus represents the "collapse of the wave function" and
the corresponding loss of time. This defines "observation"
and explains why all "measurement" and "detection" and
"observation" -requiring a collapse of said wave functionare spatial and not spatiotemporal. That is why time is
a parameter in quantum mechanics, not an observable.
As we will see, the fitting of our logic to the monocular
PURSUIT Winter 1980

._----------------------------10

AN OPEN LETTER FROM JOHN WHITE

TO DR. ARLEN KEITH ANDREWS REGARDING
'WHAT TO BELIEVE-OR, PARING DOWN
THE PARADIGM' (Pursuit, Summer 1979)
Dear Arlen,
Your call for reality checking by Fortean investigators
is entirely appropriate, and I support it. It is indeed foolish to "create entirely new universes and new laws to
'explain' each anomalous event."
However, you illustrated your thesis with two examples
that are actually quite damaging to your argument.
I refer to Uri Geller and "occasionally transparent living
creatures." I consider both to be examples of genuine
Fortean phenomena, and I'll give you some data to
support this statement.

Uri Geller. I first met Geller in August 1972 at the

home of Dr. Andrija Puharich in Ossining, New York.
Also present was Dr. Gerald Feinberg of the physics
department of Columbia University, the late Dr. Wilbur
Franklin, a physicist at Kent State University. and half
a dozen other guests who witnessed the follOWing event
along with me.
At Geller's request for objects to work with. one of
the women present produced a large steel safety pinthe size used for baby diapers-and some other items,
including a common metal straight pin. The woman

CONDITIONAL CRITERION REFERENCES (Continued)

Indian Hills, Colorado. 1958. p. lxii, where Muses pointed

out that the celebrated wave-particle paradox remains
a paradox only so long as the chronotopological (his
word) phases of the phenomena are left unrealized in the
analysis. The entire foreword by Muses is a remarkable
document which analyzes the structure of time itself. With
his hypernumbers Muses can describe the nested structure of time, which is what is actually being carried by the
photon. Further, he can theoretically predict mechanisms
by means of which these structures can be orthorotated.
It would appear that practical devices should be constructable on principles elucidated by Muses, and it is little
short of astonishing that fundamental work of such importance and application has been thus far little used by
theorists, though it is already recognized in the standard
literature; e.g., the profound summary paper "Hypernumbers II" in the January 1978 issue of the journal
Applied Mathematics and Computation, published by
Elzevier.
6. Bearden, "The One Human Problem, Its Solution,
and Its Relation to UFO Phenomena," Defense Documentation Center. January 3, 1977.
7. Which is why a Zen master often gives the student
a koan to confound and overwhelm this automatic, robotic
mindset and functioning that has been constructed as the
student's "conscious mind."
8. Specifically, consciousness/life involves a seven
dimensional body/being in an infinite-dimensional universe.
See Thomas E. Bearden, "A Mind/Brain/Matter Model
Consistent with Quantum Physics and UFO Phenomena,"
prepared for the 1979 MUFON Annual Symposium,
available in the Proceedings, MUFON. 103 Oldtown Road,
Seguin, Texas 78155.
9. Bearden, "The Fourth Law of Logic," Specula,
Journal of the American Association of Meta-SCience,
P.O. Box 1182. Huntsville, Alabama 35807. Vol. 2,
No.!. January-March 1979, pp. 30-40: also in publication in Defense Documentation Center.

photon interaction is what has produced this "reality paradigm" that is spatial rather than spatiotemporal, in agreement with what we and all our primitive ancestors have
seen with our eyes. For primitive observation via the photon
interaction has defined or constrained all our basic concepts, just as it still defines "classical reality."
Relativity, being constrained by such logic, obViously
can find nothing "physical" (observed. spatial, timeless
thing frozen by the collapse of the wave function as engendered by or fitted to the photon interaction) that is
traveling faster than light-Le .. that violates the conditions
implied by the "observing/detecting agent."
That reality need not at all be so constrained is clearly
shown by Young's two-slit experiment, the heart of all
quantum mechanics. In this experiment. "classical" reality
is violated iff the photon interaction is not invoked. Classical reality is obeyed iff the photon interaction is invoked.
With appropriate change to logic to fit "reality that has
not been interacted with by photons" and therefore is
spatiotemporal, a new physics becomes possible.
2. Thomas E. Bearden, "Solution of the Fundamental
Problem of Quantum Mechanics," January 3, 1977, Defense Documentation Center.
3. Bearden, "Photon Quenching of the Paranormal
(Time) Channel: A Brief Note," 20 April 1977. Defense
Documentation Center.
4. Bearden, "Virtual State Engineering and Its Implications," 1979, Defense Documentation Center.
5. With the possible exception of Kozyrev-whose
more technical works on time remain undisclosed to
open science-no other person known to this author
seems to have grasped the implications of a dynamic
structure of time as penetratingly as has Charles Muses.
The importance of the time interaction in explaining the
two-slit experiment (Le., in explaining wave-particle
duality) was noted as early as 1957 by Muses. See, e.g.,
Muses' introduction to Jerome Rothstein's Communication,
Organization, and Science, The Falcon's Wing Press,
PURSUIT Winter 1980

11

was a neighbor of Dr. Puharich who claimed to have

met Geller for the first time that day, and the items
were contained in her purse.
I opened the safety pin and held it at the circular
base, observing that it was not deformed in any way
and that it was indeed an ordinary metal safety pin.
Then, while I held it and the others were watching,
Uri lightly stroked the pointed half in the middle between
his thumb and forefinger. I could not feel the slightest
pressure from his motions, and I estimate that he rubbed
the pin for no more than 15 seconds.
Even as Geller was stroking the pin, we could see it
begin to bend between his fingers. When that happened,
he removed his hand. We could see the pin continuing
to bend in my hand. After a minute or so, I placed it on
a saucer in the middle of the table around which we
had gathered. During the next five minutes, the pin
deformed still further, eventually bending in the middle
of the pointed half about 30 degrees from its original
line until it looked like a square root sign. During that
time no one touched the pin.
If you would like to witness Geller performing psychokinesis with an electric balance, and also performing
telepathy and clairvoyance, you can obtain a film entitled "Experiments with Uri Geller" that was made during
actual test situations conducted at Stanford Research
Institute. The film is available from the Institute of Noetic
Sciences, 600 Stockton St., San Francisco, CA 9410B
(30 minutes, color, $40 rental).
An event such as I witnessed cannot be duplicated by
stage magicians. I have repeatedly sought to have it
done. But even if they could reproduce the effect through
trickery, it would not be proof that Geller is fraudulent.
Does a phony dollar bill prove there are no real ones?
Of course not. As the saying goes, counterfeit money
exists only because there is genuine money. So far as
I know, Geller has not actually been caught cheating,
though accusations abound. On the other hand, he has
given many convincing demonstrations. Give credit
where it is due.
Transparent Creatures. "Not all UFOs are spacecraft
from another world. Quite simply, many UFOs are living
organisms. They are biological aeroforms living in the
sky unknown to official science. I know. I have seen
them and photographed them."
This statement by a friend of mine, Trevor James
Constable, is backed up by a massive amount of evidence,
including infrared photographs, black-and-white movie
films, Super-B color film, and videotapes, along with
many accounts of sightings by others.
Constable calls these animal UFOs, "critters." You
can read about them, and see some of the photographic
evidence, in his recent book Sky Creatures: Living
UFOs (Pocket Books, 1977). Briefly, what he found
is this:
Critters are plasma-bodied creatures-organisms
conSisting essentially of heat-substance at the upper
border of physical matter. Neither solid, liqUid nor gas,
these creatures live invisibly like fish in an ocean of
atmosphere. They are normally beyond the range of
sight for three reasons. First, their native habitat is the

This Is the sixth photograph in the series that first

captured the bloforms. or "critters," in August of
1957. There appear to be two critters here. both
plasmatic and both photographed against the
local terrain. British author and UFO investigator
Harold T. Wilkins, since deceased, told Trevor
Constable In 1958 that he felt as though he were
"looking through the side of an aquarium" at these
strange airborne life-forms. The author maintains
that these bioforms are confused with space-ship
UFOs and vice versa.

stratosphere at distances beyond unaided sight. Second,

their native state of existence is in the infrared portion
of the spectrum beyond the range of visible light. Last,
they propel themselves at extremely fast speeds, ~ome
times appearing like meteors before disappearing from
view.
Because critters consist of plasma-matter in its most
tenuous form-they have the capacity to change their
density and thereby pass from one level of tangibility
to another. Thus they sometimes do appear in the visible
portion of the spectrum where, if seen by humans,
they are quickly labelled UFOs-which they are, of
course. But they are not mechanical spacecraft; they
are living creatures.
These amoeba-like aerial fauna, Constable thinks,
will someday be categorized as macrobacteria in the
general field of macrobiology. Furthermore, he says,
critters are not the only organisms in the upper atmosphere. It supports a veritable aerial jungle.
Critters range in size from that of a coin to at least
half a mile in diameter. As do most plasmas, they give
a solid radar return even though fighter pilots don't see
them when vectored by ground control to intercept
them. They pulsate like all living organisms and when
in visible range often emit a reddish-orange glow, thus
PURSUIT Winter 1980

12
accounting for the mysterious "foo fighters" of World
War II. Although they can change both their form and
their density, critters generally are discerned as discs or
spheroids. Their diaphanous mica-like structure allows
a limited view of their interior. Some have been seen
close up on the ground in full physical density. .
When Ivan Sanderson saw some of Constable's photos,
which he began taking in 1958, Sanderson said, " ... they
don't look like machines at all. They look to a biologist
horribly like unicellular life-forms, complete in some cases
with nuclei, nucleoli, vacuoles and all the rest."
Constable published the findings from his twenty-year
study of critters in a 1977 book entitled The Cosmic
Pulse of Life (available through Steiner Books, Blauvelt,
New York), which deals comprehensively with the UFO
experience. Sky Creatures: Living UFOs is an abridgement of Cosmic Pulse, which has been making its way
around the world in ufological circles and inspiring people
to attempt replicating Constable's pioneering work.
Here in the U.S., half a dozen people have reported
privately to Constable that they have also "captured"
critters on film. One such photo appears in Sky Creatures,
along with an appendix by SITU member Larry E.
Arnold, who gives an account of many more instances
where critters were seen.
And just recently, Constable sent me a copy of a letter
from a UFO research group in Genoa, Italy, which corroborated his work entirely. The correspondent, Luciano
Boccone, has given me permission to quote relevant
sections of his letter.

':~',! :.~ti;!j)t.i): :}i)i~

'}-:C'P ;'!;': '~ ~":~': ' "'";' :' "I;' ;.'

,",,', oj
':.:.'
'.

01

'".

:;:

:."

~: ~". : :'.~

~::';

,,0

'.
.~.

: :'

.. ; _ "

';

~.::

.,'.

I, .;'

".:

... .-;.:.

.......

.:

i..:.:' ....

"_.

'~.'
.~

~1

.'.:.:'. .

"

",

..

., ,"
. ~'" :'"

':

On May 17, 1958, using a Leica G without filter

and high-speed infrared film, Trevor Constable
captured this invisible specimen of UFO life above
the rocky ridge adjoining Giant Rock, California.
F3.5 at 1/50 second, shot in first light of dawn.
PURSUIT Winter 1980

". .. we were among the very first UFO organizations

in Italy to take still pictures of UFOs directly from the
invisible state... Generally we do not see anything visible
when our instruments behave irregularly and we simultaneously press the shutter of our cameras ... This simple
procedure has allowed us to objectify, both at low altitudes
and close to the ground, invisible events or noumena
which prove to be strictly connected ... with the visible
phenomena that usually go by the name of UFO manifestations.
" ... the photographic, instrumentally-based documentation in our hands positively confirms your photographic
.findings and conclusions as well as the results obtained
by our close friend Florin Gheorghita in Rumania. Let me
emphasize that your invisible amoeba-like forms are
practically identical in shape, size, density, etc. to the
invisible plasmatic organisms that our Rumanian friends
and ourselves have photographed in the sky and on the
ground, both in Italy and Rumania. There is seemingly
no difference between the invisible, unicellular, ameboid
structures that can be seen on your infrared still pictures
of 'critters,' and the invisible, unicellular, ameboid structures that can be seen on the infrared, panchromatic
and color still pictures of 'plasmoids' that we have taken
from our research areas on instrumental audible and
visual warning.
"Like your own files and Gheorghita's, our records
are full of photographs shOWing invisible, glOWing, pulsating plasmorganisms, capable of changing shape, size,
density, luminosity, arrangement, position, etc. in a split
second. Our pictures, for example, show invisible plasmorganisms blinking at low altitude over the Port of
Genoa, pacing aircraft... They show invisible plasmatic
bodies fleeing or cavorting in the sky at tremendous
speed, or hovering or 'dancing' over our research areas ...
"In short, we have got irrefutable documentary evidence of the presence of such 'plasmoids' at low altitude
over our mountain and marine research areas, close
to us on the ground, and inside our houses, too. I repeat, we have objectified them many times directly from
the invisible state on infrared, panchromatic, and color
still pictures, most of which have been taken on instrumental detection only ...
"This is the reason why, sticking to the facts and failing for the time being any exhaustive,. satisfactory explanation other than their 'biological nature,' we agree to
your interpretation, according to which most of the
UFOs that have mystified men for generations are not
extraterrestrial spaceships at all, but are generally-invisible,
ultradimensional, ultraterrestrial, biological, etheric
organisms that are of our planet, that have been living
with us, side by side, unnoticed, since the beginning
of time .... "
I have written to Boccone for further information, but
as of the moment have had no response. Apparently,
however, Constable's objectification of what occultists
have termed "elementals" is being confirmed.
So, Arlen, I hope I have given you food for thought
and that you will reconsider your position with regard
to these two subjects. From my perspective, there is

13

This amoeba-like Invisible UFO.

replete with nucleoli. vacuoles
and the general appearance of
a unicellular organism from the
microscopic world. was photographed by Trevor Constable on
August 25. 1957 on the Mojave
Desert. The object was Initially
immediately over Constable's
head, and not directly tangible
to the eye. Five successive photographs were made of the object
as it moved from overhead to
positions that permitted Inclusion
of local terrain In the pictures.
Infrared film, sensitive beyond
the range of human sight, was
used in a Leica G 35mm camera,
fitted with an 87 filter. Exposure:
f3.5 at 1/30 sec. Development:
Mlcrodol, twice normal.

a strong case for the genuineness of both, and only entrenched prejudice denying them. They appear to be
not supernatural but supernormal. No new universes
are needed to accommodate them-only a broadened
conception of nature and a willingness to walk that
narrow line between having an open mind and having

a hole in the head. We Forteans must avoid the latter,

of course, but we must also avoid premature closure of
a topic. Uri Geller and critters, I suggest, deserve another
hearing.
-John White
Cheshire, Connecticut
PURSUIT Winter 1980

14

A MODEL SOLUTION TO THE

UNIFIED FIELD PROBLEM
by T. B. Pawlicki
HE best-known problem of modern physics is the
T wave/particle
dichotomy. A number of illustrations
are presented to show how the same structure can be
perceived as a wave at one time and a particle at another.
The most common is using a cone to demonstrate that
it can appear as a circle from one aspect .and a triangle
from another. This illustration tells us something about
two and three dimensional space, but we are none the
wiser about waves and particles. Like mystic gurus, scientists are apt to present irrelevant illustrations as explanations,
insulting the intelligence of the layman. When a valid explanation is really quite obvious, misdirections of this kind
raise suspicions of red herrings.
If you distribute a bushel of small ball bearings on a billiard table so that there is no grouping whatsoever, you
will eventually find that each ball is spaced an equal distance from every other ball. This experiment will prove
to you that utter chaos is identical to perfect order.
If you attempt to erase the order of equal spacing by rearranging the balls into random groupings, you will eventually arrive at a distribution corresponding to the statistician's Bell Frequency Curve; regular patterns of density
will constitute periodic waves, and sets of waves will
combine into large waves until the entire field is defined
as a circular wave. Once again, you find that absolute
chaos is identical to ideal order. The Creator's intelligence
as an architect is overrated; God cannot create a chaos
even if He wants to.
You do not have to spend several weeks of tedium to
discover these proofs if you happen to be in the vicinity of
Seattle, Washington. At the Science E'xhibit of Seattle
Center, you can see a random distribution of balls forming
a Bell Frequency Curve several times every hour.
Anyone familiar with the registration of measuring
instruments, such as a camera system, can study this
model for a long time to discover several ways of looking
at waves and particles. The layman should be satisfied by
seeing that any event detected at the limit of resolution
will register as a point, and a point is equivalent to a particle.
Events finer than the limit of resolution will register as
waves if their number and concentration are sufficient to
emerge above the threshold of resolution over a span of
greater extent than a pOint. In other words, whether an
event is perceived as a wave or a particle has nothing to
do with the structure of the entity; the dichotomy is produced by the mechanics of perception. When the focus of
perception is concentrated upon the limit of resolution,
only pOint/particles can possibly be perceived. When the
focus of perception is extended, points at the limit of
resolution can only be perceived as waves. A cosmic
scientist whose microscope was incapable of resolving
PURSUIT Winter 1980

internal detail would be unable to determine whether the

ultimate unit of a population were an individual person or
a group because the only distinction is edge contrast.
In an earlier article, "Mind Over Matter," (Pursuit,
Vol. 11, No.1, Winter 1978, p. 21) I described the Plate
Flutter Experiment. Anyone who has observed this model
will recognize that the patterns can be perceived as particles
when the standing-waves are at the limit of resolution,
and as waves when the standing-waves are large enough
to function as a field. The distinction is a matter of scale.
The matter of scale is important, because scale is a true
sixth dimension of space and the perception of structure
is determined by the focusing of consciousness on a specific scale of the sixth dimension.
In a subsequent article, "The Cosmic Hologram,"
(Pursuit, Vol. 11, No.1, Winter, 1978, p. 22) I showed
that the elemental bits of the universe possess the property
of infinity within the function of perception; this is the
only way a hologram can contain all its information in all
of its parts regardless of the scale of the sampling.
In other words, the ultimate element of the universe
cannot be detected without an instrument capable of
resolving finer detail than its own mechanics implement.
Logically, this kind of instrument is impossible by selfcontradiction.
So the question as to whether the ultimate element is
a wave or a particle cannot be answered in the sense it is
asked. But whether the ultimate element is a wave or
a particle has never been the paradox. The problem has
been to explain how it is possible for the same event to
appear as a wave at one time and a particle at another.
The model described here demonstrates the mechanics
of the phenomenon quite clearly, and we can only wonder
about the intelligence of the renowned authorities who
make such a big mystery out of a self-evident process.
Most of us are armchair scientists who will go to great
pains in criticizing the reports of experiments, but nothing
quite so painful as performing the experiments for ourselves to see what is really happening-especially if the
results threaten our favorite convictions. There is, however, a natural model everyone can study from time to
time as the occasion presents itself, without any laboratory
preparation, mathematical measurements, or even much
discipline. The next time you are in the vicinity of a sizable
body of water, you can study the random pattern of waves
on its surface as a set of Bell Frequency Curves and a
Plate Flutter Experiment. Each wave is the involute of
a spiral vortex, like a tent is the involute of a bubble, and
the scale is large enough for you to examine the mechanical dynamics without instruments or a high-speed movie
camera.
Eventually, you will discern that while waves travel
over the surface of the water, the water does not move
in the same manner. Each wave-form defines a field of
water rotating around a fixed center; waves constituting

15
larger waves gyrate around the distance center. All that
moves over the surface of the water is the pattern of the
wave.
Each sizable wave is constituted of numerous wavelets.
The wavelets, in turn, are comprised of still smaller dimples,
and the scale diminishes on a series of finer aggregations
until the molecular scale is reached. Now, if you observe
the wavelets at the limits of resolution for 20/20 vision,
you will see that they do not flow continuously with the
same form and direction. Instead, they dart about like
particles in a Brownian Movement. Some of them disappear for a time long enough for their absence to be
noticed, and when they reappear, the distance from their
previous location is great enough to make it doubtful that
it is the same wave. The wavelets are, in fact, discontinuous
in both time and space. Now it can be seen that the sizable
waves do not have the continuous form and velocity
which seemed so self-evident upon earlier inspection;
they are constituted of innumerable wavelets, each having
no continuous form or velocity, like the image projected
on a movie screen appears continuous in form and movement while its successive frames pass through the film gate.
The stability of any given wave form is a function of the
Bell Frequency Curve, varying directly with the si7.e of the
scale. At the smallest scale, you will recognize that the
wavelets on the surface of water constitute a very model
of Quantum Field Mechanics.
This is a rather important discovery because it means
that you do not have to have exorbitantly expensive
instruments, a ruinous investment in education, nor a
rarified I.Q. to calculate arcane symbols before you can
understand how the universe unfolds as it should. Every
child can study and understand the analogue directly by
his own immediate experience. This discovery has the
same political significance as the open Bible in the medieval
church. It is no longer illegal for peasants, slaves, foreigners and women to read, but the scientific clerics are
no less determined to hold their well-endowed positions
as intercessors between Heaven and Earth. Unless the
responsible authorities come forward with reasons proving otherwise, this is the probable reason why simple and
self-evident models are noticeably absent from current
scientific concepts.
An interesting deduction we can derive from our simple
model is that nothing of the material world has any continuous, or permanent existence. Everything is constituted
of particles manifest from the Quantum Field for the briefest detectable flash, before disappearing forever. All that
exists over any practical duration of time is the pattern the
particles assume. But the substance of the pattern is continually recreated by new particles, like a standing-wave
on a flowing river. Even the pattern is evanescent, because it never is completely filled at any given instant,
and it is never replicated exactly from one instant to the
other. On our scale of experience, however, the differences
between one replication and the next are so insignificant
that we regard our world as continuous and durable in
both time and space. Once you realize that the universe
is created anew from instant to instant, it becomes possible
to alter the pattern preferred by the Bell Frequency Curve;
this is what magic and miracles are all about.

An infinite number of random point! events must eventually arrange themselves into a regular pattern of waves
in the form of a spiral vortex, if the scale is large enough.
The expansion of the spiral is governed by the PHI ratio,
and its radius is a function of the Bell Frequency distribution of random wavelengths. It is difficult to discern the
spiral pattern on the surface of water, although the oceanic
currents are evidence that it is there. It is also difficult to
see the spiral structure of the Plate Flutter Experiment.
because the distribution appears practically homogenous
to normal inspection; the existence of the standing-waves,
however, is the positive evidence that the spirals are
there. So I shall ask you to refer to a fourth model demonstrating the very same mechanics. Purchase a set of moire
patterns from the Edmund Scientific people, advertising
in most technical journals on the newsstands.
The spiral pattern corresponds to a two-dimensional
section through the three-dimensional vortex. In order to
represent the time dimension, it is necessary to rotate
the pattern around the center of the spiral. If you place
the transparent pattern over the opaque one, you will see
a moire pattern of points created where the lines of the
two spirals intersect. If the lines are understood to represent waves, this model shows how the intersection of
waves will generate point events that will register as particles.
As the primary spirals rotate. the paints constituting its
waves move tangentially to the central axis. Note well
that the points of the moire pattern move radially. If the
moire pattern is large enough in extent, its individual
points will form a harmonic spiral on a larger scale. If
these points have an intermittent existence, the harmonic
spiral will be seen to rotate at right angles to the movement of its points. When two harmonic spirals intersect,
a harmonic moire pattern is generated on a higher scale,
and the mechanics repeat themselves. Note well that at
each stage in the expansion of scale, the size of the primary pattern is magnified in space, and the velOcity is
retarded in time.
An armchair scientist will be overtaxed to perform this
experiment with huge spiral moire patterns. Other patterns in the Edmund Kit, however, will demonstrate the
way moire patterns magnify primary dimensions, and
once you understand the principle, you can distinguish
the same mechanics operating in the generation of waves
on the surface of water. Primary waves on the surface of
water intersect and pass through each other without affecting each other. The waves generated by their harmonic
intersections, however, change in size, shape and velocity
in response to every primary intersection; harmonic transformations of the larger waves are difficult to discern
because the transformations of innumerable wavelets
tend to cancel the differences out to the Bell Frequency
average. You will, however, be able to see that the generation of each scale of harmonics results in an abrupt
rotation of velocity.
Now, if you have read Tom Bearden's theory of the
photonic reaction, by which radiant energy is transformed
into material particles after a 90 0 orthorotation, you will
recognize the same calculations represented in the moire
patterns.
PURSUIT Winter 1980

16

By this time, you should be realizing that the mechanics

of moire patterns, as observed in wave forms on the surface of water, is a tangible model demonstrating the Unified Field structure which Einstein struggled with all his
life without success.
The movement of particles in a field is the means by
which the acceleration of the field is measured and the
space of the field defined. Because particles have no real
existence, but are manifest in the form of a pattern, the
pattern of standing-waves in our model corresponds to
the structure of physical fields. The lines of force defining
all fields are actually standing-waves. At the smallest scale
of our model, the spirals are wound most tightly around
the center, but they also unwind most rapidly along their.
radii. The smallest scale of our model, therefore. can be
taken to represent the field holding the particles together
in the nucleus of the atom. At the radius where the lines
of the primary pattern are farther apart than the lines of
the secondary harmonic pattern, the force of the harmonic
field will supervene the acceleration of the primary field.
In this demonstration, we can see why the nuclear force is
so much stronger than the electromagnetic, but fades so
rapidly. It is merely a matter of calibrating the model to
make the measurements identical to experimental data.
Where superimposed spirals are not concentric, you will
see transformation from one frequency to another concentrated in limited localities. In the real field our model
represents, spiral centers are not conveniently concentric;
each Quantum interval is a center for a proper vortex.
The shells where frequency transformations concentrate,
therefore, correspond to the strong and weak particle
reactions.
You will see that whenever harmonic standing-waves
undergo any transformation of mass, velocity. or form.
there is an interchange of primary standing-waves between
them represented by radiant vectors through the proper
field. In this way, our model represents particle physics as
described by the equations of the Quantum Field Theory.
Where spiral vortices are observed in a fluid, you will
see that fields spinning in the same direction repel each
other, whereas fields spinning in opposite directions tend
to flow together. Examination shows that vortices spinning
in the same direction have the highest velocity of impact
along the interface of contact, and the velOcity increases
as their centers move together. EVidently, vortices spinning in the same direction move away from high impact
velocities on a gradient toward lower impact velocities;
direct impact results in mutual annihilation. On the other
hand, vortices spinning in opposite directions have no
velOcity at the interface of contact, so they can merge
without mutual annihilation. This aspect of our model
demonstrates the two poles of the electromagnetic force,
and shows that spin determines polarity.
If aU charged particles are defined by spin, then all
charged particles must be dipolar. Experimental data,
however, proves protons and electrons to be monopolar.
But if you bear in mind that the harmonic field on the
next scale must align the polar axes of protons and electrons in the same direction, you will see that protons and
electrons are bound to repel their kind unless the harmonic
field is eliminated. No researcher has eliminated the har-

PURSUIT Winter 1980

monic field because science does not recognize its existence. But you can prove the mechanics for yourself by
floating a number of minute bar magnets in a fluid dense
enough to support them. When their axes are aligned by
a superimposed magnetic field, they will all repel each
other like very monopoles. If, however, you force a pair
of magnets together closely enough for the attraction of
their opposite poles to overcome the alignment of the
superimposed magnetic field, they will flip relative to
each other, and their opposite poles will cleave together
like protons in the helium nucleus. This is a demonstration
corresponding to what we observe of the nuclear force.
All it takes is proper calibration of the scale to make the
model identical to the experiment.!! data.
We may infer from this modell that the solar electromagnetic field aligns the polar axes of the planets to result in their mutual repulsion. A~ a matter of fact, the
planets hold positions in their r~spective orbits so that
each will maintain the greatest av~rage distance from all
the others for the longest time. MJtual gravitational attraction leads us to expect a tendency for the planets to clump
together over a long enough time. The fact that the planets
have maintained the greatest possible distance from each
other since the first Sunday suggests the influence of
something corresponding to a mutually repelling force.
Unfortunately. this is what Velikbvsky postulated, and
everyone knows that Velikovsky is in error, and no fur-
ther explanation is given. Velikovsky may be mistaken for
reasons his critics won't give, but you can construct a
model to prove it for yourself.
If the standing-wave is established as the datum pOint,
the field is seen to revolve around the particle. This is the
probable reason why particles caught in an electrostatic
field spiral into the center, and why a current of electrons
is attended by a magnetic field generated at right angles
to the direction of flow.
All field vortices extend to infinity, but the smaller the
scale, the more rapidly the acceleration diminishes to
a negligible value. The electromagnetic force is detectable for appreciable distances before it is overwhelmed by
the higher harmonic of the gravitational field. The mechanics of the moire pattern magnifies in both time and
space. So while the gravitational spiral accelerates with
ponderous sloth compared to its generator, it also unwinds exceedingly slowly, so its acceleration holds steady
over great distances.
The intersection of one moire pattern by another results in the generation of ellipses, parabolae. and hyperbolae-the trajectories plotted by bodies accelerated within
a field. Einstein's theory only tells what happens; the moire
model shows how it happens.
Whatever the radius of a planetary orbit, a body in the
gravitational field sweeps the same area of arc over the
same span of time. In field equations. area is equivalent
to energy. This experimental datum proves that the energy
of any given field is constant throughout the space it
organizes; all that changes to define one location from
another is concentration as manifest through frequency.
This constant value is the absolute nominal key to the
Unified Field Equations.
If professional mathematicians are not able to calculate

17
the field constant required to calibrate the holographic
model described in this essay, there is a possibility that
we are no closer than Einstein to a solution to the Unified
Field Equations. In the meantime, however, the operation
of this model corresponds so closely to the published reports of physical research that it is no longer credible for
any authority to proclaim modern physics utterly beyond
human comprehension outside of abstruse mathematical
abstractions.
A physical model that does nothing more than account
for established data is not welcomed by scientists because
it represents a dead end. Even if a model provides a sound
representation of what is known, it will be discarded in
favor of an uncertain concept that predicts the parameters
of new discoveries. Current ideas are rich with prediction,
and this may be the reason why the holographic model
is noticeably absent from reputable literature; the profession simply doesn't have time for non-profitable theories.
But if you examine the holographic model intensively
in its various representations, you will eventually discern
that it makes PSI phenomena inevitable. Furthermore,
the holographic model indicates the principles of operation
by which PSI phenomena may be engineered. This is
predictive property of an exceedingly high and valuable
kind.
The holographic model shows that the Unified Quantum
Field is perceived most comprehensively as a scale of
harmonically generated and interpenetrating vortices.
You may have to transfer the coordinates of the various
illustrative models onto graph paper if your faculty for
spacial visualization is insufficient to perceive the wheels
spinning within wheels. The axis of each vortex is aligned
by its proper field. If the axis is forcibly rotated, and held
at an angle of nonalignment with the Bell Frequency
Curve defining its field, field pressure will be manifest by
a movement of the pattern until the axial alignment harmonizes with the field. We can test this prediction in a
crude way by observing what happens when the axis
of a toy gyroscope is rotated forcibly, and the holographic
model can be refined to show that something like these
mechanics is probably what is happening during the process of chemical ion exchange. At the Quantum scale,
the rotation of an axis will result in the pattern disappearing
below the threshold of detection into the Virtual State;
the energy equations are balanced by the appearance of
an identical or equivalent vortex elsewhere, instantly.
This is the essential mechanism of a Time Transport.
A lot of ink has been spread in speculation about Time
Travel and the nature of time, but the time has passed for
speculation. What I am describing here is not speculation,
but history. Michael Faraday proved the principle centuries
ago by rotating a beam of polarized light with a magnetic
field. Tesla extended the proof and its practical application
by his invention of the polyphase motor. The April 1979
issue of Qui, from the stable of Hugh Hefner, reported
that the Russians have already displaced a few particles in
the Quantum Field. (People active in this study are already
informed that a number of Americans have replicated
these experiments and the equations are established, but
the local work is not proclaimed by spokespeople so conservative and prestigious as Hefner.) This achievement

is of the same significance as the splitting of a few uranium

atoms by Hahn and Strassman in 1936. It is only a matter
of time to analyze the field coordinates sufficiently to
rotate the axis of patterns larger than particles. Tom
Bearden is publishing evidence indicating that the Russians
have instituted a research and development program for
PSI engineering comparable to the Manhattan Project,
and they have already learned to transmit practical amounts
of power through hyperspace with explosive force; one
sunny morning in August a target population may wake
up like the citizens of Hiroshima to be annihilated by a
science our authorites proclaim to be impossible nonsense.
The recognition of the Unified Field Model in the hologram brings us to the same contradiction presented to us
at the beginning of this analysis. On the one hand, renowned authorities assert that no Unified Field Theory
exists and no Unified Field Theory can possibly be represented outside of pure mathematical abstraction. On
the other hand we have reports of PSI engineering sufficiently sophisticated to substantiate the validity of the
holographic model. The circumstances resemble the development of the aircraft during the first quarter of this
century while the authorities are denying the very possibility
of aerodynamic engineering-which is not a far cry from
what actually happened. The Orientals are notorious for
developing extremely sophisticated technology without
any notion of mathematical science, but PSI engineering
is being implemented by professional scientists. The reports
may be exaggerated, but the degree to which the principles can be proven by anyone indicates the reports
are not overly optimistic. In view of these facts, amateurs
devoted to investigating PSI phenomena may be advised
to reconsider their function. Hitherto, the pursuit of unexplained phenomena has been regarded as an exploration
of unknown territory by courageous scouts leading the
mainstream of knowledge held back by doubters, like
Columbus set out to sail beyond the edge of the world
to discover new riches. But now that the other shore is
in sight, we find the land already settled by well-funded
expeditions which make use of every means to keep their
activities out of the public attention. This means we are
not establishing new knowledge at all; at best, we are
merely trying to guess what private research has already
done. Thus it would seem that the talents of amateurs
would be applied more efficiently by opening lines of
communication between radical research and the mainstream of science rather than collecting raw data and
speculation at which the establishment scientist refuses to
look.

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PURSUIT Winter 1980

18

THE CELTS AND EARLY AMERICA

by L. E. Schroeder

VER the past several years there has been much

discussion concerning pre-Columbian discoveries
of America. Lately it has been established that the Vikings
did in fact arrive and settle parts of North America well in
advance of the Columbus expedtion. Yet the question
remains as to whether the Vikings were the first explorers.
Several scholars believe that they were following a path
previously traveled by the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Atlanteans, and Celts. Two recent publications provide a look
at existing stone works in North America and attempt to
establish a link between the old and new worlds. The
books are America B. C.: Ancient Settlers in the New
World by Barry Fell (a teacher of linguistics) and The
Search for Lost America: The Mysteries of the Stone
Ruins by Salvatore Michael Trento (an archaeologist).
To date there has not been published a complete book
written by a historian. There are several reasons why this
has not happened: first, most historians are quite skeptical
about the possibility that a primitive people, existing before
the Middle Ages, could have successfully traversed the
Atlantic Ocean, established settlements, and carried on
a trade with Europe.
Second, historians do not like to make conjectures
which could be embarraSSing. They like to deal in facts
and the interpretation of those facts. Written material
such as diaries, commentaries, etc., are favored. Though
artifacts are often used, the historian tends to favor the
former over the latter, leaving the latter to be interpreted
by a competent archaeologist. This could be due to a lack
of archaeological knowledge.
Finally, historians fear basing their written work on an
item or items which could prove to have been faked.
Stone artifacts can be planted or created by people seeking
to play a practical joke, to embarrass a noted professor,
or for whatever reason a warped mind might have.
Therefore, this paper does not attempt to prove anything
historically; rather it is an attempt to offer some possibilities,
make a few statements, and present its reader with the
thought that ancient travel by a barbarian people was
not only possible, but probable.
The Celts begin to appear as a people around 2000 B.C.
in central Europe. It was at that time that the Urnfield
culture, which many scholars believe was comprised of
the early Celtic peoples, emerged. The comparison is
made because many place-names are an early form of
Celtic. The Urnfield people were so called because they
cremated their dead and placed the remains in urns
which were then buried without a covering mound or
marker. The Urnfield peol?le worked with iron and were
the fathers of the Hallstatt culture. I
The Hallstatt culture was Celtic and existed in central
Europe from about 700 to 500 B.C. These people were
of the Bronze Age; they lived in small communities and
PURSUIT Winter 1980

conducted a competent form of arable farming.2 Around

700 to 500 B.C. the Celts were pushed westward by the

Scythians who were a warrior people who had originated

in the Caspian basin. The Scythian movement pushed
the Celts into France, the Iberian peninsula. England and
Ireland. Whenever the two peoples met an exchange of
cultures occurred. The most notable Celtic change was
the abandonment of cremation of the dead in favor of
individual burial. The Scythians adopted the two-part
bits, movable side-reins, and snaffles which simplified
riding. 3
As previously stated. the Celts worked with iron and
bronze and were a farming people. The Romans called
them "Galli" and "Galatai" (these were the Celts residing
in Gaul, which is now France) and the Greeks called them
"Keltoi." One Greek, Diodorus, described them in the
following way:
They are very tall in stature, with rippling muscles
under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not
naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially,
washing it in lime and combing it back from their
foreheads. They look like wood-demons, their hair
thick and shaggy like a horse's mane. Some of these
are clean-shaven, but others-especially those of
high rank, shave their cheeks but leave a moustache
that covers the whole mouth and, when they eat and
drink. acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food ...
The way they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly
coloured and embroidered shirts. with trousers called
bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with
a brooch, heavy in winter, light in summer. These
cloaks are striped or checkered in design, with the
separate checks close together and in various colours.4
The Celtic society resembled the warrior SOciety of
Sparta. There existed a strong bond between men. The
sexes were separated from childhood. Boys grew into
men while studying the arts of riding, hunting, drinking,
and swordsmanship. Homosexuality was common. for
heterosexual relationships were only encouraged in order
to produce male children. There was a strong pride in
physical fitness and the male body was adorned with
armbands and heavy gold neck rings called "torcs."s
The religious beliefs of the Celts were based on the
worship of nature which included the sky, sun, earth,
rivers, sea, trees, mountains, and the spirits of each.
Each part of nature had a living entity called a spirit. The
forests held numerous spirits which varied in power. The
grove, to the Celts, was the earliest temple, and when
temples were constructed they were often built near groves.
Religious rituals often ended with a sacrificial victim or
victims being hanged on the trees. As regards the tree
spirit, the entity could separate itself from the tree and
take on elfin traits. 6
The sun and moon, besides being objects of worship,

19
had a practical economic value. Stonehenge, in England,
is a series of boulders placed in a pattern and which clearly
aligned with the movements of the sun and moon. These
alignments proVided an excellent calendar which aided
the Celts in determining the best times for planting. The
alignments also helped the priests remain in power, for
they were able to determine the exact position of the sun
and moon at all times, which to a primitive culture was
quite mystifying. 7
The leaders of the religiOUS beliefs were the Druids.
They were the philosophers and teachers, as well as
prophets. They assisted in sacrifices and kept the knowledge of the course of the stars. They often talked about
the nature of all things and the magnitude of the universe.
The Druids were strong believers in immortality and transmigration of souls. 8
As stated, the Druids were important to the farmer, for
they told him when to plant. Corn was a plentiful crop.
The field system used has been found to be at least as
ancient as 1200 B.C. and it stretched from southern
England to Denmark. The Celts used a rotary flour mill
called a quem; it was more advanced than anything then
used in the "civilized" world. The quem was later adopted
by the Roman Empire. 9
Cattle and sheep were raised and were kept in a corral
near the home. In many areas livestock was more important
than crop-raising. The domestication of animals and the
planting of corn made the individual Celt quite self-sufficient. There was little need for coinage except among
members of the Celtic aristocracy who were engaged in
trade and began to espouse the economic attitudes of the
Romans. lo
Late in the 3rd century B.C. wine production began in
Italy (as opposed to that which was imported from Greece).
The Celts of that period began importing wine from the
Etruscans in Italy. The original Celtic-Etruscan wine trade
moved northward through Switzerland and the Rhineland
until it reached southeast England around 100 B.C. The
wine trade had a tremendous effect on the Celts, for though
wine was expensive, the Celts were ridiculed by other
peoples because of their attachment to it. They often
drank wine undiluted with water. Ammianus Marcellinus.
a Roman citizen, wrote that the Celts were "greedy for
wine" and that they devised "numerous drinks similar
to wine, and among them some people of the baser sort,
with wits dulled by continual drunkenness ... rush about
in aimless revels." Because wine was expensive, it was an
aristocratic drink. Although the poorer people sometimes
drank it, they were quite content with their native beer
brewed from barley or wheat. II
Militarily, the Celts were fierce fighters. They wore
bronze helmets covered with engraved figures. Some of
the helmets were adorned with horns. Several of the
Celtic warriors wore breast armor made out of chains, but
most men preferred to go naked into battle. When confronting their enemy, at which time both Celts and enemy
stood motionless facing each other, one Celt would leave
his friends and venture forth to challenge the bravest of
the enemy in individual combat. If the challenge was
accepted the remaining Celts would break into wild singing,
whereby they praised the deeds of their fathers as well as

their own powers. This was combined with a series of insults directed at their opponents in an attempt to belittle
them and to gain a psychological advantage.
Prior to the ensuing battle, the Celts would begin blowing horns, shouting, and beating their swords rhythmically
against their shields until the first warrior broke ranks and
charged forward, soon to be followed by the rest of his
companions. The forward charge was characterized by
squadrons of four wheeled chariots. each supporting two
men, moving forward on each flank. The cavalry was
characterized by two men mounted on one horse with one
of the riders directing the horse and the other carrying a
javelin. This combination was similar to that of the charioteers and. like the charioteers, once the javelin had been
thrown the thrower would dismount and fight on foot
while the other rider would move out of the battle to wait
for the enemy to retreat in order to pursue fleeing warriors. 12
The psychological effect of the Celtic form of warfare
can be seen in an account written by Julius Caesar concerning his attempt to conquer Britain. The Britons (who
were Celtic) decided to oppose Caesar's landing. Caesar
later wrote: "the Britons. either from dry land or advancing
a little way into the water, with all their limbs free .. and
thoroughly acquainted with the ground. boldly hurled their
weapons, and spurred on their trained horses. Our men,
frightened by all this and wholly inexperienced in this sort
of fighting, did not display the same enthusiasm and
eagerness as they were accustomed to display in engagements on dry land."ll
Celtic seamanship varied as to geographic location.
Kenneth Macleod in his article, "The Celt and the Sea,"
claims that the "old Celts regarded the sea as a dark,
mysterious power, cruel as an evil woman, but most effective as a protection against their enemies." Macleod bases
his remarks on a number of Gaelic poems reprinted in his
article. He further states that "the God of the Celt was as
the Atlantic. infinite and eternal, terrible in anger, never
to be trifled with, mysterious in His actions, harsh to one
and gentle to another."14
David MacRitchie, in his article "Celtic CiVilization,"
refutes Macleod's statements by pointing to Caesar's
description of the ships of the Veneti (a Celtic people who
lived on the Atlantic coast of France) around 50 B.C.
The description given by MacRitchie, based on Caesar's
writings, is as follows:
. . . broad in the beam, with high forecastle and
poop. They were built entirely of oak, and their stout
timbers were well riveted together with iron pins
'as thick as a man's thumb.' Their bulk was such that
the idea of the small, light Roman galleys attempting
to ram them was regarded by the Romans as out of
the question; and the ships of the Celts rose so high
above the water-line that the projectiles from their
forecastles were thrown downward upon the deckturrets of the Roman galleys.
Caesar further stated that the Celtic ships used leather
sails as opposed to linen ones, "whether for lack of cloth ...
or, more probably, because with hoisted cloth sails it was
impossible to cope with the strong tides of the ocean or
PURSUIT Winter 1980

20
the hurricane-winds, or to steer such heavy ships properly."
Furthermore, iron chains were used to connect the anchors
to the ship. Iron chains were far more dependable than
the ropes the Romans used. 16 The use of leather for sails
was not uncommon in the ancient world. The Athenian
navy around 330 B.C. used the skins of hyenas and seals
on the sails' edges. This was because of a superstition
among sailors that the hides would ward off lightning. 1 7
The description of the Celtic ships would seemingly
destroy the belief that the Celts were afraid of the sea, but
not every Celtic tribe was the same. The term Celt applied
to a large number of peoples having a similar cultural
background, but who often were commonly referred to
by tribal designation, such as the Britons, Veneti, Esuvii,
Coriosolites, etc. Therefore, the Celts of Ireland could
have feared the Atlantic Ocean while the Celts of the
French coast did not.
Regarding trade, the Celts of Britain around 500 B.C.
traded tin to the Phoenicians, as did the Celts of the Iberian
peninsula. Yet the Phoenician trade with Britain, according
to William Preece in his article "Egyptians and Celts,"
was instrumental in bringing about a cultural exchange
between the two peoples. Preece supports his position by
pointing to similarities in religious practices and myth.
For example: "Egyptian religion is characterized by the
worship of animals-particularly 'the bull' -a symbol of
courage and strength. In Ireland we have the magical bull
of Cooley-the object of Queen Maeve's famous raid."1B
There also existed trade with the Greek colony at Marseilles, founded around 600 B.C. The principal item
sought by the Celts was wine. The pottery vessels used
for the transportation of the wine have been discovered
as far north as the upper Danube River. Therefore it can
be assumed that a very profitable trade existed. 19
As I have shown, the Celts traded with the Greeks,
Phoenicians, Etruscans, Romans, and others of the civilized world. The two most important items which the
Celts used in trade were tin, which was used in the making
of bronze, and furs. In return, the Celts sought wineamong other items. The knowledge which was passed on
to the Celts did not make them the cultural equals of their
. trading partners, but it is probable that several Celtic tribes
gained a satisfactory knowledge of ship construction.
Phoenician merchant vessels had hulls that were large,
rounded, and constructed of many beams. Both stem
and stern posts were of equal height and rose high above
the water-line. The sturdy mast carried a large sail. Anchors
were made of lead at a time when other peoples used
large stones for the same purpose. 20 It is possible that the
Celts copied and improved on the Phoenician model, for
both ships had a wide hull with high posts, both stem and
stern; and both used a metal anchor. The Celts may have
also applied other concepts of Mediterranean shipbuilding
to their ships. As stated, the Greeks used leather as part
of their sails. Also, around 220 B.C. the Macedonians,
among other peoples, employed Celts as mercenaries in
their navy. 21
.
Though a number of Celtic tribes are considered to be
landsmen, there were some Celts, such as the Veneti,
who could be classified as seafarers. The Veneti were
capable of an Atlantic voyage and Caesar's description of
their ships indicates that the ships were strong enough to
PURSUIT Winter 1980

sustain the rigors of an Atlantic crossing. Also, the ships

were large enough to carry goods and supplies long distances. Besides, long trips in the Atlantic and North Sea
regions were not unknown. Before 300 B.C., Pytheas,
a citizen of Marseilles, traveled around the British Isles and
headed north from Britain for six days, at which time he
reached Norway (though Pytheas didn't know it was Norway, the description he left strongly indicated it was).
Pytheas determined the true position of the polestar, was
the first person to make a connection between the moon
and tides, and worked extenSively with lines of latitude.
Because of the location of Marseilles and his explorations
around Celtic lands, there exists the strong possibility that
Celts such as the Veneti could have learned and profited
from his travels. The Phoenicians profited, because
Pytheas, returning to Marseilles, reported on the tin trade
in Britain which in tum resulted in an increase of that trade
from Cornwall across the Channel to Brittany (the home
. of the Veneti), and from there across France to Marseilles. 22
The presence of Veneti ships in Britain was confirmed by
discoveries of the remains of ships, fitting the description
given by Caesar, in the mud flats off the Thames River. 23
As trade increased, the need for more ships, sails for
those ships, and new supplies of tin would appear to be
a logical result. It is probable that, as in the Pytheas expedition, merchants would have supplied another explorer
or explorers with the necessary items to carryon where
Pytheas ended, and that instead of exploring Norway
these other explorers could have discovered the new
world. After all, a trip from Britain to Iceland, Greenland,
Canada, or New England would not be inconceivable.
There is archaeological evidence in New England that
the Celts or a people similar to them had settlements in
the new world. The evidence is in the form of the standing
stones, balanced rocks, flat roofed chambers, Mystery Hill,
and a lingUist's comparison of remains scratched on rocks.
The standing stones are monoliths which have appeared
throughout much of the northeastern United States.
The one in Poughkeepsie, New York, at one time stood
nine feet above ground with a similar length buried underground. There are numerous local legends attempting to
relate the rock to a fertility rite, but a more practical use
would be as a territorial marker or directional indicator.
Similar monoliths were used for such purposes in Britain
and northern Portugal. 24 Though no marks of significance
were found on the Poughkeepsie monolith, other monoliths do bear markings similar to Iberian Celtic script.
Barry Fell claims that many of the monoliths might have
been used to mark a battle or crowning ceremony-as well
as other things. He further claims that these stones are
related to the giant monoliths of Brittany (the home of the
VenetO.25
It is possible that many monoliths are glacial deposits
and are therefore confused with the archaeological remains
of the unknown visitors (the visitors are considered unknown because the Indians of this area of North America
are not considered to have ever worked with stone construction). The glacial theory does present a serious threat
to the theory of European visitations, but a number of
archaeologists counter by stating that many of the stone
structures have a definite mathematical significance. For
example, a common unit of length was used in placing

21
the stones, and the "axes of many balanced boulders and
stone circle sites were oriented towards the position on
the local horizon where the sun sets on December 21 (the
winter solstice) ."26 The defenders of early visitations strongly
imply that, like Stonehenge, rock formations here were
often used for astronomical functions.
The balanced rocks are similar to the dolmens which
often are a form of tomb, and are found throughout the
British Isles, Europe and Asia. They consist of one large
stone supported by three or more stones. Depending on
the tomb's size, one or more bodies were placed in the
grave in a contracted position. Unfortunately, no bodies
or bone remains have been found at the North American
dolmens. Although this could lead us back to the glacial
theory, there is, as stated, a definite mathematical sign ificance. 27 The mystery remains as to the actual use of these
balanced rocks. Many are large boulders which had to
have been painstakingly rolled to a predetermined site.
Three or more rocks were then deeply implanted in the
ground and covered with dirt. Once the boulder was in
place the dirt would be removed, leaving it balancedonly a few feet off the ground-on the lower rocks. The
balanced rock often varied in size. It has been theorized
that such a construction could have had a directional or
religious significance. 28
The flat roofed chambers are most prevalent east of the
Hudson River as opposed to western New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. These chambers are boxlike
structures which are "built above ground, usually near the
mountain tops." Similarities have been made between
the Greek Tholos houses of 4000 B.C. and the Christian
churches of 700 A.D. scattered throughout Ireland. 29
like the chambers found in Europe, these "nearly always
face toward the east, with a prescribed pattern of deviation
from true east that can be related to the solar cycle."
In addition, the outer surface near the entrance is adorned
with an inscription pertaining to one of the Celtic gods.
References to Bel are most frequently found. 30 Bel, more
commonly known as Beltine, "was celebrated on May 1,
a spring-time festival of optimism." The fertility ritual
"was important, in part perhaps connecting with the waxing power of the sun, symbolized by the lighting of fires
through which livestock were driven. and around which
the people danced in a sunwise direction."3!
There have been a number of theories proposed to
explain the chambers' presence and purpose. Several
people have claimed they were root cellars constructed
by colonial farmers. But colonial farmers built their cellars
below ground and many of the chambers slant "downards
into the banks of hillSides, which increases the chances of
water seepage." There is further evidence which destroys
the root cellar theory and that is that the chambers were
too large. Each chamber contains about 1755 cubic feet
with about 10 chambers found in one area along a mile
and a half of road. Since six cubic feet of food storage
area is needed to keep one urban dweller alive for one year,
there would have to have been about 2900 people living
in the area of the chambers during colonial times. Since
the calculations were based on chambers located in Putnam
County, New York, and the population of that area in
1845 was only 1598, it seems improbable that colonial
farmers constructed the chambers. 32

It is possible that the chambers were used for the storage

of furs, wine and beer as well as a number of other items.
Fermentation of wine in ancient times took place in large
bell-mouthed jars. These would require a large space.
The wine was carefully watched so that the scum on top
could be removed whenever it appeared. Every thirty-six
days the wine was inspected and various herbs were added
to improve the flavor. 33 Wine storage therefore required
some space in order for the local people to properly ferment it. Also, the fermentation of wine and beer requires
a cool and constant temperature, which would be prOVided
by the structure's stone walls and roof, throughout the
summer and winter months. During the colonial period
the settlers made beer from wheat, oats. barley and Indian
corn. Though hops were native to America and found
growing wild, there was an insufficient supply.34 The use
of barley in the production of beer was an old Celtic custom.
The Vikings around 1000 A.D .. under the leadership of
Bjarni Herjolfsson, discovered an unknown land they
named Vineland (Wineland) because grapes and wheat
grew wild. Current speculation indicates that Vineland
was the present area of New England. 35. What all of the
above implies is that the chambers, being large and made
of stone, could serve as a storehouse for the fermentation
of wine or beer, and that corn, wheat. barley and grapes
were so plentiful that the Vikings termed the land Vineland.
Mystery Hill is located in North Salem, New Hampshire, and contains a number of large triangular monoliths.
The stones have been chipped away at the edges and
markings have been left. A number of the most outstanding
stones, when viewed from a particular spot, "line up with
key solar events such as the solstice and equinox sunrise/
sunsets."36 This leads to the possibility that Mystery Hill,
like Stonehenge, was a crude observatory.
Several scholars claim that the Mystery Hill site was
constructed by either colonists or Indians. Logic eliminates
the colonists, for few colonists would take the time to drag
huge stones atop a hill and arrange them for some future
joke. The stones were of no use to the colonial farmer.
BeSides, the colonists, being Christian, would lack the
religiOUS reasons for such an undertaking.
Indians might have built on Mystery Hill, and it seems
probable that they did, for radiocarbon tests of charcoal
samples taken from between slabs of a drystone walling
indicate dates of 1045 B.C. ( 180 years) and 1525 B.C.
( 210 years). These figures would disprove Celtic participation in the placing of stone monoliths on Mystery Hill
unless the Celts, as some people believe, built on an old
Indian site and used some of the charcoal which had
been present. Several stone markings bore a direct relation
to Celtic script and therefore support the theory that the
Celts did occupy the area. 37
The Celtic script was primitive. for it was often carved
on stone in a vertical line. The alphabet, which contained
only nineteen of the letters in our present alphabet, was
represented by a series of dots and dashes. For example,
four dots represented the letter "E," one dot the letter "A."
Four diagonal lines represented the letter "R," two diagonallines the letter "M." One line to the left of the hori.zontalline, on which all dots and dashes passed, represented the letter "H," while four lines to the left was the
letter "C." Three lines to the right of the horizontal line
PURSUIT Winter 1980

22
represented the letter "S" and two lines to the right was
the letter "L," etc. Because of the primitive nature of their
script, the Celts were limited in that they could only write
simple inscriptions on gravestones and other similar objects.
They were subsequently forced to rely on memory. 38
An inscribed stone found in Weymouth, Massachusetts,
according to FeII bore the Celtic inscription "Cease Trespassing. Anyone Treading (Here) is Desecrating a Burial
Place."39 That stone was one of many similar stones found
throughout the northeastern United States. The problem
with many inscriptions is that they could be faked or could
be a product of constant geological and climatic erosion.
Considering the primitive nature of the Celtic script and
the lack of a complete understanding of the Celtic language,
it is not impossible for an over-enthusiastic interpreter
to decipher marks as Celtic and to give them a meaning.
Therefore researcher and archaeologist alike are left
with a serious puzzle as to whether or not the Celts actually
established colonies in North America. Similarities of stone
construction and possible linguistic remains (in the latter
case there are large numbers of rocks bearing similar inscriptions), coupled with Caesar's description of Veneti
ships, which were strong enough to make the Atlantic
crossing, alI favor Celtic colonies.
Opposition to the above is based on several important
considerations. First, no bodily remains definitely determined to be Celtic have been found. Second, people
have been known to fake artifacts. Third, radio-carbon
testing has often misled people into believing that the
Celts could have arrived at North America sometime
before 700 B.C., when in f~ct most studies indicate that
the Celts did not enter the European picture until after
that date. Finally, there does not appear to be a reason
why the Celts would want to cross the Atlantic, considering that they engaged in a profitable trade with the so-calIed
"civilized" world.
The desire tu improve their trade might have driven the
Veneti to look for furs and minerals, such as copper and
tin, in areas other than Britain and continental Europe.
European fur resources could have been depleted around
100 B.C. as a result of the heavy demand for furs by the
"civilized" world. As noted, much of Celtic clothing consisted of furs, and their ships' sails were made of leather.
Around 67 B.C. the Roman Empire began to show signs
of expansion with Pompey taking the lead in reviving the
Roman navy and carrying on a war against the eastern
Mediterranean pirates. Eleven years later Julius Caesar
received permission to conquer Gaul, the home of the
Veneti and other Celtic tribes. 40 Preparations for war and
a desire to replenish existing supplies would logically
have driven the Veneti to look for new lands. The explorations of Pytheas arour:td 300 B.C. and his supposed
discovery of new lands to the north of Britain could have
initiated the oral history that drove them northward.
Leonard Sawatzky and Waldemar H. Lehn of the University of Manitoba recently proposed the theory that the
Vikings could have reached North America by island
hoppin while in the process of folIowing a mirage. They
state that the reason why a mirage of land could appear
"is that Arctic temperature conditions can bend light rays
around the curve of the earth, placing a real image on an
elevated, seemingly real horizon."41 Therefore, if it was
PURSUIT Winter 1980

possible for the Vikings it could also be possible for the

Celts. There exists evidence that Irish priests reached Iceland around 790 A.D., though the Vikings didn't arrive
until 860 A.D.42 The ship which the Irish priests used
around 900 A.D. tended to resemble the descriptions of
the ships used by the Veneti. 43
Regarding the radiocarbon tests (a form of test which
has not yet been universalIy accepted). it is possible, as
I have stated, that the Celts built settlements over abandoned Indian villages. The intentional faking of artifacts
could be a viable threat, except that the archaeological
remains are so extensive that it would appear a unified
conspiracy was in operation in order to sabotage the study
of history. The reason why Celtic bodily remains have not
been discovered could be due to several possibilities:
colonial farmers, in order to improve their farms. could
have unknowingly removed grave markers: hostile Indians
could have massacred many Celts and scattered their
remains; the Celts could have intermarried with friendly
Indians and eventualIy adopted Indian customs and characteristics until they became indistinguishable from the
Indians; or finalIy, many of the Celts could have returned
to Europe, abandoning structures which have since lost
much of their significance to history.
The trade between North America and Europe might
have been profitable, for North America would have
offered the Celts a rich supply of furs, timber for ships,
and copper for tools. Wine and beer could have been
produced in New England and fish caught in abundance
off the Massachusetts coast. The Celts could have easily
supplied their ships with sufficient provisions to return to
Europe. Once the Roman Empire conquered the Veneti
and Britain, the Atlantic trade would have ended. The Irishmen, though Celts, were not seafarers and the Romans,
once Britain had been conquered, were more concerned
with events in Rome and the eastern Mediterranean.
Since the Celts left no form of practical written history,
their explorations would have become nothing more than
legend and eventual speculation.

REFERENCES
1. Nora Chadwick, The Celts, pp. 28-29.
2. Ibid, pp. 30-33.
3. Gerhard Herm, The Celts: The People who Came out of
the Darkness, pp. 106-109.
4. C. H. Oldfather, trans., Diodorus of Sicily, vol. 3, pp. 169171. Herm, Celts, p. 3.
5. Herm. Celts, p. 58.
6. J. A. MacCulloch, The Celtic and Scandinavian Religions.
pp. 130-132.
7. Gerald S. Hawkins and John B. White, Stonehenge Decoded. p. 117.
8. Julius Pokorny, "The Origin of Druidism," The Celtic
Review, July 15, 1908, pp. 4-5.
9. Stuart Piggott, Ancient Europe from the Beginnings of
Agriculture to Classical Antiquity, p. 250.
10. Chadwick, The Celts, pp. 137-138.
11. Piggott, AnCient Europe, p. 253. ChadWick, The Celts,
p.140.
12. Herm, Celts. p. 4.
(References continued on page 40)

23

UFOs AND MYSTERIOUS

DEATHS OF ANIMALS
The following article is reprinted in its entirety from the British journal. Flying Saucer Review (West Mailing. Kent.
England). by permission of the author and FSR editor Gordon Creighton. who also translated the original article into
English. The article originally appeared in FSR, Vol. 22, No.5. 1976 (Part I) and FSR, Vol. 22. No.6. 1976 (Part 2).

by Sebastian Robiou-Lamarche
attempts have been made to correlate the
F REQUENT
appearance of UFOs with the mysterious deaths or
disappearances of animals in certain regions of the world.
A famous case is that of "Snippy," the horse found
mutilated at Alamosa in the state of Colorado, USA, in
November 1965, and whose mysterious fate has been
linked by various investigators with UFO happenings in
that part of the country.
The year 1973 saw, both in the USA and in the whole
of Latin America, what was possibly the most important
UFO wave of recent times. During the following year,
1974, it was the turn of Europe to have abundant UFO
sightings.
Following a similar pattern, mysterious deaths of animals began to be reported, from January 1974 onwards,
from various American states, notably Kansas, Nebraska,
Iowa, South Dakota, Colorado. Oklahoma, and Minnesota. (See APRO Bulletin Vol. 23, No.4, January-February 1975. Also Jerome Clark's article "The Strange
Case of the Cattle Killings," in Fate for August 1974).
More recently, on March 4. 1975, the influential newspaper The New York Times reported "numerous mutilations of animals in the northern part of Texas and in Oklahoma," and stated that Governor Boren of Oklahoma
had launched an enquiry into the question of the mysterious
deaths of animals.
In many of the cases the dead animals have been found
to lack an organ (an ear, the tongue, the nose, the tail. or
the reproductive organs) and the mutilations have been
carried out "with the skill of a professionaL" Such. in fact,
was the conclusion of professors of medicine in the University of Minnesota after they had performed numerous
autopsies on the carcasses of such animals (see Replica,
Miami, Florida, March 19, 1975). Furthermore, it was
noted that the dead animals all appeared to be "completely without blood" as though the body "had been
drained by a needle."
Here in Puerto Rico, between February and July of
1975, numerous cases occurred of deaths of animals in
almost identical circumstances and COincidentally with the
occurrence, in the selfsame geographical region as dozens
of UFO cases and of cases of other phenomena held to
be related to UFOs.
In the course of our enquiries we have conducted scores
of interviews, made many laboratory studies. and spent
months of time on analyses and sifting the material. What
follows below is, in concentrated form, the gist of our
work, which may well throw an entirely new light upon
the UFO phenomenon.

THE MYSTERY KILLINGS

The first deaths took place before February 25, 1975.
Then. from that date onwards. innumerable strange
killings of animals began to be reported from the area
around the town of Moca in the Northwestern corner of
the island of Puerto Rico. Then, at the end of March 1975
there came the first report from nearby Aguadilla, and
cases began appearing gradually in other areas too.
Already in March the term "The Vampire of Moca"
had been coined and was current among the people,
this being the alleged cause of the strange animal killings.
These reports were headlined in the chief daily papers.
One journal, EI Vocero, which gave extensive publicity to
the killings. called upon the Government, in an editorial
on March 15, to investigate the enigma, and reverted to
the same theme in its editorial of March 21.
As a possible explanation for the deaths that had occurred up to then consideration was at first given to snakes.
Dr. Juan A. Rivero, the herpetologist at the University of
Puerto Rico. investigated the cases and stated on March 22
that the deaths of cows. goats. and birds "definitely were
not caused by any snake." On the same date, Saturday,
March 22, Senator Miguel A. Deynes Soto, President of
the Agricultural Commission of the Puerto Rico Senate,
visited the Moca district, together with Attorney-General
Victor Calderon, and the Police Commandant for the
Western Region, Colonel Samuel Lopez. The theory that
snakes might have been the possible cause having been
ruled out, the authorities now began to think that the
"Vampire of Moca" was some mentally unbalanced human.
And so public promises were made that he would speedily
be captured and brought to justice. So far as we know
however. up to the present time no charges have been
brought against anyone ...
On the following day, March 23, veterinarian Mariano
Santiago, of the Federal Department of Agriculture, said
of his investigations that he had come to the conclusion
that he was unable to explain the causes of the "strange
wounds" found on the bodies of the animals. After that
there arose a widespread popular belief that the mystery
deaths were the work of "vampire bats." So once more
Dr. Juan A. Rivero himself, author of various works on
the zoology of the Caribbean region, had to make it clear,
in statements published on April 7, that that possibility
was ruled out too.
Meanwhile, a few days previously, Police Superintendent Astol Calero Toledo had declared '" don't believe in
vampires!" But he was quite unable to give the newspapermen an explanation for the dead animals.
PURSUIT Winter 1980

24
On April 9, Sr. Felipe N. Rodriguez, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, stated that "the situation is preoccupying-and occupying all the time of-my department."
And another spokesman, Sr. IsaIas Fernandez, Federal
Meat Inspector, said that he "did not know the reason for
the deaths of the animals."
Throughout the month of April further cases were occurring around the Metropolitan Area of San Juan itself,
coinciding in time with various UFO sightings in different
parts of the island. In July there were more cases of animal
mutilation in the area where they had started, Moca. Up
till today no official report whatsoever has been made
giving any attempt to explain the mystery killings.

THE FEATURES OBSERVED

The undermentioned observations are valid in all the
cases that have occurred:
1. The animals are killed during the night, usually in
the early morning hours.
2. In almost every case, the owner of the animals,
even when he is sleeping quite near to them, perceives
no noise or alarm among the animals themselves.
3. In some of the cases the owner is awakened by a
"loud screech" or by what sounds like the flapping of the
wings of a gigantic bird. In a few of the cases the owner
states that he saw "a strange animal" fleeing immediately
after the attack on his animals.
4. The animals give the appearance of having died
as a result of the wounds received. although in certain other
cases these do not look as though they are sufficiently
serious to have caused death.
5. The wounds on the animals seem in many of the
cases to follow a definite pattern. They look as though
they have been produced by a sort of punch or sharp
pricking instrument which cuts through all organs or bones
that it encounters in its path. The wounds seem to vary
according to the size of the animal. In the case of birds,
the diameter of the wounds is about one quarter of an inch;
in cases of goats, the diameter is over an inch. The depth
of penetration of the wound also varies in many cases.
But what is above all particularly curious to note is that
there is never a drop of blood anywhere around the wound.
Furthermore, the wound remains open: that is to say, it is
as though the instrument producing the wound has simultaneously extracted any flesh or organs which it encoun- .
tered in its passage.
The positions of the wounds vary, but in the majority of
the cases they occur near the neck of the animal or in its
thorax.
6. In addition to the wounds, some of the animals also
have their neck completely broken. And in a number of
cases there is also mutilation of organs. The case that has
been studied in this respect (Case No. 12) was handled
by Dr. Angel de la Sierra. a biophysicist in the University
of Puerto Rico. He reported that the cut inflicted on the
ear of the piglet in question "is similar to what is done in
experimental surgery for the purpose of investigating
defects in hearing."
7. In various of the cases, the killings have been "selective." That is to say, in pens where there were other birds
PURSUIT Winter 1980

One of the goat cases examined by the author.

or animals, only one species has been killed. None of the

other birds or animals show any sign of wound or attack.
8. The list of animals killed, and their percentages, is
as follows:
Domestic fowl (hens, cocks,
gUineafowl, etc.)
182 58.14%
Ducks
40 12.78%
Goats
33 10.54%
Rabbits
20
6.39 %
Geese
18
5.75%
Cows
8
2.56%
Sheep
5
1.60%
Pigs
3
0.96%
Dogs
3
0.96%
Cats
1
0.32%
As can be seen, the bulk of the victims are domestic
fowl. If we consider ducks, rabbits, and geese also as
domestic animals kept in pens, then the total amounts to
83.07%, which indicates that the marked preponderance
of the mystery killings involve animals kept in pens and
hutches.
9. The cases occurred in both rural and suburban
areas.
10. In cases 7. IS, 22, 23, and 37. the owners of the
animals say they saw "a strange animal, very hairy, running
away ... " Or they say they heard "a screech, as though
from a gigantic bird," or "a loud hum," or "a deafening
noise," or "a loud flapping noise." Case No.7 was investigated in very great detail. Don Cecilio Hernandez, aged
65, lost a total of 35 chickens over a period of several
nights. On the last of these occasions he saw "what looked
like a woolly dog, ... with no legs or head ... running off
towards the hills silently." And he adds: "I have never in
my life seen such a sight. It looked just like a mass of wool
running along."
11. The following other cases are not directly linked
with the deaths of animals. but they do all involve accounts
of strange animals:

25
a. Maria Acevedo, of the Barrio de Maria district in
Moca, says that one night (12:30 a.m.) early in March
she heard "a strange animal on the zinc roof of her house."
She could hear it walking about and "pecking." Then it
flew off with a "terrible screech."
b. Pellln Marrero, of Rexville, Bayamon, told the press
that he had seen a "whitish-coloured gigantic condor or
vulture" flying around over the region. (March 25.)
c. On March 26, workman Juan Muniz Feliciano, of
Barrio Pueblo, La Sierra sector, Moca, said that, when
returning home at 10:00 p.m., he had been attacked "by
a terrible greyish creature with lots of feathers, a long
thick neck, bigger than a goose," which he reckoned to
weigh about 50 Ibs. When he called out to his neighbours
and began throwing stones at it, it flew away.
On that same day, March 26, Olga Iris Rivera and
Barbara Pantoja, both of the Nemesio Canales housing
complex, said they had seen "a gigantic bird flying around
among the clouds."
12. The majority of these cases of mysterious animal
deaths were the subject of police investigations, but so far
nothing has been published regarding the results of their
investigations nor has any attempt been made to explain
the cause of the mystery killings.

SOME OF THE MORE

ENIGMATIC CASES
1. The most mysterious and puzzling case in the Moca
region, and the one that has been the subject of most
investigation, both official and private, is the one that
occurred at the farm of Sr. Hector Vega Rosado.
On the morning of March 18, Senor Vega found two
of his goats dead, each with a wound from some sharp
instrument under the thorax and on the upper part of the
haunches. Next day, March 19, he discovered to his great
surprise, that there had been a repetition, with ten goats
dead, seven wounded, and ten missing. The report of
this received great publicity.

Case from Maca, February, 1975.

Sr. Luis R. Urbina, radiation instructor with the local

Civil Defence authorities, was quoted as having found
evidence of radioactivity. This report caused much alarm.
Some few days later, Senorita Mildred Caban, a radiation
technician, stated that she had found a count of 0.005 in
the same area. Our own investigations on March 22
showed however that the radiation detected with a Geiger
counter was normal for the region in question.
The farm of Sr. Hector Vega Rosado, where these goats
had been killed, is to alI intents and purposes quite open,
being separated merely by a wire fence from the small
adjacent road which links the farm with Barrio Pueblo,
a district of Moca. There is no electric lighting in the area.
Anyone who studies the area will find it extremely difficult
to comprehend how anybody, even with the assistance
of others, could catch ten goats there in the open field in
the middle of the night and kill them with some sharp
stabbing weapon and wound seven more and carry off a
further ten. The wounds on the goats all lie around the
thorax and are almost an inch deep. In some of the animals the wound goes right through the body, and yet
there is no sign of any blood around the wounds.
Although Sr. Vega himself thinks it possible that some
unbalanced maniacal person might have caused the deaths,
our own view is that, considering all the circumstances,
the solution is not so simple as that. The police, for their
part, have published no conclusions about the case.
2. Before going to bed, Senor Buenaventura Bello was
in the habit of going out to feed the geese which as a
pastime, he kept in the back-yard of his home in Los
Angeles, Carolina (part of the Metropolitan Area of San
Juan, Puerto Rico). And so, as usual, he went out to the
geese at 12:30 a.m. on April 5, though he noted at the
time that one of his dogs, who always went with him,
this time preferred to remain at a distance, "barking insistently at something or other."
Later that morning, at about 8:30, Sr. Bello found his
ten geese and three pullets all dead and scattered in a
circle. When the bodies of the geese were examined, it
was found that each of them had a deep stab wound onequarter of an inch in diameter, from which the feathers
had been removed.
One of the dead geese was found in the back-yard of
the neighbouring house, which was unoccupied at the time.
This goose, unlike the rest, had had the upper part of its
body cut right off "as though with a very sharp instrument."
Sr. Bello immediately informed the police, who in due
course conducted an extensive investigation, as also did
the Federal Department of Agriculture, who took away
several of the dead geese for examination. Thereafter,
Sr. Bello's dogs "refused to go out into the yard, however
much you tried to push them," and would not do so until
several days had elapsed.
A curious point to note is that Sr. BelIo's bedroom is
right next to the yard where the geese were kept. Despite
the fact that these birds are extremely prone to giving the
alarm at the least sound, and are in fact used in many
places as "watchmen," on the night in question Sr. Bello
heard not the least nOise, whereas he had always done so
on previous occasions when attempts had been made to
steal his geese.
PURSUIT Winter 1980

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PURSUIT Winter 1980

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An X-ray

0/ one 0/ the mutilated geese,

showing penetration.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

28
On March 8, while in the kitchen preparing a meal,
Sr. Bello heard, for a brief moment, a strange and "extremely penetrating" noise, which astounded him. Straight
away, one of his two dogs started to bark frantically,
"as though there was something in the room." The dog
continued to bark in this fashion until the strange noise
had stopped. The witness was unable to give any explanation for the noise, any more than there is any explanation
as to what or who could have killed his geese in so strange
a fashion.
In the course of our investigations we managed to have
one of the geese X-rayed and to have an autopsy performed on it by a well known pathologist who prefers to
remain anonymous. The result of this examination shows
that the bird received two stabbing wounds which penetrated to a depth of more than an inch and destroyed the
adjacent organs, while at the same time in some fashion
cicatrizing the wound so that no blood would flow from it.
The wounds are a quarter of an inch in diameter and
appear to converge inside the bird's body.
Neither the body of the goose which we had examined
nor the site showed any radioactivity in excess of what is
normal for the area, nor were any other traces found.
It has been impossible to establish the cause of the wounds,
though everything indicates that both wounds were inflicted
on the bird simultaneously, causing instant death.

UFO SIGHTINGS IN PUERTO RICO

The first of the cases with which we will deal took place
in January, 1975. The witness failed to give the precise
date. Senora A.A. (she wishes to remain anonymous)
was asleep in her home in the Garden Hills sector of
San Juan when she was suddenly awakened by a strange
sound. It was a powerful intermittent hum, accompanied
by another constant hum which appeared to be of lower
frequency. The electric fan in the bedroom suddenly
stopped. Alarmed at this, Sra. A.A. took the daughter
who was sleeping with her, collected her other child, and
they all went to another room and shut themselves in.
A few moments later, the loud hum stopped and the
electric fan started up again. Sra. A.A. had seen nothing.
She had merely heard the hum, which scared her.
A few days later, in the patio of her house. near the
swimming pool, her gardener found three strange marks
forming a triangle. Around that time she also learned that
on the same night when she had heard the weird hum,
the family in the house next door had seen an intensely
bright light above the palm tree in front of the house. The
light itself was not unbearably bright. but it had other
lights, green and red, with it and it seemed to have "bright
holes" in it. This strange light had remained there for about
ten minutes and then moved away and disappeared from
view in the west.
This case has been the subject of intensive investigation.
The three marks found in the patiO were three inches deep
and four inches wide, and formed an equilateral triangle
with each side measuring 44 inches. Engineer Oscar
Hernandez of the Foundation Engineering Laboratories
made a profound study on the spot in his laboratory,
covering all aspects of the terrain. As a result of his study,
PURSUIT Winter 1980

he was able to establish that an average weight of around

14,190 Ibs. would have been required to produce such
holes in that type of soil. So far. no grass has grown again
on the areas where the marks were, despite the fact that
no signs of burning were detected there. Likewise no
signs of abnormal radioactivity were detected in the area.
The next case was on January 12, 1975, when Senor
Pedro Vega Aviles stated that he had seen three objects
"brighter than the stars" traveling southwards in a zigzag
motion near San Sebastian at about 5:30 a.m.

MOCA
On March 12, when the reports of mysterious deaths
of animals at Moca had already begun, a farm worker
from Moca named Luis Torres Aldaondo, and his son
and daughter-in-law plus eight neighbours, all saw, passing
overhead at tree-top height at about 9:30 p.m. "some
thing that looked like a police screen of various colours,
and spinning like a top." Then it suddenly began to rise
as it moved off eastwards. The witnesses said it looked as
though made of "shining silver" . . . and that it was "bigger
than the house." They said they heard "a faint whistling
noise." The sighting lasted but a few seconds before the
object was lost to sight among the clouds.
On March 21, just a few days after the mysterious
killings of goats which we have already described, and
when there had already been a dozen or so of similar
cases, a party of witnesses, Senor Carlos Santiago and
his wife and one of their daughters. were driving in their
car when they observed a UFO which passed at great
speed and very low over the EI Marney district of Moca.
The object appeared to be "incandescent" and was soon
out of sight. On March 24. Dr. Juan Sanchez Acevedo,
a well known Moca physician and the local president of
one of the political parties, was at work in his study at
about 12:00 p.m. when he heard a "shaking, shuddering"
noise as though from something in the air. He described
the sound as like a long drawn-out "ruum" ... "and
stronger than an earthquake." The vibration caused the
doors to rattle and his car to shake. Dr. Sanchez Acevedo
at once wakened his wife, but by then the noise had
moved away and seemed to be fading out. They saw
nothing.
Round about the same period in March, three witnesses,
Arnaldo Rullan, Carlos Rullan, and Alexis Fernandez,
reported having found "an area of flattened reeds, circular,
as though some heavy flat-shaped object had settled there."
And elsewhere in the same town of Moca, at the sportsfield, while they were watching a game of soft-ball, three
witnesses, Teodoro Quinones Muniz, Norberto Mendez,
and Jorgo Ramos, saw "a greenish-blue disc descending
from the sky." They then saw it perform a sharp turn and
move off rapidly towards the east. (The date of these last
two happenings has not been established.)
During the days that followed, various witnesses said
they had seen a weird bird at various places in the Metropolitan Area of San Juan, and meanwhile reports were
still coming in of strange killings in other towns on Puerto.
Rico.

29

Goat belonging to Senor Hector Vega Rosado, Moca. March 19. 1975.

SANJUAN
On March 21 came the first sighting (of the current
wave) of a UFO over San Juan, the capital. It was at
9:30 in the morning, when a group of people walking
along in Santurce saw "a saucer-shaped object moving
off towards the North, in the direction of Isla Verde."
They said it was traveling at the height of an aeroplane,
but at a staggering speed, and that it had a dome "which
seemed to be metallic."
Three days later, on March 24, near Puerto de Tierra.
in the same area of San Juan, two girl secretaries, Antonia
Cintron and Paquita Martinez, were returning to work
from lunch at 1:00 p.m. when they saw "a stationary
luminous object . . . which afterwards began to move
slowly, emitting brilliant flashes of light." They added "It
was something very strange; not an aeroplane; it seems it
must have been what they call a 'flying saucer' because
it was oval and silvery coloured."
April 6 is a very important date. This was the date of
the first strange case of dead animals in the Metropolitan
Area of San Juan itself, i.e. the case of Sr. Bello's ten
geese, which we have already described above. And,
also on this same date came the first close-sighting of a
UFO right in the centre of San Juan.
That night, Willie Lopez was working as a disc jockey
with Radio Station WBMJ (Radio Rock), located in the

Darlington Building at Miramar, when he heard three

very loud blows on the outside window behind the controls.
(The radio station is on the top floor of the building in
question). Going over to the window, the young Lopez
saw a luminous figure in rapid movement which seemed
to hide behind one of the external columns of the building.
Then, remembering that he was all alone in the studio, he
telephoned a friend, Jose Manuel. who lives in the same
multi-story building. However, by 10:45 p.m. his friend
had still not arrived. so Willie Lopez, unable to contain his
curiosity any longer, went over and opened the window
suddenly. And he beheld, right in front of the building,
and on top of the adjacent cooling tower, "a luminous
white object, saucer-shaped. about forty feet in diameter,"
and only about three or four feet from the building. In the
interview which he gave to the press Willie Lopez said he
had noticed it was "making a rocking movement." The
UFO itself was stationary, the rocking movement was slight,
and the UFO's luminosity was constant. Alarmed, Willie
Lopez slammed the window shut. and then instantly
stopped the music he had been broadcasting, and told
the listeners what he had just experienced. (Some days
after this incident, the young disc jockey was still suffering
from nervous shock and under treatment with sedatives.)
At 1:50 p.m. (precisely the same time) on Tuesday,
April 8, when Lopez was in the studio, along with announcer Raymond Rosado and Rosado's wife, and just as they
were about to go on the air with a piece of promotion
PURSUIT Winter 1980

30
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Cases of mysterious
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Cases o"f UFOs
Cases of other
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The island of Puerto Rico

based on the events that had happened two days previously, they heard the whole air conditioning system of
the building start to vibrate. As they described it, "it seemed
as though the whole place was about to collapse."
Meanwhile, just as this was happening at the studio,
out at Guaynabo, where the radio station's actual transmitters are located, things were also happening. Rafael
Perez, Efrain Camacho, Jose A. Soto, Wito Castro, and
Johnny Acevedo all saw a shining object descend and
produce a powerful explosion, as a result of which it seems
that the whole district, including the WBMJ (Radio Rock)
transmitter, was without electricity for twenty minutes.
The object that fell made a crater several feet wide and
the ground at the spot remained hot for several days.
While the possibility of its having been a meteorite naturally
cannot be ruled out, does there not seem to be a strange
element of coincidence about this whole business?

POWER FAILURE
On April 11 there were sporadic power failures in various
parts of San Juan. On the day following, April 12, a group
of eyewitnesses saw a UFO "resembling the rotunda on
the Capitol" near Paquita's Place, a restaurant in the
Pinones district, to the northwest of San Juan. And on
April 17, again at Moca, a lady named Wanda Feliciano,
and her brother Elly and his companions Felix Cruz and
Rosaura Vargas, claim to have seen a UFO. (This date
too coincides with the strange deaths of animals in various
places.)
PURSUIT Winter 1980

WEIRD CREATURE, ANIMAL EFFECT

AND ANOTHER MUTILATION
On April 18, Orlando Franceschi, janitor at the San
Lucas Hospital at Ponce, claims to have had a personal
encounter "with a horrible monster that he would never
be able to forget," right in the back-yard of his own home.
Coming out of the bathroom, at 8:00 p.m., he was just
about to go to the ice-box for some water when, looking
out through the window that gives on to his back-yard he
saw what at first he took to be a dog pass by. Astonished,
since he knew his own dog was tied up not far from there,
he seized a shovel which was standing near the door and
stepped outside. "Arriving round at the back of the house,
I saw nothing, but when I came back ... I saw it coming
towards me . . . it was the same thing that I had seen go
past the window; with long ears, a long nose too; the
mouth wasn't very visible, but I noticed a slit with no lips,
two black blobs which were its eyes, the jawbone of an
ape ... and it was walking the way 'zombies' do, swaying
from side to side. It was an amazing sight ... I felt it was
going to attack me, so then I hit it with the shovel. It was
about four feet or so from me ... it was very small, let's
say about 4 ft. 8 inches high ... I hit it on the chest with
the shovel and the blow sounded a hard one. On feeling
the blow from me, it backed away, but it made no sound.
It moved as though it was floating. I said to myself: 'this is
no vision' ... and I hit it a second time with the shovel
and again it backed away. When I hit it the third time,
I was in a rather uncomfortable position ... I can't explain

31
it exactly. but I fell, as though I hadn't hit him, I fell just
because of the weight of the shovel. I tried to get up again,
but, I don't know exactly how or why, I was paralyzed ...
I don't know if it was through fear ... I had no strength.
I felt there was something that wasn't in me. I looked
around and the creature was gone. Then my strength
came back. There was a zinc sheet in the neighbour's
fence between the two houses, and this had been pushed
through on to the other side as though it had escaped
through there. I can't of course swear to this, I don't know
whether it flew away or whether it just disappeared. While
all this was going on, my dog didn't bark even once."

THE AFTERMATH
After this episode (transcribed by us here from his original taped statement) Senor Franceschi, who is aged 26,
went back into the house, where were his mother, his
wife, and his two daughters. Seeing the distraught state
he was in, the family at once called the police, and they
launched an investigation the results of which have not
been divulged. Franceschi remained under sedation for
the next two days. Immediately after the incident, five
young men who were returning that same night from the
Glenview housing estate said they had seen a "strange
dwarf' and pelted it with stones. It is to be noted that a cock
was killed that same night and was found near Franceschi's
house. It displayed the same characteristic wound as
were found on the other dead animals and which we
have already described.
A week later, Senor Franceschi started hearing voices
which, as he said, "I am absolutely sure were not imaginary." And he went on: "I heard what sounded like
somebody speaking to me, and this voice said that on
Saturday, May 31, all Christians should meet together
to pray. I heard the voice repeat this to me seven times.
It said that the churches must remain open, so that there
would be nobody who had not prayed ... and that if this
was not fulfilled even worse things would happen than
are happening now."
In fact nothing did happen on Saturday, May 31, though
lots of people heeded the exhortation which Senor Franceschi had had published in the newspapers.

JUANA DiAZ AND COSMO

Let us however return now to previous events. On the
day following the Franceschi case, that is to say April 19,
Senora AIda Isabel Vazuez de Figueroa and her daughter
Camille observed a UFO at Las Corozas, a suburb of
Juana Draz, a town near Ponce. Said the eyewitness:
"It was around 10: 15 p.m. I was just tidying up, and then
I went to get a dress to iron it. I opened the door leading
to the patiO, and I saw a vivid orange light hanging stationary above the garage. It was quite near, and I stood there
quietly, watching. I remained there like a statue for I don't
know how long-maybe five minutes-and the light remained in the same spot. The thing was bigger than an
automobile wheel ... Then it rose up a bit, quite silently.
The body of the thing was very orange and its brightness
was enormous. Then it moved away and was concealed

behind the mountain, but still leaving the whole area lit up."
On some subsequent date after April 20, which we
have not been able to establish precisely, Senora Marra
Socorro Janer and her husband saw an object "shaped
like a cupola, with a vivid bright light," when they were
travelling by car near the town of Cosmo, not far from
where the last case had occurred.

ARSONLOO?
On April 29. at 3:30 a.m., Senora Juana Vazquez and
her children were awakened by something that lit up their
house in Penones, a suburb of San German. One of the
most astonished members of the family, Ivan, aged 17,
said that they got up and, looking out of the Window,
saw "a bright object stationary over their lavatory." Senor
Vazquez and the children Jennie, LuiS, Pastora and
Ramonita confirm this . .
The UFO was shooting out "flashes of blinding light"
which made it impossible for them to make out the precise
shape of the object. The lavatory caught fire, and the witnesses heard some "faint sounds." Then came other
sounds that were "louder and of higher pitch," and the
UFO shot upwards and vanished.
The lavatory continued to burn and the fire was put out
with the help of the neighbours who came rushing up
immediately. One of the neighbours, Ruben Hernandez
BIas, an agricultural worker, said he had seen the UFO
as it was moving away. This case created a great commotion in the whole district and was thoroughly investigated
by the police.
Other residents in the district reported that on that
same night they had noticed a great deal of disturbance
among their domestic animals, especially the dogs, which
had barked furiously. Other reports, unconfirmed, indicate
that two cows were found dead at the time, in very mysterious circumstances, right inside the suburb of Penones.

CUPEY
The area of activity seems to have moved, and at 4:30
a.m., on May 4, a Senor R
, residing at Cupey,
to the south of the Metropolitan Area of San Juan, "saw
a UFO with a big, intensely yellow pulsating light on one
side (the extreme right from his point of view) and another
less vivid light at the other side, plus a row of eight rectangular lights," stationary at a distance of about 1,500 ft.
from his suburban home. He at once aroused all his family,
who all watched the phenomenon for 45 minutes until
they grew weary and went back to bed. The following
day they went back to the spot where the UFO had presumably landed and they found an area, some 25 ft. in
diameter, which "seemed to be burnt." They observed
moreover some strange marks, shaped like feet with only
three toes. These were 14 inches long and tapering from
a width of 4 inches at the back to 19 inches in front. These
marks seemed to be in a straight line, and spaced at intervals of 50 inches. Along with these marks, the witnesses
also found some "scratch marks" on the ground. This case,
which received no publicity. was investigated by electrical
engineer Heriberto Ramos.
PURSUlT Winter 1980

32

PROFESSOR'S VIEW
May 17 brought two high-altitude sightings. One of them
was seen from Las Crobas, Fajardo, by Gustav Zeissic,
a doctor of astronomy and professor of physics at the
University of Puerto Rico. Others with him who saw it
were Julio Peignand, a professor of psychology, Luis A.
Delgado de Leon, a sculptor, and Jose F. Delgado Ramirez, a banker.

LOW LEVEL UFOs

On the same day, May 17, at 9:30 p.m., came another
low-level sighting of a UFO, sighted from two places in
the Metropolitan Area of San Juan. At Park Garden in
Rio Piedras, Merida Mendez was in conversation with
Georgina and Norma Toro in the back-garden of the two
last-named. Norma suddenly saw an object ... "round
and yellow and all with a very powerful light," and shouted
to her two friends to look. The UFO was stationary at an
angle of about 60 of elevation, above a neighbouring
house. They noted that the object consisted of three parts,
and that the middle part had some "windows" which
emitted a brilliant green light. Suddenly, as they watched,
the UFO started "to rise, at an angle, rotating as it did so,
and making a 'pu-pu-pu' sound." They also saw that as
the UFO rose a red light came on inside it.
After the UFO had climbed higher in the sky it remained
there circling around over the area for some minutes. It
then disappeared from sight.
On that same night, May 17, approximately one hour
later, a UFO, flying slowly and very low, was seen from
the Miramar sector, in the same part of the suburbs of
San Juan, by a professional man and his wife who prefer
to remain anonymous.
On May 24, at 9:50 p.m., not far from the same area,
the Ortiz de Rivero family reported that they too had seen
a UFO flying low, "with blinking red light." As it moved
off towards the southwest the light then became a vivid
white. The witnesses stated that on its central part !t had
what they described as "elliptical skylights shOWing a yellow
glow."

PILOT'S REPORT
After this last sighting, the nature of the reports changes
and they now refer generally to UFOs seen at great heights
over more distant regions of the island, such as Maricao,
San Geraldo, and Cayey-Salinas. On Wednesday, June
18, two commercial air pilots informed the press (anonymously) that they had seen UFOs over Villalba and over
the area around San Sebastian. In one case, said one of
the pilots, "Some weeks ago, between Barranquitas, Villalba and Ponce, I saw two white lights and one red one
stationary in space. The red light was flashing, and the
two white ones very brilliant. The time was about 11:00
p.m. The object-or the lights-were towards the northwest, that is to say, nearer to Ponce. Then at one point
the UFO started moving up and down, as though simulating
impulses, and flashes began coming from the lights."
PURSUIT Winter 1980

Amazed at what he had seen, this pilot called up the Air

Control Centre to ask whether there was any plane or
helicopter in the area, but the reply came that there were
none.

REMARKS AND CONCLUSIONS

1. Nobody, either privately or officially, has succeeded
in establishing the cause of the deaths of the animals.
Official police investigations took place. Also investigations
by the Department of Agriculture and by federal agencies.
The conclusions were ... silence.
2. It is not possible to establish categorically a link between the mystery deaths of animals and the UFO sightings.
However, it must be emphasised that both of these phenomena were occurring Simultaneously, and practically in
the same chronological order, in certain definite geographical zones.
3. The UFO cases started at the beginning of the year.
The strange deaths of the animals began to be reported
before the end of February. In the town of Moca both the
phenomena-UFOs and animal deaths-were occurring
simultaneously, and when sightings of UFOs outside the
Moca area began to be reported, so too did the strange
deaths of animals in other places also begin to be reported.
Around the end of July, 1975 came the last cases of
strange deaths of animals in Moca, as though a cycle
was closing. Since that date we have no further cases of
either phenomena.
4. We think we can safely say that 1975 has been the
peak year so far as Puerto Rico is concerned for the weird
and strange. In addition to the UFO phenomena and the
strange deaths of animals and a number of reports of
sightings of an enormous bird, which we have quoted
above, we have also had the undermentioned happenings
of a strange nature:
a. January 14, 1975, at 2:30 p.m. a mysterious explosion was heard throughout almost the entire Metropolitan Area of San Juan. The Puerto Rico National Air
Guard (Le. the Air Force) deny that any machine of theirs
broke through the sound barrier over the city and caused
this spectacular noise. The cause remains unexplained.
b. On that same day, January 14, at 7:30 p.m. Senora
Isabel Davila of the Santa Juanita residential estate at
Bayamon claims to have heard a strange moaning noise
and to have seen tears of blood gushing from the eyes of
an image of the Sacred Heart. This happening received
widespread publicity over a period of several weeks.
c. January 23: Senora Dionisia Arteaga reported that
on this day her son Radames saw blood coming from
a picture representing The Almighty which hangs in her
residence in the Dr PiI.. housing complex in Ponce.
d. February 22. A search was called for after a boat
failed to return to the town of La Parguera. Six days later,
on February 28, the boat was found drifting in the Canal
de la Mona, with everything in complete order, the engine
.in perfect condition, but both the occupants, two young
profeSSional men from the district, missing.
e. March 6. Another strange explosion of unknown
origin shook the town of Ponce. It was heard practically
all over the town.

33
f. From the beginning of March reports of fresh "miracles" began to come from the town of Sabana Grande,
where there is a sanctuary for religious pilgrims-due to
the alleged appearance of the Virgin there on May 25,
1953. These new reports of "miracle cures" continued
over the following weeks.
g. April 1. The press reported that a sailing boat had
been found without its crew. The boat had put to sea a few
days previously from Guayamar, on the south coast of
Puerto Rico, and the Coast Guard had mounted an energetic search for it.
h. June 20. Some wax remnants on a porcelain plate
are allegedly converted into an image of the Virgin del
Carmen. This event is reported to have occurred at Isabela,
in the home of Arturo Gonzalez and his wife. According
to the report, Father Ignacio and Father Elias, priests of
the local Catholic church in the town, accepted the existence of the image as authentic.
5. What is above all evident from all this is that we are
seeing what we might term a new phase of activity by the

UFO phenomenon. The UFO phenomenon is now manifesting itself more openly; it is ceasing to be rural, and in
many cases it is now a town phenomenon; there are
more low-altitude sightings; there are three cases with
physical marks left on the ground, one of these being the
alleged incendiarism in an outhouse. The UFO theme is
the subject of frank and open discussion in the organs of
the press. And, above all, it is now connected in the mind
of the public with the killing of animals.

...

In conclUSion, I must add that the work of compiling

this report has been made possible thanks to the cooperation received by me from: William Santana Font, architect; Noel Rigau, agricultural expert; Oscar Hernandez,
engineer; Heriberto Ramos, engineer; Salvador Freixedo,
S.J.; Alfonso Marti'nez Taboa, Carlos Alvaredo, Freddy
Badillo Javariz, Francisco Marin, Jose Vargas Lisboa, Osvaldo Laurido Santos, and Rafael Portela.

THE TOMB OF KHUFU:

MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT PYRAMID
PART II
(Continued from last issue)

by Norman Gholson
scrutinizing Herodotus's description of the
U PON
Great Pyramid's construction, one is rather startled
to find that it reads like any modern work on the subject.
Herodotus says that the pyramid was first made in steps,
and with the aid of shaduf-Iike machines, filled in completely. This is the basic theme of the modern theorists.
Herodotus is also correct in writing that the Great Pyramid was built during the reign of Cheops, the name by
.which Khufu was known to the Greeks. Herodotus could
have learned much of this from Egyptian priests, including the existence of underground chambers. Furthermore.
Herodotus is correct on many details-which indicates
there is substance to his stories. Assuming that the Herodotus account was truly historical, why did he refer to
supposedly non-existent subterranean chambers at three
different places in his account? It is quite clear that
Herodotus gave credence to this story of underground
chambers, and he certainly was no dupe.
Archaeologists have pOinted out that no canal such as
Herodotus mentioned while telling of the underground
chambers has ever been found. Such authorities, however, are not considering what 4500 years of desert weather
can do to a canal. The ancient Egyptian equivalent of the
Suez Canal, built in the Middle Kingdom (2060-1788
B.C.), didn't even last a millenium. Also. some authorities have emphaSized the fact that the Great Pyramid is
built on land 36 feet above the level of the Nile, the source

of the supposed canal. But that does not rule out the
possibility that there never was a canal. Is it not possible
that the canal was elevated, and broken down years ago
(as with the causeway) and that its mouth on the river
clogged up long ago? If the Egyptians could cut 120 feet
in bedrock to excavate the subterranean chamber, surely
they could have constructed a canal having an elevation
of only 36 feet.
Herodotus .wrote of something else we cannot see
today-an inscription on the side of the Great Pyramid
recording that 1600 talents of silver were spent on radishes, onions, and garlic alone for the workers who built
the pyramid. Herodotus claimed that an Egyptian interpreter had read the inscription to him. Some researchers
have jumped to the conclusion that since this inscription
is not present now, it never existed. They should realize
that the inscription was on the casing stones, which were
removed from the pyramid as bUilding material for Cairo.
The archaeologists' extreme doubt of Herodotus may
stem from the deep rift that understandably separates
ancient literature, legends, and myth from scientific archaeology. Such distrust is what caused the archaeological
world to scorn Heinrich Schliemann, who after asserting
that he could find Troy by reading the works of Homer,
did just that. Thus, the existence of subterranean chambers
such as Herodotus mentioned has never been provenand likewise never disproven.
Although no under-pit chambers have ever been found,
several subterranean vaults near the Great Pyramid have
One (1) talent oT silver is the equivalent of 56 pounds.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

34
been discovered and excavated. One of these vaults is
the tomb of Hetep-Heres, who was Khufu's mother. She
was buried in a rock tomb near Dashur. a site of other.
pyramids.
Although constructed with the usual securities against
robbers, Hetep-Heres's tomb was apparently plundered
not long after her burial. However, because the tomb had
been so lavishly furnished by Khufu, a number of valuable
objects were left behind by the hurried vandals. enough
to warrant the digging of another tomb. It seems that
Khufu presumed the mummy was with the treasures,
since the alabaster sarcophagus appeared untouched.
But he was wrong. The mummy, along with most of the
treasure, had actually been taken by the thieves, for it
was a common practice among the ancient Egyptian
nobles (and well known to tomb-robbers) to cluster the
mummy of a dead queen or king with valuable jewelry.
The stupendous job of digging a new tomb-shaft in complete secrecy was eventually completed and the remainder
of Hetep-Heres's treasure was again stashed away-this
time in relative security.
Hetep-Heres's second tomb was so well concealed that
it was never found and looted. In fact. its discovery by
modem archaeologists was due only to sheer luck. A photographer, on an archaeological expedition supervised by
Egyptologist George Reisner, noticed when setting up his
tripod that one of its legs sank into a plastery substance
unlike the usual terrain. Upon examination. this substance proved to be a covering for a pitch-dark shaft 100
feet deep. By means of handholds that had been installed
on the walls of the shaft, the archaeologists climbed slowly
to the bottom. At the bottom they found a small burial
chamber. Its floor was littered with scraps of gold, pieces
of what had once been chairs. beds, chariots, etc . but
which now were only fragments from the ravages of time.
This chamber also contained an alabaster sarcophagus of
the previous queen.
Hoping to find a mummy. the archaeologists removed
the lid of the sarcophagus with extreme care, but were
bitterly disappointed. The coffer was empty except for two
jeweled bracelets. It was obvious that in the rush to rebury his mother, Khufu or others had not had the coffin
checked to see that his mother's mummy was safe inside.
However, the expedition did find her Canopic Chest
(containing her embalmed organs), thus proving that the
mummification process was already known, since use of
a Canopic Chest was a major part of the total procedure.
Considering that at least part of Hetep-Heres's treasures survived the ages, may we not assume that Khufu's
could remain as well?

THE FUNERARY BOAT OFKHUFU

The tomb of Queen Hetep-Heres was not the only
underground chamber found. Another great find was the
pit holding the solar boat of King Khufu, who, it must not
be forgotten, was the Great Pyramid's builder. In the
process of clearing an area just off the south side of the
pyramid. workers struck a row of 41 limestone blocks
imbedded in rock. When all of the 17-ton blocks had
been removed, a 108-foot pit revealed a heap of wood
and rope-the remains of a disassembled boat.
PURSUIT Winter 1980

Careful study of the wood has since led to a nearly

exact reconstruction of the boat's appearance before it
was dismantled to fit into the pit. Egyptologists believe the
boat was buried beside the Great Pyramid to convey
Khufu in his voyage across the sky with the Sun God.
Boat models resembling this actual one have been found
in other Egyptian tombs. Because funerary (or solar)
boats were closely associated with death and Egyptian
funeral rites. this find lends additional credence to the
belief that the Great Pyramid was intended for use as a
tomb.
An intriguing question arises: could the underground
chambers thus far found-the tomb of Hetep-Heres. the
boat vault, and the pyramid's subterranean chamber be
only a part of a network of underground vaults? Is King
Khufu buried in one of a series of lost chambers? Only
further excavations can tell. To one side of the already
opened boat pit lies another, identical vault unopened as
of now. Elaborate plans are being made to open this adjacent vault with extreme care. When this pit is finally exposed. will it contain another solar boat. some other
treasure, a passage to more hidden chambers. or nothing
at all?
We may well assume that King Khufu made the Great
Pyramid as secure as possible from the tomb-robbers.
His personal experience with his mother's tomb probably
made him even more intent on concealing well his own
burial chamber.

THE MYSTERIOUS WELL SHAFT

This writer's theory of underground treasure chambers
in the Great Pyramid is motivated by the growing belief
that Khufu's mummy and treasure were never found or
removed and that it still remains somewhere within the
vicinity. According to archaeologists, tomb-robbing was
so rampant in the Pyramid Age that hardly any of the
pyramids contain all the treasures originally included. But
could the Great Pyramid be an exception?
As pOinted out previously, the most likely time that
robbing would have occurred was before the Persian
domination of Egypt. By confining our attention to this
time-span, we can limit the number of passages that robbers could have used. It is not likely they could have used
the Ascending Passage, because three granite plugs blocked
this passage until 820 A.D. The only other route to the
burial chambers (the King's Chamber and the Queen's
Chamber) is the Well Shaft. This shaft is very roughly
cut and extends from the Descending Passage to the entrance of the Grand Gallery-thereby providing a link
from the Descending Passage to the King and Queen
chambers, both of which branch off from the Grand Gallery.
About halfway from the Descending Passage to the
Grand Gallery. the Well Shaft opens on one of the most
mysterious and unexplainable sections of the Great Pyramid-the Grotto, which branches off to the side of the
Well Shaft, and is as irregularly formed as the shaft itself.
A large part of the Grotto's floor is characterized by a deep
pitfall almost resembling a mine. Why this Grotto was
carved from the rock is still an unsolved mystery. Apparently, the Well Shaft was not built into the Great Pyramid
by its original architects. It would seem inconsistent to

35

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nlit~iiiBDi.liluiill-~-!E[iE,-~~;:-:~,.,~=,~-=. ,m.~-~i-f.-I.iiimiiiDr;>,[:,:=;,=:~,:=;';J:ii~~

passage heading straight to the

Grand Gallery. Such an original design would have been an easy mark
for grave-robbers.
If the Well Shaft was not a part of
the original design, then who was
responsible for digging it and when
did this take place? We know the
Arabs reported seeing the upper
end of the Well Shaft in 820 A.D.
Therefore it had to be dug before
their time. Furthermore, there is no
record of digging such a shaft in any
Persian, Greek, or Roman works,
and it is unlikely that the addition of
a Well Shaft would have gone un- I . .,
recorded by ancient historians. Over
the time period extending from the
Christian Era through the Dark
Ages, the general knowledge of the
Great Pyramid was meager. Some
of the great scholars of the day
couldn't even describe the entrance.
For these reasons we may assume that if the Great
Pyramid was ever molested, the ancient Egyptians alone
would have done it, and only through the Well Shaft
which did exist during their time. Some problems now
arise which make the robbery theories untenable. The
sarcophagus as originally installed in the King's Chamber
would have had a lid on it, as did all Egyptian sarcophagi
of ancient times. Judging from the grooves on the coffer
in the King's Chamber, this lid would have been a little
over two feet wide, but the Well Shaft passage is only
three feet wide and not uniform. It seems unlikely that
this coffer lid could have been squeezed through the Well
Shaft. If the King's Chamber was once Khufu's tomb. it
would have contained even larger items such as the Canopic Chest. It would have been impossible to remove all
of the treasure through the Well Shaft, as well as to get
those treasures down from the pyramid's surface. In any
hassle to grab treasure and run, we could expect a few
objects such as stone or painted statues of the buried pharoah and other objects of least worth would be left behind.
Yet, not a single such object has ever been found in the
Well Shaft, the King's Chamber, the Queen's Chamber, or
anywhere else. Furthermore, most Egyptian tombs, and
especially those of the pharoahs, were decorated with
pictures and hieroglyphs on the walls, and with cartouche
of the dead man marked everywhere to preserve his identity. No such decorations have been found in the discovered
chambers of the pyramid.

c=D
LOCATION"
OF POSSIBLE
LOST CHAMBERS

I,;

KING KHUFU'S BURIAL

Therefore, this writer does not believe that King Khufu
was ever buried in these known sections of the Great
Pyramid. Otherwise, either his remains would have been
found, or the known conditions and evidences of robbery
would be more supportive. However, the purpose of the
Well Shaft is still a mystery.

":';',

I.

Piecing together what is known of Egyptian burials,

we can roughly reconstruct the burial of King Khufu.
Although partially guesswork, it may suggest new avenues
for research.
Egyptian burials always attracted much attention. En
route to the tomb, the roads were lined with mourning
spectators showing their sorrow by putting dirt in their
hair and beating their chests. Let us presume that some
would-be robbers were among these watching the procession. The robbers, along with the others. saw the
burial procession enter the Great Pyramid, but there was
no way for them to see the actual burial taking place.
(They would have believed Khufu was buried somewhere
inside the pyramid. but would not have known the exact
location_)
As the procession ended, the slaves of Khufu were
being directed to carry their dead pharoah down a descending passage into a subterranean chamber where, at
a strange opening at the bottom of a pit, they were further
directed to lower the coffin and other articles slowly and
carefully into a burial chamber below. After all objects
had been lowered. the slaves were finally directed to slide
some granite plugs into the pit and pour rubble on top of
the plugs. Perhaps, as part of a sacred rite, some of the
burial party were murdered before the chamber was sealed,
as slaves for Khufu in his afterlife. Then, those who were
not sacrificed were Singled out one by one to have their
tongues removed before again mingling with the populace_
Thusly, the secret of the Great Pyramid was intended to
be sealed forever. Apparently the knowledge of underground chambers was kept alive among the priests; perhaps
the priests who carried out the burial rites were spared
from death and tongue-mutilation.
But even as the funeral day itself expired, different
bands of would-be robbers were eagerly hashing. out
schemes for plunder. Unmindful of risking death by slow
PURSUIT Winter 1980

36
torture, their eyes could
well have bulged with visions of the fabulous treasures they had personally
carried inside. Although
it was often the duty of
priests to guard tombs,
it was relatively easy
to bribe one of them into
helping rob the very
tomb he was in charge of
protecting. Robbing the
Great Pyramid, however,
was probably difficult;
but eventually some
thieves learned how to
enter and, relying perhaps
on a corrupted priest as
their guide, began to dig,
but not in the pit. They
were digging the Well
Shaft. They had been
misinformed by their
sources, but they didn't
yet know this. In their
hasty greed, they hurriedly dug on. Only after
emerging in the Grand
Gallery and exploring the
King and Queen Chambers did they realize their
attempt had failed.
The King and Queen
Chambers were both
completely empty as they
were intended to be. Possibly the priests, upon discovering the newly dug shaft,
had it promptly plastered over at its entrance to the
Descending Passage. (This would explain why visitors in
Greek and Roman times never saw a shaft.) This plaster
could have later fallen off during an earthquake, or may
have jarred loose during AI Mamun's time-when he
was hacking away to clear a path past the boulder blocking the Ascending Passage.
But there is another theory of the Well Shaft-that it
was part of the original design. In support of this theory,
there is some evidence that the shaft was dug from the

Grand Gallery down,

and not from the Descending Passage up. If
the Well Shaft was dug
up later, someone would
have to have gotten inside, and moving the entrance plugs would have
required much more expertise and labor than
likely for a band of
thieves.
We might question why
the pyramid's designers
would include a Well
Shaft when they also included plugging the Ascending Passage. Possibly
they reasoned that if
thieves saw a shaft, they
would think someone
before them had already
robbed the pyramid, and
search no more. Even
though the upper passages were apparently
never used for treasure
but only as blinds, the
designers may not have
known exactly how the
interior would eventually
be used.

CONCLUSIONS
Whatever the reason
for the Well Shaft, the important fact is that this shaft is
too small to have been of much use in removing treasure;
and because there is no clear-cut evidence that the
pyramid was ever robbed, the treasures entombed there
4500 years ago probably remain there today - possibly
in still-secret vaults beneath the pit of the subterranean
chamber.
Proving or disproving this conclusion should not be
extremely difficult. One excavation could solve this
mystery forever, or at least lead toward new and better
answers regarding one of the greatest mysteries of all time.

SOURCES
1. Breasted, James, A History of Egypt (New York, Scribner's,
1909)
2. Cottrell, Leonard, The Mountains of Pharoah (New York,
Rinehart, 1956)
3. Daniken, Erich von, Chariots of the Gods? (New York,
Putnam's, 1970)

4. Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus, trans. by Harry

Carter (Heritage, 1958)
5. Lemesurier, Peter, The Great Pyramid Decoded (New York,
St. Martin's, 1977)
6. Tompkins, Peter. Mysteries of the Great Pyramid (New York,
Harper & Row, 1971)

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shorten the time required to process your work and should help to minimize typographical errors.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

37

HOW RELATIVITY THEORY

CONFLICTS WITH REALITY
by Harry E. Mongold

The assumptions of the theory are so uncertain that

even the great Steinmetz could not state it conSistently:

expounded his notion that simultaneity is

EINSTEIN
relative to the observer by describing a conceivable

"Suppose we place a lamp on the track, back of the

receding train, so that the light shines along the track
(for instance. a signal light) . The beam of light travels
along the track at 186,000 miles per second. The train
moves along the track, in the same direction, at 100
feet per second. Therefore, relative to the train, we
should expect the beam of light to travel at 186,000
miles less 100 feet per second. It would be thus with
a rifle bullet. . . . But the constancy of the laws of
nature teaches us that if the beam of light travels
along the track at 186.000 miles per second. and the
train in the same direction at 100 feet per second,
the speed of the beam of light measured in the train
(that is, its relative speed to the moving train) cannot
be 186,000 miles less 100 feet, as we would expect,
but must be 186,000 miles per second, the same as
its relative speed to the track. Now, the only way we
can explain this contradiction is to say that when we
measured the speed of light on the train our measuring rods were shorter, or, using the length of the train
as measure, the train was shorter, or the time was
slower, or both. "2

experience in which lightning strikes at both ends of a

rapidly moving and very long train. Someone stands at
the center of the train, so that (as an outside observer
might view it) he is moving toward the signal traveling
from the lightning stroke at the locomotive end. He is also
traveling away from the signal from the other stroke, which
must pursue and catch up with him. (This is what the
outsider would say.) Because of this he declares that there
was a stroke at the locomotive before the stroke at the
other end. The signals traveled equal distances, he says,
when they went from the ends to the middle, and he saw
one before he saw the other. On the track, however,
stands an observer at the center of the distance between
the two strokes (which leave marks o~ both track and
train). He sees the signals from both ends simultaneously
and disagrees with the time order claimed by the observer
on the train. If motion is relative, said Einstein. who is to say
that one of these observers is right because he was "standing
still" and the other wrong?
In "The Concept of Simultaneity" I have argued that
the sources of photons must be traveling either with the
train or with the earth, or at least that they cannot move
two ways at once. I If the signal sources travel with the
train, the distances the signals themselves travel (which
are to be found to be equal and opposite) must be measured on the train; if the signal sources "travel with the
track" (i.e., if the photons start from points on the earth)
the distances must be found equal along the track. While
the theory states that light does not take on the motion of
its source, distances in a simultaneity experiment must be
measured in a definite way, since even the event of light
generation cannot travel all velocities at once. Photons
appear when separating from particles. A separation is as
much a thing in space as an object is. A separation can be
made in motion with a train or "standing still" with a track.
If it is objected that photons are created, as opposed to
leaving the atoms involved, it must be observed that even
so they will have a definite velOcity relative to each other
object. At this point it must be brought out that the velOCity
of light cannot be the same relative to all, as is usually
said, but may conceivably be measured the same by all
observers because of a universal, or constant, coincidence.
Thus the proponent of relatiVity theory says that a man
standing still relative to a light flasher would measure the
distance the photons travel to him differently than would
someone riding by at the time. Also he would find more
time was necessary for the flash to reach him. When two
observers are moving relative to each other they are believed to use different yardsticks and clocks necessarily.
The velOcity of light is said to be calculated the same
by both.

If the observer on the train uses a shorter measuring

rod than the observer on the track, he gets a longer distance
for the light to travel than the track observer measures.
In a given distance a short standard will be entered more
times than a long one will. If his clock is slower, he measures
less time for the transit, because the hand on his clock
does not move as far in a stated time. Thus he has the light
going farther in a shorter time, an increase in velOcity.
He should somehow get the standard velocity. Yet Steinmetz has here correctly stated what the theory claims,
namely that a mover and all that moves with him shorten,
and their biological and mechanical operations slow down.

The basic self-contradiction of the theory shows up

here. since motion is admitted to be relative. The "mover"
may be considered either the train or the track beneath it.
An observer by the track should be using measuring rods
that are longer than those used on the train, for example,
but this makes an unwarranted distinction between movers.
As it stands, the theory has each mover using measuring
sticks shorter than what the other uses. (To say that motion
causes shortening of the mover and his measuring rods
is to say that they are now shorter than what is considered
not moving. Otherwise-if both movers are shortening
from what they were before-there is no compensation
for leaving the light source, and thus no explanation for
calculating the usual light velOCity although on a moving
train. Besides, one gains nothing by imagining the entire
universe shortening every time something moves!) Also,
their clocks would be slower than each other. These are
PURSUIT Winter 1980

38
mere words, but they are in the theory as though they
had meaning.
What Steinmetz might more reasonably have said is
that the observer on the moving train would observe the
distance the light traveled as shorter than the observer on
the track would measure it. However, he would not see
his own clock as slowing just because he was leaving the
station by train. Therefore, the "clock" the train observer
used should be some event system outside the train. so
that he could observe an apparent slowing of events. This
suggests a revision of relativity theory so that we could say:
An observer moving relative to a light source will measure
the speed of that light as being standard because he will
use a shorter measurement of the distance (not using
shorter measuring rods) and will clock the events seen as
occurring more slowly than will an observer at rest relative
to the light source. However, maybe he will fail to use the
specified method of clocking. Besides, movement away
from a light source suggests a notion of longer distance
and slower clocks (the events being left behind), while
approach to a light source suggests appearance of shorter
distance and faster events. Relativity theory does not
describe any distinction between movers.
The assertion of some writers that appearance and reality
are the same is contradicted by their own theory. It is said
that a "moving" clock slows in rate, and that when it is
brought to a stop it will be found going at the correct rate
again but reading behind other clocks. This is exemplified
by the famous "twin paradox," in which one twin speeds
away from the earth and returns to find the other much
older than he. The "moving" twin is the moving clock,
because of his metabolic processes, and his metabolism is
said to be slower than our normal. The assertion that the
twin will return to earth barely older than when he left is
the assertion that the slowing down of processes was actual.
If there were only an appearance of slowing, as seen by
earth observers, there would of course be no difference
between the twins at the end of the sojourn.
It follows that there is a difference between saying, "The
velOcity of light is measured the same by all observers
because it is the same," and saying, "The velOcity is only
measured the same." The latter seems to be Bolton's impression. He writes that shortening and slowing of moving
rods and clocks are only apparent. Thus, in connection
with the doctrine of added velocities, Bolton says:
"Lest the reader should think that we are trying to
bewilder him with paradoxes, it may be well to remind
him that we are speaking all the time of physical
measurements. It is on pOints such as the present
that a person is apt to lose himself by unconSciously
importing metaphysical ideas of extension and duration. What the statement which has just been made
means, is that if anyone actually measures the velOcity
of light it will always relatively to himself figure out
to the same number. "3
Similarly, Bergmann says that "the rate of the clock
appears slowed down, from the point of view of S," meaning that a clock seen by an observer in a different state of
motion appears to operate slowly.4 On the other hand,
elsewhere he says, "If it is impossible to define a universal
PURSUIT Winter 1980

time. and if the length of "rigid rods cannot be defined

independently of the frame of reference, it is quite conceivable that the speed of light is actually the same with
respect to different frames of reference which are moving
relatively to each other. "5 He here specifies "is actually
the same." Meanwhile, other writers say that changes in
length and operation rate are real. Moreover, the experiment of flying atomic clocks about the earth 6 and the
observation that mesons experience delayed decay upon
approaching the earth at great speed 7 are hailed as proving
the theory, and they are cases of actually slowed clocks.
not apparently slowed ones.
That some situation could cause observers to always
measure the speed of light relative to them as c (300,000
km/sec.) is conceivable, but, unfortunately, relativity theory
cannot depict such a situation. To say that movers actually
slow down in processes and shorten in length leads at
once to self-contradiction, but to say that they only appear
to do so. to outside observers, offers insufficient explanation
for always measuring light at c velOcity. And it cannot be
meaningful to say that light does travel the same velOcity
relative to all observers. While the Lorentz equations, as
explained by relativists, are based on this impossible postulate, and while there have been striking successes in use,
the successes cannot mean what has been supposed.
It is important that scientists find out what they do mean.
The definition of 'velocity" given in Chambers' Technical
Dictionary is "Rate of change of position or rate of displacement, expressed in feet (or centimeters) per second,"
as related to a given direction. Whether light is a series of
vibrating photons or a wave in ether or something else
does not affect the fact that it is something that moves
from one position to another. In doing so it must exist
stage by stage until it reaches an obstruction. It can never
be in two places at once. There is no question as to that,
nor as to the fact that, in our three-dimensional space,
the relativity postulate would require photons to be in
more than one place at a time (so as to have the same
velocity relative to all). unless electro-magnetic signals are
sent at all velocities and are detectable in only one of them.
(In that case, if I were standing still relative to a street light
I would be seeing a different flow of photons from that
which I J,ould see if I ran toward the light.) This seems
hardly worth consideration.
Einstein's train-and-lightning example may now be
considered in terms of velocities as well as distances.
Lovejoy sees that if the lights from the lightning strokes
travel at the same velOcity for both the train and the track
observers "the signals will arrive Simultaneously both at
M and M' ... " (These are the two "midpoints.") That is,
if we must assume standard light velocity, we must assume
that photons traveled from the ends of the train to the
train's midpoint and from the places on the track marked
by lightning, meeting at the track midpoint. These would
have the standard velocity relative to their own coordinate
systems (train or track). The definition of 'velOcity' demands this. Lovejoy adds the inevitable conclusion: "But
in this case the two observers would not in fact be judging
about the same pair of events; the one would be judging
about events occurring at A and B, the other about events
occurring at A ' and B ."8 (The ends of the train are A
and B and its midpoint is M'. The other symbols refer
I

I ,

39
to the track positions.) In other words, the observers would
be seeing different photons, one set from where lightning
struck in air at stasis with the track and another set from
where lightning struck in air at stasis with the train. The
photons in Einstein's illustration (where the train observer
sees first one signal and then the other) could not all have
been traveling at standard velocity, then, relative to both
observers.
These arguments concern our three-dimensional world,
and relativists do not lean on another dimension in their
explanations of simultaneity. The four-dimensional continuum, in any case, is only a mathematical representation
that can explain how the same photon is seen as though
in different positions at the same time. by different observers. What the representation does is depict the illusions
of the various movers. (Only the observer at rest relative
to the light source could theoretically measure the true
position of a photon relative to that source, at any given
instant, although this is wildly impractical.) That this "fourdimensional space" cannot be a reality is admitted by
many proponents of relativity theory, 9 although Einstein
appeared to take it seriously. In doing so he ignored the
great philosophical problems it creates. 10
The supposed universal velocity of light has been considered supported by experiment. The Michelson-Morley
experiments were devised with the "wave" theory of light
in mind. That they may not even be compatible with that
has been held by Velikovskyll and others. 12 If light signals
are better conceived as particles, perhaps vibrating ones,
for purposes of comparing their velocities, the MichelsonMorley experiments, and the later similar ones, cannot
apply.

There is a great deal to be understood about the travel

characteristics of light and other electro-magnetic disturbances.1l Meanwhile, the dead wood of self-contradiction
and false views of velocity must be cleared away.
REFERENCES
1. Pursuit, Spring. 1978, pp. 64 f
2. Charles P. Steinmetz, Four Lectures on Relativity and Space,
Dover, 1967,pp.4f
3. L. Bolton. An Introduction to the Theory 0/ Relativity,
Dutton, 1921.pp. 76f
4. Peter G. Bergmann, Introduction to the Theory 0/ Relativity.
Dover. 1976, p. 38. See also pp. 40 and 45.
5. Op cit, p. 33
6. J. C. Hafele and Richard E. Keating. "Around-the-World
Atomic Clocks." SCience. 14 July 1972, pp. 166 f
7. Cornelius Lanczos. Albert Einstein and the Cosmic World
Order, Interscience. 1965, p. 56
8. A. O. Lovejoy, "The Dialectical Argument against Absolute
Simultaneity," The Journal 0/ Philosophy. 1930. p. 650, as
quoted by A. P. Ushenko in Albert Einstein, PhilosopherScientist, Tudor, 1951. pp. 617 f
9. For example, David Bohm, The Special Theory 0/ Relativity.
Benjamin. 1965, pp. 173 ff: V. Fock. The Theory 0/ Space.
Time and Gravitation, Macmillan, 1964, p. 59
10. Briefly mentioned in "The Concept of Simultaneity," p. 63
11. I. Velikovsky, "The Velocity of Light in Relation to Moving
Bodies," Pens~e, Vol. 3, No.3. Fall, 1973, pp. 1"6 ff
12. Otto Luther. Relativity Is Dead. Key Research. 1966.
pp. 48 ff
13. George de Bothezat, Back to Newton, Stecher!, 1936,
pp.140ff

---------IN SITU--------PLEASE NOTE

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as a member of SITU. In order to maintain our $10 membership, we cannot continue to absorb charges as we have
done in the past. Bulk mailing, upon which our mailing
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address and other items pertinent to membership should
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information or matters of importance should also be sent
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. ..

SITU member Allan Grise has recently moved to

New Mexico and is anxious to meet any other SITU
members living in what he calls "darkest New Mexico."
Drop him a line at 613 Grove NE. Albuquerque, New
Mexico 87108, or call: (505) 255-6486.

...

Member Steve Hicks requests citations of North American fairy sightings: leprechauns, poukas, banshees,
al. He also would welcome references to "little people"
in Amerindian folklore. Write: Steve Hicks, 1503 W. 3rd
St., Lawrence, Kansas 66044.
PURSUIT Winter 1980

40

THE CELTS AND EARLY AMERICA

13. Joseph Pearl, trans., Caesar's Gallic War, p. 122.
14. Kenneth Macleod, "The Celt and the Sea," The Celtic Review, July 1906-April1907, pp. 242-251.
15. David MacRitchie, "Celtic Civilization," The Celtic Review,
July 1906-April 1907, p. 253. Pearl, Caesar's Gallic War,
pp.88-89.
16. Herm, Celts, p. 207. Barry Fell, America B.C.: Ancient
Settlers in the New World, pp. 115-116. Pearl, Caesar's Gallic
War, pp. 88-89.
17. Cecil Torr, Ancient Ships, p. 97.
18. William Preece. "Egyptians and Celts," The Celtic Review,
Oct. 15, 1904, pp. 97-103.
19. Chadwick, The Celts, p. 35.
20. Lionel Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World,
pp. 64-65 & 11.120.
21. Henry A. Omerod, Piracy in the Ancient World: An Essay
in Mediterranean History, pp. 126-127.
22. Lionel Casson, The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea
Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient TImes, pp. 137-139.
23. Casson, Ships and Seamanship, pp. 338-340 & 14.58.
24. Salvatore Michael Trento, The Search for Lost America:
The Mysteries of the Stone Ruins, pp. 106-107 & plate 12.
25. Fell, America B.C., p. 151 & 226.
26. Trento, Search for Lost America, pp. 40-41.
27. Ibid, pp. 130-135.
28. Fell, America B.C., pp. 130-134. Trento, Search for Lost
America, plates 9 & 10.
29. Trento, Search for Lost America. p. 47 & fig. 2.5 & 4.1.
30. Fell, America B. C., p. 135.
31. ChadWick, The Celts, p. 181.
32. Trento, Search for Lost America, pp. 54-56.
33. Charles Setlman. Wine In the Ancient World, pp. 70-71.
34. Stanley Baron, Brewed in America: A History of Beer and
Ale in the United States, pp. 16-17.
35. Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings, pp. 295 & 303-306.
36. Trento, Search for Lost America. p. 187.
37. Ibid, pp. 185-188.
38. Herm, Celts. pp. 239-240 & 245. Fell, America B. C.,
pp.47-57.
39. Trento, Search for Lost America, p. 163. James P. Whittall,
"The Mill River Inscription," Early Sites Research SOCiety Bulletin, May 1976. Fell, America B.C .. p. 89.
40. Michael Grant. The Army of the Caesars, pp. 12-14.
41. New York Times, March 6,1979.
42. Jones, History of the Vikings, p. 272.
43. E. G. Bowen, Saints, Seaways and Settlements In the
Celtic Lands, p. 19.

(References continued from page 22)

Bowen, E. C., Saints, Seaways and Settlements In the Celtic

Lands (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1969).
Casson, Lionel, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World
(Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1971).
Casson, Lionel, The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea
Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient TImes (Minerva Press,
N.Y.,1959).
Chadwick, Nora, The Celts (Penguin Books, Baltimore. 1970).
Fell. Barry, America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World
(Pocket Books. N.Y., 1976).
Grant, Michael, The Army 0/ the Caesars (Charles Scribner's
Sons, N.Y., 1974).
Hawkins, Gerald S. & John B. White, Stonehenge Decoded
(Doubleday & Co., Garden City, N.Y., 1965).
Herm, Gerhard, The Celts: The People who came out of the
Darkness (St. Martin's Press, N.Y., 1975).
Jones, Gwyn, A History of the Vikings (Oxford University
Press, London, 1968).
MacCulloch, J. A., The Celtic and Scandinavian Religions
(Hutchinson's University Library, London, 1948).
Oldfather, C. H., trans., Diodorus of Sicily (Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1952), vol. 3 of 12 vol. set.
Omerod, Henry A., Piracy in the Ancient World: An Essay in
Mediterranean History (Argonaut Inc .. publishers, Chicago.
1967).
Pearl. Joseph, trans., Caesar's Gallic War (Barron's Educational
Series, Inc., Woodbury, N.Y., 1962).
Piggott, Stuart. Ancient Europe from the Beginnings of Agriculture to Classical Antiquity (Edinburgh University Press,
Edinburgh,1965).
Setlman, Charles, Wine In the Ancient World (Routledge &.
Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1957).
Torr, Cecil, Ancient Ships (Argonaut. Inc .. publishers, Chicago,
1964).
Trento, Salvatore Michael, The Search for Lost America:
The Mysteries of the Stone Ruins (Contemporary Books, Inc.
Chicago, 1978).
ARTICLES

Macleod, Kenneth, "The Celt and the Sea," The Celtic Review,
July 1906-April 1907.
MacRitchie, David, "Celtic Civilization," The Celtic Review,
July 1906-April 1907.
Pokorny, Julius, "The Origin of Druidism," The Celtic Review,
July 15, 1908.
Preece, William, "Egyptians and Celts," The Celtic Review,
Oct. 15. 1904.
Whittall, James P., "The Mill River Inscription," Early Sites Research Society Bulletin, May 1976.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NEWSPAPERS

New York Times. March 6.1979.

BOOKS

Baron, Stanley, Brewed in America: A History of Beer and Ale

in the United States (Little, Brown & Co .. Boston, 1962).

ERRATUM
On the cover of the Fall Pursuit (Vol. 12: No.4), our printer made an error. The issue is actually whole
number 48, not "45" as printed. Please take note of the mistake when ordering back issues.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

41

SYMPOSIUM
Comments and Opinions

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

ADDITIONAL Lake Monster writings that have surfaced since the publication of my Lake Monster List
in Pursuit (Vol. 12, No.2, Spring 1979) include the
following:
A. The obvious being indexed as #15: Pursuit, Vol.
12, No.2, Spring 1979, pp. 50-55, "Water MonsterS
of the Midwestern Lakes," by Gary S. Mangiacopra of
7 Arlmont St., Milford, Connecticut 06460), repeats for:
Devil's Lake, Wisconsin; Lake Mendota, Wisconsin; Lake
Monona, Wisconsin; and Lake Michigan and Lake Erie
of the Great Lakes, and Michigan and Ohio respectively.
With additions of: Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, and
the folloWing five, all in Wisconsin: Lake Geneva, Lake
LaBelle, Fowler Lake, Oconomowac Lake and Okauchee Lake.
B. Also I have indexed as #16 the additions of: Lake
George, New York and Spirit Lake, New York (submitted
by Joseph W. Zarzynski, P.O. Box 34, Wilton, NY 12886).
as reported in the article, "Assorted Ghosts, Ghouls and
Goblins of New York State," by Alfred Hulstrunk in "The
Susquehanna" Sunday Supplement of The Binghamton
Press (NY) of August 14, 1977, pp. 8-13, with a repeat
for Lake Champlain, in Vermont.
C. I have indexed as #17: Phenomena: A Book of
Wonders by John Michell and Robert J.M. Rickard, 1977,
pp. 73, 118-119, that repeats: Loch Ness, Scotland on
page 118; Lough Fadda, Ireland on page 118; and Loch
Arkais, Scotland on page 119. With additions of: 1) Bolinas
Swamp, on the Fault Line north of San Francisco, California, page 73; and 2) Lough Nahooin, near Clifden,
Ireland, page 118.
In addition, I have also included the following:
D. The Black River sighting of 1951, as mentioned by
Joe Zarzynski as found in Things, by Sanderson, chapter
3, pp. 27-39, in the state of New York.
E. Moosehead Lake, Maine, from Down East. Vol.
XVII, No.2, Sept., 1971, p. 41.
Any SITU members who have additional listings can
write to me at the Lincoln, New Hampshire address or:
P.O. Box 281, 7 No. Main St., Ashland, New Hampshire 03217.
-Joseph S. Haas, Jr.
REGARDING the space-time articles in Pursuitespecially those in Vol. 12, No.2, Spring 1979:
It would be very desirable if someone could obtain the
mathematician Bernhard Riemann's theories for study
and transfer them into an understandable language.
Following the claims of some members of the U.S. Labor
Party, Einstein distorted Riemann's theories after having
stolen them for his own theories of relativity.

I am not myself qualified to judge the matter, but it

should be done. Literature can be obtained through: New
Solidarity International Press Service, 304 W. 58th St.,
New York, NY 10019, USA.
- Birgit Thiede, Denmark

AM pleased to hear that there is an organization in

existence with as much scope and open-mindedness
as yours. Today and throughout history, it seems, there
occur and have occurred many puzzling events that are
not readily explainable in terms of our tools of physics
and mathematics. Of all events of this nature, however,
I believe that only a relatively small percentage are genUinely astounding and anomalistic in behavior. I have
come to this conclusion from my general reading and
personal weighing of the evidence, and I feel that when
one takes into account the factors of misunderstood
normal events, genuine pranks, human psychological
factors, misinterpretation of data, publicity-seeking,
profit-seeking, and irresponsibility, the real core of unexplaineds stands at about 2 or 3 percent of those presented.
I believe that this 2 or 3 percent includes mostly phenomena related to the human mind and also to the idea of
alternate universes. It appears that there may be strong
evidence forthcoming in both of these areas before too
much longer. It seems that there may be a force that is
very difficult to detect. a force that links all matter and
energy and plays the major role in such things as ESP
(human/animal/plant). telekinesis, out-of-body experiences, and more. I believe that eventually it will be proven
that an infinite number of alternate universes, each possessing its own characteristic set of physical laws, do indeed exist.
I think that scientific breakthroughs coupled with new
angles of investigation will, in the near future, proceed to
close in on many of these questions. Technology is increasing at an astonishing rate, and it will tell us amazing
things, but we must keep our questions in the forefront.
Unfortunately, too many people are content to live in bland
day-to-day routines and care little if anything about the
"higher order" of questions.
Then there is the more general problem/situation/question of the significance of the animate (living) condition
as opposed to the inanimate condition. Just what is the
meaning, actually, of living, dead, animate, and inanimate
in the sense of the (our) universe as a whole? I believe
that there are many varied and intelligent life forms scattered throughout our universe; is it possible that none of
this "living" matter-ourselves or distant alien civilizationsis at all significant in our universe? Are we just a coincidence, simply a by-product of the evolution of matter
itself?
PURSUIT Winter 1980

42
I also like to ask the question "What will mankind be
like in another 500 years? In another 1000? In another
1,000,000?" It seems inevitable that as we continue to
evolve and progress in our intelligence we will eventually
reach a state of existence strikingly different frorn that of
the present.
I believe that it is possible that our universe (and all
others) may be infinitely complex and that we may be
forever approaching that point of knowledge as a limit.
On the other hand. if we, or any other intelligent civilization, can evolve and progress to the ultimate point of
intelligence and knowledge, will total understanding be
possible then?
These are some of the questions and topics that I like
to discuss. I look forward to SITU as a two-way channel
through which these ideas can flow and as an access to
the sometimes hard-to-get material that is relevant to
these interests. I am 23 years old and have worked in
construction and also recently as an engineering tech-

nician at a nuclear power plant. I am presently a student

studying electronic engineering.
-Wayne Bass
Ridgeway. South Carolina
THE ORION research group is currently investigating
the Brown Mountain Lights in particular and ghost
lights in general. If SITU members have sightings or
information to share, or wish to be kept abreast of our
research, we would be most happy to cooperate.
We also have a Brontide occurrence each spring in the
Bristol, Tennessee area ("Bristol Booms"). If you have
members in East Tennessee, we would very much like to
hear from them. Our membership consists of scientists
over a ten-state area centered on eastern Tennessee.
We work cooperatively with all organizations of mutual
interest. We have extensive technical equipment and
expertise at hand, should any investigator need lab work.
If interested, please write: David K. Hackett, Director.
ORION, P.O. Box 11852, Knoxville, TN 37919.

SITUATIONS
This section of our journal is dedicated to the reporting of curious and unexplained euents. Members
are encouraged to send in newsclippings and responsible reports they feel should be included here.
Remember. local newspapers often offer the best (or only) information concerning some euents.
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper. periodical. etc.). the date the
article appeared and your membership number (or name if you prefer to be credited that way).

ICE BALL FALL

Robbie Cloupe stands near ice ball fragments.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

Robert Cloupe and his son Robbie were

out in their garden in Forked River. Ocean
County, New Jersey planting some vegetables on an overcast Memorial Day,
1979, when they were startled by a whistling sound in the sky. The sound. "like
a firecracker makes before it explodes."
Mr. Cloupe said. occurred around 3:45
p.m. Robbie told his father to look above
them and together they observed "something" falling several hundred feet to land
in a field next to their neighbor's house
a short distance away.
Thinking the object might have been
part of a plane because of its irregular
shape, the Cloupes ran over to see what
had fallen in the high grass.
The object. they discovered, was apparently an ice ball. (See accompanying
photo.) Having left a six-inch deep depression in the ground where it landed.
the main mass had then broken up into
"grapefruit-sized chunks" six to eight inches
in diameter which were spread over an
area some 25 feet across.
The ice, which Mr. Cloupe described
as a combination of semi-hard ice and
"mushed-up snow or something like you
get when you defrost your refrigerator,"
was examined in situ by the Lacey Township police who thought there might be
a piece of metal in the mass. They found

43
no metal, and the ice mass was still in the
process of melting at 6 p. m.
Neither the police nor Roy Roylarue,
a spokesman for the National Weather
Service, had ever heard of anything like
it before. Roylarue said an ice ball that large
was "very rare," adding: "That's the first
time \ have ever heard of anything like
that." He speculated that with the Memorial Day clouds reaching an altitude of
35,000 feet, ice could have accumulated
into a ball and fallen to the ground without melting. Or, he speculated, the ice
ball might have formed from liquid falling
from a plane flying at high. cold altitudes.
A man down the street from Cloupe, .
who also saw the ice ball falling, thought
the object was a large bird. Cloupe agreed
the object looked unusual as it fell. "It was
really weird. It was the strangest thing
I've ever seen," he said.
SOURCE: Ocean County (NJ) TimesObser
uer. May 29,1979
CREDIT: Member "432

In Roswell, a quiet southeastern New

Mexico city, the Willie Seymore family
thought it a miracle when a wallet-size
portrait of Jesus Christ encased in plastic
and tucked inside the corner of a larger
framed picture at the Seymore residence
began to "bleed."
Friday, May 25, Zack Malott, the husband of Mrs. Seymore's granddaughter,
Kathy, glanced at the tiny portrait and
noticed what appeared to be a large
"tear" of blood just below the right eye in
the picture.
Within 11/2 hours, Malott said, there
was a steady stream of a blood-like substance penetrating through the plastic and
congealing at the base of the frame holding
the larger picture.
"The blood was running from the picture just as if [ had cut my finger." Mrs.
Seymore said.
The family at first called a priest, but he
refused an offer to drive out to the Seymore residence to inspect the picture,
saying that any involvement of the Catholic
C~urch would have to originate from the
archbishop.
The family then called the local newspaper_ which in turn contacted a medical
technician at a local hospital.
By Monday, Malott said, about 160
people had viewed the portrait.
"People were falling to their knees,
praying and crying," he said. "We haven't
had anyone leave who was a skeptic."
Malott, an electrician, said none of the
family members who witnessed the event
considers himself deeply religious. The
family members are Christians. but are
not members of any organized religion

I. .,
"

\_.

PICTURE OF CHRIST 'BLEEDS'

/
#

.t!-

'~

"

.--'--.

._--_.

Allen Demetrius holds "weeping" statue,

and do not attend church regularly, he
indicated.
And although the picture did not "bleed"
after Saturday. tests conducted by the
medical technician confirmed the substance at the base of the frame holding
the tiny portrait of Christ was blood. He
left a kit with the family to be used to
collect any fresh samples of the substance.
Additional tests were also planned on the
dried substance in an effort to determine
if the blood is human and its type.
SOURCE: Watertown Daily News (New York).
May 29, 1979 and The Pittsburgh Press
(Pennsylvania), May 29, 1979. CREDIT:
Claudia Englert and O. Oltcher.

STATUE 'WEPT' FOR

HIROSHIMA
Allen Demetrius, who lives in Pittsburgh's
Banksville area, told his neighbors about
an event that occurred August 6, 1945the day Hiroshima was bombed.

Demetrius was the owner of a bronze

statue of a Japanese girl. In 1969, he gave
the 102-year-old statue to his daughter,
Annabelle Sollon.
"[t happened one night almost 40 years
ago," Demetrius said. "I remember that \
had read the headlines in the paper that
Hiroshima had been bombed.
''That night, \ looked at the statue and
saw tears in its eyes. The teardrops ran
down the cheeks. \ was astonished.
\ can't explain how it happened."
When the tears dried. no trace of Demetrius' "miracle" existed-until 1969,
when his daughter discovered that the
bronze face had been suddenly marred
by green streaks. (See photo above.)
"\ was doing housework in my home in
Canansburgh," Mrs. 501l0n explained.
"\ noticed for the first time the green
stains."
"\ don't know how they got thereI never polished the bust-Dad wouldn't
let me. \ called him and told him about
the marks."
PURSUIT Winter 1980

44
Demetrius, amazed by her discovery,
rushed to her home.
"I realized what the green streaks were,"
he said. "The stains were in the exact spot
where the tears were. So it had to be the
oxidation occurring where the tears had
streamed down the statue's cheeks."
Soon Demetrius was beseiged with requests to put the bust on display, and
Mrs. Sollon found people "by the carload" coming to her home in Canansburgh
and asking to see the statue.
Even the Japanese Embassy became
involved, suggesting to Demetrius that he
trace the origin of the statue. Demetrius
has been working on that for the past two
years.
"So far, I've traced it back to France,"
he said. "I think that the girl is Japanese
royalty, part of a family which visited
Paris long ago and while there, a French
sculptor probably modeled her likeness."
The bust bears an inscription with a
foundry name-the Raingo Foundryon its base. There is also the suggestion
that it was cast in 1877. In any case, the
statue now stands on a gray stone pedestal
in the living room of Demetrius' South
Hills townhouse. But he wishes that it
could be on display in the United Nations
as "a warning against war. "
"The whole world is someday going to
be destroyed by the atomic bomb," Demetrius said. "We'll end up just like Mars,
Jupiter and the lifeless planets in our solar
system.

"The statue's crying is a warning that

such destruction will lead to desolation."
SOURCE: The Pittsburgh Press (Pennsylvania),
March 18, 1979. CREDIT: O. Oltcher.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Little Rock, Arkansas-Gus Whisenant, 15, was holding his motorcycle
helmet in one hand while he fed Ellen,
the elephant at the Zoo of Arkansas, with
his other hand. Ellen, tired of the candy
she was being fed, grabbed Whisenant by
the arm with her trunk. Whisenant panicked and jerked his arm free, but the
motorcycle helmet fell into Ellen's cage
in the process.
Ellen studied the helmet for a moment,
then picked it up and swung it in the air
before putting it into her mouth and
chomping down, breaking it in half. She
then spat out the pieces and stomped them
into even tinier pieces.
Whisenant Wisely remarked: "It was
lucky my head wasn't in the helmet."
SOURCE: Herald-News (New Jersey). May
13. 1979. CREDIT: Fred Wilson.

FALLING FROGS

Asian Village of Dargan-Ata on the Amu

Daria River.
"Whirlwinds pick up living and inanimate objects off the ground and from
small streams and carry them up to the
clouds," Tass explained, adding: "When
the air flow grows weaker the travelers
return to the ground together with the
rain."
SITU members may have some difficulty
accepting such an easy explanation ....
SOURCE: UPI, July 6, 1979
CREDIT: Joseph J. Patchen, Neil Lorber, Jon
Douglas Singer, David Weidl, William E. Jones

'ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN'
EATEN
The Chinese journal, Fossils, has revealed
that soldiers of the Chinese army have
reported killing and eating a creature resembling the abominable snowman, or
"yeti," in the Himalayan foothills in 1962.
The Chinese scientific journal said the
soldiers told of eating "meat from a snowman" which they had killed in a remote
section of Yunnan province.
SOURCE: Evening Journal. Wilmington.
Delaware (via the London Daily Telegraph).
May 2, 1979
CREDIT: Harry Hollander

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, reported a fall of frogs July 5, 1979, when
a thunderstorm rained frogs on the Central

BOOK REVIEWS
SITUATION RED: THE UFO SIEGE by Leonard H.
Stringfield (Doubleday, NYC, 1977, xvi + 224 pp.,
5 appendices, iIIus. $8.95)
Early in his ufological career, Len Stringfield was deSignated by the USAF as the southwestern Ohio Ground
Observer Corps filter center for UFO reports. GOC observers who saw UFOs told Len and, if he deemed the tale
important enough, he passed it on to Wright-Patterson
AFB. He told that story in his Inside Saucer Post 3-0 Blue.
Now he's back ... and with a rather frightening assessment of current UFO activity.
Situation Red outlines what Stringfield believes is the
growing boldness of UFO operators in harassing and injuring humans. We are, he thinks, being set up for more
unpleasantness and perhaps even an attempt at invasion
and conquest of Earth. It's a scary thesis Stringfield provides as he recounts case after case after case of apparently
responsible people claiming that some damnably frightening things have happened to them.
We read of three women down in Kentucky kidnapped
by aliens, of a private pilot over Mexico whose plane was
controlled by three UFOs, of a family of three that vanished in New Mexico, of Fritz Werner who claims to have
PURSUIT Winter 1980

been part of a government team inspecting a crashed

saucer and its dead 'pilot' in a southwestern U.S. desert
25 years ago, of USAF jets that vanished while chasing
UFOs, of rank-smelling Big Hairy Monsters seen near
UFO landing sites, and dozens of other weird and unsettling cases. He even tells us of people being killed.
Dead. Melted down into gloppy heaps of quivering flesh.
Now that sort of thing may be fine for the sci-fi johnnies
whose far futures have often been full of nightmare aliens
invading Earth, slaughtering the men and raping the fair
maidens, but we are supposed to be dealing with reality
here, and for me there is far too much lacking in the way
of adequate documentation. I have commented on other
occasions that I do not accept deathbed 'confessions' of
single witnesses who claim to have seen little green men
in 'pickle jars' at this, that, or another government or
government-connected institution. I cannot accept claims
that a crashed saucer, 90 feet in diameter, can be lifted
onto a truck in some southwestern American desert and
then driven over 1940s-era roads to Ohio ... undetected.
(Go find an undivided, 4-lane highway and measure off
90 feet and see if you think it could be done.)
There may be in this book the kernels of some great

45
truths. It may be that we are indeed being set up for a
Wellsian invasion (as opposed to one by the Soviets), but
from my judgment seat, the proof of his contentions is
not in Stringfield's book ... nor have they appeared in
the years since it was published. Sorry, Len, hearsay just
won't do.
-George W. Earley
SECRETS OF OUR SPACESHIP MOON, by Don

Wilson. Dell Publishing Co., 1 Dag Hammarskjold

Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10017. Paperback, $1.95.
A new (first printing, June 1979) and important scientific study of our satellite is not for the romantics: the Moon
will never look the same to anyone who reads this book.
A credible job has been done to an incredible subject.
The author correlates NASA's Apollo series of Moon
Missions with the scientific theories of two Russian scientists, Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov. The
basic thought is that our Moon is hollow, and that it was
placed in orbit by outer-space aliens as a base for UFO
exploration of the Earth.
Evidence is submitted to justify all that is speculated
upon. For instance:
-the specific gravity of the Moon is now known to be
3.33 gr./cc compared to 5.5 gr./cc of the Earth.
-the moon rocks brought back by our astronauts are
older than any on Earth.
-the Moon's orbit is unique in two ways: it is a nearperfect orbit-the only one in our solar system, and it
keeps one side toward us-again unlike any other satellite.
To the last point the author adds some light humor:
Oh Moon, lovely Moon with the beautiful face,
Careening through the boundaries of space,
Whenever I see you I think in my mind,
Willi ever, oh ever, behoJd.your behind?
Testimony in favor of the Hollow Moon theory was indeed developed by the Apollo series: When the seismographs recorded the deliberate crash of a small space
vehicle 40 miles away on the surface' of the Moon, NASA
scientists at the Space Center were amazed to "hear" the
Moon ringing like a bell for almost an hour. Other recorded
impacts bear out the same thing-our Moon is hollow
and has an outer crust 20 to 30 miles in thickness.
I think this book is "must" reading for all SITU members.
In fact, our own Dr. Ivan Sanderson is significant in Chapter 1 and throughout.
-Edward J. Toner, Jr.
THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD: AN ATLAS OF THE
UNEXPLAINED, by Francis Hitching; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979 (reprint of British edition,

1978); bibliog., index, iIIus., maps. $11.95.

Hitching has produced a scholarly and well-illustrated
compendium of Forteana that deserves an honored place
on the shelf next to Michell and Rickard's Phenomena.
The emphasis is heavily ancient history and geological
anomalies, but other areas are represented adequately
(SHC, UFOs, Bermuda Triangle, unknown energies).
One drawback is a geographical imbalance in favor of
Europe, which might put off some North American readers,

but this is a minor complaint. The author has a very lucid

grasp of the nature and implications of all the mysteries
he discusses, and he is able to convey this to the reader
succinctly and entertainingly.
Nearly everything you've longed to see a map or chart
for is mapped and charted here. Some of the most interesting are: a map of cities where Count St. Germain
was seen in the 18th century (p. 215); a map of cities
where Christian relics (the True Cross, Holy Lances, etc.)
are found (p. 179); maps of Stonehenge and Avebury
showing underground water patterns (pp. 96-97); maps
of the "Alaise leys" in continental Europe (pp. 77-79);
a map of places in Asia where Shambhala (Shangri-la) is
rumored to be (p. 240); a chart of feral child sightings
(p. 208); and a chart comparing conventional ancient
chronology, Velikovsky's revised version, and Biblical
history (p. 170).
The bibliography is very interdisciplinary. Hitching cites
articles from Scottish Zoo and Wildlife and Phrygische
Kunst as well as Pursuit and Fartean Times.
Neophyte and veteran Forteans alike will enjoy The Mysterious World as a well-organized and extremely useful
reference guide to the Unknown.
-George Eberhart
THE PSYCHIC HEALING BOOK, by Wallace,
Amy & Bill Henkin. Dell, 1979 (reprint of Delacorte Press hardback, 1978); 222 pp., bibliog.
$2.25.
This is one of the best "how-to" psychic development
books to appear on the market for quite some time. Don't
let the title fool you-it wasn't designed to turn you into
Oral Roberts or a Philippine psychic surgeon overnight.
Instead. the authors provide a series of exercises that will
gradually increase awareness and control of one's various
clair-senses and the psychic force field surrounding everyone's body. Since healing of self and others is one of the
most positive of psychic activities. it becomes a logical goal
of psychic development. Very slyly, however, the authors
introduce the reader to a wide range of phenomena and
theories, so that the end result is a general systems theory of
psychic science.
Wallace and Henkin emphasize that healing is a process
in which the "healer aligns himself totally with the totally
harmonious energy of the cosmos ... and thereby becomes a clear channel through which that energy can flow."
This cosmic energy, when imparted to and accepted by
the healee, will tend to restore mental and physical wellbeing.
The whole book is written in a direct, rational style, and
manages very successfully to be a textbook in applied
parapsychology. The authors' only concession to "mysticism" lies in their use of terms like karma, chakras, and
aura, but thp.re are really no eqUivalent scientific names
for these concepts. They point out that anyone can become a psychic healer, whether Christian, Hindu, pagan,
or Discordian; the secret lies in tuning in to perfectly
natural energies. Where those energies originate is best
left for the individual to decide.
One of the most interesting ideas presented in The Psychic Healing Book is a caution about "karmic ethics." Just
PURSUIT Winter 1980

46
as people might get upset if you went around putting
aspirins in their coffee unbeknownst to them. so also is it
morally questionable to zap people with healing vibes
without their permission. Beginners tend to be overenthusiastic, the authors warn.
Some of the exercises for beginners include: reading
chakras and auras, self-awareness and visualization, color
meditation, and healings in absentia. More advanced
techniques are precognition encouragement, out-of-body
healing, past life reading. and talking with spirit guides.
Sound formidable? For me at least, it seems worth a try.

...

A few other practice-oriented inner development guides

to watch out for are:
HOW TO MAKE ESP WORK FOR YOU, by Harold
Sherman, Fawcett Crest, 1967 (reprint of DeVorss
hardback, 1964); 278 pp.
The primary focus is telepathy and precognition, with
some discussion of hypnotism, OBE, healing, and mediumship. More anecdotal than practical, but has some useful
techniques explained.
.
OCCULT EXERCISES AND PRACTICES, by Gareth
Knight, Helios, 1969; 67 pp.
Too brief and general to be of much use. Mystical Christian approach, with some Eastern ideas thrown in.
HYPERSENTIENCE, by Marcia Moore, Bantam,
1977 (reprint of Crown hardback, 1976); 301 pp.
BaSically, hypersentience is past life reading through
meditation. Contains a number of basic techniques; but
the bulk of this tome is case history. Leaves one with the
impression that you have to join a hypersentience group
to really do it right. It includes some interesting accounts
of hypersentient visits to AtlantiS, other planets, and "the
other side of death."
DAVID ST. CLAIR'S LESSONS IN INSTANT ESP,
by David St. Clair, Prentice-Hall, 1978; 198 pp.,
index.
Possibly useful for rank beginners or high school students. but St. Clair has a way of talking down to his readers
that will annoy informed Forteans. He does touch many
bases, however, and his techniques are valid.
TANTRA: THE KEY TO SEXUAL POWER AND
PLEASURE, by Ashley Thirleby, Dell, 1978; 192
pp., bibliog.
Finally a no-nonsense guide to sex magick stripped of
Buddhist mythology and translated into Masters and
Johnson terms. A bit ritualistic, but the old adage, "it's
not what you do-it's how you do it" seems to apply
here. Should be placed on the bookshelf between Aleister
Crowley and Lilly's Dyadic Cye/one.
-George Eberhart

SOMEBODY ELSE IS ON THE MOON by George H.

Leonard (David McKay, NYC, 1976, xix + 232 pp.,
iIIus. $9.95)
Project Apollo is over. the astronauts are grounded,
and nothing moves on the moon, right? Wrong! says
George Leonard, a man who manages to see things in
PURSUIT Winter 1980

NASA photographs that no one else seems to see (except

for his carefully anonymous scientific tipster buddy).
And what he sees, says Leonard. convinces him that alien
beings are busily tearing up the lunar surface in some sort
of gigantic mining operation. For proof, in addition to the
data from his tipster, Leonard provides a number of NASA
lunar photos on which he has drawn arrows pointing out
various 'alien machines.' Sketches amplifying the photos
are also prOVided.
According to Leonard, not only NASA but other arms
of government, the aerospace industry, the news media
the astronauts themselves . . . in short, everyone involved
on a high level with Project Apollo knows that it isn't our
moon anymore, it's "theirs!" The weakness in Leonard's
whole case is that we must believe, as he presumably
does, that either no one is going to talk (save for his tipster)
or that anyone who does talk will be unable to find anyone having the Voice of Authority who can be persuaded
of the truth of the situation. Which, presumably, is why
George Leonard is telling this tale in a book that probably
won't sell for sour apples, rather than your hearing it from
Walter C. on the evening TV.
Speaking personally, Leonard hasn't convinced me
and in that connection, let me add a personal note. In July
1976, I had the opportunity to interview Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin. Leonard's book wasn't out then but a
magazine excerpt had just been published and I showed it
to Irwin. His reaction? An emphatic rejection of Leonard's
claims. Now you need to know that unlike some astronauts, Irwin was a "maverick" in both his USAF and Apollo
days. He is scarcely the type to enter into a conspiracy of
silence. Moreover, Jim Irwin found his Apollo voyage an
intensely religious experience. After his return, and after
his near-death from a massive heart attack, he founded
the High Flight Foundation whose ecumenical religious
outlook has strong fundamentalist strains in it. Given all
this, it seems highly unlikely that Irwin, in rejecting Leonard's claims in our discussion, would, or could, have lied.
If you insist on reading Leonard's book, I urge you to
borrow one some foolish library has bought, rather than
waste your money purchasing this piece of nonsense.
- George W. Earley
THE UFO HANDBOOK by Allan Hendry, Double-

day/Dolphin Aug. 17, 1979,384 pp. $8.95 ppbd.

As we begin the fourth decade of the UFO mystery, we
find the controversy has changed little. Thousands of
UFO books have been published: alleged factual accounts,
debunking analyses, and religious and cult texts. Virtually
every book in print has had one goal: to convince the
reader that its premises hold the valid truths on UFOs.
With all that "truth" in print. why do we still have a UFO
mystery? The phenomenon is an emotional one, and
many people want to believe despite the facts. The years
of study have shown that most (85-90%) UFOs are misidentified or misperceived natural or man-made events.
It has been very time consuming to sift through these
reports. Allan Hendry's new book, The UFO Handbook,
is designed to help the reader identify these sightings and
free the ufologist to devote more time to the 10-15% of

47
the sightings that may hold the key to the mystery or may
perhaps prove to be more complex misperceptions.
The UFO Handbook, then, is not another UFO "reader,"
full of juicy, incredible stories. It is a textbook. designed
to help people explain what they are misperceiving and
distinguish UFOs from IFOs. Excellent photographs combined with a text that concisely explains what thirty years
of UFO research, and one and a half years of Mr. Hendry's
intensive research, has discovered. While neither this
book nor any other book is likely to lay the UFO question
to rest, at last some rational illumination is shed on a dark
corner of our culture.
Do not expect platitudes designed to please the avid
UFO reader or to sell the book. This book is not likely to
garner praise from UFO hobbyists and supporters of "pet
theories," because it is brutally frank in its assessment of
the competence of witnesses and investigators alike.
However, it is destined to become the premier text on the
UFO phenomena.
Mr. Hendry uses to excellent advantage his investigations to point out the ptoper and thorough way to handle

sightings. There are many lessons to be learned from the

Identified Flying Objects. His drought of speculation is
much appreciated with respect to the monsoon of hypotheses being pushed elsewhere. His one chapter on speculation reveals him to lean toward a Jungian hypothesis,
which provides a great working latitude for a skeptically
curious investigator. The chapter on tools of the trade is
a most valuable layman's gUide to these oft-misunderstood
tools. As he rhetorically queries, why. after thirty years
have I had to amass these resource lists. But it is a sign of
the times and the public's changed attitude. that Mr. Hendry
is one of the first to be able to devote full time to UFO research. There may be no more to UFOs than misperceptions, hysteria. and a powerful desire to believe. but regardless, our ignorance must be confronted, and this
book does it squarely and head on. Perhaps the next
thirty years will see the mystery solved. Toward that end,
this text cannot help but be of use to the "ufologist" of all
bents, and I recommend it highly.
- David K. Hackett

THE NOTES OF CHARLES FORT

z

Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst

ijl
z

oa:

ABBREVIATIONS

u.

These abbreviations pertain to the Fort Notes which follow. Abbreviations used in the Notes
which are not found here have been printed in previous issues of Pursuit.

>
rn

UJ

I-

a:

:::l

Acad
An Reg
A.U.S.
BD
B Eagl
Bib. Brit
Calif.
chars
Conn.
(Cut)
Disap
E. Haddam
European Mag
Inf Conj
Intro
Jour Soc
Ibs
L. An. Sci
(M)

mag
Mems. Boston Soc Nat Hist
n.w.
Obj
phe
Ph.M.
Q. Jour Roy Inst
Ref.
Religio-Phil Jour.

S.
SI. Bart
vol.

o
U

Academy
Annual Register
Archives of Universal Science
The Book of the Damned
Brooklyn Eagle
Bibliographie British?

California
characters
Connecticut
Illustrated
Disappearance
East Haddam

Charles Fort, c_ 1920

European Magazine

Inferior Conjunction
Introduction
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research

Pounds
L 'Annee Scienlifique

I?)
Magnitude
Memoirs of the Boslon SOciety of Nalural History

Northwest
Object
Phenomenon
Philosophical Magazine
Quarterly Journal of the Royal InstitUle

Reference
Religio-Philosophical Journal
South
I?)
Volume

1808
May

I Footprints and devour I An Reg.

1808-37 I That. in May. 1808.
upon the estate of John Gurney.
of Eastham. the steward had found
a dead lamb - in the neck a perforation. size of a goosequill. He
found two living lambs Similarly
IReverse sidel injured - one died
later. A neighbor sent him a large
male cat as the criminal. Some
kittens had been killed by similar
perforations. also were partly devoured. The steward remembered
that in snow by the lambs he had
seen footprints of a cat. I Ownsomething killed all- and tom cat
may have devoured dead kittens.

PURSUIT Winter 1980

48
May 16

/ Skeninge / Sweden / bodies in

sky / D270.
May 21 / Ferentino / Fireball / BA 60.
May 22 / See June 8. 1901.
May 22 / (+) / (F) I The Stanway stonesa gluey substance abundant upon
them / Phil Mag 44222 /
[Reverse side) See Sept 19, 1831. /
See Nov 25. 1833.
May 29 / Cape Spartel I Fireball / BA '60.
July 29 / Troston (England?) / Fireball /
BA60.
Aug 1
/ San Francisco I great q I [BA)
'11.
Aug. 1 Small quake at Leghorn, Italy.
BA 1911.
[Kiesewetter 1/ August 1- [The small quake
at Leghorn occurred October 26, 1808, not
on August 1.))
Aug 15 I Vienna, etc. I Fireball / BA '60.
Sept 3
I (F) I 3:30 p.m.-Bib. Brit 39/369
I Lissa, Bohemia / Metite / BA,
'60 I near Prague.
Sept 29 I [London Times), 3-c I Met /
London.
Oct 5
I [London Times), 3-a / 173c I
203c I 252d / Comet.
Oct 24
/ q / Iceland / west of Hecla /
Smithsonian Inst. Report 1885509.
Nov 11 / Fireball / England / BA '60.
Dec 29 / Berne / Fireball I BA '60.
Dec 11 to I Dfog I At New Granada, sun, at
Jan 31, riSing, was pale as moon. /
1809
[Reverse side) often bluish or greenish / Unusual coldness, frequent
frost near Bogota. A dry haze
nights, too.
[Front side) From 1st to 12th Parallel of S. Lat. / An Reg, 1808445.

1809
I Kikino, Smolensk, Russia I Metite / (F) 1/1
[Reverse side) 135 I 172 I 289 / 33 / 34.
I Perny, Russia I stones with hail/See 1844.
Jan 18
/ 2 a.m. I Dunning, Perthshire I
Sound and shock. / Bell's Weekly
Messenger, Jan. 29-p 35.
Feb 3
/ q-met-fires I at dawn / town
in Hungary / shock I Houses on a
mountain
[Reverse side) were observed to be
lighted up by reflection from unknown fires, supposed to be sub
terranean. I BA '54 / See 1810.
March 10 / Russia / I I [Small quake / BA
1911).
March 27 I Etna I BA 54.
Ap. 5
I Japan I U / [Medium quake / BA
1911).
I Tours, France I F"u-eball I SA '60.
Ap.9
. April 18 lOp. Mars I (A 1).
I Island of Corfu, Greece I I /
May 3
[Small quake / BA 1911).
/ (Reference.) I Bamstaple, DevonMay 3
shire / q and rumbling sound /
Trans Devonshire Assoc 16651 /
(CO).
/ Vole / Goentoes / Java / N.M. /
May 9
C.R. 70878.

May 23
June 9

/ 19 h / Venus / Inf Coni I (A 1).

I 5 p.m. I Cascade of water and

hail poured in a torrent upon London upon

[Reverse side) a space not more
than 200 acres. / Symons Met
47140.
June 17 / SI. Bart / Fireball / BA 60.
June 20 / Stone weighing 6 ounces fell on
shipboard I Lat 30,58' N / Long.
70,25' W / Phil Mag 4/8/458 /
[Reverse side) Sc Am, NS, 1383 I
Bib. Brit 48/162.
June 23 / Poitiers (?) / rain of frgs /
L'lnstitut 2/409.
summer I Toads / France / L'lnstitut
2/409/ Rec. Sci 3/333.
July 29 I Neumark / Fireball / BA '60.
Aug 7,8 I China / IU / [Violent earthquake I
BA 1911).
Aug. 14 I Italy I I / [Small earthquake /
BA 1911).
Aug 25 / Italy / II / [Greater quake /
BA 1911).
Aug 28 I Parma / Fireball / BA '60.
Bell's Weekly Messenger - Ann
Sept 3
Moore, faster of Tutbury i p. 283.
/ New crater of Vesuvius opened,
Sept 4
great flow of lava. Night of 5th,
great eruption of ashes. /
[Reverse side) Bell's Weekly Messenger 1809321.
1809 (?) I Bathurst I Disap and clothes with
bullet holes. / See Stuber case,
Aug. 16, 1892.
Nov. 25 / Bathurst I See S. BaringGould's
Historic Oddities.
[Reverse side) 9009.d.3.
Nov
/ Bathurst.
Nov. 25 / Bathurst / [typescript) I Cornhill
Magazine, 55-279.
(See The Fortean, "I, p. 14, cols. 23;
and p. 15, col. 1.)
Nov. 25 I BO 1/2 Ac to Sabine BaringGould, "Historic Oddities," p. 12On Jan 23, 1810, in a Hamburg
newspaper, appeared a paragraph
telling
[Reverse side) that Bathurst was
well in mind and body, his friends
having received a letter from him,
dated Dec. 13. This is a secondary
mystery. As BaringGould askedWho? Why? Was it imperative to
make the authorities abandon the
mystery?
/ Bathur[ st ) Myst I L.T., 1810,
1810
Jan. 22 Jan. 22/3/a I Nov 16/3/b.
/ Disaps. Bathurst / 1910, Dec.
1809
18-L1oyds W. News / Skeleton
found buried near Perleberg.
Nov. 29 Parma fireball. BA 1860 .
[Kiesewetter I I Nov. 29-Munich Fireball
(not Parma).)
I Cape Town / 3 shocks-l0 min
Dec 4
utes later another "accompanied
[Reverse side) by noises like the
firing of several pieces of heavy
artillery in quick succession-or that
not a quake, though so listed-"rhe

Dec 5

sky became clear and numerous

meteors were observed." I
[Front side) Rept. 54/85 I It is said
that many persons said felt the
shock upon the bursting of the
meteors.
/ Another shock and sound like
thunder at Cape Town. I BA 54
/ 7 a.m.-also 12:30 p.m. /
abo 5 p.m. / Many very brilliant
meteors burst at times of shocks.

1810
Jan 2 or 3/ Geneva / Fireball / BA '60.
Jan. 14 / Hungary / II / [Medium earthquake / BA 1911).
Jan 17
/ Phil Mag 44-225 I Red rain in the
mountains of Placentia / a liqUid
"almost as thick and heavy as snow.
Jan. 17 I Dept of Plaisance / Thunder
heard and red snow fell. / Bell's
Weekly Messenger, May 6, p. 142 /
[Reverse side) in the mountains
here.
Jan 22
/ Pignerol / Shock and explosion
p 86) and here and elsewhere
noted that M. Perrey
[Reverse side) had remarked that
there was a periodicity upon the
22nd of the month.
Jan 30
/ Stonefall / Caswell, N.C. /
BA 67414 / Gazeteer forCaswell.
[Reverse side) Details / Bib Brit
48/166.
Feb. 3
/ After the shocks. houses on a
mountain near Csakwar, Hungary,
[Reverse side) were for considerable time illuminated. / C.R., 17622 / See 1809.
I Japan / II / [Medium earthFeb 4
quake / BA 1911).
I Candia, on island of Candia,
Feb 16
ruined by q. / 200 perished. /
BA54.
March 20 / Canary Islands I III / [violent
or 25
earthquake / BA 1911).
March 25 / Violent q and great loss of life /
Teneriffe / BA, 54.
Ap 8
/ 7:20 p.m. / 7:25 I Shocks /
Calcutta / Cent's Mag 80373.
Ap. 14 . / Hungary / III / [Violent quake /
BA 1911).
Ap 20-2 / night / Metite i New Granada
(U.S. Columbia?) / wherever
Bogota is /
[Reverse side) L. An. Sci 1860/19.
Ap. 20
/ Santa Rosa, New Granada I Met
iron / but doubtful whether
[Reverse side] fell or found this
day / BA '60.

THE NOTES OF

CHARLES FORT
will be continued In
the Spring Issue of
Pursuit.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE.INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

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SCIENTIfIC ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. George A. Agogino
Dr. Carl H. Delacato
Dr. J. Allen Hynek
Dr. George C. Kennedy
Dr. Martin Kruskal
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell
Dr. Vladimir Markotic
Dr. John R. Napier
Dr. Michael A. Persinger
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz
Dr. Roger W. Wescott
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight
Dr. Robert K. Zuck

Chairman, Department of Anthropology, and Director, Paleo-Indian

Institute, Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured,
.
Morton, Pa. (Mentalogy)
Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center,
Northwestern University. (Astronomy)
Professor of Geology, Institute of Geophysics, U.C.L.A.
(Geomorphology and Geophysics)
Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Professor of Biology, Rutgers University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University
of Alberta, Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University
of London. (Physical Anthropology)
Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological
Laboratory, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont., Canada. (Psychology)
Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture,
Utah State University. (Plant Physiology)
Consultant (Brain Wave Laboratory), Essex County Medical Center,
Cedar Grove, N.J. (Mental Sciences)
Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University.
Madison, N.J. (Botany)

Known and the Unknown, The, 80

PURSUIT

1979

INDEX

Andrews, Dr. Arlan Keith, Sr., 119

Appendix to "The One Physical Experiment Science
Cannot Explain," An, 174
Are UFOs Psychic Phenomena?, 152
Barrow, Robert, 10, 145
Between the Plastic Eagle, Between the Mezuzah and
the Crucifix, an Article of Faith, 96
Black 'Mountain Lions' in California?" 61
BOOK REVIEWS
Andreasson Affair, The, Raymond E. Fowler, 138
Advances in Parapsychological Research-Vol. I,
edited by Stanley Krippner, 45
Catastrophist Geology, 89
Congratulations: The UFO Reality, Eugenia
Macer-Story, 90
Encounters With UFOs, Clifford Wilson, 90
Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Unidentified
Flying Objects: A Selected, Annotated
Bibliography, 189
Our UFO Visitors, John Magor, 45
Handbook of Parapsychology, edited by Benjamin
Wolman, 45
Pathways to the Gods: The Mystery of the Andes Lines,
Tony Morrison, 138
Philadelphia Experiment, The: Project Invisibility, William
Moore in consultation with Charles Berlitz, 138
Reliving Past Lives: The Evidence Under Hypnosis,
Helen Wambach, 90
Search for Lost America, The: The Mysteries of the Stone
Ruins, Salvatore Michael Trento, 138
UFO Enigma, The, 189
UFO Enigma, The: The Definitive Solution of
the UFO Phenomenon, Donald H. Menzel &
Ernest H. Taves, 190
Where is Noah's Ark?, Lloyd R. Bailey, 191
Bratton, Susan Power, 58
Bundy, Mark, 35
Central New York UFO Wave, The, 35
Coleman, Loren, 61,125
Count Saint-Germain: Where Are You?, 83
Diamond, Michael K.,

Exegesis: Unexplained Data Related to United

Flight 389, 110

Gholson, Norman, 148

Grattan-Guiness,lvor, 152
Greenwood, Dr. Stuart W., 160
Grise, Allan, 177

Incredible Admission, An: What Did the Air Force

Mean?, 10
Is the Panther Making a Comeback?, 58
Jordison, Barbara, 20, 94, 95

Macer-Story, Eugenia, 75,110

Mangiacopra, Gary S., 50
Mayne, Steven, 80
Metrication: Even Pyramid Power Won't Save
the Sacred Inch, 124
Mongold, Harry E., 67,175
More on Extant Dinosaurs, 105
Mutilations: The Elsberry Enigma, 26
Neodinosaurs,

100

Ornithological Erratics: Winter 1978-1979,

125

Pabst, Carl J., 46, 92, 139

Pawlicki, T. B., 85, 120, 174
Pecher, Kamil, 156
PerSinger, Michael A., 162
Pevely Mystery Toxin, The, 21
Prediction of Fortean Event Reports from Population
and Earthquake Numbers, 162
Quest for Norumbega, The,

13, 63, 179

Reardon, Russ, 112

Rodeghier, M. J., 2
Sanderson, Ivan T., 100
Schadewald, Robert J., 124
Setting the Record Straight on the 'Gabun
Orangutan', 142
, Singer, Jon Douglas, 13,63,127,179
SITUations, 40,88,133,192
S(l)aved by the Experts, 145
Some Reflections on Astro-Anthropology, 160
Statistical Analysis of UFO Electromagnetic
Interference Events, A, 2
Sutherly, Curt, 83
Symposium, 43,91, 131, 187
Synchro Channel, The, 94

UFOs Down Under and All Over, 127

ULF Tree Potentials and Geomagnetic Pulsations,
Undapresha, Grace, 96

46, 92, 139

Haas, Joseph S., Jr., 56

How to "Fingerprint" a UFO and "Hear" Its Light,

95

Tomb of Khufu, The: Mysteries ofthe Great Pyramid

(Part I), 148
Town That Wasn't Zapped by UFOs, The, 20
Time Pump, The, or Speculations on the A-Spacial
Energies of Chronicity, 75
Time Travel, 85

142

Fort, Charles, The Notes of,

Fraser-Smith, A. C., 114

Lake Monsters, 56
Let's Test the Communication Hypothesis,
Lorenzoni, Dr. Silvano, 105

112

Was Einstein a Berkeleian?, 175

Water Monsters ofthe Midwestern Lakes, 50
Weekend Effect, The: ULF Electromagnetic Fields,
Powerline Harmonics, and an Interview with
Antony C. Fraser-Smith, 116
What is Our Northern Wetiko?, 156
What is Time?, 67
What to Believe-Or, Paring Down the Paradigm,
Wolf, R. Martin & Mayne, S. N., 26
Your Very Own Energy Line Grid,
Zeiser, William,

21

177

THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

UFOs Are
The Way

Think

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iii ."..

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VOL. 13

No.2

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'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

PURSUIT.
THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED
The Society was established in 1965 as a non-profit corporation by the late Ivan T. Sanderson and his associates
"for the collection. evaluation. and dissemination of information on new discoveries in the natural sciences."

CONTENTS
Page
FORTEANA GALACTICA UPDATE

by Allan Grise " .....................' .............................. 50

UFOS ARE CHAN91NG THE WAY WE THINK by J. N. Williamson ...................................... :51

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS-A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON

by Ragnar Forshufvud .................. 54

THE EGYPTIAN CONNECTION: SOURCES OF PLATO'S ATLANTIS LEGEND

THE RUNES OF THE NORTH
ARNE SAKNUSSEM

by Britton Wilkie ........................................................ 61

by Dr. Silvano Lorenzoni .......................................................... 64

BIGFOOT AS SYMBOL

by Kim L. Neidigh ............................................................ 66

A NEW METHOD FOR CALCULATING SASQUATCH WEIGHT

HYPNO-ART: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
XENOLOGY

by Jon Douglas Singer ....... 57

by Jon Beckjord .......................... 67

bJ Curtis W. Watkins ........................................ 72

by Kim L. Neidigh ....................................................................... 80

HEAVY ETHER

by E. Macer-Story ........... : ....................................................... 81

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE ET AL: A NATURAL PHE~OMENON

BOOK REVIEWS

by LeVonne K. Angelo .................. 84

by George W. Earley ................................................................ 88

SITUATIONS ....................................................................................... 91

SYMPOSIUM (LETTERS TO THE EDITOR) ............................................................. 95

Pursull Vol. 13. No.2. Whole No. 50. Spring issue 1980. 1980 by the Socleiy for the Investigalion of the Unexplained. ISSN 00334685.
No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth. Publisher: Frederick S. Wilson. Production Editor; Sabina W. Sanderson. Martin Wiegler. and R. Martin Wolf. Consulting Editors: Britton Wilkie. Staff Artist.

-----------------------------------------.--______________......t_..
50

Mistake Alters Estimate of Universe's Size, Age

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. q,
1979 (AP)-Three astronomers say
the discovery of a mistake in the way
distances in space are measured means
that the universe is only about half as
old and half as big as they previously
thought.

The scientists who noticed the apparent error say the universe is only
9 billion years old, not 1S to 18 billion
years, the usually accepted figure.
The new work was performed by
one astronomer at Harvard and two
in Arizona. They found a major error

in Hubble's Constant, a yardstick that

scientists use to figure out the distance
between objects in space. The researchers found that the constant, which
is the ratio of speed to distance, should
~ almost twice as large as previously
thought.

FORTEANA GALACTICA UPDATE

I
I

iI

by Allan Grise

ETHINKS Charles Fort's favorite critters were the

astrono1mers. He admired how they pretended to
all about the universe; how they'd
know by calchlations
I
predict the return of a comet, and how the comet would
never show. !ThiS caused astronomers to wrinkle their
br'Jws and relcheck their calculations.
Decades later they still have something to wrinkle
their stellar eyebrows over, only it isn't over a persnickety
comet not shpwing up. This time it's a real beaut: the
age and size of the universe.
It was in die second week in November, 1979, that
the Associate~ Press spread the story that the universe
is only half as~ big and half as old as we thought.
So what? This is a Fortean delight and it is bound to
bring "uphea~al"
to academe. It is guaranteed to throw
I
the astrophys,icists on planet Earth into something between a blue funk and an electric snit. The reason? The
"scientific community" is in a real pickle because they
are stuck Wit~ some stars that are twice as old as the

universe!

Upon hearing this good news, George B. Field, director of the pr~sitigious Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, ;said: "There is going to be a lot of scrambling and trying to make sense of things if the result of
the calculatiorls is correct. . . ."
Under a sky absolutely crawling with stars over 15
billion years young, the director coricludes: "Now we
run into an absurd situation where it appears the universe is younger than the stars."
The three ~stronomers who discovered this festering
piece of astrophysical cheese did nothing more or less
than take thel effect of gravity into account. They discovered, in something amounting to a blinding flash,
that their comtades (not they) failed to take into account
the gravity of:the center of the galaxy in their calculations. a minorl detail, to be sure. But how many "minor
details" halve ~he age and size of the cosmos?
In the flnesti tradition of establishment science, straight
talk was avoided. John P. Huchra of Harvard, Marc
Aaronson of !the University of Arizona, and Jeremy
Mould of the Kitts Peak National Observatory concluded

PURSUIT

1980

that no one ever inserted a correction for the infall rate

of the center of the universe towards itself.
By "infall rate" ~hey mean "gravity." It seems that the
center of the galaxy tugs a tad at our world, coaxing it
ever so feebly to the place where the time-honored but
questionable "big-bang" took place. This is Earth's "infall rate," known to any garden-variety astrophysicist. .
If "infall rates" are common knowledge, then we
have here nothing less than a 4.86-Parsec-long smear
of egg yolk on the faces of all who dabble with the universe on a full-time salaried basis. I know. Re-evaluation is the very soul of science. Yet in the face of that
balm I have a soft spot for screwups of cosmic proportions such as this one.
I had the same kind of thing a few years back when
on page 69 of the Spring 1978 Pursuit (Vol. 11, No.2)
I detailed a bumbling attempt to cover up the behavior
of some pesky quasars that were needling experts by
emitting light at velocities at rates up to eight times that
of light.
In that earlier Forteana Galactica I give the rather
limp details of how the astronomical crisis was handled;
by changing something called the Hubble Constant.
Back in 1977, the Hubble Constant was about 55 kilo~ .
meters per second per megaparsec. They changed it to
110 km/sec/Mparsec to handle the naughty quasar. .
(The Hubble Constant is a gestimation that is supposed
to be a ratio of speed of stars to their distance. With all
the "cute" stuff cut out, it means that the farther a star
is, the faster it's traveling.)
As you're reading this, the Hubble Constant isn't 55or 110 km/sec/Mparsec. According to those who hav~
the temerity to measure the vastness of space, it is hovering around 95 km/sec/Mparsec.
I am grateful that someone is actu'ally busting their
chops this very moment to figure out the size of the
universe. I'm also glad that the guys who do this sort of
thing finally got down to business and 'found the universe
is really only half as big as they said it was yesterday.
Now we have to travel only half as far to see what
begins where our universe ends.

51

UFOS ARE CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK

by J. N. Williamson
The article which follows was written soon after
I became aware of the existence of SITU due to
reading a reference in a John Keel book, but before
I had been accepted as a member of the organization or read a single word of Pursuit.
Now. of course, I am aware that there were
experts to whom it would be possible to go for
evaluation of my theories. At the writing of the
piece, I had no idea who they were or where they
might be. I decided to leave the article the way it is
because it reminds all of us how indebted we should
be to the SITU founding fathers.
I am so impressed with Pursuit and "the wideranging scope of its inquiries that, I realize. everything that I say may not be as fresh as it was to me.
Please be kind to an initiate who pledges to be in
the trenches with you, inquiring and learning, for
many years ahead.

would Shakespeare have done if he stumW HAT

bled on the secret of flight? How would Einstein
have handled the story line of Hamlet?
There are times when even an experienced writer
realizes. with a jolt of inadequacy, that he isn't the person to utilize subject matter which has come into his
hands. How would Scott Fitzgerald have used a theme
of Cole Porter, if it entered his head; of what possible
use to Mr" Porter would have been "The Great Gatsby?"
When this sort of thing happens-as it has happened
to me-there are only a few options. One can try to
locate the suitable authority and convince him of his
findings; one can forget the whole thing; or one can do
his level best to express the findings directly, devoid of
the seductive label "expert."
I've decided on Approach 3 not because I couldn't
convince an expert but because I have no idea what
authority to contact! UFOs are a subject with a vast but
limited interest. Where can I find an authority on both
the mechanics of the human brain and an understanding
of psychology who is also deeply concerned about UFOs?
But the discovery into which I've blundered is much
too important to shelve.
I believe that I know the purpose of Unidentified Flying Objects, and what they're attempting to do.
Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying that
the purpose has a conscious origin, nor that it does not.
I am not implying some kind of intergalactic or extradimensional conspiracy, although one may exist.
I am saying that, for some reason, something has set
about to alter the way that all human beings think, and
that UFOs are one of the primary tools of alteration.
In his book MechanIcs of the MInd (Cambridge University Press, London, 1977), Colin Blakemore fascinatingly describes the work of a man named Gustav
Theodor Fechner (l801-1887) who knew that the brain

was bilaterally symmetrical: It has two sides with "a deep

cleft between the two halve"s." which are united "by an
enormous strap, containing millions of nerve fibres-the
corpus callosum."
Fechner wondered, says Blakemore, what would
occur if the cerebral hemispheres were totally split.
He went so far as to theorize that such a separation
"" would result in two distinct minds.
Years later, such an experiment occurred. Blakemore
"reports the studies of Roger Sperry at the California
Institute of Technology which produced a range of incredible discoveries. Sperry felt that what happened
"in the right hemisphere seems to be entirely outside
the realm of awareness of the left" and concluded that,
to a real extent, two minds are literally the product of
such a surgical split.
Each hemisphere "seems whole in itself," reported
Blakemore, controlling the opposite side of the body;
in fact, "both hands do indeed have minds of their own."
But the more intriguing findings were that "mind-left"
and "mind-right" were definitely "not equal in every
respect." The left hemisphere of the brain. in righthanded people. was far and away dominant. The left
"hemisphere does all the talking. Mind-right understands
nouns and adjectives but has trouble with verbs (action
words).
The matter might have been left there except that
it soon became clear that (l) mind-right was by no means
an imbecile and, moreover, (2) each hemisphere had
its own patrols of duty for the body and. in some respects the subordinate right actually triumphed over the
"dominant" left.
In short, the only apparent reason scientists regarded
the left hemisphere as dominant was that it pertains to
those realms and kinds of thinking that Western manor Western science - considers especially important.
All this, I assure you, must be understood before you
can grasp the intentions of UFOs.
The left side of the brain. using Blakemore's words,
"talks, writes, does mathematics, and thinks in a logical,
serial way; the minor right side recognizes shapes and
faces. appreCiates music, puts on its owner's clothes,
and works in a global. intuitive fashion" [emphasis
added].
By writing. it should be added, I think. this does not
mean creative writing but the manual exercise of picking
up and employing a pencil or pen. Creativity, it turns
out, is the property of the right.
A considerable clamor soon developed throughout
scientific and other circles with hemispheric advocates
rather comically polarized. The Western world. it was
seen-deeply linked with science and technology-was
mlndleft dominated; the Eastern world, ostenSibly
more metaphYSical, religiOUS and artistic, was surely
mind-right oriented.
I do not intend to comment upon the accuracy of
that judgment. But such psychologists as Robert Ornstein
PURSUIT Spring 1980

----------------------------~-------------.------.----------------.---

.i

52

called for a ~estern revolution to liberate the right hemisphere and to place "more emphasis on non-verbal
skills."
Colin Blakemore pointed out that the clear distinction between ~he t.,lwo hemispheres was not all that complete since tI-\ey continue to communicate with one
another, oddl~, ~ven after cleavage. Inferentially, one
cannot perfor~ optimally without the other. Blakemore
explained that the particular attributes of mind-right"spatial perce'ptioh, pictorial recognition and intuitive
thought" -were "!not easily amenable to conventional
I
ed.ucation. .
Here, I must remark that conventional education isn't
necessarily th~ fin:est we shall ever have nor is it even
likely to enduie permanently in its present form.
Blakemore Isuggested that the evolutionary process
which led to t~e dominance of the left hemisphere had
been essential to I"the maturation of the brain" and,
in terms of r\,aterial advancement, he is doubtlessly
correct. He wbs cbutionary on the question of tampering with the d6min'ant hemisphere, implying that attempts
to do so aidedl the 1advancement of mind control which is
insidiously sought by governmental scientists throughout
the 50-called ciVilized world.
Which is prdcisely where my discovery or theory enters
.
I
the picture:
I
UFOs, whet~er divine in origin, manipulated by a secret
government, visitors from another planet, or some kind of
Jungian archetypal expression, are changing the way we
think. By attrdcting, awakening. and liberating the right
hemisphere of lour brains, UFOs are subtly destroying the
dominance of rind-left.
Consider BI,akemore's use of the words "global" and
"intuitive" in Idelineating the province of mind-right.
Isn't seeing YFOs dependent upon spatial perception
that is essentially intuitive? Consider the fact that the
right hemisphJre is involved with the metaphysical, with
mystical and religious interests-that, in fact, it instinctively responds to the supernatural-and recall the countless pseudo-religious messages imparted by the UFO
occupants.

I I

1"

SOVIETS SCOFF AT UFO CLAIMS,

CALL THEM 'JUST RUMORS'
MOSCOW, March I-Here in the capital of the
USSR March came in like neither lion nor lamb
but as a mindless bear might try to ward off an
annoyance of bees-in this case, UFO "rumors."
The Soviet government was continuing its debunking campaign against Russian flying-saucer
enthusiasts, the Associated Press reporting that
the communist party newspaper Pravda used almost
a half page to reiterate that no scientific evidence
has ever confirmed purported sightings of interplanetary visitors or their spacecraft.
Among the UFO "rumors" Pravda sought to debunk was one that the prestigious Soviet Academy
of Sciences publishes "special research volumes"presumably in secret-about UFOs. The paper said
that report was a "fabrication."

PURSUIT Spring 1980

Such a theory as this triggers a host of questions or

wonderments, among them the following:
1. Without the restriction of mind-left, what would
the right hemisphere of the human brain be able to
perceive in the universe?
2. Are the psychics, the poets, the religiously-summoned of this planet living anomalies who have already
been partly freed of left-dominance?
3. Can the amount of freedom evinced by these
people be increased, either through surgery or a psychological procedure developed with the purpose in
mind of drawing primarily on mind-right?
4. Can the rest of us, ordinary mortals who have
brief "flings" with the muse of creativity or moments of
inspiration, achieve greater liberation from the dominance of the left?
5. What would it mean to mankind to have a universally creative society? Would it banish war? Or would it
do away with technological, medical and scientific progress? Would some of us remain left-oriented and others
go right? Would anyone remain practical enough to live
on Earth? Or would we become pure thought-form?
6. Is it possible that achieving liberation from mindleft dominance may enable us to get in touch with the
spirit world, or with that sixty to seventy percent of the
brain which science tells us has never been used by
a living soul?
7 . To what extent have UFOs been successful in releasing us from thousands of years of rulership by a
single portion of our brains?
To answer No.7 almost requires one to be a visitor
from another galaxy in order to have adequate objectivity. But it may be pointed out that our value system
in which work, any work, is seen as enrichment, has
been supplanted; that prior mind-left systems of judgment concerning various minority groups have deteriorated; and that many more changes in social order
that have puzzled everyone for twenty years or more
have certainly occurred without a satisfactory explanation.
Until now.
In Night Life: Explorations in Dreaming (PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977), Professor Rosalind
D. Cartwright at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle,
gives us further data: "The left hemisphere is speCialized
for language, mathematics, and logical, sequential thinking, while the right hemisphere is specialized for nonlanguage functions such as imagery, spatial and musical
behaviors, and more holistic (nonspecifi) thinking.
Since most of us are right-Side-dominant, right-handed,
right-footed, and right-eyed, the left hemisphere dominates during the day, when we must be active in the
world [emphasis added). It has been suggested that the
right hemisphere is more .active during dreaming, when
thought patterns are of the nonsequential, imagistiC
variety."
UFO percipients tend to be addressed telepathically
rather than with verbal language; they confuse times,
distances, size, elements of math; often, reports of their
experiences are rambling, even incoherent. Holistic or
nonspecific thinking is freeform, floating; it can be like

53
a daydream, or the hypnagogic state before sleep. Logic,
ruled by mind-left, has instructed us clearly not to accept
the existence of bizarre shapes and lights in the sky.
But mind-right permits the embryonic acceptance of
realities that exist on a plane different than that encompassed by standard logic. And most UFOs are not seen
during the left-dominated day, but at night, especially
on Wednesday nights (when, astrologically speaking,
Mercury-ruler of the mind, "messenger of the gods"is symbolically in charge).
To get anything done while we're awake, according
to Dr. Cartwright, "may depend on a regular shift in
the dominance of the two brain hemispheres from left
('realistiC' / daytime / waking) to right ('imagistic' / nighttime / dreaming) and back again."
What happens if that shift does not regularly occur,
i/ it is delayed - perhaps on purpose? 1/ it is not a smooth
transition, as when going /rom right to left, what occurs?
The mind, says Cartwright, has two primary ways of
"processing data" involving "the information relevant to
the world around us" and "our personal map of who
we are" (and if the information provided is wrong, in
either case, where lies reality?) The two .methods to.
which she alludes: "the first is perceptual experiencing;'
this begins with imaging, using images for recognizing.
The second is conceptual thinking; this begins, using
verbal symbols, with naming." And if what we experience
cannot be logically perceived, if it fits no reference points
in past experience, how can we conceive or correctly
name it?
"These terms," continued the good doctor, "bear
some relation to the two thought styles . . . called by
others 'holistic' and 'linear.' They also seem to be functionally related to different brain locations, the right and
left hemispheres."
She adds that the perceptual mode is "more characteristic of dreaming, when the need to make sense
to others is low and imagination and emotion can hold
sway. The right hemisphere is more specialized in this
activity."
And what if (as I asked) the "regular shift" in dominance is prevented, retarded or confused? In other
words, what happens when the world of the right impinges, however, briefly, on the so-called "real" world
of the logical left? Is that when one perceives, for the
first time in his life, things he has never been able to see
before-such as UFOs? Or is it just when an idea is
created?

ROCK OF AGES

"The rocky
area with several
bird and heel
. .tracks , and the
hand print (at
right) , was discovered some
40 years ago
during construction of Route
151," writes
SITU member
Barbara Jordison who took
these photos in
January at the site which is about 15 miles south
of Chester. in Jackson County. Illinois. "Weathering and idiots are erasing the natural record,"
she adds. "The state marker is missing. Illinois
'owns' the sedimentary rock and once tried to
move it. Nearby is the MiSSissippi River and an
Indian mound (below) protected by state law against
excavation. "

Leaving aside the question of What Is Reality to someone less easily alarmed than I, let us look now at The
Working Brain as conceived by A. R. Luria (Basic Books,
Inc., New York. 1973). Written by the most distinguished
Soviet psychologist of the century, the product of nearly
forty years of research. it holds a variety of useful and
indicative things to say about the left and right hemispheres:
'''Perception of an object is always associated with its
recognition or, in other words, its inclusion in a system
of familiar associations." A UFO, an alien, does not fit
into such a system. "As I have said, this process of
(Continued on page 76)
PURSUIT Spring 1980

54

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTSA PHYSICAL PHENOMENON

by Ragnar Forsbufvud
In this contributi(?n, it is suggested that UFOs are
phenomena similar to ball lightning. They are not
generated by atmospheric discharge, but by discharges in fractures (faults) in the Earth's crust.

ROBABLY, there exist professional inventors of UFO

stories. The UFO press needs them, as an issue
cannot be cancelled just because no UFOs have been
observed lately.
In other words: many UFO reports are simply false.
In cases when UFOs have actually been observed, it Is
often possible to identify the flying objects as bright
meteors, balloons, etc.
In order to screen out unreliable and trivial causes,
the American astronomer J. A. Hynek! made a speciaUy
selected series of data: "accounts that were made, in
each instance, by at least two persons of demonstrated
competence and sense of responsibility, accounts that
do not yield solutions except by the trivial and selfdefeating artifice of rejection out of hand." Hynek's lists
comprise a total of 80 cases, .of which 42 were close
encounters.
The UFOs described in the reports selected by Hynek
generally have a flattened shape, like a disk or ellipsoid.
This shape is what once inspired the term ''flying saucer."
Because of the controversial nature of the subject, ''flying saucer" soon became a term infected with feelings,
and the term UFO was chosen by many as being more
neutral. But today, the term UFO has already lost its
neutrality. To some people it sounds mysterious and
exciting, to others it just sounds ridiculous. Nevertheless,
"UFO" will be the term used in this paper.
The theory presented here implies that UFOs are
natural phenomena, not artifacts. This means that the
theory cannot explain so-called "close encounters of the
third kind" cases in which some kind of crew has been
observed. For these cases, special explanations must be
sought, such as misperception in a state of excitement,
or deliberate imposture for publicity or money.
It is interesting to compare UFOs with another strange
phenomenon, that of bal/lightning. The typical lightning
ball and the typical UFO have certain features in common in that they both fly, and they both give off light.
Obviously, there are also differences. While a typical
lightning ball has a diameter of about 0:2 m, the diameter of a UFO, as estimated by observers, is generally
somewhere between 10 and 100 m. The typical UFO
has a flattened shape, while lightning balls are generally
spherical.
A typical ball lightning observation lasts for 3 to 30
seconds, whereas UFOs are usually being observed for
several minutes, and in some cases for more than an
hour. Lightning balls definitely have a limited life. They
die out suddenly, sometimes with a loud bang. OccaPURSUIT Spring 1980

sionally UFOs have been seen vanishing in a similar

way, but generally, the observation ends as the UFO
"accelerates upwards and out of sight." This has been
interpreted as a confirmation of the supposed extraterrestrial origin of UFOs-the visitors from outer space
are supposed to return home. The real explanation,
however, may be quite different. The visual diameter of
a UFO may decrease rapidly at the end of its life, giving
the impression that the UFO is leaving at a high velocity. Almost always, the objects observed are beyond
the range of stereoscopic vision, which makes it difficult
to determine their real position.
Therefore, it seems likely that UFOs, just like lightning balls, have a limited supply of energy, and a limited
life. It is suggested that the difference between the two
kinds of phenomena is baSically one of scale: the UFO
being much larger than the lightning ball, and having a
much longer life.

THE NATURE OF BAll LIGHTNING

Ball lightning, the phenomenon that manifests itself
as "glOWing, floating, stable balls of light several tens of
centimeters in diameter occurring at times of intense
electrical activity in the atmosphere,"2 has not yet had
a satisfactory explanation. The light emitted seems to be
that of ionized gas, but if the energy of a lightning ball
were just heat and ionization energy, recombination
would put an end to the emission of light in a fraction of
a second. The fact that the phenomenon usually lasts.
for several seconds strongly suggests that a major part
of its energy is in magnetic form. In other words, there
are probably one or more ring currents flowing within
the ball, giving rise to a magnetic field. An electric field
is required for maintaining the ring current and the ionization. Magnetic and electric fields will be present if
some kind of electro-magnetic oscillation takes place
inside the ball. The hissing sound often heard in connection with ball lightning does indicate some kind of
oscillation, although a frequency in the audible range
is surprisingly low. Frequencies observed in connection
with UFOs are still lower . Sometimes a humming sound
is reported, indicating an oscillation in the lower audible
range; and sometimes the color of emitted light is seen
changing at a frequency of the order of 1 Hz.
Theoretically, the total energy of a lightning ball could
be calculated if the radiated power and duration of life
were known. A ball park value for the ra~iated power
could be derived from an estimate of the luminous intenSity, assuming a reasonable value for the ball's efficiency as a light source. Assuming that the ball has the
luminous intensity and efficiency of a 100 wt incandescent lamp, and that its duration of life is 10 seconds,
the total energy of the ball is 1 000 J. If the radius of
1 Hz (1 herz) = 1 cycle per second.
1 watt equals 1 joule per second.
_. J ijoule). a measure of energy.

55
the ball is 0.1 m, the power radiated per unit of area
(radiant emittance) is 800 w/m2. 'tt

ounlNE OF A UFO MODEL

How large is a typical UFO? Hynek 3 notes that UFOs
at close encounter are characterized by relatively small
size (of the order of tens rather than hundreds of feet).
It should be noted that it is often quite impossible to determine the distance to a remote object, if it is seen with
the sky as background, and if you neither know its size,
nor Its velocity. It is easier to estimate the distance if the
object is close, especially if it spends part of the time on
the ground, which often happens at close encounters.
One may speculate that the large sizes that have
often been reported are the result of inaccurate estimates
of the distance. If this were true, speeds would also
have been overestimates, but there is evidence against
this. Some UFOs have been observed both Visually and
by radar, and extremely high velocities have in fact
been measured on radar screens. Probably, UFOs can
have sizes varying within a wide range. Nevertheless, it
would be valuable to have ball park estimates of the size,
mass, and energy of a typical UFO. Starting with size,
the following tentative model is proposed.
Shape: ellipsoid (circular symmetry around small
axis)
Dimensions: large axis 30 m, small axis 8 m.
Volume: 3800 m3
Surface area: 1600 m2
Using the same figure for radiant emittance as was estimated for ball lightning, 800 W m2 , the total radiation
from the UFO model is 1.3 megawatts. Assuming a life of
1000 s, the total energy of the model is 1.3x109 J.
It would seem easy to calculate the mass of a UFO
from its average density and its volume, but here we
run into difficulties. A reasonable density is that of air at
atmospheric pressure. This would give our. model a mass
of hearly 5000 kg. Such a mass requires considerable
forces for acceleration. The high accelerations reported
by observers are among the most baffling features of
UFOs.
In one radar-visual case, the object observed was
reported to have traveled at approximately 1000 miles
an hour, making a complete turn in the space of five
miles. 4 If we assume that the trajectory of the turn was
a semicircle with a radius of 2.5 miles (fig. I), the radial
acceleration was 50 m/s 2, . which wC;>uld require
a force on our model of 2.5x105 N. ttt Magnetic forces
of this magnitude acting over large distances seem an
absurd idea. Anything similar to propulsion by a gas jet
also seems to be out of the question. UFOs are generally
sUent, apart from a humming sound sometimes reported.
The inevitable conclusion is that the mass of the UFO
must be much smaller than we first assumed. But if the
density of UFOs is much lower than that of air, what
keeps them from rising like hot-air balloons? There is
tt w/m' means "watts per square meter."' .
An acceleration of 50 m s'. "50 meters per second per second"
means that during each period of 1 second. velocity will increase
by 50 meters per second.
ttt N (newton). a measure of force. 1 N = .2251bf (Poundforces).

1000 mileslh

R 2.5 miles = 4020 m

= 447 m/s

Fig. 1 Trajectory of UFO, radar-visual case RV-2

(Hynek). Estimated by the present author from data
in air traffic controller's account.

also another problem: the air resistance to be overcome

at high velocities must be enormous, regardless of the
mass of the UFO.
There is only one way out of these problems. We
must draw the conclusion that UFOs are nothing but
cells of oscillating electromagnetic energy. They ionize
the air, as they pass through it, but they do not bring
the air with them. The air is only a medium, just as it is
a medium for acoustic waves, which pass through it
without any transport effect. There is a second reason
for drawing this conclusion. If ionized air had been transported at the high velocities observed, sonic booms
would necessarily have been produced and reported.
Finally, coming back to our assumption that UFOs
and ball lightning are essentially the same phenomenon,
the hypothesis that the air works solely as a medium
seems to be the only one compatible with a most remarkable feature of lightning balls: that of penetrating
closed windows. 5

THE ENERGY SOURCE

As long as the ball-lightning phenomenon is not fully
explained,6 a hypothesis saying that UFOs and ball
lightning are closely related phenomena is not the final
answer to the UFO problem. We have to accept this;
still, the credibility of the theory requires, as a minimum, that it does not violate the fundamentals of physics,
such as the law of conservation of energy. In other
words: we have to find a plausible energy source that
is able to supply energy for a world production of at
least some tens of UFOs per year.
During thunderstorms, large amounts of electromagnetic energy are released, and their connection with ball
lightning is generally recognized. UFOs seem to have
no connections with thunderstorms, however. The electrical discharges that generate UFOs probably take place
underground, in the fractures of the Earth's crust.
During geomagnetic storms, which are particularly
frequent in years with high sunspot numbers, strong
PURSUIT Spring 1980

56
... eiectric currents - the so-called earth currentS - flow
through the ground. hi the days when low-frequency
telegraphy was used for communication. connections
Were ofte~ disturbed by earth currents. especially during
sunspot maxima.
Today. earth currents are used for earthquake predictions. Before an earthquake. changes in earth currents often take place. and the magnetic field may also
be affected. A probable explanation of these phenomena
is that deep fractures open in the path of the current.
acting as electric circuit breakers. forcing the current to
change direction.
.
In the fractures. flashover is likely to take place.
According to Gold. 7 highly compressed methane' is
present in the crust. FractUring of rock before and during earthquakes allows the gas that has been stored under
pressure as high as 300 atmospheres to escape through
fissures in the ground .. Visible evidence for this is. according to Gold. sheets of flame. torch-like flares and
violent explosions that accompany earthquakes.
If highly compressed gas fills a fracture. the voltage
across it may rise to comparatively high levels bef9re
a discharge takes place. ~According to Paschen's law.
breakdown voltage is proportional to gas pressure.)
The most likely location for the breakdown is at the
uppermost part of the fractul:'e. where, pressure is lower.
The energy brought to the geomagnetic system by
energetic particles from the sun during a moderate geo. magnetic storm is of the order of 10 16 . J . Most of. this
energy is dissipated in the ionosphere and by ohmic
losses in the ground. Underground electrical discharges
certainly consume only a small part of the total energy.
but as the energy of the UFO model is only 1.3x10' J.
it can still be concluded that the energy source suggested - i.e . earth currents produced by geomagnetic
activity - contains adequate amounts of energy.

TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS

There are several ways of testing the hypothesis of
earth carrents as the source of energy for UFOs: The
following questions are of interest: .
1) Are UFOs often seen along fault lines?
2) Are UFOs often seen in connection with earthquakes?
3) Is there a correlation between geomagnetic
and UFO observations?
It is the opinion of the author that the answer to
questions 1 and 2 is "yes." although statistically significant
evidence is hard to produce. Many UFOs have been
observed along the borders of the continental sheets.
. e.g . in Japan and on the western coasts of North and
South America. Many "globes of light" and "fiery disks"
have been observed before. during and after earthquakes through the years. As for question 3. a simple
test can be made. Geomagnetic activity maxima and
sunspot maxima nearly coincide. In fig. 2. the.80 ~ases
on Hynek's list are arranged with respect to year of
observation. The sunspot maxima around the years
1957 and 1968 show up clearly. Although this does not
prove the validity of the theory. it does at least not
contradict it.
PURSUIT Spring 1980

20

en
z

0
i=

>

II:
W

en

III

LL

10

II:
W
III

:E

:J

50
55
60
65
70
Fig. 2 UFO observation maxima .nearly coincide
with sunspot maxima of 1957 and 1968. rhe diagram
Is based upon Hynek's screened data (ref. 1)

YEAR

1~

REFERENCES
J. A. Hynek:

The UFO Experience. Abelard-Schuman,

1972.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Vol. 14, p. 510
("Plasma State")
3. J. A. Hynek, op. cit, Ch. 8, end .
4. J. A. Hynek, op. Cit., Ch. 7, case RV-2.
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Vol. 10, p. 969 ("Lightning").
6. S. Singer: "The Unsolved Problem of BaU lightning"
Nature, Vol. 198, No. 4882 (May 25, 1963), p. 745.
7. Gold, Th., at meeting of the America~ Geophysical Union.
Spring 1978. See Lewis, R S.: "Is the Earth a giant methane
store?" New SCientist, Vol. 78, .No. 1101, p. 277 (4 May
1978).
8. McGraw-Hili Encyclopedia of Science and :rechnology,
Vol. 8, p.. 75 (Magnetosp'h~I'e/Geomilgnetic storm). Fourth
Edition (1977).
..~

- .. - . _ - - - - - - - - - - - ,
DR. J. B. RHINE, ESP PIONEER
OF THE '30., DEAD AT 84
Retired Duke Universitv professor J. B. Rhine.
who scored a notable advance in the field of mental
science 46 years ago, died February 20 at Durham. N.C. He was 84.
Dr. Rhines famous 1934 monograph. "Extrasensory Perception .. told of experiments he had
conducted at Duke in which one person was able
to describe unfamiliar symbols on flip-chart cards
turned at random by another person .Iocated out
of sight' and hearing in another university building
100 yards away.
Dr. Rhine retired from' Duke in 1965 and went
. on to establish a private research organization he
.named the Foundation for Research on the Nature
of Man.

57

THE EGYPTIAN CONNECTION:

SOURCES OF PLATO'S ATLANTIS LEGEND
by Jon Douglas Singer

1979 by Jon Douglas Singer

years ago I was preparing research for a fanSOME

tasy novel about Atlantis. I had read that Plato

ten kingdoms, according to Donnelly's translation (p. 11).

derived his myth of Atlantis from his student Critias,

who in turn obtained the story from an unpublished
manuscript written' by his ancestor Solon, the great
Law-giver and founder of the Athenian constitution. I
Critias reported that the legend was brought to Greece
after Solon visited Northern Egypt, particularly the city
of Sais in the Nile Delta. This was sometime between
593 and 583 B.C.2 I reasoned that if one were to seek
new clues to the fabled sunken city, one should first
look for proof of Atlantis in Egypt-on dry land! If one
could locate the ruins of Sais and the other cities visi~ed
by Solon. one could search for the original Egyptian
papyri or for wall accounts that told the story. Certainly
it would be easier to mount an orthodox archaeological
expedifion to the well-trodden grounds of Egypt than it
would be to send a ship sailing hither and yon about the
vast stormy Atlantic.
I therefore began to look closely at Egyptian myths
such as the Book of the Dead 3 for clues to Atlantis. The
Egyptians believed that the dead went to Amenti, "the
Western Land," accordillg to E. A. Wallace Budge in
The Gods of the Egyptians. 4 Budge said that Amenti,
which he spells Amentet, was a land called "the hidden
place." It was the land of a god named An-her of Abydos,
but An-her was replaced later by Osiris. This was as early
as the time of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Budge
added that the idea was that the life of a man was like
that of the day, so that the setting of the sun was like
the dying of a man whose soul goes down into death's
night. This was not, therefore, a geographical concept.
Later authors said that Amenti may have been a real
place, and pOinted out that it influenced Greek myths.
One good example is Elysion or Elysium, "the Field of
the Blessed," in the far western ocean. According to
Martin P. Nilsson,5 Elysium is a pre-Greek concept derived ultimately from the seafaring Cretans, possibly
with Egyptian influence.
Elysium in turn is related to the Egyptian land of the
dead which was a part of Amenti or Amentet, namely,
a country called Sekhet Aaru, "the Field of Reeds,"
to use Budge's translation,6 which was also sometimes
spelled Aalu, as is noted by Lewis Spence in his Atlantis
Discovered. 7
Writers such as IgnatiUS Donnelly8 and Lewis Spence
equated Amenti and Sekhet Aaru with Atlantis. Why?
It was an island in the west, but the description in Egyptian texts is similar to that of Plato's description of Atlantis! Here is the Egyptian account of the Land of the
Dead, from Budge's book, The Egyptian Heaven and
Hell: 9 "In various traditions from ancient Egypt Sekhet
Aaru is said to have had seven, ten, or twenty-one
sections." This may be a coincidence, but Atlantis had

A more detailed description came to my attention in

an article by one W. J. Perry in Folk-Lore. 10 Perry said
that a name of the Egyptian heaven was Tuat. It was
a long narrow valley with a river. Perry reported that
at first Tuat was located north of Egypt but he later confirmed that another concept of Tuat was that it was
simply an idealized celestial version of the Nile Valley,
a sort of mirror image.
.
Perry did not make specific references to Atlantis but
his description of Sekhet Hetep, "the Field of Peace,"

Conjectural map of Atlantis In Tertiary period. Reproduced by permission from Atlantis Dlscouered by Lewis
Spence. 1974 by Causeway Books.
PURSUIT Spring 1980

58
is remarkably similar to Plato's account of the city of
Atlantis and its surroundings. Sekhet Hetep is another
name of, or part of, Sekhet Aaru. The Field of Peace
had a rectangular shape and was intersected by canals.
The latter were fed by an encircling stream.

Sekhet-Hetep papyrus of Ani. Stairs at bottom call to

mind the Russian report of submerged staircase found
on sunken island at Ampere Seamount, 200-300 miles
southwest of Lisbon. Compare bays in rectangular "island" .
at bottom with those in rectangular lie d'Antillia shown
on Andreas Bianca map
facing page. (Photo copyrighted by British Museum. Reproduced by permission.)

0"

Perry added that the dead pharaohs. go to a mysterious place in the midst of the Field of Offerings. Here
are subsidiary regions, one for the birthplace of the god,
of the region and another for the great company of
gods. In Plato's story, as summarized by Donnelly,l1 one
reads of the great island and city. In the center are circular canals and in their midst is the sacred inner city
and h.m of temples, especially the temple of Poseidon
and Cleito, his queen.
We should also note that Atlantis' capital was on .a
rectangular plain intersected by one huge canal with
branch canals. Atlantis had ten cities ruled by the descendants of Poseidon's sons. I mentioned the ten divisions of Sekhet Aaru above, and now I should add that
Budge in The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 1,12 wrote
there was an ancient text called Book of that which is in
the Underworld which described the regions of the night
(there were twelve, one for each hour). These regions
included cities which were mythical, in the remote West,
and which could be reached by boat.
Now we come to the clue which, to me, was the
most astonishing in a chain of coincidences. In the New
York University Bobst library I located a book entitled
The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian .Temple. by E.A.E.
Reymond.13 This work eluCidates several ancient mythical texts inscribed on the walls of the temples of Edf.u,
a city in upper Egypt.
The names of the texts include The Building Texts.
the Sacred Book of the Early Primeval Age of Gods.
Specification of the Sacred Mounds. The Coming of
PURSUIT Spring 1980

Re to his Mansion of Ms-nht. among others. It is

Rey~

man d's theory that these myths baSically serve a dual

purpose. One is to provide an account of the birth of
the gods and the creation of the world. The second purpose of the myths is to justify how the Egyptian temple
came into being and how it was organized in some dim
primeval age'. 14
According to Reymond. there is a text dealing with
a deity bearing the awesome name of the Sanctified
God who came into being at the First Occasion. The
text describes the creation as taking place upon a mythical island with the odd name of "Island of Trampling,"
or iw titi in ancient Egyptian'. There are two subSidiarY
islands near it called the "Island 'of Combat," iw'he in
ancient Egyptian. and'''the Island of Peace (iw htp). IS'
Interestingly enough, there is a little-known Greek
myth which is almost identical to that particular Egyptian
myth. The writer Theompompus of Chios (c. 320 B.C.)
wrote an essay about the Meropidea, which is quoted in
the Roman historian Aelian's Varia Historia of c: 200
A.D. Here we find references to a continent in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean which has two large towns, Ma~h
imos (Greek for "warlike") and Eusebius ("the Peaceful"
in Greek)!
Other Edfu creation myths tell of the creation of the
Great Primeval Mound (h'y wr), a pay land, sacred
domain of the gods. Reymond writes that pay land was
one of certain ihw lands which were under water. II The
new domain was called the Blessed Island; perhaps
coincidental is the fact that the Greeks also believed in
the Islands.of the Blessed in the far western ocean!
Other pay lands were created, and Reymond listed
eight of these. J7 These were the Island of Fury, the
Mansion of Shooting, Har-maa, Nebwet. Mansion of
Mystery, House of Combat. Tanen-hotep, and Seat of
the Two Gods. One is reminded of the ten lands into
which the island of Atlantis was divided by Poseidon for
his ten sons. Two other pay lands are mentioned. 18
Djeba and Wetjeset-neter, so that we have ten, as we
have the ten realms of Atlantis.
Yet another coincidence is that just as the story of the
building of the city of Atlantis mentioned the digging of
channels and canals, so the Egyptian myths of Edfu
mention the digging of canals in the primordial island.
Note, also, that Reymond wrote that a shbt-enclosure,
with a channel containing a magical water was created
as a defense against an enemy snake-demon. 19 Atlantis
in Plato's account had rings of channels around its inner
city.
Other pay lands are described, and as they are "ten in
number they match the ten kingdoms of Atlantis even
more nicely than the sacred domains described above. 20
The ten pay lands are the Mound of the Radiant one,
the Island of Re, the dd-Pillar of the Earth, the High
Hill, the Oil-free, He-who-is-Rich-in-Kas, Mesen, Hewho-makes-prosperous-places, Behdet, and Place of
the Ghosts.
.
There is yet another coincidence that emerges when
we compare Reymond's Edfu temple' texts to Plato's
Atlantis story. Plato said that Atlantis sank after Zeus
and the other gods grew disgusted with the ,~tlanteans'

59
decline into immorality and blasphemy. Furthermore,
the Atlanteans' pride convinced their rulers that they
could conquer the whole earth. Thus there occurred
a great war with the result that the valiant Athenians
alone withstood the Atlanteans and ultimately defeated
them. The Atlanteans were driven back to their country
and the Athenians settled down in Atlantis to garrison it.
At that moment, the gods vented their wrath on the
continent and it sank in a day and a night of horror. 21
The Edfu texts tell almost a similar story. A primeval
Lord of All ruled from a sacred seat on a reed pillar.
Then the Island of the Egg, the Island of Combat and
the Island of Peace were invaded by an enemy and
fought back. The result of the fight was that the primordia! domains were destroyed and a mysterious object
called the Sound Eye fell to earth. Reymond says that
this then caused the whole region to sink under water,
which became the tomb of the original godlike inhabitants. Only reeds were then visible on the water's surface. 22

sail across the sea as they had done previously. Indeed,

modem scholars such as. Lewis Spence have linked
Plato's.descriptionof the Sea of Weeds to the Sargasso
Sea;2S and this account of the reeds alone being visible
after the submergence of the Island of the Egg is yet
another possible link in a chain of amazing coincidences.
Of course, Reymond wrote that the reeds were the
dwelling place of the soul of a dead deity, but then she
added that they grew on the edge of the sacred island,
and that there is a word in one of the inSCriptions, iht,
which means relic, a link to the fact that the reeds alone
were left after the submergence. 26
Thus, it appears to me that Edfu texts are striking
parallels to Plato's Atlantis story and they may even
have been the exact source from which Solon had translated the original tale that he passed down to his heirs
and thence to Critias. After a detailed study of Reymond's book I failed to find any direct references to
Plato or Atlantis. Perhaps I am the first to make a direct
link between the two epics. Plato himself wrote that the
tale had been translated by Solon
from Egyptian, and that the Egyptians had translated the tales from
the lost Atlantean languages.
Crantor, Plato's first commentator,
reported that the tale of Atlantis in
the Egyptian writing was shown to
Greek tourists of his time by Egyptian priests, and that the legend
was written on the walls of the
Egyptian te~ples, as in the Edfu
series of myths!27
But there are still other Egyptian
myths similar to Plato's epic, and
they, too, are startlingly like his
work.
The first myth is the myth of the
Destruction of Mankind by Ra. In
this myth, Ra was the king of Heliopolis, the sacred city of Egypt.
After a long reign but whil~ he was
still young, Ra heard many men
blaspheming against him and not
following his commands. He then
called together a council of the
gods and had Hathor destroy the
Andreas Bianca map showing Islands of Antillia and Brazil. Reproduced by perblasphemers. Ra soon felt remorse,
mission &om Atlantis DIscovered by LewIs Spence. 1974 by Causeway Books.
however, and resolved to stop
Hatlior by preparing a magical potion of a mix~ure of
Thus, there are again haunting parallels with the Greek
sacred water and human blood. The potion was so
epic. Reymond admitted that she didn't know what the
plentiful that it filled.seven thousand jars.
Sound Eye was, except that it wasn't astral nor was it
the solar disk. Mightn't it have been a meteorite or an
The water was poured out at night and it covered all
the surrounding fields. The .next day Hathor came and
asteroid? Modem Atlantis researchers such as Otto Muck"
and Egerton Sykes24 have suggested such a theory, and
was intoxicated by the drink, so that the deity promptly
this Sound Eye could support their ideas of a giar:tt ineforgot the task of slaying humanity and left. After another
night and day, men sttll faithful to Ra made an alliance
teorite being the cause of Atlantis' destruction.
with him and f9ught against the blasphemers, slaying
Again. the reference to the reeds alone being visible
them all in what might be considered an early crusade.
after the sinking of the Island of the Egg reminds one of
Plato's description of the Atlantic Ocean follOWing the
The myth of Ra's Destruction of Mankind, then, has
Atlantean holocaust. It was muddy, shallow, and filled
Interesting parallels to the Atlantis story. Edouard Naville,
with reeds which trapped ships so that people .couldn't
an early Frenctt Egyptologist, said that It dates from the
PURSUIT Spring 1980

.. ,

60
Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties,28 so that it predates Plato's time by hundreds of years. Specifically,
Naville said that in this myth, Ra is described with blue
hair (blue equalled black in Egyptian art, according to
Naville), silver bones, and golden flesh. The walls of
Atlantis' city were of white, black, and red stones, a
possible coincidence. Also, there are the parallels of the
flooded fields that were deluged in one night, and the
Council of the Gods, with the great cataclysmic war.
A second myth, also taken from Naville,29 is from
The Book of the Dead, a tale derived from the city of
Heraclopolis.
Once again, we have an angry god, in this case Toum,
announcing that he will destroy the world which ~e had
made because of the evil of men. Toum said that the
world will be flooded and covered with .water, as it had
been at the beginning. Only Toum and Osiris will survive and Toum will become an invisible serp~nt while
Osiris will become king of the underworld. Osiris' son
Horus will then inherit the throne of the island of flames
which his father had ruled.
Here are parallels with the Edfu myths. There, we
find the Island of the Two Flames,3D the deluge that
overwhelmed the Island of the' Egg, and gods ruling
sacred domains as if they were kings.
There is a third myth that resembles Plato's Atlantis
story, in Pear's Encyclopaedia of Myths and Legends. 31
In the primordial age, the god Shu built the palace of
Het Nebes in the east between, the four pillars of heaven.
Admittedly, this palace was in the east whereas Atlantis
was in the west. However, the rest of the tale corresponds almost exactly to Plato's epic.
For example, Shu organized irrigation and built temples.
Next, the sons of Apep (a demonic serpent) invaded
from the desert but the gods defeated them. Later in his
reign, Shu grew weak and blind and was overthrown by
his son Geb. There followed a storm and darkness for
nine days but when the holocaust was over, Geb rebuilt the destroyed temples and cities.
There is a last problem and set of coincidences. First,
what was the Egyptian name of Atlantis? Plato said that
it should not be odd if one sees in his work Greek names
and words, which describe people and places of 9,000
years ago. This is because Solon had translated the
words from Egyptian, and the Egyptians had translated
the names from ancient Atlantean.
Lewis Spence wrote that the name Atlantis means
"Daughter of Atlas," or simply, "of Atlas." He also traced'
the name Atlas back to tal, a Sanskrit word meaning
pillar. Can we learn from this the Egyptian name of
Atlantis, and thereby identify the precise Egyptian legend
from which the Greeks derived the epic of the lost civilization?
The Edfu texts mention several supposedly mythical
islands, some of which I named before. The one which
is said to have submerged ~fter a cosmic disaster of
some sort, the downfall of the enigmatic Sound Eye, is
the Island of the Egg, iw swht in Ancient Egyptian. 32
Another coincidence is that in the Egyptian Book of
the Dead there is an obscure reference to an apparently
mythical locality called An-tes. 33 This sounds almost
exactly like Atlantis! lri the books on Atlantis by such
PURSUIT Spring 1980

writers as Donnelly, Spence, DeCamp, or Sykes, I found

no reference to An~tes, so I believe that I am the first
to link it to the Atlantis epic. An-tes means, Budge wrote,
an unknown region where a tower of light was adored
and the god An was worshipped. 34
I think that I can point out a startling coincidence relating to the "mythical" An-tes. In his book, The Stones
of Atlantis, Dr. David Zink refers to archaeological expeditions led by himself and others to an enigmatic
series of stone platforms which is either a vast 1900 foot
long foundation of a submerged. building (located in
about 15 feet of water off Bimini, Bahamas) or a natural
rock formation that just happens to resemble Inca or
pre-Inca style pavements. The controversy is over whether the stone blocks are either 12,000-year-old building
blocks or else natural r.ock that simply cracked.
I refer the interested reader to Dr. Zink's book for
details of the site, and of the artifacts his and other expeditions found there (artifacts such as a stone block
with an obviously man-made groove cut around its
edge). The main point is that in Chapter 15, Dr. Zink
refers to old photographs of a curious stone structure
near the stone platform site. The old photographs are
reprod\ .ced in the book but they had been taken in
1957 by a Dr. William Bell of North Carolina. He had
been swimming off South Bimini with friends in forty
feet of water. Bell's people came upon a column four
inches in diameter at its top and eight to ten inches at
bottom.
Bell scraped off chunks of marine growth and found
a gray substance. Then he dug under the bottom mud
and found that a gear-like protrusion surrounded the
column's base. It was two feet in diameter. He dug
three feet deeper and found a second cog-like structure.
Twenty granite slabs were found in the mud nearby,
and nearby them were many more. Their measurements were estimated at twelve to eighteen inches by
two to three feet by eight to fifteen feet. Bell then photographed the odd grouping of stones. To his amazement, he found that the photographs showed weird
glows of light surrounding the mysterious column!
Dr. Zink met Dr. Bell and had copies of the photographs analyzed by scientists specializing in radiation
physics at Brookhaven National Laboratories and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency of the l).S.
government. They came up with the suggestion that
ionized ultraviolet radiation had raised the energy of the
water so that the light had become photographically
visible without special filters. Bell added, that for several
months after finding the column, he had suffered from
still-unexplained nosebleeds. 3~
Therefore, we have another in a series of fascinating
, clues. An-tes means an unknown locality where a Tower
of Light was adored. In an archipelago associated with
the Atlantis. divers find and photograph an enigmatic
glOWing column. I should add that 12,000 years ago
the island of Bimini was part of a vast dry land larger
than Florida. That land was submerged when the last
glacier melted and increased the sea level. 36 Unfortunately, when later expeditions tried to find the column,
currents had buried it under the mud and it is now lost.
(Continued on page 78)

61

THE RUNES OF THE NORTH

by Britton Wilkie
Ancient Hebrew, and PhoenicianM OABlTE,
alphabets of Biblical Palestine-are practically the
same. One imagines Moses striking the rock in the desert
(19th century travelers in the Sinai reported oases replete with obscure symbols carved into boulders) and
the surprise of the multitude at the waters gushing forthwaters of language, perhaps conveyed in vessels somewhat after the manner of the hieratic or demotic familiar from the Egyptian captivity. This Fountain of language soon overflowed the Mediterranean, bearing
Phoenician ships with bright sails and gifts for the Greeks
and Italians. The antique Greek derived from the Phoenician-and to this day retains the quick, straight strokes.

The Etruscan is also essentially Phoenician -a few of

the letters having reversed themselves or turned sideways (presumably having been misarranged by the sailors
while stored below deck during their long sea voyage
to Italy). The alphabet, given to ~he Italians in commerce, developed a number of variants. The latin,
chief among these, is a mirror image of the Etruscan.
The latin grew in the direction of the harmony of the
square and the circle (developed through right angles
along parallel lines), while the Etruscan receded into
sinister obscurity.
The staff of Moses became a serpent before Pharaohso the mosaic of Mideastern symbols was also transPURSUIT Spring 1980

62
formed on its way northward to the Baltic shores, there
to appear as rude stick-characters graven upon the
twisted and intertwined serpent shapes of Viking tombstones. It is generally held that the Runes of the north
developed-around the beginning of the Christian' erafrom the North Italic.
The carved stelae of the Etruscans resemble the runestones in the angularity of the letters-the order of the
letters and their shapes, in comparison, suggest worlds
of difference, however.
The runes have many regional variations. In Germany
and England they are usually broad - often resting on
serifs like constructions of sticks ("staves" they are called,

.. 9fV11oEB ~ '1 J;:( { I-=1

'-

meaning sticks), being the forms of farmers and woodsmen - while in Scandinavia they tend to be elongated
(tall and thin, resembling cracks in planes of crystal).
The Kingigtorssuaq stone from the remote shore of
northwest Greenland displays elongated staves, their
smaller strokes barbed like harpoons or fish-hooksthe forms of seafaring men.
I have spent many afternoons in New York City's
Carnegie Library browsing over George Stephens' The
Old-Northern Runic Monuments 0/ ScandinalJia and
England (London, 1866, in four enormous volumes
with marvelous engravings). George Stephens, to me
the perfect image of a Victorian sage with a long white

q <f'18
A A B ( [) f
.--

8/ K L. fW r-J 1- 079q~-rV

.. .-----

~lIlp~~
P' ~Ip .~ ~
,y

.!I

f :-, I>

r .~ ?

'---;:-

,j ..u.tiv

f.;"

"'.Y
s. -,---'
a..
_.
.=h X P> Nt! I 3 '1,t
+--~-.

~ ~ X ~ H ~I i

i.,

7i..

PURSUIT Spring 1980

'"

n-

j,

. 1'"- ,...'--_.-

e te. L...pr 7s t

.t

63
beard, wrote that the ancient staves were brought in
from the east-by the Iron Age invaders of Scandinavia,
supplanters of the culture of the Bronze Age-and sought
to find the rune-roots in India. Looking up from the
crumbling Victorian volume to the vacant plaster patches
on the very high and elaborately decorated ceiling,
I could have remembered Kashmir-how Alpine and
Scandinavian motifs abounded in the carved ornament
on the eaves and timbers of the houses. I could have
also remembered the Rhineland and the way north to
Denmark. In Germany (1977) there were few runic artifacts from antiquity-they are very scarce there and
more common to the north. Near Luneburg, close to
the site of some old Hun graves in a magical cypress
wood, I found a few carved stones after the style of the
ancients. Among the Germans, and have been used
on tombstones for "born" and "died.'" In the German
museums were examples of single runes used as talismans-as they have a symbolic as well as phonetic
value. At the time runes are thought to have been introduced to the north, the Roman Legions occupied the
Rhine and the Danube-so that much of Germany was
under the spell of the Latin. While driving north to Denmark, in search of ancient spirits and pathways, there
was a feeling as of folly chaSing the moon. The academic
fixations around barrows, dolmens, rune-stones, potshards and so forth became suddenly trivial and vacant,
leaving neither rhyme nor reason-empty miles along
the roadway as though driving all the way from Luxemburg to Copenhagen to find a ghost's toothpick.
Dr. O. G. Landsverk described an Old Norse alphabet of 24 characters, not in use after 850 A.D., except
for cryptographic purposes, and a Swedish-Norwegian
alphabet of 16 characters as changing during the period
of its use-10th to 12th centuries.
E. H. Minns, in "The Alphabet And How We Got It",
"an article in the 1930's Encyclopaedia of Modem Knowledge, describes "Kok-Turki": ..... deciphered in the
nineties by W. Thomsen, practiced in the 8th and 9th
centuries A.D. in Mongolia and Siberia, and recently
shown to have been brought to Hungary and preserved
more or less until the 18th century ... " He finds this
alphabet to have come from the AramaiC, from ancient
Palestine," by way of the Pahlavi script of Persia. The
Kok-Turki" resembles the Norse very closely, but none
of the phonetic values correspond-with one exception,

when comparison is made with Dr. Landsverk's SwedishNorwegian.

One might be inclined, remembering George Stephens,
to imagine that the Runes, brought into Europe from
the east, by a northward route in the waves of migrations that resulted ultimately in the collapse of Rome,
were rearranged, with respect to their phonetic values,
after the Italic example. In "Reflections of Chinese Form
in Mexican and Norse Ornament" (Pursuit, Vol. 10,
No.3, Summer 1977), I compared the art of the Vikings
with the art of Han Dynasty China, pointing out common motifs and suggesting Chinese influence in Europe
through trade over the Asian caravan routes. The Romans
are said to" have traded extensively with the Han. The
Runes, associated as they are with divination, may owe
something to the oracle-bones of the Chinese-the
characters of which are similar insofar as they consist of
angular arrangements of small straight lines (both belonging to that class of inscription that is carved rather
than drawn). Oracle-bone inscriptions date as far back
as the 15th century B.C. The characters appear in columns, contrived to give a feeling of space about the
" letters such as we never feel along Latin lines, which
give more of a feeling of direction and measure. A European artist would never think of writing a poem on the
sky of his painting-his letters don't think that way.
The Chinese paint their letters as though they had seen
them floating in the air.
Dana I. Alvi, writing in Hungarian Review, Vol. I,
No.1, describing the Kuvasz dog and its Asiatic origins,
mentions the work of Johann Eberth (Die Sumerer und
die Sky then, Stuttgart, 1886) who found, in 1879,
rune-like inscriptions on a piece of basalt at the northern
slopes of the Caucasus Mountains near the Caspian Sea.
He also found similar inscriptions on sticks and on bones.
He dated his finds between the 15th and 20th centuries B.C. Eberth's inscriptions correspond to that form
of the "Kok-Turki" preserved in Hungary.
Though the rustic alphabets we have been considering are for the most part confined to brief commemorative
inscriptions, there exists a whole book, The Codex Argenteus, written in gold and silver in a combination of
Greek letters and German runes on purple parchment.
The Codex is a handwritten manuscript of the New
Testament-or of parts thereof. The letters of precious
"metal. like the fabled treasures of Solomon. shine against

. 't J.. -bird tracks of doom-I follow them over the German
landscape of memory to find my brain's fossil impression of an
alchemist-for so he called himself-showing me an immense
stone ammonite in his jewelry shop. Shortly thereafter, I wandered over the heath to see in the distance a quaint old storiehenge, which, when approached more closely, became a flock
of huge white sheep watched by a shepherd and his dog.
Dumbfounded to have taken sheep for stones, I was perfectly
stunned to notice that all their spring lambs were black. When
I got back to my car, I found the right front window smashedmy money and all my notebooks stolen. Driving to Hamburg
to see the American Consul, the broken glass on the seat beside me glittered like a fortune in diamonds.
Besides marking life's passing away, the rune"'" also signifies "bow made of yew"-Eigenholzbogen. I once painted

a copy of Basilius Valentin us' Eighth Hermetic Key ("The Resurrection is the Target of the Adepts"}-which portrays two
archers taking aim at a target in a cemetery, while in the foreground a man rises from an open grave, a corpse lies in a field
attended by an angel, and a farmer sows his crop (followed by
a flock of ravens who eat what he sows). My painting became
a gift to a lady friend, from whom, however, it was soon mysteriously stolen.
Out once with my father's bow and arrows, I saw a rainbow
in the sky. Crossing the rainbow-bridge. the Biblical sign from
God to Noah-"I do set my bow in the c1oud"-whereby He
promises no more to destroy the earth with a flood. The Campa~n for Nuclear Disarmament placed doom's rune in a ring
( GA ) and so sought to bend gravity's rainbow with a mindful
arrow.
PURSUIT Spring 1980

64

Lf

er ~ Lf c tedl:

J Iff'! 2-

D'1 <>~<> <1 ~.,1 <f ~ () .1 i J -1 j) 1\V

){~

HlXl

I<11 xl tl l:tT+wJEBI~I
C~

a...J,

9~1 [XJ(>

c.q

1!I~tIJI~11J~j"

~9~1[;j<>

fL., S

Cs

a....uk..

a background of Phoenician purple-the dye of Tyre

derived from shellfish-to convey to the reader among
the northern pines the charm of the Holy Land. I coh elude with the thought of a jewel of golden sounds.
Imagine .words of Ancient Hebrew inscribed on a gold
band-translated into Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan,
along the left-hand curve-and into Pahlavi, Kok-Turki,
Magyar, along the .right-handcurve--:-both curves end-
ing in dragon heads, which speak the Runes of the
North between themselves alld so complete the ring.

~I~I)I
Di81KlalHI
{J
n!l
O?
.M

1V

Y'

11\111'i 1~1~I~IEffi]
S~

t"

~J

ii

'V

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henne am Rhyn, Otto, Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Volkes
-Berlin: Milller-Grote & Baumgartel, 1892.
Landsverk, Dr. O. G., "Runic Inscriptions in the Western
Hemisphere"-NEARA Journal, Vol. 13, No.1, Summer
1978.
Landsverk, O. G., and Monge, Alf, Norse Medieval Cryptography in Runic Carvings-Glendale, California: Norse man Press, 1967.

Simon the Magus, The Runes-New York, 1973.

Stephens, George, The Old-Northern Runic Monuments of
Scandinavia & England, 4 volumes, 1866.
Worsaae, J. J., Zur Alterthumskunde Des Nordens-Leipzig:
Verlag von Leopold VOS!!, 1847.

ARNESAKNUSSEM
by Dr. Silvano Lorenzoni
interested in subterranean symbology, metaN OBODY
physics and/or exploration will have failed to be struck
by the significance of the "Arne Saknussem case." In Jules
Verne's best-known novel, Voyage au centre de la Terre,
Arne Saknussem is described as that Icelandic savant or
alchemist of the Middle Ages whose Ciphered manuscript,
in runic characters, is found in Ger.many by Prof. Lidenbrock and triggers off his quest to reach the Earth's center.
It is now well known that Jules Verne-a most remarkable man by all accounts (and not only as a story writer)often drew inspiration for his novels from real facts and/or
persons, around which or whom he later added embelishments suggested to him by his brilliant imagination.
The question has therefore arisen, and the controversy
has raged, from the time of the publication of Voyage au
centre de 10 Terre, as to whether or not Arne Saknussem
was a real living person (in which case, of course, it need
not necessarily be accepted that he did physically travel
PURSUIT Spring 1980

to the center of the Earth), or was entirely a fictional character invented by Jules Verne.
I have delved into this subject, on and off, for the last
couple of years; and it is as a consequence of a personal
meeting that I had the 31st of May, 1977, with Messrs.
Mayne, Wilkie and Wolf, of SITU, that I have decided to
publish these notes. I feel I have taken this investigation
as far as can be taken by someone like myself who has no
direct access to certain specialized document collections
(to be mentioned later) and who must do everything by
mail (I was fortunate enough to have, in general, responsive correspondents). What follows, even though it does
not, obViously, solve the problem (nor is it altogether
possible that the problem has a solution), I feel could provide a few useful guidelines for anyone wishing to pursue
this matter from a position of greater advantage.
Oddly enough, it would appear that the strongest disbelievers in the historical reality of Arne Saknussem are
the Icelanders. That is the position of Prof. Bjorne Thorsteinsson, of the Department of History at the University

65
of Reykjavik, and M. J.-P. Bayard informs me that Prof.
Gudjannsen, the well-known Icelandic parapsychologist,
also did not believe in Arne Saknussem's historical ex istence. 2
M. J.-P. Bayard also informs me that the leading world
advocate for the cause of the historical existence of Arne
Saknussem was an Englishman by the name of Gerard
Heym. It appears that it was through personal communication with Heym that Serge Hu~in got the data that he
published (without quoting his source) in a recent book,
in which he states: "... his (Arne Saknussem's) works
were publicly burned by the hangman in Copen hague in
1573."31 have not been able to verify this statement;' and
it must be remembered, in any case, that Serge Hutin,
while a well-learned man and a prolific writer, has an unfortunate tendency to set down as factual happenings
things that were at best hearsay. He is also somewhat
careless when it comes to quoting his sources.
Anyway, C. Heym died in 1972, leaving unresolved
the question as to where he. got the information which
made him so adamant about the historical existence of
Arne Saknussem. This is most unfortunate, because we
have thereby lost what possibly was the best and most
carefully collected set of data in this whole business. There
is. however, another clue that lies in a totally different
direction.
Mme. S. Vierne, of the Department of Literature of the
University of Grenoble, has supplied me with the following information. 4 At the beginning of the 18th century
a philologist by the name of Arni Magnusson (who apparently never wrote anything in any language other than
Latin) lived in Denmark. His job was that of collecting
ancient and! or valuable manuscripts for the king of that
country; and in order to fulfill the requirements of his job
Arni Magnusson traveled also to Iceland. It is at least
worth noting that it was in 1723 that a short book written in
French and having the title Voyage du pole arctique au
pole antarctique par Ie centre du monde was published
by an anonymous author.' Can the strange analogy between this and Jules Verne's theme be sheer coincidence?
Or that the publication date of this anonymous book coincides (approximately) with Arni Magnusson's travels to
Iceland? I leave the final judgment to the reader.
Magnusson's collected papers and findings are in an
archive in Copenhague-Arnemagnaenske Samlingavailable to anybody caring to go through it. I am inclined
to think that few have done that recently. But ma'ybe
Jules Verne did-or he knew somebody who had. It may
well be that the solution to the mystery of Arne Saknussem
is buried in the Arnemagnaenske Samling in Copenhague.
and is therefore available to the first one with enough
time, good will and philological knowledge to go through
the material thorougly and competently.
This is all the factual information I have on the subject.
While it is not enough to close the subject, it does suffice,
with a little help from the imagination, to put forward an
hypothesis which, although it may indeed turn out to be
wrong, nevertheless might be of some use to future researchers. It is as follows:
"Arne Saknussem" was either the real name, or pen
name, or Jules Verne's cover-up name, for somebody who

ISLAND TRIBE STILL LIVING

IN THE STONE AGE
An international expedition trekking through
jungle is reported to have discovered a primitive
tribe living in "Stone Age" conditions in Papua
New Guinea, an independent island nation off the
north coast of Australia.
"They were quite friendly," British army major
Roger Chapman reported to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Chapman led the expedition
last October up the Strickland River in the central
highlands.
"They have fire, but the only tool we saw was
a steel tomahawk which they got in barter with
another village. It probably originated with some
Australian police who patroled there before Papua
New Guinea became independent," Chapman
said. He estimated there were 15 to 20 members
of the tribe.
actually lived in Iceland during the second half of the
Middle Ages and who actually wrote (or told) of an account
concerning a "trip to the center of the Earth." The corresponding manuscript was found by Arni Magnusson and
taken to Denmark; and it came later to the notice of Jules
Verne, giving him the idea behind his famous novel.
It is not necessary to assume that Verne went personally
to Copenhague to peruse Magnusson's papers. The remarkable author-like Edgar Allan Poe before him and
possibly Emilio Salgari after him-had all sorts of sources
of information, many of which were often unusual and
occasionally even uncanny.
As for the exact nature of Arne Saknussem's "trip to
the center of the Earth": was it a physical travel to some
place below the Earth's crust through a maze of caves, or
was it an 'astral body' projection? Was it the allegorical
description of an initiation ceremony, or was it-let us not
exclude it altogether-pure imagination? This is likely to
remain forever a matter of conjecture.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Private communication, 1976.
2. Private communications. 1976/1977. M. Jean-Pierre Bayard,
author of La symbolique du monde souterrain (Payot, Paris) is
probably the world's leading expert in subterranean symbology.
3. Du monde souterrain au ROi du Monde (Albin-Michel, Paris,
1976), p. 42.
4. Private communication. 1977. Mme. Simone Vierne is the
author of Jules Verne et Ie roman initiatique (Editions du Sirac,
Paris).
. 5. Re-edited by the well-known science-fiction expert Pierre
Versins. formerly of Lausanne and now of Yverdun (Switzerland),
[ have not been able to see this book. as my mail request to
purchase a copy received no reply.

MOVING? If you expect to change your address. please.

allow six or more weeks for address change to become
effective in our records. Send card (obtainable at your
post office) showing both old and new address to SITU/
PURSUIT. P.O. Box 265. Little Silver. NJ 07739.
PURSUIT Spring 1980

66

B_GFOOT AS SYMBOL
by Kim L. Neidigh
of hairy, man-like creatures continue to
REPORTS
increase, leading hunters and scientists on a merry
chase to capture the missing link. Although sightings in
conjunction with UFOs have raised some doubts, Bigfoot is stiJl commonly considered to be a prehistoric
relative of man. Descriptions vary, but recurring features
include height 7 to 10 ft., extreme hirsuteness, erect
gait, shyness coupled with curiosity, and foul odor.
There are some reports of hostility toward man. So far,
so good. It's not too difficult to imagine some primitive
throwback possessing these characteristics. But what
about red or green glowing eyes, footprints with from
3 to 6 toes, immunity to bullets, and telepathic abilities?
These characteristics are also reported but fit no living
creature. Any theory of the nature of Bigfoot must explain all the reported facts.
If certain features defy a physical existence, could
Bigfoot be some paraphysical denizen of the mind? It
will be the thesis of this paper that Bigfoot is a psychokinetically formed representation of the dark, neglected
aspects of civilized man's psyche. This would explain
such disparate facts as its leaving footprints and droppings while being immune to bullets. Bigfoot is not an
imaginary creature although its origins do lie in the
imagination. Acting as midwives are the phenomenon
of repression and man's neglected PK abilities.
The chain of events that makes Bigfoot possible be-.
gins in childhood. As the individual matures he is taught
by his parents that "good little boys and girls" do not do
certain things. If he persists in these taboo behaviors,
whatever they may be, he will be punished. The child
learns to avoid pain by not acting out certain impulses.
If the parents are really successful the child will learn
to deny that these impulses even exist. He has learned
to repress them. These unacknowledged parts of his
personality continue to seek an outlet. Ideally, these
energies would be accepted and channeled into useful
activities. But ignored, they fester in the unconscious,
transforming themselves into demons and haunting the
corridors of his dreams.
C. G. Jung calls these images personifications of the
Shadow, which is the totality of all those aspects of an
individual that he finds intolerable. By .repressing them
he does manage to deny responsibility but only by granting them autonomy. They proceed to make themselves

known through others. A highly moral man sees all

others as criminals; a prude sees hordes of prostitutes
and lechers. This mechanism of projection works handin-glove with repression.
But suppose the forces of repression are so strong
that projection does not occur? The individual does not
see his faults in others; he does not see them anywhere.
But they have not vanished. They are seething in the
unconscious, preparing to erupt. The psyche stumbles;
the individual hallucinates. He sees images that personify what he has repressed. They appear to be solid and
objective but are mere shadows of the mind.
;
This is what happens on the individual level, but what
about an entire culture which collectively denies certain
aspects of human nature? The mechanisms are analogous. If a technologically advanced civilization denies
its roots and its kinship to nature, an explosive situation
develops. It pollutes the environment. Its citizens lose
perspective and become alienated. It works against itself
on all levels and, perhaps, its people have visions. Wild
men lurk in the forests.
The collective Shadow of our society would be expected to contain just those characteristics attributed
to Bigfoot. The foul odor, the body hair, etc., are the
direct antithesis of our deodorized, sanitized selves. The
huge size compensates for our neglect and also reflects
our fear of our darker side.
Having shown how Bigfoot might be a psychic crea- tion, the problem of its obvious corporeality rem!!ins.
These creatures leave definite physical, albeit inconclusive, evidence behind. If Bigfoot is psychic in origin,
then any physical effects can only be the result of psy~
chokinesis. The latent parapsychic forces of the psyche
unite with the Shadow elements to make the images
more convincing. The unconscious reaches out and
utilizes the external environment, giving physical form
to the disowned Shadow. Once the emotions of shock
and fear grant the image recognition, the forces holding
it together abate and the creature vanishes.
To summarize: The author proposes that Bigfoot is
the personification of repressed elements. of the human
psyche given temporary physical existence by latent
powers of psychokinesis. These elements take this route
because the conscious mind has left them no alternative.

YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE ONE THAT HATCHEDI

From Le SOiT, published in Brussels,
Belgium, comes the report of an egg
found near Rosario, in the Argentine
pampas. The egg is three feet In length
and five and one-half feet in girth, and
dwarfs the egg of the extinct elephant
bird and giant moa. The living egg would
have weighed about 768 pounds.

PURSUIT Spring 1980

Could this be the egg of the legendary

roc, the mammoth bird of Sinbad the
Sailor fame? Could it be the egg of some
sort of dinosaur? Protoceratops, a dinosaur which grew about seven feet long,
is known to have laid eggs eight inches
long, which were found in the Gobi
~ in 1922. The adult weighed about

900 pounds. If proportions obtain, and

If the newly found egg is that of a dinosaur, the creature would have weighed
about 32 tons and measured some 30
feet long in adulthood. If it is a bird egg,
one ornithologist calculated, the adult
would have weighed 115 tons and stood
48 feet in height.
-John' White

67'

A NEW METHOD FOR CALCULATING

SASQUATCH WEIGHT
by Jon Beckjord
Director, Project Bigfoot, Seattle
Using soil-compression formulas from the science of soil mechanics, and applying these to existing
recorded depth measurements of sasquatch and human footprints made at the site of the Roger
Patterson Bigfoot Film of 1967, three weight estimates are derilJed for the Patterson sasquatch, The
large weights thus calculated, 1,224 pounds minimum, 2,041 pounds as an estimated alJerage and
3,672 pounds as a maximum, would tend to indicate that sasquatches may halJe origins other than
those associated with known and physically tangible primates.
CAST AND PHOTO RY ROR TITMUS. COURTESY OF JOHN CoREE"

Cast of alleged sasquatch track made at Bluff Creek, northern California, in October 1967. As scale shows,
photo image is about three-eighths the size of the actual i~pression from which the plaster cast was made.

of the vacant spots in sasquatch physical calO NEculations

has been in the area of weight determination. Estimates have been made of the weight of
the Patterson sasquatch, as seen in the film, The Roger
Patterson Bigfoot Film ( 1977 Mrs. Roger Patterson),
based on biochemical analysis, such as Grieve's estimate
of 280 pounds (Napier, p. 219) but no weight estimates
have been made using soil compression formulas. John
Green has suggested that this be done (Green 1973,
p. 49) and accordingly, I have undertaken to do so.
It has been long a major article of faith among sasquatch
investigators that sasquatches leave abnormally deep
footprints-as an example, Green (1973) says in regard
to other tracks found in the Bluff Creek area:'
"For the first time, I had a chance to appreciate the
tremendous force with which the prints are made.
Where they sank an Inch deep In the sand, my
boots made only a heel print and a slightly flattened

impression around the center of the soles. To make

a hole an inch deep, I had to jump off a log about
two feet high and land on one heel."
(Green, 1973, p. 42)
My own field investigations have found similar instances
of unusual depths for alleged sasquatch footprints, and no
indications of portable hydrauliC presses have ever been
found near any footprint site. What, therefore, is the relationship between human and sasquatch footprints, in
terms of depth in soil, and what actual weights of alleged
'sasquatches may be calculated based on the depths
measured?

A NEW BASIS FOR WEIGHT

CALCULATIONS
The construction of buildings on soli has resulted in
the growth of the science of soil mechanics, and one
PURSUIT Spring 1980

68

Side view of cast pictured on preceding page shows depth. most marked in heel and balJ-of-the-foot areas.

aspect of this discipline concerns itself with soil compression. As different weights are placed on a standard
12" x 12" testing plate, different soil types react accordingly. Generally, based on plate-load testing, it has
been found that for most average-density soils, such as
silt mixed with sand and gravel. as with the soil at Bluff
Creek, the relationship of settlement of an object in the
soil to the weight applied, is a linear relationship, up to
point of critical load. It is best expressed in Boussinesq's
formula:
s

= 1/2[m

where

-2
m2

_V_J (Jumikis, 1973)

Ro E

s
m
V
E

is the settlement in the soil in cm

is Poisson's number for that soil type
is the weight in Kg
is the modulus of elasticity of that
soil type in Kg/cm 2
Ro is the radius of a circular test plate in cm

Jumikis points out in his work on settlement of soils

that settlement is proportional to (1) Poisson's ratio,
(2) the depth below the base of the rigid footing (Le., test
plate), and (;3) the load V on the circular test plate.
Other authors, using tests on square plates. also point out
that settlement into the tested soil is in direct proportion
to the load applied, regardless of the area of the test
plate, and that this linear relationship between settlement and load holds true up to a critical load point,
after which settlement increases at a greater rate than
the load. (Barkan, 1962) (Krynine, 1941)
In order to make Boussinesq's formula more clear in
regard to the direct proportion relationship between
weight and settlement, we will take the formula and
demonstrate that, given certain items as constants, the
only two variables will be settlement and weight.
Taking the

form~la:

= 1f2l- m

2
-

m2

~J
Ro E

We rearrange the factors:

2
1
s = Wt. x .5 x -m--2
_. x
m2
Ro E
And further:
.5
s = Wt. x - - - x RE
o

PURSUIT Spring 1980

Now if it is given that the same values for E and for

m are used on a test of the same type of soil, and if the
same type of plate is used for testing, giving us the
same value for R o , the radius of the plate, then it is
clear that the only. variables remaining are s, settlement.
and the weight to be calculated. Thus we have s = wt.
times a constant, and the relationship is a direct proportion. Therefore, the following basic formula can be
set up for calculating the weight of an unknown mass
that causes a footprint to sink to a measurable depth,
when compared to a known weight that causes another
measured depth of footprint:
Known depth is to known weight as second depth is
to unknown weight
or
Depth 1 : Weight 1 :: Depth 2 : Weight 2
(Provided that the feet involved are of equal size,
and provided that the second weight does not exceed
the limits of proportionality.) To compensate for the
differences in foot size, we must first calculate weight
number 2 as if it were based on the same area as the
area of weight number 1 and then multiply by the ratio
of area 2 to area 1 expressed as a percentage.
An example is that if we find that Joe weighs 100
pounds, and makes a print 1 inch deep, and Jack
makes a print 2 inches deep, then Jack's weight is twice
Joe's only if they wear the same size shoe. But if Jack's
shoe is twice the area of Joe's shoe, then Jack must
weigh four times Joe, or 400 pounds.

SOME PROBLEMS IN MAKING

RETROSPECTIVE CALCULATIONS
IN REGARD TO BLUFF CREEK
Before we commence making actual calculations,
using the ratio and proportion method shown above,
it must be pOinted out that eleven years have passed
since these original measurements were made, and
during that time, the composition of the soil of Bluff
Creek has gone through many changes. It would be
difficult and almost impossible to determine Poisson's
number and the Modulus of Elasticity for the soil of
Bluff Creek as It was eleven years ago. Thus, we can-

69
not effectively use formulas utilizing these factors, m and
E, today. However, since the factors E and m would be
the same in making comparative calculations using the
same soil, they effectively are cancelled out, and the
ratio and proportion method still applies. Direct testing
of loads on that soil is also impossible today, due to the
many changes in the area over time. However, it is
recommended that in the future, whenever an exceptionally clear-cut set of tracks is found fresh and readily
measurable, investigators measure the depth of their
own footprints, and that they also perform engineering
load tests in the field, to determine what amount of
weight actually causes an equivalent amount of ~settle
ment into the soil as the suspected sasquatch footprint.
One simple but crude way to do this is to back a car
into the soil, and jack it up on a measured board or
steel plate. Once the wheels, both rear ones, for example, are off the ground, the car can be lowered again,
and the settlement
of the board measured and compared.
If the settlement of a
Ford is too great, or
greater than the settlement of the sasquatch footprint, then a VW could be
brought in, and its settlement
depth measured. When the
right sized car is found to match
the sasquatch depth, then that car
can be driven to a weighing station
and its rear wheels only can be
backed onto the weighing platform,
and the weight measured. Once the
pounds per square inch are calculated,
and the areas reconciled. an adjusted
weight for the alIeged sasquatch can be
found. ObViously, in areas distant from roads,
other systems will have to be jury-rigged with
stones and posts. or whatever else is available.

man, in order to make an impression of 2 inches in the

creek bed. To double the depth, one must double the
weight. This assumes that the shoe size in each case is,
the same. To compensate for larger shoe sizes, or foot
sizes, more weight, in a proportional degree, must be
added. If our hypothetical man of 200 pounds can
make an impression of one inch, then his brother, who
perhaps has a foot I1J2 times as large, must then also
weigh I1J2 times as much, or 300 pounds, to be able to
sink the same depth of one inch.
Using these principles, we then calculated the weight
of the P~tterson Film sasquatch, based on measurements
supplied by witnesses at the site, Bob Titmus and his
brother-in -law, Harry Halbritter, both of whom visited
the film site within ten days of the filming and found the
same tracks that' Patterson and Gimlin had found. These
had been covered with bark, and were in good condition.
(Green, 1978, p. 121) Titmus reported that Harry,

...

CALCULATIONS INVOLVING
THE ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS
FOUND Ai BLUFF CREEK
As noted above, we found that within the limits of
proportionality, an increase in load, or weight, on a given
soil, results in a proportional increase in settlement, or
depth into the soil. Below we will take the actual measurements made at Bluff Creek in regard to the Patterson
Film sasquatch and make an estimate of its weight.
based on the following formula:
Settlement 1 : weight 1 :: settlement 2 : weight 2
Translated from engineering terms, this means' that
a man who weighs 200 pounds who can make an impression 1 inch deep in the soil of a dry creek bed must
then gain another 200 pounds, to become a 400 pound

Photo by
Lyle Laverty
In October of
1967 at Bluff
Creek site. At
right, hobnail-boot
track shows minimal soil penetration.

PURSUIT Spring 1980

70
weighing 200 pounds, could only make an impression
in the soil of from 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch, from the sole
to, the heel of his boot. Titmus also reported that the
sasquatch tracks were for the most part 1114 inches deep,
with some only one inch deep, and others in excess of
1114 inches deep. (Green, 1978, p. 123)
Taking these factors, and first assuming that the same
foot size was used for each footprint (which we shall
revise below after the initial calculation here) three basic
"same-size" weights can be calculated, one conservative,
one mid-range, and one liberal.
Conservative: Harry at 200 pounds, makes an impression of 1/4 inch. The sasquatch makes an impression of one inch only. Using the linear relationship, the sasquatch would weigh 800 pounds, in
order to make an impression four times as deep as
Harry's. (200 Ibs. x 4)
Mid-range calculation: Harry makes an average impression of 3116 inch, and the sasquatch makes an
average impression of 11/4 inches deep. This is
6.67 times as deep, and thus the preliminary weight
would be 1334 pounds. (6.67 x 200 Ibs.)
Liberal calculation: Harry penetrates only 1/8 inch
deep into the soil, anJ the sasquatch penetrates as
far as 11/2 inches. The sasquatch would then weigh
as much as 2400 pounds. (200 x 12)
However, the above assumes that the same foot size
is involved. We must therefore adjust each figure, 800,
1334 and 2400, to compensate for a larger foot size on
the part of the sasquatch. According to' Green (p. 118)
this size was 14112 inches, with a four inch width at the
heel, and a five and a half inch width at the toes. Taking
this as a hypothetical four-sided figure, with 14.5" x 5.5"
x 4.0" being three of the known sides, the approximate
square inch measurement of the sasquatch foot would
be 68.9 inches. Using the same type of structure, a foursided figure with only two sides parallel, and based on
an estimated size 11 boot for Harry, a 200 pound man,
we obtain a square inch measurement of 45.00 square
inches, using dirriensions of 12" x 4 1/2" x 3". Using the
same method of calculation will even out any errors in
measuring such an irregular surface as a humanoid
foot's. (See diagram at top of facing page.)
With the respective measurements of 45 square inches
for Harry and 68.9 square inches for the sasquatch, we
thus have the sasquatch possessing a foot that is 1.53
times larger than Harry's foot. Taking this factor of 1.53,
we then multiply it times each of the above weight estimates, which results in the follOWing final weights:
Conservative: 1,224 pounds
Mid-range: 2,041 pounds
Liberal: 3,672 pounds
From the above calculations we have produced rather
large weights for the alleged sasquatch of:
1,224 pounds, or 555.2 kg.-conservative estimate
2,041 pounds, or 926.6 kg.-mid-range estimate
3,672 pounds, or 1663.4 kg.-Iiberal estimate
We must ask if these large weights are within the
range of proportionality between settlement and load,
however, for it may be that the large weights involved.
PURsurr Spring 1980

may have been beyond the critical limit calculated by

engineers for this type of soil: silty sand. The large settlement may possibly indicate that the point of proportionality has been exceeded, and a lesser weight may
have caused the large settlement that has been measured
for the alleged sasquatch footprints. What then, is the
load per unit area that forms the boundary of proportionality? Barkan (1962) finds that according to his tests
the maximum load within the proportional range is
2.5 kg/cm 2 for saturated sand, 2.5 kg/cm 2 for gray fine
dense sand and again 2.5 kg/cm 2 for medium sand.
Furthermore, he finds that "dense silty clay with some
sand that is above ground water level" has a maximum
limit of 5.0 kg/cm 2
Converting the area of the sasquatch footprint, 68.9
sq. in. into metric, we have an area of 444.5 cm 2 Converting the weights found above, we find 555.2 kg.,
926.6 kg. and 1663.4 kg. From these, we find a load
per cm 2 of:
1.25 kg/cm 2 -Conservative estimate
2.08 kg/cm 2 -Mid-range estimate
3.74 kg/cm 2 -Liberal estimate
Therefore, since the conservative estimate and the
Wid-range estimate do not exceed the limits of proportionality for the several types of sandy soils quoted above,
we may expect that these two estimates may be valid
estimates, while the liberal estimate, 3.74 kgj314cm 2 at
1663.4 kg (3,672 pounds) would hold only for dense
silty clay with some sand.
Since the mid-range figure is within the limits of proportionality for the settlement vs. load relationship,
and since it is also based on the average, or most-noted
dept~s measured at Bluff Creek, we suggest that the
sasquatch footprints were most likely to have been left
by a c~eature or device that weighed approximately
2,041 pounds, which is slightly over one ton.
(In order to verify these calculations, and to determine accurately whether this method of calculation of
alleged sasquatch footprint loads is a correct method,
we urge other investigators to perform load tests on
a variety of soils and also to perform load tests in the
field when fresh sasquatch tracks are found. In the meanti!'le, until such tests are done, engineers do know that
load tests on standard plates have been done. and the
relationships found between settlement and load have
been applied here in this paper. Until a better method
is found, and tested, we suggest that all other weight
estimate methods are obsolete, since they operate on
assumptions about sasquatch biology that have never
been verified. An example of this is the assumption that
sasquatches have the same weight per cubic inch density
as do other animals, such as man, cows, gorillas, etc.,
which is close to that of water. However, since we have
never had a sasquatch body in a lab for testing, we cannot make this assumption as a result.)

CONCLUSION
Taking the mid-range figure, since the most reported
depth for the sasquatch was 11/4 inches, and taking
Harry's average depth of 3116 of an inch, we are faced

71

It is inherently difficult to calculate

"

the area of such a curved surface

as either a foot or a boot sole. However, by using the dimensions indicated, it is felt that any errors
involved in following this methodsuch as gaps between toes, the
space between foresole and heel of
the boot, etc.-will cancel each
other and be proportional and small
errors, thus not affecting the ratio
of one square-inch area to another.
The' final relationship calculated
was 1:1.53.

with a sasquatch weighing 2,041 pounds for an erect

biped that most analysts place as being less than seven
feet tall (Green, Napier, Byrne). Green in particular
places the height as being between 6'6" and 7' 0" ,
based on measurements made with Jim McClarin at the
site. (Green, 1973, p. 73-74)
The bodily volume of the Patterson sasquatch has
been estimated at 8.44 cubic feet (Krantz, 1972). Taking
this figure and dividing it into the mid-range estimate
(2,041/8.44), we obtain 241.8 pounds per cubic foot
for density. It should be noted that a human being has
a density of approximately 60 pounds per cubic foot
(less than the density of water, since we float), and that
the metal titanium has a density of 283 pounds per
cubic foot. The closest substance that matches the density
of the Patterson sasquatch is barium, with a density of
243 pounds per cubic foot. If we consider what happens
to a bullet that is fired at a block of titanium or barium,
is it any wonder that some observers suspect that the

sasquatches may be bullet-proof?

These weight and density figures are absurdly large
for any known primate, be it man or ape. Even estimates
for the extinct Gigantopithecus, set at not more than
600 pounds for a hypothetical nine-foot specimen (as
Simons' and Ettel's) do not come close to such a large
figure. Perhaps it may become necessary to consider
other than traditional biological/physical origins and
structure for the sasquatches. This is hinted at to a small
degree in Dr. James Butler's paper, given at the 1978
UBC Sasquatch Conference, "Theoretical Importance
of Higher Sensory Development Toward Avoidance
Behavior in the Sasquatch Phenomenon," in which
unusual mental abilities on the part of the sasquatches is
hinted at in assisting them to avoid capture by man.
Perhaps the sasquatches are also possessed with a novel
physical structure, from beyond the bounds of our knowledge and experience, that also helps them to survive.

REFERENCES
Butler, James, 1978: "Theoretical Importance of Higher Sensory Development Toward Avoidance Behavior in the Sasquatch Phenomenon" - paper given May 1978, USC
Conference on Sasquatch and Other Phenomena. (To be
published by UBC Press in 1980.)
Barkan, D. D., 1962: DynamiCS of Bases and Foundations,
pp. 15-29, New York: McGraw-Hill
Byrne, Peter, 1975: The Search for Bigfoot: monster, myth
or man. Washington: Acropolis Books Ltd:
Green, John, 1973: Big/oot: On the Track of the Sasquatch.
New York: Ballantine Books
- - - - - - , SASQUATCH: The Apes.Among Us. Victoria:
Hancock House Publishers
Jumkis, Alfred R., 1973: "Settlement Tables For Centrically

Loaded, Rigid Circular Footings on Multilayered Soil Systems," Engineering Research Bulletin #54 pp. 15-22, Rutgers University, State University of New Jersey
Krantz, Grover, 1972: "Additional Notes on Sasquatch Foot
Anatomy," Northwest Anthropol9gical Research Notes,
6 (2): 230-241
Krynine, Dmitri P., 1941: Soil Mechanics, p. 219, New York:
McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.
Napier, John, 1972: Bigfoot. London: Jonathan Cape.
Simons, Elwyn and Ettel, Peter, 1970: Gigantopithecus,"
Scientific American, January 1970.
Smith, G. N., 1969: Elements of Soil Mechanics for Ciuil and
Mining Engineers. New York: Gordon and Breach.

PURSUIT Spring 1980

72

HVPNOAR1r
.'
A personal experience

0/ painting and drawing while in

0/ hypnosis

a somnambular level

by Curtis W. Watkfins
Paintings by the author
HAVE no conscious recollection of what I have done when I come out of a somnambular
Iparticipant
level of hypnosis. This. level of hypnosis, similar to sleep-walking, is one in which the
has no recollection of the experience when he awakens (post-hypnotic amnesia).
While under hypnosis, I let subconscious images come forth in my drawing or painting without any 'active' intellectual. moral or aesthetic control on the part of my conscious mind.
I have been a professional artist for ten years. Although most of my art work is done at
a conscious level. the art work I am able to do under self-hypnosis I consider as research.
My goal is to expand human awareness by exploring the visualization process of the subconscious mind.
I learned about hypnosis and self-hypnosis under the gUidance of professional hypnotist
John Kraus. R.H. From him I learned self-hypnosis, which I used for relaxation and studyhabit improvement while I was in college. My first experience at drawing while under hypnosis was in 1971 at the Ann Arbor Art Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I went under selfhypnosis to make .the most of a short coffee break. Upon awakening I saw a large drawing
of an old man with his arm outstretched grasping at small objects darting about his fingertips.
The other artists present assured me the work was mine, even though I was left with a feeling
of disbelief. No matter how hard I tried, I could not remember doing the drawing. After
much discussion with other artists and hypnotists, I decided to attempt further research.
History records many instances of important discoveries first experienced as Spontaneous
Visual Images. According to his own statement, Einstein accomplished his most imp.ortant

PURSUIT Spring 1980

73

"If you paint, close your

eye's

and sing. "

-Picasso

thought with visual images-not with words or numbers. Other highly creative people have
made similar statements. and much evidence indicates that thinking in images may produce
solutions and express ideas which purely verbal thinking cannot.
Psychologists have conducted experiments to see whether people can truly distinguish
between their 'inner' and 'outer' worlds. In 1964, the American psychologists Segal and
Nathan showed a number of subjects a blank screen on which they were told to imagine an
object such as a lemon. The experimenters then projected a similar shape from the back of
the screen, at a very low intensity. Interestingly, most of the subjects were unable to tell the
difference between the shapes they imagined and those projected by the experimenters.
Sometimes subjects thought they had imagined the image which the experimenters had
projected. At other times they thought they saw the images projected on the screen when
actually the images were their own imagined ones. Finally, subjects sometimes described
seeing images which involved a combination of their own inner image and the image projected
by the experimenters. For example, a subject told to imagine a yellow lemon, and shown
the barely perceptible image of a purple flower, might report seeing a purple flower with
a yellow center. All the psychologists were able to determine as real to these observers was
the image which they held in their mind-whether or not a real object was being perceived.
Thus it would appear that there exists a free creative ability-an inner reality-in each
person's mind. The problem up to now has been that man somehow has the classical idea
that his task is to imitate or interpret exterior reality. By using hypnosis at a somnambular
level, I allo"w images to spontaneously emerge from my subconscious. Thus my paintings
may more directly represent the 'inner reality' inherent in the individual mind.
When I program myself to paint or draw in a somnambular level of hypnosis, I do not
program anything except the suggestion to paint or draw. There are times when I find I cannot achieve self-hypnosis, and- this is usually when something is bothering me-either phys-

PURSUIT Spring 1980

74
Charcoal 22"x2S

... ".
... ;".. : ..: :":
.. ~:" . ....
~

.... :.:.
':

".".~::. ":..1.".

_IIIIIWO...
.",';:: ,.i:~.i~l/::'~';.:)';;.

ically or .mentally. There are those times, however.

when I am troubled very much and yet easily attain the
desired state.
Both my paintings and drawings done in such a state
are filled with realistic images in a surrealistic landscape.
One critic wrote that the paintings are like a fun-house
maze, with images reflecting and repeating themselves
and merging into other images and shadows of imagesall painted elegantly in minute detail. My fellow artists
and other art critics also have judged the art work which
I do under hypnosis as artistically superior to the work
I do while in a conscious state of mind. This may be
because all of my previous training, which is stored in
my subconscious, under hypnosis comes out automatically, with no conscious pressure to draw something
artistically "correct."
At first I didn't want to show my work done under
hypnosis, or to make public the process by which those
works were executed. I was afraid people would not
believe me when I said I couldn't remember doing the
work. I didn't want people to think that I was using hypnosis as a gimmick to sell paintings. Because of this,
I decided initially not to sell the work I do under hypnosis.
But to discover and to not reveal is worthless. Because my way of being ethical was to be truthful at all
PURSUIT Spring 1980 '

":.:-

.::.::

:-

"::.

....

::.j..

times, I eventually decided to show the work and also

explain how it was done. Although I really didn't understand what I was dOing, I knew it was important to the
study of the mind and how we think.
I started to study hypnosis more seriously by reading
books and again studying with John Kraus, a professional hypnotist for twenty-five years, who has been
doing medical referral hypnosis for more than ten years.
Mr. Kraus subjected me to every test known to verify
that I attain a somnambulistic level through self-hypnosis.
I also joined the Association to Advance Ethical Hypnosis, a national organization which has helped to bring
hypnosis out of the dark ages and make it a respected
and valuable tool for helping mankind. Through this
organization I met and learned more about hypnosis
from such well known hypnotists as Harry Arons, Martin
Segall, Garland Fross, D.D.S., and others. All of this
helped me better understand exactly what I was doing.
The method I use to go into self-hypnosis is to repeat three words over and over as I visualize the words
in color. As the words start to fade, I must enter an
altered state of consciousness, because I don't remember
anything more until I am consciously looking at what
I have done. Contrary to some of the processes use~ in
hypnosis, I have also attempted to program in the sug-

75
gestion that I would remember what I did; this has,
however, been unsuccessful. as I still have no recollection
of my time spent under self-hypnosis. Also, I have tried
changing the colors of the words or to use no color at
all, and yet there has been no noticeable difference in
my work.
Why isn't the art work I do under hypnosis totally
abstract?
Before words, images were. The human brain programs and self-programs through its images. Riding
a bicycle, driving a car, learning to read, baking a cake,
playing golf-all are skills acquired through the imagemaking process. Our minds are filled with realistic images.
When our eyes are closed, and there is silence. we "see"
images. These images from within my inner mind must
be what appear in the work I do while under hypnosis.
With my paintings, I can 'see' my thinking. Seeing
thought detaches you from that thought so that you can
more clearly perceive its form. We should all want to
better understand the 'activity' of our minds: it is the
only instrument we have for self-discovery. Hypnosis
thus represents a way of using the mind more effectively.
A pianist is put into hypnosis. As he goes deep into
trance he is instructed to practice a sonata that he must
soon perform at a concert. It is a piece he knows but
has not played in a long while. He is told to take all the
time he needs for perfecting the piece. Upon emerging
from hypnosis he says he feels much more confident
after the intensive hour he has had of rehearsal. So saying, he sits down at the piano and demonstrates how
his playing of the sonata has indeed improved.
Two remarkable things have happened. (1) The improvement took place even though the pianist had only
'imagined' the rehearsal session, and (2) though he subjectively enjoyed a good hour's practice, in fact only
one minute of "real" clock time had passed.
I think the hypnotiC 'imagining' transcends our usual
lazy imagining; it is more concentrated mind/body
visualization.
Although I can't predict the outcome of my work,
certain objects are characteristic of my paintings and
appear almost predictably-butterflies, umbrellas and
birds. Also, each piece of work does seem to have an
overriding theme to it. Although I cannot identify what
that theme is, I can say that my pictures show that the
abandonment of conscious critical control does not necessarily produce direction less turmOil, but can release
a dynamic flow of highly charged images remarkable
not only for their unexpectedness but also as a visual
communication between my subconscious and conscious
mind.
I am usually under hypnosis for about two hours.
Sometimes I do quite a lot of work and other times I do
very little in the same amount of time. Whether or not
I may feel like painting seems to have no effect on how
much work I do under hypnosis. Also, whatever I may
be thinking about conSCiously before I go under seems
to have no effect on the images I paint.
An air of mystique has shrouded hypnosis since its
early days, and although I hesitate to add to the mystery,
I must also be honest about my own discoveries. In 1973,

a Mr. Dennis Urick came to my studio and wanted me

to do his portrait under hypnosis. After much discussion
I agreed, even though I didn't even know if the resulting
portrait would look like him. The finished sketch was
quite different from previous portraits drawn consciously.
His face was prominently positioned in the center of the
picture with another face (never identified) seemingly
peering from within. Several objects, some of which
were later identified as being important objects in the
subject's life, also appear in the picture. There are, for
example, several bars of music present. Mr. Urick, as it
turned out, was a high school music instructor. But the
real unexplained lies not in the picture but in the signature on the portrait. My signature appears in his handwriting, yet I had never conSCiously seen his handwriting
before this incident.
In another portrait which I did under hypnosis, the
word "French" appears-written in braille. Neither I nor
my subject conSCiously knew braille at the time.
Mysteries such as the ones I have mentioned here
should not be used to discredit hypnosis, but should
instead lead to further research in an area that has only
recently received proper recognition.
All of the portraits I have done while under hypnosis
contain some objects in them which seem to have specific
meaning to the subject. I do not know if this is just coincidence or if there is some kind of mental telepathy
taking place. I try to tell my subjects not to read more
into the portrait than is actually there. I do, however,
tend to believe that some type of mental telepathy does
occur at this time.
My conscious art work is quite different than the art
work I do while under hypnosis. While in a conscious
state, I work more in the style of an impressionist. Also,
I can draw and paint with much better accuracy while
under hypnosis.
I have discovered that some of the paintings done
under hypnosis include certain images which are hardly
noticeable except with ultraviolet lighting. In one, an
image of my face emerged from the picture of an egg
when ultraviolet lighting was used.
I have gone under hypnosis. with hypnotist John Kraus
to elicit information about the meaning and symbolism
of the paintings, but with Iittl~ success. For some reason,
it seems difficult to elicit a response from me at this level
of hypnosis. When I do speak, my vocabulary is quite
different and also quite garbled. likewise, under hypnosis I am unable to write clearly in response to questions.
I think the creative potential is only one of a whole
range of capacities which may be improved by using
hypnosis or image thinking, not only for offiCially "creative" artists, but also for ordinary people everywhere.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Houston, J., "Man on Earth. Expanding the limits of ConSCiousness," Saturday Review. New York. 1975
Samuels, M., Seein!] With the Mind's Eye, Random House Inc.,
New York, 1975
'.
Watkins, c., "Hypno-Art," Hypnosis Quarterly, New Jersey.
1976

PURSUIT Spring 1980

76

lUIFO ARE CHANGING

1rIHIIE WAY WE THINK
(Continued from page 53)

recognition may be disturbed if visual syntheses are

impaired. . . ." [emphasis added].
Anyone who has studied UFO lore knows that more
than a few encounters have caused near-blinding, burns,
shock from touching or otherwise having proximity to
the object. There have been uncounted sightings that
resulted in days. weeks or months of pain. headache,
nausea and other signs of physical impairment including
partial paralysis. If a doctor does not believe, however,
that his patient has even seen that which attacked him,
he will not thoroughly examine the patient for injuries.
If the brain itself has been injured, there are not necessarily any outward evidences of harm.
Professor Luria spoke of "the extreme shortage" of
evidence concerning functions of the right hemisphereperhaps because there are so few of us who depend to
any extent upon mind-right activity. He noted that lesions
of the right don't cause disturbances "of speech, writing,
reading and arithmetic" -the majority of UFO contactees
speak rationally enough a"d are able to record their
experiences eventually-which definitely do develop in
lesions of the left. However, injuries to the right "sometimes extend . . . to his spatial orientation" and "are
much more frequently global and polysensory in charac t er. "
i
Polysensory. UFO! books are filled with investigations
in which percipientS report enhanced psychic ability,
new creativity, redi~covered skills, and general nervousness bespeaking the unfamiliar extensive use of
dormant (or once-dominated?) senses.
Wrote Luria: "I shall never forget a group of such
patients with deep l~sions ... of the right hemisphere.
. . . They firmly believed that at one and the same time
they were in Moscow and also in another town."
Well." Compare th~t with UFO contactees who report
a loss of time, such jas while driving from one town to
another, or home from a spacecraft experience. Compare to astral projectIon, or out-of-body happenings.
Happily, whether the right or left hemisphere is accepting data, there rem~ins a communicating link between
them, as I observed.I Blakemore remarked that there
was "a tying-together of separate experience, a sharing
of special talents." i
But what if the experiences or thoughts of mind-right
must be explained, ;to and by the verbal, logical left?
How can mind-left ;understand, assimilate, claSSify or
explain that which i"t cannot relate to facts previously
stored-away? What, then. of "sharing" experiences?
I am not suggesting that any particular percent of
UFO confrontations.: small or large, is sheerly hallucinatory or a sort-of waking dream. But it would seem that
something has indeed occurred in which, where some
cases are concerned i, the normal thought-processes are
interfered with, thereby disorienting and confuSing a
portion of the brain~ temporarily or permanently. The
outcome is the description of a UFO sighting.
i

PURSUIT Spring 1

There may actually be three separate things happening:

1) The sighting of a UFO with no contact between
"occupant" or "object" and witness. The contactee is
unharmed.
2) The witnessing of some bizarre object much more
frightening than a UFO. the sight of which affects the
right hemisphere of the brain which, in turn, translates
the description to that of the currently-familiar UFO form.
3) Some more extensive confrontation with UFOs
in which the percipient is in some way assaulted, shocked.
Possibly the type of hypnotism employed in cases such
as that of Barney and Betty Hill effectively reaches.
blocking or distorting, the right hemisphere to prevent
the witness from stealing some kind of evidential souvenir or otherwise remembering the high-grade data
which scientists would find sweetly persuasive.
In any of the three cases, however-close encounter
or no-the human brain is exposed to something that
would be, fqr almost anyone, literally fantastic, difficult
to categorize, even more difficult to understand or explain
to others.
Or, for that matter, mind-left.
Throughout the modern history of UFOs, as Jacques
Vallee and others have remarked, it is as if something
were trying to tell us useful information, striving pOintedly
toward a goal, and then pulling away, teasingly. The
residue is a mixture of half-truths and fantasies.
With an understanding of what I am saying here it
becomes clear that the "something" in question is doing
precisely what was intended from the beginning: Providing information to an increasingly large number of
people which reduces the dominance of the left hemisphere, partly from shock, triggering or freeing the perceptions of the creative right hemisphere.
This is, of course, viewed in one way, the ultimate
infiltration, the worst of subversions; and like the view
of mind-right, it is global in scope. Virtually no one has
failed to hear about UFOs and each statistical survey
indicates that a larger number of people-even those
who have not themselves "seen" a UFO- "believes" in
them. Belief, especially in that which is metaphysical or
mystical or spiritual, other-worldly, is precisely the realm
of mind-right.
Of all the extraordinary, possibly-occult events of the
past quarter century-psychic phenomena, mysteriOUS
disappearances, peculiar rainfalls, inexplicable fire, telekinesis, accurate predictions of notables' deaths. ghostly
apparitions, poltergeists, the Bermuda Triangle and
more-UFOs have been "seen" with greater regularity.
by qualltum proportions. Perhaps since time immemorial
but with a particular world-wide emphasis since the late
Forties, UFOs have been at the forefront of some bizarre
system which is obviously intended to make the inflexibly logical left hemisphere of the human brain subservient to that of the right or, at the very least, to bring
them into closer alignment.
If anyone questions the enormous number of UFO
reports, let him ask any UFO organization how busy
they have been or, for that matter, check the published
and circumscribed listings of the late, unlamented Project Bluebook. Jacques Vallee (The Invisible College,

77
E. P. Dutton, New York, 1975) reports that "at least
five thousand sightings . . . have been filed away unexplained by competent investigators." Those are merely
unexplained and reported cases, all "indicating" (per
Dr. Vallee) "that a formidable impact is being made on
our collective psyche."
For the purpose of my article, I must point out that
there have been hundreds of thousands of reports that
were "explained away" to the satisfaction of the investigators, some of whom demanded very little satisfaction
indeed. And those hundreds of thousands of people,
for the most part, genuinely believed that they experienced something inexplicable. Additionally," some experts hold that there may be as many as one hundred
UFO sightings for every reported encounter.
If anyone questions how effective the work of UFOs
has been, to date, let him take a more objective look at
the new America. Never, since the Golden Age of
Greece, has creativity-an exclusive quality of mindright-been treasured so highly. It seems sometimes
that every businessman has his own newsletter, his own
industry magazine. Television Virtually devours originality. More books are published, in hardcover and
paperback, than ever before. Pop songs come into popularity on recordings. sell a million copies, and are gone
in a week.
Dr. Rollo May wrote, in 1975: "Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt,"
adding that the most important kind of courage is creative courage. "By the creative act ... we are able to
reach beyond our own death."
UFO percipients who come forward tell their weird
tales in spite of doubt, their own and that of most other
people including friends and family.
May also asserted, regarding creative people, that
they are "the bearers of the human being's age-old
capacity to be intelligent. They love to immerse themselves in chaos in order to put it into form, just as God
created form out of chaos in Genesis. Forever unsatisfied
with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional,
they push on to newer worlds" [all emphasis added].
And the first step of creativity. according to Dr. May,
is-an encounter.
Declared Silvano Arieti (Basic Books, Inc .. New York,
1976), in his Creativity: The Magic Synthesis: creativity
is the "humble human counterpart of God's creation."
He cites Herbert Maslow as saying th"at the creative
individual is "a special kind of human being who has to
be considered holistically and not atomistically."
The point is that creativity today is prized, creativity is
the realm of mind-right, and that UFO perCipients seem
to have been "freed"" in order to use the right hemisphere of their brains. Dr. Adrian van Kaam adds, from
1972, a summary expressed everywhere these days"Today there is a cry for more originality."
And the cry is answered, but in ways unique to our
times.
Of course, everything that is created is not worthwhile and often not enduring-but it is largely a push
on to newer worlds. In art, we have passed from surrealism to camp and beyond. In popular music, there

$50 MnILUON VANHSlHIlES

HN TlHIHN AHIR
Satcom III, RCA Corporation's communications
satellite with all 24 of its channels already "sold"
to subscribers, was launched into space toward
a permanent orbit 22,300 miles above the Pacific,
between California and Hawaii. But the one-ton
space box never made it. Instead, authorities monitoring the shot saw it disappea.r from their tracking
screens last December 10. Despite the combined
efforts of RCA's Vernon Valley, New Jersey, Earth
Station, "the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the North American
Air Defense Command (NORAD), no trace of the
device was found during a two-month search.
Now that the possibilities of recovering it in
"usable condition" are "just about exhausted," RCA
wants from insurers the $50 million it cost to build
the device, including "compensation for interruption
of business caused by the loss." Claims have been
filed with the group of companies that insured the
risk. Meanwhile, RCA people are continuing to
analyze NORAD's numerous photographs of the
possible "crash areas," still hopeful of detecting
an "unknown" object that might be the miSSing
satellite.
Undaunted by the disappearance, RCA plans
to put Satcom IV into space in June 1981 and will
proceed with long-range plans to launch more
communications satellites in the years ahead.
are no rigid rules; it tends to be formless, spontaneous,
intuitive and its appeal is almost entirely to untapped
emotions. The users of drugs often speak of "mind expansion," of "setting themselves free." Experimental
fiction is encouraged; poetry is peaking; cults spring up
all over; the world of the supernatural itself-one of
belief, the attribute of mind-right-has seldom had such
a boom.
Our politics are clearly caught in the turmoil of change,
or shift, from left to right-not leftwing to rightwing but
mind-left to mind-right. Saying one is Republican or
Democrat means even less than it did before and people
are more inclined to vote by hunch. by intuition, if they
bother to vote at all. Value systems are no longer evaluated or criticized-they are simply swept aside, thrown
out and away, replaced by moods of the moment. That
which is right isn't always right; that which is wrong has
entire camps of startling defenders to "explain it away,"
even as scientists have tried to explain UFOs away.
"In all this and much, much more the given reader can
find that which is encouraging. that which is dismal,
dependi~g upon the viewpoint or topic and one's position
on it.
But it seems quite clear to me that whether one cares
for it or not, that which is wholly logical, mathematically
precise, rigidly traditional ("always done that way"),
carefully taught or quickly spoken-by extenSion, that
which Is practical, sensible, generally acceptable in the
PURSUIT Spring 1980

78
past and properly ordered-is being shoved out by
UFOs in preference for those qualities, events and objects
that are formless or fresh, disorderly, transiently appealing, visually enticing, musically titilating, senseless, unrealistic, gloriously original, and of dubious value.
Not that expediency or chaotic notions or even rich
creativity have won. Order, logic, and system are very
much in the seat of the entrenched Establishments of
this planet.
But the right hemisphere is freer than it has been in
recorded history and demanding a louder voice, insisting
upon a rebalancing that pennfts the work of the ordinarily
and extraordinarily gifted alike to be heard. In such
dreaded imbalance, of course ther~ is chaos.
Dr. Vallee's "collective psyche" is in a state of flux,
much as the astrologer would anticipate when he examines the cuspal or borderline transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age.
And UFOs are showing the way more numerically,
dramatically, persistently, and maddeningly, than any
other single force on this globe.
Dr. Vallee believes that we are the victims of a control system and, as is true with me, refuses to try to
identify its source. With me, he suspects that the human
species is being slowly, significantly altered, "changing

our culture in the direction of a higher image of man."

He calls urgently for scientific study of UFOs, even as
do I, but admits it is quite possible that "all we can do
is to trace their effects on humans."
Man's "concepts are being arranged," he concluded,
and I believe that I have suggested generally the way
that this is being achieved: by an intentional shift of
dominance from the left hemisphere of the human brain
to the right.
The great importance Dr. Vallee felt many people
placed on eventually being contacted by people from
outer space goes somewhat more deeply and i~ tra!=eable, I suggest, to a subconscious, universal need to
change (with one's fellow beings) to a new or possibly
renewed system of means with which to view reality.
Our subconscious minds feel that we will be freer to
believe what we wish and, hopefully, to intuit the truth,
more spontaneous and less rigid, more creative, talented,
and yes, even more peaceable.
And where did I get my idea, my discovery, my theory?
Where was it born?
It was born when I studied a number of drawings of
the human brain and realized with surprise that, in general form and shape, it looked very much like my own
concept of an Unidentified Flying Object.

THE EGYPTIAN CONNECTION

(Continued from page 60)

There is another coincidence. There is a medieval

and Renaissance legend of the island of Antillia, the
Island of the Seven Cities. Spence, among others, linked
Antillia to Atlantis. 37 On fifteenth century maps Antillia
is depicted as a rectangular island with smaller islands
near it extraordinarily similar in shape to the stylized
rectangular Island of the Blessed, Sekhet Hetep of Egyptian mythology. Budge shows a map of Sekhet Hetep
from the Papyrus of Ani, and the bottom-most of a
group of four islands has bays and subsidiary islands,
and is rectangular in form.38
Now Antillia is supposed to be a purely Latin name
from Ante insula, OPPOSite island. But I wonder if there
couldn't have been a vague connection with the Egyptian
legend of An-tes? This is a question for future research.
I have shown that Plato himself said that the story' of
Atlantis was derived from Egypt. I have examined Egyptian legends and myths and found that two groups seem
to have been Plato's (or Solon's) source for Atlantis.
Perry's account of the Egyptian Land of the Dead is like
Plato's description of Atlantis, complete with sacred precincts and irrigation canals. Egyptian deluge legends
from Edfu prOVided the details about the wars of the
AtIanteans and the cosmic holocaust which destroyed
the fabled land. Furthermore, the myth of Shu and Geb
paralleled Plato's account quite: nicely.
Another coincidence in this long' chain concerns a recent archaeological discovery which occurred by chance.
According tQ the newspapers S4ch as The New York
PURSUIT Spring 1980

TImes, Vladimir Marakuyev, a Soviet oceanologist, was

sailing on the research ship Moskovsky Universitet in
1977. In the neighborhood of the flat-topped undersea
volcano, the Ampere Seamount, some 275 miles southwest of Lisbon, an underwater camera was lowered in
the course of ordinary research.
An apparently unexpected group of photographs was
taken but they weren't developed and studied for two
years, due perhaps to a backlog of work. What appeared
to be a wall and a staircase of stone were located at
a depth of some 60 meters. Specifically, there are eight
stones, four of which are square and four of which are
round. These were in a line 3 1/2 to 4 feet long. Another
photograph shows three equally spaced rocks that seem
to form part of a staircase, perhaps the first visible step
of one. A noted Soviet scientist, Dr. Aksyonov, a deputy
director of the Institute of Oceanology of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences, said that Danish scientists didn't
take the photographs seriously and smiled at them.
Other scientists, not identified by the Times article, did
say that the structures were indeed man-made and
were typical examples of ancient masonry. 39
Whether or not this fascinating and unique archaeological find sheds light on Atlantis is a matter for the
future. But another ancient stone wall was also found
underwater, and it might mark another link in the chain
from Atlantis to Egypt. Charles Berlitz wrote in his book
Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds 40 that in 1958, on the
Mediterranean side of the Straits of Gibraltar, French

79

diver Marc Valentine found a stone wall off the Moroccan coast. It measured at least nine miles in length!
A sketch shows squarish blocks placed neatly together.
Unfortunately, no source is given. I haven't found other
references to this site.
The final link in the chain of evidence tying Atlantis
to Egypt was reported in the July, 1979 issue of Fate
magazine. Those who doubt that Atlantis and its supposed colonies could have existed in 10,000 B.C. argue
that there were no farms, cities, and technical civilizations then. Farming is one of the elements of civilization,
and now Fred Wendorf, 41 an archaeologist of Southern
Methodist University, has found traces of several tarming communities in the Nile Valley that date to between
17,000 and 10,000 B.C.
These communities, averaging twenty or so people in
each settlement, were located along the western bank

of the Nile. Hollowed-out grinding stones were found,

as were barley seeds of a definitely domesticated type.
The rise and disappearance of this remarkable culture
is a gre~t mystery, as is its relation to the .rise of pharaonic civilization in Egypt. But here is our first bit of evidence confirming old legends and occult writings about
civilization in Egypt thousands of years before the coming
of the first pharaohs.
Thus, I have shown that several Egyptian myths,
particularly the Edfu Creation Myths, and certain archaeological clues can be 'used to pinpOint the precise
sources of Plato's Atlantis epic. I think that the fabulo'ls
saga really does date from before Plato's time, and the
new archaeological discoveries might even reveal that it
is a true account. But only time and more research will
unveil the whole story of the strangest mystery of ancient
history.

REFERENCES
1) DeCamp, L. Sprague, Lost Continents, Ballantine Books,
New York, 1975, p. 5.
2) Ibid.
3) The Book of the Dead and The Papyrus of Ani, translated and edited by E. A. Wallis Budge, Dover reprint edition,
New York, 1967.
4)
, The Gods of the Egyptians, New York,
Dover reprint edition, 1969, Vol. 1, p. 172-173.
5) Nilsson, Martin P., The MinoanMycenaean Religion and
its Suruiual in Greek Religion. New York, Biblo and Tannen,
1971, pp. 624-9.
6) Budge. E. A. Wallis. The Egyptian Heauen and Hell,
La Salle, Illinois, Open Court Publishing Company. 1974,
. p. 42.
7) New York. Causeway Books, 1974, p. 159. Spence also
linked Aalu to the supposedly mythical Welsh island of Avalon
but perhaps this is stretching the evidence a bit much!
8) Atlantis: The Antediluuian World. New York, Gramercy
Publishing Company. reprint of 1949 edition published by
Harper & Brothers, p. 11.
9) Budge. op. cit.. p. 37.
10) "The Isles of the Blest." Folk-Lore. Vol. XXXII, 1921.
pp.I54-5.
11) Donnelly. op. cit . pp. 12-16.
12) p. 204 et. seq.
13) New York. Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1969.
14) Ibid., pp. 3-12.
15) Ibid., p. 55.
16) Ibid., p. 17.
17) Reymond, Ibid .. p. 17.
18) Ibid., pp. 28-9.
19) Ibid .. p. 20.
20) Ibid .. p. 25.
21) DeCamp, op. cit., p. 293.
22) Reymond. op. cit .. pp. 107-109.
23) Muck. Otto, The Secret of Atlantis, New York, Times
Books, 1978.

24) Sykes, Egerton; "The Bermuda Mystery." in AtlantiS.

Vol. 28, No.3, June, 1975. Markham House Press. Brighton,
England. One of numerous wotks by Sykes on this topic.
25) Spence, Lewis, The History of Atlantis, University Books
edition, New York, 1968, pp. 64-70.
26) Reymond, op. cit.. p. 111.
27) Spence, L., Atlantis Discouered. op. cit .. p. 13.
28) The Old Egyptian Faith. translated by Colin Cambell,
New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909, pp. 210-217.
29) Ibid .. p. 220.
30) Reymond, op. cit.. p. 68.
31) SaVill, Sheila, The Ancient Near and Middle East. Vol. I,
London, Pelham Books, 1976. p. 69 .
32) Reymond. op. cit .. p. 68.
33) Budge edition, op. cit., p. 323.
34) Ibid., p. cxxxiv.
35) Zink, Dr. David D., The Stones of Atlantis. Englewood
Cliffs, N. J., Prentice-Hall, 1978, pp. 154-161.
36) Craton, Michael, History of the Bahamas, London. Collins, 1962. p. 15.
37) Spenc~, L.. op. cit., pp. 42-3, et seq.
38) Budge, The Egyptian Heauen and Hell. op. cit., p. 45.
For a map of Antillia. see Spence: L., Atlantis Discouered,
op. cit.. Plate V.
39) Whitney, Craig R .. "Soviet Scientist Says Ocean Site
May Be Atlantis." New York Times; Mon., May 21, 1979,
p. A14. This source prOVided by Ms. Lorelei Rheinhardt.
40) New York. Dell, 1972, pp. 115-116.
41) Wendorf, Fred, et aI, "Use of Barley in the Egyptian Late
Paleolithic," Science. Sept. 28, 1979, pp. 1341-47.
Addendum: Budge wrote Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life
(London. Kegan Paul. Trench, Truben & Co., Ltd., 1900).
Page 176 has a description of Sekhet Aaru (Field of Reeds).
It has farms, watercourses, canals, and a city called Qenqenqtet
Nebt. Budge put it near the Nile but he was just guessing as
this was a mythical place. This description also sounds to me
like Atlantis and is from the 18th Dynasty Papyrus of Nebseni
(ro!Jghly the time of King Tutankhamon).

PURSUIT Spring 1980

80

XlENOlLOGY
by Kim lL. Neidigh

N a letter which appeared in the Fall, 1979 (Vol. 12,

No.4) issue of Pursuit I pOinted out the need for
the systematic organization of the vast number of phenomena that comprise Forteana. I proposed the adoption
of the term xenology as one encompassing al1 areas of
the unexplained. The purpose of this brief article is to
d2fine this term further.
Xenology is derived from the Greek prefix xeno
(strange, alien) and the suffix logy (knowledge of).
Therefore, xenology is defined as the scientific study of
strange and unexplained phenomena. Its subject matter
would cross the borders of all other sciences, concentrating on the controversial topics in each. Its goal would
be to discover the principles underlying these apparent
anomalies and integrating them within the framework
of science.
The content of xenology can be divided into three
major categor~s:
1. Anomalies of a purely psychological nature
Examples: hallucinations and visions, all parapsychological phenomena except
PK effects
2. Anomalies of a purely physical nature
Examples: unusual astronomical and geological
events, ooparts, mystery animals,
some UFOs
3 .. Anomalies which appear to involve the interaction of the psyche with the environment
Examples: hauntings and poltergeists, psychokinetic effects, some monsters and
UFOs

An aspiring xenologist needs an extensive knowledge

of the sciences, especially psychology, physics, biology
and geology. Such a broad pool of information will
allow him to determine whether an event is truly anomalous or merely something known but seldom seen.
Psychology is essential because one is dealing with
people who have confronted the unknown. They may
be shocked and confused. Patient interviewing wil1 bring
out the facts and aid in answering some of xenology's
most important questions: What is the role of the observer? Why did this individual witness this phenomenon?
What does this event mean to him?
Physics is the study of the processes that underlie
physical reality. A xenologist must know enough to decide if a reported event violates physical laws, and the
researcher must be very cautious when conducting an
investigation since some of the most bizarre occurrences
are the result of simple physical processes. Many UFOs
do turn out to be illusions and misinterpretations.
There are many reports of unknown animals arid
monsters. Since biology is the study of life, the xenologist
needs to be familiar with that science also. He must
know the native wildlife and be able to spot misidentifications. Certain rock and mineral formations may confuse an untrained eye through their resemblance to
man-made objects. If the investigator knows ,basic geology
he will avoid obvious errors. Iron concretions are not
prehistoric cannonbal1s.
It is, of course, impossible for an investigator to be an
authority in all the sciences, but a solid general education
is within the reach of all. In the final analysis, the most
important qualities are a healthy. open-minded skepticism combined with thorough research techniques.

ll1fQJ NO ll..ONGIEIR lHIA TIHIRElE ADDRE1E2

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PURSUIT Spring 1980

81

.HEAVY ETHER
by E. Macer-Story

1979 by E. Macer-Story
All rights reserved

ABSTRACT
is reasonable to suppose that the "etheric" or "bioIT plasmic"
energies are lighter than ordinary

thre~-

dimensional structures composed of electro-magnetic

vibrations. This is because folks have the general idea of
ghosts as lightweight, drifting mists and ESP energies as
a quicksilver sort of bio-electric fluid. However, "ectoplasmic" mists and bio-electric effects such as alpha and
other electrical levels of brainwave activity may be considered to be side effects of another non-electrical process
which involves the use of hyperdense energies. Since
these hypothetical energies are hyperdense. the usual
time/space distinction will not have conventional meaning
as these hyperdense energies are being utilized, due to
the fact that as conventional "space extension" is drawn
back into hyperdensity the electromagnetic time/frequency
pulse distinction becomes jumbled or disappears entirely.
Observationally, spontaneous appearances and disappearances of "solid matter," as in psychokinetic and
poltergeist activity, can be seen to support this theory of
possible etheric hyperdensity. Experimentally', the alteration of molecular density under mild electronegative
stimulation indicates the possibility that certain electrical
states and frequencies may be more conducive to the use
of the "etheric" or "bio-plasmic" energies. These particular electrical states and frequencies are not the "etheric"
energies, but provide an atmosphere within which the
non-electrical hyperdense continuum may operate upon
electromagnetic structure. Certain electrical states of the
brain may also be seen as providing such an atmosphere
for the activation of the "bio-plasmic" energies.

INTRODUCTORY
Last winter, while packing to move out of a communal
loft, I found a shopping bag of old books in the storage
closet. These were all hardback scientific, mathematical
and astronomical texts dating from the early decades of
this century, when the concept of the "ether" or "carrier"
medium for electromagnetiC waves had just been brought
into serious question l and various other systems were
being substituted. I asked if anyone who was sharing the
loft owned these books, and no one seemed to know
where they had come from, so (taking advantage of this
unusual windfall) I appropriated several of these antique
volumes, among them Sir Oliver Lodge's short text,
The Ether of Space, which is a defense of the concept
of the existence of some universal etheric energy, even
in the teeth of the then-recent Michelson/Morley demonstration that no ether drag was shown in the transmission
of light from heavenly bodies to the earth. (If a three-

dimensionally palpable carrier energy exists, then light

transmission should lag in the wake of the earth's motion.
This lag was measured as being non-existent.)
I was struck by the similarity between Lodge's description
of the type of ether which would show no perceptible
ether drag, and the description w~ich1 once made in my
. short article "'Fluidice,"2 of a variable time compartment
at the intersection of the electric and magnetic vector
fields.
In my original article on this subject, I noted that time
anomalies sometimes associated with change of frequency
and electronic density could be accounted for by a (this
is a model. only, not a literal structure) rigid but expandable
time-junction which was subject to contraction or expansion
under the alter~tion of. electrical enyironment ..1 postulated
that these time-related energies had an existence unto
themselves-as a.. vari~ble .tinjecomp~rtment-and were
not simply unusual effeCts within the 'electromagnetic
spectrum.
.
At the time this article was published,. I had several
favorable responses to the concept, but" most folks were
baffled by the description. It was with both relief and
astonishment that I found in Lodge's book, The Ether 0/
Space, which was published in 1909, similar concepts
to those which I had enunciated in my description of this
awkward "time compartment" called "fluidice."

THE ETHER OF SPACE

Lodge wrote:
[The ether] being incompressible ... it follows that
it cannot be either a condensation or a rarifaction of

that material, but must be some singularily of structure ... It might, for instance, be something analogous
to a vortex ring, differentiated kineticly ... or it might
be differentiated statically, and be something which
would have to be called a strain-centre or region of
twist, or something which cannot be very clearly at
present imagined with any security . . . All that is required, therefore, to explain gravity, is a diminution of
pressure or increase of tension, caused by the formation of a matter unit ... there is no difficulty in supposing-that a slight, almost infinitesimal strain or rarifaction should be produced in the ether whenever
an electron comes into being ... to be relaxed again
only on its resolution and destruction.
"Strictly speaking, it is not a real strain, but only
a stress, since there can be no actual yield, but only
pull or tenSion, extending in all directions toward
infinity . . . All potential energy exists in the ether. It
may vibrate, and it may rotate, but as regards locomotion, it is stationary-the m9st stationary body
we know: absolutely sta.ionary, so to speak: our
standard of rest . . . just as the rigidity of the ether
is of a purely electric character, and is not felt mechanically-since mechanically it is perfectly f1uid-

PURSUIT Spring 1980

82
so its density is likewise of an electromagnetic character, and again is not felt mechanically, because it
cannot be moved by mechanical means . . . the
mechanical density of matter is a very small portion
of the etherial density ... " [p. 91,111,118,156.]

After assimilating Lodge's general attitude toward the

ether, I realized what had been missing from my original
description of "f1uidice." Clearly, this was the concept of
density. I had described a rigid, yet "expandable" timejunction, yet this model remained' a. two-dimensional
construct, acted on by exterior quasi-"thermal" energies.
, If this quasi-thermal quality is to be intrinsic to the time- _
ether itself. then alterations in the exterior boundaries of
the time-compartment between ttte electric and magnetic
fields-causing anomalous electromagnetic effects-will
have to involve changes in density of the time-ether and/
or changes in the, electronic density within the electro, , magnetic continuum. This alteration of ordin~ry densities
then would cause the ~lectromagnetic time/space continuum to contract, warp or bend.
'
For example, in the consideration of magnetic space
groups (this is a mathematical concept, not a set of social
organizations) there is a certain theoretical "time reversal"
operator T which has the effect of reversing the direction
of magnetic dipoles. 3 What if this process were reversed,
using a change in molecular-electronic density to alter the
time-etheric or "fluidice" continuum, causing anomalous
effects such as the apparent contraction or expansion and
disappearance of objects out of ~his time-space moment
and into the static singulari~ of the hyperdense ether ... ?

possible to augment this bio-electrical effect by placing

a psychic inside an area which had been designed to
resonate electromagnetic frequencies which augment the
brainwave frequencies active during ESP or PK effects?
Conversely, does a psychic who is in a meditative or
highly dynamic state of mind literally influence the electromagnetic balance of the surrounding area and/or the
area into which thought may be directed? Might this be
the reason for "magic circles" and "s~cred areas" used in
ancient magical practices? Perhaps primitive peoples
knew that it was possible to literally change the etheric/
electronic density within a certain limited physical area,
by the practice of psychical concentration. The magician,
in such ancient sorts of conjuration, is repeatedly warned
never to step outside of this circle without formally closing
his or her meditative/dynamic state of mil1d.
ESP information-like the books I found in my closetis some sort of "heavy" or "definite" energy coding which
varies in significance according to the electromagnetic
time/ space nexus into which it is introduced. The coding
itself does not change, is static (as in Lodge's analogy) but
the context of the coding continues to vary forward with
gravitational time, or has varied forward with time as the
heavy informational coding (remaining static) literally
travels backward as gravity time proceeds forward-or
can travel forward (as static coding) at a much more rapid
pace than gravitational time, since it is literally remaining
stationary, and will be in the same state now as it was in
the future.
. This may sound like some sort of obfuscating religiOUS
statement. However, I have drawn a secular diagram
(figure 1) to illustrate this concept. The books which I found
in my communal closet were not particularly religious.

TIME/ETHER

POSSIBLE OBSERVATIONS

DENSITY

Why do I identify the ether with time? Illogically, it is

associational. Lodge uses in his book a description of the
"ether" which is similar to my brief description of the
"f1uidice" time compartment-and I found Lodge's book
(which had been written in 1906) in a shopping bag in my
communal loft in 1979, subsequent to having written the
"f1uidice" article (which was published in 1976). In my
individual information-realization system, this little book
(although dating from 1906) was new in 1979, since it
did not enter the field of my perception until that time.
In effect. Lodge's thought was subsequent to my thought,
though actually his book had preceded my article by
seventy years. Yet, how the devil did that shopping bag
get into my closet? If I had not-by seeming coincidenceencountered this paper bag full of dusty books, I would
never have been able to realize that my strange "fluidice"
idea had some historical precedent.
'
Perhaps this realization caused some slight change in
the ethereal state of my brain. Contemporary research
has shown that certain states of consciousness correlate
with certain, definite and repeatable, electrical states of
the brain.
'
Is it possible that a time-independent (passively meditative or excitedly dynamic) state of mind-being electrically
unique-can somehow "mold" Qr "catalyze" the time/
ether, causing PK and coincidence effects? Would it be
PURSUIT Spring 1980

One of these books was entitled The Planet Earth:

,An Astronomical Introduction to Geography. This book,
written by Richard A. Gregory, F.R.A.S., an Oxford University Extension Lecturer in astronomy, was published
in London in 1894. I am not sure what the reaction to this
book was when it was published, but certainly it was notin 1894-an influential or pop1,llar text. I had never heard
of Gregory's book before finding it in my closet in 1979.
According to the preface, this short volume is an attempt
to "revive the observational astronomy of pre-telescopic
times." Gregory felt that students of elementary astronomy
were being taught the currently accepted model of the
universe ex cathedra, withollt reference to the scientific
method of observation and induction, and that this was
a mistake.
'''C~lestial phenomena," Gregory ,remarked in 1894,
"must 'be observed before the theories which explain
_them c~n b~ properly understood." Certainly, this applies
- to "psychical" and UFO phenomena as well. However,
these common-sense sorts of observations are more difficult to achieve in the psychical area since-unlike the
stellar regularities-the overt "etheric" phenomena, such
as PK and ESP, do not occur on a logically predictable
schedule. This is because these phenomena are time/
space "strange." We can chart and accurately predict
(barring catastroph,c anomaly) the resular motions of the

83
experimental subject who has been trained via hookup to
machine), who can then induce or match definite shifts in
the time-modulation of consciousness.

CONCLUSION

'",

Figure 1

'I-~~........

heavenly bodies simply because they occupy a tim~/space

frame within which the circumference of a circle is always
related to the diameter by a ratio of three and one seventh
units. Traditionally, we have earth clocks which are circular, and our ordinary time units derive from this measurement.of the circumference of a circle by degrees.
This commonality between the type of measurements
used to record time, and the type of triangulation process
(based on reciprocal degrees, referring to the circle) used
since antiquity to chart relationships between the earth
and the stars means that earth people take it for granted
that-even at long distances-this planet is sharing the
same basic time/space fabric as the stars Lyra or Arcturus.
On one level of perception, this is certainly, reliably true.
However, recently we have devised new methods
to measure time. These methods are directly related to
the development of more sophisticated electronic technology, and are not possible for the unassisted commonsense observer, since they involve the measurement of
the regular pulsing of the ammonia molecule, and other
micro-structures. 4 Mentally, these time concepts are available for observation, but we cannot actually "see" molecular pulsing without equipment. It is possible that very
sensitive psychics and people under the influence of LSD
or other consciousness-altering substances can "feel" this
sort of pulsing.
Clinically, since the nervous system of the body Is electrochemical, and-as has been recorded on EEG machines
in numerous experimental laboratories-there is a definite
shift in the electrical pattern of the brainwaves during
different "levels" of mental activity; people can be taught
to recognize different sorts of brainwave pulsing by ''feel.''&
How about "feeling" a shift in time-modulation? A shift in
electromagnetic frequency is literally a shift in time modulation. Just as a shift in drumbeat frequency can literally
be felt by a dancer. who then adjusts body movements
to fit the rhythm, certain shifts in electrical activity of the
brain can literally be :'felt" by a psychic or sensitive (or an

This mini-effect on atmospheric density will not fully

explain the timely appearance of old reference books In
my communal loft closet, and certainly does not prove
anything about the relatively heavy density of the timeether. However, since the brain is a physical object em~
ting an electromagnetic pulse, it does clearly Introduce
the possibility that a shift in the electromagnetic pulsing of
the brain may also cause a minute, but definite, alteration
in the molecular / electronic density of the surrounding
area, thus inducing a micro-frequency time-shift In the
texture of matter. This very small shift in frequency may.
open the possibility for access to the hyperdense and static
ether in surrounding regions, thus faCilitating psychokinetic effects.
Since information (as in the HEAVV ETHER dlagr~m)
is somehow coded by the brain to register In memory
(a time-independent storage closet) this may mean that
the traditional linkage of memory facility with the ESP
faculty has its basis In the fact that the electromagnetic
bodily machine Is somehow (by variations In time-frequency
analogous to the binary shifting In a computer) recording
and generating stored impressions from a frequency-linked
but durationally-static "etheric" energy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Special thanks to Jim Karnstedt for sharing with me in
conversation his practical memory of negative ion effects,
hazards and poss.ibilities.

COMMENTARY
It is hoped that references and bibliography will be consulted not as the last word ~n the etheric subject and related
topics, but as interesting additional Information.
REFERENCES
1. H. T. Flint, Wave Mechanics. Methuen & Co. Ltd .. London. 1929.
2. E. Macer-Story, "Fluidice." Pursuit. Vol. 10. No.2. Spring.
1977.
3. J. W. Leech & D. J. Newman. How to Use Groups. Methuen
& Co. Ltd., London. 1969.
4. Kenneth R. Atkins. Physics, John Wiley & Sons. New York,
1970. p. 21.
5. J. Wesley Burgess, "The Natural Mind of Man," American
Theosophist, Spring 1979.
6. Jules Aarons, ed. Radio Astronomical and Satellite Studies
o/the Atmosphere, North Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam.
1963.
7. Don Strachan & Jim Karnstedt. "Negative Ions." New Real
ities magazine, January 1979.

BIBUOGRAPHY
The Ether 0/ Space. Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., Harper and
Bros., 1909.

PURSUIT Spring 1980

84

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE. ET AL:

A NATURAL PHENOMENON
by LeVonne K. Angelo

lines also lie near many of these areas, and two intense
vortices near the "ring of fire" in the Pacific may contribute
PART I
to heat and pressure of great magnitude there.
Each planetary body exudes radiation of rays and/or
HE purpose of this article is not to rehash old worn- . particles, the velocity and strength of which depends upon
out reports of missing boats, planes and people.
the planet's size and its angle from Earth. Earth is constantly bombarded with these radiations which reach us in
Although some will be included to demonstrate a work. able pattern, my purpose is to bring together facts..
the form of cone-shaped energies.
figures, legends and ancient history under one writing
In his book, Astrology: A Spaceage Science, author
in order for the reader to decide for himself if the field
John Goodavage cites a sixty degree angle between
of astrology can help us understand the strange events
planets, especially that of Uranus and Venus, which has
a crystallizing effect-I.e., crisp and clear. Uranus has
said to have occurred in the area known as the Ber' .
also been suspected of triggering sudden unexpected
muda Triangle.
reactions such as devastating earthquakes.
Since my personal discovery in 1968 of the strange
events in the are.a ..affectionately known. as the "Bermuda. ',....:A ..g~n~leman. named Hiram Butler wrote a book enTriangle," I've been "hooked." There probably isn't
titled Solar Biology. In it, he advanced the idea of three
zodiacs instead of one: the sun's, the earth's, and the
many a book or article-pro or con-that I haven't
read. (I have' adde.d it bi~liography to:':the' end:;~f,thi(; l:,:t>.zO<;!ia:.o(.Aly.con.e,.lead: .~un. of -"the Pleiades. At present
article for those who wish to' pursue the Bermuda :Tri-' '. . iN/i"af;i "fnierestecl in just" the sun and the earth zodiacs.
angle mystery in greater detail.) I do not feel that what
(Alycone's will be mentioned later.) Mr. Butler taught:
" ... when the sun enters the sign of Aries on or about
I have found is of an "occult" nature.
March 21, it is the earth that has entered this sign, not
I discovered a certain pattern by using a double zodiac.
All nature seems to exhibit positive and negative polarthe sun." He further stated: "almanacs have been changed
Ity, and the zodiac should be no different. The zodiac of
to agree with the position of the constellations. This
places the almanacs and ephemerides one sign backthe physical sun system is the one with which most of
us are familiar. The second one is a reflected image and
ward. Example: if the almanac has the moon in Pisces
is opposite to the physical image.
it is actually in Aries. By counting one sign ahead of the
position given in the almanac, the correct position is
The pattern is quite simple to use. In the charts that
I have prOVided, the reader will notice the changing patsecured. This is true of all the signs." The ephemeris of
tern emerging. It changes from an "open or diffused"
the planets for Solar Biology have been arranged 180
sky (which is not dangerous) to a sky pattern for "people
degrees from the position given in the Nautical Almanac.
only" that are missing ... to the complete disappearMr. Butler further states, regarding the movement of
ances of boats and planes with everyone aboard. Even
Mercury: "It will be seen from Solar Biology or the Nau
the latest interesting phenomenon, SHe (spontaneous
tical Almanac, which gives the heliocentric position, that
the planet Mercury has moved about eleven signs in
human combustion) has its own personal pattern. NASA
and the Russians use, for rocket launching purposes,
that time, thus making nearly a complete circuit through
the twelve signs of the zodiac. The planet Mercury makes
a strange little "gimmick" referred to as the "launch
its complete cycle in 87 days and 23 hours; and those
window." For those readers who aren't aware of terwho exercise their reason while using the astrological
minology, a "launch window" is described as "an area
ephemeris will readily see that it cannot remain in one
of sky where particles and / or radiations diminish for
sign 68 days and make its complete circuit in 87 days
a time for some unexplained reason." It may help to
remember that description. . . .
and 23 hours."
Each planet, then, receives the influence of the sun
Our planet is analogous to a great magnet which pulls
in from the south and repels from the north-similar to
and also the opposing sign. The hub of our solar system,
the sun, is the absorber and recharger of this system.
kinetic energy. Man, it seems, is patterned in a similar
way; he receives magnetism from the earth through his
Newton's third law states that "all solid objects absorb
feet and emits radiations from the head area, thus creatand reflect energies." The imaginary spokes fanning out
ing a magnetic skin, 'or aura, whichever term pleases
between the sun and the planets resemble roadways or
grids. Depending upon' which grid a planet may pass
you. Our planet's magnetic skin is the Van Allen radia,tlon belts.
.
through and how many planets are there in one place,
Another strange thing about. magnetism is that heat
this could create an accumulated charge.
weakens it. This creates another dimension to .magnetisrY.l .~ '. .Whether or not a planet is directly over one part of
-electricity.' Vortices.are, for' the most part, over watei', .' :the: 'earth, or 'on the 9PPosite side, .doesn't change the
which is a conductor of electricity: Vortices occur in areas
fact the planet is still there. Whether or not a planet is in
where cold and warm currents meet, creating SWirling
a particular sign of the month, or is in the southern
hemisphere and cannot be seen in the northern hemiundercurrents or vortices of their own. Earthquake fautt

PURSUIT Spring 1980

85

/
\
\

--

-.

-- -- --

,
\

----

./

/
..;
./

./

/
/

,,.

l"""c.t.'f

\
\
(,("'1-)
~o

Figure 1 Positive and negative constellations. The 'line cutting thro'Jgh the sun and
earth directly from Pleiades and the line of the ecliptic for an (X) effect.

sphere, does not change the fact it is still there. And.

whether the moon is full or in the dark phase and cannot be seen ... it is still there.
For every action there must be a reaction. For every
positive action there must be a negative action to counterbalance it. During seasonal changes throughout our
365-day year, those of us on Earth view the changing
panorama of constellations as we circle through them.
However, we view this change as geocentric and tend
to overlook the heliocentric position. It is logical to me
that the sun appears not only in one constellation at a
time, but also in the opposite constellation. For example:
on or about August 20-21, the constellation Virgo reigns
until Sept. 20-21. The direct" opposite constellation is
Pisces. Since we know that the positive and negative
forces work at all times for proper balance, it is also
logical to have six positive and six negative constellations. All planets appearing in one constellation receive
the opposing influence of the. others. In figure 1, you
will note a double positive, Aries and Pisces, with a
double negative, Libra and Virgo, 'at opposite ends of
the system.
There are eighty-eight constellations which are broken
down into eight families. As the solar system journeys
through them, they send out radiations. These radiations are in turn absorbed by the sun. The sun changes
them and transmits them along to other planets, thereby creating a constant interplay throughout the solar
system. Similar to a great power complex, the sun acts

as the main generator. The families of constellations

and planets, in turn, serve as the transformers for their
little families. If we use just one zodiac arrangement,
we have a rather meaningless pattern (figure 2). However, if we use the double or opposing effect (figure 3),
we now have a significant pattern that we didn't have
before. A "cross" effect emerges, one which will in some
instances show a very balanced effect, and in other instances a very unbalanced one. As the reader will note,
figure 3 charts the infamous disappearance of the five
Avenger and one Martin aircraft on December 5, 1945.
The reader may also see from observing figure 3 why
I refer to the pattern I have found as the Cross of Malta.
The Maltese Cross has an odd history. It not only
serves as a banner for the island of Malta, but it also
appears in many other places and under many different
guises. One can trace the basic pattern throughout the
Mediterranean countries, Egypt, India and both North
and South America. Where did it originate? Why did it
spread through so many cultures and religiOUS customs?
I do not have the space here to mention all my findings, but the research I have done shows' the Maltese
Cross may have developed from the Celtic cross, to
reappear again and again throughout history (as the
"iron cross" worn by Hitler's soldiers, for example), and
it is often associated with the number 8 (there are 8
pOints to the Maltese Cross).
The Great Pyramid seems to have relevance as well.
British inventor Sir W. Siemens, who climbed to the
PURSUIT Spring 1980

86
top of Gizeh, noticed a ringing effect when he stretched
out his fingers over his head. Using a makeshift leyden
jar, he held It over his head and found that sparks flew
EIGHT
PLANETS

TWELVE
CONSTELLATIONS

y-

ARIES

TAURUS

1-

VENUS

)(

GEMINI

tft..

MARS

CANCER

oil

'"

MERCURY

Jf

JUPITER

VIRGO

~
11/

URANUS

LIBRA

'f

NEPTUNE

SCORPIO

e.

PLUTO

LEO

SATURN

XI' .SAGGITARIUS
SATELLITE

.:tIfI? AQUARIUS

CAPRICORN

MOON

--

OPPOSING FORCE

I..

PICES

... t

from it. Napoleon, it is said, entered the King's Chamber at Gizeh for a time (probably hoping for a great
revelation). He eVidently received more than he could
comfortably handle, for he emerged visibly shaken and
refused to speak concerning his experience. (Anyone
wishing to study more on this subject should read Se
crets of the Great Pyramid, by Peter Tomkins, Harper
& Row, 1971, pages 12, 88, 167 and 182.) Many visitors have noted a strange "pulling" effect as they stand
in the K,ing's Chamber. Magnetism. perhaps?
If you could view the pyramid from a vantage point
high above it, you would discover an indenture on each
of the four sides. Early investigators had a problem in
measuring the base until one of them climbed to the top
and looked downward. I experimented with cutting and
shaping a construction paper pyramid, then ran a pin
through its truncated top so that I could hold it at arm's
length and view it better. While spinning it idly, I accidentally dropped the pyramid on the table. The drawings in figures 4 and 5 will show you what it looked like.
Why was the Pyramid of Gizeh built? Not for fun and
games! Not for a tomb! Could it have been possible the
builders were trying to show us how the earth was being
bombarded by certain areas of the heavens? The top
was aligned with the Pleiades-as a matter of fact, with
a sun named Alycone! The symbology of the truncated
top tells me the pyramid was never meant to be finished.
This physical stone pyramid takes us just so far in our
three-dimensional world. The unfinished capstone may
symbolize an entirely different dimension. Investigators
of the pyramid refer to certain areas of the pyramid as

J:.V" .

111/s;,

12.-

S-1I"~fi,eI'S - I Nt 4rt/I'I
Figure 2

PURSUIT Spring 1980

Figure 3

87

Figure 5

having adverse vibrations and other areas as having

beneficial vibrations. Experiments with small pyramids
have found that this geometrical design amplifies whatever is placed into it . . . this may refer to thought/orms
as well.
Ivan Sanderson produced a globe with each vortex in
place and drew connecting lines from each vortex to the
next. See "The 12 DevU's Graveyards Around the World,"
in SAGA Magazine (Vol. 45, No.1), Oct. 1972. He
then connected the North and South Poles in the same
way; by doing so he produced a pentagon. The circle,
cross and square are all corporated into the pyramid.
Plato is credited for the concept of"the five regular solids
of the cosmos that can be inscribed in a sphere-this is
the same concept. No matter what vortex you start
drawing lines from, you will produce another pentagon.
A pentagon divides a circle into seventy-two degree
segments . . . the vortices in each hemisphere are seventy-two degrees apart. By alternating the vortices north
to south, they are thirty-six degrees apart. Numerically
speaking, we are in the domain of "nine." Circumference of the planet measures 360 degrees. The four
quadrants of the Great Pyramid represent ninety. degrees
each. There are nine planets in our solar system and
the numbers seven and nine are important symbols in
almost all cultures on our planet.
Louis Charpentier writes of the similarity between
Chartres Cathedral and the Pyramid of Gizeh. (Please
refer to The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral, by Louis
Charpentier, translated by Ronald Fraser, Avon Books,
1966.) Only on June 21 does a ray of sunlight strike
a rectangular flagstone at the cathedral. In the Pyramid,
the pole star was used to align the structure, and it was
on June 21 that the pole star shone down into the pit.
The Gaelic word "wouive" meant spirit. This is symbolized by winged snakes; at Gizeh, hieroglyphs portray
the cobra. Reference is made by Charpentier to the
telluric currents as cosmic or magnetic life in the planet.
Where telluric and aerial currents met, dragons were
born: Perhaps those legendary fire-breathing dragons
with which the knights of the round table did battle
were born of the same currents? Stone is the accumulator of cosmic energy. In 1200 A.D., fertility stones were
referred to as "menhirs," while "dolmens" were stones
pointing out the place where the spirit pulsates. Egypt's
geodetic stone markers were caUed "omphalos," meaning
"navel." The main room of the temple Amon had an
omphalo that was placed where the meridian and parallel
actually crossed. The navel area is the feeding tube of
the fetus. The navel area marks a spiritual center in the
solar plexus in ancient philosophy. And . . . the solar
plexus is the accumulator of solar energy for the human

body. Pyramids have been built all around the world,

for the most part on mountains. They follow the Pacific
coast in South America (along the Andes), up into
North America (along the Sierra Madres, Sierra Nevada
and Rockies) and continue through to the Brooks Range
in Alaska. Asia, too, has pyramids, as do the high mountain ranges in the Atlantic (in the Azores and the Canary
Islands). In addition, many sunken cities are now being
discovered with temples resembling pyramids. I could
go on and on, but the point I am attempting to make is
that the energies and symbolism involved in the pyramid shape may have something to do with 'our investigation of the Bermuda Triangle.
The heavens of our solar system are divided in half
. by celestial ecliptic. Six constellations are above the
ecliptic and six are below it. If we alternate each one as
a positive-negative, we have the pattern that was referred to in figure 1. This double power emerges with
the hourglass shape. Aries heralds spring, one of the
vernal equinoxes; Libra, the fall. equinox. Aries gives
a powerful positive surge followed by another powerful
surge that is extended by the Pleiades (Alycone). Virgo
culminates the harvest and libra signals the shut-down
of activity for the winter. Each equinox brings a magnetic
change or miniature magnetic reversal.
Pie~oelectric and pyroelectric action may also play
a part in our puzzle. I would strongly urge the reader
to refer to the 15th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittonica, "Earth, Gravitational Field of," Vol. 6, pp. 21, 22;
and "High-Pressure Phenomena," Vol. 8, pp. 867, 869
and 870. Isostasy is defined as ... "the equilibrium of
the earth's crust, a condition in which the forces tending
to elevate balance those tending to depress. Or the state
in which pressur~s from every side are equal." Perhaps
the builders of the pyramids placed those structures in
locations where equal pressure could create a neutral
zone. Perhaps the planets, moon and sun working together might create the appropriate stress. A number of
items in nature exhibit piezoelectrical. effect. Minerals
such as cadmium sulfide and sodium chlorate, and metals
possessing a metallic luster are good conductors. Mica
and graphite are non-conductors. Mica is used as an
insulator in its natural or synthetic state. Non-conductive
crystals having polar directions can become electrically
changed under force (piezoelectricity), or by heating
(pyroelectricity). Quartz grows in a spiral, analogous to
DNA, and inclines toward certain directions. The spirals
can be right or left-handed, and it is possible for the
same or different types to twine and intergrow. Crystals
point to the magnetic pole during magnetic reversals of
the earth. Crystalline structures of rocks will twist, showing this change t~ward ~he magnetic pole.
What has all this got to do with vortices and pyramids? Everything! The earth is like a great crystal with
its high and low points. Sometimes it is under stress
more than at other times; great heat is generated in
volcanic areas, and the warm and cold ocean currents
circulate in these same areas, contributing to thermal
activity. The Great Pyramid is located on the 30 degree
latitude, at 31 degrees, ten hours longitude. A line drawn
longitudinally through the apex of the pyramid down

PURSUIT Spring 1980

-~

88

BOOK REVIEWS

. by George W. Earley

MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION, by Jacques

Vallee (And/Or Press, Berkeley CA, 1979,243 pp.
with drawings, maps, photos, Index and bibliography, $11.95 hardcover, $6.95 paperback)
According to the booking agency that" sets up his
nationwide lectures, Jacques Vallee is the real-life inspiration for the charac~~r 9f Lacombe in the movie
Close Encounters. But where Lacombe found himself
dealing with actual extraterrestrials, Vallee, in his latest
book, eschews the interplanetary visitor thesis in favor
of a conspiracy theory that calls for a mysterious group
of terrestrial occultists who are (and have been for an
unspecified period of time) manipulating their fellow
humans by means of the UFO phenomena. Why, you
ask? Vallee identified six possible "social consequences"
of such manipulation:
1) The belief in UFOs widens the gap between
the public and scientific institutions ...
2) The contactee proJ:aganda undermines the
image of human beings as masters of their own
destiny ...
3) Increased attention given to UFO activity
promotes the concept of political unification of this
planet. . .
.
4) Contactee organiZations may become the
basis of a new 'high-demand' religion. . ..
5) Irrational motivations based on faith are spreading hand in hand with the belief in extrater~estrial
intervention. . .
6) Contactee philosophies often include belief in
higher races and in totalitarian systems that would
. .
eliminate democracy.

Needless to say, this view of the past, present, and

(possible) future UFO scene has upset a number of
people, some of whom have gotten qUickly into print
with their objections. APRO and MUFON have each
printed the same review by Vincent White who calls the
book a "disaster'~ wherein "logic is taken to its ultimate
conclusions of ultimate absurdity and reason is left in
the lurch." Gordon Melton, Fate's book editor, himself
a minister who has studied religious cult groups for
many years, castigates Vallee for "his ignorance of the
sociology of the esoteric" which causes him to see more
significance in the similarities between many occult groups
than actually exist. And in conversations and correspondence with the ufological eqUivalent of the man-in-thestreet, I've heard Vallee's book described in unprintable
terms while its author was characterized as "mad, absolutely mad!"
But the objections are equally flawed. Melton's review
ignores the fact that some thing/being/event has' made
a powerful impression on the witness/contactee while
White, in hewing stolidly to the extra-terrestrial nutsand-bolts idea, leans far too heavily on Star Wars and
Len Stringfield's tales of crashed spaceships and pickled
aliens. Agree or not with his conclUSions, the fact remains that Vallee has documented an uncomfortable lot
of very disquieting/frightening events.
I think it quite likely, as Robert Anton Wilson theorized
in the October 1979 Second Look, that a number of
strictly terrestrial groups have jumped into the saucer
scene with the intention of manipulating events to their
own benefit. In so dOing, it is likely that they have muddi~d the waters to the point that a clear understanding
. of past happenings may never be achieved; opportunists

through the. tip of Africa connects with one of the vortices. One "vile vortex" .is located at. zero degrees near
the Gibraltar area;. Afghanistan has the next vortex at
72 degrees. All are on the ~ame latitude as the Great
Pyramid. Is :it any wonder this entire area has always
been permeated with mystery and creativity? On a map
one finds the Pyramid of Gizeh just a little below, and
in the center of, vortices 8-10. The pyramid complex
on the Tsinan Mountains of China lies between vortices
10-2; another pyramid complex Iie.s between 4-6, near
Salt Lake City, . Utah. Since we are unable to see into
the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans, we must assume that
the pyramids (if any) here lie in the middle of vortices
6-8 and that the Bonin Island complex lies between
vortices 2-4.
Since the bUilding of the Great Pyramid, the orientation of the stars has changed. The original orientation
could have produced an enormous amount of voltage.
In the Egyptian Book 0/ the Dead, the pharaoh was
placed in the coffer and :was alleged to return to life,
hence his subjects regarded him as a god. Imagine what
it must have been like to be placed into that coffer when

. the voltage was at its peak! Why didn't the body burn
to a crisp or diSintegrate? Perhaps because the coffer is
.. made from dark brown polished granite, which means
it is formed biotite, a common mineral of the mica group.
Mica, if you remember, is non-conductive. (Mica was
also found by explorers in one of the South American
temples. The mica there covered the entire main altar
floor. No one could imagine why the floor would be
made of mica!) The Queen's Chamber lies directly under
the apex of the pyramid. Early explorers found salt a half
inch thick around the walls of the room. What was salt
doing there? Perhaps it was a form of sodium chloratethe conductor.
The vortices, too, are high voltage areas, and this
voltage has an ebb and flow not much different from
high and low tide ... a constant, never-ending process
of maintaining proper balance in the planet. In Part II,
I will discuss some of the alleged anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle aura, and will also show several astrological charts of f~mous plane and boat disappearances.
Part II of LeVonne Angelo's article will
appear in the next issue of Pursuit.

PURSUIT Spring 1980

89
have always been with us and are quick to exploit the
misfortunes of others to their own benefit. But I agree
with Melton that the contactee cult groups "show no
signs of influencing the ufological community, much less
society at large," I see nothing in the events or trends of
today's world that point to any UFO activity causing the
"six social consequences" Vallee has warned of.
What, then, is my conclusion? I think this is an important book. It has attempted, no matter how flawed
that attempt may be (and on that score there is no agreement either!), to examine a mass of chaotic data which,
for the most part, most researchers on both sides of the
ufological fence have been unable/unwilling to cope with.
Better a flawed attemp: than no attempt. Hopefully
others will follow 'ihe trail(s) Vallee has attempted to
point out. Science, as Ivan Sanderson was fond of saying "is the pursuit of the unknown." I suggest we will
make more progress if we embark on that pursuit than
if we stand around, tossing rocks at Jacques Vallee. '
FL YING SAUCERS, AN ANALYSIS OF THE AIR
FORCE PROJECT BLUE BOOK SPECIAL REPORT
NO. 14, INCLUDING THE C.I.A. /lND THE SAUCERS: 5th EDITION edited by Leon Davidson

($5.95 postpaid from Blue Book Publishers, Room

5A, 64 Prospect St., White Plains, NY 10606)

On July 30, 1952, the Washington Post ran story on

a chap named Leon Davidson. At a time when the USAF
was claiming saucer sighters were nuts and the saucer
believers were yelling "spaceships!" everytime something
glittered in the sky, Davidson took a heretical view-he
said the saucers were some sort of secret gUided missile
project.
Davidson, a lone-wolf researcher with a doctorate in
chemical engineering and no close ties to any of the private
UFO groups, has modified his views somewhat since
1952, but he still believes the government-specifically
the CIA-iS behind the UFOs.
Initially, says Davidson, saucer fever sprang from observations of genuine vehicles/devices belonging to the
USNavy ... machines far better than anything the newlyhatched USAF either owned or had on its drawing boards.
This base of misperceived sightings of. real objects was
then seized upon by the CIA which, for reasons of its
own, began a campaign of flummery, hoaxing, and de-

, 'ception which, since saucers are still being seen, m~st

persist to this day If ,we are to credit Davidson's hypothesis. (By the way, Leon, where are those wonderful
Navy machines today?)
,
,
In this book, hereafter simply called Fifth Edition,
Davidson 'claims the CIA "secretly sponsOred the formation
of saucer study groups and contact clubs, including NICAP
. . . set up many saucer publishers, sponsored the publicity,received by Adamski's books and others ... sponsored
the wave of saucer articles in 1952 in Li/e, Look . .. conducted the hoaxes played on Adamski and Fry, including Adamski's desert contact ... " etc., etc. You ~ame
a saucer contact event from that period and Davidson will
doubtless claim the CIA set It up.
But why? Psych~IOgical warfare, says Davidson, claiming the nuclear test ban treaty was the result of peoples'
belief in contactee claims of cosmic disaster if we did not
stop atomic bomb tests. And the contactees, of course,
got their information from the "Space Brothers" who,
says Davidson, wer!i! really CIA agents.
Now these are pretty heady claims, the'more so in the
light of recent revelations of the CIA's dirty doings here
and abroad the~ past 25 + years. But there's a' problem
with these claims. Where, in aU the testimony to Congress
and in the books and magazines that expose the CIA's
nefarious activities, is there anything that links them with
the saucers? Davidson does not provide a link and I do
not believe one exists. Even, the CIA 'saucer files' unearthed by Zechel's JUST CAUS freedom of information operations fail to prove Davidson's contentions.
M~reover, his charges are ancient history, having been
originally written'and published between 1956 and 1962.
They could ha~e been reprinted much earlier: Third
Editfon appeared in 1966 and Fourth Edition in 1971.
Fifth Edition not only doesn't explain why Davidson
waited so long to reprint these old accusations, but contains nothing to prove his charges. Saucers are still being
seen. New contactees seem to appear each month. Is this
just hysteria and misperceptions (the Klassic view) or is
the CIA s~i11 engaged in global f1umntery? And if they are,
how are they managing to keep this se&et when all else
seems tO'be leaking at the seams?
When I asked him for proof of a CIA/UFO link, Davidson sent me three issues of InSide, Straight, a newsletter
he publishes about such things as the Kennedy assassi-

BOOK PREVIEW
Have the North and South Poles undergone sudden
have tumbled in space many times. And. it may againand cataclysmic shifts and reversals? Has the earth flipped
soon! For the sources are generally united in forecasting
a geophysical event that can destroy civilization. Moreend over end in space?
over, the sources agree on when "the ultimate disaster"
The scientific establishment says no. There is, howwill happen: at,the end 0/ this cen~ury.
ever, an increasingly substantial "yes" case, and in John
White's forthcoming book Pole Shift!, which Doubleday
In his exami~ation of the data, White evaluates it
& Co. will publish in April, the author presents that', ,:', against current sCientific p!i!rspective$ and concludes that
case. He has gathered evidence from three sources;", ,', ':,there ar~ fac~ors~~atur~l~ ;aljd:,,:h~~an,~conve~ging to
modern researchers (such as'Sanderson, Velikovsky'," ,:' ,'make, ,it, jricr,ea~ingly,' pOsSibleAo~',:"a;"PQI~:"shift to occur,
Hapgood and Warlowl, contemporary psychics (such'as'" , ' just 'as'the'pre~ictlons ah(rprophedeshave"'s~id,
Edgar Cayce, Paul Solomon and Aron Abrohamsen)
Pursuit readers will .most certainly find the book of
special interest.
and ancient prophecies (including the Bible, Hopi Indian
- Editor
legend and Nostradamus) t~ show that our planet may
PURSUIT Spring 1980
,.

:.,'

.....

90
nations. Interesting . . . but no link here with UFOs, although Fifth Edition does reprint, without comment, this
item from the late Ray Palmer's Forum of March 1974:
"It is not possible to consider flying saucers without considering the murder of John KEmnedy." Pfui, where's the
proof of such a wild charge?
If you are confused by all this, so am I. I do think that
Davidson is owed thanks for getting the original Blue
Book Report 14 out into the open back in 1956, but he
has larded Fifth Edition with so much twaddle and conjecture that his credibility suffers. In keeping with the
paranoia of the times, I sometimes find myself wondering
if Davidson is exposing a conspiracy or if he is part of one.

ENCOUNTERS WITH UFOOCCl,fPANTS by Coral

Jim Lorenzen (Berkley, NYC, 1976, 424 pp.,

lIIus., appendices, tables of slghtlngs and Index.
$1.95)
.
ABDUCTEDI CONFRONTATIONS WITH BEINGS
FROM OUTER SPACE by Coral It Jim Lorenzen

(Berkley, NYC, 1977,228 pp., appendices, references. $1.75)

In the beginning, which is to say shortly after the Arnold
sighting, we had flying saucers and a strong belief they
were interplanetary spacecraft. Interestingly enough, no
one wanted to deal with the personnel aspect, i.e., if the
saucers were alien spacecraft, who (or what) was in the
pilot's seat? Newspapers wrote nervously about "little
green men," saucer enthusiasts eschewed tales by George
Adamski (about contacts with live saucer people) and
Frank Scully (about crashed saucers with midget corpses),
and the general public didn't know what (or who) to believe. Into all this confusion came the first of the serious
private UFO groups, the Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization. APRO, which initially was mad~ up of
Coral and Jim Lorenzen plus a few friends, courageously .
opted to accept reports of beings associated with UFOs,
and to study those rep.orts.
In these two books, published a year apart and nearly
10 years after their first book on the subject (Flying Saucer
Occupants, 1968), the Lorenzens again tackle the subject of UFO occupants.
To a degree, the two books overlap; either can be read \
independently of the other but taken together they form a
fascinating compilation, persuasive in the aggregate, and
a cogent argument that either something strange really is
happening-to wit: covert interaction between UFO
occupants and apparently randomly selected terrestria1sor else a strange mental contagion is overtaking an increasing number of folks all over the wor/d. It is this aspect
of the contactee question that Menzel, Klass, and the
other skeptics have so perSistently ignored.
.
You'll find a number of familiar cases here-Higdon,
Moody, Walton-as well as some that may be totally unfamiliar-Patty Price, David Stephens, and Gerry Irwin,
for example. There are, of course, a number of others.
Between them, these two books have over 600 pages
which I have no intention of trying to summarize. I should
note that Encounters, the earlier book, covers occupant
encounter claims from over the past three decades, while
Abducted!, as its name implies, deals with a more specific
PURSUIT Spring 1980

aspect of an encounter . . . the kidnapping of the encounter witness. There is some overlap between the two
books, but not enough to say buy one and not the other.
Both deserve to be in your library, although I must carp
a bit and note that Abducted! lacks both index and i11ustrations. Inconvenient omissions, these, for the researcher,
but ones, I would guess, that were dictated by a cosiconscious publisher.
.
Earlier I noted that the books provide the reader with
two possible solutions to encounter/abduction claims.
I should point out that for the Lorenzens, there aren't tWo
choices anymore. They are convinced that UFOs, o~cu
pants, and encounter/abduction cases are physically
real. They further recognize that the climate in both government and the private sector, which includes the media
with its power to shape attitudes, is such that abductees
cannot hope for help from those areas. Accordingly, they
"suggest that abductees no longer report their accounts
to the authorities" but contact APRO which offers "to do
what governmental officials have never done-inVestigate,
sympathize, and attempt to relieve the trauma abductees
have suffered." Such trauma, say the Lorenzens, includes
"the additional injury resulting from character assassination by the dedicated skeptics and the 'UFO researchers'
who will villify a UFO percipient rather than lo.se face with
the media."
.
It is too early to tell what effects that policy will have,
particularly since the odds of a reader being abducted
are likely to be small, but given the choice, should I evet
be abducted, I'd take the Lorenzens over Klass, Oberg,
and/or the Feds.

HANDS by Margaret Williams It Lee Gladden

(Galaxy Preas, P.O. Box 100, Warner CA 92086,

1976, xv + 272 pp., iIlus. no price listed)
Americans went on a reincarnation kick some 22 years
ago. Inspired by Morey Bernstein's book Search for Bridey
Murphy, hundreds of otherwise normal people let themselves be hypnotized in an attempt to conjure up contact
with a past life.
One such person was 'Robin Greenwood' whose involvement as a hypnosis regression subject began in
1958 and lasted for seven years! But Robin's case was
different from the run-of-the-mill subjects who discovered
that they'd been kings and queens in their past lives.
Lee Gladden, professor of psychology and philosophy at
Riverside City College, Riverside, California, did not
succeed in regressing Robin to an earlier earthly life.
Instead, Gladden somehow put Robin in contact with an
intelligent, non-human, telepathic being on another planet!
Imagine a disc with 8 stumpy but flexible 'arms' each
equipped with a hand, and you have an idea how the
creature reportedly looked. It was, naturally enough,
dubbed 'hands' by Gladden and others involved in Robin's
. hypnosis.
In the nearly 50 hypnotic sessions that followed Gladden's initial contact with 'hands,' the research team found
themselves not only conversing with 'hands' but also with
the 'Cenosites,' a highly intelligent race of spacefaring
humanoids who claim to have visited Earth during World
War II. Appalled by our barbarity, the Cenosites refuse to

91

SITUATIONS
This section of our journal is dedicated to the reporting of curious and unexplained events. Members
are encouraged to send in newsclippings and responsible reports they feel should be included here.
Remember. local newspapers often offer the best (or only) information concerning some events.
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper, periodical, etc.). the date
the article appeared and your membership number (or na'me, if you prefer to be credited that way).

GREEN-EYED,HUMPBACK
MONSTER IN COLORADO

LAKE?
On a comfortable, late-August night in
the Rockies in 1979, Jerry Cross and his
father-in-law, Bill Hoppe, were fishing.
Suddenly, the fish stopped biting.
Cross and Hoppe, who had set up a
campsite on the shore of Lake Katherine
in the Mount Zirkel wilderness area of
northern Colorado, couldn't understand it.
Then Cross noticed what he thought
was a log about 20 or 30 yards offshore. He soon realized, however, "it"
was no log. The two men pointed their
flashlights at the object.
"That's when I got scared," Cross
said. "The light reflected back off the
eyes. One time it reflected red, another
time green. The eyes were about 3 to 4
inches in diameter and I could see the
basic outline. It was about 10 to 15 feet
long, but what made it stick out in my
mind was the hump on its back. If I had
to associate it with anything, I'd have to
say a camel."
Cross, an engineering technician with
the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, said the creature was swimming
in leisurely fashion with about 11/2 feet
of its body protruding from the water.
The hump rose another 11/2 feet. Cross
said he and Hoppe followed the creature
along the shoreline, but' lost it after
a few minutes.
"At the time, I admit I was scared,"
Cross said. "I was spooked and so was
my father-in-law. Neither one of us gets
scared very easily."
Eight weeks after the incident, Cross

still thought about what they saw that

night. He dismissed hypotheses from
wildlife experts that what they saw might
have been a moose or elk.
An official with the Colorado Division
of Wildlife said there is probably a logical
explanation, although he wasn't sure
what the explanation could be. If Cross
and Hoppe saw something out of the
ordinary, the official said, there will
probably be other sightings. "When you're
. talking about a 15 to 20-foot-long thing
with a hump and a big green eye, it's
hard to hide it under a rock," the official
said. He indicated he believes the two
men are sincere in their statements, but
he doesn't accept Cross' theory that what
they saw was some kind of prehistoric
fish.
Cross, anticipating the obvious skepticism about the sighting, said laughingly,
"We hadn't drunk anything, nor were
we smoking anything, nor had we been
eating any wild berries."
SOURCE: The Denver Post (Colorado).
October 19, 1979. CREDIT: Dr. Leo Sprinkle.

WHSTLING ICE BOMB

RIPS THROUGH ROOF
On August 28, 19.79, David Brooks was
in his yard in Spotsylvania County,
Virginia, waxing his father's car when
a large chunk of ice came hurtling out of
the northern sky to rip a hole two and
one-half feet wide in the roof and ceiling
of his neighbors' one-story home.
"I heard something with a lot of speed
like it had a whistle behind it," Brooks
said. A small explosion-like sound fol-

contact us overtly until we learn to live together in peace

and harmony. (A familiar message from the Space Brothers, right?)
.
Despite Gladden's professional background, the 'hands'
team had no luck in interesting NASA or anyone else in
their alleged extra-terrestrial communications. Eventually
Robin refused to participate any longer-she was frightened
by one noted psychologist who, after sitting in on a contact seSSion, said she was self-deluded.
It ;s a fantastic story, but told in a straightforward manner
by Gladden and co-author Margaret Williams, another
member of the 'hands' team. Despite many efforts, the
team was unable to come up with any means of proving

lowed. ''Then I saw it hit the house and

pieces of ice splintered all over the place.
That's why I picked these up. I thought
no one would believe it."
Brooks exhibited a plastic freezer-container holding a half-dozen small pieces
of ice.
The hole in the neighbors' home
extended from the roof down through
an attic area and the dining room ceUing.
Insulation material was scattered throughout the house and much carpeting was
soaked by the melting ice.
Weather and aeronautic officials said
the chunk of ice probably fell from the
wing of a high-flying jet.
SOURCE: AP, Detroit Free Press (Michigan).
August 30. 1979. CREDIT: W. L. Neilsen.

MYSTERY FACE IN
RAHWAY TREE
To add to the growing list of images in
unusual places, we now have a face (or
two) appearing in a tree in Rahway,
New Jersey.
Throngs of curious residents have
flocked to the home of a 53-year-old
Rahway woman to get a glimpse of the
unusual image she claims has taken up
residence in her maple tree.
More than 600 people stopped by to
see the image, sometimes arriving as late
as 3 a.m. to shin.e a flashlight up into
the branches. Mrs. Carter, who owns
the tree, said many of the tree-gazers
believe the image to be Jesus Christ,
Moses, or some kind of religious prophet.
Others fear it may be an evil demon.
"I don't believe in such foolish things,"

what they were hearing from Robin was true and that is
where matters stand today. Acceptance or rejection is up
to the reader ... but I can't help wondering what might
have happened had the 'hands' team been able to interest
other, more open-minded, scientists in Robin's case. But
all you have to do is remember what the public/military/
scientific/news media attitude towards not just UFOs,
but contact reports, was during 1958-65. Even today,
though, it would be interesting to know what leo Sprinkle,
Alvin lawson, and others involved in hypnotiC regreSSion
work with purported contactees would make of this case.

~
PURSUIT Spring 1980

92
Mrs. Carter said. "I am a very practical,
realistic person and believe it is simply
something beyond my understanding."
Mrs. Carter, who has lived in the house
for 12 years, said she first noticed the
image August 27, 1979. The apparition
was so startling she called police late that
night to investigate. A patrolman who
responded said the image resembled
a face and was surprised it was so clearly
defined.
Mrs. Carter claims that by looking
closely, one can discern a man's face
with dark eyes, nose, mustache, long
hair and a scar over the right eye.
Meanwhile, some who have viewed
the tree report seeing a second image at
the base of an adjacent tree which resembles a woman. That image, which
Mrs. Carter said is difficult to discern,
appears to be a profile of a woman with
a short, bushy hairstyle.
Mrs: Carter also said she has been
unable to get any housework done with
the continued interruptions .. She hoped
the publicity would taper off by tbe time
the winter rolled around and the leaves
started to fall.
SOURCE: Star Ledger (Newark. New Jersey).
September 5. 1979. CREDIT: Thomas
Schneider.

UFO 'HEARING'
Bobby Jiminez had been totally deaf for
27 years from a bout of spinal meningitis
he s'uffered just before his third birthday. His deafness ended suddenly, however, February 25, 1979 as he was
driving home from a visit to his brother's
home near Porterville, California.
Although law enforcement authorities
said there were no reports of a flash or
explosion in the area where the incident
occurred, Jiminez said the first sound he
had heard in more than a quarter century was the sound of an explosion which
accompanied an orange flash. It scared
him badly and he drove directly to the
sheriff's office.
"He was nearly incoherent when he
walked in here," said a deputy. "His
speech had always been mumbled because he couldn't hear, but he was almost
babbling."
Deputies called Sgt. Richard Cooksey,
who is able to communicate with the
deaf. He and a deputy took Jiminez to
a hospital where workers who knew him
confirmed that he had been deaf most of
his life.
Because Jiminez was unable to understand speech, Cooksey asked him in
writing if he could hear, and Jiminez
nodded "yes."
Later, Cooksey said he clicked a ballpoint pen behind Jiminez and the man
PURSUIT Spring 1980

responded by turning around and looking

at the pen.
"He complained about the loudness
of the heating unit motor and the typewriters down the hall," Cooksey said.
"He said the noise hurt his ears."
SOURCE: UPI, The Trentonian (New Jersey),
February 28, 1979. CREDIT: David Weidl.

...

UNEXPLAINED DUGOUT
In Edmonson County, Kentucky, in the
southern reaches of Nolin Reservoir, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineer officials say one
of their patrols spotted what appeared to
be a large log floating in the nearly 6,000acre lake a few years ago:
A close look told them that what they
had seen was the bottom of a large dugout,
nearly 20 feet long and almost three feet
wide at the center, and all from a solid
piece of timber.
The smooth edges and evenly rounded
bottom, as well as the grac,!ful 'lnes. fore.'
and aft, would lead even the most casual'
observer to the inevitable conclusion that
someone had spent a great deal of time
and effort building the craft.
Regulations specify that property found
floating in lakes such as Nolin must be
held by the Corps of Engineers for 120
days to allow time for the owners to claim
them. If unclaimed, they become the
property of the corps.
No one showed up during the claiming
period, although a man did come forth
later claiming his children had found the
craft the year before and had played with
it in the lake. The man's claim was denied,' however, since he failed to show
proof.
"We've scratched our heads a lot,"
said Robert Barnett of the corps. "Something like this arouses your curiosity when
you find it. This is the first dugout I've
ever seen."
At the University of Louisville, archaeologist Phil DiBlasi said the only dugout
he was familiar with is located at Cleveland, Ohio. "It was dug out of a bog," he
said, adding, "I don't find it inconceivable
that this dugout [found at Nolin] coule,!
date back to 400 or 500 A.D."
A University of Tennessee professor
who studied a wood sample from the
dugout reported that it superficially resembled one of two varieties found in
Central and South America.
"That's kind of unbelievable," said
Kenneth Skaggs, the corps' area resource
manager for Nolin and other reservoirs in
the area. He believes the craft is made'
from American Chestnut, which was ~ir
tually rendered extinct by a blight in the
'30s. His theory is that the dugout was
made by early settlers, or Indians, then

finally abandoned in one of the many

caves or rock shelters hidden among the
sandstone ledges and heavy timber in
what is now Edmondson County. Some
such caves and shelters were eventually
flooded by the lake (the corps raised the
pool 35 feet there in 1963) and the dugout may have been dislodged.
Although carbon dating the craft probably would not work, archaeologists say
there is a process called dendrochronology (a method of tree-ring dating) that
might indicate the age of the dugout.
Meanwhile, the mysterious craft remains
near Campbellsville. at the corps' Interpretive Center at Green River Reservoir,
for all to see. The corps says the dugout
will eventually be returned to Nolin for
display.
SOURCE: Courier Journal (LOUisville, Ken
tucky). March 28. 1979. CREDIT: Harold
Holland.

HOME SUDDENLY
BECOMES HAUNTED
The modest frame house of Bert Gross
sits on a small hill in Desoto County,
Mississippi, just south of the city limits of
Memphis, Tennessee. And although the
house looks ordinary from the outside,
strange happenings transformed the four
room dwelling over the weekend of March
31,1979.
Gross, 54, a former construction worker,
said he and his five children were sitting
in their bedroom-liVing room watching
television Saturday night (March 31)
when a swarm of insects suddenly entered
the room and began buzzing around their
heads. Then a pillow flew off the couch
and landed eight feet away.
And this was just the beginning, Gross
said.
During the next two days, a coalburning heater in the same room collapsed
and a portable television set crashed to
the floor; then, an upright freezer turned
itself around in the kitchen, Gross said.
He finally called neighbors and Desoto
County sheriffs deputies to come watch
when drawers began opening and closing
and objects such as cans of spaghetti
sauce and an alarm clock-hurled through
the air.
A reporter for the Commercial Appeal
said he witnessed the unexplained happenings while spending several hours in
the house.
And a neighbor, Gilbert. Hines, 58,
who lives behind the Gross house, said
a flying pillow made him a believer.
. "I'm a hard believer, especially when it
comes to what people tell me," Hines said.
"But a pillow came from a corner and hit
me on the leg. I wouldn't have believed
it if I hadn't seen it."

93
COlJRTbY THI: I.EADF.R. SlJSSEX COlJ~TY. DEI.AWARE

Although no one could explain the

phenomenon, friends urged Gross to
move his children-ranging in age from
13 to 24-out of the mysterious house.
Gross convinced his family to stay for
the weekend, but said he might change
his mind later-unless things started
staying where they belonged.
SOURCE: The Tennessean (Tennessee),
April 3. 1979. CREDIT: Harry Holland.

UNIDENTIFIED ANIMAL
SIGHTED IN DELAWARE
State Police stationed near Concord,
Delaware, were pU12led by strange tracks
found on a farm east of Concord. (See
photo.) The tracks, discovered September 13. 1979, measured four by four
and one-half inches. To make matters
worse, within two and one-half weeks
prior to the discovery. three separate
reports of an unidentified animal were
made by people living within three miles
of the farm east of Concord.
Those reports described a strange,
dark brown to black-colored animal crossing rural Route 483 and jumping in soybean fields.
Paul West. a rural barber. was the first
to notice the animal as he looked out his
barbershop window around 6 p.m. one
evening.
"I saw it in a rise in the road [about
100 yards away). It was not quite jet
black and looked like a turkey buzzard
at first," he said.
A passing car, however. startled the
animal, according to West, and the animal leaped 12 to 15 feet into a nearby
soybean field.
"I was so startled that it leaped instead of flying," West said. He described
the animal as having a two-foot long tail
that was approximately two inches in
diameter. The tail was not bushy, but
tapered, and the "curled under" portion
was the size of a saucer, West claimed.
The second sighting was made a few
days later by a nine-year-old cyclist
riding his bike with some friends around
2 p.m. in the same area. Frightened by
the incident. the cyclists called their
parents. requesting alternative transportation home.
The mother of the youth who reported
the incident said her son described a
black, four-footed animal which leaped
the full span of the road with its hind feet.
"He told me it jumped 'like a kangaroo'
and had a long tail that curled upward
over the hind end of the animal," said
the boy's mother, adding that her child
was very alarmed by the incident.
The third observation was reported
September 7 by Paul West's son who

Understandably reluctant to have curiosity seekers tramping over their

land, the owners of the farm where this 4"x4 1/2" track was made have
asked the authorities not to identify them or the location. But state police
of Troop 5, Bridgeville, Delaware, vouch for the authenticity of the photographs and plaster casts they took at the scene in mid-September of 1979.
saw the animal from his pickup truck
shortly before 9 a.m. as the creature
leaped through a bean field. Although
he was unable to get an accurate description of the animal, the witness said
it was less than three feet tall and dark
brown in color.
"It seemed like it was more of a jumping animal than a running animal," he
said.
Detectives from the state police took
plaster castings and photographs of the
tracks. Other officers were in possession
of a six-inch lock of hair found near the
tracks. The hair was described by an investigating officer as "very fine, dirty
blonde or light brown in color. which
could be human and doesn't look like
it came off any animal."
Meanwhile, police agencies have been
unable to identify the animal tracks despite trips to libraries and conversations
with local teaching sources and curators
at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
SOURCE: The Leader (Delaware). September 19, 1979. CREDIT: James Hurst.

EERI~

TALES

A story well worthy of the season of

ghosts and goblins was reported from
the Daemen College campus in Amherst,
New York, last Halloween.
On October 22, 1979, three Daemen
students were out for a walk about
3 a.m., enjoying the warm Indian summer night, when they approached a little
. bridge behind the school's theater which
led into a backwoods clearing somewhat removed from the main campus.
As the three neared the bridge, they
saw a man completely dressed in black,
standing motionless, his hands clenched
at his sides. The three students simultaneously experienced a sense of foreboding that kept them fro~ coming
closer.
They Circled around the bridge to find
another entrance to the clearing. It was
there that they saw "the eyeless dog,
a German shepherd," according to one
student who reported the story. The dog,
like the man, appeared to be standing
guard. In the clearing was to be seen
a black kettle "about the size of a toilet,"

PURSUIT Spring 1980

94
according to the report, "and there were
two large black boxes flanking it." The
students retreated hastily as the dog
began to roll its head from side to side.
The next night, about midnight, two
of the students were drawn back to the
area, as if by some odd compulsion. As
they came near they found the same
man blocking the bridge.
Again taking the alternate approach,
the two saw flames flickering and dimly
lighting the cleared area. They ventured
closer and observed a bearded man who
looked like a woodsman feeding a fire
under the kettle ritualistically, with robotlike movements. Although the students
were no more than five yards from the
man, he took no notice of them. Returning the next morning, the two found
the skeleton of a small animal, and called
police. Unimpressed, the dispatcher
suggested getting in touch with the SPCA.
The students deCided, instead, to bury
the bones.
That night the same students again returned to the area and again the same
man in black made his appearance, this
time near the campus theater. As the
students watched and wondered, three
other students bolted from the theater
building as if in terror. They had heard
"a loud sound, like the pages of a giant
book being slammed shut." Some members of the group headed back to the
main campus. As they approached they
heard "a groan, like the lowing of a huge
cow," and Simultaneously "a strange
light swept up from the ground" toward
the sky. Once Inside the building, they
looked out a second-floor window and
saw "two eyes, not attached to a head
or anything" staring at them.
Two of the hardier students returned
to the clearing the next day. They found
the small skeleton missing from its rude
"grave." At about the same time, one of
the students who had' first observed the
strange events had walked into a men's
room on campus and felt "something"
rip from his neck the silver crQSS and
chain he had been wearing.
The person who reported. these remarkable goings-on to the Buffalo Courier-Express theorized that satan ism
seemed the only plausible explanation.
He also remarked that some of the
students had moved off campus out of
fear, and that college officials had been
apprised of the situation but didn't seem
Interested in doing anything about it.
A call from the newspaper .to the
college elicited nothing but wonderment
from the public relations office. No one,
It seemed, knew of any covens or mystic
cults on campus.
Daemen's president. Dr. Robert S.
Marshall, called to say he did indeed
have on his desk a report about an
PURSUIT Spring 1980

anonymous caller, who claimed to be an

associate of a student's parent. The
caller told of three students who had
felt a "powerful force of energy" urge
them to leave a certain area. Would
Dr. Marshall please look into it?
"We're not into cults and witchcraft
here," Dr. Marshall said, "We don't
have any budget provision for such things.
Maybe in the State University system
they have enough extra money for' that,
but it's just not our type of thing."
SOURCE: Bu//alo Courier Express (New
York), Oct. 31. 1979. CREDIT: John W.
Kraska.

SOMETHING LOOSE IN
EMERALD, AUSTRALIA
"ViC," a plasterer who wishes to remain
anonymous, told his workmate, Douglas Bombardieri,. how a "monster" lifted
and rocked his car in the mountain town
of Emerald, Australia, in August, 1979.
The beast in question was two-legged,
black, extremely strong and had enormous feet, according to Vic. It also
made a sound like "an elephant running
in galoshes," and apparently had the
knack of throwing objects boomerangstyle.
The beast was first Sighted in Emerald
sometime in August. It later returned to
leave two footprints outside a front window. The prints were found by Bombardieri, who made a plaster cast of
them. One print measured 16 cm across
and 31 cm long. Other prints, discovered
near a creek close by, stood four feet
apart.
Vic had gone to the creek bed, heard
peculiar noises and felt something was
follOWing him. He apparently made a run
for the car with the "animal" in pursuit.
According to Bombardieri, Vic could not
move the car. "He put the car in third
gear, but the beast had hold of it," he
said. "It then started to bounce the car
up and down."
Vic says he turned and saw two black
arms and a big chest through the back
window. He put the car into reverse and
knocked the beast to the ground, then
fled.
While experts puzzle over the prints,
the two plasterers have offered an explanation. They speculate the prints might
have been made by conservationists in
an effort to scare would-be tree-fern
thieves away from the area. "The people
who live in that part of Emerald are
a bit weird," Bombardleri confided.
A few weeks later, a mysterious "black
panther" was Sighted. Adrian Dikmans,
of Emerald, said he was driving along
Stewart Road at 11 p.m. Sunday, September 23, when he observed a sleek.

black animal that looked like a cat, loping

along at a good clip. Dikmans was unable to identify the animal and was extremely frightened, even though he was
in his car. His sighting followed on the
heels of hundreds of calls from residents
in and on the edge of bushland areas
during the past few years. The sightings
have ranged from as far afield as Warburton, HealesviUe, Montrose, Mt. Evelyn
and Neerim.
Many of these reports have been
positive and have come from highly
responsible people who say the animal
is a large cat. About three years ago,
horses became agitated near the Montrose
quarry. Neighbors said they had seen a
large cat in a tree and heard a weird
screaming the same night.
Dikmans said the animal he saw was
the size of a panther, had pOinted ears,
a long tail, and was "sleek."
"I chased it for about 100 meters at
45 m.p.h. until it loped over a 11/2-meters
high bank, into a driveway. That's when
I lost it. I am positive it wasn't a dog.
It was able to keep ahead of the car,"
Dikmans said, adding: "I don't like what
I saw and I don't want to see it again."
SOURCES: Age, September 7, 1979, and
Knox & Mountaindistrict Free Press, Vol. 10,
No. 36, September 26, 1979. CREDIT:
Bruce Rateliffe.

FRENCH UFO STORY

A HOAX?
Authorities in the small town of CergyPontoise northwest of PariS are trying
to decide whether to launch a search for
a mysterious glOWing UFO or to charge
Frank Fontaine and his two friends with
criminal mischief.
Fontaine, who had been the object of
a police search since November 26, reappeared a week lat'lr, December 3,
1979, in the exact spot where he had
disappeared, according to his two friends,
who said Fontaine was found wearing
the same clothes and had the same sum
of money as the day he vanished.
Police said the three conSistently repeated the same story under long questioning.
At 4 a.m. that Monday, the three
young men (Fontaine is 19, the two
companions both 25) had just finished
loading a station wagon with clothes and
were going to sell them at an open market, when they noticed a brilliant light
about the size of a tennis ball to the right
of the car. The ball became larger and
larger and came to rest on the hood of
the car, causing their eyes to bum. Frank
Fontaine remembered nothing from that
moment until his reappearance the morning of December 3.

95
Fontaine's two companions had left him
to watch the car while they ran home to
get a camera, but when they returned
their friend was gone. The car was still
there with the door open, however, and
the friends saw a halo of light, which soon
disappeared, surrounding the car.
Just as mysteriously as he had vanished. Fontaine reappeared at exactly
the same spot only a week later, according to the three. When he found the car
missing, Fontaine thought it had been

stolen, and rushed to the home of one

of the friends who. had been with him.
Fontaine. apparently unaware that
a week had elapsed since he had last
seen the friend, asked him what he was
doing dressed in pajamas. "Five minutes
ago," he noted, "you were ready to leave
for Gisors."
Police with geiger counters checked
both Fontaine and the spot where he
disappeared, but found no trace of radioactivity. Nor was there any trace of mud

SYMPOSIUM

on Fontaine's clothes or shoes.

Though unable to shake Fontaine's
story, which has not varied one bit and
corresponds exactly with the testimony
of his two friends, police remain skeptical.
They have called in experts from the
Group for the Study of Non-Identified
Aerospace Phenomena, a section of the
French National Space Agency.
SOURCE: The Middlesex News (Framingham. Mass.). December 3: 1979. CREDIT:
Loren Coleman.

Comments and Opinions

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the editor should be addressed to Fred Wilson. 65 Grandview. Ave .. North Caldwell. NJ 07006.
Letters may be signed with the member's name. city and state. or with membership number only if the
writer prefers. Because oj space limitations. letters are subject to abridgement.

hereby would like to round off my last year's article,

"More on Extant Dinosaurs," in Pursuit (Vol. 12,'
No.3, Summer 1979), with a piece of information that
was given to me after the corresponding manuscript
was sent in. It is as follows: the well-known herpetologist, J. B. Graham, who visited the peninsula of Paraguana in 1976/77, stated then, in Coro and in Punto
Fijo, to have seen, near the base of Cerro Santa Ana,
a large lizard of unknown variety-"certainly a new
species, possibly a new gender." While I have never
seen anything quite fitting the description, Mr. Graham
is a world-famous herpetologist and his witness can be
given some weight. Here goes, therefore, another piece
of evidence as to possible Fortean findings in the biological field in northern South America.
-Silvano Lorenzoni
Caracas, Venezuela
pawlicki, in his article, "The One Physical Experiment
Impossible to Explain" (Pursuit, Vol. 12, No.3,
Summer 1979), says that Young (presumably Thomas
Young, 1773-1829) found that electrons are affected by
light, but I can find no information about his work, if any,
with electrons, or electricity. Young is noted for his
work with light diffraction. In his time Dalton was just
finding evidences of a theory of atoms, and Fara9ay
had barely started experimenting with elect~icity through
liqUids. It was 1869 when Hittorf showed that cathode
rays (named in 1876) travel in straight lines. Could Young
have known how to direct a beam of electrons through
two slits? Do I have the wrong Young in mind?
It would help if Pawlicki gave textual references.
Also, it would' be useful to know what experiment proves
that a moving standing-wave shortens to the square
root of the quantity, one wavelength less the quotient,
square of the velOCity over the square of the speed of
light, as relatiVity theory specifies for the shortening of

moving objects. Otherwise one would assume that the

standing-wave in the Plate-Rutter Model shortens in
direct relation to velocity, thus failing to show the Fitzgerald contraction.
A reader finding these apparent discrepancies in an
article is not encouraged to bother reading very far.
- Harry Mongold
Manhattan, Illinois
Barbara Jordison, in' her article "The Synchro Channel"
(Pursuit, Vol. 12, No.3), questions Robert Wilson's
conclusions about the origin of coincidental 23s as given
in his book Cosmic Trigger. Inadvertently, however, she
'provided evidence for another of Wilson's "relative metabeliefs" in the very act of writing her article.
In Part One of Cosmic Trigger, in a section headed
The Murder 0/ Christ: a Re-run, Wilson describes Kerry
Thornley's Law of Fives:
All incidents and events are directly connected to
the number five, or to some multiple of five, or
to some number related to five in one way or another, given sufficient ingenuity on the part of the
interpreter.
Wilson amended this with the Law of 23s, from the fact
that 23 numerologically integrates to 5: (2) +(3) = 5.
Looking over Ms. Jordison's article it takes little ingenuity and no interpretation to find that the discrete
numeral '23' appears five times in the text. Coincidence?
Information? "Junque and noise?"
As to her synchro data from a dual audio input (assumed AM broadcast and police band transmission) in
which '10-4' occurred on both inputs, it should be further noted that 10-4 numerologically integrates to 5:
(10)

(4)

= 14,

(1)

(4)

= 5.

To further compound junque with noise, her data run

for April 24, 1970, is stated as lasting 5 hours.
The earliest recorded synchronous input for that run

96
was recorded at 12:50 a.m. on the 24th. She had obviously decided some time before this to stay up into
the wee hours performing the run-~ decision reached
on April 23. .
.....
Well. let's riot get carried away with this. whatever
it is.
.
- Peter Murphy
Emporia. Kansas

The search for evidence concerning the ASBMs. more

popularly known In the U.S. and Canada as Bigfoot and/o.. sasquatches, con~inues onward in the wake
of various retirements of organizations after the infamous
1978 Sasquatch and Other Phenomena conference at
UBC. Vancouver.
..
'.
Known to be retired is Peter Byrne, who has officially
closed his Bigfoot Information Center and. Exhibit at
Hood River, Oregon, along with his Bigfoot News newsletter. Mr. Byrne has announced that ,he p~sslbly will
return to the hunt at a future .date. In Seattle, Ed Kellogg's
Bigfoot Mystery Museum, sponsored by his Ipternatlonal
Sasquatch Society, remains closed and dusty.- Kellogg,
a real estate broker, has disconnected his telephones,
and his publications.\. The Bigfoot Newsletter and the.
Bigfoot/Sasquatch Clipping Service, are no longli!r
mailed out, according to subscrlbers. This Is I,Infortunate,
since the museum In particular generated much interest
and many reports.
" ,
Still being published is the Bigfoot Bibliography ("the
BIB"). founded by George Haas and published by ~he
Bay Area Group. with Warren Thompson as editor
(246 Nimitz Ave., Redwood City, California 94601,
415-366-2207). The BIB Is sent to persons who agree
to submit new listings of Bigfoot-related articles and
books to help expand the overall bibliography on Bigfoot. Continuing its field research and analyses of evidence is Project Bigfoot (formerly Project Grendel) ,
Box 444, Northgate Station, Seattle, Washington 98125,
206-522-93811622-0143. Project Bigfoot operates
a "hotline" for citIZen reports of sightings and alleged
photos and other evidence, and sends such information
to' members who are scientists and qualified to make
analyses and comparisons. Blood and hair samples,
feces and photos,. track. depth' and compression tests of
soils to determirie sasquatch true weights ar(i! currently
bei.ng worked on and are in the preliminary stages. of
write-ups ,for publication. Director: Jon Beckjord. Inquiries are invited. as well as reports. In Canada, John
Green. author of five sasquatch books, has returned
from a foray into politics and is again gathering information on sasquatch slghtlngs. Green has "one of the world's
best collections of casts :and clippings and Information
on sightings of ASBMs (1299 Trac~ell. Ave., Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada, V8P 2C8, . 604-384-0334).
One of the original founders "of the debunking society.
the Committee for the Scientlftc Investigation for the
Claims of the I'aranormal (CSICOP), Marcello Truzzl,
has started his own journ.al. Zetetic Scholar, for investigating the claims ofthe paranormal.. The journ~1 provides a means for claimants and skeptics to have It out.
PURSUIT Spring 1980

and It appears to provide "equal time" for each, something that CSICOP's publication, the Skeptical Inquirer,
does not provide. The ZS can be reached care of the
Department of Sociology, Eastern Michigan University.
Ypsilanti. Michigan 48197.
.
Lastly. UBC Press (University of British Columbia,
Vancouver. B.C . ' Canada). is soon to publish a collection of some of the papers presented at the 1978
conference.
-Jon Beckjord
Seattle. Washington

I would like to applaud the article by Dr,

Arlan Keith
Andrews. Sr., "What to Believe-Or. Paring Down
the Paradigm" (Pursuit, Summer 1979) . . . . and I do
not think that the editorial preamble to Andrews' article
was justified or constitutes "fair play."
.
In the pages of Pursuit there is entirely too much
wishful thinking and sensationalistic non-thinking, vide:
the multi-dimensional'Nessies to which Andrews alluded.
and we must not forget the "mystery cats" in the same
category ("Black' 'Mountain lions' in California?" by
Loren Coleman; Spring 1979). Just as a multi-dimensional Nessie is' an. explanation for the phenomenon
which is more unlikely than the phenomenon itself.
readers of Pursuit should know that melanism in' the
Eastern cougar (FeliS concolor (cougar) Kerr) is extremely
common and there's no reason why cougar melanism
should n~t have become common in California as well,
and for the same reason: that formerly somewhat rare
melanism may be selected in an animal w~ich is under
immense survival pressure from man. and melanism
may assist the survival of a large predator which must
be most active at dawn and dusk, and during the night.
Thus, in New Brunswick at least. cougars are now known
to have survived when formerly thought to have become extinct. but about 30 percent of the cou9ars seen
are reported as being black. I myself have seen a pair
of cougars on the Quebec-Maine border. while doing
lake monster research at Lake Pohenegamook. and one
of these cats was normal tawny and the other was black ..
Since both were partaking of the same deer' carcass.
I have no reason to believe that one was more spectral
than the other.
Just as Forteans. have always justly derided "scientific"
explanations that are more unlikely than the alleged
phenomenon itself ("swamp gas." etc.), I suggest that
we try to refrain from falling into the same swamp of
i1iogic.
"
- Michael Bradley
Halifax, Nova Scotia

THE FORT NOTES

Space limitations have made it necessa~y to
postpone the printing of a fifth installment of ":rhe
Notes of Charles Fort." The installment originally
scheduled for this issue will be published in the
Summer 1980 issue. -Editor.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
SITU (pronounced sit'- you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or will not study.
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
Membership is $10 a calendar year, January-December. (Members outside the U.S. add $2.50 for regular
postage or $5 for air mail.) Members receive the Society's quarterly journal Pursuit plus any special SITU publications for the year of membership.
SITU welcomes member participation. Members should send articles, photographs, newspaper clippings,
book reviews and "letters to the editor" to be considered for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson, 65 Grandview Avenue, North Caldwell, NJ 07006 USA. Use this address for Pursuit material only. Other mail, including
changes of address, library orders, postal errors, back issues, renewals, gift memberships and donations, should
be sent to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address at the top of this page. Please allow six or more weeks
advance notice of change of address.
"
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, correspondence,
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answered by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff time, a research fee will be
charged. Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped envelope with the inquiry
so that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The leg"al and financial affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the
laws of the State of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the
Scientific Advisory Board (see inside back cover).
IMPORTANT NOTICES
The Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members.
The SOCiety does not hold any political, religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit
concerning such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion
or ethics, are those of the individual member or author and not those of the Society. Opinions expressed or
statements made by any members by word of mouth or in print may not be construed as those of the Society.
The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications,
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available for sale, rental, exchange, or any use except the foregoing.
Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are federal tax-deductible to the extent permitted by
the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, and in some states as their tax authorities may permit.
PUBLICATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall
issues are numbered respectively 1 through 4 and constitute a volume, Volume 1 being for 1968 and before,
Volume 2 for 1969, and so on. Individual and gift memberships in SITU at $10 include subscription to Pursuit
for the calendar year. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit, without membership "benefits, are available to
public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $8 for the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fuDy protected by" international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof may be granted, at the discretion of SITU and the author, "upon written request and statement of proposed
use directed to SITU/PURSUIT at the mailing address printed above.
Pursuit is listed in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and in the Standard Guide to Periodicals. It is also available
on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

THE SOCIElY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUlT~ P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 8425229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, VicePresident; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary and Treasurer;
Gregory Arend, Susan Malone, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler, and
Albena Zwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Chairman, Department of Anthropology, and Director, Paleolndian Institute,
Eastern New Mextco University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. ADen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
,
Dr. George C. Kennedy, Professor of Geology, Institute of Geophysics, U.C.L.A.
(Geomorphology and Geophysics)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth CoUege, University of London.
(Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant (Brain Wave Laboratory), Essex County Medical Center,
Cedar Grove, N.J. (Mental Sciences)'
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, p:rofessor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (C_utfiral Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other profesSionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The Orst issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had Orst envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of. The Unexplained, as set forth in documents 61ed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the ~st of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the SocietY.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the Orst time. Vol. 1, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
SOCiety." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientl6c Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative r~orting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured iri~IArgentina"-the instant trans
portation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through sOJids" -the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-1md some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone sPheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investiga~on of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

~Science

is the Pursuit 0/ the Unexplained'

Have You Ever

Seen a Monster

Like This One?

SUMMER 1980 JOURNAL

OF THE SOCIETY FOR
THE INVESTIGATION
OF THE UNEXPLAINED

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPlAINED

Mail: SITU/PUR~UIT, P.O: Box 265, Uttle Silver, NJ 07739 U,SA Telephone: (201)-842-5229
SiTu (pronounced sit' - you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting Significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or will not study.
G You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.
n
o. '

t ..

MEMBERSHIP
Membership is $10 a calendar year, January-December. (Members outside the U.S. add $2.50 for regular
postage cir $5 for air mail.) Members receive the Society's quarterly journal Pursuit plus any special SITU publications for the year of membership.
SITU welcomes member participation. Members should send articles, photographs, newspaper clippings,
book reviews and "letters to the'editor" to be considered for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson, 65 Grandview Avenue, North Caldwell, NJ 07006 USA. Use this address fO,r Pursuit material only. Other mail, including
changes of address, library orders, postal errors, back issues, renewals, gift memberships and donations, should
be sent to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address at the top of this page. Please allow six or more weeks
advance notice of change of address.
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, correspondence,
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answ~red by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff time, a research fee will be
charged. 'Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped envelope with the inquiry
so that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The legal and financial affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the
laws of the State of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the
Scientific Advisory Board.
'
IMPORTANT NOTICES
G Ttie Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members.
G T"'e Society does not hold any political, religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit
concernipg such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion
or ethics, are those of the individual member or author and not those of the Society. Opinions expressed or
statemerjts made by any members by word of mouth or in print may not be construed as those of the Society.
o The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the jour...al Pursuit and special SITU publications,
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available for ~ale, rental, exchange, or any use except the foregoing.
G Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are federal tax-deductible to the extent permitted by
the U.S.: Internal Revenue Code, and in some states as their tax authorities may permit.
PUBLICATIONS
The, Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall
issues are numbered respectively 1 through 4 and constitute a volume, Volume 1 being for 1968 and before,
Volume ~ for 1969, and so Oil. Individual and gift memberships in SITU at $10 include subscription to Pursuit
for the calendar year. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit, without membership benefits, are available to
public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $8 for the calendar year.
The' contents of Pursuit is fully protected by international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof Qlay be granted, at the discretion of SITU and the author, upon written request and statement of proposed
use dire(:ted to SITU/PURSUIT at the mailing address printed above.
Pur$uit is listed in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and in the Standard Guide to Periodicals. It is also available
on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE

SOCIETY FOIR THE

INVESTlIGATHON Of
THE

UNlEXPHAiNJED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents

'r

.
Editorial: Anatomy of a Hoax ............................ '.

,Page

........... 98

The Lake George Monster Hoax of 1904

by Joseph W. Zarzynski ........................................ 99
Sooner or Later You Too May Have ESP
by T. B. Pawlicki ............................................ 101
Guest Editorial: A Reader's Guide to Parapsychological Literature
by Kim L. Neidigh ........................................... 102
Adamski on Trial
by Diane E. Wirth .......................................... 103
Is Teleportation the Macroscopic Analog of The Quantum
'Barrier Penetration' Effect?
by Morgan D. Eads .......................................... 104
The 1909 Mystery Airships in the Irish Papers
by John Hind ............................................... 105
Part II-The Bermuda Triangle et al: A Natural Phenomenon
by LeVonne K. Angelo ........................................ 109

, .' "From time, io time in this space it ~i11

be a useful pleasure to present some of
the salient qualifications of Pursuit authors.
Our purpose is more than to satisfy casual
curiosity about people who write about
phenomena. SITU, dedicated as it is to the
Pursuit of the Unexplained but without
the funding to provide a staff of "investigative reporters" must rely heavily on
author-authentication. Since pure objectivity nowhere exists, it is always interesting
and sometimes important to know the
. . nature and extent of an author's subjectivity in order to understand what he or
she is writing about. Indeed, the careful
reader tends to evaluate not only the
circumstances, evidence and testimony
presented by the author, but also the
author's background of education and
experience against which opinions, conjectures and contradictions are postulated.
JOSEPH W. ZARZYNSKI, who wrote
the cover story for this issue, is a
teacher in the public schools of Saratoga
Springs, New York. He hired on there
after receiving a B.A. from Ithaca College and doing some time at Chinese
University of Hong Kong through the
American Institute of Foreign Studies.
In 1975 he took a M.A.T. degree from
the State University of New York at
Binghamton.

SITUations in the NEWS ............................ ',' ............. 116

THE NOTES OF CHARLES FORT
Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst .................................. 126
BOOKS in REVIEW ............................................... 130
LETIERS to the EDITOR .......................................... 135
Cover: 'George' photographed in situ by Jim Masten
Pursuit Vol. 13, No.3, Whole No. 51, Summer issue 1980. by the Society for the Investigation of
the Unexplained. ISSN 0033-4685. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written
consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production Editor; Sabina
W. Sanderson and Manin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and Oceanographic Consultant; Britton Wilkie, Staff Artist.

Joe has devoted many of his thirty

years to an avocational search for the
Lake Champlain Monster, fondly known
as "Champ." The drawing reproduced
above from his (Zarzynski's, not the
Champ's) business card is just one man's
idea of what the Champ may look like.
However, investigator Zarzynski is quick
to warn the discounters that "the search
is like a giant puzzle. Little by little the
puzzle is being put together. When the

EDITORIAL

Anatomy of a Hoax
One area of investigation shunned by some SITUans and approached in gingerly fashion by others is that of the proved and
certified hoax.
Of what use is it to re-review a body of factual and circumstantial
evidence when an event or condition once thought to be impenetrably
cloaked in mystery is found to be a reasonable and explicable happening well within the course of day-to-day human experience?
Three words clue the answer: practice, precedent and prejudice.
Only -by constantly -reviewing facts evidentiary to past investiga- lions can t!'te investigator Jearn the t~hJliques of Successful inyesti- ~,
gation. 'By practiCing, the investigator contributes '~o' precedent~
Each new generation of investigators gains a step upward for a more
knowledgeable start on the next examination of similar phenomena.
In humankind's never-ending quest for complete understanding of
itself and its environment the individual investigator, whether aplateur or professional,.is engaged in a constant fight with prejudicehis own and that of others; he must learn to love facts and hate
fiction, and always be armed with the wisdom to tell the difference.
While all proved hoaxes may be described as mysteries solved,
all solved mysteries are not necessarily hoaxes. For example, the
Red Sweat Mystery which plagued employees and management of
a nationwide air transport system early this year turned out to be
a rather simple problem with a simple solution, so we are told. The

puzzle of the Champ creature is finally

completed, we will witness one of natural
history's greatest specimens." And yes,
he sees enough common ground (or water)
between Champ and Nessie of Scottish
fame to have made four visits to Loch
Ness between 1975 and 1979.
Zarzynski has derived some fascinating
fringe benefits from his investigation of
water denizens. In June 1979 he assisted
Jim Kennedy, of Rochester Engineering
Laboratories, in the sonar discovery and
diving identification of the 146-foot-long
wreck of Phoenix, one of the first steamboats on Lake Champlain, launched in
1815 and sunk in 1819. And in 1978 he
coordinated a "monster cruise" aboard
the 80-foot schooner Richard Robbins,
Lake Champlain's only windjammer.
Atop the crystal ball of Zarzynski's
future is a book recounting the life and
times of the Champ he knows best-the
Lake Champlain Monster.
GEORGE M. EBERHART has compiled the two most exhaustive, most
useful and least original works in the
entire literature of the paranormal.
Last year he published his 6O-page
index of material printed in the pages of
Pursuit from 1967-1978. The subject index classifies phenomena according to four
categories and twenty-four sub-categories.
The geographic index relates the "what"
to the "where" by global region and

98 Pursuit

doctors in the case needed and got a hard shove to their prejudice,
which for some weeks leaned toward welcoming a new member into
the ever-growing family of fashionable diseases. Much to their credit
it was the non-scientists who did the shoving. (See page 124.)
The "designed hoax" is worthy of study, too. The facts and
circumstances of the Lake George Hoax described in our cover
story by Joseph Zarzynski may suggest a different perspective than
that usually taken in the Case of the Loch Ness Monster, for instance. Or-, it may not; Don't i?uy it until you've tried it!
Two ot"er know'n ,hoaxes-by-d~sign I:j.,re disqls$ea in this issue.
, CHarles Fort, the patriarch' of the Unexplained, 'recounts in his Notes
the remarkable story of "Princess" Caraboo who perpetrated a
huge (and for her, very profitable) hoax way back in 1817. (See
pages 126-128.) Then, coming forward to present time, there's the
Case of the Oily Ooze which affords on pages 124-125 a splendid
overview of one more indecisive battle in the war between people
and their bureaucracies-surely the most fearsome monsters of
our day.
So here's to a thoughtful pursuit of the hoax-hopefully with
time to spare for the more serious and consequential matters discussed in these pages. Read carefully, for some of them could change
the course of your life.

EUZABETH CROSSWHrrE PHOTO

George M. Eberhart
continent, then by country, state or province and county, right down to municipality, as each applies. Also included are
a species index, author index, book review index, obituary index, even an "index
of Fortean irony." (If you haven't yet
ordered your copy, it's still available at
a bargain $1.50. Send money to SITU/
PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver,
NJ 07739 USA.)
Now the Pursuit index has fathered, in
spirit and method, a similar project of
wider, almost cosmic dimensions. Eberhart's 1160-page reference work A GeoBiography 0/ Anomalies is subtitled:
Primary Access to Observations 0/ UFOs,
Ghosts, and Other Mysteries. Production

-Fred Wilson

was in the final stages as this issue of

Pursuit went to ,press, and a review by
Steve Hicks appears on page 130.
George Eberhart is a librarian by education, vocation and, especially,_ motivation. He graduated Ohio State in 1973
with a B.A. in journalism and earned
a master's'degree in library science at the
University of Chicago in 1976. Since 1977
he has been serials/reader service librarian at the University of Kansas Law Library
in Lawrence, Kansas. His attitude toward
paranormal phenomena is broad-gauge,
inquisitive and tolerant, and if he has
a preference, it is "bibliographic verification of alleged anomalous events." (He
translates this from educationalese as
"tracking down elusive sources. ") Most
recent stage in the Eberhart evolution is
his appointment, announced in July, as
editor of College and Reseurch Libraries
News, a journal published by the Association of College and Research Libraries
in Chicago.
Pursuit's editors wish it were possible
to biograph all authors in this and every
issue. Since space and bdget limitations
stand in the way, we are doing what seems
next best. We will print one or more
resumes in each forthcoming issue until
our readers have had an opportunity to
become better acquaimed with all the fine
people who work hard and well to make
possible the contents of SITU's journals.
SUBlBler

1989

..

~.::

... : .. :

JIM MASTEN PHOTO

~;~~.~~

.. , ....:"':., ..

"George-the-Serpenfo o~ tli~ :... :.> '.. : . ' :\ ..... :' .:.:, . ~<:
.placid waters of Lake George
.
that he haunted in 1904. Lake
George Village beach is in the
background.
. ......, .

.....'

.... :

:.:

, ". . :. '. . <. . '\. . .

;:.:.':~:<,':

..

.......

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~

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:.';'. . . '.
. _I-

.:~.

'-~:;:-::-:-:-: . ,:~-::::~<-~~~~,-;~j~~~'~i{' .

The Lake George Monster Hoax of 1904

HIDDEN behind a clump of bushes on shore, I watched as the launch approached, and
just as it was about ten feet away from my trap, I released my monster, It came up

nobly, the head shaking as if to rid itself of water, and I will say that to several people in
-Harry W. Watrous
Col. Mann's boat it was a very menacing spectacle.

by Joseph W. Zarzynski
With the tug of a lever, famous American artist Harry
Watrous launched a water-monster hoax that was the talk of
Lake George in 1904 and for years after. The usually placid
waters of the 32-mile-long lake hid Watrous's effigy until he
gave his fabrication aquatic life by activating the pulley system that controlled it. 2
What reasons motivated one of the foremost painters of
the day to deceive area residents and unknowing vacationers? .
And what happened to the cedar-pine log that in the hands of
two artisans became the fearsome "sea-serpent" head and
neck of the Lake George Monster?
Oftentimes history offers a choice of conflicting accounts,
and the Lake George Monster certainly enjoyed a lifetime of
controversy. Eventually the hoax revealed itself as made of
simple stuff, but it was perpetrated against the glitter of the
then high-toned Lake George summer society, and none of
the natives on the scene were ignorant or superstitious.
Harry Watrous had a home at Hague, on the west shore of
the lake. With the help of a local builder he fashioned his
gargoyle-like hoax to enact one of the tallest "fish stories"
ever. Historian Clifton West tells it like it was:
Harry Watrous, the eminent artist, lived on the property next to the Island Harbor hotel. Col. W. D. Mann
Some historians say it happened in 1906.

Summer l!.9~e

had a summer home on Waltonian Island. Both were

trout fishermen. Col. Mann conceived the idea that he
could exhibit a trout of great size calculated to astound
Watrous and show the result of his superior ability.
Someone made for him a reasonable replica of a huge
trout of wood. This he held up in his boat, at a distance,
to show Watrous. No one got a close inspection. Now
Watrous knew it had to be a fake, so he decided to go
Mann one better. He'd make a monster and so rig it that
it could surface at a time when the Colonel might be near
in his canoe. J
Both Watrous and Colonel William D' Alton Mann were
members of Lake George's elegant social circle. Watrous held
various offices and received many honorary titles reflecting
his fame in the field of American painting. At one time he
was president of the National Academy of Design. He received a bronze medal at the Pan American Exposition in
Buffalo for distinguished services, and he won the Special
Commemorative Gold Medai of the Universal Exposition at
S1. Louis in 1904.'
Colonel Mann was the editor of Town Topics, "a sort of
scandal sheet covering New York society'S goings-on.'" The
whisker-faced Mann was also a veteran of the Civil War and
an inventor. 6 There were frequent friendly wagers between
the two neighbors as to which angler would catch the biggest

fish in Lake George. It was one such bet that sparked Watrous to construct a monster denizen of the deep to lampoon
his fishing rival.
Watrous described his serpent-headed creature in these
words:
. . . I got a cedar log and fashioned one end of it into
my idea of a sea serpent or hippogriff. I made a big
mouth, a couple of ears like the ears of an ass, four big
teeth, two in the upper and two in the lower jaw, and for
eyes I inserted in the sockets of the monster two telegraph-pole insulators of green glass.
I painted the head in yellow and black stripes, painted
the inside of the mouth red and the teeth white, painted
two red places for nostrils, and painted the ears blue. 7
The rough work on the cedar log was done by Jim Leach,
a local guide and builder. Watrous added the ultimate monstrous qualities by installing the dentures and painting the
serpenL '
The contriving Watrous was now ready to give life to his
creation. The hideous wooden noggin was situated underwater somewhere off Bill Mann's island, Waltonian. The
mechanism was operable by Watrous from concealment
ashore. At just the opportune moment the monster broke the
surface and so scared Mann, who was boating from shore to
his home, that he dove overboard and free-styled frantically
to the nearest land. 9 Colonel Mann presented a contradictory
version of the skirmish, insisting that he had stepped on what
he thought was his planked dock; instead, it was a shadow,
and that's why he fell into the water! 10
In time the veteran soldier learned of the fakery and joined
with Watrous to frighten other folks. But the summer tourist
business thereabouts was so hurt by George's successes that
property owners forced the genre artist to retire his most
terrifying work of art. II
Another famous encounter with Watrous's monster involved a pair of honeymooners. The couple, mesmerized by
their new bond of marriage and the soft color of the twilight,
were out canoeing near Watrous's house. As the husband was
paddling in and out of quiet coves, mighty George suddenly
surfaced, and the ensuing maelstrom caused total havoc.
The newlyweds tumbled overboard and the bridegroom,
letting discretion win over valor, swam for the closest island,
leaving his bride to the mercies of the onrushing water dragon.
When the lady finally reached sanctuary ashore, "she expressed gratitude to the monster for showing her that her
husband was also a monster, whereupon she bustled away
and got a divorce. "'2
The famed monstrosity continued to provide thrills and
gossip for the Lake George populace until it gradually slipped
into oblivion years later. George, however, escaped limbo
when Louis Spelman of Silver Bay on Lake George rescued
him from one of the buildings on the Watrous estate that
was being demolished. 13 Spelman kept the hippogriff in his
cellar and more than once contemplated burying it and the
legend in the local dump. 14
In 196~ Walter Grishkot of Glens Falls, New York, rediscovered the monster in Spelman's house. Mrs. William
Baily, a resident of the Virgin Islands and at one time a Lake
George vacationer, heard of the beastie and asked her husband to purchase it for her as a birthday gift. " Spelman parted
with his longtime house-guest for a paltry $25, which Mrs.
Baily acknowledged by cable, saying: "Thank you, 0 Prince

100 Pursuit

among ex-monster owners. You will always have

privileges and be welcomed with open arms by us and
jaws by George. "16
On November 18, 1%2 George was honored at a
George testimonial banquet attended by 165
Serpent" patrons. A citation read at the ceremony bade
monster a fond farewell as he departed to take up his
residence with the Bailys in the Virgin Islands:
George, a monster of proven skill in subtle serpently
art of sub-marine scarefare, is hereby cited and commended for his legendary contributions to the lore of the
world's most beautiful lake. Be it further recorded that
in appreciation of the whimsical delights he has wrought
along our scenic shores, the people of Lake George, New
York, do bestow upon him an honorary haunting licence
which shall remain in effect for the rest of his supernatural life. 17
But the story doesn't quite end there. George, born
fresh-water conditions and homesick besides, returned to
old spooking grounds in 1971. Walter and Joan
while on vacation in the Virgin Islands, persuaded the
to part with their wooden pet. 18
Today, after a "plaster surgery" facelift, the fanged
ster rests in peace with its caretaker, the Lake George
torical Association. One can only wonder if on some
full-mooned night the ghost of the Lake George Monster
again terrify an unsuspecting boater Qr two from the Sh~ld(llwed
waters of picturesque Lake George.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author wishes to thank ,the following for their
erous assistance in the researcij and writing of this
John Ray, Clifton West, Donald Fangboner of the
George Historical Association, the Lake George
Association, Jim Masten for his photography, and of course,
"George." ,
I

REFERENCES

I. Robert F! Hall. "The Lake George Monster Was An Imposter,

The Natural History of the Lake Champlain Monster, August I

1978, page 13.
2. Harry Henck, "The Lake George Monster," Adirondack Li/e,
March/April, 1980, pages 37-41.
3. Clifton \Vest, Letter to Joseph W. Zarzynski, June 18, 1979.
4. "Famous Lake George Monster Moves to the Virgin Islands,"
and Views, date unknown, page 2.
5. "That Monstrous Good-old George," News and Views, Summer
1973, page 6.
6. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. XI,
York. 1909, page 444.
7. Ibid., Hall.
8. Ibid., West.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., "Famous Lake George Monster Moves to the Virgin Islands."
II. Nancy McKeown, "George The Monster Given Rousing Send-Off At
Part)'," Ticonderoga Sentinel, November 22, 1962.
12. "It's Monstrous, 'George'; Public Invited To Bid Farewell To The
Monster of Lake George," Ticonderoga Sentinel, November IS, 1962.
13. Ibid., Henck.
14. Ibid., "It's Monstrous, 'George'; Public Invited To Bid Farewell To
The Monster of Lake George."
IS. Shirley Armstrong, "Will George the Monster Again Haunt Lake
George?," Albany Times-Union.
16. Ibid., "Famous Lake George Monster Moves to the Virgin Islands."
17. Ibid., McKeown.
18. Ibid., Hall.

Summer 1

NE morning 1 awoke with a hit

tune running through my mind.
When 1 turned on the bedside radio the
same tune was being broadcast. What
a coincidence, 1 thought.
The following night 1 slept alert to
any mental image which might be indicative of receiving a radio signal from
the local wake-up station. In the middle
of the night I awoke from a dream about
a family being held in a house during a
military invasion, and as 1 turned on the
radio a segment of "The Night of the
Trifids" came on almost like a replay of
my dream. The story was of a family
trapped in a house by an invasion of
aliens. ,
"CoinCidence? ..." ..
Resolving to investi~te the matier,"
I selected a number of acquaintances
to ask whether they had ever had the
experience of hearing a tune "in their
head" as they were about to turn on
a radio, then became aware that their
mental apparatus had been "pre-tuned"
and was already receiving the broadcast
signal.
Two of three among the respondents
seemed certain I was crazy. (I had not
included my psychiatrist in the acquaintance selection because the professional
codex has a listing for people who believe their minds are being interfered
with by radio signals.)
The remaining third of the respondent group also thought 1 was craiy,
but these already had fears for their
own sanity and were relieved to learn
that they were not the only folks around
who had received radio broadcast signals
"in the mind."

The reason ESP is believed so widely

is neither irrational hope nor superitition. Everyone who experiences ESP
believes in it, but most everyone is reluctant to say so. Before Freud, women
were afraid to mention orgasm because
they feared a psychiatric diagnosis.
Unfortunately, there are a number of
widely shared human experiences which
some members of the Establishment
neither admit nor disavow but simply
refuse to discuss. More than a few of
these have been heard to mutter something about "security reasons." Only
once in a while does it come out that
the mention of security has nothing to
do with the national defense; what is
meant isjob security.
When the inhibitions are breached,
many "thinking people" switch channels on their attitude control and say

811111_er 1980

Kater
Too

S(l1)(IDfID(w (])ff

WOW

Mmy iHI~we ESP

by T. fI!. PawBidd
that biological radio reception is nothing
extraordinary. "Everyone knows" that
tooth fillings amplify radio signals like
the old-fashioned crystal radio receivers.
Indeed, dentists are sometimes asked to
change fillings to tune out the daytime
programs. (My employer's experience
tends to c19Ud" the "issue; he received
Radio CKWX from 100 iniles "away
despite having no teeth in his head at
the time.)
A radio technician setting up a loudspeaker system in an auditorium was
surprised to hear a radio program sounding within his own body. Singularly
equipped with electronic testing devices
and the training to use them, he asserted
that his heart was the organ of his body
that tuned to the local broadcast signal.
This was no freak show; he related his
story in a nationally broadcast interview.
When the post-WW II generation
IFIlID~n~l ClIR~IIIUmeS
JD)1l'. HiDnmme' Work

Readers whose inclination is

toward further study of parapsychology, including sub-areas such
as ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance
and precognition, may wish to
know more about The Institute
for Parapsychology.
The institute operates under the
aegis of the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man
(FRNM) established in 1965 by
ESP pioneer J. B. Rhine and promoted by him until his death last
February. (See Spring 1980 issue
of Pursuit, page 56.)
Publications available from the
institute include a periodical, the
Journal of Parapsychology, and
a number of books, most of them
by J. B. Rhine and Louisa E.
Rhine.
Dr. K. Ramakrishna Rao is the
present director of the institute.
His mail address is Box 6847,
College Station, Durham, North
Carolina 27708.

became prosperous enough to afford

swimming pools in all those backyards
the 60-cycle alternating field in the wires
leading to night lighting was found to
be amplified by the water in the pools.
As patients wearing electronic heart
pacers have learned, radio fieLds can
interfere with heart rhythms. A number
of California personalities suffered
heart problems in their pools, so the
building codes were amended to require shielding on pool wiring.
Every radio technician knows that
human bodies, and all other living
organisms, function as electrical capacitors, and a resonating capacitor is the
essential ele~ent in a radio circuit. You
can test !h~ se.nsi.tiyity:of your. body?s'
radio resonance by touching the ground
or antenna of an old-fashioned radio
circuit, whereupon the volume will
noticeably increase. Some sets you need
"only approach" to hear the volume increase (everyone knew this 50 years
ago). Where there is no material contact, the increase in volume is due to an
induced resonance of electromagnetic
waves between the radio I circuits and
your body. In pre-television days, this
effect was enhanced by means of an
induction coil, a commercial accessory
purchased at small extra cost to improve
radio reception.
Thus the reception by the brain of
a program to which the radio was tuned
before the set was turned on is probably
due to the induction effect between the
cold radio circuits and the body.
Ever since radio was discovered scientists have tried to show that ESP is
a radio phenomenon. But when ESP
proved to reach half way around the
world and even into sub-lunar space,
the scientists concluded that such a violation of the square-root law governing
all radiant energy suggested that ESP
must be fundamentally different from
radio waves. Besides, ESP was able to
penetrate electromagnetic shielding. So
the respectable researchers abandoned
the subject to the lunatic fringe with an
incredibly contradictory denial of the
very phenomenon they had just experimented with, and the freaks began to
hypothesize "forces" they called bioplasmic energy.
The published research on ESP is one
of the most glaring examples of professional incompetence, if not downright falsification, since hired scientists
were found adjusting the data on environmental pollution.
All physicists know that the 7 Yl Hz.

Pursuit 101

GUEST fEDIIYOllUAlL by KIM L. NIEIIDIGH

A Readers Guide to
lPuapsychological Literature
NOTE: The following questions are intended to aid the reader in critically appraising writings on
parapsychological topics, although they are not confined to that field. A critical attitude is especially important now because of the current deluge of poorly controlled research.

Ask yourself these questions when reading:

1. Who is the author? What are his qualifications and educational background? (Remember: education
does not guarantee competence.) Has he thoroughly researched his topic? Is he an objective reporter or
. . has he ~t"theoretical 'to grind? (The Soviets seem ob~essed.with "ptoving~'. physiological. origin .
psi phenoinemi, rio matter what the facts ate.) ...:.. .. ..... .. . .... : ..... . . .

ax

the

of .: .;.

2. Is the author presenting experimental or anecdotal evidence?

A. Experimental-Who did the research? What was the nature of the experimental controls? Do the
conclusions follow from the data? Has there been follow-up research? By whom?
Did the follow-up research confirm or contradict previous research?
B. Anecdotal-- Who had the experience? Was a written report prepared? How soon after the incident was the report made? Is there corroborative testimony? By whom? And
finally-very important-does a normal psychological explanation apply?
3. Do references made to other books and articles contain complete bibliographic information or are
names and titles vaguely referred to in passing?
4. Is the tone of the report sober, factual and objective, or is it largely conjectural and imaginative, even
"sensational"? Does the author make assertions unsupported by factual evidence and testimony?
Suggested rea~ing:
Barry F. Anderson, The Psychology Experiment. Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1971.
Elzey Freeman, A First Reader in Statisti~. Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1967.

radio frequency is carried around the

world with no loss of signal strength by
geophysical resonance, and broadcast
out into space. Furthermore, this planetary field generates induced currents
through radio shielding. That's what
the United States Navy uses to keep in
constant touch with its submarine fleet
ranging under the world's oceans. And
all neurologists know that the human
mind is tuned to 711z Hz. in theta consciousness, theta consciousness being
the state in which ESP is most likely
to be experienced.
The objection to accepting long-wave
radio signals as the medium for ESP is
the fact that the amount of information
a radio wave can carry varies exponentially with its frequency. Global waves
are so long that it would take many
minutes to transmit the amount of information a psychic medium receives in
a flash. This was a valid objection Uiltil

nIl Pursuit

the laser was discovered. Since then,

holograms have been commercially developed for computer memory banks,
retaining reels of taped data within a
small, semi-crystalline cube. The tuning
of the reference signal is all that is needed
to release the stored information. Research published several years ago in
Psychology Today showed that the
human brain can function as a hologram. All it takes to stimulate a specific
kind of information is a tuned reference
signal, and by fine-tuning the phase of
the signal, specific bits can be released
from the imprints already preserved in
the molecules of the brain.
Psychic phenomena show that no one
ever receives information-bits not already known by the receiver; the ESP
message is never more than a composite
of the bits already in the brain. The
ESP signal can be compared to a code
that opens a book in a library; the con-

tents of the book are at the receiving

end and do not have to be transmitted.
Because the information possessed in
the memory bank of the sender, there
is bound to be a lot of distortion and
missing parts of the message in ESP.
Despite the technical problems, some
people have developed their "radio
reception" to a very high degree. The
moderator of a nationally broadcast
radio program told how his grandfather
in the British Indian Army had used
psychic fakirs to transmit military information because these "human radios"
of the 19th century were so much faster
than mounted dispatch riders (besides,
telegraph lines could be cut by enemy
action). When a commander entrusts
military orders to ESP communication
lines, a high level of reliability is suggested.

S ......_19

AdaDlSki on Trial
by Diane E. Wirth
George Adamski? I was
R EMEMBER
young and impressionable when I read
Flying Saucers Have Landed, and I followed
his ideology for many years. Now that I
know better, I thought I'd share my finding
with SITU, albeit this in no way destroys
my belief in UFOs.
One of the more unique pictures in the
aforementioned Adamski book was printed
on the back of the jacket-a photographic
negative inscribed with a strange "symbolic
message" given to him by a Venusian. This
fascinated me and I stored the image of this
picture somewhere in my memory bank.
More than twenty years later I had instant
recall of this drawing when I saw its neardouble in another book.
The works of Marcel Hornet fascinated
me since by this time I was deeply involved
in archeological research, and especially
petroglyphs that are hieroglyphic in nature.
Dr. Hornet and I corresponded frequently
in 1977-78. While reading his Sons of the
Sun, a book on his explorations in remote
areas of the Amazon, I came across Adamski's Venusian doodle-a petroglyph from
Brazil.
Without delay I wrote a letter to Professor Hornet. When did he find this particular petroglyph? Adamski claimed to have
received the negative on December 13, 1952.
If Hornet's discovery was after that date,
Adamski ~ould not possibly have known of
its existence.
But alas, the professor quickly set me
straight. His expedition to Brazil took place
in 1949-50, before Adamski's claim; moreover, Hornet and Adamski were personally
acquainted. In 1963 they were joint presidents of a conference in Fredericia, Jutland'
(Denmark), where there were in attendance
some 800 authors. On three occasions the
two dined together and not once, Hornet
wrote, did Adamski bring up UFOs, Venusian inscriptions, or anything related to the
subject. He spoke only of women and
tobacco; this notwithstanding his knowing Professor Hornet as an expert in translating ancient inscriptions.
Not only is the general design of the two
"writings" nearly identical; many of the
individual glyphs are alike. It appears that
Adamski picked up the "design" for his
version when one of Professor Hornet's
petroglyphs was published in a newspaper,
which was done quite frequently during the
early 1950s in Europe.
Why did you do it, George?

WRITINGS FRO\M ANOTHER PLANET

A brief technical accoun, of flying saucers and their
working method of propulsion.
This symbolic message, given to the author by a visitor
from outer space on December 13, 1952, has not been
fully deciphered. Several scientists are working on it
and on deciphering the markings of the footprints
described in this book.
SRITISH SOOK CENTRE

420 W. 45th STREET, NEW YORK 36

ABOVE: Jacket i1Iustration and text reproduced from Aying Saucers Haue
Landed, by Desmond Leslie (Book 1) and George Adamski (Book 2), The

British Book Centre. New York, 1953. BELOW: Portion of page 185 reproduced from Sons of the. Sun, by Marcel F. Hornet, Neville Spearman Ltd.,
112 Whitfield St., London WI, 1963.

greatest variety: they COUIU 110 longer understand WhilL mey heard among
themselves after they came to Tulan. Here also they were divided up:
there were those who set out in the direction of the rising sun, and many
of them came here.'

Fig. 19. The sec,.et of p,.imitive lette,.s. A few of the

thousand characters which
were discovered during Hornet's expeditions (see p. 13).

Pursuit 103

Is Teleportation the MaclJ'oscopic Analog of

The Quantum 'Barner ~~nmetration' Effect?
by Morgan D. Eads
HAS MODERN PHYSICS unwittingly stumbled across
an atomic form of teleportation?
Can teleportation be mathematically described by a second
order differential equation of a "nonphysical" wave attribute
of matter?
These are two of the questions to be pondered in the following article. But first, let me digress for a moment into the
recent history of physics.
In the early 1920s a curious new theory on the nature of
matter came to fruition. This was the Quantum Mechanical
theory of matter as embodied in the Schrodinger equation.
The Schrodinger equation was an expansion and an extension
of the ideas of Louis de Broglie: That upon some fundamental level of nature, particles of matter emit a wave field that
can dramatically alter their behavior. Particulate motion
i.e . Newtonian motion, could now be understood to act i~
a very un-particlelike fashion. For instance, nuclear particles
such as the proton, neutron, and the electron could be found
to undergo the phenomena of diffraction and interference
both distinctly wavelike behaviors.
'
As de Broglie, a~d Schrodinger saw these waves, they were
actual field extensIons of the particle with the same claim to
reality as water waves or waves in a string. However, a later
interpretation of these waves was to push them into a deeper
level of abstraction: The Schrodinger/de Broglie waves of
m~t~er were no ~onger physically "real" waves but only probabIlIty waves, I.e., a purely mathematical, and statistical,
and even mental construct by which physicists could predict
th~ mass behavior of large numbers of interacting particles.
It IS the mathematically determined interactions of these waves
of probability that give rise to most of the curious predictions
of quantum mechanics.
On~ of these predictions is that of barrier penetration,
sometImes called the "tunnel effect." This is roughly described
by saying "that you can't keep a nuclear particle ~ithin an
atomic box forever; the particle will eventually leak' out of its
confinement by some mysterious means, to end up either in
free space or in some other box.
The Schrodinger equation doesn't "explain" hbw this is
physically possible, other than to inform us that the waves of
~robability which restrain the possible locations of 'the parllcle do not go to zero when the particle reaches a wall:
If a tiny electron is confined within the "box" of an atom
th~n at any moment the electron may suddenly appear withi~
the confines of another atom without having used the energy
necessary to pull free from its parent nucleus.
If this sort of phenomenon were to occur on a macroscopic
level, we would instantly classify it as a teleportati'on event.
Instead of an electron for an apport, we might ha*e a baseball or a rock that suddenly vanished from one lodtiori only
I
to reappear at another.
Barrier penetration may be an odd quantum prediction
but it is not simply an unverifiable hypothesis. The tunnei
effect has been found to be one of the basic underlying mechanisms by which the physical world operates. In 1928, George
Gamow was able to use the barrier penetration concept to explain how an alpha particle could escape from a radioactive
nucleus during radioactive decay.

Technology is also about to benefit from the barrier penetrari.on ef~e~t. V~ry soon, the world's fastest computers will
be tinY. minI-brainS that are supercooled and relay their messages vIa Josephson junction switches. The tunnel effect is the
underlying mechanism behind the Josephson switch.
Most Fortean thinkers are probably aware that poltergeisttype phenomena are often accompanied by mysterious disappearances and possible instances of teleportation. Should
the enlightened Fortean suggest that tiny ghosts are the secret
perpetrators of quantum effects? Probably not.
1:"1 ?wever , a free-spirited physicist, if he is something of
a VISIonary or a Fortean, might suggest that a few of the events
in the Fortean catalogs of observation might represent a sort
of macroscopic quantum effect.
A macroscopic teleportation might be used as evidence for
a higher level of probability/matter wave. For convenience,
we might label this higher order of probability wave the MacroMatter wave. The concept of the Macro-Matter wave should
be useful for describing the limitations of activity available to
tables and chairs, cars and trucks, and perhaps even people
and planets. With the possible exception of planets, all of
these objects have at one time or another been obliged to take
the Fortean route via the alleged agency of teleportation.
How may we develop a Macro-Matter wave equation?
First hint: The Macro-Matter wave equation will have the
same general form as the Schrodinger equation. The general
form will be a partial differential equation of the second order.
This is the basic form for all wave equations and the MacroMatter wave equation will probably not be an exception.
Another hint, and a very restricting one, is that two of the
~ost com~on phenomena associated with wave activity
(t.e., wave Interference and diffraction) must be repressed or
at least expressed in sOlne hidden manner. This restrictio~ is
so formidable that it might make an elegant and simple wave
equation unobtainable. As an illustration of the problem this
could create, consider the following scene:
Suppose a Mr. Charles Fort is riding his bicycle down the
sidewalk of a nice metropolitan boulevard. Jus't as he reaches
the corner of the First National Bank, he suddenly finds himself -moving down the alley that should have been on his left
side. What has happened? Has Mr. Fort been zapped by a
. humanoid? No. Mr. Fort has simply been diffracted around
the corner. This would be a typical wave effect if Mr. Fort's
associated Macro-Matter wavelength was on the order of
a yard or so. This is simply an effect that does not seem to
occur on the macroscopic level. We don't diffract around
corners. Similar problems might occur if we tried to walk
through doorways or maneuver our car in heavy traffic.
On the other hand, these effects might not be so noticeable
if Mr. Fort's wavelength were only a centimeter or a tenth of
that. In general, the associated wavelengths of macroscopic
matter would heed to relatively small things to prevent such
annoying phenomena from occurring.
Whether we describe teleportation by use of a Macro-Matter
wave or by some other means, the barrier penetration effect
provides a startling analogy to macroscopic teleportation
events.

SUDIBler

1980

The 1909 Mystay Airships

In the Irish Papers
by John Hind
Copyright 1979 by John Hind and Irish
UFO News. Reprinted by permission.

N historical approach to the UFO phenomenon carries

with it advantages and disadvantages. If we study a
going back six decades or so, we can be reasonably
fident that no startling new revelation about our subject
come to light as some general, politician or scientist pubhis memoirs, or as some document is declassified .. In
words, we can be reasonably sure that the source materfor the time is complete. The other side of the coin is,
course, that we have to rely almost totally on records and
do no useful investigation work; one cannot interview
witnesses.
A particularly interesting body of UFO-related data dates
the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first
years of this century. These reports, today dubbed
'phantom airships," differ in one important respect from the
UFO phenomenon: they were interpreted at the time,
those who took them seriously, as air ships (powered lighterhan-air craft) constructed by either a "foreign power" or
"secret inventor."
Like the modern UFO phenomenon, the airship reports
to occur in geographically localised waves. The waves
,.,v,,,...;... so far (it seems likely that present research has only
the surface) are: 1896 in the U.S.;s 1909 and 1913 in
1.).4 and 1908 in Denmark. 2 The reports are also similar
profile to the modern UFO data, consisting of large numof reports of strange lights in the sky and a few stories of
nters with craft and their occupants close to or on the

The Irish News

.uu
BELFAST

MOJ~~J~(j

IIEI.F.\ST. F1W ).\ Y.

~I.\ Y ~ I,

:,\EWS
I!)on

MORE "INVASION"
HYSTERICS
Ridicule may kill in France, but it has no power" over
the temporarily befogged intellect of English scaremongers and their victims. Most people thought
a few days ago that the Spalding story had terminated
the remarkable career of the vagrant German "airship" which had been observed by midnight watchers
playing "fantastic tricks" under the high heavens in
various parts of the South of England.

" . . " " ....11 .....

The "close encounters" invariably describe human occuand "Heath Robinson" mechanical constructions with
, propellers, sails, etc. For those readers not familiar
aviation history, it is worth noting that there were no airoperating in any of the countries with the exception of
at the time of the sightings. The first British airship
the Nulli Secundus (first flight in 1907), and two others,
and Gamma, were flying by 1913. These blimps were
non-rigid craft capable of only short flights
ideal conditions. The first rigid airship was flown in
;prrn,.."v in 1900 and by the time of the First World War,
craft were capable of carrying out bombing raids on
n with limited success. The first known airship flight in
U.S. was not until 1915. The short heyday of the airship
a luxury passenger-transporter on trans-Atlantic routes
with the first Atlantic crossing by air carried out by
British R-34 in 1919 and ended in 1937 when the German
Hindenburg was destroyed by fire in the U.S. 7
In the early part of this century, Germany, due largely to
chemical industry, was one of the richest countries in the
and used its wealth to build up its navy. Britain, then
of the most powerful of nations, had long felt secure bethe natural barrier formed by the English Channel and
!iulIllm4R

1980

the North Sea, and this security was threatened by the increase
in German naval power. An arms race had developed in the
construction of battleships, and respect for German scientifjc
and engineering capability was justifiably high. A body of
rumour developed, in parallel to the Establishment fear, that
Germany would overcome Britain's sea defence by naval
power, and that Germany had developed some method of
rendering sea defence obsolete. In the early part of 1909 there
were rumours to the effect that the Germans had tunneled
under the North Sea and had a "fifth column" already concealed in England.
No complete survey of the 1909 Airship Phenomenon is yet
available, though at least one researcher is working on it.6
The author set out to sample the coverage given to the "flap"
at the time by the Irish newspapers for which copies at that
date were available.
Three newspapers were searched for the month of May,
1909: the Belfast Telegraph, a broadly Unionist-oriented
evening paper published in Belfast; the Irish Times, a nonpolitically oriented daily published in Dublin; and the Irish
News, another Belfast-published daily having a largely Nationalist readership.
The Irish Times treats the airship flap only very briefly and
without editorialisation, but the paper takes a much less parochial view than the other two, reporting German reaction to
charges that the airships were German military craft. Both
Northern papers report the flap quite extensively, but there is

PuNalt 105

a striking difference in the character of the reporting and in

the editorial attitude taken to the phenomenon.
The Belfast Telegraph opens the coverage in the Irish papers
on Saturday, May 15 under the headline
AMAZING AIRSHIP STORY
It is now understood the War Office is attaching importance

Mr. Grahame told the end of this adventure:

"We saw the tall man pull one of the levers down-just like
the beer engine only thinner-and then he switched the light
off, and the aeroplane went without either of the men saying
goodbye. It disappeared in ten seconds, and was gone before
we could see where it had gone to. It was a very dark night."
Monday 17th, Belfast Evening Telegraph:

to the mysterious airship reported flying by night over the eastMYSTERIOUS AIRSHIP FLIES OVER BELFAST:
ern counties. An attempt was made at first to indicate the re.
A Noclurnal Visitor: Is II from Germany?
ports as to people having seen the s~range navigator in the air,
The inhabitantS'<>f the'peaceful Belfast suburban districts of
but opinion is coming round,tO t.heview that. i~e airship is,
indeed, actually the airship that was first sighted neariy two
Malone and Balmoral are wondering today whether they have
months ago.
been favoured with a visit from the mysterious airship.
There then follows a section which itemises the sightings by
An Evening Telegraph representative visited the district this
afternoon, and interviewed' a n~n:tber of persons who witn.essed
witnesses, location and, in sorrie c~ses .. date. This data along'
with the rest of thefactual data from the Irish papers.is sum- '. '.'
.the passage of t~e no~turnal vlSl,tor across the sky. TheIr ac.. ;. ed'.... '. bI .. ; ... ..,: ':'" ...... ".,."; ..... ' ."."," .. :--,": .. count~ .agre~ subs~n~lIdly,. and It appears that at about ~en
mans
m. Ta e;:I... r~o' reports,i.are :glven,.' m.:some :.detall,;...:.:' : ';ci'C!OCk a: biiliian'tlight 'was 'oti~erv'ed in the sky in thedireeiion .
those by Peterborough PolIce Constable Kettle and by a
of Colin Mountain. The aerial visitant was thousands of feet
"Southend lady." The article closes by noting that:
high, and came steadily on in the directiol"! of the city, occasionally
dipping towards the ground but arways keeping at a
Two opinions on the mysterious airship prevail. One is that it
great altitude.
belongs to an English inventor who is conducting his experiThe night was fairly dark, and it was impossible to distinments at night in order to keep his secret; the other that it may
guish clearly what the light came from, but when it came over
have been a German airship released from some warship in the
the Lisburn Road and across the various residential parks
North Sea.
between that thoroughfare and the Malone Road it was just
The Telegraph has more to say in its May 17 edition. Howpossible to distinguish in the gloom a long-shaped object, and
ever, not to be outdone, the Irish News jumps into the foray
no doubt was left in the minds of those who saw it that it was
an airship.
with the headline:
It was utterly impossible to distinguish the construction of
MYSTERIOUS AERO THAT STOPPED OVER LONDON
the ship or the forms of its passengers owing to the great height,
FOR AFILI. OF TOBACCO:
but that there were persons on board was evident from the fact
A Queer Story Told to a Newspaper
that a red light was ~een on several occasions flashing from it ...
By a Couple of Strollers
When it got about a mile past the mountain it appeared to
slacken speed somewhat, and its flight for some time became
The story goes on to quote from the London Star a story
rather slow. Then it finally rose to a very great height, and disrelated to that paper by Messrs. Grahame and Bond.
appeared rapidly in the darkness in the direction of the Lagan.
"We were near the middle of the common on a fairly open
After a long section comparing this visitation with the airspace 150 yards from the wood," said Mr. Grahame, "and
ship
seen in the eastern counties of England and a discussion
I said to my friend, Mr. Bond. 'sit down a minute. I find I have
of German military airship activity the Telegraph concludes:
a stone in my shoe.'
"We sat down on the grass and I suddenly heard a soft
... it seems rather incredible that a German airship should get
buzzing sound behind me. I thought it was a motor car in the
to Ireland unobserved, but against that must be taken into condistance and I could not understand it. Then I suddenly saw
sideration the fact that Germany leads the way in aerial navigait come creeping along the surface of the grass. The moment
tion and the skiD and daring of her aeronauts knows no bounds.
they saw us (sic) the first man, who was clean-shaven, and
On Tuesday 18th the Irish Times briefly mentions several
looked like a Yankee, swung a searchlight right round on us,
of the English and Welsh sightings and carried a (separate)
and there he was doing that over and over again, blinding us
with its glare, evidently so that we should not see too much of
article on German airship technology. The Irish News carries
the shape of the airship.
a letter signed "Wide Awake" and apparently intended ser"The second man, who stood in the middle of the airship,
iously, which warns of the danger of the (supposedly Gerlooked like a German and was smoking a calabash pipe. The
man) airships. The letter closes:
German spoke first. He said: 'I-am-sorry. Have-you-anyI am however, sorry to say that the rulers of these countobacco?'
tries have closed their eyes to the threatening presence of this
"I just happened to have an ounce or two in my pouch and
monster of the air. Now that it has surveyed the main coasts of
I gave it to him saying: 'Help yourself. Here is my pouch.'
England, I am almost certain that it will next turn its attention
"I could see the shape dimly. I am not an artist, but it apto Ireland, and I would advise loyal subjects to keep their eyes
peared like a collection of big cigar boxes with the ends OUI.
fixed upon the heavens these nights. If it appears, a report
It must have been 200 feet, or 250 feet long.
should be promptly sent to the headquarters of the Belfast Boy
Mr. Grahame roughly sketched the aeroplane with three proScouts, so that ample and effective preparations might be made
pellers and a big swing searchlight. He proceeded:
to cope with the dangers which are most certainly to be appre"There were two men on the aeroplane. The first man who
hended.
was near the forepart seemed to be in a sort of steel-wire cage,
and he had a row of handles in front of him like handles of a
The editor of the Irish News notes briefly: "The
beer engine only thinner. "
letter
was delivered yesterday morning, several hours before
Mr. Bond at this point mentioned that the "German gentlewas announced that Belfast had actually been honoured
man" had a cap.and beard and a map in front of him. It was
a visit from a 'monarch of the air' ."
fastened on a board and there were red discs as though they had
been stuck into the map with pins.
On Wednesday, the Irish News carries an item apparently

SIGIfl'lNGS REPORTED IN 1HE IRISH PAPERS .

2
3
4

5
6
7
8
9
10
II
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Robert Westlake and some men working on .the steamship Arndale: cigar-shaped, lit object making
whizzing noise: Cardiff docks: Telegraph 19.5.1909.
Lethbridge: cigar-shaped object on ground with occupant: Caerphilly Mountain, Wales: Irish
News 20.5.1909.
Messrs. Grahame and Bond: complex airship on ground, occupants: Teddington, London: Irish
News 17.5.1909 quoting London Star.
Mr. &. Mrs. Egerton S. Free: cigar-shaped craft, hovering. Artifact found: Clacton: Irish News
17.5.1909: Belfast Telegraph 20.5.1909.
.
Thomas Murphy, Frank Kerr: cigar-shaped, lit craft, at distance: Belfast: Belfast Telegraph 17.5.1909.
Anon: No details, an airship: Belfast Telegrap~ 17.5.1909.
Police Constable Kettle: object seen 23.3.1909~ Peterborough.
Mr. A. 1. Banyard, Mrs. Mary Daly: 2S.4.1~: March, Cambridgeshire.
Police Constable Hudson, Mr. 1. O. Smith: object seen.24.4.1909: Ipswich.
Mrs. Amy Rush and son: object seen 9.5.1909: Bury St. Edmunds.
Miss H. M. Biville: object seen 9.5.1909: Southend-on-Sea.
Mr. Cole: object seen 9.5.1909: Stamford.
Mr. Deacon: no details: Wisbech.
Mr. C. W. Allen, Mr. Brown: no details: Market Harborough.
"Two labourers": no details: Kings Lynn.
Mr. Strange: no details: Peakirk, near Peterborough.
Mr. Kelt: no details: Northampton.
"Royal servants": no details: Sandringham.
(Items 7-18 from Belfast Telegraph 15.5.1909.)
TABLE 1

unrelated to the airship mystery, but the connection will not

be lost on sociologically aware readers. In the newspaper's
House of Commons report:
Sir John Barlow will today ask Mr. Haldane whether he has
any information showing that there are sixty-six thousand
trained German soldiers in England and a quantity of rifles and
ammunition in a cellar within a quarter mile of Charing Cross.

"A prophet finds no honour in his own country," begins

a flippantly intended letter in the same issue of the Irish News:
Already i am looking into the future with eyes as keen and
undimm.:d as those of the male eagle when he fearlessly stares
upon the sun; and I see a bright vision of a grateful and loyal
nation gathering around me and proclaiming the glory of the
man who spoke the words of warning that saved the people of
Belfast from a dreadful fate.
A year has been added to the roll of time since I first told my :
neighbours that aerial warships would hover over the Northern
capital (Belfast) and threaten its inhabitants with the doom of
the unwary. One has already appeared; it was seen by several
people, iilcluding members of the staff of the Belfast Evening
Te!i1graph. These observers saw it with their eyes; they saw the
airship with its glaring lights spinning twixt earth and heavens;
they saw several things besides, but this fearful vision dwelt on
their memories, and they justified my prophetic instinct by
recording the result of their patriotic midnight vision.
But they did not see all that might be observed that night.
I have been making preparations for the appearance of this airship ever since the autumn. The powerful telescope which procured for purposes of military observation when I vainly hoped

Sammer1988

that our Lodges (Orange Lodges: a Loyalist Masonic-type

organisation) would undertake the conquest of Connaught remained in my possession; so I fitted onto it an apparatus which
enables me to see objects within five miles distance as plainly on
the darkest night as the ordinary man can observe them in
broad noonday.
\.1
Sir, though I waited until independent testimony could precede my statemellt, I saw that airship before it entered within
the range of vision, or into the imagination of the number of
Belfast Telegraph staff. I brought my refractifying, speciallypatented black-midnight telescope to bear upon it; and as it
hovered over the Lisburn Road, I distinctly noticed the German
Emperor and Mr. Patrick O'Brien MP (at this time Ireland was
unpartitioned and under British rule; Patrick O'Brien was a local
Irish National MP at Westminster) standing side by side; while
just behind them was a well-known member of the local United
Irish League and A 0 H (Ancient Order of Hibernians, roughly
the Republican equivalent of the Orange Order), pointing out
to them the strategic places which should be occupied by an invading army.
At the same moment I placed to my ear another instrument
which attracts any sound uttered nearer than five miles, as a
lightning rod draws into itself all the electricity within the radius
of its influence; and I heard the German Emperor distinctly
say-he spoke in fairly grammatical English, though his accent
was not that to which we are accustomed-"In my opinion
Belfast will be ours when our fleet drops 250,000 men and
1000 cannons on to the Shankill Road."
Whereupon Mr. Patrick O'Brien MP said: "Sire, I entirely
disagree with you. We may succeed in capturing the Shankill
Road, and filling every public house, tobacco shop and con-

Pursuit 107

fectionery store in it with Uhlans; but Belfast will never be

ours until we drop 500,000 men in Sandy Row."
Whereupon the local Leaguer and Hibernian said, in an
accent that fell gratefully upon my ears: "That's all very well;
but when ye have the Shank ill and the Bog Meadows, what the
David Porter will you do about Ballymacarrett?" (Shankill
Road, Sandy Rowand Ballymacarretl are all Loyalist areas
of Belfast).
They were still cogitating over this problem when the engines
"whirred" and the dread machine swept away across the Lagan
and sped on at the rate of 87 miles an hour towards the Mull of
Kyntre. I was not at all astonished to read in .next mornin~'s
paper that the German Emperor had arrived home: I am sure
he must have felt tired.
.
Yours faithfully,
An Anxious Orangeman.

Those familiar with the 1909 airship scare will need no

introduction to the Lethbridge case which is extensively reported in the Irish News on the Thursday. "INVADED!"
scream the headlines, "Foreigners, an Airship and a grim
message in French. What a Showman Saw and Others Verified: Fearful Scares."
The Lethbridge story is then told, in much the same manner and with the. same details as in the extracts quoted by
Carl Grove and Paul Screeton. However, the paper does explicity link the airship with other strange occurrences. Under
the sub-headline:
WORSE AND WORSE!
A Colchester telegram states that although the stories that
have been circulating as to German military airships hovering
over Colchester are dismissed as canards, serious attention is
being paid in the garrison town to the continual reports that are
received by the police and other authorities as to the presence
of foreigners whose sole business seems to take notes of crossroads and buildings in the neighbourhood of Colchester. Several instances of this practice have been lately noted by the
police.

The Belfast Telegraph .af the same day quotes the Daily
Express on the "Airship Fender" found by Mrs. Ege~on
Free of Clacton.
;01-"
On Friday, May 21 the Irish News, no longer able to r~sist
the temptation, scores political points against the Englis~!by
editorialising on the subject of "Invasion Hysterics." T-he
editorial starts by noting several hoax-airship reports and djsparaging the fact that the mysterious table discovered by
Lethbridge turned out to be instructions on the use of a motortyre valve. "We !Cnow why the Brothers Wright have returned
to their native country," comments the editor sarcastically,
"their miserable mechanical makeshifts . . . are merest toying and fancies of children when compared with the marv~l
lous German invention which can alight on lonely mountam
roads with the ease of a 'carrion crow' and disappear towards
the stars with more dexterity than a champion cyclist mounts
his machine at the start of a race. "
Commenting on the note-taking foreigners in Colchester:
"Wild stories indicate the hysterical fear that has taken possession of the majority of the British people."
With the end of the week, we come to the end-with a few
isolated exceptions-of the coverage in the Irish papers of the
airship scare.

researchers. However, although much more research is necessary to bring in all the data on which a useful theory could be
based, he feels that some comments may be made at this stage:
I. Since none of the established histories make any mention of extensive airship testing or operation over the
British Isles before the war, it is extremely unlikely that
genuine airship activity accounts for more than a handful of the sightings.
2. The airship phenomenon shows profile similarities
with the modern UFO phenomenon. These similarities
include the description of Light in the Sky and close
encounter reports, the occurrence of spatially and temporarily localised "wave" and "flap" phenomena and
in the them-and-us interpretation (the airship was seen
as a manifestation of an alien-in the old sense of the
word-technology).
3. At least one type of hoax can be identified in the
data: the newspapers use the phenomenon as a vehicle
for political satire. The excellent example in the Irish
sample is the Irish News" Anxious Orangeman" letter.
4. The phenomenon is well adapted to contemporary
cultural specifics. The best example is probably contained in the varying attitude taken to the phenomenon
by the two politically oriented Irish newspapers. The
Unionist Belfast Telegraph, for which the cultural specific of German invasion is relevant, treats the reports
seriously; but the Irish News, for which the cultural
specific is largely irrelevant, does not.
Synthesizing: Due to the antiquity of the reports it is probably no longer possible to come to a useful con~lusion about
the physical stimuli behind the reports. However, we can
suggest two tentative hypotheses about the phenomenon as
a whole. The first is that the phenomenon was ~imply a form
of contagion; of mass hysteria. If this is the case, then the
phenomenon shows an amazing propensity for manufacturing compelling, specific evidence for itself. The second is that
the phenomenon may be of the collective unconscious, analogous to a dream-premonition in the individual unconscious.
After all, airships were used over Britain by the Germans
during the First World War.
In conclusion, the close analogy between the airship phen~
omenon and the modern UFO phenomenon suggests that
study of the former could help in the understanding of the
latter. It is to be hoped that more complete surveys of the
source literature on the airship phenomenon. will soon be
available.
REFEREN~ES

I. Grove, Carl: "The Airship Wave of 1890," FSR vols 1617; 17/1

2.
3.
4.
S.

Wegner, Willy: "The Danish Airships of 1908," MUFOB NS 9

Watson, Nigel: "The Cigar Ship ofl909," MUFOB NS 10
Screeton, Pa'ul: "A Newspaper Looks at the Airship," MUFOB NS II
Gross, Loren: "The UFO Wave of 1896." Privately published booklet
1974.
6. Personal communications with Nigel Watson.
7. Air Facts and Feats: Guinness 1970.
Photocopies of the original newspaper items on which this article is
based are available for consultation at the Irish UFO Research Centre
library. The original newspaper files consulted are stored in the Shankill
Road branch of Belfast Public Libraries, and the author would like to
thank the staff for their help and patience.

The author's motive in presenting this data is primarily

antiquarian, as well as to bring it to the attention of other

SOIlmmmmeD' 1980

PartD

The Bermuda Triangle et al:

A Natural Phenomenon
by LeVonne K. Angelo

(Continued from Pursuit's spring issue 1980, Vol. 13, No.2)

of years ago the government sold some old
A NUMBER
ships to Japan. In the area known as the "Devil's
Sea," between the Straits of Japan Sea and Guam, the
ships got into a depression resembling a "deep dish,"
around which they sailed for hours. This type of "hole" or
whirlpool may be as deep as one hundred feet below the
normal ocean level. Submarines have been able to pass
directly under these depressions without experiencing any
difficulty, nor do their instruments register anything out of
the ordinary. Whirlpools aren't unusual, they are simply
rotary ocean currents whose interactions of rising and
falling tides can produce large-scale eddies. Currents of
opposite behavior are called "kolks," or "boils," and are
created by an updraft. Whirlpools exhibiting central downdrafts are called vortices. They appear where coastal and
bottom jointures provide very deep, narrow passageways.
Some of the famous whirlpools known are: the Charybdis of Southern Italy along the Calabria coast; the Strait of
Messina between Sicily and Italy's peninsula; the Maelstrom off the coast of Norway in the Lofoten Islands. The

Hebrides and Orkney Islands have a few, and another

famous one is located in the Naruto Strait connecting the
Sea of Japan and the Philippine Sea. Those mentioned fall
either on, or just to the sides of, the vorrices in their respective areas.
This brings us to another puzzle connected with these
vortices-Iights and light wheels. We have the famous light
in Bimini that our astronauts remark seeing as they leave
Earth. Pilots of planes and ships' captains have long remarked about light wheels which extend out as far as a
mile and some of which radiate out from a central "hub"
as far as fifteen to twenty miles. According to an article
entitled "Light Wheels and Holograms That Use Acoustical Radiation," by Robert J. Durant, in Pursuit (Vol. 5,
No.1, January 1972), there are three distinct types of light
wheels: 1) the eight-spoked, 2) the nine-spoked, and 3) the
twelve-spoked variety. By checking with any map, we find
these lights follow the lines of magnetism stretching outward from one vortex to the other. Fault lines and deep
crevasses mark the earth's crust at these points.

PLalVe

5fa.r 1-"ser
1'1"',.

/ - 30

Figure 6

Summer 1980

st Q l' ar;e I
1'1'1-'1,

/- 17

Figure 7

Pursuit 109

. BOfJ../

. = 10"
~=

,111=

Army
J9'17~

~=;l.2. ..

c-~~

Figure

Another strange effect that light wheels and vortices

have in common is they consume the energy of anything
near them. Batteries and generators have been drawn upon
to the point of exhaustion in the Bermud~ Triangle. Light

ARIES

MERCURY

tl

TAURUS

VENUS

GEMINI

;c.

MARS

CANCER

. -

JUPITER

"6

VIRGO

nz
~

LIBRA
SCORPIO

SAGGITARIUS

CAPRICORN'

it
III
y;

I.,

SATURN
URANUS
NEPTUNE
PLUTO

..

SATELLITE'
MOON

.,
",

~AQUARIUS

110

EIGHT
PLANETS

y-

LEO

PISCES

Pursuit

~"" (!j ..

191.31 7-(

Figure ~. "

oil

.fl: 11 ..

,'1'10

1-3

TWELVE
CONSTELLATIONS

.,

1.. ..

--

OPPOSING FORCE

'...... '

"

; =.l' ..

r=
~~o
:1: ,

wheels viewed from the deck of a ship may result in depletion of bodily energy. It appears that the electromagnetism
of the vortices and light wheels seeks out the electromagnetism of the cells. There are cer'tain materials that put
forth an emission of "cold light." These materials can
transform invisible energy forms into visible light when
enough of the material has absorbed energy from either
ultraviolet or x-ray radiation, electron beams or chemical
reactions.
The line of trajectory from one constellation to the
opposite constellation passes through the earth an~ its sun
on a forty-five degree angle. Times .of disappearance in the
Bermuda Triangle usually coincide with late afternoon or
early hours of the morning. We are sadly ignorant of what
is happening in the other vortex areas because of a lack of
information concerning disappearances in those areas.
The following ten charts (figures 6-15) relate to famous
disappearances of both planes and boats. 1 have grouped
.them by month and day rather than year, as the.year isn't
as important as the particular time of year to reveal the .
pattern I am referring to. (See legend for me~ning of the
symbols used.) In figures 16-19 tJte reader will note that
some complete disappearances almost became "people
only."
.
I feel that the electromagnetism. varies in intensity. At
one point it may be only strong enough to "transmute"
flesh only; given enough strength it will transmute items
such as boats and planes. The electromagnetic waves rise
and fall in much the same manner as a curtain. As they
come closer to the earth, planes are caught; further down,
boats and people are caught.
.
The famous phtne Star Tiger lost between January' 29
and 30, 1948, and her sister ship Star Ariel lost on January17, 1949, are shown in figures 6 and 7. The pattern, with

Summ8l'
19.
.
.

Bo~t

BotJ..t

Il!'

Sa.o ,Pa",10
If5"/,

/~-

Sy/Yi4 L. Ossa.

19!'~ /0-13

Figure 10 .

the exception of being reversed due to planetary changes,

is identical. The patterns in figure 8 (for the Army C-54)
and in figure 9 (for the boat Sno Boy) are also identical,
but reversed due to a sixteen-year span. Figures 10, II and
12 show, respectively, that the patterns for the boats Sao
Paulo, Sylvia L. Ossa and Ithaca Island are all identical,
although the Ossa very nearly became a "people only" due
to the narrowing arm. Another "almost" was figure 13,
a DC-3. Figure 14 represents the loss of the Revonoc,
which disappeared with its owner, Mr. Conover, on or
about New Year's Eve. Last but not least, figure 15 represents the loss of the Marie Sulphur Queen. Although all
such disappearances can be charted, to do so would be a
waste of time, money and the reader's patience.
Short-term geomagnetic fields over the earth have daily
variations of intensity. In the Northern Hemisphere these
intensities decrease toward midday, while in the Southern
Hemisphere they begin to increase-thus showing us that
the sun's position controls these variations at the observation point. According to Gauss's analysis, we divide our
magnetic field into two sources, an outside and an inside
one. It has been discovered that two-thirds of the daily .
variation originates in the earth's lower ionosphere (65 to
80 miles i!l altitude) caused by horizontal electric currents
flowing through this region. The other one-third is felt ..
to be a by-product of the primary outside source by producing an e.lectrical current which flows into the earth's
. electrically c~nductive interior through the process .of electromagnetic induction.
..
Since the geomagnetic dipoles are opposite one another
(north and south), why couldn't the vortices be of the.
same order? In other words, a northern vortex opposed
to the southern vortex? When the sun is active we have
large-scale magnetic disturbances. The magnetosphere

........ 1980

FIgure 11

becomes compressed and contracted. When the solar

wind's kinetic energy increases, sudden pressure causes
the magnetosphere to be compressed toward the earth.
This in turn causes an increase in the magnetic field. The
westward movement of electrically charged protons is

Boa..-t

.,

.... ,t= ".

. t/.:::,p

/11= 0
~J5.

=JJ'
. .,.t.. (,
J.: ,
J= I

". ,

.
PurauII

111

Boftt

P/fl.Nt!

e=~
'f= H,'
ItI =.,.,

DC,,,'1ii'

It.:. #.'1-'
3

11:. ZD'

...t= 3

IJ...-U

Figure 13

.!f.. = 2'1

=:z3 '

~=

If'

called the equatorial ring current and is maintained by the

energy of solar wind. As the solar wind's kinetic energy
returns to normal, the equatorial ring current is no longer
maintained and the magnetic storm ceases.
During a magnetic storm, the north and south poles displaya phenomenon referred to as 'an aura that is oval in
shape.' Also at this time, the geomagnetic field near these
ovals increases in magnitude. These disturbances are called
polar magnetic substorms. While these substorms are in
progress other electromagnetic phenomena can be noticed:
the emission of x-rays, low-frequency radio waves, and in
increased density of electrons throughout the ionosphere.
Polar storms usually occur around local midnight, and the
duration varies from between a half hour to three hours.
Physicists now agree there is velocity greater than the
speed of light. A British research group from Oxford University has concluded that the electromagnetic fields found
in the Crab Nebula of the Constellation of Taurus move
with speeds of 375,000 miles per second! The vortices
would not operate on the speed of light, but in electromagnetic speeds. Subatomic particles such as tachyons,
luxons, and tardyons operate in the dimension of antimatter, and so do the vortices. Depending upon how much
energy is being generated, most persons and vehicles entering these time-less zones disappear permanently! Please
refer to figures 16-19. Humans were missing on the Cuban
cargo ship Rubicon, found adrift October 22, 1944, thirty
miles southeast of Key Largo, Florida. Only the ship's dog
was on board. Note the wide expanse of the top and bottom fan in figure 16 in contrast to the small fan containing
planets Pluto and Jupiter. Note the identical pattern in
figure 17 for the Witchcraft. Position has changed, of
course, but not the pattern. Witchcraft'S owner and pas-

112 Pursuit

f-.::: :,1

V=- 1-,'

iii ::
~-

,.,0

,.

= 5"D
,t; 0 0
:}J.c

:):. ,0

~"; iJ.1fo

NeV"o#oc.

'1'7,/3.- '31
Figure 14

senger disappeared on December 24, 1967. The Southern

Cross (figure 18) was discovered adrift ten miles northeast
of Cape May, New Jersey, on November 4, 1969. The
V. A. Fogg (figure 19) was found sunken on February 14,

E'::"
'f1= "

/II:; 4

!y)tl'r i e ~14II'J,{,( yo QI.IUN

/!t.3., z-+i
Figure 15

~:: I~
~= IG"

/I: If.

1-=

~5'

::J=

If

r-:: 2J

Saaua_1988

Boa.t

Ru. bico'"
199ft,

Boa.t

(pe"plC misSt"N,)
/0 -2.3-

Figure 16
1972. Thirty-eight of the 39 men were gone. If it had foundered before this time, it wasn't too many days prior to
this date. Change in the pattern is slight. Although the
planets change, the pattern appears for the disappearance

of persons and also for spontaneous human combustion.

Parrots are the only nonhuman item that disappears
also. Cats, canaries and dogs are left behind. Parrots have
unique brains. Unfortunately, little information can be

B04..t

800.1:

Sou.therf( Cross (peo,A"e

1'I'f., I/-if'
Figure 18

Sum..er 1980

/MilliN})

1"01,

fPtople miss;N.!)

191~, Z-l..

Figure 19

Pursuit 113

.:

ur5.R.
~

ID'

: I'"~

. ..... .

Vocf~ E

" ,,'3,
e=

.. :..

u.~.

'-1'1-

1=15" J= /1,"
":11" ~: II"

/11= I.f'

-I: ,,'

/fr.II. "

1711,

:1:'.

!' = '-1" If',.'

f" -'

fI: /.

7~zr.

"n"

11=,."

1:u

;..p'

:1-,,'

Agure21

Agure20

.".

C;e,,"il'li

11",

e ., If"
If =~

r-

'-I"
1/--,"

.:: II"

f::,,

f..".-

"':zlf." ,. zf'

Agure22

*"
IIsf",lftlu./s
9 ro11l'It/.

1"1, ,- z 7
':1.1'

". Z'r

,f:zr

1= zf"

1I:z'

So J

"-:.l'

.It., ,.,. ~:: ,"

Agure2S
114 PursuIt

b,. ..",c'/ol'l
':}=/~"

I("L

e= '1"

,~z.,.

17'7, ~2S

/If: a2!"

I=:J'

1-: IS"
,4:lf"

~: If :J:: ,'"

1= IJ"

Figure 24

Samm_1980

found on parrot brains. Parrots and humans have much in

common in behavioral patterns. They respond to music
and certain colors. Parrots mate for life and are intelligent
to the point of deducing the outcome of a repeated act.
-Although the disappearance of parrots may appear. on the
surface. to be intelligent selection. it may instead have
something to do with their spinal column. which is more
"erect than other fowl. "Or. the" vocal area may perhaps be
more humanlike in its vibrational characteristic. Whatever
the reason. we may discover that their disappearance is
probably due to their close connection with humankind.
I feel that all these anomalies-magrietism. lights, mag"netic storms, earthquake and volcanic activity-exist be-" "
cause of the action of the main vortex, and are not independently produced.
The U.S. has been most fortunate with the space program. The Soviets didn't fare as well in their endeavors in
the beginning." Our worst disaster was the explosion and "
fire on the ground. January 17, 1967. The thing that intrigues me is the timing that both countries use in sending
missions into space. After several accidents plus some
touch-and-go situations. they seem to have learned to pass
up dangerous dates.
The term "launch window" couldn't be more correct.
According to the charts. there are open areas (figure 20).
The areas may also have a diffused appearance. as in figure 21. In contrast to the charts with open areas. we have
those where something occurred ... a mission cut short, or
sudden accidents. The flight of Gemini 8, after docking
with Agena Target, was cut short. In figure 22. the arm of
the cross is taking shape. Two tragedies befell the missions
for both sides in 1967. On January 27. three astronauts
were killed by an explosion and fire (figure 23). Kamarov
crashed the Soyus (figure 24) ... the pattern is there. Soyus XI orbited for 23 days. and the cosmonauts were found
dead upon return to earth. I am not saying that the pattern
could be true in every situation. but it does" appear, and
until enough of the scientific community will work together to experiment and try different ideas-no matter" how
bizarre they may seem-we'll never know for sure.
I bring one more phenomenon into the picture because
I believe that it belongs there, and that is spontaneous
human combustion (SHC). The cases of SHC have been
recorded for several centuries. Like the mysterious Bermuda Triangle disappearances. it has only been in the last
2S years that decent records have been kept. Most of them
read like a litany: bluish flames are noted; there is often an
odd sweetish smell; soot and ash sometimes are scattered
on walls and floors; there may be burned flesh lying about.
Mosi victims are reduced to nothing but ash. or sometimes
to the proverbial grease spot. Usually nothing but flesh
and bones are destroyed. Clothing. bedding and chairs
remain untouched. Bodies not completely destroyed show
signs of internal burns! As the magnetic waves move over
the land. people too may somehow get caught in them.
One researcher found a coincidental pattern between the
fires and periods of severe magnetic flux. The months of
the year are the same as those listed for the Bermuda Triangle anomalies; the differences are the days-indicating
a lowering or raising of the energy flow. This flow reaches
its peak approximately toward the last two weeks in the
month or the first two weeks; the time period seems to
alternate.

Sum__ 1980

Some scientists lament the basic discoveries have all been

found. I have attempted to show that the age of basic discoveries is not finished, indeed, we have only just begun.
We may be on the verge of rediscovering a great energy
that has always been with us. one which if properly used
can help us achieve a long-sought-for independence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker, Rober"t H.," Ph.D., D.Sc. and Zim, Herbert S., Ph.D., Sc.D.,
Stars, Golden Press, New York, 1956
Berlitz, Charles, The Mystery 0/ A tlantis, Avon Books, February, 1967
Berlitz, Charles, The Bermuda Triangle, Dou):lleday & Co., 1974
BLidge, E. A. Wallis, Book 0/ the Dead (Egyptian), Citadel Press
Butler, Hiram"E., Solar Biology, Esoteric Fraiernity Pub;, Applegate,
Cal., 1914
Carter, Mary Ellen, Edgar Cayce on Prophecy, Paperback library,
New York, June, 1968
Cayce, Edgar Evans, Edgar Cayce" on Atlantis; Paperback library, Inc.,
"" "
""
"
" March; 1968
Chaney, Earlene, Astara Degree Lessons, Astara Foundation, Upland, Cal.
Charpentier, Louis, The Mysteries 0/ Chartres Cathedral, Trans. by
Ronald Fraser, Avon Books, 1966
Daniken, Erich von, The Gold 0/ the Gods, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New
York, p. 101, 1972
Emerson, Wi!lis G., Smoky God, Forbes & Co., Chicago, 1908
"Earth, Gravitational Field of," in Ent:ydopaedia Britannica, 15th
Edition (1974), 6:21, 6:23
"High-Pressure Phenomena," in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th
Edition (1974), 8:867, 8:869-70
Gabel, Medard, Energy, Earth and Everyone, Straight Arrow Books,
San Francisco, 1975
Garvin, Richard, The Crystal Skull, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1973
Goodavage, John, Astrology: A Spac:eage Science, New American Library, New York, 1966
Hail, Manly P_, Freemasonry 0/ the Ancient Egyptians, Philosophical
Research Society, Inc., 1965 "
Jeffrey, Adi-Kent Thomas, The Bermuda Triangle, New Hope Pub. Co.,
June, 1975
"
Jeffrey, Adi-Kent Thomas, They Dored The Devil's Triangle, Warner
"
Books, Nov., 1975
Jeffrey, Adi-Kent Thomas, Triangleo/Terror, New Hope Pub. Co.
Keel, John A., The Mothman Prophecies; E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.,
1975
Kusche, Lawrence David, The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved, Warner Books Edition, 1975
Landsburg, Alan & Sally, In Search 0/ Ancient Mysteries, Bantam
" Books, Inc., Feb., 1974
MacCraig, Hugh, 200 Year Ephemeris, Macoy Publishing Co., 1949
Menzel, Donald H., A Field Guide to the Stars & Planets, Houghton
Mifflin Co., Boston, 1964
Pursuit:
"'Yesu' of the Druids," Vol. 6, No. I, Jan. 1973, p.18
Map in "Time Anomalies," Vol. 4, No.2, April 1971, p. 49
"Light Wheels and Holograms That Use Acoustical Radiation, "
Vol. 5, No. I", Jan. 1972, Durant, Robert J., p. 13
"Vile Vortices," Vol. 8, No.2, April 1975, Durant, p. 35
"The Dodecated Globe," Vol. 8, No.4, Oct. 1975, Whammond,
William H., p. 102
Sanderson, Ivan T.,lnvisible Residents, The World Publishing Co., 1970
and "The 12 Devil's Graveyards Around The World," SAGA Magazine, Vol. 45, No. I, OCt., 1972
Sorrell, Charles A., Minerals 0/ the World, Golden Press, New York
1973
"
Spencer, John Wallace, Limbo 0/ the Lost, Bantam Books, Inc_, Sept.
1973
Tomkins, Peter, Secrets 0/ the Great'Pyramid, Harper & Row, 1971,
pp. 12,88, 167, 182
"
Winer, Richard, The Devil's Triangle, Bantam Books, Inc., Jan. 1975
and The Devil's Triangle #2, Bantam Books, Inc., Nov., 1975

PursuiI 115

SITUations in 'he NEWS

Bigfoot Alive and Well:

Reports Persist of Prints
And Sightings in Asia,
Canada and U.S.A.

500 Miles

Forested region
where 'Apeman'
was seen

Chinese Plan Search

For an 'Ape-Man'
PEKING-China's ape-man sounds
vaguely familiar. He lives in a high pinecovered mountain range. Reddish-brown
hair covers his whole body.
No one has ever taken his picture or captured him, yet Chinese scientists will soon
launch a major expedition in the snow-capped
peaks of the Shennongjia forest region to try
to capture a "wild man."
Updating the 'Peking Man'
"
More than 30 sightings of the "ape-man"
have been reported in"the last two years, say
researchers at Peking's Academy of Sciences,
and this expedition is to be the most ambitious undertaken to date.
Reflecting the new interest in a Chinese
"Bigfoot," the academy has published a letter
describing an encounter with a female creature and its breast-fed child.
"It would be very valuable to find a 'wild
man' that is possibly a cross between a man
and an ape," said Huang Wanpo, a researcher who speaks with missionary zeal.
"Perhaps he would establish man's next of
kin in the evolutionary line."
Bigfoot's Chinese Cousin?
Yuan Zhexin, another scientist at the Institute of Paleoanthropology and Vertebrate
Paleontology, believes the "wild man" is an
ancestral relative of America's Bigfoot, the
legendary creature that supposedly roams
the forests of the American Northwest.
During an earlier expedition, the two
researchers found traces of the "ape-man"
and numerous eyewitness accounts describing

SITUations in the NEWS

" This section of Pursuit is devoted
to the reporting of fairly recent unexplained events. Members are asked
to send in newscllppings and responsible reports that they feel should be
included here.
Remember, local newspapers oflen
offer the best (or only) information
concerning some events. Please be sure
to include the source of reference
(name of newspaper, periodical, etc.),
the dale the article or report appeared
and your name (or membership number only, if you prefer to be credited
that way).

116 Pursuit

Chinese scientists hope to

find the longsought 'apeman' in the
Shennongjia
forest in Hubei
province.

Chicago Tribune Map

him. A 33-year-old commune leader told

them: "He was about 7 feet tall, with shoulders wider than a man's, a sloping forehead,
deep-set eyes, and a bulbous nose with nostrils slightly upturned. His cheeks were
sunken, he had ears like a man's but bigger,
and round eyes also bigger than a man's.
"His jaw jutted out, and he had protruding lips. His front teeth were as broad as a
horse's. His eyes were black. His hair was
dark brown and more than a foot long and
hung loosely over his shoulders.
Hardly Handsome
"His whole face, except for the nose and
ears, was covered with short hairs. His arms
hung down to below his knees. He had big
hands with fingers about a foot long and
with thumbs only slightly separated from
the fingers.
"He didn't have any tail, and the hair on
his body .was short. He had thick thighs,
shorter than the lower part of his legs. He
walked upright with his legs apart. His feet
were each about a foot long and half that
broad-broader in front and narrow in back
with splayed toes. He was a male. That
much I saw clearly."
While the earlier expedition uncovered
samples of hair that does not match any
known man or bear common to the mountain region, Huang theorizes that the creature may be a descendant of the giant ape,
an animal whose fossil remains date back
more than 200,000 years.
Significantly, says Huang, the Shennongjia region is also the home of the giant panda,
whose ancestors also date back to ages long
before man.
"Peopie have been talking about the hairy
man for at least 4,000 years," said Huang,
who studied the Fangxian County records in
Central China.

High-Altitude Trail
"It's a very good environment," said the
man who will lead a team of 20 specialists
and scores of commune members armed
with tranquilizer guns. "It's at a very high
altitude (about 10,000 feet). There are deep
valleys, and the area is dotted with caves
from 9 to 10 feet high. "
A "hair-man" is depicted on a tomb carving from the Han Dynasty more than 1,700
years ago. Even before that, the Chinese
poet Che Yuan wrote about a "mountain
ogre," calling it "a creature like a human
being. He likes to smile, and he is shy. He
drinks spring water. His hair is very long,
and he sits under the pine and cypress trees."
While much of rural China remains heavily influenced by superstition, the traces of
hair "and feces and the unexplained large
tracks have persuaded the Academy of Sciences to continue its research.
All the reports of close encounters with
the "ape-man" described a creature hunched over, with hair all over his body, walking upright, and with a foul smell noticeable more than 80 feet away.
"But we haven't captured him yet,"
said Huang, "and, like your Bigfoot, he
remains a mystery ...
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, March 30, 1980.
CREDIT: Nancy S. Paulsen.
...

...

...

Pennsylvania Prints:
Bigfoot or Snowjob?
TOWANDA, Pa.-Giant footprints in
the snow have been reported in southern
Bradford County by loggers and hunters,
but police and game officials are taking a
wait-and-see attitude.
"It looked just like human footprints,"

SUBI_. 1980

SITUations in the NEWS

SPIDERS INVADE

JOHANNESBURG
JOHANNESBURG, South AfricaHundreds of thousands of spiders whose
bite can be fatal have invaded Johannesburg, and heahh officials say there is no
known antidote for the venom.
"The spider appears to be spreading
rapidly after an accidental introduction into
the mines around the city," one heahh official warned. "The situation is serious."
"There must be hundreds of thousands
of them in the city now, and they present a
real danger," said Gerry Newlands, a researcher at the South African Institute of
Health.
Can Be Fatal
Warnings have been circulated all over the
city about the danger posed by the violin
spider, a tiny brown and orange creature
less than half an inch long. Hospitals have
reported a few cases of spider bites but none
has yet proved fatal. Officials warned, however, that even a heahhy adult can die from
the spider's bite, and that smaIl children are
almost certain to die if bitten.
Newlands said the spider's bite is painless
and the agonizing effects only begin to be
felt hours later. More than 90 percent of the
bites occur when the victims are sleeping and
inadvertently press spiders caught in clothing against their bodies.
"It causes immense suffering and is similar to but more dangerous than the Brown
Recluse Spider found in parts of the U.S.,
and there is no known cure" for the spider's
venom, which causes hemorrhaging and
.
deep lesions in the skin.
"The species has been known to exist in
Zululand and Botswana but never near
Johannesburg. A worker could have carried
it into the mines, and from there someone
brought it, or its eggs, into the city," Newlands said.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatch
Dec. 16. 1979. CREDtT: O. Ohcher.

said Dale E. Vester. Vester, a Towanda

logger who saw the prints after two hunters
pointed them out, said: "If it was a practical
joke, the guy must do it for a living."
The prints turned up for about 100 feet
along a road near New Albany, said Charles
"Busty" Kellog, who also saw the trail.. The
prints disappeared into the woods near a
spring alongside the road, he said.
Jack Baker, general manager of WTTC
radio, saw the footprints and said they had
five toes and were flat, indicating that the'
foot had no arch.
The prints measured 17 inches from heel
to toe, Baker said, and the distance between
them measured 4 feet, 9 inches.
The tracks turned up about a quarter mile
from where he had been working, Vester

SUlllmer 1980

Karoo Desert Cycle Ghost Rides Again

UNIONDALE, South AfricaThe motorcycle ghost of the Karoo
Desert is said to be a woman who died
in a motorcycle accident more than 10
years ago near Uniondale. She (or it)
badly frightened cyclist Andre Coetzee
who was breezing along the highway
on Good Friday.
"I was riding near the Baramadas
turn-off (site of the fatal accident a
decade ago) when I felt my hair stand
on end inside my crash helmet and
someone or something put its arms
around my waist from behind,". the
shaken 20-year-old reported. "There
was something silting on my bike."
The frightened motorcyclist said he
accelerated to 80 miles an hour to get
away, but the ghost hit him three times
in the helmet to get him to slow down.
said. Asked if he was concerned about meeting "Bigfoot" in the woods, he said: "I go
out there every day. It doesn't bother me. If
it's been out there all this time, it certainly
hasn't been a problem."
KeIlog also said he wasn't worried about
meeting whatever made the tracks.
Ed Gallew, a state game conservation
officer in Bradford County, said the only
information he had on the prints came from
news sources. "It never was officially reported to me at all by anybody," he said,
adding that the area of the sighting, near the
town of New Albany, is "quite a remote
area, really rugged country."
State Game Commission spokesman
Ted Godshall was skeptical about the sighting. "Every once in a while, we'll get reports
of people finding animals that have been
extinct for years-and so on," he said.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch in The
Morning News, Wilmington, Del., Jan. 7, 1980.
CREDIT: H. Hollander.
...

... ...

Polish Team Measures

Footprints of 'Yeti'
NEW DELHI-A Polish climbing expedition to Mt. Everest said that it found
footprints of the abominable snowman, or
Yeti, on the mountain.
The Poles, who made the first winter
ascent of the 29,026-foot peak on Feb. 17
said they found the footprints of the legendary creature in snow at about 17,600 feet.
Expedition leader Andrzej Zawada told
reporters: "I felt unhappy when some of my
expedition members at an advance camp
informed me over the radio-telephone that
they had come across some footprints which
seemed to be the Yeti's . did not like it
because there are so many jokes about the
Yeti," he said.

"The blows were vicious," Coetzee

said. When he reached 100 mph, he
said, "the apparition disappeared,"
and he made tracks to a local cafe at
scarcely reduced speed.
"He could hardly speak when we
asked him what had happened," said
Jeanetta Meyer, owner of the cafe.
"But gradually it dawned on us that
the woman ghost had appeared once
more," she said.
There have been several reports in
recent years of motorcyclists picking
up a blonde woman hitchhiker at
Uniondale onlv to find that she had
vanished from' the back seat after a
few miles.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatch in The Trentonian (NJ), April II,
1980. CREDIT: D. Weidl.

Nonetheless, Zawada continued, he sent

the team's doctor to investigate and was told
by him over the radio, "Yes, really they are."
Zawada said the doctor photographed
and measured the prints and the distance
between them indicated a large and heavy
creature.
However, a point that puzzled the climbers
was that the footprints were in a single line.

SOURCE: Reuters dispatch in the Philadelphiu

Inquire" March 9, 19!1O. CREDIT: H. Hollander.
...

...

Britons Claim Evidence

Of Abominable Snowman
LONDON-Members of a British mountain-climbing expedition, back from the
Himalayas, claim they came so close to an
encounter with the Abominable Snowman
that at least one skeptic became a believer.
The climbers, who say they heard an
"absolutely amazing" piercing scream from
a slope 17,250 feet high in Nepal's Hinku
Valley, brought back photographs of distinct, not-quite-human-Iooking footprints.
". used to dismiss this kind of thing as
being too farfetched to be true," said lead
climber John Edwards, a squadron leader
with the Royal Air Force.
"But now it's quite clear that it would be
foolish to discard the question. 1 am convinced there is indeed some strange creature
in the Himalayas that hasn't been explained
by fact," he told the Associated Press.
Anti-\'eti Russians
Scient:sts have long been baffled as to
whether an Abominable Snowman, "a halfman, half-beast creature" also called a Yeti,
exists. Reports of sightings of such a creature in the Himalayas, as well as in the U.S.
and in Soviet Siberia, have persisted for
years. Lord Hunt, leader of the 1953 expedition in which Sir Edmund Hilary conquered

Pursuit !n1

SITUations In the NEWS

Soviets 'See' Brain Radiate, 'Hear' Elephant Talk

MOSCOW-The behavior of mites that
live in the Kazakh deserts of Asia has convinced a Soviet etomologist the human brain
emits radiation, the Tass news agency has
reported.
"Lengthy observations showed that the
blood-sucking insects always stopped their
MI. Everest, believes he first saw the tracks
of the Yeti in 1937.
Recently, Soviet scientist Nikolai Vereshchagin went on record as saying the Yeti
exists only in the imagination, "Many of my
colleagues believe. as I do. that ariyone who
talks about some kind of ape-man living in
the snow is not thinking logically," Vereshchagin declared.
. But Edwards, who has been an RAF
serviceman for 20 years, insists the snowman is real. "Just because it hasn't been
seen is no evidence that it doesn't exist,"
he said.
The British group claims it has believable
evidence that a giant creature stalks Nepal's
snow-covered slopes. One footprint was
"a really clear example," Edwards said.
"I think our pictures will prove to be the
best taken yet." Photographs shown on
British television were of footprints round
and deep.
Four prints were discovered first, according to John Whyte, leader of the four-man
expedition which was guided by two Sherpas. Then more turned up, and Whyte said
they could have been made by "a parent and
its young."
Edwards and team doctor John Allen
were about to pitch their tents. they say,
when they discovered tracks measuring
8 inches by 4 inches. with four toes and
a thumb-like digit on each foot.
.
The tracks were three or four inches deep
in the snow, which the climbers said indicated the creature that made them was
standing upright. "It seemed as if the creature had jumped from the. rocks, bounded
through the snow and across a stony outcrop where the prints disappeared." Edwards said. The team members said they
were taking the pictures when they were
startled by a piercing scream. "It lasted for
about 10 seconds and sounded like the
creature was just several hundred yards
away," Edwards said. "It was an absolutely
amazing sound." He added that the two
Sherpa guides told them it was the call of
the Yeti, and they refused to stay on the
mountain that night.
Besides the tracks, which Edwards said
were "fresh," the climbers brought back
samples of animal droppings found nearby.
Allen. the team doctor. said he could not
identify the dung as being from any creature
normally found in the area.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch in the
Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 25, 1979. CREDIT:

O.Oltcher.

118

Pursuit

advance towards a traveler if his head was

screened by metal," Tass said.
The researcher. entomology professor
Paver Marikovski of Alma Ata, described
his experiments in a new book. "Mysterious
Radiation," according to Tass. Marikovski
said he believes the mites possess organs at
the end of their forelegs which enable them
to detect human brain radiation. "The researcher covered the body with iron sheets"
in an attempt to confuse the mites. but the
insects found their prey nonetheless. Tass
said. Then "the environmentalist got into a
car, which served as a secure screeri barring
the (brain) r~diation. But as soon as he put
his head out, the insects correctly chose the
direction of their attack."

MOSCOW -The Karaganda zoo claims

to have a talking elephant, although the
local correspondent of the Moscow daily
Komsomo[skaya Pravda has his doubts.
Reporter V. Ryzhkov went along to interview Bat yr. the IO-year-old Indian elephant,
but came away disappointed, he reported.

8-Foot Tall One

Spotted in Manitoba
GYPSUMVILLE, Manitoba-Ten resi-.
dents of the Little Saskatchewan Indian
Reserve say they saw an 8-foot-tall black
creature that walked upright like a man and
appeared to be covered with hair everywhere
except the face.
Conservation officers in Gypsumville,
140 miles north of Winnipeg, investigated
some large footprints in an area where the
~Teature was reported seen. One print. in
hard, dry clay, was about 2 inches deep.
The officers said they didn't think the
prints had been made by a practical joker.
"Where would they get that kind of pressure?" one asked.
SOURCE: Assuciatcd Prcss dispatch in the
EI't?ll;III! JOllr/IOI, Wilmington. Del.. Oct. 19, 1979.
CREDIT: H. Hollander.

Big 'Creature' Sighted

In Nevada Test Area
LAS VEGAS, Nev.-A "reliable" employee at the Nevada Test Site says he saw
a large, hairy, man-like creature wandering
along a road in the desolate nuclear testing
grounds, a Department of Energy spokesman said.
An employee of Reynolds Electrical &
Engineering Co., one of the prime contractors at the sprawling test site, reported he
saw the creature about noon while driving
along Tippipah Highway.
Department spokesman Dave Jackson
said the unidentified workman-"considered
to be a reliable person"-was driving along

"Batyr doesn't like giving interviews,"

the newsml!ln reported. "He gets nervous at.
the sight of a micr,?phone or a camera lens." .
Still, Boris Pavlovich Kosinsky, director:.
of Karaganda zoo in the Soviet Central.
Asian republic of Kazakhstan, insists that
his pachyderm protege is a prodigy.
"You kno.w, I dido't believe it myself at
first." Kosinsky iold the newspaper." "But
later, I was a witness more than once to the
'chats' of the little elephant."
Asked what words the elephant used, the
director said, "His name, Bat yr .. But. his
. vocabulary is filling out fairly quickly. ...e ...... .
is already saying a whole seritence-'BatYr" . .
is good'-and he knows the verbs 'drink'
and 'give ...
On one occasion. when he was being
moved from one cage to another and at first
refused to budge, the elephant "was heard"
to reJ)C<at his keeper's instruction. 'Move,
Batyr," Kosinsky said.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatches
in The Trentonian (NI), Feb. I and April 9,
1980. CREDIT: D. Weidl.

the highway which runs from the Area 12

camp at the northern end of the test site (an
area as big as Rhode Island) to a command
post near U.S. 95. He described the creature
"as a being, somewhere between 6 and 7 feet
tall, standing erect and walking like a man,
with dark hair completely covering its body,"
Jackson said.
He said the workman stopped his t"ruck
about 30 to 50 yards from the creature and
"observed the being cross the highway g~ing
in a northeasterly direc~ion toward Yucca
Flat. He watched it until it disappeared out
onto the sage brush." .
Over the years there have been numerous
reports of a large man-like creature in the
Pacific Northwest. This is believed to be the
first in Nevada.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch in the Tulso
Wurlel, Jan. 22. 1980.. CREDIT: R. Roales:

GOES LOOKING FOR
MOKELE-MBEMBE
A scientist who has devoted years to the
search for the Loch Ness monster is at it
again. This time Dr. Roy P. Mal;kal, a
University of Chicago biochemist, is pursuing reports of another possibly legendary
animal, the dragon-like mokele-mbembe.
Mackal and a colleague recently returned
from a month-long expedition in the Congo
river basin looking for the creature. No
report of having found the beast, but members of the expedition concluded that the
mokele-mbembe is "a real animal, not a
myth."
SOURCE: Louisville. Ky. Courier-Journal,
March 20.1980. CREDIT: H. Holland.

Summer I ' .

SlTVatfons in the NEWS

Suspect 'Philippine Triangle'

In Loss of 3 Fighter Planes
MANILA, Philippines-A dawn-to-dusk
search failed to find a clue to the fate of
three Singapore air force. Skyhawks that
vanished over the Philippines' Sierra Madre
mountains, where other planes have mysteriously disappeared.
.
The three U.S.-built jet fighters with
four Singapore pilots aboard were .formation flying as part of their training when
they vanished-simultaneously-at noon.
The incident bore eerie parallels to reported
cases of plane and ship disappearances in
the so--<:alled Bermuda Triangle off the
southeast coast of the United States.
More than a day after the planes disappeared, authorities could give no explanation. A spokesman at Clark Airbase, home
of the U.S. 13th Air Force, said the last
message from the pilots gave no indication
they were in trouble.
"The astonishing thing is that they all qisappeared at the same time without a trace,"
Singapore ambassador to the Philippines
Maurice Baker told reporters. "We really
don't know what happened. This is a puzzle.
We're all at a loss."
The planes took off from Clark, 50 miles
north of Manila, and were flying toward the
Crow ValleY bombing range 20 miles away
but never got there.
Airport sources said the Singapore planes
were on approximately the same route that
four Philippine air force planes were flying
when they mysteriously disappeared without
a trace more than five years ago.
The three Skyhawks were part of a squadron of eight Singapore air force planes undergoing training at Clark with U.S. and
Philippine air force fliers.
Baker said the three jets which took off
from Clark at 10:40 a.m. initially ran into
heavy cloud cover and were getting out of it
when they sent their last radio message at
II a.m.
The radio message indicated they were
flying near the heavily forested Sierra Madre
mountain range along the eastern ~oast of
the main Philippine island of Luzon.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatch in
The Trenionian (NJ), Dec. 21, 1979. CREDIT:

D:Weidl.

Russian Spacecraft Probe

Finds Ughtning on Venus
Thunderstorms with up to 50 lightning
bolts a second rake the clouds of Venus and
may account for the planet's mysterious
nightside glow, a Soviet scientist suggests in
a recent issue of the British science magazine
Nature.
The discovery, made by the Soviet spacecraft Venera II and 12, makes Venus the
third planet known to have lightning.
The two U.S. Voyager spacecraft last year
observed lightning flashes on the dark side
of Jupiter. Before that,lightning was known
only on Earth.

SlIIIUIIer 1980

MYSTERIOUS 'HUM'
IN BRISTOL, ENGLAND
A low, droning noise of unknown
origin was reported shredding nerves
in Bristol, the English port 120 miles
southwest of London. Two months
ago the city's environmental office
said that sensitive recording machines
would be set up. in eight places to learn
the origin of the "Bristol Hum. I I
"We think it might well be industrial noise accentuated by climatic
phenomena, " says Ewen Robson,
assistant chief environmental officer
for the city. The noise, which appears
to occur in very still weather, has
prompted "IOO-plus" complaints of
sleepless nights, he says, and is still
under analysis.
Not everyone in Bristol can hear
the hum. "I've never heard it myself actually," says Paul Cooper,
a senior environmental health officer.
"Some do, some don't."
SOURCE: The New York TImes. May 18,
1980. CREDIT: Sabina Sanderson.

The discovery of lightning on Venus had

been reported in the Soviet Union, but the
paper in Nature by L. V. Ksanfomaliti of
the Space Research Institute in Moscow is
the first publication in the West.
"This is rather remarkable because nobody really expected to find lightning on
Venus," said Dr. Donald M. Hunten, pro.. fessor of planetary sciences at the University
of Arizona at Tucson and scientist on the
U.S. Pioneer Venus probes.
The two Venera spacecraft, which plunged
through Venus' thick cloud cover in December 1978, measured electromagnetic discharge from Iightni~g flashes equivalent to
the static on an AM radio.
On its December 21 descent, Venera II
spotted a particularly strong storm about
90 miles wide and 930. miles away. This
storm had about 25 lightning bursts a second, though other storms flashed as often
as 50 times a second.
The Soviet scientist said it probably was
cloud-to-cloud lightning rather than cloudto-ground, as the cloud bottoms are 30 to
40 miles high.
"The high lightning rate on Venus apparently makes it possible to explain its glowing
on the nightside, I I he said.
Astronomers have long puzzled over this
"ashen light" which makes the dark side of
Venus visible even during its crescent phase.
Dr. Hunten said the Soviet announcement
confirms a theory of Fred L. Scarf of the
TRW company in Redondo Beach, Cal.
Scarf, who was also on the Pioneer project,
believed lightning accounted for unexpected
radio static found by a Pioneer Venus orbiter
last year. The discovery also casts doubt on

struck by Ughtriing, Blinded

Grandfather Regains Sight
A blinded Falmouth, Maine, man who
regained his sight when he was hit by lightning saw his granddaughters for the first
time in June and said he was "on Cloud 10."
Edwin E. Robinson, 62, told reporters
that he has been "on Cloud 9" since reo
gaining his sight and hearing, but was feeling even better since he had seen Christina
Robinson, 8, and her sister, Kimberly, 9, for
the first time.
Robinson wore dark glasses to protect the
eyes through which he had seen nothing
since a traffic accident blinded him nine
years ago.
"Can you see me'?" asked his son, Marine
Gunnery Sgt. Lee Robinson, 37, who is
stationed at Quantico, Virginia and was
meeting his father for the first time since
the elder Robinson regained his vision.
"I sure can," Edwin Robinson replied,
and "Isn't this great'"
Robinson regained his hearing and sight
when a lightning bolt knocked him unconscious. Coming to, he noticed a change and
told his wife that he was now able to see
a wall plaque that his granddaughters had
made for him but he had never seen.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatch
in The Star-Ledger (NJ), June 10, 1980. CREDIT:
Member #2692.

the conventional theory of lightning on our

planet Earth, said Dr. Hunten.
The theory is that static electricity builds
up in clouds from the rubbing of water
droplets against small particles of ice. But
temperatures at the base of the Venutian
clouds-50 degrees to 100 degrees F.-are
too hot for sulfuric acid, of which the clouds
are composed, to freeze.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch in the Trenton
TImes (NJ), March 27, 1980. CREDIT: D. Weidl.

SELF-IGNITING CARS VS.
NEW ORLEANS POUCE
Spontaneous human combustion is old
hat to most dedicated Forteans. But what
about spontaneous combustion of police
vehicles? Couldn't happen, you say'?
Well, it did.
Early in June the New Orleans police department had three of its 1980 Ford LTDs
catch fire without any apparent reason.
"We don't know why" this is happening,
said a department spokesman. "We've never
had any trouble with Ford cars before."
Without knowing why the cars all of a
sudden were bursting into flames, or when it
might happen again, th~ department was reluctant to continue transporting prisoners
in the cars. Since the police cars have cagedin rear seats, there's a danger that someone
might be burned to death for nothing more
serious than a traffic violation. So the de-

Pursuit 119

SITUations in the NEWS

Tunguska Still a Puzzle After More Than 70 Years

'Dirty Snowball' Say
Caltech Scientists
LOS ANGELES-A gigantic snowbaIlreally a comet from the far reaches of the
solar system-may indeed have crashed
into a rugged Soviet forest 72 years ago
with the force of 10 million tons of TNT,
two geophysicists say.
Thomas .I. Ahrens and John D. O'Keefe
of the California In!.titute of Technology
have outlined their research on the comet
theory before a Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. The snowball
theory was proposed previously, but the researchers now have computer evidence to
support it.
Their study is part of a continuing scientifie effort to explain the great Tunguska,
Siberia, blast of June 30, 1908 which flattened trees over hundreds of square miles
and was heard 700 miles away.
"It was a really tremendous explosion,"
Ahrens said. "It acted with the force of
approximately 10 megatons ... but there's
no crater." The missing crater complicates
(some say invalidates) the common explanation that a huge meteorite caused the
TUl7lguska explosion. The famous Meteor
Cn~ter in Arizona is three-quarters of a
mile wide and 150 yards deep. Yet, the
meteorite that caused it hit with less than
half the force of the Tunguska crash.
Ahrens and O'Keefe designed a computer
model to consider the crash of a very large
snowball-like comet with a half-mile diameter traveling 10,000 to 100,000 mph.
"The interesting thing in our results is
that it doesn't make a crater. It just perturbs the ground," Ahrens said. The force
of impact would send shock waves
through the comet, causing it to vaporize
in a nash of steam that could level a forest,
he said.
Most comets are believed to be mostly
solid ice spiked with small, rocky debris.
These would cause craters, Ahrens said.
Many others, so-called new comets, are
probably much less dense, more like a
snowball than an ice cube, he said.
partment pulled all 103 of its 1980 LTDs off
the road.
Meanwhile, Ford, which has been hurt by
the image of its sub-compact Pinto that has
igni~ed on rear impact, immediately dispatched six engineers to study the problem.
"We just don't know" what's causing it,
a Ford spokesman said. Noting there is no
plan to recall the model, Ford said, "We
have thousands" of those cars on the road
and there's only one other known instance,
in Memphis, of their self-immolation.
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal. June 21, 1980.
CR~DlT: Member 112692.

;~;;~ {.>.".f'
:gO Posrsu't
" .

MANY EXOTIC THEORIES

GLAMORIZE 1908 EVENT

Anti-Matter: A rock composed of
atomic elements opposite from those
making up the earth, traveled from
another solar system and blew up on
contact with earth atoms.
Black Hole: A collapsed star hit
Siberia, passed through the earth and
came out through the North Atlantic.
Compassionate Pilot: An atomicpowered spacecraft not of terrestrial
origin had "engine trouble," and
when the pilot or robot realized
destruction was inevitable, he or it
directed the craft away from population centers to the uninhabited Tunguska region of Siberia.
To save the meteorite theory, some scientists have speculated that atmospheric
friction may have caused the great chunk
of space rock to explode moments before
impact.
"We've looked at this question and we
think it's very unlikely," Ahrens said.
"It's very hard to conceive of a meteorite
converting its kinetic energy (force of
motion) into explosive energy. And even if
it broke apart, pieces would still hit the
ground and would have made a crater."
SOURCE: Assodated Press dispatch in the
Trenton Times (NJ). March 19, 1980. CREDIT:
D. Wcidl.

Blue Lightning
COUGAR, Washington-Geologists flying
over erupting Mount SI. Helens reported the
appearance of a second crater on the core of
the volcano with eerie blue lightning arcing
between it and the first. The 9,677-foot,
snow-covered peak in southwestern Washington had been mostly shrouded in clouds
since it began erupting March 27, in the first
such display in the contiguous United States
since 1917. The weather started clearing over
the weekend and revealed the unusual sight,
said a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
Mudflows on the mountain froze in the cold
weather but plumes of steam and smoke
continued to blast from both craters to an
altitude of about 15,000 feet. No lava has
emanated from the volcano, but earthquakes continue to rattle the mountain.
The second crater was spotted by U.s.
Geological Survey scientists riding in a Forest
Service plane about 10:30 p.m. The new
crater, estimated about 90 by 150 feet, had
opened about 30 feet north of the original
eruption, which has left a hole about 300 by
450 feet in size.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch III Trenton
Times (NJ), March 31, 1980.

CRE~IT:

D. Weidl.

Soviet Study Backs

Meteorite Theory
MOSCOW -Soviet scientists say that 72
years ago a meteorite weighing more than
5 million tons may have caused a massive
explosion SO strong that horses were knocked
to the ground more than 400 miles away.
A new study of the "Tunguska Mystery"-an explosion in Siberia on June 30,
1908, with an estimated strength of 300
million tons of TNT-indicates the meteorite may have contained traces of both
diamond and graphite.
The Tass news agency, reporting on the
study by the Ukranian Academy of Sciences, said the two minerals discovered by an
academy expedition could become "the key
to an understanding of the Tunguska MeteOrite."
Some scientists still do not believe that
a meteorite caused the explosion over the
remote Tunguska forest area of Siberia.
Whatever did explode four miles above the
earth leveled trees over a I,250-square-mile
area and presumably killed all living things.
For weeks after the explosion, the night sky
glowed with a luminescence visible in western Europe.
One puzzling feature was that trees at
"ground zero" directly below the explosion
remained standing, although bark and
branches were stripped clean. Scientists
found no traces of radioactivity in the area.
But unusually lush vegetaion has grown in
the area since the blast. Trees around the
devastated zone increased at 10 to 12 times
the normal rate since 1908.
Scientists previously reported finding
. microscopic particles of melted silicate, or
glass, in the peat bogs of Tunguska. The
particles, they said, did not resemble other
silicate found on Earth.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch, Jan. 24,
1980. CREDIT: Member 11432.

MYSTERIOUS 'ICE FALL'
JUSTMISSESS~MMERS
CONCORDVILLE, PA.-"It sounded
like a mortar shell," said Don Young, manager of the Concord Country Club. "It
l~ded on the ground about 50 feet from
the swimming pool. About 50 or 75 people
were in the water. We were really lucky that
no one got hit. "
Young was telling reporters about the fall
of what appeared to be a chunk of ice perhaps
2 Yl to 3 cubic feet in volume before it "hit
really hard" and shattered.
About 2:15 on a mid-August Sunday
afternoon Joy Kasper, a club .employee,
spotted an object "flying through t~e air"
under a sunny, cloudless sky. The object

SUDllller 1980

SITUations in the NEWS

Colorado Horse Deaths Resemble Mutilations of Cattle During '70s

DENVER, Colo.-The five horses were
penned in a corral 30 feet from the couple's
bedroom window. When Wanda Bauer
checked on them before going to bed one
crisp evening in Cripple Creek, all seemed
well. The town was quiet that night. Wanda
and her husband, Jake, slept soundly. Their
three dogs never barked; the horses in the
pen never stirred. But sometime before
dawn, one of the horses, a heahhy halfArabian yearling named Sorrow, was mysteriously killed.
Memories Jarred
Sorrow's unexplained death and those of
two other horses near Colorado Springs
have reawakened biller memories among
some ranchers and lawmen of the callIe
mutilations that occurred during the last
decade in Colorado. "II looks like the exact
same thing as when those cattle died-but
with a new victim involved," said Cripple
Creek Police Chief Gus Carleson.
When found the morning after its death,
the Bauer horse had no marks on ii, save for
a clean incision surrounding the anus. One
of the yearling's eyes also was clouded over
with a gray film. Chief Carleson, who investigated the incident, said many mutilated
callIe found during the mid-1970s had similar gray clouding over one or both eyes.
"We ruled out animals doing this," he said.
"The cuts were too clean, too neat. There
were no footprints, no nothing. There are no
suspects. "

II Wasn't Coyotes
The April 20 death of Rebel, a 14-yearold gelding pastured a half mile south of
Ramah, east of Colorado Springs, was
equally mysterious, its owner believes. The
pan-Appaloosa quarler horse belonged to
Gary Bohrer of Ramah, who bought the
. gelding to let his two sons practice their
riding. lis carcass was found in a field a
quarter-mile from U.S. 24. The horse was
missing its rectum, right ear and right eyelid.
Its penis also had been badly cut. "We
checked him the night before along with
a mare who was in the field and they looked
okay," Bohrer reca]led. "The deputies said
he died of a heart attack that night and that
the coyote~ chewed on him, but I sure didn't
see any chew marks. I don't know who did
it. I just know it wasn't coyotes."
Two days later, Skip's Easy Money, a reg
istered quarter-horse stud worth more thaI.
$1,000, died near Simla, five miles away.
The 17-year-old horse belonged to rancher
Robert Blake, whose spread is located near
the tiny farming community. The horse,
which grazed about a mile from Blake's
house, was found in a pasture near a stand
of willow trees. One of its eyeballs had been
removed, along with an ear, lower lip, anus
and skin from the end of its penis.

Without a Sound
The strangest aspect of the incident for
Wanda Bauer was that "the horses didn't
make a soun~ and neither did the dogs.
We didn't hear a thing that night. It was as
if he (the horse) just willingly let that happen
to him. I try not to think about it because it
gets kind of weird."
Bauer, a retired heavy-equipment operator, later dragged the carcass up a hill near
the Cripple Creek dump, hoping the body
would decay there or be eaten by predators.
But, according to his wife, animals refused
to go near it. "It didn't bloat, and dead
horses bloat, believe me. I've seen a lot of
them in 58 years," she said. "There are also
a lot of hungry stray dogs around here and
none of them touched it. How do you figure
that?" The Bauers eventually had the carcass buried.

Whal Hillhe Tree?

A willow tree near the carcass had been
broken in half. "The deputies said it was
high wind that knocked that tree over. But
it was on the south end of the stand and the
strong winds around here come from the
nOrlh," said Rick Gaddy, managing editor
of the weekly Simla Ranchland Farm News,
who took pictures of the scene. He added:
"That tree was nearly three feet across.
You'd almost have to drop something on it
to make it break like it did. People around
here talk about what's happened, and all
they can think of are cattle mutilations."
Three weeks after the horse was killed, the
carcass had only begun to decay, Blake said.
Since its death, no animals have gone near it.
"I couldn't get a vet to come and look at iI
and the investigators said it was just predators," Blake said. "But I'll tell you this,
the biggest predators in this world are the
two-legged kind and no animal touched that
horse. Maybe it's the government doing this,
maybe it's sex cults."

seemed to travel horizontally for a distance,

Young said, before it struck the ground.
"It looked like ice," he said. "It was white
and appeared to be smoking as it came
down."
Fragments, some of which landed 125 feet
from the impact point, were gathered and
refrigerated, and a call was put in to the
state police. Later a police spokesman said
the incident would be investigated and the

fragments sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Incidents have been reponed in which ice
chunks formed by leaks from holding tanks
have fallen from aircraft operating at high
altitudes. However, a spokesman for the
Federal Aviation Administration said "there
were no drops" reported from airplanes in
the Concordville vicinity. Another official
noted that the area is not in the standard
flight path designated for aircraft using the

Sa...._ 1980

'Natural Causes'
EI Paso County Sheriff Harold "Red"
Davis, who was born and raised on a callie
ranch, said there was nothing mysteriQUs
about the death of the Blake horse. There
was ample evidence to prove that it died of
natural causes and that damage to its body
was done by animals, he said.
"That horse was 16 years old and that's
getting pretty close to deadline," Davis said.
"Magpies picked out the eyes and it was
obvious the hide had been torn by animals.
And, as far as the tree goes, there's been
plenty of wind out there and a lot of snow.
There's nothing strange about a tree like
that breaking." Davis said he was out of
town when the Bohrer horse died and wasn't
familiar with that case.
Carl Whiteside, director of the Colorado
Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said he was
not aware of the three reponed horse mutilations, and expressed surprise when they
were described to him.
Investigation of '75'76
Between July 1975 and 1976 the CBI conducted a formal investigation into what was
then widespread cattle mutilations in Colorado, and concluded that nearly all of the
killings were done by animal predators.
The CBI laboratories examined 36 hide and
tissue samples taken from cattle and determined that only two were cut by sharp
instruments. During the same period, Colorado State University vets examined 35
carcasses. They found that nine were mutilated by sharp instruments, and that II died
of natural causes. The cause of death for
eight of the animals could not be explained.
Cattle mutilations in Colorado peaked in
1975, when 203 were reported. In recent
years, they have come to a virtual halt in the
state, although officials in Canada and other
states, particularly New Mexico, say they
continue to occur there. The CBI hasn't
actively investigated mutilations since 1976,
but Whiteside said he believes some Colorado sheriffs have simply given up reporting
livestock deaths they may consider mysterious. Whiteside said he is concerned that
a rekindled interest in animal mutilations
may cause another rash of incidents like
those in the 1970s.
SOURCE: Rocky Moun/ain News, May 18, 1980.
CREDIT: J. Vidmar.

Philadelphia International Airport. He

acknowledged that chemically treated waste
from airplanes occasionally has frozen and
dropped. "I don't know of that happening
around here," he said. "But the possibility
is there."
SOURCE: The Morning News and Evening
Journal, Wilmington, Del., Aug. 18, 1980.
CREDIT: H. Hollander.

Pursuit 121

SDlJadons In the NEWS

NASA Radar Used to Map Venus

Finds Ancient Mayan Canal Grid
WASHINGTON-A radar system desJ'gned to map the planet Venus has revealed
an extensive network of Mayan drainage
canals more than 1,000 years old hidden
beneath dense rain forests in Guatemala
and Belize. The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) said the
discovery seemed to confirm archeplogists'
belief that the canals enabled the Maya to
drain water from swampy jungles to create
small plots of dry land where crops could
be grown. NASA said the c;iiscovery may
explain how the Maya were able to feed
their estimated popUlation of two .to three
million between 250 and 900 A.D. in a
land of either arid and mountainous coun.
try or swampy jungles.
Professor Richard E. W. Adams of the
University of Cambridge in England found
what appeared to be canals in images produced during an early test of the radar

from an airplane 28,000 feet above the

usually cloud-covered forests of Guatemala
and Belize. The radar was developed by
NASA and the Defense Department and
adapted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena, California, to penetrate the clouds of Venus and map the
planet's surface features. A NASA Venus
satellite using a different radar system recently produced a topographic map of 93010
of the planet's surface.
When used over Earth's jungles, the
radar enabled scientists to produce clear
images of varying layers of the foliage.
The radar measured the variations of the
height of the layers and allowed researchers
to determine land levels beneath the vegetation. Adams was checking the radar
data for evidence of ancient settlements or
roadways when he found unnaturally uniform grid patterns. "I could see little lines,

Soviet Scientists Will Try .to Grow.Mammoth

In Test-Tube-If They Can Get a 'Clean' Cell
MOSCOW -The Soviets hope to create,
through the test-tube and for study only,
a 12-foot-tall mammoth of the type which
became extinct thousands of years ago.
Soviet scientists say they have begun a
program to create the pre-historic mammoth
using preserved cells from original creatures
to conceive a similar animal in the lab.
Tough Assignment
"Under the right conditions, in 18 to 20
months the world could see its first artificial
baby mammoth," said Victor Mikhelson,
a Leningrad scientist.
The test-tube mammoth, scientists admit,
will be a difficult project. They say they plan
to use techniques similar to those that created
"test-tube babies" in the West, benefiting
from the almost perfect condition of prehistoric animal tissue preserved for centuries
in the frozen Soviet Far East.
The goal is to produce a living mammoth
about 12 feet tall-a kind that became extinct 10,000 years ago-for scientific study.
Scientists have not yet decided where they
will keep their mammoth if they succeed,
but Mikhelson said that "this will be the
least of our problems."
live Cell Needed
"The problem is that so far we haven't
found a satisfactory live mammoth cell to
start from," Mikhelson told the Associated .
. Press.
But as Mikhelson noted in an interview
in the Soviet newspaper Trud. scientists believe cells already uncovered by archeologists might have been useable for such a

122 Pursuit

MAMMOTH DISCOVERY
MOSCOW-A herd or mammoths
that lived 17 centuries ago has been
found buried deep beneath a river
bank in Byelorussia, the Tass news
agency reports.
The dispatch from Minsk did not
say how many or the tusked animals
were found buried in a crevice under
a 64-foot layer or dolomite on the
banks of the Dvina river, near Vitebsk.
Byelorussia, which borders Poland in
the northwest Soviet Union, once
teemed with wildlife. Some excavators have found fossils 500,000 years
old, according to Tass.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatch in The Trentonion. Feb. 13. 1980.
CREDIT: D. Weidl.

most of them looking like ladders or lattices, connecting with large waterways,"
Adams told the space agency.
Adams and Dr. T. Patrick Culbert of
the University of Arizona explored the rain
forests by car, canoe and on foot in February and found evidence that at least a
third of the patterns seen by radar are
ancient canals dug with stone blades and
hoes to drain water and make small square
plots of dry, arable land. Saying that onthe-ground studies have only begun, Adams
estimates 11,000 square miles of canal
systems lie beneath the rain forests of
Guatemala alone.
.
NASA said archeologists believe the can7
als, about 1!h feet deep and 3 to 9 feet
wide, enabled the.Maya to grow maiZe and
cacao. "We've never before been able to
reconstruct convincingly an economic base
for the Maya," Adams said. "In other
words, how did they feed all these masses
of people all of the time?"
Additional surface expeditions are planned to look for Mayan artifacts.
SOURCE: United Press International dispatch
in The Stor-Ledger (NJ), June 3, 1980. CREDIT:
Member #2692.

pert in cell structure) will be added to teams

already organm by the Soviet Academy of
Sciences to investigate findings of frozen
prehistoric creatures. The cytologist's job
will be to prevent destruction of live cells if
they are found.
The best7known preserved mammoth discovered so far by the Soviets is a "baby
mammoth" 40,000 years old, discovered
frozen in permafrost in far northeastern
Siberia in 1977. It was so young at the time
of its death that scientists found tusks just
about to break through the skin.
Tbe animal measured 46 inches long and
42 inches tall, with a trunk 23 inches in
length. A one-ounce tissue sample from the
mammoth was presented to the United States
in March 1978 and was flown to the University of California at Berkeley for study.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch in The

Morning News. Wilmington, Del., Jan. 22, 1980.

CREDIT: H. Hollander.

Squid with a 16-Foot fleach

Found Dead on Plum Island

BOSTON-In February ~ deep sea monproject if they had not been put into str~ng
ster--450 pounds of squid-went on display
formaldehyde preservative solutions by their
at the New England Aquarium as experts
discoverers. Some frozen tissues discovered .
tried to figure how. the beast ~hed the
by Soviet scientists have been up to 44,000
shores of Massachusetts.
years old, according to the scientists.
The giant squid,........not unlike the-one Capt.
The plan is to mate a preserved cell from
Nemo battled 20,000 leagues under the sea,
a modern-day female elephant in the laborain the Jules Verne classic-was found dead
tory and implant the result in the elephant.
on Plum Island, Massachusetts. It was disThere is no indication whether a preserved
~ve~ed by wildlife rangers at the Parker
sperm or an egg cell might be required for . . River Natural Wildlife Beach.. Ten men
. such a project, rather than just any live cell .. were rounded up to carry it by stretcher
from a mammoth.
from the beach.
Job for Cytologist
llte squid is about eight feet in body
Mikhelson said that a cytologist (an exlength, with tentacles 10 to 16 feet long.

"""'.1988

SrrtJcdions in tlae NEWS

Gas in

Space~

Satellite Sights 'Superbubble'

An astronomer recently announced the

discovery far off in the galaxy of an immense "superbubble" of hot gas that stores
more energy than anything else known in the
Milky Way.
Dr. Webster Cash of the University of
Colorado said the glowing sphere is 1,200
light years in diameter and an estimated
6,000 light years from earth. (A light year
is about 5.9 trillion miles, the distance light

ANCIENT TUSK IS SAID

TO SHOW ATLANTIC ISLE
SANK 11,000 YEARS AGO
In late October last year the scalloper

Huntress out of Fairhaven, Massachusetts,

made an unusual haul from the eastern end
of Georges Bank. In the net was a tusk
dredged up from the bottom, a depth of
about 38 fathoms in that area.
The tusk was taken to the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution. There a member
of the geology staff, K. O. Henry, identified
it as the right tusk of a large walrus, used by
the sea-going mammals to dig mollusks for
food. Measuring 3" in diameter at the base
and 12~" long, the broadly curved tusk is
the largest ever found in the Atlantic fishing
grounds. After partial drying, the tusk began to crack and flake, indicating a very
great age.
According to Emery, the sea level in ancient
times dropped so low that Georges Bank
became a broad island, and the tusk was
deposited in the shore zone of about 11,000
years ago when melting glaciers caused the
sea level to rise and submerge the "island."
He theorizes that the walrus may have died
of natural causes while feeding on shallowwater mollusks or sunning itself ashore.
Or, it could have been killed and eaten by
prehistoric tribesmen known to have lived
in the area at the time.
SOURCE: National Fisherman, March 1980.
CREDIT: J. Singer.

Nothing like it had been seen in Massachusetts since a similar squid was found in
1908. The rubbery, milky-colored creatures
"are the world's largest invertebrates and
prefer to live in deep, cold oceans SOO to
1,000 feet beneath the surface. They feed
on "fish, and occasionally the squid themselves are meals for whales.
While large numbers of eating-size squid
are known to populate New Eng1and waters,
giant squid are rarely sighted. "They used
to turn up frequently off the Continental
Shelf," said aquarium" spokeswoman Liz
Kay, "but we don't know why they disappeared for so long."
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch in the
Schenectady GaUlle, Feb. 7, 1980. CREDIT:
J. Zarzynski.

SamDier 1980

travels in a year.) Cash and Dr. Philip Charled of the University of California at Berkeley discovered the bubble while examining
x-ray readings made by a space agency
satellite observatory launched in 1977. The
phenomenon is centered in the bright summer constellation Cygnus.
"It is clear that "we have discovered a
magnificent example of the violent interstellar medium at work," Cash said in reporting the discovery at a meeting of the
American Astronomical Society in San
Francisco. He said in a telephone interview that, among other things, the finding
will help astronomers better understand
star-forming processes. "It's going to change
our picture of how the interstellar medium
dynamics happen," he said.
Cash said the reason the huge cosmic
bubble, or halo, had never been spotted be-

They're 'Africanized' Now,

So Don't Worry About Bees
From BrazU Invading U.S.
BRAZIL-Dr. Anthony Raw, a bee specialist at "the University of Brasilia, says
there is little danger posed by angry, supposedIy deadly bees that have spread throughout Brazil for more than 20 years. The insect is an aggressive variety of honey bee
from Africa that has been breeding with the
honey bees of South America. The result is
an Africanized bee, a short-tempered insect
prone to swarming.
The bee produces more honey than its
European cousin, introduced-in the Western
'Hemisphere 200 years ago and responsible
for most commercial honey. Dr. Raw, who
has been studying bees and honey production eight years, says he never has encountered problems with Africanized versions.
The source of the bee trouble goes back
to 1956, when a Brazilian entomologist
imported some of the African bees. His aim
was to breed a new variety, less aggressive
than the African bees but to maintain their
most desirable quality-high honey production. An employe at his laboratory inadvertently opened the special hives and
released some of the African bees. The bees,
which can fly miles in search of nectar or
new hives, began breeding with tamer local
bees. Bee-keepers soon found their hives had
been taken over by honey bees that displayed noticeably warlike tendencies. By the
early 1970s, officials reported that some 300
persons had been killed by rapidly advancing bees. Some scientists warned that the
bees would eventually" swarm northward
toward the U.S. heartland. American teams
were sent to investigate the problem. One
suggestion was to cut them off at the Panama Canal, stopping their reproductive
cycIe.there with a genetic net.
"An impossible task," says Raw, who
advocates simpler education measures, like

fore is because it packs so much energy that

it cools by emitting x-rays instead of radiation
that can be seen with optical telescopes.
The NASA satellite, the High-Energy
Astronomy Observatory I, scanned the
universe in more detail than ever before for
sources of x-rays. Cash said parts of the
bubble had been seen before in brief x-ray
glimpses, but no one knew exactly what it
was. He said the cooler outer edge of the
bubble emits visible light and such "filaments" have been seen with optical tele
scopes for years, but not understood.
Cash said there are no other astro-physical processes in the galaxy known to be
capable of producing this much energy.
"What puzzles scientists is finding an answer to how this huge amount of energy got
locked up in this gigantic halo in the first
place," he said.
"--SOURCE: United Press International dispatch
in The Slar-Ledger (NJ), Jan. 17, 1980. CREDIT:
Member 1#432.

careful breeding and advising bee-keepers

how to handle the bees. Besides, Raw says
he is not sure the tropically adapted bees
care to venture very far into more temperate
climates like the United States.
SOURCE: The Slar-Ledger eN]), June 12, 1980.
CREDIT: Member 1#2692.

Delivery, Late by 35 Years,
Amazes the Postal Service
A postcard mailed May 24, 1945 by the
War Department finally reached its destination-35 years late.
The postcard was addressed to Sylvia
Bent at a "Rabway, N.Y." location.
The postcard was meant to inform the
mother of Eugene A. Bent that his address
had changed.
Mrs. Bent has been dead for the past 17
years and her Rahway, N.J. house was
razed a few years after her death. But the
notice did manage to find its way to the
home of Eugene's brother, George.
"My wife met me at the door waving
this card and said, 'Have I got a big surprise for you'," said George, 51, who
works as a beer-truck driver.
Eugene, who is now 53, enlisted in the
Army in 1942 at age 15 with his parents'
consent, and during WWH saw action in
the Pacific. Upon his discharge in 1946 he
joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and today he is a chief electrician stationed in
San Francisco.
William Schaefer, customer relations
manager at the Rahway, N.J. post office,
would "not comment on the delay in delivery. "I'm just amazed we were able to
deliver at all."
Just where the card addressed to "Rab'Yay, N.Y." rested for more than three
decades is not known.
SOURCE: Associated Press dispatch, Nov. 16,
1979. CREDIT: Member 1/432.

Pursuit 123

SITUations in the NEWS

Non-Scientists Find
Clue that Ends the
~Red Sweat' Scare
To Frank Borman, retired astronaut and
now widely publicized head of Eastern
Airlines, the "red sweat" that afflicted
some 90 flight attendants in about ISO
occurrences over a three-month period
must have appeared at first as just another
odd consequence of traveling in space.
Of a sudden, early this year, first one
and then another of Eastern's flight attendants reported sick, a rash of tiny red spots
appearing on the skin of chest, back or
shoulders immediately or soon after completion of a flight. Some stewardesses
reported additional symptoms such as prolonged "burning" or "itching," and some
feared their appearance might be harmed.
Inquiry Broadens
That was enough to trigger an investigation which quickly involved not only the.
officers of the stewardess' union but also
physicians on the airline's staff, doctors
from the Columbia College of Physicians
and Surgeons in New York City, forensic
specialists and other bureaucratic types
from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Washington,
D.C., and public health scientists at the
U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
Most baffling feature of this situation
was that only flight attendants seemed to
be affected, never passengers, pilots or
flight engineers. More than 90070 of the
cases were reported from flights of AJoo
aircraft-the European airbus that Eastern
has been introducing in the U.S. But the
cases didn't occur on A300 flights over
land; most all had their inception on A300
flights that went over water.
Two Little Words
One day in March, when the stewardesses' apprehension had spread almost like a
contagion, two supervisors rode deadhead
on an AJoo flight from Newark, New
Jersey to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They'd
been told to watch the stewardesses and
report anything at all in the 'course of their
duties that might help get a handle on
the problem. The two didn't have long to
wait. Soon after takeoff some of the stewardesses routinely donned life vests while
a colleague read into the cabin P A system
the printed instructions for passenger use
of the vests in the event of an emergencyall as required by FAA regulations pertaining to over-water flights.
And there it was: In big letters highly
visible on each of the life vests worn by the
attendants was inscribed in thick red ink:
DEMO ONLY;
The supervisors reported their findings
to higher-ups, and within the hour orders
went out to every installation in Eastern's

124 Pursuit

Officials Declare 'Oily Ooze' Case

Closed; Perpetrator Not Identified
Rio Grande in Spanish means "big river"
and to most Americans it's an "oh yes"
place: "Oh yes, the river that marks the
boundary between the U. S. and Mexico."
New JerseY's Rio Grande is a crossroads
community about ten miles north of Cape
May, southernmost point in the state, and
some five miles equidistant from the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Delaware Bay to
the west.
Only Name's the Same
Nothing about Rio Grande, N.J. in any
way resembles the Rio Grande river remembered from elementary school days.
And if you could listen to a conversation
in which two New Jersey hispanics disfar-flung empire: "REMOVE FROM AIRCRAFT AT EARLIEST ALL DEMONSTRATION LIFE VESTS REPEAT ALL LIFE
VESTS MARKED DEMO ONLY."
Q.E.D.? Mission accomplished? Not
quite. There were no new sick-reports
from stewardesses working A300 flights,
but an attendant assigned to an L-lOll trip
over water came down with the "rash,"
and officials lost no time in verifying that
she had demonstrated life-vest procedure
while wearing a DEMO ONLY life vest that
ground personnel apparently had overlooked when they responded to the removal
order.
It seems that the red ink used to letter
the DEMO ONLY vests is a kind that tends
to flake, especially when aided by sweat
which the attendants' cabin activity induces. The "criminals" were the tiny flakes
that landed on skin, giving the appearance of a rash. Medical personnel surmised
that some of the victims might have a history of true allergy which could result in
sure-'nuff rashes and considerable discomfort. In an interview one stewardess gave
credence to this theory: "If I get within
ten feet of anything, I react to it."
The flaking was most noticeable on new
vests with the newest, thickest lettering;
the new vests were those placed aboard
Eastern's newest aircraft, the A3OOs. A few
new vests had replaced old ones aboard
L-lOII and 727 jets, and a correspondingly
small number of "red sweat" cases had
been reported by some of the attendants on
those planes.
As the story concludes, Eastern Airlines
people and the OSHA advisors and Columbia's colleagues in medicine and the soothsayers at the Center for Disease Control
didn't have to ground anybody, or anything except the DEMO ONLY life vests.
A vexing problem having been solved,
everybody went back to work.
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, March 31,
1980 and newscasts. CREDIT: Member 1#2692.

cussed the Case of the Oily Ooze you'd

learn that "big river" isn't the only translation of "Rio Grande." "Quebradero de
cabeza" is Spanish for "headache," and
that's what Rio Grande, N.J. had a whole
lot of during the past spring.
Ooze in the House
Eugene Buonocore and his wife Ona live
in Rio Grande, N.J. Buonocore, 50 years
old, is a war veteran on total disability.
His wife works various part-time jobs in
the area. The contemporary one-story
ranch home on Teal Road where they have
lived for eight years is (or was) valued at
$62,000. It's electrically heated, and mortgaged. Until recently they had a dog named
Nixie; and it was he who ended up the real
casualty in the affair.
The trouble began three years ago when
Buonocore noticed "black shadows" on his
living-room ceiling. The same kind of shadows or streaks began appearing in other
rooms. Whatever they were, they remained
after dusting, washing, even scraping. So
Buonocore peeled away the insulation in
the walls, thinking the stuff might be entering from oLitside. He found nothing.
As time went on, more dark blotches
appeared and spread to some of the furnishings, including the refrigerator and the
living room couch. The linoleum in the
kitchen was slick even when it hadn't been
waxed.
Forced to Move
By last January the black substance had
gotten into kitchen cabinets, into the china
and utensils stored there, even onto the
shelves. Nixie, the dog, accumulated gobs
of the stuff on and under his collar. He became listless and had to be got rid of.
Buonocore and his wife began to get headaches which he blamed on the stench from
. the "whatever." Finally, when they complained to local officials that their water
supply had become contaminated, the
county board of health after inspection
declared the premises unfit for habitation.
The Buonocores moved to a motel in nearby Wildwood Crest.
These days, a community's water supply
concerns whole layers of bureaucracies and
a great many people. Following the county
board's expulsion order, an investigation
by the state Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP) began with the taking of
water samples and the digging of test wells
in front and to the rear of the Buonocore
home. When asked to comment on the
findings, Richard Dalton, supervising geologist with the Bureau of Ground Water
Management of DEP's Division of Resources said: "I've never seen anything like
it. It's a real puzzle. When we do the drilling and put the wells in, there is no odor.

SaDlDl_ 1980

But a day or two later, there are distinctive

odors. It doesn't make sense."
Tanks Not to Blame
About 800 yards south of the Buonocore property is a kerosene-fueled turbine
and two large storage tanks. The installation is owned and operated by the Atlantic
Electric Company. The state and the company hired a consultant firm which sent
investigators to the scene. They concluded
there was "no connection" between the
tanks and the substance in the house.
More DEP workers arrived. They dug
several deep ditches, some 50 feet long, to
try to expose measurable amounts of the
substance. "We've got several distinct
odors but no appreciable amount of product," one official noted.
The Buonocores, having spent two unsettled months in the motel, were homesick
as only refugees can be. Besides, there
was the problem of meeting mortgage payments and motel rent at the same time.
The garage was the only part of the property to escape contamination; wouldn't it
be great to be home again, or nearly home?
So in April the couple, assisted by some
neighbors, moved most of their belongings
into their two-car garage. With an oversize twin bed in the center, tables on either
side, an electric heater extending from the
ceiling and a card table to eat on, the place
resembled "a furniture showroom," as one
reporter put it.
'The Trees Are Dying'
Meanwhile, state and county officials
continued their investigations around, near,
away from, under-yes, even over the
house, for a neighbor said he found a
"pool of oil" in the woods between the
Atlantic Electric tanks and Teal Road, and
"the trees around the pool are dying at
the top: "
.
..t;. _
Fearmg a threat to theIr property values
and possible insurance problems, some 30
Teal Road homeowners formed a Real
Estate Neighborhood Coalition. They
chipped in to hire an attorney, Kenneth
Calloway, who threatened legal action
against the DEP if it did not release all
information concerning its investigation.
A few members of the neighborhood group
reported early-warning signs of "oily ooze"
in their homes. Harrison Roach and Harry
Wozunk noted "it was just a shadow, but
that's the way it starts." William Keene
who lives on Davis Avenue agreed. He said
the rafters in his cellar were beginning to
turn black.
In their garage "home" the Buonocores
read with mixed feelings a small mountain
of mail from as far away as California.
The letters were written by people who had
heard of their plight and "wanted to help."
A man in Texas suggested poltergeist visitations were responsible. From Pennsylvania, site of the first U.S. oil well, came
the suggestion that the house could not
have become so contaminated unless it had
been built over a sluggish oil well.
SUDBIl!lIl<!Il' :n.~~

Major Investigation lEnds

In all, state and county officials drilled
between 59 and 27 test wells in the area,
the number depending upon which report
you believe. Throughout the testing period
of almost four months the most-available
suspect in the case was the Atlantic Electric Company's kerosene tanks that fuel the
company's turbine generator. The two
tanks, 800 yards distant from the Teal
Road homes, hold 600,000 gallons of kerosene when filled to capacity. But state and
utility officials steadfastly insisted that the
tanks did not leak and the stored fuel did
not "match" the substance found inside
the Buonocore home or in any water samples taken from the test wells.
'Hoax' or 'Vandalism'
On May 24 state and county authorities told the Associated Press that they had
solved the Case of the Oily Ooze: It's
a hoax, they said.
"Authorities said they suspect the identity of the hoaxter, but would not name
him for publication because of his mental
state." The AP further reported:
"Authorities suspected vandalism or a
hoax after two of 27 test wells drilled in
the neighborhood had four-inch layers of
kerosene and gasoline appear over groundwater several days after the wells were
completed.
"Nearby wells drilled into the sandy soil
two feet below the water table were not
contaminated, according to Paul Giardini,
director of the state's Hazard Management
Program.
"But, Giardini said, a secret 'dummy
well' was filled with water and several
days later was found to have a Quarterinch of kerosene. "
"Kerosene was identified as the major

contaminant after officials recently scraped

some off the Buonocores' kitchen floor.
Authorities also placed test papers on
walls, ceilings and floors of the house,
Giardini said. The papers darkened erratically with a petroleum'-Iike substance appearing within a few days, while others
hidden in the house remained clean, he
said.
"Likewise, authorities placed oil pads in
the house to absorb airborne petroleum
particles. Visible ones darkened with ooze
in a few days, but hidden ones remained as
they were, Giardini said.
"Authorities discounted neighbors' contentio,", that the kerosene was coming from
two Atlantic Electric Company storage
tanks about 800 yards away. They said the
neighborhood groundwater ran toward the
tanks and that extensive tests showed it to
be clean.
'''All these factors seem attributable to
man-made sources and not environmental
ones,' Giardini said."
Some Doubts Linger
"Four neighbors also claimed that the
ooze was showirig up in their homes, but
Giardini said the Buonocores' house is the
only one contaminated.
"But Harry Wozunk, leading a group of
32 neighbors who united to find the cause
of the ooze, said the neighbors want 'definite proof' from authorities. 'I don't think
they know what the problem is. There may
be some vandalism involved, but that's not
what started it off in the beginning,' said
Wozunk."
SOURCE: Associated Press; The Slar-Ledger
(April 17,23; May 1,9,24); Asbury Park Press
(March 9, May 24) and the Trenton Times
(March 14, April 19), all NJ 1980. CREDIT:
R. Warth, D. Weidl.

Published in The

Star-Ledger (NJ)
newspaper dated
April 13, 1980
was this photo
credited to
Frank DiGiacomo.
It shows the
contamination of
kitchen linoleum
in the Buonocore
home on Teal Rd.,
Rio Grande, N.J.
The 'oily ooze'
spread from walls
to noors, then to
furnishings and
even to clothing.
After it oozed
into the water
supply, health
authorities
declared the house
unfit for human
habitation.

,oJ , .~

. ,:,":
.~

....-

"'!.

Pursuit 125

11ae Amazing Story of "Priraeess' Caraboo Retold in

THE NOTES OF CHARLES FORT

Dedphered by Carl J. Pabst
Pursuit's winter issue of 1979 (Vol. 12, No. I) carried our first installment of "The Notes of Charles

Fort Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst." Three additional installments were published in the spring and
summer issues of 1979 (Vol. 12, Nos. 2 and 3), and in the winter issue of 1980 (Vol. 13, No. I).
For this fifth installment Editor Pabst has assembled, deciphered and transcribed those Notes which
comprise Fort's historical review of the Caraboo Incident. It's the story of "a fake princess who arrived
gOFgeously" (Fort's words) in Bristol, England, in April of 1817: In a series of personal appearances
she amazed witnesses by speaking and writing in (a) Javanese (1), or (b) Malay (1), or (c) a language
unknown even to the linguistic experts of Oxford University. Her subsequent "confession" to imposture
left Charles Fort still wondering, not so much about the credibility of her revised story as about the
"bamboozlements by which conventional thought upon this earth is made and preserved."

ABBREVIATIONS
ab
Acto
A. J. Sci
(AI)
Ann de Chimie
Aud phe
BA
B.C.F.
B. Daily Post
bet
Blackwoods
BO

Carab.
Chambers Jour.
char
cor
C.R.
D-228
detmet
(F)
Gent's Mag.
Gl. Jour.
GtBrit
h

about
According to
American Journal of Science
[ ? Almanac? ]
Annales de Chimie
Audible phenomena
Report of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science
Books of Charles Fort
Bristol Daily Post
between
Black wood's Magazine
"It is clear from the arrangement of the notes
that he [Fort] was searching his chronological
arrangement and plucking out specific notes for
a future book in which he would refer to these
data as opprobrious to the Scientists for their
odor, 'B C'." (The Fortean, 113, p. 14, c. I)
Caraboo
Chambers' Journal
character
correspondent
Comptes Rendus
The Book of the Damned, page 228
detonating meteor
Fletcher's List
Gentleman's Magazine
Gloucester Journal
Great Britain
hours

A date prefix "IB17," "IB17 Ap"

or "1817 April" should be understood as preceding the text of the
following Notes. Since all refer to
the same month and year, the prefixes have been omitted in order to
avoid redundancy.
Caraboo I For an astonishing
version-of a fake princess who
arrived gorgeously, see
[Reverse side] Shepard, Fads,
Fakes, etc., p. 98 I (N BY).
Caraboo I For an instance of way
stories get twisted, see W. E. Shepard, "Fads, Fakes," etc. Here it is

126

Pursuit

that Caraboo, arrived at Bristol,

posed as a foreign princess, took
most expensive suite in best hotel,
and two of 3 coaches loaded with
baggages and servants-given a reception at the Town Hall-ran up
[Reverse side) bills and victimized
tradesmen and disappeared.
Caraboo I [A letter on the stationery of) The Western Daily Press,
Bristol, Walter Reid and Son Limited, Proprietors. [Addressed to)
Mr. Charles Fort, 39(A), Marchant
Street, London, W.C. [and dated)
3rdJune 1925 I

Inf conjunction
It
J. des Deb.
Jour de. Physique
Ibs
Mass
met
Metile
Nat Reg. (Wash.)
NBY
N.M.
no.
Op. Mars
p.
Phe
Phil.
Phil Mag
q
Q J. Roy Inst.
Rept B Assoc
R.J.
S. Car
St. Stevens
Symons
tho storm
Volc
Vt.
(Wash.)
W.lndian

Inferior conjunction
Italy
Journal des Debots
Journal de Physique [?]
pounds
Massachusetts
meteor
Meteorite
National Register (Washington)
[?]
No More
number
Opposition Mars
page
Phenomena
Philadelphia
Philosophical Magazine
earthquake
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Institute
Report of the British Assoc:iationfor
the Advancement of Science
[?]

South Carolina
Saint Stevens
Symons' Meteorological Magazine
thunderstorm
Volcano
Vermont
(Washington)
West Indian

Dear Sir,
I asked one of our reporters to
look up the story of "Princess Caraboo" about which you wrote to
me some little time ago, and I also
made an inquiry from a very wellinformed Bristol man who pays
considerable attention to local
history. In neither case was it possible to trace the burial place of this
lady.
You are I take it familiar with the
statement made in "Notes and
Queries" for May 20, 1865, to the
effect that in 1849 she was living in
Bristol and that she died in December 1864. The stiuement was she

was known at the time of her death

as Mary Baker.
The principal cemetery in Bristol
in use at that time was Arno's Vale,
and a representative of the Company has kindly searched his books
for the end of '64 and the beginning
of '65. He reports that the only
person bearing a name something
like the one in question is that of
"Mary Ann Baker of 7, Rosemary
Street" who was buried oil the 31st
January 1865. Whether that has
anything to do with the case I cannot tell. Rosemary Street is in
another part of the town to that
in which "Mary Baker" is alleged

5 ......... 1980

to have been living years before. If

she died in December the burial
would certainly have occurred before Jan. 31, 1865. I have not the
time to investigate the problem and
you had better not quote me in any
statement you may publish.
Yours sincerely,
sl George F. Stone
Editor
Caraboo I But here part of her confession explains, or would, if she
had spoken Javanese. That she had
picked up with a traveller who had
taught her Malay.
Carab. I Eze, Duce, Trua, Tan,
Zennee, Sendee, Tam. l'oIunta, Berteen, Tashman I Fire-Apa I
Water-Ana I Rain-Savee II
[Reverse side] "Caraboo," printed
. by J. M. Cu1ch;' Bristol, 1817 I
Carried a gong on her back and
struck it occasionally.
BO I Astonishing thing is that in
the accounts (Chambers Jour., 66753) for instance, it is told that her
story was according to the interpreter, who spoke Malay.
[Reverse side] Then later it is said
that she spoke in a language she had
invented, some of which were gypsy
words. I In this pamphlet said that
Eynesso invented the story.
Carab. I Not confronted with Mrs.
Neale. Mrs W's story is that she
told Carab that Mrs N. was in the
house and had communicated her
suspicion: and threatened to confront, whereupon Carab confessed. II
[Reverse side] Metter-yes I
Beek-good I Dosi-dinner I Pakey-child I Nee-egg I Archeepotato I Savoo-knife.
Carab I The two stories-one, said
that Carab told it to Eynessoother said that
[Reverse side] Carab told it to
Mrs. Worrall. Each plentifully circumstantial. If she did not tell one
of these stories to E, may not have
told the other to W.
Carab I Conventional story in
Strand 9/451. If 1st half cannot be
believed because it is all the story
told by Eynesso, the second half, or
[Reverse side] the confession, may
be doubtful. In this account are reproduced characters and numerals
written by Caraboo, but not a word
as to her story in Javanese and her
words in no known language.
BO I Carab I Samuel Worrall was
the Magistrate. I Manuel Eynesso.
Carab I Not said she spoke pure
Javanese I Then someone else who
had been to the East Indies added
the
[Reverse side] details; not said he
translated from Malay but believing
that her signs meant what he told,
"in the warmth of his anxiety to
discover her history" .
(April I) I Notes and Queries,
3-7-196 I that in Times of Jan 13,
1865, announced the death of the

SUlDlDeI'

1980

impostor Caraboo at Bristol. I

the home of Mrs. Worral, and be- Car I Said sent to America in
p. 269, someone asks for exact
cause of circumstances unstated ran charge of some Moravian Missiondate of death. I p. 310, George
away from Mrs. W., and found
aries.
Pryce, of City Library, Bristol,
hospitality in Bath; was followed
Caraboo
/ (newspaper clipping] /
[Reverse side] writes that she had
(Reverse side] to Bath by Mrs. W.,
[The World of Letters] /
returned from America and exhibwho took her back to Knowles,
(Reverse side] [The Observer],
ited in London about 7 years later
where almost immediately a Mrs
(Front side) June (10, 1923.)
(1824) and had made her way to
Neale came and identified her as an
Bristol. He believed she hac died
English girl; whereupon she broke Apr 3 I Caraboo / [newspaper clipping) / (An Almondsbury HoBIX.] /
about 3 months before his date of down
'Western Daily Press,' Bristol, 25th
writing but believed the exact date
(Second page] and confessed that
to be unknown. I p. 409-someone she was Mary WiI?; that Mrs W August 1926.
else writes from Bristol that he had
went to Devonshire and from her Caraboo I [newspaper clipping] I
known Carab
story of Mary the Wilcocks recog- [Local Notes] / 'Western Daily
(Second page] in Bristol since 1849
Press,' Bristol., 27 August 1926.
nized their daughter Mary but that
where "after much reluctance she
neither of the
BO / Caraboo's daughter /Westgave him her signature as Mary
(Reverse side] parents was taken to
ern Daily Press, Feb 13, 1900 I
Baker." He too had been unable to
Noles to make sure of the identifi- That on Feb. 7, John Smith, neighfind. out the exact date of her. ca~ion and that almost immediately bor of Mary Jane Baker, aged
.' deatli: I p. 418"":'a cor.asks, '. ' . .afier . returning from Devonshire, .. about 55, smelled burning, and in
(Reverse side] for the sake of com- Mrs W. shipped the girl away to
B's yard saw old rags and a chair
pleting the history of this char, the. America, no't smuggling her away
burning but was assured
date of the death and entries in the as she was accused of doing and
[Reverse side) by Baker that it was
parish register. II I don't know
under a name unrecognized by C's
all right. She not seen again. On
what demonstrates that she (was]
friends in Bath.
Feb. II th, police informed she not
persuaded to write a name.
seen, sent P. C. Drake and another
Carab I Gloucester Journal,
BO I Carab I In Bristol Daily June 9, 1817 I Letter from Dr.
constable who broke in and found
her on top landing, dead.
Post, no mention of Caraboo.
C. H. Wilkinson describes her
Under "Deaths" no record of her hands as unaccustomed to labor.
[Second page) There were extensive
under any of her names. I Post for
burns on left side of body. Ac to
"Very cautious in respect to gentleDec, 1864.
post mortem, death due to internal
men, never allowing them to take
diseases, possibly accelerated by
BO I Carab I Not in B. Daily Post, ahold of her hand."
burns. /
(Reverse side] Went to housetop to
Jan., 1865, nor Dec., 1864.
[Reverse
side) John Smith, Queen
adore
the
sun.
Fencing
with
great
Caraboo's Confession I Fox sisters
Street, Coronation Road / next
confession I Some psychic re- dexterity, sword in one hand and
door to Baker's, which was no. 2,
dagger in other. On back of head
searchers
Queen Street.
a scar of an operation, extremely
[Reverse side] refuse to accept that,
Ap. 3 / Caraboo 1613.K.20 (K).
pointing out that it was made worth regular incisions he thought was
their while to confess. I lecture Oriental cutting, but unlike
Ap. 3 / Evening, at Almondsbury,
(Second page] any operation by an
tour.
near BristolEuropean surgeon. / Gl. Jour. I
Caraboo I Biographical Tracts
Carib I Specimens of writing exDr. Wilkinson of Bath / Sailed
613.K.20 I Young woman walked
amined by oriental scholars without
into a cottage making signs that she
identifying it, 'and sent to Oxford, June 281 told in Journal, July 4.
BO I Caraboo / In the pamphlet
wished to sleep there-declined
where said no known language. I
"Caraboo" it is said the interpreter
animal food, showing much disSaid that everyone who examined it
gust. Examined by a magistrate
"very properly, and without a was an impostor. (So cut out picked
up Malay.) This pamphlet in which
who said that her language and
moment's hesitation" pronounced
said she an impostor said she was
manners were such as never in his
it humbug.
experience.
(Reverse side] As to stories about particularly expert in fencing.
[Reverse side] "Complexion very
[Reverse side] Imposture-a Porher she was taken in by a "Mrs.
trifling sallow," p. 20 + / Carried
tugese named Manuel Eynesso preW." of Bristol. Ran away from
tended he could speak her language
Mrs W. and people of Bath took with her a cord with knots like the
and told a story purporting to be
her in. Mrs W. followed her and Chinese abacus (Italics), p. 20 I
interpretation of her own that she
took the girl back to Bristol. Here that one or 2 chars. of her writing
had been stolen from an East Insaid that a Mrs Neale recognized resembled Chinese.
dian Island-and someone else
her as having been an English girl Carab / In Niles Weekly Register,
acquainted with the East Indies
who had
Aug 30, arrival of the impostor
"in the warmth of his anxiety to
(Second page] lodged in Bristol:
"Poll" Baker is recorded in Phil. /
discover her history" told
and Mrs Neale and Mrs W con- Sept 20, under the title "Shameful"
[Second page] that her name was
fronted the girl and girl confessed said that a concert had been arCaraboo of Chinese-Malay origin
ranged in Philadelphia for the
to Mrs W., begging her not to tell. I
arld kidnapped by pirates from her
Not say Mrs W. but Mrs Samuel benefit of
hol~e in Java on a ship, from which
Worrall, of Knole Park near Bris- (Reverse side] Mary Baker, or Miss
she \ had escaped to the coast of
tol.
Caraboo, the infamous impostor. /
(Reverse side] That she born at Oct 18-Editor writes that he is sin- England, having exchanged her
clothes, worked in gold, for comWitheridge, Devonshire, in 1791, cerely mortified to learn that at the
and left home at age of 16 (0 work
concert this questionable character mon clothes, and had wandered
6 weeks.
in a farmhouse and then in various appeared and wrote in an unknown
[Third page) The story is that she
services in London. I Mrs W. sent language upon sheet of paper and
was identified as Mary Baker and
her to America.
spoke in the unknown language.
that she confessed-and
In this pamphlet said not true she
BO / Caraboo in Bath recognized
[Reverse side) told some incidents
was smuggled aboard but was shipby someone, who notified a believer in her life. Her parents were visited
ped openly as Mary Burgess; one of in her. Whereupon enthusiastic reand corroborated the stories of incithe names of Mary Wilcocks who ception in Bath.
dents-no record they ever went to
had married Burgess.
BO / Caraboo ran away from Mrs
Bristol to identify her. She wished
The story is that she was taken into WonJune6.
to go to America and her passage

Pursull 127

was paid-extraordinarily-to
Philadelphia. I
[Front side] George Psalmanazar I
See R. J.
[newspaper clipping] I [The Princess Caraboo.] I 'Western Daily
Press,' Bristol, 27th August 1926. I
[original note missing I copied
from Tbe For/eon, no. 9, p. 9].
[illustration] I [Fort's free-hand
copy of the "letters" made by
"Princess Caraboo" ] I [original
note missing I copied from The
For/eon, no. 9, p. 9].
[BCF, pp. 672-676:
The earliest of the alleged impostors in my records-for which,
though not absolutely, I draw a
dead line at the year IBOO-is the
Princess Caraboo, if not Mary Wilcocks, though possibly Mrs. Mary
Baker, but perhaps Mrs. Mary Burgess, who, the evening of April 3,
IBI7, appeared at the door of a cottage, near Bristol, England, and in
an unknown language asked for
food.
But I am not so much interested
in whether the Princess, or Mary,
was a rascal, as I am in the reasons
for saying that she was. It does not
mailer whether we take up a theorem in celestial mechanics, or the
case of a girl who jabbered, we
come upon the bamboozlements by
which conventional thought upon
this earth is made and preserved.
The case of the angles in a triangle that equal two right angles
has never been made out: no matter
what refinements of measurement
would indicate, ultra-refinement
would show that there had been
errors. Because of continuity, and
because of discontinuity, nothing
has ever been proved. If only by
making a very bad error to start
with, Prof. Einstein'S prediction of
the curvature of lights worked out
as it should work out, we suspect,
before taking up the case of the
Princess Caraboo that the conventional conclusion in her case was a
product of mistakes.
That the Princess Caraboo was
an impostor-first we shall take up
the case, as it has been made out:
London Observer, June 10,
1923-that the girl, who spoke unintelligibly, was taken before a
magistrate, Samuel Worrall, of
Knowle Park, Bristol, who, instead
of committing her as a vagrant,
took her to his home. It is not recorded just what Mrs. Worrall
thought of thaI. It is recorded that
the girl was at least what is said to
be "not unprepossessing." When
q'uestioned the "mysterious stranger" wrote in unknown characters,
many of which looked like representations of combs. Newspaper
correspondents interviewed her.
She responded with a fluency of
"combs," and a smattering of
"bird cages" and "frying pans."
The news spread, and linguists
traveled far to try their knowledge,
and finally one of them was successful. He was "a gentleman from
the East Indies," and, speaking in
the Malay language to the girl, he
was answered. To him she told her
story. Her name was Caraboo, and

128 PursuoIt

one day while walking in her garden

in Java, she was seized by pirates,
who carried her aboard a vessel,
from which, after a long imprisonment, she escaped to the coast of
England. The story was colorful
with details of Javanese life. But
then Mrs. Willcocks, not of Java,
but of a small town in Devonshire,
appeared and identified her daughter Mary. Mary broke down and
confessed. She was not prosecuted
for her imposture: instead, Mrs.
Worrall was so kind as to pay her
passage to America.
Mostly our concern is in making
out that this case was not made
out-or, more widely, that neither
this nor any other case ever has
been made out-but I notice a lillie
touch of human interest entering
here. I notice that we feel a disappointment, because Mary broke
down and confessed. We' much prefer to hear of impostors who stick
to their impostures. If no absolute
line can be drawn between morality
and immorality, I can show, if
I want to, that this touch of rascality in all of us-or at any rate in
me-is a virtuous view, instead.
So when an impostor sticks to his
imposture, and we are pleased, it is
that we approve a resolutely attempted consistency, even. when
applied to a fabric of lies.
Provided I can find material
enough, I can have no trouble in
making it 'appear "reasonable," as
we call it, to accept that Mary, or
the Princess, confessed, or did not
confess, or questionably confessed.
Chambers' Journal, 66-753that Caraboo, the impostor, had
told her story of alleged adventures,
in the Malay language.
Farther along, in this accountthat the girl had spoken in an unknown language.
This is an inconsistency worth
noting. We're on the trail of bamboozlement, though we don't have
to go away back to the year ISI7 to
get there. We hunt around. We
come upon a pamphlet, entitled
Caraboo, published by J.M. Cutch,
of Bristol, in the year ISI7. We
learn in this account, which is an
attempt to show that Caraboo was
unquestionably an impostor, that
it was not the girl, but the "gentleman from the East Indies,"
whose name was Manuel Eyenesso,
who was the impostor, so far as
went the' whole Javanese story. To
pose as a solver of mysteries, he had
pretended that to his questions, the
girl was answering him in the Malay
language, and pretending to translate her gibberish, he had made
up a fanciful story of his own.
Caraboo had not told any story,
in any known language, about herself. Her writings were not in Malay
characters. They were examined by
scientists, who could not identify
them. Specimens were sent to Oxford, where they were not recognized. Consequently, the "gentleman from the East Indies" disappeared. We are told in the pamphlet that every Oxford scholar
who examined the writings, "very
properly and without a moment's
hesitation, pronounced them to be
humbug. " That is swi ft propriety.

If the elaborate story of the

Having done more than his
Javanese Princess had been attrib- duty as an investigative reporter
uted to a girl who had told no
understandable story of any kind, in the "Princess Caraboo" affair,
it seems to us to be worth while to Charles Fort resumed his meticlook over the equally elaborate con- ulous chronicling 0/ unexplained
fession, which has been attributed phenomena in the year 1817 and
to her. It may be that regretfully we
shall have to give up a notion that beyond.
a girl had been occultly transported
1817
from the planet Mars, or from
somewhere u~ ., Orion or Leo, but Ap 4 I Mexico I q I I I [Light I
we are seeing nore of the ways of BA 1911].
suppressing mysteries.
According to what is said to be Ap. 10 I Bohemia I Fireball I
the confession, the girl was Mary . BA60.
Willcocks, born in the village of April 161 (It) I (Volc) 12 a.m. (7) I
Witheridge, Devonshire, in the year Palermo I sounds, objs cross sun,
1791, from which at the age of 16
she had gone to London, where she and Etna eruption I BA 54 I D-22S.
[BCF, pp. 240-241 I See
had married twice. It is a long,
Aug. 7, IB04.]
detailed story. Apparently the
whole story of Mary's adventures, Ap 17 I Rhine I BA '60 I Fireball.
from the time of her departure
from Witheridge, to the time of her [IS]17 [Ap. 26] I Phe by igneous
arrival in Bristol, is told in what is meteor I [London Times],
said to be the confession. Every- Ap.26/3/c.
thing is explained-and then too Ap. 26 I [London TimesJ, 3-c I
much is explained. We come to a
question that would be an aston- Meteor of Corsica I Au~ phe.
isher, if we weren't just a little Ap. 27 I Hesse I Fireball I BA 60.
sophisticated, by this timeAp. 30 I Q's at Naples, and VesuBy what freak of accomplish- vius greater activity I J. des Deb.,
ment did a Devonshire girl learn to May 16, ISI7.
speak Javanese?
The author of the confession ex- May 2 I Fireball I Gottingen I
plains that she had picked up with BA60.
an East Indian, who had taught her May 21 1-- 12 h I Venus Ilnf conthe language.
junction I [A I).
If we cannot think that a girl,
who had not even pretended to June 10 I June 30 -- hot rain I at
speak Javanese, would explain how Inverness, Aug. 7, 31, Sept 2, and
she had picked up Javanese, it is several times in ISIS I Roper I
clear enough that this part of the List of Earthquakes.
alleged confession is forgery. I ex- June 30 I Inverness and neighborplain it by thinking that somebody
had been hired to write a confes- hood I a quake and hot water felll]
sion, and with too much of a yarn from the sky I preced[ed] I
for whatever skill he had, had [Reverse side] Rept B Assoc
overlooked the exposed imposture 54/1121 not preceded.
of the "gentleman from the East
Indies ...
[BCF, p. 393:
All that I can make of the story
There was another quake in
is that a girl mysteriously appeared.
Scotland (Inverness) June 30,
It cannot be said that her story was
ISI7. It is said that hot water
imposture, because she told no
fell from the sky (Rept. B. A.,
intelligible story. It may be doubted
1B54-112.]
that she confessed, if it be accepted
that at least part of the alleged con- July 24 I Loud detonations I and
fession was forgery. Her mother the Lake of Canterno, Italy, ran
did not go to Bristol and identify dry I Nat Reg. (Wash.), Oct 25.
her, as, for the sake of a neat and
convincing finish, the convention- Aug 7 I Augsburg I Fireball I
BA60.
alized story goes. Mrs. Worrall told
that she had gone to Witheridge,
Aug 21 I [London Times], 2-e I
where she had found the girl's
SI. Stevens I q.
mother, who had verified whatever
Aug 29 I [London Times], 2-e I
she was required to verify. Caraboo
Inverness I q.
was shipped away on the first vessel
that sailed for America; or, as told
Sept. S I Richmond I Fireball I
in the pamphlet, Mrs. Worrall, with
BA60.
forbearance and charity, paid her
Sep
121 Dark I Scotland I (123).
passage far away. In Philadelphia,
Sept 25 I Great meteor visible at
somebody took charge of her afnoon in Venezuela I National Intelfairs, and, as if having never heard
that she was supposed to have conIigencer(Wash.),Nov.1I,ISI7.
fessed, she gave exhibitions, writing
in an unknown language. And I Oct 5 I Woburn, Mass I q I
BA'11.
wouldn't give half this space to the
Oct 6 I Tunbridge Wells I Firestory of the Princess Caraboo, were
it not for the epitomization, in her
balll BA '60:
story, of all history. I f there be
Oct
\3 I 11 p.m. I Detonating
God, and if It be ubiquitous, there
meteor at Genesee, NY I National
must be a jostle of ubiquities be1ntelligencer (Wash), Nov. 4.
cause the Fishmonger of Worcester,
too, is everywhere.]
Oct 17 I Aix / Fireball I BA '60.
SUDlDler

1980

" ... Today, everybody is protesting against something, though nobody seems to be able to define just what it is they are protesting
about, and none has any plans for a workable substitute-apart from unworkable anarchy of one sort or another. Charles Fort,
just like certain others who went before-the Essene whom the Greeks called Christos; the Gautama Buddha; Lao-Tze and suchdid offer an alternative; to wit, common sense, logic and honesty. This may all sound very "high fallutin" but his could well still
-From an editorial in Pursuit, January 1969, Vol. 2, No.1
be the only truly worthwhile protest... "
Oct 21 I Day of the W. Indian hurricane -- 8 inches of rain fell on
Island of Grenada -- heavy rains
continued. I
(Reverse side) Q J. Roy Inst. 5-136.
Nov. 22 I Severe quake in Greenland I BA 54 I Hecla quiet at the
time.
Dec. 8 lOp. Mars I (AI).
Dec 8 I 12:57 a.m. / Ipswich I
Detonating meteor from Taurus -like discharge of a distant cannon I
Gent's Mag., 1818/1/159.
Dec IO I II p.m. I smart shock I
S. Car and Georgia I Niles' Weekly
Register, Jan 17, 1818.
Dec 22 to 26 I Vesuvius.

1818
I Hail in the Orkneys preced(ed) by
sounds like cannonading (Schwedoff) I Symons 171149 I
(Reverse side) Schwedoff explained
that detonated like meteorites.
Jan 6 I Loft's Vulcan I supposed
by him to be a comet in transit over
sun -- observed at least 3!n hours I
Ipswich I Quar Jour Roy Inst
5/117 I
[Reverse side) No comet known.
(BCF, p. 393:
Jan. 6, 1818--an unknown
body that crossed the sun,
according to Loft, of Ipswich;
observed about three hours
and a half (Quar. Jour. Roy.
[nst., 5-117).)
(BCF, p. 202:

Monthly Notices oj the

R. A. S., 20-100:
Standacher, February, 1762;
Lichtenberg, Nov. 19, 1762;
Hoffman, May, 1764; Dangos,
Jan. 18, 1798; Stark, Feb. 12,
1820. An observation by
Schmidt, Oct. II, 1847, is said
to be doubtful: but, upon page
192, it is said that this doubt
had arisen because of a mistaken translation, and two
other observations by Schmidt
are given: Oct. 14, 1849, and
Feb. 18, 1850 -- also an observation by Lofft, Jan. 6, 1818.
Observation by Steinheibel, at
Vienna, April 27, 1820
(Monthly Notices, 1862).)
Jan 17 I Vermont I det met I
BA67.
Jan 18 I Siberia I BA 60 I Fireball.
Jan 28 I Cambelltown, Scotland I
Fireball I BA '60.
Feb. 6 I Daylight met I Blackwoods
21516.
Feb. 6 / 2 p.m. / Brilliant daylight
meteQr from zenith toward north I

SaID..er 1980

Cambridge and Norfolk I Gent's

Mag 1818/11268,461 I sun brilliant
in a cloudless sky.
Feb 6 / Lincolnshire I det. mel. I
B.A., '60 1'54-115. "
Feb. IS I Limoges, France I met reo
ported I unknown whether iron or
stone I Phil Mag 4/8/459 I
(Reverse side) BAIl 860.
Feb 16 I At Coningsby, Lincolnshire -- sounds like gunshots I
ground shaking slightly I on 20th,
noises like firing of cannon and a
"meteor" seen at Kirkton-inLindsey I
(Reverse side] Repeat, Ap. 30 I
B Assoc 54/115.
Feb. 20 I 3 p.m. I Another shock
at Coningsby, and a meteor seen in
Lindsey. First shock at C. was
Feb "6. / "like subterranean cannon" I In Lincolnshire. I Gents
Mag., 1818/1/171,364.
Feb 20 I Great quake I Italy I 123 I
II -- (medium) -- q -- France I I I
BA'II.
Feb. 20 I (It) I phe I Catania I
See 1805 I See Ann de Chimie
33/405.
Feb 20 I III [heavy) I I 23 -- I
[light)/l/q'slltaly/(BA 1911).
Feb 23 I France I II I q I
[medium / BA 1911).
Feb 24-25 / towns in Bouches-duRhone I (q's) I BAs. '54/116.
Feb 28 I q I Italy I I I [light I
BA 1911).
March I lOne of the most terrible
hurricanes in history of Mauritius I
Gent's Mag. 181812176.
March 7 I afternoon I Isle of
Wright (near Whitwell) I For half
an hour a roaring sound and violent
atmospheric disturbance. The
clbrst. called a waterspout. Nothing
said (was] seen. I Gent's Mag.,
1818/1/364.
March 14 I (I) Volc elsewhere I
2:30 p.m. I Clouds gathered,
though little wind, and began to
shut off sunlight, giving the sun the
appearance of fire -- at 4 p.m., total
obscurity and the people crowded
to church to pray. The sky
(R!=verse side) looked fiery and
detonations, or thunder was heard,
and brilliant lights or lightning were
seen. Great drops of red liquid
began to fall. About nightfall this
fall and the sounds and lights or tho
and lightning
[Second page) ceased. I Said that
this fall not only in Calabria but in
the Abbruzes. Full particulars of
Chemic Analysis given. I Jour de.
Physique 861205.

March 14 I Story confirmed for this

date I Q. Jour. Roy Inst. 1818.
March 14 I Same story as March
14,1813.
Mar. 14 I Naples I carbonaceous
substance I (D-75).

**

(BCF, p. 77:
A combustible carbonaceous
substance that fell with sand at
Naples, March 14, 1818
(A mer. Jour. Sci., 1-1-309).)
Ap. 10 I Zaborzika, Volhynia I
Stone fell. I BA, 60.
Ap. II I Zaborzika, Volhynia,
Russia I Metite I (F).
Ap. 30 I Again I See Feb 6, 1818.
May 17 I Motz, Savoy I Q preceded by loud detonations. I
BA54.
May 31 I q I Mexico I II I
(medium I BA 1911).
"June I Seres, Macedonia, Turkey I
Metitel F.
June I Seres, Macedonia I stone I
IS Ibs I BA 60.
July I Isle of Ely -- after a th
storm, several "creeping creatures
ab six inches
[Reverse side) in length were
picked up -- were locusts. I
Gentleman's Mag. 88/366 I They

were locusts.
July 17 I bet 9 and 10 p.m. I Met
size of full moon I Montpelier, Vt. I
(Reverse side) A. J. Sci 2/32/441.
July 19 I South of France I shocks and
heavy rains and foUowed by
(Reverse side) great electrical explosions I BA 54.
July 19 I Pau, etc. I q and great tho
storm I BA 54.
(BCF, pp. 301-302:
Some day we shall have an
expression which will be, to our
advanced primitiveness, a great
joy:
That devils have visited this
earth: foreign devils: humanlike beings, with pointed beards:
good singers; one shoe iIIfilting-but with sulphurous exhalations, at any rate. I have
been impressed with the frequent occurrence of sulphurousness with things that come
from the sky. A fall of jagged
pieces of ice, Orkney, July 24,
1818 (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.,
9-187). They had a strong sulphurous odor. And the cokeor the substance that looked
like coke-that fell at Monree,
France, April 24, 1887: with it
fell a sulphurous substance. The

enormous round things that

rose from the ocean, near the
Victoria. Whether we still
accept that they were super-constructions that had come from
a denser atmosphere and, in
danger of disruption, had
plunged into the ocean for
relief, then rising and continuing on their way to Jupiter
or Uranus-it was reported that
they spread a "stench of sulphur." At any rate, this datum
of proximity is against the conventional explanation that these
things did not rise from the
ocean, but rose far away above
the horizon, with illusion of
nearness.)
Aug 3 I Worthing I Fireball I
BA60.
Aug 5 I Chelenfort I Fireball I
BA60.
Aug 10 I Siobodka, Smolensk,
Russia I Metite I (F).
Sept 2 [London Times], 3-e I Bencoolen Iq.
Sept 8 I q I Italy I II I (medium I
BA 1911).
Sept 14 I England I Fireball I
[BA60).
Oct 21 - 24 I Volc I Goentoes,
Java I N.M. I C.R. 70-880.
Oct 21, etc. I Violent eruption, volc
Goenoing, in Preang. I Gents Mag.
1919/1/557.
Oct. 31 I Hecla I BA 54.
Oct 31 I (Metite) I Between Bucharest in Wallachia, and Mehadia.
Great met. I (BA 1849) I Ac to
Bigulawski's
(Reverse side) Catalog it was aerolotic. I BA '60.
Nov 8 I and great q I Volc. I
Lemongang I Java l N.M. I
C.R. 70-878 I also another volc -Smeroe.
Nov. 13 I Meteor I Gosport /
BA60.
Nov. 17 I Fireball I Gospon I
BA60.
Nov 20 I q I SI. Doming(o), West
Indies I 1/ I [mediuin I BA 1911).
Nov. 26 / Comet in Pegasus.
Dec 9 I q's -- I (light] I Italy and
Philippines I (BA 1911).
Dec 18 I Halle I Fireball I
BA'60.
Dec 20 to May 21, 1819 I Eight
q's in the West Indies, of which
seven were between 9 and II p.m. /
BA54.
Dec 26 I -- 3 h I Venus I Inf
Conjunction I (A I).

Pursuit 129

BOOKS in REVIEW
'THE ULTIMATE FORTEAN TOOL'
-UFO (NL)
1972, Aug.12/Robert Mount/7000 Mackey
Kansas CitI (Mo.) Star, 20 Aug.
1972, p.5 .
Oxford
-UFO (NL)
1965, Aug.2/Paul Rader
Kansas City (Mo.) Star, 2 Aug.1965.
Palco
-Hystery bird deaths
1978, Aug . 14/Terry' Kortan
Plainville Times, 17 Aug.1978, p.1.
i1.

Parsons
-Clairempathy
1974, Sep.~
/Ben Townsend
Ben Townsend, "Treasure Bunting with
ESP," Fate 31 (Feb.1978):57-58.
-UFO (CE-1)-1977, Jan.25/Clyde V. Basey/Won U.S.
160
Parsons News, 15 Dec.1977.
Peabody

-UFO

(?)

1971, Jan.22
Ted Phillips, Physical Traces Associated with UFO Sightings (Evanston:
Center for UFO Studies, 1975), p.1l0.

Pottawatomie Indian Reservation

-Humanoid
ca.1959/Nadine r~slin
John Green, The Sasquatch File (Agassiz, B.C.: Cheam, 1973), p.23.
Prairie View

-UFO (NL)

1967, March 8/Jake Jansonius

Phillipsburg Review, 16 Uar.1967.

Prairie Village
-UFO (NL)
1976, May 26
"Noteworthy UFO Sightings," Ufology
2 (fall 1976):60.
1978, June 29/183d St. x U.S.69
Olathe Daily News, 1 July 1978.
Pratt
-Electromagnetic anomaly
1977, May 3/Karen De~iler
Pratt Tribune, 4 May'1977.
Pratt co.
-Cattle mutilation
1976, Aug./Arthur Beck
(Editorial), !!!! 30 (Feb.1977):39.

Peru
=oro

(NL)
1978, Aug.24
Norton Daily Telegram, 28 Aug.1978,
p.1.

Portion of a typical page from A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies.

A GEo-BIBUOGRAPHY OF ANOMAUES: Primary

Access to Observations of UFOs, Ghosts, and Other Mysteries, by George M. Eberhart. Greenwood Press, 51 Riverside Ave., Westport, CT06980.1160pages.lndexed.
This is a reference work. George Eberhart is a reference
librarian, and has happily joined his professional expertise
with his talent as a Fortean researcher. The result is the milestone Geo-Bibliography, the ultimate Fortean tool.
Comprising more than 22,000 anomalous events and sites
in the U.S., Canada, and Greenland, the GB offers access to
information. Each item is listed under the name of the town
or physical feature of its occurrence; towns and localities
are arranged alphabetically under their state or province, and
states and provinces are surveyed by region from west to east.
Under each town or locality, items are arranged alphabetically by event-types: for a given town, "archeological
site" might be followed by "entombed toad," "erratic crocodilian," "haunt," "humanoid," "UFO (CE-2)," and "UFO
(NL)." Multiple events of any single event-type are listed
chronologically under that subheading.
130 lP'ursuit

For each event, the date and principal observer are listed,
as well as any other qualifying information. The latter might
pinpoint location (street address, intersection, landmark, or
simply "4 miles south"), note the possibility of hoax or misidentification, or otherwise clarify the basic information of
the case. (Hoaxes, scrupulously labeled as such, are included
here because of their place in the literature. Other clarifying
information includes the numerous CE-2 citations noting
"ground markings only" to distinguish them from CE-2
cases involving sightings of craft, and so on.) Finally, at least
one source of information is cited for each event. Celebrated
cases, however, may have a dozen or more citations, if there
~re that many significant contributions to the study of the
case.
This explanation of the GB's format will begin to make
more sense after a close look at the above excerpt.
In addition to the geographic arrangement, access is provided by an index of principal observers' names, and another
of event classifications. Thus a bibliography of sources on
the Delphos, Kansas, CE-2 case is listed under "Delphos" in

SumlDer 1980

BOOKS in REVIEW

..

the "Kansas" section, but the location of this bibliography

with and the tendency of one type of Fortean phenomenon to
can also be found by looking under "Johnson, Ron" in the
shade imperceptibly into another, it is inevitable that a few
observer index, and under "Kansas" in the "UFO (CE-2)"
cases should be shoe-horned into categories perhaps not
section of the subject index.
altogether just to the facts of the individual cases.
As important as ease of access to information may be (and
Most obviously, GB presents to researchers a first-class,
the GB is outstanding in this respect), the wonder of the matter
eminently usable tool. Henceforth it will be a simple matter
can best be evoked by a glance at the subject index. Eberhart
to find out what has been written about a particular Fortean
includes every kind of Fortean event from "Abduction of
event, where and when similar events have o\..'Curred, what
child by eagle" to "Witch trial (shape-shifting)." Between
else was going on at the same time and area as the main event,
these two are "Acoustic anomalies," "Acupuncture research,"
what kind of weirdness prevailed in a given locality, etc.
"Aerial phantoms," "Alchemy," an "Amphibious moose,"
Less obvious but no less real are some other beJ)efits. One
and ancient relics ranging from armor to underground cities
is that Eberhart has indexed here the North American pheand walls. "Burrowing hose" follows "Bleeding icon (see
nomena through 1979 for the full run of Doubt, Fate, Puralso Weeping icon)" and "Autoscopy." The long list of ersuit, Occasional Publications of the Epigraphic Society,
ratic objec.ts includes African ~rtails,' .armadillos, baboons: ... "Vestigia Newsletter, Stigmata and INFO Journal; and sub... ii:bison; boulders and .rocks~ acow, scoresof crocodfies;
stantial portions of Bigfoot News, Michigan Anomaly Rea giant anteater, kangaroos, a killer whale, octopi, an ostrich,
search Bulletin, Flying Saucer Review, Page Research Library
a peccary, a platypus, sharks, a squid and a swan.
Bulletin, Fortean Times, MUFON UFO Journal, NEARA
Falls of various kinds take up nearly two pages just listing
Journal, and others. Thus libraries, which shy away from
the wondrous array of things from the sky: alabaster, alligaunindexed periodicals, may now more readily be persuaded
tors, beans, a brass meteorite, cast or forged iron, caterpillars,
to stock the major Fortean journals.
chicks, clams, a clay meteorite, coins, cookies, earthworms,
In summary, the Goo-Bibliography is a landmark, and
an egg, fish, fishing line, a fossil bone, frogs and toads, knives,
a boon to Forteans, bibliographers, and to anomalism. It
makes information accessible, improves research methodlizards, money, a monkey, mud, salt, sandstone, a shark,
string, turtles, and "unknown substances." This very fragology, and brings Forteana out of the library closet. It is a
mentary listing extracted from the index doesn't even attempt
volume that every Fortean, active researcher or not, should
to keep track of the meteorological falls listed, such as giant
have on his own shelves or could donate to the local library.
snowflakes, localized rain, explosive hail, and rain and snow
Its other virtues aside, the OB is a reference work easy enough
every color of the rainbow.
to use and fascinating enough to engage the interest of the
The subject index runs to 15 two-column, single-spaced
-Steve Hicks
most cursory browser.
pages, so it's impossible to conveyany but the vaguest idea of
the variety of anomalies on which the GB cites sources. Even
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL: PAST, PRESENT. AND
the most jaded researcher will be impressed by the ease of
FUTURE, by John W. Macvey, Avon Books, New York,
checking citations on the feral woman, ghost mules, hex re1978,303 pages, $2.25 (paperback).
search, a phantom elephant, animal ESP, the hollow-earth
Macvey, an astronomer, begins with a discussion of the
entrance, river monsters, talking animals, or a unicorn legend.
nature of the universe. He covers relativity, the curvature of
Telephone anomalies and stigmata vie for attention. Webspace, and ends his first section with an examination of Black
footed horses and Welsh. Indians rub shoulders with all the
Holes. Commenting on current speculation about their use in
more "usual" forms of Forteana-pre-Columbian artifacts,
interstellar transportation, the author states that if the Black
10 varieties of UFO contacts (with pre-I945 cases a separate
Hole is perfectly spherical and non-rotating, anything entercategory), SHC, cattle (and other) mutilations, sea serpents,
ing its influence would be destroyed. However, if it is rotating,
phantom panthers, humanoids, and so forth.
a "space warp" may form capable of conveying a spacecraft
The range of phenomena Eberhart catalogs is matched by
somewhere else. It might enter some other universe or some
the amazing number of sources on which he draws. Local
other portion of our own.
newspapers account for a large number of citations. Scientific
The next section covers the origin of life and the biochemand Fortean journals are well-represented. Books cited inistry of aliens. Macvey concludes that life originating on earthclude the various works of Keel, Clark and Coleman, Vallee,
John Green, Fell, Steiger, the Lorenzens, Holzer, Sanderson
like planets would resemble our own.
To the question of ancient astronauts, he answers that we
(to whom GB is dedicated), et al.
may have been visited in ancient times, but any artifacts left
The on's glossary deserves special attention, because it is
would have been destroyed by natural forces. Although anhere that Eberhart delineates his scheme of classification.
cient writings may refer to such visits, there is no solid proof.
In itself the glossary is generally understandable. Most of the
The final chapters of the book deal with the Tunguska
terms will be familiar. to Forteans, though some (such as
event and modern sightings of UFOs. Macvey believes that
"cromniomancy") may require checking. The non-Fortean
the explosion that occurred in the Tunguska region of Siberia
will find here uSeful distinctions (between CE-Is and CE-2s,
was caused by a comet or an alien spaceship. Finally, about
for example) used in the event-type categories.
UFOs: some of the unidentifieds may be spaceships.
Most of the definitions are those long-established in specialThe book's best feature is its very broad scope-from
ized branches of the field (as ufology or parapsychology),
straight astronomy to ancient astronauts, UFOs, and the
and the rest are intelligent and generally workable extrapolations. To his credit, Eberhart aC!hp.res closely to these guideorigins of life. It is an excellent introductory text for those
lines. But, given the mountain ot :'1I.::rnation he had to deal
interested in all the mysteries of space.
-Kim L. Neidigh

......_1980

Pursu"
'.~.,.

\.

131

BOOKS in REVIEW

A Classic Treatise on Man's Relationship to the Universe

THE CYCLES OF HEA VEN; By Guy L. PlayJair and Scott
waves and cosmic cycles? Chapter 8 examines the effects that
Hill. Avon Books, 1979. 364 pages. Originally published by
external forces can have on biorhythms, including brain
St. Martin's Press, 1978. Index, 'illustrations. ISBN 0-380waves and the menstrual cycle. The authors assuage our fears
of being at the mercy of the cosmos somewhat in Chapter 9
45419-x. Paperback $2.75.
If, as mystics and Forteans have always said, everything in
by explaining that we can learn to control our natural cycles
the universe is related to everything else, then Science must
by using numerous biofeedback techniques.
eventually discover the patterns and cycles which comprise
Chapter 10 delves quite reasonably into the misty world of
the Great Web of inter-relationships. Playfair and Hill have
astrology and its claim for correlating planetary positions
done a masterful job in bringing together the current state of
with personality traits. Basing their contentions on Michel
Gauquelin's and other comp~ter studies, Pbiyfair an~ Hill
knowledge on the natural forces of the cosmos and how they
"':!":,"::arf~t, t~e:eart~;; it:;, biQsplte're, anq mail? ' , ,,' -:. ":.' ':'. ,: ' ...'. ::.:-:: c.oncl~~e_l~t. m!J ch ~~ _traditional. :~stro~~~~. seems .a ~It off
" ,'. :;::::.Ttieir- book ihvritten in a scholarly yet popular style; arid,' "target. yet on~:'canpot '~ule- ou~. the,.poss!~,h~y: th!lt, It ",Id ac~
their 'abundant references should send Fortean researchers
curately descnbe the microcosm-macrocosm sItuatIOn at one
t~me: A:t any rate, ~ne rece~t (1977) ,study has ~i~ked birth
into throes of bibliographic ecstacy. Playfair's experience as
a biophysicist and Hill's interest in "anomalies" as a writer
signs With extroversion and mtroverslOn as tradItionally decombine to make Cycle of Heaven a classic treatise on the
scribed by astrologers. Many similar projects need to be
carried out to test the traditional symbols and correlations
relationship of man to the universe.
once and for all.
,
The first two chapters describe the types of forces known
to exist in the universe (gravity, electromagnetism, and nu.T~e last two chapters take uP. r~search mto ac~puncture,
clear forces) as well as a postulated fifth force, sometimes
Klrl~an photography, plant sensitivity, and the SovIet concept
called "ether." They examine the correlation between certain
of bloplasma.
planetary positions (especially the squares, trines, opposiThe Cycles of Heaven should be read as a Cook's, tour of
tions, and conjunctions familiar to astrologers) and the sunthe t;n~~y ways that t~e huma.n body and. the earth It walks
upon IS m harmony With cosmic forces which we are not conspot cycle which in turn seems closely related to terrestrial
rainfall. '
sciously attuned to. It dramatically supports Charles Fort's
notion that our earth is ~n organism constantly bombarded
Chapters 3 and 4 explore the electromagnetic nature of the
human body and how it seems to be in tune with the entire
by what he called Externahty-a Super-Sargasso Sea of matter
EM spectrum on very subtle levels. Franz Mesmer's ideas on
and energy.
-George M. Eberhart
"animal magnetism" in the 1770s appear curiously prophetic
in the light of current research, in particular Gurvich's mitoAL TERNA TIVE THREE, Leslie Watkins with David
genetic radiation, S. W. Tromp's biometeorological effects,
Ambrose & Christopher Mills, Avon Books, New York,
and various experiments with dowsers. Weather cycles can
$2.25.
affect the human biomagnetic field in many ways, and suicide
Alternative Three purports to solve the mystery of the
attempts provide one dramatic correlation.
Extra-low frequency EM waves, ionized air, infrasound,
flying saucers: the UFOs are a joint US-USSR venture to
and just plain noise wreak havoc with the human system and
colonize Mars in anticipation of the earth's destruction due
to a super-greenhouse effect. Wow! Now we know, huh?
matter in general. The authors cite one bizarre report of a
group of 200 Tibetan priests who propelled huge stone blocks
This project is said to require a large amount of forced
through thin air up a 4OO-meter cliff face merely by chanting
labor, in addition to voluntarily recruited scientists. In order
to obtain the helots, mass kidnappings-"Batch Consignrhythmically, blowing trumpets, and beating drums!
ments"-are used to seize victims, who are lobotomized to
Chapter 5 opens up with John Gribbin's dire prediction:
promote tractability. As "evidence," reference is made to
"Sorry, but quite a lot of California is going to slide into the
three purported disappearances: 200 plus in New Zealand,
sea in 1982, plus or minus a year or two ... This is because of
75 plus near Caspar, Wyoming, and a vanished "small pasor at least synchronous with the Grand Planetary Alignment
senger-cargo vessel, the Amelio" (p. 205).
in which all of the planets will be in a rather narrow area of
No citation is given for the vanishings, of course. Morethe zodiac (as close as 64 0 in November (982). Earthquake
over, the value of these revelations must .be weighed against
prediction is also discussed, arid the authors conclude that
the uncritical acceptance of an early Bo and Peep report
scientists have done at least as well as the birds, fish, babies,
(p. 17). And, incidentally, the book has no footnotes, chapter
and lunatics that seem to be quake-sensitive.
titles, chapter subheadings, nor index.
The next two chapters are about cycles on earth that corSpontaneous human combustion (SHC) is explained as
relate with sunspots and other astronomical cycles. Biorhywell. It seems that when the secret US-Soviet commission
thms have been noted and measured for quite some time, but
feels that someone is about to leak information on the prowhether our body clocks are regulated from within or deject, the someone is eliminated-often (??'!?) with a "hot
pend on external cosmic factors remains uncertain. Playfair
job" (p. 76). One such victim died as he was allegedly on his
and Hill present much evidence indicating that' regulation
way to reveal important information to Fleet Street. Howcomes from outside the body.
ever, the international intelligence organization neglected to
To what extent are human beings locked into all these EM

132 PoIzl7'Slllllitt

Samm_1980

BOOKS in REVIEW
get the deceased's diary from Jodrell Bank, where the intrepid authors would discover it months afterwards (p. 202).
A typical example of the book's "logic" is the following:
After adumbrating two CE I events from 1951, the text concludes, "So despite all official denials, sufficient advances
had been made by 1951 to provide the basis for planning
.
Alternative 3" (p. 24).
Other lapses include US officials speaking with English
idiom (p. 74 et seq.), "secret" cattle-stealing from the US
(where the livestock was sure to be missed) on the following
page (!), referring to Otto Binder only "as former NASA
man" (p. 107), etc.
.
The book claims to be an expansion of a program of a
British series, "Science Report"; this particular program,
apparently broadcast in June of 1977, was denounced as
fraudulent by the station itself. Small wonder.
Nevertheless, certain of the allegations are interesting:
There is the purported interview with former astronaut Bob
Grodin'" (pp. 105-109, 122-134), the putative disappearance
of 21 of 400 emigrating scientists (p. 66), and a mysterious
pony killing at Dartmoor (p. 18). However, even these-especially these-must be taken cum granno salis.
Distributed in time for Christmas, the book would have
been more appropriate for Thanksgiving.
Unforlunately. the "astronaut" appears to have died in considerable
obscurity in "January, 1978" (p. 131), as there seems (0 have been no
obituary in The New York Times. This suggests, of course, a strong
presumption of error-or worse.

-Bill Banks

THE SHAPE OF EVENTS TO COME. Gopi Krishna. New

Delhi: Kundalini Research and Publication Trust. 1979.
201 pages. $5. Quality paperback. Available from Kundalini Research Foundation. 475 Fifth Avenue. New York.
NY 10017.
True prophecy stems from deep cosmic attunement. It is
not merely the product of logical extension from present data
by the intellect, nor is it even precognition in the ordinary
sense. Prophecy is distinguished from precognition by the
moral dimension, the spiritual framework in which it is issued.
All psi abilities have biological survival value, especially precognition. Prophecy, however, goes beyond the biological
realm by pointing to the divine, transcendent source of life
whose loving concern for human welfare is being ignored by
people.
Thus, the genuine prophet does not want to see dire predictions come true. Rather, he seeks to be contradicted. His
prophetic words are intended to warn people in time to avert
the disaster he foresees so clearly. Through a change in their
behavior they can either defuse the circumstances leading
up to catastrophe or they can get out of the way in time.
The Shape of Events to Come is a prophetic work by a man
for whom I have the highest regard. Gopi Krishna is a yogiscientist now in his seventies. My observations of him and my
examination of his work (available in a dozen books) lead me
to conclude that he is stably and permanently established in
the state of cosmic consciousness, that mode of awareness
from which .true prophecy and revelation flow. Although he
is a Hindu, Gopi Krishna stands in the lineage of biblical
prophets because he communicates as an instrument of divine
law and divine love. His message is a revelation in the truest

Summer 1980

sense: visions given to him from a higher intelligence for the

purpose of correcting errant human behavior.
The error to be corrected is intellect-gone-wild, which has
produced nuclear weapons capable of destroying all life on
earth. Because the moral dimension of cosmic attunement is
lacking in world affairs, the inevitable result of international
power politics wiII be a fieryArmageddon of our own making,
with death and destruction so vast and horrible that it nearly
defies imagination.
This is the negative part of the prophetic vision that Gopi
Krishna received several decades ago. The other part is positive, inspirational. In effect, the global catastrophe will be
nature's way of redirecting us to the evolutionary path leading to a higher state of being. The long evolutionary march of
the human race will not end with Homo sapiens; there is a
glorious destiny awaiting us in the form of a higher humanity
whose consciousness will be equal to.that of a Jesus, a Buddha and all the other sages and saviors of history.
This is the condition to which we must ineluctably evolve
in time, Gopi Krishna says. We can recognize this now and
cooperate with the divine plan, thus avoiding nuclear conflagration through worldwide disarmament. Or we can continue in the current mode of consciousness, in which case the
result will be a terrible world war that forcibly and painfully
returns the human race to the evolutionary path.
The Shape of Events to Come was given to Gopi Krishna
in rhymed verse such as this:
The next two decades will unfold
An awe-inspiring Drama, staged by Fate,
To end the present order, as foretold,
With Fires of War lit by lust, greed and hate.

"'**
Out of the inferno power-lust builds apace
Will rise a chastened and united race.
Recognizing that poetry is not the preferred mode of expression nowadays, Gopi Krishna has added a long prose
Introduction that straightforwardly gives facts about nuclear
weapons, the armament race, the horror of a thermonuclear
war, and the nature of eVQlution and enlightenment. Supporting the text are many photos of the most grisly scenes
from Nazi concentration camps and A-bombed Japanese
cities.
Thus, through prose and poetry, Gopi Krishna lays bare
the future in a manner that can leave no doubt whatsoever
about the importance of the message.
-John White

. COSMIC TRIGGER: FINAL SECRET OF THE

IllUMINATI. by Robert Anton Wilson. And/Or Press,
Berkeley, CA. 1977, 269 pp. illustrated, index. $4.95.
The Odyssey of a skeptical, humorous, perceptive mind is
chronicled here, guided through Cosmic Coincidence Control
Center by what the belief structure says are telepathic entities
from Sirius B. From a 1962 peyote trip, through an apprenticeship in Tantric sex, leading to an entertainingly narrated
course of neuropsychological experiments, we follow the
candid semi-biography. through a head-space picaresque.
Touching on such Fortean themes as UFOs, appearances and
disappearances, the ]1 enigma, Nikola Tesla's occult ex per-

Pursuit 11.33

BOOKS In REVIEW

'Life Energies an4 Physics of Paranormal Phenomena'

FUroRE SCIENCE, edited by John White and Stanley
Krippner, published by Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York; published in Canada
by Doubleday Canada Ltd., 105 Bond Street, Toronto,
Ontario M5B 1Y3, Canada, 1977. 598 pages, $5.50 paperback.
It is virtually axiomatic that conventional science has looked
askance at the various claims by Eastern mystics and some
parapsychologists that the human mind can influence matter.
Only in the last five years has a small group of professionals
begun to analyze and examine these tremendous claims, and
to write books on the subject (i.e., ex-astronaut Edgar D.
Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Sciences, the British book The
Tao of Physics and the books of Lawrence LeShan and Arthur
Koestler). That is why the sub-title of this book-"Life Energies and Physics of Paranormal Phenomena"-should be
noted most carefully by those persons who would rather read
a technical treatise on genetic research or the future of the
space program.
This is a collection of more than 40 essays by scientists,
mystics, parapsychologists, sociologists and other specialists
in various fields. The book is divided into six major sections:
"Setting the Perspective," "The Occult Forces of Life,"
. "The Geometry of the Paranormal," "From Physics to
Metaphysics," "The New Technology" and "The Social
Dimension" with a number of excellent appendices comprising a concluding seventh section. The only thing lacking
is an index, so that one might look up a particular passage
quickly. The conclusion of each chapter provides a list of
reference works, however. A staggering number of Ph.D.s
have contributed, as will be readily apparent from just a
glanceat the list of authors on page 595.
It is well-nigh impossible to summarize briefly the rich
detail and the meticulous research that has gone into the
making of this book. I will only state that the following subjects are covered: geometry of space-time, dowsing, orgone
energy, paranormal voices and tape recordings, the Hieronymus Machine, high-energy physics, life after death, mattermind dualism, ufology, cycles, Carl Jung and archetypes,
psychedelic drugs, trance states, radionics, bio-feedback,
plant-human communication, the creation and end of the
universe, and quantum mechanics.
White and Krippner are both experts in a number of fields,
and as such are well-suited to provide the commentary that

introduces each chapter. In his earlier book, Psychic Exploration, Mr. White showed that a popular treatment of an exceedingly complex subject could be written to accommodate
the chasm between science and the public. Too often, works
of this nature are so interlaced with technical jargon that they
cannot be read by anyone with less than a university degree in
physics. Although the length and detail may appear to be
.
formidable, the book is clear and easy to read.
Among any large complement of contributors it is to be
expected that their essays will vary widely in concept and
quality-the interest level depending on the reader.' This
volume, however, maintains a high level of interest throughout, and several chapters, notably the ones on quantum physics
and synchronicity, are outstanding. If only the textbooks in
our school systems were as lucid, the learning process would
be greatly eased.
Basically, the problem of reconciling Eastern philosophy
to our point of view has been a matter of semantics more
than anything else. Any scientist will embrace the idea of
a ?ioplasmic energy component in the human body, but will
reject the age-old Hindu concept of "prana" even .though
both are speaking of one and the same thing. A logical formulation of how these mechanisms work (if indeed one can
speak of a mechanism concerning psychic matters) has been
extremely difficult to conceive so that the principles may be
understood and applied by everyone.
I was pleased to see that a chapter on the sociological implications of such far-reaching discoveries has been included.
The ethical base of science has always tended to be wobbly,
and it needs a good deal of attention if we are not going to
. find ourselves living in a nightmarish future in which breakthroughs in mind control are perverted for political purposes.
The duality in this chapter refers to the application of technology for good or ill, as well as to the mystic and occult
areas of existence.
If you wish to explore some of the paths we are following
into the 21st century, I would highly recommend that you get
a copy of this book. Twenty years from now, it may be regarded as a landmark. It is certainly an important milestone
in our attempt to understand who and what we are and where
we are headed. A responsible and a sane treatment of serious
philosophic and scientific problems, this collection deserves
thoughtful reading.
-W. Ritchie Benedict

iments, John Keel's Mothman, Robert Temple's Sirius mystery, Tim Leary, Jacques Vallee, John Lilly, Aleister Crowley,
and a sampler box more, Wilson's book adds up over several
short chapters to an irresistible .invitation to seize control of
your biocomputer and program the scenario to your liking.
Wilson offers a few tempting options: extending the lifespan (it's so much fun I don't want it to stop) and pioneering
a civilization in space a la Gerard K. O'Neill. Yet Wilson,
deftlY at the controls, never allows these mind-blowing ideas
to run away with his book. He presents an orderly if at times
bewildered exploration of borderland science in a personalized style.
-William Zeiser

SCIENCE SEEKS TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY OF THE

SHROUD, by Kenneth F. Weaver, in National Geographic,
June 1980.
Is the Shroud of Turin the cloth in which Joseph of Arimathaea wrapped the body of the crucified Christ for burial
nearly 2,000 years ago? Mr. Weaver assures us the answer
"will remain forever outside the bounds of proof." Even so,
it's worth some trouble to get hold of the June Geographic
and read pages 730-752, if only to reflect on the much, and
the little, that techno-research can accomplish when it's broadscale and well-financed. The graphics are great.
-F.S.W.

134 Pursuit

SUlDlDer

1980

LETfERS to the EDITOR

Letters to the editor should be addressed to Fred Wilson, 65 Grandview A venue, North Caldwell, NJ 07006. All letters must be signed with the writer's name and mailing address. Membership number will be printed in place oj name signature if writer so requests. Because oj space
limitations, letters are subject to abridgement.
In his letter (Pursuit, Spring 1980, Vol. 13, No.2, p. 95)
Peter Murphy has a quaint way of asking for information
about the synchro data. The triple experiment used two
audio inputs and one visual input: TV police drama, police
radio exchanges, and reading.
Since Mr. Murphy understands numerology, why doesn't
he write an article and explain his hobby? Perhaps the graph
wiIJ answer his other worry. (See below.)
-Barbara 10rdison

FREQUBNCY DISTRI:i3UTION:
480 Synchro Data
(Jan - Oct 1972)

80
f

(120 pm's)

(360 am's)

40

right brain. His response, for example, is typical of one

who has had a stroke affecting the speech center of the
left brain. Such a person can often curse fluently (an emotional activity) but not speak coherently!
Since Watkins' paintings made while in a conscious state
differ quite strongly from those made under hypnosis, he
like many other artists, musicians, etc., has probably transferred much of the direction for his artistic endeavors from
the right brain to the left. Most of us amateurs who can
paint at all may do so under the direction of our right brains,
whereas professionals often intellectualize the process until
it comes to resemble the logical, sequential thinking best
handled by the left brain. Hypnosis apparently frees Mr.
Watkins' right brain to be in control again, and the paintings are, to my way of thinking, most delightful. (I wish
I could see some in color!)
I'm not sure what value one might derive from knowing
that the right brain is in control in the situation described by
Mr. Watkins, but I nonetheless gain a bit of the "ah-ha"
feeling from this deduction, based upon Blakeslee's book.
It is someway nice to feel that you understand something
about how you work.
-Frank B. Salisbury

[Dr. Salisbury is proJessor oj plant .physiology in the

Department oj Plant Science, College oj Agriculture,
Utah State University, Logan, Utah. He is a member
oj SITU's Scientific Advisory Board.]

Time

00
00

Was Charles Berlitz Himself

Caught in the Bermuda Triangle?
'Not Yet!' He Says

~q,.
::s'l

I enjoyed reading the article "Hypno-Art, A personal

experience of painting and drawing while in a somnambular
level of hypnosis," by Curtis W. Watkins, in the Spring
1980 issue of Pursuit (Vol. 13, No.2, p. 72). Having also
recently finished reading a book by Thomas R. Blakeslee
("The Right Brain," Anchor Press, Doubleday, Garden
City, New York, 1980), I was immediately struck by the
statements in the next-to-the-Iast paragraph of the article,
in which Mr. Watkins says that under hypnosis his vocabulary is "quite different and also quite garbled," and that
"under hypnosis I am unable to write clearly in response
to questions."
Since experiments described in the book by Blakeslee
have clearly shown that nearly everyone uses the left brain
in speaking and writing and the right brain in conceptualizing images, experiencing emotions, etc., Watkins' statement surely implies that his paintings, made while in a somnambular level of hypnosis, are under the direction of his

An amateur radio operator in Key West, Florida,

picked up a garbled "may-day" message that could
have been transmitted from Charles Berlitz's expedition
ship. Through heavy background noise the startled
operator copied some broken phrases: "All systems
have failed . . . the pyramid from the ocean ... God
be with us."
A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard said, "We
are faced with a puzzle. "

The foregoing account appeared in the German

popular magazine Neue- Weltchau, No. 39, published in
September, 1979. Charles Berlitz clipped it and sent it
along to Bob Warth, SITU's president. Bob provided
the above translation and also translated the two-word comment Berlitz scrawled in red ink at the bottom:
Noch nicht!-meaning not yet!

(More Letters to the Editor on page 136)

SUlllDI_ 1980

Pursuit 135

Pursuit has been a joy! One thing I would be interested in

seeing is an article on the Menehunes-the midgets who inhabited Hawaii before the Polynesians arrived. There are
even extant waterworks-projects on Kaui attributed by the
Hawaiians to these mysterious people. Could there be a relationship here to the 2-foot Fiji dwarfs reported in the Summer
1979 Pursuit (Vol. 12, No.3)?
-Brian Barinoff
In the interest of clearing away one more piece of misleading evidence from that area of borderland science concerned
with hairy humanoid monsters, I offer an alternative explanation for a fragment of bone that was displayed by Bigfoot
hunter Peter Byrne on the show "In Search of ... the Abominable Snowman." For those who missed the program, a
photograph of the specimen can be seen in the March 1978
issue of the Bigfoot News.
According to Byrne, the bone sits in a Buddhist shrine
located in the Nepalese village of Bodnath and is the property
of the head lama who claims that it is a piece of a yeti.
As soon as I saw it on television in full color, I realized it
could not have come from a primate. However, it took me
some time to discover exactly which animal it did come from.
The purported relic was conclusively exposed as a fake
when I came across the photo of a near twin on page 100 of
Milton Hildebrand's Ana/ysis of Vertebrate Structure (c. 1974
John Wiley and Sons, New York). I immediately recognized
the shared morphology of a central ridge flanked by numerous large pits.
The textbook illustration is that of a bone taken from the
neck skin of a crocodile. Known technically as an osfeoderm,
it is one of the plates that, when joined with dozens more,
form the protective armor that shields the dorsal portion of
a crocodilian's neck, trunk and tail.
I suppose I could feel a little sorry for the owner of that
piece of Himalayan humbug. The lama told Byrne that he
bought the fragment from a Tibetan for the equivalent of
$350. With such an expenditure, let's hope the holy man
never finds out about the reptilian origin of his prize.
-Michael K. Diamond
I would like to respond to Michael Bradley's letter in the
Spring 1980 issue of Pursuit. In that letter, Mr. Bradley takes
me to task for my statements on melanism in the cougar,
Felis concolor. He wants to let the readers know (and in italics, no less) that melanism in the Eastern subspecies (usually
referred to as Felis conc%r cougar Kerr, not Felis conc%r
(cougar) Kerr) is "extremely common. "
I fear Mr. Bradley has made a faulty jump in logic. His
primary evidence for feeling that melanism is "extremely
common" in the Eastern puma seems to be his other italicized
statement-namely, that the pumas of New Brunswick are
"known to have survived ... but about 30 percent of the
cougars seen are reported as being black." As we Forteans

certainly know, something. seen does not necessarily make it

a tangible fact. Mr. Bradley would have the reader believe
that the hint of a somewhat rare strain of melanism in Fe/ix
concolor has expanded in a Darwinian survival of the fitness explosion.
Frankly, melanism is so rare in Felis concolor as to be nonexistent. Young and Goldman (1946).give as the only example
a vague report from Brazil in 1843. As I have stated for years
in articles I have written on the subject, not one photograph
exists of a black puma dead or alive. And from North America, not one record of a black puma being killed or caught
alive exists. In 1974 I surveyed all of the zoological collections of the world for all records of melanism in Felidae.
No zoo ever reported having had, and no animal dealer ever
reported having dealt with, a black Felis concolor. ..
Mr. Bradley seems to be under the influence of my late
friend Bruce Wright's statements about the apparent melanism
in some large felines currently being seen in New Brunswick,
and has come forth with a bit of traditional non-thinking of
his own. Sadly, the mystery cats of the world are not as easy
for some Forteans to catalog as for example are the lake monsters, Bigfeet, and thunderbirds. These obviously aberrant
beasties seem to be more palatable to Mr. Bradley and others.
It saddens me a:bit that while searching for a lake monster,
Mr. Bradley wduld have such an excellent sighting of two
felines and then so quickly miscatalog them via his linear
thinking. I for one am more interested in what he saw, not
what he thinks it was, or what he didn't see in Lake Pohenegamook.
Some references: Stanley R. Young and Edward A. Goldman (1946), The Puma: Mysterious American Cat, American Wildlife Institute. Loren Coleman (September 1974)
"Melanistic Phases of Felidae in Captivity" in Carnivore
Genetics Newsletter. Roy Robinson (February 1976) "Homologous Genetic Variation in the Felidae", Genetica 46.
-Loren Coleman

I am pleased to become a member of SITU. I hope I can

become a regular contributor of articles for the publication.
I am an inventor with training and interests in many varied
fields. I believe that many of my ideas will be of interest to
many readers of Pursuit. I will be happy to pass along items
of interest except for a few (at this time classified) projects.
I would also like to correspond with persons like myself,
educated in electronics, mechanics, parapsychology-free
spirits, who have an open mind and are willing to share ideas
and interests. I would especially like to work with as many
SITU members as possible who live in Arizona and especially
around the Tucson area. I have a desire to do the impossible
and explore the unknown. If any person, male or female,
wishes to contact me, write: P. O. Box 43896, Tucson, AZ
85733, or caJl323-1082 in Tucson.
-Joseph Pruente

JF>nca'l!IDIIDD!ID~ tt(Q) ~<IDW~?

If you expect to change your address, please allow six or more weeks for address change to become
effective in our records. Send card (obtainable at your post office) showing both old and new address to
SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ07739

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT. P.O. Box 265. little Silver. NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary and Treasurer:
Gregory Arend, Susan Malone, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler, and
Albena Zwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Chairman, Department of Anthropology, and Director, Paleo-Indian Institute,
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
Dr. George C. Kennedy, Professor of Geology, Institute of Geophysics, U.C.L.A.
(Geomorphology and Geophysics)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgersthe State University, Newark, N.J.
(G.eneral Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant (Brain Wave Laboratory), Essex County Medical Center,
Cedar Grove, N.J. (Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biolOgist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association.
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other professionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the SOciety.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle: above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. 1, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids"-the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.
Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

Thanks-and a Look Ahead

by Robert C. Warth
President of SD1J and Publisher of Pursuit

A QUESTIONNAIRE last Fall we asked you for your

I Nopinion
of Pursuit. Your response was generous, thoughtful
and constructive. It produced the most enlightening information we have received since SITU's inception in 1965.
We are most grateful to all of you who took so much time
to express your feelings and wishes, to criticize and to suggest, in explicit detail as becomes the questioning spirit that
guides all our efforts.
Pursuit's purpose is to try to .express a realistic view of-
what is unexplained in nature, how it is interpreted by both
observers and analysts, and what efforts are being made to fit
such data into the limited realm of knowledge available to us.
We live in a society where we are expected to strive both
individually and collectively toward doing or becoming "the
best" in some skill or venture. The goal of Pursuit is to become the best at keeping its readers informed about the progress that is being made toward solving the myriad mysteries
of our world and the universe.
Ivan T. Sanderson, SITU's founder, had a unique talent.
His grasp of many complex subjects was as firm as anyone's,
but what greatly distinguished him was his fascinating stylehis ability to analyze reasonably and explain lucidly what he
knew. The questionnaire responses indicate that most of you,
whether or not you are familiar with Ivan's books, want less
abstract, complicated or "pseudo-intellectually written"
articles in our journal. You asked for more easily readable
contents, with presentation of such technical, investigative
data as can be understood by liberal-educated persons whose
common possession is a high degree of curiosity but not necessarily "credentialed" by a graduate degree in a science
specialty.
Generally you asked for more news items and shorter as
well as less-technical feature reports. You asked also for more

facts and evidence, more objectivity, less wild speculation,

less surface, more depth. Yet, you cautioned, the responsible
use, and usefulness of imagination should not be denied the
searcher; for without first imagining an objective, none would
bother to seek it, or know how or where to begin looking.
We realize that we cannot please everyone, nor should we.
But most want a diversity of articles in each issue of Pursuit
rather thaI! a "special" issue each quarter devoted to just one
subject. The format you will be seeing in forthcoming issues
will reflect your general response. For example, photographs
on the cover may get the nod over artwork, but we still will
welcome contributions from our staff artist or any other
talented artist. And we will be increasing or decreasing the
various sections of the journal in continuing response to your
expressed wishes.
Your enthusiasm and encouragement have been most heartwarming to our small, mostly voluntary staff. Pursuit has
been considered by some respected critics as the top journal
of its kind currently in print. Our purpose is to bring to you
the finest quality of reporting and analysis within our means
and reach. We wish we had the resources to increase frequency to monthly from quarterly, as some have suggested.
But printing and mailing costs-to name just two obstaclesare such that tripling the production of Pursuit at this time
would not be practical.
Every questionnaire and letter containing constructive
opinions is welcome and all are carefully considered by more
than one member of our staff. We thank you for your support and ask that you continue to let us know your feelings
about what we are doing. A new questionnaire will be distributed at the end of this year.
Without you, neither SITU nor Pursuit could exist. With
your continued support, both can do much.

You Can Help Someone Who Might Be Interested

Many people who haven't heard of SITU or Pursuit nevertheless have that strong curiosity which sorts them out of the general
population as prime prospects for membership in SITU. Such folks need to know about us. Why not lend an issue of Pursui( to
"look over"? A membership form like the one below will be found somewhere in each issue of our journal. Your "looker-over"
can't help but see it while examining Pursuit, and if he or she decides in favor, the application will be used-you'll have done
a good turn-SITU will have a new member-and (provided you ask) we will replace your "loaner" copy at no cost.
CONFIDENTIAL

SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED (S.I.T.U.)

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM

ADDRESSES OF MEMBERS
AVAILABLE THROUGH 5.1 T U.
ONLY WITH THEIR PERMISSION

(Mall to: SITU, P.O. BOX 265, LITTLE SILVER, NJ 07739 USA)

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Address _________________________
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liP OR lONE No.

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Membership fee:
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SIS outside USA via air mail
In USA, please make check or
money order payable to SITU.
Outside USA, please make pay
ment to SITU by International
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US dollars (no checks).
THIS SPACE FOR OFFICE USE ONLY.
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-Science is the Pursuit oj the Unexplained'

Fall 1980 Journal of

The Society for the
Investigation of .
The Unexplained

Volume 13
Number 4
Whole 52

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT. P.O. Box 265. Little Silver. NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
SITU (pronounced sit' - you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIElY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds. promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects. and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science. for
one reason or another. does not or will not study.
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
Membership is $10 a calendar year. January-December. (Members outside the U.S. add $2.50 for regular
postage or $5 for air mail.) Members receive the Society's quarterly journal Pursuit plus any special SITU publications for the year of membership.
SITU welcomes member participation. Members should send articles. photographs. newspaper clippings. book
reviews and "letters to the editor" to be considerect for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson. 601 Bergen Mall. Suite 28.
Paramus, NJ 07652 USA. Use this address for Pursuit material only. Other mail. including changes of address. librcuy
orders. postal errors. back issues. renewals. gift memberships and donations. should be sent to SITU/PURSUIT at
the post office box address at the top of this page. Please aDow six or more weeks advance notice of change of address.
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports. newspaper and magazine clippings, correspondence,
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answered by mail but. because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff time. a research fee will be
charged. Members requesting information should enclose an addressed. stamped envelope with the inquiry
so that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The legal and financial affairs of the SOciety are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the
laws of the State of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the
Scientific Advisory Board.
IMPORTANT NOTICES
The Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members.
The Society does not hold any political. religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit
concerning such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion
or ethics. are those of the individual member or author and not those of the Society. Opinions expressed or
statements made by any members by word of mouth or in print may not be construed as those of the SOciety.
The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications,
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available for sale, rental, exchange, or any use except the foregoing.
Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are federal tax-deductible to the extent permitted by
the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, and in some states as their tax authorities may permit.
II

PUBLICATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall
issues are numbered respectively 1 through 4 and constitute a volume, ~olume 1 being for 1968 and before,
Volume 2 for 1969, and so on. Individual and gift memberships in SITU at $10 include subscription to Pursuit
for the calendar year. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit, without membership benefits. are available to
public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $8 for the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fuDy protected by international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof may be granted. at the discretion of SITU and the author, upon written request and statement of proposed
use directed to SITU/PURSUIT at the mailing address printed above.
Pursuit is listed in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and in the Standard Guide to Periodicals. It is also available
on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd . Ann Arbor. MI 48106.

THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE

rsuit@

ISOCIETY FOR THE

INVESTIGATION OF
THE

UNEXPlAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents
Page
Science in Conflict
by Diane E. Wirth, .. : .................................................. 138
Why It Is Not Right To Kill a Gentle Giant
,
by Dmitri Bayanov..................................................... 140
"Wild Man" -Fact or Fiction?
by Yuan Zhenxin and Huang Wanpo ..................................... 142
Two Experiences of the' Third Kind
Family of Three Taken Aboard UFO in Mexican Desert
Dr. Leo Sprinkle Interviews Mr. Anonymous ............................... 145
.
,
Pennsylvania Woman Healed by Alien Practitioner
Eugenia Macer-Story Interviews "The Johnsons" ......... : ................. 146
Kivas: Inverted Pyramids and Observatories
by Dr. Ronald P. Anjard .................................. : ............. 150
Evidence for the Stability of the Solar System Since c. 2700 B.C.
by Edgar D. R. Wilson ................................................. 151
T ransformism Reconsidered: Darwin in Perspective
by Neil M. 'Lorber, Ph.D ................................................ 155
Pyramid Power: Etheric-Electromagnetic Interaction
by Kenneth W. Moak ......................................' ............. 156
Astrology: The Way It May Work
by J. B. Williamson ..................................................... 158
Solving the Mutilation ~ystery: A New Approach
by David DeWitt ..... '.................................................. 159
The Trouble with Education
by Ivan T. Sanderson .. '.......... " ..................................... 163
Atlantis: l:os,t and Found Again (Part I)
by Jon Douglas Singer '" .............................. ',' ............... 164
The Broomfield Experiments of Andrew Crosse, Esq.
Edited and with Notes by Paul B. Thompson ...... : ....................... 168
SITUations ............................................................... 173
Books, Records & Tapes ................................................... 179
Report on the Press-The Smithsonian Symposium on UFOs
September 6, 1980-According to The Washington Post . ..................... 183
Opinion-Confessions of a Newsletter Groupie:
A Case Study in UFO Manipulation
,
by Thomas B. Burch .................................................. 184
Letters .......... : ..................................... , .' ................. 187
The Notes of Charles Fort Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst ......................... 190
/

Cover: Pre-Columbian Maya carving from Campeche, Yucatan Peninsula.

(See "Science in Conflict," next page.)
Pursuit Vol. 13, No.4, Whole No. 52, Fall issue 1980. Copyright 1980 by the Society for the InvestigatiQn of the Unexplained. ISSN 0033-4685. No part of this periodical may be reproduCed without the
wrilten consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production Editor;
Sabina W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and
Oceanographic Consultant; Brilton. Wilkie, Staff Artist.

THE STRENGTH OF SITU and the

power of its Pursuit derive from a high
quality of loyalty among our membersubscribers that the passage of 15 years
since our founding seems only to have
enhanced.
What this means, in a practical sense,
was happily demonstrated last spring when
me)1lber Robert Wall sent us the manuscript of an article and a covering letter
written in Moscow by an author nOI previously known to us.
The article begins on page 140. But
before you tum to it, please read the letter:
DMITRI BAYANOV
Darwin Museum, Moscow, 119435 U.S.S,R.

April 29, 1980

To Editors of Pursuit
the journal of the Society for the
Investigation of the Unexplained
Dear Sirs,
I happen to be, what we call, a hominologist, that is one who is looking into
the yet unexplained busineSs of Sasquatch.
Bigfoot, Yeti, Kaptar, Almasti, etc. I did
not have occasion to meet your founding
father and veteran hominologist, the late
Ivan Sanderson, but I had the pleasure of
talking to him, on the phone, calling from
Moscow to New York, when in the fall of
1967 Prof. B. Porshnev and I discussed
with him the details and implications of
Patterson's Bigfoot film.
The reason I'm Writing you is as follows.
I've written some pages of criticism concerning John Green's volume "Sasquatch"
and asked my friend and fellow-hominologist Robert WaH of Seattle for advice as
, to where I can offer these pages for publication. He suggests as the first choice
your magazine, which was also recommended by my colleague Dr. Vladimir
Markotic who is on your editorial board.
I'm therefore asking Robert Wall to forward my paper, along with this letter, to
your address and wish you would consider
my rebuttal to Green for an early, if possible, publication in Pursuit.
With sincere regards and gratitude,

~'~
Chairman
Hominoid Research Seminar
Darwin Museum.
Welcome, Mr. Bayanov! And very
many thanks to Robert Wall and to Dr.
Vladimir Markotic.

,.', )ir~~:;~:;i'

Science' in Conflict .

":i':;':h:'",

,
I

r.,t ~
,; j ~
; f , ' :
. ..
: ... \
Figure 1. 'The D"v~P9~ ~a1;n~r. Stone:. ,(From :'The .M9und-

:'

..
II

II.

' : '

_Builders and the MiI.!!itOdp~" by S. :D .. P~)

.

:.,

by 'Diane Eo W-Idh

.:

:.

Ii'.

"

.:

tlTHERE did the ~merican Indiail~ ariginally coine from, .

.and' who "discovered" America?' ::.

'.
Most grade-school students will be able to give you the
answers to these questions in accordance\vith what they have
been taught.. But do our !school textbooks contain atcUrate
information on-the sli19ject? Many 'scholars are saying '''No!''
and feel it is time for the academic world to reexamine the
peopling of the American 'continentS in light of accumulating
evidence that contradicts established theories. Let's look back
to the times when these theories developed.
. American anthropology was in its'infancy in the nineteenth
century, It was a time when' scho~rs indulged in enthusiastic'
speculations on the origin of the American Indian. As early as
1'590 the" Bering Strait had been considered a possible route
used by the Mongolians as a'land bridge, paving their' way to
the Americas: (This traditional view is widely held today.) By
1610 several researchers had advanced the thesis that the
American Indian was' ethnologicaily related to the Ten Lost
Tribes of Israel. Soon tl)ereafter
.notions
pf ancient sea voyi,.
(.
ages from various parts bf the Old World to the New World
were being bandied about by the'schol8rs of the day.' "
Over the years the Bering Strait theory gained wide acceptance, and by the nineteenth century those who supported
such "wild theories" as inter-hemispheric contacts were being
criticized by their colleagues. The fracas produced at least one
human tragedy: Lord Kingsborough spent a ,lifetime of exhaustive work trying to prove a Semitic presence in ancient
America, only to die in a debtors' prison because he couldn't
pay for the paper and printing. of his ma~sive nine-volume
work, Antiquities ojMexico. I
The investigations of Kingsborough and others of his era
gave birth to a new and bold conCept, and today archeologiCal evidence of ocean voyages to the Americas in ancient.
times' gains strength with eaeh-new'discovery-but wil'" the
world of academic leariling listen ,'to 'the supporters of the
theory of diffusion?
Imagine, if you wiil, the following scenario. The setting is
Europe during the Dark Ages. A young explorer, with a new
and unpopular theory, beUe.v.~ ~~ilere is a great land mass

~rsultl38

.FiglJre .2. Pre-Columbian incenSe burner, from Maya zone at

:~clie, near Chimaltenango, Guatemala. (In Musee de L'Homme,
Museum ~ationale d'Histoire NatpreUe, Paris) . .
I'

across the' sea. As he stands before a jury of scientists, the

foreman begins to address the upstart.
"Can you honestly stand there and tell us, a body of
'. . edilcat~ scientists, that you are right and we are wrong?
GOod heavens, 'fellow, we've studied these things for
years. These, are modern, civilized times, and you want
to upset'the verdict of history? If you continue to profess
suc~ ridiculous theories you will be ostracized by every
body of learned men whose opinions are highly regarded
and accepted, an!! your theories, my' friend, ,will eventually be driven underground by our rebutta1s~' No one
will listen to you. Everyone knows our word is law."
Subsequeritly, we'are told, the y~ung man of vision went to
work in a sawmill.
We don't live in the Dark Ages. We live in a time of invention, freedom of speculation and, supposedly, a time of openmindedness. Yet many who support the theory of cultural
contacts between the East and ' West as a result of ancient
sea voyages find their support eroded by the undertow of
'''established'l opinion. A number. of serious, weIJ:-researched
manuscripts have, been rejected by publishers because the
subject matter was considered "unmarketable."
Some scholars who endorse the theory of diffusion have
been fortunate enough to find publishers willing to take a
chance on an unpopular concept, but such authors eventually
get their full share 'of criticism (and derision) from the academic world. A case in point is the highly acclaimed 'and
equallY.criticized work of Barry Fell, a professor at Harvard
who claims to be an expert in deciphering ancient scripts .
. A rebuttal of his findings concerning the Davenport C~endar
Stone is typical. The stone, inscribed with unusual characters,
was found in Davenport, Iowa, by an amateur archeologist
- in 1874. In his book America B. C. 2 Dr. Felr set forth his conclusions that the stone (Figure 1) is inscribed in three-languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Punic-Iberian, and Libyan.
Marshall McKusick quickly came forward to destroy FeU's
interpretation. In his article "The Davenport Stone" published in Early Man 3 , McKusi.ck explained that although
many people accepted the stone as authentic,.tQe Smithsonian

Figure 3. Author's synoptic drawing of photograph reproduced on

cover. The photograph, by Wide World Photos, shows a pre~
CoI~mbian carving from. Campeche, Yucatan Peninsula; originally
reproduced with Fig. 2 in Ms. Wirth's Discoveries oj the T~th.

Institution had concluded that European mound~builder

theories were "just fanciful speculations."
.
McKusick then stated his position on why he felt the stone
was a hoax, but he never bothered to explain how someone in
the nineteenth century had the knowledge to write a script
that epigraphists of the time were unable to recognize. It is
onl~ in recent years that Punic-Iberian has been deciphered.
How could anyone in 1874 have written in a script th~t supposedly didn't exist?
Researchers not as fortunate as Barry Fell (who did find
~ publisher) have chosen to reach the public whether the pubhc asked to hear them or not. Years earlier none other than
Benjamin Franklin found himself in the predicament of having
much to say but no one willing to help him say it. He was
a man of ideas, new concepts and theories that" were not readily accepted by his peers. The Royal Society in London laughed'
to scorn his paper suggesting that lightning is a form of electricity. Undaunted, he set forth to find a means whereby he
c~uld publish his works. In company with a few sympathetic
fTlends he founded the American Philosophical Society in
order to publish the "unpublishable" papers that he and
other American colonials were writing. .
.
We have some adventurous and dedicated people today
who have had to reach the public in ways that were simply the
best a~ailable to them. ~r. Henriette Mertz's manuscript on'
AtlantIS was repeatedly rejected by publishers because of
pressure exerted by members of the academic community.
What did she do? She chose to .privately publish her own
book.' I do not propose "that her theory on the location of .
A~lantis is a valid one, but when a researcher brings to light
~vldence that has been overlooked in scholarly circles the.
mformation should not be placed in limbo merely for want of
a "reasonable explanation" according to "known facts."As
surely as if it were introduced in a court of law, new evidence
brought into the arena <;>f public knowledge should be. pre:
sented, examined and weighed carefully in order to determine
whether a conviction should stand, be modified or be dismissed.
'
Dr. Mertz's work d~s with the theory of. diffusion, or

transoceanic voyages to and from the Americas 'in anCient

ti~es. S~e described such unusual and important pre-ColumbIan objects as a fourteen-foot-high obelisk discovered in the
sevent~~th century near Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. It was
c?vered o~ four sides with ~hat appeared to be Egyptian
hIeroglyphIcs. Although the object is several times mentioned
in the state's archives, it is ignored by scholars today. Any~hing that supports the theory of Old World peoples settling
m the New World is all too quickly dismissed when it is found
not to coincide with the established and accepted pattern of
American history .
. It.is shameful that many pre-Columbian sculptures, of men
WIth full beards, are consigned to storage simply because
they do not conform with other objects in a museum's Indian collection. After all, since w~en are Amerindians able to
gro~ whiskers? How could anyone thus account for a piece
datmg to 600 A.D. of a man wearing a Semitic-type headdress-a man' w~th a large aquiline nose and a full beard
(Figure 2)? This certainly couldn't be the ancestor of some
Asia~ who ~me over the Bering Strait! So why don't we just
pot dISCUSS It-I?etter yet, why don't we shelve it?
Unfortunately it seems to be the attitude of many scholars
to adhere blindly to the Bering Strait theory as the one and
.only route whereby ~sians, and qnly Asians, originally populated ~he Western Hemisphere.
.
As for that unquestionably pre-Columbian carving from
the Yucatan Peninsula~ of a bearded man wearing a reed boat
for a headd,ress and an ear spool with the Star of David partially v.isible on th~ water, encircled by what appears to be
a . nautIcal rope-well, that simply must be a coil)cidence,
or is it?6 (Figure 3)
Perhaps we ~eed to take a closer look at unexplaintid preColumbian artifacts. In his article "The Significance of an .
Apparent Relationship between the Ancient Near East and
~esoamerica" 7 Dr. John 'Sorenson lists hundreds of similarities between the New World and the ancient Near East. Other
scholars have noted over five hundred pre-Columbian inscriptions on the North American continent, many of the scripts
appearing to have identifiable roots in the Old World. With
the passing of time, many more will be unearthed as archeological expeditions continue their resea,rch. Wil)"we watch and
.listen, or will we close our eyes?

REFERENCES
I. Kingsborough, Edward King, Lord, Antiquities of Mexico
(9 vols., London) 1830-1848.
2. Fell, Barry, America B.C., Quadrangleffhe New York Times
Book Co., Inc., Three Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016
(1976)
3. McK!lsick, Marshall, "The Davenport Stone: A Hoax Unraveiled," Early Man, published by Northwestern Archeology
Spring 1979, pp. 9-12.
.
'
4. Mertz, Henriette, Atlantis, Box 207-Loop Station, Chicago
IL 60690 (1976).
'
5. Wirth, Diane E.;Discover"ies of the Truth~ P. O. Box 945, Dan. ville, CA 94526 (1978) p. 7 0 .
.
6. Ib,id., p. 75.
.
.
7. Sorenson, John L., "The Significance of an Apparent Relation.
ship between the Ancient Near East. and Mesoamerica," in
Carroll Riley, et. aI., eds., Man Across the Sea Austin
University of Texas Press, 1971, pp. 219-265.
'
.

,......",.139

~y It ~.~ot RightYo KiD

A Gende Giant

A Rebuttal to ~o~ ~en's Condusion in

..: SasquiJtcla .
-byDlDitl....ya~()y: .. ;' ;:;:~.
.. . . ... . . C.h~i~m~:~~~~!~!~~~~:T!I!~r " 'J'. ;:.
-'

.:,

I:
I

..'!:' I

' ! ':

'('.

II

t ~ .'.

"

READ half ofGreen's i97S'v:olume* pl.tis'jts last

H AviNG
chapter. I sent him the following mes~age oraclnow..:

ledgem~nt: "It seems. t.o. be 8J:l a~~ir~,?ly_ .~~pd:~bpK with

a notoriously bad endmg." M,y. 0pu:l1on d!d n~t ch~ngt; after
I read the whole thing.. .' I .. ' ~ _ .. ".' '. '.' '....... -, ,['
Why the book
'is good. is deano.any
rea'der'ihierested. in
.
. . . . . .. - I . . . ,
the subject: It IS the most.complete and detade(j presentatIon
of Sasquatch sighting-reports in North
t6' d.~i~. It is
as if the author had opened his files for:everybody'td'See and
learn. Great many t~nks to him 'fof t~ljlt'i fr~m~S.t~q:~atchlovers all over the world!
.'
Not so. alas. with the concluding: dhapier - Of ;ih~ibook.
It is bad, not only becauseof its bad :treatmeI).t of Sasquatdtes
but also because it is evasive and unfair jn the ,treatment of
truth. For this very reason the quality of the last chapter..is not
apparent to the reader; hence my protest. :.
.
'::., .,..' f
On page 150 Green says that "Dmitri BayanQy. and:lihave
engaged in a protracted debate by mail in,which he:contends
that n~ 'Homi' as he calls them should ever be kiIleeVr.et
in the space of 492 pages of his book and io its :Iast'.chapter
specially devoted to the question, Green never~cites or answers
a single argument of r:nine from tha~ "pr,Otracted d~bate"
of ours. Love's labor lost.
'. ':'"
Instead of citing my argumentl> and d.ealing :w.tb ,them.
John Green cites his pessimism regardiog the,:future o.f mankind. as if saying: Personally I have no gru.dge. against Sasquatch. but why bother about good treatmen.l. of. :animals
if mankind itself is going dow:n ttu;:;dr:ain? ;To;,wi~ i'~ln my
opinion our species is a bligQt:that .the '~or;ld ~wo~ld- have been
better off without. Had we realized a century or'rwo.ag~ ithat
we were becoming too numerous, and had we been abltnohalt
human multiplication, everywhere, man might have been ithe
crowning glory of the planet. With his present numbers and
continued growth. man can only be considered as a cancer
that i~ destroying the planet." (p. 461>"
.. '
.,;.-;,c .
My answer to that is tha't mankind's' pliglit has something
to do with its ill-treatment of living creatures. To my m~I;l.d:ithe
quality of life depends first and forempst ,on. the quality of
man's social behavior, and only in second place on .the quantity
of population. I'd rather live in a country densely popl,Ilated
with decent people than sp~rsely with thugs,~(_ -.....~ ~.: .!:
The main and immediate problem for mankind is not its
numbers but the lack of an ethical balailce between the-rational
and the emotional, between the brain and the heart- in man's
behavior and institutions.
. . . " :,.' ..... ,
. The trouble with Hitler was not that his policy increased

AIphi'ca.

Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us.

Pursuit 140

the world's population. It did the opposite. The trouble

..Hitler was Jhat he stopped at nothing to achieve his
And as far as science is concerned. the trouble is not
.ther~ ~re too many scientists. in the world. but that more
half of them are engaged in the arms business, i.e. 'devote
time and talent. at the taxpayer's expense. to devising
of destroying life instead of improving it.
~ - . '. 'But: why such gene~a1izations? Why make'a fuss over
:.J:':fat 'of. SasquaiChes? Is our research really of so 'much'
.. sequence? Fortunately; in this respect .Green makes no
.~ 'take: :"This is not a game or a fantasy. it is a q~estion
~erious' scientific research of tremendous import.ance. It
:.', not have the glamour of moon shots, but in what it can
: f :us about our'origins and our physical potential it may be
.:: 'more important." (The Sasquatch File, p. 70)
,..:: 'On that we agree. so let us return to what is at issue' here.
:,;itwas with great relief and approbation that I learned from
, Green that "public objection to the killing of any of the great
r '. apes. for research purposes haS risen to the point where pro-.' 'jeets' Involving .it are not approved. even though there are
. _. sufficielJt animals available;" (p. 463) Yet when it comes to
-'. Sasquatches, the author is adamant: "Should they be' hunted
..-: for scientific purPoses? Defi:nitely yes ... They will have to be
.. studied;' and study will have to include dissection. . . . Sas. quatches are not available for study without killing them."
. (pp. 462, 463)
.
If there is a public objection to the killing of .the great apes.
,.. 'why wouldn't, or'shouldn't, there be to the killing of Sas .: Quatches? Green gives no answer. or, at least. the answer is
". riono be easily gra~ped. What he clearly says is that "To give
; r special treatment to one type of animal because it reminds us
of ourselves' obviously reflects concern for ourselves, not for
.I~lrriaI~." (p. 462) Does it follow from this that by killing
: 'a 'man--Iike' creature we display our unselfishness? it is obvious
" that special treatment of man~like animals refleCts concern
-' 'both for ourselves and for that type of animal. .
.' .. Why is public opinion in favor of special treatment in such
j"cases? Green seeks rational reasons and. to his great satisfaction. finds none. And no wonder. because the reasons are
:, . emotional. But does that invalidate them? Much of my pro:! . tracted argument with Green centered just on this question.
".'~Back in 1975 I wrote him that "the emotional is an integral
part of human nature. just as natural and legitimate as .the
::.:' :rational.. If we had no emotions we'd be <;omputers. not
':People. A wise policy in any endeavor is not to reject emotions
. ;. ~ut to u'nderstand their w~rkings so as to strike a balance
~'''betweeil'the rational and the emotional. ... Man can't be
1~ a-;rew.ly unbiased' judge in the ma,tters of life and death.
Being himself alive and human he can't help being impartial
towards anything which. is alive and intellig~nt. or at least
:J: '"I9Qks "man-lik~" ... To sho~ thatthe above "is riot all my in).~vention let me-back up my stand by citing no less ~ authority

than Konrad Lorenz who, in his book On Aggression fn the

chapter "On the Virtue of Scientific Humility," says the
following:
.
The sCientist who considers himself absolutelY "objective" and believes that he can free himself from the
compulsion of the "merely" subjective should try-only
in imagination, of course-to kill in succession a lettuce, .
a fly, a frog, a guinea-pig, a cat, a dog, and finally a
chimpanzee.. He will then be aware how increasingly
difficult murder becomes as the victim's level of organ. ization rises. The degree of inhibition against killing.
each of these beings is a very precise measure for the.
considerably different values that we cannot help attrib- ..
uting to lower and higher forms of life. To any man who
finds it equally easy to chop up a live dog and a live.
lettuce I would recommend suicide at his earliest .conven~
ience." (pp. 194-5)
After reading all that in 1975, Green still continued asking
in 1978: "People kiil other animals, so what are thegrounds
for treating this one differently?" (The v.f!ncouve!,.Su~; issue
of May IS, 1978) Still I am grateful to hIm for cltmg m:Sas~
quaidf such examples of eyewitness reports of the ammal,
which he proposes to treat no better than frogs, as this one:'
"It was half-ape and half-man. I've been reading up on ~he
abominable snowman since ~hen and from articles you get the
idea that these things are more like gorillas. This thing was
not like that at all. It had hair all ,over ttie body as if it was_
an ape. Yet the face was definitely human. It was more like
.. .
a hairy human." (p. 1 9 4 ) .
In an appeal to the would-be parti~ipants in the Sasquatch
conference in Vancouver I wrote in December 1977: "M~em
Homo sapiens represents and symbolizes the achievements
and failures of civilization. Modern Homo troglodytes represents and symbolizes the top achievement and subsequent
retreat of nature. Now for the first time in history the two
species are going to meet in the limelight of science. Let us
make this meeting a happy one for both. Let it be on the
credit side of civilization."
Green, however, sees no alternative to a bloody meeting.
"To begin with, one (Sasquatch -D.B.) must be presented
to the scientists in the flesh in order to establish that such
a creature exists at all." (p. 462) Then, "sasquatches are not
available for study without killing them." (p. 463)
.
Let me remind Green that nowadays it is perfectly feasible
to establish the existence of life forms without presentlng
them in the flesh to the scientists. Millions of dollars have
been spent on the search for the minutest signs of life on Mars
by such a proxy method. Surely a tiny fracti,on of.that sum
would suffice to establish beyond any doubt the eXIstence of
a creature the size of a Bigfoot here on earth. And why must"
anyb,ody bring a Sasquatch in the flesh to. a sci~ntist in an
armchair? It is the scientist who must be brougJtt m the flesh
to the mountains to meet and study S,asquatches in their habitat without so much as disturbing them.
Jane Goodall and George Schaller have set an eXample
of this kind in the treatment of higher primates in the wild,
and it is the business of those who know what's what in our
research to persuade the scientific community to start mo~ing
in that direction. Of course, it is easier to bestir the "triggerhappy types'" than the scientists, but the easy way is not necessarily the right way.
,_.
Since I relied on the reputation of Jane Goodall to argue
my point (see The Scientist Looks at the ~quatch, p. 152)

FaUl9S0

Green decided to deprive me of that advantage by citing Goodall to support his own case (Sasquatch, p. 466). I corresponded
with Jane Goodall and asked her what she thought of Green's
stratagem and our controversy. She replied from Dar-esSalaam, Tanzania, on August 22, 1978:
Dear pmitri Bayanov,
Very many thanks for your letter of 11 July. I am
answering it -more quickly than usual because of the
questions in it. Most particularly "the one about the killing of a Sasquatch-or any other' form of ape-like or
human-like creature. I deeply deplore the killing of animals for museums. I loathe to see a stuffed chimp or
. gonlla-or'monkey-or lion and so on. A photograph
"is just as gooo. A film is better.... 'Nor do I look back
kindly on what I wrote, which lohn Green has been able
.to' use to hfs own ends. I no longer IlIgree with what I said
then-I don't think it is at all justifiable to use chimpanZees to find out about a disease which people would
not get if they did not eatone another! When ~ included
this (as the book was going to press) I was trying to find
out something really useful which scientists had learned
. froin chimps. Something which really would alleviate
.', human suffering. The kuru was a bad example, and
'gQt into'the final book before I had thought about it
. properly .... Anyway-to shoot ~ creature just to see
, what it is.-:...well, that is even worse. Most undesriable
ethicaIJy-and th~ mark of a,poor researcher."
-I w~h all of us' could be'as magnanimous and uninhibited as
Jane Goodall in admitting a mistake.
, Now let's look at the matter from a different plane. Let us
imagine t,hat during' one of his lectures on the "rightness" of
kiUing a Sasquatch JohnGreen could tune in on an exchange,
of opinions between two UFOnauts invisibly hovering in the
auditorium.
'~You know, mate," says one to the other, "back home on
our planet they never believe the existence of such bloodth"irsty creatures in the universe. Let's vibrocute this one and
dispatch his bOdy or part of it ,to our learned skeptics."
"But that would be murder!" gasped the other.
"I don'tlhink so," continued the first. "Take a good look
at him and be rational. Is he really like us? His body is not
transparent; he cannot levitate; he doesn't speak the Milky
Way lingo;' his brain doesn't work on neutrino energy.' .....
'I wonder what message Green's brain would send back to
his would-be executioner. Perhaps this: "Hey there, just let
me see a killed Sasquatch and then do with me whatever you
like!"
'

REFERENCES

A~sti~, Edie and Tim Parlmore

1978 Sasquatch: The Skeptics Want Corpse. The Vancouver

. . '. Sun, May IS, p. A6.
sayanov, Dmitri
.
.
1977' The Scientist Looks. at the Sasquatch, Moscow: The Uni.
versity Press of Idaho, p. 152 ..
Green, John,
1973 The Sasquatch File. Agassiz: Cheam Publishing Ltd.,
.
p.70
19;9 Sasquotch: The Apes Among Us; ,Seattle: Hancock ~ouse.
Lorenz, Konrad
,
'
1969 On Agression. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. pp. 194-5.
. Jane Goodall's letter quoted by permission.
~

......ult141

She"nongjia, where "wild-men"

"
/Jove been reported.

'WUd Man' - Fact or Fiction?

Reprinted" by permission from China
" Reconstructs, English-language month-

ly publishecnn Pek~g by the China

Welfare Institute. "

"monkey" in southeastern"ShaaIDd. provchild were in the" mountains cutting

ince's Xianniog county;
grass when theY saw some such crea-..
More recent accounts inClude the one
'ture scratching' its back against Ii tree
HuanSlWanpo
by Wang Zelin, a former biology stutrunk.
dent now~ living in Xuzhou, - Jiangsu
When our team questioned people in
T I a.m. on May 14,1976 six ca4res
province. He claims to have seen an un- " " the area, the wife of, the brigade leader
from the Shennongjia forestry rekpown creature,"shot by hunters, while
recalled how Gorig Yulan had come
gion in Hubei' province were driving
he was traveling in southwesterI\ Shaanrunning to her door", all out of" breath
along the highway near Chunshuya
"xi In 1940. "It looked like those piaster
"with great beads of" sweat on her fore~
village between Fangxian County and
reconstructions of the Peking Man," he "' head, saying, "A wild man! A wild
Shennongjia, when they came upon a
recalls, "only much more hairy, and it "
man!"
Gong Yulan led us t9 the spot where
strange, tailless creature with reddish
had an ugly protruding snout." Peasshe "had seen the creature. On the tree
fur. The driver kept his headlights on
ants living in this locality also tell about
trunk, 1.3 m~ers from the ,ground, we"
. the creature while the others went forencounters with strange hairy" "wUd
. found several dozen fine hairs of varymen" which "walk upright like humans
ward to investigate. They got a good
ing lengths. In August of the same year
" look "at it from a distance of a few feet
but have faces like monkeys."
another group .of investigators dis, The main reaction' to such accounts
before it walked away. It was neither a
covered two long hairs 1.8 meters from
had been one of skepticism or disbebear nor any other animal they had ever
the groun<t on the same tree trunk.
lief. But there were people intrigued
seen before." A telegram reporting the
In 1976 "and 1977 our team interenough to look into the matter. Groups
incident was sent to the Institute of
viewed hundreds of people-cadres,
Paleoanthropology and Vertebrate
of scientists, army men and,others have:
teachers, hunters, herb collectors and
Paleontology of the" Chinese Academy
penetrated the fastnesses of the- priothers, who gave vivid accounts of enof Sciences.
meval forests in the past few years to see
counters with the "wild men" in FangThis was not the first time such a
what they could fmd. Some, fascinated
xian county, the Shennongjia forest
thing had been heard of. Down through " by the idea, have delved into" ancient
district artd Zhushan and Zhuxi counties.
the centuries Chinese literary works and
literature. Others have written to the
With local "militiamen and commune
folk legends had told of big, hairy manAcademy of Sciences contributing inmembers the team organized several"
like creatures that walked erect on two
formation and asking to be included in
large searches. But no such creatures
legs, frequenting the vast forests of the
investigating teams. Still others went
were found, perhaps because of the exQinling-Bashan-Shennongjia mouninvestigating "usiOg ,their own time and
tremely rugged terrain and thick vegetatain region in central China. Two thoumoney.
:"
tion.
sand years ago during the Warring
" Thus, when news of the incident on
lit two years the team investigated an
the" highway" near Chunshuya reached
States period, Qu Yuan (340-278 B.C.)
area of 1,500 square kilometers, tra"velthe Chinese Academy of Sciences, it
the 'statesman-poet of the State of Chu,
referred in his verses to "mountain'
was decided to orl@Ilize an investigation ' ing a total of 6,000 kilometers. Practeam. Composed of science workers "" tically eVery place in Shennongjia and
ogres." Qu Yuan's home was just south
surrounding counties where traces of
from Beijing, Shanghai and Hubei,
of Shennongjia, in what is today's Zigui
the" "wild men" had been reported was
Shaarud and Sichuan provinces, a "huncounty in Hubei province. The Tang
visited by members of the team. "
dred people" in aU, and assisted by a
dynasty (A.D. 618-907) "histonan Li
""We collected data on "the region's
contingent of army scoutS from WuYanshou in his Southern History degeology" terrain, glaciation," meteorscribes a band of "hairy" meri" in the
han, the team worked in the region
'ology, vegetation, and vertebrates
region, that is today Jiangling county,
during 1976 and 1977.
iricluding amphibians, reptiles, mamalso in Hubei province. The Qing dynOn June 19~ 1976,. Gong Yulan,
asty poet Yuan Mei (171~1798)" in his
a 32-year-old" member of the Qunli bri-, , mals and,"bird life. But on the "wild
gade Qf the Qiaoshang commune in " marl" we "got only indirect evidence,
New Rhythms tells of the existence of
Fangxian county arid her four-year-old " such as hair, footprints and samples of
a creature "monkey-like, yet not a

by Yuan Zheaxin allid

A"

Pursuit 142

Fail 19.

excrement, and taped interviews with

YUAN ZHENXIN
many people who claimed personally to
have seen a "wild man."
Nevertheless we felt that the veil of
mystery and legend surrounding "the
matter was beginning'to lift a little.
Let us take a brief look at some of
the data collected.
HAIR: Sa!11ples of hair brought back
to Beijing and analyzed 'by several research departments were found to differ
greatly in nature and shape from that of,
the brown or black bear, but resembled,
that of primates. This discounted the
theory that it might have been a bear '
Gong Yulan had seen.
Could it have been some sort of primate? Investigations revealed four
members of the monkey family living in
the Shennongjia forests. But all of these
were smaller in size and quite different
in appearance from the creature de ,,: ,,-Arf.inii'istigator briefs schoolchildren on the "wild man. "
scribed by Gong Yulan. Thus' hair anal.'.1.'.
i
ysis in itself was inconclusive.
Atig,ll:st '3,0'; J:977: ~t ~-,pl,~q: c~lled Tielu
Pang Gensheng, a 33-year-old. team
FOOTPRINTS: The question has been
leader in the Cuifeng commune in ShaGQlly at .the Panshui' cominune in the
asked: Did you definitely see footprints
anxi's Zhouzhi count.y told them:
ShenI).?i1gj~a i~r~stlegiOrl.. lnvestigators
of the "wild man?" This requires more
"In.early June 1977 I went to Dadi
hac:t been told p.r," ~wild ,rpan~' footprints
than a straight "yes" or "no" answer.
there and followed tfiem, Ai: ,one spot it
Gully to cut logs. Somewhere between
In those two years we came across a
had,dug insect cocoons out of the bark
11 and 12 in ,the' morning I ran into ;!
great many footprints of bears and'
'hairy
man' in the gUlly. It came closer
~f
birch,
tr~~s,
pre~uriIlJbly.
to
eat
them
..
other creatures large and small. Among
Further along; on '. 'a hill slope and in
and closer. I got scared and kept rethem were a number of highly peculiar
a cave, excrement ~a:~ found containing
treating until my back was against a
ones, similar to, yet unlike those of
stone cliff and I couldn't go any further .
either be~rs or men. A report written on large amounts 'of cocoon skin.
The hairy man came up to seven or
. These
findings"in~'6oth
i~tances
exthe spot by investigators describes them
.
i ' ,.. I,"
.
clude .the pos,sibility. of the excrement
eight feet, and then to about five feet
thus:
from me. I raised my axe, ready to fight
being. that of. hi.J~~~..as w~ know them
1. The prints are of an, elongated
or'
of
a,
car~v~rQus
creature.
On
the
for my life. We stood 'like' that, neither
foot, wider (approximately 10 centiof us moving for more than an hour.
other hand, in e,ach case both the quanmeters) in front and narrower (approxtity Of the droppings' aQd the size of
Then I groped for a stone and threw it
imately 5 cm.) at the back:
remnant fooc,l parti~les, were smaller
at him. It hit him in the chest. He uttered
2. Toe marks are oval in shape, with
several howls and rubbed the spot with
than ,t~at of ~Q9f~ ,~rum.a~s or bears.
one somewhat separated from the others.
. his left hand. Then he turned left and
On t~e ,,:qole, the s~ple~'1?Qre a.strong
3. The, 'footprints follow each other
resemblance
to the. excreta
of the:omnileaned against a tree, then walke~ away
in single file: the distance between them
:: ...
I J .'
."
.,
slowly toward the bottom of the gully.
vor~us p~lIt:la~~, _,.,. ~;.
varying between 50 cm. and one meter.
He kept making a mumbling sound.
EXCREMENT: In September 1976 six
"He was about seven feet tall, with
little piles of excreta were discovered on
Some idea of the '/'Wild men" can be
shoulders wider than a man's, a sloping
obtained from interviews with eyewittop of a steep rock halfway up a mounforehead, deep-set eyes, and a bulbous
nesses., We . amassed .hundreds of thoutain in the Hogta commune in Fangnose
with slightly upturned nostrils.
xian county. During the period before
sands of words 9f these~'.Unfortunately,
.
He
had
sunken cheeks, ears like a man's
and after this find there were four rethe photographe.r:s' .from the Beijing
but bigger, and round eyes also bigger
ports of signs of "wild man" activity in
Scientific and Educational,Films Studio
than a man's. His jaw jutted out and
this area. On three occasions-in March,
who spent a,: year 'andY'.aihaif trudging
he
had protruding lips. His front teeth
through the for~sts .witb. us never caught
May and July 1976-these involved a
were as broad. as a horse's. His eyes
female and its child. A single adult was
sight-ora ,"wild J;Ilan .. ~!. ',_ . .'
were black. His hair was dark 'brown
seen in November of the same year.
A more-or-less typical, description is
an.d more than a foot long, and hung
The excrement, already dry and hard,
this ol)~t~kelJ. .from a:statement by:Wu
loosely over his shoulders. His whole
"!~ similar in appearance to that of
Jiaya~ ~nd Niu::.~yoOg of _the Shaanxi
face, except for the nose and ears, was
Bioiogical Resource& --Investigation
human beings. Analysis found bits of
covered with short hairs. His arms hung
Team in Octobet: 1977, on the reported
undigested fruit skins and wild chestdown'to below his knees. He had big
nuts, but no animal fur or bone fragdiscovery' of a. ~'hairy man"-as the
,hands with fingers about half a foot
ments.
'
creature is known locally in the' Taibai
IJlOullt~n$, in cf;:ntraLShaanxi. province.
Another such discovery occurred on
. A Chinese root is 33 em.

FaD 1980

Pursuit 143

,
..... ' .....'!f
::: . ~:':'

Searching for hairs (Ie/t), and a "wild man" footprint as outlined by an investigator..

long and with thumbs only slightly separated from the fingers. He didn't have
any tail, and the hair on hJs body was
short. He had thick thighs, shorter than
the lower part of his leg. He walked upright with his legs apart. His feet were
each about a foot long and half t!tat
broad-broader in front and narrow
behind, with splayed toes. He was a
male. That much I saw clearly."
Ancient literature on the subject of
the "wild man" limited itself to accounts
and descriptions, and made no attempt
"to look into the whys and wherefores.
Today, there are two main lines of
conjecture on the origin of the purported "wild man." Oile holds that he
is a "hairy man"-an atavistic throwback of the human race; the other that
he is a descendant of the great ape,

Gigantopithecus.
Are the "wild men" genetic throwbacks-individuals born with a lot of
hair who have been discriminated against
and rejected by society, and forced to
seek .an existence in the wilds? Recent
descriptions of children and adults born
with exceptional amounts of facial and
body hair, a feature often accompanied
by longer arms than average, might
seem to support this supposition.
Are the "wild men" descendants of
Gigantopithecus, th.e gigantic prehominid or man-like ape that inhabited .the
earth long ago, but had been considered
extinct? The earliest and most recent
records of these great apes in China are
all in Guangxi, further to the .south. But
somewhere between the latter part of
the Early Pleistocene Epoch (700-800,000 years ago) and Middle Pleistocene
(500-600,000 years ago) they also existed in the vicinity of Hubei's Jianshi
county, southwest of Shennongjia in
the same mountain chain. Gigantopith-

Pursuit 144

ecus bones have been found among fos- _

silized bones used in traditional Chinese.
medicine and bought from local peasants by government trading companies
in Hubei's .Badong and Xingshan regions, although there is no way of ascertaining the exact period to which they
belong.
..
On the basis. of studies in compar.ative
anatomy, the paleoanthropologist Prof.
Wu Ru~ang says, "Proceeding from
available data, we can only say in general terms that Gigantopithecus had
large, massive bones and a huge and
powerful torso, although his limbs were
only slightly longer and sturdier than .
man's. He was probably as tall as,.or
slightly. taller t;han modern man."
This description is similar to eyewitness descriptions of the "wild man "
which tell of a semi-ape, semi-human
being that escapes classification.
What about the theory that Gigantopithecus has long been extinct? This
may not necessarily be so. The Giant
Panda, a species known to have existed
side by side with the great ape f~r .several rilillion years, is still very much, alive .
today. Many relic plants, all living fossils, still grow in the Quinling-Bashan~
Shennongjia. region. The metasequoia,
the dove tree and the Chinese tulip tree,
for instance, are rare species surviving
from the Tertiary Period. The fact that
they exist shows that this region, unlike
other middle-latitude regions, did 'not.
undergo a total eradication of its aricient flora since the Tertiary Period.
This is because the glaciers of the Quaternary Period (the last geological era)
were, in this region, of the vaIley type
and did not greatly affect the flora and
fauna. So Gigantopithecus, too, might
have survived.
At both low and high a1,titudes, the

region provides an excellent ecological

environment for its rich and varied
mammalian species, such as serows,
musk deer, river deer, several types of
muntjac, masked civets, ferrets and
porcupines. Such rare animals. as the
takin, the golden monkey and the Giant
Panda live and multiply here. Also here
is a white-colored bear, which may.be
either an individual variation or a new
species.
The centuries-old "wild man" riddle
rem~ins unsolved. Like the Loch Ness
investigators who have not yet found
their monster, we still do not have suf. ticient evidence to prove-or disprovethe existence of "wild men" in the primeVal forests of China's tem~rate and
subtropical regions. But science has
been challenged, and we have taken up
the challenge.
Rubbing from a Han dynasty lomb portrays what may have been a "wild man"
sighted between 206 B.C. and A.D. 220.

Two Experiences of the Third Kind

-iFamily of Three Taken Aboard

UFO in Mexican Desert
The following statement of a UFO experience wa~ made in June 1979 to Dr. Leo Sprinkle, Director
of Counseling Services at the University of Wyoming; Laramie, Wyoming. The statement was first published in Proceedings of the Rocky Mountain Contactee Conference, privately printed by Dr. Sprinkle.
Reprinted by permission.

by Mr. Anonymous
NUCLEAR blast will destroy an American city in six
A years
(in 1980). This message may have been given to me
by the commander of a UFO during the night of February 4,
1974, in a remote area of the Sonora desert in Old Mexico.
On an unusual map he pointed to a location in another part
of the world where a battle or other event would .precipitate
the catastrophe.
Was this warning fact, or was it my imagination? Were my
wife, my son and I actually taken aboard a UFO that night in
1974, or did my son and I create for ourselves the story?
I have asked myself this question countless times.
I f it was all imagination, two actual events remain unexplained. One event, strange and unna.tural, happened that
night in the desert, witnessed by all three of us. The other eveht,
which would have been natural a few days earlier or later,
occurred out-of-time the following day.
In February, 1974, my wife, our 13-year-old son and I
decided to visit a primitive Seri Indian village called EI Desemboque which huddles in the sand on the Gulf of California
in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora.
The normal way to reach the village would be to make
a day-long drive south from the border, at Nogales, Arizona,
to Kino Bay, then drive o.ver a rough dirt road north along
the coast for another sixty miles. Instead, we decided to leave
the highway at Caborca and drive southwest across the desert
until we reached the seacoast, following primitive roads occasionally used by Mexican cattle ranchers. The trip would require about 150 miles of back-count~y driving. The truck was
equipped with extra gas tanks and tires for desert travel, and
we were used to exploring the back country in Sonori!-.
Nightfall fourid us in an extremely remote region of the
desert, separated from the seacoast by a low range of mountains. The last ranch we had passed was more than thirty miles
away. At the foot of a rocky hill we cooked supper over a
campfire, listened to the coyotes for awhile, then the three of
us squeezed into the topper on the back of the pickup to sleep.
Approximately two hours after sunaown we were jolted
awake by beeping noises that sounded electronic. The noises
were clear and sharp, about one second apart. I thought disgustedly that I had forgotten to turn off the truck AM or CB
radios. I checked. Both radios.were off. We looked out of the
windows to locate the source of the noise. The night was clear
and moonlit, but because of heavy desert brush we could see
only forty or fifty feet. The beeping continued.
In northern Mexico there are several communication relay

FaD19.

stations on mountaintops. I next thought that we must be

closer to civilization than we had supposed, and that a relay
station must be on the hill next to our camp. I went to sleep.
Whenever I awakened during the night-and I have no idea
when that could have been-I heard the steady beeping noise.
Next morning my son and '1. climbed the rocky hill-no
relay station to be seen. We could see miles in all directions
across the flat desert floor. No ranches. No Indian camps. No
power lines. No roads other than the two ruts we had been
following.
As we sat around the campfire eating breakfast, my wife
said she felt we had been visited by a UFO. Later that morning, suddenly and unexpectedly, her monthly period began.
Five and a half years passed. We sometimes wondered
about the strange events of that night in the desert. But how
does one find the answers to this type of question? Had we
been visited by a UFO? We heard about Dr. Sprinkle, a leading UFO investigator. I wrote to him at the University of
Wyoming. "Ever hear about beeping noises in connection
with UFOs?"
"Come see me, " he replied.
On June I, 1979, my wife, my son and I sat in Dr. Sprinkle's
office at the university while he led us repeatedly by regressive
hypnosis through the events that happened during the night of
February 4, 1974.

I am in my sleeping bag in the back of the pickup truck

with my wife and son. I sense hysteria by all of us, yet none
of us is prone to hysteria. Four or five figures about four feet
tall and dressed in space suits with helmets are walking around
the rear of the truck. One of the figur.es places his face against
the right -side window. The face has slanted eyes.
BLOCKED OUT.

There is a blinding white light in front of, and a little above

me. I am st~nding in the desert. Someone is at each elbow.
BLOCKED OUT.

I am underneath the UFO. It is huge. The body of the

craft is at least 15 feet above the ground, the bottom curved.
Four legs arch down ana support the craft. I feel that the
blipding light is behind me, probably 01) the perimeter of the
craft. Something is still at each elbow, guiding me. A stairway
extends from the belly of the craft to the ground. We walk
toward it.
BLOCKED OUT.

I am inside the craft, walking up a curving stairway. I have

been in the craft for some time. For the first time I experience
color: Everything is light blue. Also for the first time I have
lost my fea(. I neither fear for myself, nor for my wife or son

Pu...uitl45

who are not with ~e. I must eX'plain the blue. Everything is
made of a material that is solid, but which is somewhat translucent.
BLOCKED OUT.

I am standing in a room. Everything is still blue. To,my

right the structural ribs of the craft come out of the floor at
the wall and arch overhead. In the wall is a rectangle of very
dark blue, about two feet by three ftet. I think it is a stare'
map as I can see many yellow dots on it. By my left side, is' ,
a desk attached to a vertical wall. There is a structural beam':
(vertical) in this wall at one end of the,desk. Before me is,the
fuzzy outline of a man about my size. I feel ,that he is tfie
commander of the craft. I have no fear of this man: I think-of
my wife and son, but also have no fear for them. I am quite'
content to be here. I remember being curious about the ,sta'r~ i
map and try to memorize it, but it ,becomes a'blur. The com:,'
mander gives me a message. He doesn't actually speak to:me;';
but I know what he is saying. The picture he gives me mentally,. ,
is in definite black and white. It is' the skyline of. a'large city
with skyscrapers. The skyscrapers are all black. Behind,them:.
the sky is a brilliant white. I think, no, I know it is an ,a\omic'';explosion. I think the place is New York, but I am -no~ sure!;.
The picture is a warning..
,
There is another message. The figure tells me that .my wife
and I are handling our chore,correctly . .I think he means ,about
building the cabin and storing food there. :
' ': ,~:,
BLOCKED OUT,

"

I am again, or still, in the cabin with the commander. Again

I am studying the star-map an'd trying' to remember it., Ali'
I can remember are three stars to the left of the map with
tails trailing behind them. The commander tells me to forg~t
the map. That is not why I am here.
BLOCKED OUT.

.. .
~

, Again, Qr still, in the room. This time the commander

points ~o 'a map on the desk beside me. I feel that it has been
the,re all the time and if I hadn't been looking at the star-map
I would' have noticed it. The map on the table is one of the
reasons for me being here. The commander is now beside me.
We are'leaning over the 'desk, studying the map. He is now
less, fu.zzy. H~ is wearing tight, red pants. The rest of him is
sti,1 unclear. I reCognize the region of the map. 't is the eastern
Mediterranean area. There are two regions on the map that
impress me: the Fertile Crescent and north of the Black Sea.
I ino}\, it is one map, but the area between these two points is
cloudy. The ma'p is strange because as I look at it one time jt
is ,very detailed, whh the names of each city, village and moun~
taln range and is'in coior. As I look at it again, it is very plain
with' :o'nly: the' ~ertile Crescent and the Black Sea outlined. It' :\S, a~ ,tho,ugh, ,these are the .important PQints he wants me
to see. At the extreme top of the Fertile Crescent is an "X."
"I:he. commarider' tells me that an important battle will be
fought there. I 'am surprised because I think the next battle in
that region :would be fought on one of the borders of Israel.
This, baitl~ 'wil.1 trigger a later battle or catastrophe, When
the first'battle,occurs, we should prepare,
, , Then, the commander points to an 'area north of the Black
Sea. On a river is' a dot with a dark, circle around .it and the
word "Kiev." The commander tells me that this is by far the
mpst dangerous pl!l~' 'i picture rockets coming from there,
biJt tt,at ma,.y ~ot be the true picture. I also picture, assassinati~n. Th,e cp~mander says that bad things are happening in '
Kiev and I must stop them. I tell him that I know nothing of
Russia ,and have absoli.\telY,no control over what happens
ther'e, He becomeS somewhat irritated with me and sayS that
if the bad' things are not stopped a catastrophe (war?) will
occur. I ask him when this will- happen. He replies it will happe,n in six years (in 1980).
'

"~2-'''':
Pennsylvania Woinan,Healed
By Alien'PraCtitioner :'
The story of a young Pen~sYlv~nia' ~an ~~d' his wif~ !allegedly :~bd.ucted aboard a,UFO in April 1975
remained untold until March of this year: when,the,eouple agreed ~o,b.e interviewed at their,home by investigative reporter E. Macer-Story: After recording the interview,on tape, Ms. Macer-Story herself made the
transcript and added, an introduction! a summary and an experience of her own to complete the following
arti~le. In September this editor heard the tape replayed and' found the transcript to be generally accurate.
Only the subjects' names have been changed to protect them against possible harassment at home or at work.
Since neither the reporter nor the editor, nor anyone, is in a position to verify what "Frank and Alice, Johnson"
say happened to them, the report is presented to our readers a$ 'it came to us-with a choice among many
degrees of belief'and doubt. -F.S.W.

by Eugenia MaceMitoiy
Copyright 1980 by E, Ma<;er-Story
All fights reserved
,

'

the female human was taken to an examinipg room where

she 'was put under fluoroscope-like equipment and examined
physically. ,~ ;
,During the ceurse: of the examination, the alien practitioner-whe was-female, less than five feet tall and commune
icated'teiepilthically-disccivered th~t the female human had
a congenital malformation of the reproductive mechanism.
The human then asked the alien what was the matter, and the
alien :volunteered to fix the problem after the examination.
I'

';". I

HAVE visited a Pennsylvania couple who claim to have

been floated from their bed to a UFO craft. Once inside
a'circular entrance chamber, they'were separated. The male
human was taken to a diversionary room where he was chatted
with telepathically about fossil fuels and star locatiol1s', ,whne "

:'

'

"

'

FaU19. .
__________________________________

~I

------------r--

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. '_ _ _

Subsequent to this medical procedure-which involved use of

an instrument generating an energy probe, rather than surgery
or physical entry of the body-the female human was functionally cured of her reproductive disorder and she was able
to bear a child. Human doctors had told her that she could
not have children.
If this story is true, it is obvious that alien. beings. know'
more about the human reproductive sys~em than we do. It is
apparent that quite a few UFO abduction cases have involved
both physical examination and sexual molestation of the
humans selected for this kind of stuay. Perhaps it is becauseas Wilhelm Reich intuited*-sexual activity and canception
do involve the transmission of life-sustaining' energies from
one dimension to another. If the soul does enter the body as
part of the reproductive process, conception is a rudimentary
form of interdimensional travel. However. at this stage of
human cultural development sexual behavior and childbirth
are still very personal physiological matters which are often
'
embarrassing to discuss in public.
Frank and Alice Johnson did not contact a UFO organization to report their experience. I was told of their abduction
by a person who happened to attend one of my UFO lectures
in Boston. At that time the Johnsons had no telephone. so
I traveled to a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania to interview
them about their contact with alien beings.
I found the Johnsons to be an enthusiastic, new-age couple
with a healthy, impish three-year-old child. Although Frank
had put out on his bar some pamphlets on ECKANKAR: The Science oj Soul Travel, I noticed no ostentatiou.s display of UFO
paraphernalia. However, both Frank, and Alice had- been
interested in ESP and the supernatural for some time before
their UFO contact, and Frank had decided to try to communicate with UFOs telepathically. .
'
.
It is interesting that UFO beings did not communicate with
him directly on his first try, but manifested at first ,as lightformations over a mountain near the Johnsons' cottage. Despite a lot of talk in UFO publications about the negative
effects of interdimensional contact, there continue to be numerous reports of positive ex~riences with UFO beings.
Both Frank and Alice seemed to be ha'ppy to recall their
experience and mentioned no ill effects from the abduction,
although the memory of the event had receded somewhat in
the five years since it happened.
'
I interviewed the Johnsons separately, and the following
conversations are taken from a tape of the interviews.
FRANK: It was in the year 1975. I was seeing lights at least
once or twice a week over the highest peaks near Mt. J ___ .
The lights traveled directly from north to south and east to
west or the reverse of these directions; they didn't. seem to
want to travel within the valleys. I very much wanted to make
contact. I was very much into astronomy at that time, and
studying the constellations. I kept trying to make contact by
flashlight every time I'd see a UFO in the sky. "If you want, to
find a UFO, you must go out and observe the sky. Don't take
anything in the sky for granted, if you have an interest in
UFOs.
EUGENIA: Would you describe the actual contact you ex~
perienced? I am particularly interested in know"ing whether
you traveled "out of your body" during this experience.
FRANK: After I had actually boarded the spaceCraft, I loSt
interest. The drive that I had, to leave this earthly plane be The Function o/the Orgasm, by Wilhelm Reich, Farrar. Straus & Giroux .
New York, 1961,
'

cause I was so depressed, had changed. I think it was an outof-body experience, but I'm not completely sure. Both of us
remember being floated into the spaceship. I have friends
who have had out-of-body contact, but in our case we were
definitely floated up toward the entrance to the ship.
EUGENIA: Previous to being floated into the spacecraft,
how did the beings make contact with'you? Were you outside,
or did they come inside your cottage? What did they look
like, and did you notice any unusual physical effects or lights
before your experience?
,FRANK: I think we were in bed, just about falling asleep.
, All of a sudden we were compelled to go outside. It was very
calm. I had wanted to make contact, and I wasn't at all nervous. We saw a round, luminous object up near the electric
light pole, and then we just felt like we were SUCKed into it.
We entered up into this chamber, and there was no one in the.
chamber at first. It was circular and we were floating, bobbing in midair. Suddenly, doors opened and beings in suits
came out. They had eyes, nose and ears, .but nO.t as much of
a mouth as ours. They were bluish-silvery. There was a female.
She grabbed Alice and took her into another area. This was
all telepathic. There was no mouth action; it was all through
the mind. Alice jus~ knew to follow this person. She knew
~here she should go with her mind, and I stayed behind with
the men. There were two men. TheY'showed me some star
tracks and about the universe, and how much more there is
beyond us.
.
EUGENIA: What do you remember about the staF tracks
that you saw? Even something which might seem strange to
you. Can you describe what was 'Qn the charts?
FRANK: There were three charts on the wall. Once we started
talking, others started' gathering. I guess these were the crew.
I told them I was studying astronomy. On the charts, I did
recognize the Milky Way in the midpoint range of the stars,
and I pointed that out. Then they showed me another star
.. region. aut the captain, the o!1e in charge', he wasn't really
concerned with 'the sta{s. He was just concerned with trying
to enlighten me. He told me that there's more beyond the star
, regions in'this physical dimension than I could imagine, and
that's when my consciousness, my awareness, became expanded. There are other dimensions: physical dimensions,
not just this one physical dimension. They used this kind of
subtlety. and it was' very interesting.
EUGENIA: Do they have notations on their charts, similar
'to our designations of north, south, east and west, which
would indicate a navigational shift into other dimensions?
FRANK: I really don't think so. I think they just showed the
charts and I pointed out the center .of the galaxy where we
were, and they said "very good." They never pointed out any
charts on other dimensions. I picked up telepathically that
there are other dimensions. It came to me that I was locked
into this three-dimensional mode of thought about escaping
to other planets via flying saucers, which is wrong. There are
other dimensions. These beings, I think, cO!11e from another
sub-level dimension attached to what we call the "astral"
plane. After that encounter, my whole concept of the universe'changed, and that's all they wanted to do, really: to enlighten me and expand my awareness.
* * *
From about the time she was nine years old Alice Johnson
had suffered from a negative reproductive condition she called
"bleeding' ovaries." Symptoms were very painful cramps and

."
FaD 1980

Pursuit 147

unusual menstrual bleeding. Doctors had told her that it would

be inadvisable for her to try to have children ..
Shortly after her session aboard the UFO Alice visited a
Planned Parenthood clinic. The doctor who examined her
said that she was perfectly normal-so normal; in fact; that '
he asked an intern to examine her so that he would"know
~
what a normal reproductive system was like; the doctor com-' , '
mented that it was unusual for a woman, who consulted a
,
Planned Parenthood clinic to be in such good s~pe.,
After her medical treatment aboard the UFO craft,' Alice
was healed of her chronic ovary problem and haS Ii daughter',
Nadja, three years old at the time of our interview. Nadja is
living proof that something very unusual hap~ned io Alice, '
Whether she and Frank traveled out of their bOdies or were in
fact levitated into an interdimensional craft, the fact remains '
that Alice was certifiably barren and could not have successfully conceived and carried a child to term before this incident.

EUGENIA:

Can you describe what happened aboard the'

UFO?
ALICE: This particular night we were asleep in bed; and ,
suddenly I felt as if I was sitting up. The room was luminous.
I thought at first it was the moon shining 'through the,sky~
light. Then it seemed 'very luminous, and Frank was' sitting
beside me, and then we were up out of bed, facing the door.
I could see through
the door the shadow ofI a figure about six
,
feet tall. Then, the door was open and we were out 'on the'
porch. The ground was very white, like snow, and on 'the
road through the trees I ,could see a vehicle of SOme sort,
about the size of an average car:)'hey were picking'up samples
of rocks and stuff and putting them in containers. Then, we
saw a light UP over the side of the house. We were lifted and
somehow floating. I couldn't feel the sensation of somebody
pulling me up under the arms, but I just felt very light. As we
~ere 'app'roaching the bottom of the' craft, a drcle of light
seemed to open. I knew we were going in there, and once we
were inside we just sort of floated there in this little: room,
bobbing around in the air. I don't knowiif we were being
decontaminated, or what. We, didn't say anything. I was half
asleep.
.
\
Then the partition opened and two men and girl came
into the room. She motioned to me to follow her. I went
down a curved hall, following her. It was curved at the top'
and the walls were luminous panels. These panels lit up for us '
automatically as we went past. I got a good look at her silveryblue suit as we went down the hall. They were all wearing the'
same sort of suit. There were bulb-like things over her eyes, '
rounded at the tOp and somewhat rounded at the bottom,
and I figured itmust be something te? protect the ,vision. She
knew I was looking her over, and I got the idea she thought
that was funny. She had small 'spots for ,the nasal area: The
nose wasn't as pronounced as ours at 'the bottom. it didn't
have as much cartilage.
,
I couldn't see if there was hair underneath the suit. The
blue fabric covered the head except for the face. There was
a thin line down the back of her head that went all' th~ ,way
down the back of the suit and I assumed that was the opening;
She had a bosom; and she was a IJttie taller than me~ but I'm
not v!!ry tall. It was definitelY,a woman. I remel'Jlber thinking:
they're not that much different. They jUst didn't have a mouth;
The chin was pronounced. TheY have longer faces 'than' we,
do. I think the suit,was to protect them, but not with all the
gadgetry that we_have.

Pursulll48

The room'we entered didn't look much different than one

of our medical clinics. The style of the equipment was similar.
,She had a desk, which she later used to fill out papers. When
I was in the service I worked as a blood technician, so I know
that the setup was similar. I don't remember whether we had
our clothes on or'hot. We often slept in the nude, and I don't
remember putting clothes on when we left 'the house. She
lifted her hand 'and I was' just lifted up and set on the table.
I felt her telling me telepathically that it was all right, that she
'was not going to hurt me. She brought an instrument with
a light on it down toward me, and began to run the light over
my body. As she was running the light over me, I realized she
was checking this on a wall panel. I looked up at the wall and '
I could see the ridges around my skull, the outlin~ of my head
~d the shape of my brain and then-as she moved the light'
down-my tongue when I swallowed. This waS all projected
in blues and purples, and I thought: Wow, that's fabulous!
, As she went further down, I could see my lungs taking in the ,
air, and my heart pumping. The deeper blue of the blood was
going down the aorta, and I thought: this must be done by'
some, sort of heat process. She responded to that thought., '
She told me telepathically: yes, something like heat radiation. .
Her reply had an emotion to it.
,
, As the light moved dow'n still further I saw my stomach
partially full, and then she went down over the intestines and ' ' ,
into the genital area, and when she got there I ~ouldn't help
thinking: I wonder what's wr<:>ng with my ovaries. Although
it was a strange situation, I just couldn't help but feel curious.
She heard my question telepathically and stopped for a min\,Ite to question exactly what I meant, and then she told me" '
that the problem could be fixed easily.
She told me to wait until she' had finished, and then she
went over my legs with the light, as I was thinking: I wish she
could fix it. We kid around now-that I should also have asked
her to fix my sinus' condition while I had the opportunity.
When she fini~hed with the light, she filled ,out papers and
forms at the desk, llnd then she brought over a rack with several instruments hanging on it. It looked like a cross between
the kind of rack used to hang containers 'of blood in a hospital, and the rack used for drill-bits in a dentist's office. There
were, several drill-like attachments hanging on it. After she'
had brought over this rack,' she brought a box with dials.
She attached one of the drill-like instruments ,to the box, and
tested it against a sheet of something which looked like thick
paper. She moved this, instrum!!nt over my, ovaries, about six
inches'away from my body, but I could feel the sensation in-.
side; I felt a tingling' inside my abdomen for several days
afterward. She started above one of the ovaries, and it stung.
She immediately apologized and then the radiation didn't
seem to be as strong: This adjustment happened qUiCkly.
AHer that, she seemed to trace what I thought was the Fallopian tubes, and then the cervical area. When she moved up to
the ovary on: the other side" she used a different attachment
that seemed smaller. She used this smaller en~rgy probe only
in one particular area. f'm guessing at exactly what happened
si~ce the instrument was outside my body, so I was gauging it
by the approximate location of her movements.
just'
, Afterwards, she told me telepathically: That's it. It
like a visit to the doctor. She put some more notes down, and.' "
then helPed me off t-he table. I felt funny wJten I sat up because I was tingling. It wasn't painful' at all, but I could feel
a strong tingling in my abdominal area. After she helped me
off "the table, I, followed her dow~ the hall. She was carrying

was

FaD 1 _ ~.,"

papers. Part way down the hall, a man came around the curve
traveling in the opposite direction and they commu.nicated
telepathically on a personal level. I remember thinking: that
must be her lover.
.
After that we stepped into what seemed to be an elevator.
She touched the wall, and a panel slid open . .It was bright .. ,
inside, but I couldn't see lights. It seemed that the walls them- .
selves were lit. It was big enough to hold two or three people .. .
at the most. Once we were closed inside this small chamber, .. .
we must have moved. After a few seconds the wall on the ..
opposite side of the room opened and we entered anoth~r: .
hall. I could hear her talking telepathically with some other ,.
people, and then we walked into a room where five or six o( "
the alien men were standing around Frank, casually talking ...
telepathically. They were questioning him, and he was talking .:
about fu~l. They asked what sort of fuel we used for ca~s, and ... \
before he could answer one of them just picked it up ouf.of .,:
his mind and said "fossil fuel: decomposed animal matter." :
This was all telepathic.
, . ::.
I remember thinking how wonderful it felt to be 'able to .
talk with my mind. We got into a real conversation witI:\ t~.c: .. ,:
aliens. Frank was asking questions about pollution ar;td eco-.,;:
logical balance, and they really surprised us by saying ."have..
faith in people. Human beings arefarther advanced than you
think. At least, you are aware. There are others who are as. ::
aware as you are. Pollution will be corrected. "They weT(~ not.. ::
saying this verbally. I have to stress that they always com-.. :
municated telepathically and we could hear the words in: our. r
minds. One of them had a religious attitude, lik.e a priest .. , ..
He stood over by a platform with steps, and behind him were . i
big panels showing star systems. I felt ashamed because I didn't .....
know for sure which galaxy was the Milky Way. There were
three stars off to the bottom of th~ panels, and i had the idea
that might be their home base. I wasn't sure what I saw.
EUGENIA: Could you draw what you saw?
ALICE: Just three dots. The map was black and white, with
moving things tracking across it. Like a living map. It looked '..
quite simple. I can't remember everything that happened, but
I do remember the console. It was about the size of our television Set. There were lights on it, and .one light blinked. He
went over and checked his desk, and touched something and
it stopped blinking.
EUGENIA: Did they give you anything?
ALICE: No, not me. But what happened to him I didn't
know. It was terrible. I almost didn't remember an),- ,.....:
thing.

.':
One significant detail which is omitted from both Frank's ,...
Alice's spontaneous recollection of their experience is .'.
return to the cottage in which they had been sleeping. . ~
Appar,entlly they both woke up the next day as usual, each "
...., ..... ,""6 that the experience had been a dream. Alice rememexperience as reality before Frank was willing t~
nUlII...., .... the possibility. After a brief separation, during
"
Frank was studying various systems of consciousness- . "
he became aware that Alice's insistence that their '.'
.actually have taken place was not just simple .'.'
"lrnalpnla[l()n. ' The reality of the incident was further vali~ :',
by Alice's pregnancy. She was several months pregnant:.
it occurred to her that the problems she was ex~~ J r:\
were anything other than some new aspect of her pre- ..
gynecological difficulties.
ALICE:

When I was eight months pregnant I had a 4S:minute . ::,

lapse of-consciousness that I couldn't explain, and after that,

I knew that the baby Was going to be normal and healthy.
~UGENIA: Do you think that the time lapse was caused by
a U.FO presence?
ALICE:. I think so. The last thing I remember seeing was the
light- bobbing through the venetian blinds out back. I thought
it w.a,s,3, helicopter and that I was seeing things. The theme for
"~anf~rd and Son" was coming on the TV. The next thing
I knew, I was'in the kitchen and the light was on in the room.
I w~;facing my living room, right in front of the refrigerator.
I r~m,ember thinking: w,hat the heck? "Chico and the Man"
wa,s 0Jl."tbe TV. and 4S minutes had elapsed since I saw the
Iig~~pu~ tpe;wip.90w. Just like going under anesthesia.
~fte!: .th~t h~ppene<!.; I knew she was going to be normal
an~l!l1eal~hy. }. wasn't fearfullik.e.I was before. I had been
wOlJj~.:th~t ~his.. all; would. build me up to a miscarriage.
I kn~ ,it.. was going to be a girl. I knew that telepathically, bu(
I can't remember any details like I do from the examination.
I.told them I was going to remember. They said I would not
rerii~inb~r:! but: I toid them that if there was any way to rem~9.er ...tlJ~Y, would not be a\>le to block. me. I think they
triea f?~p~t !t~~s suggestion that I would nouemember into
mY: riiinq: telepathically. I didn~t remember in any ordinary
wa~,.)~d~, in't.ti~bath with my mind blank, or cooking, just
thinking O:f~o~hlng,'and I'd get a flash of memory. Gradually
th~e' o.~s~s.
:l:!eg~n to tie in together, and I knew that I
w~ij~(~*nii,c!ii~ti!1g.J. kept getting pieces of the same images,
like.".~~al:" Qleitipiy:
..

all

"

""

Neither Frank nor Alice has been under hypnosis. The recaltsession taped at their home was done in response to ordi. nary quesiioning.
Oddly, the night before I was to begin transcribing the tape
of this interview I had a very unusual experience myself. I was
sitting. in the kitchen at abo~t 10:30 p.m. when I saw a green
flash 9f light on the wall. lwent into the living room to phone
a friend who researches UFOs and has also experienced flashes
. of light in my vicinity. As I was dialing his number, large
sha,dowy squares and frames of light appeared in the room
and the wall opposite me seemed to pulse purplish-blue, then .
yellow. This lasted about ten minutes, like a display of firewOl;:k:s,'and ~uring this time I also saw a smoky form near the
kitchen door.
After;.this. incident I was unable to sleep normally, and
finally-lost. consciousness at about 3 a.m. When I awoke to
the. alarm at 6:3.0 I.felt.perfectly all right, euphoric, not tired
at alil1 also had the clear idea that my tape recorder"7"which
has.b.een on the blink-was fixed and that I would be able to
use .it instead of 'having to buy a new one. I had planned to
buy,a,recorder on the way to work, but decided instead to test
the:perception by first examining the old recorder. Much ''to
my'astonishment, it worked; both sound and tape-speed were
normal.
I do not jump to the conclusion that UFOs are so interested
in my" psyctlical reporting t.hat they' take the trouble to repwr
-my equipment, but on the' other hand, I cannot dismiss the
incident as meaningless; As an investigator, it seems that I have
at tu.nes;acted,as: a :~'Iightning rod" to attract unusual PK
eve~ts'simill;lI'ltOithoseI was describing. A faulty machine was
"h@led3 '. in response to my need for assistance. However,
this, ,is, no guaranty that UFO and PK phenomena are generat~ by "the same sort o(interdimensional entities. Watch
out for prankster spirits! ~

........ 149

Kivas: Inverted Pyramids

And Observatories
by Dr. Ronald P. ~anI
OST PEOPLE have heard of Stonehenge in engM
land. Many experts now agree that it was an
observatory. There are similar structures elsewhere in
England. and in Ireland and France. In America stonehenge-like structures are found in New England, particularly in New Hampshire and Vermont. The Mayans
of Mesoamerica' were 'quite skiDed in' astronomy and . .
knew how to orient temples and buildings to determine
equinoxes; a system of rocks arranged in circular fashion, as at Stonehenge, guided their observati(:m~. In
Peru it has been noted that the Incas, or pre-Incas, had
similar structures, made of wood instead of stone. But
. few people know of the kivas the American Indians
built in the Southwest.
The "kiva belt" extends as far north as Kansas. Ac. cording to some experts who have analyzed them as .
....au.. door in a kiva in Chaco Canyon,
Hawkins analyzed Stonehenge, kiv~ were built as perCasa Rinconada. New Mexico.
manent and very accurate observatories. A Hopi friend
.
.
notes that kivas are really inverted pyramids: OriginaJ-ly
endar was developed which was operated /by moving
they were intel)ded' to be I?uilt in two sections-the
markers step-wise from slot to slot.
visible structure above the ground and a counterpart
Each kiva had a different style. Pueblo Bonito and
extending far down into the earth. At some locations
Casa Rinconada each had 34 stations. Experts say that
(for reasons of security, it waS~explained to me) the
28 and 29' of these morutored the moonrises 'and sunupper sections were not built. But the value of the pyrarises per lunar month while other stations monitored
mid-its ability to provide "balancing energies" and
a master cycle. Some investigators support the hypoother attributes important to Amerindians-was prethesis that the Indians" use of kiva-observatories reserved even in a pYramid.turned upside down.
flected the duality evident in other aspeCts of their life.
. The Zuni, like the Hopi, consider the kivas sacred.
.An example is at Casa .Rinconada. where the western
Some tribes used them as the pyraniids of Egypt were
half may have b.een used as a solar calendar and the
used, as temples for the initiation of members into vareastern half as a lunar Calendar.
.
ious clans and for a variety of religibus purposes. So it
. Another important astronomical task apparently
was also with the kivas of Mesoamerica and
assigned to at least one kiva was tracking the "morning
The kivas in the Southwest U.S.A. have been analyzed
star," otherwise known as Venus. At Chetroketl kiva
as Indian observatories. Large kivas, for example, are
a detailed study demonstrated that the 292 days of the
to be seen.at Pueblo Bonito, Chetroketl and Casa Rinaverage interval of :Venus' heliaca1 rising can easily be
conada in ChaCo Canyon, New Mexico, just west of the
"processed" by a combination of "stations."
Continen~ Divide. The kiva at Casa Rinconada is 0
As our Pioneer Venus I continues to circle the cloud .'
approximately' 6S feet across and has two stories above
planet and with costly sophisti.cated equipment maps
ground with a huge T -shaped door at ground leVel. The
a surface we long called "featureless," it's no bad idea
"Tau" s~pe has a s~al religious significance to the.
to take a look-back at the kiva-builderS and many other
Hopi and is found also on the major pyramid in Peru'
ancient peoples who unlocked some of the "secrets" of
. the universe long before we were even thought of..
where, according to the Hopi, it had much the same
significance.
REFERENCES'
Except in North America the 'procedure at "stonehenge-fype" observatories was to move markers proR. Anjard, "When Did Our First Ancestors Come to Amer. gressively outside the structure from site to site, or to
ica?"-Ameriean Mercury. Fall, ]977.
align on markers outside the core. Placing the markers
Gc;rald S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Df!coded, Doubleday, Garoutside th~ main complex seems to have been a prinden City, New York, ]965.
cipal requirement. With the Amerindians the concept
J. Morgan. "Ancient Calendars' Advanced Concepts."....:...
was the same, but the markers 'were in the perimeter
RosicrurcianDigest. October, ]975.
with key windows; the entering light shpne through
slots or holes on the inside surface. A remarkable ca1-

peru.

~ISO

FaD 1'80

Evidence for the StabiHty

Of the Solar System
Since c. 2700 B.C.
by Edgar D. R. Wilson

I I TITHIN the last three decades the orbital stability of the

W planets Venus, Earth and Mars has beenbrought into

question. Recent data gathered from space explorations has

been manipUlated so as to give the appearance of supporting
radical changes in the orbits of our solar system, the most
recent being the suggestion that 10 apparently is a hot, young,
recently formed body orbiting Jupiter. A similar "satellite of
Jupiter" was supposedly the source of the "disturbance" in
orbital continuity.
The problem in dealing with the orbital-disturbance theory
is the near impossibility of proving cataclysmic changes could
not have taken place from the present orbital elements. Ironically, the evidence against the orbital-change theory comes
from a time before the myths supporting it were created.
Considerable evidence now suggest~ that the Egyptians of. the
Old Kingdom not only observed the same heavens as we do;
they apparently set out the results of their observations for all
posterity to see by constructing a model to represent the three
inner planets:. Mercury, Venus, and Earth. By the time in
which this model was built, and if its accuracy is confirmed in
describing the size, positions and orbital velocities of its members, the possibility that major orbital changes took place
after c. 2700 B.C. will be substantially refuted.
In 1950 a theory, suggesting the possibility that Venus
entered the'nner solar system from the orbit of Jupiter causing great damage to Earth and displacing Mars to an outer
orbit, was presented by Immanuel Velikovsky' in the popular
press. Since that tir:ne numerous books and articles have been
written in support of his ideas and calling into question established scientific methodology. Now, after nearly 30 years of
debate, it is possible to show concrete evidence that our solar
system has remained stable during the period of time Velikovsky claims cataclysmic changes took place (between 1600 and
700 B.C.).
.
The evidence showing the orbital stability of our solar
system is found in a group of pyramids known as the Giza
group. The building of the Giza pyramids took place about
4700 years ago, during the 27th century B.C. These pyramids
apparently constitute a model of the three inner planets of
our solar system, representing !\1ercury, Venus and Earth.
The Giza group of pyramids, referred to here as the "Giza
model," will be shown to be a highly sophisticated representation of the solar system, Mercury through Earth inclusive.
The scale of this model was apparently derived from (1) the
universal constant khown as the velocity of light,' and (2) a local constant of distance: the radius of Earth. The designer' of .
the Giza model was able to deduce not only the positions and
volumes of the three inner planets but their orbital velocities
asweU.
It requires 1/47 second for light to travel a distance equal
to Earth's radius. The Giza model was built to a 1147 scal.e

FaD19.

rePresenting the 'orbital v~locities of the planets. The ~ethod

eJ;Ilployed placed the majpr .pyramids 'a meaningful.distance
fr<:>.m a comJ;Ilon datum, :tll~reby r~presenting the orbital
velocit.ies of the planets. Th~ datum position is marked by the
well or pit iiI the Temple'of Chephren (figure I). The known
history of this weU does not explain its OI;iginal purpose, for it
deviates from the standard equipment usually supplied by
the temple-builder~ .of ancien-to Egypt:-;If ;the intention was,
. in part, to hide some object; for futurediscovery, the well has
served that purpose. Howevet,. the .object found in the well
could not have b~n what the' Well was originally designed to
hold,.The object found was a somewhat larger-than-Iife statue of Chephren, evidently lowered into ~he .weU to preserve it
during a time of religious or political upn~val. The question
is not how the statue came to be in the well, but what was the

original purpose.of the .well?

In decoding the Giza model it will be assumed that the
three largest pyramids reresent' the.piane.ts Mercury, Venus
and Earth. Since the noon Sun:is always to the south at the .
latitude of Giza (29 0 59 ' N) it would follow that the pyramids
representing the planets nearest the Sun would be nearest the
southern limit of the model. The arrangement of the Giza
model is such that the pyramids progress from south' to north
obliquely (figure 2), possibly showing the direction of motion
as well as positional relationship. The smallest of the three
major pyramids is farthest south and will be taken as representing Mercury. The largest of the .group is farthest to the
north and will be taken to represent Earth. The planet Venus
is located between Earth and Mercury;therefore, the pyramid
selected to represent Venus is between the largest and smallest
pyramids.
.
.The base area of the.pyramiqrepre&e.nt\ng E;arth, henceforth to be called P e,. can be.compared to the base areas of the
pyramids representing Venus and Mercury, to be designated
P y and Pm respectively. The base area of Pm was changed
during constFuction for some as-yet-undetermined reason.
According to Petrie2 and Edwards] it would be reasonabl~ to
assume that the length of each side of its square base was
doubled. Edwards gives its present base length as 108.661 m.,
making a reasonable estimate of its original size as 54.331 m.
and Pyas 215.722 m. on a side 5 The Survey of Egypt Paper
No. 39' gives 230.36 m. as the mean length of a side for P e'
Comparing base areas of the pyramids and the volumes of the
planets, the correlation can be found by inspection. The area
of P e to Pm is 17.902, and the volQme of .Earth to the volume
of MercurY is estimated ilt .17:845. by .telescopic observation.
The area of Pe'to P y is 1.140, impiYiiI& a radius for Venus at
6105 km. This compare's well with recent' Venus-probe data
which give the solid surface as 6056 km. It is entirely possible
that the cloud cover of Venus was close to 50 km. 47 centuries
ago. It is also possible that mass was represented by base area
rather than vohim~, ~pr. the .~~~~~ .. i:atk?s P e 1 Pm. and

Pursuil151

., .' . . . . . . . '(';";}~ :;:~:;~:-: "',.i.:.:.:.':.~:.. "'::.'"

..... ......
"

. ','.' .. ': .

...... .

.,'

. .::.':: '.

"~::

..

.. " '

.
..... ..:..:... :~:.
"

. . .: .: .: : ...................... .

::

: " , : : : : !" .. :', .

.',

~. ~:"":.'::""'"

..... ' .
..: ..... . ..... '.

. :',

. . ....
.

"

.....

"

"

. , ' , ." .........

....

','. '

'.
.

.. .
'

.',

".

..

'0. "'':

','

SCALE
:'00 M.

- .- i3

Fim.are 1. Orientation map of the Giza Pyramid!'

and surrounding area. Reproduced by courtesy
of Dia Abou-Ghazi, Directress General of Mu'"
seums, Cairo, F GYPt.
~.....ftI52

t .... ~k I '

:"

.' .....Tomb

or TI',. . ........ ;...

'.

.;'7:':}~i;I':(~i<ii;c[Ifu5~'~;~~~~;:;ji?!/.l!1)~'(

FaD 1980

.\

Figure 2. Outline of the

Giza model. Author's slightly
enlarged tracing embodies
relevant portions of map
on facing page.

IV
L..,.tL.. tr-.II..t, (~:f
... 1f"1 S~

0,.;,;" .. 1

d.",.J

P~,,~_,'J
I:~.'

Pel P v are very close to the actual mass ratios. This of course
would not affect the conclusion that the Giza group represents the three inner planets of our solar system, nor could it
l?e manipulated in such a way as to support the theory that
Venus is a recent "addition."
Returning to the method by. which .planetary velocities are
represented in the Giza model, it was noted that the distance
from the well to the center of P e is shown on maps of the
Giza group to be c. 640 m., Pvc. 755 m., and Pm c. 1020 m. 78
It is evident the distances given are 1/47 of the present orbital
velocities of Earth, Venus and Mercury. The distances shown
on maps of the Giza model are certainly close enough to deduce the probable intent of its designer, although an accurate
on-site measurement would certainly be desirable.
Since Earth and Moon constitute a.. single planetary system
with its center of gravity within the body of Earth, it would

FaB1988

,: 7,500

be reasonable to assume, on the basis of the above correlation

with orbital elements; that Moon-related data will be found
within the body of P e. For reasons beyond the scope of this
article the chamber within Pe, known as the Queen's Chamber, has been selected as representing Moon, henceforth to be
designated as Cm. The passage leading to Cm. can be imagined as Moon's orbital path about Earth. The height of this
passage above the base is given by Petrie as varying from
854.6 inches to 858.4 .3 inches or mean of 21.755 m.' This
distance is 1/47 of 1022.5 meters, or the distance Moon travels in 1/47 second, once again showing the orbital "Velocity of
a member of our solar system. This completes the set of orbital velocities for all the members of our solar system out to
the third planet, as Mercury and Venus are without detectable
natural satellites. The velocity data is complete, but there is
more data concerning Moon to be found in Cm.

Pursull153

 't'".

The height, length and width of Cm are given by Petri~ as

h. 245.1, 1..226.47, and w. 205.85 inches.'o Taking the ratio
of h/l and comparing it to Moon's synodic/sidereal periods
we get. 1.08226 and 1.0809, respectively. The measurements
compare to an accuracy. of 1 part in nearly SOO, well within
Petrie's stated variation in construction and probable error in
measurement. This assumes a unit of measure 21.08 cm. in
length, representing time, i.e., days in the above case. The
height, length and width measured in tht;Se units becomes
29.53, 27.29 and 24.8 of the above time-units. While the
width is slightly more than twi,ce the number of synodic periods of Moon per year (12.368), the sidereal period (27.32
days) and the synodic period (29.53 days) are represented
quite accurately.
From the arrangement of the major pyramids along a.common baseline, it is reasonable to assume that they were built
to a master plan. The execution of an alternate building plan
for Pm was evidently'ordered by the king, Micerinus, who
died shortly thereafter. Although historians do not speculate
on the cause of his death, it is possible that his demise was
brought about, in part, by his changing the plan of Pm, thereby degrading the recognizable elements of the model. The
baseline employed in the model shows. the designer could
have had the benefit of previous experience in erecting models
where overbuilding or destruction represented a major risk
factor. Whether by design or by accident, the baseline has
served to retain the integrity of the model, for both overbuilding and destruction have taken place at Giza.
The site chosen for the first and largest pyramid built at
Giza shows evidence in favor of a master plan for the group.
Its builder, Cheops, did not select the most imposing site f~r
the construction of what is believed to be his intended eternal
resting place. The second pyramid (Py) occupies the most
desirable location as it is centrally situated with respect to
available building area and the site it occupies is at a higher
elevation than that of P e. Since the choice site was not used
by Cheops it would follow that a plan tobuild on that site
could have been approved before the building of Cheops'
pyramid.
.
Witbout knowing the exact dimensions of the Giza comr .
plex it is impossible to calculate by what probability the Giza
model was erected to its present dimensions. However, it is
possible to derive some clues from the data .furnished by
maps of the Giza necropolis. The available building area at
Giza was in excess of one km.2 and the accuracy of the placement of the well in relation to Pm, P y, P e will be assumed .
within 2 m. The base area of the pyramids will be taken as
being accurate within one percent.
.
Assuming a range of factor 2 for base area variation from
the desired mean, or an error .factor of lOO% maximum the

Patching Up the Py:-amids

Finally responding to generations of world pressure to keep the
Giza Pyramids from blowing away over the next several centuries,
the Egyptian government is now engaged in a program designed
to stop erosion that began at the time the huge monuments were
completed some 47 centuries ago. Starting with the southern face of
the Great Pyramid, workers are repairing the eroded blocks "by
filling in the gaps with identical but new limestone," according to
government archeologist Nassef Hassan, project director. "We
chemically treat the new stones first, so they will resist erosion,~'
he said. After the Great Pyramid is restored, Hassan and his team
will direct their attention to the adjacent pyramids of Cephren
and Mycerinus, also in dire need of restoration.

Pursuit 154

permutations for Pm, Pyi P e =NI07. The area of the building site (1 km.2) when divided into 4 meter squares yields
2.5 x lOs and the chance that all three pyramid centers will be
found within a: square the correct distance from the well is in
the order of lOB. The probability that both the above events
occurred simultaneously by sheer coincidence is virtually nil.
This of course doeS not take into consideration the Moon
data which will greatly increase the probability. that the designer was in fact aware of the orbital elements of the planets.
When taking into consideration that the entire model was
constructed to a scale relative to the velocity of light and the
radius of Earth, statistical probabilities tend to lose their
meaning in the rush of min.d-boggling possibilit.ies.
The use of the velocity of light and the Earth's radius to
set the scale. of the Giza model yields the possibility of discovering the key to decoding the model from an aberration
of starlight position. This is fortunate, for the discovery actually came about by noting the distance from the well to
P e in seconds of arc, as measured from the center of Earth.
The constant of aberration for an,observer on- Earth is 20.5"
of arc; for an observer on Venus it would be 24"; and for an
observer on Mercury the angle of aberrati9n would be 33".
The discovery was made by noting that the angular distance
from the center of P e to the well in the Templeof Chephren
is 20.5" of arc. This seemingly fortuitous discovery led to a
systematic search for additional data, yielding the aberraticm
angles for both Venus and Mercury at P y and Pm. Due to the
apparent ingenious use of physical constants in its design, it is
possible to discover the scale of, or the key to decoding, the
Giza model by employing either a linear-measurement or
angular-measurement approach.
In conclusion, it must be stated that no amount of statistical evidence can prove the intent of a model designer without"a logical ordering of data and a possible use for the model.
The evidence presented herequalifies on the first two Counts
for at least continued investigation and, by choice, ~!ill.re
main silent on a possible use for the model as intended y the
designer. This does not preclude the possibility of usi the
model to support the decision by Harlow Shapley to prevent
by all possible means the spread of Velikovsky's ideas until
suclJ time as admissible evidence on the subject might b~ presented. The Giza model hypothesis, if proven corr~, will
most certainly justify Shapley et al in standing fast.

REFERENCES
.1. VelikovskYi Worlds in Collision (New York:

Dou~leday

&

Company,1950)
.2. W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples 0/ Gizeh
(London: Field & Tuer, ISS3) p. 40
3. I. E. S. Edwards, The Pyramids 0/ Egypt (London: P~uin
Books Ltd., 1975) p. 160 .
.4. Ibid p. 161"
5.. Ibidp.151
6
6. Survey of Egypt, Paper No. 39: The DetermilUltion 0/ the Exact
. . Size and Orientation 0/ the Greal Pyramid 0/ Giza (Cairo:
.. Government Press, 1925)
. '7. ExCDvotions at Giza 1949-1950, Professor Dr.Abdel-Moneim
Abu-Bakr (~ro: Government Press, 1953)
S. Excavations at Giza, Vol. VII, Dr. Selim Hassan (Cairo: Government Press, 1953)
.
9. W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples 0/ Gizeh
(London: Fields & Tuerr, ISS3) p. 22
10. Ibid p. 23
FaD 19M

Transformis_ Reconsidered:
Darwin.in Perspective
by Neil M. Lorber, Ph.D.

As

a Fortean of long standing, I have. always been of open

mind to observations, 'phenomena, and theories outside
of the traditional "scientific" realm. I was, however, moved
to write this follow-up to Dr. Silvano Lorenzoni's article'
"The Transformist Myth" (Pursuit No. 42, Spring 1978,
pages 70-72) in an effort to insure that SITUans would be
duly exposed to a fuller picture on such a highly significant
issue as that of evolution. (I have had considerable scholai'ly
fascination with it, as well as some of his skepticism in the
area.) Readers of Pursuit should not be denied a more comprehensive treatment.of the issue of evolution (or "evolution"
if you must) than Dr. Lorenzoni has provided.
It was, indeed, quite pleasing and stimulating to see this
subject reach the pages of Pursuit with Dr. Lorenzoni's article.
The subject deals with as profound a mystery as might ever be
found within the Fortean annals. Its arrival, and that of similar provocative scientific issues, at the doorstep of Fortean
attention has been long overdue. Moreover, at least to date,
no truly scientific explanation of the history of life on earth
can fully account for all the facts at hand about the matter,
throwing open the door to iconoclastic thinking on it. It is in
this that I am in greatest concordance with Dr. Lorenzoni and
applaud the insight expressed in his belief that no headway
will be made in unraveling the mystery of evolution through
failure to recognize "subtler forces which, even though nor-.
mally undetected, nonetheless pervade the entire UniverseP
(page 72). One must also applaud Dr. Lorenzoni's reference
to Croizat's indication of the important role of factors and
agents internal to the living organism-factors of a molecularbiological nature-in explaining evolutionary .processes. In
addition, one must be indebted to him for first bringing the
issue of "transformism" to the attention of SITUans.
However, Dr. Lo[ertzoni's belief that the term evolution
carries, implicitly, a certain idea of "betterment" is presumtuous; it does not necessarily have such a connotation. Also,
the charge that, in certain circles, modern biology's staunch
adherence to "Darwinian transformism" indicates "the intention to continually 'brainwash' listeners" (page 70) is simply
unfounded.
.
One certainly need not postulate that, "in order.for Darwinism to function, individuals must (at least sporadically)
appear to differ substantially from the average of their species"
(page 70). Over the very great periods of time in which evolution works, the cumulative effect of very small differences betw.een individual members of a species can lead, in itself, to
profound evolutionary changes in phy~ogeny. Also, tqoug~
mutations are indeed extremely rare, they nevertheless still
have provided the essential basis of variation on which evolutionary proce&ses have operated-due to the, very great lengths
of time that were historically available for these processes to
"do the~r thing." The magnitudes of these earthly epochs are
so awesome that they defy human comprehension.
It is simply not true that "within the limits of our present
knowledge [mutations] never produce anything but mon-
strosities" (page 71). Moreover, harmful mutations soon

FaU19.

entirely remove themselves from the picwre (as their owners

tend to die away); their existence is therefore a moot point.
Accordingly, it is only the beneficial mutaticns, however rare
they may be, that can and do leave their mark upon future
generations of a species.
One must also recognize that mutations may result in dominant (as opposed to recessive) genes which carry the new trait
and which, in being dominant., thus can (even in combination
with genes from a member of the.normal population) always
produce progeny with the veO' same phenotype (i.e., observable trait) as the original mutant and having the same intensity as the trait which appeared in the original mutant. Moreover, the stable nature of any gene prohibits the "dilution" in
any true sense of the word, of even a recessive mutant in the
gene-pool of a species. A r~essive mutant gene can "bounce
around" in the genetic pool of the unmutated populatio~ for
countless generations without manifesting itself in the phenotype (and without a loss of "potency"), yet, whenever it ultimately chanced to meet up with a similar recessive mutant
gene, it would "resurface" with every bit of its "strength"
as unimpaired as originally.
Postulation of a feasible mechanism by which evolution is
actually carried out is necessary for any viewpoint in this area
to command scientific respect. This is indeed the key point in
the entire matter; unless and until a. more realistic and scientific evolutionary mechanism is identified than that of "Darwinian transformism," we can do no less than lean in the
Darwinian diTection (and are entirely justified in so doing).
Dr. Lorenzoni offers no alternative mechanism, or even
simply any explanation, for the changes in biological life
forms that are indisputably documented in the paleontological record.
Darwinism can hardly be justifiably described as dogma
when the infinite wealth of scientific evidence in its support
is taken into account, especially in light of the relative dearth
of scientific evidence supporting any rival theory (if, in fact,
any substantive rival theory but that of Divine design really
exists). That "Darwinian transformism" is too enthusiastically
subscribed to by establishment science (to the exclusion of
responsible criticism and challenge) is probably true, but,
then again, two wrongs don't make a right: Darwinism should
not be. irresponsibly condemned and discarded via the zealous
and dogmatic wit and barbs of those who do not want to
accept its distasteful implications (as to the a()sence of Divine
Cause) and 'merely seize upon its imperfections. The concept
of natural selection may not constitute the entire answer to
how life has evolved, but it is, no doubt, a central part of
that answer.
Imbedded in the "secrets" of the evolutionary -process are
not only the explanation of the origin of life itself but potential answers to the questions of what we are, what created us
(and how), and why we're here (i.e., for what purpose). Moreover, even the question of what the essential nature of life is
(and whether it can transcend physical death), as well as the
. question of Divine Presence (and its creative role and intent),
are connected with the evolutionary issue. As such, the phenomenon of evolution is today perhaps one of the most awe-

PurauIt.l55

some and rightfully captivating of scientific considerations;

the most sublime spiritual and philosoph~cal,questions .that
challenge the human mind can potentially be tested in its
crucible (as it is an empirical, material, scientifically-researchable issue). Accordingly, it is not absurd to stat~ that digging
in a ravine a la Louis S. B. Leakey can well be vi~wed as
a very real way of scratching at the ,question of Divine exis,_
tence. '
There are certain general "scientific principles" regarding
theorization which pertain not only to this discussion but to
all areas in which Forteans intellectually indulge. For example,
all other things being equal, one theory is to be preferred over
another if it does a better job of explaining the available facts;
a theory is a "good" one if it constitutes ~he best scientific explanation available, whatever its particular shortcomings may
be. So far at least, no other scientific theory comes within '
"light years" of Darwinian theory in explaining the abundant
accumulation of substantive and tangible facts on the history
or'life on earth (and in explaining them so very simply). Alternative theories should at least be proposed by those who
merely indict "Darwinian tran~formism.'"
,
The enormity of the paleontological record is itldeed awesome and striking. Let anyone walk the endless halls of the
American Museum of Natural History, for example, and
attempt to offer an alternative thesis to "Darwinian transformism" which can even begin to scientifically explain the
evolutionary data that he sees displayed before him.
The v~lue of any theory is indeed relative-relative to the
'value of alternative, rival theories-whether biological or
UFOlogical. All other things being equal, it is a good theory
(relative, to the goodness a'nd usefulness of. competing th~o
ries) to the extent that, more than its challengers, it meets
certain time-tested criteria. For example (in addition to the
criterion already noted), a good theory gives order to an otherwise chaotic world; it consolidates, clarifies, and provides
understanding of empirical observations and structure, and
penetrates beneath their surface (making explicit what is implicit): Besides identifying new functions and relations within
observational data, a good theory synthesizes data into "operational wholes," establishing an order or pattern among the
relationships. Also, a good theory uncovers, and presents as
precisely as possible, the regularities of the world in such
a way that events can be related and interpreted by these
"laws" of nature (which the theory discovers by going beyond
mere observable data). In all; the scorecard for Darwinian/
Neo-Darwinian theory on these criteria tends to look quite
good, which is the precise point to be made.
Until something better comes along-that offers a superior
alternative mechanism to explain evolution-we had all better
stick to Darwin and the Neo-Darwinists, whether we choose
to be reverent or not. The implications of the Darwinian explanation of the evolution of life may be admittedly cynical
and uni~piring, and (understandably) especially displeasing
to those who hold out ,hope for evidence of some form of
Divine responsibility in the matter. However, if, in the truth
of it, 'evidence of a Divine Hand is lacking, its absence from
the picture is not something for whicl;1 poor Darwin should be
held accountable, ito l~ blamed~d certainly not villified.
The widely recognized late archeologist/physical anthropologist, probably best known for his 1959 unearthing in Olduvai Gorge, T~nganyika. of
a humanoid skull thought to 'be almost 2 million years old.

~
r.r..it156

- - - ,Pyramid Power:
by Kenneth W~ Moak .
A method is described whereby an oscillating quartz crystal is
utilized to convert the unidentified (provisionally termed
etheric) energy field surrounding a pyramid into an EMF,
which ron then be measured by a standard voltmeler.
'
TIME AGO I became interested in the field of
S OME
"pyramid power," considering it to be a probable manifestation of a hypothetical etheric spectru'm of energy. My
early study of the voluminous literature on pyramids quickly
disclosed a major stumbling block in the course of any serious
investigation-to wit. the absence of any objective, quantitative'method for detecting the energy in question. Virtually
all work in the past, serious or otherwise, has relied upon
either highly subjective detection (dowsing) or purely qualitative effects (dessiCation of foodstuffs, alteration of plant
growth), neither of which is suitable for producing hard data
for analysis. The only objeCtive approach I could find lay in
the work of Schul and Pettit' with possible mass change inside a pyrami~. While highly important from a theoretical,
point of view, this line of attack seem~ unavoidably too
complex, bulky, and sluggish of response to form the basis
for instrumentation, nor was it obviously quantifiable:

"'c.
VTVM

Figure 1. Circuit diagram.

pyramId
crystal
capacitor
vtvm

8" base. thin cardboard

A.E.M, 4100MHz
IOOpf,ceramic
Mesurmatlc VAC-2
,

From the start it appeared that the most promising direction 'lay in a possible etheric/electrornagnetic interaction.
If such an interaction could be found, it, would make pos~
sible the conversion of etheric into EM energy,' which could
then be measured on a standard analog device. My iriitial
efforts were directed at producing a change in some EM parameter (capacitance, inductance, or resistance) by means of
etheric energy, but lengthy experiments failed to disclose any
such effect, at least of magnitude detectable by my equipment. Consequently I turned my attentions to a different
approach, the direct transductance of etheric energy into an
EM potential. This proved much more fruitful, and I now
believe I have discovered a simple method for detecting and
measuring etheriC fields.
The apparatus is quite uncomplicated, consisting of a quartz
crystal (I used 'a 4100MHz, Xtl, primarily because of availability) connected through a small capacito,r to a standard

FaD 19.

Etheric-Electromagnetic Interac:tion - - - - ac vtvm, and having a lead b~ought out to serve as a probe for
etheric fields (see Fig. 1).
The theoretical basis for this is not particularly original;
traditionally pyramid enthusiasts consider crystals, particularly
those of quartz, to be capable of resonating with etheric fields.
Since quartz is known to be strongly piezoelectric, it seemed
logical to suppose the two functions might occur simultaneously; with the etheric energy feeding EM oscillations.
The problem of coupling the etheric energy into the crystal
was solved by a note in the Pyramid Guide2 , suggesting that
ordinary wire can carry the "charge" from a: pyramid.
After considerable trial-and-error experimentation I arrived
at the circuit shown in Fig. I, where a single lead connects the
crystal to the pyramid, and another to the vtvm through a
capacitor, the latter serving to "smooth out" the r~sulting
EMF: for easier measurement. If such a circuit is operable,
one should expect its sensitivity to be limited only by tnat of
the voltmeter, its response time to be very short, and its results
both totally objective and highly quantifiable.

of .002V. Even more exciting, if the pyramid was then turned

to bring two of its faces in alignment with magnet.ic north
there was a further increase on the order of .0005-.001 V. Even
larger increases .were obtained by clipping the probe) to the
edge of the pyramid, and zones of varying field intensity
seemed to be. identifiable 'in and on the pyramid.
With such simple apparatus it might be expected that problems would be few. However, I quickly foundthat when dealing with these very small voltages noise became an important
factor. Even the shortest leads pick up a certain amount of
EM radiation, with which the crystal is quite happy to re~6nate. Consequently, shielded cable from crystal to vtvm is
essential (I use RG-58-U/ A with double banana terminations,
shield grounded to vtvm), and the position of the probe lead
must remain un<;:hanged during any single experiment.' Furthermore, the experimenter's body can act as an .excellent
antenna, so tests must be run "hands-off." Despite all. precautions my apparatus produces a noise voltage baseline of
.approximately .035-.038V. No doubt slight variations in repeated tests (on the order of .001 V) can be accounted for
by varying amounts of EM reception in the leads, but I must
emphasize that the proportional change remains almost Iiden'
tical from one test to another.
.

EXPERIMENT #Q24

Probe clipped to glass 8ask on bench

to raise it near middle of pyramid.
1. + .0045V (see note #4)
2. +.OO2V
+ .OO28V aligned
3. +.OO15V
,4. +.OO2V

Figure 2. Average voltage differentials in various portions of the

pyramid.
.

From the first the results were exciting. There was a uniformly repeatable increase in the voltage when the crystal
probe waS brought close to the pyramid, an increase that
varied Jor different portions of the pyramid, with the apex
and base producing the largest differential. I had begun work
wittl a frame pyramid of copper rods, and therefore my first
thought was that I had actually done no more than detect
stray EM fields. Indeed, the very small magnitude of the voltages involved and the enormous effect of bringing a metal
object, or even my hand, near the pyramid convinced'me of
this. There was no way-short of putting the entire assembly
inside a Faraday cage-of determining what portion, if any,
of the response was due to etheric input.
.
-' .To ~liminate this EM antenna effect I switched to a pyramid
constructed entirely of thin cardboard and masking' tape.
With no metal or other conducting material in it, this pyramid would be electromagnetically inert.
When I repeated a simple serieS of tests with the cardboard
pyramid I found that although the overall voltages were much
lower, the effect of the pyramid was even more pronounced.
When the' pyramid was simply placed over the probe there
was invariably an increase in voltage, generally on the order

FaD 19.

no pyramid .................
pyramid in place. . . . . . . . . . . . .
pyramid aligned. . . . . . . . . . . . .
pyramid removed .-...........
PYramid replaced . . . . . . . . . . . .
pyramid aligned. . . . . . . . . . . .
pyramid removed .......... -. .
pyramid replaced .....-. . . . . .
and aligned

.033V
.035V
.0355V
.034V
.0355V
.0365V
.034V
.036V

Figure 3. Typical experimental results.

Although I have done only the most basic work, I believe

can already draw a few tentative conclusions regarding
pyramids:
I. There is an unknown, apparently non-EM energy field
in/on a pyramid.
2. This field is generally stronger on the surface of the
pyramid than in its interior.
3. The field varies in strength consistently in different
zones in/on the pyramid.
4. There is a small increase in field strength when the pyramid is aligned to magnetic north.
In addition, preliminary work with non-pyramid~1 shapes,
primarily a cubical box, indicate that any regular geometric
form possesses such a field. For a cube the average voltage
increase seems to be just half of that for a pyramid of identical materials and similar size'. There are indications that

TROLOGY: The Way It May.Work

by J. B.,WilUaDlSOD-------,

II1HEN , ASSUMED the editorship of an Indianapolis-based publishing company

t'V in 1962 a knowledge of astrology was a job requirement. Marguerite Carter

was the astrologer for whom I was both ghosting and editing. For six months I was
instructed daily in astrology by Ms. Carter and her son, who was also a professional
astrologer.
.
Then, from 1966 through 1971 my wife Mary and I owned our own mail-order
astrology company. ., prepared and personally appraised several horoscopes every
day, and some seven or eight astrology forecasts each week.
During all nine years of my astrologizing there .was one central problem that
simply would not go away: How does astrology work?' knew perfectly well, when
'used the standard phrase "planetary influences," that there was probably no literal,
tangible influence, ~osmic or otherwise. I also knew .that when I.did my wc;>rk properly,
astrology did work, amazingly well. Yet' remained quietly in sympathy with the
science-minded who insisted there must be "Some discoverable way it worked, if it was
as accurate as I knew it to be.
.
Recently, from a reading of books by such interesting thinkers as D. Scott Rogo,
a line of thought began to develop from a theory about UFO sightings which seems
to point toward a plausible explanation of the way astrology works.
'
Briefly stated: If it is likely that a certain kind of person is more "open" than
others to UFOs-a likelihood considerably enhanced if the UFO phenomenon is
viewed as of psychic, or panly psychic origin-it seems reasonable to me to assume
that one-twelfth of the population is more '''open'' to the characteristics of Aries
than the rest of the nation, one-twelfth more "open" to Taurus, one-twelfth more
"open" to Gemini, and so on around the zodiac.
Rather than a direct, causal "planetary" influence that makes a person Saggitarian in nature, for example, it may be that people born between late November and
late December are psychologically and/or physiologically possessed at birth of those
characteristics associated with Saggitarius.
There may be tangible, even traceable, mental and/or bodily distinctions in. herent in all persons born in a certain 3().day period of the year. Perhaps they may be
attributes passed along genetically as a consequence of a baby having been conceived
at a fairly predictable date close to nine months before birth.
I have known good astrologers who often may deduce, just by looking at a person, his or her time of l:5irth. And I wOQ't deny what other astrologers have written
and said, that the individual's ascendant, or rising sign at birth, tends to moderate
birth-sign characteristics. But, a person with quite large ears standing out from the
sides of the head seems almost always to be either Gemini or Saggitarius; someone
with large, liquid eyes, especially with the white of the eye showing beneath the pupil,
always seems to turn out to be either Pisces or Cancer.
"
I would welcome help in pursuing this theory by those who feel more knowledgeable about physiology and who would like to find an understandal?le source for
the so-called "influences" of astrology.

heavier cardboard (corrugated) produces an overall increase.

The applications of this effect are intriguing. At last it becomes possible to test the many assumptions of pyramid
enthusiasts. One, at least-the increase of field strength with
magnetic alignment-seems to be valid, and there are strong
indications that the idea of zoned field intensity is also correct.
Further elaborations on the apparatus might include better
shielding, probe~, and possibly some method of tuning. It
should be possible to calculate such parameters as etheric
frequency (if applicable) and amplitude from the characteristics of the crystal. It is hoped that other workers, utilizing
better apparatus than mine, will be able not only to duplicate
these results, but to take them much further.
REFERENCES AND NOTES
I) Pyramids and the Second Reality, by Bill Schul and Ed Peltit,
Fawcett Books, 1979.
2) The Pyramid Guide, 741 Rosarita Lane, Santa Barbara, CA 93105.

Pursull158

.
~
-

.~I .

.
I

In the March-April 1975 issue, editor Bill Cox replies to a query

with directi~ns for attaching leads to a pyramid.

3) My "probe" is simply an alligator clip. Results obtained by clipping it to the pyramid are necessarily approximate, since the
action of clipping involves some change in the position of the
lead. (See below.)
4) For this reason tests with the probe'resting on the bench or some
support are preferred, as the relative positions of it and the pyramid can then be changed solely by moving the pyramid. Measurements at the apex are most difficult to make without disturbing the lead. Some sort of rigid framework s~ould overcome
this problem.
5) It is tempting to conclude that the etheric field strength of a pyramid is therefore twice that of a cube, but of' course this would
be the case only if the etheric/EM relationship is directly proponional, and at the present time, this is an unfounded assumption.

~.
FaD 1980

Solving the Mutila~on Mystery:

!' New Approach
by David DeWitt
Copyright

1980 by David DeWitt

AUTHOR'S NOTE:This is a preliQlinary study which is

part of.an ongoing investigation. It will be revised and
expanded as research uncovers new information.

is a curious comment on human nature that investigations

into "paranormal" phenomena now generally dwell on
the unknown rather than the known. By "true believers,"
astrology is given more credence than astronomy; UFOs are
presumed to be extrQ-terrestrial and benign; ESP and psychic
powers are taken as gospel (despite the fact that very little has
been accomplished in that field). And when such quasi-science
as Chariots of the Gods? is blindly accepted as fact, we must
face the truth: There is a new rejection of science prevalent
. today in our society.
Likewise, the bizarre cattle mutilations have produced
mostly wild speculation rather than' logical and scientific
investigations. Many people interested in the paranormal,
including a few sociologists, are now investigating not only
the occurrences of strange phenomena, but also the effect
that such occurrences have on the public. They are trying to
answer the question of a human nature which, in the most
enlightened age of mankind, readily embraces speculation in
place of scientific examination. Why do seemingly sane human
beings, from farmers to engineers, enthusiastically replace
rationality with fantasy? One part of the answer probably
concerns the enormous growth and popularity of science
fiction, but the overwhelming reason is simple: They want to
believe in such things so much that they easily accept ideas
and theories asfacts.
. Their reasoning is this: Since rational and scientific evi-'
dence has not yet explained such odd occurrC{1Ce5, their nature
must therefore be controlled by a "parascience" that we do
not understand. Many people desperately wart~ to experience
such an exciting event as extra-terrestrial visitation, so they
create their own reality. In fact, noted'UFO researcher Jacques
Vallee believes that the UFO phenomena have been embraced
by many as a "new" religion, although the UFO cultists exhibit classical religious tenets like belief in an unknown, unseen, yet benign and omnipotent entity. They also demonstrate the classical need to .belong to groups of people with
similar beliefs. Hence the development of UFO cults that
seek to exploit the phenomena which, in reality, after all the
decades of study, we basically still know next to nothing about.
But people need a religion, need to pray, and I'm reminded of
Ambrose Bierce's famous definition of prayer: " ... to ask that
the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
.
The preceding has been stated to illustrate that this writer
is not a true believer but very definitely a skeptic. But not
skeptical of the existence of mutilations or UFOs-the overwhelming preponderance of physical evidence indicates without question that cattle have been mutilated and that people
have spotted unidentified "objects" in the sky. I am skeptical
nevertheless of nearly every "fact" about the mutilations

.FaU1980

except their existence. And I am particularly skeptical of the

usefulness of current investigations underway, both official
and private. I question the. motives and pp.rsonnel of many of
these surprisingly casual and disorganized studies, but more
important, I question the methods employed in these studies.
It seems that there has been an overwhelming effort not to
solve the mutilation mystery. This may sound like an accusation of a conspiracy, but it's merely a reflection on the new
rejection of scientific methods.
. This paper is not a history of mutilations-that would take
a voluminous book. Rather, it is an attempt to formulate
a new approach to solving the mystery. an approach which
takes into consideration my major pr~mises: The mutilation
of cattle in the western states and provinces are terrestrial in
nature, have a logical purpose and methods, and can possibly
be prevented. Through application of scientific method, I believe that an answer, if not the answer, ~o the puzzle of the
mutilations can be found. The why and the how of the mutilations may already have been solved-but the exact who may
take a little longer.
A detective uncoverS a clue, then another, and advances
a theory about who must have committed the crime, thus
solving the case. The investigator has deduced. the answer,
right? Wrong. The detective has induced the answer, reasoning
from particular facts or individual cases to a general conclu-
sion. To use deduction is to reason from the general to the
specific, as in formulating a theory about who could be responsible, then finding specific facts or physical evidence to
support the theory. Thus the detective induced the answer by
relating specific clues to a theory of whodunit.
The inductive method, currently the only one employed by
mutilation investigators (and most UFO buffs) has failed to
produce any leads at all in solving the mystery. There have
been some attempts at the deductive method, but all they
have come up with are the three most popular theories about
responsibility for the mutilations, but of course, no specifics.
So far, no one has completed the deductive process of doing
research to find correlating evidence to support anyone theory.
The three theories, from most-supported to least-supported,
are:
-that UFOs and/or their occupants are responsible, for
an unknown purpose; and the UFOs involved are presumably
extra-terrestrial.
-that the U.S. government (or renegade researchers from
some federal agency) are doing the mutilations for some
nefarious purpose such as chemical or biological warfare
experimentation.
-that members of a cult or cults are responsible and the
mutilations are part of a satanic "religious" ceremony.
The once-popular predator-damage theories have now
generally been discarded, as have tales of associated bigfoot
creatures, giant pterodactyl-like birds, motorcycle gangs,
time-travelers, invisible "energy rays". from inside the earth,
and scientists looking for an eternal-youth serum. There is
no need to debunk any of the theories which have been offered
because they must stand or fallon the basis of supportive
evidence. That there is little, if any, evidence to support any

l'ursuit159

one of these theories is indication enough that new ideas must

be explored. And remember, simply becauSe it is a fact that
unidentified aerial phenomena have been sighted in proximity
to the mutilations does not prove that the mutilations are
caused by extra-terrestrial visitors.
.
Current investigations are being conducted on three levels.
Fir:st, the vigilante effort, where ranchers struck by mutilators have formed patrols to attempt to catch the perpetrators
in the act-a noble effort, but one doomed 'to frustrating
failur~ du~ to the mobility and technology of the mutilators.
Incidentally, the reaction of cattlemen's organizations ranges
from indifference and disbelief (New Mexico) to hefty, rewards for information (Alberta and Colorado).
'
The second investigation level is of the quasi-official kind"
with the FBI alternating between investigating and declining
to investigate mutilations as criminality on federal, lands such
as national forests and Indian preserveS. Information about
FBI "progress" in this direction is virtually nonexistent or
unobtainable. Another quasi-official investigation, enabled
by grant of $50,000 from the Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration (LEAA) to fund a pro~ in New Mexico, has
been equally noninformative. The only recent progress repc;>rt
from this investigation came in a radio interview with' the:
director, a former FBI man named Rommel. Since the 'sJJmmer of 1979, he said, he has looked at about 20 dead cows;
none was mutilated. Rommel thinks that mutilation is an
"inaccurate" term for the phenomenon. It cost us $50,000
for this? .
.
Finally, there are about a dozen individuals or small groups
in North America who have undertaken independent investigations of the mutilations. Their major accomplishment, so
far, has been useful-the colleCtion of data from across the
continent by collating and recording reports' from the field
and various newspaper and magazine accounts. At least two'
investigators have made significant progress in their. research
but have not yet reached any formal conclusions. Tom AdaptS
of Project Stigma in Paris, Texas, has amassed quite a bit of
data :inking the mutilations to sightings of unidentified helicopters. But he told me recently that he was no closer to solving
.the mystery than when he started, and sometimes he feels that
a solution may never be found. David Perkins of Animal Mutilations Probe (AMP) in Farasita, Colorado, believes that
there is a correlation between the mutilations and sites which
are'known for high radiation levels (uranium mines and milling,
facili,ties, reactors and waste-disposaI sites) but cannot yet
offer a theory as to why there may be.a statistical link. .
All of the mutilation investigators utilize the inductive
method of attempting to solve the mystery by exarqining
individual cases. Bui very little new information is gleaned
froin their recent' reports. What we have are simply more
classic mutilation cases, though with the summer and fall '79
cases in Alberta, the "mutilators" seem to have extended
their range.
Like the UFO flaps of 1954,1962 and 1966,'the mutilations
seem to "come in waves" formed whenever a large number
of mutilations take place in. a particulJu geographical area
over a short period of time. New Mexico and Colorado have
suffered through three or more waves dating since the early
'70s, and other states such as Montana, Arkansas, Texas:
Wyoming and Oklahoma have at one time or another experienced sim,ilar concentrations of mutilated cattle,' horses,
and sometimes other animals.
,
There is a discernible pattern to the waves in both
nature

the

Purs";'I60

of the cases and public reaction to reports of them: A muti~

lated animal is found-usually a cow-dead in' the field,
usually fairly isolated from human habitation. Ther~ are no
tracks or other animals around the body. Generally the sexual
organs.have been removed, often the tongue, tips of the ears
and tail; the rectum and patches of skin are also missing. The
carcass seems to have been drained of blood. The rancher
kn<;>ws that predators cannot perform such selective aqd del, icate surgery, and wants to know who or what is butchering .
his cattle, regardless of the precise cause of death. The sheriff
is called. "Yep, it's one of them mutilated cpws," he says,
and promises to investigate. A vet or brand inspector might
take samples. The newspapers and radio and TV pick up the
story and the mutilation is' headline news, particularly when
similar occurrences have been reported in the area. More'
mutilations are discovered over the next few days, often acCompanied by reports of bright lights in the sky, mysterious
helicopters or other UFO phenomena. A tab report concludes
the first cow died of natural causes. Some organization offers
rewards for information leading to arrest and conviction,
when they shpuld be fJ,lnding research projects. The mutilations suddenly stop-after compiling a total of perhaps twelve
io a two~county area. The press loses' interest and soon the
public forgets-until the next wave. And all the investigators
look at each dead cow and say: "Yep, another classic mutilation.:'. After looking at hundreds of cut-up' cows, you'd think
they'd get the. message: The mutilations won't be solved by
after-the-fact examinations of the carcasses. Because it's not
what's left in the. bodies that's the clue-it's what's been'removed that is.
. So the inductive approach has so far failed and we're left
with the deductive method. This way initially requires an
understaQ,dable, supportable theory of who or what is responsible. To propose an over-all. theory we must first ex,amine technology and. motive. What person or group has the
technology to perform thousands of systematic mutilations
over about a million and a half square miles and .escape undetected? And why bother? This is no small operation, and
technology requires money and skill. The scope of the mutilations suggests instant deployment and rapid transportation,
probably by aircraft. An excellent knowledge of surgical techniques would also be. necessary, plus sophisticated mobile
equipment to drain. bloop from ~he carcasses. How much
would it cost to provide this technology? What does a mutila- .
tion cost? Could two 'of us run out and perform one for, say,
a hundred dollars, if' we used sophisticated aircraft? Very
doubtful. A thousand dollars, if we rented a helicopter and
all the surgical equipment? Hard to say, but just by using,
those figures, someone has spent at least $800,000 or $8 million
to mutilate livestock over the past ten years, based on an estimate of 8,000 known mutilations. The only motives such
expenditures (and bother) would justify are military, profit or
politics.
Wait. the UFOlogists screa~. What about possible extraterrestrial involvement? Logically we must eliminate this consideration because the only evidence we possess is terrestrial
in,nature. Just because scientists .have not solved the mystery
of cancer, do we automatically attribute the disease to outerspace causes? Provide some extra-terrestrial evidence and
we'll fall allover ourselves examiqing it. To repeat: UFOs
are simply unexplained aerial phenomena-and no one has
any proof that they come from any world other than Earth.

FaUl980

Back to motive and technology: Who has the money and

equipment to plan and execute such operations? Governments, certainly. The U.S. government has many agencies
. which could be responsible, from the CIA to the Air Force,
and Washington has been in trouble with dead livestock in
times past. Remember the flap over the dead sheep in Utah
killed in nerve gas experiments or "accidents?" But to underwrite this theory we need to include motive. Why would the
U.S. government risk another Watergate with the clandestine
butchering of thousands of cattle on ranches and gr~ing land
allover the continent? Lots of possibilities have been advanced. Experiments with new weapons offer a possibility,
including chemical and biological toxins and tests for dispersal in animal bodies. But hard to counter is the objection
that the U.S. government can well-afford a hidden, top-secret
test facility for this sort of thing rather than go about the
countryside zapping cows. And the thought of a foreIgn government operating like that in this country and Canada is
frightening and, I hope, far-fetched.
We'll return to the government later, but just for: specu.lation's sake, what other groups have the money, access to
the technology and a possible motive? Well, perhaps some
sort of SPEKTOR-type operation or cult, but why not stick
to the obvious? Big business now owns its own satellites.
Large companies have the money and technology to perform
operations on the scale of the mutilations, but what about
motive?
Just for a moment, don't think about government conspiracies or extra-terrestrial mutilators. Think instead about
such "values" as profit and greed. Would, say, some large
company accept the risks and spend the money to mutilate
cattle if there was a good profit in it? You bet they would!
Many U.S. corporations have demonstrated to and beyond
the point of criminal indictment, that they will do almost
anything to make a profit, including poisoning. the environ- .
ment, manipulating foreign governments, conspiring with the.
CIA, contributing illegally to politicians, and using spying,
subversion, stealing, lying, cheating and other felonies as
business tools. Would a few thousand cattle stand in the way
of profit? Hardly.
The theory from which I hope to deduce the CUlprits is this:
The cattle and other livestock are being mutilated as part of
an exploration system used to detect the presence of mineral
deposits, and, the mutilators are probably scientists or technicians excising tissue samples to assist in the exploration
process. It is important to note here that the majprity of the
mutilations have occurred in the general area of the richest"
mineral deposits in North America-the Rocky Mountain
. region of the U.S. and Canada. Minerals, like petroleum,
,are in short supply. World stockpiles of copper, zinc and
other metals have dwindled as needs have increased; uranium
demand is at an all-time high despite the strident cries of those
who protest nuclear proliferation.
There is an intense search underway for new mineral deposits utilizing new techniques and hundreds of millions of
dollars. In 1977 exploration expenditures for uranium alone
were $258 million, up 500/0 from 1976. And who is. spending
this money? Over one hundred large corporations are, led by
oil companies like Exxon, Arco, Gulf and Mobil, and power
companies like Commonwealth Edison and Pennsylvania
Power & Light. They !1'ust spend the money to find new
sources for uranium and other minerals because traditional
FaD 1980 .

exploration methods are no longer efficient. Mining Engineering has observed:

Uranium exploration in the U.S. is currently undergoing a fundamental change. As shallow deposits in
sandstones become more difficult to find, new depositional ~odels are envisioned and tested; remote sensing
plays a larger role in exploration; pathfinder elements
become more important; and innovative, low cost geophysical techniques are employed for deep, rapid and
precise exploration.
So, to find uranium these days, the mining engineers must
dig deeper, which is expensive. It is now critically important
to have the best possible data before deciding where a testdrilling might justify putting all that front-money into the
ground. !'New depositional models" (translate as "deeper
deposits") are found with new sciences and technologies like
geophysics, geobotany and biogeochemistry. Geophysics is
the science where techniques of physics are used to study the
earth; geobotany is a technique of analyzing the siting of
plant types, or plant families, as a guide to subsurface mineral
presence. Biogeochemistry uses analysis of organic tissue
samples to find .evidence of metal content" or the location of
mineral deposits.
An important breakthrough in geophysics was the development of the airtrace system' by Barringer Research, Ltd. It
seems that minerals bOUlid to rich organic topsoil migrate
upward, into the atmosphere where the airtrace system, in
a helicopter, plane or balloon, collects samples. In 1976 the.
system was helping to locate deposits of mercury, copper,
zinc and silver. In uranium prospecting, airborne radiometric
surveys are checked for radioactive anomalies which may provide ~lues to deposits. Both of these geophysical techniques
begin the narrowing process in the minerals-search theory
which involves our mutilated livestock.
Geobotanical evidence has led to impressive finds. By analyzing multiband photographs and luminescence factors of
certain plants, scientists 'have discovered significant deposits
of molybdenum, copper, gypsum and phosphate.
After airborne analysis and geobo~y, the next step ~s biogeochemistry. Literally thousands .of plant samples from
specific indicator plants are analyzed for their mineral content, which is absorbed through subsurface water. Examples
of indicator plants are locoweed and vetches for uranium,
California poppy for copper, buckwheat for silver. Large
numbers of samples are necessary because the area the survey
covers is huge, so if the area for taking plant samples could be
reduced there would be great savings of time and labor, not
to mention money. This is the point where livestock enter the
picture:
It is known from selenium poisoning incidents in cattle that
many metals accumulate in the tissues of animals that feed on
plants or drink water in proximity to areas of high mineral
concentration. (lncidentauy, selenium and uranium share
many indicator plants.) In volume 59 of Science progress,
P .. J. Peterson observed:
A very large amount of work has Peen published on the
analysis of mammalian iissues . ; . It is now clear that the
concept of "accumulator tissues" exists for many elements, for example the well known accumulation of
iodine in the thyroid and arsenic in the hair and nails.
Lesser known accumulators are, for example, tin in the

........,,161

intestine, titanium and aluminum in the lung, vanadium

in the hair and bone, Zirconium in blood, and selenium
in the retina of the eye.
It is also known that certain metals accumulate in the liver,
various bodily extremities and the mucous membranes. The
missing organs of mutilated livestock cOrrespond closely to
those used in biogeochemical procedures. In 1971 a researcher
named Warren first used the livers of 96 trout"in British Columbia to locate zinc-bearing deposits which ran off into the
trout streams.
"
Hints of the continuing use of animal tissues in biogeochemical research surface occasionally. A textbook on such
procedures (Reeves and "Brooks, Trace Element Analysis of
Geological Materials) contains instructions for gathering
plant samples for analysis 'and then ends it with these tantalizing ideas:
"

Animal material should be deep frozen upon return to

the laboratory and kept in that condition until required
for analysis. Samples may also be freeze dried and can
then be stored at room temperatures for an indefinite
period."
What animal material? we want to scream. But of course
I didn't expect to find an article in the Journal of Biogeochemistry. entitled "Clandestine Techniques for Acquiring"
Livestock Tissue Samples for Uranium Prospecting," but
I did find the following eye-opener in Frederick Siegel's text
Applied Geochemistry (1974):
. . . research into unusual accumulations of elements by"
plants and animals under varying conditions must be
continued .... There is an ample field of work open for
innovative basic research such as the type of jnvestigation made by Warren and his colleagues on trout livers.
... One may consider the use of aniinals employed as
food and having known and limit~ geographic ranges
for prospecting, as perhaps the sheep of Patagonia or
the cattle of the mountainous and difficultly accessible
areas of Colombia, by the analysis of some anatomical
part before or a~ter the animal enters the slaugh~erhouse.
Obviously I have not yet accumulated enough evidence to
caU it proof, but here's a possible scenario:

Since the early '70s there has been rapid progress in biogeochemical techniques, but little has been published because
such practices would offend animal lovers as well as cattle"
breeders. There is no question that the technology exists to
enable scientists to test the tissues of animals that have come
into contact with many elements through water consumption,
skin absorbtion or the ingestion of indicator plants. From
selenium poisoning incidents alone, we know that hooved
animals are susceptible to high metal concentrations in their
tissues. And the. organs and tissues involved are the tongue,
blood, lips, eyes, skin, sexual organs, liver and "selected"
mucous membranes.
The mutilation of cattle can thus be viewed as the second
" step of an exploration process which begins with airborne
surveys and concludes with a test drilling. The airborne survey locates a likely area where a certain mineral is suspected.
Mobile laboratories are dispatched to acquire tissue samples
of livestock, and because the cattle generally have a specific
fenced range, it's relatively easy to pinpoint a specific area
once a positive indication of the mineral has been found. But
many tissue samples covering hundreds of square miles must

Pursuit 162

be taken, perhaps causing the "waves" of mutilatlons previously" described. Once a certain range is "bracketed," additional plant sampl~ can be analyzed to narrow the specific
area down t(i a recommended position for a test drilling. If
the drilling is also positive, the prospectors must file aclaim if
the site is on federal or state lands (except national parks), or '
lease or buy the land'if it is privately held.
"
In this scenario the cattle are simply research tools in a very
complicated process designed to bring profit of some kind to
the perpetrators. The "bizarre mutilations" are seen as just
excellent surgery, perhaps, utilizing laser technology, to remove certain organs and tissues for" chemical analysis. The
"ritual" is scientific method and the "UFOs" are part of the
equipment deployed in the research study. But how far can
this study reach? Are the mutilators from tne" research departments of oil companies or the mining industry? Are they
Part of an independent researCh group which sells its findings
"on contract?',' Are they protected or assisted by U.S. government agencies? To what extent are U.S. government per, sonnel, civilian or military," directly involved? Is anybody
rationalizing the expropriation of private property (i.e. cattle)
With neither due process nor just compensation, on the perilous grounds that to do otherwise would somehow harm the
national interest?
'
l have mentioned previously that the government would
need to have sufficient- motive to be involved; since the feds
don't directly mine or refine valuable minerals, it does seem
likely that the mutilators are receiving some kind of federal
protection.
,
Jacques Vallee has noted in Messengers of Deception that
a classically mutilated cow was discovered beside the entrance
gate of a NORAD facility in Colorado, apparently dropped
from the sky. This, and the audacity of "ghost copters" and
" oth~r aeriat phenomena, causes" one to wonder about the
U.S. air defense system, especially in the Rocky Mountain
region wh~e virtually everything in the air is tracked by radar.
Private aircraft are often warned if they approach too close to
" prohibited airspace, and ignoring such warnings around the
White Sands missile range in New Mexico will bring jets from
Holloman Air Force Base to escort trespassers away. It is
difficLlt to believe that helicopters or other aircraft can appear with the frequency they did in northern New Mexico
during 1975 and then simply disappear. A headline' of the
time in the Albuquerque Journal, reads "Ohost Copters in
N. NM;" One craft over New Mexico as recently as spring
1979 was tracked by radar from Colorado after two Jicarilla
Apache policemen surprised it shining a bright light on cows
near Dulce: New Mexico state policeman Gabe Valdez, who
was on patrol south of the light-shining incident, said an unidentified craft, totany silent;- passed over his hea,d shortly
, after the JicariUa police reported the incident over the 'radio.
Radar confirmed his story that the craft was headed toward
Albuquerque, but it soon disappeared from the radar" screens.
One cannot help speculating that if some agency was assisting
the mutilators, or covering up, it could be construed as acting
in the interest of national security, since new mineral deposits
could be vital to the "national defense effort.
This iriitial study cannot claim to have "solved :the mutilation mysterY. We need more than circumstantial evidenCe.
Likewise, even presuming the 'essential correctness of our
~cenario, it cannot account for all the bizarre cases. It cannot, for example, explain the d~th and mutilation of livestock such as prize show bulls "and race horses in corrals close

FaD 1980

The Trouble with Education ...

by Ivan T. Sanderson

The real tro~ble of course is that we don't have an educational system in that we are still trying to
teach rather than educate. Teaching is a technological process suitable only for imparting techniques; education is or should be a mental exercise, and not just to encourage learning but to foster understanding.
It should be offered in three fundamental aspects-simultaneouslY-(l) the provision of factual information, (2) the principles and methodology of classification, and (3) and most important of all, the stimulus
to cerebration. The last is defined by the dictionary as: "Action of the brain, conscious or unconscious"
(please note)-in other words, how to think.
The primary duty of educators should therefore be to stimulate the pupil, of whatever age, to use
whatever "brains" he or she has to comprehend reality. The best way to do this is manifestly to gain their
interest by an appeal to their curiosity; and the best way to do this is to present them with enigmas and
paradoxes, whic~ is to say the unexplained. Parroting the explained is a pure waste of time. This can be looked
up in textbooks. But our sO<alled system is today collapsing primarily because the second essential has, been
wholly ignored. This is taxonomy or the expertise of classification. '
It is quite useless to try to come to a decision about aJ;1ything unless you know the facts, and you can't
gather these if you can't find them. What is more, no am~unt of technique'that you may have been taught
will help you if you have never been presented with an overall set of pigeon-holes into which you can put
anything and everytl:ing, and the outer limits ~f which have been defined, and the division and subdivision
of which have been laid for you. The Three 'Rs' are techniques. They do not constitute education, let alone
knowledge.
'
The best teachers start each semester with a definitive course in taxonomy, the~ proceed to the main
subject for the rest. Since competence in the three 'Rs' should be implied by a certain age, books to read
and lab work to be done are listed on a blackboard, and the educator is then free to devote his or her entire
time to stimulating the interest and inquisitiveness of the pupils. The 'collecting of credits is assinine, and
defeats its purpose which is the assimilation of facts. Facts cannot be assimilated in lumps without reference
to all other facts. All subjects should be taught simultaneously and continuously up to. a certain level, and examinations be held in each and aU at the end of each semester. Above this level only one specialty should be taught,
and on the assumption that the pupil is by then educated. The one subject that should be added to the three 'Rs'
is geography, and this should be continued until degrees are bestowed. This is the European system; and it is
a system.
.
.
Excerpts/rom an editorial by SITU's/ounder in Pursuit, Vol. 4, No-. 1. 1971.
as close as possible to indicator plants and water sources.
to ranch houses. In fact, we may never track down the actual,
Once a cow has been located in the field the identification of
individual perpetrators. That would take a lot of undercover
its owner would require the services of a brand expert. Keep
work and a vast amount of funding. Rewards offered by
various groups depend on "information leading to arrest and _ , in mind, too, that in the West hundreds of th(;>usands of cattle
roam freely on federal grazing lands. Buying the cattle after
conviction," but there is no money available to finance ,an
roundup would render the animals useless (or accurate scienindependent invj:Stigation to accumulate the necessary evitific analysis; the researchers would have no idea of the exact
dence required in civil as well as criminal proceedings.
place each cow grazed. It is also possible, and some small
, My theory of the responsibility for most of thq mutilations
amount of evidence has been uncovered to suggest, that some
undoubtedly will be cooly received. The notion Ithat it's the
of the animals may have had the blackleg toxins injected'into
profit-mongers who are slicing the penises off of bulls instead
them. Other sketchy evidence has been advanced to suggest
of tripedal inhabitants of Rigel 2 looking for ingredients for
that microwave technology in the form of masers may have
an immortality serum, will not be a popular one for the true
!leen utilized to kill the animals. A prospector coming upon
believers to swallow. Also, the prospecting theory has some
a dead cow would be several steps ahead in the process beholes, and raises some questions I will attempt to answer.
cause
the animal's death occurred in the very area it had been
Q. How are the cattle killed, according to this th~ry?
grazing and watering. And it's possible that some of the aniA. Many probably are not killed by the mutilators but die
mals may have died from the accumulations of metals the
of natural causes. Tested samples from mut~~tF cattle reprospectors were looking for.
veal a number of causes of death-from tranquiliZers to blackQ. How can yob explain the technology of silent helicopleg (Clostridium bacteria toxins) and other natural causes.
ters, bright lights and cigar-shaped craft often reported near
I think most of the animals are found and mutilated after
mutilation sites? '
a natural death. This view would obviate the reciJrrent vision
, A. We have had the technology for quiet helicopters for
of silent helicopters chasing cattle aU over the range.in 'a kind
many
years. In the early '70s the Defense Department Adof ghaStly roundup and killing them from the ai~. Remember
vanced Research Projects agency tested the OH-6, a very
that the mineral traces are still present in decomposing flesh.
quiet copter. In December 1975 the Aeronautical Journal
And to those who would suggest that it would be easier and
published an article entitled "The Coming Era of the Quiet
certainly safedo buy cows directly, from the ranchers" cOn[Continued on page 174]
sider this: The prospectors would prefer cows in the field,

Fall 1988

Pursaltl63

ATLANTIS:
Lost and Found Again .
..:.::.::.::" ........ .

Plan of Carthage reconstructed by archeologist Paul Aucler, showing circular harbor, sea-wall or "mole," and citadel. Reproduced by permission from Atlantis Discovered by Lewis Spence. 1974 by Causeway Books.
.
Scholars have long noted many striking resemblances between the Adantis d~cribed in two of Plato's dialogues and Carthage,
the great city-state in North Africa ne.arwhat is now Tunis. Carthage dominated the Mediterranean world of commerce and
culture for hundreds of years until the Roman legions leveled it in 146 B.C.
Plato's dialogue, The Timaeus, was held in 600 B.C. It reported on many details of a thriving Adantean city-state that existed until "nine thousand years ago" when a great cataclysm, probably of volcanic origin, caused it'to sink to the ocean Door.
Carthage wasn't Atlantis_not in nine thou,sand years could it have been. By what quirk of history or coinci~ence did two
super-city states come to share so many similarities of site and strtJcture across a span of so many miUenia?

by Jon Douglas Singer, MA.

PART)
LOST CONTINENT of Atlantis, which sank after
THE
a cataclysmic series of earthquakes and volcanIC eruptions
more than 11,000 years ago, ~as captured Western imagination ever since Plato first published his two dialogues that
detailed its fabulous history. I From classieal times to the
present, hundreds of books and articles have been written
about the authenticity and location of the sunken land. 2 I will
not discuss the question whether such a large civilization and
continent could have existed in fact, but I will be. discussing
one aspect of the controversy: The persistent series of reports
of ruins that have been found from time to:time underneath
the sea or upon islands. in the Atlantic, in the approximate
location of the continent as given by Plato in his dialogues
Timaeus and Critias. 3
Some of the ruins have been reported found on the eastern
side o'f the Atlantic, or under the sea in the region of the Atlantic islands such as the Canaries and the Azores. Recently,
other groups of submerged stone structures have been reported from locations on the western side of the Atlantic.
I am tempted to compare these reports to UFO reports. UFOs
come and go, flitting through the night skies with hardly
a trace of physical evidence accepted by the majority .of scientists. Occasionally they are photographed. So it is with Atlantis. Only two group's of reports of stone structures have been
verified by'p!~otography and by archeological study. The first
group is in the Bahamas, and the .second group of ruins is in

Pursuit 164

Copyright

~)'1980 by

Jon Douglas Singer

the vicinity of the Ampere: Seamount, 300 miles or so southwest of Lisbon.

.
So far, the Ampere Seamount site has not been studied
extensively, but archeological expeditions are supposed to be
under way to the area, and by the end of the year we may
hear more about the most rec~nt developments fn Atlant.is
research.
Our story really begins in the Middle Ages. While Western
Europe was temporarily cut off from sea-roving by 'piratical
fleets of. Viking dragon ships, the Arab rulers of Spain were,
for the most part, spar~ the brunt of the brutal barbarian
raiders. The Arabs maintained a flourishing trade with their
brothers in northern Africa and with the mighty caliphate of
Baghdad in the East. The Anibs 'had conquered Spain and
Portugal from their Visigothic rulers in A.D. 711. Since .then
they had looked for even newer lands.
Occasionally ships left the great ports of Lisbon or Seville
and searched for new lands in "the West," the legendary
Fortunate Isles of Greek and Roman fable; The Encyclopaedia Britannica" reported that on the Canary Islands Arab
explorers found traces of great rui,ils. Were these the work of
the Guanches, the native inhabitants prior to'the European'
conquest in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? Without
more details we can't be sure. How likely is it that these ruins
were all that was left o(a lost city of the Atlantean Empire?
The only clue to the mystery of the great ruins found by the
early Arab voyagers is a curious photograph of a' model of

FaD 1980

huge stone structures of the Guanches in a book, Timeless

Earth, by Peter Kolosimo. 5 No date for the great complex is
given by Kolosimo, so we don't ,know its age, except that it is
pre-Spanish. Thecomplex, a vast network of round and rectangular stone enclosures, resembles Irish or Greek stonework of the Bronze Age, c. 2000 B.C. The name of the site
isn't given in the texi, nor are any details about it. We cannot,
therefore, state with certainty that this site is the work of
putative Atlanteans, although it :ertainly provides a clue to
the nature of the ancient culture which once flourished on the
Canary)slands.
.
Other peculiar stone structures on the Canary Islands are
two cryptic stone statues that appear mysteriously in a photograph opposite page 170 in the modern hardcover edition of
Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. 6 These
consist of two peculiar squatting mustached demons or deities
uncriticaJly labeled Atlantean gods. They squat inside ~mall
niches in finely constructed stone walls and look out at us
with wide eyes as if they were surprised by our presence. One
holds a baJl in his hand and we are reminded of the, Greek
Atlas who held the earth on his shoulders. I haven't found
any reference to this odd photograph in the text, and the
source isn't given. The site is equally fascinating: no location
is given, except that it is somewhere in the Canaries.
The Azores also have their share of enigmatic stone structures. Or rather, they had their share. Accounts written by the
first settlers in the islands in modern. times (in the sixteenth
century, for example) spoke of the discovery of equestrian
statues facing west. These are surveyed in some detail by the
great British Atlantis researcher Egerton Sykes, in his book
The Azores and the Early Exploration of the Atlantic. 7 Sykes
wrote that the Arab scholar Edrisi who lived at the court of
King Roger II of Sicily in the middle of the twelfth century
described equestrian statues in the Islands of the alest, which
are now known as the Azores. These artifacts were probably
found by Arab explorers and were either of Phoenician or
Atlantean origin, but they have not survived.
Later, in 1575, a remarkable discovery was made by one
Nicolas Thevet. He was told of a cave on the northern side of
San Miguel Island in the Azores. In that cave early treasurehunters came upon a pair of stone monuments, each 12Vz feet
long and 4112 feet high. A snake was carved around each
monument, and Hebrew-like letters were carved thereon. The
style of writing was so old that nobody could read the script,
although a Moor of Jewish ancestry, who had come from
Spain, copied them. Later, mysterious deaths and disappearances struck curious explorers who ventured in, so thirty
years after the discovery the mouth of the cave was sealed shut.
Sykes speculated that volcanic gases had poisoned the explorers and that the cave had been destroyed by many earthquakes which shook the isle during the sixteenth to eighteenth
centuries. In 1934 a French scholar named Paul Le Cour was
told that in the island's museum there was a photograph of a
stela that had been found in a cav~. This had a carving of
a building on it, but Le Cour couldn't find the photograph,
nor could Sykes, despite a search of thirty-four years.
An interesting phenomenon on San Miguel is the Lake of .
the Seven Cities-actually two lakes, dne of which is green
and the other, blue. The lakes "are in a volcanic river bottom.
Legend has it that this is the site of the seven cities foun,ded by
Christian Ibero-Roman and Visigothic refugees in A.D. 711
after the Moslem conquest of Spain.
On the Azores island of Terceira, in the main city of Angra,
Sykes noted that there was a modern copy of the equestrian

FaD 19.

statue found by the ancient explorers. Another equestrian statue was found by the first Flemish settlers on the Azores island
of Fayal. It had a leiter K carved on its plinth. This statue also
is missing.
Sykes then descri\:!ed. the most famous of the equestrian
statues, one found on the island of Corvo during the reign of
King Manuel. The Portuguese writer Damiao de Goes wrote,
according to Sykes, that in the time of King Manuel I a statue
of a bareheaded horseman riding bareback was discovered
atop a mountain. One of the man's hands held the reigns and
the other pointed west. In A.D. 1500 King Manuel's court
painter was sent to paint the statue, and it was also ordered
that he bring the statue with him when he returned to Lisbon.
Alas, workmen hauling the monument broke it, and such
fragments as were brought to the king have long since disappeared. There is a fantastic spin-off from this tale. Sykes
noted that the statue was named Cates or Gades. According
to Sykes, Cates is an Inca-Indian word meaning directionpointer. It is also the ancient name of Cadiz (i.e., Gades in
Greek).
Sykes'~ booklet also noted the discovery oJ traces of Phoenician coins on the Azores, but it is the equestrian statues that
are the most interesting to us. Plato wrote that the Atlanteans
. had domesticated the horse, and while the Phoenicians had
a' knowledge of horsemanship, ships provided their major
mode of transportation and became the hallmark of their
civilization. To be sure, Plato's Atlanteans were charioteers
rather than horseback riders, but as the statues are no longer
extant we cannot be certain whether they were sculpted by the
Phoenicians or by Atlantean artists. if.the latter even existed.
An even more intriguing report refers to the case of the
steamship Jesmond. According to researcher William Corliss,'
the Jesmond was a 1,500-ton vessel out of Messina, Italy, el'l
route to New Orleans. The voyage in March, 1882 would
have been uneventful except that in an area some 200 miles
south of the Azores the crew sighted a strange island, apparently not long risen from the ocean because it was not marked
on the charts,
Captain David Robson led a party of explorers to the island
and found it to be mountainous, with some volcanic peaks
still smoking. What else they found is even more interesting:
artifacts and stone walls, the remnants of an ancient, unknown civilization. The artifacts included bronze swords and
spearheads, bone fragments and clay vessels decorated witli
animal designs. This evidence was brought back to the .ship
which resumed its course toward Louisiana.
When the ship docked at New Orleans a newsman for the
Odebolt Reporter interviewed the crew and published their
story in the April 28, 1882 issue. Presumably the ship's log
had a more complete account, but the book was lost in the
blitz of World War II and the artifacts also disapp~ared.
Corliss noted that scientists called the Jesmond report
a hoax because Donnelly's Atlantis was published at the time
of the voyage, but Corliss himself seemed to believe the story
on the grounds that the captain had nothing to gain except
ridicule if the account was indeed false. Corliss added that the
crew supported their captain's story, and the skipper went
about his business, making many more typical merchant
voyages and never even trying to capitalize on his discovery.
The m5:sterious island was never "rediscovered" by anyone.
Perhaps it sank again! Corliss finished his report of the Jesmond tale by adding that in 1954 a new "bank" or underwater plateau was reported in the same area as Robson's
island, in II fathoms of water.

Pursuit 165

Before commirting Robson's island mystery to the "unsolved file," I should add two observations: First, Corliss
compared it to a UFO sighting, wherein an enigmatic object
is described by persons thought to be reliable witnesses, but
no physical evidence is available. The second observation is
that ihe account is almost identical to H. P. Lovecraft's fictionaltale. "The Call of Cthulu," in which a SImilar discovery
is made, but in the Pacific. One wonders if Lovecraft knew of
the Jesmond incident.

treasure, No submerged ruins were sighted that year, but

Cayc~-followers kept their eyes open for ruins of antiquity
wherever they happened to be in the Bahamas.
, A story that came out in 1933 seemed to be a dramatic confirmation of Cayce's prediction. Professor Nicola Russo of
Italy, writing in the March, 1933 issue of The Arlantis Quarterly, '4 claimed that a French newspaper, La Croix of Strassbourg, had noted in its December 28, 1929 issue that merchantship captains sailing near Begame Island in the Lesser Antilles
had found an island not marked on current or early charts.
Our tale now moves ahead in time to the 1920s. That era is
Landing parties set ashore there had discovered ruins of an
best known in history'S archives as the time of bootleg booze,
ancient.type. The U.S. Secl'etary of the Navy sent three deflappers, the Charleston, Betty Boop, AI Capone, straw hats
stroyer's to locate the island and verify the findings. The site
a!ld silent movieS. But Forteans know that in the 1920s there
was found and the ruins explored. Crumbling buildings and
was also a revival of interest in the occult. Pursuit readers
streets of an unknown city from a mysteriol,ls civilization of
need no reminding that Charles Fort himself lived and wrote
a type unknown to history were noted. Unfortunately neither
his books on strange phenomena during these years, while
Russo's article nor the newspaper story he summarized gave
Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle investigated mediums
any details or illustrations. It was not stated whether artifacts
such as the famous Mr. Piper. Heightened interest in the
were found or whether any were removed by the investigators.
occult inspired a revival of interest in. the subject of Atlantis.
The report ended with a statement that a scientific expedition
New searches began. Most of them were archeological, but
was being organized to stuoy ihe city and island in detail.
some explorations plumbed the misty depths of the psychic
To Russo the site appeared to be very ancient and the home
dimension with results that are with us to this day.
. of a weJl-organized civilization at some pre-Columbian time.
The Russo account concerns th~ general area w;here Edgar
In 1914 Mrs. Elena, Whishaw founded the Anglo-Spanish
Cayce said ~hat remnants of Atlantean culture could be found.
School of Archaeology at Seville and later moved it to Niebia,
Also, Lewis Spence suggested that a land-mass called Antilia,
. on the Rio Tinto. Whishaw's excavations uncovered traces of
after the legendary island of Iberian folklore, had existed in
very ancient megalithic walls at Huelva, and Bronze Age walls
ihe same region;'5 Spence's book was published in 1926, just
at Niebla. In 1923 floods ripped away a covering of mud and
about the time that Cayce started his psychic readings on
revealed to the astonished archeologist even older ruins at
Atlantis.
'
Niebla. She dated them t9 the pre-:Bronze Age AziHan culture,
In "1935 the Bahamas again figured in the Atlantis contronamed after Mas d' Azile in France where a late-paleOlithic
versy. Zink, in The Stones of Atlantis, '6 quoted a prediction
culture flourished. The ancient ruins included a stairWay
by Cayce dating back to the 1920s that "healing wells" could
thirty feet wide, cut in rock and leading from the river to one
be found at Bimini. According to the anonymous author of
of the medieval gate towers. Also, there was evidence that the
a pamphlet, Earth Changes, "7 a socialite aviatrix went searchriver had been artificially widened to form a harbor. Mrs.
ing for the wells in 1935 and so she claimed, found a freshWhishaw- believed that the Azilians were a colony of Atlariwater well walle~ around its rim with stones of a strang~ comteans, aIld so reported in her boo~Atlantis" in Andalucia. '0
position with odd symbols carved on them.
Nobody has' followed up Mrs. Whishaw's notable finds.
I have no details other than those which were rep.orted in
Egerton Sykes, the British Atlantis expert, wrote that" her
Earth Changes. Did the aviatrix really discover tr'aces of an
artifact, are in storage in the offices of the Rio Tinto Mining
ancient civilizati(m or simply stones carved with Arawakan
Company, where they have been ever since Mrs. Whishaw's
petroglyptis? (For examples .of the latt~r, see History of the
death." Exami.nation of the Niebla si~e by carbon-14 dating
Bahamas. II) It is not impossible that she stumbled upon the
methods has not been made, as far as I know, so we cannot
ruins of a monument of some sort which had been consfructed
be sure of the age of these mysterious ruins.
by a "post-Atlantean" people, their ships having visited the
A discovery of equal fascination was made by Professor
New World after the sinking of Atlantis but before the time
Adolf Schulten of Erlangen, Germany. In the 1920s he arid
of Columbus. The site was destroyed by a series of hurricanes
colleagues excavated the site of Tartessos at the swampy mouth
beginning in 1936.
of the Guadalquivir river in Spain. According to L. Sprague
Searchers continued to look- elsewhere for a "submerged
De Camp, '2 Schulten found a ring and a masonry block which
civilization." In the 1930s British adventurer F. A. Mitchellhe dated to two different civilizations, one from 1500 B.C.
Hedges began a quest for Atlantis, which he thought might
and the other from 3000 B.C. Schulten thought that Tartessos
have been somewhel'e in the Caribbean. In the Republic of
was related to Atlantis but couldn't find the city since it had
Belize he found a large and ancient ruin-a city of many
apparently sunk beneath the marshy water table. Moreover,
public buildings and plazas. The city, called Lubaantun, was
water from the marsh flooded the site so thoroughly that
. dated by the Englishman to. be between 25,000 and 15,000
digging had to cease.
About the same time iIi America the fam~us psychic Edgar
~.C: However, Norman Hammond of the Centre of Latin
Cayce was consulted by. a group of Florida entrepreneurs who r. American Studies at Cambridge University after two months
of study updated Lubaantun to c. A.D. 700. ,9
wanted him to preqict .whether a proposed resort at Bimini in
the 1940s br~ught a series of discoveries that seemed to
the Bahamas would be successfui. In 1926 Cayce told them
,that among the. things, they might expect to find at Bimini
confirm some of the ~vidence supporting the "lost continent"
theory about Atlantis. In his book Secret of the Ages, 20 Brinwere remnants of an ancient sunken civilization. '3 This "readsley Le Poer Trench told a story that has all the ingredients of
ing," as the psychic consultation was called, disconcerted the
a scene from The Maltese Fa/con. Egerton Sykes, the Atlantis
businessmen. All they had hoped for was a rev~lation of new
researcher, was in the Turf Club in Cairo, Egypt, toward th~
oil deposits or at least, the location of some shipwrecked

Pu,...",I66

end of 1942. He overheard a couple of aviators talking about

a remarkable sighting that came about during an otherwise
routine mission of flying planes for the Allies to bakar, in
Senegal. A plane had left Brazil and was flying over the midAtlantic toward the coast of French West Africa. The pilot
had chanced to look down at the sea for" a moment and was
startled by "an extraordinary sight." Sykes went up to the '
man and asked him to describe what he had seen. The pilot
replied that he had seen a submerged mountain with a ruined
city on its western slope; the sighting was possible, he said,
because the rays of the sun happened to hit the water at such
an angle that they could briefly penetrate the normally -murky
sea to great depths. The flyer left Cairo the next day on another
mission and Sykes lost touch with him.
I tried to follow this story further and found it recurring
phantasmagorically in several sources. For example, Charles
Berlitz wrote a similar story/' of_several air-ferry pilots who
had sighted submerged buildings and a whole 'city just breaking _
the surface near the Azores in 1942. The city was located on
the western slope of t~e Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater
mountain chain extending down the Atlantic from the Arctic
toward the Antarctic. Berlitz also mentioned that the city was
-visible only when the sun was at a certain position in the sky
so that its rays could illumine ttte dark waters when they were
calm. Berlitz added that other sunken cities had been sighted
by pilots flying over Fayal in the Azores and Boa Vista Island
in the Cape Verde archipelago. He too noted that pilots had
seen sunken cities while flying from Brazil to Dakar. 22
Another author who mentioned sightings by World War II
pilots was Colin Amery. He wrote in The New Atlantean
Journal u that an air-ferry pilot taking a bomber from Brazil
to Dakar in 1941 sighted the walls of a ruined building he
thought lay about 500 feet below the surface of the sea near
the islets that are called St. Paul's Rocks, far to the south of
the Azores.
More sightings of submerged structures of apparently manmade origin have occurred in the Caribbean. According to
Charles Berlitz, in Mysteriesjrom Forgotten Worlds,20 pilots
flying .over the Caribbean were searching for submarines
when "they saw something quite different and unexpected:
from time to time there appeared straight lines or rectangular
formations beneath the surface. The formations were seen
most frequently near Yucatan and British Honduras (now
Belize). But such sightings must be categorized as rumors
until more detailed evidence can be elicited from these areas.
Varied reports of ancient ruins on the Atlantic islands, or
underwater -near them, have been circulating amongst researchers and explorers since the end of the Middle Ages.
Some of .the reports are obvious myths, others have-a ring of
truth to them, but the hard evidence of artifacts has been
notably lacking-until now.
,Part II of this article will discuss some of the recently discovered sunken ruins of unknown age. Some are linked to the
Atlantis of Plato's fabulous account. The "new group" of
stone structures is located primarily in the Bahamas and the
Caribbean. Such ruins draw us closer to a solution of their
mysteries, for they have been photographed and artifactshave been found at the sites by qualified archeologists. I myself
have had the good fortune to visit one of these sites, the famous Bimini Road.

This is the first part of a four-part s~ries on A tlantis written by Jon Douglas Singer. The second part will appear in
the Winter issue of Pursuit.

1980

REFERENCES

"The

I) Singer, John Douglas,

Egyptian Connection: Egyptian
Sources of Plato's Atlantic Epic," in Pursuit No. 50, Spring 198()'
2) See, for example, a table on pages 170-1 in Charles Berlitz's
The Mystery oJ At/antis, New York, Avon,1976.3) For English translations of Timaeus and Crilias, one of the best
editions is the Loeb Classical Library's.
4) Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chicago, 1910, "Azores," "Canary
Islands," and "Guanches."
.
5) New York, Bantam Books, 1973, photograph section.
6)_ Edited by Egerton Sykes, New York, Gramercy Publishing
Company.
7) London, Markham House Press, 1968. Note: Markham House
Press is now in Brighton, England.
8) Ibid., p. 21.
9) Corliss, William R., Mysteries Beneath the Sea, New York,
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1970, pp. 10\-102.
.
10) Whishaw, E. M-., Atlantis in Andalucia, London, Rider, 1929.
II) Personal communication. .
12) Lost Continents, L. Sprague De"c:;amp, New York, Ballantine
Books, 1975, pp. 203-4.
13) Earth Changes, Virginia Beach,-Virginia, 1971, p. 68. The read_ing took place in August. I thank Ms. Gail Cayce for sending me
this book, which was out of print for a while.
14) Vol. I, No.4, March 1933, ~'Classical Notes of Submerged
Continents," p. 197.
15) Spence; Lewis, Atlantis DiscoveMi, New York, University Books
. reprint edition, 1968, p. 62.
16) Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1978, p. 8.
17) Earth Changes, op. cil., p. 79.
18) Craton, Michael, History oj the Bahamas, London, Collins,
-19~2, p. 20. For example, in Hartford Cave on Rum Cay island,
archeologists found crude petroglyphs of fish, human figures,
and purely decorative designs.
19) Garvin, Richard, The Crystal Skull, New York, Pocket Books,
1974, pp. 41-77. Another British explorer, Col. H. P. Fawcett,
had sought for ruined cities of Atlantis on dry land in the Amazon jungles of South America back in the early 19205. He failed
to bring back evidence of any_ such cities in the form of photographs or artifacts. He and his assistants (his sOon and another
explorer) disappeared mysteriously in 1925. Probably they were
killed by Indians, but the bodies were never found. See Col.
Fawcett's book, Lost Trail, Lost Cities, ed. by- Brian Fawcett,
New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1953. 20) New York, Pinnacle Books, pp.'14-15.
21) The Mystery oj Atlantis, New York, Avon Books, 1975, p. 195.
22) Le Poer Trench, op. cit., pp. 14-15. Another sunken city was
sighted off Boa Vista Island in the Cape Verde archipelago in
1929 by a Captain Andersen of Copenhagen. A Danish diver
claimed to have found a "marketplace" there. _
23) Summer, 1979, "New Atlantis Revisited" by Colin Amery,
pp.16-17.
24) New York, DeU,-I973, pp. 89-90.

ADDENDUM
According to Otto Muck's The Secret oj Atlantis, trans. by Fred
Bradley, New York, Pocket Books, 1979, p. 49, a link of copper
chain was dredged up with t_he mud at Monaco Station, southwest of
Santa Maria in the Azoi'es.-Muck did-riot date the find, and there is
-no data by which the ~e and origin ~f this artifact might be determi~ed. It could be from a shipwreck. It remains a mystery.

.... ;

PursuIt 167

,e 'Broomfield Experiments

,Of Andrew C~sse,. Esq.

~lted .and

with Notes by Paul B.~ompSOD

'. POR
THE PAST four years or so I have been involved in re
.. searching the life and work of Andrew Crosse, the
.
.

. .

'

Bri~ish s<;i~ntist.

The following is a transcription of Crosse's major paper on those

. , lit,tle creatures which have made his name live in the ann3Is of FOrtearia,- , .
; " . the acari. The paper was first printed in the TranSactions ofthe Lond,?n, ,,:
, ,':. ElectriclU Society In 1838. It was reprinted in t~e United States'inl~~9"in !.: ':
.. Benjarpfn Silliman's American Journal of Science, Volume'35.: have' :. ..
transcribed the report in Silliman's journal exactly, preservi,ngall the .
. : spelling; punctuation and syntax. Because of-its age and.Bri'tis.hisms"
: !..
the article is admittedly hard to follow through th~ long s~nteiIces : . .
., . and paragraphs's9-typical of the "literary" style of the 1830s.', . ,.: l.
" ,:' As you find your way through the. semantic thickets you will,.:, : .'.,' ~ .', ," ..,
be astonished, as I 'Was, by th,e sophistication of experiments :., " .: I' .. :.: ..:.,>".,
,
, ,. " Crosse made almost 150 years ago,
and
you
will
be
startled
by
,their
propheCy
for
our
generation
and for our
.
,
\
. . future. The photograph of Andrew Crosse was found at the local history library in Taunton, Somerset, by the
: ',: librarian, David Bromwich. It was taken from an origimil drawing owned by the Somerset Arch~eological and
" . , " Natural History Society. To my knowledge, no likeness of AQdrew Crosse 'has e~e~.been published in the U.S.,
, and perhaps not in England for many years. ..:....P.B.T.
. . ,
,

.A

JA..

,~~
26

~: ..

F1g. 6

c' .

18.

'.
N

Fig'. 8

B
.i

,-.'

I"'

'-OIc:==-t

r,

...., ..

".",; 168'

.... " , ' ,

.
.,,',:-.-

,
I

C~osse's Fi~es (tra,~ed by P.B.T.)-The figur~ numbered 26. 22. 1~ and 't4 show, the development
of the acari at that number of days. The other figures and their featUres are eXplained in the text. "

~,

ART. X.-Description of SODle Experiments made with theVoltalc',

Battery; by ANDREW CROSSE, Esq. of Broomfield, near Taunton, for the purpose of produclrig Crystals; In the process of which'
Experiments certain Insects constandy appeared., Communicated
in a letter dated Dec. 27, 1838, addressed ~ the ~ecretary of the
London Electrical Society and read Jan. 20, 1838.
,

'

'

My dear Sir- 1 trust that the gentlemen who, compose the

"Electrical Society" will not imagine that because l have so
long delayed answering their request, to furnish the Society
through you, as its organ, with a full account of my electrical
experiments, in which a certain insect' made its unexpected
appearance, that such delay has been occasioned by aI).y, desire
of witholding what 1 have to state, from the Society in particular, or the public at large. 1 am dellg}ited to find that at last,
late, though not the less call~ for, a body of scientific g,entlemen have,linked themselves together for the sake of exploring
and making public those mysteries, 'which hitherto, under
a variety of names, and ascribed to all causes but the true
one, have eluded the grasp of men' of research, and served to
perplex, perhaps, rather than to afford sufficient data to
theorize upon. It is true that much has been done in ~e ,course
of a few years, and That which has been done only affords
the strongest reason for believing t~at vastly'more remains to
be done. It would be presumptuous in me to enumerate the
services of a Davy, a Faraday, and maily other great men
at home, or a Volta and an Ampere, with a host of others
abroad. These distinguished men have laid the' foundations,
on which their successors ought to endeavor to erect a building worthy of the scale in which it has been commenced.
Electricity is no longer the' paltry confined 'science 'which it
was once fancied to be, making, its :appearance only from the
friction of glass or wax, employed in childish purposes, serving
as a trick for the school-boy, or a nostrum for the quack.
But it is, even now, though in its infancy, proved to'be most
intimately' connected with all operations in chemistrY, with
magnetism, with light arid caloi"ic;2 apparently' a 'property belonging to all matter, perhaps ranging' through, all space,
from sun to sun, from planet to planet, and not improbably
the secondary cause of everY change in the animal, mineral,
vegetable" and gaseous syst~s. It is' to determine: whet~er
this be or not the case, as far as human facilities can, determine, to ascertain what rank in the tree' of science electriCity
is to hold; to endeavor to find out to what useful pu~ 'it
might be applied, that 1 conceiv~ is tl:!.e' ~bjt:ct o(your Society,
and I shall at all times be ready and willing, as, a member,
to contribute my quota' of information to its support, knowing well, that' however little it might be, it
be as kindly
received as it is humbly offered. It is most unpleasing to my
feelings to glance at myself as an individual, but 1 have met
with so much virulence and abuse', so much calumny and mis-,
representation, in consequence of the experiments which ,I am
about to detail, and which seems in this nineteenth century
a crime to have made, that 1 must state, not for th~ sake of
myself (for 1 utterly scorn all such misrepresentations,), but
for the sake of truth and the science which 1 follow,'thatl am
neither an "Atheist", nor a "Materialist", nor a "self imagined creator" , but a humble and lowly reverencer of that Great
3 whose laws my accusers
wholly tQ have iost sight
than this, it is my, conviction, that' science is only
valualble as a mean to a greater end . .!
assure you, sit, that
I attach no particular value tq any 'experiment that I, have
and that my feelings and habits are much more ret~ng
obtruding character; arid 1 care not.if what.I have done
entirely overthrown, if truth be elicited. The fO,llowing is
plain and correct accpunt of the,experiments alluded to.

will

seem

can,

In the course of my endeavors to form artificial'minerals

by a long continued electric action on fluids holding in solution such substances as were necessary to my purpose, I had
recourse to every variety of contrivance which 1 could think of,
so that, on one hand, 1 might be enabled to keep up a neverfailing' electrical current of greater or lesser intensity or quantity, or both, as the case seemed to require; and on the other
hand, that the solutions made use of should be exposed to the
electric action in the mariner best calculated to effect the object in view. Amongst other contrivances, 1 constructed a
wooden frame [See "Crosse's Figures"-P.B.T.], of about
two feet in height, consisting of four legs proceeding from
a shelf at the bottom, supporting another at the top, and
containing a third in the middle. Each of these shelves was
about seven inches square: The upper one was pierced with a~
aperture, in which was fixed a funnel of Wedgwood ware,
within which rested a quart basin on a circular piece of mahogany placed within the funnel. When this basin was filled with
a fluid, a strip of flannel wetted with the same, was suspended
over the' edge of the basin and inside the funnel which, acting
as a syphon, conveyed the fluid out of the basin, through the
f~nnel, in successive drops. The middle shelf of the frame was
likewise pierced with ~n aperture, in which was fixed a smaller
funnel of glass, which supported a piece of somewhat porous
red oxide of iron from Vesuvius, immediately under the dropping of the upper funnel. The stone was kept constantly electrified by means of two platina wires on either side of it,
connected with the poles of a Voltaic battery of nineteen pairs
of five-inch zinc and 'copper single plates, in two porcelain
troughs, the cells of which were filled at first with water arid
11500 of hydrochloric acid, but afterwards with water alone.
1 may here state, that in all my subsequent eXperiments relative to these insects, 1 filled the cells of the batteries employed
with nothing but common water. The lower shelf merely
supported a wide-mouthed bottle, to receive the drops as
they fell from the second funnel. When the basin was nearly
emptied, the fluid was poured back again from the bottle
below into the basin above, without disturbing the position of
the stone. It was by mere chance that 1 selected this volcanic
substance, chOOSing it from its partial porosity; nor do I believe that it had the slightest effect in the production of the
insects 'to' be described. The fluid with which I filled the basin
was made as' follows.
,I reduced a piece of black flint" to powder, having first
exposed it to a red heat and quenched it in water to make it
friable. Of this powder 1 took two ounces, and mixed tttem
intensely with six ounces of carbonate of pOtassa,5 exposed
them to a strong heat for fifteen minutes in a black lead crucible in an air furnace, and then Poured the fused compound
on,an iron plate, reduced it to powder while still warm, poured
boiling water on it, and kept it boiling for some minutes in
a sand bath. The greater part of the soluble glass thus fused,
was taken up'by ~he water, together with a portion of alumina
from the crucible. 1 should have used one of silver, but had
none sufficiently large. To a portion of th,e silicate of potassa
thus fused, 1 added some boiling water to dilute it, and then
slowly added hydrochloric acid to super-saturation. A strange
remark was made on this part of the experiment, at the meeting of the lJritish Association at Liverpool, it being gravely
stated, that it was impossible to add an acid to a siliCate of
potassa without precipitating the silica! This, of course, must
be the case, unless the solution be diluted with water: My
o~ject in subjecting this fluid to a long-continued electric,
action, through the intervention of a porous stone, was to

p.,;.""ill69

form, if possible, crystals of silica at one of the poles of the

battery, but failed in accomplishing this by those means.
On the fourteenth 6 day from the commencement of the experiment' I observed, through a lens, a feW small 'whitish excrescences or nipples projecting from about the middle of the
electrified stone, and nearly under the dropping' of the fluid
above. On the eighteenth 7 day, these projections enlarged,
and seven or eight filaments, each longer than the excrescence
from which it grew, made their appearance on each of the
nipples. On the twenty second8 day, these appearances were
more elevated and distinct, and on ,the twenty-sixth 9 day, '
each figure' assumeq the form of a perfect' insect, standing
erect on' a few bristles which formed its tail. Till this period
I had no notion that these appearances were any other than
an incipient mineral formation; but it was not until the twenty
eigh.th "ay, when I plainly perceived these little creatures
move their legs, that I felt any surprise, and I must own that '
when this took place, I was not a little astonished. I endeavored
to detach, with the poil1t of a needle, one or two of them
from its position on the stone, but they immediately died,
" and I was obliged to wait patiently for a few 'days longer,
when they separated themselves from the stone, and moved
about at pleasure, although they had tleen for sometime after
their birth apparently averse to motion. In the course of a few
weeks, about a hundred '0 ,of them made their appearance on
the stone. I observed that at ,first each of them fIXed itself for
a considerable time in one spot, appearing, as far as I could
judge, to feed by suction; but when a ray of light from the'
sun was directed upon it, it seemed disturbed, and removed'
itself to the shaded part of the stone. Out of about a hundred
insects, not above five or six were born on the south side of
the stone. I examined some of them with the microscope, and
observed that the smaller ones appeared to have only six legs,
but the larger ones eight." It would be superfluous to attempt
a description of these little mites, when so excellent a one has
been transmitted from Paris.12 It seems that they are of the
genus Acarus. but of a species not hitherto observed. I have
had three separate formations of similar insects at different
times, from fresh portions of the same fluid, with the same
apparatus. As I consi4ered the resul~ of this experiment rather
extraordinary, I made some of my friends acquainted with it,
amongst whom were some highly scientific gentlemen, and
they plainly perceived the insect in various states. I likewise
transmitted some of them to one of our most distinguished
physiologists in London, '3 and the opinion of this gentleman,
as well as of other eminent persons to whom he showed them,
coincided with that of the gentleman of the' Academie des'
Sciences, as to their genus and species. I have never ventured
an opinion as to the cause of their birth. and for a very good
reason-I was unable to form one. The most simple solution
of the problem which occurred to me, was, that they arose
from ova deposited by insects floating in the atmosphere,
and that they might possibly be hatched by the electric action.
Still, I could not imagine that an ovum could shoot out filaments, and that those filaments would become bristles; and
. moreover, I could not detect" on th~ closest examination, any,
remains of a shell. Again, we have no right to assume that
, electric action is necessary to vitality, until such fact shall
have been most distinctly proved. I next imagined, as others
have done, that they might have originated from the water,
and consequently made a close examination of several hundred vessels, filled with the same water as that which held in
solution the silicate of potassa, in the same room, which vessels
constituted the cells of a large Voltaic battery, used without

, Pursuit 170

acid. In none of these vessels could I perceive the trace of an ,

insect of that description. I likewise closely examined the
'crevices and most dusty parts of the room with no better
success. In'the course of spme'months, indeed, these insects
so increased, that when they were strong enough to leave
their moistened birth-place, they issued out in different directions, I suppose, in quest of food; but they generally huddled
together under a card or piece of paper in their neighborhood,
as if to avoid light and disturbance. In the course of my experiments, upon other matters, I filled a glass basin with a
concentFated solution of silicate of potassa without acid, in
the middle, of which I ,placed a piece of brick, used in this
neighborhood for domestic purposes, and consisting mostly
,of silica. Two wires of platina conneCted either end of the'
brick with tl;1e poles of a Voltaic battery of sixty three pairs of
',plates, each about two'inches square. After many montl:ts'
action, silica in a gelatinous state formed in some quantity
round the bottom of the brick, and as the solution evaporated,
I replaced it by fresh additions, so that the outsi~e of the glass
basin, being constantly wet by repeated overflowings, was,
of course, constantly electrified. On this outside, as well as on
the edge of the fluid within, lone day perceived the well known
whitish excrescence, with its projecting filaments. In the course
of time, 'they increased in number, and as they successively
burst into life, the whole table on' which the apparatus stood,
at last was covered with similar insects, which hid themselves
wherever they could' find a shelter. Some of them were of
different siz~s, there being a considerable ,difference in this
respect between the larger and the smaller; and they were
plainly perceptible to the naked eye, as they nimbly crawled
from one spot to another. I closely examined the table with
a lens, but could perceive no such excrescences as that which
marks their incipient state, on any part of it. While these
effects were taking place in my electrical room, similar formations were making their appearance in another room, distant
from the form~r. I had here plac'ed on a table three Voltaic
batteries, unconnected with each other. The first consisted of
twenty pairs of two inch plates, between the poles of which
I placed a glass cyliilder, filled with a concentrated solution of
silicate of potassa, in which was suspended Ii piece of clay
slate by two platina wires connected with either pole of the
battery. A piece of paper was placed on the top of the cylinder,
to keep out the dust. After many months' action, gelatinous
silica in various forms was electrically attracted to the slate,
which it coated in rather a singular manner, unnecessary
here to describe. In the course of ti,me, I observed similar
insects, in their incipient state, forming around the edge of
the fluid within the jar, which, when perfeet, crawled 'about
the inner surface of the paper with great activity. The second
battery consisted of twenty pairs of cylinders, each equal to
a four inch plate. Between the poles of this, I interposed a
series of seven glass cylinders, filled with the following concentrated solutions:-I. Nitrate of copper; 2. Subcarbonate
of potassa; 3. Sulphate of copper; 4. Green sulphate of iron;
5. Sulphate of zinc; 6. Water acidified with a minute portion
of hydrochloric acid; 1. Water poured on powdered metallic
arsenic, resting ~n a copper cup, connected with 'the positive
pole of the battery. All these cylinders were electrically ut:rited
together by arcs of sheet copper, so that the same electric
current passed through the whole of them.
After many months' action, and consequent formation of
'certain crystalline matters, which it islnot my object here to
notice, 'I observed similar excrescences with those before described at the edge of the fluid in every' one of the cylinders,

excepting the two which contained the carbonate of potassa,

and the metallic arsenic; and in due time a host of insects
made their appearance. It wl:!-s curious to observe the. crystallized nitrate and sulphate of copper, which formed by slow
evaporation at the edge of the respective solutions, dotted
here and there with these hairy excrescences. At the foot of
each of the cylinders, I had placed a paper ticket upon the
table, and on lifting them up, I found a little colony of insects
under each, but no appearance whatever of their having been
born under their respective papers, or on any part of the table.
The third battery consisted of twenty pairs of cylinders, each
equal to a three inch plate. Between the poles of this I interposed likewise a series of six glass cylinders, filled with various
solutions, in only one of which I obtained the insect. This
contained a concentrated solution of silicate of potassa. A bent
iron wire, one fifth of an inch in diameter, in the form of an
inverted syphon, was plunged some inches into this solution,
and connected it with the positive pole, whilst a small coil of
fine silver wire joined it with the negative.
After some months' electrical action, gelatinous silica enveloped both wires, but in much greater quantity at the positive pole; and in about eight months from the commencement of the experiment, on examining these two wires very
minutely, by means of a lens, having removed one of. these
incipient insects upon the gelatinous silica on the silver wire,
and about half an inch below the surface of the fluid, when
replaced in its original position. In the course of time, more
insects made their appearance, till,. at last, "I counted at once
three on the negative and twelve on the positive wire. Some of
them were formed on the naked part of the wires, that is, on
that part which was partially bare of gelatinft)us silica; but
they were mostly imbedded more or less in the silica, with eight
or ten filaments projecting from each beyond the silica. It was
perfectly impossible to mistake them, after having made one's
self master of their different appearances; and an occasional
motion in the filaments of those that had been the longest
formed was very perceptible, and observed by many of my
visitors, without my having previously noticed the fact to them.
Most of these productions took place from half to three quarters of an inch under the surface of the fluid, which, as it
evaporated very slowly, I kept to the same level by adding
fresh portions. As some of these insects were formed on the
inverted part of the syphon-shaped wire, I cannot imagine
how they contrived to arrive at the surface, and to extricate
themselves from the fluid: yet this they did repeatedly; their
old places were vacated, and others were born in new ones. ,.
Whether they were in an imperfect state (except just at, the
commencement of their formation), or in a perfect one, they
had all the distinguishing characteristics of bristles projecting
from their bodies,' which occasioned the French savans's
to remark that they resembled a microscopic porcupine.
I must not omit to state, that the room in which these three
batteries were acting was kept constantly darkened. It was not
my intention to make known these observations until I myself
be better informed about the matter. Chance l~ to
publication of an erroneous account of them, which I was
the necessity of explaining. It is so difficult to arrive at
truth, that mankind would do better to lend their assistance
explore what may be worth investigating, than to endeavor
crush in its bud that which might otherwise expand into a
In giving this account, I have merely stated those cirregarding the appearance of insects, which I have
during my investigations into the formation of minmatters; I have never 'studied physiology, and am not

aware under what circumstances the birth of this class of

insects is 4sually developed. In my first experiment I had
made use of flannel, wood, and a volcanic stone; in the last,
none of these substances were present. I never, for a moment,
entertained the idea that the electric fluid had animated the
organic remains of insects,. or fossil eggs, previously existing
in the stone or silica; and have formed no visionary theory
which I would travel out of my way to support. I have since
repeated these latter experiments in a third room, in which
there are now two batteries at work. One consisting of eleven
pairs'of cylinders, made of four inch plates, between the poles
of which is placed a glass cylinder, filled with silicate of potassa, in which is suspended a piece of slate between two wires
of platina, as before, and covered loosely with paper. Here,
again, is another crop of insects formed. The other battery
consists of twenty pairs' of cylinders, the electric current of
which is passed through six ~ifferent solutions in glass cylinders, in three of which only is the insect formed, viz. 1st, in
nitrate of copper; 2d, in sulphate of copper, in each of which
the insect is only produced at the edge of the fluid, as Jar as
I can make out; and 3d, by the old apparatus of coiled silver
and iron wire in silicate of potassa, as before. There are now
forming on the bottom of this positively electrified wire similar insects, at the distance of fully two inches below the surface of the fluid. On examining these, I have lately noticed
a peculiar quality they possess whilst in an incipient state.
After being kept some minutes put of the solution, they contract their filaments, so as, in some cases, wholly, and in
others partially, to disappear. I at first thought they were
destroyed; but, on examining the same spots, on the next day,
they were'as perceptible as before. In this respect, they seem
not unlike zoophytes, which adhere to the rocks on the seashore, and which contract on the approach of a finger. I may
likewise remark, that I have not been able to detect their eyes,
even when viewed under a powerful microscope, although
I once fancied I perceived them. The extreme heat of summer
and cold of winter do not appear favorable to their production,
which succeeds best, I think, in spring and autumn. As in the
above account I have occasionally made use of the word
"formation", I beg that it might be understood that I do not
mean creation, or any thing approaching to it. I am not aware
that I have any thing more to add, except the few remarks
I shall conclude with.
.
1st. I have not observed a formation of the insect, except
on a moist and electrified surface, or under an electrified fluid.
By this I do not mean to assert that electricity has any thing to
do with their birth, as I have not made a sufficient number of
experiments to prove or disprove it; and besides, I have not
taken those necessary precautions which present themselves
even to an unscientific view. These precautions are not so
easy to observe as may at first sight appear. It is, however,
my intention to repeat these experiments, by passing a stream
of electricity through cylinders filled with various fluids under
a glass receiver inverted over mercury, the greatest possible
care being taken to shut out extraneous matter. Should there
be those who blame me for not having done this before, to
such I answer that, independent of a host of other hindrances,
which it is not in my power to set aside, I have been closely
pursuing a long train of experiments on the formation of
crystalline matters by the electric agency, and now different
modifications of the Voltaic battery; in which I am so interested, that none but the ardent can conceive what is not in my
power to describe.

.PursuIt 171

2dly. These insects do not appear to have originated frQm

others similar to themselves, as they are formed in all cases
with access to moisture, and in some cases two inches below
the surface of the fluid in which they are born; and if a full
grown and perfect insect be let fall into any fluid, it is infallibly drowned.
3d1y. I believe they live for many weeks; occasionally hav~
found them dead in groups, apparently from want of food.
4thly. I~ has been frequently suggested. to me to repeat
~hese experiments without usi9g the electric agency; but this
would be by no means satisfactory, let the event be what it
~ould.'6 It is well known that saline matters are easily crystallized without subjecting them to the electric action; but jt
by no means follows that, because artificial electricity is not
applied, such crystals are formed .without the. electrical influence; I have made so many experiments on electriCal crys~
tallizatiort, that I am firmly convinced in my own mind, that
eiectric attraction is the cause of the formation of every crystal,.
whether artificial electricity be applied or not; I am, however,
well aware of the difficulty of getting at the truth in these
matters, and of separating cause from effect. It h~s oft~n
occurred to me, how it is that such numbers of animacules are
'produced in flour and water, in pepper and water? also, the
insects which infest fruit trees after a blight?" Does not, a
chemical change take place in the water, and likewise in the
sap of the tree previous to the appearance of these insects,
and is or is not every chemical change produced by electIic
agency? In making these observations I seek to mislead 1)0
pne. The book of nature is opened wide to our view by the
Aimighty power, and we must endeavor, as faras our feeble
faculties will permit, to make a good use of it; always remem~
bering; that however the timid may shrink from investigation,
the more completely the secrets of nature are laid bare, the
more effectually will the power of that Great Being be manifested, who seems to have ordained that
"Order is Heaven's first law."
I beg to remain, in the mean time, my dear sir,
Yours very sincerely,
ANDREW CROSSE

Broomfield, Dec. 27,1837.

P .S. Since writing the above account, I have obtained the
insects on a bare platiqa wire plunged into fluo-silicic acid,
one inch below the surfllce of the'fluid at the negative 'pole of
. a small battery of two inch plates in cells filled with water.
This is a somewhat singular fluid for these insects to breed in,
who Seem to have a f1intY1aste,-~though they are by 'no means
confined to siliceous fluids.'. This fluo-silicic acid was pro~
cured from London some time since, and consequently made
. of London water; so that the idea of their being natives of the
Broomfield water is quite set aside by this result. The apparatus was arranged as follows: Fig. 7, a glass basin (a pint" one)
partly filled with fluo-silicic acid to the level 1. 2, a smaQ
porous pan, made of the same materials as a garden pot,
partly filled with the same acid to the level 2, with an earthen
cover; 3, placed upon it, to keep out the light, dust, &c. 4, a
platina wire connected with the positive pole of the battery,
with the other'end plunged into the acid in the pan, and twisted
round a piece of common quartz; on which quartz, after
many months' action, are forming singularly beautiful and
perfectly formed crystals of a transparent substance, not yet
analYzed, as they are still growing. These crystals are of the
modification of the cube, and are of twelve or fourteen si<:t~s.

"""""172

The platina wire passes under the cover of.the pan. 5, a platina
wire connected with the negative pole of the 'same battery,
wi~h the.other end dipping intQ the basin, an inch or two below.the fluid; and, as 'well as the other: twisted round a piece
of quartz. By. this arrangement it is. evident that the electric
fluid enters the porous pan by the wire' 4, percolates the pan,
and passes outQY the wire 5. Ins now upwards of six or eight
m<mths (I. cannot at this ~oinent put my hand on the memorandum of tJte date).since this apparatus has been in action,'
and though I 'have oc~io~ly lifted out the wires to examine
them by a lens, yet it-was not tm.the other day that I perceived
any insect, and. there, are npw, t~ee of. the. same insects, In
their .incipient state,. appearing on the nakeil platina wire at
tt"e bottom of the q~rtz .in: thl! glass basin at the negative.
pole. 'These insects .are very percePtible and may be repre-.
sented thus (magnified): fig. 8, J the platina' wire, 2 the quartz,
3 the .incipient insects. It should be observed that the glass
basin, fig: 7, has always b~ loosely covered with paper. The
incipient appearance of the i.nsect has already been described.
The fJ.laments which project
in coUrSe ortiine seen to move,
before the p~r.'rect.in~t d~~cii~.iii!e~f f~o~ ~ts b~rth-plac~.

are

:.

..

',

';,

. '. .

':. :: .NOTES 'BV PAl)L.B .. TI;lO~PSON

. (l) ThroughoiIt' the acari 'controversy,; Crosse and others
always referred' to 'the acan"aS i"inseets" although if they
were in 'fact members' ~f 'the speCies Acarus, they would be
arachnids. '. '. .. . . . ..

<.

..,' .

(2)' :"Caloiic", 'is 'the" oid~f~hion~ ~o~d' for heat. Up to

the tillie of'Lavoisier~'calori~ was corisiderel:i an element.
'(3)" :Cr~Sse"consistently refers to "the .Almighty' power" or
tti~ .ipreat Being" 'instead ,.of .saying Ood. It would appear
that his beliefs on the'subject were rather deistic'.
(4) Flint is composed
silicon, With various metallic oxides that determine ~olor.
.
(5)' "Po~sil" is pot8s&ium. Poiassium carbonate is the
technical name for potash ... :..... . .

of

(6) A small line drawing shows the acarus at thi~ stage.

.

. '

(7) Ibid.

I; , ..

(8) Ibid ..
(9) lbid.
(10) This was the most prolific' experiment in nr{\(,'"'I'.r.o
acari. Most of the stricter ones made only a few .. ;
(1'1) .This is a characteristic
o(other acari, such as A. sero.
."
('12) A .specimen was sent to the Arademie des Sciences,
preser:ved 1n.a1cohol..
. '. . . '
".
. (13). Apparently a "Mr. Owc~" who might be Vil'h",,r!
Owen"the
inventor of-the
.
.
. word dinosaur. . ,
'. (14)' This ,would seem to' indicate they were in fact f'nrrnir.o
in the -silica. '. . .
.
(i 5) Mons}eur P. J. F. Turpin, a microscopist' of note.
report"on' the 'acari was published in the Comptes nenUl1:>
"01.:5,'1837.'
.
c
(16) Crosse fliiled te> see t~t 'th'is 'Yould decide whether
not eleCtricity influenced the form1atioil" of the acari.
.
, .(i"7) Cr:os~e .ca~tio.~~lY adv~n~ ih~ aid. itieor~ of
~neous generation, whicb perslsted until Pasteur proved
f!l~ ~()
Ia~er. ..', . . .
;,
.

..

yc:ars

. ..
. ..
.

..

...

~
.......
' '.

.
"

. . ..

.
. .

SITUations
In this section moSdy contemporary. curious i;lnd unexplained events are reported.
Members are urged to send in newsclippings and reportS they deem responsible.
Please be sure to include the, source of reference (name of newspaper or periodical),
city of publication, date of issue in w.,ich the article appeared, and your first initial .
and last ~ame (or melllbership numbf;!r: only if you prefer to be credited in that way.)

"L.~-'~"""'"

.".

Iron . . . All Natural?

"-:.,'

,',' .
One day in May'a fierce storm broke over
New Jersey. It started at about
. .:.'.
Hailstones "the size of golf balls"l.
on car roofs and, whipped by a .
breeze, splattered against walls and' . ... ..'
'. :
'.
WInaOllVS of homes and. business biJildings:
The truck driveway in front of the Depar1tmelnt of Public Works garage was almost
.:~.
f,.. ".
: .. :. :
with ice pellets during the IS':S'::::'":';. ":.. :. .:.. '.~ .: "
fall. As the storm moved over and
city employees who had taken r~t'uge .
came forth to marvel at the size and
of the hailstones, already beginnirig
.'
melt on the pavement.
"Then one of the guyS noticed that pebbles
falling out of the hailstones," said
;polk:esrnan Frank Paladino. "We all jp-abbed
., .
to take home. I wanted to give them
kids in my family for their shQw-aiidsessions at school. "
Joseph Minnitti, a co-worker, also filled
pOCkets with the pebbles, saying: "I've.
seen anything like this. You're lucky
see something like this onCe in a lifetime."
..... :..
What the two thought remarkable wasn't'
surprise fall of the icy cocoons but the
appearance of the contents. The pebbles
about the size of peas, all black, and
. .:
seemed heavier than chips of stone.
tiny surfaces bore no sign of glacial
l!'
.
. . .. ,
polishirlg but had the shape that bits of molmetal take when plunged into cold water,
Not m~ch do~bt that the "Jersey pebbles" attract the needle of an ordinary magnetic comSomeone recalled that on May 18, less
pass. What is cloubtful is whether the tiny objects could have been spewed &om M~nt
a week before, there had been a majpr
St. Helens volcano in W"shington state and carried by jet stream winds c~ear across the
o.f Mount St. Helens volcano. in
conQ.nent., (Pho.to courtes~ of Asbury Park (NJ) Press)
. .
..,. ,
w itllillllnglLun state. Someone else saw.. a pos-.
connection, whereupon collective c.urdoubts that objects as heavy as the pebbles
stiffened to investigative resolution.
hoUr in jet stream, I think it's entirely
possible that they may l1ave come from
pebbles never made it to show-andcould be borne any such distance oil wind
Mount St. Helens.
Instead, they were turned over to sciencurrents. Nor does he think they are of 'In~
with a request for answers to one of the
~'Oneof t,hesilWificant thi~ about them,
dustrial origin. "They're just too big for
farthest-out questions:, Could the
which seems important to ine, is that they
that," he said. He mentioned plans for using
a heavy-duty reactor at the university to
have been blasted by the volcano
all weigh .b~t.ween 1.3 and "1.6 grams, The
the upper atmosphere, then carried
fact thai they're all about the .same weight
analyze their physical and chemical compo
than 3,000 miles eastward by jet-stream
seems to say. that the heavier ones in the
sition but added, "it may' be six montlls
and somewhere along the line behailstone system dropped out while the lighter
before we ca~ get ,around to doing it. " .
nuclei of super-hailstones?
ones were blown away."
.
Another skeptic is Dr. Lester Machta, ari
Weschler doesn't believe .the pebbles are
expert in air pollution and director of the air
Dr. Charles Weschler, an environmental
at Bell Labs, found some. of the
of meteorite origin; that sort of debris doesn't
resources laboratory at the NatiQnal Oceariic
usually. form the nucleus of hailstones, he...
so full of iron that he could lift
and Atmospheric Administration, Silver
with a magnet; and they attracted
:expIa.i.hed. ((}s'"illso "much more honeySpring, Maryland. "All of our exPerie!jce
conllpass needle (see photo). "This to me ..... combed'in phYSicalnature than these pebwould say it isn't pOssible,'~ he declared.
bles are!' . '
that they are possibly of volcanic
He theorized that heavy cinders could be
he said. "With the strong prevail:
.. But.Dr. Kellllet/l Rahn, a researcher at the
caught in the strong updraft of a thunderweS[-1o-east winds in the stratosphere,
Graduate School of Oceanography at the
storm, carried aloft 50,000 feet, then dropped
can range from 100 to 200 mil~ an
University of Rhode Island in .Kingston,
[Continued on page F761 . i " ','
"

:.:, . l'
~

"

I,

"

"

.I

...

Pursuit 173
......... :-.

"

The Cattle
Mutilation
SITUation
' .. . something
.. :,, which should
, r' ' . .
'
" ' be further
investigated'
Watching a Mutil~tion in Progress
Herb Marshall js the :sheriff of Wasl:li'ngton County, Arkansas.
If he hadn't gone into laiv enforcem~n:t'he might 'well have made
a career in science. He believes tha:t physical effort solves more,
problems than languorous imaginings, that right-brain or leftbrain conceptions are noi half us good as two-eye perceptions,
. that jurors and judges', whether of law or the society at large,
rightly have small regard for'speculations and opinions but show
considerable respect for the testimony of qualified witnesses and
hard evidence gathered by trained investigators.
Until a couple of years ago Sheriff Marshall suffered the,complaints of cattle-breeders and their employees, elected officials
and "concerned citizens," not to mention anomaly buffs and
psychics, about animals being killed and mutilated in his county.
Upsetting the sheriff most of all was a threat, clearly implied in
many calls and frankly expressed in others, that he, the sheriff,
"had ~tter do something." So in 1978, he did.
.
Marshall found a sickiy yearling calf and with the'owner'~ permission killed it in a field. He posted four deputies at some distance, to watch the dead animal with a night-viewing telescope
and camera.
'
.
E.amined after 19 hours, the carcass displayed usual signs of
a "classic" mutilation, according to the sheriff. The eye on t~e
calrs exposed side was missing, the tongue had been removed
and the blood and genitals were gone.
"When an animal dies," the sheriff explained, "the rectum
inverts and sticks out about three inches, and the tongue sticks
out about four or five i~ches.~' V~ltu~es, skunks and other predators are soon attracted and eat away these parts, and. "as the

A New Approach

[Continuedfrompage J63]

Helicopters." No one seems to know, however, whether the

. technology eJdsts for a totally silent helicopter. It may be belaboring the point, but no one should assume that aerial oQjects or UFO phenomena are extra-terrestrial. The question
should be phrased: Can earthly technology duplicate the reported effects? Tfie ~~er.i,s a,n ~verwhe~ing'yes. Aircraft
that float; or h(m~r. ~ily,: ~lo~g to three categories: helicopters, vertical.ta~e-o.ff ,~d ,Ian~ craft, and dirigibl~.
By far the most nearly silent type is the dirigible, and a report
from the Goodyear Aerospace CQrporation recently 'described
an amazing new craft. It is a blimp with attache,d helicopter
engines and props which can maneuver ~e craft quickly in
"skyhooks" because
any direction. These airshj.~.ar(calI.ed
..... ' : . .,~.-

I!".

.........,,174

body temperature drops, during ten h9urs or so after death,

the muscles contract, pulling the rectum and tongue inward.
Examination then seems to show that these parts were cut off
rather than chewed off. "
.
The sheriff blamed blowflies for other so-called mysteries.
"Blowflies," he observed, "eat neatly along the edges of exposed
tissue, as precisely as a surgeon's knife might cut, and they consume juices and bloodto the point where the carcass looks and
'in fact is, drained."
To reassure himself that no UFO, aircraft, land vehicle, visible
being or unidentified creature participated in the test, Sheriff
Marshall kept his men on post an additional eleven hours, watching through the night-viewing 'scope wjth camera at the ready.
Nothing suspicipus was seen or heard during. the (otal surveilJance
.time of thirty hours.
' .
Ma"shal1, after presenting his findings to the coun~y cattlemen~s association, said the reports of ,mysterious mutilations
stopped immediately and the case "closed itself." : '

* *
'A UFO Hit My Best BuU'
Bill Heath, a rancher in Rio Hondo, Texas, reported
finding his .best bull, an l,tOO-pound ,Charolais; lying
dead next to a watering area with a hole seined through
its heart and its tongue cut out '"with surgicai precision."
According to Heath, it happened on Sunday, October 26,
1~, and he could think of only one explanation-UFO .
, Wft"lafs what I believe," he declared. "Some people
said it was persons from the. occult-devil worshippez:sbut they would have had to be using a h~licopter to get
around out there. There were no tracks around the animal. It was like he was hit and fell over on his side.
"You don't just walk up to a bull like ,that one. He was
wild! They cut a perfectly round hole above the left shoul~er, through a muscle, and got to the heart. I have a
degree in animal science and have had to do animal dissections: There's no way a person could do that with 'a
liCalpel."

*
Leave IUo the Buzzards
Recalling tlie wave of reports of "mysteriously mutilated"
cattle that two years ago left Texas and other states ~wash in
rumors about "Martians, sex-cultists and who knows what,"
a leading veterinary diagnostician reiterates ,that he has found
facts running counter to many fantasies about the so-called
phenomena.
,
After examining a half-dozen carcasses brought to the Texas
Veterinary Medicine Diagno~tic LaboratOrY in College Statio!),
Dr. Konrad Eugster, executive director, said death was in all

they can lift and carry very large cargoes, and who knows
what such a craft would look like at night, equipped with
a powerfl,11 beacon to .locate animals. From much physical
evidence it seems likely that many of the mutilated animals
have been'dropped from .great heights, suggesting soDie sort
of mobile airborne laboratory for tissue recoverieS. Blimps
wOuld fill the job requirements nicely, especially if helicopters,
silent or not, were used as support craft. Also remember that
for reasons of national security a relatively few military people
and even fewer <;ivilians are given much iqformation abou~
t~e "new toys" that research and d~eiopme~t.~as advanced
from drawing board, to scale model to experimental production in just the last few years.
'
"
Q. How is the blood drained from the cows?
A. If there is an airborne laboratory involved, it may be
eq~ipped with machinery capable of ~aining a. carcass. '

"'.'

FaD'

cases due to natural cau!ies. "We weren't even close to suspecting

anything abnormal," he said.
One rancher said he had been "shocked" to find a calf with its
insides eaten out and with only one small hole in the skin. ,But
Dr. Eugster explained: "A hole as small as the size of a quarter
can be used by buzzards to clean out a carcass. That's on~ reason
the birds don't have neck feathers."

...

... ...

'Must Have Been a Laser'

An attorney who practices in San Antonio, Texas, and
who farms 11 acres in east Bexar County, found his 50pound white Yorkshire pig lying on its side in a pasture
with the heart removed, apparently through a 24-inch
incision begun at the animal's throat.
The attorney, W. B. Snell, said the cut was so precise
that it could have been made only by a laser beam. Wfhe
odd thing is that there was no blood around the wound,"
he said. Wfhe hole was smooth, and you couldn't see any
bones or vital organs through the opening where the
heart was removed."
He noted that vultures, which usually pick dean the
carcass of any dead animal in the area, had steered dear'
ofthe pig's remains.
,.

...

... ...

Really Mind-Boggling
Working under a state grant, Dr. Nancy Owen, a University
of Arkansas anthropologist, studied 22 "classic" incidents of
cattle mutilation reported in 1978 in Benton County, Arkansas,
and said that the cases "begin to fall apart" and lose their mystery
upon close examination.
,
For example, it seemed at first that all the cows had the left eye
missing and all the steers were minus the right eye. But that theory
became untenable when the complete pattern emerged to show
that the missing eye in every case was the exposed eye, the one
that predatory insects and animals could attack.
Pointing out that dead animals bloat, Dr. Owen surmised that
a fine cut, made with "surgical precision," could be skin torn by
the pressure of bloat beneath it. As for animal insides found
"piled neatly" next to the carcass, these were intestines expelled
through the vagina, a nor unusual post-mortem occurrence.
Dr. Owen quoted a South Dakora sociologist's assessment:
the phenomenon isn't the mutilations; it's the mass hysteria resulting trom the publicity given them.

...

..

'But How Does One Explain ... '

A lengthy promotional article in The Sunday Denver POst
heralded the showing last May of a 9O-minute documentary over

. But there is a growing suspicion that many of the

" carcasses may have been lying around for'
few days, and the blood from the veins and arteries had
absorbed into the surrounding flesh so as to give the
of drained blood.
Q. Why are the carcasses left behind as evidence? Wouldn't
mutilating prospectors have the technology to remove
carcasses?
A. There has been no need to remove the carcasses. In
LUU1Ll~'1I to the fact that a carcass may weigh a half ton and
thus 'difficult to move or store, there is a simpler reason
leave it behind. So far, no carcass has presented evidence
JVUIUII'6 to the identity of the culprits. All that a mutilated
shows is that the animal has been dissected by means,
than accident or a pr~ator. However, if- mutilations
:onltim:le to receive extensive attention from the media we

Denver's KMGH-Channel 7. Produced by Linda Moulton Howe

after eight months of field work with photographer Richard
Lerner, the film "performed one of the most exhaustive studies
yet done" of cattle mutilations, 'according to Clark Secrest, the
Post's television and radio editor.
Beginning with the state's first well-documented' mutilation
case, that of Snippy the horse, found dead in 1967 with her entire
skin missing, camera and narration described many characteristics in common among the more than 500 other mutilations reported to have taken place in Colorado during the last twelve
years. Also studied was a long list, of "possible" perpetrators
and their "possible" methods, compiled by sheriffs, district
attorneys' investigators and the Colorado Bureau of Investigalion.
A display'ad run alongside the article coaxed readers to "witness the stories, then decide for yourself ... who or what is causing
A Strange Harvest" [main title of the fjlm}.
A headline on critic Secrest's artiCle described the film as "well
done," and at the conclusion he noted that it "offers no solutipns, although it does embrace the UFO theory." Then,.to
summarize:
"These mutilations easily can be stricken from the mind, if only
because there are no answers. They seem almost fantastic.
"But how does one explain those neatly cut-up carcasses off
in the middle of nowhere? Somebody is up to something very
strange. "
After watching the show, a school psychologist sent the Post
page to Pursuit with a letter adding his own impressions:
"One of the most interesting parts was when a physiciansurge"n attempted to duplicate the fine,ness 'of the cuts with, first,
surgical steel (he failed) and then a laser surgical instrument (he
sLicceeded). The laser surgical instrument weighed 4OO!.ibs. and
took several technicians 20 minutes to set up for operation each
time. The physician said it was unlikely that anyone would carry
such an instrument to all 10,000 mutilation sites.
"Another part of the program dealt with the regressive hypnosis of several witnesses, primarily Wyoming ranchers, by Leo
Sprinkle, director of counseling and testing at the University of
Wyoming in Laramie. It is thought that persons 'can' lie when
hypnotized and so this would not be considered as conclusive
evidence by the scientific community. It is, however, indicative of
something which should be further investigated."
SOURCES: Austin American Statesman (10/29/80) and Dallas Morning
News (1'1/16/80) (Texas), and The Denver Sunday Post (5125180)
(Colorado).
CREDIT: Palen and J. Vidmar.
More than 10,000 cases of "farm animal 'mutilations by unknown
perpetrators" have been reported to law enforcement officials in the
U.S. and Canada sinL'e 1967, -Ed.

may see fewer'reports of mutilations but a corresponding rise

in numbers of cattle reported missing. Should this happen,
the job of tracking down the perpetratoi"s will become even
more difficult than it now is;' cattle disappear-run away, get
rustled, or simply die-by the tens of thousands each year.
No longer could we tell where the prospectors were working
and we'd be even further behind them.
, No doubt I hilVe overlooked some salient facts which other
researchers will soon point out. But that is all to the good, for
my theory or any other theory must be able to survive analysis or it is useless. As far as I'm concerned, a first step has
been taken to solve the mutilation mystery, and I know of
no other reasonable theory as detailed. Perhaps more steps
will soon follow.

Prinu"175

SITUations
[Corztinuedjrom page 173]

back to earth enclosed in hailstones. "If

there's a: lot of industry in the Orange area.
it could have come from there. and some of
that industrial debris can be magnetic."
However. an official of the National
Meteorological Center. National Weather
Service. Camp Springs. Marylan~. sees the
pebbles as quite possibly exiting the volcano
and completing a cross-country flight. Robert
Derouin. deputy chief of the forecast division, said: "I don't see any reason why they
couldn't have .... I've seen pieces of paper
and wood carried 200 miles, by tornado
winds. The pebbles could have come across
in the jet stream. Then over New Jersey
they could have picked up moisture and ice.
acting as nuclei for hailstones forming around
25.000 feet .or lower. as they fell out of the
sky."
Pursuii promises to keep its readers informed as to results. if any.' that develop
from further study of a phenomenon wellwitnessed in northern New Jersey only last
spring.
'
There is. -Ed.
SOURCE: Asbury Park Press (New Jersey)
news feature by Colin Black (11/16/80). CREDIT:
Member 11432.

Forced Into Unretirement

Man is an elephant, Efim Bobonets is his
keeper. The two have been together since the
elephant became a resident of the state zoo
in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov ten years
ago.
According to Tass. the Russian news
agency. the animal was at first "hard to
tame, but the man's patience. benevolence
and affection made the elephant obedient."
Upon Bobonets's command, for example.
Asan would help clean up his cage or entertain school children visiting the zoo.
But when Bobonets at age 80 tried to retire from his 50 years of zoo work. Tass
said. "Asan refused to take food. started
trumpeting to the full capacity of his lungs.
and crushed all equipment he came across in
his open-air cage. "
Comrade Bobonets was hastily recalled
to active duty. "The elephant calmed down
only when he saw his friend. The giant animal rushed to him and embraced him with
his trunk." said Tass.
SOURCE: Herald-News. New Jersey. CREDIT:
F. Wilson.
'

. '. .

The First American 'Si,ghting'

More than 300 years ago, more than 100
years before there was a United States.
a "great light" was seen near Boston in the
winter of 1638 by three citizens of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Winthrop. the
colony's first royal governor. was so im-

........"176

pressed that he noted the report in his diary:

In this year. one James Everell.
a sober. discreet man. and two others
saw a great light in the night at Muddy
River. When it stood still. it flamed up
and was about three yards square;
when it ran. it was contracted into the
figure 6f a swine.
It ran as swift as an arrow towards
Charlton. and so up and down about
two to three hours.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek. a prominent investigator of UFO reports, was asked to interpret
Winthrop's entry.
'
"Contracting into the' figure of a swine
implies something that was oval." said
Dr. Hynek. As to what might be the legs of
the swine. he suggested that they might be
landing gear.
SOURCE: Weekly World News (7/15/80).
CREDIT: J. Singer.

'Just Curious, Like We Are'
A "domino effect" among UFO sightings
has long bothered investigators who want to
, know why. so often. a UFO report is followed by another more-or-less similar UFO
report from the same area a few days later.
A classic case of- double: phenomena in the
same area was reported from Fowlersville,
Livingston County. Michigan. last spring.
On'the night of March II Joseph and
. Laurie White were driving home when they
noticed a bright white light following them.
A plane was taking-off from the country airport nearby. but according to Mrs. White.'
it was no plane that<was ~racking them. It
stopped when they stopped. and it changed
direction when they did. By the time the
couple arrived home the UFO had disappeared. Mrs. White was about to call the'
sheriff's office when her husband let out
a shout. From a field across the highway
he ,saw the same object drifting toward their
, windows.
"It was so huge I couldn't understand
how it could stay in the air." Mrs. White
said. "It had banks of red and green lights.
It glided over us without a noise." She ran
doWnstairs to get a better view. As she passed
a chandelier in the apartment hallway the
fixture shattered in its mounting. "It. didn't
fall. It just shattered," Mrs. White said.
"We didn't believe in UFOs at all. not
before this. "
The next week. on the night of March 19.
Linda Hough was at home watching TV
when she heard a loud sound outside, "like
a noisy car." she said.' "I looked out and
there was a huge tight in the sky.
"I watched it cruise along." she continued. "I thought at first it was a plane. but
there were three planes in the sky and one of
them passed right over it. and the plane was
,
'so small."
The UFO had a '''whole bunch of lights. ....
maybe some red ones. but the white lights

were brighter... said Linda. The noise

described as "really loud. louder than a
and it vibrated in the air. "
"Do you really believe in UFOs?"
Hough was asked.
"Yes." she replied. "I think there
'something' in outer space. I don't
they're, threatening; they're just
we are. I think they're just curious
what is here on Earth, as we are
about all the other planets. "
SOURCE: Fowlersville Review, 3/12/80
Livingston County -Press, 3/20180 (Michigan)

. ."

CREDIT: Member 1(2692.

',..,

, W,,-y,to (;0 Home

Two years ago I last summer' Jess,', a
man shepherd dog'. headed west from
native Rhode Island in the company of
master. young Dexter Gardiner. Man
dog drove to Aspen, CQlorado, a state
waning socialite skiing areas PY,rvoripnrPi'
, a rebirth of glory when former' Pr.>c:;rlpnl
'Gerald Ford'started vacationing ~here.
Notwithstanding the' aur~ brought to
area by the For~s; frequent visits. Jess
not care for Aspen, dogs being not as
into skiing as peop'le are. Besides.
who own those big chalets are very
and the cops are' all the time busting dogs
violating leash laws.
One day about six months after
arrival in Aspen, Dexter went outside
check on the dog and found only a length
broken leash. Jess was gone.
All the standard _,search procedures
set in motion: notification of the .... j'hn'..;t;'~.
sweeps along highways and byways.
of the media and posting of modest
No one was found who could r'e:memb~
having seen a dog that looked anything
the missing Jess.
On a rainy night 18 months later '
father. Darrell. heard a once-familiar
outside his house in the Rhode Island
where Dexter and his dog had
together. Tlte elder Gardiner
and in bolted Jess, yelping and talil-wallln",
with delight at- being home again
parently sniffing his way' all 2.200
from Aspen, Col.
"I never saw anything like it." said
rell Gardiner. "He pushed his head into
,stomach and almost knocked me down."
, "I think he's still looking fo~ Dexter
Gardiner's wife. Dorothy, noted after a
At I,ast reports Jess hadn't TIn"'''.......
plans, nor had the Gardiners.
argument was brewing. Dexter "Ul'UUUQ
prefer the Aspen life and has said he
come east to fetch back his dog. The
Gardiners are equally determined that
must not have walked all those miles in
He proved his preference, didn't he,
besides, "we have this nice big house
lot. .. "
'
SOURCE: UPI dispatch in The
(7/28/80). CREDIT: H. Holland .

. Getting His Hair Back, Too

Edwin E. Robinson of Falmouth, Maine,
is the blinded man who regained his sight
when he was struck by lightning last June.
(see Pumlit No. 51, Summer 1980, page 119.)
Now he reports another remarkable development: Hair is growing out of his formerly bald scalp.
_
"It's ~ng-it's true," said Robinson's
family physician, Dr. William F. Taylor.
"All on top there's hair coming in. -This is
a first, that's for sure."
Robinson, 62, a former truck driver,
gradually went blind and deaf as the result
of a head injury he suffered when his truck
jacknifed on an icy bridge in 1971. He learned
Braille and wore a hearing aid.
During a thunderstorm on June 4, as he
went looking in his backyard for a pet chicken, he was knocked unconscious by a lightning bolt. Afterward his vision and hearing
gradually returned, as verified (but not
explained) by his ophthalmologist.
Later in the month he came to New York
City for a guest appearance on ABC's "Good
Morning, America." That day his- scalp
"began to feel funny . . . I felt like I had
whiskers on my head," he said. "It's still
coming in," he added in an interview a week
later as he ran his hand over the visible fuzz.
Robinson says the lightning bolt has him
"charged for the next 50 years."
SOURCE: AP dispatch in The StarLedger, New
Jersey (7/4/80). CREDIT: Member #2692.

Phenomena in Focus
'People often see strange things, but
they try to put them into conventional
frameworks because the unknown is scary.
They should look out: The Bridg~water
area is one oj focused phenomena. Ifs
likely that things are going to happen
here .. .'
The area thus described by longtime SITU
. m<:mber Loren Coleman is sufficiently geometric- to inspire sidelong glances at Charles
Berlitz and his Bennuda analogy. They're
still at it, producing more offspring than
anyone would have prophesied back in 1974
when a -"roughly three-sided" piece of the
Atlantic was born into the Noble Order of
Fortean Things.
Unlike some other celebrated but not nec. essarily geometric strange places, Loren
Coleman's Bridgewater Triangle isn't a.jungle
oasis at the end of a 2O-mile animal trail,
nor is it perched atop a lofty peak accessible
only with Sherpa guides, helicopters and
largesse from a well-heeled foundation.
The Bridgewater Triangle lies athwart one
of the first-settled and now most heavily
civilized areas in the nation: south of Boston,
north of New Bedford, west of Plymouth
and centered near Taunton (1980 pop.
44,675)-all in Massachusetts. Yop can drive
into, through and around it --with nary a
problem except for traffic. But the triangle,

F. . 1980

The Bridgewater.(Massachusetts) Triangle.

particularly the Hockomock Swamp part
of it, has yielded reports of four notable
and recent happenings:
I) Glowing balls of light, visible only in
eaeh January, over the dog track at R~yn
ham, north of Taunton. 2) Screeches from an unidentified source
near the track which frightened the dogs
within.
3) "Creature footprints" bigger than
a man's, found in the snow and reported by
officials in Taunton and Raynham.
4) A "giant bird" allege4ly seen by a police
officer who estimated its height at six feet
and its wingspread at twice that when it rOse
into tlie night near Mansfield and flapped
away, not to be seen since. .
Coleman and an associate, Peter Rodman,
described these and other anomalies to an
overflow audience at an October 23 lecture
sponsored by the Friends of the Library in
Bridgewater. The two speakers showed
a number of slides and backgrounded their
compiled reports with references to classical
myths, conjectures aDout New England~s
earliest 'civilizations, and legendary Indian

lore handed down by elders of tribes known

to have camped in the Hockomock region
for centuries .
Leaving no doubt that his listeners were
expected to act responsibly, should any be
confronted by an apparent anomaly, Coleman recommended these steps: Get corroborating witnesses; look for physical
evidence such as broken brush or' tracks;
take photographs and make sketches; telephone or send for the police; talk to newspapers and radio and TV stations that handle
news from the region, and teU them as clearly
as possible what was seen and/or heard.
SOURCE: Brockton Daily Enterprise, Mass.

..

(10/24/80). CREDIT: L. Coleman.

,.;

If Not SHe, What?

A 1974 Pontiac Firebird was moving
briskly along Seaboard Avenue-in Jacksonville, Florida, with Leslie Scott at the wheel.
Her passenger was Jeanna Winchester, an
-E-3 enlisted member of the Navy's air arm,
stationed in Jacksonville. The girls were

Pursuit 177

roommates and they were out riding on the

night of October 9 "just to get some fresh
air. "
Violently, brutally, the calm of the night
and the ride was shattered by a human
scream-not down the road or outside the
car, but from the right-hand seat where
Jeanna Winchester was riding. What driver
Scott saw, in the split second it took for a
quarter-turn of the head, caused her to jerk
her hands from the wheel and beat wildly at
yellow flames that erupted all around the
passenger's struggling body. Her own arms
flailed about as Jeanna kept screaming:
'\Get me out of here, get me out of here:"
. The car skidded sidewise out of control,
slammed.into a telephone pole, cut it in two,
and in seconds crumpled into a total wreck.
Ambulance attendants arriving at the'
scene noted that Scott's hands were severely
burned, but that" was nothing compared to
the seared flesh of Winchester's entire right
arm and shoulder, half of the right. of her
back. and side, her abdomen, right breast,
and neck and ear. The T-shirt she had been
wearing had burned completely off.
. Examinati9n of the car presented a puzzle
to authorities, especially to Officer T. G.
Hend~ix of the Jacksonville SherifPs Department who made the initial on-the-scene
investigation. He found minimal fire damage
inside the car. "The white leather seat she
was sitting on was a little browned and the
door panel had a little black on it. Otherwise
there was no fire damage," he reported.
"I've never seen anything like it in 12 years
on the force." He was careful to mention
also that he found no spilled gasoline, or
downed powerlines nearby.
.
Could this be a rebirth of the Spontaneous
Human Combustion (SHC) phenomenon?
In the early 19th century medical practitioners
recognized SHC as a common cause of
death, especially in Europe.
Today'~ forensic science workers hold
SHC theories in low esteem. The head of the
world-famous burn unit at Brooke Army
Medical Center in Texas, to which Jeanna
was transferred for extended treatment, says
SHC is "a bunch of rot." In Jacksonville,
officials consider the case closed. The accident report in its final version didn't even
mention a fire, Officer Hendrix and his
superiors having agreed that an exploding
cigarette lighter could have diverted the
driver's attention and caused the car to
crash.
What of the victim Jeanna Winchester?
She fecalls being driven along the road, and
vividly remembers waking up the next day
in the Naval Air Station hospital with burns
over much of her body. But she has no
memory of the interiin, and no knowledge
of the accident 'except what Leslie Scott told
her a few days after it happened.
"At first I thought there had to be a logical explanation, but I couldn't find any,"
.she said in a telephoqe interview with Patrick
Boulay, a writer on health matters for The
Light pewsI?aper in.San Antonio. "I wasn't

Pursuit 178

smoking anything. The windQw was up, so

somebody couldn't have thrown anything
in. The car didn't burn. I finally thought.
about spontaneous human combustion when
I couldn't find anything else."
.
Jeanna recalled a story she had heard
about an old lady who hadlnot ~ see!l by
neighbors for a few days, and when they entered her house to see if she might be ill,
they found only a pile of ashes in her rockingchair ..
Alex' Bienkowski, a reference librarian at
the University of Texas Medical Center in
Galveston, collects SHC stories as a hobby.
He said the Winchester report fits the classic
SHC description established in scientific and
not-so-scientific literature over hundreds of .
years: Victims .are totally Consumed within
a few minutes but the surroundings remain
intact and rarely appear scorched or even
discolored. However, Bienkowski pointed
out one important difference in the case of
Jeanna Winchester: It may be the first where
there was a witness; and where the victim
escaped death.
After weeks of hospitalization and the
end .not in sight, Jeanna doesn't know what
to believe. "When I get out of here I'm
going to undergo hypnosis and find out if
I can recall the whole thing," she promises,
because "spontaneous human combustion
seems to be the only explanation left. "

. . ..

SOURCE: The Light, San Antonio, TeXas

(11(16/80). CREDIT: K. Neidigh.

Italian Lake Disappears

At S p.m. the waters of the lake at Comelice Supiriore in the Italian Dolomites were
. peacefully lazy in the summer sun. A couple
of small boY!l were fishing, an. old man was
snoozing in his rowboat, and along the shore
little children were paddling about.
Five minutes later there was the sound of
rushing water followed by a column of water
rising out of the center of the . lake, and a
gigantic gurgling as the waters of the lake
completely vanished.
"It was the most amazing sight," said
Lidio Teriguzzi, whose house' is. near the;
shore. "There was this great gurgling sound
and the water drained away as if it were
going down a sink, until there was none left,
just fish and a couple of boats lying in the
mud.'"
Investigations 1Jy -two water engineers and
three geologists have been unable to account
for the lake's disappearance. Mayor Flavio
Gongolon said: "We haven't even got a
theory. The lake has been there for hundreds
of years. Yet oile minute it's there and the
next minute it's gOJ;le, just like some huge
conjuring trick."

..

SOURCE: Sunday Express, London, England

(7127/80). CREDIT: D.-Mace.

.-

Homo (NOT QUITE) Sapiens

A primitive being of diminutive stature
with ape-like features, appearing to be more

than' a century old, its ongm altogether

unknown, has been discovered in the province of Mato Grasso Do Sul~ Brazil. All signs
indicate that Tomaz, as he is called by his
adoptive family, belongs to a species very
different from the human race.
This being, who has been living on the
,ranch of Jose and Aida Tales for three years,
has a constitution that allows him to eat
spoiled fish without risk to his health, and
he has never been sick since the couple first
came upon him in a semi-primitive area.
Tomaz has a habit- of crying inconsolably
every night when the moonlight is bright,
and he always sleeps crouched down among
the animals in the feed-lot.
. According to statements Jose Tales made
to the newspapers, old settlers in the region
told him that TOm3z was seen every once in
a while fishing in the nude from the river
banks, but once he sensed the presence of
hurnan beings, he always ran away. After
a considerable time the settlers succeeded in
approaching the strange being~ who then
showed himself to be friendly, emitting a few
grunts but unable to articulate words. Tomaz now manages to say "papa" and "ma'rna," is natural in his actions, walks like a
monkey. tears off whatever clothes his "parents" put on him, and otherwiSe goes about
. paying little attention to those around him.
Jose and Aida Tales say they do not wish
to have a scientific study made of Tomaz:
"Although he is a natural phenomenon of
an origin we cannot explain, we do not want
him to be expl~ited like ~ object. "
SOURCE: EI Universal, Caracas, Venezuela
(1IIIn9). CREDIT: S. Lorenzoni.

'Just Inhale Naturally'

Cherokee Indians may have inhaled- pulverized toad skins for the 'same reasons
people nowadays get high on booze, pills
and pot. That's the theory recently advanced
by a researcher digging at an archeological
site in North Carolina.
The numerous remains of toads piled up
near ancient Indian encampments have long
bothered archeologists. Some guessed that
the native Americans may have hunted toads
for food. But Jeannette Runquist~ a biology
instructor at Winthrop College, recalls that
"a certain tribe of Indians in Mexico dried,
pulverized and inhaled tbad skins." The active ingredient is a little-known toxic hallucinogen called bufotenine, she said.
The excavations near Asheville produced
a bumper crop of toad remains, and the size
of the find "leads us to believe that toadhunting in America and the use of the skins
as a hallucinogen was almost exclusively
a Cherokee 'rituaJ," Ms. Runquist .eXplained.
:She added: "It was unlikely that the Indians would have hunted them for food,
because toads, unlike frogs, have very little
meat on them and historically have not been
used for food ...
SOURCE: AP dispatch in the Burlington, Vt.

Free PreS" (7/15/80). CREDIT: J. Zarzynski.

FaD 1980

Books, R~cords It Tap~

a fatal flaw} is John White's failure to consider 'a factor that
strikes me as rather odd and which becomes glaringly obvious when one studies his very helpful table "Pole Shift at
a GIan~." This is the predilection among the psychics and
prophets for the year 2000 (or 1999-2000) as the date of th.e
For the benefit of those who have been immured for the
next pole shift. It is a Western, and in fact Christian, date,
last twenty years or so, pole shift can be either a cataclysmic
and
I cannot help wondering whether the choice is occasioned
inversion of the planet's axis of rotation, up to 180, or a
by
a
psychological end-of-the-millenium syndrome, partisudden slippage of the planet's solid crust around the molten
cularly ~s none of the psychics and prophets agree on what is
core.
going to trigger' the shift. (I am particularly suspicious of
John White has done an excellent job of bringing together'
anyone
who pins it down to May 5,2000. One is inevitably
evidence both for and against pole shift from a wide variety
reminded
of end-of-the-worlders who have climbed mounof sources, and haS navigated neatly
between, in his words,
,
tains to await the end and then have had to climb down again.)
"the rocks of blind belief and the shoals of blind disbelief,"
On the other hand, of course, one can interpret this to mean
providing a very balanced exposition of the problem. Unfort~t they are all tapping the same source of information.
tunately, the publisher saw fit to eliminate Appendix Three,
in the final section' White turns to orthodox science and
mentioned in the text, which presented in concise form the
examines data and theories related to the' possible trigger
case against pole shift. Even so, the careful reader will finish
~ mechanisms, both natural and human, suggested by pole, the book .without developing any firm convictions either for
shift theorists. On the basis of some of the material presented,
or against the possibility that the earth's axis of rotation has
orthodox science is not wise to dismiss the idea of pole shift
shifted in the past and may do so again.
, as impossible. Indeed, there are scientists who state that it is
The first section of the book deals with materiai that con-'
theoretically possible for the pole to shift 180, and a number
stitutes circumstantial evidence of pole shifts in the past,
of
ancient records state flatly that the earth has "flipped
including frozen mammoths and ancient maps' that show
over."
In this case, some evidence that seems to rule out a
things they "ought not" to show. None of this constitutes
pole shift in fact does no such thing: e.g., the Antarctic ice
proof, but it is certainly suggestiye.
'
~p may be more than 20 million years old and the equatorial
The major part of the book is devoted to a detailed study
region hasbeen in approximately'the same place for 60 milof the mechanics ~f pole shift and predictions that the poles
lion years. If the 'earth flips 180, the poles simply change
will shift within the next twenty years. The three sources of
.places and the equatorial region stays in relatively the same
information are the "scienti~ts," modern psychics, and prophplace.
ets both ancient and modern. The dividing line between the
John White is not himself ,convinced that a pole shift will
last two is perhaps a bit arbitrary, a fact which White acoccur (and 'certainly one hopes it won',t-it will almost cer-'
knowledges. Both use precognition, but their motives in speaktainly end civilization as we know it). Nor am I convinced,
ing out may be different, in that a prophet wants only to
one
way or, the other, but I agree that "Here is a subject worrep~rt the word of God while a psychic may ~ave power,
thy,
truly worthy, of the most concerted and full-scale investiprestige, or just plain 'money in mind.
gation by the entire scientific and scholarly community. It
White reports the work of many pole-shift theOrists, with
represents a potential revolution in the earth sciences . . .
a careful and, I believe, very fair evaluation of their work, '
a
revolution in the biological sciences,' in archaeology and in
noting that it is possible .for someone to be right about some
intellectual
history. Last of all, it represents what may be the
things and wrong about others and that even the most unkey to humanity'S survival in the face of imminent ca,taclysm.
scientific researcher may make a valid contribution to the
For if there is the slightest bit of truth to i~, we may be standsolution of the problem. The material is of necessity fairly
ing
at the edge of the ultimate disaster. If we avoid or ignore
technical, but White has managed to avoid being either too
the possibility of a pole shift, we will have only ourselves to
technical or too simplistic in presenting each man's workblame should there be a cataclysmic repeat of the 'myth' of
quite a feat when the theorists range, from the meticulous
Atlantis."
Charles Hapgood to Adam Barber whose description of events
, Last of all, I suggest that all of us pray that if the poles do
during a pole shift provides the only comiC relief in the book
shift, only Charles Hapgood is right. Though he believes the
~te charitably describes him as naive). Though the theorists
shift may: be underway, he also believes that it will not shift
tend to borrow from one another, none really agree on much
very far a,nd will take several thousand years to do so. Edgar
of anything except the "fact" of pole shift.
~
Cayce also gives us some chance of survival with Ii shift takIt is very difficult to appraise the statements of psychics
ing several years. All the '?thers plunk for the shift taking
and prophets. They can be right in some cases and wrong in
place in one day. In which case, it's been nice knowing you.
others, or there can be a problem in interpreting' what they
-Sabina Warren Sanderson
say. White again includes all the pole-shift predictions he
could find, and again carefully evaluates the track record of
'GUARDIANS OF THE UNIVERSE? by Ronald Story
each psychic and prophet. The credibility of these witnesses, .
(St. Martin's Press, New York, 1980, 207 pp., illust., index,
if one may so call them, varies considerably'. Some I found
biblio.,
$8.95)
interc::sting but completely, unconvincing; others, and notably
Nostradamus aO(~ the Hopi Indians, made me rather nervous.,
This is a sequel to Story's earlier book, The Space Gods
Perhaps the only rc:aI weakness in the book (though hardly
Revealed. wherein he attacked claims of Erich von Daniken

POLE SHIFT:. PREDICTIONS AND PROPHEQES OF

THE UL11MATE DISASTER, by John White, Doubleday &
Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1980, 410 pp. with drawings, maps, photos, rtferences and index, $14. _

FaD 1988

Pursuit 179 ,

that "ancient astronauts" built the Pyramids, the Easter

Island statues, various other "mysterious" constructs found
around the world, drew the' Nazca lines, and even created
humankind by genetically manipulating protohuman apecreatures.
Guardians continues Story's refutation of "von Danikenism" and identifies clearly the earlier writers of similar speculations on whose shaky foundations von Daniken subsequently built the pseudo-archeological fantasies of his books.
Story ~learly demonstrates the "pick-and-choose" and
"quotes-out-of-context" methodology used by von Daniken
and his precursors in contriving their theories. "I have found,"
wri'tes Story, "that if you take von Daniken's 'indicators' .or
"proofs,' as he alternately calls them, and subject them to the
normal rules of evidence-and generally accepted canons of
logic-they fall apart. From the standpoint of 'proof,' or:
even from the standpoint of reasoned argument, von DanikeJ;1
does not have a case. "
Story examines, for example, the Tassili rock paintings
"discovered by French archeologist Henri Lhote in the Tassili
N'Ajjer mountains of the Central Sahara, in ]956 ... " Where.
von paniken professes to get "the impression that the great
. god Mars is depicted in a space- or diving-suit." Story .points
out that the "martian god" is but one' of "several thousand,
other early. examples of negroid art" which depict ~'hlclnting
and fishing scenes . . . accompanied by renderings of tiJe
more mundane aspects of everyday life'" including women
carrying baskets on their heads. But in von Daniken's eyes
(which seem to ignore the 'mundane aspects' surrounding the
women) the baskets are transformed into space helmets 'fes-'
tooned with antennae. Interestingly enough, and Story fails
to mention it, the helmets used by our "primitive" astronauts
and cosmonauts are not encumbered by antennae, .
Though he missed that chance to score, Story goes on, page
after page, patiently, even ploddingly, documenting his.interpretation of ancient astrononsense.
In a closing chapter, Story examines, and calls specious,
the claims of Robert Temple in The Sirius 'Mystery, that an'
African tribe, the Dogon, obtained (apparently from extraterrestrial sources) as'tronomical information about the star
Sirius long before earthly astronomers did.
.
Temple, for his part, has been remarkably slow to respond,
but in Fate magazine for October 1980 he coun~erattacked,
replying specifically to an earlier (November 1978) Fate article
by saucer-skeptic Jaines Oberg. Both Oberg and Story claim
that Dogon, knowledge of tp,e existence of various Siriah stars
is clearly traceable to missionary influence in the ]920s when
interest in Sirius was widespread in the Western world.
.
In reply, Temple. writes that "Dr. Germaine Dieterlen, the
world's authority on the Dogon" publicly displayed "an,
ancient D9gon statue portraying Sirius A, Sirius B, and Sirius C together. The statue, she said, is at least 400 years old."
Howev~, keep in mind that everi should the Dogon case be
the result of an extra-terrestrial visitation, it does not necessarily support the ancient astronaut theory in all its gaudy.
extremes as put forth by von Daniken, Charroux, Drake,
Tomas and a host of other writers. It still seems to me that,
taken . ~verall those ne'er-do-wells who have been sitting
around on their handS while awaiting the' appearance of saucerriding demi-gods who will build them an earthly paradise,
,will be as unhappy with Guardians of the Univers~? as they
were with Story's first book.
-George W. Earley

........,,1..

THE ROAD TO THE STARS by la'n NicOlson (The New

American'Library; 1979, 230pp., $2.75poperback)
When'we consider the complexities' of space exploration,
. it's nice to have a book-like this which sums it up in three:
parts and puts it all in orderly perspective. Nicolson begins
with primitive rockelry and .ends with s~lations on 'space
colonies, interstellar travel, and aliens.
..
.
Part One provides 'background on the solar system and its
parent galaxy. Nicolson describes the conditions .necessary for
the formation of life and concludes ~hat our galaxy may contain at least ]00 million life-bearing pianCts. .
'. .
Part Two begins with the hi~tOIY of sPflCe explqration.
After a cursory Jook at literary excur~ons f~m. Lucian to
Verne, the author gives ~s an even ~iiefer history of modern
rocketry. Only a feW pages are devoted to the period from
Robert Goddard to the moon Ianding ..Any reader with a.$eI'-.
ious interest in the history of space flig!)t Win be disaPwinted,
Of greater depth are his explanations of the technology behind
rocket propulsion, orbit~, launch windqws, etc.
:
Various possible methods of interstellar travel are examined next. Nicolson discusses the fusion rocket, the nuclearpulse rocket, the interstellar ramjet; the laser-photon sail,
anti-matter propulsion, and the photon rocket.! He believes
that all 'these methods deserve continuing study.
. '. .
Part Three is the most interesting to xenologists. Here are
discusSed the author's views OD" suspended animation, relativity
effects, and extraterrestrial life.
.
Although Nicolson believes that UFOs merit s~rious in- .
vestigation, he sees no evidence that we have ever been visited
by aliens-which is not to say that we won't be! .
As a survey, this book belongs next t9 John Macvey's
Interstellar Travel. Both touch the edges of a very broad spectrum of astronomy and engineering, and the net result .is that
'K' L N'd' h
one is left hungry for more.
'

1m .'

el Ig

THE ROSWELL INCIDENT :by Charl~ Berlitz and'

William L. Moore (Grosset & Dunlap, New York,. 1980,.
168 pp., $1.0.00)

. , . .

"According to UFO legend,'; sia~es the introduction of

this current Berlitz-Moore book, "an extraterrestrial spaceship crashed in New Mexico in the early days of July 1941 ...
What iS,different about this case. '.' is the. vitality of this one
single incident a.rid its' continuing developments in scientific,
government, and legal circles."
....
.
Was there a crashed spaceship in Roswell, N.M. '? Did the
U.S. government retrieve small, dead alien bodies at .th~ site,
a fact carefully guarded by the military to this day'? The Roswell rumors have made UFO researchers curious for 33 years,
for at least part of the story has a krio~n, fact1;lal.b.asis. Regrettably, the late writer Frank Scully wrote a hasti!y. developed
and poorly documented effort entitled Behind ,he Flying
Saucers, which loosely dealt with the New Mexico rumt;>rs,'
in 1950, and truth became about as valuable asfo~l's gold. .
Thirty years later, however, Berlitz an4 Moore have given
us a better example of investigative journalism in Incident.
In the tradition of researcher Leonard Stringfield, 'who currently finds' himself in hot pursuit of perhaps genuine UFO
crash-and-retrieval cases of years past, the authors reveal that
evidence of the alleged Roswell mystery is piling up as former
military personnel and other 'witnesses slowly come forth to
confirm its reality.
.
The Roswell incident's genesis occurred in 1947, when an

F. . I980

'.

'

Army Air Force information ,officer issued- a brief press release stating that a "flying disc" had landed on a Roswell
ranch, and that it was recovered by military personnel. Before long, but not before naHonal and world interest had
grown in 'the possibility of visitors from outer space, highranking military officials rushed forth to report that a weather
balloon, not a disc, was the culprit. At this point, Incident
leaves confirmed history behirid and delves into new evidence
which suggests otherwise, .. that, in fact, a real alien craft
crashed.
.
.
.
The authors share Portions of interviews with several people
whose integrity and involv~ment with the case seem genuine.
For example, t~e 'son of the 'ra~cher on whose property the
UFO sup'posedly crashed. [ecb~nts how the military confiscated
pieces' of th cr~f ~~ ~~C1 gathered ~ a curious youngster;
and Maj. J~~A~ ~ar.CeI, ~ n:tired military officer who helped
recover pieces ofthe objett, .. tells how a member of his team,
.ha~ing failed to break or burn fragments of the bizarre metallike pieces at the scene, "everi tried making a dent in it with
a sixteen-pound sledgeh~irimer ,and there was siill no dent
in it."
... . ~'.
' .. _ .
.
There are dead alien bodies to contend with as well, and as
the Roswell legend"progre~~es, :i"ts 'intrigue touches officials
ranging from the Fin of"J. ~~g~r Hoover .days to President
Eisenhower.
.. ,
.'
Wisely, the aothors admit. that 'rumor"is often "our best
source of eviCience,"'arid '8: bouple of tite secondary sources
they mention, whose names are well-knqwn in the UFO field,
may be somethi:rlg leSs than. ~orthy of serious attention. But,
in general, the fad 'ih~t so, rrtany' names are named is all to
Incident's credit .. lf this'p'ook helps to encourage other "hidden"'witnesses t<>"lJFO crasheS-and~retrievals so that they, too,
come forth to tell their stories, then its publication will have
made an. important contribution indeed ..
"This occurrerice, if true," speculate the authors in regard
to the Roswell mystery, "would be at least comparable to
Columbus's encounter with the startled natives on his first
visit to. the New World': .
..'
. "ExcePt for one thing. I~ this case, we would be the startled
natives."
-RoberfBarrow
'..

~.

"

SEARCHING FOR,HiDDfN ANIMALS by Roy P. Mackal

(Doubleday, ~.I~p., .~;'.9~!.

Crypto~oology,.

the .. stu~Yt .of. unidentified liying animals,

has been a much-neglected Science; The general public is sufficiently aware of 'the Loch Ness Monster, of Sasquatch ~nd
of the Yeti as a result of the disproportionately large number
of books that have appeared devoted to them to the exclusion .
of other, equally mysterious unknown animals. Aside from
Bernard Heuvelmans' On The Track of Unknown Animals,
which saw print over twenty y'ears. ago, there has not been one
book that attempted to bring together reports on hidden
animals from the seven continents. Professor MackaI's secoJ;ld
cryptozoological book attempts to educate the layman concerning about a dozen zoological mysteries.
1'm sorry to report that this book is a disappointment.
There is 11.0 sh~rt~g~ of {~pe{ts. pf bi.zarr:e. creatures, and there
certai~yare ~noMgh "t;Stal>lish~~' ~I1,lal enigmas to preclude
the use of filler material, for two chapters .. One of these, a discussion of "living' trilobites," concludes that no' living trilobites having been reported or have left visible traces, there
probably are no living trilobites. The other, the final chapter
on man-eating. p'~nl:5,..i~,whQUy. 9ut of pla~.. 1 would have

liked to read updated inforrnatior1" on the African cat, the

mngwa, or the Nandi bear. The careful reader wlli also have
to overcome the annoyance of several dependent clauses passed
off as sentences.
But there are some good . points to rhe book, enough to
balance but not efface its shortcomings. Information on the
Himalayan BU.ru and the sea ape was most welcome as I had
previously known nothing of these .mystery creatures. As an
introduction to the general subject of strange animals the
treatment is adequate; too. bad it wasn't better conceived. No
doubt it should be purchased by readers interested in the subject's many manifestations. .
-Lenny Picker

,., ..

"

PROCEEDINGS OF TliE RRST iNTERNAtIONAL UFO

CONGRESS, ed. by Curtis 'G: Fiiller and the' editors of
. Fate (Warner Books, New York, '1980, 440 pp., indexed,
fllust., $~.75) .
.
~hen Fate sponsored. the J.I1~~r';t~~i9nal UFO C;ongress in.
Chicago in 1977, the originators' wisely collabor~ted with
Liberty' Audio & Film ServiCe aJ;lci' produced a series of 25
sound cassettes filled with' most of 'the best that 'this classic
weekend gathering had to offer. The' trouble i~,. more than
three years have passed 'and, according. to Fate managing
editor Betty Lou White, the tapes are no longer available.,
Fortunately, the editors'success'ruliy followed uj> ori 'a'nother idea they considered in 1977--=-to offer printed proceedings.
And what an admirable result! The. thoughts and ~ork of
some of the best~kriown ~ci~ntists, reSearchers, and witnesses
pursuing UFO studies in the U.S. are reflected upon in this
nicely priced paperback, faithfully transcribed by Congress
associate Kathleen Van Ouch. A small handful of speakers'
presentations which were recorded in cassette-form were not
transcribed, but the omissions are indeed minor. Among the
contents:
.
Kenneth Arnold recalls his original sighting and the Maury
Island case; James Harder presents UFO evidence; Ted Phil. lips tracks landing traces; Frank B. Salisbury lays down some
guidelines for science's role in studying the origin and nature
of the UFO phenomenon; Stanton Friedman do~ his usual
good lecture work with a section on UFO propulsion possibilities; David M. Jacobs deals with debunkers; Jerome Clark
speaks with Jacques Vallee;J. Allen Hynek discloses his UFO
. views .. Other prominent speakers, featured individually or in .
special symposiums, include Ted B1oecher,' James' and Coral
Lorenzen, Betty Hill, Alvin J. Lawson, Curtis fuller, R. Leo
Sprinkle, Berthold Eric Schwarz, J,' Gordon Melton, and
David Stupple.
Although a few years have passed since the ('(\"rrt'!i~, (h.~
book's contents are no' less current or important, and are
surely no less interesting to read. Here we have not only history
but an example of intellectual culture at work.
-Robert Barrow

UFO SIGHTINGS, LANDiNGS AND. ABDUCTIONS by

Yurko Bondarchuk: (Meth~en .~blieations, 2330 Midland
Ave., Agincourt, Ontari~, Ca~ca,M1S 1P7..1979, 207pp.,
indexed; $7.95 paperback) .
The most visibly appealing charm of this Canadian book is
its useof original and seldom-seen artwork and photos. And,
.while most books that are fun to read, as this one is, are usually
amazing in their inaccuracies, Bondarchuk's volume is a fact-

hr.uit 181 ,:'

seeker's delight. Yes, the author throws in a wild speculation

on previous broadcasts or LPs. For example, Dr. J. Allen
every now and then (e.g., regarding the Bermuda Triangle
Hynek, Maj. Paul Dutch (USAF ret.), Herbert Schirmer,
and the future of humanity's contact with UFOs). but his
Betty Hill, Stanton Friedman, Col. Gordon ,Cooper (USAF-concern for truth is overwhelming,
ret.), and Dr. David Saunders did not digress all that much
from the comments they made on tlie previously mentioned
This is an important 'book, for it offers non-Canadian
UFO researchers a !'lumber of intriguing UFO cases from
1975 production, Credibility Factor.
Canada and other countries. Newspaper and journal references
,Recorded interviews with alleged UFO abductees Travis
are top-rate and, even if the reader is inexperienced in UFOWalton and Loui.se Smith are absolutely top-rate, especially
reading, UFO Sightings provides a clear, pleasing primer,
where tapes of their hypnosis sessions are intr09uced (all too
briefly, in my opinion).
Appropriately, the contents are presented in steps, rather,
than in a confusing potpourri. After first dealing with UFO
'On the !1egative side, I was surprised to find that' UFO Enphotographs, always of dubious v~lue to "authorities," we " 'countf!rs seems to be something of a hype for the Center for
are introduced to other substantial evidence, such as landing ,': UFO Studies. I suspected this, as soon as I opened the box
traces and reactions of living things to UFO encounters.
fron1 I.R.A., Inc., and watched-'-as described on the album
UFO occupants and abductions'are then detailed, still within'
cover-"your own UFO report form" fall out. The reverse
, th~ realm of respectable cases. Of particular significance to
side of it sported a,description of CUFOS and provided a subresearctiers, BOhdarchuk next discusses UFOs observed over
scription form' for the CUFOS International UFO Reporter.
rriilitluy installations, pilot-sightings, UFOs near energyOh, please!
g~nera'ting
si'tes, power
blackouts perhaps caused by UFOs,
With so much of Dr. Hynek and
CUFOS "this
and that"
1-'
- ,,
,
arid'_slr~nge object-s which affect radar. These chapters are
on the LPs" I almost became convinced, even after being in
excellent.
'
UFO research for 18 years, tha~ nobody except CUFOS & Co.
A~ exploration of civilian pilot sightings and an historically
ever did any UFO ,investigations (for instance, APRO cervahia:ble chronology' of Canadian government' and military
tainly should- receive -some' credit for its monumental work
involvement with UFOs since 1947 are also worthwhile. The
with the Walton case and the encounter. described by Louise
Smith).
-.
chronology' is relevant for U.S. researchers because it shows
thai "Canadian' government and military officials have the
Futlire UFO research might benefit from recordings that
abi!.ity to han9le the UFO enigma just as ineptly 'as U.S. auinclude complete sessions with hypnotized alleged abductees.
thqrities, at least publicly.
Meanwhile UFO Encounters is informative and worthwhile
,Contents aside, however, the best asset this publication
for veteran researchers as well as the general audience fo~
o.ffers is further proof that UFO encounters are indeed an
which the presentation is intended. Just don't let the irritating
little segments get you! Like the one near the end when the
international phenomenon. May it long remain in print.
\
, , - R o b e r t Barrow
narrator, like Flash Gordon in the process of saving the world,
promises that Investigative Research Associates and CUFOS
will continue searching for the UFO. solution. Who needs
FACTUAL EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY OF UFO,
to pay $9.95 (or $11.95) for a recording of commercials?
~NCOUNTERS, a double LP album availablejrom'lnThere are lots of other UFO organizations and researchers
vestigative ReseQrch Associates, Inc., Suite W, 430 W.
out there. Most of them are working, not hyping.
Diversey Parkway. Chicago. It 60614. 1978, record $9.95
'j
postpaid, c~ette $11.95 postpaid
'* * *
UFO ~/9, San Diego Convention of November, 1979. Write
Veteran broadcaster and newsman Hal Starr and R. H.
to Hal Starr, 312 W. 'Frier Drive, Pheonix, AZ 85021 for , Peck arranged a valuable cassette collection from the conven"
inft?rmation on audio casSettes
tion held in San Difgo in November 1979. The convention exRecord reviews ,are beginning to give book reviews a run
perienced some of those last-minute speaker-cancellations
for.-~heir_money in the UFO field. The LP album is a double
that seem to dog live symposiums wherever they are held, but
entry and a versatile "talking book" elaborating on some of
this and other management problems detract'little from the ,
UFO history's shining moments.
'
significance of the reports or their synthesis before such a disFrom start to finish UFO Encounters is a 'professional,
tinguished assemblage of investigators.
well-engineered production, comparable in quality to 1975's
Included are discourses by Walt Andrus, MUFON director,
excellent Columbia House LP, UFOs: The Credibility Factor.
on UFO entities; Dr. James Harder, UC professor, on 'the
From' foo-fighters to Zeta Reticuli, from the U.S. Air Force
potential for alien communication with humanity; Dr. R. Leo
to 'the CIA (and beyond?), from c~lculating alien entities to
Sprinkle, psychologist at Wyoming U.'with a review of prodead alien bodies, here lies UFO evi4ence for every taste. The
phetic writings on UFOs; nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman
LPs 'contain a balanced mix of UFO witnesses, UFO investion UFO propulsion; Alan Holt, NASA astrophysicist, on the
gators, police officers and other people whose lives have been
application of hydromagnetics to space travel arid UFOs;
touched by the UFO phenomenon. I was pleased to hear the
James Lorenzen, APRO director, on cattie mutilations and
voices of important people not widely recorded in the past, ,
UFOs; and Cleve Backster, polygraph authority, on the rleae.g.: Coi, Rob~rt Friend (USAF ret.), ted phillips, Kenneth'
tion of his field to UFO investigations.
'
Arnold, Travis Walton, Father William Gill, Louise Smith,'
l1's too bad that slide presentations given by various lecDr. Leo Sprinkle, Marjorie Fish, Dr. Jacques Vallee and Bill
turers can't be seen by tape listeners, and there are a few "slow
Pecha. Other participants, and there are many, are also genspots" here and there, but the excellent Dolby sound-quality
erally'well-known and essential to the album.
of each cassette certainly makes'up for this. Whether for one's
,;AlthougtJ. the album cover states "First time eVe! recorded,"
personal coliection, the library, or school, these tapes deserve
some of those interviewed merely repeat things they've said
their place in history.'
-Robert Barrow
Pursuit18~

Fdl980

Report on the Press

THE SMITHSONIAN SYMPOSIUM ON UFOs-SEPI'EMBER 6, 1980
ACCORDING TO THE WASHINGTON POST

Tempest in a Saucer:
The UFO Identity Crisis
By Stuart Rohrer
1980 by The Washington Post Co.
Reprinted by permission

"How many of you have had a UFO experience'?" the

panelists in Baird Auditorium asked their symposium audience
of 300.
About 75 raised their hands.
. How many thought what they. saw might have a simple,
earthly explanation'? Only a dozen hands went up.
These were the hard core-the believers and the uncertain
skeptics-who cared enough to spend $25 and a sunny day
off serio.usly exploring a subject usually treated in screaming
headlines at the checkout counter.
It was a day. devoted to the unidentified and the inexplicable-an a11-day UFO symposium Saturday sponsored by the
Smithsonian Resident Associates. Under the firm hand of
moderator Frederick Durant, former special assistant to the
Air & Space Museum director and once involved in a major
government UFO study, three ranking UFO investigators met
three confirmed skeptics in a sometimes searing verbal en~
counter.
_
"I love a good mystery," said gray-bearded J. Allen Hynek,
the scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies, emeritus
professor of astr:onomy at Northwestern and former Air
Force UFO consultant, who led off the day's presentations.
"Reading a good UFO report is like reading Agatha Christieexcept there is no last page to turn to."
Hynek, in cream-colored jacket and sky-blue tie dotted
with planets, his head bowed over the lectern, hastily recounted the facts of "the UFO phenomenon" that led him to
more than three decades of investigation: the existence of
thousands of UFO reports, the persistence of those reports,
their global distribution and the strikingly high calibre of
many witnesses.
.
"There is something unusual going on here," insisted Navy
physicist Bruce Maccabbee, the earnest chairman of the Fund
for UFO R~search, who pressed the significance of sightings
by highly qualified observers such as military pilots, astronomers and the Gemini II astronauts.
"UFO Handbook" author Allan Hendry, whose more
than 2,000 investigations for the Center for UFO Studies
have included "CE-Ills" (ciose enCQunters of the third kind,
a term that pre-date~ the movie) with "UFO-nauts," outlined in his radio-announcer voice what he considered one of
his most reliable reports-a 30-second daylight encounter
with a speeding silver hat-shaped object by two families on an
Illinois freeway.'

FaD 1980

But the skeptics kept their opponents on the defensive

through most of the day. Countered Philip Klass, gray-suited
senior editor at Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine and, author- of "UFOs Explained": "UFO promoters
have not been able to come up with anything but unexplained
-cases. There is no scientifically credible evidence," It's time
for UFO proponents to "put up or shut up," he said.
"UFOs seem to behave like fairies and ghosts," sniped
author-investigator Robert Scheaffer of the Committee for
the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, who
termed. UFO logy a "failed science." "They always escape
just before you can get any evidence."
"A triumph of hope over experience," suggested James
Oberg, a 6-foot-8 NASA engineer and UFO columnist for
Omni magazine. With a NASA film, he demonstrated how
a'reflection in the Apollo 11 window became "ALIENS ON
MOON WHEN WE LANDED" in a National Enquirer
headline.
And so it went through the five-hour session. At one point
Hendry dramatically tossed a paper off the lectern to make
his point about the worth of conflicting lie-detector tests.
-During the most biting attacks on his work, Hyn~k slumped
quietly in his chair, a hand on his chin.
Douglas Climenson, a mail clerk at NOAA who brought
along his knapsack stuffed with newspaper clippings and
UFO books,. echoed the Sentiment
of some in the audience.
.
Though he'd never seen a UFO himself, he said, "I definitely
belieVe they exist. The question is what they are."
When the skeptics and scholars finally crowded a table for
the concluding panel discussion, a fire-fight was raging between Hendry_ and Klass over their methods of investigating
a particularly controversial UFO abduction case in Mississippi.
"I'm prepared to take a polygraph test on everything," Klass
said expansively before Durant ended the argument.
When pinned down by a written question from the audience, no panelist was willing to say he believed a human had
ever been abducted by an alien craft.
Nor did any panelist have any evidence that the U.S. government was holding anything back, such as the remains of
alien creatures or their craft, as has been suggested by some
UFO buffs. Hynek, however, citing possible informants who
feared violating government secrecy laws, caned for the president to offer immunity to anyone in the government or the
military who came forward. At symposium's end the question of alien creatures, like
other .topics of the day; remained unresolved. But as the panelists packed up and the audience flied out, moderator Durant, .
who retired from the Smithsonian just last week, said, "We
don't have any in our collection. "
Pursuit 183

Opinion
Confessions of a ~ewsletter Groupie: - - - - - - - - - - . . ,
A Case Study in UFO Manipulation
by Thom,.as B. Burch
reaction to Messengers of Deception has
U FOIogy'S
been so widespread that Jacques Vallee's newest
novel has become must reading for ail UFO enthusiasts.
In his book, Vallee suggests to us that a shadow-like
organization known as the "manipulators" ,is using
segments of UFOlogy to promote and produce radical
social change and/or to preven,t the nuclear holocaust
ofa World War III.
Messengers of Deception is fascinating reading, wifhout. question. Unfortunately, it asks more questions
than it answers. After completing Vallee's novel, the
real identity and actual motives of these "manipulators"
are as unknown to the reader as 'they were when the'
novel was purchased at the bookstore. What is clearly
needed is a sequel to Vallee's work which might be titled
"Messengers of Deception-Part IV'
.
As thought-provoking as Vallee's suspicions may be,
he has failed, nevertheless,. to acknowledge the existence
of other types of UFO manipulators who possess motives
far more basic than the desire for world peace or largescale improvements to the world social order. These
motives are greed and personal profit. Schooling in the
cloak-and-dagger arts of intelligence collection and
counterespionage are not necessary to discover that
yesteryear's carpetbaggers, scalawags .and snake-oil
salesmen are alive and well today and prosper in quite
socially acceptable'forms. Many of these contemporary
profiteers are known to us as "Doctor," "Reverend"
or "The Director of
." Their chicanery is subtly
and cleverly concealed behind the trappings of white lab
coats, religious vestments and three-piece Pierre Cardin
suits.' .
Of particular. interest to me are these other types of
UFO manipulators Which, regrettably, .Vallee has overlooked. These manipulators are not intelligence operatives who have successfully infiltrated UFO groups but
are, in all too many instances, the actual founders and
the directors of these very UFO organizations. Their
objectives are personal financial gain in the form of
direct corporate salaries and income-tax writeoffs. The
financial base at their disposal comes from aimual dues
and newsletter subscription payments provided to them,
in advance, by their organization's members. A popular
source of additional income 'to these "directors" comes.
from the sale of novels written by them while salaried
to manage and perform the organization's research and .
investigative programs. . , '
.
The criticisms provided herein should not be misconstrued as a complete indictment of all segments of organized UFOlogy. Most UFO groups are legally operated and many rigorously maintain the highest degree

........,,184

of professional standards. However, some UFO groups

are legitimately founded with.the best of intentions and
only later succumb to the temptations of' personal gain.
I will classify such an instance as a type IIA case of
manipulation.
.
For example, a hypothetical organiZation called
"The Alien Brotherhood Council" (ABC) is enthusiastically formed by individuals intending to specialize
in close-encounter case studies. A board of governqrs
is established, officers are elected, investigative and research committees are formed and the formal datacollection process begins. ABC newsletters are prepared
with scientific objectivity and are distributed on a regular
basis. ABC prospers. Almost historically however,
after credibility is establish, public visibility is attained
and membership' lists have grown, the director hits the
road for TV and radio engagements and the college
lecture tour. Soon after this the director starts to wQrk
on his novel. Expenses for this UFO road-show are
subsidized by newsletter subscription income, and no
one is left back at the ranch to perform the actual research or to provide inputs to the.newsletter. Notsurprisingly, the newsletter is prepared and distributed
less frequently, and the members, who see very little in
return for their subsoription money, become alienated
arid suspicious. Renewal memberships decline as does
the solicitation of new members. Slowly but surely
ABC starts fading into obscurity. Later the organization is temporarily revived and then totally reformed,
under a new name (and acronym) by. several diehard
staff members. And the cycle begins again ....
You cannot be a UFO newsletter subscriber for long.
before you become all too familiar with a scenario such
as this. As a-member/subscriber you feel short-changed.
After all, you have paid from $15 to $25 for an annual
SUbscription. You therefore may assume that because
there are twelve months in a year you should have received one newsletter per month for a year. Dpn't count
on it. You have been manipulated. However, your individual financial loss is minimal and is largely attributable
to poor management as opposed to an intent to defraud.
A type lIB case of manipulation is clearly another
matter. In a type lIB manipulatiol1 the "director" devi~ his ploy with obvious malice of forethought. Classifying all UFO enthusiasts as gullible and naive, the
director initiates a con game which seems almost too
good to be true. He views l;JFOlogy as a non-discipline,'
eschewed by organized scinece, populated by kooks
and cultists who rarely validate any claim or theory
suggested to them by "certified" experts.
With clear intent to defraud, these directors establish

FaU19

and operate UFO research organizations for the primary

purpose of personal financial advantage. While I have
never claimed any clairvoyant abilities, I would not be
at all surprised to learn that some director is currently
documenting his ongoing fraud to demonstrate the
gullibility of the UFO community. Such documentation
could then be prepa~ed in novel form for further personal profit. A suitable title for this expose might be
"The Great UFO Con Game." After its publication
the author will waste little time in hitting the TV talkshow circuit to promote the sale of his book. "The
Great UFO Con Game" is inevitable unless the UFO
community learns to defend itself against the frauds
and con artists who call themselves "directors." Like
the seers of the tabloid newspapers I cannot predict
when "The Great UFO Con Game" might hit the market. I only predict that it will.

Let us now pursue the planning and implementation

requirements of a hypothetical type liB manipulation
case. A self-proclaimed director founds "The Federation to Research Anomalies and Unconventional Data"
(FRAUD). He solicits for:- members in UFO periodicals
and supermarket sensation-sheets by running low-cost
advertisements. With any luck the director can acquire
one, or more, UFO-group mailing lists and can conduct" a mass solicitation of an already existing market.
Combining a small amount of tax-deductible capital
with the best PR and puffery, it is possible to create
the nucleus of what would appear to be a viable new
UFO organization. If our self-proclaimed director is
lacking in either relatable experience or academic certification, this can be overcome by the creation of- bogus
biographical data and by the misrepresentation of his
factual academic accomplishments. Falsified academic
certificates can be acquired and conspicuously displayed
on the walls of the FRAUD headquarters (usually this
is in the director's private residence). The cost of these '\.
falsified certificates is not prohibitive, and their availability is widespread. It is unlikely that any members
will take the time to investigate the director's alleged
academic achievements. And if the falsehood is ever uncovered, the damage will have already been done.
Prior to the mass solicitation of .members a small
board of directors is esmblished and officers are elected.
Not surprisingly the founder is selected as the chairman
of the board ana the president/director of the corporation (which has' flIed for tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization). Solicitation letters are carefully
prepared outlining FRAUD's scientific objectives of'
UFO data collection, sighting investigation and research analysis. The letter will state quite specifically
that FRAUD will be the first UFO organization to
conduct a scholarly and scientific study of the UFO
.phenomena. The solicitation will also promise a membership certificate (suitable for framing), a membership card (to assist you in actual sighting investigations)
and a subscription to the monthly newsletter, in return
for annual membership dues.
The purchase of $50 worth of UFO materials available at any bookstore will provide a wealth of informa-

FaD 1980

tion on the classic UFO cases. Within days our director

will have programmed himself sufficiently to speak at
great lengths about Betty and Barney Hill, Pascagoula,
the incidents at Exeter, Kenneth Arnold, Lonnie Zamora, Travis Walton, Project Blue Book and the Condon Committee Report. This superficial expertise,
combined with the title of "Director of
",
. provides our suspect with all the necessary prerequisites
for participation in radio talk-shaw interviews. Such
media coverage adds to FRAUD's apparent credibility
and provides free access to the solicitation of additional
members.
.
If, by following this scenario, FRAUD successfully
.recruits 5,000 dues-paying members (at $15 per annum)
a total of $75,000 could be accumulated in the first year
alQne. During this first year of operation the newsletter
will be distributed on a somewhat regular basis. Of
cOurse the development and distribution of the newsletter
will not cost anything near $75,000. FRAUD will subscribe to a UFO newsclipping service (less than $)00
per year) which will provide the raw data on UFO sighting reports to be republished in the FRAUD newsletter. Also included in the newsletter will be a letter-tothe-editor section, a "classic case revisited" feature,
and several UFO book reviews. The .director will occasionally prepare a self-serving editorial comment detailing the organization's meteoric rise within the. UFO
research community and will pointedly inform members about the many inquiJ:ies received at headquarters
since his last talk-show interview. In short, the newsletter will contain little information reflecting the "'scholarly and scientific study of the UFO phenomena" odginally promised.
In the second yea'r of operation the newsletter frequency can be reduced even further. Complaining
. members can be told (via editorial) that FRAUD cannot
compromise the conduct of ongoing research programs
just io satisfy membership demand for a timely newsletter delivery. Somehow members can be convinced
that by being way overdue in newsletter distribution.
FRAUD is, in fact, very busy performing actual research., ([his phenomeno~, which I call "The Emperor's
New Clothes Syndrome," is deserving of its very own.
scholarly and scientific study.)
Unchallenged by its members the manipulator(s) at
FRAUD can continue this scam almost indefinitely.
An occasional newsletter would have to be published
but very little creative effort need be expended in its
development. With no one to account to, the FRAUD
director is free to dedicate his time to other lucrative endeavors, like writing his novel.
Benefits to be derived from this manipulation should
now become somewhat obvious. Status as a non-profit,
tax-exempt entity ensures that all acquired income can
be kept within the FRAUD organization. This income,
in the form of annual.dues or subs<;ription payments,
is received in advance for the receipt of monthly newsletters which, in reality, will be published irregularly
and infrequently. The location of the headquarters
facility within his personal residence allows the director

Pursuit lIS

to write off a substantial portion of his home mortgage payments as a legitimate business expense. Or, at
his option, the director may prefer to bill the organization directly for the leasing of office space. Similarly,
a significant portion of the director's auto expenses,
gas, oil, insurance and maintenance, can be subsidized,
directly or indirectly, as mentioned above. Other direct
or indirect subsidi~ include airline tickets, meals, hotel
accommodations and rental cars. Not to be overlooked
is the fact that, in addition to these considerable .financial benefits, the director is also paid a salary in return
for his directorship of the organization.
The total value of these benefits, when combined,
can be quite substantial indeed. And the director is held
accountable to virtually no one. The director1s greatest
fear is that someone within the organization's select
. inner circle will eventually realize the lucrative rewards
. of a UFO directorship and will steal the FRAUDmembership list in order to start his own organizatidn for
personal profit.
.
There are approximately 100 American-based UFO

groups in existence today. The size of these groups

ranges from one-man entities to organizations claiming
up to 10,000 members. In the 27 years since the founding
of APRO many other UFO groups have come and
gone. How ma~y of these hundreds of organizations
have peen legitimately operated for research purposes
and how many have been established contrary to the
public interest would be an exercise in speculation.
It would be next to impossible for any individual to
gather the necessary information on all existing UFO
.organizations to properly evaluate their motives. However, the misuse of public funds, as depicted in the foregoing scenarios, has become so prevalent that clearly
the time has come for a whole~ale purge of UFOlogy:
This purge should take place before "The Great UFO
Con Game" hits the market. To do so later would only
be closing the barn door after the ~orse has gone .

*. Aerial

Phenomena Research Organization. Founded in 1952 by

Mr. and Mrs. L. J. Lorenzen. APRO was the rirst privately funded,
civilian operated UFO research organization inthe U.S. APRO is in
operation today and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

What's Next in Pursuit

In the Winter 1981 issue you'll read about
-UFOs and Earthquakes: The New Madrid Test. Dr.
MIchael A. Persinger, professor of psychology at Canada's
Laurentian University, reports on the statistical relationships
between unidenti fied flying object reports, odd force events
(poltergeists, animal mutilations), and uriusual animals (big
cats, bipeds) on the one hand-and earthquake reports on
the other. Persinger carries investigation of phenomena well
forward to exploration of the inter -phenomenal.
. -Maurice Chatelain Interviewed by Charles Berlitz:
Chatelain, a French-born American citizen, was involved for
more th~lD 20 years as a space communications specialist in
the Mercury and Gemini and other space programs. A:uthor
of several books on the "UFO problem," he has some fascinating answers to Berlitz's probing questions.
- The Mississauga Blob. Photographs show, and Dwight
Whalen tells, about a flaming "blob" mysteriously dropped
from the sky onto a backyard picnic table on a quiet Sunday
afternoon.
-Plus, of course, reports on other strange SITUations,
reviews of books you'll find worth reading, and brief and
extended ~eports of investigations ongoing in many parts of
the world.

Correction
Pursuit regrets the typesetting error in Morgan D. Eads'
article on teleportation in the. Summer 1980 issue (Vol. 13, .
No.3). On page 104, right-hand column, next-to-Iast paragraph, the second sentence should read: "In general, the
associated wavelengths of macroscopic matter would need to
be relatively small things to prevent such annoying phenomena
from occurring."

Where We Are.
Pursuit's editorial office is now located in Paramus, New
Jersey. Articles, book reviews, letters to the editor, photo-

PursuIt 186 .

graphs, newsclips for SITUations and all other material to be

considered for publication in.this journal should be mailed to:
Fred Wilson
'
.
601 Bergen Mall, Suite 28
Paramus, NJ 07652 USA
Correspondence having to do with membership, changes
of address, SITU business and corporate affairs, donations
and bequests, and requests for research service, should continue to be directed to:

SITl.!/PURSUIT
P.O. Box 265
qttle Silver .. NJ 07739 USA

Membenhip DirectOJy Update

Additional coding of members' interests:
Anomalies (General) GA
Archeoastronomy (Ancients! knowledge of the heavens~
calendars, etc.) . AS
Marine (micro)biology MB
, Additions, changes of address, and errata:
Memb.
No. Slale

2610
3039
755
1261.
32
2817
3329
2625
2229
2912
3442

AZ
CA
CA
CA
IL
IN
MA
NJ
NJ
TX

ZIP

Interests

86327
V,T,E
90504
V,L .
91601
TG,G
91747
G
60659
U,M,L,BC,W,LP
46202
AN,CZ,N
02139
AN,D,G,GA,GN,U
07202
.X
08027
N,R
77098
A,APS,T,Q
Quebec, Canada .AR,AS,MB,MM

Please address aU correspondence regarding the Membership Directory to:

Martin Wiegler
694 Stuyvesant Avenue
Irvington, NJ 07111 USA

Letters
Bill Banks reviewed a book entitled Alternative Three by
Leslie Watkins, David Ambrose, ~nd Christopher Mills (Avon
Books', N. Y. 1979) in Pursuit No. 51, Summer 1980.
Banks cites numerous faults of documentation 'and also
mentions that the British television network that originally
produced Alternative Three as one of its "Science Reports"
series denounced the show as fraudulent: He does not directly
say that the show is a hoax, but there are excellent grounds
for stating this directly.
The best evidence is provided by the producer of dramatic
programming for the network in question, John Rosenberg
of Anglia Television, as reported by lames Delson in the
September 1979 issue of Omni (Vol. I, No. 12, page 24).
Rosenberg reviews, for Delson, some of his accomplishments
, with Anglia Television. At one point in the interview he says,
" ... the film that stands out most was a 'fictionalized documentary' called Alternative Three. It was aoout the conspiracy
of several governments on Earth to plant survival colonies on
Mars." He gives a brief outline of the means used to lend an
air of reality to the premise, then concludes with the remarks,
, "The Americans were going to buy it, but then didn't, fearing, I 'would-think, another Orson Welles/War oj the Worlds
incident.l' In other words, Alternative Three was simply
meant as a video-hoax, which the regular viewers of "Scienc,C:
Reports" might find interesting, in an April Fool's sort of
way, the same kind of dramatized ,fiction in a documentary
format which made Welles' War oj the Worlds so infamously
successful.
When reading Alternative Three, the opening snippets from
various journals may lull the reader into verisimilitude, but
on page 24 you might get suspicious over a remark by one of
the main characters of the story, a non-existent Apollo jockey
named Bob Grodin, who is lamenting the publicity of the
Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975, while he, who had performed
the very same mission in April 1969 had to do it covertly,
without honors. Grodin says at this point, "How 'theY've got
the bloody neck'" How many American astronauts, who are
usually given to Midwestern or Appalachian slang, use distinctly British colloquialisms iike "bloody neck?"
Another question about Grodin's 1969 orbital link-up:
How does one launch a,Saturn V covertly?
'
-Peter Murphy
Enclosed is my check for ten dollars ($10.00) membership.
I firmly believe in ESP, having had a powerful experience.
My older sister (a doubting Thomas) was my witness. My
sister believed in nothing she could not pinch, but this time
she was won over.
I am eighty-six and may get my wings any,day now. I am
not reluctant to leave this wicked 'world .. Mr. Sanderson was
fortunate to take off so quickly and so young. Later when
I think it over I'll send for back issues of Pursuit.
God bless you and your work.
-Member #3380
To answer Mr. Mongold's letter of specific criticisms (Pursuit No. 50, Spring 1980, page 95), I do not refer to texts because I use no texts. All of my facts ar~ derived from inspection of graphic representations and wor~ing models. If Mr.
FaD 1988

Mongold wants a reference he must follow directions to construct the mod~l; the model is the reference.
I have not made measurements Of the Plate Flutter modeL
It would be of little scientific value for me to do so because
I 'do not have the training needed to express the data in math.. ematical terms. If Mr. Mongold would look at the c;xperiment
instead, of searching through authoritative texts he would s~
immediately that the compression of the standing wave as
function of velocity is determined by an exp~n~~t..
I
The researcher seriously looking for a tangible model tQ
illustrate the equations of relativity will use this observatio~
as a starting point to calculate the field acceleration necessary to generate a precession of phase corresponding to the
equations of relativity, rather than make assump~\qns. My
r!!ference to the Young Twin-Slit Experiment is deriv~d from
the model used by T~m Bearden to illustrate the'i'photonic
reaction."
-:-,T'. B. Pawlicki

A woman with whom I have had acquaintanc,e. {or: _sqme

25 years had an experience which appeared to ,be a genuine '
UFO sighting. She has no particular interest in "flying saucers," has never read any books about them, and her only
contact has been occasional newspaper or magazi,,~ itemsuntil last night. She described her experience under guaranty
of anonymity, to which I of course agreed.
.
At 9 p,m, August 6, 1980, she went out onto her front
porch. (Her house faces a 100-yard gentle upward slope of
ground to the south, with numerous tall trees at its crest.)
This night there were unusual lights in the sky. She ha~ rio
ide~ how far away they were, or how high, or how large.
App~rently they \vere moving very slowly away, to~ard the
west. At first she thought she was seeing the lights of ~m airplane, but SOOI) realized they were totally different from cqnventional aircraft lights. She listened but heard no sound; not
even a whisper, that she could associate with a prOp 'or jet
plane or the "chop" of a helicopter.
.
Whatever it was, it flew in. silence but with. three lights apparently rotating or revolving or flashing in a regular sequence.
One light she described as similar to a fluorescent light but
very much brighter-so bright that it pained her eyes: Anofher
light she described as "a beautiful apple green" and the third
as "bright blue." Only one light could be seen at a tirrie, but
each appearoo in rapid succession. All the lights seemed to
throw a beam for short distances, the beam from the white or
fluorescent light being the longest and brightest.
\
, After viewing the lights for about ten minutes she phoned
me at my home which is some three miles to the north of hers.
I looked,. but could not see the object which was somewhere
southeast of her location and therefore further from'me. The
tall trees around my house also blocked out the 100ver part of
the sky. The night was clear, with every star visible~and recognizable.
.
.'
.
. , ' . .After telling me what she had seen the lady ret~fned 'to .her
"observation post" for another 15 minutes. During'this time
the lights continued flashing but appeared to be slowly moving
further away. At one point, she noted, the object "bobbed
around," the words she used to describe a sudden drop. fol. lowed by a sudden rise to about the same level as before. The
P.ursu~.87

object was in sight for a total of 25 or 30 minutes and eventually passed from her view behind treetops on the skyline.
So impressed was my friend with her first sighting that she
watched the same area of sky the next night and spotted the
, same,green, blue and white lights, visible one at a time but
. ,rotating or flashing in sequence. This time the sighting was
abbreviated: The lights moved westward slowly for three or
four minutes, then accelerated and vanIshed within seconds
(which precludes the possibility there was a balloon involved).
She compared the departure with that of a'''shooting siar:~
'But this night, too, the sky was completely clear, all the stars
" ' 'appeared ,to=be in 'place, and she ,was most emphatic that the
, , .tri~lighted, object :was not a :star, I , : : ' " " , , ' , , "
'
"
' , : . I I .: :: " , I I;,", I!' ~' ,-Harold,Holland
, :, A year' or so 'ago I sent ,you a 'clipping about a "monster"
,bothering the residents of die Mount Vernon district of Fair, fax County [Virginia] and suggested that it might be a puma.
, Today's local newspaper carries a new story about it, which
.. indicates that' "something" is being heard. I am inclined to
believe, :however, that niost/likely this is a' wildcat. They occur,
,in ,the'county... have:.seen their droppings on several occa'~
, sions; at Bur.ke Lake andi in Bull Run Regional Park, and
, '.I have a suspicion that one was near our home last year. TheY
can make a terrifiC noise, and to a city dweller it :might be
,.
,
frightening,. , " ' I "
.I hav~ also sen(ypu clippings.'abQut anotner,reported creature, "Chessie," wh,icb is sai~ to reside in Chesapeake Bay,
near the mouth of die Potomac Riv.er., The descriptions seem
to vary, 'some dt:scrib,ing"a ~rlake7iike.a~~I, others a 'more
chunky, blunt-headed animal. The latest speculation pro, poses this is an anaconda escaped from sOq1.e vessel years ago,
which seems rather unlikely to me. I am more inclined to
, accept the idea, of the ~tter description arid suggest it might
be a manatee;. saw what looked very like'a manatee in the
Potomac,at Washington some years ago; and I have read that
the animal did range north' of Cape Hatteras in colonial times.
A third possibility is that it ,is a surviving sturgeon, which'
used to be frequent in the Potomac. A boating friend of mine,
who hilS extensive seutia experience, told ine he saw a very
large one in the river several weeks agb and tlUit people have
told him they too have seen one occasionally.
'

'I "
. "
;', I : , '
':...-Fred M. Packard,

...

..... ,. ,

'.

: II:'

I'.

I..

'

The article by Williamson and that by Forshufvud* seem

to reveal a breakthrough in the UFO problem. Perhaps UFOs
are "cells of oscillating electromagnetic energy," and sometimes interfere with the perceptions of human beings to the
point where a new balance is struck between the influences of
the brain hemisphere.
'
,
Actually there is a misconception about creativity. One is in
his most creative state when he considers a situation in a cursory fashion, passing over its details in favor of the overall
view, and includes)n his purview some different but significantly related ,subects. The s~n:te superficial approach that
CauSt:S,'~siriierPretati,o~~ shod.dY~tjUriki,ng, 'and (on the other
tiail~) 'useful genh~l grasp cari~ iii,li.i~ky,moments, bring new:
insights. The niost"eff~ii~e thlnldng },S u~~ of several levels
of obserVation, but it should include detailed examination
one of these, and it should draw on information not obvious,
in the immediate circumstance.
, A person who bec<?01es:~.IJ.~~,!l;,~ il:9'~~~:ve thinker, then"
is one who sees a problem in both the large and the small.

'

_.....

_.

Pursaltl88

_.'

..

0"

. . . . . . ',

........_

as

..

..

He can ge~ useful new impressions from the for'mer b'ut must
check on them by careful consideration. The more idea$ he
has from various fields of thought ,or from various aspects of
the same situation, the more likelihood there is for his general
.impression to result in novel hypotheses. But, 'as Williamson
, says, not everything created is worthwhile.' For example, all
our malapropisms, Spoonerisms; and Gracie .,.Ilen-like comments are creative, but who needs them?
It follows that one of the differences between left and'right
hemispheres of the brain is simply that the right half is used
less often and has fewer interconnections between neurons.
This does not, however; nt:gate,Wil.1ia.nson's idea. It may be
that the right hemisphere is Useful' fot creative thinking be-'
cause of a tendency to link rather'dist~ntthougqts together in
a general vjew . .In any case, the recognition that perceptions
are disturbed in the presence oUJFOs is'prob~bly a ,vital ,part
ofa complete theory, regarding them."
" '~', ',,: ,
,
, , , ' , .: -Harry E. Mongold
,Seepa!!es51.S6.Purs!l~(,~o.sq.~p'r(ng:!?8Q' ,,-;
(

;, ': . ;.

; ={

r,!

~ .1' I -.'

i"

,I,"

..

"I

Barbara J'ordison,'
in: the'
su6t$.ei '1'9~b: Pur~u~/ b~o" 51)

" "S
seemed to almost take ,arfro~~ :to my 'qQsery~tions :(f.~rsuit
No: 50, Spring ~980)' 9!:t",~er~ ~~~i~le, "!herS~nC;*;9 Fhan,tiel"
which appeared III PursU,1I for S(u;nmer 1979'(VOl. '12,;No, 3).
I meant no sarcasm ih'reactibri to her w6rk~ 'nor humorous
derogation'or'it. I appreciate tier'elucidati~lri be'tfie inputs used
in her experiments, as well as the'graph,of, frequency distribution over the time of day for the 9CcufT;ence of synchronous
data. I have been pestered anc;l, baffl, by synchronistic events
for most of my life, and I tlnd Ms.- Jordison's work in render, ing the mechanism of the pheno'menon ,amenable to statistical
analysis of experimental data extremely 'inter.esting. Such
work, may have more ,valid, or .disturbing conclusions, than
analysis' of anecdotal accounts such as those related by Alan
Vaughan in his book, Incredible; Coincidence:' The' Baffling
World of Synchronicity (Lippillcott 'and' Crowell;' New: York
1979). I eagerly await the comprehensive, publication 'of Ms.
jordison's exhaustive studies :00 the phenomenon,' if1the, tan-'
talizing excerpts appearing if! Pursuit are' indiCative' of';the
'
,
time and effort'she has put into-it. "- '" " ",
To her other remarks I must respond'that-.l neither "understand numerology" nor is it I1;ly "hobby.~~ What interests me
,abOut numerology, which I distinguish from:normal arithmetic
, addition by calling it !'numerologica:lointegration, ',~ seems to
be different from' normal' addition' in" sam~:'qui~ical way.
The difference seems to be in the! operator's brain, a point '
emphasized by Kerry Thornley's Law of, ,Fives 'and -Robert
Wilson's Law of Twenty-threes, an~,the synchronistic man~
ner in which those two numerals seem to occur with increasing
fr~uency once the observer is cued to think of-them as somehow different from their usage as mere numerals in,arithmetic
operations. The overall relationship oLnumbers'to reality is
hinted at in the followjng statement by, Dr. Jules Eisenbud,
which appears in the Proceedings of the' First International
UFO Congress (Warner Books, 1980), page 408:,,'

'

.'

"

r)'

I'

: 'Relativity physicist"Joho" Wheeler,: of black 'hble fame,

, has shown in terms tiis
an(i"otfie~s)-c6iripu~ti6ns
tmit even the 'fundatnericil (:6h~i~ri~ alld'titiMbets!{jf
the
r' .
,.'. ' . ; .,"
world picture do not make sense apart froq1.,the COnsciousness that both creates and evaluates the' universe.

br 'owii

,-

.'~

,...

Or, as my brother once put it, "this proves what I suspected

all along: mathematics doe$ntJ:.existl"u J ',,:p I ; , .:, ~, ' ; ,

Numerological integration seems to be an alternative way

of handling numbers, but I lack the sufficient background in
number theory to discuss what that difference precisely is.
A vague, intuitive sensing of this difference can perhaps be
dimly obtained by paradox. (This is numerological integration
isolated from synchronistic events.)
Consider the following paradox which can be f~und in
How to Torture Your Mind by Ralph Woods (Funk & Wag- '
~lIs, 1969), page 128:

coulomb itself, which is defined as a charge equivalent to

6.25 x 10 - 18 electrons. Since macroscopic-level electronics
uses the coulomb as a basic unit, no problem. But in the expression of particle-level behavior, descriptions of behavior
of a typical electron must be, rendered in terms of small fractions of a coulomb. Why not just call the charge of an electron
J Milliken and go from there? Such whole-number units of
basic physical quantities would thus be amenable to numerological integration, which might produce interestingly simp,lified descriptions of macroscopic-level events.
,
, - 2 and 3' are even and odd.
This is the way in which numerology interests me; not the
2,and 3 are 5.
way in which it pseudo-scientifically, describes or predicts
Therc:;fore, 5 is even and odd.
personality traits, karmic manifestation tendencies, or relative
degrees
of Divine interventi,on in the Universe, which Ms.
That is a paradox by normal arithmetic, i!1' which "even" or
Jordison
perhaps suspects occupies my interest.
"odd" have very specific meanings when applied to some
Just to demonstrate that I am' as prone to inadvertently
number, regardless of what factors may be said' to generate
manifest the Laws of Five and Twenty-three as anyone; I prethat number. In numerological integration, however, the
,
sent,
by way of satisfying'Ms. Jordison's honor, the followstatement is not a parad9x, since, in this strange form of adding
account:
ition, 'any number represents the organic or even synergistic
I first read Robert Wilson's Cosmic Trigger in ,June of
fusion or combination of its factors. It is a!1 almost, biological
,
1978.
Momentarily placing myself in the belief structure of
way to handle numbers;, by analogy, a population of organisms
accepting
the occurrence of 5 and 23 as signals from the dogdisplays aspects' of behavior as a single entity, but that beof Sirius by means of consciously manipuheaded
fish-people
havior cannot be adequately, evaluated without considering
lating an individual's reality-hologram, I noticed the following
the,behavior of the individual organisms comprising the popdata bits; ,
ulation. Consider, thi,s related paradox (by Mary Murphy,
1) The license plate for my '67 Mustang (for the
unpublished living-r~om conversations, April 1979):
year 1975) was GE M 235 (a 23 and-a 5) ............ 5
I and lare both odd.
2) According to the "Chaldean Numerological,
I and 3 are 4. '
Alphabet" of Gerun Moore (Numbers Will Tell,
Therefore, 4 is odd.
Ace Books, 1977), my name, Peier Murphy,
reduces and integrates to 5 . , ..................... 5
You' can't say som~thing lik~ that in normal arithmetic logic,
3) By the same system, my birthdate, Feb. 14,
but again, in numerological integration, the statement is correduces and integrates to 5 .. , .. : ......... , : ...... 5
rect and non-paradoxical. In fact, this particular paradox
suggests that tllere are' no even numbers at ,all; any number
4) By the same'system, my "zodiac number" (for
you can, write (whole nU!'Ilbers, at least) are mere shorthand'
the month of Aquarius) is 4. The combined,
rep'resentations of ,a combined series of I s, which is defined
cabalistic designations of name, birthdate, and
as an odd number. 4 = 2 + 2, but 2 = I + I, etc. It wildly,
zodiac number integrates to (5 + 5 + 4) =
speculates that human-brain arithmetic operations are in fact
(14) = (5) .............................. , .... 5
performed on binary numbers, which is perfectly supported
5), My first street address in Emporia was 1112
by the known mechanism of neurological signal transfer.
Sylvan, and, of course, 1112 reduces' and
Either a neuron fires or it doesn't fire, this on/off, yes/no
integrates to 5 ............................ : .... 5
function being dependent on the electric potential built up
, So I f~und, quite in accordance with Thornley's' Law of Fives,
within the signaling neuron, which is further dependent:on
, five 5s in my reality hologram, Of 52, and a 23 to emphasize
the combined potentials or signals sent into the- signaling
. that the Sirians were behind it. The raising of 5 to the second
neuron 'by the several neurons '~upstream" from it.
power was a clear indication by the Sirians that the Law of
Human mathematical information processing, quite 'aside _
Fives is not only tru~. it'is truly true, and not just observably
from the base-IO, base-12 or base-60 shorthand representations
, true, as is indicated by single occurrences of numerologically
imposed upon it by the operator's mode of ancestral finger, integrated 5s.
counting, might be a mere artifact of human neurophysiology.
Having thl!s committed intellectual seppuku, I now await
Thus it cannot be said to have any absolute relation' to the
, in my "quaint way," the results Of MS r Jordison's research,
description of Universe behavior whatsoever, insofar as 'those
, and shall never again "worry" about whatever synchronistic
electro-chemical neural reactions are macroscopic-level events
patterns her work on synchronicity ,may display.
of quantum-electronic derivation, and those quantum eVents
-Peter Murphy
are inereasingly becoming vacuous question marks. (See The
Dancing Wu Li Masters. Gary Zukav, Morrow Quill, 1979.)
Letters to Pursuit's editors should be addresHcl to
The whole morass of physical quantities and the often
Frederick'S., Wilson, 601 Bergen MaD, Suite 28.
tedious inter-conversions necessary to place them in' a 'form
Paramus, NJ 07652. AU letters must carry writer's
by' which Universe behavior Can 'be confusingly desc'ribed,
,name. inaibng address and membership number.
may be caused by this arbitrary overlay of numerical forms
When letter is pubhshed, either "Name Withheld" or
on physical basic umts .. For example, Robert Milliken deter;
"Member #
.. may be printed In place of name
mined that the basic unit of electrical charge, the electrical
if writer so Instructs. Because of space limitations
charge of a single electron, is 0.16 x 10- 18 coulombs. It is riot
letters are subject tQ abridgement.
this baSic charge that is, used in electronics, but rather the

FaDl988

THE' NOTES OF CHARLES FORT

. Dedphered by Carl J. Pabst
ABBREVIATIONS
abo
acto
(AI)
Am J. Sci
An. de Chimie
Annals of Phil. N.S.
An Reg
An. Sci Disc
. An. Soc Met de France
ap
amib
B
. 'BA
B.D.
BEagle
bet
Bib. Univ,
BO

B. Rain
C
Chester Co . P!I
Co. Mayo
C.R.

(Cut)

about
according to
[?Almanac?]
A merican Journal oj Science
A nnales de Chimie
A nnals oj Philosophy. !lew series
Annual Register
A nnals oj Scientific Discovery ,
Annales de 10 Societe Meteorologique de France
appeared
allriputed'
[?]
Report oj the British Associa/ionJQr the
Advancement oJScience
The Book oj the Damned
Brooklyn Eagle
between
Bibliographie Universeffe
"It is clear from the arrangement of ihe notes
that he [Fort] was searching his chronological
arrangement and' plucking out specific notes
for a future book in which he would refer ro
these data as opprobrious to the Scientists .for
their odor. '0 ... (The Fortean. #3. p. 14. c.l)
Black Rain
[?.I
Chester County. Pennsylvania
County Mayo
Comptes Rendus
illustrated

(D)

(1)

0-42
Del. met
d fog
disap
Edin Phil Jour
EMec
e.N-e.
Eng
Ext

The Book oj the Damned. page 42

Detonating meteor
dry fog
disappeared
Edinburgh Philos~phical Journal
English Mechanic
eastnortheast
England
Extraordinar~
Fletcher's U;/
Finley's'Report
France

(F)

Finley's Rept
(Fr) .

Gent's Mag.
'h
Hist Astro
(Hu)
Inf.,conjunction
(It) ,
J. F. Inst
Ky.
Linnea" Soc:
(Liv)
London Mag
LT
Mag Nat Hist
, Mag of Sci:
Mag Pop Sci
Mass.
Mem'. R. A.S.
met' ' ,

Gentleman's Magazine
hours
His/ory oj Astronomy
Hungary
Inferior conjunction
lIaly' .
.
Journal oj the Franklin lnsti/ute
Kentucky
Linnean Society.
Living.
London Magadne
London Times
Maga7.ine oj Natural History .'
. .Magazine oj Science
.
i Magazine'oJ Popular Science
. Massachusetts
Memoirs oj the Royal AstronpmiCf!1 Socie/y
m~eor .
.;,
"
,

M.W.R.

Mo.nthly Weather Review

North
New Hampshire,
.N. Hampshire
New England '
N. Eng, ,
, NoMore
N.M. '
North Carolina'
Nor. Car.
n.w. '
northwest
N.Y.,Ev Post
New York Evening Post
obj ,
object
Op.'Mars
Opposition Mars
p.
page
phe
phenomena
Ph. M,ag
Philosophical Magazine
Polt
Poltergeist
earthquake
q
,
q. J. Roy 1nst
Quarterly Journal oj the Royal Institute
Reference
R
South
S.
Sci Am,er
Scientific American
th. storm.
thunderstorm
trans. Lit Soc Bombay TranSactions oj the Literary Society. oJ Bombay
, Virginia
Va.
vole
vol~ano
VI.
Vermont'
W.lndies
West Indies
N

1819----------------------------------------------------------~------------Jan 4 I (London Times]. 2-d I

Vesuvius.
Jan 29 I q I Caucasia I I I (light I
BA 1911].'
Feb. 2 I Canterbury I Fireball I
BA60.
March 12/Vera Cruz. Mexico I q I.
II (Lightl BA 1911].
March 18 I q / Oran and Mascara,
in Morocco I "A great number of
the inhabitants disappeared beneath'the ruins.I.B Assoc 18541122/
(Reverse side] Whole district of
Cutch was ravaged. / "Many meteors or falling stars were observed
on the night after. I B Assoc
1854/122.

....... 19.

March ~ I Berne I Fireball I SA '60.

April I Metite I Salerno. lIaly I at
Massa-Lubrense I Stpnefall I
BA '60.
Ap 3. 4. 111 Copiapo. Chile I
qs 11111 (violent I BA 191\].
Ap. 3, 4. '11 I Great q. I Chili I
[BA]II.
Ap. 17 I Vesuvius.
May 3 1.0axaca. Mexico I q / II I
(medium I BA 1911).
May 5 / 12:30 p.m .. / Great met.
Aberdeen and other places. exploded
with a
(Reverse side] sound thill terrified
cattle I Q. J. Roy 1nst 7-395 I
S~BA67 .

May 26 I Italy (Latium) I q I I I

[Liglit I BA 1911).
May 26 I EtnaOI BA 54.
May 27-291 Eruption, of Vesuvius I
'Q. Jour Roy Inst 19-227.
May 27-28 / abo midnight I Etna
begins. I Bib. Univ. 11/191.
June 9 .. 10. II, 18. 24 I Detonations
like cannon fire from Vesuvius I
Q J Roy InstI9-229.
Jqne 11 I Af~w,day~ befQre-coasl'
Mass-;:,wave 10 feet Iiigh-several
persons drowned. I
[Reverse side] Niles Weekly Register.
June 19. ,
June 13 /6 a.m. I Jonsac / " contains no iron I BA 60. , '

June 13 I 6:15 a.m, I Jonzac I

Stones fell like hail after 3 detonations. I Bib. Univ. 15/311 I CharenteInferiure'l (Fj.
'
June 14/ Larvae / At Riga. Russia.
during 'a strong n.W. wind. fell
caterpillars. People swept [them] into
[Reverse side] heaps and: dug ditches,
to bury them. Destroyed in every
way think of without seeming to
diminish: the numbers. I, Niles
Week,ly Register. Sept 4. 18'19.
abo middle of June I Berwick-uponTweed / about noon I met or met
train I at first like a ball of fire and
then like a flaming sword / visible
5 minutes I LT. June IS-3-a.

june 16 (q) / eutch, India / preJuly 3 / Sudden appearance of-: was found-"of an offensive, suffoceded by a violent wind and "noise a comet / Paris / Clerke, Hist
cating sllJell."
like tHat of a large night of birds" /
Astro/103.
A few minutes of exposure to the
(Reverse side) B Assoc 18541122.
July 14 / Terrific detonations from
air changed the buff color to "a livid
June 16 / Time of the great q. /
Vesuvius / Q. J. Roy InstI9-232.
color resembling venous blood. '.'
At Masulipatam, India, a IremenIt absorbed moisture quickly from
July 24 / Detonating meteor /
dous th. storm.
the air and Iiquified. For some of the
Youngstown, Ohio / A. J. Sci
(Reverse side) And a fireball burst,
chemic reactions, see the Journal.
6/316.
doing damage. / BA 54-98.
There's another lost quasi-soul
July 26 1 Remarkable storm / Catsof a datum that seems to me to
June 16/ q of Cutch / 1150 persons
kill / A. J. Sci 4-124.
belong here:
buried in the ruins of Bhooj. Said
(BCF, p. 201:
London Times, April 19, 1836:
that from a hill was thrown
The disregarded:
Fall of fish that had occurred in
(Reverse side) a ball of fire that
Obseryation, of July 26, 1819, by
the neighborhood of Allahabad,
then fell to the ground, scorching
Gruthinson-but that was of two
India. It is said that the fish were of
vegetation. Rain fell in torrents. /
bodies that crossed the sun tothe chalwa species, about a span in
Trans. Lit Soc Bombay, 3/90.
gether-)
length and a seer in weight-you
June 16/ 1st shock at Kutch / Am J.
Aug I / London / Fireba!1 / BA 60.
know.
Sci, 4-316 / also at Ahmedabad /
They were dead and dry.
Aug
2 / Kioto, Japan / q / III 1
another, 23rd, midnight. 1
Or they had been such a long
(violent / BA 1911).
(Reverse side) Volcano opened 30
time out of water that we can't
Aug 6 / Moravia / Fireball / BA 60.
miles from Bhooj.
accept that they had been scooped
June 18 / Auxerre, France / "Water- Aug 1 Perseids / A. J. Sci 37-335.
out of a pond, by a whirlwindspout" and large hail fell. Destroyed
Aug 13/ Amherst / D-42.
even though they were so definitely
the harvest in 19 cOmmunes. /
(BCF, pp. 41-44:
identified as of a known local species(Reverse side) Q J Roy Inst6-162.
A "nual Register, 1821-687:
Or, they were not fish at all.
June 26 1 "Passage of earth through
That, upon the 13th of August,
I incline, myself, to the acceptance
tail of comet / Clerke, Hist Astro,
1819, something had fallen from the
that they were not fish, but slender,
appendix.
sky at Amhersi, Mass. It had been
fish-shaped objects of the same
substance as that which fel1 at AmJune 26 / (S)ec July 26. / 5 solar examined and described by Prof.
herst:"'-it is said that, whatever they
spots by Gruithuisen cited with Graves, formerly lecturer at Dartmouth College. It was an object that
were; they could not be eaten: that
"Vulcans" / An. Sci Disc, 1860/411.
"in the pan, they turned to blood."
June 26 / Time of a comet, Pastorff had upon it a nap, similar to that of
For details of this story see the
saw dark spot with a luminous center". milled cloth. Upon removing this
nap, a buff-colored, pulpy substance
Journal of the Asiatic Society of
cross the
Bengal, 1834-307. May 16 or 17,
(Reverse side) sun. Astronomers, was found. It had an offensive odor,
and, upon exposure to the air,
1834. is the date given in the Jouramong them Olbers, said could not
turned to a vivid red. This thing was
nal.
have been the comet. 1 Webb,
. said to have fallen with a brilliant
In the Americon.Journal of SciCelestial Objects, p. 40.
light.
ence, 1-25-362, occurs the inevitable
(BCF, p. 393:
damnation of the Amherst object:
Also see the Edinburgh PhilFive unknown bodies that were
osophical Journal, 5-295. In the
Prof. Edward Hitchcock went to
seen, upon June 26, 1819, crossing Annales de Chimie, 1821-67, M.
live in Amherst. He says that years
the sun, according to Gruithuisen
Arago accepts the datum, and gives
later, another object, like the one
(An. Sci. Disc., 1860-411). Also,
four instances of similar objects or
said to ha.ve fallen in 1819, had been
upon this day, Pastorff saw some- substances said to have fallen from
found at "nearly the same place."
thing that he thought was a comet,
the sky, two of which we shall have
Prof. Hitchcock was invited by
which was then somewhere near
Prof. Graves to ex!!mine it. Exactly
with our data of gelatinous, or visthe sun, but which, according to cous matter, and two of which
like the first one. Corresponded in
Olbers, could not have been the
I omit, because it seems to me ihat
size and color and cOnsistency. The
comet (Webb, Celestial Objects.
the dates given are too far back.
chemic reactions were the same.
p.4O).)
In the American Journal of SciProf. Hitchcock recognized it in
a moment.
summer / Large numbers of bulter- ence, 1-2-335, is Professor Graves'
It was a gelatinous fungus.
nies-the Camberwell Beauty-seen account, communicated by Professor Dewey:
He did not satisfy himself as to
noating off the coast of Durham.
just the exact species it belonged to.
That, upon the evening of AuThis butterny so rare in Gt. Britain
but he predicted that similar fungi
(Reverse side) that from 1911 to gust 13, 1819, a light was seen in
might spring up within twenty-four
1921, only about 20 recorded cap- Amherst-a falling object-sound
.
hourstures in Eng and Scotland. / The as if of an explosion.
In
the
home
of
Prof.
Dewey,
ihis
'But, before evening, two others
Field, Nov. 5, 1921.
sprang up.
light was renected upon a wall of
July I / See July 3.
a room in which .were several" memOr we've arrived at one of the
July 2 / (London Times). 2-b /
bers of Prof. Dewey's family . . .
oldest of the exclusionists' convenEtna.
The next morning, in Prof. Dewey's
tions-or nostoc. We shall have
many data of gelatinous su!lstance
July 3 / Ab 2. hours after sunset in front yard, in what is said to have
been the only position from which
England, new comet, not far from
said to have fallen from the skv:
Beta Auriga, nearly in a line with .the light that had been seen in the
almost always the exclusionists arg~e
room, the night before, could have
Beta and Capella. To north and not
that it was only nostoc, an Alga, or,
in some respects, a fungous growth.
been reflected, was found a substance
far from horizon when first seen. /
The rival convention is "spawn of
"unlike anything before observed by
(London Times) 5-3-c /
frogs or of fishes." These two
(Reverse side) 5-3-c / (Ha)d been anyone who saw it." It was a bowlseen at Leeds, at 10 and II p.m., shaped object, about 8 inches in' conventions have made a strong
combination. In instances where
July 1. Declination ab 40 0 N. Sup- diameter, and one inch thick. Bright
testimony was not convincing that
posed longitude 10 or 15 0Qof Can- buff-colored, and having upon it
cer. / (London Times: July) 7-3-a- a "fine nap." Upon removing this "gelatinous matter had been seen to
fall, it was said that the gelatinous
Aberdeen on the 1st. / This comet covering, a buff-colored, pulpy subsubstance was nostoc, and had been
stance of the consistency of soft -soap,
had a tail.

FaD 1980

upon the ground in the first place:

when the testimony was too good
that it had fallen, it was said to be
spawn that had been c'3rried from
~me place to another in a whirlwind.
Now, I can't say that nostOt: i~
always greenish, any more than I can
say that blackbirds are always black,
having seen a white one: we shall
quote a scientist who knew of
nesh-colored nostoc. wh~n so to
know was convenient. When we
come to reported falls of gelatinous
substances, I'd like it to be noticed
how ofte!l they are des.:ribed as
whitish. or grayish.ln looking up the
subject, myself, I have read only of
greenish nostoc. Said to be I!recnish.
in Webster's Dictionary-~;id to be
"blue-green" in the New International Encyclopedia-" from
bright green to olive-green" (Science
Gossip, 10-114): "green" (Science
Gossip, 7-260); "greenish (NOles
and Queries, 1-11-219). It would
seem acceptable that, if many reports of white birds should occur.
the bi~ds are not blackbirds, even
though there have been while blackbirds. Or that. if often reported,
grayish or whitish gelatinolls sub.,.
stance is not nostoc, and is not
spawn if occurring in times unseasonable for spawn.)
Aug 15 / Q and sound like cannon
. fire, St Andrews, Lower Canada.
Aug 18 / Shocks / Voss, Sweden 1
BA54 .
Aug 20 1 Rotwell (Rottweil?) /
Fireball / BA 60.
Aug 23 / (London Times), 11-16 /
2 different deaths, Matterhorn, abo
same time / (not found).
(BC"F, p. 393 / See March 25, 1805.)
Aug 31 / Norway / Lunroe series
begins. / BA 54.
Sept 2 / bet 2 and 3 a.m. / and
16, bet 10 and II p.m. / Shocks /
New Madrid region / Columbian
Centinel, Oct 30.
Sepi 5 / Red rain / Studein, in
Moravia / R -- 'May 26, '46.
Sept 5 / Small pieces of earth from
a cloud / Annals of Phil, N.S.,
22195.
Oct I / England / Fireball / (BA 60).
Oct 2 before / Worms / Bristol)
Nothing in Bristol Observer.
Oct. 2 / BO / Larvae / Niles Reg:
ister of / During a thunderstorm in
Bristol, England,
(Reverse side) a mass of larvae fell
from the sky and carried away in.
bushels.
:
(BCF, p. 200 / See Oct. 10, 1802.)
Oct 13 I (F) / Politz, S. Prussia I.
3 stones fell. / Ph. Mag 4/8/459.
(Reverse side) 8 a.m. / BA '60.
Oct 24 / Antwerp / Fireball /
BA6O.
Oct 28 / morning / Earthquake in
Montreal / 29th-"a storm of thunder and lightning" for hour and a half

Pursuit 191

of unusual violence I
[Rever-se. side) Quebec Mercury,
Nov. 161 Violent shocks, 7:25 a.m.,
on 29th-Mercury, Nov. 2.
Nov 2/In the afternoon at Blankenburg and Dixmude, Flanders I at
night in Scheveningen I
[Reverse side) Edin Phil Jour 2/381.
Nov 2-3 I night I 0-40 I red rain I
Scheweningen, Holland I Quar Jour
Roy Inst9-202.
(BCF, p. 39:.
Annals oj Philosophy, 16-'226:
That, Nov. 2, 1819-"i,eek before
the black rain and earthquake of
Canada-there fell, at Blanken
berge, Holland, a red rain. As to
sand, two chemists of Bruges concentrated 144 ounces of the rain to
4 ounces-"no precipitate fell." But
the color was so marked that had
there been sand, it would have been
deposited, if the substance had been
diluted instead of concentrated. Experiments were made, and various
reagents did cast precipitates, but
other than sand. The chemists concluded that ihe rain-water contained
muriate of cobalt-which is. not
very enlightening: that could be said
of many substances carried in vessels
upon the Atlantic Ocean. Whatever
it may have been, in \he Annals de
Chimie, '2-12-432, its color is said
to have been red-violet. For various
chemic reactions, see Quar. Jour.
Roy. Insi., 9-202,. and Edin. Phil.
Jour., 2-381.)
Nov 2 I In the Quebec Mercury,
Nov. 23, taken from a Salem newspaper dat.ed Nov 9, which takes from
a Newburyport paper of Nov 5. That
on the Tuesday before (the) 5th,
(Reverse side) or the 2nd. That-intense darkness and thunder and rain
that was colored "with some dingy
substance."
Nov 2 I Boston I Intense darknesslittle or no rainl Columbian Centinel, Nov. 61
[Reverse side) Here, too, the account
of rain, Nov. i, at Newburyport,
Mass.
.Nov 8 before'l Norfolk, Va., in the
Quebec Mercury, Nov. 23 (dated
Norfolk, Noy. 8) I "In consequence .
of the fire somewhere (it is said in
the Dismal Swamp) our atmosphere
is so beclouded and has been so for
several days, that no object
(Reverse side) at any considerable
distance can be discerned. The
James River Steam Boats have
neither of them arrived yet (9 o'clock),
and no doubt the delay proceeds
from a difficulty in finding the way
along."
.
Nov 9 I In the Nonhern Whig
(Hudson, NY), Nov. 23-that ac to
a Buffalo
[Reverse side] paper, rain had fallen
"lately", "deeply tinged with some
sooty ~ubstance. "
Nov 9 I (Plan) I Tell that volc or
etc., but admit the forest fires.
[Reverse side] See Sci Amer, that

Pursuit 192

was fores[t) fires-still the phe-but

which after settling, deposited
fire in Kentucky, in North Carolina,
can't c1earthis up till Sept., 1881.
[Reverse side) a substance like soot.
and in Canada. I
Late in afternoon, sky cleared. The
[Front side) Issue of Dec 8th-that
Nov 16 I B. Rain I Broughton,
next day fine. Morning of the 10th,
aC.to Bermuda papers, dated Nov 6USA 1 Oeuvres, Arago, 12146.
again the clouds and intense dark"They complain much of the
Nov. 10 I Montreal, Canada I slight
ness. Then a great body of clouds
[Third page) smoky appearance and
shock followed by great stormthat seemed to rush UPf;)O the city. scent of the smoky atmosphere
black rain 1 B Assoc 1854-125 !
and darkness-flash and detonation
which some'
D-33.
and shaking city. Then rain with
[Reverse side] conjectur[e) to have
[BCF, p. 31:
soapy, sooty substance. I Should be
been occasioned by a' great fire on
Or the black rain of Canada,
.7th and 9th:
the AmeriClln continent or to exhalNov. 9, 1819. This time it is orthoations of the Gulph Str.eam.
Nov
7
I
Described
in
N.
Y.
Times,
doxy to allribute the black precip1881, Ap. 23-2-7.
Nov. I Montreal I slight q and noise
itate to smoke of forest fires south
Nov 7 ! b. rain I Montreal I Oct 17, 'Iike distant thunder at. 3 p;m. / the
of the Ohio Riverflash and peal and shake at 3:20.
1834.
Zurcher, Meteors, p. 238:
Nov. 7 I See Dark day .and met,
That this black rain was accomNoy. 7 / See Montreal, May 21 - 22,
M!J.dagascar, May 21, 1877.
'panied by "shocks like those of an
1871.
.
earthquake."
.
Nov I See effects of Vesuvius, Ap.
Nov. 7 I Montreal series I See
Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,
to 27th, 1906.
.
May 20,24, 1848.
I
2-381:
Nov I Dark day in Canada I
Nov 91 S(e Nov 8, 1842.
That the j:arthquake had occurred
described NY Times, 1881, Ap. 23-2-7.
Nov 91 right date III n the Northern
at the climax of intense darkness and
Nov. 7 I Dark day and meteor I
Sentinel (Burlingtol1, Vt.) / Astonthe fall of black rain.)
May21, 1877.
ishing appearances in the heavens at
Nov 6 to 10 I N. Eng and Canada I
. Nov 91 See Feb. 24/1868.
Montr.eaI-a series of awful' events,
Dark Day I Sc Am 112-229..
equally impressive to th~ minds of
Nov. 7 / See Fires like Sept., 1881,
Nov 7 I See Nov. 9.
t~.
.
and Siberia, 18%1
.
Nov. 10 I Montreal I liSted as a q
[Reverse side)' illiterate and the
Nov 7 / In Col. Cent., Nov 24, said
in Mallets Catalog.
learned. Said that the first unusual
that at Louisville the smoke had
(November) I (+ ) I Darkness, etc: I
appearance to attraCt attention was
been allrib to
.
Montreal to Bermuda I M.W.R.
u'pon the. 7th. A remarkably dark
[Reverse side) forest fires in Ky. In
19041231 .
morning'-about .8 a.m., appeared
Nor. Car., to forest fires in that state.
[Reverse side] Vividly set forth in
a thick cloud or .
Nov 7 I Columbi3. Centinel, Nov 24 I
N.Y. Times, Ap .. 2312I7, 1881.
(Second page)' haze of a dingy
That the smoke and darkness had
orange color'. About three quarters
Nov 9 / At Albany, N.Y.-8 a.m. /
appeared about the
of an hour, later, rain like ink fell,
darkness and fall of hail-win~ WliS
[Reverse, side) same time, attended
impregnated I with a fine substance
from the south.
by colored 'rain at sea, Canada,
like ink or ashes. ., It was conjec(Reverse side) Candles lighted' at
Eastern, Western and Southern
tured that a volcano had broken out
3 p.m.-atmosphere thick, hazy,
states.
in some distant quarter and
yellowish I Quebec Mercury,
Nov 9 I In Columbia Centinel (Nov. . [Reverse side) the ashes of the erupNov. 23.
17), said that the smoke at sea had
tion floating in the cloud giving it its
Nov 8 I Niles Weekly Register,
delayed navigation since the first of
unusual color." The weather then
Nov. 27 I Said that in West Indies,
the month-that smoke had been
cleared and the afternoon was
difficult for
attributed to forest fires in New
pleasant. Nothing noted the next
(Reverse side) navigators to make Jersey but that this
day. Upon the 9th,' darkened in the
their observations on account of the
[Reverse side) smoke had appeared
morning. By noon,
smoke. I
well to the windward of New Jersey.
[Third page) candles lighted in all the
[Front side) No special date menNov 9 I d fog and q. I See Sept I,
public offices '~anC\ even in the
tioned.
1841.
butchers' stalls." The darkness
Nov 9 I That in several showers in
increased and so did'a general dread.
Nov I C I In M.W.R., 1904123,
N. Y. State recently, ashes had fallen
About 3 o'clock in afternoon, a slight
from the Columbian Centinel (sic),
in rain. I
shock of earthquake and sound like
Nov 24-that "The late smoky
. (Reverse side) Niles Weekly Register,
dis'la~t gunfire:
'
atmosphere was' experienced a!
Dec. 4.
nearly the same time far at sea, in the
[Reverse side) 20 minutes later, when
Nov. 91 Similar darkness at Quebec /
Canadas, and in
.darkness at its greatest intensity, the
Oct. 17, 1834 . Oct 14, 1835 - (Reverse side) the Eastern, Western,
whole city suddenly illuminated by
Oct. 18, 1839!
"one of the most vivid flashes of
and Southern States, attended with
(Reverse side). Niles National Reg- colored rain." Said that. many terlightning ever witnessed in Montreal
ister, ~ov. 16, 1839, p. 192.
rified inhabitants of Montreal had
and ali awful peal of thunder so loud
fled from the city.. "The Montreal
and near as to
Nov 7 and 9 I 'See Oct. 28, 29. I
[Fourth page) shake the strongest
. Quebec Mercury of Nov. 16-Same papers contain whole columns of
buildings 10 their foundations." Said
account as Burlington paper. "The accounts of the 'astonishing appearthat the concussion was so violent
blackened color of the air viewed ances', and it
that it was supposed by many perthrough a luminous substratum pre- [Second page) was conjectured that
sented a spectacle awful and grand . they wereoccasion[ed) by eruptions
sons to be a second earthquake .
There were other 'such detonations
in the extreme." Said thaI after of some neighboring volcano.
and
thunder and lightning had subsided, [Reverse side) And it was assured
[Reverse side] then fell rain darker
(Reverse side) the darkness con- that during the darkness there were
than that of the 7th-"apparently
tinued, and seemed to increase until three shocks of earthquakes." /
more charged with sooty mailer."
Said that there was a great forest
ab.4p.m.
Nov 8, etc. I Account by Mr J. H.
Dorian, to the Montreal Star, in Sci
This is the sixth installment of "The Noles of Charles Fort DeAmer 44/329 I Sun (8th) rose upon
ciphered by Carl J. Pabst" since the series bl:gan in Pursuit's
a cloudy sky, greenish in places, inky
Winter 1979 issue. A seventh installment will appear in the forthin places. Soon intense darkness am!
heavy shower of rain like soap suds,
coming 'Winter issue of /98/.

FaD 1980

THE SOCIETY FOR THE

I~ESTIGATION

OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary and Treasurer; Gregory
Arend, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler, and A1bena Zwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, Paleo-Indian Institute,
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
Dr. George C. Kennedy, Professor of Geology, Institute of Geophysics, U.C.L.A.
(Geomorphology and Geophysics)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program In Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(PhYSical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, OntariO, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant (Brain Wave Laboratory), Essex County Medical Center,
Cedar Grove, N.J. (Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and linguistiCS)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, .botanist and geolOgist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z:S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other profeSSionals, and non-professionals having Interests similar to their
own, to enlist In an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its archltectshad first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth In documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the Society.
Another publication was Issued In June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. I, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth SOCiety
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the deSignation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina"-the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids" - the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated Information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

INDEX 1980
Adamski On Trial, 103
Angelo, LeVonne K., 84, 109
Anatomy of a Hoax, 98
Anjard, Dr. Ronald P., 150
Anonymous, Mr., 145
Astrology: The Way It May Work, 158
Atlantis: Lost and Found Again,
Part I, 164
Authors in Pursuit, 97, 137
Bayanov, Dmitri, 140
Bearden, Thomas E., 6
Beckjord, Jon, 67
Bermuda Triahgle et al, The: A Natural
Phenomenon, Part I, 84; Part II, 109
Bigfoot As Symbol, 66
BOOKS, RECORDS & TAPES
Abducted! Confrontations with Beings
from Outer Space, Coral & Jim
Lorenzen, 90
Alternative Three, Leslie Watkins with
David Ambrose & Christopher Mills,

132
Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the
lUuminati, Robert Anton Wilson, 133
Cycles of Heaven, The, Guy L. Playfair
& Scott Hill, 132
David St. Clair's Lessons in Instant ESP,
David St. Clair, 46
Encounters with UFO Occupants,
Coral & Jim Lorenzen, 90
Factual Eyewitness Testimony of UFO
Encounters (record, cassette), 182
Flying Saucers, An Analysis of the Air
Force Project Blue Book Special
Report No. 14, Including the CIA
and the Saucers, ed. Leon Davidson,

89
Future Science, ed. John White &
Stanley Krippner, 134
Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, A,
George Eberhart, 130
Guardians of the Universe?, Ronald
Story, 179
Hands, Margaret Williams &
Lee Gladden, 90
How to Make ESP Work for You,
Harold Sherman, 46
Hypersentience, Marcia Moore, 46
Interstellar Travel: Past, Present and
Future, John W. Macvey, 131
.. Messengers of De,ceptJ~n,. Jacques
Vallee, 88
Mysterious World, The: An Atlas of the
Unexplained, Francis Hitching, 45
Occult Exercises. and Practices,
Gareth Knight, 46
Pole Shift: Predictions and Prophecies
of the Ultimate Disaster,
John White, 179
Proceedings of the First International
UFO Congress, ed. Curtis G. Fuller
& Editors of Fate, 181
Psychic Healing Book, The, 45

Road to the Stars, The,

lain Nicolson, 180
Roswell Incident, The, Charles
Berlitz & William L. Moore, 180
Searching for Hidden Animals,
Roy P. Mackal, 181
Secrets of Our Spaceship Moon,
Don Wilson, 45
Shape of Events to Come, The,
Gopl Krishna, 133
Situation Red: The UFO Siege,
Leonard H. Stringfield, 44
Somebody Else Is On the Moon,
George H. Leonard, 46
Tantra: The Key to Sexual Power
and Pleasure, Ashley Thirleby, 46
UFO Handbook, The, Allen Hendry,
46
UFO '79 (San Diego Convention)
(cassette), 182
Broomfield Experiments of Andrew
Crosse, Esq., The, 168
Burch, Thomas B., 184
Celts and Early America, The, 18
Conditional Criterion for Identity,
leading to a Fourth Law ofl..ogic,

A. 6
Cone, Ubbet and Coleman, Loren, 2
Confessions of a Newsletter Groupie:
A Case Study in UFO
Manipulation, 184
Developmental Schema for Telepathy,

A,

DeWitt, David, 159

Eads, Morgan D., 104
Egyptian Connection, The: Sources
of Plato's Atlantis Legend, 57
Evidence for the Stability ofthe Solar
System Since c. 2700 B.C., 151
Forshufvud, Ragnar, 54
Fort, Charles, The Notes of, Deciphered
by Carl J. Pabst, 47,126,190
Forteana Galactica Update, 50
Gholson, Norman, 33
Grise, Allan, 50
Heavy Ether, 81
Hind, John, 105
How Relativity Theory Conflicts
with Reality, 37
Hypno-Art, 72
Is Teleportation the Macroscopic
Analog of the "Barrier Penetration"
Effect?, 104
Kivas: Inverted Pyramids and
Observatories, ISO
Lake George Monster Hoax
of 1904, The, 99
Letters to the EdItor, 135, 187
(See also "Symposium.;
Lorber, Neil M., 155
,Lorenzoni, Dr. Silvano, 64

Macer-Story, E., 81, 146

Moak, Kenneth W., 156
Model Solution to the Unified Field
Problem, A. 14
Mongold, Harry E., 37
Neidigh, Kim L., 66, 80, 102
New Method for Calculating
Sasquatch Weight, A, 67 .
1909 Mystery Airships in the Irish Papers, The, 105
Open Letter from John White to
Dr. Arlen Keith Andrews Regarding
"What to Believe-or Paring Down
the Paradigm", An, 10
Pabst, Carl J., Ed., 47, 126, 190
Pawlicki, T. B., 14, 101
Pyramid Power: Etheric Electromagnetic Interaction, 156
Reader's Guide to Parapsychological
Uterature, A, 102
Report on the Press, 183
Robiou-Lamarche, Sebastian, 23
Runes of the North, The, .61
Saknussem, Arne, 64
Sanderson,lvan T., 163
Schroeder, L. E., 18
Science in Conflict, 138
Singer, Jon Douglas, 57,164
SITUations, 42,91,116,173
Solving the Mutilation Mystery:
A New Approach, 159
Sooner or Later You Too
May Have ESP, 101
Sprinkle, Dr. Leo, 145
Symposium, 41, 95
(See also "Letters to the Editor.")
Thompson, Paul B., Ed., 168
Tomb of Khufu, The: Mysteries of the
Great Pyramid, Part II, 33
Transformism Reconsidered: Darwin
in Perspective, 155
Trouble with Education, The, 163
Two Experiences of the Third Kind, 145
UFOs and Mysterious Deaths
of Animals, 23
UFOs Are Changing the Way
We Think, 51
Unidenti&ed Flying ObjectsA Physical Phenomenon, 54
Watkins, Curtis W., 72
. White, John, 10
Why It Is Not Right To Kill
a Gentle Giant, 140
"Wild Man" -Fact or Fiction?, 142
Wdkie, Britton, 61
Williamson, J. N., 51
Wilson, Edgar D. R., 151
Wilson, Fred, 98
Wirth, Diane E., 103, 138
Xenology, 80
Yuan Zhenxin and Huan Wanpo, 142
Zarzynski, Joseph W., 99

'Science is the Pursuit 0/ the Unexplained'

Journal of SITU
The
Society for the
Investigation of
The
Unexplained

VolumE' 14
NUlllhE'r I
WholE' 5:-\
First Quarter
1981

- - -

'

------------

THE SOCIETY, FOR.. THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITu/puRsinT, P.O: Box265, Little Silver, Njtii739"USA T~lephone: (201)842-5229
SITIJ (pronounced sit' - you) is a Latin word meaning ..place." SITIJ is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or will not study.
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
Membership is for the calendar year. January-December, S12 in the United States. Elsewhere, membership is $12
plus a surcharge necessitated by the additional mailing cost. Amount of surcharge. which varies according to regio....
",.'i11 be quoted in response to individual request. Members receive the Society's quarterly journal Pursuit plus any special
SITl i publications for the year of membership.
SITU welcomes member partidpation. Members should send articles. photographs, newspaper clippings. book
r(-'vi(-'ws and "letters to the editor" 10 be considered for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson. 601 Bergen Mall, Suite 28.
ParclOlUs. NJ 07652 USA. Us(-' this itddress for Pursuit material only. Other mail. including changes of address, library
orders. postal (>rrors. back issues.renewals. gift memberships and donations. should be sent to SITU/PURSUIT at the
POSI office box itddress at til<' lOp of this Jla!l'. Please allow six or more. weeks itd\.'illlce notice of change of address.
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, correspond~nce.
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will be
answered by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff time. a research fee will be charged.
Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped envelope with the inquiry so that they may be
advised ofthe charge in advance.
The legal affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the laws of the Slate of
New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the Scientific Advisory Board.
IMPORTANT NOTICES
The Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members.
The Society does not hold any political, religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit concerning such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion or ethics,
are those of the individual member or authdr and not those of the Society.
The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications. and as
necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available for sale.
rental, exchange or any use except the foregoing .
Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are tax deductible to the extent permitted by the U.S. Internal
Revenue Code, and in some states as their taxing authorities may permit.
PUBLICATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the issues are numbered respectively 1 through 4
and constitute a volume, Volume 1 being for 1968 and before, Volume 2 for 1969, and so on. Individual and gift memberships in SITU at $12 include subscription to Pursuit for the calendar year. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit,
without membership benefits, are available to public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $10 for
the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fully protected by internatiollal copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions thereof may be granted, at the discretion of SITU and the author, upon written request and statement of proposed use directed
to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address printed at the top of this paHe.
Pursuit is listed in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and in the Standard Guide to Periodicals. It is also available on
microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE
. "

rSUJt.
I

ISOCIETY FOR THE

INVESTIGATION OF
THE
UNEXPlAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents
Page
The Dark Side of the UFO
by Ernst Berger ...... " .............. '........ 2
The Individual and thp. UFO
by Kim L. Neidigh ........................... 5
Space Scientist Maurice Chatelain Affirms
His Faith in the UFO Phenomenon
.
Interview with Charles. Berlitz ..... , ............. 6
Teleportation and Relativistic ~est-Mass?
by Daniel Eden ..... " .................... 10
Electra, Who Came from Another Planet,
Speaks to "Woman"
Interview with Olga Batis.................... 11
The' Wudewasa or Hairy Primitives of Ancient Europe
by Ivan T: Sanderson .... '.' ......... : ..... ~ 13
Adantis: Lost and Found Again (Part II)
by Jon Douglas Singer ................... 23
The Mississauga Blob
by Dwight Whalen ........... ............. 29
Some Curiosities of Animal Behaviour
With Regard to Time
by Sabina W. Sanderson ............................ 33

SITUations . .......................................... 35
Report on the Press ....................... 38
Books .............................. 39
Memos & Miscellany ... '............... , . 42
Letters .......................... : 43
The Notes of Charles Fort
Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst ...... '..... 46
Cover: Etching No. 43 from Caprichos
by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

HOWEVER you regard the UFO phenomenon, reading

the first five articles in this issue may sharpen your
perception.
If you prefer to study and speculate about such physical
aspects as intergalactic spacecraft in our or other times,
or if the propulsion puzzle and hardball teleportation bother
you the most, turn first to page 6 and start your reading
with the Chatelain-Berlitz interview. When that's done,
continue to the end of page 10, then read pages 2-5, 11-12.
But perhaps you discern the parameters of the UFO
phenomenon as more PBYc:hic than physical. You have lots
of company and solid evidence for your position if you start
with page' 2, read to the middle of page 5 and bottom of
page 34, then back to page 11 and when you finish page 12
return to pages 6-10 and finish the assignment on page 32.
W~ are grateful to Loren Coleman for his suggestion
to reprint Ivan Sanderson's narrowly circulated and therefore little-known monograph from 1967 on the Wudewisa
(page 13).
Thanks also to Fred Packard for another of his 'press
repo~, direct from the Washington battlefront, on the triangular no-win war between the Inquirers, the Bureaucrats
and the Classifiers (page 38).
Many, many thanks to so many for the steadily increasing
volume of newsclips you are sending. Please know that
any news reports NOT published in Pursuit may be as valuable to SITU as any you read In the SITUations pages of
this journal. All reports, as well iIS photographs, drawings
and other items not requested for return, become part of
SITU's archives where they are available, by arrangement, to serious researchers. Eventually these archives
wiD provide material not elsewhere compiled for some
latter-day Fortean to catalog the anomalies of the 1900s
comprehensively asFort himself did with those of the
early 18005.
Charles Fort died just before the dawn of the computer
age. We think of him now as the peerless human prototype of electronic data-processing. The breadth of his research, his meticulous compUation, coding and matching
of reports, the seH-disclpHne which kept
at hard mental
labor over so long .it span of time, are admired by all who
know his work. He was, and still is, criticized for some of
his conclusions, but never for his methods.
Of what use Is the massive legacy of Fort's data? For
Dr. Michael Persinger it has yielded important sourcematerial for his computerized study of the relationship
between UFO reports and earthquBkes. We had planned
to present the Persinger findings in this issue of Pursuit,
but budget limitations have compeUed postponement to
the Spring Issue. On pages 46-48 of this Issue you will find
another instaUment of Fort Notes, the seventh since the
Inception of the series two years ago.
-The editors

as

him

,
.
PursUIt vol. 14, No. I, Whole No, 53, First Quarter 1981. Copyright 1981 by the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, ISSN 0033-4685.

No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
Editor;' Sabina W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and Oceanographic Consultant.

The Dark Side

Of the UFO
Excepts from a report

by Ernst Berger
Northern UFO Network, England

"Thee are very much aware of the fact. that the

. answer to many of these questions that thee ask
. must transcend the information thats at hand.
For if the infomiation at hand were such that
thee would know 'the answer, thee would not ask
the question. So thee are on the frontier,
.
my friend, and it is a point of challenge."
-lARRV E. ARNOlD:

Pursuit No. 44 (1978)

..... we must satisfy ourselves by studying

UFO reports, not UFOs. Reports are made by
people, and people are often mistaken about what
they observe .... The witnesses 1 interviewed .
could have been lying, could have been insane,
or could have been hallucinating collectivelybut 1 do not think so."
WiUit ever be possible to document the transitory
phenomenon with instrumentation "in the right .
place at the right time"? Many detaUs about
UFO witnesses "lend a subjective reality to
their UFO experience," but "the question we must
. puzzle over is Simply this: What level
of objective reality?"
"My experience with UFOs is second-hand,
observed entirely tlirough the eyes of others."
-J. AUEN HVNEK:
The Hynek UFO Report (1977)
and The.UFO Experience (1972)

If you ask a police investigator which way

he looks at case reports he wUl respond: "I first
use my eyes to study the reporter. {will refu$e
~o accept reports of people without that."
The "police approach" of UFO studies
yields two levels of reality-the psychological
reality of the reporter which can be checked
. after the incident, and the subjective reality
of the witnessed incident. The latter
roots in the psychosocial context
-ERNST BERGER:
and is shaped by it.
Introduction to the

report which follows

100 Austrian field inveStigations including two soOVER

called "local flap" studies done in the traditional,

phenomenologically-oriented wayl have left us with the impression that the standard investigation procedures are far
from what is desirable. Grattan-Guinness is right with his
complaint: "Much information may: be being lost because

.Pursuit 2
/

sleep
of reason
produces
monsters.'

~The

Fig. 1

ufologists are not asking UFO witnesses relevant questions, .

or carrying out appropriate procedures . . . the interview of
witnesses is regarded only as a search for information and
opinions; no attempt is made to recreate the possible psychic
state of mind of the witness.'~2 Izzo has articulated the same
point in his "State of Art" for 1977: "Very feW students, . \
however, ponder over the respective weight of, roles played
by the percipient and the perceived ~ . . the bearer of our
information, the true independent variable in the UFO problem, the witness, did ndt arouse similar attention (as the
perceived thing-E.B.). The UFO is generally a source of
profit whereas the percipient is not."3
.

Witness-Centered.lDvestigatioD
Both for European and Australian cases l.4,S,6'the percentage
of single-witness events lies close to 500/0 or even higher.
Hynek suggested we rate a single-witness e\!ent automatically.' .
lower than a two- or multiple-witness event.7 It is a valid idea
to try to get several independent observation reports and
compare them. However, as Blake has pointed out, this is. ..
not possible because "unless a multiple-witness sighting
involves independent ~tnesses it is a social situation. The ,
fact that most of the niultipli-wimess sightings (about 97%E.B.) are social situations deserves as much attention as the
contents of the report."8 Whereas few observation conditions are not social situations, all field investigations are..
With a wealth of interesting examples, Watzlawick illustrates
the dependency of what we call "reality" upon human com- '
munication. 9
To negl. ect
. the psychosocial dimension of the reports and
concentrate on UFO phenomenology a1on~ leads onto very.
thin ice. (Fig. 1) Th~efore we modified ol;lr field investi':
ption procedures toward witness-center~ investigation.
After the routine checks o~ conventional explanations have

'.,

first Qaarier 1981

been run without result, our attention is brought fully to

bear on the witness(es):
.
On May 29, 1977,- at OO:30CET, a raQio mechanic apprentice in bed in his .home in Lower Austria, with the TV
set off after a local blackout at 23:jO, was startled to see in
the room a "hollow globe" of 50 cm. diameter, made up of
"red bars." Suspecting a fire, the witness jumped out of bed
and hit the shape with his leg. It dimmed gradually "into
nothing." The traditional investigation gave site me!isurements but no traces or details of the blackout which lasted
until 23:46.
Awitness-centered investigation in a Vienna psychiatry
lab involved psychological tests and an electroencephalogram.
It showed a normal intelligence but a tendency to hide paranoid ideas. The EEG, recorded with a 16-channel polygraph,
was at the border of the norm. We cannot be sure the case
happened as the 'witness claims it did, but it was no simple
psychotic product. 10
A similar investigation on the'witness to an alleged close
encounter northeast of Vienna used a full clinical examination in the same lab in December, 1979. EEG, CFF and test
results as well a~ a psychiatric exploration disintegrated the
homogenous picture of the case.

Results
Compared to technical aspects, the psychosocial dimension
of UFO phenomena long received only marginal attention.
Then, in 1977, this summary of results was published by
Sprinkle ll : People who study UFOs show personal integrity;
UFO landing witnesses compared with the rest of the U.S.
population do not show deviations in age, sex, occupation
and activity; psychiatric case studies by Schwarz did not
trace psychopathological reactionsl~ and the latter claimed
that no UFO-induced paranoia has been observed in clinical
psychiatry. I)
'.
On the other hand, Walker presented a case study of a
UFO alcoholic hallucination in the 1%8 U.S. Congressional
Hearings with a detailed routine for medical, .neurophtalmologic, neurologic and psychiatric witness examinations. 14 In
1970, Schonherr speculated about hallucinatory elements:'
"Hallucinations are a side-effect caused by the conditions
(force field) in the vicinity of the UFO . . . in such a way
that subconscious or unconscious images may reach the
centre of perception, and become indistinguishable from
a real experience." IS
.
Cases of paranoid episodes involving UFO researchers
have been published in book form (Bender, Keel). In 1959
Hans Bender, West Germany's leading parapsychologist,
remarked that ". . . the UFO phenomena show some similarities to 'controversial paranormal appearances, especially
to the physical ones, i.e., a poltergeist. One is tempted to
speak of a spook in the sky."16
.
Polygraph examinations and hypnotic regressions applied
to CE III witnesses have yielded strong emotional disturbances associated with the reports and an equally strong
belief of the witnesses in the reality of what they saw. High
subjective evidence' for its reality is a constitutional factor
for hallucinations, according to Jaspers. Internal consistency
of a report or a series of reports is no criterion for their
objective reality, i.e., being not delusional, in terms of psychiatry. "Heaiing~ sight, touch, smell-every one of those
senses furnished me with false data for my reasoiung," said
a healed paranoian quoted by Thalmar.17 Or, as Arnold

FIIst Qaarter 1981.

expressed. it: "We can only understand the problem 'of hallucinations when we realize that the 'normal, objective' world
has the same .s~bjective perceptive vahie as the hallucinated,
for both are equal psychic appearances ... "18
Lawson's hypnotic sessions with "imaginary abductees"19
have revealed that the singularly shallow character of the
"real abduction" narratives, similar to banalities encountered
in spiritistic "messages," may be reproduced easily by using
the high degree of suggestibility present during hypnotic
trance to "synthesize" a CE III. The unconscious is not the
factual reporter technically trained people wish it could be.
La Tourette gives a cynical but true picture of "demons,
unearthed" in hypnosis: "Who has committed the crime
does not have claws or a tail nor horns and, need not come
from hell. Should I add particularly that the victim is always
the hypnotized and the devil the hypnotist?"20 This wisdom
of 1894 was forgotten in subsequent years, unfortunately.
Haines, author of two outstanding psychological books
on UFOs,21 has developed a special procedure for the drawing of UFOs. He found upon its application "that there are
not any readily discernible differences between the eye witnesses and the non-eye witnesses who draw UFOs.... This
does not prove that' the two participant groups come from
the same population sample, or that all UFO witnesses may
be merely portraying"22 but, since everybody knows "how
UFOs look," it is impossible to separate fact from imagination in the investigative process without information on the
mental state and attitudes of the person making the drawing. Rifat presents an "induced dream hypothesis" to CE III
witnesses.:!) An "LSD-like experience" is induced and produces
characteristically bizarre elements. Experimental studies by
Kluver and Siegel found familiar hallucinated shapes from
different exogenic reactions, including electri stimulation of
the brain: bars, hopeyc9mbs, chessboards; spider webs,
tunnels, funnels, corridors, cones, vessels and spirals with
intensive colors and symmetrical arrangements. 24 Bars and
cones, spirals and other symmetrical forms with "psychedelic
colors" were reported to us by a Graz, Austria "local flap"
witness.

Discussion
Bessler has pointed out the typical appearance of "phantom ships": "Nearly always . . . phantom ships are seen
suddenly and at full size, apparently approaching from the
vicinity and disappearing as quickly after a few seconds, not
even minute;, without moving away. . . . Their maneuvers
challenge all laws of physics . . . like a picture with wrong
perspective. . . . In relation to its presumable distance (the
ship) is much too large, and even if every detail, every yard,
is visible, it appears flat, picture-like and unspatial. "25 Similar
effects have been noticed in ghost apparitions on land. Abnormally large objects and UFO close-encounter scenes are
also viewed in this perspective.
Seargeant comments on the psychic aspects of UFO sightings26 by quoting Tyrrell that "visible apparitions behave
as a' rule . . . with regard to the lighting of the scene, the
distance of the percipient, and the presence of intervening
objects, exactly as any material person would do. "27
The author's contacts with sever~ national" groups have
shown rising tendency tp see UFOs as something psychic,
parapsychological, and reflecting dissatisfaction with physical hypotheses. Sprinkle puts it the following way: "The
paradox of UFO evidence suggests that UFO investigators
may continue to be frustrated in their attempts to 'prove'

Pursu,,3

the existence of flying saucers. . "" Phrases Jike "programmed non-evidence", "Trojan horse" or "deliberate
deception by trans-spatial creatures" are symbolic for despair
and frustration over the pheriomenologically~based data.
Brand-Schneider of MUFON-CES give details on a Ror schach test and a "hypnotic regression" done with one of
the two witnesses of a CE m at Langenargen, Bavaria.
Neurotic problems and an observation trauma were indi. cated. The hypnotic session details were rated hallucinatory.
by MUFON-CES. after consultation with a psychiatrist.
Structural features of the "beings" correspond with the
frog Kermit of the popular "Muppets Show" on television.
Schneider compiled a number of contributions about effects
of electromagnetic fields on the brain and hallucinatory components in UFO reports. Cases are' reviewed under such
headings as "hypnagogic imagery" and "delusional hal lucinations."28 Classification should be restricted to cases
where a psychiatric exploration and/or tests are available.
For instance, negative effects on mood and vegetative functions
be observed by amateur investigators, but a hypomanic state is likely to bl! rated "good health." As a first
step in field investigations, we recommend asking relatives
not involved in the UFO sighting whether the mental state
of the witness has shown any alterations before, during and
after the UFO experience. Wherever possible in "stranger"
cases a full psychiatric exploration should be undertaken.

will

ature where the hallucinatory stimulus is manifest.

.
The "mirror effect" is evident in the followipg three casereports from Austria:
.
August/September, 1955, Mr. W. of Vienna: The witness writes
he encountered a lan~ed object near Arbe~thal, Lower Austria,
while driving through the woods on his mptorcycle. He noticed.
a ramp and a door, and drove right inside at full sp~. Inside he
talked with five or six "occupant~," giving them a detailed dt;scription of social problems on Earth and how they might be
.corrected. "The answer of my discussion partners was that I ...
had to be the leader in such an action, whereupon they broke into .
tears when I disputed them too violently." In his report Mr. W...
gives it short resume indicating that he had had problems under the
Nazi regime, was not employed after the war, ~nd still feels that .
he is being persecuted by Nazi agents.
It is interesting to note that the central problem of his life.
'social isolation and paranoid political ideas, reshaped into a
glorious role in his alleged encounter. Th~ report was rated
a delusional product of an abnormal personality by our psy:
.chiatric expeTl. .
January, 1975, Josef P.: At Traunstein, Jower Austria, an 'old
man described a number of "sky clocks." He saw them as enormous objects with multicolored clock-hands appearing and disappearing, in the sky at dusk, from his front porch.
After some time we heard of his heavy drinking and observations he had made of "ghosts" in his room. Observing the
rising Jupiter with us, he did not see a point of light but a"clock" plus ''umbrella'' and a worker o'n top" in his alcoholic hallucinosis. A pensioned sacristan,: with the church
tower and its clock in his field of vision from the porch, he
described the phenomenon's clock-hands in positions telling
the correct time of his observations.
.
U

The .'Minor
Ifeet'
,
The presence of hallucinatory components in' many UFO
experiences is suggested by a number or circumstances.
Mythological UFO hypotheses have tried to integrate aberrant details on the ground of a superior intelligence, a "deus
ex machina" making everything possible. This has led away
from scientific methodology. Behavioral scientists have demonstrated that they now have the tools to study the "dark
side" of the UFO. Although physical trace cases and other
data such as radar returns supply a physical, objective component, the anecdotal material of the witness reports is responsible for the social impact of the UFO theme.
What can be done with old reports, where psychosocial
data are missing or spurious? The author has hypothesized
that psychic elements, thoughts, wishes, experiences and
models of the witness, as well as shapes of everyday surroundings existing in his memory before the encounter, may
. flow into the UFO experience to form. parts of the phenomenal details. We call this the mirror effect. It is confirmed by the "artificial UFO" experiments of Lawson l9
and Haines. 22 Schallenberg has shown similar processes in a
20th century case study of European re,ligious visio~s and
their witnesses. 29 On the cultural-inythological dependence
of -hallucinatory material, a case published by Seitz is of
interes!: A member of the Brazilian Waika tribe, who had
been baptized .and schooled by missionaries, took part in
drug rites performed by the tribesmen to make contact with
the "haeculi," as the ghosts of their ancestors were calIed.
'Instead of "haeculi" the subject sa~ the angels of his Chris.
tian education. 30
One must not forget the discovery of Freud, that it is the
m~terial. of the subconscious, or: repressed to the unconscious, which will have the greatest influence as stimulator
and modulator of hallucination. We cannot expect this sort
of data to reveal itself autQmatically in technical case studies.
Consequently there are relativc;ly few cases in the old~r liter.
. \

July 11, 1979. Mrs. M.: An old lady reported "Skylab" in a litup cloud and "four bright balls moving past" to the southwest of
Pressbaum, LO,wer Austria; at 03:00 CET. She had been waking up
at. this early hour (sudden wake-up between ~idnight and 06:00 is
a typical Aust'rian pattern). The central objec~ had the dark shape
of "Skylab" and a huge size.
The case occu"ed a few days before.!he expected crash of'
Skylab parts, and the shape was in all mass media with strong
negative implications. At 03:00 if! the morning the moon was
tiehind a broken cloud cover in the region of "Sky/ab. .. Fitful
moonlight and the subject's mental state were partners. in an
illusion that widened into hallucinatory details.

Another ipdication for the existence of the "mirror effect"

is the' "recognizing" of certain object features .by the witness in course of a second observation in a different place.
A witness watching three red, overlapping globes associated
with a deep roaring sound from her Hollabrunn home in .
August, 1972, remarked, in our 1975 inv~tigation that she
had seen "precisely the same object" agflin. near Gussing,
Burgenland, in February, 1973. The 197~ sound. had been
the same as one she heard while experiencing an earthquake
at Ne!Jnkirchen in. April, 1972: The' connection between two
alleged .observations of this kind is not th~ surroundings or
the phenomenon, but the witness.
;
UFO reports are dependent on psychosocial variables. :
Society's acceptance .of, or refusal to accept the reports is
a function of culture and technology. The existing gap between culture and technology has provoked a paradox:
Bizarre UFO reports are rejected by most' scientific author- .'
ities, but are' accepted by many layperspns beeause' they
wish Ito accep~ them. Why is this possible? '.
We know, or rather' a technical elite we respect knows~
a .grft deal about the physical world and how' it works.
. ~ut' .'. e .PhY~ical. approach ~mes' up .rather ~shori ~f solution~

' . .

Pursu~4

.'

First.Quarter 1981

The Individual and the UFO

In order to understand how this may occur, a concept
native to the last decade should be examined. This is the geo-,
psyche, which is'the interaction of the psyche with the Earth's
magnetic fields. The concept is described, in Persinger's and
Lafr.eniere's important book Space-Time Transients and
Unusual Events: I

by Kim L. Neidigh
THE COMPLEXITY of the UFO mystery has caused
J many researchers to question' the long-flaunted extraterrestrial theory. What one discovers when studying the
reports is that while the sightings follow definite patterns, the
details are unique. Except for the I-saw-distant-lights-in-thesky cases, every UFO is different. That fact, plus the sheer
volume of reports, makes the space-visitor theory seem more
and more improbable as time goes on.
If UFOs do not come from outer space, where do they
originate? Perhaps the key to understanding lies in the very
uniqueness of the reports. UFOs, whatever their true nature,
are powerful symbols. Psychologists have shown that circular
and rectangular shapes symbolize man's need for unity and
order within his life. UFOs also are associated with the sky,
where man has always pictured his gods dwelling. Since the
individuals who observe UFOs are human beings with the
same shared desires, it is possible that the UFO is an externalization of shared psychological needs which otherwise ,go
unfulfilled.
,
, This is not to imply that UFOs are mere hallucinations,
though some may well be. What is being proposed is that
UFOs are genuine physical constructs given reality and form
by the minds of the witnesses: The psyche reaches out and
manipulates the environment to create a flying saucer.

Our concept of a geopsyche essentially involves the interaction between large numbers of biological systems and
the geomagnetic environment within which they are
immersed. It contends that at certain critical numbers of
'biological units (of a species) a matrix is formed with the
capacity to be energized, and this matrix acquires the
potential to display behaviours and patterns of its own.
Perhaps UFOs are "holographic" images created by the
human mind manipulating geophysical forces.
We know that emotional states can have a direct effect on
physical surroundings. This has ,been shown by parapsychological investigations of hauntings and poltergeists. However,
these phenomena are rather restricted in the range of their
observations, whereas some UFOs have traversed large areas
and have been witnessed by "hundreds." Can the interaction
,of the psychokinetic powers of many minds with the geomagnetic field be the cause? Let's examine a hypothetical
sighting.
Someone sees something unusual in the sky. l:Ie quickly
(Continued on page 34)

to many human problems that continue to persist among all

the marvels of our (mostly western) lifestyle. Dissatisfaction
with this social shortfall has condensed into all manner of
anti-scientific, occult movements and thinking.
What paralyzes "UFOlogy" is nothing more than the
conflict of spiritism versus animalism recognized by para-'
psychology, a long time ago. It is a conflict that escapes '
scientific resolution. Belief in a supernatural intelligence
cannot be "proved" or "disproved" in terms of modern
science,which is based on a different paradigm.
To put it polemically, it seems to us that the "new age of
darkness," the "new regression in human thought" that
UFO spiritists like Clark, Coleman, Guerin, Keel, Michel,
Vallee and others fear may, be brought upon us by UFO
manipulation is rather a projection of their own fearful way
of thinking into our restless reality. To get into a new "Dark
Age" we need no "UFO intelligence." Our own intelligence
is enough for the purpose.
We-altogether human beings with unconscious feelings
and wishes-are the dark side of the UFO mystery. The
more we learn about ourselves the more we will learn about
the true meaning of the UFO.
REFERENCES
Berger, E. (1977) UPIAR 2, 1,53
Grattan-Guinness, I. (1979) Pursuit 45, 152 '
lzzo, F. (1977) UPIAR 2, 1,204
Acos (1978) Australian UFO Statistics 1977
Hansen, P. (1974) ESOTERA\I, 31
Poher, C, (1973) INFORESPACE 12,29
,
Hynek, J. A. (1972) The UFO Experience (Ab~lard-Schuman,
London)
.
'
8. Blake, J. A. (1978) MUFOJ 126,10

9. Watzlawick, p, (1978) Wie lIIirklich ist die Wirklichkeit?

(Piper, Munich)
10. Berger, E. (1978) Austrian Abstracts 5, 2
, 11. Sprinkle, R. L. (1977) Pursuit /0, 4,112
12. Schwarz, B. E, (1969) Journal, Medicol Society of New Jersey,
66,460
13. Schwarz, B. E. (1971) Proceedings, Eastern UFO Symposium,
APRO, Tucson
.
14. Walker, S. (1968) Hearings Comm. Sc. Astron., Ninetieth
Congress, Washington, D.C.
15. Schonherr, L. (1970) FSR 16,3,16
16, Bender, H. (1959) Zeitschrijt fur Parapsych,ologie 3, 32
17. Thalmar, E. (1937) Bulletin Ill, Am, Psych. Inst.
18, Arnold, O. H. (1953) Zeitschrijt Nervenheilkunde, Vienna,
318
19. Lawson, A. H. (1977) MUFOJ 120& 121, 7
20. La Tourette, G, D. (1894) Die Hysterie, Leipzig
21. Haines, R. F. (1979) UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral
Scientist (Scarecrow Press, New York) and Observing UFOs
(Nelson-Hall, Chicago)
22. Haines, R. F. (1978) UPIAR 2, 1,123
23, Rifat, C. (1977) UPIAR 2, 1,93
24. Vogt, H. H. (1979) Naturwiss, Rundeschou 32, 3,112
25. Besler, H. (1978) Dos Gespensterschijf (Fischer, Frankfun)
26. Seai'geant, D. A. J, (1978) "UFOs a Scientific Enigma,"
Sphere, London
27. Tyrrell, G. H, M. (1969) "Apparitions," Colliers, New York
28. 'MUFON-CES (1978) "Strahlenwirkungen in der Umgebung.
von UFOs," Munich
'.
29. Schallenberg, G. (1978) Visionare Erlebnisse (Pattloch,
Aschaffenberg)'
'
30. Schmid bauer" W. (1971) Psychotherapie (Nymphenburger,
Munich)

1.
2:
J.
4.
5.
, 6.
7.

first Qaiuter 1981

r

'

,j

I~

an Interview with Charles 8erUtz ' '

Space Scientist 'Maurice 'Chatelain

Affirms His Faith in the
UFO Phenomenon
MAURICE CHATELAIN, born and educated in Paris, lived in France until 1955 when hei came
to the United States and in 1961. he became a U.S. citizen. For more' than twenty! years
he was involved in NASA space programs (Mercury, Gemini) as a specialist in :space
communications and data processing. He was one of the large group of scientists who
conceived and designed the Apollo moon-lander. He has written several books in F~ench
on the UfO phenomenon. His recent book in English, Our Ancestors Came from Outer
Space, was published by Dell. Now retired from NASA, Mr. Chatelain lives in San Diego
where he continues to investigate, speculate and write about UFOs and related phenomena.
CHARLES BERUlZ ~chieved international reknown with his best-seller The Bermuda Triflngle.
in 1974. A more recent Berlitz work, co-authored with William L. Moore, was The Philadelphia Experime:1t (1979). Some of the. implications of that "experi~ent" are disc'ussed
in the latter part of this interview. OMNI magazine copyrighted the Berlitz-Chatelain dialogue but printed less than 600 words of excerpts in June, 1980. Through the courtesy of
Mr. Berlitz and OMNI we are privileged to present the original transcript. -The editors
Copyright 1980 by OMNI Publications International, Ltd. and
reprinted with the permission of the copyright owner.

Q. ,Since when have you been interested jn the UfO

problem?
A. Fifteen years ago I did not believe in flying saucers'. At that
time I was working for NASA as a space scientist on the com, mun~cations system of the Apolio spaceCraft which 'was to
land on the moon five years later. Then the UFO ph~nomenon
was practically unknown and anyway, none of us would have
dared to mention it in NASA circles, because that would
certainly have ended his career.
Then I made several trips to France, where I learned from
French scientists not only that the UFO problem was real,
but also that it was seriously investigated- by official agencies
of several European countries including Russiil. Unfortunately,
I had to keep that to myself when I Came back.
Q. Then why did you decide to discuss that problem
now?
A. Now things have changed. First of all, I am not working
for NASA any more. Then NASA itself has been forced to
, recognize the existence of the UFO phenomenon, and even
to admit that it did not know what it was or where it was
'coming from. Also, seriouS magazines are now willing to
discu~s the UFO problem with qualified scientists such as
Jacques Vallee, for example. Moreover, according to recent
, astronomical discoveries, it is now very likely that there might
exist other civilizations in outer space, and that some of them
could even be far more advanced than we are. It is therefore
, perfectly logical to try to establish a contact with these, civilizations, first by listening to the messages that they might
, try to transmit to us, then by sending them simple messages
with the primitive means at our disposal, such as radio and
'
laser, for ~ple.

Pursuit 6,

Q. What do you think would be the'best way to estab-

lish a contact with them? '

i
A. For that purpose, we must try first to determine the kind
of message that would have the best chance: to be received and
understood-by ourselves in the first case'or by them in the
second case.
Most information scientists now beijeve'that the best message would be one made of simple numbers representing I
mathematical ratios, such as 2217" for lI" or 89/55 for qJ , or
prime numbers such as 7, 11, 13, for exaqlple, whose ratios
have ~mal values representing repetitions' of' figures that
could not fail to attract attention.
As a matter of fact, it seems that we have already received
several similar messages that went completely unnoticed, even
by those who were supposed to notice and decipher them, but
there we are crossing a dangerous frontier: between two dif-.
feredt sCientific worlds.
I

Q. What' do you mean by "two different $Cientific

worlds"?,
,
A. The first one is made up of official scientists who might
be willing to accept the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the
universe, but would never accept the possibility of interstellarl
travel, or the idea that flying saucers could .really '"exist and
carry astronauts from another world in out~ space.
'
The second one is made up of independent or retired scientists like me, who can afford to discuss the UFO problem
freely withoui the ri~k of losing their job, and a very few
official scientists who have the cQurage to take that chance
anyway. This is ,why interesting discoveries in the' field of,
: VF:O iesearch are always made by these independent 'scientists.
I

FInd Quart. 1981

"

Q. How are these discoverles disclosed t~ the public?

A. Since we are not accepted in scientific publications, we .
have to disclose our theories and discoveries in popular books,
magazine articles, and television interviews. I wrote a book in
Frenc)1 which was published in Paris four yt:ars ago and has
now been translated into five different languages, including
two English editions here and one in England. I also wrote
a second book a few months ago which so far has been published only in French but will soon be published in English
here. The publication of the first book has already resulted in
several television interviews where I could discuss the UFO
problem, and in my participation in "In Search of Earth
Visitors," an episode of the popular television series produced by Alan Landsburg.
Q. Are you specialized in any particular kind of UFO
research?
A. Yes. I am mostly interested in UFO landings, and especially in their .landing patterns and in the tracks they leave on
the ground. As you probably know, many UFO landings that
have been .reported in recent years have occurred in France, .
where the local gendarmes are instructed to go immediately
to the landing site to investigate and record everything. They
determine the longitude and latitude, and make a drawing of
the landing print, with exact measurements of angles and
dimensions.
Q. Could you give us a few examples of UFO landings .
in France?
A. Certainly. In 1954 for example, there was an invasion of
flying saucers in France. There were 76 UFO landings in
25 days, from September 24 to October 18 of that year. As
usual, the gendarmes recorded the time, longitude and latitude
of each landing, as well as the shape and dimensions of the
print left on the ground, and the estimated weight of the object
according to the depth of the tracks and'the condition of the
ground at the time of the landing.
Q. And then what happened?
A. The landing sites were investigated at that time by several
famous French experts such as Aime Michel and Paul Misraki,
who plotted the landing sites on a large map of France. This
allowed them to discover tha~ straight lines could be traced on
the map between a certain number of landing sites, such as
between Bayonne and Vichy, for example, over an amazing'
distance of 483 kilometers or about 300 miles. They also
noticed that some of these lines were parallel and separated
by an average distance of 63 kilometers. These were the first
numerical data ever obtained from UFO observations, and
the only logical conclusion that could be derived from them
was that both distances were exact multiples of a length of
21 centimeters, the wavelength of hydrogen, which cai1 be
found anywhere in the universe and therefore could represent
an ideal measuring unit for astronauts from another world
wanting to establish contact with us.
Q. Did the lines suggest another special meaning?
A. They certainly did. A few years later, a French scientist
named Jean Charles Fumoux had a bright idea. He took a very
large map of France and started tracing triangles between the
76 landing siteS, in order to see if some of them had any particular characteristics that would give him a clue to the landing pattern of these mysterious alien spacecraft. He was surprised .to discover that many of the triangles were isosceles
with two equal sides, and decided to push the investigation
a little further to find out what the percentage could be, and
if it was always the same for any number bf triangles.
.

.Q. And how did he do that?

A. Our fri~nd Fumoux knew that, with a set of 76 points and
according to a well-known formula, one can make 70,300
different triangles, which is an enormous number, but that
did not discourage him -because he already knew that he had
discovered something reaIly fantastic, which could be the
first clue that he was looking for. It took him a few years
to measure all the triangles, but he finally made it, and found
that there were l862 isosceles triangles or an approximate
ratio of 26417 or twelve times 2217, and that ratio reminded
him of something he had seen some time before.
Q. And what was that?
A. He had just read a book that I had published in France
and which has now been published in English by Dell in 1979
as Our Ancestors Came From Outer Space. In that book
I indicated that our ancestors, who probably had a cosmic
origin, were using a 11' factor of 2217 for the construction of
Stonehenge and for that of the Great Pyramid, for example.
However, Fumoux could not understand why the percentage
of isosceles triangles indicated by the UFO landing sites should
be an inverse function of the '/I' factor that was used a long
time ago by our prehistoric ancestors.
Q. And then what happened?
A. He wrote to me and asked me to check his calculations,
which I found to be correct, and I advised him to put all his
data on punched cards and feed them tei a computer, in order
to see if the percentage would remain the same with any number of triangles, or if it was jus~ a coincidence in .that case.
It took him some time to find a French computer scientist
who would believe him and consider his theory seriously
enough to agree to check it with his computer. He finally
convinced Jean Francois Gille, a director of research at the
Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, who was sure that
the Fumoux theory was wrong, but agreed anyway to check it
on his computer to prove that it was wrong and should be
dismissed.
Q. And what did the computer show?
A. The computer showed that Fumoux was right and that
Gille was wrong, which caused quite a shock to those who
were watching the .experiment. But Gille was an honest scientist and he sent me a telegram immediately, saying that the
Fumoux theory was correct and that I would receive all the
details later.
Q. And how did Jean Francois Gille prove that the
theory was correct?
A. He took the latitudes and longitudes of the 76 landing
sites, transformed them into decimal coordinates on punched
cards and fed them to a computer in order to have the dimensions of all the triangles and find out how many of them were
isosceles. He u&ed several different combinations of points
in order to prove that the results would be different. Instead,
the computer always gave him the same result.
There was an average of 1864 isosceles triangles, give or
take a few triangles. And 70,300 divided by 1864 gave Gille
a ratio of 26417 or twelve times 2217, exactly the same as that
which .Fumoux had computed with his bare. hands, a few
nails and a few hundred meters of string. Just to be sure,
Gille then picked up 76 random points on the map and fed
their geographic coordinates to the computer, 'in order to
fmd out what the difference would be. He did that four times, 'with four different sets of 76 random points, and successively
obtained 1613, 1621, 1631,. and 1637 isosceles triangles, or
about 250 less than. 'Yith the actual UFO landing sites! Gille

'.

FIrst Quarter 1981

Pursuft7

,i

therefore concluded that, beyond any reasonable doubt, the

UfO landing sites in France were not randomly distribu'ted,
but on the contrary, se~med to have been carefully selected
by our mysterious visitors.
In my opinion, the sites were selected in such a way as to
form a very particular geometric pattern representing a mathematical message based on the 7/" factor, the oldest calculation
tool- in the world, discovered by our prehistoric ancestors
when they first decided to trace a circle on the ground. All we
have to do now is to try to' find out, who these mysterious
visitors are who came from a distant planet especially to leave
their marks on the soil of France in 76 different locations~
Q. Was the French press informed of that important
discovery?
A. They certainly were. Jean Francois Gille and Jean Charles
Fumoux called a press conference at the Cercle Republicain in
Paris with Philippe Schneyder, a friend who has press connections. Most French newspapers attended the conference, .
including the conservative Le Monde and Le Figaro, and the
. more Iib~ral Liberation and Le Parisien Libere; Moreover,
\Agence France Presse issued a communique which was transmitted allover the world on Oecember 11.
Q. And how did the French government react to the
press conference?
A. So far, there has been no official reaction to the disclosure
of the Fumoux theory, and the authorities are probably still
.wondering what should be done about it.
.
Q. Do you think that the number 76 could have a special meaning?
.
A. I have been thinking about that for some time. The number 76 is a mysterious one. A multiple of 19, it was used very
seldom by ancient astronomers and mathematicians, except
for the standstill cycle of the Moon of 6802 days, the sidereal
revoiution period of Jupiter of 4332 days, or the Egyptian
lunisolar cycle of 27,759 days which represented 76 solar
years or 940 lunar months, and was used in the construction
of the astronomical computer discovered in 1900 at the bottom
of the Aegean Sea near Antikythera.
.
. Q. Is there any reference to that number in the Bible?
A. There is. In a book published in Paris in 1975, the late
French scientist Jean Sendy noted two units of time, the Rega
and the Helek, which were used by ancient Hebrews and
mentioned several times in the Bible. There were 1080 Rega in
one hour, which was three times the sacred number 360 and
therefore not too strange, and 76 Helek in a Rega, which is
much more surprising since the Hebrews never us~d that
n~mber for anything else. As an example, the Book of Enoch
has an astronomical section based on the numbers 7, 1"3, and
364, but the number 19' is never mentioned there. It seems
very likely that the Hebrews learned about that number during
their captivity in Egypt, in Nineveh, or in Babylon.
Jean Sendy also discovered that our ancestors probably
. knew about the velocity of light, which they estimated at
296,400 kilometers per second and that in that case, one Helek
would be the exact time necessary for light waves to travel
thirteen million meters, a very important number for our
ancestors. Moreover, light waves would take exactly 30 Helek
to travel from the Moon to the Earth, and 150 Rega from the
Sun to the Earth. So as one can .see, there might be another
mystery to solve in the use of the. sacred number 76 by our
mysterious visitors from outer space.
Q.' Do you thi" these strange disco~eries will be
.
accepted by the public?

Pursuit 8

, A. Of course I do not expect everybody t~ believe that the, .

Fumoux theory is correct, but the facts ar here to prove it,
and the geographic cOQrdinates of the 76 landing sites will be'
,mailed upon request to any' serious investigator who has a
computer and the technical ability to program it correctiy.
Anyway, GiIIe, Fumoux and I are still working on that mysterious problem,. in France and in California, and the results
.will be published s o o n . '
,.
Q.' :Could you tell us about another case of a UFO
landing in France? .
.
A. Certainly. On May 10, 1967 a French farmer of M~rliens,
near Dijon in Burgundy, discovered in' his field a deep print
. left by ~ UFO whose landing had been observed the nighi
before by several witnesses from the village. !The farmer called
the local gendarmes who arrived immediately from their nearby headquarters in Genlis, and started l)1easuring the landing.
print. They noticed that the print had the sh~pe of an irregular
star with six points and that there were six ~oles in the center
th'at could make another but smaller star. Considering also
each of these stars as an irregular hexagon, one could obtain
. a series of twelv~ irregular triangles whose 24 sides were all
different and whose surfaces were also diffe~ent.
Q. And what did you discover in that landing print? .
A. I had seen the drawing of the print in a French UFO magazine and had noticed its strange shape, but without giving it
any particular attention at that time. It was only recently that ,
I had the idea of investigating all of these dimensions and to
feed them to a computer with different coefficients in order
to find out if there could be a relationship, among them or
with other astronomical, mathematical or nuclear numbers.
I was then surprised to discover that all of. these dimensions
were exact multiples of an inch of 25 millimeters which was
us~ a long time ago by our Egyptian anbestors, and that
they represented indisputabie mathemati~al ratios which
could not have happened by chance but could very well.represent a mathematical message that astronauts' from another
world might have tried to transmit to us.
i
' .
Q. What do you think that message could be?
A. By transforming the metricdimensions of the print into
ancient inches' of 25 millimeters, I obtained a series of 24 different numbers from 19 to 118 which it would be superfluou~
to enumerate here (but they will be. sent upon request to any
qualified investigator interested). I noticed :immediately that
these numbers were all multiples of thirteen prime numbers
from 7 to 79 whose ratios correspond to ~ell-known mathematical factors such as 11", V7f, r.p, and ,,'(p, as well as to usual
trigonometric functions. Then I noticed that five of these
prime numbers, when they ~ere combined with the other
numbers, could produce repetitions of figures such as those
already mentioned. Finally, I noticed th~t these thirteen
prime numbers were precisely those that were used by our
ancestors to compute their astronomical cyCles, such:as 364365-378-399-584-780 days, which were related 'to the Moon
and the Sun, Saturn and Jupiter, or Ventps and Mars,. respectively.
:
Q. And what else did you discover in that print?
A. When I computed the surface of the large 'hexagon, I found
that it was equal to 15,792 ancient square inches or 9.8700
square meters, ~hich did not seem to ha~e any particular
meaning-until I, discovered t,hat this. metric value was the
square of the 11" factor. In other words, the surface of the .
large hexagon was equal to that of a squ~re 'with ,sides of
3.141"6 meters! Then,owhen. I computed the, surface of the' .
o

'.

First, Quarter 1981

small hexagon, I was not too surprised to discover that it was .

expressed any interest in the fantastic discovery. It took more
than twenty years and the genius of Albert Einstein for the
equal to 2836, ancient square inches or 1.7725 square meters,
scientific world to begin to see the unlimited possibilities sugwhich is exactly the square root of the 71' factor!
gested by Brown's gravitor.
Q. What do you think of these incredible discoveries?
His device looked like nothing more than a bakelite case
A. Of course they could be just a fantastic array of coinsome
12' inches long and 4 inches square, but when placed on
cidences, and again, I cannot expect everybody to believe, but
a sensitive scale and connectea to a IOO,OOO-volt power source
some will, and that is good enough for me. Anyway, whether
it proceeded to either gain or lose about one percent of its
my assumptions are correct or not, these cases of UFO landweight, depending on the polarity used.
ings in France are really puzzling and should be investigated.
Could it be that extraterrestrial astronauts are really landing
Q. Then what happened to Brown's discovery and
on the surface of the Earth, just to try to communicate with
to Einstein's theory?
us by means of very simple mathematical messages that we
A. As you certainly know, since you mentioned it in a recent
could understand? I agree that it must be very difficult for
book you wrote with William Moore, the U.S. Navy permost people to believe, especially for official scientists, but
formed in 1943, in the unmagical surroundings of the Philait could very well be true, and we cannot afford to miss such
delphia Navy Yard, nothing less than a successful experiment
a fantastic opportunity to get acquainted with our cousins
in invisibility which seems to me'like a manifestation of pure
from outer space.
magic. The experiment was immediately classified TOP SECRET
Q. "Are you also interested in another aspect of the
, by the Naval Office of Scientific Research, but there were
UFO problem?
some leaks,' as usual. According to witnesses, a destroyer
A. I have been thinking for some time that the most fasescort vessel was surrounded by powerful magnetic and gravitic
cinating part of the UFO mystery is not so much what they
fields which m,ade it vanish temporarily, appear in another
are or where they come from, but how they can manage to
place for a few seconds, then reappear exactly where it was
travel at fantastic velocities of 20,000 miles an hour in our
before. Of course nobody believed it, but it now seems almost
atmosphere, and suddenly turn at 90 degrees or fly in the
certain that it really happened.
opposite direction. T~ere is no terrestrial spacecraft that could
Q. Do you think there might be a conneqi.on between
even approach that velocity or perform such incredible mathe Philadelphia experiment and the UFO propulsion
neuvers without disintegrating on the spot. There are only
system?
two possible explanations: Either flying saucers do not really
A. Definitely. I am convinced that the UFO propulsion sysexist and are just an optical illusion, or they are extraterrestrial
tem
is based on the same physical principle as Brown's gravand come from another world somewhere in outer space.
itor and the Philadelphia experiment: the Unified Field Theory
Q. Then how do you think they manage to do it?
of Albert Einstein.
A. Along with several French scientists, Claude Poher for
Einstein always claimed that his researcti in that field was
example, I think that the UFO propulsion' system could very
not complete, but I am convinced that it was, that he asked
well be based on a combination of electric, magnetic and
the Navy to test it, and then got scared when he saw the fangravitic forces, in other words, on the Unified Field Theory,
tastic results and the tremendous military power that could be
~hich could' provide a fantastic amount of power. out of a
, obtained with it, for which he would be responsible. I am also
small mass of matter such as hydrogen, for example.
convinced that scientific research in that field is still going on
The Unified Field Theory was first suggested by Albert '
here and in other countries, and that it is probably the bestEinstein in 1925, but it was based on experiments performed
kept military secret of all time. This probably explains why
a few years before by another genius of physics named Townofficial government agencies do not want independent ~ci
send Brown while he was still in high school! ,
entists to play with the UFO propulsion system and do all
About 60 years ago, Brown was doing some research on
they can to discourage them.
Roentgen radiations which had' just been discovered. He was
Q. As a conclusion, do you reaDy believe in the exisnot so much interested in x-rays for themselves as in finding
tence
of flying saucers?
a key to "space flight." He set up an experiment to determine
A. Actually~ what is important is not whether flying saucers
whether there might be a useful force of some sort exerted by
exist physically, or whether they are just an illusion of our
the rays from his Coolidge tube.
minds. Even if they did not really exist, the result would now
Q. What happened?
.
be the same because of the tremendous impact they have
A. Brown mounted his x-ray tube in' extremely delicate balalready
made on .our social, religious, political and scientific
ance and began testing. He was unable to detect 'any measurlives.
As
many ~ave said, if they did not exist we would have
able f-arce exerted by the x-rays, but suddenly he became
to create them to justify their incredible effects.
aware of a very strange reaction of the tube itself. Every time
Personally, I prefer t,~ believe that they really.exist and
it was turned on, the tube seemed to exhibit a motion of its
I
keep
trying to find out exactly what they are, where they
own, a thrust of some sort, as if it were trying to move.
come
from,
and why they come and visit us at this particular
Brown had discovered a new physical phenomenon retime in the history of human evolution. Maybe they are just
sulting from the combination of electric, magnetic and gravitic
trying to warn us that we are on the eve of a terrible cosmic
forces, very similar to that which seems to be used by flying
cataclysm
that will destroy almost everything on the surface
saucers. He had designed an anti-gravitic device which he
of the Earth~ as has already happened several, times, a very
called a gravitor, and that had nothing to do with x-rays.
long time ago. In that case, it might be a good idea to listen
Motion was caused by the high voltage being used to produce
to them.
the rays,'which resulted in magnetic and gravitic forceS. But
Brown was still in high school, and while !l few accounts of
,.~
"\
hi~ work appeared in local newspapers" no serious scientist

First Quarter 1981"

Pursuit 9

.Teleportation and Relativistic Rest~Mass?.

by Daaiel Edea

'IN aEads
recent issue of
(Summer 1980) Morgan D.
suggested that alleged instances of teleportation
Pursuit

might be used as evidence for macroscopic quantum-type

phenomena. I He proposed that the shadowy ~orld of the
paranormal might be illuminated by the statistical and analytical prowess of the quantum physicists.
I wou)d like to suggest that another field of physics might
also provide a means of bridging a wide gap in our current
knowledge. Consider the field of Special Relativity, that
Einsteinian arena where the substances of matter and the
essences of energy come face to face.
In 1905 Albert Einstein published a paper entitled "Does
the Inertia of a Body Depend upon Its Energy Content?"2
In that brief paper Einstein said. "The mass of a body' is
a measure of its energy content," a subtle geI).eralization
which, along with its attendant matheinatics, wa~ to produce -the most famous equation of our century: E = MC2.
Here Einstein was inferring that some form of energy was
locked within all matter in the l!niverse.
The next question then was: How can we test this proposition experimentally? In the same paper Einstein provided
an answer that was to prove chillingly prophetic:
It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy con-

tent is variable to a high degree (e.g., with radium salts),

the theory may be successfully put to the test.
With the grand view of hindsight we can now see that he
was entirely correct in his assumption. Not only did the
.radium salts verify his deductions; so did the salts of uranium and plutonium. Hiroshima and Nagasaki bore tragic
testimony to the prescience of this peace-loving man.
This power-inherent-in-matter may provide the energy
source for teleportation and certain other paranormal pheJlom~na. The same energy that fuels the burniI).g of remote
stars provideS the awesome potential of the thermonuclear
weapon. I suggest that it is the reSt-mass energy of the apport
itself that is utilized by the phenomenon to produce the
translations.
Let me refer now to an article published in Psychic3,
wherein a dramatic teleportation was allegedly witnessed.
Ray Stanford, who wrote the artiCle, described the apparent
teleportation of a specimen nickel-iron meteorite from within an enclosed container. The apport vanished from a sealed
Pyrex jar (which also held some acrylic floss bedding), and
appeared suddenly before.. a group of witnesses in another
room. Also noted was the change in condition of the cottonlike acrylic bedding within the container. It appeared
if
sucked up. by the vacuum created by the meteorite's dematerialization. "
A significant finding was that the apport had .Iost an
.appreciable portion of its weight, and thus, mass. The specimen had "weighed in" at 47.2 ounces. AfterWards, Stanford
w~ote for the record:

"as

"

It would seem that a IOOJo loss of mass, if it were due to

a simple abrasive action, would have been easy enough to
detect. But no such abrasive action was mentioned by Stanford, nor did he offer an alt~native explan;ation.
If apport mass-loss is a feature characteristic of teleportation events, then the repeated translation of the same apport .
would cause it to decay. It -would evaporate in a manner
reminiscent of the decay of radioactive !sample. However; .
it should be noted that the decay of the apport" would be
"non-radioactive" in the sense that no !substantial energy
would be released into the
immediate Ibnvironment. The

sudden decay of 4.88. ounces of mass through a natural

radioactive process would have been quite disastrous to the
witnesses!
!
Although mass-loss may be involved in all teleportation
events, no IOOJo or other big piece of the apport is necessarily going to vanish in every situation .. For example, the
sudden loss of 10"10 of the body mass of a living creature
would probably mean its rapid death, but' the loss of a V!!ry
. small percen.tage of body mass might infli~t far less damage.
I am reminded of stories related by Charles Fort 4 wherein
humans would apparently be teleported many' n:tiles, to arrive
at their destination in a daze or stupor with symptoms .of
acute amnesia. Psych~l~gical shock, or bven fugue, might
be triggered by the emotional impact pf ~~ch a "trip," b...t
we should consider that a small mass-loss (rom the organism
might cause similar physiological reaction~.
In the 1920s members of the Americah Society 'for Psychical Research (ASPR) wrestled with the problems of energy
involved in the production of paranormal phenomena .
J. Malcolm Bird 5, E. E. Dudley6, Harry: Price' and others
seemed to agree that the source of energy during paranormal
manifestations was primarily caloric energy (i.e" heat),
somehow extracted from the immediate environment. The
sudden drop in temperature, and cold breezes, that were
often felt in the presence of some mediums .were thus explained. Another energy source was thought to be the vital
energies (physiological energies) of the medium and Of the
observers.
. '
Recent speculations oil the energy source for psychokinetic
phenomena have been along similar lineS, as described by
Puthoff and Targ in 1974. 8 ContemporarY, speculations tend
to revolve around the concept of a negative-entropic type
of transformation of caloric energy in the .region of a psy. chokinetic manifestation. If a negative-en~ropic theory does
some day prove out beyond the qualitatiye stage, coneepts
long-cherished in the science of classical thermodynamics
will be bent more than a little.
.
One thing noted by the earlier researchers, especially by
Dudley6, was that more potentially available energy 'was
simply disappearing during phenomena than was being ob- .
served in action. He put it this way:
.

It does indicate a very considerable transformation or

transference of caloric energy. If the energy is transformed, as seems most probable, in wt)at guise does it
manifest during the seance? The movements and lev-,
itations noted in the record would hardly account for
more than a fraction of it.
.
(Continued on page 3.2) ~

Careful weighing of the meteorite on Tuesday, July 24,

1973, made oli twelve different" scales, yielded a mean
, weight of 42.32 ounces. Tt)us, .the apparent weight-loss
was about 4.88 ounces-or just over 10 percent...
Pursuit 10

"

<)

Electra, Who Came from Anoth.. ~lanet, Speaks to, 'Woman'

, Translation by George' Peroulakis of a Special Re"port Featured in Gynaika
Gynaika, Greek for "woman," is the name of "the leading fortnightly magazine for women in Greece," as Mr. Peroulakis describes it.
"In a word," he adds, "it is the opposite of the 'yellow press... We are most grateful to E. C. Terzopoulos S. A. Publishing Enterprises
of Athens, Greece. and to Mr. Aris Terzopoulos for permission to reprint this article from the April 23; 1980 issue of Gynaika in which
it first appeared. Many thanks also to George Peroulakis who not only made the translation, but as a SITU member resident in Athens
performed the necessary liaison services to expedite the re-publication of this report in Pursuit. - The editors

--------------by Olga Batis------------"How did you come to this conclusion?"

BAReLAY is an eighteen-year-old Greek
E LECTRA
"The Maya inscriptions appear in a book written by the
lady, married to a young British man. She is working,
laughing, enjoying life. By any definition, she is absolutely
"normal." So normal that no one would stJspect that something terribly abnormal happen& to her, something outside
the limits of what we call "common sense."
Back when she w,as fifteen, Electra started doing strange
things that created suspicion and fear !lnd certainly surprised those around her. One day she suddenly grabbed her
head with both hands and grimaced with pain. When the
crisis was over she appeared to have lost touch with her
surroundings. As she gazed at empty space with a strange
look she began speaking an unintelligible language that she
accompanied with strange movements of her body. When
she came ~ack from her "trip" she could remember nothing
about it.
The "crisis" (that's what her family called it) happened
about once a week and the scenario was always the same:
Electra would not recognize family members or friends, and
what they had in front of them was a person who spoke
words they could not understand.
,
Her father and mother were desperate. Was their daught~r
crazy, or possessed by demons'! Was she epileptic'! They
started going to exorcists but there was no improvement.
Hopes were sustained only by the knowledge that Electra
wo'uld again be an absolutely normal and joyful girl once
the crisis was over. They were advised to call in a good
psychiatrist. He found nothing pathological to report. The
conjectures continued: Was this a case of split personality'!
A specialist from Vienna examined the girl and said: "No,
there is 'no evidence of epilepsy, nor is this a case of split
personality. "
"
With doctors' certificates in hand affirming that she was
not crazy and with the crisis continuing to reclir periodically, Electra started attending the Lambelet school.2 But
it didn't take long for people there to seek a different kind
of "reassurance." They called the media, and preparations
were soon underway to interview the girl on TV. The case
would have descended to the level of a circus had it not
come to the attention of some serious and compassionate
investigators, among them the distinguished parapsychologist
George Vouloukos.
- "What I noticed from the very beginning," Mr. Vouloukos says, "is that, to the best of my knowledge, the same
phenomena have occurred among some people in the U.S.A.
and the U.S.S.R. These persons are under the continuing
attention of parapsychologists and psychiatrists. The language she was speaking reminded 'me of something. I asked
her to write, when she was in one of the 'conditions', and
I was' surprised to learn that what she wrote was in the an-"
cient Maya script."
First Quarter

198~

American linguist Dandy, first published in 1880 and now

being republished," Mr. Voukoulos explains. "It refers to
the languages and inscriptions of lost civilizations. And when
speaking, the girl uses the Apache Indian dialect which resembles the Maya language."
Every Monday Electra goes to the home of George Vouloukos, there to repeat always the same phenomenon in the
,
presence of friends.
"We deciphered about one hundred of the words used by
Electra," says Mr. Vouloukos. "We were helped by some
of the American specialists to whom we had written about
the case. Thus,. step by step, we have learned to communicate with her when she is in one of these strange 'situations'.
And when, at last, we found a contact point with her, we
discQvered that something really unbelievable was taking
place: Electra was transformed into another person, into
a woman from another planet, for as long as the phenomenon lasted."
,
"The girl, or woman, who enters into Electra's body,"
says Mr. Vouloukos, "claims that her name is Inkra, that
she comes from a planet outside our solar system called
Sefk.ia. She also claims that she used to live on Eanh some
time in the past, in a place where Brazil is today, as she
indicates by pointing to a map. It was after a great catastrophe on Earth that she was transported with some others
to that planet."
"In that case, she is probably referring to a certain developed earthly civilization, isn't she?"
"She refers to the civilization of Atlantis. She claims that
there she met the woman whose spirit is now reincarnated
as Electra, and they agreed, at that time, to meet again in
the future in order to help humanity."
"How are they meeting?"
"We have a case of a souls' agreement made in the past.
At the moment when grimacing Electra grabs her head, at
that very instant Inkra enters her body. An electroencephalogram revealed that the spirit enters Electra's body through
the right hemisphere of her cerebrum. As the spirit is a strong
soul, it depresses Electra's personality, so Inkra is imposed
upon and, rules Electra's body."

Some people will argue that all these are science-fiction

storieS. However, when Electra is turned into Inkra, she
suddenly has a vast knowledge of astrophysics and speaks
about things that ,she cannot even imagine in her "normal"
state. She speaks the ancient Maya language fluently and
answers questions, naturally and easily. 'She describes the
Atlanteans and their civilization; their spaceships which
were powered with atomic energy; and finall~, she. puts the
Pursuit II

loss of Atlantis circa the year 9,000 B.C., the same time
mentioned by Plato and Cayce.
"Mr. Vouloukos, isn't there a possibility thf/t Electra has
somehow read about those things in the past and mentions
them 'now during her hypnotism?"
"First of all, what happens to her is not hyllDotism. Be- .
sides, the girl had been telling the same things to the psychiatrists since three years ago when she was almost a child.
. The book by Cayce which presents certain data given to us
by Inkra, has not been translated into Greek nor is it sold
here. For example, the girl claims what Cayce also claimed
about Atlantis: that. during the final, earthquake, Atlantis
was split into seven islands. 3 And .she shows us the point
.' where the island she lived on was at that time. When Electra
is awake, she has no idea about these data."

Electra, who moments ago was visited by Inkra, .is sitting

on the couch in front of me, looking at me with discerning,
shining eyes. Her gaze, even her expression, have changed
sinee that moment. I ask in Greek. Inkra answers in the
"strange language," which the others present interpret. As
she speaks she is drawing on a pad and smiles at me under~
standingly, as if she were addressing a child of kindergarten
age.
"lnkra, why are you entering Electra's body?"
"Because the ~ime has come to tell some things to the
people of Earth. What happens here is part of a big interplanetary project to save your planet."
"Do you believe that the inhabitants of Earth need help?"
, [nkra is shaking with emotion. "Earth people are at the
worst mental stage; they are in full decline. You hear only
about sex and money, money and' sex. We, in the other
planets, have started a fight to save you. Many of us are
studying you from spaceships."
"But, you are giving these truths to us in a strange manner and to a very small audience. "
"People are not yet ready to hear these truths. You will
learn what happens and exists beyond the phenomenal reality
and the compromise in which you live, only you will learn
it little by little through open-minded people.".

I am a party to the discussion and [ see that Inkra knows

many details of nuclear physics. She draws on her pad the
crystal that the Atlanteans placed in a certain part of the
"'Bermuda Ti-iangle" for trapping the energy of stars outside our own galaxy. She also draws the spaceships of her
planet and the ray through which she is transported here.
. <~How did are you, lnkra?"
[nkra . laughs. "I don't have an age according to your
measures. I'm an old spirit. My body is kept in a light ray,
- and the scientists of my planet who are doing this experiment
send my spirit to Earth through this ray."
"How do you like the people of Earth?" ,
.. "They are,very funny. Ours are different; they )lave huge
eyes."

Electra was brought to King Paul Hospital in Athens, to

be examined by a team of doctors: The phenomenon must
be analyzed by diagnostic devices so that people can under stand.it.
Mr. Vouloukos says: "A certain person has specific brainwaveS, heartbeats, etc. As [nkra has the capacity to enter
and leave Electra's body momentarily, we hav~ been able
Pursuit 12

to re<;ord the tremendous changes through instrument readings. Thus. we learned that we had two completely different
personalities in front of us."
"You mean, you had different recordings .when 'the'spirii
.
entered Electra 'sbody? "
"Exactly. There was a different blood pressure, different
brainwaves, a differeD! EEG. AI the momeD! ofchange. the
whole physiology of the girl is altered and the change' is
recorded immediately. Inkra's heartbeats are much faster
than Electra's and she can change them at will."
"What is your final conclusion?"
. "The most apparent conclusion is that a spirit from another planet is really entering Electra's body. However, there
is also the possibility that another spirit enters her body, or
that we have a case of self-hypnosis with memories from
past lives. That's why we'll study the case scientificallv for
. .
a long time, without any bias. or prejudi~e."

Robert.Barclay, Electra's husband, is a young andcharm-.'

ing Englishman. He has grown accustomed to living with
two wives: his own and Inkra.
.
"When I first met Electra," he says, "I was not used
to such things. [ always .liked metaphysics but I could never
imagine what I would be involved with. At the beginning of
our relationship Electra was always cau~ious toward rrie.
When she was in tra.nee she would not tell me who she was
nor where she had come from. But day by day she became
more courageous and started drawing planets, rockets and
an egg-shaped Earth. At the same time she explained a lot
of things which showed an adv~ced and correct knowledge.
I was particularly impressed when she told me. exactly where
her father Pandelis' was and what he was doing. He was
very far away but she could 'see' every movement he' made.
','However, [ don't want us to be the 'phenomenon that
will satisfy the curiosity of the curious.' I believe in the experiment, but I think that it is still for the few."

Some yea,rs ago an English woman, a Mrs. Rosemary

Brown, su~denly started playing on the piano about 400
unpublished pieces by well-known composers. BBC produced
five programs about her and they were impressive.
New
York a housewife with symptoms similar to Electra's is now
undergoing examination by specialists.
The unexplained has gradually started to enter into our
everyday lives and makes us think: Is it now time to throw
away the blinders of "common sense" as a world of new'
dimensions opens before' ,our eyes? The answer may be
"yes," if we can explain Electra's phenomenon in scientific
terms.
.
,

In

TRANSlATOR'S NOTES
I. Not the same meaning as the word with which readers maybe
familiar from the film "The Exorcist" which broke box-office
records a few years ago. In Greece, "exorcists" are usualiy older
women (and some men) whose "therapy" is based on praying' to
certain saints of the Greek-Orthodox Church. Such ther~py may .. '
be nothing more than auto-suggestion of the subject. '
2. Beauty treatment school in Athens.
3, According to Cayce, there were three periods of destruction,. ,
from 15,600 B.C. to 10,000 B.C., the first two splitting a single
island into three smaller islands; the third destroying everything.
(Colin Wilson, The Occult, Panther Books, London, 1979.) .

~'"
FiI'St
QUBner 1981
.
' . I,

0'

.I
.

.~

The Wudewasa
or
Hairy Primitives of Ancient Europe
This article by SITU's founder dates from 1967 and was
originally published in Vol. XXIII, Nos. 1-2, of Genus, the
journal of the Italian Committee for the Study of Popula-.
tion Problems, published in Rome under the auspices of the
National Council for Research.

by Ivan T. Sanderson
pr~liminary

search through some bestiaries and other

A
Mediaeval European illuminated manuscripts brought
to light a number of
of creatures called "wooddepiction~

houses", Wudewasa, or simply "wild men", shown completely covered with long hair or fur and having certain
other specific characteristics. These are readily distinguishable and quite distinct from depictions of apes and monkeys
on the one hand and people in costumes playing the parts
of these wild men in traditional, religious, or secular plays
and carnivals on the other hand. The significance of these
Wudewasa is discussed and' reasons are given fqr supposing
them to be representations of relic knowledge of some fully
haired primitives or subhumans that once inhabited western
Eurasia. Special attention is drawn to t\1.e form of the feet
in these depictions.
.

";;:,\~ ::tiftI}!~.~) ;~:'!:li.~

~. ~ .. ~ ~ .... ': ~ ~ :~\

.';~ :;~t>:';':'

Introduction
In the 3rd of June, 1961, issue of the Illustrated London
News\ . there appeared a reproduction of a plate (Fig. J)
from an English bestiary that was being put up for sale at
Messrs ..Sotheby's on the 6th of that month. The caption
read: "Folio 16 of a late-15th-century English bestiary4;
a manuscript which also contains a herbal. (17 by II inches).
The four creatures depicted here are: an ostrich holding
a nail in its beak (there was a mediaeval belief that they
could eat iron), a ram, a wolf, and a "wild man." This last
has.his body covered in hair-indicative of another mediaeval
belief. This wild man holds a snake in his right hand and
a rough club in his left hand; his hands and feet are "naked"
or hairless; he sports long curly hair, and a very generous
moustache and beard. The hairiness of his body is formally
represented by wavy lines, and he wears a belt so that it
looks more a~ if he were clothed in an overall, tight-fitting
fur garment.
Since this depiction showed certain poi.nts of similarity
with some early Mongolian brush drawings of Hun-guressu,
namely, the Gin Sung or "bear man" of the Chinese, or
Dzu-Teh of the Nepalese, in other words the largest of the'
three types of those creatures which have come to be called
"abominable snowmen" colloquially and collectively, that
are alleged to occur in "the eastern part of Eurasia, we decided to write to Messrs. Sotheby in the hope of obtaining
further information on the bestiary in question and also with
a view to obtaining sight of the document if possible. We
received a most courteous and highly informative reply from
that company which gave'some extremely valuable new and
unexpected information not only on the document in question but upon the whole matter of "wild men" in mediaeval
illuminations of all manner of manuscripts other than bestiaries. They also drew our attention to a collection that
. they had sold on the 9th.of December, 1958, under the title
of .Dyson Perrins, and with particular reference to Folio 82
(Plate .45) in their illustrated catalogue l2, of. that collection,'
I

F....t Quarter 1981

Fig. 1 Wild ManJrom Hemlngham Hall Bestiary.

while .further advising us that a high-quality reproduction of

the plate might- be inspected in the Pierpont Morgan library in New York.
Following this kind action and suggestion we inspected
this document and thus came to the first of a series of most
surprising and enlightening discoveries. In this research and
for subsequent discoveries we are very deeply indebted to
Miss Mary Kenway, Supervisor of Readers' Services of the
Pierpont. Morgan Library, for it was she who called our
attentiori to numerous other documents that displayed similar
depictions. This research culminated in a review of ~everal
dozens of both originals. and reproductions of 8th- to 16thcentury depictions; a reappraisal of two outstanding books,
Pursuill~

Apes and Ape Lore, 1952, by H. W. Janson, :The Warburg Institute, University of London 7, and Wild Men in I~e
Middle Ages, 1952, by Richard Bernheimer, Harvard_University Press l ; and finally, to similar depictions' on Roman
and Etruscan pottery, some very ancient silverware, and
a nuhtber of -bronzes. These last will be described at another
time.
Our findings may perhaps be claimed to be "discoveries"
but only for one reason. This is that, although the individual
figures 'in all these depictions have been, fully catalogued by
scholars, they do not appear to have been critically examined
bY' anthropologists or zoologists with full knowledge of the
literature pertaining to the field of what we have been constrained to call "ABSMs" -stemming from the inappropriate but now firmly established monicker "abominable
snowmen" to cover all cases of existing or allegedly stillexisting haired primitives, submen (Neanderthaloids, et alii)
and I or sub-hominids (Pithecanthropines, Australop.ithecines, etc.), or even sub-hominoids such as Gigantopithecus.
As a result, some very significant features of a number of
these depictions of wild men, and of a number of others
stated to be of apes and monkeys, have been entirely missed.
Upon such critical examination of these'depictions, more-over, it seems to be clear that European artists of. the Dark
Ages and Middle Ages knew a very great deal m~re about
the anatomy and external morphology of primates than has
been supposed, and that they went to particular; pains to
differentiate' between seven distinct categories of primates.
, These are: (1) Lemurs, or Lemures, as living animals, and,
as opposed to the lemuroid ghosts of the Romans, (2) Mon- ,
keys-and with sub-distinction .between the major groups,
'sucp as between baboons, langurs, and cercopithecoids,
(3) Apes, among which they knew only the Orang Utan,
'(4) "Woodhouses" or Wudewasa~ (5) Simple wild men or
"wild" humans, which they subdivided into various types
such as troglodytes, and so forth, (6) People dressed in costumes for fairs, carnivals, plays, and so forth, in imillltion
ofWudewasa, and finally (7) Human beings per se. What is
more, while much that is depicted by these artists is allegorical or has mythological connotations, the artists seem to
have gone to much trou.ble to make a distinction between
fact and"fancy. One example will suffice.,
,
The crude clubs carried by the Wudewas~ types are invariably of the same form and size, and are nearly always
carried in the left hand, even if the right is free. But even
more convincing than this detail is the care with which they
depict the feet of each of the different categories. It is the
form of the feet that is, moreover, of greater significance
than any other anatomical detail in distinguishing between
hominid and pongid anthropoids.

.....e Dyson Perrin. Folio"

This it~ may' be found listed on page 86 of Messrs.
Sotheby & Co.'s illustrated catalogue entitled "The Dyson
Perrins Collection. Part I" Dec., 1958, and being a listing
of "Forty-five exceptionally important IIlumiriB:ted Manu'scripts of the 9th to the 18th Century. A block book and
four printed books; property of the late C. W. Dyson Perrins
Esq.; D.C.L., ,F.S.A.; with an Introduction by Prof. Francis
Wormald." Under the subtitle Folio 82, the catalogue explains:' "Historiated initial; the Adoration of die Magi; in
,the border wild wodehouses run down to, a river on which
one of their number, mou.nt~ on ~ golden bird apd armed.

with club and' shield, fights a 'silver merman whose upper '
half is encased in armour." (Fig. 2)
There are several points of utmost significance, in this
picture. First, it will be noted that at tHe top are men' in '
their current dre~s hunting a stag with dogs. However, th~
two figures on the left are smaller, apparently naked, hairy,'
and armed with a bow and arrow and a spear respectively.
These figures are shown' on an open down. To the right is
a river shown in verY fine perspective running from a gap in
these downs, the other bank of which is heavily forested.
Three Wodehouses are shown running down this river bed
to a foreshore, immediately off which a fourth, mounted
astride a large bird with a dpubly-hooked beak and a prominent narrow tongue: defends himself with a wooden c1ub
and an exceedingly crude shield of a most significant con-,
struction.
The clubs carried by the Wodehouses are deliberately and
carefully shown to be but crude logs with rounded endsand
of somewhat lesser diameter at the end held by the hand.
The "shield" is composed of two laths of wood, presumably held together' by crosspieces, but arranged so that the
holder may peer between the two slats. Such shields may be
found today among the Hill Batuks of Sumatra, an ex~d
ingly primitive group of proto-Malayans driven up into the
montane fores~ by the tribalized Batuks who are of much
more advanced culture. The Hill Batuks have no actuaL
name, have Melanesian features, practically no possessions
other than wooden spears, bows, and these "shields" which,
in their case, -are made of two bits of stout bamboo bound
to three lighter cross-pieces with vinesi Similar defensive
mechanisms seem to be portrayed in -Spanish Stone Age
cave paintings such as thos!! in the Cuevas del Civil near
Albocacer, Castellon ..
We shall be discussing at another time the weapons and
"tools" alleged to have been carried by various ABSMs.
After reviewing hundreds of rePorts by those persons who
say they have observed these various creatures, it transpires
that nobody claims they ever carried anything made of other
than wood; while, of wooden objects, we have constant
, referenCe to crude clubs, and primitive bows and arrows
(see. Genus, 1962, Vol. XVIII, "Hairy Primitives or RelicSubmen in South America" II). It is the author's contention
\ that a dendritic phase preceded both the odontokeratic and
the pe1:rolithic in hominid "qdture" and that subhominids,
in tearing green branches frqrn trees, came upon bark-strips
and thus the "string" for the bow 'arid subsequently simple
weaving at a very early period when- they were still wet:forest
denizens.The external morphology of the Wodehouses in this ilIus"
tration is of even more significance than the implements
they are carrying. They are shown to be small of stature
with short legs and long arms. They -have comparatively
large heads with massive but shortish hair and fringe beards
under their chins. The brow-ridges are pronounced and
"beetled"; the nose is lar'ge; the mouth wide ,and full, -and
the naked face is very cleverly shown to be black bu~ very'
-shiny. Most important of all, tJte artist went to_ yery great
pains to draw no less than seven hands and t~o feet of these _
creatures in great clarity. one of the latter being aJeft foot
of the second _figure back, 'planted squarely,. on the beach
sand, the other seen in semi-profile on the back of the great
bird, of the front figure. These feet, like the hands" are
'completely hominid, -with a fuUy apposed (not- in' any way

.',
1

Pursuit 14

,.

1. ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _i _ _ _

__

__

____

First Quarter_1981

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _I' ____.._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__

opposed) great toe. In other words, despite the very animalistic features of their overall morphology, these Wodehouses
are depicted as decidedly human on two counts-the use of
offensive and defensive weapons; and the form of their feet.
The importance of the latter cannot be too greatly stressed.
The last point of real significance in this depiction is the
contemporary written mention of the "Wodehouses." This
. name has an increasingly precise meaning and import as
one goes back in time through. the centuries in England. 9
From the currently rather common familial name of Woodhouse, one goes backwards through Wodehouse to Woodwose, Wodwose, Wodewose, Wodewese, and Wodwos to
the late Anglo-Saxon Wudewasa (which, inCidentally, re-

mained current till at least the 15th century) and thence to

Wudu Woso. The. first of this combined term is the Late
Old English for a "wood"; the word woso is discreetly described as obscure but is frankly unknown. However, in
combination, Wudu Woso or Wudewdso means a "wild
man of the woods", a savage, a satyr, or a fawn. Later, it
was also applied to a person dressed up to represent such
a being in a pageailt. One suggestion had been made as to
the origin of wosa; namely, that it originally derived from
vu'ossor, from ossir, oesir, Asia-man, or Asiatics. The implication would then be that mediaeval artists knew of "wild
men of the woods" armed only with primitive wooden weapons who lived i~ Asia and attempted to defend. their land

. \' .If.at.iil. .

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!

First Quart_ 1981

Fig. 2

Folio 82 oj the Dyson Perrfns Collection.

Pursuit 15

...
from attacking. knights coming to the .
mouths of rivers from the sea-as
allegorically depicted at the botto.m
of the Dyson Perrins Folio repro.duced
on the preceding page.
,.
.

:.:: "..

Monkeys and Apes

. In Mediaeval Art
Monkeys, and the Orang-Utan as
the only ape known to mediaeval
artists, are a fairly common item in
depictions from the earliest phases of
illumination in Europe. A large number of these have been assembled by
)anson (op. cit.).
On critical analysis, consistent
. 1- . ii
witl:! a prior knowledge of the liter;
ature on ABSMs as defined above,
most of these indeed prdve to be
I
~areful and considerably detailed
:'lIIIi......,,-~.-::: ....-. -: ;....;.;. _ ... ~ ... - .; .... "'----11--._-+' ~.
...
depictions of such creatures. However, some do not, and for equally
Cogent reasons-cogencies, moreover,
. Fig. 3 Subhumans dancing-Walte~ Art .Gallery MS.
most carefully intr.oduced by the
artists. Examples of these are !>lates
XXIX (c), XXVII (a), and in another respect," Plate XIII (b)
positipns and from four different angles. There can .,e no .
in Janson's Apes and Ape Lore. The first of these (Fig. 3) is
doubtat all that these are meant to be homi~ds as. opposed
therein (stated to be MS.88, f. IS8r, at Walters Art Gallery)
to pongids for the very simple reason that all pongids e
and displays two anthropomorphic figures apparently dancshown with very widely opposed big or great toes.
.
ing and holding hands but naked and shown to .~e fully
The second illustration cited above is stated to be by
haired all aver by formalized lines of dashes. The faces are
Hans Durer in a "Prayer Book of Maximilian" (f. iiiv, \
humanic brlt low-browed and almost .chinless; the head hair
p. 168, op. cit.). (Fig. 4) This is of a (presumably) family
i~ very short. The hands are completely human but verycircle of fully-haired anthropoids: father, mother and child. .
long-fingered; the feet, however, are completely hominid
The father is pouring water into a pool from a coffee-pot.
with fully apposed big t~, and shown in four different
These figures have longer head hair and even more simian

........

:.

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,:::::'.":'..::..,;,;::.::;;::i"'.... ~T_.

Fig. 4

Wudewaso Family-Hans Durer.

Fbst~1981

Purs.itl6
.\

.t

I'

faces-in the case of the mother, almost a dog snout-and

rather short legs; but again, the feet are clearly shown with
apposed great toe, though that of the female, shown from
below, is ambiguous.
The most enlightening illustration is, however, number
X~lI (b) (Fig. 5) which is captioned "Fortitude transfIXing
Ape" from Fons memorabilium, Oxford, Baliol College.
In this we see "Fortitude" in the guise of an entirely human,
though naked and furred figure with curl-peaked helmet
and a thin lance standing over a prone "ape" through the
head of which he has driven the lance. The former's feet are
. completely hominid and have apposed great toes; the latter
has hand-like feet with a fully oppo.sed great toe.
Two other plates in Janson (op. cit.) are of special interest.
The first, Plate II (b) (Fig. 6), shows an "ape-devil from the
Temptation of Christ" (puerta de las Platerias, Santiago de
Compostela) a bas-relief showing a winged "ape" standing
and leaning on a plinth. This figure although extended in a
very rare and unnatural pose, is in all proportions-even to
the slender legs and "pointed" hip-a Rhesus Monkey;
the head, face, and more especially the feet bejng superbly
and most accurately sculpted. The other picture (Fig. 7) is
even more startling, being "Homo sylvestris-Orang-outang"
from Tulp, Observalionum med. libri Ires, Amsterdam,

1641. 13 This, although of much later date, shows an Orangutan with very. considerable fidelity arid especially with regard
to the feet. From these two examples alone we can see that
the true external form of monkeys and: apes was known
throughout the ages and that the artists went to great pains
to reproduce accurately the details of their extremities. They
. did not, in fact, mix the details of humans with pongids or
lower primates; nor vice versa.

T
I

Fig. 6

Winged Monkey-Deui/-Spanish Bas-re/ief.

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Fig. 5 Fortitude Transjixing Ape-Oxford.

First Quart_ 1981

..

Fig. 7 Orang-utan-Tu/p, 1641.

Pursuit 17

Fig. 8 Breyenbach's Ape from Gessner. and

. an "Ourang outangM by Bontius.

Wild MeD in Mediaeval Art

. In the same plate (LIII) of Janson (op. cit.) two standing
figures (Fig. 8) are reproduced captioned respectively "Breydenbach's Ape from Gesner's Historia Anima[ium, Zurich,
1555"3, and "Ourang Outang, from Bontius, Historia naturalis, Amsterdam, 1658"2. The former is a grotesquery with
semi-erect gait, bended knees, a long tail, a monkey-like
face surrounded by a ruff reminiscent of a Wanderoo Monkey, and holding a crutch-like stick in the right hand. This
. cr~ture's feet are very long-toed and the great toe is clearly
opposed, while both feet are rolled outwards. The creature
is a female with prominent and pendent breasts but is hair-

less. The second figure has a completely human starice and

appearance, is, again female with prominent genitalia and is,
fully"furred with long head hair, a big, submandibular fringe
or beard, and heaVy fur on the, hips and butiocks. Tile hands
and feet are most carefully shown as being entirely human. .
This creature is called an "ourang outarig" by Bontius but,
be it noted, Tulp (see above) 17 years previously had given
a most correct reprod!Jction of the ape known properly as
the Mia (though colloquially' as the Orang-utan), published
also in Amsterdam, while 'the name orang ulan mean~'simply
"wild man" in Malayan. (Incidentally, as Bernard Heuvelmanns has. pointed out, Orang ulang, as opposed' to Ulan,
means "a man in 'debtY)
There is then' a very curious plate (Fig. 9) in Hoppius'
Anlhropomorpha (Erl~mgen, 1760). This depicts four anthropoids entitled respectively a Troglodyta, Lucifer', Satyrus,
and a Pygmaeus. The first. three are standing upright; the
Lucifer having a short, thin tail, a prominent facial fringe,
hair along the back of the thighs only, and (again) holding
a straight stick in the right hand; it appears to have been
taken from Gesner. The big toes are cpposed. The Satyr is
a short-legged, pot-bellied, large-headed, grotesquery fully
furred, with a monkeyish face, long fingers cilrled into almost a full circle outwards and upwards~ and feet more
reminiscent of a langur than any other primate. The Troglodyta (presumably a female) is, however, entirely human;
somewhat obese, clean-shaven, with short, 'curly head hair,
and completely human hands and small feet. In this plate
we do find evidence of the mixing of both monkey and ape.
and man and monkey characters; in that the Lucifer and
the Pygmaeus hold sticks; otherwise, however, all but" the
Troglodyta, though somewhat anthropomorphised, appear

....

II'

'it

.~

Fig. 9 Hoppil,lS' "Ant!Jropo~orpha.,

. Pursuit 18

clearly non-human in proportions

and details, if not in stance. Here the
Troglodyte, or "cave-dweller", be it
'. ( <~''''
noted, is manifestly a wild man.
.::.~:..:'\. .. ..,.;.~ -:. ;.r-"". ";:"':'~
This figure and the Bontius illusI..
'e!:\ "7~"""'~"";"'~,

~.
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.
~""" '"~:~.,,,.~
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...
tration are obviously depictions of
,"'..
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Wudewasa, though transferred to
.
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/. ,',...
~'"
..-.~
_~",-I ~
t,
.
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,'S.,
...
~
\...
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-~r,_r
other locales and considerably more
.."~,
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humanized than as shown in earlier
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V~ -,:,,_.
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works. In fact, by the 16th century
.r..
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memory of the original Wudewasa
~. .' ..... ".-4-'-'.. ~I"'" ::
' - \\
seems to have become dimmed,
~}~-while considerable confusion had
arisen in the minds of naturalists and
Fig. 10 Wudewasa Attacked by Dogs-14th Century.
artists alike, due to the importation
of many more kinds of primates
from Africa and the Orient (and
even from the neotropical region), and by an ever-increasing
costumed figures tell us a considerable amount about the
current beliefs about the nature of the original "wild men."
infusion of legend, mythology~ and hearsay from the past,
Bernheimer reproduces what he captio.ns a "Carnival
combined with a growing scepticism fostered by strict adfigure from a Schembart book" (Stadtbibliothek, Nurem. herence to the Biblical version of Creation. Hairy hominids
burg: 16th century) .(Fig. J1) which is a large bearded figure
were, however, still considered up till the 15th century to be
clothed in a tight-fitting, furry outfit with a crown and ceinperfectly valid former inhabitants of Europe, as evidenced
ture of leaves, and carrying a small tree over his right shoulby a delightful little depiction' in the British Museum approder. To this tree is lashed either a very sIJiail man or boy,
priately called "a drollery" in Queen Mary's Psalter; of the
The giant's feet are in socks or slippers but his hands are
14th century. (Fig. J(I) This shows.a very hairy wild man
naked. This is stated ,by the original artist to be' of a coswith perfectly human hands and feet pursued by one dog
tumed participant in a carnival, but it is more allegorical
and confronted by two more.
From these and other examples it is plain that while monthan realistic. Moreover, it carries some pertinent overtones.
It is to be noted that the reports of the larger, or giant
,keys and apes were not initially very well-known or at all
times realistically. depicted, they were from earliest times
recognized as such, while an entirely different class of beings,
namely wild, fully haired humanoids or hominids were also
generally accepted as either still existing (at least in central
Eurasia) or, presumably, to have previously existed in the
west~rn part of that ,continent, i.e., Europe. The belief in
trolls, satyrs, fawns, and their small counterparts-the pixies,
elves, and gnomes-has persisted until today in various
forms and by various names in all the mountainous countries of Europe. In Scandinavia, country folk in the far
north, adjacent to the montane forests, assert that some of
the first (or Wudewasa) still exist; while the Academy of
Sciences of the U.S.S.R. treats similar reports from the
Caucasus with the utmost consideration and has now sent
several expeditions to that area to search f~r evidences of
Kaptar or Kheeter, as they are called there.

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WUd MeD in Mediaeval Plays

A further cause of confusion permeates the field of qepiction of hairy men in mediaeval art. This is the, very frequent .
occurrence of persons dressed in fur costumes in imitation
of Wudewasa, for pageants, plays, and other performances.
It is our belief that the figure in Folio 16 (Fig. J) of the
early English bestiary4 described at the beginning of this
paper, is of this nature. Such fJ.gUres form the basis of Bernheimer's studies, and it is interesting to note that although
Janson adopts the thesis that most if not all such depictions
are of what he calls "apes", this author implies that all
those which are manifestly not of apes or monkeys, are of
men in costumes. The third possibility, namely, that some
of them are of a specific creature, the Wudewasa, or even
that the costumes are imitative of such a creature, does not
appear tp have occurred to either of these scholars. The
First Qu~er 1981

Fig. 11

"Camiual Figure"

from a Schembarl'Book.

Pursuit 19

...

Fig. 12 St. ClirysostumCaptured as a Wild Man.

.

. ABSMs not infrequently concern the kidnapping of humans,

. but very curiously all but one or two of these reports speak
of young human males being taken; and, it is more often
grown men in their prime rather than boys who are alleged
to have been carried off. There are also cases of these men
'. having been carried over the ABSM's shoulder; in one case
in a sleeping bag (Ostman, 1957)8 Secondly, these larger
ABSMs are repeatedly said to tear up small trees by the
roots. Some people have described some of them as having
fringe-like beards and very thick, heavy, human hands but
with permanently curled fingers as shown in this picture.
Finally, their footprints are grossly human at first sight but,
in some surfaces, appear to be more or less t9)eless.
Bernheimer reproduces two other pictures of costumed
"wild men" that have particular points of interest. One is
of St. Chrysostom (Fig. 12) being captured as a wild man
(woodcut from Fyner's editioq of Lives of the Saints, 1481),
i.n 'whiclt said- saint is shown crawling out from steep rocks
. on har!cJs and knees while a hunter with a spear blows a horn .
. and two dogs frolic about. The figure has long hair, a fringe .
. beard, and is completely hairy but for his hands and feet,
the ~xaot form of which are not shown. Thi~ picture closely

parallels descriptions of the Almas or Almesty of southern

Mongolia as given by Rinchen (see. Booklets of the U.S.S.R;
Academy of Sciences) 'of creatures that were in past centuries .
canonized by the monks of that region. The other illustration .
(Fig. /3) is of a play, Death of the Wild Man, ftom a wood-
cut by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. In this cut the player who
is costumed as the wild ma~ carries the usual club of the
Wudewasa.

The Foot of the Wadewa..

As we have pointed out repeatedly throughout this discourse, the single most distinct and distinguishing feature of
the true wild man or Wudewasa is the form of its foot; and
with particular regard to the size, form, and disposition ot
the big or great toe. It is rapidly becoming recognized that
the only constant and valid feature for differentiating hominids from\pongids is the first toe; being, in hominids, apposed and in pongids, opposed. All other .characters and
characteristics that had been put forward to so "istinguish
between the two groups have in time broken down-both
anatomical, like the simian shelf; brain size, tooth size and
. structure; and. c~ltural, like the use of implements, ~nterpre-

Pursuit 20

..

Fint Quart. 1981

Fig. 13 WThe Death of the Wild Man." (a play)Woodcut by Pieter Brueghei.

table vocalization, and so on. Hairiness is really no criterion,

though we do not know of any race of fully haired homini~s
living today. This, however, makes ,the early depictions of
the Wudewasa bestial as they may be in other features, the
more convincing, for the human-type foot and first toe pronounce them to be hominids (and not IX>ngids) and proclaim
also the artists' great care in so depicting them.

Condusions
From these discoveries, and from detailed studies of these
m'ediaeval depictions, 'combined with those of some earlier
depictions on pottery, and later illustrations in early natural
histories, we are forced to the conclusion that a type, or
t~es, of primitive, fully furred or haired human beings with
long arms, beetling brows, dark skins, and who possessed
,only wooden weapons, were known to these early artists.
Moreover, this knowledge was very widespread throughout
central and northern Europe until the 14th century, though
it seems to have died out in the Mediterranean area during
middle-Roman times.
This is quite consistent with much western legend and folklore on the one hand and with considerable speculation of
a more scientific nature on the other. 10 It has for long.been
taught that the' Neanderthalers disappeared from Europe
at the end of the last ice adyance, and it is implied in face
of; or at the hands of modern man in the form of CroMagnon man. However, ero-Magnon man appeared rather
abruptly on the extreme western fringe of the continent, and
it would seem that the other peoples in the late paleolithic
and mesolithic stages of advance also spread into the Mediterranean from the west, ending with the appearance of the
Iberians. Although the is:e was still not gone from the upper
Scandinavian valleys in 8000 B.C. there were already people
incising petroglyphs of fish and whales in central Norway
by that time. There were settled communities all over the
lo~lands of central and western Europe in mesolithic stages
'of culture in 4000 B.C., but vast areas of lowlands remaihed
First.Quarter 1981'
'.,

clothed in dense mixed forest while the mountain forests

were not penetrated until much later, and some areas not
until fully historic times. There remain considerable areas in
northern Sweden and in the Caucasus that have not yet
been explored. Settlement followed by civilization spread
northward into Europe from the Mediterranean basin but
it took several thousand years to reach. the ultimate peripheries of that continent, and during this period the immediately postglacial conditions continued on undisturbed in
many places until the 14th century. This is clearly shown by
the progressive disappearance of the fauna.
The aurochs lingered on till that century in the Black
Forest, and the wisent still clings precariously to survival in
western Russia. The lynx, the wolf, the bear, and the beaver
shrank back to Scotland in the British Isles but lingered on
till' later, and the wild cat still so lingers there today. The
highlands of Scotland formed a closed and almost unknown
country till 200 yeats ago.
Neanderthalers and other primitive hominids or submen
were not exterminated overnight oy Cro-Magnon nor any
other race of modern men. In some areas they appear to
have been absorbed rather than exterminated, but in other
. areas they just removed themselves, and pr9bably back into
the forests. Having the acute senses and knowledge of their
environment that is common to wild animals plus, it would
seem, a very considerable degree of intelligence-they much
more likely retired before the encroachments of modern
man rather than trying to fight him and being driven out or
exterminated. The great difference between the Neanderthaler .
and modern man is that the former was not tribalized,
whereas the latter was; therefore, the Neanderthalers undoubtedly did not fight unless attacked and cornered individually or in family groups. Further, if the reports of 'the
. Kaptar emanating from the Caucasus today are any criterion,
it ~ould seem that these subhumans were gatherers rather
.than hunters and did not even travel in family groups but

Pursuft21

individually and by sex and age group ..Caucasians speak of

there' being three kinds of Kaptar. (see Booklet No.2 of the
U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences l4) qiffering in size and fur
color but one being all males, another aJl females, and the
third of both sexes but smaller. The males 'are said to be
entirely solitary, the females to go to water in groups, the
small ones to travel in small bands. From this one can but
infer that they are all of one species but that the males are
solitary, the females semi.!com,munal, and the subadults
. travel in gangs not unlike you.ng lions.
.
For these reasons it may then further be inferred that. the
Neanderthalers disappeared from Europe only very gradually
and over a very long periqd; and that some of them remained in central Europe till mediaeval' times, and .some
may still suryive in the two extreme limits of that conti'l.entin northern Sweden and the Caucasus.
There is no valid or conclusive argument against Neanderthalers being fully furred or clothed in hair. There is
some concrete evidence that they were so clothed, and it
would seem logical that they should have been, for they
dwelt in cold climates and even right up to the ice front.
They were undoubtedly there at one time, and they only
"disappeared" when modern men appeared in each locality,
in tum. What then is so extraordinary about modern man
at the dawn of civilization, first in the Mediterranean (see
Etruscan depictions), then central Europe, and tinally around
its fringes, and right up to mediaeval times in the last' case, '
knowing these creatures, and knowing what they looked like,
what weapons they used, how they deported themselves,
and that their feet were just like ours? There is nothing extraordinary about this at all; it isn't really even surprising
or it should not be so. 1)te difficulty in gr~ping this concept
is due entirely to the gap between the end of the Dark Ages
and current anthropological thinking, a gap that was filled
with scepticism combined with outright lack of knowledge.
and progressive suspicion. of ancient traditions and accounts.

/
,'

If is our contention therefore, that the Wudewasa are, by

detailed and accurate descriptions of Neanderthaloids, maybe
of more than one type that lingered on in Europe north and
east of a line drawn through central Ireland, Britain, Germany, Austria and 'the Balkans to the Dardanelles, until
comparatively late dates and progressively later as you travel
.from the extreme southwest to the north and east. There is
today growing evidence of such Wudewasa in the Caucasus
and the mountains of northern Iran,' an(,i .thence via the
Pamirs to the whole of the great Mongolian upland massif
of c;astern Eurasia. Reports have even more recently been
received (via Porshnev, B. F., private communication) that
they are also spread over the forested areas of far easternmost Siberia. This would be consistent with both ecological
and historical fact. The NeandertIialers went away; they were
neither driven out nor exterminated. And, we may look for
descriptions and depictions of them in eatly works from all
Eurasi8f\ countries, be they called therein trolls, gnomes, or
by other titles previously relegated to folklore.
. The most pertinent argument against the notion that the
Wudewasa and other wild men were Neanderthalers is that
this group of primitives or submen were the creators of the
verj fine Mousterian type of stone implements and had
therefore graduated from the dendritic phase very long ago,
~Iiile these latter-day creature's seem never to possess any-'
thing but wooden implements. This argument, ~hile perfectly
. valid in one respect, is not, in our opiniop; conclusive. Frrst, .

Pursull22

not all the Neanderthalers which, collectively, were once

spread. all over Eurasia and in related forms apparently over
Africa, Orie.ritalia, and possibly even the New World '(see
Sanderson, op. cit.) need have progressed to the stage displayed by the makers of th~ Mousterian stone tools. In faci,
it would seem much more likely that so~e' should have remained on' the borderline of ~Iture. Secondly,. if they were .
gatherers rather than hunters, the more primitives among
them may not have carried weapons of stone although using
scrapers, burrins, and other such artifacts for peaceful activities. Such tools may have been the perquisites of the females.
Thirdly, there is ever-increasing evidence that primitives,
disposseSsed of their territory and forced to retreat into
forests., where stones may be a rarity or entirely unknown
over great areas between watercourses, give up the use of all
instruments of any complexity except for wooden ones. The
Pi Tong Luang, also known as The Ghosts of the Yellow
Leaves of Thailand, a flne Mongoloid race, today use 9nly
bamboo. 6
. Finally,' as to the disappearance of the Neanderthalers or
other primitives which gave rise to the Wudewasa tradition,
it should be pointed out that small relic groups of low culture, .especially if untribalized, once split up and confined to
limited and shrinking territories, invariably appear to dwindle
in number due to a prOgressi~e deterioration of their fertility, .
This has been observed among the Bushmen and the Neg- rillos of the .orient. Thus, it was first the dissection and
then the clearing of the for~ts that brought abouUhe dissolution and extinction of tbe Wudewasa, rather than any .
deliberate massacre by ~ore ~dvanced races. The forests on
the fringes 'of Europe have n~ even now been fmally cleared
and especially in the mountainous districts. The Wudewasa
could well
. have still existed in!I many large areas up till medi-
aeval times.
I
..
REFERENCES
1. Bern.heimer, Richard, 1952,~ Wild Men in the Middle Ages,
Harvard University Press, qunbridge, Mass.
. ..
2. Boniius, 1658, Historia noturalis, Amsterdam.
3. Gesner, Konrad von, 1555, Historia Animalium, Zurich.
4. Helmingham Hall Bestiaryi The 15th Century, 20 leaveS
(Now in the Lawrence'Wittep ColI!!(:tion, New Haven,Conn.) .
5. Illustrated London News, 3:rd June, 1961. (Photograph and
,.
.
caption.)

6. Illustrated London News; 7th Oct., 1961, "The Ghosts of the

Yellow Leaves."
;. .
i
.
7. Janson, H. W., 1952, Apes and Ape Lore, the Wl!rburg Institute, University of London. ! .
8, Ostm~~, Albert, 1957, I ~ Kidnapped by a Sasquatch, the
Harrison-Agassiz Advance, B.C., Canada.
.
.
9. Oxford English Dictionary, The 1935, (12 vols.), Clarendon
Press.
JO. Sanderson, Ivan T., 1961, Abominable Snowmen-Legend
_ Come to Life, the Chilton CQmpany, Philadelphia.
11. Sanderson, Ivan T., 1962, Hairy 'Primitives or Relic Submen
in South America, "Genus", 'Vol. XVIII, No. 14.
12. Sotheby & Co., 1958, Illustrated Catalogue of The Dyson
Pe,!ins Collection, Part t. London, '9th Dec.
.'
13. Tulp, 1641, Observationum med. Amsterdam ..
14. U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Booklets '1 to 4; 1957-60,
Moscow and. Kiev, Reports. 0/ the Special Commission 'to
Study the Snowman.

:~"
'j

FirSt QIuu1:_.1981

ATlANTIS:
Lost ,and Found Again
Copyright

1981 by Jon Douglas Singer

by clOD Douglas Smger, M.A.

PartD
the previous issue of Pursuit (No. 52, Fall 1980) we traced
I Nback
to early beginnings the search in the Caribbean for
sunken ruins that might provide evidence of a once-flourishing
Atlantis-type civilization in the region. In our century a 'large
number of searchers, urged on by the intriguing prophecies of
Edgar Cayce and the learned ttieorizing of L.ewis Spence,
have tried to find convincing clues to "lost" cities and "dead"
civilizations. But meager findings have led to murky conclusions that do not answer the essential questions: Was there
an Atlantis, and if so, where was it?
Mitcbell-Hodges was unable to locate his Atlantean colonies, although he did find some ruins of the Mayans. In the
Bahamas, an explorer named Mary Mosely believed that only
an aerial survey would prove or disprove rumors of a lost'
tribe of primitive Indians in the midst of the mangrove swamps
and dense forests of Andros Island. Michael Craton, an expert on Bahamian history, wrote that that lost tribe was only
a myth. I
Reports of sunken roads or walls sighted by airmen flying
over the western part of the Caribbean opened a new chapter
in the Atlantis mystery stoty. Charles Berlitz wrote thatsubmerged causeways of stone lay between Isla Muheres, Cozumel, and Chetumal in Mexico.~ In He Walked the Americas,]
archeologist L. Taylor Hansen asserted that on the island of
Cosmul (which mayor may not be the same as Cozumel) the .'
remnants of a submerged road could be seen. The road begins
on land and is composed of nine-foot sandstone rocks with
a cement cover. It doeSn't stop at the shore line but apparently
continues underwater until it emerges twelve miles away at
Cosmul Island. Hansen added that Cosmul was once part of
the mainland, that subsidence of the land made it an island.
A discovery in 1957 had a rather exotic flavor. Dr. William
Bell of North Carolina was diving with friends at Bimini Island
in the Bahamas when Bell, in forty feet of water, sighted an
obelisk-shaped stone column. He immediately took photographs. He also found nearby slabs of rock that measured
fifteen feet across. In the photographs a mysterious "glow"
seemed to suffuse the column. Nothing of the sort had been
apparent to Bell at the site. The column would have provided
important evidence of ancient civilization in the area but it
has not been seen since Bell's time. Probably it.succumbed to
the ever-slUfting currents and now lies buried beneath the
bottom sands. David Zink's well-equipped Poseida '77 expedition conducted a thorough search but failed to find it. 4
Another discovery at Bimini was made by Horace Gouvieve
of Midland, Texas. According to the British Atlantis expert
Egerton Sykes, Gouvieve found cut-stone structures and
photographed them. The photographs were published in his
journals, New World Antiquity and Atlanlis in 1958. s
The ebb and flow of interest in Atlantis has been roughly
proportionate to the number of investigators in the field or in

FIrst Quan_ 1981

print at anyone time. The five years following the Sykes reports produced iittle inveStigation and interest in Atlantis
lagged accordingly.
Then, in 1963 a Russian scientist, Prof. Georgiy Lindberg
of the Zoological Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
announced that he had found evidence of sunken land near
Iceland. He perceived it as linked to Atlantis, then added that
it sank a million years ago, before the rise of modern man.
The sunken land was at a depth of 5,000 ot 6,000 feet. No
submerged cities were found' and the "evidence" pointed to
Russian anxiety to know about sunken continents wherever
'
there might be any. 6
hi the period 1969-70 interest in Atlantis rose again in response to two events: proposal of a theory that Minoan ruins
at Thera (Santorini) Island were part of Atlantis; and the
Bahamas researchers' claim that they too had found submerged ruins attributable to the lost Atlanteans.
A number of books about lost civilizations were published
in those years and their popularity generated a whole new
wave of speculation. At the crest were two volumes still widely
cited: Edgar Cayce on Atlantis7 and Erich von Daniken's
Chariots of the Gods?8 The faith of the Cayce disciples was
lessened when 1968 and 1969 came and went 'without fulfillment of his famous prophecy, made a quarter-century earlier,
that part of Atlantis would be found near Bimini in one pf
,
those years. 9
Greek archeologists, and supporters James Mavor, Jr. and
J. V. Luce in their books, began to'link the Atlantis legend to
a volcanic eruption on the Aegean island formerly known as
Thera, now called Santorini. Mavor's book lo explained the
details: The fIgures of Atlantis' size and population were reduced by ten, Mavor and colleagues arguing that Solon had
made an error when he translated the tale. The date of c. 9,000
years before Plato's time was changed, from c. 9000 B.C. to
c. 1500 B.C. This magical updating made the earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions at Thera contemporaneous with the
collapse of Minoan civilization on Crete. (Thera's ruined city
was a Minoan colony.)
But Plato wrote that Atlantis, the sunken continent, was
located beyond the Pillars of Hercules. II It IS generally agreed
that the Pillars of Hercules were what we now call the Strait
of Gihraltar. Plato hadn't made any mathematical errors, nor
had Solon, the supposed translator of the Plato report. If
Solon or Plato had made any such error it would certainly
have been corrected in ancient times by a Greek scientist,
for the sages of olden times enjoyed faulting one another
quite as much as do the soothsayers of modern science.
By the time the Thera theory was in full flower a great
many archeologists and others were convinced that there was
no evidence of sunken cities in the Atlantic. For example,
L. Sprague De Camp wrote that Dr. Maurice'Ewing of Columbia University had conducted a search for sunken cities
along the Dolphin Ridge, an S-shaped deep-water mountain
in the mid-Atlantic. Ewing was said to have persisted in his
search over a period of thirteen years, yet his searchlights,

Pursuil23 ,

cameras and dredging machinery lowered even to a depth of

18,000 feet came up with nothing. 12
"
Thera theory forces felt their "front" crumble when the
newspapers heralded the discovery by a group of pilots and
divers of submerged ruins in the Bahamas. The Caribbean
"contingent, of course, "promptly claimed them for the lost

Atlanw.

"

As early as 1959-60 marine archeologist I;>imitri Rebikoff

spotted dozens of curious geometrical patterns on the sea

bottom in a 6O-mile area extending from Bimini to Orange
Cay. The patterns were linear, "angular and circular. Miami
Professor J. Manson Valentine wrote" that they were photographed but gave no details of size or much else. 13
"" Later, Valentine reported on Rebikoff's 1967 find of a vast
. rectariguIar enclosure of unknown purpose submerged in three
fathoms on the Great Bahama Bank.l4 It was estimated to be
a quarter-mile in length.
In the summer of 1968 two airmen were flying over Bahaniian waters near Andros Island when they spotted a strange
shape on the sea floor reve8J.ed by sunlight piercing the incredibly clear water in that region. They saw the outline of
an unmistakably rectangular form divided by what seemed
to be several partitions. According to archeologist David Zink,"
these men had been alerted to look for just this kind of under. water structure. IS They were members 9f the Association for
Research and Enlightenment, the organization founded by.
Edgar Cayce and his follow:ers f"r the study of his psychic
abilitieS and related subjects. The airmen, Robert Brush and
Trigg Adams, reported their discovery to Professor Valentine.
Valentine and Rebikoff went to the Brush-Adams site near
Pine Key, off the north coast of Andros Island. They found
that the rectangular form measured 60 by 100 feet. It had
three-foot-thick limestone walls that were skillfully worked.
Water depth was only six feet and the walls were two feet.
high. Two other submerged structures were disCovered nearby. According to Valentine, one of these was found to have
'a floor-plan very much like that of the Temple of "the Turtles
in the Mayan city of Uxmal.
But when David Zink reported on his own study of the
Pine Key formation he set" forth the" conclusion that it was
a modem building. He had come around to this view after
inquiries among Bahamians developed information that one
Reuben Russel, a 55-year-old constable on Andros, had helped
build the structure for a Nassau man as a pen for sponges
arid conch. Thus a prospective "temple of the ~cients" became overnight a holding tank for displaceP sea life!
" " ACcording to Zink, the sponge-and-conch stpry was reported by John Keasler, a 'journalist with the Miami News. 16
In his Muse News article Valentine insisted that the structure
was not a conch pen because 2Oth-century Bahamian conch
fishermen use staked pens that are much smaller. Valentine
was just as sure it wasn't the work of the Lucayan Arawak
Indian tribe because they didn't build stone structures in such
large sizes. 17
Three basic forms of underwater features reportedly found
in the Bahamas e (1) geometrical shapes or enclosures,
(2) what may be called linear structures, popularly described
as""walls" or "roads"; and (3) most spectacular" of all, there
. are submerged pyramids said to be of pointed-~op Egyptian
" style "rather than "in the flat-topped Meso-American style of
the Mayan, Olmec and other early American cultures. Add"
also the mis~ellaneous reportS of "strange objects" such as "

100

Two maps of the same segment are in scale of about I" .;,
"tional modem map at left are contours indicating vast areas of
tighdy linked island chain as to no other in the world. In the

arrays of pillars (some still upright) and "whole sunken cities"

that have been seen once by somebody but never again by
anybody.
.
While the mystery of the underwater structure near Andros
Island was. winning" the attention of the press, a large stone
formation was found near Bimini Island, north of Andros. "
" This was the now-famous Bimini Wall, sometimes called the
Bimini Road. Prof. Valentine discovered it when he "dove
off the northw~tern
coast of Bimini Island on September
2,
,
I
1968 and came upon a long "pavement" of rectangular and
polygonal stone blocks. IS The structure appeared to be very
old, for the edges of the stones were so worn as to give them
a pillow shape. Many stones were ten to fifteen feet long.
Several parallel "avenues" displayed wide gaps of seemingly
non-natural origin between the stones. Only fifteen feet of
. water covered the structure, making it easy to find, reach and
' .
study.
After three more visits Prof. Valentine wrote that the pavement consisted of oolitic sandy limestone and" extended as"
much as a half-mile along the coast of North Bimini in a northeast-southwest direction. Similar pavement-like structures
found nearby at Riding Rocks averaged ten to fifteen feet
in length. In Muse News Valentine recounted his conversatioDs ~th a guide who told him of other' pavements in water
as deep ~ 50 "feet, elsewhere near Bimini. The professor was
cOnvinced t~t the regular .right-angle turns of the st~ne rows
and the architectural look of the pavement," including a 90o

Pursuit 24

..

First Quari.. 1981

THE BAHAMAS

. A.D. 1981

.:::.:.. ~

THE BAHAMIAN
REGION
Conjectured as of
, . c. 25,000 B.C.

...........

::/;i6RIDA

As the glaciers advanced the

level of the world's oceans fen,
perhaPs as much as 300 feet
below .present levels. When
the glaciers. melted the oceans
were millenially replenished
and rose to as much as ISO
feet above their present level.

n .San
Salvador
(Columbus Mon'!ments\

611

o
Great lnagua "-IL~_

Faintly visible in the convenshallow water peculiar to this

map at right the shallow-

water contours are hypothesized as the shoreline of an ancient subcontinent-land (indicated by pattern)
that many scholars say was above water c. 25,000 B.C. (Outlines of the la-:ger present-day islands
are sketched within .to facilitate comparison, and place names are added to orient the reader.)

degree cross-fracture and other regular-appearing angular

stone shapes, ruled out the simple geological explanation.
He speculated that the origin might be Phoenician, or perhaps South American Arawakan, for the South American
Araivaks were good stone-workers, unlike their Caribbean
cousins.
Subsequent publicity attracted several e~peditions to the
Bimini Wall. One group formed in 1968 included two authors,
Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley. They were advised by
Dr. Valentine but he did not actively participate in this expedition. The resultant Ferro-Grumley book, Atlantis, The
~utob;ography 0/ a Search,19 credited to marine archeologist
Pino TuroUa the discovery of pavements off South Bimini,
350 and 50 yards long, respectively. Turolla noted that the .
last section seemed to turn east around South Bimini. He
speculated it could be part of the structure off Paradise Point.
and that the separate pavements were really ruiDed portions
of a one-time immense structure that encircled all of North
and South B~mini as a titanic sea wall. 20

Professor Valentine's discoveries inspired other Miami

scientists to take a look at what he had found. Valentine hypothesized that the Bimini Road was an ancient ruin of an unknown culture, possibly of Old-World origin. Others weren't
so sure. In 1970 a number of well-credentialed scientists and
some of their students dove at the Road to find out whether
its f~tures wer~ natural beach rocks or man-made structures.
Ont: of them, a graduate. student at the University of Miami
~

Qaart.1981

Nonh and South

Caicos Islands

named John Gifford, returned to the site in October 1971

and again in 1972. Conflicting reports Came out of these investigations. 21 One stated that there was "no evidence" of
human handiwork or engineering. Another countered that
the unusual joints would not result from natural tension in
the stone blocks; natural joints would not end abruptly against
unbroken stone. Rather, the divisions looked much like those
between stones in man-made walls; and the bedrock under
the stones was not cracked as it would be if the stones had
broken off a natural layer. Gifford concluded that visible
evidence apparent to him during the course of his several dives
failed to disprove the theories about ancient ruins.
A subsequent expedition was described by W. Harrison in
the prestigious British science journal Nature. 22 The exploration party was led to the site by Pino Turolla and included
Dr. R. H. Byrne and M. P. Lynch. They opined that the
stone blocks were cracked by natural stress such as waveaction and marine-plant growth. The blocks were seen as
a single formation eroded into sections over the course of
millenia. It was noted that the large blocks did not rest atop
each other in layers as they would in man-made waIls. Harrison thought that the rocks dated from the Pleistocene but
were formed naturally of shell-hash cemented by a material
known as blocky calcite. His conclusion: Bimini Road was
a natural phenomenon.
Next came Dr. David Zink, an independent archeologist
and formerly professor of English at Lamar University in
Pursuit 25

Beaumont, Texas. He studied the Bimini Road and after five

, years' declared that it was indeed artificial, an authentic ruin. ' ,
He found the main site to be about I so6 feet long with'
extensions (parallel rows) each 300 feet long, the Road Jshaped and the blocks repeating-various shapes, espe<;iaUy
square and oblong ones, and of varying thickness. The block~
are not imbedded in the sea floor as "natural" rocks would

two

A View of the AdaDteaD HeartiaDd

While browsing in the University of Nortl;t Carolina
library, in the section where books on lost continents are,
I came across a first edition of Edwin Bjorkman's 1927
work" The Search/or Atlantis (New York: A Knopf).
Pasted inside the cover of the book was this little poem:
ATLANTIS REGAINED
Seek it by pole or equator,
Seek it on land or in sea,
Seek it where millions gather,
Seek it wbere no life be:
Never shall a man behold it,
Never set foot on its shore;
Lost is the ancient Atlantis,
Vanished for everinore.
Yet it remains ,through the ages,
Cherished and storied and sung,
Refuge of souls that are stricken,
Harbor of hearts that are wrung.
Vanquished by fire and water,
Gone in the world's wild youth,
Daily the dreamers renew it,
Hol~ng their dreams more than truth.
Weary the ways I must wander,
Dreary the days I inust live:
Peace to my tortured spirit
,Only Atlantis can give. '
-Edwiri Bjorkman
for Jane Battle
July, 1933

On the' flyleaf opposite the poem is 'a clipped-out

pict1~~e Qf Bjorkman and an i~ription which reads:

For Jane Battle

with the author's cordial regards
Edwin Bjorkman
4.4. J932

Jane Battle was Mrs. Samuel W. Battle, who played

a leading role in Asheville, N.C. society for many years.
After her death in 1952 Mrs. Battle's CQUection of more
than 700 books went in ~ost part to the University
library.
'
_ EdWin Bjorkman lived in North Carolina from 1925
until his death in 1951. He was an internationally known
literary figure, a translator of Scan!iinavian literature,
and he served as editor of 'the Asheville Times from
1926 to 1929. For several years he was a consultant for
the U.S. Geological Bureau. Of his book on Atlantis',
L. Sprague de Camp has caUed it one: of the best books,
ever written about the lost continent. The pOem. written
for the Battles has not, to my knowledge, ,ever been
printed.

-:-Paul B: ThomPson,

, be. Instead, they lie upon the sea bottom. And the blocks are
not ,oolitic, as Bahamian stones usuaUy are, but are of Iiricrite
composition. Another anomaly is the arrangement: the stones
do not lie parallel to the beach as they would if they' were
n~tural beach rocks. They slope at an angle of 7' degrees.
(Dimitri Rebikoff reported a 14-degree slope.) The eastern
and western rows of the 300-foot-Iong section are separated
'by an unusual gap of 50 yards that contravenes the "natural"
ex.planation. 23 ,24
Other ex.peditions to Bimini have been weU publicized~
Valentine and Rebikoff joined a group called the Marine
Archaeological Society (MARS), a conglomerate of Edgar
Cayce disciples and members, of the Association for Research
and Enlightenment. In the vicinity of Bimini's' main wall
section they discovered, in February 1969, a row of stones
300 feet lpng and 30 feet wide. This was found (by samples of
marine life taken to laboratories for analysis) to date back
between 6,000 and, 12,000 years-a big time-frame, to be
sure, but consistent with' Plato's estimated "10,000 years
ago." Dating of the Bimini specimen~ was by the carbon.:14
method.2!i
An expedition sponsored by Argosy magazine included
Robert Marx, Dimjtri Rebikoff and a photographer. Their
dives found nothing significant, but they were told one of the' ..
better stories ever to' surface in the area. According to the
tale, other divers found twO I~lfge stone statues and part of
a marble column. These priceless treasures were forthwith
hoisted aboard an unidentified "yacht" and secretly offloaded at an unnamed port.26
The giant North American RockweU Corp., which owns
land, on Bimini, deployed its own expedition of 25 persons,
including Dimitri Rebikoff and psychics from the Edgar
Cayce Foundation, under the leadership of former astronaut
Edgar MitcheU. According to Robert Marx, nothing of interest
was found and the' only "results" were mucn diving and
picture-taking.
The Bimini c,ontroversy of beach rock versus sunken ruins
may rise and fall with many a tide before enough evidence',
emerges to justify coming down hard on either side: Such ...
controversy is not unique, in terms of subject matter ,or place.
For example, archeologists studying odd and apparently very
old stone structures on dry land in New England have long
disagreed as to what they have been looking at. Some see
, these structures as pre-CQlumbian, non-Indian stone temples
or, tombs. Others downgrade them to a lowlier role and say
they are only colonial-American root cellars. 27
Sunken roads, or walls, or beach rocks, ha"e been seen ...
beneath waters that lap shores quite distalj!.t from Bimini.
Besides those described as lying in the weste~n Caribbean
are others in the eastern Caribbean. Most intriguing of all is
a huge find in the Atlantic off the coast of Venezuela near
the mouth of the Orinoco River. It is a wall-like feature estimated by Charles Berlitz to be about 100 miles 10ng. 28 Berlitz
duly recorded the verdict of archeologists that this is a natural
feature, a geological rather than an archeological phenomenon. But in another book he noted that the Orinoco stone
wall is 30 feet high, too straight to be natural, ~nd 'therefore
is probably a man-made relic of antiquity. 29 ,
, Another entry in'Berlitz's log of sub-oceanic interest ar~s
is a 100mile-long wall on the bottom off Cape Hatteras. It too
,has been classified as purely "natural" by archeologists who
have investigated. 28
In the Bahamas are many areas with a share of what Prof.
I

,/....

........it26
~

! ~

"

FIrst Qaan_1981

,-

Valentine calls "suspicious bottom' patlerns."30 These are

geometrical shapes such as enclosures and linear features that
appear to be non-natural. Initially they come into the view of
, airmen flying over the sunlit waters of the Caribbean" and
what is actually seen, in many instances, is not stone but seagrass growing over stone. Similar growth on land has enabled
airmen to detect ruins in Britain by noting degrees of soU
discoloration caused by varying densities of plant growth
over stones which reliably trace the walls of buried buildings
that are completely invisible at or near ground level. Thus
whole city plans, such as those of ancient Silchester, have
been retrieved by aerial mapping without disturbing an inch
ofsoil. ll
,
One of the largest linear-formation discoveries was made
west of Andros Island on the Great Bahama ,Bank. A sketch
by Valentine showed a tremendous submerged structure,
possibly a wall or causeway, which was spotted from a plane
flying at an altitude of 36,000 feet. The construction (if it be
that) extends in several connected sections for many miles. l2 ,
Berlitz wrote that near Caicos Island in the Bahamas still
, other roads (note plural) were found underwater. These seem
to go right up the shallows onto shore. Yet another array of
parallel linear features or roadway-like formations near Andros Island was photographed by Bob Brush.
Linear formations found by Rebikoff, Turolla and Valentine inspire thoughts of the esoteric. According to Berlitz
these seem to be markers or arrows indicating . . . what?
Directions to where? One such formation is shaped like the
letter P, or the hilt of a cavalry sword)l
The arrow-like shape mayor may not be s~gnificant, but it '
is consistently recognizable among many stone objects seen
underwater in the Bahamas. One arrow-of-stone betw~n
North and South Cat Cays at Bimini measured.100 feet long.
Another found near South Caicos Island pointed to a second'
submerged "line." Pino Turolla's find in 1973 was photographed for the Miami News34 to, illustrate a story by reporter
John Keasler who told readers that the arrow "pointed west."
It resembled a tuning-fork to which a notched arrowhead was
attached. If not man-made, this feature suggests that nature's
whimsicality can persist over a very long period indeed. "

The next part of this series will deal with reports of those
submerged stone features we classify as geometrical enclosures
because they consist of wall-like discoveries of perceptible
shape. Most have been found around Andros Island'.
Also to be examined are reports of sunken pyramids which
have been located from the 'Florida coast to the Bahamas.
Evidence of pillars and artifacts including sculpture adds
some credibility to certain reports of sunken cities, and these
are to be' given consideration. Also ahead are discussions of
the controversial Asher Expedition to Cadiz,ISpain, and the
Russians' claim of having found sunken ruins on the Ampere
Seamount.
'
It is tantalizing to recall that sixteenth-century explorers
found enigmatic statues pointing west, while twentieth-century
archeologists have reportedly found sunken arrows and other
linear features that seem to point somewhere. ,It seems' almost
as if we were being urgeQ to follow directions given a l!lng
time ago.
'
Th~ ~ the second part of a four-part series on Atlantis written
by Jon Douglas,Singer. The third part will be pub/~hed in the
Spring issue.

FIrst Qaaner 1981

REFERENCES
,1. Craton, Michael, A History 0/ the Bahamas, London, Collins,
'1962. Mosely's lost tribe story dated to 1926.
2. Berlitz, Charles, Mysteries/rom Forgotten Worlds, New'York,
Dell Books, 1973, p. 90.
3. Amherst, Wisconsin, Amherst Press, 1964, p. 186.
4. Zink, David D., The Stones 0/ Atlantis, EngleWood Cliffs,
N.J., Prentice Hall, 1978. [Reviewed by George W. Earley
in Ihl~ ISS lie 6f Pl/rsl/il, p. ,W.)
5. Sykes, Egerton, "Bimini, Temple of Murias," Atlantis, JulyAugust, 1974.
6. Myler, Joseph L., "Fabled Atlantis May Lie Deep in Ocean,"
Associated Press report, Washington, July 26, 1-963. Article
supplied by Ms. J. Gail Cayce Schwartzer of the Edgar Cayce
Foundation.
7. Cayce, Edgar Evans, New York, Hawthorne Books, inc., 1968.
8. Von Daniken, Erich, New York, Putnam's, 1970.
9. Cayce, Edgar Evans, op. cit., pp. 90-91.
10. Mavor, James J., Voyage to Atlantis, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969.
II. Personal communication, 1976. .
12. Lost Continents, New York, Ballentine Books, 1975, p. 180.
(According to Brad Steiger, Ewing's search for Atlantis was
in 1953. See Atlantis Rising, New York, Dell Books, 1973.)
13. "Archaeological Enigmas of Horida and the Western Bahamas,'
Muse News, June 1969, publication of the Miami Museum
of Science, Miami, Horida.
14. Ibid.
IS. Zink, op. cit., pp. 8-10. ,
16. Ibid., p. 21.
.17. Valent~ne, op. cit., p. 42.
18. Ibid., p. 45.
19. New York, Bell Publishing Company, 1970.
20. Ibid., p. 166.
21. Zink, David D., ;'IThe Search for Atlantis Continues," The
~.R.E. Journal, Virginia Beach, Virginia (Journal of the
Association for Research and Enlightenment) May,' 1975,
pp.93-101.
22. "Atlantis Undiscovered ... Bimini, Bahamas," April 2, 1971.
This artiCle is reprinted in W. Corliss' Sourcebook series
volume Strange Artifacts. Vol. M2 published in Glen Arm,
M~ryland, 1976, p. 149.
23. Zink, "The Search for Atlantis Continues," op. cit., p. 98.
24. Zink, TheStoneso/Atlantis. op. cit.
25. Marx, Robert, "Atlaqtis, The Legend is Becoming Fact," Argosy, Nov. 1971.
26. Ibid., p. 45 ..
27. Singer, Jon Douglas, "The Quest for Norumbega," Pursuit,
Vol. 12, No.1 Winter, No.2 Spring, and No.4 Fall, 1979.
28. Berlitz, CharleS, the Mystery 0/ Atlantis. New York, Avon,
1976, p. 193.
29. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1974,
p.128.
30. Valentine, Muse News article op. cit., p. 43, June; 1969.
31. Birley, Anthony, Life in Roman Britain. New York, G. P.
, Putnam's Sons, 1964, p. 58.
32. Berlitz, Charles, Without a Trace, Garden City, New York,
Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1977, p. 89.
, "33. Mysteries/rom Forgotten Worlds, op: cit., p. 134.
34. Millmi News (Horida), afternoon edition, April 14, 1973: Keasler,
John, "Atlantis, Plato said, was Swallowed up by the Sea."
News story supplied by Ms. J. Gail Cacye Schwartzer from
files of the Edgar Cayce Foundation.

........,,27

..

:a

:.~.

The Miiisissauga 8101;1 came of the blue, Iiteraliy'speaking, and landed in 'f1ames
\

on a picnic . table in Traven Match.pM's

. backyard.

. . . .

Fast Qwut_1981 ' .

.
\

'.

..

'

Th'e Mississ8uga BI~b

by Dwight Whalen
Reprinted by permission from Fortean Times,
courtesy of the author and the publishers

was late afternoon, Jone 16,.1979, a hot, sunny Saturday

in Mississauga, Ontario. In the backyard' of his Melton
Drive home, real estate broker Traven Matchett, 49, was
painting lines on his ping-pong table. His nineteen-year-old
'daughter Donna was skimming their swimming pool 40 feet
away. Behind her stood a green picnic table which something
suddenly struck with a thud. Thinking the family dog had
merely thumped its tail against some cedar decking, she continued undistracted. Seconds later came a crackling sound.
~~ed.
'
The next sound was Donna's scream.
A cylindrical column of flame was shooting up from a molten green mass upon the center of the table. Thinking quickly,
she picked up a garden hose and doused the fire as her father
ran up.
"It 'was a picture I'll never forget as long as I live," says
Matchett.
. Dave, Haisell and I visited the Matchetts in December to
review the mystery of "Th~ Mississauga Blob." What it is
and where it came from are questions that still have not been
answered to the Matchetts' satisfaction. They want to know
who is responsible for the fiery mass that could easily have
struck Donna, or set their house ablaze had it landed on the
roof. What further disturbs them is a growing suspicion that
someone else wants the same answers more eagerly than they
'do.
"The flame was like a blow torch, magnified, shooting up
through the table," Matchett told us. He described it ,as a very
intense light, reddish-orange with yellow streaks, perfectly
cylindrical, about 18 inches high by eight inches wide. "A lot
of people were puzzled when we said the top of the flame was
flat," he says., "But it was. Whatever was burning was driving
the flame up 18 inches-and stopped flat. "
.The burning substance was three or four inches high when
Donna turned the hose on it.
,
"The fire was o\1t as fast as I hit it with the water," she
says. "There was no smoke whatsoever, just a little vapor."
The extinguished mass shrank and solidified. .
"It was as hard as that immediately after," Matchett said,
as he handed me his chunk of the blob. It was a small, flat,
dark green mass with a fibrous, pock-marked texture, weighing about four ounces.
"Donna's first thought," says Matchett, "was that I had
ignited something on the table, pulling some kind of prank.
My thought was that maybe she had laid a cigarette' on something and it caught fire. Then both of us realized that we had
done nothing out of the ordinary to cause this thing."
Nor, he says, had his next-door neighbors. On the advice
of one of them, a pilot, Matchett phoned the control tower of.
: the Toronto International Airport to learn if the flaming
mass might have fallen from an airplane. It hadn~t. "They
told me that if anything had fallen that hot out of a plane, the
plane had to be on fire," he says.
They advised him to check J,he nearest military air bases,
and the merry-go-round began. Matchett learned that breach- '

FIrst Quarter 1981

ing the fortress of officialdom on a weekend can'be impossible.

"I called the military. They couldn't give me an answer. It
was Saturday; nobody was available. ,( called the University
of Toronto. They told me to call the Ontario Science Center.
I called the Science Center and they told me to call the papers,
as the press might be able to send someone to at least look
at it."
Matchett phoned The Toronto Sun, which immediately
sent a reporter.
"Then I called NASA, and couldn't get through because.
it was Saturday. "
But when the story broke in the next day's Sunday Sun,
bedlam struck.
"This place was like Grand Central Station," says Matchett,
"and it was like that for a whole week. The story just zoomed
across the country. Donna was giving interviews on the phone
every three minutes. There were television cameras here,
ne\\ismen, it was unbelievable the excitement there was around
here over this thing."
On Monday an inspector from the Ontario Ministry of the
Environment came and took a sample of the green blob for
analysis. Their ~oncIusion: it was merely polypropylene,
a widely used chemical plastic in such items as plates, ashtrays, and toys. I asked the Matchetts if something on their
picnic table, a plastic dinner plate, perhaps, couldn't have
caught fire.
"We don't have plastic dinner plates," says Donna.
Her father says he remembers precisely what was on the
table. "There were my reading glasses, a ceramic ashtray,
a towel, a garden glove, and a book of matches. They were all
there after the blob fell." .
But polypropylene, the Ministry told them, is also used in
frisbees. If the burning mass of plastic had fallen from the
sky, possibly an incendiary set a frisbee on fire and tossed it
into Matchett's backyard. The Flaming Frisbee Theory, however, starts Matchett burning, especially when he recalls the
visit from the Ministry's inspector.
.
"This guy walked into my yard with a pencil," he says
in~redulously. "Not a geiger counter, not an instrument, not
a thing. He lifted the blob with his pencil and said, 'ft looks
like a frisbee.' I politely invited him to leave. He \yasn't interested in listening ~o what it had looked like, what had
happened, the heat of it, he really. had no interest at all."
Matchett decided to conduct his own tests. He bought two
$5 frisbees and set th~m 'on fire, the first with a blow torch.
"It took about four or five minutes to ignite it and tpen it just
burned like an old, wet rag," he says. "It melted and simmered but didn't explode into any kind of intense fire the way
the blob did." On the second frisbee he poured gasoline,
stepped back, and tossed a lit match. "We watched it burn
for a while and there was a lot of smoke," but when the blob
burned "there was no smoke at ~II."
There was, he recalls, after the blob was extinguished,
"a strong acidic odor, a vinegary smell" which lingered about
the yard till Monday morning. He says he was too excited,
though, to pay much attention to it.
Public interest was excited, too. Quite naturally, people
wOQdered if Matchett and/or his daughter had staged the
'
whole thing for: laugh~.
f

Pursuit 29

"The police came here and hammered questions left, right

and center," says Matchett, "I told them eve~ything.1 could
possi!Jly tell them. In the end I said \Look, if you want, my
daughter and I will take a lie detector test if you think. there's
anything we're trying to hedge or cover up. We're telling you
exactly as it was.' "
.
As he told one reporter:, "I'm not going to ruin my picnic
tablefor fun."
.
The Matchetts were not asked to take a lie detector test.

a sampJe of tlie blob for analysis by the Center of F:orensic

Sciences in Toronto. In retur:n, Matchett was refused a copy
.. of the lab report. Instead, \::laiming it was a confidential docu-'
ment, the police nevertheless showed it to him and let him
read it three times, once to himself, twice out loud to his wife.
When the police left, he wrote the following from memory: .
"The analysis shows the presence of two diffe~ent kinds of
plastic-polypropylene and polystyrene. The melted masses.
~f plastic have no distinctive or identifying features. A microScopic analysis shows the presence of no other unusual mater:'ials. No reading above the normal background reading of
The Mississauga Blob, while it hasn't burgeoned or proradioactivity was encountered. Polypropylene and polystyduced offspring in the classic science fiction manner, may
rene are common plastics used for a number of manufacturing
nevertheless be evidence of an "alien invasion." When the
purposes in this dark green color. Plant pots and trays are
blob story hit the news, Mrs. Dorothy Smith of Sherobee
found to be of this composition. However, due to the com Drive-about a mile from !\'1atchett's residence-came to him
plete melting of the item no definite identification of the
with a curious story. About a month before, she said, she
original source is possible. Polystyrene is readily ignitible
found a solid, circular blob of plastic-like material in her own
with a match. Polypropylene is combustible; however, it is
backyard. But unlike Matchett'S green blob, hers was black.
harder to ignite. When it burns, it burns with vigor."
Matchett then showed her where his blob had melted between
While this largely concurs with the Environment Ministry'S
two planks of the picnic table onto his concrete patio blocks.
findings,
Matchett feels the forensic lab didn't completely
There she saw a hardened, shiny, jet-black residue identical,
level with him either.
she told him, to her blob.
, "I mean, why bring a report out here and let me read it if
Chuck Le Ber of nearby Brampton told much the same
I couldn't have a copy of it?"
story. He had found a dark-colored blob of what appeared to
And why, he wonders, did the lab want the entire blob?
be hardened plastic in his backyard the previ9us April. Both
Surely a sample would have been enough.
blobs, however, met a fate hardly worthy of deadly invaders.
"The lab wanted everything, table and all."
from space. They were thrown in the trash.
Matchett chose to part with neither his table nor his blob,
..A third blob-a whopper-was given to Matchett by andespite a fear that the blob m.igQt be radioactive. But the Minother Bramptonian,a well-to-do elderly gentleman who asked
istry and forensic lab had no sooner assured him it wasn't
-for anonymity.
than Tom Grey, Canadian Director of the Northeastern UFO
To describe it in a word: grotesque. Measuring roughly 18
Organisation, assured him it was. He took a reading about
inches long, 10 inches wide and 1 inch thick, it weighs about
two weeks after the' blob fell. He claims his geiger counter
eight pounds. Its design resembles a huge pancake which
indicated a very light but harmless radioactive reading, above
someone has squeezed out of a gigantic toothpas~e tube, or
the normal background level, on both the blob and the spot
an enormous brain that's been flattened by a steamroller.
where it struck the table. Match~t wonders how "harmless"
Its surface resembles that of china, smooth and. shir:tY. Its
the blob might have been on June 16, when he couldn't find
color is pale green, but when Matchett snapped off a couple
any scientific personnel to check it out.
of fragments for us, we found the blob's interior to be entirely
"What baffles me is that on a Saturday in June, if a spacewhite. Possibly it's just a mass of industrial caulking ..
ship loaded with little green me~ had landed in my backyard,
Like its Mississauga co.usin, the Big Brampton Blob was
nobody could have investigated it till Monday!" .
allegedly discovered in someone's backyard. Why these things
When the news media blitzed the blob, Matchett grew fear apparently never splatter onto front yards may suggest a subful of curiosity seekers. He locked his picnic table in his garage
versive, house-by-house plan of Conquest-today Peel County,
for a few weeks and took the remain"er of his blob to an
tomorrow the World.
undisclosed location for safe-keeping. In a short time the
story
lost intrigue. It became just another case of a fire-bug
Whatever these blobs ~re, and wherever they originate,
pitching
a plate of flaming plastic into someone's backyard.
Matchett just doesn't buy the Environment Ministry's flaming
~nd what's more inconspicuous in' weekend suburbia than
frisbee suggestion (the MinisJry wouldn't speculate further, as
a person in an asbestos suit?
investigation of strange falling objects is not their responsi~i1ity). Not only do frisbees not burn like he says the blob did,
Public interest faded. For that, at least, the Matchetls were
it's inconceivable to him how anyone could have tossed one
grateful. The frisbee theories had relieved some of the worries
flaming into his backyard.
.
that h1i9 been plaguing Matchett and his family. "There were
"The trees at the back are about seventy feet.tall. No one
a lot of people that I never saw.before roaming around here
threw it in from that end; I was standing back there. Our
at different times of the day and night," he recalls.
hedges are about twelve feet tall;. no one threw it over the
The biggest nuisance was strange phone calls. "Someone
hedges. In order to get it on the backyard. table they'd have to
caned me one night and said, 'We'd like to come over and see
stand in front of the garage, throw it over .the garage and
your table.' Well, it was two o'clock in the morning! I said,
around the .comer of the house to land on the table like the
'You have to be joking,' and he said, 'No, we're not kidding.
blob did, which is impossible. The height of that flame on the
We're very, very serious.' I said, 'Well, eitner you're kidding
table~ the intensity of it-there's no damn way anyone could
or you're drunk. What's wrong with you?~ The guy hung up
have thrown something burning.,"
on me. He must have been drunk or. something. pr stupid ..
\Yhether anyone could have or I:1ot, Peel. Regional Police
. Two o'clock in the morning ll;Ild he wants to come and see
.
were unable to turn up any chi.es. Matche~t also gave them . , this table."

. Pursuit 30

or.
,"'I

Fast Quad_ .1981

To show what the Mississauga Blob was not, Mr. Matchett exhibits the two store-bought frisbees he partially
melted in the Dame of blowtorch at point-blank range.

center showing scorched paint. The area in between was as

green as the rest of the table.
" "It was 20 to 30 seconds maximum from the time Donna
" heard the thud untihhe time she extinguished the fire," Matchett told us. Time enough, seemingly, for the searing blob to
scorch all the paint beneath it, if not char the wood, too.
But Donna and her father describe the strange fire from the
blob as cylindrical, without any flickering flames, and its top
level as a sheet of glass. Also peculiar was the blob's rapid
cooling and solidifying when Donna extinguished it.
"We touched it a couple of times right "afterwards and it
was hard," she said. "It was ice cold. "
Where the blob landed it straddled two planks of the picnic
table. Droplets of the flaming goo oozed through the space
between them and somehow scorched the wood on the underside, leaving a circular black patch a bit smaller than the burn
mark on top. But that was all to Qe seen when Matchett turned
the table over to point out the plastic ring on the scorch mark's
circumference.
"
"Hey, it's gone," said Matchett. "It's gone; Remember
the ring that was raised up there, Donna'?"
"Well, it's been out in the air," said Donna. "And it has
rained." "
Matchett continued mystified. "There's not a thing on
that. You see this mark here'?" he asked Dave and me, his
finger tracing the rim of the scorched wood. "There was a
circle of plastic-like material, a clear ring, on that."
"
1 wondered, like Donna, if the weather was a factor.
"Could it have fallen off, and been swept away in the
snow'?" I asked.
"No, no~ no," insisted Matchett."1t was as hard as a rock."
Donna agreed. "It looked like it was embedded" right into
the wood."
"We've got pictures of that and so have the police. It shows
that ring perfectly," said" Matchett. His voice was betraying
the suspicion Dave spoke:
"It looks like somebody "has taken it off for you."
"Someone has been here and taken it off," concluded
Matchett. "There's no doubt about it. "
The belief comes easily to him. Aside from getting crank
phone calls, he thinks someone tried to break into his house,
and has since had new locks installed. But in September someone did break into his real estate office. He found his file
cabinets rifled and documents strewn everywhere. As far as
he knows, nothing was taken, but nothing of the blob nor his
papers pertaining to it were kept there.
He wishes now he'd taken more precautions with his picnic
table. "Since it's" starting to rot a bit anyway," he says, "1'Ill
going to cut the burned piece out and screw on some metal
strips to secure the planks." Until someone can give" him
a satisfactory explanation of the blob, he wants to save something of what he fondly calls "the most controversial table in
North America"."

Dave and I wanted to see it, too, and Matchett cheerfully

obliged. He especially wanted to show us what he described
as "a circular ring of plastic-like substance, almost clear," on
the underside of the planks where the flaming blob landed.
He and his daughter took us to their picnic table in the
backyard. Matchett removed a bucket he "had inverted over
the scorch patch to protect it from the rain and snow. The blob
had left a curious circular burn mark-about eight inches in
di~eter, only its perimeter and a silver-dollar-size a~ea dead

Would space debris be the explanation Matchett is looking

for'? Skylab didn't fall until July 11, but a Chinese satellite,
MAO 2, was predicted to re-enter the atmosphere over Michigan on Sunday, June 17. No one reported seeing it fall, however, but plastic would hardly survive the terrific heat of
atmospheric re-entry.
It's not a meteorite, nor an industrial pollutant, nor did it
fall from an airplane, according to the Environment Ministry.
Something from a weather balloon'? Same story, says Matchett. Checking with military air bases at ~amp Borden and

FiIst Quarter 1981

PUrsu;'31

:. 1" ~

Petawa, he was told that none of their balloons were aloft

, during the 'middle of June.
.
, What about amateur rocketry? There is'such a hobby group
in arampton, says Matchett, but supposedly police inquiries
.
'
cleared them of suspicion.
i Even so, I. wonder if someone could have fired a small
rocket, with a polypropylene component, over. Mississauga.
As it spent its thrust, couldn't a chunk of it have plummeted,
flaming, onto Matchett's picnic table? Though neither the
Smith nor Le Ber blobs were seen to fall, or burn, who's to say
a would-be Robert Goddard isn't responsible for all three of
them?
'
'('As for whatever that hideous Big Brampton Blob is, J'in
'fingering a rosary.)
"The Mad Missileman of Mississauga" may be a wild

speCulation, but sure~y no wilder than a pyromaniac hurling

hot frisbees into people's backyards.
'AU Matchett wants is an explanation-a reasonable explanation....:....of the Mississauga Blob.
,
, "If someone could come along and say there was a'plane
flying over and it was carrying such-and-such, and something
caught fire and it dropped out-fine. Just show me the part,
how it came about, and I'll ac<;ept it. But not knowing, that's,
what bugs the hell out of me."
But Matchett may be stymied for a long time to come. As
he recalls a neighbor telling him, "Strange things happen in
this world, and you may never find out what it is. It may be
as mysterious twerity years from now as it is today."

Teleportation and Relativistic Rest-M~ss?

Here Dudley was speaking of energies on the order of 900000 foot-pounds, and most of this 'caloriic energy could not
~ accounted for; it just "disappeared.".
In our assumption that relativistic rest-mass energy is
available for "transformations," we are dealing with a similar disappearance of great magnitudes of energy, amounts
, dictated by the 0 of E = MO. We can speculate that these
enormous energy transactions take place in that other world,
or other dimension that the apport must travel through
dl,.lring the period of its absence from our sight. We might
even think of these energy transactions as occurring 'in the
strange, non-dimensional region of a Wheeler Superspace
model of the cosmos.
To pro.be any further in these directions would simply
reveal my ignorance. Suffice 'it to say that these enormous
energy exchanges do seem to take place elsewhere than in
our immediate physical world.
REFERENCES AND NOTES

I. Eads, Morgan D., "Is Te[eportation the Macroscopic Analog

of the Quantum 'Barrier Penetration' Effect?" Pursuit, Vol. 13,
No.3, Whole No. 51, Summer 1980, page 104. The author argues
that evidence for teleportation could be used as evidence for [argescale quantum effects, and coins a curious term, the Macro-Matter
Wave.
2. Einstein, Albert, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon Its
Energy Content?", The Principle oj ~elQtlvity by A. Einstein,
H. 'A: Lorentz, H. Weyl and H. Minkowsky, Dover Publications,
New York, 1952, pp. 67-71. This book contains translations of all
of Einstein's important early papers on Relativity, It also includes
articles by other "giants" in the field. The contents will be of most
interest and value to readers who have a strong background in
electromagnetism and mathematics. Good prerequisite reading for
thOse who are "~nners" in Relativity theory is Spacetime Physics
by Edwin F, Tay[or and John A. Wheeler (W. H. Freeman, San
Francisco, 1963). For a discussion of the basic postulates of the
Special Theory one should consult chapter 13 of Mechanics by.
Keith R. Symon (Addison-Wesley, Men[o Par~, California, 1971).
3. Stanford, Ray, "Teleporting a Meteorite," Psychic, Vol. 5',
No. I, Sept.lOct.; 1973, pp. 4143, 55. (Psychic is now called
New Rea#ties.) Ray Stanford, the psychic, and his brother, the
parapsychologist Rex Stanford, dre two of the most interesting and
unusual operatives in'the field of parapsychological investigation .
In this article, ,Ray gives the details of an alleged teleportation of
a small meteorite.
.
4. Fort, C~rles, The Complete Books oj Charles Fort, Dover

(Continued from fJ!1l!e 10)

Publications" New York, 1974. This is an early Bib[e of the connoisseurs of strange phenomena. Charles Fort has' won many
followers, attracting favorable comments from people ~ differentlr
oriented as Curtis Fuller and Martin Gardner, Fort's books are,
Iike[y to exert a continuing influence upon many phases of research of the unexp~ned for a [9ng time to come.
5. Bird, J. Ma[co[m, "The Theoretica[ Aspect of Apport," Journal oj the American Society Jor Psychical Research, Vol. 21, 1927,
pp. 86-99. This rambling article touches many subjects, but the
main theme is a comparison of the merits of two opposing theories
about te[eportation. One theory is a dematerializatioil/remateria[- '
_ ization schema wherein an, apport is disassembled and reassembled,
a [a Star Trek. In the other, the hyperspatial or multidimensional
theory, an apport is simply poked or pulled into a higher dimension. The author leans toward the latter theory, as I do. He discusses Relativity and the fact that it can co-exist with a teleportation scheme. He doesn't mention quantum-type physics, probably because Quantum theory in 1927 was still mostly locked behind the higher brows of the physics community and had not yet
been put on public display.
'
6, Dud[ey, E. E., "Energy Transform!ltions at Seances," Jo'urna/
.oj the A merican Society Jor Psychical Research, Vol. 20, J u[y 1926,
pp. 429431. Mr. Dudley gets right to the point in this short article.
He shows that temperature changes in a room can involve significant
amounts of heat energy, and that ~uccessfu[ mediums may act as
some kind of "transformers" of energy rather than an energy
source.
7. Price, Harry, "Some Account of the Therma[ Variations as
Recorded during the Trance State of the Psychic" Stella c.,"
Journal oj the American Society Jor Psychical Research, Vol. 21,
Nov., 1927, pp. 635-641. This important paper chroniCled some of ,
. the wide temperature fluctuations that occurred around Stella t,
8. Puthoff, Harold and Russell Targ, "Physics, Entropy, and,
Psychokinesis," Quonr,Jm Physics and Parapsychology. Proceedings
of an International Conference, August 26-27, 1974. EClited by
Laura Oteri, Parapsychology Foundation, New York, pp. 129-150.
The work of these two physicists lias been opening the eyes, and
minds, of scientists around the country. They have conducted
some incredible experiments into the nature of PK and Remote
Viewing, TilTg and Puthoff have had access to such mind-blowing
equipment as a Superconducting Differential Magnetometer (for
measuring very weak magnetic fields), and a Laser-Monitorea
Torsion Pendulum (for measuring small twisting motions). In this
article they describe-the equipment, how it is used, and how they .
have interpreted their results. (See also Science News, Vol. H6, :. "
No. 21, Nov. 24,1979.) ~

"

FIrst Quarter

Pursuit 32

1~81

__.._......................... ...... ................._r........__... __..........._.......__,....

~

So.e Curiosities of Anhnal Behaviour

. With Regard to n.e .
by Sabina W. Sanderson
R.lUCH has been written about the

. lYJ behaviour of animal~ just before

earthquakes, hurricanes, and other
natural disasters, but it is unlikely that
there is anything paranormal about
their seeming ability to "predict" such
. events. Probably they are responding to
changes in barometric pressure or other
natural phenomena that are as yet imperfectly understood or just plain unknown at the present time.. Another
type of seemingly predictive behaviour
is not so easily explained.
( Three days before the start of the
deer season, and year after year, we
watched the start of a migration of deer
down the hillside opposite SITU's headquarters and into our swamp. By the
time the season opened there was, figuratively, standing room only-in an
area where no hunting was permitted.
This poses two problems. Firstly,
how did the deer know when the season
would start? The dates vary from year
to year, usually not by much of course,
but enough to rule out any exact dependence on time of sunrise or other
such factors. Possibly they pick up
unfriendly "vibrations" from hunters
gearing up for the hunt, though this is
no more than a theory. (Or perhaps
they smell gun oil on the breeze. Certainly they are more than suspicious of
anything that resembles a gun. Those
SITUites who have visited our former
headquarters may remember the deer
that stalked across the lawn behind the
. house.' I could go out the back door
to empty trash or feed the birds without
disturbing the deer in the least, but they
took off instantly if I appeared carrying
a broom or mop.)
The: second problem is how they
knew that our property was a safe place.
Deer are not the only animalS that apparentiy know where they are immune to
attack. A friend some years ago told me
of driving past a game farm during the
pheasant season. Some dozen hunters
. with guns at the ready were walking
stolidly across a field of corn stubble
with no animal life at all, while the fence
around the game farm supported a solid
.line of pheasants all facing the road,
apparently watching the hunters, who

FintQwuter1981'

could not of course fire across the road

without being arrested.
J A much more remarkable example of
this kind of thing also had to do with
a pheasant. My stepfather had a farm in
Pennsylvania and permitted hunters
to shoot ov~r the property, though by
law they could not shoot within, I believe, 300 feet of any farm building .
The house stood only ten to fifteen feet
back from a dirt road, across which
the.re were open, uncultivated fields.
At five minutes to seven, the hour at
which hunting might start, a gorgeous
cock pheasant marched across the road
and proceeded to spend the entire day
parading back and forth on .our front
lawn, as if on sentry duty. At five minutes past the hQ.ur when hunting must
'cease he marched back across the road.
He continued this routine throughout
the pheasant season for three years in
a row (1946-48). We assumed, though
there is no actual proof, that it was the
same pheasant.
There are a number of curiosities
here. In the first place, he could have
enjoyed a nice long nap had he chosen
- simply to wander around the corner to
the back lawn where he would have
been equally safe. It seemed as if he
were deliberately "thumbing his nose"
at the carloads of hunters who passed,
screeching to a halt when they saw him,
frustration showing clearly on their
faces. (We would not have countenanced
any attempt to chase him off the lawn.)
. Certainly his behaviour was abnormal.
Usually pheasants act like other birds,
alternating between resting and feeding
and moving about more or less randomly. This one had nothing to eat
during his self-imposed sentry walk and
was never seen to rest either.
His precise timing is also baffling and
brings to mind another pair of timekeepers. I dislike intensely being jarred
awake by an alarm clock, but in the
days when I lived in Philadelphia and
held a job I had to rise at a particular
hour. Happily I never heard the clamour
of an alarm clock because my two Abyssinian cats woke me gently about five
. minutes before it was due to go off.
However, they never woke me on weekends or on holidays. 'There are two
.possible explanations of this last: either

Taki

Mali

they noticed whether or not I set the

alarm clock or they read my mind.
I'm not certain which explanation is
"worse" from the standpoint of orthodox science.
There are still many scientists who
. insist that animals d.on't "think" and
. indeed, not many years ago, there was
considerable consternation when some
Canadian researchers' proved conclusively that rats know what" they have
just been doing. The experiment is quite
simple. The rats were in a cage and
there were, I believe, six levers which
when pushed would provide a food
pellet, but only in specific ci~cumstancesl'
i.e. lever #1 would yield food only (for
example) if the rat had just been scratching his left ear, lever #2 only if he had
just been lying down, etc. The rats
learned the rules in no time flat, which
they could not have done if they were
not aware of their own behaviour.
In fact it has always struck me as
absurd to contend that animals don't
think, that they operate solely by instinct. This is on a par with saying that
someone has "a virus" when one has
no idea what the diagnosis is. As Roger
Caras once said, "Of c~urse dogs think',

pUrs"lt33

.'

but one must remem~ that they are

thinking doggie thoughts."
Being able to think per se does not
,explain the fact 'that certain animals
apparently. understand time in human
terms, and with considerable precision
in some cases. This ability is not, I believe, universal, since a friend of mine
once had a cat named Coffee (he liked
the stuff, I think) who woke his housekeeper when he thought she should get
up. (His methods were fiendish: First he
sent the window shade rattling up and
around the roller, and when this~simply
sent her under the covers he moved to
the top of the bureau where he batted
one item after the other over ~he edge
until he started on something really
fragile, at which point she became air-

The Individual and' the UFO

(Coniinued from page 5)
informs others and the excitement grows. ,Unconscious forces
respond to the heightened emotions; a mystery like this arpuses
those levels of the psyche from which myths and legends
evolve. The object shifts form and color as many minds, in
concert, reach out and help to create what they long to see.
The momentary alterations in the object are due to the psychological differences of the observers. Psychokinetically"
they manipUlate the geomagnetic field and the atmosphere
to shape a three-dimensional image of a UFO-S9lid and
objective, but short-lived.
Now let's examine a pair of actual cases to determine if the
facts of the sighting and the psychological state of the observer
lend support to this hypothesis.
August 19, 1952 was the evening of the strange experience
of Scoutmaster D. S. Desvergers. 2 He was driving three members of his troop home when, glancing out ,their windows,
they obserVed a glow coming from a palmetto thicket some
distance from 'the road. Fearing a plane had crashed, the
scoutmaster left the boys in the car and went to investigate.
The tension and excitement built within him as he maqe his
way through the scrub. The feeling of increasing heat grew as
he approached a clearing. There was aiso a pungent odor
present. Eiltering the clearing, Desvergers looked up and
observed something blocking the night sky. The beam of his
flashlight revealed a classic flying saucer with a concave bottom
and a convex top with a turret. Desvergers states that a wave
of fear and anger overwhelmed him. As he prepared to strike
it with his machete, the object, as if reading his' mind, released a ball of glowing red gas. -The gas-cloud dropped upon
, him and he lost consciousness.
Later, Desvergers was found wandering, in shock. It was
'noted that his face, arms, and cap had'been burned. Air Force
investigators tried to write off the incident as a hoax; bu~ one
aspect could not be reconciled to that explanation: Plants
in the area were pulled up for examination and found to have
severely charred roots. (Such a condition suggests induction
heating, which requires a strong electric current.)
So what did "the scoutmaster experience? Perhaps Des-'
verg~rs' highly emotional state triggered an interaction with
the local geomagnetic field fo create a flying saucer. The object~...ait34

Nor is it likely, tl:tat the pheas~nt was

using sunrise and sunset as determinants.
In any case ~unting had, to cease onehalf hour after sunset.
'
On the,other hand, I don't quite See '
how the cats could have been reading
my mind. Unless roused, I normally,
sleep until about 8:30 Qr 9 o'clock, and
my first action on waking is to look at
the clock to see what time it is. Presumably therefore, ther~ is n'o informa. tion there for them to read.
Obviously I have, raised a number of
questions without an&wering any, of
them. ,Perhaps some of our members
can come up with similar examples or
suggestions.

borne,) Nor am 'certain that both my

cats c~)Uld tell time. I think it probable
that Mali was following Taki's lead in
- the matter-Mali was very beautiful but
dimwitted, though it is possible that she
was a feline idiot savant (a mentally
retarded person who is brilliant in one
very 'limited field, the classic examples
being those who can do impossible
mathematical calculations in their heads,
without the foggiest notion of how they
do it).
doubt very much that the cats could
read a clock, and the punctua). pheasant,
so far as know, did not have access
to one. It is also most doubtful that the
ca,ts were using some complicated formula to determine the relationship between sunrise and my hour for rising.

rapidly lost its form, decomposing into a ball of ionized plasma

which, burned Desvergers and charred the roots of nearby
plants.
The geopsychic hypothesis seems especially relevant to cases
of shapeless nocturnal lights. It may ruso cover the famous
"green fireballs" seen in New Mexico in the late '4Os. In a
real sense then, local"ghostlights" may be sustained by the
very legends tQld abo,ut them. These'stories generate feelings
of fear and expectation which provide the impetus for psychokinetic interaction with the environment. '
,
On October 1, 1948 Lt. George Gorman had an aerial
encounter'with an unidentified light. 3 It began ~s Gorman,
a member of the North Dakota Air National Guard, prepared
to land at an airfield in Fargo. A mysterious light passed' his
plane and he ga~e cImse. As he neared the light, it re59lved
into a tiny, pulsating disc, about eight inches in diameter:
according to Gorman's estimate. After making several passes
at Gorman's, plane, the light shot upward and out of sight.
Was the light an automated space probe, or was it the creation of a tired mind at the end of a cross-country flight?
The objection may be raised that these cases' have been
carefully selected to support the geopsychic hypothesis. But
most any fndividual case may be "explained'~ in more t~n
one way. Only by a study of the general characteristics of the
phenomenon can the most probable explanation be derived.
The evidence,so far seems to make the paraphysical-geopsyo~ic
hypothesis quite attractive to further investigation.
, REFERENCES
I. Persinger, Michael A. and Lafreniere, Gyslaine F.,-Spoce-Timrt
Transients and Unusual Events, Chicago: Nelson-Hall, Inc.,

1977:
2. Stanton, L. Jerome, Hying Saucers: Hoax or Reality? New' York:
, ~Imont Books, 1966.
3. ChamberS, Howard V., UFOs for the Millions, Los Angeles:
Sherbol,lrne Press, Inc., 1967. '
Jung, C. G., Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things,Seeidn
,theSkies, New York: New American Library, 1969.
N~digh, Kim L., "Bigfoot as Symbol," Pursuit, 1980,13,66.
Neidigh; Kim L., "The Geopsyche: Notes Toward a Theory,"
INFOJournal,

~979,

8, 8.

'~"
j

, first,Qauter 1981

'

SITUations.

In_ this section .mostly contemporary curious and unexplained events are repo~;d.
Members are urged to send in newsclippings and reports they deem responsible.
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper or periodical),
city of publication, date of issue in which the article appeared, and your first initial
and I~st name (or membership number only if you prefer to be credited in that way.)

Three Heads and a Tale

the Chinese government had asked him to

direct a search for the missing bones as
long ago as 1972, soon after diplomatic
relations were resumed between the U.S.
and China. The grand jury concluded that
no serious attempt was made to make
a movie and that the money collected for
the search was not all used for that purpose.

When the Piltdown Man was discovered

in 1912 there was rejoicing up and down
the halls of natural science. Here at last
was the "missing link" in man's evolution.
Would non-Darwinists please move quietly
to the back of the room?

PU.TUCJW!\ M."!\

world. There was, of course, much discussion of "family resemblance" to the

Piltdown Man (who wasn't due for exposure
as a fake until 1953).
Peking Man's bony remains were more
numerous than Piltdown. Man's but his
luck was worse. Sometime during World
War II somebody stole, lost or misplaced
the Peking Man, that is, what remained
of him.

But in 1953 British scientist Kenneth

Oakley and two of his colleagues re-studied
the "partial remains of a species with. a
human-like cranium and an ape-like jaw"

that had been dug out of the gravel pits in
Piltdown Common near Lewes, England,
forty years earlier. Using methods and instruments unknown at the time of the disJA!\US
covery, the trio determined that the Pilt- .
down Man consisted of an ordinary human
male skull with the teeth filed and stained .
t~ suggest age, plus some ancient animal
boneS probably brought from the Mediterranean.
.
Blamed for the hoax was Charles Dawson,
a lawyer and amateur archeologist. Also
The third head in our story displays two
implicated was the Jesuit paleontologistfaces and comes out of myth rather than
geologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who
anthropology. Its name: Janus. Its purpose:
died in 1955. He won a lifetime of farrie
.guardian of domesticity. The best homes in
with his 28 books, some of which are still
ancient Rome had a Janus head set in the
widely quoted by religionists, particularly.
door, one face looking out toward the street,
a best-seller entitled The Phenomenon oj
the other turned inward. Thus the origir. of
Man. Tei1hard at fllSt said that, as a young,
our modem expression "two-faced."
n~ly ordained priest, he had gone along
And that's what a federal grand jury has
on Dawson's second dig at the Piltdown
called Christopher Janus, 69, a Chicago
site. When Oakley pointed out that Tei1hard
financier and world traveler. In 1If37-count
served in the French army from 1914 until
indictment handed down in late February
the end of World War I and that Dawson
Mr. Janus was charged with fraudulently
had "discovered" the skull in 1915, Teilobtaining $640,000 from banks and private
hari:l admitted to a "mistake" but disinvestors to fmance a search for the missing
missed the six mentions of the incident in
Peking Man and also to pay for a movie
his published works as merely a jQke that . about Peking Man and the search.
went too far.
According to the indictment, Mr. Janus
falsely claimed that Otto Preminger, the

celebrated film-maker, would produce or
Between 1926 and' 1937 archeologists dug
direct the movie, that the Canadian Broadup 14 fragmentary skulls and parts of skelcasting Co. would pay' for a documentary
etons in Choukuotien, China. These reon the project, and that. a tax loss on the
mains displayed humanoid/hominid characteristics and by tests were found to be . movie in preparation was $136,000 in 1974
and $302,000 in 1975. Mr. Janus is also
about 500:000 years old.' Amid loud fansaid to have told prospective inves.tors that
. fare, the Peking 'Man was presented to the

Three heads and a tale ought to payoff

with more than one moral. Try these and
see if they fit:
"We cannot escape history ...
"You can fool some of the people all of
the time and all of the people some of the
time, but you cannot fool all of the people
all of the time" ...
Not even if you'd rather be read than
dead, or bear the name of a Roman god.
SOURCES: AP dispatch in the GQzelte, Schenectady, NY, 7/171S0 and Chicago Tribune
feature by Chuck Neubauer in The Washington
Post (DC), 2126/SI. CREDIT: J. Zarzynski and
F. Packard.
.
.

~
Mystery Malady Kills Twins

As their parents slept a few feet away.

9-week-old twins simultaneously stopped
breathing and died of sudden infant death
syndrome, authorities in Detroit reported.
It was probably only the fourth or fifth
time in medical history that twins have died
at the same time of the mysterious malady.
commonly called crib death, said Dr. John
. Smialek who performed the autopsits.
The infants, Vincent Ware II and his
brother, Vincent III, had been dead in their
crib for several hours before their parents
awoke and noticed anything wrong, the
doctor said.
SOURCE:. Asbury Park (NJ) Press, 3/10/SI.
CREDIT: Member 11432.

~
Lost in 1880, Found in 1980
There never was much mystery about the
whale. He killed directly not men but a.
whole ship. Despite the seeming unlikelihood
of such a thing ever happeiling, we know it
did happen. After all. who hasn't read
MobyDick?
The date of the deadly attack was Novem,her ~, 1820. The following y~ surviving
First Mate Owen Chase wrote a report'
from which Herman Melville took the sub-

Pu",uJl35

First QuaiI_ 1981 .

J

'i

stance of bis classic novel and changed' the

name of the doomsday ship from Essex to
Pequod. Another survivor, Thomas Nicker-,
, son, 17 years of age and at the helm when
the whale struck, also wrote a report, but
not until 1880 when he was well along in
years.
What about Nickerson's side of the story?
Did it corroborate the Chase report-add
anything-perhaps differ? Historians' questions prompted an exhaustive search for
the Nickerson manuscript but it was no,where to be found. Interest waned and the
speculating and searching slowed until few
people remembered much about it. Skeptics
concluded that Nickerson didn't write a report in 1880, or at any other time.
Then one day in December of last year
a Hamden, Connecticut, woman was rummaging in her attic and came upon a pile
of old papers that looked like letters written
by an aging hand. Reading a bit, theri all
of it, she felt curiosity tum to wonderment.
The Moby Dick story remembered from
'schooldays was unfolding right here in her
attic. But who would believe it?
Determined to find out, she bundled the
80 or so pages carefully and sent them off
to the Nantucket Historical Society in
Massachusetts. There they were examined,
by Edouard Stackpole, an historian and
expert on whaling and curator of the association's Peter Foulger MuseuJll. In due
course Stackpole'rendered his verdict: The
manuscript was genuine; it was indeed the
autograph of Thomas Nickerson's report.

The youth who stood at the helm of the
whaler on that fateful day remembered in
old age the same sights and sounds described
decades earlier by Owen Chase, the first
mate. But 'Nickerson's' ri:i:ollections and
impressions were even more vivid than
Chase's. Nickerson wrote:

I
"

I then being at the helm and looking

on the windward side of the ship, saw
a very I~rge whale approaching us.
I called out to the mate to inform him
of it. On his seeing the whale he instantly ,gave me an order to put' the
helm up hard and steer toward the
boats.
I had scarcely time 'to obey the
orders when I heard a loud cry from
several voices at once that the whale
was coming foul of the ship.
. Scarcely had the sound of their
voices reached my ears when it was
followed by a tremendous crack. The
\yhale had struck the ship with ~s
head directly under the larboard forechains at the water's edge with such
, , force as to shock every man to his feet.
A second blow followed. The ship
began to sink ....
The crew lost no time abandoning ship.
They took with them'. such food, water,
weapons and survival gear as could, be

gathered' in a hurry. Two of their whaleboats held seven men each, and six were
..aboard the third boat at the' pOint of de'parture in mid-Pacific. Captain George
Pollard estimated a distance of 2,000 miles
to the west coast of South America. Oars
were bent, the course set, 'and the torture
began.
,'"
One month later Henderson's Island
was sighted and the sailors went ashore to
replenish supplies of fresh water and to catch
and dry fish for later eating. Three men
elected to remain, and after two months on
the island they were sighted by a passing
ship and rescued.
, Of the three boats, that sailed on, one,
was apparently lost at sea. The other two'
became separated during a storm. Chase
and Nickerson were in one boat with 'three
other crewmen. One died' and was put
over .the side. Another went insane and
died, and according to the Chase account,
the dead, man's limbs were eaten by the
others. In mid-February (1821) the boat
was sighted by a British whaler and the
three men were taken aboard. The next
, week the other boat was sighted by the
American whaler Dauphin. Captain Pollard
and one other man, w~re saved.

A huge lake in the northern' Andes may

bare Its secret of an ancient cataclysm. '

'yet

miles are locked in the' northern tier of the

~me Andes range that extends southw,ar~
from one end of Chile to the other.'
T:here is a place, called Tihuanaco 18
miles inland from the south shore of the
lake. It has a monolithic gateway 23 feet
high, a Jew shattered terraces, anci some
rooness walls. Nobody lives there now, but
archeologists believe that Tihuanaco was
once a thriving port-city, the center of
South America's oldest civilization which.
nourished before 1600 B.C. and was sud-'

, denly erased about 900 B.C. by an over-,

All accounts agree that the Essex put out,
whelming disaster of unknown kind.
'
from Nantucket with a crew of twenty, and
Apparent descendants of the ancient
that only eight survived, five of the eight
Tihuanacoans are the Ayamara indians
having experienced three months of thirst,
who no~ live around the lakeshore, and
, semi-starvation, the insanity tlnd death of
they are part of the mystery. When Incas
fellow crewmen, and at least one incident
from Peru conquered the high Andean
of cannibalism. A grisly drama, horrible in
plateau they found Ayamaras living among
truth but untainted by mystery.
ruins of which they professed no knowThe epilogue is another matter. How (or
ledge nor any ~ecollection, by way of tribal '
why) did the Nickerson report disappear
legend, of how their ancestors lived or,
from sight, remain hidden for a whole
where they came from. '
century, then turn up in a suburban' Con- ,
The filmmakers arrived early last year,
necticut attic? We don't have an answer.
during the South American midsummer.
Not even a clue.
The party included Hugo Boero"a Qolivian
SOURCE: The New York Times, 2/15/81.
expert on pre-Inca civilizations, and a camCREDIT: Member 1f26I12.
era crew of Puerto Ricans based in New
York City. They came to Lake Titicaca
~
to make a documentary about the presentday Ayamaras. During the course of the
'Sunken Cities' of 1000 B.C.
filming an old Indian led them to what
appeared to be a rock sticking up in the .
What the filmmakers found and photomiddle of the lake. One of the crew, dived
graphed in the depths of Lake Titicaca was
with a camera along the side of the '!rock"
enough to shock the whole world of archeological investigation, and in time it proband soon discovered to his amazement .th3t
"it was part of a man-made construction
ably will. The photographers added a new
going all the way down to the bottom of
chapter to the history of vanished civilizathe lake."
tions. They came up with filmed evidence
Mr. Boero's study of the film convinced '
to suggest that lakes may work better than
him that the structure was very similar to
oceans at the millenial task of hiding and
, what remains of Tihuailaco. He speculates
preserving ancient constructions that are
that "whole cities" may lie at the bottom
demonstrably non-natural. As a side-effect,
of the lake. South American archeologists,
the Lake Titicaca discoveries give sharp
and reporters who viewed. the film in La
reproof to those who busily roam the globe
Paz, Bolivia" early this year are inclined to'
"locating" ,lots of underwater artifacts but
,agree. There' was footage showing 'paved
rarely coming' up with believable photo'
graphs of them.
roads and algae-cov!=red roofless w.alls and
remains of various buildings made of rOCks
Lake' Titicaca straddles the borde~ besimilar to those of the 23-foot-high "gatetween Peru and Bolivia. It" is the world's
' liighest navigabie lake, andJts '3,500 square
way" to the Tihuanaco remains. Additional

..

Pu....it36

Fint Quarter 1981

,\

,-

documentation included sequences by two

of the cameramen, one filming his partner
who swam-60 feet underwater-along
paved roads, some of which passed through
man-made tunnels.
As' fascinating to Mr. Boero as to any of
the viewers, these discoveries have not deflected his attention from the primary
purpose that brought him to Tuanaco in
the first place. He is determined to find out
what sort of disaster abruptly terminated
all life in the capital city 'of a greatly advanced civilization 'almost 3,000 years ago.
He says he has found a wall on one of the
thousands of islands in Lake Titicaca
which shows signs of "the devast2ting
effects of some natural phenomenon." He
quotes indian legends which reCall a "universal deluge," and old reports that when
the warring Incas invaded the area they
found Tihuanaco "buried" several feet
deep in the ground. He hopes that "future
archeological studies will show whether
some earthquake or other cataclysm buried
Tihuanaco and other Ayamara cities which
once lay along the lake shore."
SOURCE: Reuter's dispatch in The Sun,
Baltimore, Md., 2115/81. CREDIT: H. HoUander.

~
Inversion, Distortion, Simulation

the: surface, . the air temperature changes

from cold to warm. On the day of Professor
Lehn.'s sighting the surface of the lake was
32 0 F. but the air over .the ground .was
~oR

Professor Lehn is not about to embark

on a search-and-destroy mission against
monster myths. He simply seeks to empl.oy
the best investigative tools at hand to dispel
doubt about what is being seen nowadays
and what was seen long ago. He and his
computer are examining descriptions. of
mermaids and mermen in such ancient
books as Historia Norvegias, written in .
1170, and King's Mirror, a 'work of the
13th century. Taken into consideration'.are
geographical locations and physical conditions that may have determined much about
old sightings. For example, legends about
mermen/mermaids that have been recounted
for hundreds of years have come mostly
from northern oceans. The ships were of
mediaeval Norse design that placed the
decks just a few feet above the waterline.
The half-human, half-fish creatures seen by
sailors were feared as portents of stormy
weather.
The computer explains that mermen
,images are best created when a warm.air-.
mass slowly moves over significantly cooler
surface air, and such conditions occur
frequently in frigid seas just before a storm.
As to the low-decked Norse ships, the closer
the observer is to the surface, the' more distorted the image. "The subsequent use of
higher-decked ships" and lookouts aloft
"would explain the infrequent mermen
sightings in later centuries," Professor
Lehn says.

Having assembled an overkill of. general

data about humankind-who we are, _where
we come from, how we live and what's
ahead-the computerists are now beginning
to study what we see and how we see it.
A Canadian scientist has photographed
and computer-analyzed the "monster" he
saw on the shore of Lake Winnipeg last
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, 2111/81.
May. Waldemar H. Lehn, professor of
CREDIT: Member 1t2692.
electrical engineering at the University of
Manitoba, used a telescopic lens on' his
~
camera to record on film the armless creaCattle-Killing Mosquitoes
ture with a huge, bulbous head that seemed
to stand there for a few minutes and then
Thick swarms of salt-marsh mosquitoes
disappeared. Professor Lehn returned to
descended on a herd of cattle' grazing on
Stephen Perry's farm in coastal Brazoria
his lab to develop the film and ask his
computer's opinion of it.
County about 45 miles south of Houston,
Previously entered in the computer was
Texas. "They came in about 4 p.m. and
Mr. Lehn's own carefully designed prothe cattle were dead the next morning,"
gram to simulate image-distortion under
said Perry. "We've had mosquitoes before,
a variety of weather conditions. In minutes
but we've never had'a siege like this. You
the verdict was rend~red: the "monster'"
could just reach out and get yourself a
was the distorted image of a foot-high
handful."
boulder lying on the shore more than a halfAlthough Perry swore that the mosquimile away. Neither Professor Lehn nor his
. toes had killed by sucking the lifeblood
camera could have seen it at all had it not
from his animals, not everybody believed
been for an unusual temperature inversion
him. But skepticism turned to awe when
that refracted the light above the lake,'
L. G. Gayle, a veterinari,an at- the Texas
bending the rays reflected from a distant . A & M Medical Diagnostic Laboratory
object downward to reach the eye instead
completed his autopsies on four cows and
of straight on, overhead and out of sight.
one calf. The cause of death, he said, was
Temperature inversion has long been
severe anemia. He noted that as much as
known and understood, but some exotic
half of the seven to nine gallons of blood,
side-effects are only beginning to be apprenorma\1y in the animals' bodies was missing. '
ciated. Usually the warmest air lies closest
There was no internal or external hemto the surface and the air grows cooler with
morhaging, and rIO infectious agents or
altitude," but inversion is the opposite contoxic elements were found. The vet condition where, in the first several feet above
cluded that the animals died either as a direct

FIrst Quarter 1981

result of blood-loss, or later from heat or .

exhaustion. .
In all, farmer Perry lost 40 cows, three
horses and several calves in multiple swarmattacks' during August 1980. How many
mosquitoes would it take to accomplish
so much blood-letting?
J. C. McNeill, director of the county
mosquito control office, wouldn't give '
numbers, but agreed that the local supply
appeared. inexhaustible. He put the blame
on Hurricane AlIen which slammed into
the' Gulf Coast and swept saltwater into
places that had not been soaked since Hurricane Carla in 1961. According to McNeill,
the eggs of salt-marsh mosquitoes can lie
dormant for 20 years, waiting for saltwater.
When it comes, billions of mosquito eggs
hatch at once, "in a hell of a mosquito
storm,'~ he said.
Veterinarian Gayle said he had found
just one documented case of callIe death
caused by mosquitoes: It was in Florida,
during the I930s. "But," he added, "I suspect we've had caseS of this kind of death,,in past years and we just haven't documented them."
SOURCE: AP dispatch in the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Journal. 9120/80. CREDIT: R. Heiden.

~
Relative Triangles
Take a map of East Asia that shows the
China coast, the Philippine Islands, and
Taiwan. Draw lines connecting Hong Kong,
Manila, and Taipei. The triangle so formed
encloses a huge area of the South China Sea,
and the official newspaper of tne People's
Republic of China suspects it may be .an
oriental clone of the famous Bermuda
Triangle.
' .
According to the Peking Evening News,
three ships "vanished without a trace"
within the area between May 1979 and
February 1980. "What is strange is that
searches of the scene of the disappearance
recovered nothing at all," the newspaper
reported. Then, reaching back into history
to 'the southern Sung period, the writers
found documents containing evidence of
similar goings-on 600 years ago. The documents told of ships disintegrating at sea on
calm, ~indless days. Also described were
waterspouts that suddenly appeared on the
sea, "and no matter how hard the oars
were rowed, the vessel could not move
forward."
The newspaper speculated that ship disappearances could be the work of huge
whirlpools formed by the convergence of
strong ocean currents in areas where islands
deflect the natural flow. Apparently no 'scientific study of the disappearances has been
made, and the newspaper recommended
that one should begin.
SOURCE: UPI dispatch from Peking. Miami

Herald, 2127/81. C;::REDIT: C. Berlitz.

Pursuit 37

Report on the Press

The Washington ~tar Tells How Capita~Area Forteans
Seek to Unlock CIA FUes BeDeved to Document UFOs

Area Group Faces Earthly Problems

.
By Suzanne Bilello
Washington Star Stal(Writer

Reprinted with permission of The Was~ington Star

1981 The Washington Star.

The "crazies" are giving 'serious students of UFOs a bad

. name, says an Arlington group searching for signs of extra.terrestrial life.
.
But that's not their only problem. The federal government
is giving them a hard time, by hiding "spectacular" evidence
of life beyond Earth.
Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, CAUS, is seeking documents on unidentified flying objects from the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency under the
federal Freedom of Information Act. They have lost one
round in U.S. District Court in Washington for those docu.
ments, but are appealing the decision. ..
The battle is being waged out of the South Arlington home
of one of its members and is being funded by a' UFO r'es~ch
group.
.
"It's a real David and Goliath thing," is how Richard
. Hall, a member of CAUS characterized the suit. "It's a battle'
to eke out this information.
.
"For one thing; I think the CIA has hard data such as rums
that would be much more convincing than someone's report
pf a light in the sky," Hall said. "Obviously the CIA has the
technology and resources to help determine if extraterrestrial
life exists. I'm strongly inclined to believe they have spectacular material they are withholding. "
CAUS is "a loosely formed umbrella group," members
said, that is wagip.g the legal fight on behalf of thousands of
UFO interest groups throughout the country. It took over
a freedom of information lawsuit begun by an Arizona-based
group called Ground Saucer Watch, Inc.
CAUS has received a $2,500 grant from the Washingtonarea Fund for UFO Research to finance the appeal. The fund
is a non-profit group formed a 'year ago by scientists, engineers
and UFO writers in the Washington area. It is based in Mount
Rainier, Md., and was formed to fund :'high quality scientific resear:ch" on UFOs.
.
It disassociates itself from "unscrupulous' persons who
have flooded the popular press with dis~orted and inaccurate
information" that has "confused the public. "
"WhaJ we are hoping to get out of this lawsuit are some
200 documents the CIA has," HaU said. A reference to these
docUments was made in some 1,000. pages .of UFO related
material the CIA has released to CAUS under the Freedom ~f
Information.Act.
. Hall has wri"tten e'lltensively on UFOs and is editor of the
J9urnal for Mutual UFO Network, a newsletter that deals

Pursuil38

.J

with UFo"data and information. He said he was a consultant

for the U.S. Air Force office of scientific research' 0.0 UFOs
from 1966 to 1968.
. Hall characterizes CAUSas a "serious" UFO group and
disowned the '.'sensational"" school of UFO literature that is
widely circulated.
"There are numerous newstand magaziIres that are a scandal and are grossly misinforming the public and just confusing
the entire issue." He said his journal, in contrast, is
reliable
publication. "
A CIA spokesman said the organization would not comment on the pending litigation. He did say that the CIA does
not release information that is classified and would either.
reveal a source or method of information gathering. . .
."Our position is "that we do not c:;oIlect information or do
any kind of research on unidentified flying objects," said
. Dale Peterson. "We do have research to maintain a close
watch on objects that could pose a national security problet:n: Co~uen~ly we 'do get information that could relate
tP. UFOs. What has happened over the years is that many
documents on 'UFOs have come to us. "
Dr. Bruce S. Maccabee, a physicist for the U.S. Navy Department. who is chairman of the Fund for UFO Research,
obtained documents on UFO sightings from tlie Federal
Bureau of Investigation four years ago under -the Freedom of
Information Act. In 'that case the FBI deleted the names of
sources and special agents before relcilsing the data. "If they
(CIA) don't want to tell us how they got the infQrm~~on that's
fme," Maccabee said. "But they should tell' us what they
have." - .
Some members of the Arlington group were reluctant to be
interviewed. They' are government employees and do not
want to flaunt a lawsuit they are waging against the government. One m~ber described the lawsuit as "controversial."
Members of the Fund for UFO Research were asked if the
group is taken .seriously.
"I think the stigma of UFOs' is over," said Fred Whiting,
an aide for a Long Island Congressman who is publicity
director of the Fund for UFO Research. "People ~e interested .
in what there is' to' know. I'm never laughed at 'or scorned
because I spend a lot of my spare time on UFO matters.'~
Not every member of CAUS or the research group is co~
vinced that extraterrestrial life exists. And that is one reason
the lawsuits are being brought.
. .
"The. popular theory is that there is some extraterrestrial '.
life, '.' Hall said. "The more objective of us are ti-ying to find
out if that is 'the case. "
"We don't take any' stand on the outcome of our research,"
Whiting said. But, as Maccabee pointed out, "If we didn't
.think something was going oli we wouldn't be wasting our
. time.'.'.. i
.
.
.

"a

FiI'st Quanei' 1981

./

Books
THE STONES OF ATLANTIS by Dr. David Zink (prenin substantiation than the first. Subtitled "A Journey to the
World's Most Mysterious Megalithic Sites," it is a guided
tice-Hall, Englewood Clflfs, NJ 1978, 234 pp., maps,
photos, appendices and bibliography, $9.95 hardcouer)
tour of various places in both the Old and New Worlds,
plus the Pacific, where exist huge stone structures made
THE ANCIENT STONES SPEAK by David D. Zink (E. P.
some millenia ago.
Dutton, New York 1979, 202 pp., maps, photos~ appen, We visi,t Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid, New Hampdices, glossary, bibliography and i",dex, $9.95 paper)
shire's
Mystety Hill, Easter'Island, Machu Picchu and other
Leaving aside science-fantasy writers, whose creative
famous
spots. I envy Zink the trips he's taken, but I can't,
imaginations can weave almost any idea into fascinating ficon the basis of what he presents here, accept his belief that
tion, the Atlantean camp is divided into two groups: the
studies such as his demonstrate the historical existence "of
believers and the non-believers.
' ,
people
as intelligent and as sophisticated as we are . . ."
For the believers, Atlantis was a fabled land situated on
Everything
we now know fails to substantiate such claims.
an island-continent off the Euro-African coast. In a fair
Megalithic construction, impressive as it is, does not necescountry of grace and beauty with a science far surpassing
sarily represent the work of arcane forces or supernal visitors.
ours, the people led joyful lives in harmony with nature
The
existence of super-civilizations (with or without ancient
until, led astray by corrupt leaders, they and their homeland
astronauts)
is far from proven or even reasonably conjecdisappeared beneath the ocean waves, victims of a ,catatured.
clysm so great as to leave no physical traces and only such
When '(it) solid proof is supplied, I'll believe. Until then,
fragments of legend ~ subsequently reached Plato's ears.
such
books as these remain best-suited as grist for the wordTo the non-believers, this is all ,pure twaddle. Atlantis,
mills
of fiction writers.
to them, is merely a utopian tale told by Plato as a com- George WEI
~
ar ey
mentary on man's difficulty in governing himself.
THE RIGHT BRAIN: A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF
Dr. David Zink (the Ph.D. is in English literature) dwells
'THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND AND ITS CREATIVE
in the camp of the believers. Starting as aD. armchair rePOWERS by Thomas'R. Blakeslee (Anchor Press/Doublesearcher during his days of graduate study, Zink decided in
day, 1980; 270 pp., illustrated, appendix, notes, extensiue
1973 that the time had come to go on-site and conduct his
bibliography, hardback, $10.95. ISBN: 0-385-15099-7)
own investigations. The Stones of Atlantis is a somewhat informal account of several expeditions.
This is one of those fascinating books that gives a reader
Zink had learned of apparent underwater megalithic blocks
that satisfying "aha" feeling. Suddenly things fall into place.
found off Bimini by Dr. J. Manson Valentine and had no
YO':l realize why learning to dance can be a pain, even if danctrouble fitting them into the Atlantis mythos woven by the
ing is lots of fun. And that- your "unconscious" or "sublate psychic Edgar Cayce whose views Zink has adsorbed.
conscious" mind is really quite aware after all; it simply doesThe book teUs of considerable on-site diving and about
n't speak well. And now you know why, when Uncle Dan
"readings" of esoteric etheric energy "felt" by the various
had his stroke and couldn't speak coherently, he could still
curse a blue streak.
'
psychics who accompanied several Zink expeditions. Included in the psyctucally derived data from some of the sites
Thomas Blakeslee is an inventor and engineer who is the
is the claim that ancient astronauts from the Pleiades, defounder and vice-president of Logisticon, a multi-millionscribed as "beings of radiance and light, emissaries of good
dollar maker of warehouse and computer guidance systems.
will," have visited Earth and "aided mankind in times of
H~s book summarizes the current status of our knowledge
difficult Earth evolutions ... " Perhaps they did, but saying
about the specialized functiollJi of the two hemispheres of the
so does not make it so, and Zink offers precious little in the
human brain. The findings are based on numerous observaway of hard fact and provably man-made artifacts.
tions of normal people, patients who have suffered strokes or
Among the photographs provided is a fuzzy picture of
had part of their brains removed (as much as an entire hemisphere, usually along with a tumor), but especially a series of
an underwater column (the fuzziness is attributed to some
experiments performed by Roger Sperry and his students at
sort of radiation seen by the camera but not by the camerathe California Institute of Technology. In the 1950s Sperry
man) and a stone block Zink calls "the marble head." It is
had experimented with animals by surgically separating the
about as close to a head as many of today's objects of modtwo I:temispheres of the brain and, then studying the animals'
ern art are to' the objects they allegedly depict.
behavior. In 1962 doctors confronted the case of a 48-yearI would not argue that there are no large stone objects
beneath the waters off Bimini; but that they are necessarily / old war veteran who had such serious epileptic seizures that
one hardly stopped before the next began. After all efforts
man-made, or creations of an unknown culture far surto control the seizures had failed, the two hemispheres were
passing any for which we have' records, is very much open
surgically divided. The seizures stopped completely, and the
to question, Zink has, unfortunately, provided us not with,
personality of the patient seemed virtually unchanged. The
answers but with speculation. And before he, or any other
operati<:>n was subsequently repeated on dozens of similar
Atlantean adherents 'assail me for my vieWs, I suggest a care,patients, although it is infrequently performed now, thanks
ful reading of Atlantis: Fact or Fiction (Indiana University
to the effectiveness of modern drug therapy. '
Press 1978) which Edwin Ramage ediu:d from papers pre, Sperry and his students studied these split-brain patieJ;l.ts.
sented at a 1975 panel discussion on Atlantis.
'
For example, a picture was projected on a scr~n directly
Zink's second book is even more ,sp~ative and lacking
Arlit Qaader 1981

Pursull39

in front of the patient, who stan;d at a dot jn the center of. the
. screen. As in all of 1,lS, the left half of the patient's visual field,
perceived by both eyes, was transmitted to the right hemisphere of the brain; the right visual field w~s transmitted to
the left hemisphere. If the word "pencil" appeared in. the
right visual field, the patient could ea'iily say the word, since
_ the left hemisphere includes the speech center. But when the
word was in the left visual field, the patient was unable to say
what it was, .confirming that the right hemisphere is virtually
incapable of controlling normal ~peech. When "pencil" was
in the left visual field, however, the patient could easily respond to a spoken instruction and feel with his left hand
(controlled by the right brain) behind a barrier to choose a
pencil from among several objects. Thus, the right hemisphere
could understand spoken and written language but could not
speak (or write). Certainly it was quite aware and conscious.
We have long known that different functions were located
in different hemispheres (disco~ered by observing P!ltients
.with strokes, brain tumors, etc I), but the observations of
split-brain patients helped us to understand that the two halves
of our brains think in distinctly different ways. The left brain
is the language specialist that thinks in words and excels at the
. kind of one-step-at-a-time logical sequences that are the basis
of language and mathematics. The right brain thinks in images
.and is much more capable than the left brain at recognizing
I and manipulating complex visu.i1 patterns. The right brain
also seems to be the seat of emotions or feelings. In normal
people, the two hemispheres communicate across the nerve
pathways called the corpus callosum. Thus, written words
se'en in ttie left visual field. go to the right brain but are instantly
sent to the left hemisphere for interpretation. And the right
brain adds emotional coloring to the speech controlled by the
left-brain.
.
.
Blakeslee divides his book into two sections: a general
d.iscussion of the revolution in our. understanding of the separate functions of the two hemispheres, and the experimental
evidence upon which this understanding is based . .The first
'section emphasizes that the so-called unconscious mind is
really the visually oriented right hemisphere, and that it is
certainly "conscious," constantly assimilating inputs from
the senses and contributing the results to our thoughts, actions
and feelings. When asked, however, how you think, you try
to ariswer in words, and speech comes only from the left
hemisphere, which doesn't really understand how the right
hemisphere thinks. The left brain, therefore, .calls the right
brain '.'unconscious" or "subconscious!" Although OUl'
,\creativity often depends upon the conceptualizations of the
right brain, which are then interpreted and put into logical
sequence in the left brain, most of our moderr) educational
procedJJres concentrate on the left hemisphere and ignore the
'right. A theme running through BlIlkeslee's book is the suggestion that our educational system should recognize and
train the capabilities of the right hemisphere as well as the
left.
I really became caught up in the book when Blakeslee talks
about "Inner Tennis" and "Inner Skiing." These are titles of
books written by Tim Gallwey plus Bob Kriegel who helped
with Inner Skiing. The authors apparently knew nothing
about the right/left hemispheres and their activities, but they
realized from their own experience that when one tries to
master a skill or sport, it is as if there were two people or
"selves'.' inside one's head, one "self" comm~ding, another
"self" Performing. S~, whe.n my ",:ife talks me into taking

ballroom dancing lessons, the instructions are first accepted

. and recorded in the verbal left hemisphere, but it is the right
hemisphere that will eventually respond to the music and
coordinate my rhythmical body movements to take me around
the floor. The lessons drive me up the wall, beCause my poor
left hemisphere is trying to make my feet move in ways that
are unfamiliar to both my left brain and myfeet. But when
I let Glenn Miller music move me through the steps of the.old.
South High drag, long since etched into the neurons of my
right hemisphere, then I experience the purest. of pleasures.
And, of course, one's love-life~ay be most satisfactory when .
directed by the right hemisphere-with suitable tempering
from the logical left ! ,
,
Blakeslee continues with many details. For example, the
separation of function is much more complete in some people
than in others (on average, more in males than in females).
A high degree of hemisphere specialization (with a suiiable
ability of the hemispheres to cooperate) can perhaps account ,.
for a towering genil,ls, but such specialization can be a slight.
disadvantage in activities requiring verbal fluency, speed and
attention to detail. About 5070 of the population have speech
control in the right hemispher~ and conceptualization in the
left. To see if you are among the 5070, focus on the n.oses of
the two drawings. Which face is the happy one? If the bottom
face leoks ~appy to you, your emotionsare in. the right hemisphere (about 95070 of ~he population), so your right braiJ) "felt

First Q....... 1981 .

. Pursuit 40
./

/.

most qualified to answer a question about happiness. Since

the right brain directly sees the smile on the left side of the
lower picture (or the frown on the'left side of the upper picture), it decides that the lower face is the happy one. (Both
faces are identical mirror images.) If you picked the upper
one as happy, there's a good chance that you are among the
5% with emotions in the left brain. If so, you probably are
left-handed, writing with your hand straight up, rather than
inverted into a hook.
Acd yes, why can Uncle Dan, who had the .stroke, curs~
but not speak coherently? Because, while his speech center is
damaged, cursing is an emotional form of expression that the
.
right brain feels it should control.
Of course, there is much more in the book. Those of us
who read Pursuit must be intrigued by mysteries, and it is
especially satisfying to us when an occasional mystery clears
in the light of understanding. Solving some of the mysteries
of my own behavior made the book lots of fun for me to read ..
Perhaps you can have a similar experience.
-Frank B. Salisbury

SAGA AMERICA by Barry Fell (Times Books, New York,

1980; xviii + 425 pp., photos, drawings, appendix, index
and end papers; $15.00)
It has only been within the past 20 years th.at scholars and
scientists have begun to take seriously the contention by a few
researchers that Columbus' voyages were not the first to the
New World. Viking visits and colonizations, long dismissed
as Norse nonsense, are now widely accepted even though
they have yet to be adequately (and accurately) included in
school textbooks.
Reeent discoveries, documented both in this book and in
Professor Fell's earlier America B.C. (published in 1976 and
hereby heartily commended to your attention) strongly support his thesis that both trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific trips
to the Americas may have begun as early as 300 B.C.
The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, Fell believes,
interrupted Carthaginian trade with colonies established in
America, although trade was resumed once Rome destroyed
her mercantile rival and gained unquestioned supremacy in
the Old World.
Fell's documentation for this unorthodox thesis comes
from hundreds of rock markings found throughout our continent. He and his associates have taken literally dozens of
copies of such so<alled "Amerindian inscriptions" to scholars
in Libya. Says Fell: "Markings that archeologists have called
'Great Basin Curvilinear,' or similar names, and which have
been supposed to be meaningless "Indian magic signs, are
r~gnized by Libyans" and readily translated by them.
Fell has little patience with archeologists who concentrate
on broken pots, arrowheads, tool fragments, and ruins of
buildings while refusing to even consider the findings of experts in ancient writings. "What these inscrip.tions are telling
us," writes Fell, "is that, until now, we have been acting like
illiterates, collectfng the relics of vanish~d peoples and trying
to reconstruct their lives without paying attention to the written records that they have bequeathed to us: Fragments of
pottery have been made the basis of our interpretation of
history."
. This is not to say that FeU ignores artifacts, for he has found
a substantial number-many scattered in museums through.ouf tht: land and hitherto thc;)Ught to pe either fakes or of

Indian make-which he believes are either Old World originals

or copies made from them.
. Saga America is crammed with photos and drawings of
rock markings and artifacts, including mathematical calculating devices, maps, navigational aids, standards of measurements, and innumerable messages. Indeed, the reader who is
willing to work a bit will find it possible to understand "early
Am~rican math" and to perform some ~alculations of gradelevel difficulty.
.
Saga America proves, I think, that as we acquire more
knowledge, we often discover that what once seemed true is
true no longer. This does not mean that the former "truth"
was a lie, but simply that it was an assumption based on incomplete data. That seems to be the case with our current
"official" beliefs about pre-Columbian history. I agree with
Fell that "our whole idea that America was an unknO\\'n
continent 2000 years ago is false. It was a busy trading area,
with shipping on both coasts." Don't argue against the idea
until you've read Saga America.
-George w. Earley

CASEBOOK OF A UFO RESEARCHER by Raymond

E. Fowler (Reward Books, Prentice Hall, Englewood Clflfs,
N.J., 1981; 246 pp., illust., index, $11.95; paperback
$5.95)
It should be of some satisfaction, if only because the
trend rarely continues, that several worthwhile books on
UFOs have appeared recently, and the January release of
Raymond Fowler'S third book signals a: good start for 1981
as a time for hopeful, diligent and productive investigation
of the UFO phenomenon ..
Casebook of a UFO Researcher is similar in format to
that of Fowler's 1974 volume, UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors.
Both are conducive to easy, informative reading, and they
are certainly more amenable to comprehension than the
bizarre UFO-abduction puzzle laid out in Fowler's complex
The Andreasson Affair.
This time around with Fowler's writing it is abundantly
clear that part of his fine, interest-compelling style is a legacy from Major Donald E. Keyhoe (USMC ret.). Fowler
admits to emulating Keyhoe's pioneering investigative work,
for he was closely associated for many years with the major's
organization, NICAP. .
In Casebook we are treated to a personally conducted
historical tour for a look-back at some of the notable pages
in UFO annals. Along the way the author puts in parallel
the details of his own concurrent research.
It is heartening to note that Fowler writes of his own and
his fellows' work as worthy of honor and dignity. He maintains a balanced view of UFO history, ~uch as contactees,
sighting reports, and the good-bad-and-ugly mores of prom:inent UFO organizations and personalities. Fowler's attacks
. on alleged government secrecy and censorship are relentless.
His chapters .on "Haunted Witnesses" and "Retrievals of
the Third Kind" are pertinent to ongoing research.
Not all readers will like, or accept, all of the perso.lal
theories he espouses, but almost everyone will get something
of value out of CasebQok as they find the opinions wellexpressed and the anecdotes thoroughly enjoyable.
One aspect of this book is unique: It tells what a good
researcher shouid be. You can .take it from Ray Fowler," for
he's one of the best.
-Robert Barrow

ON A SliDE OF UGHT by Greta Woodrew (Macmillan,

'New York. 1981. 176 pp., $12.95)
If you wish to work as a psychic, no agency of public or
'private domain will consider your background, education
and trainirig, give you an examination, then grant or deny
,your application for, a license. Instead, you have to stand,
not for a few days or hours but forever, before the most
severe ,of all examiners, the skeptical public, and present
such evidence of character and expertise as will win a verdict
of credibility.
No doubt this is why Greta Woodrew, whose psychic life
is, reflected laser-sharp On a Slide oj Light, took the precaution of securing the slide to a solid autobiographical base
to which each chapter contributes support.
You wouldn't believe half her story if you thought the
source was a "merely average" upper middle-class C~nnec
ticut hc;usewife and mother of four who chose to confide
, tales of some rather unlikely encounters while approaching
her 50th birthday. But the level of your incredulity would
start dropping the moment you learned from page one that
Ms. Woodrew is also president of her own long-established ,
executive search firm, holds the Phi Beta Kappa achievement award plus an honorary LL.D. degree, and has been
married for 28 years; and that her husband, Richard, heads
his own company, and their four children are in or just out
of three of the East's better-known colleges.
, Bow much credulity, or incredulity, will remain in your'
mind when you have finished this book is difficult to guess.
What does seem certain is that you will long remember
dr,eta Woodrew as both person and author. Each chapter
On a Slide oj Light illuminates one or more facets of a life
warmed by friendship, dignified by honesty, and lavished
in sharing.
, If the story I am about to unravel were just my own,
it would not be necessary for me to t~y to 'bend' your

IJIlrlds as i have' frequently bent stainless steel spoons

with my mind. But I have been ,advised that even at the
risk of disrupting my private life, my experiences should
become a matter of public record; 'because certain vital
changes are starting to occur that will escalate and
affect every living creature on the planet . . .
So reads the foreword which announces the Woodrew
thesis., Her position is that paranormal activities are'explain.
able when traditional thinking is expanded from a base" of
normal sensory perception. The thesis develops through discussion of her years of experience and experiments in metalbending, psychometry. telepathy, psychic healing and psychokinesis. She describes and greatly credits the help of two
men who expedited' her journeys into the world of psi: 'her'
husband, Dick, and Dr. Andrija Puharich, whom she reveres
as one of the world's leading.l~uthorities on,parapsychology.'
It was Dr. Puharich who affirmed her reciptivity to contact
by entities from the "Ogatta" planet of another solar syst.em;
he and Dick witnessed and tape-recorded the dialogue that
is' expounded and annotated in this book as the "public
record" projected in the author's f"reword. More On a
Slide oj Light may noi be told here without impair.ing the
reader's sense of anticipation, and this is one book that
deserves to impact at full throttle.
There is a custom among psychics and writers on psychic'
phenomena to put into neat array a variety of experiences,
then to extrapolate or let a hortatory statement be made, to
, finalize the theme and draw out a "meaning." Ms. Woodrew follows the custom, but unlike thosc' of some contemporaries, her conclusiori reflects neither bitterness nor any.
hint of malice. It does invite a wish to someday find for
ourselves the path, so clearly marked for her, leading to
life-fulfillment in this world as well as in the other dimen, sion she calls "out there."
. -Fred Wilson

Meaos & MisceDany

Coming Events

June 27, 1981-18th Annual National ,UFO Conference.

At Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, De Pere, Wisconsin.
, James W. Moseley, William 'Moore, Col. Wendelle C.
, Stevens (USAF-Ret.) and Rick Hilberg are exPected to
address the all-day Saturday sessions. For further details
and reservations, write: Ron Spanbauer, P.O. Box 172,
De Pere, WI 54115 USA.
July 5-1 f-"The 1981 Rainbow Experience of 'Transition
Through Transformation'." At Elizabethtown College,
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. For information write:
Life Spectrums/Larry Arnold, P.O. Box 373, Harrisbu'rg,
PA 17108 USA.

fill

."

Who, or What, Shot "J.N."?

According to its charter, SITU/PURSUIT is'supposed to

investigate the unexplained. But what do we do when the inexplicable happens in the editorial office? We have been
trying to' find out why the 'by-line of J. N. Williamson waS
misprinted "J. B. Williamson" at the head of his very competent article, "Astrology: The' Way It May Work," on
page 158 of the Fall issue (Pursuit NQ. 52). Wh3:t makes it \
Pursait42 "

worse: The error got by two editors and three proofreaders.

So did the misspelling of Sagittarius; everybody knows (or
has hastened to write) that this venerable Zodiac sign always
has two "ts" and never two "gs" as we had it. Like many
an "authority" who confronts an apparently unso,lvable
crime, the best way out is to pronounce the case closed.
But not without most sincere apologies to J. N. Williamson, and to SagiTTarius.

Hope Beyond Experience?

Fifty-seven percent of U.S. adults believe in UFOs, but
only 13 percent believe in Bigfoot. These among assorted
aspects of our national profile are presented in The ,uA verage American" Book by Barry Tarshis. AmQng,other TarShis
findings:
,
-52070 of adult Americans approve of unmarried couples
living together, and '
, '
-50% of married men admit to cheating on their' wives,
, but it's really not all that bad, his, figures suggest, beca\,l~e
-even though the average American' devotes 18 days
a year to being sick,
I
: '
-79% of American parerits say they believe in life after
death. '
"

Fnt ~.111'1_ 1981

"

.Letters
The 'Lake George Monster' was
refloated 75 years after its famous
hoaxing escapades so that Jim
Masten could photograph it for
the cover of Pursuit No. 51 (Summer 1980). Joe Zarzynski's story
disclosed that a successful monster
doesn't need to be monstrous to
be scary: it just has to look like
what people think a monster
looks like.

Dear Editor:
To answer your cover question of Pursuit No. 51, "Have
you ever seen a monster like
..../. ":.:.~: this one?", the answer is yes,
. . . .:,.:. .:.:.: .:. :. . . and here it is, from SITU's
files.
- The Publisher

'''~$~~!;
'

...
o

"

\(~r~tf$,tq,~j.
'Seeing is
ALMOST

l::lzear Sirios is proud

of his pet monster. Mr.
Sirios lives near big Lake
Pohenemagcipk, Quebec. He
is an "absolute believer" that the lake
is home to an awesome water-serpent.
A number of wooden "replicas" like
this one are kept In his backyard, not
to scare folks but simply to give public
reassurance of his belief. Sightings of
lake monsters (and Sasquatches) have
been reported from the region for more
than' one hundred years. (NEA photo
from the Alameda Times-Star,'
Calif., 8/3/78)
At left is a naruml monster-a twoheaded female goat born on a farm
north of San Francisco early this year.
(UPI telephoto from The Tennesseean,'
Nashville, 3/3/81, credit H. Holland)

It is a pity that the ingenious theory of Edgar Wilson

(Pursuit No. 52, Fall 1980) linking the three major pyramids
at Giza with the three planets Earth, Venus and Mercury
should be marred by an attack on Velikovsky and catastrophism. In fact, should his theory prove correct, it would
prpvide substantial evidence that. there was indeed visible
cosmic disturbance prior to 1450 B.C.
In order for his theory to 'work, Wilson correctly assumes
that the plan for 'the building of the Pyramid of Mycerinus

first Qwuter 1981

\ .

Had been changed during the time of construction, and he

uses the assumed earlier plan for his linkage with Mercury.
What he fails to mention is that there is the same substantial evidence for changes of plan in the other two pyramids. I. E. S. Edwards, in The Pyramids of Egypt, states
'in reference to the Pyramid of Cephren (p. 154): "If, however, it be supposed that, when the chamber and corridor
were constructed, it was_planned to build the Pyramid some
200 f1. further north, both the chamber and the entrance

would have occupied their normal positions." He fails to

mention that if this were the cas!! and if the chamber were
in iis normal position towards the center. of the pyramid,
the pyramid would also have been smaller.
"
So here we have a situation similar to Wilson's Mercury
Pyramid whereby the Venus Pyramid also has changed
features which would alter" in Wilson's terms, the size of
Venus and its orbital veloci'ty. .
Again assuming Wilson's hypothesis to be correct, it
might throw some light on some of the puzzling features of
the Pyramid of Cheops which alsd experienced changes in
the course of construction. We would expect to find that
the size of the pyramid never ch8nged in its planning (i.e.,
the size of Earth with which he identifies this pyramid also
never changed size), nor would the position of the subter-'"
ranean chamber, had the Earth's orbital velocity remained
the same. However, additional chambers were added to the
pyramid: first, the so-called Queen's Chamber with two
shafts which point toward the outside of the pyramid but
which were never finished; and the King's Chamber which
was add~d with two so-called "air channels" that dp reach
the surface, starting about three feet from the floor.
, If Wilson is correct in his identification of the pyramids
with the planets, we have to assume that substantial interest
was taken by the Egyptians in what was happening in the
sky at the time. The massive amount of work involved in
building the pyramids would seem to suggest that what"'was
happening in the sky at that time was more dYnamic than
the present, else why bother? More important, why keep
changing the plans?
The answer must be because the sights themselves were
changing and the plans were changed to accommodate them.
This would solve the riddle of the purpose of the shafts that
come. from the Queen's and King's Chambers in that they
might be sighting tubes, the original ones from the Queen's
Chamber having become redundant at the time the pyramid
was built.
. What Wilson has proved is that dynamic changes were
taking place at the time the pyramids were being built. What
is still uncertain is the nature of the changes and the exact
time-span during which they \~ere made. Courville, in The
Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, makes a case for
the building to have taken place much later than 2700 B.C.,
.Wilson's estimate. Discussion of this and pther fine points.
of Velikovsky's theories would need more space than is
available here. Suffice it to say that if Wilson is correct in'
his identifications he casts doubt on "the possibility that
niajor orbital changes took place after c. 2700 B.C. will be
substantially refuted."
. -Michael S. Sanders
Thomas Helm, in his book Dangerous Sea Creatures
(Funk & WagnaU 1976, pp. 142-44), states that while fishing .
off the. west coast of Florida he spotted a hammerhead
shark (Sphyrna mokarra) lying on the bottom about a quarter of a mile offshore. He stopped the engine and drifted
around for some time, counting the hammerheads that lay
dead on the bottom. Th~re were twenty-five, "scattered
helter-skelter over an area of not more than one acre."
He goes on to say that he, pulJed several sharks to the
. s~rface with a snatch-hook attached to, a heavy line. He
found "that each had a deep gash (italics added-J.M.).
between
the wide 'head and
the gill slits. in a .few cases the",
.
.

nearly identical euts:were pr~t on both the right and ieft

sides. There were no other signs ~f injury and the ~ounds
were certainly not deep e,nough to have brought abol,lt death.
so suddenly that aU would.have died in the immediate area."
Helms questioned many of the area fishermen,. asking if
they or anyone they knew had killed any hammerheads in
large numbers like that. No one had. He. also questioned
several marine biologists about the matter, but none could
offer an explanation.
Reading this led me to wonder whether it might be a case
of "marine mutilation." That would make it a "flrse' for
, me, and I wonder whether it might also be the first incident
of the kind ever reported.
-John E. Marshall

Jon Beckjord, in his article "A New Method for Calculating Sasquatch Weight" (Pursuit No. 50, Spring 1980),
has made the very useful suggestion of applying formulas of
soil mechanics to the imprints left by Sasquatch. However, I feel that certain things need to be poin~ed out.
..
Mr. Beckjord says that settlement is inversely proportional to the area of the imprint. Which means that a weight
of 100 kg on an area of 100 cm 2 makes an imprint twice as
deep as the same weight on an area of 200 cm 2
However, I do not believe this to be in accordance with
Boussinesq's formula: (s =..l.. fm2 - 2 ~). Let us
2 [ m 2 R:EJ
assume, just for the sake of simplicity, that for a certain
type of soil the quantity 1 m2 - 2 x .l.happens to be equal
2 m2
E
to 0.1.
Then, for that type of soil, the formula becomes:

s = Wt x 0.1

... (1),
Ro
wh~re Wt is the weight in kg and .Ro is the radius of a
circular test plate in cm:
. Suppose now we take a weight of 100 kg and a circular
. test plate with an area of 100 cm 2 Using the formula for
the area of a circle (area = 1I"R~ where 11" = 3.14... ) we can
conclude that Ro = 5.64 cm. Substituting this value'in
formula (1), we get s = 100 x 0.1 = 1.77 cm. If we now
5.64
.
take 100 kg and 200 cm 2, then Ro = 7.98 cm and
s = 1.25 cm. Thuswe see that 2 x 1.25 ,,;. L77.
It would seem that, according to the formula, settlement
is not inversely proportional to the area of the cir:c1e, but
rather is inversely proportional to the radius, in other words,
the square root of the area.
.
If the above reasoning is correct, the factor to compensa~~
for larger foot size (in the Bluff Creek example) should not
be 1.53 but rather -Jf33 = 1.237. Hence:
,.
conservative estimate 990 pounds or 448.8 kg
midrange
1650 pounds
748.4 kg
liberal
2969 pounds
1346.5 kg
The weight of the Sasquatch would then be in the. region .
of ~. ton, still an abnormally large value.
Of course, in estima~es of this kind, one: can only ho~ .
to get the order of magnitude right, since there are so many .
possible source!! of measl,lrement-error. For instance, an er~or.
of 0.1. em in settlement results in an error of 25 .kg in weight
an4 it is doubtful whether such an accuracy of 0.1 -em will .
ever be achieved.
.
.
J.

FII'St Quanei'
1981
I
.

PursultM
.1
I.

Notwithstanding these errors, it must be stressed that the

methods of soil mechanics are still the best we have in order
to gain some idea of the weight of a Sasquatch, at least,
until someone captures one. Mr. Ikckjord is to be applauded
for having introduced these methods to the field of Sasquatch
-Blomme Ronny
biology.
,Belgium
The photograph I am sending (see below) shows an entity
that I believe to be one of the family of "invisible critters"
as photographed by Trevor Constable and .reproduced in
Pursuit No. 49 (Winter 1980) along with the "Open Letter"
article by John White.

This picture was taken by me in my yard in Calgary, Alberta, at 4 p.m. November 22, 1980. There were no clouds
in the sky at the time, nor was there_&nything visible to me
when I took the picture. The sun was just going down.
The camera was a Minqlta SRT-200. Film usecl was Kodak
High-speed Infra-red with an RM90 filter. Angle to the
h')rizontal was about 60 degrees. A.S.A. was 75 at }11 and
1/60 sec. focused at infinity.
.
I have a set'of three frames with the same entity on them
and it does nqt appear to have moved from frame to frame.
It appears only on the 3rd, 4th and 6th frames. On the 5th
frame I did not use the RM90 filter (which lets into the
camera only ultra-violet and infra-red light), and that is
probably the reason why it did not show up on the negative.
If any reader can offer some explanation for the entity in
this picture it would be much appreciated.
.-Erich Krug
On page 132 of Pursuit No. 51 (Summer 1980) is a review of Alternative Three by Watkins, Ambrose and Mills.
I should point ouf that this is fiction. It is based on a long
film. described as "documentary" put with actors (some
well known!) playing the parts, including those of the scien-

F"ust Quarter 1981

ti$ls. The film was meani to go out [on British TV] on April
Fool's Day, but a strike delayed it. Some dubious faction.;
picked up on it and quoted it as fact. The program scared
many and TV switchboards were jammed for hours.
- Terry Hooper
Bristol, England
I am enclosing a copy of a Polaroid photograph. The
original was taken at noon in the Arabian desert by a very
unsophisticated Arab, of something taking off after it landed
near his house. None of the electromagnetic effects seen in
the picture was seen by the onlookers. I have sent it to many
places and nobody has commented or offered to comment:
Do you have anyone who can analyze the original?
-Michael S. S~.nders ,
.

Since we do not have in-house facilities for photoanalysis (or. "enhancement" of photographs by laser,
computer, etc.) we can only pass along to Mr. Sanders
. any suggeslions that may be offered by members who
share his interest in filmed anomalies or the anomalies
o.f./IIm, whichever this is.
-Editor
Perhaps some of our readers may be able to'help me with
a research project. I am an electrical engineer and do lots of
research in odd areas of electronics, physics and radio.' I'm
looking for information, stories, clippings, etc., about anomolous and delayed-return radio signals, i.e., radio signals
that are mysterious or "anywhere they don't belo~g," or
that pop up after their transmitter goes off the air. I use the
term "radio" in its technical sense: any signal on the radiofrequency spectrum, from broadcast, utility, shortwave,
AM, FM or TV to radar.
Please let me know of anything you have that might be
relevant. I'd be happy to pay photocopying and mailing
'costs for copies of clippings and documents mailed to me at
2 Fairview Terrace, Airmont Acres, Suffern, NY 10901,
telephone 914-:-357-7266. But please, no collect calls.
- Vincent J. Pinto
Pursuit.45

THE NOTES OF CHARLES FORT

Dedph~ by Carl J. Pabst
"

"

"

ABBREVIATIONS
abo
acto
(AI)
Am J. Sci
An. deChimie
Annals of Phil. N.S.
An Reg
An. Sci Disc"
An. Soc Met de Fran~'C
ap
attrib
B
BA

B.D.
"B Eagle
bet
Bib. Vniv.
BO

B. Rain
C
Chester Co . Pa
Co. Mayo
C.R.
(Cut)

about
according- to
[? Almanac?)
American Journal oj Science
A nnales de Chimie
Annals o/Philosophy. new series
Annual Register
Annals oj Scientific Discovery
Annales de la Societe Meteorologique de France
appeared
attributed
[?)
Report of the British Assot:iationfor the
Advancement 0/ Scient'e
The Book of the Damned
Brooklyn Eagle
between
Bibliographie Universelle
"It is ,;ear from the arrangement of the note"s
that he [Fort) was searching his chronological
arrangement and piucking out specific notes
for a future book in which.he would refer to
these data as opprobrious to the Scientists for
their odor. 0 ... (The Forteon. 113. p. 14. c.l)
Black Rain

(?)

The Book of the Damned. page 42

Detonating meteor
dry fog
disappeared
Edinburgh Philosophical Journal
English Mechanic
east-noriheast
England
Ext raordinary
Fletcher's List
Finley's Report
France

(F)

Finley's Rept
(Fr)

111

0-42
"Det.m!:t
d fog
disap
Edin Phil Jour
EMec.
e.N-e.
Eng
Ext

that mere smokiness cannot account

for such "awe-inspiring dark days."
So he conceives of eddies in the air,
[BCF, pp. 233-234:
concentnitiog the smoke from forest
As to darknesses that have fallen
fires. Then, in Ihe inconsistency or'
upon vast areas. conventionality isdiscord of all quasi-intellection thaI
smoke from forest fires. In the U.S.
is striving for consistency or harForest Service Bulletin, No. 117."" mony, he tells of the vastness of
,F. G. Plummer gives a list of eighteen
some of these darknesses. Of course
darknesses that have occurred in the
Mr. Plummer did not really think
United States and Canada. He is
upon this subject, but one does feel
one of the primitives, bUI I should
Ihat he might have approximated
say that his dogmatism is shaken by
higher to real thinking ihan by
vibrations from Ihe New Dominant.
speaking of concentration and then
His difficulty, which he acknowlisting data of enormous area, or"
ledges, but which he would have
the opposite of circumstances of
concentration-because, of his ninedisregarded had he written a decade
or so earlier, is the profundity of
teen instances, nine are set (fown as "
some" of these obscuratiQns. He says
covering all Nc:w England. In quasi-

1819

(Continued from previous issue)

~entleman ~

hour~

Hist Astro
(Hul
Inf: conjundilln'

History of Astronomy
Hungary
Inferior conjunction
haly
Journal oj the Franklin Im"I/"lIlIe
Kentucky
linnean Society
living
l,ondon Ma/!.a:.ine
London times
Malla:::ine oj Natllra{Hiswry
Maga~ine of Science
Maga:.ine oj Poplilar Science

(Itf
.I. F.lnst
Ky.

Chester County. Pennsylvania

County Mayo
Comptes Rendus "
illustrated

(D)

Gent's Mag.

Linnean So.:.
(Liv)
london Mag
I.T
Mag Nat'HiM
Mag of Sci.
MagPopSd
Mass.
Mem. R. A. S.
met
M.W.R.
N
N. Hampshire
N. Eng
N.M.
Nor. Car.
n.w.
N.Y. Ev Post
obj "
"Op. Mar~
p.
phe "
Ph. Mag
Polt
q

q. J. Roy Inst
R

S.
Sci Amer
tho storm
trans. Lit Soc Bombay
Va.
vok
Vt.
W.lndies

Malla:.ine

Ma~sachuselh

Memoirs oj the Royal Astronomicul Saci('t...

meleor
Month~v Weather Review
NOrlh
New Hampshire
New England
No More
NOrlh Carolina
northwest
New York Evening Post"
object
Opposition Mars
page
phenomena
Philosophical Magazine
Poltergeist
earthquake
Quarterly Journal oj the Royal Institute
Reference
South
Scientific American
thunderstorm
Transoctions oj the Literary Society oj Bombay
Virginia
'
volcano "
Vermont
West Indies

existence, everything generates or is

part of its own opposite. "Every
attempt at peace prepares the way
for war; all attempts at juslice
result in injustice in some other
respect: so Mr. Plummer's attempt
to bring order into his data, with
the explanation of darkness caused
by smoke from forest fires, results in such confusion that he ends
up by saying that these daytime
darknesses have occurr.ed "often
with lillIe or no turbidity of the air
near the earth's surface"-or "with
no eviden~ at all of smoke-except that there is almosl always
a forest fire somewhere.
However, ~f the.eightj:Cn instances,
the only one that I'd botlier 10 con-

test" is the profound darkness in

Canada and northern parts of the
United States, Nov. 19. 1819which we have already considered.
Its concomitants:
Lights in the sky; "
Fall of a black substance;
Shocks like thOse of an earthquake.
In this instance, the only available forest fire was one to the south
of" the Ohio River. For all I know.
soot from a very great fire'souJh of
the "Ohio might fall iri" Montreal,
Canada. and conceivably, by some
freak of reflection, light from it
might be seen in Montreal. but the
earthquake is not assimilable with
a for~t fire. dn the""other harid.
it wiII .s~on be" our expression that

..

,.."...,,4'

FaSt Quart. 19.1

I

profound darkness, fall of matter

from the sky, lights in the sky, and
earthquakes are phenomena of the
near approac!l of OIher worlds to
this world. It is such comprehensiveness, as contrasted with the
. inclusion of a few fllctors and disrcgard for the rest, that we call
higher IIpproximation to realnessor universalness.[
N::JV 10/ Shock / Lunroe, Norway
/ BA 54/ where had been phe.,
[Reverse side[ qs and sounds since
Aug 31 / qs in Sweden back to
Aug 18.
'
No\". 13 / Fireball / St. Domingo
/ 8A 60.
:'10101'. 18 1 London / Fireball 1
BA '60.
NIl\". 19 1 Fireball / Rochelle 1
HA

(1).

:'>ill\. ::!I / Del. mel 1 Baltimore 1

Dircclion S. 1 BA '60.
:'lim. ::! I / Sligh I q. / Lunroe /
SA 54 / Serics goes on.
NIl\". 21 / Mel-Chester Co., Pa /
AI1I. J. SL'i 6/316/ going e.N-c. 1
[R.:\er~c side[ Half ~ize of full
11I00n / "1.'11 delincd tail 1 dctonation
:1 minlIIo laler.
No\" 21 1 evening 1 Brilliant meleor
! Philadelphia / 6 p.m. / streets
lighled by ii-then detonations /
[Rc\"crse ~ide[ -,\Iso Wilminglon and
Washinglon / Quebec Mercury,
Dec. 28 1 Am J. Sci 6/315.
1819 Nov 25 / Vesuvius al time of
greal rainslorm I Philadelphia
Rcgister 3190..
Nov. 28 I I :30 a.m. / Severe shock
1 Comrie / BA 54.
NllV. 29 to Dec 3 / China / q's 1
II [medium[1 BA 'II.
Dec I / Vesuvius / one of greatest
in 20 years / London Magazine,
Feb., 1820.

1820
Nan!es / shower of small fish I
Magasin Pilloresque 4-371 / Cosmos 3-5-79.
Jan. 5 / Persecuting Flames / See
Dec., 1904. / Nov. 14, 1870 I
(typescript[ / Annual Register,
1820-13.
(Reverse side[(p.[198 /
Annual Regisfer;1820-13:

1820, when, ."ith the girl, she was

in the kitchen, about eight fect from
the hearth, where "a verY small
firc" was, again she fo~nd her
dOlhe~ burning. On the \Jth,
Wrighl heard screams from the
kitchen, wherc his mOl:-'er was, and
where the girl had been. He found
his mOlher in Ilames. This time
"part of her dOlhes were burned
10 a L'inder, and her Ilesh was
malerially injured." Then Wright
accused the girl, who had left the
kilchcn a moment before thi~
Ix-.:urren..-e. BUI it wa\ Mrs. Wrighl's
belief that "something supern:uural" had assailed her. On the
14th, her daughler arri\"ed, 10 keep
guard, blll, going to the kitchen,
\1 here Ihe girl was, "again, by some
unknown means, she caught fire."
She "as so dreadfully injured by
Ihe fire Ihal .she was put to bed."
Whcn it ~eemed that she had gone
10 ,Icep. ~he was left there-and her
scream~ broughl back her son and
daughlcr, who found her in bcd.
~lIrrounded by flames. Then thc
girl "as lold 10 leave the house.
She did so, and Ihere were no more
fire~. The magistrale said that he
had no doubt that Ihe prisoner,was
guilty, bUI thai he could not pronounce sentence ulllil Mrs. Wrighl
could testify.[
Jan II / (London Times), 2-e /
15-3-a I Vesuvius / Table of eruptions of Etna / 15-3-a.
Jan. 16 / Op. Mars 1 (A I).
Jan 16/ Vesuvius / BA, '54.
Feb. 12 / (B.D., 193) / Stark's
Vulcan / about twice the size of
Mercury 1 C.R. 83-314.
(BtF, p. 202/ See Jan. 6, 1818.)
[BCF, p. 394:
Unknown bodies in the sky, in
the year 1820, February 12 and
April 27 (Campies Rendus, 8~-314).)
Feb 15,21, etc . .I St. Maure (Ionian
Islands) I qs and heavy rains /
London Mag 21215.
F~b. 21 /. SI. Maura, Greece /
q I II /(medium / BA 1911).
Feb. 23 / Vesuvius violent / had
been active / BA 54.
March 3 / New Aleutian volc /
BA54..

That Elizabeth Barnes, a girl

March 3 / [London Times), 2-d /
aged 10, had been brought to court,
Ext activities' of a wolf.
accused by John Wright, a linen
March 21 / Terri[f]ic eruption /
draper, of Foley-place, Mary-Ie-bon,
Aleutian Islands / An Reg 1822-Q3 .
. of having, upon divers occasions,
and by "some extraordinary means",
Ap Slab 20 Nand 51 W. / Aeroset fire to the clothing of Wright's lite fell with rain on a vessel. /
mother, by which she had been
Mag Nat Hist 6-297.
burned so severely that she was not
? / Ap. 5'// In sea near Antigua /
expect to li:ve. The lillie girl had
Fireball / aerolitic, ac to Baumhauer
been a servant in the Wright house- . / BA 60.
hold. Upon January .Sth, an unexplaifled fire had broken out. Upon Ap. 7 / B / Irkutsk / violent shock
/ BAs., '54/128.
the 7th, Mrs. Wright and the girl
. were silling by the hearth, in the \BCF, p. 393 / See March 25, 1805.)
kitchen. Mrs. Wright rose and Ap. II / 2 - 3 a.m. I Cork, Ireland
moved toward the door. She found
/ q and sounds like cannon / BA
'54/
herself in flames. Upon January 12th,

first Quarter 1981

[Rc\'erse side[ [London[ Times, Ap.

14-2-.:.
Ap. 18 1 Fireball / Augsburg 1
BA60.
Ap 27 1 Vulcan / Monthly NOlices
1862/(0-193) .

**

[BCF, p. 202 1 See Jan. 6, 1818[

[BCF. p. 394 / Sec February 12,
1820.[
:\-1ay I'and 2 1 Immense comet at
SI Johns, N Bruns"ick, for several
nighls, in the
[Re\'er~e side) N.W. sky. /60 or 70
degrC\.~ bet wcen nucleus and end of
tail. / Philadelphia Register 3-324.
ab May I, etc. 1 Vesu\'ius 1 An
Reg 1820/129/ active on 20th.
May::! I Brest / q and "Ihunder" /
.-\. Reg 1820/129.
May 4 / Great q 1 Mexico / [BA)
'II.
:vIay 10 / Great lidal wave 1 Acapuleo 1 BA 54.
:via); 10 / Andernach / Fireball 1
BA60.
May 21 / (Hu) / Oedenburg, Hungary 1 Metite / BA '60.
June II/Vole / Api / Java /
N.M. / C.R. 70-878.
July.12 / (F) / Lixna, Dunaberg,
Russia / Metite / BA '60.
July 12 I Th slone 1 Meteoric stone
fell at Lesten (Witebsk), Russia, in
a violent Ih. storm. / Niles Register,
Jan 6, 1821.
July 16 1 (F) 4:05 a.m. / At 51.
Ncots, near the Ouze. Mirllge said
to be of great Paxton. 1 An. Phil
161149.
July 17 / People al Schwanz, Tyrol,
in.churches al annual day of Thanksghing for
[Revet:Se side[ having been spared qs
since July 17, 1670, when a violent q and great damage. / London
Mag. 2/329.Jul)' 20 / Brunn / Fireball / BA '60.
July 22 / not looked up / [London
Times), 3-c 1 Almospheric phe /
Huntingdonshire.
July 30 / 3 h / Venus / Inf. conjUllction 1 (A I).
Aug 6 1 Ovelgonne. Finland /
Aerolilcs, ac to Baumhauer. /
[Reverse side) Ac 10 BA 60, substance from hayrick burned by
lightning.
Aug 31 / London / solid ice /
18 inches by 6 E Mec 84/18.
Sept 7/ In Ouvres, XIIS76, M. Arago's description suggest[s) mililary
fOrmal(ion) (b)ut they were separated
by equal distances, all in a straight
line. / An. de Chemie 30/417.
[BCF, p. 394:
Things that marched in Ihe skysee Arago's OEuvres, 11-576, or
Annales de Chimie, 30-417-objects
Ihat were seen by many persons, in
the streels of Embrun, during Ihe
eclipsC o~ Sept_ 7. 1820, moving in.

straighl line~, lurning and retracting

in Ihe same siraight lines, all of
them separaled by uniform spaees.[
Sepi 27 / 9 p.m. / Barmoulh,
:vIerionclhshire ,I q and sound like
cannon / BA '54.
abo 01.'1 I / Silky substance / Pernambuco 1 A Reg 1821/681 /
(D).

OCI I 1 Spiders 1 Times of Oct 9. 1

That over area of miles from liverpool and especially al Wigan, fields
and roads covered with a substance
thai was mislaken for cOllon. Came
down like a sheeron Wigan. Found
10 contain
[Revcrse side[ !lies so small as [to)
require a magnifying glass to make
them perceptible. / Nov 12-that
all summer, for the first time, his
garden clear of celery flies. After
middle of September, they appeared
in great numbers.
Oct 191 Honduras / q II / [Medium
I BA 1911[.
Nov 12 1 4 p.m. / del met 1 globe
of fire / Kursk, Russia / Mag Pop
Sci 3-62.
Nov. 20 / Cholimschk, Russia I
Del met 1 BA '60.
Nov 29 / aerolite / Cosenza /
greal met 1 Stones fell, ac to Arago. 1
[Reverse side) BA 60.
No\" 29 1 Cosenza, Italy 1 met Irain
/ An Reg 1821/14.
Nov 29 / Aerolile 1 See Nov 29,
'09.
Dec 5 / Naples / Fireball / BA 60.
Dee 9 / Tumea / Fireball / BA 60.
Dec 13 / [London Times[, 2-c /
q / Leadhills and Wanlockhead.
Dec. 29, 30/ q 1 ice I met "/ 4:10
a.m. / Zante / "dreadful bellowing
noise" said been subterranean-but
lumps of ice, and q(Reverse side) or hailstones, some
weighing 10 ounces each, fell-nofirst a luminous meteor visible 5 or
6 minutes / on 30th, another meleor /
BA-54/
[Second page) See An de Chimie
18/4\3. / Get series righl-ab. 1820.
Dec 29 / obj and q 1 (Cut) / Ionian
Islands / A luminous obj or meteor
"apparently 4 to 6 feet in diameter"
was seen over Ihe sea. 3 or 4 minutes laler, Ihe quake-on 30th,
anOlher mel passed over Zante. /
B As Rept 1854- \31.
Dec 29 / Zante / The q was preceded by a single nash of lightning. / Edin N P. J 361767.
Dec 29 / Zante / A m~teor / 3 or 4
minutes later, great q -- torrents of
rain and masses of ice up to weighl
of 300 grammes. / .
[Reverse side) / C.R. 17-618.
Dec 29 / Celebes / Great q. and sea
rose to '~a prodigious height". /
Q. J. Roy Inst 12-427 .
Dec 29 '/ q and (rain and hail) /
Zante -- q and "unexampled deluge
of rain" and lumps of ice 'h pound

........"47

---,--------------------.------------.~----.--------------,--~

'.

each. / [Lundon' Tim~), feb 26-3-d

/ 27-3-b, 1821 / A deluge from the
hills, in which 20 houses were
washed away.
[Reverse side) Shocks several a day
in Ja~uaty (at least).
Dec 29 / q. / Chile / II [medium) /
BA 11.
DeC 30' / Zante ! Fireball / BA 60 /
See Jan 6.
Dec 31 / Nellore, India / severe qs
/ N.Y. Ev Post, Sept 12-2-3, 1821.

1821
/ (Fr) / dept of the Meuse / Frogs
and toads after violent storm /
Magasin Pittoresque 4/371.
/ Fish / Lorn / Argyleshire /
J. ~. Inst 4/43.

/ New Hampshire / Tornado /

BEagle, \896, Oct. 25-22-3.
[BCF, pp. 431-432:
, In the year 1821, Gruithuisen
announced that he had discovered
a I;ity of the moon. He described
, ,its main thoroughfare and branching
streets. In 1826, he announced that
there had been considerable building,
and that he had seen new streets.
This formation, which is north "of
the crater Schroeter, has often been
examined by disagreeing astronomers: for a sketch of it, in which
'a central line and radiating lines are
shown, see the English Mechonic,
18-638. There is one especial object
upon the moon that has been described and photographed and
, sketched so often tllat I shall not go
into the subject. For many records
of observations, see the English
Mechanic and L 'Astronomie. It is
an object shaped like a sword, near
the crater Bin. Anyone with an
impressiun of the transept of a
cathedrcll, may see the architectural here. Or it may, be a mound
similar to the mounds of North
America that Itave so logically been
attributed to the Mound Builders.
,In a letter, published, in the Astronomical Register, 20-167, Mr. Birmingha.n calls attention to a formation that suggests the architectural
upon the moon-"a group of three
, hil1s in a slightly acutNngled triangle,
and connected by three lower embankments." TI!ere is a geometric
object, or marking, shaped like an
. "X," ,in the crater Eratosthenes
(Sci. Amer. Sup., 59-24, 469);
striking symbolic-looking thing or
. sign, or attempt by means of something obviously not topographic, to
attract attention upon this earth, in
the crater Pinius (Eng. Mec., 35-34);
reticulations, like those of a city's
squares, in Plato (Eng. Mec., 64-253);
and there is a structural-looking
composition ,of angular lines ..in
Gassendi (Eng. Mec., 101-466).
Upon the floor of LittrOw are six or
seven spots arranged in the f~ of
~ Greek letter Gammt! (Eng. Mec.,
101-47). 'This arrangement may be

PuN. 48

of recent ongm, having been discovered Jan. 31, 1915. The Greek
letter makes difficulty only for
those who do not want to think
easily upon this subject. For a representation of something that looked
like a curved wall upon the moon,
see L 'Astronomie, 1888-110. As to
appearances like viaducts, see L 'Astronomie, 1885-213. The lunar
craters are n!>t in all instances the
simple cirques that they are commonly slipposed to b,e. I have many
different impressions of some of
them: 1 remember one sketch that
looked like an owl with a napkin
tucked under his beak. However,
it may be that the general style of
architecture upon the moon is
Byzantine, very likely, or not so
likely, domed with glass, giving the
dome-effect that has so often been
commented upon.)
Jan'6 / See Dec. / Shocks / Zante /
in Gulf of Corinth, a tidal wave,
carrying away houses / BA 54.
Jan 18 / Valparaiso, Chile / q. /
1/ [small / BA 1911).
Feb 4-7 / Luminous 'spot on dark
part of moon by Capt. Kater / in
Aristarchus / like a small star / ap
'and disap /
[Reverse side) An Reg 1821/689.
Feb 5 / By Dr. Olllers, of Bremensaw the luminosity tha[t) was seen
by Capt. Kater in or near Aristarchus.
[Reverse side) Equal to star of 6th
magnitude / Mem. Ri. A. S. 1/156/
on dark part.
[BCF, p. 394:
Early in the year 1821-and a light
shone out on the moon-a bright
point of light ill ~he lunar crater
Aiistarchus, which was iii the dark
at the time. It was seen, upon the
4th and the 7th of February, by
Capt. Kater (An. Reg:, 1821-689);
and upon the 5th by Dr. Olbers
(Mems. R. A. S., 1-159). It was a
light like a star, and was seen by
Francis Bailey (Mems. R. A. S.,
1-159). At Cape Town, nights of
Nov. 28th and 29th, 1821, again
a star-like light was seen upon the
moon (Phil. Trans., 112-237).)
Feb 12 q. / China / I [light) /
BA'I1.
Feb 12 / Breslau / Firebll;ll / BA 60.'
Feb 27-etc. / Isle of Bourbon /
A. Reg. 1821-117 / vole / March
q especial/in April / (Reunion
ISland). '
md of Feb. / Volc KamtsChatka /
BA54.
March 1 / Comet seen first (by
Mr. X) in Pegasus / LT, March 7-3oe.
March 5 / metite and q? / Pomerania / Ac to several catalogues,
stones fell during a
.(Reverse side) q. / In BA, 60, said
been a doubtful fall. Stones not
found.
March 20 / (It) / Umbria / tromba
luminosa and q / See 1805.

June early / near Blanford, Eng /

March 20 / St. Thomas' Island /
Will wisp / Paper read before LinLarge met. / BA 60.
nean Soc. by R. Chambers / Mag
March 21 / Riett, Italy / Concusof Sci. 3/323 /
sion, column of. fire passed over the
[Reverse side) Friend of his,
village
T. Stotha, had Seen lumino[us) thing
[Reverse side)_and fell into Lake
of irregular shape, alon[g)si4e coach,
Cantelin. / C.R., 17-621.
rising, falling, for consid[erable) disAp. 26 / LT, 3-a / Polt stones /
tance.
At Truro persons amused, astonJune 7 / 5 p.m. .1 over Willistown
ished, or alarmed, ac to nerve and
and Goshen / Cloud of dragonflies
judgment, by bombardment of a
that darkened sky-mile wide and
house in Carlow street. Missiles
one hour in
from no findable source
[Reverse side) passing / N. Y. Ev.
[Reverse side) breaking the windows
Post, Aug ,17-2-3.
of a depot in which were the arms
of a regimllnt and in an adjoining , JUDe Ii / Co. Mayo, 'Ireland / ac
house. The Mayor was appealed to.
to Prof. Pictet / Metallic nuclei in
He arrived. Soldiers arrived. All
hail / Bib Univ. 18/78.
[Second page) investigated, and
June IS/met / 3 p.m. / Field near,
nothing more learned. Said that the
Cros de Libones, Commune of
"lower classes who always have
Julnas, France /
a taste for the marvellous," thought
[Reverse side) A meteoric stone.
it was supernatural. Guards were
Parts' carried away. A remaining
[Reverse side) placed around the
block weighed 108 pounds. / N:Y:
house, but still the stones arrived. / /
Ev Post, Sept 12-2-4.
[Lon':l0n Times), May 1-3oe / /
June IS/Aerolite weighing 220
(Car1ew Street) / Stones still arriving.
pounds / Juvinas, France / A.J. Sci
Nothing found out.
51175 /
[BCF, p. 557:
[Reverse side) Ac to 2 analyses,
, London Times, April 26, 1821was entire absence of nickel. /
that the inhabitants of Truro, Corn6/397 I See Dec 13, 1813.
wall, were amused, astonished, or
June 15 / (Fr) / (F) ~ (about noon) /
alarmed, "according to nerve and
Juvenas, Ardeche, France / Metite /
,judglnent.... by arrivals of stones,
BA, 60 / Bib. Univ 18,"80 /
from an unfindable source, upon a
[Reverse side) Gent's Mag., March,
house in Carlow Street. The mayor
1822, p. 265.
'
of the town visited the place, and
was made so nervous by the rattling , June 21 / Majo, Spain / hailstones
with nuclei composed
stones that he called out a military
[Reverse, side) of ferrocyanide of
guard. He investigated, and the solpotassium / Galignani's Messenger,
diers investigated, and the clatter of
March 14, 1872.
theorists increased the noise. Times,
June 21 / See 12.) / BA S4 or 60 /
May I-stones still rattling, theorists
pyrites / Ireland / (94) /
still clattering, but nothing found
[Reverse side) See June 10.
out.)
,
June 25 / Shocks, Co. Cork, IreAp 6-10 / q. / Catania / BA 60.
land, and fields turned into swamps. /
Ap. 28 / Leipsic / Fireball / BA 60.
BA54.
May 4 and (6) / Moon (dark part) /
July 10 / Great q I. Peru I. [BA) 'I
The light in Aristarchus by Rev.
July .IS/Destructive tornado and
M. Ward looked like a small comet,
hail/Counties of Ogelthorpe, Wilkes '
on moon.
and Lincoln, Georgia /
[Reverse side) Note appear[ed) that
[Reverse side) N.Y. Ev Post, Aug
Francis Baily had seen it. / Mem.
14-2-5.
R. A. S. 1/159.
Aug 2 / Sept 12 / / q / Calabria,
[BCF, p. 394 / See Febl'lllll}' S, 1821.)
Italy / 11 / [medium / BA 1911).
May / Red organic / Giessen, GerAug 6 / Uncommonly severe tho
many / 0-287 /
storm at Savannah: / N.Y. Ev Post
[Reverse side) May / Flammarion /
17-2-4.
Atmos'phere, p. 410.
Aug 18 / Obscuration / Eng /
[BCF, p. 300:
19-20, France / La Sci Pour Tous
, At Giessen, Germany, in 1821,
14/57/ Ph. Mag, Oct., 1821 I
according to the Report 0/ the
[Reverse side) See May 21,1822
British Association, 5-2, fell a rain
of a peach-red color. In this rain
Aug 18 / Phil Mag" Oct, 1821were flakes of a hyacinthine tint.
(p. 234, 314) / account from Essex /
It is said that this substance WIU
See Aug. 3, 1831. /
I
organic: we are told that it was pyr(Reverse side) The darkness came .
rhine.)
,
on and lasted 3 hours. Said many
persons terrified and ran from their
May 13 / Mexico / q. / I / [light /
work-gigantic masses, of dark
BA.J911).
clouds piled upoil one another with
May 16 / Fireba.ll / Munich / BA 60.
[Front side) gleams of sulptiurous
May 17 / Germany / Fireball /
light.
'
'
In BA 60, question
[Reverse side) asked, "Same as las.
(16th)?

i.

~'.

FIrst Quarter 1981

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary and Treasurer: Gregory
Arend, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler, and Albena Zwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, Paleo-Indian Institute,
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation ofthe Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
Dr. George C. Kennedy, Professor of Geology, Institute of Geophysics, U.C.L.A.
(Geomorphology and Geophysics)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr .. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant, National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering, Butler, N.J.
(Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer; U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
. research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other professionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the SOCiety for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents filed with the New ~ersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the Society.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. I, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids" -the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

-Scienee is flae Pursuit 0/ flae llnesplaiJaed'

Lake Champlain's ~~onster'

esmpes

survives optical analysis oj Mansi's photo,

identification as one
oj a known species, and calls attention: to need for protection

Journal of SmJ

The
Society for the
Investigation of

The
Unexplained

Volume 14
Number 2
Whole 54
Second Quarter
1981

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
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THE QUARTERLY
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Jet

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"

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'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents
Page
'Champ' and the 1977 Mansi Photograph
Editorial .................. ".................... 50
'Champ'-A Personal" Update
by Joseph W. Zarzynski .. , ...... , .............. 51
'Champ' Look-Alikes? ............................. 52 .
Interim Report/Lake Champlain
'Monster' Photograph
by Dr. B. Roy Frieden ......................... 53
The Elusive 'Powys Beast'
by' Janet & Colin Bord ......... "................ 54
Ice Falls and the Leidenfrost Effect
by Morgan D. Eads ............. ".............. 56
Opinion-Why the Government
Should Fund U.FO Studies
by Thomas B. Burch ........................ ".. 59
Sweet Influences of Pleiades
by Diane E. Wirth ............................ 63
-Scientists Find Nearly Perfect Remains
Of 'Zhuantang Ape-Man' Killed in 1957 .............. 64
Sailing in a Glowing Sea
by Charles E. Wood ........................... 66
Slip-ups in Science ................................. 67
A Speck.l Report to SITU-Odd Luminosities and
Other Fortean Events Before Earthquakes:
The New Madrid Test
"
"by Dr. Michael A. Persinger .......... : ......... 68
Atlantis: Lost and Found Again (Part III)
by Jon Douglas Singer ......................... 79
Books .................... : ....................... 86

SITUations . ............................ : ... ~ ..... 89

"

"

Letters .......................... : ................ 93

EARTHQUAKES lead the list of the Earth's spoilers.

Among all natural phenomena earthquakes are the least
understood and the most destructive. Only volcanos, gn~at
storms and atomic explosion have
similar capacity for
cataclysm.
The need for understanding earthquakes is greater than
, any of these, yet progress toward the ultimate goal of control is slower. You can't capture an earthquake and carry it
into a lab for study, and you can't simulate one to any valid
effect you'd want. Instead of experiment, you have to make
do with history. The next question is, how to do it.
A few years ago Dr. Michael A. Persinger armed himself with computer "tools of sufficient capacity and began
a review of earthquake history and a search for relationships between earthquakes and other phenomena. Some
early results of this study w~re published" in Pursuit for
Fall 1979 (Vol. 12, No.4) under the title "Prediction of
Fortean "Event Reports from Population and Earthquake
Numbers." By devoting ten pages of this issue to the results of Dr. Persinger's further investigations Pursuit's editors are "agaio in agreement with those members who believe that only the best technology will ever prevail against
the complex strategy of nature's various assaults. A careful
reading isn't suggested as preparation for a career in computer science. It may make you a better Fortean for coming
to the same conclusion as Dr". Persinger: "The study of
those events we call Fortean is at th~ most critical stage of
its history. They can remain in the cherished reservoirs of
unrestricted fantasy and undisciplined speculation, or they
can be subjected to the detail and precision of numerical
"analysis. The data available "in many agencies are now sufficient in number anp. temporal-spatial density to allow
reliable and valid results to be obtained. "
Thank you, Dr. Persinger, for the article, and for waiving
payment of fee and donating the amount to SITU for research activities.
And thanks to many others" who have given freely of
time and thought and good advice to help produce this issue
including:
'
-Dr. Roy Mackal and J. Richard Greenwell. They leave
in September" with good wishes from all at SITU for success in their search for the mokele-mbembe in the Congo.
-Lynne J. King, reference librarian at the Feinberg Library at Stat~ University College, Plattsburgh, New York.
Ms. King accessed the Champlain diaries in which the gif.ted
explorer recounted one of the best and probably truest fish
stories in history.
-The professionals at China Features headquarters in
Beijing. With concise accounts and dramatic photography
they add to our knowledge of the yeti and its Sasquatch
relatives wherever they may be.
-The editors

Pursuit Vol. 14, No.2, Whole No. 54, Second Quarter 1981. Copyright 1981 by the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained. 1SSN 0033-4685.
No pan of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
Editor; Sabina W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and Oceanographic Consultant.

'Champ' and the 1977 Mansi Pltotograph

WAS a 6x3Vz-inch black-and-white reproduction of

it generally parallels the Zarzynski ,account, the Times version. twice digresses: Once to' quote a Dr. Philip Reines,
, Sandra Mansi's copyrighted-1981 coldr photograph
printed in The New York Times issue of June 30. It could be
described as "a professor of communications at the State
the picture of a remarkable phenomenon. Or it could not.
University College at Plattsburgh, N.Y., who is consideroo
One of its aspects transcended argument: It was the prize
an expert on nautical phenomena." In the quoted statement
that The New York Times had won in the lengthy media
Dr. Reines said he was "bothered" that Mrs. Mansi could
bidding for' first publication rights to a picture that Joseph
not "recall exactly where she took the picture," and another
Zarzynski has described as "the single most impressive piece
bothersome aspect was that the negative is missing. Accordof evidence" of, an anomalous creature resident in the
ing to Dr. Reines, having the negative would enable the investigators to do a more thorough job of photoanalysis, and
waters of Lake Champlain.
Joe Zarzynski is head of the Lake Champlain Phenomena
exact knowledge of the site might make it possible to deterInvestigation and has devoted mucl1 of his time during the
mine the scale of the image.
past seven years to' the search for the elusive creature
Commenting by telephone on the Times story, Zarzynski
familiarly known as "Champ." He has written a personal
said he too had interviewed Dr. Reines some time ago and
update (opposite page)' for his fellow SITUans and at last
did not take his objections more seriously than those of
reports was busy helping the Lake Champlain Committee
other non-experts.' "We can't work with what we don't
get ready for its summer conference to be held August 29.
have," Zarzynski noted. "We asked Dr. Frieden (at the
University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center) to'work with
Placement of the Mansi photograph on page 1 of the
prestigious "Science Times" section and a satisfactory soluthe print we did have, and the results are fully described in
tion of the alwa,ys difficult problem of converting color to
his report." [See page 53.)
black and white reflected' the high regard of the Times'
The Times also referred to' an article in the jourrial
editors for their prize. Along with the photograph the newsScience written in 1977 by Dr. W. H. Lehn of the University
paper ran a lengthy article' under the byline of 'John Noble
'of Manitoba to explain the influence of temperature inverWilford which described the circumstances of the sighting
sion on light perception as a cause of image distort,ion that
and the photograph, and' gave many details of the Jsubsesometimes makes inanimate objects look like "monsters."
(A more detailed account of Dr. Lehn's findings appeared
quent investigation.,
'
The capture of prima facie evidence of "Champ" on film
in'the First Quarter 1981 issue of Pursuit, No. 53, page 37.)
is a familiar story to many' "Champ" fans, but it bears
The Times article did not urge that the Lehn experiments or repeating for the benefit of those who may have"mi~sed the
hypothesis be taken as guidelines for study of the Mansi
photo or to authenticate sightings, but the suggestion would
first scenes:
Sandra Mansi and her fiance were sitting by the shore ad- "- hardly be lost among readers who could think of no other
miring the tranquility of Lake Champlain on an early July , - reason why the Times would place in a column adjoining the
, day in 1977 when they noticed a turbulence such as might be
Lehn reference a shockingly bad photo reproduced from
stirred up by a large fish or, school of fish. Then a head and
and credited to Science with a caption noting that "light
snakelike neck emerged, arching above a slow-moving isletconditions can cause stick to look like a creature."
like mass. Such a sight, enough ,to scare anyone, terrified
A coup'e of cautions do not much lessen the public imSandra Mansi, for she was brought up in the area and knew
pact of the "Champ" phenomenon and the Mansi photograph when a great ne~spaper accords therI,1 even-handed
by heart all those stories about a Lake Champlain monster
that couldn't be believed. With a commendable effort of
treatment, without tongue-in-cheek, tasteless comedy or inwill, she overcame her fear long enough to get off one shot
sult. SITUans should be grateful to the Times, to writer
from her Kodak Instamatic camera in the direction of the
John Noble Wilford, and to all the media brethren who
have learned that to venture safely into this or another corsighting.
What happened to the Mansi photograph after news of its
ner of the "unexplained" one needs to be armed with those
existence began to leak out will be most understandable to
feelings of awe, wonder and respect for free inquiry that
SiTUans within the context of Joe Zarzynski's magnum efbest become humanity.
-Fred Wilson
fort to secure legislated protection for "Champ." Although
:..:1.

.... : ..

ExcePt for the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain is the ,largest lake in the U.S.

PursuitS.

Second ~ 1981

'Champ' - A Personal Update

by Joseph W. Zarzynski
Chairman, TIle Lake Champlain
Phenomena Investigation

Jl.IV seven-year investigation to identify the "Champ"

J.Y"J creature(s) can be compared to a giant ~d incomplete jigsaw puzzle. Gradually the hard work of the
search has harvested evidence of some anomalous, unknown animal or animals in Lake Champlain and solid clues
to their possible identity. Among all the references, testimony and documentation, the single most impressive piece
of evidence is "the 1977 M~nsi photograph of "Champ," "
substantially authenticated by several sources.
Lake Champlain is 109 miles long and cuts like a jagged
dagger through the Green Mountains of Vermont and the
Adirondack Mountains of New York State. It is "the largest
of the deep, cold water, near-oligotrophic lakes in the
United States with the exception of the Great Lakes." It lies
ina great valley that stretches from the St. Lawrence River
south to New York City. Byway of the Richelieu River Lake
Champlain drains northward to the St. Lawrence. The lake
reaches a maximum depth of 400 feet and has a water surface area of 440 square miles. Such huge dimensioll$ exacerbate the difficulty of" sc;arching for, identifying and
documentirig an anomalous creature.
To date approximately 120 "Champ" sightings have been
catalogued by the Lake Champlain""Phenomena Investiga"tion (LCPI), an organization whose purpose "is to gather
data and documentation on the enigmas and phenomena of
Lake Champlain for dissemination to the pu"blic . . . . Its
primary thrust is directed at data collection for identifying
and protecting Lake Champlain's unknown creatures-'the
Champ.'"
The Mansi photograph is the only clear photo that exists.
Why there are no others is n"ot surprising to those who know
the area and its traditions. Unlike the thousands of tourists
who annually bumble around the shores "of Loch Ness in
Scotland with cameras at the ready, few visitors to Lake
Champlain come there with thoughts of finding and
photographing strange creatures. The Mansi sighting was by
accident and the photograph a stroke of good luck.
The now famous photograph was taken by a Connecticut
couple, Sandra and AnthOIllY Mansi, in early 1977. Knowledge of their photographio coup remained a family secret
until autumn, 1979, when they copyrighted the photo and
then looked for help in getting it analyzed and authenticated. Shortly after this time I was told about the photo's
existence, and thus began the lengthy and slow process of
verification.
After the necessary atteStations by the Mansis, several
people were called into consultation, among them Jim Kennard of the Rochester Eng\neering Laboratories, Fairport,
New York; Monty Fischer, program director for the Lake
Champlain Basin Program; George Zug, head of the department of vertebrate zoology at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of Natural History; Charles Johnson,
state naturalist of Vermont; Tim Dinsdale of the Loch Ness
Association of Explorers; and Ricky Gardiner of the Loch
Ness & Morar Project.
An important breakthrough came when cryptozoologist

Secoad Quarter 1981

Roy P. Mackal, of the University of Chicago, looked at a

copy of the photograph and decided it warranted optical
analysis. Dr. Mackal forwarded a copy to his colleague
Richard Greenwell, at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Greenwell brought it to the attention of Dr. B. Roy Frieden
of the university's Optical Sciences Center. During this time
literally dozens of phone calls were made, scores of letters
exchanged," many personal meetings held, and there was a
lot of "just waiting" for the verdict. The Mansi family
showed "admirable patience. They were insistent that the
photograph be employed toward getting "Champ" protected and that it should be withheld from publication until
the results of the analysis were known.
By November 1980 the Mansis became aware of the need
to plug the "news leaks" and stop the innuendo which
threatened their credibility (not to mention "Champ's"!).
They gave me permission to issue a press release, and on
November 22 Vermont's largest newspaper, the Burlington
Free Press, headlined a front-page story "Lake Champlain
Monster Caught-on Film." Wire services summarized the
information and as quickly as they could say telex, media
people all over the world joined the hue and cry: "We want
to see!"
The Mansi photograph, showing what appears to be an
animate object, gray-brown in color and with serpentine
features, refueled investigative fervor among those who
knew about it. For several days during the summer of 1980
the LCPI and the Rochester Engineering Laboratories
deployed a transducer affixed to a tripod in Lake
Champlain in an attempt to capture "Champ" on sonar;
shore-watching camera equipment was also used. In September Jim Kennard, Scott Hill and I had the great good
fortune to locate the wreck of the 258-foot steamboat
Champlain near Westport, New York, during a sonar expedition in search of "Champ." We found the skeleton of
the historic steamboat clearly outlined on Jim Kennard's
side-sCanning sonar. Similar equipment had been used by
Marty Klein to look for the Loch Ness monster, in the
Atlantic in Jack Grimm's effort to find the Titanic, and in
the North Sea by Clive Cussler in his search for the Bonhomme Richard.
For the first time along the lake the Mansi photograph
was shown to a public audience during the course of a lecture I gave on October 5 at the Crown PQint State Historic
Site, New York. The next day the governing body of a nearby village passed a resolution ". . . that all the waters of
Lake Champlain which adjoin the Village of Port Henry are
hereby declared to be off limits to anyone who would in any
way harm, harass or destroy the Lake Champlain Sea Monster." The resolution received considerable publicity. ABCTV reported it on its evening news show, and in its issue of
November 29 The New York Times told about the "Village
on Lake Champlain Seeking Its Fortune in Tale of a
Fabulous Sea Monster."
The region then got down to business. A Champlain Valley bank advertised a 21-inch stuffed toy, assuredly a good
likeness of "Champ," as a gift for opening an account of
$300 or more. "Champ" T-shirts were featured in daily
newspaper ads by an outfit in Colchester, Vermont, called

, PursuitSI

Regional Promotional Services. The St. Albans. Daily

Me.ssengersponsored a "Draw, the Champ" contest.
Though barred by the Mansi copyright from reproducing
the photograph, media managers joined in the welcome as
they assiduously gathered "quotes" from experts and notso-experts who had gotten a look at the picture. Among the
former were Dr. Mackal, the University of Chicago zoolo- .
gist, who said; "The leaves' in the foreground, the perspective and the horizon on the far side-all that makes that
picture a very difficult one to produce a fraud of. It's my
personal opinion the picture is absolutely genuine in every
respect." Mackal believes "Champ'" may be a: zeuglo-.
don-a primitive, serpentine type of whale.
Dr. George Zug of the Smithsonian Institution wrote:
"The Mansi photograph is fascinating and quite good considering the circumstances under which it was taken. Unfor.tunately, I can offer no unequiV9cal iden~ification~ ... At
this time, I cannot provide a match with a known animal."
Charles Johnson, Vermont's state naturalist, examined
the photograph and personally met with the Mansis to discuss it. "I must say that the plioto appeared real," he wrote,
"and.wha~ was depicted in it certainly was no lake stur~eon,
turtle, snake or other creature one often hears attributed to
the monster."

The early weeks of 1981 were devoted to finding a Ver-.

mont legislator or legislators who would sponsor legislation
I
on tlie state level to protect "Champ." My strategy was to
try t+ get Montpelier to pass a resolution first, before making any effort in the' J?robably more difficult arena of Albany. Two of Vermont's Representatives showed strong in-'
terest: Millie Small of Qu~hee, 'and Verne Switzer of Brattleboro. After meeting with Rep, Small and showing the
photograph and documentation, I drafted a resolution and
submitted it to .s~veral people for advice. Among them were
Bob Hohmann, former professor at Notre Dame, attorney
Dean Coon, and Monty Fischer of the Lake Champlain
Basin Program. Seeing' to it that "Champ" would have a
proper name for 'his first legislative appearance was Dr.
Helga Doblin of SkidmOl;e College who conferred the Latin
designation' Belua Aquatica Champiainiensis, "the large
.
water animal of Champlain" in translation:
A public hearing at the state capital of Montpelier was
convened by the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee
on February 26. Sandra Mansi was among the' witnesses.
She said, "I just want you to know that 'Champ' is there.
Believe me, 'Champ' is there." Monty Fischer told the committee: "Lake Champlain is America's Loch N~ss." State
(Continued,on page 58)

---------.;..---'-- ~Champ' Look-Alikes? ------......:--Chaousarou:

Indian name for a fish of "marv'elous ingenuhy," so'described by Samuel de Champlain who pur it on the map and'
likened it to a Mr. Hyde when aliveland:a Dr. Jekyll who, uPQn losing his head, became a popular remedy for tt~p ("OIumon headache .

.: .

1:': j,

'.,

. '

._ ....
_._....:;.._...
+~."=.':l::.====-::,. ;.:I'rublished

report from an eye~~~ ; I ,witness ~ho sighted a strange

tIi'5 "~"""/i..
. creature In the waters of Lake
. '~DwarD"
. ~Champlain. That. eyewitness
In July 1609 Samuel de
was Champlain himself, and
Champlain made his first tour
this is what he wrote:
of the lake which later came to
" ... the lake which is some 80
bear his name. In graceful style
or 100 leagues in length, in
and with meticulous regard-fbr
which I saw four beautiful isdetails, the French explorer J . ' , ~nds about ten, twelve and fifentered in his diary descrip-.. . teen leagues in length, which,
(ion of many natural woriders : .like the Iroquois .river, were
of the area, among which W;lS
fqrmerly inhabited by Indians:
but have been abandoned,
a strange inhabita'nt" t~e.
chaousarou. Champlain's
since they have been at war
. with one another. . . . There
editors and English transl~tors
are many chestnut trees which I
did not seem to know the'
origin of the word, but all
. had only seen on the shores of
agreed that chaousarou was the
this lake, in which there is also
Indian name for the gar pike,
a great abundance of many
Lapidosteus osseus. In The
species of fish. Amongst otll'"
Voyages oj Samuel de Cham-"
ers there is one caned by the
plain 1604-/6/8, is the earliestnatives chaousarou, which is

Oldest and: mOst Pri~itive whales for

which there: is evitle(lc~. '1)1ey.probably lo~ked some ~,!ing Ii~e ~ .giant. !1l)8co~.~,i ;says Dr. Roy Mackal.
.~ey ~erl! an elon!@.ted".sl@ke~like whale that flexed
up.and dOwf'!when t~~"s~~~ instead of side to side."

Zeuglodon:

of various lengths; but the

to' catch birds, it goes amongst
. largest of them, as those
the rushes or reeds which lie
tribes have told me, are from
along the shores of the bike in
eight to ten feet long. I have
several. places,' and puts its
seen some five feet long, which
snout out of the water without
were as' big as my two .fists, . moving. The result is that when
. the birds come and light on its
with a snout two feet and a
snout, mistaking it for a stump
half long, and a double row of
very sharp, dangerous teeth.
of wood, the fish is sO'cunning
that, shutting its half-open
Its body has a good deal the
shape lof the pike; but it is promouth, it pulls them by their
feet under the water. The natected by scales of a silvery
gray color and so strong that a
tives gave me the head of one
of them, a. thing they prize
dagger could not pierce them.
highly, saying that when they
This fish makes war on all the
have a headache, they bleed
other fish which are in these
themselves with ttie teeth of
lakes and rivers. And, according "to what" these tribes have
this fish at the spot where the
told 'me, it shows marvelous inpain is and it eases them at
once."
genuity in t.hat, when it wishes

. Plesiosaur:

Extinct marine 'mammal that once frequented large, fresh-water lakes connected to the sea,
as Lake Champlain. Richard Greenwell supports "the
Plesiosaur Hypothesis-also for Nessie and others."

Copyright Dr. Roy P. Mackal. Reproduced by permission.

Pursuit 52

COJllll"lghr Dr. Roy P. Mackal. Reproduced by permission.

Secoad Qaal'ter 1981

INTERIM REPORT/LAKE CHAMPLAIN 'MONSTER' PHOTOGRAPH

Dr. B. Roy Frieden, Optical Sciences Center, University of Arizona
(April 30, 1981)
From what I can see, the photo does not appear to be a montage or a superposition of any kind. The object appears
to belong in the picture, and I say that because there seems to be a separate set of surface waves coming from it that are
independent from the waves' of the rest. of the lake. That would. make it much more difficult a hoax by superposition-you would have had to hoax a separate set of waves as well and that gets to be too 'difficult a problem.
Also, we don't see any evidence of tampering with the photo, that is any sharp demarcation lines indicating a superposition. We have not yet confirmed distance and size. This seems to be possible with trigonometric calculation,
although you'd have to know the approximate height aboveJhe lake to really know the distance out. But that could be
estimated, I suppose.
Generally, the' photo is a very sharp, crisp photo and what we suspected was that the colors would be
saturated-and all the densities saturated-all the way as dark or light. The result is that you can't do a productive
restoration of such a photo because there is nothing blurred. in it. (A restoration attemptS'to "de-blur" a blurred picture.)
What we did do was false color enhance it, and "grey-scale 'stretch" it on the IPPS viewing system at Kitt Peak.
Viewing the photo in this way after densitometerizing it verified our suspicions that there really wasn't extra detail that
could be further enhanced out of it. In doing this we found somepeculiar vertical stripes in the picture which first we
questioned. But then we' noticed the original print has a mat surface and this'caused the'vertical stripes in the picture.
There is one suspicious detail in the picture which merits looking into. When I showed it to a woman who formerly
lived at Lake Champlain, she immediately noticed a brownish streak going horizontally from left to right across the picture right up to the object in question. She right out said that it looked to her like a sand bar.
.
.
I hadn't noticed it before because there is just a little more brown in that streak than there is in the rest of the picture. But if you rotate the picture clockwise by 90 degrees~ then that stripe is vertical alld is more apparent to the eye.
You see, the eye doesn't discriminate horizontal darknesses on,a lake very well because w~'re.so used to seeing horizontal
greynesses, so that's why you have to rotate the picture so that the vertical position really shows up much better.
I think it's a real detail in the picture because the picture is a very high quality print and it looks like the colors are
developed very accurately. I t.hink that the browns that we see there really do belong i!J.'the piCture. And since they all
string together, it certainly looks like a real detail. In other words, it's not an artifact/of the development process.
Now if that detail really is there, it has some interesting implications. It might mean there was a sandbar going
across. There is another school of thought which says that since it's dark, maybe it means deep water. But I don't think it
would be a brownish color if it was deep water-it would be more' toward a dark blue. At any rate, if it is a sand
bar-and this could be verified by a person who knows lake biology, a limnologist-if it is a sandbar then there is a
distinct possibility that the object was put there by someone, either by the pe~ple who took the.photo.or by the people
who.were fooling them, because you could simply walk out on such a. sandbar and tow t~e obj~t behind you and hide
behind it as you made it rise out of the water and so forth. There'd be a way of hoaxing people,. especially if they were
frightened out of their wits as these people say they were. Otherwise, the water being as cold Ils.ii is, and the object
appearing to be so far out as' it is-of course that distance has to be verified-it would be very difficult to hoax the object. If it is that far out, it is large; and the water is cold, therefore you'd \have to have a wet suit on, real protection from
cold water, and it would be a big bother to do such a hoax. But if that is a sandbar then ifmakes it much easier, the water
is shallow and you could pull it out behind you and so forth. .'
:"'.
Also, the water 'would be warm if this is a shallower part, and this is in the daytimc:{So the sandbar problem really
has ~o be investigated. And you don't probably have to find the actual spot to verify it,you could get an expert on lakes
and he could tell from the picture, I believe, if that is a sandbar or not.
Another question posed by this woman who used to live there: She was suspicious that the lake was so narrow at
that point because Lake Champlain is colossal in width, and' that this would have had to taken place at what's called
"The Narrows" by the native who Ijve.around there for it to b~ a true photograph of the area. l.say that it's suspicious
because if it is an uncharacteristically narrow portion of the lake, perhaps the picture' wasn't taken at Lake Champlain
but rather at some other body of water.
We have a permanent record of the. head, and half of the neck, and just a tiny bit of the back hump. This is.~ordCd
on computer punch cards, and I'll be having it in my office for any possible future processihg.of that data'.' . ; I.
To summarize: The picture appears to be valid print, not a superposition, of a real objecn'omewhere out on a fairly large body of water. There are some interesting things that have to be verified, such asihepos~ibility of the sanClhar,
. and if the sandbar question is resolved and the fact that it's not a sandbar can be really confirmed, then there'S much
smaller likelihood of this being a hoax.
.
-recorded by J. Richard Greenwell

[Dr. Frieden's interim report is reprinted without editing, word for word as it was received in the
editorial office on June 22 along with a covering letter from Mr. Greenwell in which he
noted: "Although Dr. Frieden is a good friend of mine. I do not agree with some of his conclusions.',
Second Qwuter 1981

Pursuit 53

The Elusive
'Powys Beast'
by clanet It CoHn BonI
is a small country of mounWALES
tain and moorland, the home of
such creatures as the otter, badger,
hare and fox, and literally thousands
of sheep. One species definitelY not
native to Wales is the big cat, but in
1980 strange reports began to emerge,"
of lynxes and pumas running wild in
the hills.
The first publicity was at the end of
October when a sheep farmer on a rePowys, Wale's. is about 50 miles west of Birfitingham in the Midlands of England.
mote 1,500-acre farm near Llangurig
looked like one of those Scottish wild
saw it as it bounded across the fields
in the county of Powys contacte,d the
cats.
1
just
saw
the
front
half
of
it
and
said it was cat-like, and definitely not
police to report what he believed was
1
didn't
step
any
nearer.
1
was
reidly
a dog. He said: "The animal was a
a strange animal lurking in his barn
dark color with some white on it. It was
quite frightened." The same size as an
among tQe bales of straw. He had
Alsatian
(German
shepherd)
dog,
the
difficult
to see what part was white
heard unusual snoring noises coming
animal
was
described
as
having
gray
because
it
was moving. It was the size
from the barn,. he had found large
of a large dog. The animal moved very
fur with black spots, and large pointed
footprints in the mud, and four of his
quickly and ran in leaps and bounds
ears with tufts of hair-a "clear descrip3,000 sheep had been killed in a way
.
tion
of
a
lynx.
The
nurse
retreated
to
like a cheetah. It looked as if it was
not typical of dogs or foxes.
her
car,
where
she
sat
for
five
minutes
scared
and stopped from time to time
Armed police went to the farm and
and looked around. I haven't got any
tJefore plucking up the courage to walk
kept watch throughout the. night of
again along th~ lane. This time, no
idea what it was but it was definitely
October 23. Using subtle tactic~, they
animal
was
to
be
seen,
and
no
one
at
wild
and not a dog. The tracks left by
"hammered hell" (in the farmer's
of
any
pet
of
that
dethe
animal
were the size of a small
the
farm
knew
words) out of the side of the barn
scription in the area.
palm with claws about the si~e of a
when they heard the animal snoring.
finger."
At midday on the 24th they decided
Although "the farmer did not actually
A
month
after
the
Langurig
stake
to go in, and, not surprisingly, they
see
the animal make the tracks that
out,
the
local
papers
reported
that
the
found that the beast had flown. The
were found, plaster casts were taken of
"Powys beast" had actually been seen,
farmer later told us that some bales
them, and members of the staff at
on a farm near Llanidloes only six
were wet, as if with urine, that strange
Dudley Zoo in the English West Midmiles,
from
Llangurig.
The
farmer
who
droppings 3;4 inches long were found,
and that there was a strong smell.
Theso-called "Powys beast" (though
it must be noted that no one had actually seen any animal) was widely publicized on television and radio, and in
Fanner Michael
the newspapers. As a result, a most
Nash describes to
interesting delayed report came from
Janet Bord the
Old Churchstoke . on the England/';)
events at his
Wales border 30 miles to the northeast
Uangurlg farm.
To the right IS,the
of an incident that pre-dated the Llanbam where the
gurig events by nearly a month.
'Powys beast' was
A district nurse revealed how, on
thought to be
September 29, 1980, while she was on
hiding. WOoden
box covers 5inch
her. rounds, she came upon an unexfootprint found
pected animal. Having parked her car,
in the mud.
she was walking along a lane to a farm
at about midday when she saw a large
cat-like animal ahead of her. "I stayed
roqted to the spot," she said. "I shut
my eyes and opened them and it was
still there, about 40 yards away. I remember thinking 'God, ~hat is it?' It

ru...aJt54

Secoad Qaada' 1981

lands said the prints could have been

made by a large dog. Back in October,
we had photographed the one preserved
paw print at the L1angurig farm, and
this too was the size of a small palm,
five inches long by three inches wide.
After seeing our photographs, the L1angurig print W3li also pronounced doglike by the Dudley Zoo superintendent.
He had a special interest in the "Powys
beast" because earlier in 1980, in July,
he saw a strange animal at Wolverhampton (which is in the Wesl Midlands, 40. miles east of Old Churchstoke where the "lynx" was seen).
The first sighting of what sounded
like a puma was made by a schoolteacher who was walking near a disused
and overgrown railway line. A few
days later, the zoo superintendent and
his senior cat-keeper visited the area
and saw a large animal about 300 yards
away being mobbed by birds. They
noted that the animal was definitely
cat-like, but said they were too far
away to make a positive identification.
Late in December 1980 a large animal
moving in leaps and bounds like a cat,
and with a very long tail, was seen in
car head.Jights in a lane near Wolverhampton. A week earlier, the "Po~ys
beast" was seen again near L1anidloes,
a fortnight after the first sighting in
that area. A farmer's wife and her 11-

year-old daughter saw a reddish-brown

their animals. Some are domestic pets,
animal with a longish pointed nose.
others are former. pets living wild after
It was standing by the farm gate, and
having been abandoned by uncaring
the family sheepdog was curious. "Our
owners. These dogs turn naturally to
dog Bobby went up to it, but it didn't
the plentiful livestock for their food.
try to attack .him, it just stpod there,"
Perhaps the "Powys beast" is a dog.
the woman said. However, when she
But there were no reports of sheepapproached, it ran off quickly across
killings in the L1anidloes area around
fields and into a woods. Large paw
the time the "beast" was seen, and the
prints with claw-marks were found. L1anidloes farmer who saw the animal
The woman described the animal as
said it was definitely not a dog. The
"looking like a large dog."
.footprints found cannot be considered
Was it perhaps only a large dog that
positive evidence in favor of a canine
was responsible for all the sightings of
identification, because no one actually
the so-called "Powys beast"? From
saw the "beast" make the prints.
the district nurse's detailed description,
Until or unless someone manages to
it seems unlikely t\Jat. she was frightened . trap or shoot it, the "Powys beast"
by a dog. But her description does not
must remain unidentified, and as much
match the descriptions of the L1anid- a mystery as the "Surrey puma" which
loes witnesses, so it was probably not
reappears from time to time in southern
the same animal that she saw. At L1anEngland. or the "lion" which terrorized
gurig, of course, no animal was seen,
the Midlands county of Nottinghamand after the event the police tried to
shire in the summer of 1976. It is inexplain it all away. The paw-print was
triguing that in Britain, where the only
made by a large dog; the snoring noise
native "big cat" is the small Scottish
was made by owls; the "droppings"
wild cat, sightings of big cats are frequently reported. Coincidentally with
(unfortunately not available for examination) were owl pellets-all reasonable
the events in Powys, autumn 1980 saw
assumptions in the absence of any
an upsurge in the number of reports,
sightings, or a corpse.
from southern England, Warwickshire
We are left with four dead sheep, and the West Midlands (both in central
killed in a manner untypical of dogs.
England), and parts of Scotland, whtjre
It is indeed true that sheep farmers in
a farmer actually managed to entice
this area are plagued by dogs worrying
a "wild" puma into a cage.

Footprint of unknown
animal photographed
at Uangurig, Powys.
October 26. 1980.

Photographs on pages
54-55 c:opyrtght Forteen
Pk:Iuze Libnuy are reproduced .." permIuIon.

Second Qaada 1981

Pursull55

Ice 'Falls and the Leidenfrost Effect

A Common Kitchen Phenomenon May Explain How Ice from Outer Space

Beats the Heat as Earth's Atmosphere Tries to Deny its Passage

I

I
I

by Morgan D. Eads
N a Monday evening in 1849 an unusually loud peal
O
thunder boomed out of the heavens over Ord, Scotland. The sound *as followed immediately by the fall of a

of.

, monstrous piece bf ice, said to be "nearly twe~ty feet in

circumference, and of a proportionate thickness. "2
Towns in many lands have been subjected to bombardment by giant icy missiles. In the late 1700s a lump of ice
"the size of an elephant" was said to have landed near Seringapatam, India;2 So huge was this boulder of frozen,
water that it took three days to melt!
In our century 'reports of ice falling from the skies h,I2,I.1
need to be checked against air-traffic patterns. Nowadays
routine ice falls from aircraft are often mistaken forthose
rare, bizarre and ~udden arrivals on Earth of chunk-style
frozen water product that qualify, as, "true" or classic ice
falls. It is my belief that some' of' the latter are not
byproducts of human vagaries; nor 'are they the results of
unusual weather or climatic conditions. Rather, they are
icy travelers f.rom ,outer space. ,",
The idea that extraterrestrial lce'might survive the infer~
nally hot drop to the Earth's surface has intrigued many
writers, including Charles Fort w!:t0 hi~ted at the possibili~
ty with characteristic whimsicality.l Contemporary writers
such as Clarke l4 and Corliss2 have made similar conjectures, based on the evidence.
How can a lump of ice survive the hellish descent that incinerates the majority of stony and metallic meteors'?
There is a rather obscure physical: phenomenon known as
the Leidenfrost effect. It ,occurs when a stable liquid comes'
into contact with a heated surface. If the temperature of
the heated surface is far enough above the boiling point of
the liquid, a vapor'layer forms ~hat insulates the liquid
from the direct he~t of the 'surface," The vapor barrier is a
very poor conductor of heat,'but it-does allow some heat to
reach the liquid via infrared radiation that passes through
the vapor layer. An additional small amount of heat
, reaches the liquid ~hrough the thermal conductance of the
vapor. It is the heat that penetrates to the liquid that sustains the reaction.
As J. G. Leidenfrost di~coveredl(i, if t\le liquid is water
one call actually le,:,itate, it' over a, heated surface., A droplet
of water ,on a surface heated to at least 250-310 C.4 will
flo~t,on,'a cushion,'of vapOr. The, w~ter, sustained by the
vapor layer; will evapprate much more slowly than cooler
water that is closer to the boiling point of 100 C. '
A simple dem:oilstratiori'irh'our own kitchen provides a
first-hand view of'the Leidenfrost effect in operation~ Heat
an iron skillet on the kitchen 'range and randomly sprinkle
water on it. Soon the temperature will rise sufficiently to
initiate the Leidenfrost phenomenon. Little droplets of
water become spheres, and if you blow on them they race
around the bottom of the skillet seemingly unimpaired by
friction. Time the rate of evaporation of the droplets and
PursultS6

you 'Yill find that they last much 'longer than droplets that
are set on a somewhat cooler surface.
Tw.o familiar tricks of the'magician's trade make use of
the Leidenfrost effect. ff a moist (i.e., prewetted) hand is
d,ipped into molten lead quickly enough it can be .wi~h
drawn unharmed. What has happe/led is that the moisture
on th~ hand suddenly vaporized and acted to shield the
hand from the great heat. The same thing happens when a
stuntman licks a red-hot bar with his tongue. The saliva on
the tongue forms a vapor shield to give a fleeting moment
of protection from the heat.
In the laboratory the Leidenfrost effect ha!! been seen to
occur in a variety of situations of which'the following are
examples.
,l. "Liquid air" has been observed to undergo the
Leidenfrost eff~t at room temperature. 1 In this particular
reference the effect was called "tile spheroidal state." If
poured onto a table or the floor, l~quid air will roll about
madly in little droplets. The droplets survive for a surpris-,
ingly long period of time.
2. Liquid nitrogen (boiling poirlt -196 C.) has been
studied as it undergoes "film boiling," and that term is an
apt stage-name for the Leidenfrost ~ffect in one of its more
dramatic performances.9
'
3~ Common liquids such' as water, benzene, carbon
tetrachloride, ethanol and n-Octane have been observed to
levitate, via the Leidenfrost effect~ over heated stainless
steel and other metal surfaces.4.s.lo.11
4. Metal samples heated under water with lasers have
shown a related phenomenon call~~ the "inverse Leidenfrost effect. "7 In this case, the metal temperatures were on
the order of 1500-3000 C.
5. Masses of cold liquids have floated upon masses of
"superheated liquids" while exhibidng the effect.s
6. "Extended liquid masses" have also been observed to
undergo the Leidenfr6st effect ovel heated surfaces. 1I
This is a small sampling of manylinstances in which the
Leidenfrost effect has been observed, but it should serve to
refine the definition. Ne~t we need 'to know how the phenomenon may influence the fate of a cosmic piece of ice
falling to Earth. Consider the following scenario:
One hundred fifty miles out in space three meteoric objects are begin~ing a descent to Earth's surface. The first is
a stony meteor (a chrondite), the second consists of some
iron compounds in a silicate matrix, and the third is a large
lump of ice.
'
Our hypothetical wanderers have, sneaked up on the
planet from its b.ackside, 'as the Earth maneuvers around
the Sun with an orbital speed of 66,000 mph. Objects that
Special thanks to Professor Kenneth J. Bell. Regents Professor of
Chemical Engineering at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. Prof.
Bell was able to direct me to a number of useful references. including
some of his original work (references 4, S, 9 and II), This is not meant to
infer that Prof. Bell either accepts or rejects my mechanism for ice falls.
His papers will be 'a boon 'to anyone who wants to do further research on
the Leidenfrost effect.

Second QauteI' 1981

move head-first into the Earth's orbital path attain much

greater speeds than our three meteors. We will assume that
our meteors have only enough speed to overtake the Earth,
so they will begin dropping at a relatively slow initial
speed. "
At one hundred miles up the three meteors begin to penetrate the tenuous outer fringes of the atmosphere. At this
point the ice bolide begins to glisten with a thin layer of
moisture as gas molecules strike its cold surface. This is the
first step in a process that will separate our ice block from
the two companions that are he~ting up alongside it. "
The next step is the sudden plunge into deeper and denser layers of atmosphere. The incredibly fierce heat of atmospheric drag friction now comes into play. Within a few
seconds the stony and metallic meteors glow white hot and
burn up. All that remains of them is a sparse streamer of
hot dust that will cool and slowly settle to the surface of
land or water below.
The ice bolide performs in a completely different manner. The surface film of moisture on the ice confronts the
enormous heat of drag friction" and a Leidenfrost vapor
layer is formed. Vapor blows out from the lower surface of
the ice and up the sides. Now the bolide consists of three
p~rts: an ice core, a layer of liquid, and a layer of water
vapor.
The extremely low heat-conductivity of the vapor protects the core of ice from instant dissolution. The heat that
does penetrate the vapor sustains the vapor shield and
slows the melting of the ice. Tl)e ice bolide will continue
melting until it is totally Iiquified or vaporized, or until the"
core of ice hits the ground.
Now that we have explored a process that might allow
the ice to reach the Earth's surface, we should next consider a problem related to ice falls in general, namely,
speed. The velocity of a piece of cosmic ice just before it
strikes the ground would seem to "be enormous; images of
impact craters come readily to mind. But in all the ice-fall
reports of which I am aware the impact craters are either
unimpressive or nonexistent. This suggests that the final
velocity of an ice bolide may be considerably less than
might be expected.
What kind of braking mechanism could slow the descent
of an ice bolide through the atmosphere? One mechanism
might be the braking action of atmospheric friction. As the
ice falls into an increasingly dense and viscous medium it is
subjected to powerful frictional forces which act in opposition to the motion of the ice. The frictional forces gain as
the object loses altitude. Eventually the frictional force
becomes equal to the gravitational force and the ice is then
said to be at terminal velocity. Terminal velocity is a complex function Of the speed, volume, shape, and mass of the
ice, as well as the density of the atmosphere. The terminal
velocity is also dependent upon the gravitational acceleration ("g") which will vary with height. Thus, at terminal
velocity the leveling-off of speed may be"considerable.
A second braking mechanism acts only on pitted, rotating ice cores. In such case the rotating bolide periodically
exposes its pitted sections to the most intense frictional
heat at the bottom surface of the ice. When the heat
penetrates into a pit a vapor layer blows outward like the
thrust from the tail of a rocket. Under these conditions a
One of the more imaginative ideas making the rounds in aerospace
circles is to pack ice into the tail ofa rocket. The ice would be blasted with

Secoacl Quart_1911

small additional amount of braking action is provided and

it reinforces the much greater effect of atmospheric friction. The terminal velocity of a pitted bolide would therefore be less than that of a smooth piece of ice.
To summarize: The underlying fact we have to consider
is that large pieces of ice do fall from the sky. Ice falls do
not always admit to a conventional explanation. I f some of
the chilly invaders actually come from beyond the Earth,
the Leidenfrost effect may indeed provide an answer to the
challenge question: How do they get here?
Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost was a German medical doctor. In 1756 he published some observations concerning
water. One of the phenomena he described has since become known as the Leidenfrost effect. Others before him
had commented on the effect, but Leidenfrost was the first
person to publish detailed observations on the subject. The
followiilg extracts are from the original Latin version De

Aquae "Communis Nonnullis Qualitaribus Tractafus-in

translation, A" Tract About Some Qualifies of Common
Waler. A portion of the text has been translated by
Carolyn S. Wares'" and is excerpted here as historically
interesting .. (Within-"text deletions are denoted by
ellipses-M.D.E.)

I~

An iron spoon of any size, well polished within and

free from rust and dirt, is heated over glowing coals
until it glows with light.. To this glowing spoon,
removed from the coals, send through a glass tube of
suitable length, of which the other end finishes in a
very narrow capillary canal, one drop o( very pure
distilled water . . . At the instant when the drop
touches the glowing iron, it is spherical. It does not
adhere to the spoon, as water is accustomed to do,
which touches colder iron ... Moreover, however,
this drop only evaporates very slowly. For if you turn
" to a pendulum indicating seconds with its oscillations, at least 34 or 35 seconds, that is it runs a little'
over half a minute of an hour before the whole drop
disappears. Which at last exceedingly diminished so
that it can hardly any more be seen, with an audible
. crack, which with the ears one easily hears, it finishes
its existence ...
Dr. Leidenfrost also notes that as the spoon cools down
closer to the boiling point, the unusual effect disappears.
The water droplets begin to boil in the usual fashion:
... Meantime while the iron is cooled more, after the
second drop h'as evaporated, then let go a third,
which, with a great motion of globules greater certainly"than can be called boiling, it will disappear
within the space of three seconds ... If then you put
in the fourth drop with the same precautions, this is
no longer rolled into a globe, but adheres to the
spoon and makes a damp spot in it ana with a whistle
surges into a true motion of boiling, and thus foaming into vapors it will depart very swiftly inside the
space of one second or even swifter ...
Theories of matter and energy are quite different today
A note' on the translator:"Ms" Carolyn Wares has instructed Latin at the
University of Oklahoma, Norman. As a graduate student in the area of
medieval history she was associated with the Degolyer Collection and the
History of Science collections at the univers.ity.
energy pulses from ground-based lasers and the vapor Ihal would blow
off the ice would be directed out of the tail IQ give thrust.

Pursuil57

than they were in 1756 when Leidenfrost prepare<I his

tract. The phlogiston theory of heat was exalted, and the
"four elements" defined as earth, air, fire, and water
could be transmuted one to another. It is interesting to
learn how Leidenfrost was able to merge his observations
into the prevailing theories of his day. The interested
reader should peruse the original transla,tion. 1II

REFERENCES
I. Allen, H. -So and Maxwell, R. S., A Textbook oj Heat, Part

One, Macmillan, London (1939), pp. 254-255.

2. Corliss, William R. (compiler), Handbook oj Unusual
Natural Phenomena, The Sourcebook Project, Md. (1977), pp.
506-509.
..
3. Fort, Charles, The Complete Books oj Charles Fort, Dover
Publications, Inc., New York (1974). See for example pp.
184-192.
. .
4. Gottfried, B. S:, Lee, C. J. and Bell, K. J., "The Leidenfrost, Phenomenon: Film Boiling of Liquid Droplets o~ a Flat
Plate," International Journal Heat Mass Transjer, Vol, 9 (1966),
pp.1167-1187.
5. Gottfried, Byron S. and Bell, Kenneth J., "Film Boiling of
Spheroidal Droplets: The Leidenfrost Phenomenon," Industrial
and Engineering Chemistry Fundamentals, Vol. 5, No.4, Novem'
ber 1966, pp. 561-568.
6. Griffiths, R: F., "Observation and Analysis of an Ice Hydrometeor of Extraordinary Size," The Meteorological Magazine, Vol. 104, No. 1238, September 1975, pp. 253-260.

'Champ~ -A

7. Hall, R. S., Board, S. J., Clare, A. J., Duffey, R. B.,

Playle, T. S. and Poole, D. H., "Inverse Leidenfrost Phenomenon," Nature, Vol. 224, October 18, 1969, pp. 266-267.
8. HiCKman, Kenneth C. D.,. "Floating Drops and Boules,"
Nature, Vol. 201, March 7, 1964, pp. 985-987.
9. Keshock, E. G.' and Bell, K. J., "The Influence of Interfacial Instability Phenomena on Heat Transfer to Liquid
Nitrogen Drops Unpergoing Film Boiling," American Society oj
Mechanical Engineers Publication 70-HT-15. Manuscript was
presented at a conference on fluids engineering, heat transfer and
lubrication, Detroit, Mich., May 24-27, 1970.
10. Leidenfrost, Johann Gottlob, "On The Fixation Of Water
'In Diverse F,ire," translated and copyrighted (1966) by Carolyn'
Wares from A Tract About Some Qualities ()j Common Water,
I?uisburg, 1756.'" Introduction by Kenneth J. Bell, International
Journal Heal Mass Transfer, Vol..9 (1966), pp. 1153-1166:
II. Patel, B. M. and Bell, K. J., "The Leidenfrost.Phenom. en on For Extended Liquid Masses/' Chemical,Engineering Progress Symposium Series, Vol. 62, NQ. 64 (1966), pp. 62-71.
12. SITU member #432, "Ice Ball Fall," Pursuit, Vol: 13, No.
I, Winter 1980, pp. 42-43.
. 13. SITU ml=mber #432, "Ice Fall in New Jersey," pursuit,
Vol. II, No.2, Spring 1978, p. 76.
.
.
14. Welfare, Simon and Fairley, John, Arthur C. Clarke's
Mysterious World, A&W Publishers, Inc., New York (1980), pp.
40-43,49.

* The author assumes full responsibility for the interpretation of quoted

material. The translator, Ms. Wares, has emphasized that different interpretations of the material are possible.

Personal Update _________- - - - - - -

{Continued from page 52)

naturalist Johnson said he was convinced something unusual and strange was in the lake and should be protected.
During my 45-minute slide presentation and lecture I informed the public and media of my greatest fear: that
"Champ:' might be harmed if he were not protected. I recalled the 1976 account of a man who had a "Champ"
sighting and did not know whether to run and get a gun or a
camera. The Mansi photograph was shown to Governor
Richard Snelling and to many legislators in pre-hearing ..
private sessions but was not shown to the public because of
the Mansis' decision to withhold publication until the op-
tical analysis results were in.
The resolution did not proceec;i; Rep. Small could not
garner enough support to move it out of the Natural
Resources Committee before the 1981 Legislature 'ended its
: session. But "Champ's" cause may yet prosper. In a
forecast of the 1982 legislative term the Burlington Free
Press suggested that "lawmakers ... may take actfon on
neglected bills that would protect the Lake Champlain
monster .... "
. . The uses of adversity are not unknown to "Champ" supporters. When Clifford Rollins, a 66-year-old resident of
Rutland, offered a $500 cash rewardto anyqne' "who can
deliver me 'Champ's' hide, dead or alive," the friends of
"Champ" quickly deflected the thrust by saying that
Rollins' deadly proposal made one of the better arguments
for their cause.
Debate about "Champ" and the Mansi photograph will
most assuredly continue. The photograph will convince
some that "Champ" exists; others will consider it inconclusive, in no way resolving old doubts. M~ny on both
sides will agree that the fragments of cryptozoological

Although it has so far failed to produce evidence in the

search for "Champ," the side-scanning sonar device designed by Jim Kennard prov~d its accuracy by recording
the remaining rib structure of the Champlain, a passenger
steamboat wrecked in 1875 and sunk in 25 feet of water.

evidence are beginning to give "Champ" identity, perhaps

as a zeuglodon, pl!!siosaur, or maybe . . .
For far too long the Loch Ness monster, "Cham\,," sea
serpents, Bigfoot creatures and other unknown animals
have been the targets of human ignorance strongly rooted in
fear. The study of these phenomena has been abused and
much maligned. It's time to throw aside.the.executioner's
weapons and use more reWarding tools to find out the things
we need to know. The Mansi photograph has renewed incentive, hot only to seriously consider the existence of
"Champ," but also to delve freely and without a smirk into
the mystery of many other "unexplaineds."
Dr. Mackal, for one, agrees. "No one," he is quoted as
saying, "whether amateur or professional, need apologize
for. his or her romanticism, provided that it is accompanied
by reasoned and balanced credulity." Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote somewhat earlier: "Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but
she is a million fathom~ deep."
~

.Second Quart_ 1981

Pul'llllit 58
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. r _ _ _ _ _

~,

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. ._ _ _ _. . . . ,-_. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . ._ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 Opinion

Why ~he Government Should Fund

UFO Studies
" by Thomas B. BUrch
1981 by Thomas B. Burch ,

THERE WAS A TIME when public awareness of

J the UFO controversy could be summarized by
such cliches and catch phrases as "flying saucers" and'
"little green men." That was a ,long time ago. Public
attitudes toward the. UFO phenomenon have changed
dramatically in the past decade.
In the early 1950s distinguished spokesmen representing government, military and scientific institutions
vocally maintained that the possibility of flying saucers
from Mars (or anywhere else) was just too utterly
preposterous to be considered seriously. These spokesmen, in their infinite wisdom, assured us that the saucer mystery was only a short-term fad. Furthermore,
they said, UFO sighting reports were the product of
post-war nerves, hallucinations and mass hysteria. Well,
if any members of Washington officialdom' have kept
score they might note that the "short term fad" has
continued unabated for 33 years. If there ever was
anything short-term about UFOs, it was our government's serious consideration of this prevalent yet elusive
and bewildering phenomenon.
The U.S. Air Force conducted its own inveStigation
of UFO' phenomena from 1947 until 1969. In 22 years
of Air Force data-collection and investigation over
12,000 UFO sightings in the United States were reported and logged. While a majority (94070) of all the
UFO sightings were found to have prosaic causes,
6% of the reports were never satisfactorily explained
and were therefore cataloged as true "llIlldentifieds."
In 1969 the Air Force discontinued UFO investigations. Since then the task of collecting and investigating
sighting reports has become the exclusive domain of
private UFO organizations and individual researchers.
Despite the embarrassingly meager resources at their
disposal these individuals and private organizations
have performed their investigations admirably and, in
the opinion of many, every bit as scientifically as the
Air Force. However, the lack of adequate funding has
severely limited the scope of effOrts which can be realistically pursued by researcherS in the private sector.
The most productive tasks undertaken by the private
sector have been, and will continue to be, sightingreport collection and follow-up' investigations. The
reason for this is simply that data collection and investigation usually require only an expenditure of time
and personal effort on the part of the independent
researcher; considerable activity can be financed with

Seeoad Qaan. 1981

quite modest expenditures of cash. In a way this is

fortunate, for the typical independent researcher or
research group rarely receives much, if any, financial
support from outside sources. What the private researcher lacks in financing and sophistication he tries
to make up for with enthusiasm and tenacity. But
th~ admirable characteristics are as nothing compared
to the staggering costs of the state-of-the-art scientific
research which are necessary to deal conclusively with'
the complexities of the UFO phenomenon.
The continued collection of sighting reports will
expand the UFO information data base, no doubt.
But it seems unlikely that further 'expansion of the
data base will contribute much to further research.
J. Allen Hynek, former astronomy consultant to the
Air Force projects "Sign" and "Blue Book" and the
founder/director of the Center for UFO Studies, has
described the UFO phenomenon as "incredi~le things
seen by credible people." Continued collection and
investigation of sighting reports will, in all likelihood,
only confirm that the same types of incredible things
are being seen by an increasing number of credible
peQple each year. Substantiation of the performance
will scarcely contribute to the mystery's solution.
Unless' we are really willing to wait for a UFO to
land on the White House lawn, we must develop a
more assertive approach toward UFO studies. Clearly
it is time for genuine, top-dollar, scientific research on
the grandest American scale-the same type of quality'
research and development that sent Apollo to the
Moon, landed Viking on Mars, and navigated Voyager past Jupiter and SatiJrn.
Certainly I am not the first to advocate such ,an
increased level of effort, nor shall I be the last. Neither
do I underestimate the financial expenditures which
are required to implement such research and develop'ment programs. Yet without a considetable financial
investment UFOlogy will, of necessity, be forced to
busy itself with continued sighting report data-collection
activity instead of pursuing programs which might
result in measurable progress.
No adage can describe the critical relationship between funding and scientific research more adequately
than "you get what you pay for." Also pertinent is
another quote from Dr. Hynek:. "Years ago an old
professor told me that the most important letters in,

PursuitS9

the phrase 'fundamental research' were the first three ..

He was wrong. The most important are the first four."
Laboratory equipment, portable measuring instruments, test and analysis programs as well as salaries
for qualified technical, administrative and consultant
personnel are expensive almost beyond .belief. Where
will the money come from? There are two primary
sources: the private sector is .one, the government is
the other.
.
If organized UFOlogy has learned anything in its
years of existence, it has been that funds are hard to
come by in the private sector. UFO organizations have
bee.n initiating and promoting fund-raising c;:ampaigns
for years but the results have been less than rewarding.
Likewise, official ears have generally turned deaf to
requests for federal funding of UFO research;lt is my
belief that the government has resisted such requests
for two fundamental reasons. The first reason is that
a well-defined UFO research program or plan has
never been presented for serious consideration by any
recent Administration or Congress. The second reason
is that no one has yet explained, in a convincing manner, just WHY the UFO mystery needs to be solved.
Anyone wishing to 10Qsen government purse-strings
must address these two critical issues or expect little in
the way of serious consideration.
As to HOW the UFO phenomenon can best be
studied I will leave to Staton Friedman, Dr. Hynek,
Jacques Vallee and other noted . leaders in the UFO
field~ By virtue of their collective experience such.
scientists are far better qualified than I to develop
meaningful research programs. However, in regard to
WHY the phenomenon needs to b~ solved, let me
offer the following argument.
UFOs exist! Air Force investigative records prove it.
After 22 years of investigation a significant number of
UFO sighting reports remain unexplained. These are
genuine UFOs. However, Air Force investigations did
not .determine what UFOs are. This still needs to be
determined, and nothing less than the national interest
requires that it be a full determination of what UFOs
are.
Various theories attempt to explain the causes of
UFO sightings. These theories are too numerous to
attempt to list without ov~rlooking someone's pet
interest, but all of them seem to fall into three basic
categories:
1. Extraterrestrial origin/visitation
2. Manifestations of the psychi'c/paranormal
3. Currently unexplained convJntional phenomena
Which theory is valid? That qubstion has been hotly
debated for years, without resolution. No amount of
persuasive evidence favors any single theory, so a truly
objective study or" the UFO phenomenon should pursue the investigation of all three categories.
There is no need to narrow the field of candidate
. . theories in order to argue convincingly for government funding of UFO research programs. Whatever
UFOs turn out to be, the realization will have a most
profound effect on all humankind. As Dr. Hynek

puts it., "The UFO is one of ihe great mysteries of our

age. Its solution ... one of mankind's greatest challeriges. When the long-awaited answer to the problem
comes, I believe it will prove to be not merely the next
small step in the march of science, but a mighty and ..
totally. unexpected quantum jump. "
Will the long-awaited answer provide benefits to
humanity or will it pose a' threat to the existence of
our species? No on~ knows. But it is of utmost importance for us to seek the answer. And this, in a nut-
shell, is precisely WHY the government should either
re-enter the UFO research arena itself, or fund the
civilian UFO research community to act as its surrogate.
.
Let us review each 'of the theory categories and
try to project. the potential benefits and threats each
might be able to convey.
.

Extraterrestrial Origin/ Visitation

If UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft, from what
source, or sources, do they originj\te? How.- many
races of beings do they represent and from how many
star systems do they ~ome? What form of social psychology might they pbssess? Could we possibly communicate with them and hope to understand what
they are saying to USt Most important, what are the
motivating factors behmd their visitation? Observation?
Assistance? Exploitation? A fertile mind can fabricate
a nearly endless stream of thought~provoking questions. But let us consi~er some matters which should,
for selfish national reasons, be of prime interest to
our government.
If the extraterrestrials possess a benevolent nature,
could they be persuad~ to assist humankind in dealing
with the many chronic, terrestrial problems of our.
age? If so, who on this Earth would our government
want to develop the list of problem priorities to be
dealt with? Would the elected leaders .in Washington
want to undertake thms choice assignment, or would
they be willing to let a ,world forum, such as the United
Nations, develop the priorities list? And if the United
States decided to "retognize" and negotiate with an
extraterrestrial race, who would be empowered to
speak for the nation? The President? The State Department? The Senate? The House of Representatives?
The UN Ambassador'? Or some specially appointed
envoy? The time to came to grips wiih these questions
is now. It is quite possible that an extraterrestrial race
of beings orbiting our Earth in advallced spacecraft
may be unwilling to wait for us to decide just who
"our leader" is! .
We have consider~ these unique questions as derived from initial cOl~tact with a benevolent race of
exti-atem;strials. But wJmt if these beings exhibit a malevolent nature? Whal then would be our response?
Would we resist them, totally (like the Indian nations
resisted their exploitation at the hands of the white
man ... with perhaps;the same consequences)? Would
we negotiate diplomai(cally with them in the hope that
a "sense of fair play';' is a universal trait among all

.\. ..
Pursuil60

Second Quarter 1981

rational beings? Or would we 'capitulate to any and

all of their demands? If we decided to engage in a true
War of the Worlds, what strategy would we employ?
Would we be willing to fire the first shot? Would our
tactics be predicated upon defensive confrontation or
should we seize offensive opportunities as they may
appear? Would we be willing to share our most closely
guarded military secrets with the Soviet Union in a
combined attempt to thwart an extraterrestrial threat?
Here also a nearly endless ,list of sceriarios can be
envisioned for human confrontation with a technologically advanced race of beings. The grade-B science
fiction movies of the '50s and '60s are full of such
invaders-from-space themes. Are these theme~ merely
sensationalized flights of fancy? Perhaps S9. But then
again ...
If UFOs are the product of an extraterrestrial technology, humankind will either stand to gain benefits
beyond comprehension or else come face to face with
the ultimate challenge. Our ability to meet the challenge, or optimize the benefits, will be proportionate
to the extent of our ,decisive action. Currently our ,
government chooses ~o ignore the potentialities. If we
wish to maintain some control over our destiny these
theories must be seriously considered before we find
theory overtaken by actuality.

Manifestation of the PsYchic or

Paranonnal
Some scientists who have been involved in UFO
studies are now giving considerable attention to the
psychic/paranormal aspects of UFO experiences. The
increased popularity of this theory is the "new wave"
in UFOlogy. It is too early to tell whether the pursuit
of this theory will lead to paydirt. At times it seems
that the current inspection of paranormal, linkage may
be a by-product of UFOlogy's c<,>llective frustration
in dealing with the nuts-and-bolts extraterrestrial hypothesis. The concept of UFOs as a .mind phenomen<,>n
means considerably different things to different people.
Some researchers think that UFOs may be a form of
holographic projection observed by witnesses who incorrectly perceive them as actual spacecFaft. Others
suggest that circumstances may exist which allow a
person or persons to subconsciously project mental
images which are then consciously perceived by other
persons. Then there are those UFO reports which
contain aspects of both physical and, paranormal phenomena as, for example, in the use of telepathic communicat\on by a UFO occupant which is otherwise
perceived to be quite "real" by the witnesses' senses.
Other theories associated with the psychic/UFO. overlap
include elements of time ,travei, remote viewing, teleportation, materialization/dematerialization and selfinduced hallucinatory experiences.
, The concept of UFOs as a paranormal phenomenon
receives its momentum from an ever-increasing scientific awareness of mind power. If this mind power is
controlled by forces external to man we find ourselves

Seamd QII8I'ter 1981

being led back to the extraterrestrial hypothesis be- ,

cause someone, or something, has to be doing the
controlling. However, if man's own mind power is
responsible for UFO experiences then it behooves us
to educate ourselves rapidly in all the ramifications of
mind'power.
Both the Soviet Union and the United States seem
interested in the potential military and political applications of psychic/paranormal phenomena. Apparently
the Soviets are more actively pursuing psychic research
toward these ends than the Americans, ~nd there has
even been talk of a widening "psychic gap" between
the two superpowers. The potential uses of psychic/paranormal abilities for either military or political
purposes' are restricted only by the limits of one's
imagination. Some possibilities that immediately come
to mind are: psychic spying (utilizing accelerated ESP
, or remote-viewing abilities), psychic saborage (through
the concentrated use of psychokinetic energy), and
Perhaps even psychic assassination!
Whether these mind powers are to be regarded as
a threat or as a benefit is mostly a matter of perspective., They would be considered a wondrous benefit if
we (the U.S.) acquired them first. Conversely, if our
adversaries (the Soviets) developed and perfected the
use of these powers before the U.S. did, we would
consider ourselves gravely threatened.
Will m'an's own mind power prove to be the ultimate
superweapon? The cartoon 'character Pogo may have
written an appropriate epitaph in his famous words:
':We have met the enemy and he is us."

Caurently Unexplained
Conventional Phenomena
There are other individuals involved in UFO studies
who rarely make headlines in the national tabloid
newspapers. These individuals are the UFO skeptics,
also known as the "debunkers." Some of them, like
their pro-UFO counterparts, have managed to capture
public attention by persistently and loudly expressing
personal opinions regarding UFOs. Philip Klass and
Donald Menzel, James Oberg, Carl Sagan and Robert
Sheaffer are among the notable names on the contemporary roster of UFO skeptics. The debunkers believe
that, while extraterrestrial life is indeed possible, the
vast distances between star systelljls make interstellar
travel virtually impossible. They Itherefore maintain
that nuts~and-bol~s interstelJar spa~ecraft (i.e., UFOs)
are also an impossibility.
I
The debunkers are also unimpressed by the alleged
paranormal attributes of the UFq phenomenon. The
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims
of the Paranormal was formed several years ago by
debunkers for the stated purpose of separating "fact
from myth in the flood of occultism and pseudoscience
on the scene today." Unwilling to agree to any extent
with the previously described pro-UFO theories, the
skeptics offer their own down-to-earth explanation of
UFO sightings. They maintain that UFOs are either

Pursuit

'I

(I) currently misunderstood natural phenomena such

as ball lightning, plasma effects, swamp gas, "temperature inversions, etc., or (2) the misidentification" of
aircraft, satellites, astronomical displays, etc., by lay;.
persons uneducated in such matters.
The skeptics are convinCed that any UFO sighting
can be explained, at least to their satisfaction, by some
conventional cause. However, even if the skeptics are
largely correct the best of reasons still remain for the
government to plan serious UFO studies.
On two separate evenings in the summer of 1952,
UFOs were seen in the skies over the District of Columbia. The UFOs were plotted and tracked on radar
scopes at both Washington National Airport and at."
Andrews Air Force Base."" Reports "in<j.icate that the
radar scopes were operating perfectly when the UFOs
appeared over Washington. In addition to the radar
confirmation, the UFOs were visible to and reported
by commercial airline pilots, USAF interceptor pilots,
airport ground crews and civilian witnesses by the
" score. The UFOs were seen and photographed in the
sky directly over the U ..S. Capitol building. The photographs were front-page material in Washington" newspapers for days after the sightings. The" Air Force
later "explained" these UFOs by announcing that
both the radar and visual sightings" "were due to mirage
effects created" by a double temperature inversion. "Even if you find this Air Force explanation hard
to swallow, which many people do, there is still considerable importance in the statement. If a double
te!11perature inversion is capable of causing a mirage
effect which can simultaneously confuse radar sets,
cameras and many pairs of human eyes, shouldn't
this be good news to our government? Just imagine
what an advantage it would be to our national-defense
planners if temperature inversions could be used as
part of our military strategy and tactics. Huge" sums
of money are spent ~ery year to design and acquire
aircraft and missiles that are capable of penetrating
an enemy's" airspace and attacking his military targets.
Instead of building, manning and maintaining those
thousands of aircraft and missiles, perhaps we could
build fewer weapons systems and still accomplish our
mission by enlisting the aid of the simple, natural
temperature inversion.
As fanciful as this recommendation may seem, it
would appear to be as viable (and imaginative) as the
Air Force double-temperature-inversion explanation of
the UFOs that were sighted over Washington in the
summer of '52.
'
Even if the whole ~emperature-inverslon story was
fabricated to "explairi away" the Washington, D.C.
sightings, there" still rnight be other prosaic causes to
account for this extraordinary event as for the UFO
phenomenon in general. The eventual understanding
of conventional phenomena, through investigation
and research, could lead to our ability to duplicate
them and thereby provide the Pentagon with some
unquestionable defense advantages. Greater" understanding of conventional phenomena should be sought

""""'"62

by the whole scie~tific community, not just those

members who are engaged in military research and
development. Very little is actually known about the
ball-lightning and plasma effects so frequently us~ by
the skeptics to confound UFO reports and thos~ who
make them. Serious study of this aspect of UFO sightings would expand our knowledge of the physical laws
of science-in itself a sufficient justification" for the
federal funding of UFO research programs.
In summation, it should be reiterated that UFOs
do exiSt! What UFOs are, however, has "never been
determined. Numerous theories attempt to explain
what they are. Some theories are more exotic than
others, but none can be validated at our current level
of scientific understandiri"g. Thorough investigation of
all these theories can and should be undertaken now
by the many individuals who h&ve both the desire and
the scientific qualifications to do the work effectively.
What they" need to start with is" money, ~IJd" to keep
going, more money.
"
Regardless of which theory is ultimately found to be
the real cause of UFO sighting reports, each of the
theories poses certain potential benefits or threats to
the human condition. W.hether these benefits or threats
come from an extraterrestrial race of beings, from the
human mind, or from the physical enviroriment "is
inconsequential. Humankind must striv~ to acquire all
the "benefits available to it, and understand all the
threats that confront it.
The UFO mystery is a challenge to science," yet
many members of the scientific community prefer" to
believe that the mystery doesn't eXist. For far too long
people who report seeing a UFO have been treated
like lunatics and crackpots. The ridicule usually comes
from individuals who consider themselves intelligent
and rational. But old attitudes do change. In recent
years many scientists have reconsidered their previous,
biased opinions regarding the UFOs. The high ridicule
factor long associated with the UFO phenomenon is
still working, much to the detriment of scientists" who
would like to shed their fear of expressing themselves
to their scientific peers. There must bea way to lift
the shroud of ridicule from the UFO pheno~enon
and open the door to the fresh air of truly free expression. Americans might be surprised to hear what
the scientific community really thinks about UFOs.
Who will lift tile shroud of ridicule? Who will open
the door to the fresh air of free expression? Who will
provide science with leadership? The answer should be,
of course, the federal government. Only the government can make the leadership decisions that" will set
the machinery of science in motion. Instead of directing
science to prove what UFOs are not, the government
"should direct the scientific fraternity to" prove what
""
"
UFOs are.
To those who consider the UFO phenomenon only
a quixotic crusade, let me offer Qne last quotation-"
this from Niels Bohr, the noted Danish physicist:
"There is no hope of advance in science without a
paradox.""
~

Secoad Qaut.- 1981

Sweet Influences

Of Pleiades
by Diane E . Wirth
IN LIGHT of what we know today of the Pleiades; it is

difficult for us to comprehend why an apparently small

cluster of stars, located in the constellation of Taurus, was
so greatly venerated by the ancient world. A Greek myth relates that Zeus himself gave the seven" daughters" a good
start in life by locating a heavenly home for them and placing them in it. The Pleiades have since had a bearing on the
destinies of empires and the daily affairs of commerce and
agriculture that seems almost beyond belief and certainly is
out of proportion to the size and conspicuousness of the
group. For centuries they were objects of worship, admiration, and the subject of song and story; woven abQut them
were the fancies, the mysteries, the romance, and the reI
ligious ideas of the ages.
The Pleiades comprise but one of the many thousands of
star-clusters in our galactic neighborhood. There is no relationship between the solar system and the ~Ieiades other
than the fact that both are members of the Milky Way-our
galaxy. Why then have the Pleiades cast their rays so obtrusively across the path of history? Could ancient
astronomers have had knowledge of which we are currently
unaware and which has bec:n forgotten along the way?

Aztec priest
watching the Pleiades
at night. (After the
Mendoza Codex)

In the Old Testament, Job acknowledged something special about this .group of stars when he wrote "Canst thou
bind the sweet influence of Pleiades . . . " We begin to
understand their significance to the ancients when we take a
closer look at the lore of nations.
In a further development of the godly origin theme,

Second Qalllt_1981

another pervasive legend regarded the Pleiades as the eternal

home of the gods-especially of those gods who were supposed to have visited Earth. Other legends claim the vicinity
of the Pleiades as the location of paradise, the natal home of
the human race and the place to which its departed spirits
were destined to return.
As a reference point the Pleiades group figured in many
of those calendar measurements which contributed a prophetic quality to early astronomical science and made priests
of the practitioners. Some American Indian tribes established their year from the period these stars rise at sunset. And
several scholars have voiced agreement that the year of the
Pleiades and the date of the Great Pyramid are one and the
same: that is to say, the meridian of the primeval Pole Star
became rigidly stationary on Alcyone at the time the Great
Pyramid was erected, and Alcyone, being the major star of
the Pleiades, had to be the throne of the Great Creator.
It is remar~able that the ancients were so tenacious of
their belief that the Pleiades contained seven stars. To our
naked eyes, as presumably to theirs, only six stars are readily
apparent, and extraordinary vision is needed to see the
seventh even under the best of conditions. Perhaps there is
an element of truth in still another old legend which says
that the seventh star was once more brilliant, then dimmed
and faded from sight; to have declared it dead would have
amounted to sacrilege, so the count was held at seven and
the wayward star acquired a special aura as the "lost"
daughter.
After the passage of centuries and with the advent of
modern technology it has become evident that there are
more than 2,000 stars within this "small" cluster. We know
that the solar system does not revolve around the Pleiad~s,
but we also acknowledge that it falls in the general direction
of the nucleus of our galaxy. Whether or not the ancients
. had the site correctly pinpointed, perhaps their concept of a
central beginning point is the core of truth within the
, periphery of legend. A centrality that directs the motions of
the galaxy could be the abode of the creator, the home Of
life, and the paradise to be regained after death.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gaddis, Vincent H., American Indian Myths & Mysteries, New
American Library, Signet, New York, 1978, pp, 9-10.
Haliburton, R. G., "Primitive Traditions as to the Pleiades,"
Nature, 25:.100-101, December I, 1881.
Seiss, Joseph A., A Miracle in Stone, Porter & Coates.
Philadelphia, 1878.

.........1163

Sdentists Find Nearly Pedect RelDains

.

-TEAM of Chinese scientists has turned up convincing

evidence of the existence of an "ape-man," or a race
of ape-like creatures, in the wilds ofcentral and eastern
China. At a school in Zhejiang province they found the
hands and feet of an animal, apparently some kind of ape,
which had been preserved by a biology teacher since May
1957, when a group of women killed the animal after it had
attacked a young girl.
.
The team of local scientists was the second to join the
hunt for the ape-man late last year. Mt;mbers of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences had been searc~ing for
several months around the Three Gorges on the Yangtze
river, in Hubei province [as reported in Pursuit No. 51,
page 116 and No. 52, page 142-Ed.] A second group was
makins a survey of plant resources in Zhejiang when they
heard reports of sightings of "ape-men.'~ The leaders
promptly redirected the expedition to look for the mysterious creature.
Encounters between peasants and ape-men-said to
resemble the Bigfoot and Sasquatch creatures ~f North

Ap:lerica-have been reported in this sparsely settled part

of. China for centuries, and with increasing frequency over
the past 20 to 30 yeats. The Zhejiang team found many
signs of the creature's presence, including nests shaped
from branches, footprints and samples of hair, but the
discovery of the hands and feet caused the most excitement
and refuted manydoubts.
The story of the killing of the Zhuantang ape-man was
reported in the local press on a. day in May, 1957, when all
the men of the village were laboring in the hills. During the
afternoon Xu Fudi, then in her mid-30s, heard a scream
from her young daughter who was tending cattle. She rushed to the spot and found the girl grappling with a young,
ape~like animal, about 1.5 meters tall. Xu F.udi picked up a
piece of wood and struck the animal which jumped into a
paddy field. It.was unable to move quickly in the mud and
Xu Fudi got in a few more blows before it turned to attack
her. About a dozen women joined in the fight and beat the
animal senseless. As the creature recovered consciousness
it began to grunt, and Xu Fudi says there were tears in its

. The weU-presenred hands of what is thought to be a young "ape-man," killed in east China in 1957. Palms are 14 centimeters long.

Second Qauter 1981

'Zhaantang, Ape-Man' Killed in 1957

eyes. The frightened women turned on it again'and chopped off its head.
The report in Sonyang Daily described the animal, soon
dismembered by the villagers, as being covered with long,
dark-brown hair and weighing about 40 kilograms. It was
a male and seemed to be young, with white teeth, a humanlike tongue, ears and eyebrows, a sunken nose and a big ,
chest. The navel, thighs, knees, calves and genitals were all
similar to a man's, and the skin was soft and white when
the hair was removed. Undigested bamboo was found in
the stomach.
"
Xu Fudi is now 57 years old, but the recollection of the
frightening experience re'mains undimmed as she relates a
strange aftermath: "The day after we killed the animal we
heard a noise in the hills like the grunting it made during
the fight. We think it was the mother'calling for its child."
It was Xu who told the Zhejiang scientists that a young
t~cher had come to the village and took away the hands
and feet.
The scientists soon tracked down the teacher, Zhou

Shousong, now 52, who teaches at the Bihu middle school

in Lishui county. Zhou showed them the hands and feet
which' he had carefully preserved. Some shrinkage of the
muscles was evident but otherwise the remains were in
good condition. The feet measured 1'9 centimeters long
with clear print lines on the sQles and were covered with
soft, yellowish-brown hair. Th~ palms of the hands measured 14 centimeters long. According to the scientists' preliminary assessment, the animal belonged to the family of
primates. Some likened it to a chimpanzee.
The Zhejiang group seems to have had better luck than
their colleagues who were searching in Hubei province.
The latter group also found hair specimens, apparently
from a member of the primate family, plus footprints, and
caves where an ape-like creature might live. But the Zhejiang group reported more dramatically that they found
"nests" that could indicate the presence oC"a whole troop
of apes."
,
Led by a 60-year-old guide who has spent a lifetime picking herbs in the local mountains, the investigators .found a

The feet of the "ape-man" killed in 1957. The ape-like characteristics are clearly recogrnzable. despite shrinkage of the muscles.

Secoad Quarter 1981

Purs.il65

nest wedged between some trees and' a rock in a forest

about 1,500 meters above sea level. The small "stockade"
was built. of large and small branches and was lined .with
grass and leaves. Judged by its size and sophisticated construction, the nest could not have been built by a creature
with intelligence lower than that of a four-year-old human
child or the survival experience of a ten-year-old. The size
of the branches which had been torn {rom the trees indicated a very powerful creature.
The scientists found eleven more nests at 1,550 meters
above sea level. These were several meters apart and were
scattered over an area of 250 square meter~. Some were on
the ground and others were built in the trees. One nest was
estimated from the condition of the branches to be only a
month old, and none seemed to be more than two years
old. The largest tree-nest could support a weight of ISO
kilograms. There were ~cratch marks on the trees, possibly'
from the animals' nails, and many footprints, droppings
and samples of hair were found in the stirro.unding area.
At about 1,600 meters the group found signs of recent
nest-building, with two prints from a left foot (33 centimeters long) that showed the toes separated like those of
a man. They also found samples of soft brown. hair. The
scientists described the area as IS kilometers from the peak
of the Nine Dragon Mountains where centuries-old trees
block out sunlight and where human beings rarely venture.
At Xikangli village, 57-year-old Zhang Qilin told them:
"For the past 30 years or more 1 have gone up to Ni~e
Dragon Mountains every year, in September or October,
to guard the maize crop against ape-men.
'''1 saw an ape-man about ten years ago. It approached
from Fengshuyang (where the eleven nests were discovered). It was about as high as a house deor and it was
covered in reddish-brown hair with long hair falling
around its shoulders and over its face. It walked upright
and shook its head as it walked.
.
"On another occasion 1 saw an ape-man lying in a nest
in a tree. It was quite relaxed and it clapped its hands when
it saw me. Most of the time it just lay there, eating maize.
There was a big pile of cobs on the ground."
"We know they also like to eat persimmons and .wild
pears," Huang Jialiang, of Chenkang village, told the
scientists. "On August 14, 1978 1 saw an ape-man in the
forest, about 20 meters away. I hid behind a tree. It was
carrying a piece of wood and wal,king toward Fengshuyang." Huang's description of the.ape-man tallies with the
report of Zhang Qilin.
I
The hunt for the ape-man, also known as the "wild
man" or "bear man," has intensified since 1974 when the
Academy of Sciences 'mounted its first expedition in Hubei
province after a rash of sightings. Whatever scientific objections there may be to the theory that giant apes still live
in central and eastern China, the authorities have decided
that the cali tier of eye-witnesses is such that they have to
take the reports seriously."
[Courtesy of China Features, Beijing, China)

The Coral Castle Mystery

Members who would like to know more about Coral
Castle and the late Ed Leedskalnin may obtain literature by
sending $6.00 with request to Coral Castle, 28655 Federal
Highway, Homestead, Florida 33030, USA.
Purauft66

Salling in
by Charles E. 'Wood
Copyright

SAIL Publications, Inc.

Reprinte~

from SAIL, Sept. 1980

by permission of the author
and the publishers.

N a cool foggy September night I was traveling with

O
five oth~rs aboard a 53-foot Spencer sloop, making
a passage off the California coast from Morro' Bay past
Point Conception to Santa Barbara. We were in heavy fog
and experienced periods of visibility of less than 50 yards.
Two friendly dolphins had taken a shine to us and stayed
for a long period, twisting and turning, leaving phosphorescent.' trails around the vessel. Jkcause of the fog we were
keeping a good lookout.
Shortly after midnight a line of bright water appeared
fairly suddenly ahead of us. It ran roughly east to west
athwart our course. The extent of .the light could not be
gauged as it disappeared into the void of the fog on both
sides. '
.
My first impression was tiriged with apprehension. The
glowing bank appeared to be a large track similar to those
made by our accompanying dolphins, but considerably
greater and straighter. I thought a whale or even a' submarine could have just passed and .left such a track; and
I could do without such complications on a foggy night.
For a moment I debated stopping, but then 1 noti~ that
the dolphins'led on across the zone of light, apparently unperturbed by it. The magnitude of the glowing band became
clearer as we came up to it and crossed it. .
It was as though there were a broad source of light well
under water ~ As measured in reference to our boat's length,
the band was at least 50 feet wide, and its ends stretched off
beyond our visibility. The light seemed bright .enoug~ to
be able to read by it. The edges of t~e:. band between light
and dark were clear-cut, and there was 'no :apparent change
in the sea motion as we crossed it.
.. '
The first mysterious band slowly- dimmed behind us as it
passed into the fog, and then another band appeared ahead.
During the next two hours we crossed many successive ban~s.
They were never perfectly regular, sometimes having a curve
or jog in the general length visible to us. Even later when
fog lifted slightly we. could' not see the ends. However, the
transition from dark sea to glowing light always was de. Iineated.
The .dolphins continued to accompany us and made their
own phosphorescent trails crossing the bands. This weaving
of their bright trails over the glowing strip gav~ me the impression that the source of the great light was below the
. surface, rising slowly upward and brightening as the night
wore on, and then slowly receding and dimming.
.
Calculations made from our cruising speed later showed
that we must have passed through about 15 miles of: sea
banded every few hundre~ yards by 2O-yard-wide strips of
light. This was a prodigious display of phosphorescent inass,
of pattern, and of brilliance. Finally, the gaps appeared
wider and the bands less bright. Ultimately, we saw no more
of them.
.
Displays of phosphorescence-or more correctly, biolumin~ce-are one of the many extraordinary aspects of

Second Qaart_ 1981

Sea
the sea. I had seen and admired the common forms of bioluminescence at night in the fiery wake of a boat, in the
bright-green cylinder behind an outboard propeller; and in
the liquid drops of white light falling from the tips of oars.
I'd even seen footprints give off a ghostly glow as I'd walked
on some beaches during certain nights. But I had never seen,
nor expected to see, these larger, more complex sea lights.
After our passage I discovered that sea lights is indeed
the name given to this phenomenon, and that they hav;
~n obsen:ed, ~tudie:d, and commented on' for several years.
With growmg mterest, I researched the subject and discovered how little they are truly understood. While the basic
mechanism of bioluminescence is partly understood, the
re.asons for the massive and complex sea-light displays are
still unknown.
Apart from the magnitude, I was most impressed by the
brightness of the light and its clearly defined edges. Later
in my research I found that similar impressions were retained by other observers. Descriptions vary with the individual, but everyone quoted the awe and sometimes fright
or terror they felt; the lights were variously described as
"powerful beams of light directed upward under water,"
"bright shoal water," "broad and J;larrow belts," "luminous
wheels of lights, to "rivers of fire," and so on. The mathematical precision of the bands and their edges also were
observed.
In an encounter with sek lights on the Red Sea, the third
officer of the MV British Empress reported that for over
25 minutes shafts of pale white, diffused light appel;lred in
parallel lines, changing slowly to an apparent rotation of the
bands. A complex pattern of "switching" on and off of the
light occurred. Another reference, Dr. N. 'B. Marshall in
Aspects of Deep Sea B;ology~ quotes a merchant skipper as
seeing a broad belt of bright light a half-mile wide. Here
again, a complex pattern of switching of the light occurred.
The magnitude of the displays adds to their eerie and
wondrous nature. Yet these manifestations are made by
very small creatures, millions on millions of dinoflagellates.
Scientists have credited the Noctiluca scintil/ans and other
luminous protozoans with the production of steady sheetlike glowing forms of light. Along the Pacific Coast of the
United States the luminous species include Gonyaulax po/yedra. which have an interesting day-night rhythm. They
luminesce in the evening and stop producing light at dawn.
Their maximum output normally occurs at about 01 00.
There appears t,o be a master clock within the tiny organisms controlling their luminescence and regulating other
physiological processes. Interestingly, Gonyaulax and Noctiluco often oCcur together. Perhaps this accounts for the
apparent gain in intensity followed by a. decline over the
time we saw the display.
'
You should .be cautious regarding edible seafood in areas'
where bright displays of luminescence have occurred. Some
species of Gonyaulax. in particular G. tamarensis in the
North Atlantic and G. cotanel/a in the North Pacific, have
been implicated in causing the toxicity of edible shellfish
that leads to paralytic shellfish poisoning. Where large-scale
sea-light displays are seen, I would be careful in my use of
shellfish caught within its environs.
Bioluminescence is produced within the living creatures

Second Qwuta 1981

by a complex chemical reaction. Within the cells themselves

there is a chemical called luciferin (mllned in 1887 by Raphael
Dubois after Lucifer the Light Bearer). The luciferin com-
bines with oxygen in the presence of a catalyst luciferase.
(Th~ suffIX -ase denotes that the C"~talyst is an enzyme.)
Dunng the reaction energy is released as light. Afterwards,
the reaction reverts to the original state and is ready for the
next triggering sequence to produce light.
The light itself is extremely efficient with very little waste
heat. The phrase cold light applies accurately to bioluminescence. These tiny creatures surpass the best of man's
inventive genius, for we are most wasteful in our energy
production, producing far more heat than usable energy.
None of this explains the distinct linear definition between
the light and dark ar~s, nor gives a clue as to what triggers
the mass reaction. The dinoflagellates normally need a mechanical, physical, or chemical stimulus to elicit bioluminescence. Such stimuli include the disturbance of a turning
propeller, breaking waves, currents, and chemical changes.
Because the bands were so large and' extended so far from
our boat, we felt we probably had not triggered the bioluminescence. Nor did the dolphins appear to have "switched
on" the bands, as they were swimming close to the boat,
not far ahead'.
.
Whatever the source and mechanism of the display we
witnessed, it was a striking and intriguing mystery of the
. ocean. I felt privileged to have seen such magnificent sea
lights, part of the wealth, knowledge and beauty in the seas
wa,iting to be understood.
~

SUp-ups in Sdenc.
These are answers taken from student test papers
in a nationwide compilation by the Mobserver, newsletter of Alaska M:ensa:
-Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrore the
Organ of the Spices.
-Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing
cats backward.
-The theory of -evolution was greatly objected to
because it made men think.
-'::The ~odo is a bird that is nearly decent now.
-To remove air from a flask, fill the flask with water
tip the water out, and put the cork ;n quick.
.
'
-The process of turning steam into water again is
called conversation.
-The cuckoo does not lay its own eggs.
-To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over the
flame in a test tube.
.
-Algebra was the wife of Euclid.
-Parallel lines never meet unless you bend one or
both of them.
-Algebraic symbols are used when you do nor know
what you are talking ab9ut.
-G_eometry teaches us to bisex angels.
-The moon is a planet just like the earth only deader.
-The pistol of a flower is its only protection against
insects.

Pursuit 67

'New Madrid'

ILLINOIS

MISSOURI

INDIANA

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

I (. r . .

. . ; .; r

.
,"

ARKANSAS
. TI;le six.states surrounding the New Madrid
seismic area (indicated within the ellipse).

.~

1r

,
Secoad Quarter 1981

A Special Report to SITU.

Odd Luminosities (UFOs) and Other Fortean Events Before Earthquakes:
The New Madrid Test
by Michael A. Persinger, Ph.D.

Abstract
\

The complex temporal relationships and statistical interactions between the numbers of UFORs (unidentified flying
object reports), odd-force events (such as poltergeist or animal mutilation cases), unusual animal reports (such as big
cats and bipeds) and. several earthquake measures within
either 6 -month or one-year intervals were investigated for the
six states surrounding the New Madrid Region for the years
1943 to 1973. Using a step-wise multiple regression procedure
(temporally symmetric so that data lagged from four years
before to four years after the key series could enter the equation), either UFORs were predicted by one quake measure
and the other two Fortean categories or the various quake
categories were predicted by the three Fortean categories.
The analyses clearly indicated that numbers of low intensity
(IV-V Modified Mercalli or less) earthquakes were strongly
coupled with UFOR numbers during the previous two-year
periods. 'B~ween 400/0 to 60% of the variance in these earthquake numbers could be accommodated by knowing the variation in Fortean events during the previous two-year period
while up to 80% of the variance in UFORs could be explained
by including both Fortean categori~ and the low-intensity
earthquake numbers. Higher (~I or more MM) quakes were
predicted more by force events two to four years before the
seismicity.
.
The apparent relationship between unusuaJ luminous
events and coincident or consequent earthquake activity is a
recurrent theme within the data reported by Charles Forti.
Although frequently obscured withIn his relatively odd format; this relationship is clearly evident when his data are read
in a temporal sequence2 The combination of all of Fort's reported events with historical seismic data enhances this connection.
.
Numerical estimates of the intervals between luminosities
and earth tremors are difficult Wit.bin Fort's data for the
U.S.A. since even the larger classes of events are plagued by
statistical problems of distribution. In the last 30 years, the
data matrices for both luminous events (now labelled UFO
reports) and seismic displays have become sufficiently dense
to allow reliable and valid statistical analyses. Recently, for
example, this author J reported clear and highly significant
correlations (that varied from + 0.6 to + 0.8) between UFO
reports from the Saunders/Hynek UFOCAT file and later
increases in seismic activity within the central and eastern
portions of the U.S.A.
The possible relationship between local ('" 1 km2) Fortean
events in general and local tectonic processes has been reported in several Parts of the U.S.A. Laporte4 has noted
a conspicuous concentration of UFO-type events and a variety of Fortean displays along the Gold Hill Fault near Indian

Second QaarIeJ: 1981

~The

study of those events

we call Fortean is Oat the most
critical stage of its history.
'They can .remain in the
cherished reservoirs of
unrestricted fantasy and
undisciplined speculation,
or they can be subjected to
the detail and precision
of numerical analysis.
~The data available in many
agencies are now sufficient
in number and temporalspacial density to allow
reliable and valid results
to be obtained. '
Trail, North Carolina. Comparable reports of odd lights and
unusual animal forms have been mapped in the vicinity of
epicenters by D. Fidelc!rs who used historical data collected
over southwestern .Michigan. These studies, although excellent case collections, have not been subjected to numerical
anCi statistical analyses.
.
. Associations between very local .01 km2) Fortean events
and tectonic processes are even more persistent. For example,
P. A. Jordan's6 description of a classic haunting in New Jersey demonstrates the multifaceted (and multivariate) nature
of haunt-like phenomena as well as the coincidence of proximal tectonic activity .. The repeated measurements by Wagner
and his colleaguesof the Vestigia group' have given the most
comprehensive profile to date about a recurrent luminosity
that appears to be coupled with activity along a local fault.
One model developed from both iilductive analyses and
modern developments in geophysics 2 8. 9 indicates that UFOlike luminosities are associated with the accumulating tectonic stress/strain that primarily precedes alterations in earthquake activity. Such luminous displays are associated with the
pockets of s.train that increase in frequency of occurrence
several weeks to months before the actual fracture or earthquake. The primary determinants of the quantitative interval
between the UFO displays and the later alteration in earthquake activity would reflect: (1) the local geoarchitecture,

Pursuit 69

(2) the modes by which previous strain has been released, and
(3) the upper limit for these mechanisms' to alleviate the most '
recent strain.
The model further demands that such luminosities be coup- .
led primarily with low-level earthquakes. Weak earthquakes,
for example less than IV-V MM (Modified Mercalli), would
be .less likely than more~ntense events to destroy (by fracturing) the appropriate atchitecture within which the strain
processes associated with luminosity production exists. These
processes would be negligible r~lative to more conspicuous
geophysical events but of sufficient magnitude to be influenced by lunar tides, influxes of different temperature (and
weight) air masses, sudden commencements (geomagnetic
, storms), or the occasionally abrupt change in the velocity' and
density of the solar wind.
The actual mechanism or mechanisms by which the luminosities are generated from this strain process are more diffi
cult to determine at preSent. One model, as developed. by
BradylO, 'suggests that very intense and local strain or a minute fracture releases a very small plasma-like condition. When
this plasma-ball reaches the surface, the surrounding air is
ionized, ,thus producing a luminous display with an intense
portion enveloped by a less-bright (even nebulous) but larger
component.
,
As long as a charge source existed, such as an adjacent
power line, the plasma ball could be maintained. Move~ent
of the ball, possible rotation or spin, and varying degrees of
opacity would be expected. If a charge source was remov,ed
or the ball approached a grounded conductor; the plasma
would undergo a series of unstable sequences involving color
, changes, shape alterations and rapid or erratic movement.
The moment of disappearance, which would appear "instantaneou~" to the human observer, would be very energetic. '
A second model developed by Persinger 2. R. 9 argues that the
luminosities are maintained within extremely dense electromagnetic columns or vortices generated by the transient piezoelectric and piezomagnetic fields within the earth's upper
crust~ As these, statistical bouts of very localized and transient
strain are relieved, either through the actual luminosity process or by readjustment of ~omponent forces, the fields and
the luminosity would disappear.
Both models are not necessarily antagonistic and may, be
different components of the same source process. However,
the second model predicts that in addition, transient (a few
minutes), highly localized (within 100 meters) electromagnetic-like field displays tend to statistically cluster with greater
frequency and intensity within larger areas (100 x 100 km) as
the tectonic strain increases. Only the more intense displays
would be sufficient to induce the luminosities. ,
Less intense electromagnetic columns would be sufficient
to induce electrical oddities (power failures, power surges,
alterations in radiolTV communication) in apparatus and
sensations of "tingling," phosphenes and general uneasiness
in human beings. More intense columns could induce significant electrical currents (and heat) within small conductors
or induce spin (and movement) in some dielectrics. The most
likely term used to describe these .events would be "poltergeist activity."
Less frequently (statistically), very intense and localized
current inductions would occUr in the immediate vicinity of
d'rgapic, materials. Living systems, human or non-human,
might be electrocuted or in extreme instances completely
carbonized in a SHe-like manner. Such currents near regions
(swamps, rivers, bogs) containing organic materials could

Pursult'O

release through routine electrolytic processes significant concentrations of sulfur compounds, including variants of dimethyl sulfur.
To further test this model, the New Madrid region was
selected. This region was considered an optimal test-area
since it has been typified by mid-level earthquakes and an
unusually high frequency of Fortean events, including luminosities; Even historically, the connection between luminosities
and earth shocks is evident in this area. Detailed tectonic data
for this region is also now available ll
On the basis of the present model, a number of .predictions
can be made: (1) numbers of luminosities or UFOs should
precede and be significantly correlated with earthquake numbers within the New Madrid region, (2) UFO or luminosity
reports should be most correlated with' V intensity (MM,
Modified Mercalli). or less earthquake events rather than intensity VI or greater, (3) reports of odd forces, such as poltergeist events, subdermal afflictions or animal mutilations
should precede both luminosity and earthquake activity since
these Fortean events reflect less energetic and non-luminous
aisplays.

, Method
,DATA SELECTION

All entries for the six states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,

Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, 'surrounding the New
Madrid Earthquake Region for the years 1943 to 1973 (end ~f
the file) were selected from the major data source l2 From
these data, four general classes were formed:, (1) multiple
UFO reports (UFORs), (2) human or animal damage, (3) inorganic effects and (4) unusual' animal' occurrences. .
These general classes were created by simply recMing the
four-digit, identification code (major category and minor
category). Multiple UFOR or "UFO flaps" '(not single re'pOrts) involved all of the various UFO categories discussed in
Space-Time Transientsand UnUsual Events2. The human or
animal damage class (PKORG) involved 8 separate categories
that included: SHC reports, subdermal afflictions, and animal mutilations, while the object, damage class .(PKOBJ)
included the odd force categories such as "poltergeist activity," object movements and small household, explosions,
(including "phantom snipper" cases). The unusual animal
category (ANIMA) involved only the reports of unclassified
feline and biped. (Bigfoot) categories.
.
" In order to prevent redundancies and spurious inflation
from multiple reporting of the same 'event, the data pool was
checked for repetitions. Repetitions of any category within
the same month and within the same area were deleted. Consequently, any city or area could contain no more than 4
reports (one from each class) for a given month. The total
numbers of events over the ~ I-year period according to the
above criteria for the different classes of Fortean events and
earthquakes were: UFORS (62), ANIMA (51); PKOBJ (15),
and PKORG ( 1 2 ) . '
'
All Fortean cases had been obtained from Fate magazine
(90OJo), newspaper reports '(8%), and technical repor,ts (2%).
Inspection of author sources for the cases within the first
three classes indicated no significant contribution from a
singleauthor. The animal data were heavily influenced, however, by the publications and research of Loren Coleman.
'
The earthquake data (also on file) had been obtajn~ from
the yearly earthquake publications in the U.S.A. from the
Department of Commerce. After removing redundancies for

Seamd Quarter 1981

the same event within more than one state, the earthquake
events (QUAKE) wPore recoded into low (LOWQU) and high
intensity (HIGHQ) events. Low intensity events involved IVV or less MM (MoClifiedMercalli) values while high intensity
events involved values of VI or greater MM. The total num. bers of events ovenhe 3 I-year period for the different classes
of earthquakes Wf"re QUAKE (143), LOWQU (107), and
HIGHQ(36).

recoded to a value of 5 in order to attenuate potential complications from extreme values.

However, for all analyses, both the raw data and the recoded data were used. In this ma~ner, comparisons were
made between the two sets of analyses to determine the effects,
if any, of the most extreme values upon the statistical results .
(Previous experiments indicate that results from such recoding of the extreme upper 5070 of the population can also be
accommodated by more routine data transformations such as
PROCEDURES
the computation of square roots). Although one prefers to
work only with core data, such transformations are frequently
Using SPSSu software, the data pool was allocated acrequired to evaluate whether or not la phenomenon is being
cording to 3-rriooth, 6-month, and I-year intervals. This
rejected or accepted because of a few .extreme values.
was completed by recoding the month or year intervals so
Kendall's correlations (for ordimll data) were completed
that the total numpers of events within a given class was calbetween earthquake numbers and Fortean classes for the
culated per appropriate interval 14. Three-month intervals
three-month increment data (because of the infrequent and
were January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December of each year (124 cases) while 6-month inter0,1 nature of the data) while Pearson Product Moment correlations between t.he numbers of events in each category and
vals involved January-June and July-December groupings for
earthquake numbers were calculated for the 6-month and
each year (6~ cases).
larger increments. .Lag correlation~ were computed symThe selection of the appropriate time increment for analmetrically for each Fortean class 0 to 4 years and for each
yses is a critical consideration. Analyses of the UFOCAT
earthquake class.
data) indicated th~t six-month intervals of. analyses clearly
Stepwise multiple regression analyses were completed for
enhanced the significant relationship between increased UFO
reports and increased seismic activity (IV or less) during the
the Fortean classes and each of the Iquake varia~les for the
six-month and one-year interval data. Since the number of
consequent six-month increment. One-month and threePKORG and PKOBJ events within tile 6-month interval data
month intervals of analyses were less impr~sive. The effect ,
ranged from 0 to 2 (with few '2s), these two classes were comalso deteriorated when one-year incr:ements were used.
bined to form a composite variable:! FORCE. The FORCE
To grasp further the importance of an optimal temporal
variable was used in both the six-month and one-year data;
window, one can consider the measurement of a neuronal
however, as a check for reliability, the FORCE variable was
action potential wbich lasts for about one millisecond. Temdecomposed in the one-year intervid data analyses into the
poral increments of one s~ond would be too large to capture
PKORG and PKOBJ components (sjnce the values for each
the precise details 'of the aC.tion potential pattern. Tempora}
of these variables ranged from 0 to 3 in the year-interval data).
increments of a nanosecond would be too small since at least
To determine the consistency of relationships, two types of
1 million increments must occur before a single action poten~
tial event can be contained. Analyses intervals of about 10 mimodels were tested: one in which UFORs were predicted and
one in which (each) of the quake c~ass numbers were precroseconds would allow both optimal resolution of details
and tractable num~ers for analyses.
dicted. When UFORs was the dependent variable, the two
.
Fortean classes: ANIMA and FORCE plus only one Of the
The size of the spatial increment involved with the analysis
can also determine the resolution of the problem. Whereas
quake variables were entered as independent variables. When
a quake measure was the dependent variable, all three Forthe selection of very small areas can enhance skewness in
tean variables were entered. All quake and Fortean combinaFortean frequencies, the inclusion of very large areas can
tions were completed.
introduce multiple sources of variance. The New Madrid
region, both in theory and from empirical observation, seems
The major design involved a symmetrical lag multiple reto occupy a space that is appropriate for the reliable sampling
gression ls With this procedure, equal numbers of lags before
of a discriminable population of Fortean events.
and after the reference series was entered for each variable.
For example, if low-intensity earthquakes was the dependent
Measurements of central tendency (means), variation (stan- .
variable, (using year-interval data), concurrent values plus
dard deviation), skewness and kurtosis were determined for
the numbers of different events for each of the different inthose from each of the previous four; years and for the contervals of analyses. Contrary to some opinions, the distrisequent four years for each of the other three variables were
'allowed to enter the equation. This meant that a total of 9 lags
bution of most classes of Fortean events is relatively normal
across decades, especially when temporal increments of six _" . (0 4) by 3 (variables) or 27 total variables were in the potential pool for selection.
.
months or 1 year are used. Smaller increments are prone to
problems of nomiJilal analyses (a temporal series of 0.1 ocThe lag that entered the equation first for each of the three
currences) while larger increments are prone to problems of
independent variables was selected and then re-entered in a
the obscuring average.
separate analysis using only those three variables. The contribution of each variable to the equation as well as the various
In those instances where skewness calculations or. "extreme
values" indicated potential data problems, the latter values parameters (slopes, standard errors of the means) were obwere recoded to the value + 1 that comprised the upper 95
served. As a check for possible loadings because of excessive
serial correlations, Durbin-Watson tests were included for
percentile for the population. This'always accommodated the
each equation.
occasional one or two extreme values within various classes.
For example, in the UFO data, two non-adjacent six-month
Although the introduction . of a variable with a lag of that
periods (during the 1950s) contained 7 and 10 reports while
variable into an equation must be very carefully evaluated,
this technique is important if one assumes that the total varthe range for all of the other 60 intervals ranged from 0 to 4
iance associated with a phenomenon may involve more than
(X = 1.2). In this instance, the two extreme values were

Second Quarter 1981

Pursuit 71


a:

12.00

Z
C

8.00

4.00

...

0.00

a:

8.00

....0

4.00

:)

...

0.00
6.00

(I)

4.00

~
0

9
1960

1965

1960

1965

. Figure 1. Total numbers of all Fortean events, UFORs (UFO reports) and low-intensity (V or less
6-month period (January-June and July-December) i.n six states surrounding tt"!e New Madrid region for

one interval. This would occur, if some class of Fortean events

paired, for example; in a sinusoidal (or trigonometric) man~
ner with a sourc~ process. In this situation, for example, two
non-adjacent lags of the variable could be significantly associated with the process even though the two lags are themselves not highly intercorrelated.
To investigate this possibility, completely separate series of
analyses (for both the 6-month and I-year interval data) were
concluded which involved six independent variables. The first
two lags from each variable (either three Fortean variables
when predicting quakes or two Fortean variables and one
quake when predicting UFORs) were used to obtain the multiple r. The multiple rs from the six variable equations were
compared with the mUltiple ts from the three variable equations to determine whether the addition of the extra lag from
each variable significantly altered the amount of variability
accounted for by the equation.
All multiple regressions were computed by the REGRESSION subprogram of SPSS. Residuals (to determine if any
cases significantly deviated from the predicted values), DurbinWatson tests and all relevant multiple regression data were
calculated within this program. The correlation matrix of
simple rs was used to det.ermine the existence of any multicollinearity (high intercorrelations, e.g., 0.6 or greater among
the independent variables in any of the equations).
As a control against the possible confounding contributions of temporal factors to numbers of earthquakes, three
other earthquake categories were constructed: NUMMO,
MAXMO and EPICE. NUMMO involved the maximum
number of months within which at least one seismic event (of.
any intensity) occurred wHile MAXMO was a measure of the
maximum number of seismic events within the most active
month for that intervaL EPICE was merely the number of
seismic events that occurled within the New Madrid region
since the outer fringes of the states (especially Kentucky and
Tennessee, where the eastern porti.ons may belong to another
seismic region) were influenced by quakes from other sectors.
As an independent verification for optimal lags and variables to predict UFORs or earthquakes, discriminant analyses
were calculated. The 15 intervals of the greatest earthquake
or UFO activity and the 15 intervals. of the least earthquake

Pursuil72

or UFOR were discriminated with all tags from the other

variables in the calculation. Discriminant functions were then
checked for conformity with the results from the multiple
regression analyses.
To date, most serious reseatchers have used simple bivariate
analyses. Even in more sophisticated instances, they have still
used absolute meas,",res. The possibility .that more accurate
predictions could be determined by analyzing variables that
indicated change or percent alter.ation has not been pursued.
Consequently, using COMPUTE options within the SPSS
software, two measures of change: (I) deviation from the
mean of the population, and (2) percent alteration from the
previous time incremeni, were calculated for UFORs and
earthquakes only. (The other categories were considered to
have too small a range for meaningful data.) A. deviation
from the mean category (A VUFOR) was used by subtracting
each UFOR or quake measure from the mean of the total
62 months, divided by the mean of the total 62 months and
then multiplied by 100. The.measure of change in the time
- (UFORLA) was calculated by subtracting the given measure
for a variable from its measure in the previous lag; dividing
by the previous lag and multiplyiQg by 100. This manipulation gives a measure (in percent) of the increase:or decrease of
UFORs or quakes with respect to the previous time increment.

Results.
Both six-month and one-year interval analyses displayed
reliable and powerful relationships between the Fortean classes
. and earthquake activity. Figure I displays the temporal stream,
in six month intervals, for multiple UFO reports (UFORs),
low-level (IV-V or less MM) earthquakes al1d total (TOTAL)
Fortean events (the sum of all classes). Even visually, the relationship between earthquake numbers and UFORs is evident.
BIVARIATE ANALYSES

Table I shows the simple rs between or;;;; IV-V. and.;;;;' VI

quakes when UFO numbers Per 6 month increments are lagged
o to 8 increments behind (4 years) and 0 to 8 increments after
the earthquake sequence. As an internal check for consistency

SeCond Quanei' 1981

Table 1. Simple correlation coefficients between UFORs (Unidentified Flying Object Reports) lagged for 8
6-month increments before and after either low intensity E;;;V or high intensity >V earthquakes in the New
Madrid region.

HIGH QUAKES

LOW QUAKES ,

LAG

. :.~

-8
-7
-6
-5
-,4
-3
-2
-1
0
+1
+2
+3
+4
+5
+6
+7.
+8

1947-1972
-0.12
0.07
-0.08
0.29
0.16
0.43
0.02
0.47 ,
-0.05
0.25
0.01
0.06
0.00
0.28
-0.02
0.05
0.07

1947-1958

1959-1972

1947-1972

1947-1958

19591972

0.18
0.42
-0.26
0.30
-0.20
0.56"
-0.15
0.42
-0.14
0.16
-0.09
0.02
-0.12
0.33
-0.15
0.10
0.21

-0.10
-0.23
0.00
0.31
0.54"
0.34
-0.01
0.37
-0.24
0.19
-0.02
-0.09
-0.02
0.01
0.01
-0.24
-0.23

0.09
0.03
0.04
0.22
-0.17
0.00
-0.07
-0.16
-0.04
0.06
0.21
0.02
0.21
0.03
-0.04
0.13
0.28

0.57"
0.40
0.20
0.53"
0.02
0.11
-0.1..2
-0.18
0.01
0.12
0.34
0.20
0.29
0.36
-0.00
0.41"
0.33

-0.08
-0.10
-0.15
0.12
-0.13
-0.04
-0.07
-0.09
-0.01
0.09
0.23
-0.06
0.27
-0.i3
0.04
0.14
0.05

p<.OI

and to control for the gradual alteration in the absolute number of UFORs (population "drift") during the 1950s, separate
correlations are reported for the intervals 1947-1958 and
1959 to 1972. The magnitude of the correlations did not change
appreciably (not more than 0.05 for a given lag) when the
raw data including extreme values were used.
As c~m be seen in Table I, the majority of significant correlations occurred with negative lags, that is, with UFORs
during' intervals before low-intensity earthquake measures.
Similar to the UFOCAT datal, earthquake numbers within
six-month, increments increased following increased UFOR
activity within the previous six-month intervals. In addition,
the New Madrid area also showed significant correlations
between earthquake numbers and the number of UFORs
during the previous 3 or 4 lagged intervals, that is, 1.5 to
2.0 years before the observed seismic interval.
The higher intensity quakes (VI OJ: greater) demonstrated
less consistent correlations with UFORs. Only the earlier
interval demonstrated significant bivariate correlations. Interestingly, these correlations involved UFORs during intervals
that were even before the lags assOCiated with lower intensity quakes.
Bivariate correlations (- 8 to + 8 lags) between the other
Fortean classes and low or high magnitude earthquakes displayed less systematic variations. Both the PKOBJ and the
PKORG classes showed highest correlations with lags - 6 to
- 8 (3rd to 4th years) before the high intensi~y activity only.
All correlations were positive and ranged from 0.4~ to 0.60.
(Kendall's Tau did not display coefficients that were disparate
from those obtained by Pearson's r.)
The animal categories did not belong to the same variation
pattern as the other three Fortean classes. Not only did the
animal class occupy a separate factor (when factor analyses
were completed in earlier studies), but the relationship with
earthquake numbers is reversed in both time and polarity.
Animal categories, even with a variety of data manipulations

Second Quarter 1981

to accommodate'the extreme values arid cluster-effects, consistently demonstrated small (0.40) negative correlations with
earthquake numbers for the six-month intervals before, during
and after increased ea~thquake activity. The only positive
correlations occurred when animal numbers were lagged two
years after the increased activity. (Stated alternatively, as the
tendency for earthquake numbers increased, the number of
animal reports decr~ased, quite unlike the other three classes.)
MULTIPLE REGRESSION: SlxMoNTH INTERVALS

The major results of the multiple regression analyses (both

, 3 and 6 variables) for predicting earthquakes or for predicting
UFORs are shown in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. The num,bers beside each of the variables in the equation, for example,
UFOR-3, ANIMA-3, FORCE-3, refer to the direction and
number of lags. In' the former three instances, this indicates
. 3 lags before the occurrence of the quake series or (3 x 6
months per interval) one to 1.5 years before the low-intensity
quake occurrences. Multiple r (MR), multiple r-squared or
"explained" variance (RSQ), the change in RSQ given by
each variabie as it enters (RSQch), the simple correlation
coefficient (r) for each variable, the slope (B), the standard
error for B (S.E.B.) and the F value are also given.
To facilitate understanding, the first prediction (LOWQU)
will be explained. According to this equation, the first variable
to be selected in 'the stepwise procedure was UFORs-3 (that is,
the number of UFORs 1.5 yeats before each temporal increment of the LOWQU numbers). The simple correlation (r)
between LOWQU and UFORS-3 was + 0.58, which is quite
impressive considering the data. The B value or slope indicates that for every one change (increase or decrease) in one
UFOR event reported, there is a change (increase or decrease,
respectively) in 0.61 quakes 3 lags later (about 1.5 years later).
Alternatively, one could say that for every 10 UFORs reported in a given 6-month increment, there should be an
increase of 6.1, V or less intensity earthquakes within the next

Pursuit 73

, Table 2. Summary'of multiple regression analyses with six month interval data to predict low ( ~V) or high
,earthquakes in the New Madrid region using optimal lags ofthree Fortean classes.
Independent
Variables
UFORS -3
ANIMA -3
FORCE -3

MR

RSQ

RSQch

0.58
0.63
0.64

0.33
0.40
0.41

0.33
0.06
0.01

UFORS
UFORS
ANIMA
FORCE
ANIMA
FORCE

-3'
-1
-3
-3
-5
-1

0.58
0.66
0.71
0.75
0.79
0.80

0.33
0.44
0.50
0.56
0.62
0.63

0.33
0.10

HIGHQ

FORCE
UFORS
ANIMA

-7
-5
+6

0.40
0.56
0.64

t-UGHQ

FORCE -7
UFORS -5
ANIMA +6
ANIMA +3
UFORS -3
FORCE -6

0.40
0.56
0.64
0.70
0.72
0.74

Dependent
LOWQU

LOWQU

(> V) intensity

,
r
0.58
0.22
0.25

B
0.61
0.32
0.29

SEB
0.14
0.15
0.27

FO
18.77
4.67
1.09

0.26
0.56
0.36
0.76
-0.28
0.28

0.14
,0.13
0.12
0.26
0.12
0.24

3.08
18.25
8.57

0.06
0.06
0.01

0.58
0.52
0.22
0.24
-0.15
0.27

0.16
,0.31
0.41

0.16
0.15
0.10

0.40
0.30
0.35

0.55
0.20,
0.22

0.14
0.07
0.08

14.70
7.15
6.89

0.16
,0.31'
0.41
0.49
0.52
0.56

0.16
0.15
0.10
0.07
0.03
0.04

0.40
0.30
0.35
0.22
0.01
0.10

0.66
0.29
0.24

0.14 '
0.08
0.07
0.08
0'.07
0.14

21.55
13.81
9.34
7.70
3.90 .
'2.80

O.O~

0~23

-0.15
-0.23

8.~7

5.03
1.32

F greater than 6,.0, p<.OI

I:

Table 3. Summary of multiple regression analyses with six month interval data to predict UFORs (Unidentified Flying Object or
Odd/Luminosity Reports) in the New Madrid region using optiinallags of either low or high, intensity earthquakes and'two Fortean classes.
Dependent'
UFORS

Independent
Variables

MR

RSQ

RSQch

LOWQU +3
FORCE -2
ANIMA -4

0.58
0.62
0.62

0.34
0.38
0.38

0.34
0.04
0.00

r
0.58'
-0.23
0.20 -

0.54
-0.39
0.29

'SEB
012' ,',1'.1

, FO

0.24
0.15

18.29
'2.67
0.04

.-:':0

UFORS

LOWQU
LOWQU
FORCE
FORCE
ANIMA
ANIMA

+3
+1
-2
+8
-4
+6

0.58
0.67
' 0.74
0.75
0.77
0.78

0.34
0.45
0.55
0.57
0.59
0.60

0.34 '
0.11
0.10
0.02
0.02
0.00

0.58
0.52
-0.23
-0.09
0.20
-0.02

0.35
0.48
-0.63
-0.25
0.17
0.11

0.11
' 0.11
0.21
0.21
0.13
0.13

8.58
17.00
8.92
1.30
1.69
0.78

UFORS

FORCE
HIGHQ
ANIMA

+2
+5
+4

' 0.40
0.47
0.51

0.16
0.27

0.16
0.06
0.04

0.40
0.30
-0.15

0:76
0.41
-0.27

0.27
0.25
0.18

7.78
2.86
,,2.22

FORCE
FORCE
HIGHQ
HIGHQ
ANIMA
ANIMA

+2
+0
+5
-4
+4
-5

0.40
0.49
0.55
0.60
0.63
0.66

0.16
0.24
0.30
' 0.36
0.40
0.44

0.16
0.08
0.06
0.06
0.04
0.04

0.40
0.21
,0.31
0.16
-0.15
-0.06

0.10
0.47
0.48
0.42
' -0.35
-0.24

0.26
0.24
0.24
0.24,
0.17
0.15

14.22
3.65
4.00'
'2.85
3.94
2.40

UFORS

0~22

F greater than 6.0, p <.01

ru,.uft74

Sec:oad Qwu.1er 1981

].01 to ].5 years, within the states surrounding the New Madrid region.
.
The standard error of B (S.E.B.) can be used by experienced
researchers to determine the confidence intervals. around the
regression lines and prediction estimates; essentially, it is a
measure of variability. The F value is a measure of the amount
of variance accommodated by the variable with respect to the
variance within the data. The asterisks refer to p values, that
is, estimates tha.t the F value could occur by chance. P values
of less than .001 indicate that the probability is less than ] in
1000 that the correlation (or F value) would occur by chance
alone.
In the first equation, the contribution of UFORS-3 to predicting low-intensity earthquakes was very significant statistically (F = 18.77, df = 1,40). The 6070 change in RSQ from
ANIMA-3 is marginally significant (F = 4.67, df = 2,39)
while the contribution of the FORCE variable was trivial:
On the other hand, the FORCE variable contributed quite
significantly to: the equations predicting numbers of highintensity quakes (F = 14.70 and 21.55, df = ],40, for the
3 and 6 variable equations, respectively).
A number of clear patterns become obvious. First, even
though equal polarities for each variable could have entered
an equation, the predominant lags selected were negative for
UFORs and FORCE variables. Only the ANIMA variable
demonstrated si~nificant lags after the occurrence of quakes.
In sunimary, one can conclude that UFORs and FORCE
I
events tend to ~cur before earthquakes.
.
The second obvious pattern is the difference between the
intensity of the lags and tbe variable that entered first into the
equation for e~ch (intensity) class of earthquake. UFORs
either 3 lags (1.~ years) or I lag (6 months) before the V or less
quakes appear f.o be moderately powerful predictors of the
later events. ANIMA and FORCE variables contributed
much less than the UFORs to this prediction.
. On the. other:hand, UFORs appear less important for the
high-intensity quake equatjons. In both instances, FORCE
lag - 7 (- 3.5 years before) was most correlated with later
quake occurren,ces. When UFORs did enter the equation,
they were lagged - 5 (- 2.5 years), much longer than foJ" the
low-intensity quakes, before the occurrence of the high-intensity quakes.
Quite clearly, by knowing the numbers of UFQR events,
ANIMA observations and FORCE occurrences in the New
Madrid region, one can account for between 41070 to 63070
of the variance in eartbquake numbers during the next one or
two years. The most powerful lag-variable for low-intensity
quakes appeared one to ].5 years before, although the statistical lag (6 months before) was introduced into the .six
variable equation.
Intercorrelations between independent variables in the
equation were surprisingly low (0.4 or less). Even intercorrelation between lags of the same variable (e.g., UFOR - 3
with UFOR -] = + 0.39) did not display excessive values.
The Durbin-Watson tests for the four equations were: 1. 77,
2.00, ] .67, and il.47, respectively. Neither the substitution by
NUMMO, MAXMO, nor EPICE appreciably altered the
multiple r from those obtained by LOWQU (or HIGHQ
where appropriate). (QUAKEs, loaded by LOWQUs, did not
change the relationship appreciably.)
Predictions of UFORs from the two Fortean classes and
numbers of either the low- or high-intensity quakes demonstrated a similar relationship (Table 3). Again the strongest
relationship (highest F and largest RSQch values) occurred

SecoRd QuadeI' 1981

About the Author

For Dr. Michael A. Persinger 1980 was a very good
year. Almost coincident with his 35th birthday was his
appointment as full professor of psychology at Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. He had
come there from Winnipeg in 1971, having taken his
Ph.D. at the University of Manitoba. At Laurentian
he had' risen to associate .from assistant professor of
psychology in ]975.
Dr. Persinger is the author, co-author or editor of
a number of books and more than 50 articles and
papers published in various academic journals. Most
widely quoted is a book he co-authored in 1977 with
G. F. Lafreniere, Space-time Transients and Unusual
Events, published by Nelson-Hall, Chicago. Also in
1977 Dr. Persinger completed a lecture series on ex perimental psychology for Canadian television's "Uni versity of the Air."
A member of SITU's Scientific Advisory Board since
]978, Dr. Persinger gained plaudits from readers for
his authoritative "Prediction of Fortean Event Reports
from Population and Earthquake Numbers," published
in the Fall 1979 issue of Pursuit (Vol. 12, No.4).

between the numbers of low-intensity quakes and numbers of

UFORs. In both the 3 and 6 variable equations, only the
LOWQU consistently contributed to the prediction of UFORs;
neither the FORCE nor the. ANIMA variables contributed
to any large degree, although their contribution was significant at marginal statistical levels. Not surprisingly, the relationship between UFORs and LOWQU was the mirror
image. UFORs were most correlated with quakes occurring
either 1 or 3 lags later.
When LOWQUs were not in the equation but were replaced by HIGHQ, the selection of both FORCE and ANIMA
lags was modified. As expected, HIGHQ did not really contribute in any significant manner to the prediction of UFORs.
In fact, only 'the FORCE variable was the highest single con.tributor, although the lag for this variable is quite different
than for the previous equati08s.
The limited multiple regressions for the change .variables:
(l) deviation (above or below) t~e mean for the population,
. (2) and percent alteration from the previous lag, were not
impressive. These simple analyses did 'not. account for more
of the variance than the more detailed analyses involved with
absolute numbers of observations. The optimal two lags to
predict the AVLOW variable were A VUFOR-3 and A VUFOR-I, with mUltiple rs of 0.54 and 0.60, respectively. Other
lags of this variable were not significant statistically. The slope
coefficients indicated that for every unit deviation of UFORs
around the mean '(increase or decrease), the number of lowintensity earthquakes changed by 0.4 units] lag to 3 lags later.
The percent alteration involving lags was less productive.
With the change (in percent) of earthquakes as the dependent
variable, UFORLA-3 and UFORLA-2 were the first to enter
the equation with a cumulative r of 0.37 and 0.38, respectively.
Although both change variables entered UFORs at approximately the same lags and the same direction (always before
the earthquakes), the amount of 'explained variance did not
exceed the primary analyses.

Pursalt75

Table 4. Summary of multiple regression analyses with one year interval data to predict either UFORs (unidentified Dying
object/odd luminous displays) or low (V or less) or high (VI or more) intensity earthquakes using optimal lags from various com-,
binations of Fortean or earthquake events within the New Madrid region for the years 1942 and 1972.
Dependent
UFORS

.:

l'

....
UFORS

LOWQU
.'

HIGHQ

Independent
Variable
LOWQU +2
FORCE +1'
ANIMA +2

MR

RSQ

RSQch

SEB

0.76
0.84
0.90

0.57
0.71
0.82

0.57
0.13
0.11

0.76
0.63
-0.32

0.40'
0.76
-0.38

0.17
0.11

FORCE
ANIMA
HIGHQ

+1
+2
-1

0.63
0.76
0.78

0.40
0.58
0.61

0.40
0.18
0.03

0.63
-0.32
0.11

1.10
-0.54
0.23

0.22
0.17
0.18

22.95
10.42

UFORS
FORCE
ANIMA

-2
(0)
+1

0.73
0.78
0.83

0.53
0.60
0.70

0.53 '
0.07
0.10

0.73
0.42
-0.23

0.87
0.80
-0.54

0.17
0.29
0.22

24.37
7.73
6.15

FORCE -3
ANIMA +1
UFORS ,+1

0.56
0.66
0.68

0.31
0.44
0.46

0.31
0.12
0.02

0.56
0.07
0.11

0.89
0.42
0.12

0.23
0.18
0.13

15.51
5.11
0.80

0~08

FO

25.10
20.00
11.48

1.64

F greater than .0, p <.01

MULTIPLE REGRESSION: ONEYEAR INTERVALS,

Summaries of the results from the mUltiple regression analyses for the one-year increment data (23 years) are presented
in Table 4. The optimal lag of each variable that best altered
the multiple r~ (the amount of variance explained) for the
predi<;tion of the dependent variable is also shown. For comparison, UFORs were the dependent variable in some analyses
, while the different intensity earthquake numbers were the
dependent variables in other analyses.
For example, the first analyses of UFORs indicated that
low-magnitude earthquakes (lV-V or less) two lags (two years)
after the UFORs were the most powerful single bivariate
correlate. The B or slope value indicated that for every one
increase in earthquake number, there was an 0.40 increase in
UFORs. The S.E.B. (standard error of B) was quite small
resulting in a significant (p .(01) F value (25.10, df = 1,21).
The next variable to enter was FORCE events of the year
after the UFORs. Although'the change in r2 is 13070, compared to the low quakes' 56070, the F value is still significant.
Since some of the bivariate correlation between UFORs and
FORCE events (r = 0.63) was associated with a weak but
significant correlation between FORCE events and low-magnitude earthq4akes, the net increase in r2 was not merely a
simple' addition.
Finally, the last variable to enter was ANIMA sightings
two lags after the reference earthquake activity. This variable
demonstrated a negative correlation with UFORs (a typical
relationship for this measure), yet was still sufficient to increase the amount of explained variance 'in UFORs. Although
the r2 change was only 11070, the"effect was statistically significant (F = 11.48).
The contribution of FORCE events and ANIMA sightings
to UFORs is maintained when high-intensity quakes r~ther
than low-intensity quakes are entered into the equation. Both
FORCE events 'of the following year'and animal events of the
two 'years later can: accommodate 58070 of the variance in
UFORs. High-intensity quakes did not contribute any significant effect.

<

Pursuit 76

Predicting earthquakes from the th~ee classes of odd events,

not surprising, projected a similar profile. Years with iil~
creased low magnitude earthquake numbers were preceded
two years before (lag of - 2) by increased UFORs (positive
correlation and positive slope). Increased' FORCE events
were evident within years of increased seismic activity while,
a decrease in animal reports occurred the following years.
Since the higher magnitude quakes did not contribute in
any significant manner to UFORs, one is not really surprised '
that the variance accounted for by th~ ,Fortean classes was not
impressive (46070), compared to the other relationships. Although UFORs did not contribute, it'is important to realize
that,FORCE events lagged by three years;did:'contribute in
a very significant manner.
-,
Multicolinearity between the independent variables of each
analysis was not apparent. All infercorrelations," except between force and low quakes (0.40) in the prediction of UFORs
were less than 0.20. Durbin-Watson tests for serial correlation
indicated that adjacent cases (time incremepts) approached
independence. For the four equations demoQstrated in Tabl~ 3:
UFORS, UFORS, LOWQU, and HIGHQ, the quotients
were: 1.76, 'LSI, 1.47, and 2.49.
Decomposition of the FORCE variable to PKORG and
. PKOBJ (which in the year interval data range from 0 to '2 ,
per interval), did not appreciably alter the results. PKORG'
tended to enter at earlier lags (before quakes) than did' the
PKOBJ data. However; the differences were ,usually only'
1 lag. Inclusion of r~w data or recodes for the extreme values
did not statistically alter the order of variable entry or the)
amount of variance accommodated by the equations.
'Although one can appreciate'th~ theoretical importance of.
partitioning data into different classes l6 such as FORCE,'
ANIMA, ~nd UFOR, in order to accommodate, different
optimal lags, simple'summation of all Fortean events within
the same interval could achieve comparable' correlations with
earthquake measu'res. As a test of this possibility, the most
optimal and two most optimal lags for TOTAL (of all Fortean)
events were introduced into equations in which LqWQU and

, Secoad ~ 1?81

HIGHQ were the dependent measures. For the simple r model,

LOWQU and TOTAL-2 were correlated + 0.55 while HIGHQ
and TOTAL-2 were correlated - 0.38. For the two most
appropriate lags, the results were LOWQU with TOTAL-2
and TOTAL-I (multiple r of 0.75) and HIGHQ with TOTAL-I and TOTAL + 3 (multiple r of 0,45).

Discussion
The data analyses clearly demonstrated strong relationships between UFORs (unidentified flying object/odd luminous displays) and earthquake numbers within the New Ma-"
drid region between 1943 and 1973. In both the 6-month and
one-year interval data, UFOR activity changed most consistently during the one- to two-year period before alterations
in low-inten~ity earthquake (V or less MM) activity. Using the
UFOR data only, one can account for between 300/0 and 57%
of the variance in these earthquake numbers.
More precise analyses ind"icated that alterations in UFOR
reports during the previous 6 month interval and 1.01 to ].5
year interval were the best predictors of low-intensity earthquake activity. This basic relationship held" for both "the 6month and one-year interval data. It was also evident when
UFORs were used as the dependent (the predicted) variable
rather than low earthquake intensities.
The asymmetric temporal relationship between UFORs and
low-intensity earthquakes in the New Madrid region replicates patterns "reported for a different data sell from all of the
central and ea"stern U.S.A. Since an equal number of lags for
UFORs occurring both before and after the reference" quake
intervals were evaluated, the potency of the relationship is
emphasized. Increased UFORs reliably preceded increased
low-intensity earthquake activity.
The actual time t;etween the increase (or decrease) in UFOR
reports and the increase'(or decrease) in the frequency of lowintensity earthquakes must still be determined and is limited
by the interval of analyses. For the 6 month analyses, one
cannot differentiate estimates between a few days and six
months. For the one year data, one can only estimate in orders
of whole years.
In principle, ~owever, the time between an increase in
UFORs and the actual eartl}quake should reflect its pot~ntial
intensity (and energy) with respect to the region's capacity
to accommodate the a:ccumulating strain. Fort's data are
. . replete with instances of blinding glares in the sky followed
a few seconds to minutes later by a very local shOCk. Other
data 4 indicate the occurrence of UFO-like luminosities several
days before local but more intense shocks.
If UFORs precede low-intensity quakes by a few months
to about a year, then UFORs would be expected to precede
higher intensity quakes by a longer period of time. The present analyses indicated that UFORs, when they were correlated with high-intensity quakes, preceded high-intensity
quakes by more than 2 years (with the six month interval
data). However, these time parameters should be viewed
cautiously since they have been generated from intensity measures associated with damage rather than estimates of energy
released (magnitude measurements).
Individually, the FORCE and ANIMA variables did not
contribute as much understanding to the variance in UFOR
numbers as did low-intensity earthquake numbers. Nonetheless, the addition of these variables to the equation allowed
an 82% explanation of the UFOR events and a 70% explana-

Secoad Qaader 1981

tion for the low-intensity earthquake events for the year interval data. The amount of variance accommodated by these
variables using the 6 month interval ranged from 40% to 60%.
The association between the FORCE variable and UFORs
or earthquakes was not as systematic as between the latter
two variables. In the year data, "FORCE events tended to increase concurrently with or after UFORs but before lowintensity quakes. With the 6 month "interval data, FORCE
events tended to p"recede or be concurrent with UFORs. In
both instances, however, optimal FORCE lags preceded
earthquake activity.
The high-intensity earthquakes (VI or greater MM) were
associated with a different pattern. Except for the very long
lags before increases in high-intensity quakes, UI:ORs were
!lot significantly associated with these events. Interestingly,
the FORCE variable was most correlated with the later occurrence of high"-intens"ity quakes. In fact, when the FORCE
v~riable was present, UFORs dropped out of the equations.
This association, as indicated by both simple correlation
and multivariate analyses, supports (as do Fort's data patterns)
the existence of a recondite interaction between poItergeistlike activities (especially) and UFO events. This analysis also
indicated that both UFOR and FORCE variables, at least in
the New Madrid region, are corr~lated with earthquake activity.
Reports of odd animals, primarily the "big cat" observations, did not correlate in a simple manner with earthquake
intensity. Simple correlations were primarily. negative and
often lagged after the quake occurrence. However, especially
in the year analyses, they did contribute in a consistently significant (although complicated) way to the variance associated with either UFO reports or earthquake activity.
A most conspicuous characteristic of the FORCE variable
with high-intensity quakes was the very long lag. In both the
6 month and one year interval data, the increase in FORCE
events preceded the increased high-intensity quakes by three
to four years! Since four-year lags were the maximum considered in the present analysis, one must still consider the
possibility" of still longer lags.
Resolution of this discrepancy between the variables involved with the low-intensity and high-int~nsity quakes cannot be completed with the present analysis. If UFORs precede increased bouts of FORCE events, for example, then
UFORs in this region would optimally precede VI or greater
quakes by more than three or four years. The occasionally
weak correlations with UFORs would only be secondary
effects.
" An earthquake intensity-dependent latency effect for optimill UF9 lags may not be the only pattern by which the intensity of the consequent quake could be indicated. In the
present analysis, the possible relationship between the intensity of UFO displays and the intensity of the quakes along
some energetic scale was not investigated. Measurements of
UFO intensity, such as peak frequencies or spatial densities,
wer~ not considered. "
In principle, depending upon the local geoarchitecture,
one could also" expect the six month period preceding very
large quakes to be characterized by marked, increased frequencies of strong UFO phenomena O\1er much larger areas.
An event observed by people in dozens of cities and several
adjacent states or countries, such as the recent June (1980)
"display over several countries in South America, could be
considered an antecedent to an especially large seismic event.
Such dynamics must still be resolved.

Puraait77

-.T.he present study is limited by the nature of the absolute

vaiues of the data. Although the density and distribution of
the data are acceptable to the analytical techniques selected,
the results cannot be generalized outside the sample. Since
one assumes that the Fate reports did not saturate the total
number of reports that did occur, one cannot use the absolute
in UFOR numbers as precise predictors of the number of
earthquakes when using other sets 'of UFOR data that con'tain different sampling procedures.
Alternative forms of UFOR data are preferable. Reliable
estimates of the change (in percent) of UFORs (or any other
Fortean measure) with respect to change (in percent) in local
earthquake measures would allow a more general application
. .of the relationship. One could then apply these functional
equations to a given region after accommodating the "constants" of that region. If the model is reliable, this application
should be a matter of computer time.
The phySical characteristics of the tectonic-coupled energies
and the geometry within which they ~re applied are still not
clear. Routine electric and electromagnetic forms of energy .
do comprise a significant portion of UFOR and FORCE
events, for ex~mple, but they do not accommodate all Qf th!:!
variance. If the source energy is coupled with accumulating
strain, we must still determine, by what mechanisms household objects move, organisms are peculiarly, damaged, or the
odd lights are.maintained in context of these energies.
Direct effects of these stimuli upon the human brain will
remaiI} a serious confounding variable. Since memory, perception, and even thinking are coupled closely with relatively
weak but complex electrical patterns in the brain, direct assault
by intense and complex electromagnetic-like fields, would
distort these operations. Consequent experiences would be
expected to be as varied and as unusual as the potential combinations of electrical patterns that compose brain activity.
Since the person uses brain processes to determine environmental events, changes in these processes woqld not be dis:
criminable unless a permanent objective referent was available,
such as a photograph. The person would not be lying in a
technical sense. He or she would be responding to the patterns
of electrical'inputs that had been modified by the .external
electromagnetic-like field. Unless knocked unconscious by
crude and intense currents, the details of the perception and/or
the memory would be considered unusual but true.
Exclusion of Fortean or UFOR data on the basis of observational artifacts (directly induced by unspecified EM-like
fields) or by more conventional correlates (belief, faith, abnormal behavior) would not be justified on a data basis at this
time. Even though people of the same culture share labels
that tend to mask the variation in daily stimulus details,' there
is still cross-cultural and historical evidence for the occurrence
of Fortean events. They protrude, often in an embarrassing
manner, from verbal data.
By using a multivariate approach to Fortean events, one
can obtain sufficient data resolution to specifically test hypotheses generated from tractable theories. With this approach,
.one can actually support or negate systematic extrapolations
from well-developed, internally consistent models. In this
manner, the more fruitful approaches can be discriminated
.from the plethora of pseudotheories.
Explanations such as "other dimensions" or "hyperspace"
or some related "neither-world" concept are' not testab~e
theories; they are empty ~tities that cannot be refuted or
supported. Like the words "hell" or "heaven" they do not
display characteristics that can be verified by direct or indirect

Pursuit 78

challenge. Unfortunately, most' support of these pseudotheories is by negation, an odd kind of default: "if any available theory cannot explain-the p"enomenon, then therefore,
the. pseudotheory has to be true."
The study of those events we call Fortean is at the most
critical stage of its history. They can remain in the cherished
, ,reservoirs of unrestricted fantasy and undisciplined spec-'
ulation, or they Can fie subjected to the detail and the precision
of numerical analysis. The data available in many agencies
are now sufficient in number and temporal-spatial density to
allow reliable and valid results to be obtained. With preseitt
software for statistical packages and t,ime-sharing computer
options, even the young scientist has access toa field that is
replete, with potential discoveries .
REFERENCES AND NOTES
I. Charles Fort, The Complete Books oj Clwrles Fort (New York:
Dover, 1974).
'
2. Michael A. Persinger and Gyslaine F. Lafreniere, Spoce-time
Transients and Unusual Events (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977). .
3. M. A. Persinger, Earthquake activity and antecedent UFO
report numbers, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1980,50, 791-797.
4. Wayne Laporte; Anatomy oj a UFO Window: The Seismic
Connection, Matthews, North Carolina, Private Publication, 1979~
5. David Fideler, Gateways to Mystery. Fortean Times, 1980,
Issue 32, 10-17.
'
6. Peter A. J.ordan, The Hackettstown Haunting, Fate, 1980, 33
(10),49-55.
7. W. S. Wagner, see C. L. Wiedemann, Results of the New Je~
"spook light" study. Vestigia Newsletter, 1977,2,1-4.
8. 1YI. A. Persinger, Transient geophysical bases for ostensible UFOrelated phenomena and associated verbal behavior? Perceptual and
Motor Skills, 1976,43,215-221.
9. M. A. Persinger, Possible geophysical sourceS of close UFO encounters: expected physical and behavioral-biological effects. In R. D.
Haines (Ed.), UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist (Metuchen: New Jersey: Scarecrow, 1979), pp. 396-433.,
10. Brian Brady (Dr. Brian Brady, Denver Fedenil'Center, Bureau
of Mines, Denver, Colorado), personal co~Jliunic'atioh. "
II. M. D. Zoback, R. M. Hamilton, A. J. Crone, D. P. Russ,
F. A. McKeown, S. R. B,rockman, Recurrent intraplate tectotism in
the New Madrid Seismic Region. Science, 1980,209,971-976.
12. The source data included the 6,000 plus reports used for Spocetime Transients. This source file contains all the events reported by
Fort (in the four books) plus the modern organ of unusual events:
Fate: (The excellent collections by Corliss are still in the coding
process.) There is a clear hiatus of reports between 1930 (when Fort's
data began to dwindle) and 1947, when Fate became a systematic
data source of unusual events. The data were initially loaded on
8O-column cards, but have now been dumped onto disk space of a
DECSYSTEM 2020 computer.. The basic format of each, case is
hqur, day, month, year, city/county, state (if U.S.A.) or country
(if elsewhere), continent, and a ofour-digit category code. The remaining 44 columns allow verbal identitications and the reference
source:. For example,
0408101857ST LOUIS MO USA
0007081869MATIOON III USA
0004041948ALTON III USA

indicates

1302 WMINOUS O~dECT SEEN/QUAKE

1204 OBJECTS SEEN PASSING MOON
0613 GIANT BIRD REPORTED

F406, .,
F417
FA2506

The fll'St ~
that between 0400 and 0500 hours on'S October
1857 from S1. 'Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., a luminous object was seen
in the sky (of classification "unusual comet", "meteorite" variety,
the label of the period) as reported on page 406 of Fort. The second
. case indicates that at some unspecified hour on 7th of August, 1869
in Mattoon, Illinois, U.S.A., objects were seen passing the moon
using astronomical measurements, 'according to Fort, page 417.
The third case indicates that at so~e unspecified time on the 4th of

Sec:oad QaaJta 1981

ATLANTIS:
Lost and Found Again
Copyrighl 1981 by .Ion Douglas Singer

by Jon Douglas Singer"

M~A.

Part III
began, so did a new age in Atlantis research.
As. theMost1970sorthodox
archeologists seemed to accept the
theory that the volcanic eruption and the subsequent de"struction of a Minoan Cretan city at Thera-Santorini Island
in the Aegean Sea about 1450 B.C. was the source of the
Atlantis legend. But a" resolute minority of independent
researchers continued te; insist that the "real" Atlantis was
in the Atlantic. Still a~ther group felt that sunken stone
structures, apparently great ruins, were evidence of an
Atlantis-type civilization or colony in the Caribbean and in
the Lesser Antilles.
Evidence for the third conclusion was reportedly found
under shallow water oft' the western coast of the Bahamian
island of Andros, and also" at Bimini and other islands in the
same archipelago, as "previously discussed. In Part II of this
article I told of the discOlVery of a large rectangular structure
submerged off Andros Island, by Bob Brush and Trigg
Adams in 1968. Brush, Adams and Professor J. Manson
Valentine of Miami, F1CJrida, also found two similar stone
structures underwater near the first one, the smaller being 90
by 50 feet and the largc:r 75 by 100 feet.: Later, another
marine archeologist, Robert Marx, visited Andros to see if
April, 1948, near Alton, lIIilnois, a large (reptile-like) bird was seen
according "to F.a/e report '.1506. The particulars of the four-digit
code both complement and add details to the verbal descriptors.
13. Norman H. Nie, C. H. , Hull, J. G. Jenkins, K. Steinbrenner,
and D. H. Brent, SPSS (Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences),
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975, 2nd edition).
14. For those interested in the technology of the data selection,
SPSS software, which is a very versatile system for Fortean data
analysis, was used. After tHe appropriate categories were recoded
to allow class pooling, the da~a were selected from the major file and
arranged temporally by usirig the SORT subprogram and written"
onto a separate file using WRITE. -(Since each case contains fixed
alphanumeric data, [riformation can be selected according to days,
months, years, and category, recoded for state, country, continent,
and still have the verbal descriptors in the remaining 44 columns
to allow checks for details.) After the redundant cases had been
deleted by visual inspecti"on, the data wen~ grouped into the various
time increments. For the month intervals, for example, this was
done simply by recoding the month columns (ranging from I to 12)
so that 1,2,3 (January, February, March) = I; 4,5,6 (April, May,
June) = 2, etc. Then the CROSSTABS subprogram was used to
give the occurrence-frequency of the different classes for each temporal interval for all years. These data were then placed manually
(the slowest part of the operation) from these outputs onto a separate file. Routine checks for errors, etc., were always employed.

IS. With this technique, one"can determine the explained variance

and the number of variables occurring before or after the -key sequence. If the New Madrid data are like previous reports J ; then
a step-wise regression model should demonstrate a preference for

Seeoad Quad_19.1

he could find similar buildings after h~ had visited the

original sites found by Adams, Brush and Valentine.
Marx dove around the western shore of Andros and
discovered not one but as many as twelve sunken stone
structures! In his article in Argo,sy magazine Marx" concluded that these structures were living quarte~, but he did
not offer specific evidence for such a conclusion. In 1971
Marx returned to Andros Island and reached one of the submerged buildings he claims he found there. He dug by hand
for as much as seven feet into the mud and still did not reach
the base of the stone wall. Even more inter~sting is his claim
that he found artifacts that included the ceramic face of a
man, a piece of carved marble, and more than twelve potsherds. He sent copies of photographs of these objects to
unnamed experts. Their verdict was that the objects were
not of ancient American origin but appea"red to bear some
resemblance to ancient Mediterranean artifacts.
A similar story was told by Alan and Sally Landsburg in
their book, In Search of Ancient Gods." At one site west of
Andros an unnamed diver found several submerged ruined
buildings, according to the report. Some of the structures
were a couple of hundred ya.rds apart, others separated by
UFORs occurring in lags before the alterations i~ earthquake numbers. The symmetrical analysis also allows the simultaneous control
for the possible small contribution, if any, froln other class lags
occurring after the dependent variable.
The gymnastics of the procedure are simple. Since SPSS lags only
in one direction, the "dependent (predicted) vari~ble must also be
lagged to allow "temporally symmetrical analyses." For example,
if one is predicting UFOR4 (lagged 4 time increments from the original series), then correlation with lag = 0 to lag I = 8 of QUAKES
allows coefficients to be calculated for the four :increments before
UFOR4 (QUAKES to QUAKE8), the one concurrent increment
(QUAKE4) and the four increments that come after the series
(QUAKEO to QUAKEJ), for each case.
"
SPSS constructs lags as new variables by inserting Os at the beginning of the case list for a variable and shifting the series of data
forward by those number of Os. Consequently, if one asks for a lag 2"
of UFORs for the following series of observations: (cases) of UFORs
per 6 month interval: 6, 4~ 12, I, 2, 5, 5, then the new variable created
(i.e., UFORs lagged 2) is 0, 0,6,4, 12, 1,2,5, and S. When one is
computing correlations with lag variables, there is (obviously) some
point where the actual data terminate and the O~ are entered into
the analyses. To prevent this, one merely uses the S,ELECT IF option
to analyze only those time increments (6 months,' I year, etc.) that
do not contain the artifactual zeros. For very long lags, such as
I to 16, one must effectively eliminate 16 cases (time increments of
data). As a result, the number of feasible lags are limited by the total
numbers of cases.
16. M. A. Persinger, "Prediction of Fortean Event Reports from
Population and Earthquake Numbers," Pursuit, Fall 1979 Vol. 12.
No.4, pp. 162-174.
~

Pursuit 79

as mu,ch as five miles. One was 240 feet long and 80 feet
wide. It was divided into three rooms with no detectable
windows. Although he couldn't find the floor, which apparently was buried under the sand, the diver insisted that
the limestone blocks of which the walls were composed were
too big and too well fitted together to b~ modern Bahamian
, turtle pens. He added that he had dug several holes near the
largest building and had found artifacts such as pottery and
ceramic figures. Experts faile<i to identify the objects "from
photos sent to them by the diver, so he had the artifacts
dated by chemical tests which put their age at 5()()()-3000 .
B.C. The conflict has not been resolved.
Other rectangular stOJ;le structures have been found south
of Bimini. Charles Berlitz has a photograph of one in The
Bermuda Triangle. Berlitz theorized that the submerged
structure was a temple platform or dock. It is covered with
.
marine vegetation.~
, Stone enclosures of circular as well as rectangular configuration have been found underwater in the Bahamas. Professor Valentine wrote about a hexagonal structure near the
north coast of Andros Island and included a photograph in
an article in the periodical Muse News.6
..
Berlitz has photographs of several circular formations. In
Mysteries from Forgotten Woi"lds, opposite page 134, an
odd for~ation shaped like the number 9 is shown. It was
photographed from a plane flying 500 feet over the Great
Bahama Bank.
Andros Island has its share of circular enclosures. The
photograph of a small circular formation appears in
Berlitz's Without a Trace. M In the same book there is
another photograph of a much larger circular structure
composed of three concentric stone rings. If this is not a
man-made formation it must be a very odd reef indeed. The
same kind of stone structure was found underwater near
Andros Island by Robert Brush, co-discoverer of the
controversial "temple" mentioned earlier. Brush made'his
discovery in 1973 but it wasn't publicized until 1978 when
Egerton Sykes published a drawing of it in his journal called
New World Antiquity. ~ There is a, .second, smaller ringshaped enclosure southwest of the larger one. The first has
three walls of stones on one side while the second has only
one ring. The drawing of the structures on the back of the
magazine is based on a photograph,taken from a plane flying at lZ00 feet above the ocean. .
Orie of the most exciting aspects of the sunken-ruins
. enigma is the possible existence of s~nken pyramids in the
Bahamas and adjacent regions. A stone structure may be a
natural reef or a construction by indian hands, but sunken
pyramids s,Uggest two possibilities: that an ancient preColumbian civilization flourished in the Bahamas earlier
than the earliest-known Meso-American civilizatio~s, or
that an Old World civilization related to ancient Egypt or
Mesopotamia had significant contact with the Bahamas.
Moreover, pyr~ids offer surer dues to the origin of the
s.unken, stone structures. Though circular and rectangular
stone shapes abound, they haye no clear relatives'in either
the Old or New W. orlds, but pyramids are like members of
one family no matter where you find them. ..
I first read of the sunken-pyramid mysteryin Berlitz's
. Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds. III On page 94 there is an
, account of a "step pyramid" found by a charter-boat captain at a depth of 12 fathoms. On page'95 of the same work
there is an account of anQther sunken pyramid on the Great
Bahama Bank. It is described as being flat-topped and
....,..uit80

measuring ISO x 140 feet. This pyramid is alsQ mentioned in

The Bermuda Triangle, but in his book Berlitz puts the location in the vicinity of Bimini. He said there were several
other pyramids nearby but gave no details.
No photographs of sunken pyramids are available, but
the "picture" of one came into view, quite by accident, in
. 1977 (see illustration, page 81). First reproduced in Berlitz's
Without a Trace, the picture was a sonargraph "profile"
drawn by a device commonly carried aboard fishing boats to
find schools of fish. Much to the amazement of Capt. Don
Henry, his sonar traced the outline of a huge pyramidal ,
structur~ that had a base of 540 feet and a height of 420 feet.
The height; Berlitz noted, was only.60 feet less than that of
Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza.
.
In 1975 I participated as research assistant on the Poseidia
'75 expedition of Dr. I>avid Zink to the Bimini Road. On
that expedition I heard a story abo~t a sunken pYramid
from which an artifact shaped like a crystal ball was alleged
to have been taken. The pyramid was said to be pointed at
the top in the Egyptian style rather than flat-topped as are
the Mesopotamian and Meso-American pyramids.
The fantastic story of Dr. Ray Brown and his pyramid
must have unfolded about the same time the Zink expedi-.
tion was returning from the Caribbean, although" I was
unaware of Dr. Brown and his discovery until I read a reprint in The New Atlantean Journal of an article first
published in that periodical in 1975.'"Brown and his team of
divers were at first looking for Spanish shipwrecks, the
usual incentive that attractS divers and marine archeologists
to the Bahamas. After poring over old manuscripts for clues
to sites of sunken treasure galleOns, they pinpointed a likely
location, proceeded thence and dove in 130 feet of water.
On the surface the visibility had been poor and it did not improve und~ater; indeed, clouds of sedime~t seemed to
have been churned up by some sort of turbulence. I I
Suddenly there were sunbeams streaming down, not from
the ocean surface but from the top of a 9O-foot-tall
pyramid, an Egyptian-style structure that should not have
been there, yet .it was! The divers swam close to investigate
the incredible discovery. They found the construction to be
of a marble-like stone, and it was completely bare of the
coral incrustations and other marine life that usually conceal
submerged .objects..
.
.
Brown swam three times around the pyramid, just below
the "bluish" top. The third time around he spotted a doorway. He swam through, and found himself inside a.chamber
with walls that rose to a peaked ceiling. Swastikas, of a kind
often used by ancient peoples as religious symbols, were inscribed on the surrounding stonework. There; were seven
chairs, like thrones, one raised slightly above the others as if
to provide for a leader. Seats ranged along the sides of the
room and a shaft extended from the ceiling. to some waisthigh objects mounted on a pedestal. These were a pair of .
arms of a metallic substance and a pair of hands which held,
a globular object of crystalline appearance.
. Thinking that he was being watched, Brown grew fearful.
He felt certain the opening ~hrough which he had entered
might close again, for: he had nof seen it on ~is first two
tours around the outside. On the spur' of the'moment he
plucked the crystal from the hands that held it, and swam
out of the chamber. The other divers mea,nwhile collected
various odd artifacts, some of which they thought looked
like "electrical devices."
.
Back on their boat the divers decided to keep the tale
Sec:oad~_19.1

_
eo

..

.: __--1-:--

~._.:!:~ ~

..

~.~.~

-.--.-

i -.

.-

-_
---

--'--

L:.. -'-._

I
:
-ID--r-.---

,
-,...

;...
.. -

"

~-

..:-.:.

.. . -I

If!..

I .---.
~

i .

. :~,

-.------Courtesy

Capt. Don Henry's "pyramid" sonargraph

secret. They were uncertain as to ~ow the local authoritie~

might react to their. salvaging activities. Brown' felt that
some sort of "curse" afflicted the site and he never returned
to it. Three of his divers went back on their own and it may
have been their final adventure, for their boats were found
drifting but no human remains were ever recovered.
Brown made his story public in March, 1975, and showed
the salvaged "crystal" to the editors of The New Atlantean
Journal. I waS unable to find a sequel to this tale or any
evidence of follow-up or attempt to rediscover the mysterious super-pyramid. Until investigation reopens and more
evidence is produced,' this chapter will remain one of the
most fascinating, and most incredible, in the annals of the
Atlantis search.
.
Th~ pyramid stories are as intrigUing as they are elusive.
Even more so are stories of sunken cities. The authentication of just one would disengage some of the beach rock
controversy, and it surely would change a lot of ancient
history. If a sunken city were discovered anywhere in the
Atlantic, geologists as well as historians would have to
rewrite a good many textbooks.
In previQus parts of this article I referred to the 19408
rumors of 'sunken eities in tlie Atlantic and to still earlier
reports of enigmatic ruins on volcanic islands which apparently rose from the waves, then sank again. The latter
were at Begames Island in the Caribbean; and near the
Azores the ship Jesmond logged a sighting of odd ruins.
In the 1970s new reports suggested that there might be
more sunken cities. One site was' said to be just north of
Cuba. In Mysteries from Forgotten Wor/ds l2 Berlitz wrote
that a sunken citadel of marble stonework was located near
. Cuba, just south of the Bahamas. It covered four or five
acres and there were roads leading from it into the depths.
There are brief reports of sunken cities in the Caribbean.
One off the coast of Haiti and another under a lake are
noted without descriptive details in Berlitz's The Mystery of
A tlantis.1J In Without a Trace the same author wrote that
artifacts such as statuary had been found by divers in the
Bermuda area; and pilots of submarine craft had seen
.
sunken cities there. 14
Pino Turolla, the marine archeologist, reported on arrays'
of pillars, some still upright, underwater in the Bahamas.

Secoad Qaader 1981

These, he felt,belonged to temples or ancient cities

'of an Atlantis-type culture. The best-known pillar
group is off Bimini Island.
But W. Harris countered, in the British scien. tific journal Nature, that the pillar array was either
ballast or cargo dumped from a relatively recent
shipwreck. He theorized that when the ship sank,
its cargo of Cement and marble fell to the sea bottOIJl; eventually the wooden hull rotted away, leaving the stones. Harris 'said these were construction
materials. Chemical tests of the "pillars" showed
that they were composed of marble, a stone which
was not native to the Bahamas but probably was
quarried in Georgia ar Vermont and taken aboard
as cargo or ballast. The cement, also tested, was of
a kind not used earlier than c. 1800."
"
The Scientific Exploration and Archaeological
Society (SEAS), an organization founded by John
Gifford, Talbot Lindstrom and Steve Proctor, sponsared expeditions to Bimini in 1971, 1972 and 1979.
They, too, contended that the pillars were cargo
from a shipwreck of the 1800s. In an effort to gain
. evidence for their contention the group seai-chect die records
of L10yds of London but found no report of any ship carrying such cargo having been wrecked in Bahamian waters
during the early years of the 19th century. 16 .
Pino Turolla claimed to have found other pillars, some
still standing upright. One group of piIlars, in a circular arrangement, was found in July 1969. It consisted of fortyfour marble columns with diameters ranging from three to
;. six feet, and three to fourteen feet in length. Dimitri
Rebikoff claimed that he, too, found sunken pillars near
Bimini, some sixteen feet high and still upright. The 1970
North American Rockwell expedition tried but failed to find
these columns. Rebikoff then said the pillars were really
somewhere else. Marx had a photograph of what was supposed to be a fallen column, but there's no telling whether it
pictures an ancient artifact or a. cargo item from the suppositious shipwreck. I' Turolla advised authors Ferro and
Grumley that several pillars he had found during expeditions in July-November 1969 were not cement but natural
stone apparently carved by human hand. The stone was of a
type found in South America and not native to the Bahama
Islands. 18
A variety of artifactS have been found underwater in the
vicinity of the sunken stone structures. Besides the two large
stone statues he reported were stolen by divers, Robert Marx
discovered, or claimed to have discovered, pottery and a
ceramic of a man's face from an underwater ruin off Andros Island. On Poseidia '75's expedition to the Bahamas
Dr. Zink spotted a squarish stone"block with a groove cut
around its edge. This was definitely a man-made object,
three inches thick and about thirty centimeters across. It was
not at all like anything carved by the Lucayan Indians of the
Bahamas. Six days after this find, one of the divers, Gary
Varney, found another carved block which vaguely resembled an animal head. It turned out to be of marble, another
example of stone which could only have come from a region
far distant from .the Bahamas. The block lay twenty feet
underwater and was estimated to weigh about two hundred
pounds. It was left on the sea bottom until lifting equipment
could be obtained. During the Poseidia '77 expedition this
artifact was ~rought to the surface by Zink and his team

Pursuit 81

. "- .- . . --...~. "--7"'"'" -_ .....

i-~~-"-'''

-.... ~-~~.

J,- .....--.:.-~ ....

II

III

XII

IX
The Plri Re'ls map. Reproduced from Maps oj the Ancient Sea Kings by Charles Hapgood
by kind permission of Turnstone Press limited, WeI6ngborough, Northamptonshire, England.

who took it to Bahamian officials for safekeeping. I" Still, a

skeptical ~rcheologist stayed with his original contention,
that the Poseidia discoveries were indeed artifactual-the remains of a shipwreck and in no way evidential of ancient
construction.:!!l
.
Speculation was diverted to a different kind of odd find

........."82

when a Phoenician coin was picked up on the beach at

Bimini by a fisherman who gave it to Robert Marx. The coin
was bronze and dated to the fifth century B.C. There wasn't
much doubt that the coin was genuine and that it had been
washed up by a storm. But who knows whether the .storm
pulled it from some ancient site, or plucked it from the

Seeoad QlllU'ler 1981.

_.-_._-_._--_._----------

ISN

""'-

TIl. lan.tud.. of Grid A ... d.

t.rrni~b' the IrlllOna",..,lc proIlICtfon
1M an the pale.
The II ud... however. hi" been
modifi
el) br' .hift of the whol.
_ " P , of botb .Ido. .r lho AUontle
lbout
narU"INI. Ippartlntl,. an the

~~--~--~~---+----+_----------~-- SS

~~~L-~--~---+---1----~----~I~S

414-

1.lumptlon that the horizontal lin. ttlraut:h

Point III. of the pOrtalln d ia" uppo....

I~ .cru.tar: Ind (II) ..,. the .peIerentl,
Incr.... In the dl.tlne. between til.
~,.II.I.. devlc. to tek. account of 1111 curv.
ture of' Ihe . . rth thl.
b n attributed to
PloIemJ' (Note 9), Th... chin. . . . .,. no doubt III.

IS'S

to "

.rbit,.,,!

work

h..

of lit., ,.ol,aphlra.

.r::.1::-:.::ct:~flp:h:; t::::~:p:!

......rit lbouI4. Ihus

of thalt
Grid
I

Part
a Is

d.

_~Iilo~.'J.

~~=:i:=::PJ~+=Jc::p:::::j~==:::::=::tI 20'S

:10:

11
:

Increina: til. lan.itude Irnt1'8

the map.
det.rmlned both .1 to letltud. and

+1,...-.-'-- Figures

1-.:',

1 ,

.,.rt

[60'SJ

For I lilt of t ... numbe,.d .... r.p..ial points. ...

belOW. For I lilt Dr tfIe number" 0 .... pIIIC.1 palm.
with camp.... tl" t.bl.. or t ....r Iltitud.. Ind 1...1tud... ... Tabl. 1.
Grid. C and 0 N""lnt ImI,. In compilation, Grid
C hlvln. In Irror In ICI'I. and GrId 0 b.lnl unN......
tD t ... trlpnomltrlc proJec:i.lon.

1. Annobaft ',,,nd.

4.SL "'ul Aift.

. Mlno River

1.""7. Bil. . . 1"lnd.

21. C.pe Vlrdl 111.nds

22. The C.n.". 111.nda
23. M.dll,. 'aland.
24. Thl AzaFli.
25. Cu...
(., Gulf of Gu.an.pbo
(b) Qu.ntlnlmo

a.,.

L G.mbia Rtwr
I. DI"lr
10. Se....1 '!Iv
11. Cape BI.nc

Ju_,

12. c. ...
13. Sibu Ri"r

~:: ~::=:U~I' AI...

II. c.. ... 8L VI_.I

17.T._ A.....
I .. c. ... FI.llto...
II. GiraRd. III...

:zo. a.1IIt

(0.1 "'hl. d. III...

(d) a.bl. d. '0 GIoII.

(.) Cilm. . u.,. Mount.ln.

et) SI.". M....... Maunteln.
21. AncIra. 'sl.nd

27. S S.Ida. (WeI"..,

ZI. I'" of PI
21.Jlm.ICII
30. MII.-nla'a

(S.ntD Daml .... H.1tI)

II. Pu.IID Alca
32. Rio Maranl
31 Cor.ntljn Rlftr

Grid "-

2. c."'Ir AI

lalltude ad,ustecllor QmlSSIOnS \

of part of the South American -+-.......
Coast and of Dralle PasSile (a
~_+. . J.-.-l---I---_+---l--+I__-_+- total of 25 l
- 30'5 [ssSJ

tude ..,.llhl tripno",eI". of thl projection b l " on

th. pal.. It m.,. be considered .1
of thl mlln
.rld thl' h.. been lwunl tt"vulh In Irc Df lbout
78% d ........ Bath the prim. m.rldlln Ind , ....qultor
of Or... 8 an H canlldeNd .xt..liaM at t ... II,.. of

3.C.......1.....

In brackets regresent - \25 S

[65SJ

34:: E..equlbo RI"r

IS. Orinoco Rtwr
31. Gu" of VenezuI'a
37. PI. ... "1.10

31. M.......n. River

31. Gulf of U.....

40. Hondu,.. (Cape Graci.. DIOII)

41. YUCliten

c..... Frio
.u. S.lndor
42.

44. San ,,.ncllCO River

45. _ " . ("'....",_ucol

... c.... Soa

"-u.

47. AID .....brINI

e.....bl. Se. Mo_

el....... d. Guru"" Iht D _ " "
IhtN....

SO. TIl. ""'0_ (No. II ..... Rift.

51. Thl Antllzan (No. 2) PIIr'II River
52. TIl. ""'._ (No. 2) .......
lIIDuth- -

53. 11'lnd of M.,.,o

54. EIMqulbo Rlvlr
55. Mouth. af thl OrlnOCD
56. PIInlnIU" of ParI.
57. MlrtlnlQul
!II. Qu.d.loupe
II. Ant,-ul
10. LHWlrd I".nd.
61. V.,..n 111.nell
. . Qulf of VenezuII.
a. ............ Rlvar
&4. Atrata Rlvlr
15. Honduras (C.pe ea,.cl Diu)

II. yu....n

17. a.hll 81ana

. . Rio Colar.do
e. Gurr ar Sin ...th...
70. Il1o N.... ",,.11110)
71. Rio Clliubua
72. Gulf of Se. Go...

73. a.hl. Gr.ndl

74. Cape SIn 01180 (n r the Hom)
71. Fllkllnd 111.nds
7&. TIll South Shltlands
77. South Ceo"l;'
78. Thl Palmer Penlnlula
71. Thl Wid dill S
10_ Mt. Rap"I, Queen Maud Land
81. Thl Halula, R.n. .
82. Muhll.-HDfml"n Mountai"
13. Penck Trauillh
... Neuml,.r Esarllment
IS. O"..... kl Maunt.ln
81. ~I...... k
87. aDrnl. Pasut Nun.t.n
. . Trllt.n d'Acun"l
Gouah Isrand
77. S.utb Goo,.l.
IS. Flm.ndo da Nlron"l

Grids of m~ projection are laid over traced Piri Re'is map;. numbers are keyed to table to show location of Significant features
of terrain and ocean, and present-day population centers. Reproduced &om Maps 0/ the Andent Sea Kings by Charles Hapgood
by kind perm"'on of Turnstone Press Umited, Welllngborough, Northamptoll!!hire, England.

grave of a pre-Cruumbian wreck, or picked it out of a collection of ancient coins that went down with a modem ship?
Who will ever knpw?~1
\
During May, 1972 the SEAS expedition's diver Steve

Second Quarter 1981

Proctor found a formation of large rocks extending at a

sharp angle from rocky islets off the Rockwell property on
Biinini to the shore, where discoloration patterns hinted at
the possibility that in ancient times the "roadbed" con-

PunJult83

r E

CARTES
L ,:",w"._t lu .rNA", !If k., p."z,
F R I Q

III'" I'~I "'l~ .

.. "". , .....". n'..,fo"l,

3.P.....-. 1Jrrin/J,

:I

(Ju~"

tl.

g.

.1

IT

nJ.,.,...,..

'* 111m. "

'}

l:t-;";- .

....... -~~~!I: .. .. -.. -..........--_ .............. -- _ "_. """""'..-tl

The Buache map of 1737. Reproduced from Maps oj the Ancient Sea Kings by Charles '-'apgood by kind permission of
Turnstone Press Limited, WeUingborough, Northamptonshire, England.

tinued on land that is now deeply submerged beneath sand

and water.22 The SEAS people in 1979 'restudied Proctor's
Roadway, as the site was called. They found'a worked stone
with a hole in it, the hole also man-made. they noted that
the roadway was composed of both large and small stones
which appeared to have been shaped by men. SEAS divers
Dick Goodwin and Don Gruenther found another exciting
feature which cannot be dismissed as either a pile of ballast
stones from a shipwreck or beach rock cracked by natural
forces. This formation had stones uniquely arranged to
resemble the body of a man lying prone: one large stone
positioned as a head, several others in a chest-like configuration, one long horizontal stone res~bling a belt, and two
- parallel rows of stones as legs. The feature was found in
water between the Bimini Road and Proctor'$ Roadway, not
more than three meters beneath the surface.~3
. Another peculiar'type of artifact was ,found by Professor
Valentine near a submerged stone enclbsure off Andros
Island. It consisted of a group of "hundrc!ds~' of stone disks
or hexagons in straight lines or two parallel lines. Some of
the disks were piled on the beach of a snulu islet, apparently
by a st~rm. OtherS, still upright, went right up onto the'

beach, turned at right. angles as if they were stone fences,

and vanished into the jungle. Similar stone disks arranged'in
lines have been found in the Tarpon Springs area of western
Florida. 24
'
, While sOqJ.e researchers thought they had found traces of
Atlantis 'in the Bahamas and the Caribbean, others con. tinued to look for Atlantis in the Atlan~c. In 1966, for ex,ample, an Irish writer named W. G. Edwards suggested that
the legendary Irish island of Tir na nOg (the Land of the
Young) was related to Plato's Atlantis, and that it could
have been near Madeira. He added that it had had mineral
springs such as those described in Plato's account of Atlantis, and that it could have sunk in one of the earthquakes'
which occasionally occur at Madeira. 25
, Another interesting hypothesis was developed by Charles
Hapgood. In his book, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings,26 he
argued that certain medieval and Renaissance maps such as
those copied by a 16th century Turkish admiral named Piri
Re'is showed sunken lands and continents of the last Ice
Age. The Piri Re'is maps were copies of 'earlier maps by
Greeks or Phoenicians who themselves had copied maps
from still earlier, unknown peoples. Hapgoo~ scarcely menSecoad QIuut.- 1981

tioned Atlantis, but he did suggest that one large island

marked at a spot on certain old maps where no island exists
today was not mythical but real land, albeit now submerged.
The vanished island, shown off the coast of Brazilon the
Piri Re'is' map, is unnamed. It is near another nonexistent
island called Antillia, which Hapgood thought was legendary. The unnamed island may indeed have been a real one.
According to Hapgood it was located where today one finds
the Sts. Peter and Paul Rocks. These are peaks of a submerged mountain rising from a plateau 1Yz miles deep. The
mountain is not volcanic but of the "folded" type, and it
belongs to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Another map, drawn by Phillippe Buache in 1737 for the
French Academy of Sciences, was described by Hapgood as
depicting a large island in the mid-Atlantic between Brazil
and Africa. The isle has a different shape than the one on
. the Piri Re'is map. Hapgood thought it showed smaller remnants of the large isle, most of which had submerged. Thus
the Buache map would be a copy of a map drawn later than
the original version on which the Piri Re'is map was based."
Near the central island on Buache's map were other islands,
one coincidentally placed near the submerged mountainrange known as the Sierra Leone Rise. Hapgood suggested
this wasn't coincidence but possibly evidence of a real
sunken land. North of that is another large "island, while the
Cape Verde Islands are shown as a large peninsula connected to Africa. A fourth island was south of the central
one and no longer exists.
Hapgood empbasized thiu these old maps were not proof
of Atlantis or other sunken civilizations, but he cited the
conclusion of a Belgian scientist, Rene Malaise, that parts
of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge were above water ten to fifteen
thousan9 years ago; Malaise noted that remnants of freshwater diatom specimens had been dredged from the bottom
of the sea, and these could have existed only in a fresh-water
environment such as the inland lakes of former land-masses
would proviae. Although Hapgood did not mention sunken
cities, the ancient maps showed what he described as sunken
lands in the .mid-Atlantic. In Part I of this article I alluded
to the reports of World War II airmen who claimed they had
caught glimpses of sunken cities while flying between Brazil
and Dakar on the coast of West Africa. One of the reported
sightings was near the Sts; Peter and Paul Rocks. Another
was near the Cape Verde Islands. Both locations were in the
middle of the Atlantic, within areas where evidence of
sunken cities has been found, and both were marked on ancient maps as islands. Are these merely coincidences, or
could they be clues that point toward eventual solution of
the Atlantis mystery? .

Appendix
A promotional pamphlet published by the Scientific Exploration and Archaeological Society (SEAS) describes an
array of sunken columns studied by John Gifford aIJ,d
Talbot Lindstrom. These were located at Bimini and were
investigated in 1971 !:>y a SEAS expedition funded by the
University of Miami and the National Geographic Society.
The pamphlet reproduced the photograph of fluted marble
pillars that were scattered about three quarters of a mile of
seabed. It seems unlikely that the pillars came from a shipwreck; there were too many pillars spread over too much
area. The pamphlet suggested the pillars were indeed of ancient European, probably Mediterranean, origin and
perhaps dated to c. 3000 B.C.

Secoad Qaarta 1981

Fate magazine published an article entitled' 'The Secret of

the Bermuda Triangle;' in its August 1977 issue. Written by
Walter Uphoff, the article dealt with a psychic experiment
which used clairvoyance and dowsing to probe the Bermuda
Triangle. Girard Croiset, a famous Dutch psychic, and a
colleague, Warner Tholen who is also a Dutch psychic,
studied the area on the 10th and 20th of January, 1977. The
experiment w,as directed by Professor W.H.C. Tenhaeff and
the Dutch Society for Psychical Research. Tholen claimed
he had never heard of the Bermuda Triangle before, but
l?oth investigators thought they detected a mirror-image of
the Bermuda Triangle from the Gulf of Mexico at 26 0
latitude and 87 0 longitude. Tholen said he had received
psychic impressions of ruins of ancient settlements in that
area.
This is the third part of afour-part series on Atlantis written
by Jon Douglas Singer. The fourth part will appear in the
next issue of Pursuit.

REFERENCES
I. Atlantis: Fact or Fiction? ed. by Edwin S. Ramage, Indiana
University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1978; The Stones 0/
Atlantis by Dr. David D. Zink, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York,
1978; book reviews by James C. Rubright in Archaeology,
November/December 1979, pp. 65-69.
2: Marx, Robert, "Atlantis, the legend is becoming fact,"
Ar.gosy, November 1971, pp. 4547.
3. Marx, ibid.
4. Bantam Books, New York, 1974, pp. 71-74.
5.. Berlitz, Charles, The Bermuda Triangle, Doubleday, Garden
City, New York, 1974, photo section opp. page 134.
6. Muse News, journal of the Miami (Florida) Museum of
Science, June 1969, p. 43.
7. Dell Books, New York, 1973.
8. Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1977, photo section, pp.
84-85.
9. "Possible Underwater Structure Near Andros," by R. J.
Brush, November/December 1978, p. 121.
10. Op. cit.
II. "Shadow Pyramids! And the Crystal from the Triangle!" in
The New Atlanteon Journal, Winter 1979, pp. 20-il.
12. Op. cit., p. 96
13. Avon, New York, 1978, p. 22
14. Without a Trace, Doubleday, Garden City, New Yor~,
1977, p. 86.
15. Harris, W., "Atlantis, Undiscovered . . . Bimini,
Bahamas," N.ature, April 2, 1971, pp. 287-289, reproduced in the
W. Corliss Sourcebook Strange Artifacts, Vol. M2, Glen Ann,
Maryland, 1976.
16. "SEAS Bimini ('71, '72 arid '79) and Quintana Roo Expeditions" in Occasional Publications 0/ the Epigraphic Society, Vol.
18; pp. 189-198.

17. Marx, Robert, op. cit.

.18. Ferro, R. and Grumley, M., Atlantis, the Autobiography 0/
a Seorch, Bell, New York, 1970.
19. Zink, Dr. David D., The Stones of Atlantis, Prentice-Hall,
Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1978, pp. 60-63, 148-151.
20. Rubright, op. cit.
21." Marx, op. cit., p. 47.
22. Lindstrom, op. cit.
23. Ibid.

24. Valentine, J. MansOn, "Archaeological Enigmas of Florida

and the Western .~ahamas," op. cit.
.
25. The Irish Press, issue dated Wednesday, March 16, 1966.
clipping supplied by Ms. Gail Cayce Schwartzer of the Edgar Cayce
Foundation.
,
26. Revised edition, Turnstone Press Ltd . London. 1979. pp.
55-59.
~

Pursuit 85

Books .
PERPETUAL MOTION: THE HISTORY OF AN
OBSESSION by Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume (St. Martin's
Press. New York. i980. 235 pp . biblio.. index. illus.
$5.95)
Reviewed by George W. Earley

This. is the trade-paper edition of a book origirlally published in 1977. I missed it then and am glad to catch it this
time around. It deals with one of mankind's oldest dreams:
getting something for nothing. Until the advent of machinery, that dream had to be expressed by invoking magic: rain
chants, love potions, hexes, etcetera were means. whereby
mankind hoped to gain unearned benefits.
But machines! Once they appeared, the tinkerers, the
mechanicians and the proto-engineers all began designing
machines that would run forever and also do useful work.
A mill, for instance, whose water wheel not only turned the
grindstone but also drove an Archimedean .screw to lift the
water back up to the millpond, whence it could once again
be used to drive the wheel, is just one of the more common
would-be perpetual motion machines described.
It was not only the relatively under-educated tinkerers
, who contrived these machines. Among those who designed,
and in some cases tried to build, perpetual-motion machines .
were such science notables of their day as Sir William Congreve, John Bernoulli and Robert Boyle.
There were others ... one of whom may have come as
close t9 achie~il:lg perpetual motion 'as the laws of physics
allow. James Cox, an ingenious clockmaker of 18th-century
London. devised and built a large clock which had a winding mechanism actuated by the unfailing daily variations in
atmospheric pressure. Had it not been moved (a task that
involved removing some 150 pounds of mercury) Ord-Hume
thinks it likely that Cox's device might still be running and
"good for another few hundred years."
Other mechanicians resorted to trickery, being neither as
talented nor as honest as James Cox but nonetheless eager
to gain financial rewards as pioneer entrepreneurs of a new
technolo~. Orie Charles Redheffer, in 1812, took Ii goodly
sum from gullible Philadelphians with his perpetual-motion
machine before hastily leaving town when there was displayed a similar device built specifically to demonstrate his
trickery. But news traveled slowly in those days and Redheffer was able to resume his caper undisturbed. for awhile
iri New York City. He was attracting good-paYIng crowds
when steamboat-inventor Robert Fulton came, observed,
and not only denounced the machine as a fake but tore
away enough of its outer casing to reveal a concealed beltdrive extending to an adjoining room where an elderly man
sat turning a crank. Redheffer's erstwhile suckers promptly
demolished his machine and the "inventor" barely escaped
with his skin intact.
Ord-Hume chronicles a great number of other frauds,
among them the infamous John Keely whose machines,
always on the brink of success, attracted enough greedy
.investors to provide \Jim with a comfortable living for more
than twenty years.
Keely's machines, quite large by comparison to most perpetual-motion devices, were run by compressed air, ingeniously supplied through pipes hidden in the apparently solid

ru.....rt86

supports which held the apparatus. Compressed air gave

his machines a power advantage over the others which were
mostly powered by long-running clockwork concealed in
their bases. Keely's fraud was. exposed after his death. "Had
'he survived much longer he could not have escapoo lynching
or imprisonment, the author asserts.
.After reading this book, if anyone retains a nostalgic
fondness for the chimera 9f perpetual motion, please get in
touch with ,"e. There's a bridge I'd like to sell.
PSI: SQENTlRC 'STUDl~ OF THE PSYCHIC REALM
by CharleiJ P. Tart. New York" Dutton, 19~7, pp. xii plus
241, $4.95 paper.'
.
'
.

Reviewed by Morgan Eads

. This, book treats the reader' to a casual and non-tech. nical. stroll through the domain of the parapsychologist.
~t ~s not B: text meant to prove the existence of psi. Rather,
It IS a senes of reflections of the general nature, and psychology, of psychic phenomena. -If the reader desires more
evidential material, Tart suggests he see the bibliography
(over 200 entries), or the "more than 600 reports" of evidence for psi in the professional literature.
Tart covers some of his owl). routine work: with subjects
of "out-of-the-body experiences"" (OOBEs), precognition
ex~riments, and his con,troversial feedback-training of ESP
.subJects. He also considers the sensitive problem of the psychology of the experimenter, and the serious problems that
the scient~st faces when he deals with phenomena beyond
his world-view. He illustrates this latter problem with his
own inability to face the experimental data for precognition
on a deeply personal level.
.
One of the intrigui.ng ideas in this book is Tart's concept
of "trans-temporal inhibition." His hypothesis is that the
mind focuses on the present by il1hibiting data from the
near-past and near-future. Similar to the Bergsonian "filter
theory" of consciousness, this suggests that our sense of the
present is only possible because we actively limit potential
data signals from a segment of time on either side of the
present. A slight change in our world-view through dreams
drugs, religious experiences, or other altered states, allow~
us to become aware of these time-signals surrounding the
present, and thus we can experience precognition.
This book is not intended for the person who seeks quantitative proof of. the topics covered. Instead, it is geared for
those who already accept. the phenomena. The book is delightful to read, and it qualifies Charles Tart as an authentic
contributor to the parapsychological field.
THE ETHEREAN INVASION by John De Herrera (Hwang
Publishing Co., 10353 Los Alamitos Blud.; Los Alamitos,
California 90720.1978, J57pp., $2.95)
, Review~ by Robert Barrow
Qui~e noticeably, the world of UFO book publishing has
embarked on a new trend. Not so long ago books which linked
UFOs to psychic, religious, or any "paranormal" topics were

Second Qaan. 1981

Boob
regarded as absolutely crazy and unworthy by conservative
UFO researchers, who considered themselves far too sane for
such (wild?) stories.
Times have changed! In 1980 respected UFO investigator
Ann Druffel joined with noted parapsychologist D. Scot!
Rogo to present the bizarre story of The Tujunga Canyon
Contacts (Prentice-Hall), a series of UFO-based encounters
that vent.ured beyond the boundaries of physical evidence.
Last year produced Raymond E. Fowler's acclaimed book
about a UFO abduction with religious overtones, The Andre.
asson Affair (also Prentice-Hall).
A year earlier De Herrera's The Ethereon InvaSion appeared
in print, and t9 simply hint that it possesses religious connotations is an understatement. The author offers the story in
the form of a well-done investigative report, making use of
taped interviews and other in-depth case information.
Etherean-which was unavailable for several months after
its publication, for whatever reason-is as complex as the
books mentioned above, but its primary direction seems to be
in showing how one Brian Scott, alleged victim of a UFO
abduction, continued to experience contact with his extraterrestrial visitors and eventually changed from an average
person to a prophet who undeniably felt he had a mission
to publicly disclose information and guidance passed to him
by an alien entity.
A brief review cannot do justice to De Herrera's composition. The connection between UFOs and other mysteries,
such as poltergeist activity, is just too strange to neatly tie
together. We can affirm, though, since books of this .nature
are being written by an increasing number of serious researchers, it is indeed true that the UFO phenomenon takes many
forms, each more eccentric than the last.

MYTHICAL CREATURES OF THE U.S.A. AND

CANADA by fNalker D. Wyman (University of WyomingRiuer Falls Press, Riuer Falls, W154022, 1978, $7.95 ppd.,
ill., x plus 105 pp.) .

Reviewed by George W. Earley

Cryptozoologists should find this slender little hardcover
book an interesting addition to their libraries. of legendary
creatures.
.
Compiler Wyman, whose book is a "revision and enlargement" of his earlier Mythical Creatures of the North
Country, has attempted to provide readers with a reasonably
accurate guide to the fascinating denizens of American folk~
lore.
.
Says Wyman: "As the Americans moved across the continent, they found many mythical creatures that had not
been known in Europe." These included Milking Snakes,
Hoop Snakes, Wampus Cats, Upland Trout, the Whirling
Whimpus. Distlefinks. Whickles, an~ a host of others. While
not including all extant mythical beasti,es. Wyman does give
us. in seven chapters. "ten mythical snakes, six insects. nineteen birds, fifteen fish and serpents. forty-three animals
. and monsters plus the Sasquatch. or nearly 100 creatures
that never existed in the minds of men." The data he supplies on each ranges frQm a few lines to a page or more.
Now while I enjoy good folktales as well as the next Fortean. I object to the inclusion of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch,

SecoruI Quarter 1981

Lake Champlain's "Champ," and Lake Okanagan's "Ogopogo" in this compendium .of purely "mythical creatures."
Wyman is either operating out of"ignorance here, or prefers to willfully disregard what is known of these particular
creatures. True, these "mystery monsters" have not yet
been accepted by science, but I think Pursuit's readers will
agree that they do not belong in the same company as the
Kissing Bug, Rocky Mountain Rockabore, Whiffle-Whiffle
Bird, or the Side Hill Gouger.
L~ving aside this one excursion into irrationalism, Walker
Wyman's book is a fun piece, charmingly illustrated by his
wife (she shows you what a Dingbat or a Sandhill Perch
looks like) and is a welcome addition to my Fortean library.
Although the bo~k was published in 1978, I bought my
copy in mid-summer 1981, so it should still be in stock.

MEVS: CREATOR OF THE PYRAMIDS by Edgar D.

Wilson (Astra-Research Publishing, 266 So. Glendora
Ave., West Covina, CA 91790, 1979, 144 pp., iIIus.:
$7.95)
Reviewed by Jon Douglas Singer
This book seeks to prove a startling hypothesis, namely,
that the Great Pyramids of Egypt wtre built by the ancient
Egyptians under the direction of an extraterrestrial civilization. Moreover, the author is certain that the Pyramids were
never intended to be used as tombs; the designers intended
them to be gigantic stone records fQr the eternal preservation of information about space, the Earth, and physical
principles.
The theory which suggests th~ possibility that the
Pyramids were not built as tombs isn't new, nor is the
theory that the Pyramids were built by ancient astronauts
new. Erich von Daniken (Chariots of the Gods?, 1970)
suggested that possibility, while an :alternative theory that
the Pyramids were built by people from Atlantis was popularized in books such as Edgar Cayce on Atlantis,
published in 1968.
Wilson is convinced that the measurements of the Pyramids are symbolic, not accidental. According to his
hypothesis, each group of measurements, such as the
lengths or heights of rooms or corridors, yields data about
astronomical phenomena. For example, the Giza group of
Pyramids -is a 1147 scale model of the Sun, Mercury,
Venus, the Earth, and the Moon. 'fhe orbital velocities of
the Earth, Venus, and Mercury were given to a 1147 scale;
the areas of the pyramid bases represent the volumes of the
three inner planets; and the five granite tiers of ceiling
slabs in the King's Chamber represent the five inhabitable
continents of Earth.
The theoretical speed necessary for an object to orbit the
Earth at sea level is given to a 1/47 scale and the orbital
velocity of the Moon is given to a 1/47 scale. The escape
velocity from the surface of the Eal1th and from the Moon
are given to a 1147 scale. The velocity of light is used to
establish the 1147 scale of the Giza model. Again, the mass
cubit is indicated. That gives a uQit of measure derived
from the Earth's gravitational accleration at the North
Pole to a 1147 scale. The size of the Earth is given in a unit
equivalent to English miles, and a unit of time is derived

PursuilS7

Books
from the radius of the Sun and the velocity of light (supposedly not known u.ntil the time of Einstein)!
If the num ber 47 seems to be repeated almost beyond endurance, it is by intent, not accident, according to Wilson.
He claims that number 47 is the key to decoding the symbolism in the measurements of the Pyramids. He uses the
key to open quite a sizable store of postulations. For example: Because the Pyramids were built 4700 years ago, it is
possible that the putative astronauts will take 4700 years to
return to their home planet; or, it will take them the same.
.. amount of time to send a second expedition to the Earth
(assuming that the speed of ligh~ cannot be circumvented
and that they are limited by that velocity). The author's
method begins by noting that the scale of the Giza model is
47 to. I. The scale is Irelative to the radius o( Earth.and the
velocity of light. The 1/47 of a second it takes light to
travel along the radius of the Earth provides the basis of
the number 47 which yields the astrophysical data.
One might ask, "How did the author arrive at the
unusual name of MEVS?" This is a simple acronym for
Mercury, Earth, Venus, Sun-a term of reference to the
ancient astronauts who planned the Pyramids. Wilson
does not question that pharaohs such as Mycerinus and'
Senefru. directed the hoards of shives and artisans who
built the Giza group; but the siting and construction plans
were set forth by the MEVS.
If we assume that :the MEVS themselves evolved through
an ancient-Egyptianlike culture, and spotted other cultures
like the Nile's on other planets, it is not much more difficult to accept the idea that they built these "monuments"
as signposts and chQse mathematical symbolism to conv~y
scientific knowledge as the only sure' way to surmount the
communications barriers of language and time. .
Wilson identifies with the "pyramidologists," a hardy
strain of parascience practitioners who see the Pyramids as
symbolic structures and have to grow thick skins to deflect
the brickbats of arcHeologists, who persist in their conventionai references to "tombs of the pharaohs." Whate:ver
the merits of either argument, it seems to me that skeptical
readers may have more doubts about some of the author's
premises than about his conclusions .. There is the question
of measurements. The Great Pyramid yielded its limestone
covering to various plundering armies, including the Arabs
who carried it away, stone by stone, to build Cairo's first
mosques and palaces during the Middle Ages. The thefts
considerably altered the original measurements; how much
is hard to say, but Jhe difference could cause significant
inaccuracy when setti:ng up a data base for calculation and
extrapolation. Wilson m~ntions that Senefru's semi-collapsed
Bent Pyramid is the only one with its limestone casing still
intact. Tl:leri he notes that Senefru's narne occurs in his
pyramids while alien inscriptions are absent. However, Senefru's pyramids "belong to" the MEVS plan as does the
Giza group, but the many other pyramids of Egypt apparently do not "belong'~ in the same class of alien supergeometry.
Edgar Wilson is an engineer and a machinist,' according
to the biographical summary on the jacket of MEVS. Egyptologists and mathematicians should check his data. If it is
correct, w~ may already have some of those "alien artifacts"
we keep wishing would turn up to answer our questions.

Pursuit 88

PSYCHIC NEXUS by Berthold Eric Schwarz, M.D. (Van

Reinhold Company, New York, 1980.308 pp.)
Reviewed by D. Scott Rogo
. In 1904, Sigmund Freud published his great book on the
psychopathology of everyday life. Berthold Schwarz is a
New Jersey psychiatrist who has been a long-time student of
parapsychology, ufology, imd other '.'borderline" studies.
Psychic Nexus, subtitled "Psychic Phenomena in Psychiatry and Everyday Life," is a'compilation of several papers
already published, most having appeared in journals circulated among professionals in the mental health field.
The overriding theme of Psychic Nexus is that ESP and
related psychic phenomena are natudl outgrowths of per~on-to-person relationships. When ESP occurs between two
people, Schwarz argues, it is not' a random or meaningless
event. It has occurred because there was a need for this level
of communication to occur. hi this respect Psychic Nexus
often reads like a mystery novel. Dr. Schwarz cites many instances of ESP between himself and his children, with his
patien'ts, among the elderly, and so on. Then he investigates
and t~ies to discover the' reasons why the interchange took
place and what significance the event had for the people
concerned. Dr. Schwarz carefully shows how ESP occurs
when a person cannot express his feelings in a conventional
manner, or when a child or patient wishes to draw attention
from a support figure, or even as a "reaching out" reaction
to loneliness or physical impairment.
The chief virtue of Dr. Schwarz's approach to spontaneous ESP is that he shows these events to be meaningful: like
dreams, they reveal a hidden side of ourselves whiCh can be
used as a means to self-discovery and, perhaps, self-growth.
Although the book is basically devot'ed to reporting cases
of sporitaneous ESP, a few sections relate to some of the
many field investigations the authpr has engaged in over the
years. Interspersed with papers that are oriented to work-.
aday parapsychiatry are reports on the author's investigation of the "fire-handlers" of the Free Pentecostal Holiness
Church in Kentucky who become im.mune.tofire and poison
during their religious celebrations; discussions of his own
ESP picture-drawing tests; and a chapter on UFO-contactee
Stella Lansing, who is also gifted with psychic ability.
Although Psychic Nexus is not a teChnical book, many of
Dr .. Schwarz's discussions will be mqst helpful to those
readers who' have some sort of background in clinical
psychology and a basic understanding of psychiatry, . the
psychotherapeutic process, and personality theory. But the
non-professionals need not feel slighted, for Psychic ~exus
offers plenty of practical hints to better understanding of
~etf, spouse, children, even. that elusive being you hear so
. much about but never meet-the "average person."
Dr. Schwarz, consultant at the National Institute for
Rehabilitation Engineering, Butler, New Jersey, is a
member of SITU's Scientific Advisory .Board.
Mr. Rogo currently serves on the parapsychology
faculty of John F. Kennedy University at Orinda, California. It offers the only accredited graduate program
in this fii!ld in the United States. Mr. Rogo makes his
Permanent home in Northridge, California.
Nos~and

SI'.'Uations
In this section mostly contemporary curious and unexplained events are reported.
Members are urged to send in newsclippings and reports they deem responsible.
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper or periodical),
city of publication, date of issue in which the article appeared, and your first initial
and last name (or membership ,number only if you pr~r to be credited in that way.)

Kangaroo Rat

Tiny Tendons
These are artifical tendons created in a laboratory at the University of North Carolina
by a team of zoologists directed by Dr. Albert K. Harris.
But don't worry. These are not prototypes of pans for an imitation human body, nor are
they suitable for use as transplants to replace human tissue that cannot be repaired. In fact,
, they don't even work.
But they are quite accurate simulants of
and conne~tive tissue. Fibroblasts exceeded
human and animal tendons, and by studyother cells in pulling power,' so the Harris
ing them their creators are learning how
team placed blocks of fibroblasts in small
muscles and tendons form in the earliest
dishes and immersed them in a collagen gel
stages of development and why some
derived from cow hides and rat tails. The
wounds, including burns and radical
cells slowly pulled the collagen into bundles
surgical procedures, undergo severe conshaped remarkably like tendons.
tractions while healing.
Dr. Harris sees his experiments as proDr. Harris wanted to know more about
viding evidence of some truth on both sides
the various cells of the human body, noting
of a longstanding argument among medical
that most cells "are capable of a kind of
researchers., Some scientists believe that the
crawling locomotion somewhat similar to
collagen must shrink; others s~y that the
the movement of amoebae." Extrem'ely
cells in the affected area shrink. Dr. Harris
thin sheets of silicone rubber were' used to .
notes that "coIlagen is a non-contnictile
simulate these forces and duplicate the
protein and the ceIls don't seem to get any
wrinkle patterns which develop according
shoner."
to the direction and force of the of pull.
There is need to know. Good post-operCells studied included white blood cells,
ative procedures are as important as good
fibroblasts, nerve cells and cancer cells. To
surgery; the treatment of deep burns always
their surprise, the researchers found that
hazardous; s~ar tissue the plastic surgeon's
the cells that move the least are the
worst enemy. Anything that causes contracstrongest and have up to, 1,000 times the
tion around the site of a wound delays heal~
pulling power of the more mobile cells.
ing, encourages infection, sometimes preNext phase of the study was to determine
vents recovery, and is never an aid to good
the effect of the pulling power when it is aplooks.
plied to the body's collagen. This tough, inelastic protein is t:he main supportive comSOURCE: Durham (NC) Morning Herald,
3/20/81. CREDIT: P. Thompson.
ponent of skin, bone, tendons, ligaments

Second Quad_ 1981

Officials at Utah's Hogle Zoo in Cedar

Fort laughed when rancher Ray Ault called
them to repon the sighting of a kangaroo
mixing with his sheep herd. But Ault claims
he has seen the animal several times. He
doesn't need it, doesn't want it and is hoping to locate the owner of the stray hopper.
Ault has been raising sheep in the desen
-range of Utah Lake for SO years. He said he
knew something was wrong when he saw an
animal in his herd leap about six feet into
the air. "I was checking the sheep up the
canyon and off to the side of them I saw
something jump straight up," he said. "I
got closer and it looked me right in the eye.
Then jump, jump, jump, and off it went. ..
The rancher said the beast looked like "a
big, dark kangaroo rat, kind of yellowish
with some dark on the ears." He had some
. troubl~ .convincing even close friends that
the encounter was not a figment of a lonely
shepherd's imagination. "Of course they
thought I was crazy a~d they said I'd been
hanging around the sheep pen too long, .. he
said. "But after I described everything, they
finally believed me."
SOURCE: The Salt Lake Tribune, 6/12181.
CREDIT: L. Coleman.

~
No Place Like Home
Flamingos are native to Cuba, the Bahamas; and northern South America. Most
of Florida's flamingos have been imported,
to divert the customers at racetracks or
amuse tourists allending "spectaculars" at
Cypress Gardens and such. North of Florida
flamingos never venture. Well, 'hardly ever.
, About 6 a.m. on a Thursday in mid-June
real estate agent Larry Mumley looked out
on the waterfront of his home on North
Hero Island in Lake Champlain. There, in
the shallows near shore, a big, pink' bird
was moving stiffly about' on crutchy-legs,
head and n~k popping in and out 'af the
willer; ob,viously relishing ,the nice. 'freslt
fish being" self-served for breakfast. Mr.
Mumley k~ew, what he ,was seeing. He
remembered flamingos he'd seen in Florida.
Word spread quickly. Neighbors came,
som'e carrying binoculars. Two'members of
the Green Mountain Audubon Society
brought a telescope. "Yes," said Audubon
board member Mrs. Oliver Eastman"
"there's no' question but it's a flamingo."
Reporters and photographers arrived in

Pursuit 89

force. The bird was most obliging, and stood

quietly in the sun as shutters clicked and
tape recorders whirred.
Back at the office, news people did the
usual telephoning to official sources. "I
think it's some type of joke," said Robert
Candy of the Vermont Fish and Game Department. Or it could be a great white
heron that became stained, he mused.
"But people believed there were pirhana
in .the Connecticut River. They were small
yellow perch," he laughingly lold the caller
from The Burlington Free Press-the day
before it pubEshed a three-column telescopic closeup of the flamingo.
Roger Whitcomb, chief warden for the
state Fish and Game Department, said
he "couldn't imagine" how a flamingo
could be brought north in captivity. "It's
too big. I'd quicker believe it was blown in
by a storm," he said. He added a stern
warning: Flamingos are protected by state
and federal laws, and if anything is to be
done with the bird, it would be up to the
resident U.S. fish and wildlife agent to
decide.
The flamingo may have shared the
warden's concern. It disappeared after a
stay of 12 hours on Mr. Mumley's waterfront. There have been no reports of any
other sighting.
SOURCE: The Burlington (Vermont) Free Press,
6/19.20/81. CREDIT: L. Coleman.

~
Disposable Coke?
Lightning struck a Boy S~ut cabin in
Manchester, New Hampshire, blew the
pants off one boy, tore the sneakers off
another, and sent 21 Scouts and their
leader to hospitals. None .was seriously
hurt but recovery from their amazement
.;
may be slow.
"There was a flash and then an. enormous bang," said Vincent Franceschini,
leadc;r of the. troop. "Then my leg :went
numb and I felt like I was cooking all over.
One of the boys had a fuli can of t:oke
with him. The Coke disappeared without
making any holes in the can. It just happened."
SOURCE: The News American, 7/16/81.
CREDIT: D. Whitcomb.

~,'
Billion.Years Younger
Don L. Ande~n, geophysicist at California Institute of Technology; notes that
the oldest rocks on Earth are 'about. one
billion years younger than the four-biUionyear-old planet. 'Jle theorizes that:.Earth was
once covered with a 300.:mi1e-:deep oCean of
molten wek, that the older rocks sank in
the molten lava and became. part of the
"lower
. layer . between the
planet's
SOURCE:
Wilmington,
Hollander.

The baby
mammoth
of Magadan

Newcomer from a Glacier

In the summer of 1977 a bulldozer
operator~ A. Logach~, found a baby
mammoth in a layer of ice, broken stone
and silt in the upper reaches of the northern
river Kolyma (Magadan Region), near the
stream Kirgilyakh. The baby mammoth was
brought to Magadan and placed in a deepfreeze chamber. Scientists from Moscow
and Leningrad l)1ade a preliminary study,
selection and preservation of tissue samples,
and extracted the internal organs. Then
everything was measured, weighed, described and preserved. The carcass was put into
a metallic box lined with a thick layer of
foamed plastic and dispatched by air to
Leningrad for further investigation.
There thebaby mammoth was kept in a
thermochamber, in a temperature of "IS
degrees below zero Centigrade, then it was
transferred to the laboratory of the
Zoologi~aJ Institute of the USSR Academy
of Sciences for embalming.
Data about the baby mammoth was
thoroughly studied and analyzed by Soviet
resem:chers together with their colleagues in
other countries. Soviet scientists photographed and x-rayed the animal. Then. they'
studied the mammoth's brain, its skeleton
and muscles of the right foot.
.
"The permafrost grounds in the extreme
northeast of Siberia and Alaska are like
natural refrigerators. The frozen carcasses
of animals which inhabited these places
during the glacier age have been wonderfully preserved," said O. A. Skarlato, director
of the ~ological Institute of the USSR
Academy of Sciences. . . . It waS a true
scientific sensation when the Magadan baby
mammoth was found. His age was estimated from the development of his teeth.
In the mouth cavity the first lacteous grindiJig teeth were seen. The tusks had just
staited. cutting through. Height in the front
.:~ one meter, During the dissection of
tiie~ bOCly, drained
flattened internal
oiians
were discovered, among them the
' . -:.
.

ana

heart, lungs, kidney, stomach and a part of

the intestine."
A radiocarbon anBlysis has shown that
this seven-Month-old animal died about
40,000 years ago. The studies of the dust
and the remains of wood from the layers in
which the baby mammoth was found, show
that the vegetation of that period was coldresistant. The prevailing landscape was tundra and steppe vegetation with shrubs of
dwarfed .birches, and willows with larch
forests.
As a result of investigations it was established that the eXhausted infant animal perished when he got into a trap of silt from
which he could not get out. The carcass was
quickly coveted with sand and silt. This is
indicated by the fact that the corpse showed
no damage by carnivorous animals. Eventually the place where the baby mammo~
died was covered by snowslides that never
"thawed~ This is what kept the remains jrom
decomposing..
'
. . Comparing the 1977 find w,ith other
mammoth remains discovered in prior
years, Professor Nikol~i Vereschagin,
chairman of the Committee for Mammoth
Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
said: "This is the first time that science
possesses such a completely preserved
specimen. The samples known hitherto, including the famous Beryozova mammoth
found in Siberia in 1902, were considerably
damaged and could not give a complete.
idea of the external appearance and the
structure of the animal's internal organs.
"The Magadan baby mammoth will
probably serve as an object of study for
scientists for a long time to come," Prof.
Vereshchagin concluded. "It will provide
scieI).ce with new, interesting data, including
the reasons why these powerful. animals,
although well adapted to the severe climate,
disappeared from the earth." .
SOURCE: Moscow News, English-language
weekly published in the USSR, 1981.
CREDIT: D. Bayanov.

Second Qaarta 1981

The Tree that Cries

Thousands of people have been flocking
to a rural site near Butler, Alabama, to
listen to a crying tree.
A deputy sheriff of Choctaw County says
the narrow dirt road leading to the Linnie
Jenkins home has been jammed with cars
ever since the family fU'St heard the
noise-similar to a puppy's whimper-emanating from a h~e pecan tree on
April 12. So far, there is no official explanation for the crying noise, only a theory
the sheriff heard a local forester tell about,
that it could be gases seeping from inside
the tree.
. .
A hole has been dug at the base of the
tree and, for a SO-cent fee, anyone can put
an ear to a pipe and fisten to what the tree is
saying-or crying about.
. ..
SOURCE: AP dispatch, Asbury
'/10/81.
.
CREDIT: Member N432.

Pflr!c Press,

~
Regeneration of a Foot
A l6-year-old British schoolgirl lost half
her heel in a motorcycle accident two years
ago. Now, after self-hypnosis, she is growing a new heel and her crutches have been
relegated to the attic.
. Tracy Kitto was 14 when the accident 0ccurred. Hospital doctors warned her parents that she might have to lose the foot.
But after a series of operations the remaining h!llf of the'bone was saved. "When she
came out ~f the hospital her foot looked
just like a banana," said her father. "No
shoes would fit her and she couldn't walk.
She was on crutches for a year. Then we
heard about Joseph Keeton."
Mr. Keeton is a hypnotist and teaCh~r of
hypnosis. He believes "it is wrong to make
the patients dependent on a hypnotist so
they can keep extracting money. The hypnotist must teach the patients to teach
themselves."
.
The family M.D. was present to give
moral support to Tracy during her initial
experience under hypnosis. "I kept going.
deeper and deeper into her primeval past,"
said Mr. Keeton. "I told her to go down to
the deepest part of her brain where the
knowledge of regeneration is stored. in the
womb, the whole of evolution from a single
cell, multi-cell jellyfish, fish, reptile ... has
collapsed into nine months. And somewhere in that memory of what went before,
we knew how to regenerate missilig limbs."
Tracy was taught to put herself under
hypnosis for a specified time so she could
wake herself up. "Many patients fear hypnosis because they have seen peop.e acting
fike idiots in stage shows. Such shows do a
lot of harm," Mr. Keeton noted. He is emphatic that "at no time is there anyone else
in control. AU hypnosis is self-hypnosis.
The hypnotist is just the guide."
Keeton's guidance has won high praise

S.CODd Qaader .1981

from the Kitto family. Tracy has won a

lengthy battle with depression and has made
up much of the schoolwork she missed. As
her father sees it, "Her foot isn't perfect by
any means, but it is a great deal better. The
bone has grown, and the flesh has filled
out, and her foot is getting more like a foot
every day."

New Year's Fireball

In some places the arrival of the New

Year is celebrated as if it were the Fourth of
July: with fireworks. No one is quite sure
what it was that fell out; of the sky with a
shuddering' boom heard allover western
Pennsylvania last New Year's Day. But it
wasn't fireworks.
SOURCE: Daily Express, London, 417/81.
Pilots in two Boeirig 7TTs, one flying at
CREDIT: D. Mace.
31,000 feet, reported seeing a fireball falling
somewhere northeast of Pittsbutgh about
'1 :30 p.m. The noise rattled windows
throughout the area, brought residents into
Parting of the Waves
streets and yards to peer skyward, and set
The Exodus story comes to a familiar ... off d~zens of calls to police, civil defense
climax in a "parting ofthe waves" ~ :~loW. ~ . ; .:'()fficials and the new~ desks ofregional and
the Israelites to escape their life"ofSlavery in
local media. .. - .....
Egypt: as the fugitives approach the water
A spokesman for Buhl Planetarium in
the waves pull back until t~e last Israelite
Pittsburgh said it could have been a meteor
has passed through, whereupon the waves
burning up as it plunged through the atswirl in to drown a whole army of Egyptian
mosphere. Harold Stamper, assistant chief
at the FAA control center in Cleveland;
pursuers.
would say only that "there's a lot of
The Exodus is the central experience of
speculation going around, but that's all it
Judaism. It is the second book of the Chrisis." .
tian Old Testament. It is history re-lived by
biIlions of devout people, and it has been
SOURCE: AP dispatch, The Middlesex News
immortalized in every form of-an and lit(Mass.) and Nashville Tennesseetln, 1/2/81.
CREDIT: L. Coleman, H. Holland.
erature, from stage to movies to TV, even
in musiC.
Some scholars say the Exodus should b~
~
classed as fiction, not because they dislike
Boom Times
its philosophy or resist the compulsion of its
symbolism; they just haven't been able to
Next to earthquakes, the "boom-in-thefind enough evidence to explain where andsky" mystery has plagued more people,
when and how such an event could have ocalarmed more officials, puzzled more sciencurred.
tists and inspired more sensational reportBut in early May a noted Egyptologist
ing for a longer time than any other phereleased an academic paper which described
. nomenon. Mysterious booms were woven
new and "solid historical evidence" fixing
into the fabric of Seneca Indian mythology
.the date of/the Exodus and offering a natway back when the Europeans didn't even
uralistic version of the "parting of the
know there was an America. Charles Fort
waves" to parallel the theological vieW that
assiduously included a plethora of "mySdivine intervention made good the Israeltery boom" reports in his notes from major
ites' escape.
pubfications of the 19th century, sometimes
Dr. Hans Goedicke, chairman of the
associating the noises with earthquakes or
Near Eastern Studies department at Johns
volcanos or great storms, at other times
Hopkins University, says his hypothesis is
finding no relatioilship to other phebased on 20 years of analysis of archeonomena.
logical sources, primarily a royal inscription
Earthquakes, volcanos and storms defrom the reign of Hatshepsut, a female
stroy fife and property; study, prediction
ruler who lived from 1490 to 1468 B.C. His
and eventual prevention are important
interpretation dates the Exodus about 200
socially and politically. By themselves,
years earlier than othe::-s have supposed. He
booms have never been known to kill
ascribes the "parting of the waves" .to a ..
anyone or damage real estate. Incentive
powerful tidal wave generated by the same
(i.e., money) for serious, long-term involcanic eruption on Thera that destroyed
vestiiation has therefore been lacking.
the Minoan civilization on Crete.
When jetpropuIsion revealed the new
horizons for what florid writers call "man's
The "breakthrough evidence" to support
conquest of the universe" it also produced
his hypothesis, said Prof. Goedicke, is the
royal inscription that was found years ago
lots of new booms, noisier and less mysterious than the Fortean kind. A jet aircraft
on a rock in Egypt above the entrance to a
shrine. The meaning of the words has only
flying faster than the speed of sound so
recently been' understood, he said, but the
compresses the air around it as to set off
waves of sound that "explode" in conical
similarities between the inscription and the
formation and produce the shocking sound
Exodus story "are so great thai ... we have
here two accounts of the very same event."
that's called "sonic boom."
Most sonic booms are caused by aircraft
SOURCE: NYT News Service feature and UPI
and abnost aU supersonic aircraft are
dispatch in The Woshington Star, S14/81.
CREDIT: F.- Packard.
military. But meteors, satelfites entering the

.........,91

atmosphere and rockets leaving the atmosphere also produce sonic boom. All
that's needed is an object going faster than
sound, and human ears to Iist~n. Close to
Earth the speed of sound is about 800 mph,
but it varies according to the density o[ the
air. An independent research firm tabulated
almost 600 reports of booms along the
North and South Carolina coasts in 1978.
Supersonic aircraft caused 413 booms~but
did not cause 181.
The light Qf this and some other surveys
has not shone too kindly on the effort~ ~f
modern Forteans to explain the booms that
are caused by something other than meteors, satellites, rockets and jet propulsion.
In fact, the sonic boom has been put up as a
barrier on the,road to serious investigation.
This is how it works:
Newspapers in the Charlotte-RalelghDurham area of North Carolina reported a
"mysterious boom" that "rocked" the
region on June 24. "Theories about: the
origin of the tremendous explosion~like
. sound about 1:20 p.m. were plentiful," ;one
reporter wrote. "But experts could offer no
conclusive answers." The sound effects
were indeed nerve-wracking:
-Charlotte police answered 200 phone
calls on their emergency number in nine
minutes.
.
-Police and firemen feared the worst for
a large tank farm on the edge of the city
where major oil companies store petro4:um
products. Firefighters manning seVeral
trucks, at least six ambulances and police
cars rushed to the scene, to discover no sign
of explosion.
-A Vietnam veteran working in apark
told his buddy that he "still got scared When
he heard a noise like that."
-A resident of another town telepl}oned
to say "there must have been" a dynamite
blast or cave-in at an abandoned mine nearby. But local police had no report of any
mine explosion.
-About the same time, a commerCiat jet
was bringing a load of passengers intol the
county airport when the pilot radioed a~out
trouble in one engine. This brought 20Icity
firefighting units to the scene, but the p~ane
landed safely and the passengers depl~ed
with no ill effects except fright.
-A few minutes after the boom the
county fire headq~ers received a report
of a fire in an auto paint and body shop just
outside the city limits. Firemen controlled
the blaze within minutes. There-was no explosion and no one 'Yas injured.
All this activity within a few miniltes
after the boom proceeded at a somewhat
I
faster tempo and probably .sold more
newspapers than did the lengthier. write-up
of the investigation that followed: .
-The U.S. Air Force base at Sumter,
South Carolina, closest to the boom zone,
was the first -to be queried. "We fly 'our
supersonic routes over the .ocean, so
theoretically there should not be any sOnic
booms audible," said a public information

Pursuit 92

officer. "When I heard about it, I checked

~ur aircraft schedule immediately." .
-The chief air controller at the Federal
Aviation Administration's regional.center
at -Atlanta conftrmed the Air Force statement. "We had no known traffic of that
type under our control at that time," he

Ufe on the Bottom

Obsel'1Jer, Raleigh News and Obsel'1Jflr, 6/25i'8I,

7/3/81; Durham Morning Herald, 6/25/81 (All
NC). CREDlT: P. Thompson.

SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, 5l17/81 and

. The New York Times, 5/28/81. CREDIT: ...
Hollander, S. Sanderson.

Deep within the Earth are deposits of gaS

that could not have been formed by the
familiar heat, pressure and organic decay
that produced: the fossil fuels we use as
energy. And in suboceanic fields as large as
~d.
.
250 by 500 feet are vents and geysers that
provide the stuff of life for whole colonies
-At Langley, Virginia, home base for
of previously unknown creatures such as
many advanced types of supersonic military
foot-wide red clams, six-foot, blood-red
aircraft, an official said that none of the
"tube worms," and monstrous crabs.
planes was overflying Charlotte or vicinity
Evidence brought back from the EaSt
on the day of the boom.
.
Pacific Rise off the coast of Bolivia con-The National Earthquake Information
'firms ,the long-held hypothesis of Cornell
Center in Golden, Colorado, said no
University scientist Dr. Thomas Gold and
seismic activity was detected in the
his followers, that extensive deposits of
Charlotte area. Their instrurhents did
methane lie deep within the ,Earth. Another
record strip-mine blasts in West Virpart
of the Gold theory asserts that
ginia/Kentucky,
but
these
occurted
almost

.
I
methane is released when major earthan hour before the Charlotte boom. Anyquakes open "escape channels" to the stir-:
way, said a geophysicist at the center,
face; and therein may lie a plausible ex"there's no way you could have ,Ifelt that in
planation of the "earthquake lights" which
Charlotte."
often appear concurrently in areas of severe
-A seismograph closer to the Charlotte
seismic disturbance.
area is at the University of South Carolina
The non-biolbgical methane was found in
in Columbia; it showed no earthly disturwater samples collected a few hundred feet
bance on the d.ay of the boom.
above the crest of the East Plicific Rise, acFour .reporters were assigned to do a
cording to Dr. Harmon Craig, co-director
roundup story for one newspaper. After arof studies during a nine-mortth voyage by
ranging in order several paragraphs of personal-impression quotes from "witnesSes," ..... the research ship Melville completed in
May. In the same area, underwater cameras
one writer consulted Dr. Morris Davis, prolowered from the ship photographed the
fel!sor of astronomy at the University of
largest "geyser colony" of exotic sea
North Carolina. Mindful of the "mystery
creatures ye~ discovered, living within a
booms" reported from all up and down the
water temperature system that ranges from
Carolina coasts in 1977 and 1978, Dr. Davis
.750 0 F. in the geyser mainstream to a lifesaid those noises were caused by aircr-aft
supportive 35 0 F. in the surrounding area.
traveling at supersonic speeds "in other
Evidence that not all of the world's deep.
parts of the world." .
sea floor is frigid and barren .of life began
The same writer consulted Dr. Edward
to accumulate with the first camera-sightOberhofer, astronomy profesSor at Univering of an "ocean-vent community" ~ff the'
sity of North Carolina Central. Dr. OberGalapagos Islands in 1977 and the somehofer provided a lucid explanation of sonic
what later discovery of a similar colony in
boom ingeneral but nothing specific about
waters off Mexico. In. 1979 the deep sea
the Charlotte boom except agreement that
diving submarine Alvin collected the first
. it had to be "sonic."
deep-methane samples in an oper.ation also
* . *
along the Pacific Rise but more than 2,800
The Charlotte boom is a stereotype of
miles north of the Melville's explorations.
many occurrences elsewhere throughout the
. Such questions as What do HIe deep sea
19708. Also' typical is the negative results
creatures eat? and How are the methane .
obtained when an inquiring mind .encoundeposits formed? have yet to be answered.
ters disinterest and inertia.
One theory is that the creatures take
Who is going to give some facts to wrap
sustenance from the chemicals in the
up the Case of the MYSterious Booms?
geyser water. As to the methane, Dr. John
What is the tourist behavior of sonic
A. Welhan who is one of Dr. Craig's colbooms? Are they really capable 'of traveling
leagues at the Scripps Institution of
hundreds or thousands of miles without imOceanography, suggests it may be genpairment of their shocking power? If so,
erated by very high temperature alteration
why are reports occasional and sporadic
of the rock when it pushes upward to the
.when supersonic flights are so frequent and
ocean floor and becomes a "rise" when it
usual all over our hemisphere?
fills a gap created by the natural pulling
And what about the storied booms of
apart of the bottom for a distance only inyears and Centuries before our time . . .
ches wide but perhaps hundreds of miles
when there were no jet engines, norockets,
long. Whether much or little methane is
no satellites? Was all. that noise only
produced in the process is a ~ubject for
meteors~
further study, now ongoing.
SOURCE: The Charlotte News, The Cluulotte

. SiJl:OIId Qaart.. 1981

'Letters
The Watersm~et Light

,~)
,!-......
,-

~,'

])

'1'

Attcs~ .. J

While vacationing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in

1977 I heard for the first time about an interesting, unexplained phenomenon.
I believe SITU members are familiar with so-called
"ghost lights." I would like to inform you of our ghost light
in Michigan. As far as I have been able to find out, it has
been there 50 years, probably more. I have talked with people who have lived in the area and viewed the light many
times. They say it is there every night, rain ot snow. It seems
to remain in the approximate same ~rea. (When I observed
it, it seemed to move slightly at times.) It cannot be approached or it will "go out."
It is located by some power lines, shown in the photographs. I was told the power company investigated, and
they said the light could not be caused by a power drain
from the lines. ( was told that the Michigan state police also
investigated, and they felt it might be reflection from
automobile headlights. My own observations rule this out.
The pictures enclosed [see cover of this issue) were taken
with a Yashica 35mm GSN. ( used Kodacolor film. The
aperture was open at fl. 7. They were taken at a distance of
approximately one-half mile. I cannot give you the exposure
time as I did not have a watch. I estimate between 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The film had an ASA number of 400.
Please note the pole in one of the photos and how the
light illuminated it. The light' itself when it was a brilliant
white color appeared to split in two. The white light seemed
to first appear as an amber light. These lights seemed to
pulsate and nicker. There also were observed two red lights.
These were considerably smaller than the other two. I
believe these three colors are a phase of the same light. I did
not observe them together.
The red lights were highly mobile within their location.
Please forgive my drawings but these are some of the motions I observed.

Second Qmuter 1981

s."~ . c.: IIE'

Please k~p the enclosed photographs. They were taken in
May. 1981. IThank you.
-William Kingsley
May 20, 1981

Thank you for responding to my letter. I will try to

answer your question~ as best I can. .
As to why these are called the Watersmeet Light: They are
located in Ontonagan county of the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan about six miles north of the town of Watersmeet
on U.S. 45; then you turn northwest on U,S. Forest Route
181. I do not know if they were located on private land or in
the Ottawa National Forest. The locals refer to it as "the
light" and it is taken for granted by the locals. It is possible
. there is more than one light.
As to your question about media reporting: Yes, it has
been reported in the local papers and on local television. But
I was told this by local people and did not see any local
-William Kingsley
reports myself.
'
May 28, 1981

In a telephone interview in late June (he chief of police of

Watersmeet told Pursuit that the light has long been famous
throughout his area. He referred us to a thirty-year resident
who asked not to be named but confirmed that the light is
there. The longtime resident went on to say that there were
many theories, all of them "controversial"-especially one
that says the light comes from a railroad lantern, swung
nightly by .the ghostly hand of a brakeman who perished
while attempting to avert a train wreck years ago. SITU will
continue to investigate the Watersmeet Light in hopes of
finding a credible explanation-or if one isn'l available,
we'll at least try to find oul more aboul Ihe apparitional
brakeman.
Pursuit 93

Our Mutual Defense of What is Valuable

Thank you for the author. copies of your jour~l. It's the
first time I have seen your publication and I like it. I like its
exploratory spirit, its open-and-sobermindedness, its' pursuit
of the unexplained as well as defense of what is valuable in
the explaine4 or considered explained, as, for example, Neil
M. Lorber's clever article on Darwinism. Congratulations!
Reading your journal I also thought that if in all spheres
and at all levels Americans, Russians and Chinese could
meet. and discuss matters with the same amount of good will
that IS shown on the pages of the Fall 1980 issue of Pursuit,
the world would be out of danger.
And, of course, I am very glad that you people come out
in defense of anim!ll rights, "even 'monster rights'," .and
that your Society is a champion of "Champie" of Lake
Champlain. Good luck to you and to Champie.
---:-Dmitri Bayanov
Darwin Museum
Moscow

* * *

Camera Commits F'ortean Forgery .

Pu~suit published the photo at right i,; the First Quarter
1981 Issue, page 45. It was taken by Erich Krug in the yard

of his home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on November 22,

1980. "There were no clouds in' the sky at the time," he
noted, "nor .was there anything visible to me when I took
the picture. " He surmised that his picture showed "one of
the family of 'invisible critters' as photographed by Trevor
Constable" and reproduced in Pursuit No. 49 (Winter
1980), pages 11-13. Mr. Krug wondered whether any reader
could "offer some explanation for the' entity" in his
photograph. Meanwhile, in true SITUan spirit, he con~
tinued his own investigation with the help of competent
technicians. His letter of May 22 describes the results.
I sent the photograph to be computer-analyzed by an
organization in Arizo,na which does work. in this field of
research. The organization is called Ground Saucer Watch
and is located in Phoenix. Here is.what they came up within
their report:
-"The photograph is not a hoax.
-"The UI (unidentified image) is tenuous in nature
'
therefore devoid of structure or substance.
-"Pixel (picture cell) distortion testing reveals that the
image is extremely close to the'lens system." '.
Conclusions: "Based on your processed photographic
data and the fact that GSW has analyzed dozens of similar
photographs, the UI represents a picture of your shutter
qpening. The pentagon shape of the UI on the film emulsion
is the same as the physical shape of the shutter of your
camera. By placing a camera to a 'good' position to a light .
source, and heavily filtering the lens which tends to.
'enhance' the. situatioIi, a picture of the lens opening
transpires. (Copyright GSW, Inc. 1981)"
. .
I am personally willing to accept this explanation and I
must therefore apologize for any inconvenience that I may
have caused. But because I have;l great belief in the work of
Trevor J. Constable .. will continue to use his techniques in
the hope of capturing one of these "critters" on film.
-Erich Krug

* * *
"

Camera's secret revealed

Wilson et aI. vs. Velikovsky et at.

Edgar Wilson stikes a blow against free 'speech when he
avers that Harold Shapley ~as justified in trying to suppress
the researches of l. Velikovsky. If what seems to turn out as
true at some particular time justifies suppression of earlier
theories, then much valuable thinking can be lost, because
history is replete with views that have their day, lose out,
and then h;lve their day again. There seems to be a cyclical
trend in the development of many subjects. In addition if
Wilson wishes to support Establishment thinking agai~st
heresies, he is not helping his own cause, which includes
teaching that the ancient Egyptians knew the speed of light.
His idea that the three principal pyramids at Giza represent planets has obvious flaws. If the Egyptian builders had
intended the model he supposes, they certainly would not
have decided to double the length of. the side of the base of
the Pyramid of Mycerinus. Furthermore, the measurements
from book to
given us of the 'bases of the pyramids
book. I. E. S.Edwa(ds, in the hardcover Viking Press editio.n ..of . The .Pyramids: of -Egypt, giv~s. the ba.se of the
smalleSt' pyramid. as .356 feet, six. in,:!hes .sque (page 119).

vary

~urt M~~delssohn, .10 T~e

Riddle of the Pyrpmiqs, (1974,

or

Praeger),' gi.ves lOS meters, 3S1 feet, well over a meter: diff~ren~. The ~eventh edition. of the' Encyclopaedia Brittanica gives 4,153.6 inches (l05.5 meters). The Egyptians,
who supposedly measured ihe orbital velocities of the
planets, could ~oi square up their pyramids exactly or face
. them precisely north, or even make two alike.
'
If Wilson wants to demolish the theory. of Velikovsky he
must give some explanation for the clear evidence of a certain cylinder seal from Uruk, the Sumerian hymns to lnan-

Second QlIMter 1981

Letters
na, and the symbols used in writing, that identified the Morning/Evening Star as a comet in those days. (See illustrated .
article by Lynne E. Rose in Kronos, Winter 1977.) Similarly, of course, for much other evidence: One cannot negate a
lifetime of research with a few observations.
Velikovsky postulated that Mars once occuped the position now held by Venus and was dislodged by the orbiting of
the massive "comet." Also, there is the mysterious ring of
asteroids. There is room for a theory that the three planets
having orbital velocitie's represented by pyramids iQcluded
some planet other than Venus.
'
-Harry E. Mongold

Applied Astronomy, 2700 B.C. Edition

[This leiter responds to the "Evidence for the Stability 0/
the Solar System Since c. 2700 B. C... presented by Edgar
Wilson in his article undenhat title in the Fall 1980 issue 0/
Pursuit, Vol. 13, No.4, No. 52.]
Wilson implies that the architect of Giza laid out the three
major pyramids according to the principles of astronomy
that were known c. 2700 B.C. He has based his arguments
on the assumption that both the velocity of light and the
radius of the Earth were known. In an attempt to support
this model, I shall endeavor to describe the techniques that
any observer could use without the aid of mirrors or telescopes to attain the knowledge this ancient architect astronomer would have needed to build these pyramids in the
geometric array Wilson has assumed for his model.
If mirrors did exist, perhaps some ingenious astronomer
performed an experiment antecedent to that of Fizeau or
Michelson to obtain the speed of light. If they did not, as I
am assuming, then the only way left to measure the speed of
light is aberration. Using the width of the Earth's orbit or a
significantly large chord of it, the speed of light can be
measured. This is done by observing an eclipse of a "fixed"
star by a nearer body. If the distance to the nearer body
were known accurately enough, and the time-lag between
reappearances as observed at opposite ends of the chord
were long enough, the change in separation distance between Earth and the nearer body divided by the time lag is a
measure of the speed of light.
Prerequisite to the perception of this time-lag is the ability
of the observer to determine the beginning and end of the
loss of the star's light. This means the disk of the nearer
body must be visible. Sagan and Leonard (1966) state that
the unaided human eye fails to resolve less than one minute
of arc.
Olaus Roemer measured the speed of light with the aid of
a telescope by observing the predictable appearance of one
of Jupiter's moons from opposite ends of Earth's orbit.
Moore (1971) says that a really keen-sighted observer can
catch sight of the four Galilean moons ,with the naked eye.
Unfortunately, the maximum angle of arc of Jupiter is less
than 50 seconds (after Mayall et al in (959). In view of this
"and the fact that all four moons are less bright than Jupiter,
it is impossible for anyone to use this system; which means
we're back to getting a "fixed" star eclipse.
Venus is the only near body (whose disk can be seen by,
keen-sighted observers) that is far enough away to permit

Second Quarter 1981

our ancient astronomer to measure a time-lag. At its best it

is only 66 ,seconds of arc based on a closest approach of 25
million miles (Mayall et al 1959). Moore (1971) says that
there is considerable evidence that keen-sighted people can
make out the crescent phase of Venus. He adds that only on
rare occasions does Venus pass in front of a star.
Mayall et aI (1959) list the magnitude range for Venus as
- 4.4 to - 3.3. Therein lies the difficulty in being aware of
the beginning and end of the eclipse. Of the 25 brightest
stars listed by Mayall et ai, the brightest (excepting the sun)
is Sirius with a magnitude of - 1.4. It is exceedingly di fficult, once the disk diameter of Venus is known, for any
observer to resolve the disappearance of such a star even
when Venus is in a gibbous phase or less. The start of the
~clipse could be "off' as much as one minute of arc and the
end of the eclipse could be "off' by the same amount. This
would mean the speed of light could be incorrect by as much
,as a factor of 1 V2. An additional problem intervenes if the
p'ath of the eclipse is not dIametrical. Presumably a very
good observer taking many measurements over time would
obtain a value approaching the known value.
To actually calculate the value of the speed of light, all the
observer needs to know accurately is the distance to Venus
during each eclipse. Before this distance can be calculated
two requirements must be met: (I) the radius of the Earth
must be calculated, and (i) the Keplerian view of the solar
system must be deduced .from observations as accurate as
those of Tycho Brahe. '
,,',
,
Eratostheres calculated tQe Earth's radius without a telescope (Ley 1966) as did the French in the time of Louis XIV
(Thiel 1957). So it is possible that the Giza astronomer could
have known the radius of the Earth. Using the same base
line established to measure the Earth's radiQs, the distances
to the planets can be calculated.,'
'
Since Johannes Kepler, wa~ able to deduce, the elliptical
orbi~s of the planets withoui the aid of a telescope, it is
possible to imagine the astro~o~er of Giza doing so.
At this point we can conClude that the astronomer of
Giza could have known ~he radius of the Earth, the speed
of light, the radius of Venus; and the orbital velocities of
Earth, Venus and Mercury.
Let us now observe the various techniques an unaided
observer could use to determine t~e remaining major parameter'of Wilson's model: the radius of Mercury. Its size in
seconds'of arc, based on dist~nces of closest and farthest
approach (Mayall et al 1959), ranges from 12 to 5. Since
. this is well below human resdlution, Mercury's size could
range frpm 1600 km to 16,000 km (an order of magnitude)
without its disk being seen.
A transit of the sun can'not give its size as the astronomer
David Fabricius pointed out to Kepler, who thOUght he had.
seen such a transit, because it is 100 sma1l1O be seen without
a telescope, which by then had been usee!'(Ley 1966), An
idea of the impossibility of'this,:approach, can be obtainedfrom a look at two photogra'phs in Rudauxaoo Vaucouleurs
(l959)~ The first, on page 182, shows Mercur.y in transit and
the second, on page 265, shows the disk of the sun as seen by
the naked eye.
'
A technique that uses the eye's ability to differentiate
brightness can yield a disk diameter for Mercury. The Greek
,astronomer Hipparchus drew up a Ii'st of stars visible to the

Pursui"S

Letters.
,
naked eye and assigned a number to each one to indicate
relative brightness. J astrow and Thompson (1974) report,
on page 124, what physiologists have found: When the eye
observes a linear increase in brightness in a series of light
sources, the measured increase in brightness turns out to be
geometrical.
If the Giza astronomer was able to measure the geometrical nature of his eyes' receptivity to brightness, he may
have deduced an equation like the following which relates
the mean magnitude at opposition p,: and the semi-major
axis in' astronomical units as
g = p .. - 5 log a(a - ) .
(Blanco and McCuskey 1961). With the absolute
magnitudes g for the only objects in the solar system this
astronomer could know the disk diameters by direct observation of the Sun, Venus and the Moon (see the following
table),
Body
g*,
diameter
log D
Sun
Venus
Moon

- 28.81
-4.29
+0.21

1.4 X 10"
1.2 x 10"'

3.5 x 10\

6.1461
4.0791
3.5440

*Harris (1961)
the following equation:
log D(km) == Ag + B
can be arrived at. With these three bodies a diameter for
Mercury of 4559 640 km can be arrived at (g = 0.36*).
With the Sun left out, the diameter is 4090 km.
The final method by which the Giza astronomer could
know the diameter of Mercury is to use the velocity of light
and observe an eclipse of a star. With Venus, a dimmer star
could be used because keen-sighted observers are able to see
its phases. Because Mercury is beyond unaided human-eye
resolution, if an object of less than Mercury's brightness or
equal to it were to be eclipsed by Mercury, every observer
would see one' point-source for a minute of arc (a diameter
of some 16,000 km at closest approach) with no change of
intensity.
The star selected for aberration must be brighter than
Mercury. Mayall et al (1959) report the magnitude -range of
Mercury as - 1.9 to + 1.1. By comparing this to their list of
the twenty-five brightest stars, only the top sixteen can be
brighter than Mercury at some point in its orbit. They also
say the angular separation of Mercury from the sun (plane
of the ecliptic) is never more than 28. This reduces the
number of possibilities to four: Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Procyon, and Capella.
.
. If the observer's eyes are good to 0.25 magnitude, and
if sufficient observations can be made so that eventually the
eclipse length approaches the 'diametrical eclipse length,
then, with the orbital velocity of Mercury known and the
speed of light known, it would take, say, one minute and.
forty seconds for the eclipse at its-longest. This is based on a
diameter for Mercury of 4850 km..
.
In summary, even the best oQserver is unlikely to be able
to see the beginning and end of the eclipse of a star by
Venus . .Thus the speed of light may be measurable only to 50
percent accuracy, and that is highly optimistic. It means the
diameter of Mercury is only good to 50 percent. Since I have
not found any record of anyone in the-last 400 years of as-

tronomy who has measured' :the diameter of Mercury this

way, or the speed of light usillg Venus, I can't say what actual diameter. would be seen.1
As to the various diameter~ of Mercury obtainable from
eclipses or from brightness (4550 640 km at best), it is
demonstrably quite impossib~e for the value of Mercury's
diameter to be known as accurately as Wilson needs for his
model to be viable (4881 km).'Eve~ ifthe observer could use
a star of a differe~t color thaI} the mixed color that Mercury
appears to be or Venus appe~rs to be when the objects are
inside the one minute of arc, resolution may be too close to
the planetary colors (from th~ eye'~ point o(view) to clearly
delineate the beginning and ep.d of the eclipses.
Until experimental evidence can' be presented which
refutes what I;ve said above and gives Wilson the accuracy
his model requires for the s'pebd of light and the diameter of
Mercury, i.t seems impossible that the ancient Giza architect
'designed these pyramids around any such model. One other
minor point should be noted! Krupp (1957) states .that the
earliest known evidence for thb Egyptians having discovered
and named the planets is from the "astronomical ceiling" of
the Tomb of Senmut which dates only to 1473 B.C.
It strongly appears that Wilson's article is in the same vein
as Charles Piazzj Smyth's {jur inheritance in the Great
Pyramid (1864). Smyth claimc!d that the Egyptians, by using
the "pyramid meter," Show<! they knew the number of
days in the year; dividing ithis meter by 25 gave the
"pyramid inch" which was nearly the same as the English
inch; multiplying this inch 'b~ 10' yielded the lengtn of the
polar axis of the Earth; and ~y expressing the height of the
Pyramid of Cheops in pyramid inches 'and multiplying by
109 the distance of the Sun frhm the Earth-was determined
(Ley 1966).
It is fair to say Wilson's article supports the decision by
Harlow Shapley to prevent by, al/ possible means the spread
of Velikovsky's ideas as mucp. as Smyth's book does. And
this ranks right up there with President James Garfield's
support for the outlawing of the "atheist metric system"
(Ley 1966). .
! .
.
-Henry A. Hoff
REFERENCES
Blanco, V.M., McCuskey, S.W., Basic Physics of the Solar
System, Addison-Wesley: Reading, Mass. (1961);' Harris; D.L.,
Photometry and Colorimetry of Planets and Satellites, G.P.
Kuiper, B.M. Middlehurst, eds., Planets and Satellites, Part III
(1961); Jastrow, R., Thompson, M.H., Astronomy: Fundamentals
and Frontiers, John Wiley & Sons: New York (1974); Krupp, E.C.,
Astronomers, Pyramids, and Priests, E.C Krupp, ed., Doubleday:
Garden City, New York (1978), pp. 203-239; ley, W., Watchers.of
the Skies: An Ihformal History of Astronomy from Babylon to the
Space Age, Viking: New York (1966); Mayall, N., Mayall, M.,
Wyckoff, J., The Sky Observer's Guide: A Handbook for Ama-:
teur Astronomers, Golden: New York (1959); Moore, P., The New
Guide 10 the Planets, W.W. Norton: New York (1971); Rudaux,
lo, DeVaucouleurs, G., Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy,
Batchworth: london (1959); Sagan, C, leonard, J.N., Planets,
Time: Ne~ York (1966); Thiel, R., And There WlLS' Light: The
Discovery of the Universe., Alfred A. Knopf: New York (1957).

Pursuit's editors welcome letters from readers. Please mail

to Fred Wilson, 601 Bergen Mall,
07652, USA.
.

Sui~e

28, Paramus, NJ

. Second Quartei'1981

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATlQN OF THE UNExPlAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
,GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary and Treasurer: Gregory
Arend, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler, and Albena Zwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, Paleo-Indian Institute,
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. SamuelB. Mc;:Dowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. PerSinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant, National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering, Butler, N.J.
(Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
,
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other' professionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The Hrst issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents Hied with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," pUblished in 1972 and dedicated to the Society.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. 1, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scienti6c Advisory Board, listing the names and aftiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the Issue was given over to Investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadiUo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina"-the instant transportation of solid objects "&Om one place to another and even through solids" - the attack on th,e famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about,"ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685:

The Mystery Ught at Watersmeet

glows through the night like an oncoming train, but there's neither track
nor train nor any s~und, and if you approach, the light 'goes ouf
SmJ member Wilham Kingsley took these photographs during a May. 1?81 vacation trip to the Upper Peninsula of Mic:higan. For details about the light and how it looked "to Mr. Kingsley. see Letters to Pursuit. page 93.

'Science is the Pursuit of the Unexplained'

Tesla

ABM
Defenses

./'

CONTINUOUS
TESLA EMP GLOBE
IDUDS ELECTRONICSI
, \ I L ___ lESLA FIREBALL ICONTINUOUSI
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IVAPORIZES VEHICLEI
A:./~
I ,

"",,-,

I/

-~/ lESLA FIREBALL

.....\Y~ IPULSEI
/1 ~

Moray ITesla
Technology
Page 107

Star
Wars

Now

Journal of SITU
The
Society for the
Investigation of
The Unexplained

Volume 14
Number 3
Whole 55
Third Quarter
1981

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
SITU (pronounced sit'- you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF TH~ UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or will not study .
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.
MEMBERSHIP
Membership is for the calendar year, January-December, $12 in the United States. Elsewhere, membership
is $12 plus a surcharge necessitated by the additional mailing cost. Amount of surcharge, which varies according
to region, will be quoted in response to individual request. Members receive the Society's quarterly journal Pursuit
plus any special SITU publications for the year of membership.
SITU welcomes member participation. Members should send articles, photographs, newspaper clippings,
book reviews and "letters to the editor" to be considered for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson, 601 Bergen Mall,
Suite 28, Paramus, NJ 07652 USA. Use this address for Pursuit material only. Other mail, including changes of
address, library orders, postal errors, back issues, renewals, gift memberships and donations, should be sent to
SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address at the top of this page. Please allow six or more weeks advance
notice of change of address.
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, correspondence,
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answered by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff time, a fee for research will be
charged. Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped envelope with the inquiry so
that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The legal affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the laws of the State
of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the Scientific Advisory
Board (see inside back cover).
IMPORTANT NOTICES
The Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members."
The Society does not hold any political, religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit
concerning such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion
or ethics, are those of the individual member or author and not those of the Society.
The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications,
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available
for sale, rental, exchange or any use except the foregoing.
Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are tax deductible to the extent permitted by the U.S.
Internal Revenue Code, and in some states as their taxing authorities may permit.
PUBUCATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the issues are numbered respectively from
1 through 4 and constitute a volume, Volume 1 being for 1968 and before, Volume 2 for 1969, and so on. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit, without membership benefits, are available to public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $10 for the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fully protected by international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof may be granted, at the discretion of SITU and the author, upon written request and statement of proposed
use, directed to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address printed at the top of this page.

THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE

.e .

rSUlt

ISOCIETY FOR THE

INVESTIGATION OF
THE'

UNEXPlAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents
Page
Some P~rceptual Effects of UFO Contact
by E~genia Macer-Story ...................... 98
The Brazilian Flap: MUFON Director
Reports a UFO 'Cplony"hl the
Amazon Basin
by Joan T. Griffith .......................... 100
The Congo Water-Dragon
. . by Philip Averbuck .........................' 104
Tesla's Secret and the
Soviet Tesla Weapons
by Thomas E. Bearden ...... ....., ....... '.' .107
I Ching Notebook
.
by Roderic Sorrell .......................... 122
Tile Regular Rapping and Other Mysteries
by Harold Holland ......... , .......... " .... 129
Was It Collective PK?
by Sabina Warren Sanderson ................ 133

Books ........................................ 134

SITUations ........ ~ ............... ~ .... -~ ...... 137
The N9tes of Charles Fort ....................... 142
Cover: Artist Hal Crawford dramatizes the unique dual capability of the Tesla weapons: (1) to provide a multi-layered
defense, and (2) to mount an attack so massive that only a
similar defense syste~ could thwart it. This and other s~lal
drawings by Crauford Illustrate Tom Bearden's report, "Tesla's
Secret and the Soviet Tesla Weapons," page 107.

~Thirty-eight years ago, on January 7, 1943, Nikola

Tesla died impoverls.~ed and alone in a sle~ hotel room
in New York City. Hls notes and papers were seized and
sealed by agents qf. the U.S. Alien Property Custodian. In
the course of postwar settlements, the Tesla papers. were
awarded to Yugoslavia, for only in ~is native land did the
"father of alternating current" qualify. as a national hero.
Since 1956 those notes and drawings have been available
for study in the Nikola Tesla Museum, Belgrade.
~ Six years ago, on June 13, 1975, Soviet Premier Leonid
Brezhnev urged a ban on research a'nd development of
new kinds of weapons "more terrible than anything .the
lAiorld has known."
~Five years ago, in January 1977, the retired chief of
intelligence of the U.S. Air Force, Major General\George J.
Keegan, told Newsweek magazine, "The Soviets are working on dramatically exotic new weapons, twenty years
ahead of anything ever conceived in the U.S. -so awesome
as to lead the Soviets to believe that in the coming decade
they would be capable of total neutralization of our ballistic and submarine missiles."
~ In early November of this year,
Pursuit went to
press, Brezhnev was telling Der Spiegel, a mass-circuiation
West German weekly, that "our (the USSR) military doctrine has a defensive character. It excludes preventive
.
wars and the concept of a 'first strike.'''
, In the context of this chronology Lieuienant Colonel
Thomas E. Bearden (U.S. Army-Ret.~ presents on pages
107-121 a report on Tesla's offensive and defensive weapons
systems, expounding' the theories, documenting the evidence, upturning specifics to find basics which he asserts
are but common denominators of such conventional disciplines as physics, psychology,' evolution, communication
and of many paranormal manifestations.
.
"During his twenty-year military career specializing in'
artillery, nuclear weapons, and military intelligence, Tom
has pondered and researched many subjects," writes John
White in his foreword to Bearden's recently published book,
Excalibur Briefing. "The material you are about to read,"
White suggests, "will certainly be denied by our own government and military and probably by a major segment of
th~ scientific community. It is not unlikely that Tom will
be dismissed as a paranoid crackpot. . . . however, the
question arises: What ff there is a good reason for paranoia?
To phrase it positively: We should welcome truth and enlightening. insight whenever offered, regardless of the
source."
.
"Tesla's Secret and the Soviet Tesla Weapons" will be
incorporated in future editions of Exca/ibur Brieflng, according to its author whose book is reviewed on page 134
of this issue. For further readings by Tom Bearden, write:
SPECUlA, P.O. Box 1182, Huntsville; At 35807 USA.

as

Pursuit Vol. 14, No.3, Whole No. 55, Third Quarter 1981. Copyright 1981 by the Society for the InvestigatiOn of the Unexplained. issN 0033-4685.
No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
Editor; Sabina W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor' and Oceanographic Consultant.

Some Perceptual Effects of

UFO Contact
by Eug_ia Macer-Story
AFTER viewing "Close Encounters of the Third Kin(J"
in 1977, E. C. recognized the similarity pf UFO aliens
pictured in lhe fictional film .and an alien she believeS she
encountered in 1971 during a period of residence in California. A native of New Jersey, E. C. returned home immediafely following her strange experience. Now thirtyish and
enrolled in a graduate program at one of the slate's colleges,
she has determinedly continued to explore the possibility of
UFO contact.
Whether or not E. C. has actually been in sustained contact with "other intelligence" is arguable. But she believes
. that she has, and this makes her story interesting to both
psychologists and UFO buffs. the following interview was
recorded on February 28, 1981. The transcript was susbsequently read and approved by E. C. and by Harry Lebelson,
UFO editor of OMNI magazine, who accompanied E.C. to
Wanaque reservoir. The photograph Lebelson took and his
own impressions of the sighting are appended.
EUGENIA: I am particularly interested in the continuity of
your UFO experiences. When did you first become aware of
UFOs? Was it a visual sighting, or 'was it a telepathic contact?
.
.
E.C.: I was always collecting articles on UFOs when I was
in my teens but my first actual contact was in Hollywood in
.' '1971.
.
. !
EUGENIA: What were the circumstances of this contact?
E.C.: I had moved out to California with a boyfriend and
we were livin,g a few blocks from Hollywood and Vine. The
first day that we moved into the apartment we were told that
there were flying saucers in the sky every night, so that night
we sat outside and watched, and as it got dark we started
seeing 'objects flying through the sky. After a few hours, we
realized that there were objects circling the area.
El,JGENIA: Could you describe these objects?
E.C.: They were mostly flying saucers, as far as I could see.
. EUGENIA: Elliptical objects?
E.C.: Yes. Real saucer-shaped. I took pictures of them.
EUGENIA:" Were they bright lights, or did they have
substance? Were they just flashing lights, or were they
metallic?
E.C.: There was a combination. They were mostly bright.
Usually they would move around the sky looking like stars.
They would be stationary, then they would move a little ...
maybe move a few degrees in the sky, and then' they would
stop.
EUGENIA: Had your boyfriend ever had any experience
with psychic phenomena or UFOs?
.
E.C.: Not that I was aware of at the time.
EUGENIA: In your childhood or growing~up time did you
ever see UFOs or unusual appearances exterior to yourself?
Not psychic impressions, but unusual things exterior to
yourself? Did. you ever see anything unusual as a child?
E.C.: Not that I can ren:Jember.

Pursull98

Copyright 1981 by E. Macer-Story

All rights reserved
EUGENIA: 'Did you ever have any telepathic impressions
when you were a child?
E.C.: I thought I had some telepathic contact, but there
was not enough 'proof in my mind to convince me that this
was' not my own mind playing games. I wasn't sure what .
was going on.
EUGENIA: After seeing objeCts in Hollywood, did you
then feel that YOJ,l were telepathically contacted, or contacted specially in some other way?
E.C ..: I think the exper-ience in Hollywood reinforced my
suspicions that they were continually watching me.
EUGENIA: Watching you in what way? For example, if"
you were making' breakfast would you feel. that something
was watching you continually, or do you feel that they only
tuned in on you at specific times of the day?
.
E.C.: I think they watched me in general. Whether it came
to household things, I don't know. Maybe they just had a
monitor that watched whenever they felt like it. r don't
think there was anything special in the times they watched,
unless it was for some specific purpose .
. EUGENIA: In Hollywood, did you ever have an experience
of a c;lose contact with a UFO?
E.e.: Yes.
EUGENIA: Could you describe this?
E.C.: Well, there were several occasions. One took place
near a small hill aboLJt a mile up from our apartment. I
don't remember the exact location. There's a huge cross on
. this hill. I hate to get into the religious aspect. Anywhere, :
religion can sneak into the UFO topic. We used to go to this
hill only because we thought we could get a good look at the
sky. I would' go there with my boyfriend, and the saucers
would just come and circle around us the whole night.
EUGENIA: When you say "circle around you," what
wQuld they do? Just circle around at a distance, or was this
up close?
E.C.: Close. Maybe 500 feet away.
EUGENIA: What did they look like when they were close?
E.C.: They looked like the real classic saucer .
EUGENIA: A metallic ... ?
E.C.: A metallic object unlit. They didn't put on any
lights.
.
EUGENIA: Did lights reflect from the surface, or was it a
dull surface?
_ E.e.: It ~as a reflective surface.
. EUGENIA: A Shiny surface?
E.C.: Yes,
EUGENIA: When did you move from Califorriia? What
year?
.
E.e.: The same year. I was out there almost four months.
EUGENIA: And then you came back to New Jersey?
E.C.: Yes.
."
EUGENIA: After you were back in New Jersey, did you see
any UFOs?
.
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: How soon after you came back?

Third Quarter 1981

E.C.: Almost immediately. When i came back, I told my

friends what had happened arid immediately they were seeing things in the sky.
EUGENIA: Would you go out delibera.tely to see UFOs or
would you just be driving or doing something else outside
and suddenly encounter them?
E.C.: We just drove and we happened to see them.
EUGENIA: The same kind of thing-metallic or. lights?
E.C.: Metallic o b j e c t s . '
.
EUGENIA: Did your friends begin to experience telepathic
contact?
E.C.: I don't think they really wanted. to get into that. I
know my girlfriend had some experiences which are questionable as to their relationship to UFOs. Psychic experiences. But they aren't really into that aspect of UFO
contact, so whether they' did or didn't, I don't know.
EUGENIA: Could I have her name?
E.C.: i'll give you her first name: June. I'm sorry but I
don't want to give you her last name.
EUGENIA: That's all right.
E.C.: I know you're going to edit this tape anyway. I had
another close encounter in California. I know I've just
mentioned the saucers on the hill.
EUGENIA: During the four months in Hpllywood?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: What season of the year was this?
E.C.: Summer.
EUGENIA: What happened?
E.C~: That was when I saw the alien. I was walking on
Hollywood Boulevard. I worked until 9 p.m. aod then
walked back a couple, of blocks to my apartment. One
night I was walking back and I just got this sensation to
turn around, and I turned around and I saw this huge
spacecraft coming down-just' floating over the houses
that were there and coming toward me.
EUGENIA: Disk-shaped?
.
E.C.: No: It was angular and I couldn't figure out why it
was angular, because all the other spacecraft I had seen
were saucer-shaped. Thi.s was silent,. and I looked around.
There was nobody on the street. It was a regular residential
s.treet. This thing just floated toward me at about five miles
an hour. It was internally lit. There were huge glass panels
on the front, and I could see someone or somet1:ling sitting
in a chair at the controls. There were two chairs in the
front and they had their arm resting on a console board
type of thing. It looked like they were holding some type of
joy stick to control the craft.
EUGENIA: Could you describe what they looked like?
E.C.: Well, this ... ah ... it was extremely skinny and it
had some kind of metililic jumpsuit on.
EUGENIA: What color?
E.C.: It was darkish. I don't think it was quite black, but
it might have been brownish and you could see the metallic
type of gold metal. It was a stretch-knit thing with a hood
which covered the neck and I could see the shape of the
head, which was a bulbous shape. It definitely wasn't
human. I stood there and just waited for it to come and I
couldn't decide what to do, so I turned and ran. Of course,
Not more than a half-dozen questions and answers have been deleted
from the transcript and o"nly because they were irrelevant. Otherwise the
tape and subsequent transcript have not been edited. The transcript was
read back against the tape and its accuracy affirmed .by the interviewer,
by E.C., and by me in their presence. -F.S.W.

Third Quarta 1981

five minutes later I was mad at myself for running away, but
it didn't stop. When I started to run from it, I looked
around once and it was just coasting along next to me like
they were having a grand old time.
EUGENIA: Did you feel they were making fun of you?
E.C.: No. I don't understand the whole thing. No. I think
it was just meant. . .
.
EUGENIA: This was very close to you as you went down
the street?
E.C.: Yes. Just a few feet away.
EUGENIA: Were' there any other people on the street?
E.C.: No. I saw one man on the far side of the street walking in the other direction, and he wouldn't have seen it.
EUGENIA: Why do you feel he would have missed the
craft, if it was . . .
.
E.C.: Well, he was looking the other way. There was no
noise. It was dark, and t know from my experiences now
that you can't see them unless they're almost on top of you ..
EUGENIA: Do .you feel that there might be some sort of interdimensional adivity where one person sees the craft and
the other person does not?
, E.C.:I don't think so.
EUGENIA: You think that if it were there and the man
across the street turned around, he could see it?
E.C.: Right.
EUGENIA: Is this the only time you had a close encounter
in California?
.
E.C.: Yes. As far as I can remember.
EUGENIA: How soon afterward did you leave California?
E.C.: After that encounter, I left. In one day, I was gone.
EUGENIA: I don't blam'e you. Did you have any such encounters right after you came back to New Jersey? Any real
close ones?
E.C.: No. The closest physical encounter was when ... It
could even have been a year after I came back. I don't
remember. It was in the same general time period. We have
.a house in the Poconos and my father was driving me and a
girlfriend back to New Jersey. I' noticed maybe fifteen
minutes into the ride that there was a funny light following
our car.
EUGENIA: What color was the light?
.E.C.: It was a yellow color. It was a steady light, just moving as we moved.
EUGENIA: What area of the Poconos was this?
E.C.: We were on the Thruway when I noticed it.
EUGENIA: I don't know the highway. Is this near Mount
. Poc.ono?
.
E.C.: Yes. In that area. I'm not sure where.
EUGENIA: There have been numerous sightings in that
area.
E.C.: Yes. That's where we've seen a lot.
. EUGENIA: After you were back in New Jersey, when did
you become interested in pursuing an investigation of
UFOs, going out to see UFOs rather than having the experience spontaneously?
E.C.: Not until after "Close Encounters" came out, which
was, I guess, in 1977.
EUGENIA: You felt 'that seeing the film reinforced your experience, so that people wouldn't think you were nuts?
E.C.: Yes. It isn't that. I just didn't understand my experience and.I didn't see any purpose in talking about it. As
far as I was concerned, it was just a big question-mark.
(Continued on page 128)

The Brazilian Flap

MUFON Director Reports

UFO 'Colony' in the Amazon Basin

by Joan T. Griffith . .
DAY in early summer of 1981 Maria Clares
O NEwasHOTpreparing
dinner in her modest thatched-roof

cottage on Colares, a small island off the port of Belem,

Brazil. Suddenly she was. fired upon through the roof by
a man in a "tight, black skin suit" wielding a strange weapon whose rays burned Mrs. Clares on the chest and neck.
Medics at the hospital in Belem could not identify the cause
of her burns; her blood-count was way below nonnal but
for no apparent reason:
About the same time, but 500 miles to the west in Mte.
Alegre, schoolteacher Antonia Rodriguez' and her pilot husband were fishing in the Rio Maicuru, an Amazon tributary, .
when they spotted a being clad in a "black diver's suit"
flashing a ray-gun. The stranger, of nonnal build but with
abnormally slanted eyes, approached 'the boat and discharged
the ray-gun into the water as the terrified couple made for
the bushes.
These and an increasing number of similar extraordinary
reports were investigated during August 1981 by MUFON
regional director Charles L. Tucker. In an interview, Tucker
said he is convinced a veritable colony of UFOs exists along
the shores of the Amazon from Obidos and Mte. Alegre
east to Belem on the Atlantic coast. A ten-day expedition
took him a thousand miles into equatorial Brazil, chasing
reports and checking eye-witness accounts of spacecraft
activity, relying on a cattleboat, dugout canoes and a tiny
single-engine aircraft for transportation.
'. "Whole communities have reported sightings," Tucker
noted. "There are 20,000 (esidents of Mte. Alegre, and
most have had some contact with a UFO, and what they,
haven't seen, a friend or neighbor has."
.
He described as unique the general attitude toward the
occurrences: People treat ~hem as prosaic, even common-

Uma

Major Holando
of the Brazilian air force enjoys 'a brief
respite &om the UFO inVestigation he was ordered to head
and which he continued on his own time after. the orders
were rescinded.

Ray-gun casualty Maria Clares points through window at the

spot where she was standing' when the mysterious attack
occurred. Mrs. Clares was burned about the neck and chest.

place; UFOs are "taken for granted" as. "somethil'!g that's

always been around." Some natives tell of their grandparents
spotting spacecraft five or six decades back.
. What prompted this year's probe was a sudden increase
in numbers of sightings in 1981 as compared to those of
previous years, and the first verified 'accQunts of death and
burn-injuries from an unknown tyPe of ray-~n such as the
one used in the Clares case.
Spearheading the project was Brazilian Air Force Major
Holando Lima, appointed to take charge of all UFO investigation for the government of Brazil. Of Lima's apprpximately 300 photos, including actual shots of UFOs, none
was exempted from the order. to surrender'them to higher
authority at the "'conclusion" of the official investigation.
The major was subsequently advised to "proc~ed with further investigation on your own 'time if you wish, but do not
quote us in your reports." Thereupon Major Lima too~
two weeks' leave, hired a plane, cattleboat and crew, and
sent for Charles Tucker.
'
According to Major Lima, three types of,spacecraft have
been described by residents of the state of Para, which includes a vast part' of the Ainazon region. The most common, a disc or saucer type, varies in size, with some as "big
as a soccer field." Witnesses have told of seeing occupants
through "portholes." Other UFOs have been seen as triangular or wedge-shaped, and the fourth kind is dis~inguished
by its silvery colo~ and cylindrical shape.
Charles L. Tucker is the regional director jor MUFON and international director oj the International UFO Investigative Bureou,
Inc. Over the past 19 years he has led or participated in numerous
field investigations of the uFo phenomenon and has extensively
researched historical evidence jor visitations by extraterrestrials in
ancient times:

.
Q ,.......

'1
.

.'

".....,

'.

........

e-ww "

These at-the-scene sketches show the six most frequently

noted shapes among the numerous craft described by witnesses in the "Brazilian Flap."
Sketches above and photos on pages lCJO.103 courtesy of Charles Tucker

"It is one thing to have a few scattered sightings in an

area and from time to time, but here the sheer volume of
reports is staggering," noted Tucker. "You have top citizens like village officials, doctors and police all witnessing
these things." As a conversation topic UFO sightings rival
the weather which, incidentally, remains at a torpid SOO to
95 0 F. throughout the year in an area that is only five degrees.
.
south of the equator.
Though casual sightings of UFOs are accepted as commonplace by most of the populace, some "Close Encounters
. of the Third Kind" have begun to look like a threat to the
natives who make their livelihood by fishing and hunting.
Incidents such as the Clares and Rodriguez cases and other
reports of injuries inflicted by alien entities have caused
fishermen to avoid areas of multiple sightings. '.'The Devil's
Graveyard," a triangular island which repQses in the middle
of the Amazon off Santarem, reportedly is shunned now by
all night-fishermen notwithstanding the reduction in total
catch and consequent lost income. Dr. Jose Koor, a physician in Obidos, has seen inhabitants of the region affected
by stress, nervous tension and shock, and has. performed
emergency treatment of second- and third-degree burns from
ray-guns, following reported UFO encounters.
UFO activity seems to be of highest cQncentration within
a 6O-m.ile radius of Santarem and Mte. Alegre, a~cording to
Tucker. He cited four examples as typical of the region:
-Two men in a fishing boat were "buzzed" by a UFO
passing Close overhead; eyewitnes~ saw one of the men
dive overboard; neither man was seen again and both remain ~issing to this day.
-A well-known citizen, resident in Mte. Alegre, went
hunting one night and was found dead on a road the next
morning; his system totally devoid of blood though no marks
were found on the body. The coroner was baffled by the
case which first came to the attention of a local news correspondent who then relayed it to Charles Tucker.
-Two hunters were themselves "stalked" by a metallic,
disc-shaped craft; one hunter was trapped in a yellow beam
SITU member Joan T. Griffith has worked as columnist, news
reporter, theater critic and social editor on newspapers in Florida,
Michigan and Indiana and plans to spend the winter in Virginia
Beach, Va.

Thinl Quarter 1981

that radiated from the ship; the second man fired his gun at
the beam which slowly dimmed, and the craft spun away at
lightning speed. (Some reports claim the vehicles seem to
"rise from the water" and return in a landing "dive," further compounding the mystery.)
-A respected married couple well-known to Major Lima
disappeare~ for a week during the summer of 1980, then
reappeared in their home with a tale Qf being transported by
"disc" under the charge of two entities in silver suits who
took them to an underground "red city" which they viewed
through portholes in the space~raft. Upon returning home
they seemed unaware that seven days had elapsed.
Jose Carlos Jorge, a lawyer and teacher who attended
night school in Mte. Alegre, described the frequent sightings
of UFOs over that well-settled area as so spectacular that
"at times everyone in the school would file out to watch."
No one has offered an opinion as to where these spaceships may come from, whether they are to be considered of
earthl~ ol'ig.in or migrant from another star system; and
there IS some doubt that a single explanation would apply
to the many varieties of craft and performance that have
been observed. For example, reports describe four different
kind of light effects: Some ships have a white floodlight
emanating from underneath; from others a soft blue light
(or "mist") encompasses fishing boats, whereupon the familiar bird and animal noises from the jungle shore are suddenly silenced; on several occasions red beams shot into
water from ray-guns have remained visible in the water after
"impact;" and the yellow beam described above seems capable of paralyzing temporarily anyone caught in it.
One conclusi9n is obvious and certain: These phenomena
cannot be rationalized away or written off by any such
specious terms as '~swamp gas," "weather balloons," "light
refraction," or "holograms." Multiple sightings by many
witnesses of similar spacecraft, sometimes at close range,
have resulted in unanimous agreement that the objects seen
are physical and" metallic."
Curiously, Brazil seemed to be one of the leading regions
of. the world for most-reported and most-publicized under. water UFO (or USO) sightings during the 1960s. Three cases
covered by SITU's founder, the late Ivan Sanderson are recounted in his Invisibie Residents:
'
-On Oct.ober 31, 1963 im 8-year~0Id girl, Rute de Souza,
along with her mother and uncle, saw a silvery disc 25 feet
in diameter hover 20 feet above their house near Iguape on
the coast. The disc struck a palm tree, ricocheted erratically
and fell into the Peropava River which boiled up in an eruption of mud. Divers failed to locate any trace of it in 12 feet
of water even after using mine detectqrs and advanced en
gineering techniques. I
-A white ovoid object crashed into the Atlantic close to
Cagarras Island after a violentexplosion on March .16, 1966.
Witnesses on Arpoador Beach claimed it left a white contrail and that several "parachutes" .dropped before the explosion. The Brazilian Coast Guard spent several hours in
a search but found no remains. 2
-On July 20, 1967 the Argentine Shipping Lines vessel
Naviero, underway 120 miles off the coast of Brazil with
Cape Santa Marta Grande abeam, was followed by a cigarshaped object 110 feet long which emitted a bright whiteand-blue glow and left no wake. Traveling at a speed of
approximately 25 knots some 50 feet distant from the ship,
the object dove steeply into the water, seemed to pass under
Pursuit 101

the Naviero, and vanished. The captain and several of the

ship's crew all saw the object which was later classified by
Argentine maritime authorities as a USO (Unidentified Submarine Object).]
During the ensuing nine months a rash of similar episodes
in which unidentified discs entered and exited the water,
took place along the coast of Venezuela. 4 .'
. Sanderson is quoted in Warren Smith's Lost Cities of the
Ancients-Unearthed, as having noted that "South America
has some really incredible UFO reports. . . . [but] due to'
the isolated nature of many areas, these often don't reach
tht!American researcher."s
Gordon Creighton, M.A., F.R.G.S., a Britisher and onetime consular official, researched several Brazilian UFO abduction cases in 1957 and theorized that" the visitations were
a concentrated effort by aliens to populate Brazil's uninhabiteti areas such as the Matto Grasso. 6
The northern half of South America seems to surpass
most other regions of the world except, perhaps, Japan,
Australia and ~ndia, with its rich history of space~oriented.
phenomena. In Ecuador, for example, there are gigantic
"caves cut from solid rock with' right angles and polished sur-
faces contrived by tools unknown to us today; and within
the caves .there have been discoveries of stone heads 'Of an
unknown people wearing headgear closely r~embling that
worn by modern astronauts. 7
. Peru's Nazca Plains are covered with the well-known,
enormous, animal-shaped "airstrips."~ The northern Andes
boast Tiahuanco's "Gate to the Sun" whose carved figures'
depict in stone what some say are ancient astrpnauts and
jet-propelled vehicles operating from two to fifteen thousand years agO.9 And we mustn't. forget those tiny golden
delta-wing "planes" found' in a tomb in Colombia, airworthy in terms of 20th century configuration, yet at least
.
a thousand years old. 10
Sooner or later in any UFO investigation the problem of
propulsion comes up for disCussion. 'In Brazil, where UFOs
are seen entering and leaving the water', pr-0pulsion is in two
modes, one for subsllrface operation, the other for passage
aloft. What possible fuel or source of power or method of
propulsion might thes~ vehicles employ? Popular theory
tends to favor a combination of electro-magnetic and gravitational fo-rces according' to the precepts of Einstein's Unified Field Theory, with hydrogen one possible source. Many
armchair investigators go witl;l the GWG solution . . . the
"gravity wave generator" that utilizes a fusion reactor, ruby
iaser and blocks of quartz. II Lacking a reflector, the GWG
would be composed of a double-ended beam (resembling
the beam seen by the fIShermen). Such a device is known to
atomic physicists in the U.S., although it may not be out of
the drawing-board stage. A third, less likely method involves
the mercury-ion roc;ket engine first-mentioned in the 3,000year-old Hindu epics "Mahabarata" and "Ramayana"
which describe the "vimanas," or flying chariots fueled by
mercury .12
.
Further. fascination was provided the Tucker party in
mid-trip with the viewing of strange petroglyphs, paintings
and carvings high irr the mountains 30 miles northwest of
Mte. Alegre. The trekkers spent grueling hours ascending
the. steep cliffs, hindered by falling boulders and the recalcitrant jeep which got stuck in the sand and delayed progress
until almost sundown. They were well rewarded by the opportunity to examine the ancient cliff art, some of 'which
depicts UFO scenes and beings with auras or rays encircling

Pursuit 102

Charles Tucker found this tiny airplane a big help in reaching

many UFO witnesses scattered "over a wide and wild area of
the Amazon basin. Asked about availability of aircraft maintenance facilities there, Tucker indicated "thumbs down."

the heads. These petroglyphs are 5,000 years' pld or older,

according to Carbon-14 dating.
, Similar cliff art found in some other provinces of Brazil,
is well-known to archeologists and historians. Illustrations
and photos of some of them show "space-travel" themes
and may be found in books on South America published
prior to 1961, the year of the first "official" space flight in'
modern times. One petroglyph from the Rio Negro Valley,
Amazonas province (due west of Para province and Mte.
Alegre), shows men with "rayed" headdress. 13
Stone-Age painters left primitive stylized "space-travel
objects with steering fins" on rock surfaces in Goiana, Central Brazil ... and the same unusual objects are rendered in
". a rock painting II ,000. miles distant, in Laura, North Queensland, Australia, close to Stone-Age rock drawings ~f other
. rayed-headed men. 14
In the caves of Varzelandia, Brazil, lies evidence that prehistoric man had advanced knowledge of astronomy: A
rock drawing depicts eight of the nine planets in our solar
system, in correct relationship to the sun! IS Still more perplexing art is to be 'seen in the Sete Cidades ruins, Lagoa
Santa, and Paraiba, East Brazil,16
For as long ago as they can remember, the Kayapo Indians of the upper Amazon have maintained their legend of
Bep Korarati, the "stranger from space." According to
Indian scholar Joao Americo Peret, who related the folklore tale to Erich von Daniken, the Kayapo legend tells of
a great earthquake generations ago, during which time a
spaceman in a large shiny white suit 'emerged from a fiery
mountain, settled among the inhabitants of the village and
taught them the language now known as Kayapo. One day
he donned the strange suit, bade farewell and went up to
the mountaintop and took off into the sky amid fire, smoke
and a noisy roar (reminiscent of the 'Quetzalcoatl "thunderbird mountain" legend!). At festivals held in honor of Bep
Korarati the Kayapos ~on a straw "spacesuit" that replicateslhe legendary one. 17 The suit, pictured in a '1952 photo
in von Daniken's In Search of Ancient Gods looks like a
prototype of NASA space gear. Quite an achievement for
Indians who cannot read the printed word, do not watch
television and must depend entirely on legend to know what kind of clothing the modern astronaut should wear!
1binI Qaut_1981

Mystic-writer Walter Russell's wife Lao claims, in Peter

Tompkins' Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, that she has
information regarding visitors from the star Sirius who had '
"come to Atlantis about 200,000 years ago, leaving important records which, prior to the disappearance of the Atlantean civilization, were entrusted to Phoenicians who took
them to Brazil where they remained sealed in a cave in the
cliffs marked by great Phoenician petroglyphs. "18
Much has been written about this star of the constellation
Canis Major. In The Sirius Mystery Robert K. G. Temple
deals with the legend of the Dogon tribesmen in central
West Africa which tells' of visits by extraterrestrials from
Sirius. The tale seems significant only when the modern
mind struggles with the question, How was it that ancient
Dogons knew the layout of the entire constellation of CaniS
Major including stars too faint to be visible without the use
of a telescope'?
No further data is available on the location of the Phoenicians' "cave in the cliffs/' although, a careful search for it
could be most rewarding. But there is plenty of evidence of
Phoenician 'presence in early America. The subject has been
researched, at least in 'print, by most of the well-known
writers on archeological anomalies, including Tompkins,I9
Churchward,20 Wilkins, von Daniken, von Hagen,21 Donnelly,22 Scott-Elliott,2] Raymond Drake,24 Merezhkovsky,2S
and Otto Much.26 In Wilkins' Mysteries of Ancient South
America are descriptions of lS,OOO-year-old ceramics, idols
and funerary urns bearing Phoenician signs and symbolsartifacts found one hundred years ago on the Island of
Marajo, near Belem, Brazil.27 Charles Berlitz refers to "thousands of ancient ~hoenician cave inscriptions throughout
Brazil" in his Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds. 28
Probable harbinger of these reports was Diodorus Siculus,
an historian of the first century B.C. who made an assertion
based on archives then in the temples of Carthage, that the
ancient Egyptians derived their hieroglyphs from Atlantis,
and that the Phoenician traders concocted their alphabet
from the same source and took it~with them across the sea
to South America. 29
Study of a magnetic grid map suggests a possible reason
why Tucker's "colony" of UFOs may have homed in on
the Amazon. The great river flows along one of the heavy
lines denoting one of the major sides of the dodecahedron;
and a minor node falls almost ,on top of Mte. Alegre, dominant point within'the area of the multiple UFO sightings
investigated by the Tucker-Lima group.]1
Even in this day and age, with phenomena occurring so
fast that they're almost impossible to count, with n,ew horizons displacing old ones along all frontiers of science and
technology, history and religion, there still remain the few
who hear but do not listen, who seem to prefer the sanctuary
of the closed mind to the lively world of speculation, investigation, evidence, argument, rebuttal, more argument and,
The "grid theory," in a nutshell, expresses belief that the world
may be divided into an invisible network in the shape of a dodecahedron, with the twenty resulting nooes denoting'areas of extreme
magnetism, involving atmospheric changes. The theory was propounded by John MicheU in The View Over Atlantis and is supponed by the three Soviet scientists who recently found evidence
of faint m'agnetic lines along the latticework of an icosahedron.
Plato, who had something to say about almost everything before
anyone else, claimed that "the earth viewed from above resembles
a ball sewn froll) twelve pieces of skin."]O How Plato obtained his
perspective remains an enigma.

TbinI QlI8Iter 1981

eventually, education. Lest believers or skeptics lose their

patience with each other, all should remember what followed
an announcement by the French Academy that it would not
aCcept any more reports of meteorites because "it is impossible for rocks to fall out of the sky" -and soon thereafter
a rain of meteorites smashed the windows of the Acad~y
almost to bits.]2

Red-and-black petroglyphs on cliffsides northwest of Mte.

Alegre greeted Charles Tucker at the end of a 3O-mile trek
through wilderness by jeep and on foot. Carbon 14 tests put
the probable age of the inscriptions in excess of 5,000 years.

Charles Tucker notes that over the last ten years the general public has become less and less skeptical of the UFO
phenomenon, and he likes the look ahead: "I feel we are
very close to unlocking the mystery of the UFO, what with

Pursuit 103

today's advanced technology and freer thinking. Events

seem to be pushing us toward some: significant conclusions
within the next five years. The Brazil phenomena . . . ma;
be just the trigger'"
,
'
,REFERENCES
1. Invisible Residents, Avon Books, 1970, paperback ed., pp.
74-75.
2. ibid, pp. 43-44.
3. ibid, pp. 23-25.
4. ibid, p. 44.
5. Lost Cities oj The Ancients":"'Unearthed; Zebra Books, 1976,
paperback ed., p. 354.
6. ibid, pp. 366-367.
7. Erich von Daniken,ln Search oj Ancient Gods, Bantam Books,
1974, paperback ed., pp. 126, 166.
, 8. ibid, pp. 195-200.
9. Charles F. Berlitz, Mysteries From Forgotten Worlds, Doubleday, 1972, pp. 76-77..
10. In Search oj Ancie,.,t Gods, pp. 164,,170, 174.
11. John H. Sutton, Ph.D., "The Tuaoi Stone: An Enigma,"
pp. 28-31, The A.R.E. Journal,'Vol. IX, No.1, Jan.1974, Pub:
Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia,Beach, Va.
'
12. Roben Charroux, One Hundred Thousand Years oj Man:SUnknown History, pp. 119-120, Berkley Pub. Co., 1970.
13. Harold T. Wilkins, Mysteries oj Ancient South America,
p. 139, The Citadel Press, 1956.
14. Erich von Daniken, In Search oj Ancient Gods, pp. 184-185,
paperback ed., Bantam Books', 1975. '
15. ibid;, pp. 72-73.
16. ibid., pp. 68-69.
17. ibid., pp. 164-168.
,
18. Peter Tompkins, Mysteries oj the Mexican Pyramids, p. 399,
Harper & Row, 1976.
'
19. ibid., pp. 348-349. '
20. Col. James M. Churchward, The Children oj Mu, p.' 89,
Paperback Library, reprinted 1968.
..
21. Victor W. von Hagen, World oj the Maya, p. 16, 'paperback
ed., Mentor Books, 1960.
22. Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World, Egenon
Sykes ed., pp. 271-273, Gramercy Publishing Co., 1949.
23. W. Scott-Elliot, The Story oj Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria,
p. 1'2, Theosophical Publishing House Ltd., London, 1925.
24. W. Raymond' Drake, Gods & Spacemen in the Ancient West,
p. 184, pap~back ed., Signet Books, 1974.
25. Dmitri Merejkowsky, Atlantis/Europe: The Secret oj the ,West,
pp. 138, 169, paperback ed., Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1971.
[Merejkowsky notes on p. 319 that "Phoenicia is derived from
Greek 'phoinix', meaning red or red-skinned." According to ~
Cayce, the red race originated in Atlantis and America. (See The
River oj Time by Eula Allen, pp. 2h-27, in which are quotations
from Readings #364-9. Q. & A. 5; #364-13. Q. & A. 7, 8, A.R.E.
Press, Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, Va., 1965.) From
these combined data we may presume a possibility that ancient
Phoenicians either first came from Atlantis or at leaSt had travel
routes to, and commerce and intermarriage with, Atlanteans and
Americans.]
26. The Secret oj Atlantis, pp. 25-26, paperback ed., Pocket Books,
1978.
'
27. Wilkins, p. 123.
28. "pp. 166-167, Doubleday, 1972.
29. Warren Smith, The Myth & Mystery oJ'Atlantis, pp. 73-74,
paperback ed., Zebra Books, 1975.
' '
30. Peter Tompkins, Mysteries oj the Mexican Pyramids, pp.
326-327.
31. ibid.
32. MarilyJi Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 151, J. P.
Tlircher, Inc., publishers, Los Angeles; distributed by St. Manin's
Press, New York, 1980.

Purs.1t 104

The Congo
Water-Dragon
,
by Philip Averbuck
,

HAS BEEN about a year since James Powell and Roy

I. Mackal rekindled the interest of cryptozoQlogists with

revelations from their January-February 1980 expedition to
the People's Republic of Congo to investigate the animals
commonly referred to as "the Congo dragon." Their complete report was published under the byline of James PoweU
in the June 1981 issue of Explorers Journal, and it contains
much striking and intriguing information. '
As coincidence would have it,' this author was investigating
the same animals in the adjacent country of the United Republic of Cameroon just two months before Powell and
Mackal went" to Congo, in October-November 1979. I was
not able to get nearly so ,much information on the so-called
"long-necked" animal, though I did receive one outstanding
report. But first, some background.
The earliest known report of the long-necked animal was
made,in a 1913 reconnaissance report by Baron'von Stein
zu Lausnitz, who' led the Dikouala-Kongo Expedition into
the then-German territory of"southeast Kamerun in the name
of Kaiser Wilhelm. Baron von Stein's report was translated
by Willy Ley in his' book, Exotic Zoology. The natives called
the animal "mokele-mbembe," and it was believed to frequent "the territory of the Congo, the lower Ubangi, -and
the Ikelemba rivers. ' f This is the area of what is now north'western Congo where Powell and Mackal searched in 1980..
The natives described the animal to von Stein as follows:
The animal is said to be o,f a brownish-grey color
, with a smooth skin, its. size appi"oximat~ng that of an
elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus. It said to
have a long and very flexible neck and only one tooth
but a very long one; some say it is a horn. A few spoke
about a long muscular taillike that of an alligator.
(Willy Ley translation)

,S

It is easy to s~ why any scientist would take int~rest in

such a description; it seems a dead-ringer for a "small"
sauropod dinosaur. The only possible flaw in the description seems to be the "one tooth but a very long one;" such
dental endowment is inconsistent with what the fossil record
has revealed about the sauropods.
On the other hand, some people told von Stein that it
was not a tooth, but a horn. This idea is objectively more
acceptable than ,a single long tooth, and there is some supportive fossil evidence to advance it. The enormous sauropod Brachiosaurus, of which incredible fossil remains were
excavated in East Africa, was distinguished by a somewhat
stubby lump of bone on the top of its skull. This wasn't
much to challenge a rhino with, but it' was a distinctly visible
feature: so far as we can tell.
.
The Powell-Mackal investigations confirmed to a T all
,the details of von Stein's 67-year-old report. At the village
of Epena, where they, received their best accounts, a gathering of informants who knew of the animals "agreed unanimously on . . . the chicken-comb decorations on the head."

Third Qaaner 1981'

Thus the rather bizarre detail of some kind of head-orna.

mentation was strongly co~firmed.
The single testimony I was able to gather in Cameroon
about a long-necked animal came from A. S. Arrey, 35, an
air security officer at the international airport of Douala.
I interviewed him on November 3, 1979, and my field notes
give the date of the incident as 1960, but in recent correspondence Mr. Arrey asserted that it occurred in 1948-1949
when he was four or. five years old. The location was Lake
Barombi Mbo, a large, deep crater lake in the southwest
province of Cameroon and about 200 miles northwest of
the area traversed by Powell and Mackal. Here, in as close .
an approximation of .his own words as I can make, is Mr.
Arrey's account:
"It was about 1949 and I was 4 or 5. I was swimming with my
friends in Lake Baroml:!i Mbo in Kumba. While we were swimming, the water in the middle of the lake staned to boil, so we ran
out of the water onto the shore. The British soldiers who were
swimming there' ran up onto the cement pier they had built for
diving. Then the smaller female animal appeared; a few minutes
later, the larger male came up. They were about 200 yards away
from us. When the animals appeared, the British men ran up the
steps from the pier, and away from the lake. We yelled for them
to stop, but they ran all the same.
"The male animal had a neck that stretched perhaps 12 or 15
feet above the water. The skin was like a viper's; smooth scales
that would not go up if" you rubbed them the wrong way, as a

~Qaan_19.1

fish's do. The head of the male was a,bout2 feet long. At the back
of the head of both animals was a horn, or cap, about S inches
long. The head is carried above the water as a viper's; the neck is
slightly curved to balance the head." The neck tapers just like a
snake's. In fact, that pan of the animal which is visible above the
water appears in every way to look like; a huge snake. The body,
which was in water, appeared to me to be about as wide as this
area around you and I; say one meter thick. The animals never
come out of the water. so no one has ever seen their legs. Lake
Barombi Mbo is very, very deep; when the British tried to take
soundings there, they did not reach bottom. This animal, however,
stays on the surface; no, I don't think it floats, because the water
around it is still. When a hippo or a crocodile float, they have to
move their legs to stay up, and this disturbs the water. We believe
that the animals have legs which stretch to the bottom of the lake.
When the two animals appeared, we all stayed still and watched
them; we had been told that to run away lIVould put you in the
animals' power: I was led to believe that the British officers who
ran, died a shon while later.
"The animals were visible for at least an hour, only moving
their heads and necks. They made no sound. All the time I watched them. 1 was trembling, and I continued to tremble for some
time after they went back down. When they went down, the female went down first, then the male a few minutes later. They say
that this is how the animals always act-the female always comes
up first, and goes down first.
"They say the animals come up about every 10 or 20 years. My
mother saw them when I. was very small, about 2 or 3 (years old).

~105

['AJ< ,.~
.Jc.4.~1

~EH'Nb

. Mt.C9.Mt.toel'f

DtJ THE . "'sT,

I"r 0 I'll 'f I ~O NoT

J='"owt ~ T,

Th~ say they only p'me up when they need men; when men run
away from them, they will come down with a fever, then die in a .
day or two. Then their souls. tUTn into fish, and the ani~als enslave them to bring them food. They are not dangerous, though,
if you do not run from them. If you just stay still and watch thein,
you cannot be harmed. I do not think that they are 'animals of
nature.' I. think that ~hey are wizards, and are not controlled by
the saJAe natural laws which control natural animals. These are not
'animals of nature.' ..
Thereare some discrepancies, but on the whole the report
appea{s .to me to be very sober and well-observed-especialIy since the witness was at a "very impressionable age"
and more than 30 years had passed before the interview.
Clearly, if the animals were 200 yards away, it would be all
but impossible to
any sort of rme scales ("like a viper's")
. on their bodies, so we may assume that this was the witness'
impression of the skin texture.
'.
Mr. Arrey's description of the animals' posture also requires further explanation. When he said the head is carried
"as a viper's," he demonstrated by crooking his arm in a
"body-builder" position, with the fingers together and tips
pointing outward. His use of the word "viper" probably
should be taken as reference to a cobra. The position h~
demonstrated seems characteristic of cobras.
When.1 asked him what had happened to the British officers who had run from the animals, he was very careful not
tQ say that he knew, but that he was led 10 believe that they
, had succumbed to the magic of the animals. One of the
notable features of! this report is its reference to European

see

PuNultl06

witnesses on the spot, and I am trying to' get in touch with

the "British officers" who were stationed at Kumba at the
time.
About a year after I had returned from Cameroon I wrote
to Mr. Arrey and asked him to sketch a picture of the animals on a sheet of graph paper which I had lined off with
a rough meter-scale so that he could show size as well as
proportion in his drawing. See the sketches which Mr. Arrey
made, above and on preceding page. .
Mr. Arrey's physical description of the animals, as far as
it goes,.matches those o( von Stein's report and the.Powell-
Mackal repQrt, 'even to the "cap" on the' back. of the head
of the male animal. Mr. Arrey is the first witness to suggest
that the hom is a sexual characteristic. This may explain
why not all of the witnesses mentioned in Powell's article
described the hom even as all the people at' Epena agreed it
had one. Those who did not mention the hom might have
seen only a female of the species.
'As of this writing, Roy Mackal is back in Congo, James
Powell is maki~ arrangements to .return there, and I am
scrambling to find means to. return to Cameroon. Clearly,
the remarkable correSpondence' of the. evidence uncovered.
by Powell and Mackal and this writer from November 1979
to February 1980 has added considerable weight to the theory
of a surviving sauropod in west-central Africa. WitJ1 luck,
there may be even more convincing evidence coming to light
soon.

"~

ThInI Qwater 1981

TESIA'S SECRET
anCithe
Soviet Testa Weapons
by Thomas E. Bearden
Copyright 1981 by t, E. Bearden
All rights reserved,

'

Special Dni..... by'HaI Crawford '

EFORE the turn of the century, Nikola Tesla had dis-'

covered and was utilizing a neW type of electric wave.
Tesla repeatedly stated his waves were non-Hertzian, and
his wireless transmissions did not falloff as the square' of
the distance. His discovery 'was apparently so fundamental
,(and his intent to provide free energy to all humankind was
so clear) that it was responsible for the withdrawal of his
financial backing, his deliberate isolation, and the gradual
removal of his name frolp:the history books.
By 1914 or so, Tesla had been successfully isolated and
was already nearly a "nonperson." Thereafter, Tesla lived
. in nearly total seclpsion, occaSionally surfacing (at his annual
birthday party for members of the press) to announce the
discovery of an enormous new source of free energy, the
perfection of wireless transmission of energy without losses,
fireball weapons to destroy whole armies and thousands of
airplanes at hundreds of miles distance, and a weapon (the
"Tesla Shield," I've dubbed it) that could provide an impenetrable defense and thus render"war obsolete.

In my pursuit of Tesla,'s secret, it gradually- became apparent to me that p,resent orthodox electromagnetic theory
is seriously flawed in some fundamental respects. One of
these is in the definition and use of 0, the scalar eiectrostatic potential. It IS this error which has hidden the longsought unified field theory from the theorists.
In the theory of the scalar electrQstatic potential (SEP),
the idea is introduced of work accomplished on a' charge
brought in from a distance against the scalar field. The
SEP is not a vector field, but is a scalar field. Indeed, scalar
potential cannot of itself perform work on a charged mass;
if it could do so, then tremendous force would exist on
every mass due to the extremely high SEP of the vacuum
itself. Only a differential of SEP between two spatial points
can produce force or accomplish work. (Rigorously, a differential of scalar potential between two spatial points conStitutes a vector. Only a vector can produce force and do work.)
Also, work can only be done on a'mass. Further, it takes
time to move ~n electron or other charged mass between
two spatial points, and so the work performed by a spatial
differential of the 0-field requires time. Rigorously, the delta
'SEP is voltage, not SEP per se, and is directly related' to
E field. The entire voltage concept depends on the work
performed in moving a mass, after that mass has moved.
The idea of "voltage" always implies the' existence of a
steady differential of 0 between two spatial points for a finite length of time, and it also involves the assumption of a

All

Two spatial points involve at least ~t = ~L/c in time,

vectors and
gradients involve 2 separated spatial points, and thus present timeliness
in 4-space; 94 is a point, not a line, in 4-space.

ThinI Qaana 1981

flow of actual mass having occurred. SEP, on the one hand,

is always a single-point function; on the other hand, difference in potential (Le"., V) is always a two point function, as
is any vector.
Yet many graduate-level physics and electromagnetics
papers and texts erroneously confuse 0 and V in the static
case! Such an interpretation ,is, of course, quite incorrect.
Another common assumption in present EM theory-that '
the electrostatic potential (00) of the normal vacu~ is zerohas no legitimate basis. In fact, we know 0 0 is nonzero because the vacuum is filled with enormous amounts of fluctuating virtual-state activity, including incredible charge
fluctuations. And by virtue of its point definition, 0 0 must
, be the "instantaneous intensity" of these fluctuations-but
both in space and time. The scalar electrostatic potential is
therefore the "instantaneous stress" o~ spacetime itself, and
a measure of the intensity of the virtual-state flux through a
4-dimensional spacetime point.
.
Potential theory was largely developed in the 1800s, before the theory of relativity. Time flowrate was then regarded as 'immutable. Accordingly, electrostatic "intensity"
was chosen as "spatial intensity," with the connotation of
"spatial flux density." This assumes a constant, immutable
rate of flow of time, which need not be true at all if we
believe relativity. Such a spatial "point" intensity is actually
a "line" in 4-space, and not a 4-dimensional "point" at all.
Thus the, spatial potential---fj3-is a very special case of the
real spacetime potential---fj4' or charge-and electromagnetic
theory today is accordingly a special case of the real 4-space
electromagnetism that actually exists! Note also that charge
is a 4-dimensional concept.
'
Now mass is a spatial, 3-dimensioOaI concept. Rigorously,
mass does not exist in time--masstime exists in time. Mass
and charge are thus of differing dimensionalities!
Also, according to quantum mechanics, the charge of a
particle--e;g., of an electron-is due to the continu!ll flux
of virtual particles given off and absorbed by the observable
particle of mass. Thus charge also is conceptually a mea.sure
of the virtual-flux density, and directly related to 0. Further,
since the charge exists in time, it is the charge of a particle
of spatial mass that gives it the property of masstime, or
existing in time.
'
Here a great confusion and fundamental error has been
thrown into the present EM theory by equating "charge"
and "charged mass." As we have seen, the, two things are
very different, indeed.
To speak of a spatial "amount" of charge erroneously
limits the basic EM theory to a fIXed-time flow rate condition ..
(which of course it was considere9 to be, prior to Einstein's
development of relativity). Thus when the limited present

........,,107

theory encounters a "relativistic" case (where the time flowrate changes), all sorts of extraordinary corrections must be
introduced. The real problem, of course, is with the fundamental definitions of electrostatic potential and charge. The
spatial "amount" of charge (i.e., the coulomb), as we ptesenHy erroneously use the term, is actually the spatial amount
of observable "charged mass." To correct the theory, one
must introduce the true 4-space SEP and separate the definitions of charge and charged mass.
. Only when a mass is moved does one have work-and
voltage or vector fields. (The reason one has voltage and
. E field connected to a normal electrostatically charged object
in the laboratory is because an excess ot charged-particle
masses are assembled on the object, and these masses are in
violent motion! A true static' charge would have no E field
at all.)
.
EI-field need not involve observable mass accumulation,
but only charge (virtual-flowrate intensity) accumulation.
Accuinuiated masses are like so many gallons of water;
accumulated .charge is like so much pressure on both the
water (space) and the time in which the,water is existing.
Now, if one varies' the SEP solely. as a point function,
one would have a purely scalar complex longitudinal wave,
and not a vector wave at all. This is the fundamentally riew
electrical wave that Tesla discovered in 1899.
. . Rigorously, all vector fields are two-point functions and
thus decomposable into two scalar field~, as was shown by
Whittaker in 1903. It follows that any vector wave can be
decomposed into two scalar waves. By implication, therefore, a normal transverse EM vector wave,. e.g., must simply
be two coupled scalar (Tesla) waves-and these scalars independently would be longitudinal if uncoupled. An ordinary
transverse EM vector wave is thus two paJr-coupled Tesla .
scalar longitudinal waves, and. only a single special case of
the much more fundamental electromagnetics discovered by
Nikola Tesla.
A Tesla (scalar potential) wave-Le., a massless wave in
pure Elo, the stress .of the spacetime medium-would have
very strange characteristics. For one thing, since it moves in
a complex 4-space, it has many more modes of move~ent
Table 1.

Some Present Theoretical Facts

"rFIELD CONCEIVED BEFORE RELATIVITY

POINT FUNCTION IN SPACE
LINE FUNCTION IN $PACETIME
TI"E FLOWRATE CONSIDERED IMMUTABLE
SPECIAL CASE OF Iql 1 'N .
GRADIENT BETWEEN TWO POINTS IN '3 FIELD

than does a simple wave in 3-space. And for another thing,

it need not be bound at all by the speed of (vector) light. In
I current iheory, one Ell-field does not. directly interact or
couple with other existing Ell-fields except "y simple super, position. Therefore, at present the EI-field is considered to
have no drag limitation at all, hence infinite velocity. (E.g.,
as stated in Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd edition,
page 223.)
Actually, a El 4-wave can and will interact with some of the
other existing EI "waves in the medium transversed, apd this
interaction can involve pair-coupling into EM vector fields
and waves, aD interraction not presently in the electrQdy- .
.namics theory. The result of scalar pair-coupling creates it
finite amount of vector "drag" on the El 4-wave, so it then
has less than infinite velocity. However, if this drag is small
due to limited pair-coupling, the velocity of the .scalar wave
through the slightly dragging medium still may be far greater
than the sPeed of vector EM waves (light) in vacuum. On
the other hand, if the pair-coupling is made severe, t,he EIwave may move at a speed considerably below the speed of
vector light.waves in v8.C!lum. The velocity of the El 4-wave is
thus both variable and contrQllable or adjustable (e.g., simply
by varying its initial aJpplitude, which. through a given medium changes the percentage of pair-coupling and hence the
degree of drag on the scalar wave). The Tesla scalar wave
thus can have either subluminal or superiuminal velocity, in
.
contradiction to present theory.
Note that the scalar wave also violates one of Einstein's
fundamental postulates-for the speed of our "new kind of
light" wave is not limited to c, and need not be the same to
every observer. Thus Tesla scalar waves lead to a new "superrelativity" of which the present Einstein relativity is only a
highly speciill c a s e ! .
.
But let us now look for some subtle but real examples of
scalar waves and scalar pair-coupling in nature. As is weD
known, a tectonic fault zone can provide anomalous lights,
sounds, etc., from stresses; piezoe1ectrical activity, and telluric currents in the earth and through the fault zone. In exTable 2.

-JACKSON. CLASSICAL ELECTRODYNAMICS.

.2ND EDITION. P. 223

Parsultl08

'4

Characteristics

SPATIOTEMPORAL "4 FIELD

STRESS ON SPACETI~ .
CAN CHANGE RATE OF FLOW OF TI~
GRADIENT BETWEEN 2 POINTS IN 64 FIELD
PRODUCES COMPLEX V4
WILL MOVE ELECTRON IF

V3 ~ 01 AND

PRODUCES VOLTAGE

PRODUCES E FIELD
~ES ELECTRON
IS AN AREA IN q-SPACE
GRADIENT ~y BE BETWEEN SEPARATED POINTS
IN TWO SUPERPOSED "-FIELDS
I-FIELD CAN -f'IlVE- AT INFINITE VELOCITY- .

Some Proposed

Ni .~ C
WILL NOT MOVE ELECTRON IF
V3 .. O. OR
11"1

"Hi'

GRADIENT MAY BE BETWEEN SEPARATED POINTS IN

TWO SUPERPOSED "4 FIELDS
"4 WAVE ~VES AT 0 !1V4 ~ ~
64 WAVE IS COMPLEX A~D LONGITUDINAL
Third Qmuta 1981

Table 3. . Tesla Waves Can:

ESTABLISH STANDINI WAVES

- In Ibl Ilrt~
- In Ibl lanaspblrl

TAP ENERIY FROM EARTH'S CORE,

TRAVEL FASTER DR SLOWER THAN:
LIGHT

amining the fault zone pheno~enon, I finally realized that a

fault zone was literally a scalar interferometer-i.e., if one
can have scalar (64-waves, they can interfete, either constructively or destructively. Their interference, however, produces
scalar pair-coupling into vector EM waves. This coupling
may be at a distance from the interferometer itself, and thus
the interferometer can produce energy directly at a distance,
without vector transmission through the intervening space.
Coupling of' (6 waves with the paired scalars comprising
ordinary EM vector waves can also occur. If this triplex
coupling forms additional EM vector waves 180 degrees out
of phase, the ordinary EM wave is diminished or extinguished. If the scalar triplex coupling occurs so as to create
vector EM waves in phase with the interacting vector EM
wave, the amplitude of the ordinary vector wave is increased.
Scalar potential waves can thus augment or diminish, or
create or destroy, ordinary EM waves at a distance by paitcoupling interference under appropriate conditions, and this
is in consonance with' the implications of Whittaker's fundamental 1903 work.
.
An earthquake fault zone is such a scaiar interferometer.
Stresses and charge pileups. exist in the plates on each side
adjacent to the fault, with stress r:elief existing in the middle
in the fault fracture itself. Since the rock is locally nonlinear,
the meChanical stresses and electrical currents in it are also
locally nonlinear. This results in the generation of multiple
frequencies 'of (64-waves from each side of ,the fault inter ferometer, yielding two complex Fourier expansion patterns
of scalar potential waves. On occasion these two Fouriertransformed scalar wave patterns couple at a distance to
produce stable ordinary electromagnetic field in a 3-dimensiona! spatial pattern-e.g., a stress light such as the Vestigia
light covered in Part I of The Excalibitr Briefing. Driven by
the erratic two scalar Fourier expansiQn patterns of the scalar
interferometer (whose input stresses normally change slowly),
an erratic, darting, hovering "spooklight" of the variety
studied by Vestigia is produced.
As the stresses change in each side of the interferometer,
the distant scalar coupling zone is affected. Thus the stresslight. moves and its form changes, but it may be relatively
stable in form for seconds or minutes. Since the stresses in
the rock may be intense, the stress light may involve an
intense pair of (6-patterns coupling into the sphere or ball of
vector EM energy. The atoms and molecules of the air in
the region of the coupled stresslight ball thus become highly
excited, giving off radiant energy as the excited states decay.
Since much of the piezoelectric material in th~ stressed
rocks is quartz grains, the features of quartz' are of particular

TIdnI Quad_ 1981

CHANGE RATJ OF TIME FLOW

AFFECT ALL FIELDS, INCLUDING
GRAVITY
COMMUTE'BETWEEN VIRTUAL AND
OBSERVABLE

interest. Each little quartz grain is itself highly stressed, and

has stress cracks. It is therefore a 'little scalar interferometer.
Further, quartz is transparent to infrared and ultraviolet;
and the random orientation of all the quartz scalar interferometers may also form a Prigogine system far from thermodynamic equilibrium. If so, this system can tap into highly
energetic microscopic electromagnetic fluctuations to produce large-scale, ordered, relatively stable patterns of electromagnetic energy at a distance.
In short, all of this lends support to 'the formation of
relatively stable but somewhat erratic patterns of electromagnetic energy at a distance from the fault itself. In the
atmosphere, such scalar interferometers could form in clouds
or even in the air or between clouds and earth.1f so, such
rare but occasional "weather" scalar interferometers could
account for the rare phenomenon of ball lightning. The intense energy of the ball of lightning, as compared to the
. lesser energy of an earthstress light, could well be due to the
enormous electrical charges between clouds or between cloud
and earth, available to fuel the scalar interferometer. Very
probably it is this phenomenon which gave Tesla the clue to
scalar wave interferometry.
.Thus such phenomena as earthstress lights, ball lightning,
and the Tesla system of wireless .transmission of energy at
a distance wit\"! negligible Iqsses and at speeds exceeding the
speed of light may be explained. They are complex, however, and involve fundamental changes to present electromagnetic theory. These changes include utilizing 4-space
scalar electrostatic potentials, scalar waves, pair coupling,
ordinary'.3-dimensional Fourier expansion, the Prigogine
effect, and the properties of piezoelectric materials in rocks.
Since the Scalar potential also stresses time, it can change
the rate of flow of time itself. Thus it affects anything which
exists in time-including the mind, both of the individual
and at various levels of unconsciousness. Therefore the same
functions that result in earthstress lights also affect mind
and thought, and are in turn affeCted by mind and thought.
This is the missing ingredient in Persinger's theory that UFOs
are correlated with, and a result of, fault zones and earth
stresses. While Persinger seems to feel this is a "normal
physics" explanation, it indeed involves a paranormal explanation.
..
The time~stressing ability of the true (6 scalar wave also
explains the interaction of such earthstress lights with humans
and human intent, as noted by other researchers. (E.G., .the
lights that repeatedly seemed to react to the observers, as
detailed by Dr. Harley Rutledge in his epoch-making Project
Identification, Prentice-Hall, 1981.)

........."109

These ideas in condensed form comprise the concepts required to violate the speed of light and produce an' ordinary
electromagnetic field at a distance, using scalar interferometry, without losses-as Tesla had done in his wireless transmission system which he had tested prior to 1900 and had
perfected by the 1930s. Scalar interferometry can give stable
regiQns of EM or "light energy" at a distance without losses,
particularly as detailed in the beautiful Vestigia experiments,
and it is within our grasp to utilize the new effects. Indeed,
any stress crack in a material can result in 'the scalar poten'tial interferometer effect. Exophoton and exoelectron emission-poorly understood but already known in fatiguing of
materials-must be at least partly due to the scalar interferometer effect.,
'

However, one additional caution should be advanced.

Normal movement of electrons allows so much "sideplay"
movement of the electrons-and there is so much such sideplay electron motion in the surrounding vicinity-that pair
coupling is almost instantaneous for small waves. Thus orbital electrons in atoms emit some percentage of scalar waves
as well. Since a scalar wave is comprised exclusively of disturbance in the virtual state, it need not obey the conservation-of-energy law. F:urther, a scalar wave of itself does not'
"push electrons" or other charges; hence it is nearly indetectable by present detectors. Ionization detect,ors such as a
Geiger-counter tube, e.g., are exceptions if the scalar wave
encountered is fairly strong. In that case sufficient triplex
coupling with the ionized gas occurs to produce additional
ionization or charge, breaching the tube's cutof( threshold
and producing 'a cascade discharge of e1ectrons--and voltage'
which is detected. But weak scalar waves are presently in-'
detectable by ordina,ry instruments. However, these small
scalar waves are detectable by sensitive interferometry techniques-e.g., such as an electron interferometer. Since the
use of such instruments is quite rare, then indeed we have
been living immersed in a sea of scalar waves without being
aware of it.

,.

Finally, the percentage of scalar waves produced by the

changes' in charged mass pileups can be .increased by utilizing
charged mass streaming.' Essentially the charged masses must
be moved suddenly, as quickly as possible, at or near the'
complete breakdown of themedium. For this reason, Tesla
utilized sparkgaps in his early transmission systems, but also
found that he could induce ionized media to "breakdown"
in such fashion by a slow-growth process. One of his early
patented atmospheric wireless transmission systems is based
on this fact. However, it was necessary to use a very high
voltage, insuring extreme stress on the medium and hence
some spillover stress onto time itself. In other words, tfJ is
always' an approximation; at suffiCiently high spatial stress,
sufficieni spillover tf4 exists to give Tesla scalar waves. For
this reason, Tesla used very high voltages' and extremely
sharp discharges to give' "streaining" of the charged masses
and thus high percentages of 94 waves. ,This suggests that
the breakdown of dielectrics is a much richer phenomenon
than is presently al~owoo. for in the conventional theory.
To summarize, electrostatic potential----tf-field-is stress
on the spacetime medium at a four-dimensional point. I.e.,
it is a sort of pressure on the medium, but pressure on all
four dimensions, not just, on the three spatial dimensions.
Thus in the new standard 'theory, tf4 may have complex values. In addition, a tf-wave is to be interpreted as Ii scalar
longitudinal wave in complex spacetime-directly in tfl)' the
normal average 4-space stress itself. And charge and charged
mass must be recognized as two separate concepts. This is
the gist of what I finally recognized about Nikola Tesla's
work and fundamental discovery.
This is exciting, for it means ,that Tesla stress waves can
affeCt either space or time individually, or both space and
time simultaneously, or even oscillate back and forth between
primarily affecting time and primarily affecting space. Tesla's
waves were actually these tf-field s~alar waves. As such,
(Continued on page / /3)

TilE

FLOI

lATE
EFFECTS

'nr

Figure I.

Pu...ultll0

Tesla's Standing Columnar Wave

Qauter 1981

ALL VECTORS AND

,
VECTOR FIELDS ARE CREATED
BY SCALAR INTERFEROMETRY
AND PAIR COUPLING

.......

--"-

.-- -

Ve - - + -...

.V1

......

EM COUPLING CONDITION

........

~L

L}.T

T~
1

"

DoLle

=DoT

~T 2
~

..ilCure 2.

Pair Coupling: Pr~ducinlC I<:M at a nistanee "

r). ~2."

EACH TINY STRESSED CRACK

ACTS AS ASCALAR INTERFEROMETER

"LOCKED-IN STRESSED CRACKS

BECOMES A,RI&O&INE CRYSTAL

.'ilCure 3.

TbinI Qaut..- 1981

Natural St.-alar Interferometers

PrI..." 111

-00

() DIRAC SEA
"

+00

e-

j3 EIITTER II

(,

0--.

PRIGOGINE CONDITION

,..

,-'

0-

} PlIB.BIIE
TUNNEL

rel

f
'
~I

f'

0+

NEGATIVE ENERGr
TEMPERATURE
Figure 4." Exoelectron Emission

TRANS'UtTED
EARTH
SIGNAL

COIIERENT
TRANSHI TTED
SIGNALS

EARTH

r~
TEILA EfFECt. TYPE

TRAHIMlnED, ' "

'"

' / SIGNAL

STAID III

WAVE

~n HOLTEII CORE
TESLA EFfECT:

Figure S.

~ICINDL;-]
ENERGY

COLLECTOR

L'V_~~H

P1awid1112

TESLA EFFECT. TYPE

~~~

/
"/

"

___

J"

TRIODE OPERATION

The Tesla Effect

TbinI Qaada 1981 "

(Continued from page 110)

they were fundamentally different from ordinary electromagnetic waves, and had entirely different ,characteristics, '
just as Tesla often stated. E.g., a Tesla wave can either move
spatially, with time flowing linearly; move temporally only
(sitting at a point and waxing and, waning in magnitudebut changing the rate of flow of time itself in doing so, and
affecting gravitational field, fundamental constants of nature,
etc.), or move in a' combination of the two modes. In the
latter case, the Tesla wave moves in space with a very strange
motion-it oscillates between (I) spatially standing still and
flexing time, and (2) moving smoothly in space while time
flows smoothly and evenly. I.e., it stands at one'point (or at
one columnar region), flexing for a moment; then siowly
picks up spatial velocity until it is moving smoothly through
space; then slows down again to a "standing column," etc. ,
This is Tesla's fabulous "standing columnar wave.l" ,
References
I. Whittaker, E. T., Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. 1,367 (1903).
'2. Debye,' P., Ann. Phys. (Leipz.) 30, 57 (1909); also Phil.
Mag., 38, 143 (1919).
4. Laporte, O. & Uhlenbeck, G. E., Pliys. Rev. 37, 1380 (1931).
5. Nisbet, A., Proc. 'R. Soc. London A 231, 2SO (1955).
6. Essex, E. A., Am. Jour. ,Phys. 45, 1~ (1977).
7. Braunlich, P., Ed., Thermally Stimuklted Relaxation in
Solids, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1979.
B. Ratzlaff, John T., Dr. Nikolll Teskl: Selected Patent Wrappers, Volumes ,I, II, III & IV, Tesla Book Company, 1580
Magnolia Ave., Millbrae, CA 94030, 1980.
9. Ratzlaff, John T. & Anderson, Leland I., Dr. Nikokl Teskl
Bibliography, Ragusan Press, 936 Industrial Ave., Palo Alto,
CA 94303, 1979.
10, "Tesla-B5th Birthday," N. Y. Sun, July 11, 1941. (Tesla
says he could build, w~thin three months, a plant at a cost of
52 million that would melt the engines of an approaching aircraft at a distance of thousands of miles.)
11. "Tesla Promises to Light Dark Spot on Moon. U's 'Part of
a Scheme of His for Interplanetary Radio; Distance Means
Nothing. Has 4 New Inventions. Tells of Them on 81st Birthday; 2 Nations Honor Him," N. Y. Herald Tribune, July 11, 1937.
12. O'Neill, John J., "In the Realm of Science: Tesla, who
predicted radio, now looks forward to sending waves to the
Moon," N. Y. Herald Tribune, Aug. 12, 1937. (Inventor hopes
to use energy-transmitting device to make spot 'glow on the lunar
surface. Theory is traced to IB97 experiments. His mechanism
is to use vast natural forces, possibly cosmic rays.)
13. "Tesla, 80, Reveals New Power Device," N. Y. Times,
July II, 1936, p. 13, col. 2. (Says his wireless system of power
transmission will supply the earth with energy for ind~try.)
14. Sparling, Earl, "Nikola Tesla, at 79, Uses Earth to Transmit Signals; Expects to Have $100,000,000 Within Two Years,"
N. Y. World-Telegram, July 11, 1935. (Inventor tells of 'quake'
in his laboratory that brought police and ambulances during experiments with mechanical oscillator.)
,
15. "TeSla's Controlled 'Earth Quakes-Power Through the
Earth, A Startling Discovery," N. Y. American, July 11, 1935,
Section 2. (Announces the succe5$ful passage of an induction
current with a varying flux through a circuit without the use of
a commutator. Cosmic ray studies indicate many tenets of theory
of relativity to be fallacious. Possible to convey mechanical
eff~ts to any distance.)
16. "Tesla, 79, Promises to Transmit Force-Transmission of
Energy Over World," N. Y. Times, July 11, 1935, p. 13, col. B.

ThinI Quarter 1981

Another wild characteristic of the Tesla wave is that it

can affect the rate of flow of time itself; hence it can affect
or change every other field-including the gravitational
field-that exists in time flow. It can also affect all universal
constants, the mass pf an object, the inertia of a body,- and
the mind and thoughts as well! All of these exist in the flow
of time, and they are affected if the time stream in which
they exist is affected. This was the awful secret that Tesla
partially discovered by 1900, and which he came more and
more to fully realize as he pursued its nature and its ramifications into the 19205 and 1930s.
Tesla also found he could set up standing 9-field waves'
,through the earth'. He in fact intended to do so, for he had
also discovered that all charges in the highly stressed earthregions in which such a standing wave existed produced 9fields which would feed (kindle) energy into the standing
9-field wave by I?air-coupling, i.e., normal vector field energy
(Tesla has,plans to send energy over the entire world. Measurement of cosmic rays said to 6e 50 times greater than the speed
of light, demolishing the theory of relativity.)
.17. Tesla, Nikola, "Expanding Sun Will Explode Some Day,
Tesla Predicts," N. Y. Herald Tribune, Aug. IB, 1935. (present
literature on cosmic nays is erropeous. Some cosmic rays reach
speeds 50 times thaI' of light. Sun will increase in mass and
energy"and will ultimately explode. Tesla's view is that, the condensation of primary substance is going on continuously. Finds
secret of cosmic rays in the positive electrical charge of the sun.
Discusses radioactive emanations.)
18. "3 Tesla Inventions-Famous Scientist Will Tell Them
Tomorrow," N. Y. Sun, July 9, 1935. (One of the discoveries
is a new way of transmitting energy, an' entirely new principle,
nothing like wireless. Also method of harnessing cosmic rays.)
19. WeJshimer, Helen, "Dr. Tesla Visions the End of Aircraft
in War," Every Week Magazine, Oct. 21, 1934, p~
(Claims
to have created a new agent, which kills without a trace and yet
pierces the thickest armor. Can destroy armies or aircraft.)
20. Tesla, Nikola, "Tesla on Power Development and Future
Marvels," N. Y: Wo;ld-Telegram, July 14, 1934. (Source of
reference is Prodigal Genius by J. J. O'Neill, p. 141. Reply to
articles of June 29, July 12, and July 13, 1934. Pralies Westinghouse and Insul to create the power system he' had barely suggested in 1893. With regard to death-ray effect, Tesla employs
an agent in which intensity does not diminish with the square of
the distance.)
21. Dunlap, Orrin E., Jr., "Tesla Sees Evidence That Radio
and Light Are Sound," N. r. Times, April 8,,1934, X, p. 9,
col. 1. (Tesla points to errors of the past, explains radio as he
sees it at age 77. He expects television.) (Note: Sound is a longitudinal' wave-as is the Tesla wave. Hertzian waves are transverse waves, not longitudinal.)
,
22. Bird, Carol, "Tremendous New Power Soon to be Unleashed," Phikldelphill Public Ledger, Sept. 10, 1933, magazine
section, p. 6. (Revolutionary power project by Tesla, who is
also completing process for thought photography.) (Note: Here
we have a possible clue that the same principle may be used
both in Tesla's energy device and in TesIa's approach to thought
photography.)
13. "Tesla 'Harnesses' Cosmic Energy," Phillldelphill Public
Ledger, Nov. 2, 1933. (A principle has been discovered to derive
, cosmic energy which operates the universe. Power is "everywhere present in unlimited quantities." Will eliminate the need '
for coal, oil, gas, or any of the _common fuelS.) (Note: Was
Tesla referring to what we today call "zero-point energy of
vacuum"? His principle will tap it.)

J:

Purrndt 113

(;

would "assemble" 'onto the scalar matrix wave by means of

pair-coupling. Thus by transmitting a scalar standing wave
into the earth. he could easily tap the fiery scalar fields produced in the molten core of the planet itself, turning them
into, ordinary electromagnetic energy. in such case, a single
generator would enable anyone to put up a simple antenna '
and extract all the free energy desired.
When Tesla's ala'rmed financial backers discovered this
',was his real intent, they considered him a dangerous mad'man and found it necessary to ruthlessly stop, him at all
costs: And so his finanCial support was withdrawn, he was
harassed in his more subtle patent efforts (the patents themselves were adulterated). and his name gradually was removed from all the electrical textbooks. By 1914 Tesla,
who had been the greatest inventor and scientist in, the world,
had become essentially, a nonperson.
A few other persons in the early 1900s also were aware
that potential and voltage are different. And some of them
even learned to utilize Tesla's 0-field. even though they only
vaguely understood they were utilizing' a fundamentally different kind of electromagnetic wave. For, example, James
Harris Rogers patented an undersea ~d underground com:munications system which Tesla later confrrmed utilized Tesla
waves: The government secretly used the Rogers communiciliions system in World War I to communicate with' U.S:
submarines underwater, and to communicate through the

Table 4.

'.

Rogers' Undersea and Underground

'Communication System:

SECRETLY USED BY U.S. IN WWI

'COMMU"ICATED TO SUBS UNDERWATER
- ANY DEPTH. UP TO 30 KHZ
- REDU~ED DE,PTH. ..' 30 KHZ
COMMUNICATED TO EXPEDITIONARY HO OVERSEAS .
- 5.000 TIMES. STRONGER THAN AERIAL
- STATIC-FREE
' DECLASSIFIED Ii 1919
- TO REVOLUTIONIZE COMMUNICATIONS
.: TO END ALL SURFACE ANTENNAS
MYSTERIOUSLY -LOSTREDISCOVERED AND -LOST- THREE TIMES AFTER WWII

'earth to the American Expeditionary Forces, headquarters in

Europe. The Rogers system was declassified after the war:and very shortly after that, it had myst~riously been scrubbed
off the face of the earth. Again, potential stress-waves..;,..
Tesla' waves-were eliminated and "buried."

References (conlinued)

24. Blakeslee. Howard W . "Discovery of Force to Surround

Natiops & Smash Attackers: Claims of Aged Inventor-Nikola
Tesla Makes Announcement on 75th Birthday-Will Tum
Plans Over to Geneva." MinTU!ilpolis Tribune. July 11. 1934.
(Note: Here the inventor is referring to the "Tesla Shield. ") .
'25. "Testa. at 78. Bares New 'Death Beam'," N. Y. Times, July
11. 1934: p. 18. col. 1. (Invention powerful enough to destroy
10.000 airplanes at 250 miles away. Defense weapon only.)
'26. Alsop, Joseph W., Jr., "Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles:
Tesla's Claim on 78th Birthday." N. Y. Herald Tribune. July
11, 1934, pp. 1, 15. (Beam of force simUar to 'death lily involves
, four electrical devices. Can also be used in peacetime to tranSmit
power over distances limited only by curvature of the earth.)
(Note: In this reference, we note that the Tesla death ray and
the Tesla wireless transmission devices apparently use the same
effect or basic principle. There appear to be four devices involved in an operational system.)
27. "A Giant Eye to See 'Round the World ... Albany Telegram,
Feb. 25, 1933. (Based on the mechanism of the human eye. The
first two parts of Tesla's invention have been completed. Will
allow man to see any part of the earth.) (Note: Similarity of
, binocular vision to interferometry.)
,
28. Tesla, Nikola. "Pioneer' Radio Engineer GiveS Views on
P9wer," N. Y. Herald Tribune, Sept. 11, 1932. (Tesla says
wireless waves ani not electromagnetic, but sound in nature.
Holds 'space is not curved.) (Note again that sound waves are
longitudinal, as are Tesla's waves. Electromagnetic waves are
tra~verse.)

29. "No High-Speed Limit, Says Tesla," 'Literary Digest, November 7, 1931, p. 28. '(S~ greater than light, deemed impossible by the Einstein theory, have been accompliihed. As early
as 1900 Tesla showed that power from, his transmitter passed
over the earth 'at a speed of 292,830 miles per second.) (Note:
As is' well known, velocity represents ,the rotation of an object
out of the n~rmaI J-dimeDSionai space toward a 4th~imensional
direction. The speed of 6ght, c, represents a full orthogonal tum.
A normal electromagnetic wave, being transverse oscillatory, is

Pursuit 114

a priori limited to a single orthogonal turn, for that is all it possesses. It thus moves at tile speed c. A longitudinal scalar wave,
'
on the other hand, need not be,so limited at all.),
30. O'Neill, J. J., "Sun Emits Super Ray, Nikola Testa Asserts,"
Brooklyn Eagle, Feb. 8, 1932, p. 4, col., I. (Note: p.gically, the
sun should also emit scalar waves as well as transverse vector
waves.)
31: O'Neill, J. J., "Tesla Cosmic Ray Motor May Transmit
Power 'Round Earth'." Brooklyn &gle; July 10, 1932, A, 1:4,
pp. 1, 17. (Efforts by Tesla to harness cosmic rays started 25
years ago, and he now announces success in operating a motive
device by means of these rays. Hopes to build a motor on a large
scale.) (Nelte: possibly implies that all t!lese Tesla devices for
the laSt 25 years have been' dealing with the same basic principle.)
32. "Tesla, 76, Reports His Talents at Peak," N. Y. Times,
July 10, 1932, p. 19, col. I. (New,invention in tapping tremendous and unused source ,of energy. One invention to permit
generation of all kinds of rays of almost unlimited intensity.)
(Note: By. scalar interferometry, electromagnetic waves of any
frequency-and hence of any "type"--can be assembled by
coupling the appropriate scalars together. A Hertzian wave is
just two coupled T~1a scalar waves.)
,
33. Tesla, Niko'a, "Man's Greatest Achievement," N. Y.
American, July 6, 1930, p. ,10 (editorial sectioD}. ("To create
and annihilate ~terial substance, cause it ,to aggregate in forms
according to his desire . would place him beside his Creator
and fulfill his ultimate destiny. It) (Note: 'Here Tesla seems to be
referring to controlled materialization and dematerialization of
fRailer.)
34. Tesla, Nikola. "World System of Wireless Transmission of
Energy," Telegraph & Telephone Age, New York, Oct. 16,
, 1927, pp. 457-460. (Transmission of power without wires is not
a theory, but "a fact demonstrated by Tesla." Mode of propagation of currents from transmiller has mean speed 57070 greater
than Hertz waves.) (Note: a faster-than-6ght, non-Hertzian type
of wave is involved. The Tesla wave is not a normal Hertzian
wave.)

TbinI Quarter 1981

Probably the most brilliant. inventor and researcher into

Tesla's electromagnetics was T. Henry Moray of Salt Lake
City, Utah. Dr. Moray actually succeeded in tapping the
limitless zero-point energy of vacuum (spacetime) itself. By
1939, Dr. Moray's amplifier contained" 29 stages and its output stage produced 50 kilowatts of power from. vacuum.
Interestingly, another 50 kilowatts could be tapped off any
other stage in the device-which consequently could have
produced almost 1.5 megawatts of electrical power! Dr~ .
Moray's epoch-making work was suppressed also. His device,
which represented over 20 years of heartbreaking accumulation of 29 working tubes from thousands made, was destroyed by a Soviet agent in 1939, but not before the agent
had obtained the drawings for building the tubes and the
device itself. Today the Moray amplifier is a standard component of many of the Soviet secret superweapons and Tesla
weapons.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Tesla announced the perfection
of his wireless transmission of energy without losses-even
to interplanetary distances. In several articles (e.g., H. Winfield Secor, "Tesla Maps Our Electrical Future," Science
and Invention, Vol. XVII, No. 12, pp. 1077-1126), Tesla
even .revealed he used longitudinal stress-waves in his wireless
power transmission. Quoting from the article, "Tesla upholds the startling theory formulated by him long ago, that
the radio transmitters as now used, do not emit Hertz waves,

as commonly believed; but waves of sound . . . .' He says

that a Hertz wave would only be possible in a solid ether,
but he has demonstrated already in 1897 that the ether is a
gas, which ca.n only transmit wav.es of sound; that is, such
as are propagated by alternate compressions and rarefactions
of the medium in whjch transverse. waves are absolutely
impossible." The wily Tesla did not reveal, of course, that
such scalar waves nearly always immediately pair-coupled
into vector waves when produced by normal means. Tesla
.himself wa:; working with longitudinal scalar waves.
. Also in the '308 Testa announced such bizarre and terrible
weapons as a death ray, capable of destroying hundreds or
even thousands of aircraft at hundreds of miles range, and
his ultimate weapon to end all war-the Tesla shield, which
nothing could penetrate. However, by this time no one any
longer paid any real attention to the forgotten great genius.
Tesla qied in 19"1-3 without ever revealing the secret of these
great weapons and inventions.
Unfortunately, today in 1981 the Soviet Union has long
since discovered and weaponized Tesla's scalar wave effects.
Here we only have time to detail the most powerful of the
frightening Tesla weapons-which Brezhnev undoubtedly
was referring to in 1975, when the Soviet side at the SALT
talks suddenly suggested limitirig the development of new
weapons "more frightening than the mind of man had im(Continued on page 118)

References (continued)

35. Secor, H. Winfield, "The Rogers Underground Wireless,"

ElectrialJ Experimenter, Malth 1919, pp . 787-789, 832-835, 8:W.
(Rogers system does away with aerial wires.)
36. Gernsback, Hugo, "Underground Wireless," Electrical Experimenter, March 1919, p. 762. (Development of James H.
Rogers. Receives messages from Europe during thunderstorm.
Tesla agrees that messages are not Hertzian waves.)
37. Tesla, Nikola, "The True Wireless," Electrical Experimenter, May 1919,_pp. 28-30, 61-63, 87. (Tesla says Hertz wave
theory is a delusion. Signals must be from earth currents. Note
again that Tesla does not like Hertzian waves, but himself has
something more fundamental.)
38. Tesla, Nikola, "The Effects of Statics on Electrical Transmission," Electrical Experimenter, January 1919, pp. 627, 658.
(Tells of defects in Hertz waves. System devised by Tesla releases energy at infinite velocity;) (Note: electrostatic potential
is already known to be able to travel at infinite velocity. See
Jackson, ClIlssical ElectrodYfUlmics; 2nd Edition, 1975, p. 223.
This is strong evidence that Tesla used scalar potential waves or
If-fields.)
.
39. Bottone, A., "Nikola Tesla's New Wireless," Electrical
Engineer, London, Dec. 24, 1909, p. 893. (Experiments conducted on Long Island have resulted iq principles of transmission
which are direct opposite of Hertzian wave tranvnission.) (Note:
In other words, using uncoupled scalar waves-T~la waves,...instead of pair~oupled scalar waves-Hertzian waves?)
40. Tesla, Nikola, "Electrical Control of the Weather Will
Soon Be an Accomplished Fact," St. Louis Republic, Nov. 15,
1908, V, p. 3. (Tesla concurs in concept of electrical control of
weather.)

.
41. Swezy, Kenneth M., "Nikol8 TesIa," Science, May 16, 1958,
pp. 1147-1158.- (Electricity today is generated, transmitte", and'
converted to mechanical power by means of his inventions.)
42. Ramsay, Jack, "Cableless Power," Electronics (Digest),
July 22, 1960, pp. 6, 8. (Soviet attempt at development of wireless power transmission, but a failure according to Swedish ob-

Third Qaaner 1981

servers, and the idea having been bandied about in the U.S.
since Tesla.) (Note: Establishes that the Soviets were at least
tryi~g to work with the Tesla techniques.)
43. Anderson, Leland I., "Correspondence: Sub-s.. rface Communications Systems," Proceedings oj the I.R.E., March 1961,
p. 645. (Reference to subsurface or "earth current" communication systems. Pioneering work by Nikola Tesla and James H.
Rogers.)
44. Rebert, Edwina, "Fireballs For Defense?", ChrisdJm Scienu
Monitor, Feb. 7, 1962, p. 9c. (Feature article on possibility of
using ball lightning as defense weapon-may be inspired by
early experiments of Tesla at Colorado Springs.)
45. Maisch, Lee and Rice, Warren, "Potential Flow Between
Two Parallel Circular Disks with Partial Transmission," JourfUll oj Applied Mechanics, Trans. ASME, March 1967, Vol.
34, Series E; No. I, pp. 239-240. (Reference article-bladeless
turbines.)
46. Lagus, George W., "The Use of Ground in High-Frequency
Circuits," Radio-TV Experimenter and Science and Electronics,
June-July 1969, pp. 71, 72. (Tesla gave several demonstrations
of feasibility of electrifying large areas of land by ground-propagation of high-fniquency currents.)
47. Jamison, S. L., "Life Energy," Probe, The Unknown,
June 1973, pp. 3-4. (Letter to editor-t:eport that vitamins and
minerals could be impressed on the body by using a Tesla coil.)
48. Jueneman, F. B. J., "The First Law of Thermodynamics,"
Induslrilll Research, February 1974, pp. 17-18. (Nikola Tesla,
at Colorado Springs in 1899, found that the earth was a large
electron sink, and electrical storms generated standing wave
potentials.)
.
49. Puharich, Andrija, "The Work of Nikola Tesla ca. 1900
and its Relationship to Physics, Bioenergy and Healing," paper
read at the International Inter-disciplinary Conference on Consciousness and Healing, Oct. 13, 1976, University of Toronto.)
.
.
References continued
on page liB

Pursuit 115

~.~~~~~
..
~
- .~'----.. . _."
.. " ~6'~."""'.,.i! ,. . : L.'. .:' .'. ..~: \... \
_!!:t ..

,.\

-r ~

[SCALAR PQTENTIAL INTERFEROMETERI

Figure 6.

Multimode Tesla Weapon

!'OURIER TRANI!'ORM RenONI

,tt2 WAVILENCITM EACH'

REPIRINCI

POWIRFOR
PUUIIIIODEI

IXPLOIIVI OINlRATORIIIAIIIIC

POWER FOR
CONTINUOUS
MODEl

DDDDDoD4
o 0 D 0 0 0 I

EXTRA GEN. RATaI' ,

POWEAI COMPUTER
FACIUTY

MORAY POWIR UNITI

Figure 7. Tesla We~pon at Saryshagan

Ptawultl16

Aulallon W",,/r & Spaa TechllCllogp .IuIy 28, 1980

Figure 8.

---

.:---.....

-.

.....

The Tesla Shield.

DECOYS.

[;> [;>
[;>

WARHEAD

f>
~EMPt!:==-====:=::: f/
GNt4A RAYS

e;;
IJ DEBRIS

SCATTERING AND ABSORPTION

HEMISPHERES
OF . INTENSE
LIGHT BANDS

Figure 9.

Tesla Terminal

A~a

Defense System

Pursuit 117

- - -

---------------

agined." One of these weapons is the Tesla howitzer recently

completed at the Saryshagan missile range and presently
considered to be either a high-energy laser weapon or a particle beam weapon. (See A viation Week & Space Tlthnology,
July 28, 1980, page 48 for an artist's conception.)
The Saryshagan howitzer actually is a huge Tesla scalar
interferometer with four modes of operation. One continuous
mode is the Tesla shield, which places a thin, impenetrable
.hemispherical sheU of energy over a large defended area.
The 3-dimensional sheU is created by interfering two Fourier- .
expansion, 3-dimensional scalar hemispherical patterns in
space so they pair-couple into a ,dome-like shell of intense,
ordinary electromagnetic energy. The air molecules and

atoms in the shell are totally ionized and thus highly excited,
giving o.ff intense, glowing light. Anything physical which
hits the shell receives an enormous discharge of electrical
energy and is instantly vaporized-it goes pfft!-ljke a bug
hitting one of the electrical bug killers now so much in vogue.
If several of these hemispherical shells are concentrically
stacked, even the gamma radiation and EMP from a highaltitude nuclear explosion above the stack cannot penetrate
all the shells due to repetitive absorption and re-radiation,
and scattering in th~ layered plasmas.
In the continuous shield mode, the Tesla interferometer is
fed by a bank of Moray free-energy generators, so that enormous energy is available in the shield. A diagram of the

.References (continued)
SO. Golka, Robert K. and Bass, Robert W., "Tesla's Ball Light- .
ning Theory, a BKG-Wave, The Ransworth Effec:t, and the
'Hydrotron' Elec:trostatic-Inertial Self.confined Plasmoid Concept." (Paper presented at tI)e Annual Controlled Fusion Theory
Conference, San Diego, Cal.~ May 4-6,1977.)....
51. Popovic, Prof. Vojin, "Research of Nikola Tesla in the
Light of His Diary from Colorado Springs," 10 pp. (Diary
contains details of investigations for determining nodal points
in the earth as a conductor of waves and comments on "fire
globes.")
52. Curtis,'George D., Ph.D., "An Electromagnetic Radiation
Pattern Over the Ocean," Undersea Technology, Vol. 5, No.8,
.August 1964. Curtis reports the presence of a previously unknown weak elec:tromagnetic radiation pattern over the ocean.
When all known effec:ts are accounted for, the anomalous pattern still remains.
.
53. Santilli, R. M., "Partons and Gravitation: Some Puzzling
Questions," Annals oj Physics, Vol. 83, No.1, March 1974,
pp. 108-157. In tlUi paper Santilli proved that one of the comer- .
stone assumptions of physics...:....that elec:tric field and gravitation
are separate things-is false. One is therefore left with only
two choices: either they are totally the same thing, or they are
partially the same thing. (Comment: Note that the 84 Tesla
potential provides the unifying connec:tion.)
54. Science News, Vol. 113, No.1, Jan. 7, 1978, p. 3. A photo
by T. Kuribayashi of the earthquake lights involved in the Matsushiro earthquake swarm (1965-1967). This is the only known
photo of earthquake lights.
55. Wiedemann, C. Louis, "Results of the N.J. 'Spook Light'
Study," Vestigia Newsletter, Vestigia, RD 2, Brookwood Rd.,
Stanhope, NJ 07874, May 1977, pp. 1-3. This article describes
an ongoing Vestigia experiment in which a nocturnal light or
"mystery light" was SCientifically photogral!hed in conjunction
with visual sightings and instrumental recordings of data. Various later issues of the Vestigia Newsletter contain other update
a~cles on the phenomenQn.
56. Moray, T. Henry,. The. Sea ojEnergy, fifth edition, History
and BiOgraphy by John E. Moray, Foreword by Tom Bearden:
Cosray Research'Institute, 2505 South 4th East, Salt Lake City,
Utah 84115, 1978. 10 addition to his free-energy device, Moray
also bunt a special radio which he used to clearly listen to Admiral
Byrd at the South Pole. No static was experienced on Moray's
radio, showing he was not USing ordinary electromagnetics. In
another experiment he built a device which he couldl tune to
listen to persons several miles distant, so that their voices sounded
as if they were immediately nearby. Both devices' were demonstrated to a visiting Russian colonel/Ph.D.

57. I. Procaccia, J. Ross, Science, 198, 716 (Nov. 1" 1977).

Describes Prigogine's Nobel Prize-winDing work on t~ermOdy
namics of nonUnear systems far from thermodynamic equilib-

rium. Prigogine's ,work shows that such a system can indeed

demonstrate negentrOpy. Out of unrestrained disorder can and
does arise order, contrary to the old thermodynamics.
58. "Persinger's "Earthquake Lights'-Ho-Hum," Frontiers of .

Science, Vol. III, No.3, March-April 1981, p. 15-16. Gives

cogent and "falal" objections to Persinger's "earthquake light"
scheme for explaining UFOs. Mentions Dr. Brian Brady's experiments which obtained fast, short .ell!1=trical lights or sparks
from crushing quartz-bearing granite cylinders. (Comment: The
Brady experiments are certainly repeatable, so it is true that
"earthstress lightst' can be produced. at a distance, although the
piezoelec:tric effec:t alone in no way explains the production of
the phenomenon outside the piezoelectric crystal. The fact that
UFOs occurring near a fault zone are not nec:essarily repeatable
simply means that at least one other major factor must be involved in. the production of UFOs than is involved in the pro. duction of earthstress lights. UFOs may sometimes involve scalar interferometry from a fault zone, but other causative factors
must also be involved. Earthstress lights, however, need have
no additional causative factors than what lies in the earth itself.)
59. Jackson, John David, Clossical ElectrodY7Ulmics, Sec:ond
Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1975, p. 223.
60. Roberts, Gwynne, "Witness to a Super Weapon?", the
Sunday Times, London, Aug. 17, 1980. Article deals with a
strange semicircular phenomenon seen inside the Soviet Union
from Afghanistan in September 1979 by Nick Downie, a former
member of the SAS who has established a considerable reputation as a war cameraman. Downie saw the phenomenon twice,
and later met an A,ghan who had seen it several months before. A possibly related phenomenon is reported in Brackenbridge, M., "Unidentified Phenomenon," Marine Observer, 48:
21-22, 1978. Note the first "nuclear flash" was detec:ted by
Vela satellite on September 22, 1979--dose to the time of the
Downie sightings.
61. Bearden, Tom and Crawford, Hal, "Possible Soviet Test
of a Testa Weapon," Speculll, journal of the A.A.M.S., Vol. 3,
No.2, April-June 1980, p. 29. See also Specu/Q 3, 2, 30-32 by
Bearden and Cniwford. Tliese reports are from CIA reports released under the Freedom of Infomiation Act.
62. Bearden, Thomas E., The Excalibur Briefmg, Strawberry
HiII.Press, San Francisco, 198 [See review, page 134~[d.1
63. Muldrew, D. B., "Generation of Long-Delay, Echoes,!'
Journal of Geophysical Research, 84: 5199-5215, 1979. For
. anomalous long delays of elec:tromagnetic signals in the atmosphere, Muldrew favors a rather complex interaction between
signals from separate transmitters that (theoretica.lly at least)
can create a long-lived electrostatic wave that travels in the
ionosphere-a sort of natural memory device. The coded signals could then be read out much later when the proper natural
conditions developed. Delays of up to 40 seconds might be
possible with this "ionospheric memory."

Pursuit 118

Third Quarter 1981

Saryshagan-type Tesla howitzer is shown in figure 7. Artist

Hal Crawford has rendered the interferometer end of the
Tesla howitzer in figure 6, and the Tesla shield .produced by
the howitzer in figure 8.
In the pulse mode, a single, intense 3-dimensional scalar
0-field pulse form is fired, using two truncated Fourier transforms, each involving several frequencies, to provide the
proper 3-dimensional shape (figure 10). This explains why
two scalar antennas separated by a baseline are required.
After a time-delay calculated for the particular target, a second and faster pulse-form of the same shape is fired fr.om
the interferometer antennas. The second pulse overtakes the
first .. catching it over the target zone and pair-coupling with
it to instantly form a violent EMP of ordinary vector (Hertzian) electromagnetic energy. Thus there is no ve9tor transmission loss between the howitzer and the burst. Moreover,
the coupling time is extremely short, and the energy will
appear sharply in an "electromagnetic pulse (EMP)" very
similar to the 2-pulsed EMP of a nuclear weapon.
Rererences (concluded)

64. Zhugzhda, Yu. D., Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism,

Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation, "Magnetogravitational Waves in a Conducting Isothermic Atmosphere~" Moscow Astronomicheskiy Zhugzhda,. Vol. 56, No.1, 1979, pp.
74-83. Among other things, the paper indicates the possibility
of transforming longitudinal waves into transverse waves in the
region of a strong magnetic field.
65. Ranada, Antonio and Vazquez, Luis, "Kinks and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle," Physical Review D, Vol. 19,
No.2, Jan. IS, 1979, pp. 493-495. Shows that the velocity and
position of the center of a kink, soliton, or solitary wave can
be known with arbitrary precision, in violation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. (Comment: A Fourier-transformed
scalar Tesla wave pattern is either a soliton or closely related
to it.)
66. Don Moser, Photographs by Blair Pittman, "Big Thicket
of Texas, NatiofUll Geographic, Vol. 146, No.4, October 1974,
pp. 504-529. The author photographed a "ghost light" or nocturnal spooklite-i.e., an earthstress light. The photo is shown
. .
in the article.
67.. Gehring, Gillian, "Actinide magnet.ism: an extraordinary
tale," Nature, Vol. 279, May 3, 1979, pp. 16-18. Anomalous
&agnetic properties-including spin orbit coupling as a large
effect-are exhibited by actinide intermetallics containing uran-
ium. Present theOry QlDnot explain these effects.
68. Gintsburg, M. A., lristitute of Terrestrial Magnetism, the
Ionosphere, and Radio-Wave Propagation, Academy of Sciences
of the USSR, Astron. Zh. 51: 218-221, Jan.-Feb. 1974, pp. 128130. Among other things, the article points out that thus far a
Fourier analysis in mass electrodynamics has not- been niade.
One property characteristic of mass electrodynamics is the existence of longitudinal electromagnetic waves in vacuo; i.e.,
longitudinal photons. They have not yet been discovered but
theoretically they are entirely possible.
69. Burman, R., "A Photon Rest Mass and the Propagation
of Longitudinal Electric Waves in Interstellar and Intergalactic
Space," J. Phys. A: Math, Nucl. Gen., Vol. 6, March 1973,
pp: 434-444. This paper on longitudinal electric waves in plasma may be very important. Weber may be detecting 100igitudinal
electric waves. Proca waves can go faster or slower than c.
70. Klass, Philip J., "Anti-Satellite Laser Use Suspected,"
Aviation Week & Aerospace Technology, Dec. 8, 1975, pp.
11-13. Some details on the "laser blinding" of U.S. satellites
by the Soviets. On one occasion, the satellite was blinded for

'I1Iird Quarter 1981

A weapon of this type is what actually caused the mysterious flashes off the southwest coast of Africa, picked up in
1979 and 1980 by Vela satellites. The second flash, e.g., was
in the infrared only, with no visible spectrum. Nuclear flashes
do not do that; neither does supetlightning, meteorite strikes,
or meteors. In addition; one of the scientists at the 'Arecibo
Ionospheric Observatory detected a gravitational wave dis. turbance-signature of the truncated Fourier pattern and
the time-squeezing effect of the Tesla potential wave-traveling toward the vicinity of the explosion.
The puls~ mode may be fed from either Moray generators
or-if the Moray generators have suffered their anomalous
"all fail" malfunction-ordinary explosive generators. Thus
the Tesla howitzer can always function in the pulse mode,
but it will belimited in power if the Moray generators fail.
In the continuous mode, two continuous scalar waves are
emitted-one faster than the other-and they pair-couple
into vector energy at the region where they approach an
in-phase condition. In this mode, the energy in the distant
four hours. (Comment: difficult to explain with current laser
technology, but simple to explain with Tesla scalar interferometry.)
,
.
71. "Soviets Build Directed-Energy Weapon," Aviation Week
& Space Technology, July 28, 1980, pp. 57-60. Presl:!nts a back. ground summary in Soviet particle beam weapon work, particularly the device being constructed at Saryshagan.
72. "Scientists Fail to Solve Vela Mystery," Science, Vol. 207,
Feb. 1, 1980, pp. 504-506. See also article in Science, Nov. 30,
1979.
73. "Satellite Evidence Shows 'Possibility' of Nuclear Test,
DOD Says," A.erospace f!aily, Oct. 29, 1979, p. 286.
74. "A Flash of Light," Newsweek, Nov. 5, 1979, pp. 64-65. .
75. "Was It a Nuclear Device?", -Newsweek, July 21, 1980,
p.19.
76. "A Nuclear Blast--()r "Zoo Animals'?", Newsweek, April 7,
1980, p. 21.
.
-'"
77. "Diverging Views," Washington Roundup, Aviation WeeK
& Space Technology, July 21, 1980, p. 15. \...
78. Klass, Philip J., "Clandestine Nuclear Test Doubted,"
Aviation Week & Space. Technology, .Aug. 11, 1980, pp. 67,
.n~

79. "Debate Continues on the Bomb that Wasn't,;' Science,

Vol. 109, Aug. I, 1980, pp. 572-573.
80. "Navy Lab Concludes the Vela Saw a Bomb," Science,
Vol. 209, Aug. 29, 1980, pp. 996-997.
81. Bloch, . Ingram and Crater, Horace, "Lorentz-Invariant
Potentials and the Nonrelativistic Limit," Am. J. Phys. 49(1),
January 1981, pp. 67-75. This interesting paper points out,
among other things, some decidedly unusual and unfaniiliar
influences of the size of the scalar potential upon what is considered nonrelativistic behavior. For scalar potential energy of
appreciable size relative to a particle~s rest energy, ordinary Newtonian mechanics and the Schrodinger equation may be inadequate, even if vic is small.
82. Semon, Mark D. and Schmieg, Glenn M., "Note on the
Analogy between Inertial and Electromagnetic Forces," Am.
J. Phys. 49(7), July 1981, pp. 689~. Compares physical
forces in a rotating frame with electromagnetic forces in a'Newtonian frame. The transverse mechanical force in a rotating
frame is directly analagous to, and behaves exacdy like, the
force associated with an induced EMF in a New\pDian frame.
.83. Harlacher, Von Wolfgang M., "Bomben aus dem Hyperraum," Esotera, April 4, 1979, pp. 359-365.

Pursuit 119

"'ball" or geometric region would appear continuously and

be sustained-and this is Tesla's secret of wireless transmission of energy at a distance without any losses. It is also
the secret of a "continuous fireball" weapon capable of
destroying hundreds of aircraft or missiles at a distance.
An example of a Soviet test of this mode of operation js
shown in figure 11.
The volume of the Tesla fireball can be vastly expanded
to ~eld a globe which will not physically "vapoiize" vehicles
. but will deliver an EMP to them sufficient to dtid their electronics. A test of this mode is shown in figure 12. (See also
Gwynne Roberts, "Witness to' a Super Weapon?" in the
London Sunday Times, August 17, 1980, for several .other
tests of this mode at Saryshagan, seen from Afghanistan by
British TV cameraman and former ~ar correspondent Nick
Downie.)

TESLA HOWITZER
(SCA~AR INTERFEROMETER)

T.

Figure 10.
'Nuclear' Flashes
off the Coast
of Africa

If the Moray generators fail anomalously, a continuous

mode of limited power and range could conceivably be sustained by powering the interferometer from more-conventional power sources""":'advanced magnetohydrodynainic
generators, for example. .
.
Typical strategic ABM uses of tesla weapons are shown
on the front cover (top drawing). Other, smaller Tesla howitzer systems for anti-tactical ballistic missile defense of
.troops and tactical installationS could be constituted of moreconventional field missile systems by using paired or triplet
radars, of conventioDaJ. external appearance, in a scalar
.
interferometer m o d e . '
With Moray generators as power sources and multiply deployed reentry ~ehicles with scalar antennas and transmitters,
ICBM reentry systems now can. beco.me "blasters" of the
target areas from thousands of kilometers of distance. (See'
front cover, lower drawing.) Literally, "Star Wars" is made
possible by the Tesla technology. In air attack, jammers and
ECM aircraft become "Tesla blasters." With the Tesla technology, emitters become primary fIghting components. of
stunning power.
The potential peaceful implications of Tesla waves are
also enormous. By utilizing the "time-squeeze" effect, one
can get antigravity, materialization and dematerialization,
transmutation, and mindboggling medical benefits. One can
also get subluminal and superluminal communication, see
through the earth and through the ocean. The new view of
"-field provides a unified field theory, higher orders of reality, and a new super-relativity.
. With two cerebral brain halves, the human being has. a
Tesla sca1ar interferometer between his ears. Since the brain
alic{ nervous system processes avalanche discharges, it can
produce (and detect) scalar Tesla waves to at"ieast a limited
degree. Thus a human carl sometimes produce anomalQus
spatiotemporai effects at a distance and through time. These
provide an exact mechanism for psychokinesis, levitation,

.......,,120

CIA REPORT RELEASED UIDER FOIA

'LlTHUANIA
10 SEP 1978

Figu~

BRITISH
EU.ROPEAN
AIRWAYS
FLIGHT #831
BETWEEN .
MOSCOW AID
LONDON
11.

Continuous Tesla Fireball

Third Quarter 1981 .

CIA REPORT RELEASED UNDER FOIA

TEHERAI. IRAN
n JUNE 1988

.1

\;i

SEEN FRol NEAR MEHRABAD AIRPORT

OBSERVED 4-5 MINUTES
SEEN BY 2 AIRCRAFT
Figure 12.

Continuous Tesia EMP Globe

Table 5.
PHOTONS ABE
PAIHOUPLED SCALABS
IELOCITHIIITED TO C
CARBIERS OF T

Orders of Reality:
PHOTO I IITERACTlON
IS UIIOUITOUS
PBODUCES t: C
YIELDS Iii ORDEIIEAU"

SCALAR 0 WAUS
lOT IELOCITHIIlITED
YIELD HIBBER ORDER REAUTIES

EXECUTIVE IIiEUMATRIII
1111111111 rullll 1

PROBLEI
PARAM ET ERS ~--f---tl
COIOITIORS

Figure 13.

psychic healing, tele~thy, precognition, postcognition, remote viewing and the like. It also provides a reason why an
individual can detect a "stick" on a' radionics or Hieronymous machine (which processes scalar waves): when ordinary detectors detect nothing. Tbere is not room to develop
here the implications of this Tesla human interferometry in
detail.
At the July 1981 annual conference of the U.S. Psychotronics Association in Dayton, Ohio .. I presented the first
rough paper on the Tesla secret and scalar interferometry.
A videotape of the presentation will shortly be available.
I am scheduled to make a special presentation at the Alternate Energy Conference in Toronto, Ontario, late in October
1981. A two-hour presentation on videotape is also being
prepared. Wide distribution of the material through the
international underground physics-and-technology network
has already been made. This time, God willing, Tesla's secret
will not be suppressed, for I truly believe that Tesla's lost
secret will shortly affect the life or" every human being on
earth.
Perhaps with the free and open release of Tesla's secret,
the scientific and governmental ~ureaucracies will be shocked
awake from their slumber and we can develop defenses before Armageddon occurs. Perhaps there is hope, for even
Brezhnev, in his strange July 1975 proposal to the SALT
negotiators, seemed to reveal a perception that a turning
point in war and weapOnry may have been reached, and
that human imagination is incapable of dealing with the
ability to totally engineer' reality itself. Having tested the
weapons, the Soviets must be aware that the ill-provoked
oscillation of timeflow affects the minds and thoughts-and
the very lifestreams and even the collective species unconsciousness-of an lifefonns on' earth. They must know that
these weapons are t~o-edged swords, and that the backlash
from their use can be far more terrible to the user than was
the cataclysmic effect intended for the victim.
If we can avoid obliteration, the fantastic secret of Nikol80
Tesla can be employed to cure and elevate man, not kill him.
Tesla's discovery can eventually remove every conceivable
human limitation. If we humans can raise our consciousness
to properly use the Testa electromagnetics, the man who gave
us the electric twentieth century may yet give us a fantastic
future more shining and glorious than an the great'scientists
and sages ever imagined.
, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

SOLUTIOIIS

I am much indebted to Mr. Carey Briggs for furnishing references which strongly. support the existence of scalar potential
waves and scalar interferometry. Among those papers are:
Whittaker (1903), Nisbet (1955), and other papers dealing with
Hertzian potentialtheory. As ever, my profound gratitude is
due Hal Crawford for his splendid illustrations which accompany
this paper. I am also indebted to John Ratzlaff and the Tesla
Book Company for graciously furnishing important Tesla references for me to analyze. My sincere thanks go to Messrs. Jim
Deal and Williard Van de Bogart for furnishing important
references on exoelectron emission and tectonic fault zones, and
to Dr. Robert Beck for furnishing important material on the
Rogers underground and undersea transmission system. Other
assistance was also received from Mr. Peter Kelly, Joe Siegeldorf,
Joe Gambill, and Bob Deutlich. I am also very appreciative of
the information furnished by Bob Jones and Vestigia on the
beautiful Vestigia mystery-light experiments. -T.E.B.

Imp6cations of Tesla Potential

1bInI Qaader 1981

Pursuit 121

Sketch, by the author

51

HeA~

c.. .ee;l4T, v~
LiqUT

r"~',
;)

14D""5\V~

.-i="iet..'1

and relationships. The following chart shows only those

qualities pertinent to the understanding of this artiCle. .
Symbol

A Brief Description of the

. Trigrams of the I Ching
The trigram is a .three-line figure made up of either
YIN or YANG lines. The YIN line is shown thus: - and the YANG line is shown thus: - . YIN stands
for feminine, receptive and dark qualities. YANG stands
for masculine, creative and light qualities. Yin and yang
are the fllSt differentiations of the undifferentiated wholeneSs or TAO. There are eight possible combinations of
yin and yang lines in a three-line fIgUre or trigram ..
Each trigram represents different elements, qualities

........,,122

-- _.

---

Form

Quality

EARTH

RECEPTIVITY

THUNDE~

ACTIVITY

ABYSS

DANGER

LAKE

JOYOUSNESS

MOUNTAIN

STILLNESS

FIRE

DEPENDENCE

TRpE/WIND

PENETRATION

HEAVEN

CREATIVITY

Each h~ is made up of two trigrams. There are

. therefore sixty-four hexag~ms, each composed of six
lines.

'I1IInI Quan_ 1981

I Ching Notebook
by Rocleric SorreU
1981 Roderic Sorrell

AS

PART of my experimentation with the I Ching, I

decided to a"ttempt predictions of specific events that
could later be checked for accuracy. The events that seemed
to be the most suitable for this experiment were national'
elections. They were objective events, the results of which
could not be disfmted. The interpretation of the divination
was on a simple yes/no basis: Would this or that particular
candidate win, or would he lose? All I had to d9 was to
evaluate by degree the hexagrams thrown for each of the
candidates.
,
As far as possible, I have taken into account the effect of
the experimenter (me) upon the 'experiment. If a question is
asked with a view to testing the person questioned, one particular answer will be obtained. The same question can be
asked with the simple intenti9n of discovering the answer.
Both' answers will be different. Having at least clarified the
matter of my intention, I proceeded.
Before describing the specific results, I should explain
that generally two, but sometimes only 'one, hexagram or
image is obtained in answer to a question. The answers were
obtained by randomly throwing three coins onto a level
surface six times., The combiriation of heads and tails determined the hexagrams obtained. (The trigrams which .go
to make up the hexagrams of the I Ching are briefly out. lined elsewhere on this page and in the diagram on the page
opposite.)
The interpretation is dealt with as simply as possible.
A more-detailed analysis would show additional correlations
between the hexagrams and the actual event; however, to
avoid getting bogged down in detail it seems best to simply
IQok at the overall results and consider briefly the implications of the experiment and discuss what possible lines of
further research they suggest.
Each reading was completed before the particular election
took place. Every hexagram has a number denoting its position in the I Ching, much like a book with 64 chapters.
These are denoted as "~29," "H6," etc.

November 1976 U.S. Presidential Election

Question: HOW WILL FORD DO?
Result:

H29
DANGER

H6
CONFLICT
Each hexagram ,has a name; the two here are Danger and
Conflict. The first hexagram, which is the more important,
is composed of the trigram danger doubled. This does not
. look good for President Ford.
Question: HOW WILL CARTER DO?
Result:

HI
THE CREATIVE

H34
GREAT POWER
The first hexagr~ is composed entirely of yang lines: this
is a very potent hexagram. As indicated, Carter won over
Ford, though unexpectedly.

March 1977 Indian General Election

Question: HOW WILL INDIRA GHANDI DO?
Result:

H36

H5
CALCULATED
THE LIGHT
WAITING
Darkening of the Light, composed of the trigrams fire
under the earth, indicated that she would not win. However, the second hexagram of Calculated Waiting indicated
that she would not be out of the political arena for good.
This turned out to be true, for she has now won over the
Janata Party which defeated her in 1977.

DARKENINa'O~

==

The diagram on the opposite page shows a cube with a trigram at each point. The connecting lines connect trigrams similar in all but one
where the bOllom line changes; they also move to
where the middle
line. For example, from - the lines move to
line changes; and to _ _
where the top line changes. The number next to the Chinese symbol is the numerical equivalent of the Chinese
binary symbol. Below that is shown the natural form normally associated with the trigrams such as Thunder, Mountain and Lake. Below
that is shown its quality, such as Malleability, Stability or Receptiyity. Below that is shown the elemental activity (HSING in Chinese); this
is similar to the European alchemical elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water; in addition there are the elements of Metal, Wood, Light and
Void. I have given them adjectival rather than noun aescriptions as the word HSING indicateS a process 'or activity rather than a thing, such
'
,
as metal or wood.
The trigrams and hexagrams are built organically from the bottom upward, the first line being the lowest. The hexagrams are built out
of two trigrams: The lower one describes the inner, closer-to-home, fundamental and maybe subconscious condition; the upper trigram
describes the out-there-in-the-world, manifested and conscious condition. Also, the lower trigram may be described as the octave and the
upper trigram as the note in that octave.
'
The study of the way the various trigrams relate to and affect each other is naturally as complex as the number of pj:rmutations available between the eight trigrams; likewise for the six-line figure or hexagram. They follow basic rules that make sense and present a coherent
structure. For example,
= 4 = Mountain = Stabilizing = Earthy. Ca~s which. need to hold the road and buildings because they
need stability are built with four wheels, walls or corners. The mountain as a natural feature of the landscape symbolizes this stability. If
you describe someone as "earthy" this same characteristic is brought to mind .
. The I Ching provides us with a logical, coherent and evocative language.

=-=

Third Qaaner 1981

Pursuit 123
,;'

Qu~tion:

HOW WILL THE JANATA PARTY DO?

.~,

Result:
H9
. THE TAMING
POWER OF
THE SMALL

H26

....

THETAMI~O

POWER OF
THE GREAT

Two important points in interpretation emerge at this stage

of the expe].iment. First, an accumulation of rel!ults builcb up
an understanding of a hexagram's meaning where it repeats
in a similar context, in this case, the similar context of winning an election .. Second, a hexagram is not necessarily eith~ .
favorable or unfavorable but depends, as indicated by the
second hexagram', The Wanderer (above, right), upon the
coritext to which. it is applied.

May 1979 United Kingdom General E;lection

This was b~ween the incumbent Lab~r Party headed by
Jaines -Canaghan and the Conservative Party with Margaret
Thatcher its chojce for Prime !\'Iinister. .
, Question: HOW WlLLTHE,LABORPARTY:po?
.Result:
..

.--

H42
H27
NOl)j{ISHIN"G
INCREASE
'Both hexagrams ind.icate a positive r~ult: an increased
majority likely and a, position of nourishing his peOple as
leader.
'
Question: HOW WILL MARCHAIS DO~
Result:
H4
H64
IMMATURITY
BEFORE
COMPLETION
This indicates that March8is is not yet ready; the Com:munist Party was engaged in a lot of internal wrangling and
apparently was not mature enough to hold a position of
power.
Question: HOW WILt MITTERAND DO?
Result:

-_.
_.

.'

,I

H39
H48
THE WELL
OBSTACLES
Both hexagrams contain the trigram of Danger. By combining the names of the two hexagrams it could be said that
Mitterand would encounter obstacles in his search for the
.
wen, or source of power, i.e., the presidency. '.
Question: HOW WILL CHlRAC PO?
Result:
_

H6
HS6
CONFLICT
..
THE WANDERER
The fi~t thing to observe here is thai the first hexagram~
Coriflict, is,the same as Ford's second hexagram:"":"not a good
indication. The Wanderer could well be a good indication
if a journey were being contemplated, but in this context i~ .
indicated a departure from the field of politics fonowinga
defeat. As indicated, Giscard d'~taing won,the election. ,":';

........,,124 ..,

H36
.
H62
OVER-DEVELOP- DARKENING
OF THE LIGHT
OPMENTOF
THE SMALL
The first thing to notice. is that the second hexagiam is
the same as the one Indira Ghandi got" on losing the Indian
election: Darke,!ing oj the Light. The first hexagram, Overdevelopment oj the Small, implies. a situatio~ in which ~he
Labor Party is not sufficiently strong for the position .of
governance. Compare this to the hexagram the Janata' Party
got in the Indian election; that of The Taming Power oj the
Small, which indicated the ability to capture a position of
power ..
',Question: HOW WILL THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
DO?
Result: .
H35
,H23
PROGRESS
SPLITTING
APART
The first thing to notice is that the Labor Party's second
hexagram and the Conservative Party'.s second hexagram
both contain the same trigrams, but in reversed position. In
. one, fire' is: und~ .l.he ear.th; in the :other, fire is' over the
earth. The'symbolism is clear enough. here. .. I.
.
. I was a little confused about the first hexagram, Splitting
Apart, a hexagram with generally unfavorable implications
pOinting to decay and collapse. On referring to the context
it was clear. tbanhe Conservative Party intended the collapse
of the Labor Party which was then in power. This seemed
to make more sense because it was the Labor Party which
was threatened with collapse, not the Conservatives who,
nof then being in power, had little to It>se. As indiCflted, the
Conservative Party gained power.
The next election to consider was the upcoming 'U.S. Presidential eleCtion in November 1980. Unlike the examples of
other elections given above, the outcome of the 1980 race.
for the White House seemed as unpredictable as any in history; I consulted the I Ching .many times on the prospects
of the various candidates. I started before the two major
parties nominated their candidates, and of course the nominations were the first issue that had to be resolved. Then,
l:'cOuld not'believe that Ronald Reagan would .become the

ThinI Qauter 1981

next President of the United States; the les~on to be learped

here is that the investigator must always be 'careful to main-.
tain objectivity throughout the investigative process.

1980 U.S. Presidential Election

I did a total of 19'predictions as to the outcome of the
1980 Presidential race-that many because of the corrjplex
early stages which involved a large number of Republican contenders for the nomination. Here are the readings in the
order I did them. In so many readings, a total of up to 38
hexagrams were involved, with the attendant risk of great
confusion. I shall therefore keep to the bare bones of 'the
interpretation and not attempt a detailed analysis. It is my
intention to show a valid correspondence between the results
obtained by tossing coins and th~ results obtained by counting votes. This correspondence, because it is not linked by a
cause-and-effec~ relationship, is synchronistic in nature. That
doesn't tell us anything; it just feels better to give it a name.
The first set of readings I did on November 10, 1979, the
objective being to discover the Presidential nominee from
each party-not who would be elected, but who would be
nominated. For the Democrats,. the contest was clearly between Carter, Kennedy and Brown ..
Here is the result for Jimmy"Carter:

=-=

=:

line 3 moving to H35

CARTER: H56
(Nominee) .
This looks fairly good. H56 is .called the Traveller, which
. does indicate. a person out of his element. However, I felt it
reflected the enormou~ amount of campaigning he was relying on for support. The third line spoke of careless behavior
causing loss of support. The hexagram it then moved to H35
is call~d Progress. This hexagr~m was also received by the
Conservative Party in the United Kingdom for the May 1979
general election. It was also the second hexagram; and the
Conservative Party won the election. Suggested was that
Carter would get the nomination but with diminished support; to be certain, I was going to have to compare this with
the other results.
Next was Edward Kennedy and his chances for the Democratic nomination.
'

-=-=
__

...

-=-='.
__

KENNEDY: H41
line I 'moving tQ.H~
(Nominee)
-'
:; ., - - .
H41 is called Decline or DecreaSe. Although it points to a
later flowering, it does not indicate immediate success. Line 1
tells of a man giving up his own position to help a superior
and the difficulties entailed in giving and receiving such help.
H4 is called Inexperience. Youthful Folly. Immaturity ,or
Acquiring Experience. This is the same second hexagram as
the one that Marchais obtained for his bid in the French
general election of 1977. But Marchais failed, and I felt that
Kennedy also would fail. It was indicated,' however, that -he
would lend his support to the winner.
,
The third possible candidate was California's goverJ:lor,
Jerry Brown.
BROWN: H23 ~ ~ no ,moving lines
(Nominee)
H23 is called Deterioration. Splitting Apart or Shedding: In
the 1979 United Kingdom general election the Conservative
Party received H23 as a first hexagram; the Conservaiives:

1bInI Qaart. 1981

won. However, they had Ii second hexagram, H35, which is

very favorable. Brown is locked into H23 with no moving
lines. Margaret -Thatcher was attempting the splitting-apart
of the Labor Party then in power; her position of power
within the Conservative Party was not in dispute. Governor
Brown, on the other hand, was seeking approval as an out-
side chance. The circumstances made this an, unfavorable
hexagram for Brown in his position.
I
,In view' of the obvious likelihood of Carter winning the
_I:tomination and the generally more favorable reading I had
obtained for him, I felt that he would gain the Democratic
-nomination, albeit with diminished support.
,Now for the Republican Paity. At the time (November
1979) there were a dozen or so announced candidates. Four
seemed to be in the forefront: Reagan, Baker, Connally and
Haig. This judgment was based upon political realism plus
dash of personat-eValuation.
First, Ronald Reagap.

REAGAN: H35 ; ; line 6 moving to HI6 - (No~inee)

- ...
Again we see H35. This is the third time it has come up in
,our investigation thus far. A quotation. from the original
3000-year-old text seems pertinent: "Rising above the hori,lon. In the rotation of a day, thrice to receive subjects. The
contented Prince must grant horses in great abundance."
(J. K. Shchutskii: Researches on the I Ching, Routledge &
- Kegan Paul 1980) The moving sixth line indicates a favorable
self-disciplinary action, which Reagan did indeed take when
he dismissed his more liberal-minded New York campaign
advisers and reverted to his own brand of mid-west conser'vatism.
H16 is called Harmonize or Enthusiasm. The text here
~tates that it is beneficial ". . . to install heipers and to set
armies marching." (Wilhelm/Baynes: I Ching, Routledge &
Kegan Paul 1967) Prospects are very good,. for Reagan.

==

'CONNALLY: H25'
no moving lines
(Nominee)
,
H25 is called Innocence or the Unexpected. This hexagram
indicates unexpected misfortune-for schemers and good fortune for the spontaneous and the innocent. In view of the
scheming nature of political life I was certain this was not a
favorable indication.,
. Next, Howard Baker.
BAKER: HJ6 ;;; moving lines 2 and 4 to H7 __
- , '
HI6 we recogriize as Reagan's second hexagram. The two
moving lines are favorable, indicating firmness and popularity.' Baker's second hexagram, H7, is called the Army; it
indicates discipline and mourning. This hexagram is associated with the tarot card The Lightning Struck Tower or
War, as Aleister CrowleY calls it. This would be favorable
in a military situation, but less favorable in Baker's case
than in Reagan's,' H7 represents the field general rather than
the; co~mander-in-chief.
.
Next, General Alexander Haig.
~ominee)

flAIG: H7 :::: moving Jines.1, 4 and 6 to H38 (Nominee) - H7 we have discovered as Baker's second hexagram. The
PursuIt 125

three moving lines indicate a need to set order and ascertain

the righteousness of the cause, then an orderly retreat, and
finally, success. At the time I could not figure out this backand-forth of fortunes. It did not favor the gaining of the
nomination, yet the winning of some sort of public office
was indicated. H38, the second hexagram, is called Contradiction, Opposition or Alienation; and it confirmed the
indication that Haig would not be nominated.
Three days later (November 13, 1979) I reaIizedlhat I had
missed someone who might "make.it"; he was well down. the
list of possibles, but his name was appearing more and m<:lre
frequently. How about George Bush for the Republican
. nomination?
.

moving ithird line indicated misfortune from over-ambition

and not letting things take their course. ,This lax feelil!g was
emphasized by the secondltexagram, H57, called Penetrating
Influence or the Gentle, the image of trees gently waving in
the wind.
A.t this time' I was not sure who would win, although
Bush' looked to be a better bet than Carter. 1 did no more
until March 14, 1980 when John Anderson was forging'
ahead as the independent Republican populist. Although I
personally did not hold out much hope 'for his chances,
I was persuaded that he did have a chance~ and on that
basis I consulted the I Ching-first, on his.'chance of gaining'
the Republican nomination.
I

'.

BUSH: HI
moving lines 5 and 6 to H34
(Nominee) Wow! The chances of a combination appearing twice ar~
64 X 64 to 1, or 4096: 1. This is the same combination that
Carter got when he won over Ford in the previous national
election held four years ago.
.
HI is called the Creative Power. The moving lines, as with
Carter, indicate great success followed by an overextension
'of power and collapse. H34 is called Great Power, and is
unusually auspicious in worldly affairs.
.'
I' was certain at this stage that George Bush would b~
nominated; the synchronicity with Carter's reading was too
close to overlook. I was even convinced that he would be:come President and made the mistake of so advising a friend,
who promptly put a $50 bet on Bush.' ~eerris I was a bit
premature in my evaluation!
At this point 1 realized there were some serious errors in.
procedure. To regain a proper perspective I felt the need for
a comparative evaluation of the chances of those I believed .
would be the nomin~ of the two parties; then I would have
to ask again for the nominees' chances of being elected to
the Presidency. 1 had to know whether Bush's reading just"
answered my question about his chance of being nominated~
or was it going on from there and predicting that he would
be the next President? It certainly wasn't enough to assume
that Bush should be favored over Reagan because Bush had
come up with tpe same;: combination of hexagrams as Carter
in the previous election that Carter had won. At this time
I was convinced that the contest for the nation's highest
office would be Qetween Jimmy Carter and George Bush.
S9 I next asked for Bush's chances at the Presidency.
BUSH: H56 : : lines 3 and 6 moving to H16 ;;:;
(Presidency) - H56, the Traveller, is one we have had before with Carter's
chances at the nomination. H16, En,husiasm, we have also
had in' Baker's and Reagan's chances for the. nomination.
The moving lines indicate loss of support thrpugh meddlesome and careless behavior. The fortune looked unfavorable but with some compensation in the"second hexagram. "~
Now for Carter's chance at maintaining his incumbency ..'

==.

CA,RTER: H53
line 2 moving to H57 - (Presidency)
- .
- .
H53 is called Developing or Gradual Progress; This' indi~
cates a slow, organic unfolding of events upon a traditional
and well-trod path, favorable enough -but without the zip
and p~ needed to win a Presid~ntial campaign. The
Pursuit 126

='line.1,moving to H19.

A~DERSbN: H1 ::
- (Nominee) . '

H'j~

ttid Army, we have seen before,

with Baker and flaig.

moving line .warns of misfortune if order is not kept.
H19 is caUed Proll'Jotion .or Approach. This left me uncertain as to what might happen, s<:l I then checked on the
Anderson: chances for the Presidency.
Th~

ANDERSON: H46 =
no moving lines
(Presidency) .
H46 is called Advancement or Pushing Upward. It shows
a t'r~ slowly p~sJ1ing'its way up through the earth. All of
Aridersen's hexagrams have. the image of the soil on the
outer or upper trigram of the hexagram; upward motion,
but' not yet time for the pllint to break through the surface.
April 13 I deciqed to check things again. As a rule, it
should be unnecessary to recheck a question, but 1 was not
happy with the results I had received. This time Reagan was
"reinstated" in the comparison because he was doing well
hi the campaigning.
. First, I asked.about C~er.

On

CARTER: H31 _ _ line 2 moving to fl28 (Presidency)

.- -,
- H31 is called Attraction or Influence. It suggests persuasion
and mutual. attraction. The moving line says there will be
. goOd fortune in holding' back, and misfortune in rushing
ahead: The second hexagram, H28, is caIied Critical Mass
or Excess. The origi~ text states th.e effect: "The ridgepole
caves
in." The image is of the lake flooding the trees. InterI,: . I
prel1ltlon: Carter would be washed out!
.
Next, Reagan.
l

REAGAN: H16 . ~ ~ . liJ;le 2 movlOg to H40

(Presidency) .
Hr6, Enthusiasm, has previously come up with Reagan,
Baker and B~sh. The moving line indicates firmness and
success; The second hexagram indicates a. positive breakthrough after arduous times; it is called Liberation, Deliverance or Release.
Finally, Bush, for I felt that he was still jn the running in
some
way.
.
r-' .
BUSH: H5

=-=

line 4 moving to H43

(presidency) US is called Calculated Waiting or Biding' One's Time. The

idea is that a period of time' mus~ pass before you get what
ypu are see~ill$ . The moving line in the fourth place states:

11drd QaaI'Ier 1981

"Waiting in blood. Get out or-the pit." This indicates an

extremely dangerous situation, a matter of life and death.
The only course is to stand fast and let fate take its toll. In
political terms, it indicates advance after some political upheaval or scandal.
.
H43 is called Breakthrough or Resolution. It indicates
a time of mental tension, renewed advance, cataclysms, outrages, political upheavals and removal (from D. ffaringtonHook: I Ching and Its Associations, Routledge & Ke~an
Paul 1980). The original text for this hexagram states: "Pronouncement from one's city. Proclaim with truth. There ~
be danger. You ascend to the King's palace. It is not favorable to take up weapons."
What leaps to mind here is the twenty-year .cycle of Presidential deaths. From Lincoln to Kennedy, with I believe
only one exception, every twenty years the President has died
during his term of office. This time, it is Reagan's, turn.
I then realized that Reagan would win the election, die, and
Bush would take over. The original prediction about Bush
had been correct all along; but there would be a delay.
I next asked the I ,Ching for an overall vi~v of the election.
OVERALL: H54 :::: line I moving to H40

being correct. We would then get into an argument over

fraud and misprision instead of turning the question around
and .inquiring why investigation of the unknown is so firmly
resisted.
The future has hitherto been blocked to us. the best we
.can do is extrapolate from the past into the future: to push
the known (the past) into the unknown (the future). This is
not always accurate. Who expected Carter to become President in 1976?
Suggested lines of further research extend into two areas.
The first is to continue predi~ting verifiable events. I would
enlarge the limited field I have just covered to include the
more-traditional and "correct" search for advice on personal
behavior. The I Ching is not designed for crude fortunetelling; it is better-used to advise us on the right actions to'
undertake in life~ Whether we like it or not, a measure of
acceptable proof is needed before this area can easily be
confronted, and scientifically verifiable experiments may be
necessary.
The second area of research would be the mechanism of
synchronicity: how and why does it work?
Both these lines of research are being actively pursued at
this time. Many answers have been found and as many new
areas to investigate have been uncovered.

~~

I noticed that the second hexagram, H40, is the same as

Reagan's second hexagram for the Presidency. H54 is called
the Subordinate, Concubine or Marriageable Maiden. Thus
Reagan was the subordinate, for he was trying to gain '.the
Presidency, not to hold on to it as Carter was trying to do.
The first line moving indicates sOmeone new to the situation,
and a good outcome. H40, as. we have seen, indicates a' release or deliverance from restraints. This all points to someone new in the WPite House, not to the maintaining of an
already established President.
Under different circumstances this would have been the
end of my bothering the I Ching about a political matter.
By mid-August the two parties had selected their candidates
and running mates, and I consulted the I Ching again on
each pair and the overall result. H35 came up in connection
with the Reagan-Bush team as well as the overall result,
which simply confirmed the conclusion already reached: that
Ronald Reagan 'would win the election, and that after some
tragic event, yeorge Bush w,ould succeed J:li~.
'
All but the final step i,n this play of eve~ts has taken place.

Implications and ,Suggested

Areas of Research
The very fact that the apparent chance-throw of coins to
determine which chapter to consult in a 5,OOO-year-old book
in order to answer questions about a political election and
its results which have not yet taken place, violates too many
of our concepts of reality to be taken seriously. The known
is far easier to investigate than the unknown. To inveStig~te
the unknown, the mind has to relax its hold on the known.
This puts a heavy psychological strain on the investigator,
who, being part, of the experiment, cannot remaiIi unctum&ed
by the results he or she obtains.
A primary objection to this investigation would be that it
is all a hoax. I have presented no notarized affidavits as evidence that I had come to these conclusions before the events
in question took place. I could easily have done so, had I
considered the implications of the I Ching's predictions
o

Tbitd QlUll'la 1981

BIBUOGRAPHY
The I Ching or Book oj Changes in Richard Wilhelm translation,
English language text by Cary F. Baynes with foreword by
C. G, Jung,. Routlegde & Kegan Paul Ltd., Lopdon. This is
known as the "Wilhelm/Baynes I Ching" and is the "classic"
translation of the I Ching and Commentaries ..
The Western Man's Guide to the I Ching by R. G. H. Siu, M.I.T.
Press, 1968, first printing 1971. Originally published under
title The Man oj Many Qualities: A Legacy oj the I Ching.
To the text of the 1 Ching Dr. Siu has appended illustrative
quotations from a wide range of world literature, hence the
book is especially useful in answering questions in the arena of
politics and the "larger society."
Synchronicity: An Acousal Connecting Principle by C. G. Jung,
. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London. This British firm publishes a wide range of authoritative works on the I Ching and
related. subjects. A list of titles is available. Write Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd., 39 Store Street, London, WCIE 700, England.

:._J

Miscellany
In the article "Electra, Who Came From Another Planet,
Speaks to 'Woman'" (Pursuit No. 53, First Quarter 1981,
page 11), the name of the parapsychologist who worked
with Electra Barclay was incorrectly given as "Vouloukos."
The editors apologize to Mr. George J. Bouloukos for the
error which apparently was one of mis-translation from the
original Greek text.

Does any member have, or know where we can get, a

copy of the January 1977 issue of Psychic World (or Occult)?
We are trying to obtain the six-page article "Coral Castle"
which begins on page 66.

If you are planning to move, please notify SITU as soon

as you know your new location. Fill out change-of-address
card obtainable at your post offi<;e, or write a note giving
your name the way it appears on your Pursuit envelope and
include both old and new address; mail to SITU, Box 265,
'. tittle Silver, NJ 07739 USA.
Purardt 127

Perceptual UFO Effects

(Continued from page 99)
EUGENIA: What did you do when you felt you wanted to
investigate?
E.C.: Well, I felt that I should get i,n touch with ... I
assumed there were local' UFO groups around. About a
month after "Close Encounters" came out, the front page
of the local paper had an article about one of these groups,
so I tailed up and joined.
EUGENIA: What group was that?
E.C.: That'was Vestigia.
EUGENIA: I see.
E.C.: Then I became friends with some of them and we
broke away and formed our own group called Orion.
EUGENIA: What do you do in your group? Do you go out
specifitally to investigate UFOs?
,
E.C.: I go out. The others don't go out. I go out.
EUGENIA: How do you go out? Do you go in respol1se to
your own feeling about a place, or d'o you go out because
,somebody calls you up and says they've seen something?
E.G.: Well, because I was doing my own work up in the
Middletown area, I was doing that away from the. group and
I didn't feel like including tije group, because it was my own
work-but they decided that Wanaque might be important,
and I didn't think it was important any more. I thought that
issue was dead, but they wanted me to go there and make
out a report. So I went, there with Harry-and 10 and
behold-a craft came over the ice and played around for
half an hour and then shut its lights out.
EUGENIA: This is Harry Lebelson of OMNI'?
E.C. Yes.
EUGENIA: Your group wanted you to go out to Wanaque,
so you went out and pursued it?
, E.C.: Yes. They weren't going out there on their own?
EUGENIA: Yes. "You can go and do this, and then report
'
back. I'm staying here."
E.C.: Right. Because even if they do go out, they never
,see anything. "
EUGENIA: I understand. Your functiol} is to see the objects.
But Harry saw something at Wanaque also?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: It was a light over the reservoir, as you've shown
me in the pictures. Now, I've read Ivan Sariderson's book,
Invisible Residents, where he describes the incidems I!lt the
. Wanaque reservoir: and seeing a light <!ver the water sounds
a lot like what people were experiencing about ten years ago.
So it was basically the same thing as described in that book?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: Did you have any idea that t~e personnel who
maintain the [eservoir have been seeing things or is this just.
an experience that you had with Harry?
E.C.: I hadn't particularly thought to ask them, because
they're policemen. I saiq, "Look; we came down from this
dam that's up there and we just saw this craft 'over the ice
for half an hour," and the guy said that a lot of the,policemen had, seen the same thing.
EUGENIA: They do see it?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: When you say "craft," you actually saw a
craft~ilot a light?
E.C.: A metallic craft'that had lights, on each end. It remained stationary for about fifteen minutes' 'and then it
See Invisible Residents by Ivan T. Sariderson (1970).

Purs.1t128

rotated ISO degrees for a few minutes. Then it stopped.

EUGENIA': Where did it come from and where did it go?
E.C.: The,Iights all o,f a sudden seemed to pop over one of
the hills and stop in midair.
,
, EUGENIA: Is it possible that instead of coming from over
. the hiU it came from another continuum and manifested
over the hill?
E.C.: No. It looked like it came from behind the hin.
EUGENIA: It physically came from behind the hill?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: When it left, where did it go?
E.C.: We didn't see it leave. We watched it for twenty
minutes, and then it just turned its lights 04t like with a
light, switch. .
EUGENIA: And vanished?
,
E.C.: We couldn't see it with its lights out.
EUGENIA: Could you see anything when the lights were
out?
E,C.: No. You really can't.
EUGENIA: I've seen the photographs that you've, taken of
this object and also some photographs that H~rry has taken
in the same area, and they show unusual light patterns, but
you also told me that when several of these shots wer~ taken
there was nothing in the air and nothing unusual in, the area"
but something unusual came out on film. Could you explain?
E.C,: Well, we were supposed to both be aiming at th~,
craft that was there. I have through-the-I~ns' !1letering.
Harry does not. So, I aimed at t,he craft, aQd when I
developed my pictures there was a lighting effect from the
, craft where we had seen it-which is on'the righ't side of the
photo-but on the left side of the photo are lighting effects
from what looks like a craft we never saw. Now, I know that,
when they turn the lights out on the craft you can't see
it-unless it's'only ten to twenty feet away from you. Or
unless they put on some sort of soft lighting which enables
you to see the whole thing.
EUGENIA: SO,how do you explain that something came out
on the left side of the photo when nothing was visible?
E.C.: Well, it could be either that it never put its lights on,
so we never saw it, or that the effects are inherent in the
system of the craft.
Et.JGENIA: There is a kind of energy being used which affects the film?
'
E.C.: Yes. Whether it's in the,propulsion or just special ef.:
feets on the pictures, I ,don't know.'
, ", , '
EUGENIA: Do you feel that there's any patterning in your
seeing a UFO very closely in California and suddenly feeling
that you should come back to New Jersey, then being motivated to make a series of contacts during which you get in
touch with a person who writes for a national magazine and
is also a free-lance UFO investigator? A patterning which
caused you to go with Harry Lebelson to Wanaque reservoir
-and have these unusual experiences? Do you think, other
than your own curiosity, there is any sort of behavior patterning coming to you from the outside?
E,C.: How do you mean "patterning?'"
EUGENIA: I mean something which might be suggested to
you 'telepathically, or that your behavior is guided in some
way other than by your own curiosity.
"
E.C:: I think it's guided. I think it's a total phenomenon.
I don't think' it's just one specific incident or just seei,:tg
500 UFOs with a whole group of people and taking pictures. I don't think that's the extent of it. I think it does go
,

TIaInI ~ 1981

The, Reguhir Rapping and Other "ysteries

by Harold Ht;tlland

have had the belief that both reptiles

and amphibians become torpid and
with thin longitudinal stripes, called
denned up, or buried themselves, to ( locally a "bluff sna!ce." It is a common
spend the cold winter months in a kind
species here. The condition of the remains indicated that the snake had
of, semi-hibernation. 'But, to borrow
the words of an old song, "t'ain't " been dead a very brief time, run over
necessarily so."
by a car and crushed on the blacktop.
My thermometer the preceding night
had registered 17 D F. and the warmth
The weather here this winter has
of the day did not push it above 25 D.
been quite cold with some night-time
temperatures dropping well below zero
But that snake had been out and crossing the road.
Fahrenheit and daytime highs staying
If I were a dabbler in the occult
under 20 degrees. Here on the farm
I would, for some five days, nave
I have some horses and a pond where
they're watered. Due to the' lengthy
considered myself the vicfim of a poltergeist. I live alone in an eight-room
drought the level of the pond has dwindled to about one foot, hardly a plenhouse built shortly after the G:ivil War.
To help beat the high cost of heating,
tiful supply when further reduced by
in the winter I close off all except two
an ice cover of three or four inches.
rooms and a bath.
.
One day while chopping holes in the
Shortly after daybreak on January 3,
ice so the horses could drink I noticed
1981, I was in the kitchen preparing
small black creatures zipping under the
ice. Investigation showed them to be
my breakfast when four sharp raps
tadpoles, presumably larval bullfrogs
were audible, apparently coming from
which, in warm weather inhabit the
the front door. There was a brief pause,
and three'more raps. I walked quickly
pond in great numbers. They were
through the house, but by the time
quite active and' of differing sizes,
some sufficiently developed to display
I reached the front door and opened
rear legs, others small and limbless.
it, there was nothing to be seen.
I am a bit puzzled as to how these
That afternoon the same rapping
routine took place, just as dusk was
small, cold-blooded creatures can resettling in. Again, nothing seen. Same
main so active in water little above
sequence the next morning. It snowed
freezing temperature. And what could
that day and at twilight my rapster
they be feeding on?
again mad~ itself audible. I looked
Herpetologists assert that snakes beoutside for tracks in the snow b~t
come torpid at temperatures that we
humans find merely uncomfortable;
found none.
even Ditmars holds this view. On DeThe rapping was a daily event for
cember 28, 1980, I was walking down
five days, each one adding to my puza paved road when I came upon the
zlement, annoyance and frustration.
remains of a brownish 18-inch Coluber
Were I of superstitious bent, I'd have

much deeper. They look to me at least a thousand years

beyond our technology, if not more, which puts them in
almost a god-like position.
EUGENIA: Could you describe the face of this being you
saw in California?
E,C.: I didn't really see the details of the face. I can't
figure out why. I don't know if it I'eally scared me, or if it
was just too much to take in, but I saw the body and the
head and maybe it was subconscious avoidance on my.part
of the actual face. I know what the face looked like. I
didn't want to see it. Maybe that was it. Because I did see
the body in detail. I guess I was afraid.
EUGENIA: I'm going to ask you some questions about the
face. I know these are leading questions~ but I am curious.
In your avoidance of the face, was there anything peculiar
about the eyes? '

ThInI Quader 1981

begun to entertain thoughts about

'!haunts." My, home was built about
1870 and has not escaped a touch of
legend, laid on by an episode that took
place 6O-0dd years ago. Having failed
to encounter any residual apparitions
in times past, however, I told myself
I shouldn't expect theIJ'l now. Rather,
some clever prankster must be having
himself a real good time by irritating
me. A possible suspect might be some
member of a family with whom my
clan has maintained a classic feud of
long standing. I ar.med ~yself and
waited.
On the sixth day, in the twilight,
I happened to be outside the house,
at the rear, when the first four raps
came from somewhere near the front
door. Assuming my best Dan'l Boone
stance, I slithered silently around the
side of the house and just as the next
fusillade of raps resounded, I thrust
my head and pistol around the corner,
catching the culprit in' the commission
of his crime. He immediately took
flight-literally. My "poltergeist" was
a large, gray, red-topknotted woodpecker.
.
There are some questions still unanswered. (I) Why was he wasting his'
time on those ancient yellow-poplar
timbers which' certainly after this span
of time would contain nothing edible?
(2) How and why did he make his
visits at the same approximate time of
morning and evening? (3) And why
was the pattern of his raps so rigidly
consistent-always four, followed by
by three
.a pause, followed
'.
. more?

E.C.: In California, I'really avoided the face. I had

already known basically a little bit ab04t what the ... well,
no ... maybe I didn't. I guess at that time I didn't know
'what they looked like, because that was 1971. That was a
long time before "Close Encounters."
EUGENIA: I interviewed, a couple'in Pennsylvania who
saw an a1ien who fit your description. It was metallic, in a
shiny jumpsuit. It had a hood on it. But they were under
the impression that the face was covered. They could see
features, but it was as if there was another, more refined .
stretch-fabric which was pulled over the face. There were
eye-protectors on the eyes: I wonder if the face looked
strange to you because it was covered.
E.C.: I don't think the face was covered because I
remember the, hood going around the face, covering the
back of the head and it was flat against the face. I "now

the face was there. I think I was just too frightened to

remember.
EUGENIA: Right. I was curious to know if you noticed
glasses on the eyes.
.
E.C.: No. Also, I had seen thecreature up by Pine Bush.
EUGENIA: What did you see? This is near Middletown?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: What did you see up.there?
.
E.C.: Well, there were a few nights when I decided to go
myself, although I had been discouraged from doing this.
EUGENIA: You were investigating this area with Harry
Lebetson?
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: In the summer of 1980?
E.C.: Right. I had gone up one night myself. 1 guess this
must have been in late August, early September. It was after
a couple of months of going up there with other people, and
I was determined to go after one of those ships because they
were right in the field. It was a matter of getting through the
weeds. But by myself I would not go into a field I had not already walked through. When I was standing in t~e field that
I was familiar. with I happened to turn around and a ship
went down behind me into the thickets in a place where I
hadn't walked, and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do.
So I figured I would get in my car and drive down the road
at one mile an hour. I opened the windows, and I had my
flashlight and what I was hoping. to do was t.o shine the
beam of light on the metal. If I saw the ship, that would be
it. I would get out and knock on the door. I kept shining it
through the window, and I was going through the little
thickets down the street with the car and shining it all
around, and I came tq a ~ittle clearing where the flashlight
caught on something. I thought it was a moth. I looked
. again and I realized it wasn't a moth, but it was fluttering all
around. Then my eyes became adjusted, and it looked like a
person running. I could se.e arms moving back and forth like
a person would run, and then I thought it must be an animal-but then I realized: "Hey, wait a minute, there's only
two legs here." Then it started 'to sink in, that this was not
an ordinary animal running clear across the clearing when it
could have just turned and gone into the bush. So my eyes
became adjusted and I started sQining the flashlight down
from what I thought was the head and I realized there was a
little neck and a little body, and this was a real creature running across the clearing. It stopped ...
EUGENIA: Was it running away from you?
E.C.: No. It was running parallel to me. It kept a steady
distance, about thirty feet away.
.
EUGENIA: You were walking all this time? .
E.C.: No. I was in the car, and the creature got to the end
of the clearing. I was parked at the end of the clearing, and
it stopped and looked at me. All I saw were these huge yellow slits for eyes, like a glowing.
EUGENIA: Did they have any iris in them? Any pupil?
E.C.: It looked like the pupil was on the outside of the
yellow. It was almost a banana-shaped yellow slit. The pupil was on the outside, not on the inside. I
.
EUGENIA: On either end of the eye?
E.C.: On either end of the width, not the length. It was in
the middle of the eye, but on either side of the yellow slit.
The opposite of what we have.
EUGENIA: I'm going to ask you to draw that. I think I
understand it, but I'm not quite sure that I do.

Pursuit 130

Front and side

view of alien
creature's eyes
as drawn from
memory by E.C.
@E,C.

..

EUGENIA:

What happened after you saw this being? Did

it vanish?
E.C.: It stood there and it looked at me. There was a real
expression of worry on the face. I was sitting there thinking "What the heck is he worried about? I'm the one who
should be worried.'; It just stood there and looked at me,
and I didn't know whether to get out of the car. I hit the
accelerator and took off, and of course thirty seconds later
.
I was mad.
EUGENIA: I understand that an alien life-form is
frightening. Do you feel that there)s any reaso~ why both
times you had a close encouQter .. ~ did you see a ship as
~onriected with this being, or only a being?
.
E.C.: I didn't see a ship. I knew the ship was in there
~ecause I had just seen it go down.
EUGENIA: Right. You saw it go down, and then you were
looking with your flashlight.
E.C.: Yes~ but I never saw the ship. I found the creature.
EUGENIA: Do you think there is any reason why you
would be by yourself when you had these experiences? I
am not doubting you had the experiences.
E.C.: I think there's a reason, but I don:t know what it is.
: EUGENIA: Could you speculate? Has any reason ever occurred to you? It must be frustrating when you try to describe this to people, because you're always alone ~hen
you. see the alien.
'
E.C.: Yes. It's frustrating to me in that there's no verbal
communication.
EUGENIA: The alien just seems to accompany you. I
noticed that both times you were walking and it went be-

1bInI Qalll'ter 1981

side you, or whatever. The second .time you were looking

and it seemed to be running parallel to the car, almost as if
it were showing itself to you.
E.C.: Yes. It looks like they're trying to make a point, but
I wish that they would just get out of the craft and tell me
what the point is instead of playing games.
EUGENIA: Can you understand in your own mind, your.
own psychology, why of all people who might possibly
have been selected for this experience, you have been singled out?
E.C.: I don't have the slightest idea.
EUGENIA: Is there anyone in your family who has ever had
similar experiences?
.
E.C.: My two sisters have had experiences throughout the
years, not as intense as mine, but they have had strange
things happen on and off.
I
EUGENIA: With ghosts or apparitions?
E.C.: No. With UFOs.
EUGENIA: Lights or beings?
E.C.: One younger sister had an experience with the same
kind of noise which I had experienced in California. 'She had
the experience in our house in New Jersey. According to my
girlfriend, my youngest sister and my girlfriend's sister had
some experiences when they' were very little. I'm not sure
what these things were, but my youngest s,iste~ has sporadically seen things in the sky since then. In fact, as she came
in from college last night on a bus from the poconos, they
were about ten minutes into New Jersey from the Delaware
Water Gap ...
EUGENIA: Right. Was that near Newton?
E.C.: I'll have to ask her.
E.C.: Or BlairStown? There have been so~e sightings near
there.
.
,
E.C.: She said that she was going through the hills, the bus
crossed some water and she happened to glance into the
water. There was a white disk about four to five feet in diameter under the water.
EUGENIA: Under the water?
E.C.: She said it was making a wake as it moved against
the current. She said she did a double-take and looked
around on the bus to see if anybody else had seen it. Nobody
else looked like they had seen it, so she wasn't going to say
anything.
.
EUGENIA: What college does she attend?
E.C.: East Stroudsburg.
EUGENIA: Stroudsburg is quite close to an area of the
Poconos where there have been sightings.
E.C.: Yes.
EUGENIA: If you were to make a' statement as to where
your mind i,s located at the present moment, what would
you say? What is your attitude toward what you've experienced?
E.C.: Oh, well. . .
.
EUGENIA: Not in any great philosophical terms, but just
as a person. How do you feel about this?
E.C.: I'm always doing a lot of things at once. I'm into
music. I write music. I had geared myself toward writing
music, and all of a sudden this other thing is interfering. It
seems like they're dominating my life. I'm not able to channel myself in another direction.

E.C.s Participation in the interview'ends here. After

typing the transcript I asked her to reod it and point out

ThInI Q1ian.1981

any inaccuracies. She found n011e. I then submitted the

, transcript to'Harry Lebelson who hod accompanied E.C. to
w.anaque reservoir in February. Lebelson felt he should
clarify his own perception of this shared UFO experience.
so -the interview continued with Lebelson replacing E. C.
EUGENIA: What I would like to know is, whether you feel
your perceptual experience was any different from E.C.'s
experience, as described in the intervieW transcript. If so,
why?
HARRY: I'll just discuss what I feel happened.
EUGENIA: All right.
HARRY: E.C. and I had been discussing on occasion how
elusive the phenomena were-how they come and go at will
in almost any part of the country., We got on the topic of
the old 1966-67 sightings at the Wanaque reservoir. So, just
in casual conversation I suggested that it might be interesting
, to go up some night and look at the place. She said, "Do
you really want to go?" and I said, "Sure." So we took
a ride up one evening. We checked in with the police at the
registration desk at the reservoir 'and proceeded along a
narrow road up to the top of the reservoir where you can
cross to the other side of the water by car. We parked the
car and went over to the edge of the reservoir, which at that
time was frozen. The water level had been very low, because of the drought. We were there about three quarters of
an hour, just looking at the reservoir itself. I had never
been out there before. After checking out the layout, we
started to observe some airplane patterns. There were quite
a few planes coming over.We noticed something very peculiar. Later on, when checking with the police, we found that
the nearest airport was at least twenty miles away.
EUGENIA: Yes.
HARRY: Yet all the airplanes had their headlights on, their
landing lights. We found that very peculiar. So, just continuing our observations, all of a sudden from the other
side of the reservoir where there are small mountains ...
EUGENIA: Yes.
HARRY: A light, a yellow light, a ball of light just bounced
over the mountains-from the other side of the mountains
over to the reservoir side-and hung around sixty to eighty
feet above the water. It was very low. You could see trees
'back of this ball of light. It was not in the mountains. It
was out over the ice. I don't know how large it was. Alongside this huge yellow ball of light was a small red ball of
light, which seemed to be attached in some way. It was so
low over the ice that it reflected aU over the frozen reservoir.
Then, it made approximately a ISO-degree arc on a horizontal plane, as if you were drawing a circle with a compass.
EUGENIA: Right. I understand you.

, HARRY: OK. Then, after it did that, it seemed to just hop

across the sky, like a rabbit would hop.
EUGENIA: Like skipping a stone over the water?
'HARRY: Yes, but the loop had more of a high arc to it.
It would go over to one side oT the reservoir and then come
back, repeating the same pattern back. It would start to
swing back and forth like a pendulum. This is what I observed. '
'
EUGENIA: You had said before that you didn't see anything metallic?
'
HARRY: Because of the brightness of the light in total'
darkness.

Pursuit 131
'.,

Of the two light sources shown with their Icy reIl~tlons in E.C.'s photograph taken at Wanaque, New Jersey, in February, the wide
streaks spread outward from an inverted "teardrop" burst at right were probably registered by houselights plus headlights from cars
rounding a sharp curve in the road along the OpJ)O!l!~ shore. The other light, at left, is more interesting ...

Hany .Lebelson turned his camera sllghdy to the left of E.C.'s

focus which centered on the . mountaintop. Lebe1son's photo
conftrmed that a light like the'one at left In E.C.'s photo at top
of page seemed to "come over the hiD" In the same spot at the
same time, but In'a different conftguratlon.
El,IGENIA: Did you see anything on the other occasions
that you went to Wanaque?
HARRY: The only phenomena I would.say were genuine
occurred on the fITSt night. We went up there three times.
EUGENIA; The other occasions vyere just setting up equipment and looking for things and so forth, but not seeing ..
HARRY: Oh, we did see something, but I can~t verlfy what
.it was, except that on the fITSt occasion I did see a light come
over the mountains. .
.
EUGENIA: OK.
HARRY: Now, what happened ~fter that is that the light
stayed on for approximately twenty minutes. It just seemed

,.",.." 132

to hover there. We did not have any binoculars, so it was

all just by what the eye could see.
EUGENIA; How. did it leave? Did it vanish?
HARRY: . No. After about twenty minutes, it was as if
someone flicked off a light switch.
EUGENIA: That's exactly what E.C. said, too. But it seems
that it must have vanished. Did you see any mass there,
after the light went out?
HARRY: No. It was dark. It was black. It was night. You
could differentiate between the mountains and the sky due
to a difference in color value. You could tell that there were
trees because of the tonai value difference. There was light
comiitg from the road at our back, so that our view was
illuminated in c;me' sense~ but it was very dark on the other
side of the reservoir. There was no light source there except
the unusual.light source which came over the mountains.
EUGENIA: The picture you took of this light was actuBny
different from E.C.'s picture?'
. HARRY: It appeared that way to me. I cannot say exactly
what happened. The situatioq. was unique. We were both
shooting with 3Smm equipment. She was using a SOmm
lens, as opposed to my 90inm lens, which is a telephoto
lens. This took place on the first night when the light source
came over the mountains:
EUOE~IA: Right.
. :,.
HARRY: We had both aimed in the direction of the source
of light, yet what I got on my film was a different area of. ..
the sky, and the light source.
EUGENIA: As if something had turned your camera or
somehow an unexpected area of the sky got imprinted' on
the film?
HARRY; As far as I know, that did not occur. I had not
. brought a tripod with me, but she had set up her tripod on
the ground. I had my camera on the roof of her car. We
took time exposures. I was very careful to keep the camera
stationary. The car engine was not running.
.
EUGENIA: This must have been a startling experience. Did
you feel after your experience-before you looked at the de-

Was 'It CoDective PK?

by Sabina WaneD SaDdersoD ,
Robinson, in her book To Stretch a Plank:
D iana,
A Survey of Psychokinesis, includes brief mention of a so-called poltergeist case that suggests an
explanation for an incident that has baffled me for
years. Her case, which was not thoroughly investigated,
"started when a young man was speaking rather strongly against religion, making some other people in the
group present feel quite uncomfortable. I do not know
whether any of them were actually thinking, in the
cliche of TV's Maude, 'God'll get you for that,' but
it seems likely from what' I was 'told. A box pro,mptly
fell off a refrigerator and hit him. Other events are
said to have followed."
Some years ago I was told an extraordinary story
by a doctor from the Dominican Republic. He was
nominally a Roman Catholic but did not attribute
what follows to miraculous intervention, expressing
himself as being simply baffled by it.
He lived in a very small village which, like most
such villages, had its patron saint whose statue was
carried in procession on the saint's particular day,
in this case occurring in midsummer. Neither the saint

nor the statue had any special or legendary attachments for the villagers-no miracles had ever been
attributed to him or it.
On'the occasion in question, the weather was torrid,
and the sun blazed mercilessly from a cloudless sky.
Several men were assigned the task of carrying the
heavy statue in procession. One man angrily declined,
and after spitting contempt in the 9irection of the
statue, he walked off, homeward bound on a path
that ,led across'a field. He was halfway across when
a bolt of lightning shot out of the clear blue 'sky and
struck him dead.
'PK seems to me to afford the only' plausible ex, planation. It is impossible of pro~f, of course, but it
does make sense. Presumably the villagers initially
went into shock, this soon replaced by' anger and the
belief that the man "deserved to be struck by lightning for such blasphemy." Whether the "bolt from
the blue" was the work of one person or of many is
hard to say, but collective effort certainly cannot be
ruled out.
However it may have b~n induced, th,e lightning
stroke had a lasting effect. No one ever again declined
to carry the statue, credited by the' villagers with quite
formidable powers.

See review; page 135,

veloped film-that anything had happened to, you perceptually? Inside your head, as opposed to any unusual visual
experiences, did you feel'anything unusual?
HARRY: No. Never.
'
EUGENIA: Were you aware of time being unusual in any
way?
HARRY: No. No time displacement. No unus!lal physiological changes.
EUGENIA: You noticed the odd effect on the film only
qfter it was developed? There was no indication before' it
was developed that an}1:hing would be unusual' about the,
film?
,",
HARRY: No. It was interesting that 'the picture of the
UFO light was the only frame that came out on that particular roll of film.
EUGENIA: Yes, I've had an experience similar to that,
during an attempt to induce UFO contact, as you know. ,
HARRY: Yes. The effect could have been due to my inability to gauge proper exposures. If the expos1,lre time is
very short, nothing will come out. I could hav,e misjudged
exposure time exeept for that one frame.
EUGENIA: Where was the exposure on the roD?
HARRY: On the first half. There was nothing unusual
about the lOcation on the roll.
'
EUGENIA: E.C. 's picture, which you now believe w!1S of
house lights across the reservoir, was taken at the same
time?
HARRY: Yes. I believe now, after w~ both have gone back
to the spot and determined that what she photographed'
ThinI Q.arI8I' 1981

was a house, ~nd that the circular swirl of lights at the base
is traffic around what they call "Dead Man's CJlrve" ...
that the small streak of white light coming over the mountains at the left of the picture is in the approximate location
of my camera focus, which validates the idea that there was
an unusual light source. This was not visible to the eye. I saw'
only one light source, and she saw only one. But we ended
up with different shots 'of differing lights.
One need not be a professional psychologist to know that
the mint! tends to Jill in the rough edges of incomplete or
unexpected perceptions with'the'finished ges~t of patterns'
already known and accepted by the individual consciousnesS
which is doing the perceiving. E. C. had already seen what
she interpreted to be a UFO crqft in California, so she saw
a similar aerial object' at Wanaque reservoir. Harry is interested in psychical research and did not necessarily expect to see ,a solid spacecrqft, so he reported only mysterious
,red and !Yellow lights.
Which description is "correct"? It is evident that both
witnesses are honest. But, like Punch and Judy, they keep
on quibbling about the exact na,ture oj the sighting while
agreeing that they did, indeed, see two unusual aerial lights
which moved around oddly, then disappeared instantly and
without leaving a trace. At Wanaque,- the phenomenon is not
at all unusual, or so
have been told by serious investigators. We only wish there were,some way to put the thing
"on hold"!

we

~'

Pursuit 133

Books
THE EXCALlBUR BRIERNG by Tom Bearden (Huntsville, Alabama, 1980,288 pp., $8.95)
Reviewed by Energy Unlimited
Drawing on his 23 years as a research scientist in the
fields of military intelligence and nuclear weapons, Col.
Bearden has written an outstanding book on paranormal
phenomena, UFOs, and new military psychotronic applica-

tions of psi research.

Part I deals with paranormal phenomena and includes
such items as "psychotronic generators, invisible tupoidal
forms, interaction of a biofield, thought and spark discharge,
French experiments with psychotrorucs, and a deliberate
experiment with kindling."
Part II gives a theoretical background for understanding
PT, UFOs and psi phenomena. Bearden gives. a fundamental
correction to classical logic and explains photon quenching
of the paranormal (time) channel, the kindling effect, extinguishing electrical currents, death transmission via the
paranormal channel, disease and death induction, dynamic
thought constructs, radionics, psychotronics, biofields, hyperspace, orthogonal worlds, hyperfield flux in a magnetic
field, holographic hyperchannel effect, mind linkage.
: In Part III he covers psychotronic research in the U.S.
and in the Soviet Union, electron dissolution, cattle mutilations, radiation of the U.S. ~b~y, hyperspace howitzer
operation, a possible operational test of psychotronic anti-,
aircraft weapons, pollution conditioner, disintegrating weapons by orthogonal rotation.
.
In the Afterword and Update, virtual states and hyper~
sPaces, Feynman diagrams, the nature of an electromagnetic
wave, neutrinic longitudinal polarization wav~; hyperspatial aspects of modulation, biophotons and virtual EM field .
of a bio-organism, the Priore machine, the neqrophone and
Soviet "woodpecker" signals are all covered. There is also
an excellent bibliography.
.
,

The above review of The Excalibur Briefmg is reprinted from Energy Unlimited #8. SITU recommends
Energy Unlimited to' readers who are inierested in such
subjects as ELF (extremely low frequencies), gravitational theories, psychotronics, radionics, Tesla ~ inventions, etc. Address EU, Rt. 4, Box 288, Los Lunas, .
NM87031.
LES DERNIERS DRAGONS D'AFRIQUE (AFRICA'S
LAST DRAGQIYS) by Bernard Heuvelmans (Pion, Paris,
507 pp., $16 paperback)
Reviewed by Philip Averbuck'
In the past year, there has been considerable publicity devoted to the reports from central Africa of a large, aquatic,
"unknown" animal-possibly a surviving sauropod dinosaur.
Although the most recent findings (since 1978) are not included in' his book, Dr. Bernard Heuvelqtans' latest book
on the subject is an invaluable background source. It is,
quite simpiy,. the definitive teXt on this subject, at least for
the moment.
.
Actually, Last Dragons deals not only with the aquatic

PunrdtI34

species but with all the various reptilian-seeming reports

from Africa. Thus, there are chapt:rs devoted to reports of
enormous serpents in deSert areas (and a remarkable. helicopter phcto of a snake estimated to be from 35 to 44 feet
long), and one on a pterodactyl-like flying animal. (One of
the best reports on the latter was made by. Ivan Sanderson.)
Dr. Heuvelmans first divides the reports according to
geography, then reviews them in chronological fashion. His
final zoological analysis of the aquatic animals finishes wjth
four distinct species, plus a few intriguing question marks.
The species are: a new type of manatee; a giant catfish, or
perhaps a mudflSh; an aquatic saber-toothe4 cat; and a
"sm~l," sauropod-type reptile. Those ~ho have. read Dr.
Heuvelmans' On the Track ofVnknown'Animals (Hill and
Wang, 1958) will recognize a major change in one of ~is
theories since then. In his original investigation into these
animals, Dr. Heuvelmans wrote that some of the reports
had ~o do with an aquatic elephant which had short, downward-pointing tusks and was something like the Dinotherium,
found iQ fossil form in Africa. In light of new evidenCe (including some extraordinary Bushman cave paintings, 'which
are promiaently displayed),' Dr. Heuvelmans has amended
his theOry to 'place the aquatic saber-toothed cat at the core
of these repo~5. .
Last"Drago~ is the first volume of a series by Dr ~ Heuvelmans called, appropriately enough, "Unknown Animals
of the World." His second book, ULes Betes -humaines
d'Afrique (The Man-Beasts of' Africa) was published by
Pion in September 1980.. Tragically, for all of us Englishspeaking cryptozoologists, there is no plan yet for English .
editions of the series. This reviewer had to grind through .
Last Dragons relying on his second-year French expertise,
but the effort was indeed worthwhile: Last Dragons is a characteristic Bernard Heuvelmans piece: painstakingly researched
and documented, lucidly analyzed, and always with a touch
of humor. We can only hope some American publisher will
get smart and start to print translated editions of this promising series. .

UFOs AND ;THE .LIMITS OF SCIENCE by Ronald .

D. 'Story with Richard Greet'.llDell (William Morrow & Co ..,
New York, 1981, 1ll1lS., f~ex. 290 pp., $12.95)
Reviewed by Robert Barrow
Ronald StorY's current contribution to UFO lore, written
is worth our attention, but its literary machinery giinds along with a number of disturbing
squeaks. Most iinportaDt, the authors should have been
aware that one cannot simply list ten of what one believes
are the best UFO cases on record, offer it little speculation
and explanation here and there, and then depart hastily.
The fact that Story and Greenwell were "rather amazed
that nearly three fourths (70 percent) of (UFO researchers
polled) refused to take a stand with regard to any particular
cases which to them might .constitute the strongest evidence
on recorsl" certainly could have alerted them that cboosing
the ten best of anything sO bizarre as ~O reports for ,a
book-length. venture is a questionable decision.
.
Nevertheless. newcomers to UFo reading should fmd

willl Richard Greenwell,

11ainI Qaan. 1981

"I

Books
much .of interest, and veteran researchers will pick up a
novel thought or two, even though this project hardly.approaches the excellence of such Story classics as The Space.
Gods Revealed (Harper & Row, 1976) or The Encyclopedia
of UFOs (Doubleday & Co., 1980).
Sandwiched between an irrelevant foreword by astrophysicist Thornton Page and ~ informative appendix by .
Bruce Murray (director, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, C~I.T.,
Pasadena, California) that states in ~elve concise pages the
same basic things that, curiously, take the authors an entire
book to impart, eighteen chapters are subdivided under
four sections: "A History of the Saucers," "The Elusive
'Hard Data,'" "The Ten 'Best' Cases," and "Evaluating
the Data."
The historicw section, for the most part, is mere rehash,
and could have been omitted on the premise that readers
could consult a number of other sources for UFO background.
By page 75, however, the authors at last begin brief explorations of "hard data" cases, leading with a chapter on
physical traces allegedly left by UFOs. They must be com. mended for the points about NASA's wishy-washy attitude
on undertaking a potential UFO study.
Subsequently, several trace cases, including some famous
examples, are examined an~ frequently challenged for authenticity; the authors; always on the side of caution, perhaps
try too hard to be negative at times. For instance, they heap
criticism on the reliability of 1964;s Socorro, New Mexico,
UFO "landing" case; not only, as the authors admit, is the
case still carried as unexplained in Air Force files, but: this
reviewer also possesses an official USAF letter which refers to the UFO as a "vehicle" (see Pursuit, Vol. 12, No. I,
Winter 1979, pp. 10-12). One might expect the Socorro sighting to be a little more substantial than indicated in Limits.
From traces, the discussion turns tt> UFO photos. By now,
we realize all too well what Story and Greenwell arc trying
tQ say: That there are limits to what science can do, that IS,
science as we define science. The UFO ~ay not now, or
ever, be ripe for clinical picking and evaluation . . . unless
we, perhaps, alter our view of what science should be. Ironically, appropriately, the chapter on photograplts illustrates
an instance where even two top scientists can't reach similar
conclusions on the authenticity of 'a: ser.ies of alleged UFO
photos after using the .tools of their, trade to make determinations. What, the book asks, can, or should, science do
about the UFO?
Peculiar in the way the authors think over their material,
sometimes apparently contradicting themselves a few lines
after seemingly stating a belief, this book is truly a nightmare to revieW. It is sometimes difficult to know just where
the authors want to go with the writing. Is it really necessary
that we be told, in
section on witness' credibility, that
"After aU, it takes only one red crow to disprove the prop.
osition that all crows are black"?
Limits of Science provides us with some nice, updated
information on old "classic" UFO incidents, and the gradUally developed suggestion of introducing epistemology into
a scientific UFO study offers something worthwhile. But the
book tends to ask itself whether it needed to be written, for
it hasn't aU that much to say. This time around on the publishing circuit, the authors like the science they write about,
have shown something about their own limits.

1bInI Qaana 1981

TO STRETCH A PLANK: A SURVEY OF PSYCHOKINESIS by Diana Robinson (Nelson-Hall Publishers,

Chicago, 198.1, 277 pp., $15.95)
Reviewed by Sabina Warren Sanderson
Diana Robinson notes in her preface that "The one survey
[of psychokinesis] that is; and that probably always will be
a classic reference work is Mind Over Matter by Dr. Louisa
E. Rhine. However, it was published in 1970, and the explosion of interest, research techniques, and new approaches
since that time makes some kind of update necessary. "
To Stretch a Plank serves that function most admirably.
It is written specifically for the "intelligent layman" and the
author succeeds well in picking her way "along a path that
lies sOmewhere to the left of the ponderously scientific and
to the right of the 'ooh, aahl' attitude taken by the overly
credulous. "
Psychokinesis or PK is the moving or affecting of an
.object without the use of a physical intermediary. Certainly
the subject is controversial, and much of the evidence, specifically laboratory studies, is exceedingly tedious to the layman. Indeoo, one has to have a knowledge of statistics to
interpret scientific papers on the subject. Part I of Diana
Robinson's book, "In and Around the Laboratory," deals
fairly exhaustively with a great variety of laboratory experimentation and more-or-Iess controlled field work but does
so with a minimum of dry statistics and even occasional
humor.. These experiments are concerned with micro-PK,
psychokinesis discernible only by statistical analysis.
In "Superstars or Superfrauds?" she deals with macro-PK
as practiced by a couple of Russian ladies and the ever. controversial Uri Geller. The Russians seem to pass muster;
Geller presents a much more complex problem, which is
deatt with very objectively. Of considerable interest is the
discussion of "mini-Gellers"-people who, after seeing
Geller perform, report that they too have been able to bend
spoons, stop watches, and such. I shall come back to this
subject later.
Healing as a form of PK is dealt with in chapter 7. The
author notes the extraordinafy difficulty of proving that
psychic healing really works (there are so many variables
involved) but reports on some controlled experiments, particularly those carried ~ut with a Hungarian military officer,
Col. Oscar Estebany, that strongly suggest that there is
some kind of he8J.ing effect apart from purely psychological
factors. Presumably this works in the other direction as
well-Australian aborigines "pointing the bone" at someone may produce actual physiological effects that eventually
kill the victim, though the victim may learn of it through
ESP.
Part 2-"further Afield"-includes chapters on physical
mediumship, modern media aqd PK (e.g. Ted Serios and
thoughtography, the controversial Raudive tape recordings
of "spirit voices" and. the like), miracles as PK on the part
of religious leaders of all kinds, ~d poltergeists. This last
requires some comment.
The chapter is entitled "Poltergeists: Noisy Spirits or
Angry PK?" Mrs. Robinson notes that "It used to be that
we would speak of a poltergeist as the cause of such events.
... but most researchers have come to believe that poltergeist phenomena are caused by PK on the part of a living
individual. . . . .Because the word poltergeist has ghostly
p."..uIt

135

Books
connotations; many researchers now prefer the term recur~
. ring ~pontaneous psychokinesis, usually abbreviated to
RSPK."
"
.
Apparently Mrs. Robinson sees nothing incongruous in
the fact that parapsychologists foam at the mouth over Uri
Geller's claim tha,t he' can (merely) bend spoons and then
turn around and blandly attribute the heaving about of
large pieces of furniture and other prodigious phenomena to
human PK! She does note that Dr. Ian Stevenson of the
University of Virginia School of Medicine has suggested
that "those who do dismiss the spirit hypothesis entirely
may be premature." (He believes that both human PK and
discarnate entities may playa part.) .
My own experience with poltergeists suggests discarnate
entities; minor disturbances ceased when they were Quite
simply ignored, and major ones were caused to cease and
desist by swearing at them, using the proverbial "language
that would make it sailor blush." It worked every time.
I also find odd Mrs. Robinson's contention that "a fact
that speaks against discarnate involvement" is that exorcism
'seldom works. Indeed, it sometimes makes things worse.
There is no reason to suppose that a poltergeist is a Christian
or impressed by Christian rites, and in 'fact (I intend no
facetiousness here) for all I know poltergeists look on exorcism as the ultimate status-symbol.
. ,
The chapter contains a number of case histories, none of
which can be said to provide conclusive evidence for either
hypothesis. Personally, I go along with Dr. Stevenson, al:though it is my impression that Mrs. Robinson favors the
RSPK theory. Individual readers will have to make up their
.
own minds on the subject.
. I have deliberately postponed mention of two chapters in
the first section, since they can best be discussed with Part 3,
"W~ere Now?" In fact they are exactly where' they oUght
to be, but to have discussed them in chronological order
might have given the erroneous impression that the book ,
wobbles back and forth, which it doesn't. The author very
rightly gives the reader a straight-forward picture of experiments with PK before introducing the really formidable
problems facing the experimtmter. There are a number of
factors that influence the results and produce either P.syhitting or psi-missing, which means that interpreting the
results Can be extremely difficult. The act of PK is essentially unconscious and is goal-oriented; the Question is not
how something is achieved but simply in the fact that it' geJs
done:
Part 3 dCaIs with the theoretical aspects of' PK and the
implications of PK research. The physical scientists loathe
the whole idea of PK since, if it exists, the word objective
becomes meaningless for science. Also, because there seems
to be an ESP-PK link, no experiment can be truly "blind."
There are a number of cases in which an experimenter has
put forward a theory' backed by experimental evidence that
"proves" the theory, only to, find that no one else can duplicate his results; the fact is: that the original experimenter
may quite unconsciously have been using PK to influence
his experiments.
.
PK in fact works best when one "lets George do it." If
people are told not to work at it, and particularly if they
believe that some outside agency is producing the effect,
they, are far more ,likely to psi-hit-hence the mini-Geliers
who believe that it is Geller who is actually responsible fOI .

,Pura.ft 136

theirj successes. So-called pyramid power may be another

form of George!
The last chapter provides what can only be called a philosophical approach to PK and is somewhat mind-boggling.
It deals finally with the Question that F. W. H. Myers is
,said to have considered the most important of all: "Is the
,
universe friendly?" The author notes that:'
, "It may be that' the real business of PK has no relation to its conscious use. PerhaPs this is why some
religions speak against deliberate use of psi, not because it is evil, but because its basic function is to work
unconsciously. Perhaps thiS is why results achieved by
conscious PK in experiments are usually so infinitesimally small. PK may be truly releval'l;t only in the kind
.of PMIR [psi-mediated instrumental response] situations that bring about those 'lucky coincidences' that
make the universe seem friendly ind~-for those who

., approach it as friends. "

.,

.'

'

The theory, grossly simplified in this review, is that if one

will relax and let George do it, the universe will automatically
tend to fulfill one's needs! Mind boggling indeed.
. There is an exhaustive bibliography (343 items), a name
index, and a subject index.
NO WITNESS by Gerald A. Hausman (Stackpole Books,

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,

19~O,

223 PP.., $14.95)

Reviewed by Ray W.

~oeche .

Sub-titled "An In~estigative Reporter's Firsthand Factual

Account," No Witness at first glance seems to be a detailed
account of cattle mutilations in the American southwest.
Rather, it is an account of.an investigative reporter's emotions, political and social views,',and moral outlook on just
about everything he encounters during his investigation.
,This includes ~ local Indians, police officers, Los Alamos
sCientists, his past personal life, the New Mexican landscape, his boss, and yes, eventually, cattle mutilations.
Hausman is an excellent writer-that point should be
stressed. However ~ his contribution to. the study of cattle
mutilations is small. Many intriguing incidents are presented:
"phantom dogs," UFOs, "skinwalkers" (the Southwest
Indians' equivalent of werewolves), psychic and paranormal
manifestations, and many others. It ,is disappointing, how.ever, that rather than deal directly with the incidents, Hausman presents them as a springboard for his emotional and
psychological responses.
,
Intriguing is the word for many unusual happenings' reported in narrative style: a "psychic attack" in the author's
bedroom, also experienced by his wife arid their two children;
a mystery ;van driven by a mystery man, stuck in an inaccessible spot of desert 'behind Hausman's home; a fleeting,
silver-clad figure seen by the author and a friend near two
horses who, though alive, had had their eyes removed. The
events are related but, sadly, left unexplored in favor of
detailed description of the author's inner turmoil resulting
from the experiences.
Hausman has written an excellent, gripping bQOk. It is a:
compelling story, somewhat reminiscent of the current "Hero'
of Horror," Stephen King. It is, however, of little practical
use to the serious researcher. It is best read and will be most
~
appreciated- as an exceptional "non-fiction story. "

ThinI Qaaner 1981

In this section mostly contemporary curious and unexplained events, are reported.
Members a~e urged to send in newsclippings and reports they deem responsible~
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper or periodical),
city of publication, date of issue in which the article appeared, and your first initial
and last name (or membership number only if you prefer to be credited in that way.)

Photos by Marla Alegra courtesy 01 The Register

Rock Hopper Penguin,

Apprehended as Vagrant
On New Jersey Beach,
Bames Cops, Experts

Aft~r Couple of Hours in

Jail, Bird Gets Treatment
And Boarding Pass for
Flight to San Diego

Cheri Stewart, her boyfriend and

another couple were enjoying a relaxed
last-Saturday-evening-in-August on the
sands behind her home in Monmouth
Beach, New Jersey. About 7 p.m. she
noticed a strange-looking bird in the
surf-not feeding, not paddling, not
moving much at all but slowly drifting
toward shore oil the gentle evening tide.
Finally beached, the bird seellled alive
but exhausted and frightened, and a
scratch on its belly had bled a little.
"We didn't know what to do with it,"
said Miss Stewart, "so we called the
police." When Capt. Richard White o(

TIIinI Quad_ 1981

Monmouth Beach Police Officer Patrick McConville guesses the

penguin's weight at 10 to 15 pounds.
the Monmouth Beach force responded,
he ,found the bird standing in a box surrounded by admirers. The bird seemed
friendly, and Miss Stewart noted that
"it didn't snap at anyone" when some
of her more venturesome neighbors
dared to pet it.
Capt. White knew his duty. Bird and
box were placed on the rear seat of the
police car and off they went to headquarters. There, regulations continued
to be observed and the bird was placed
in a cell. (Police later explained that
they didn't know where else..to put it.)

Lee Bernstein, director of the New Jersey Humane Society, was called and he
came quickly to bailout the prisoner.
Bernstein identified the bird as a
penguin, but during the course of his
several phone calls to various specialists,
,the identification was changed to"auk
from penguin, then back again to penguin from auk. One of the specialists,
Betsy Jones, a wildlife rehabilitator in
nearby Surf City, took the bird in for
treatment and positively identified it as
a rock hopper penguin, a relatively rare
form of the species. She administered

Pu....,,; 137

antibiotics to alleviate a slight case of the

sniffles and fixed up a mess of smelts, a
food much relished by penguins.
"The rock hopper is an unusually small
variety and its natural habitat is the southernmost tip of Africa or South America,"
said Bernstein. How did a bird native to
such regions get .to central New Jersey's
~hores? Bernstein has tried to answer the
question but now says "it's a mystery that
never will be solved."
. One of his first theories was that the bird,
also known as a macaroni penguin, got
caught in a powerful ocean current. Then
he decided that the distance between Antarctica and New Jersey was too great to
allow that possibility. Another thought w.as
that this was someone's pet bird. "But who
goes down almost to Antarctica for a pet?"
After weekending in New Jersey the
penguin was taken by officials of the Bronx
Zoo for an overnight stay at their New
York facility. In the morning it was placed
aboard a United Air Lines plane bound for
sunny California. According to late reports
the bird is fuUy recovered, seems happy to
be among others of its species, and is looking forward to an assured future in show
business, at Sea World in San Diego.
SOURCES: The Sunday Register, 8/30/81 and
The Daily Register, 9/2/81 (Shrewsbury); As/Jury Park Press, 8/30/81 (all New Jersey);
Philadelphia

Inquirer,

9/6/81.

Member 1#432; S. Sanderson.

CREDITS:

Beast Bites Off More of House Than It Can Chew

Some say it's Bigfoot. Others say it's
nothing more than a coyote or wolf. Still
others say it's a big thing, alright, but only
o( imagination.
Whatever it was or wasn't, "something"
tore off part of a door, tore off chunks of
aluminum siding and left behind toothmarks blood and patches of cream-white
fur at ~he home of Terry and Mary Harper
. in Knox County, Indiana, on the night of
August 26.
"It was probably a wolf," said sheriff's
deputy Steve Litherland. "I gue~ it mus~
have stood 3 or 4 feet up and ate the side
or tore the hell out of the house, to tell the
truth. It wasn't a hoax."
.
Mrs. Harper said her family noticed no
disturbance during the night, eXcept her
12-year-old son heard the dog barking,
which was not unusual. The point of"attack
was 60 feet from the bedrooms, near the
door of the family room, not near the kitchen or any food storage area. "My dog's
food was right there by the doghouse,. 10
or 15 feet away, but the food w~n't touched, said Mrs. Harper.
She explained that the dog, a. fe!'l~e
German shepherd, ."usually chases anything out of the yard, I I but this time "she
put her paws over her eyes and was shak,ing
and whining and too frighteneO to move"
for hours after the attack.
II

Phoio by Mary Harper

Alumin~m siding, in place less than a year at the Harper

home in Vincennes, Indiana, was torn away by a mysteriOUS. mar~uder during the night of August 26.

Purauil138

.
.
f
.
Fearful
of( another onslaught
r0!'l thelr
unwelcome visitor, the Harpers ~ounted
a round-the-clock watch. and left lights on
through the night for more than .a week.
They began to relax when heavy rams ~me
to dilute the memories and lessen the likelihood of ano~her attack.
.
But one day short of one month later,
a strange, hairy bi~d was sighted !n a
cornfield about 12 miles south of the Harper
home. Barbara Crabtree was putting out
the garbage in her backyard about 9 p.m.
Septe~ber 2~ when ~he Sp?tted a creature
that ~d dirty white half allover and
stood somewhere between 7 and 8 feet tall.
He emit~ed a bad smell and had huge eyes,
but I couldn't tell what color they were
because I didn't stand ar~und long enough
.to look," sai~ Mrs. Crabtree .. In the garbage thrown out that mormng, she remembered, there was a chicken. By afternoon it was gone.
That nigtit she and her husband Roger
went to a drive-in movie. They were returning h,ome about 2 a.m. when he saw
the creature. It w~s coming toward the
road, from a patch of woods tlose by.
Mr. Crabtree called the sheriff's office.
DeputieS were sent to investigate but found
no evidence-no tufts of hair, no footprints.
Four days btter Mrs. Crabtree heard a
growling noise outside the house. It wasn't
Photo by srru

Top view of siding piece reveals violenCe of attack in

deep scratches or tooth-marks and numerous creases
in the metal.

Third Qauta 1981

just the dog, who was barking at the same

time, but a moaning growl like none she'd
ever heard. She woke her. husband. He
turned on the front porch lights and the
growling stopped. A few minutes later it
resumed on the side of the house. Again
the Crabtrees called the sheriff, again deputies were sent, and again they found "no
evidence."
So much for the official version.
Soon after receiving initial reports from
the Indiana press, SITU President Bob
Warth telephoned Mary Harper, and in a
letter dated October 4 she added these
details:
.
"The Crabtrees were the main witnesses,
sighting it twice. They too got the treatment when they called the sheriff. The deputies came out but didn't even get out of
the car to check what they had seen. After
they did this the deputies went back and
made it look like they were just imagining
seeing the creature. "

Summarizing his conversation with Mrs.

Harper in a memorandum to this journal,
Bob Warth drew a comparison between the
recent happenings in Indiana aDd "The
Wantage Event" in Sussex County, New
Jersey, reported in the fall of 1977 by
S. N. Mayne in Pursuit No. 40 (Vol. 10,
No.4):
"You will notice a similarity of the dam-
age .near the ground "in the photos from
Indiana and the photo reproduced on page

Halloween Treat
Shortly after dark on Halloween Anthony
M. Sarkis, Jr., was adjusting his telescope
on the front lawn of his parents' house in
North Adams, Massachusetts. Tony, age 13,
was not about to spend another Halloween
cadging junk food from the neighbors.
That's okay when you're a little kid, he
inused, but no more.
"Suddenly, I saw a red fireball shoot
across the sky and disappear behind the
house, " the eighth-grader told reporters.
"Then there was a loud boom, like a gunshot."

Tony sprinted around the house to the

backyard. He found a "crater" about one
foot wide and four inches lieep, and inside
was a glowing red rock the size of a baseball. He told his parents about the apparen~ meteorite and they ca,lled the police.
By the next day Tony Sarkis had become
a local celebrity. The .mayor and other
officials headed a procession of curiosityseekers that tramped around the Sarkis
backyard .throughout Sunday. Most pertinent of many pronouncements was one
by William G. Seeley, a professor of physics and astronomy at North Adams State
College. "Not in a dozen lifetimes will you
see this," he declared, and suggested that
the rock be sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
SOURCE: The New York Times, 11/3/81.
CREDIT: F. Wilson.
~

Tbinl Quarter 1981

126 of Pursuit No. 40. Both are alleged

Bigfoot attacks.
. "When I spoke with Mrs. Harper on
September 3 she said the Knox County
deputies would not discuss the damage to
her home with reporters, outsiders or anyone, other than to say it was. probably
a wolf or coyote.
"I asked her to send me some of the
cream-white hair strands, but she said the
deputies carefully searched for and removed every hair they found. .
"On Monday, September 28, she described the event that had taken place about
2 a.m. the previous ~tur~ay, 12 miles
south o( her home. She said her brother's
best friend, Roger Crabtree, came across
a 7- or 8-foot-tall biped with glowing red
eyes and covered with cream-white fur,
heading towards the lowlands of the nearby
White River. The creature was seen near
the small village of Decker Chapei.
. "Only two days had elapsed since the
sighting and she had not seen a newspaper
report of it, but she said the police had
shrugged it off as unverifiable and possibly
a hoax. Her brother is certain that his friend
would not make up a story and, in fact,
Mr. Crabtree went searching for the creature in daylight. He found no footprints in
the dry ground, but he did fmd tree branches
broken well above the usual human-shoulder
height.
"Mrs. Harper also noted that in her
house the family cat habitually slept close
to the wall area where the outer siding was
tom away, and she thought that the cat's
presence might have attracted the marauder
to try for entry at that point.

. "An added bit of mystery that didn't

make the papers: The day after the night
attack on the Harper home, members of a
neighbor family were shocked to find their
pet rabbit dead, its throat torn out and its
paws eaten off. .
"Remember the rabbits in Sussex; New
Jersey?"
SOURCES: Sun Commercial, Vincennes, 10/4/81;
AP and UPI dispatches in Evansville Courier,
8129181 and Times & Herald, Washington,
8129/81 (all bidiana); communications, Mary
Harper-SITU. CREDIT: Mrs. F. aile.

Rainstorm of Tiny Frogs

Most people have complained at one
time or another of it raining "cats and
dogs.". But the inhabitants of Nafplion, in
southern Greece, woke up one morning to
'find . it raining thousands of little green
frogs.
Scientists at the Meteorological Institute
in Athens believe ~he frogs, weighing no
more than a few ounces each, were sucked
up from north African marshes as a whirlwind passed over the area.
Then a fast air stream carried them SOO
or 600 miles over the sea to Greece and
there the little frogs came to earth again.
Many of them remarkably escaped injury
and have adjusted to their new surroundings,
keeping the local reSidents awake at night
with incessant croaking.
SOURCE: Sunday Express, London, England,
5/31/81. CREDIT: D ..Mace.

Report from ORION: The Nickelsvllle Glass Rod

"J.D. Salyer owns a UFO. Without much doubt, his glass rod qualifies as an Unidentified
Fallen Object. It dropped at his feet one cold' day last November ... "
That was the beginning of the first published report of The Nickelsville Glass Rod as
written by Mary Kiss for the Times-News after Mr. Salyer and his "UFO" had made an initial appearance o~ a TV newscast.
Nickelsville, with a population of less than 400, is located in southwestern Virginia about
15 miles north of Kingsport, Tennessee. Also in Tennessee is the very active Tri-Cities
chapter of ORION, an invCstigative group whose "Aztech Research" project is directed by
SITU member David K. Hackett.
After investigating the Nickelsville phenomenon for almost 20 months ORION issued a
report is published here not only for what it explains about the phedefinitive report.
nomenon but also for what it reveals about depth and quality of investigative method. And
that deserves the inore than three cheers we he.reby send to all at ORION. -Editors

The

'Orion'
Analysis
of the

Nickelsvilie
Virgirua
GlaSs Rod

and
Alleged
_FaD

Abstract
Several exfoliated glass pieces
were tested to identify the type of
glass, its possible origin, potential
age or exposure to radiation. The
tests shed little light on the story
associated with the glass rod from
which the samples were derived.
The glass samples are of common
glass (soda-lime silicate glass). The
samples reveal that the glass has nOl
been exposed to any appreciable ra-

. diation in the fifty years or less

since it last was heated. The shape
and structure of the rod suggests
that it .was manufactured in an
English-speaking country, possibly
as a towel bar or decorative handle.
Summary of WHness's Testimony

The NickelsviUe Rod was reported

to have fallen from the sky on
November 30, 1979 by Mr. K. D.
Salyer at about 10:30 a.m. He was
operating a front-end loader when

Pursrdl139

..

-------------------~--.------------ . -----,.------.------~--

'liT.

,LB. 10 U

Drawing of Objec::t, Nickelsville, Virginia, Nov. 30,1979

he observed a light in the sky as he
ing for radjoactivity by the local.
looked up at the full shovel-load of Civil Defense with not surprisingly
earth. It was a shimmering fireball
negative results. Tests were made.
by ORION for radiation "absorp(quite possibly sunlight reflected)
tion" using thermoluminescence.
which plummeted to the ground
This technique yields a figure for
about ten feet from the loader. The
the maximum exposure of ionizing
rod, which is about 24 inches in
radiation received by the sample
length, buried itself 18-20 inches into
since the last heating to annealing
the fresh (loose) earth. It was not
temperatures. If it is assumed to
warm to the touch when immediately
have received only sunlight and
recovered. The rod is one inch in dibackground ~adiation, then an age
ameter and tapered at bo~h ends. It
can be approximately assigned. The
is a straight shaft except for a very
3-15 Roentgen reading indicate litslight warping. The rod weighs one
tle exposure to radiation and a propound ten ounces. It begal\' exfolibable age of less than fifty years
ating some four months after it was
recovered. Two small chips (scabs)
since the last heating.
separated from one end (reportedly
Synthes~
the impact end). This information
The object did not fall from orbit
was derived from the attached newspaper account (by Mary Kiss in the . as there was not any ablative melting
from high-speed atmospheric transit,
TimesNews) and was supplenor could it have been in space for
mentedlconfirmed by personal ineven a few days without receiving
terview by ORION member Gary
more than 15R of radiation. The obBrink.
Analysis
ject would develop a terminal velocity of 135-215 feet per second (40 to
The object is apparently of
66m/s) if it fell from any point in the
AnglO-American manufacture, as
lower atmosphere. This speed would
the metrological standards used appear to be the inchlfoot system, the . release, upon impact into the .soil,
24,000 to 38,000 ft.-lbs. (32,500 to
object being two feet long and one
inch in diameter with an error range . 51,500 joules) with forces of 16,000
to 25,000 Ibs. (71,000 to 170,000
of about one percent. The rod has a
nwts), and a deceleration of .10,000
mold mark or seam running its
fo 15,000 fpsl (300 to 480 Gs) and
length, indicating that it was clI$t.
With a density of 2.47 0.05 and
compressive loads of 20,000 to
30,000 pounds per square inch. Such
an index of refraction of 1.50, the
loads are well within the structural
glass is most likely glass code designation 0080 or possibly 1770. It apintegrity of the glass. However, if the
p~rs, therefore, to be common
rod had struck hard-packed soil, asphalt, the loader, etc., it would have
glass (soda-lime silicate glass), as
originally indicated by flame test
smashed. As it was, localized fraoture stress caused delayed exfoliation
where it yielded the diagnostic sodium yellow name. As usual, public
of a glass scab from the impact end
"radiophobia" led to prompt testof the rod. Such scabs are not un-

.Deformed Skulls a Mystery .

A rare skull. deformity has affected newborn infants in two Colorado mountain
towns at a frequency perhaps 100 tiines
greater than the national average.
-In Steamboat Springs, at least five babies
. were born with craniosynostosis in little
more 'than four months in late 1978 and
early 1979. In Idaho Springs, two cases of
the defect were reported in December of
1979 within three days, and two other cases
in or near Idaho Springs were verified during a 4Vz-year period capped by the 1979
births.
Craniosynostosis is a premature fusing,.
or growing together, of the bones in a

ru.....itl40

common in impacts of glass and

might occur at any time after the impact, being promoted by handling
and theimal stresses. The exfoliated
chips. do exhibit radial stria.or seratches as would be Created by insertion
into soil containing small stones. It
should be noted that it is more than a
little fortuitous that the rod struck
vertically, and just ten feet from the
witness.
Summary
While all information derived
herein is consistent with the witness's impressions, nothing in the
investigation verifies his story
either. There is little. informa~ion
concerning. the origin of the rod,
and particl,llarly no information of
how it carne to be in the sky. The .
hypothesis that it fell from an air-.
plane is indeterminable unless
someone owns up to dropping it.
The notion that it could have been
lofted by tornado winds is very unlikely, particularly in November. A
mundane but nevertheless consistent interpretation is that the
firebali was merely a lens flare on
his eyeglasses, which he noted after
his eyes came to rest on the grounded object. The lens flare was then
ascribed to the object falling
through the air, in his reassembled
misinterpretation. The rod had
never been in the air, but had been
recently unearthed by his loader
shovel, the impact of the shovel
blade causing the exfoliation scab
stress. This challenging explanation
is meant merely to invoke thought ..
It has been it successful explanation
in several cases.' One case which
ORION investigated involved a distant meteor which fell in a trajec-

baby's skull. If not surgically corrected early

in life, it may cause the infant's head to become misshapen a~d restrict growth of the
brain, resulting in mental retardation ..
Researchers suspect .an environmental
cause of the high. incidence of the defect
but have found little evidence in favor of
any specific theory, such as impurities in
water supplies to the two communities.
SOURCE: Denver Post via AP to Asbury Park
Press; New Jersey, 8/30/81. CREDIT: Member
1#432.
.

Our Toothy Ancient Ancestors

. If a fossil is ISO million years old, how
can it be "new"?

tory obscured by a nearby ridge.

The witnesses followed the trajectory with their eyes until it disappeared behind the ridge; however, a
coon hunter's fire was first noticed
at this point on the ridge. The witnesses' interpretation was that the
meteor had hit the ridge ...
The glass rod ~herefore remains a
mystery and a Fortean occurrence,
for we cannot prove that it did or
.did not fall f~om the sky. While the
rod itself is not unusual, its falling
from the sky is a bit strange and
unexplained.
Bibliography
The Glass Engineering Handbook ..
Shand, McGraw-Hili -1958; Hand. book oJ the Glass Industry,
Scholes, Ogden-~atney'; Soil
Mechanics Handbook.
ORION Investigation Team
Gary Brink, witness interview and
sample recovery; David E. Fields
and Steven Glandon, thermoluminescence; David K. Hackett, glass
identification and mechanical
analysis.
Attachments
Thermoluminescence report;
Times-News report; G. Brin\(s'
drawing of rod; calculations.
IEditor's note: Since the two TOports and calculation sheets are
quite lengthy they are not published
here but have been placed in SITU's
archives where they may be duplicated at modest cost, to be quoted
in advance upon member's writt~n.
request. Please enclose stamped,
addressed envelope for reply.)

Answer: It can be new to science, it can

compel new thinking about the evolution
of all warm-blooded creatures on Earth,
and it can provide evidence of a form of
mammal previously unknown-a "new"
mammal.
A jawbone found in the Painted Desert
of Arizona in September was of a mammal
about the size and. shape of a shreW or
mo~se and was dated at about 180 million
years agp. when mammals first developed
on Earth. At the time, Arizona was an 'oftflooded flatland similar to the Mississippi
delta.
.
Recent theory about mammals has held
that one type of the tiny, shrew-like crea- .
tures began the evolutionary line that pro-

Third Qluiner 1981

Greatly enlarged close-up of the fossilized jawbone of a mouse-like creature found at dig in Painted Desert,
Arizona. Fossil is about haH the size
of a human fingernail.
duced nearly all mammals such as man,
horse, whale and dog and others that give
birth to live animals rather than laying
eggs. The other type, also ISOmillion years
old, was believed to be the ancestor .o( all
egg-laying mammals such as the platypus ..
The unnamed Arizona animal may upset this simple view of mammal ancestry
because the new find has, among other
differences, a distinctive arrangement of
teeth. One of the first mammals, Kuehneotheriid, has tall, pointed teeth, with cusps
in a triangular array. The only other type
known until now, Morganucodontid, has
low, rounded points on the teeth, arranged
in a straight line. The new jawbone's teeth
are tall and pointed and have cusps in a
straight array.
The discovery was made by Kathleen
Smith, an assistant professor of anatomy
at Duke University. On the second-to-Iast
day of a four-year dig funded by the National Geographic Society, she broke off a
piece of rock, recognized it as the fo~sil
they'd been looking for, and handed it to
the project director as she remarked, "Here,
Jenkins, here's your (expletive deleted) jaw."
The director, Farish A. Jenkins of Harvard
University, said an examination o( the jawbone imbedded in rock "immediately set
me going," and he hailed the discovery as
something new, despite its great age.
SOURCES: . The Washington Post and Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal 9/18/81. CREDIT:
F. Packard, H. Holland.

~
'It's Not Me-It's Him'
William Nimrod Saltzer and Nimrod
William Saltzer are 77-year:..old identical
'twins who live a mile apart in Lebanon,.
Pennsylvania. They went to the same school,
played in the student orchestra and ended
their formal education at 14 to work in the
same shoe factory for 50 years. They are
the same height, wear the same size shoe~,
and sport identical mustaches. Neither one
drinks or smokes.
The Saltzers recently shared another experience. Both underwent eye operations in
the same hospital, performed by the same
doctor on the same day. The difference.

ThIrd Quad_ 1981

was that surgery was performed on William's left eye and on Nimr.od's right. Surgery was later performed on the other eyes
in order to relieve the pressure of ghlucoma.
WiIIi~m says people in Lebanon have
gotten used to the Saltzers. "Some people
still get us mixed up and sometimes a stranger will ask if we are twins. We've had a
lot of fun. No one can tell us apart."
The Saltzers note some differences between them: William has four children and
Nimrod has one. William married his wife,
Mabel, at 19 and Nimrod married his wife,
Mildred, a year later. When they played
baseball on the factory team, Nimrod was
pitcher and William played the outfield.
"If he put his teeth in," said William of
, his brother, "he'd look just like me."
SOURCE: UPI dispatch in The Evening News.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 4/17/81. CREDIT:
L. Arnold.

Suicidal Birds
Hundreds of birds have committed "mass
suicide" in the reSumption this September
of a cyclical phenomenon long observed in
Haflong in the northeastern state of Assam,
India, 1,000 miles from New Delhi.
. The birds repeatedly dive at night into
glass-co'vered electric and kerosene outdoor
lamps. Most are killed on impact, but survivors seem to lose the will to feed and
soon die of starvation, according to scientists who have completed a three-week onsite study of the phenomenon.
The ill-fated birds include cattle egrets,
white-breasted water hens, Bengal florigams, green pigeons, red-breasted parakeets,
woodpeckers, red-whiskered. bulbul and
four species of kingfisher.
First noted in 1905, the phenomenon
periodically discontinues, then. reSumes.
Scientists have found no explanation for
the concerted "death-wish" nor have they
discovered a pattern for predicting when
the very mixed assortment of species will
again be dri~en to mass self-destruction.
SOURCE: United News of India via San Francisco Chronicle, 9/22/81. CREDIT: B. Barinoff.

~
Satellite Records Comet Crash
The Naval ReSearch Laboratory has reported that a comet collided with the sun
two years ago, generated tremendous energy
and scattered debris millions of miles across
the solar system. The event is the first confirmed case of a celestial body colliding
with the 'sun and it marks the first time a
comet has been discovered by a satellite,
according to Dr. Donald J. Michels who
said the August 30, 1979 collision was recorded during the laboratory's Solwind experiment. Because of delays in releasing
data from the satellite for analysis, the
evidence of the collision went unnoticed
until now.
The Solwind satellite monitors activity in

the sun's outer corona using an "occulting

disc," an artificial moon that creates the
effect of a permanent solar eclipse.
"Total eclipses observed from the Earth
last no more than a few minutes," Dr.
Michels said, "but Solwind has been able
to observe the sun's corona through these
artifical eclipses night and day for nearly
~hree. years. We estimate that when the
comet hit the sun the energy released was
about i ,000 times the energy used in the
United States during an entire year."
Dr. Michels said researchers think the
comet spotted by Solwind may have come
from a group known as "sun grazers,"
comets whose orbital paths often. skim
close to the sun. He said that about eight
sun grazers have been sighted from Earth
in the last 300 years but that many more.
may have escaped detection because of the
difficulty of. spotting them against the
bright solar background.
SOURCE: AP dispatch in Louisville (Ky.)
Courier-Journal, 10/10/81. CREDIT: H. Holland.

Solar Flares Are Disastrous

Are solar flares responsible for earthquakes, human illnesses and even crime
sprees? Marsha Adams, a biologist and
systems analyst, says yes and California
Governor Edmund Ci. Brown, Jr., is so
impressed with her research that he has
invited her to iestify on earthquake prediction before the State Assembly.
Ms. Adams says her research .shows that
solar flares-which are released by violent
storms on the sun-could trigger earthquakes worldwide, including one along the
San Andreas Fault, by pelting them with
low-frequency radio signals associated with
solar flareups. .
,
The same ultra-low-frequency signals,
she says, could create a "resonance" with
the brain wave activity of humans. As a
result, people who are "solar sensitive"
may experience severe depression or flulike symptoms. .
Ms. Adams, who has been working on
her theory for seven years, said she used
computers to correlate solar activity to
everything from quakes to airlines accidents to crime statistics. She found fatigue,
unusual weather, electrical malfunctions,
building collapses, riots and political instability were related to solar activity.
"While gathering the data 1 was extremely curious and kind of excited, but I
also felt a sort of disbelief'," Ms. Adams
admitted. Although some of her fellow
scientists share the disbelief, Ms. Adams
claims that mathematical tests of her data
indicate the chances of a statistical fluke at
less than one in 1,000.
.
SOURCE: UPl dispatch in The CaledonianRecord, SI. Johnsbury, VI., 9/16/81 and Daily
News, Jacksonville, Arkansas, 9115/81. CREDIT:
N. Bundgus, M. Eads.

Pursuit 141

The Notes of Charles Fort

Deciphered by ~ J. Pabst
ABBREVIATIONS

"

abo
ac to
A. J. Sci
(~I)

An deChimie
Annals of Phil
An Reg
An. Sci Disc
Arch. des. Decouv.
B
BA
bet
Bib. UJliv.
Bull des Sciences
Conn.
cor.
C.R.
(Cut)

D-58
det met
Edin J. Sci
Edin New Ph. J.
EMech

Eng.
EtoW
ext. heat
(F)

Finleys Rept.
Ft .
frgs
ft.
Gents Mag

about
according to
American Journal oJ Science
\
[? Almanac?)
Annales de Chimie
Annals 'of Philosophy
Annual Register
Annals of Scientific Discovery
Archives des Decouvertes
[?)

Report of the British Associatio,! for the

Adyancement of Science
between
Bibliographie Universelle
Bulletin des Sciences
Connecticut
correspondent
Comptes Rendus
illustrated
The Book of the Damned. page 58
detonating meteor
Edinburgh Journal of Science .
Edinburgh New, Philosophical Journal
English Mechanic' .
England
East to West
extrel1le heat
. Fletcher's List
Finley's Report
France
frogs
feet

Gentleman's MagaT,ine.
hours
(Hun)
Hungary
Inf conjunction
Inferior conjunction
Intro to Met
Introduction to Meteorology
Italy
(It)
Jour Asiatic Soc Bengal Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
La Sci Pour Tous
La Science Pour Tous
L'Institut
[?)
Liv Age
Living Age
LT
London Times
Mag Nat Hist
Magavne of Natural History
magnitude of moon
mag of moon
Magavne of Science
Mag of Sci
h

p.

magnetic storm
Maine
Meteor
morning
manuscript
Northeast
New Monthly Magazine
No More
Numbers
Northwest Provinces
New York Sun
OppOsition Mars
page

(P)

[?)

mag storm
Me
Met
morn
MS.
NE
New Monthly Mag.
N.M.
Nos.
N. W. Provo
NY Sun
Op Mars

Pennsylvania
phenomena
. i Philosophical Magazine
Philosophical Tra"nsoctions
'q
earthquake
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Institute
Q. J. Roy Inst
quake and phenomena
"q-phe
ref.
reference
Rept-B:A.
Report of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science
III [Reverse side)
probably not related
ScAm.
Scientific American
Sci. Gazette
SeientjflC Gazette [?)
Smithsonian Inst Rept. Annual Report oj the Smithsonian Institution
S. Op.
I Science Opinion [?)
Spontaneous Combustion
SponComb.
stationary
stat
southwest
S.w.
Tasmanian Journal
Tos"lanian Journal of Science
(th stone)
(thunderstone)
th. storm
thund~rstorm
Trans Bombay Geog
Transactions of the Bombay
Soc
Geographical Society
Trans Merc.
Transit Mercury
Va.
Virginia
vol.
volume
Volc
Volcano
Vulcs
Vulcans
Wernerian Nat Hist
Transactions of the Wernerian
Soc Trans
Natural History Society
W. Indies
West Indies
WtoE
West to East
Pa.
phe
Phil Mag
Phil Trans

"

1821
(Continued from page 48 of
Pursuit No. 53, Vol. 14, No. I,
First Quarter /98/)

Aug 18 I bet 9 and 10 a.m. I Blue

sun in Essex I Ass. Soc Met de
France 1903-81/ and Sussex /
[Reverse side) In afternoon, haze
at Paris, and the sun was white. I

""""'iI 142

This haze in Dauphine on 19th to

30th.
Aug 18 I Morning in London.
People excited by blue appearance
of sun. Changed to silvery. In Bristol
[Reverse side) sun had a purple
appearance. I Felix Farley's Bristol
Journal, 25th.
Aug 20 /' W. Indies I Fireball I
BA60.

Aug 23 I Whirlwind at Thrandistoh,

.Suffolk. Objects seized from a stall.
Broken crockery
~
[Reverse side) fell more than a mile
from T. I Felix Farley's Bristol
Journal, 25th.
Aug 25 I Snails I See Other Catalog. .
.
,
Aug 25 I (Liv) I Felix Farley's
Bristol Journal of 25th I People of
Bristol much amused with' exhibi-

tion and sale of snails saiA to have

fallen from
[Reverse side) the sky, at Tockington. They had suddenly appeared
on a farm. "Common rumor says
that the snails fell like a great
shower, which continued _upwards
of an hour and that the earth's surface waS covered, nearly six acres,.
three inches deep!!"
Aug 25 I Heavy fall of snail shells

near Tockington, Gloucestershire /

L.T., Aug. 27-3-<1 / Ph. Mag 58/
310,457.
Friday before Aug 31 / Letterkenny / Darkness with color effects
on all objects / Phil Mag 58/314.
Aug 30 / Dresden" / Fireball /
BA60.
Aug 31, Friday before / Letterkenny / darkness and seeming
descri ption
[Reverse side) of volcanic smoke.
The cauliflower cloud. / Phil Mag
58/314.
Sept / Showers of stones at home
of Thomas Jones,
[Reverse side) village of Meiford,
Momgomeryshire. Hundreds of
persons visited the place. / Cardiff
Western Mail, Sept 8, 1921.
Sept 7 / At sea / E to W / Fireball / BA 60.
Sept 9 / Tornado / N. Hampshire,
Mass / Finley's Rept.
Sept 20 / [newspaper clipping) /
Dreadful Earthquake, On the 21st
September, 1821, what is described
as a "Qreadful earthquake" is recorded as having taken place the
previous night. No lives were lost,
but a Mr. Ross and a Mr. The1ezau
were seriously injured. Much dam'
age to property .was reported, including injuries to the Governor's
residence and to Trinity Church" and
the Court House. On the 28th of
the same month, the "Gazette"
says:-"The reluctance expressed
by many proprietors to have the
injuries sustained by their properties
made public induces us to supress
all further details of the damage
done by the earthquake of the 20th
instant." / Trinidad Gazette. "
Sept 24 / (Series) / Fireball / Beinsuit, on Nile, at 8 p.m. / Another,
3:43 a.m. of 25th. / BA 1874-290 /
[Reverse side) At 9:23 p.m. of 26th, "
another. This apparently size of full
moon.
Oct 7 / F[r) / Vosges / q and
sounds / BA,. 54 / See Sept 13, '22.
Oct 7 / Saxony / Fireball / BA 60.
Oct 22 / Comrie / q[u)ake and
phe called "thunder and lightning /
Milne / Edin New Ph. J. 31/118.
Oct 23 / 3 p.m. / Severest q on
record then at Comrie / See Oct 23,
1839-? / Phil Mag 58-458.
Oct 28 / ab 9:30 p.m. / Saxony /
det met See 1805.
Oct 29 / 7 a.m. / q / Island of
Bute / LT, 1816 [?), Oct 31-2-<1.
Oct 30 / Marienwe"rder / Fireball /
BA60.
Oct 30 / q at Comrie / loud sound
that accompanied it heard at Blackford, 12 miles aw[ay) / LT, Oct
31-2-<1.
Oct / [Oct) 15, 1820 / Silk / Pernambuco / (26) / D-58.

[BCF, p. 59:
.
Annual Register, 1821-(i81:
That, according to a repon by

TbinI Quart. 1981

M. Laine, French Consul at Pernambuco, early in October, 1821,

there was a shower of a substance
resembling silk. The quantity was
as tremendous as might be a whole
cargo, lost somewhere between
Jupiter and Mars, having drifted
around perhaps for centuries, the
original fabric slowly disintegrating.
In Annales de Chimie, 2-15-427, it
is said that samples of this substance were sem to France by
M. Laine, and that they proved to
have some resemblances to silky
filaments which, at certain times of
the year, are carried by the wind
near Paris.)
."

Dec II/Fireball /. England /

BA"60.
Dec 13 / Great q / Japan /'BA II.
Dec 20 to at least Feb. 28, 1822 /
Violent eruption in Iceland / BA, 54.
Dec 24 / Bromberg, Wirtemberg /
Det Met / BA 60.
Dec 24 / Switzerland / Shock,
preceded by several meteors /
BA 54i'136.
Dec 24 / 7 p.m. / Ballenheim and
Altendorf, Germany / Det Met /
LT, Jan 9, 1822/ (BA-'60) /
"[Reverse side) Bromberg, Winemberg / B.A. / (See Nov 25, '22 /
May 8, '23 or '13.)
Dec 26 / Submarine volc near Bima,
island of Sumbava / BA 54.
Dec 28 / AUgSberg / Fireball /
BA60.

west at Portland, Me-almost mag

of moon.
March 9 / 13 h / Venus / Inf.
conjunction / (AI).
Mar. 16 / Richmond, Va. / great
det. met / BA, '60.
Mar 20 / Sounds of Meleda. (Adriat[icD begin. / A. de Chimie 30/
432///
[Reverse side) A 60 [stamped).
[BCF, p. 394:

Quar. Jour. Roy. Insf., 20-417:

That, early in the morning of

March 20, .1822, detonations were
heard at Melida, an island in the
Adriatic. All day, at intervals, the
sounds were heard. They were like
Nov 17 / Russia' and"" Georgia /
cannonading, and it was supposed
q. / [light) / BA 1911).
that they came from a vessel, or
Nov 22 / (It) / 2 a.m. / Abruzzi /
from Turkish artillery, practicing in
det met / See 1805, or An de Chimie
some frontier village. For thirty
33/405.
days the detonations continued,
1822
Nov. 22 / q. / Italy / II [Medium) /
sometimes thirty or forty, some/ mag storm and q / q at Lyons /
Adriatic !=oast / BA II.
times several hundred, a day.)
violently affects magnetic needle at
Nov 22 / Q / Q anq meteor /
March 31 / Leipsig / Fireball /
Paris / Mag Nat Hist 612%.
Naples / D-228.
I3A 60.
/ Fragments of calcite that fell on
[BCF, pp: 240-241 / See Aug: 7,
"Ap 5-6 / Etna start~. / qs around
deck of" ship near San Domingo /
1804.)
Elna / BA '54-138.
Sc Am. 81-343.
Nov. 28 i "Naples / fireball: / BA 60.
Ap. 6-10 / Catania, Italy / qs / I /
/ Gruithuisen discovered his city
[light /BA 1911).
Nov 28 / Night (29) / / Cape Town /
north of Schroter-parallel lines
brilliaili 'spots on moon / Phil
Ap. 9 / Rhodes / "long, bright
branching out from a central line
Trans \I2~237.
column of meteoric light, exploding
.like veins of a leaf.
with many sparks / BA '60~.
[BCF, pp. 208-209:
Jan II / Cherbourg, France / FireBright spots seen on moon, NoAp. 9 / Rhodes / 9 p.m. / Met
ball / BA60.
vember, 1821 (Proc. London Roy.
trail and great explosion in air /
Jan" 14 / Eichensfelt / Fireball /
Soc., 2-167).
Arago, Oeuvres XI/57 I.
BA60.
For four other instances, see
Ap. 10 / near Bangalore / Trans
Jan 22 / 10 p.m. / (q) / YorkLoomis (Treatise on Astronomy,
Bombay Geog Soc, vol. 9, by
shire? / Seaton Ross / Everingham /
p.174).
Dr. Buist / Masses of ice size of
Allathorp. / Beilby / Melbourne /
A moving light is reported in
pumpkins. Saw bodies of 27 dead
Phil. Trans., 84-429. To the :writer, " LT, Jan 31-3-e.
bullocks killed by the ice. I'n one of
it looked like a star passing over the
Jan 29 / India / Madras / q /
the masses of ice found a frozen
moon-"which, on the next moI [light) / BA 'II.
snake which revived.
ment's consideration I knew to be
Feb 6 / An incredible number of
Ap. 10 / Volc and met? / Towns
impossible." "It was a fixed, steady
insects fell upon Middelbourg, Belnear Elna / " A violent clap of
light upon the dark part of the
gium. / Ciel et Terre 21-258.
thunder was heard while" the sky
moon." I suppose "fixed" applies
Feb. 7 / q. / Japan / Tokio / III /
was quite clear,"
to luster.
[Heavy / BA 1911).
[Reverse side) and a violent q. Had
In the Report 0/ the Brit. Assoc.,
been severe shocks on 6th. / BA
/.
BA
'54.
Feb
13-25
/
Vesuvius
1847-18, there is an observation by
54/139. "
Feb. 18/ Op Mars / (AI).
Rankin, "upon luminous points seen
"on the shaded part of the moon,
.Feb 18 / Q in Komorn, Hungary," April 13 / Comrie / shock / "accompanied by two loud reports, one
during an eclipse. They seemed to
preceded by a verl(. loud sound
apparemly above our heads and the
this observer like reflections of
which seemed to come from the air,
.other, which followed immediately,
stars. That's not very reasonable:
[Reverse side) but Danube in a comunder our feet / Edin New Phil
however, we have, in the Annual
motion and threw up red sands on
Jour 31-119.
Register, 1821-687, a light not refershores. / BA 54.
able to a star-because it moved
Feb 19 / Savoy, Italy / q / I / " [BCF, p. 394:
with the moon: was seen three
Upon April 13, 1822, it seems,
[light / BA 1911).
nights in succession; reponed by
according to description, that
Feb. 28 / Vole in Iceland of Dec 20,
Capt. Kater. See Quart. Jour. Roy.
clearly enough was there an explosion
at least to this date.
Inst., 12-133.
in the sky of Comrie, and a con. 'March I / Brunn / Fireball / BA 60.
Phil. Trans., 112-237:
cussion of the ground-"two loud
Report from the Cape Town
March 7 / 16 h / Mercury / Inf
reports, one apparently over our
Observatory: a whitish spot on the
"conjunction / (AI).
heads, and the other, which foldark pan of tJ:!e moon's limb. Three
lowed immediately, under our
March 9 / Meteor-Troy / detonasmaller lights were seen.)
feet" (Edin. New Phil. Jour.,
tion 7 liz minutes later-ab. 10 p.m. /
[BCF, p. 394 / See February 5,
31-119).)
A. j. Sci 6/319 /
1821.)
[Reverse side) At Canajoharie,
May 7 / Costa Rica / q 0/ 111 /
a "strong, sulphurous odor. Seen and
Nov. 30 / Aerolite? / See Nov
[Heavy / BA 1911).
heard Saratoga, etc. / seen in s.w.
29, '09.
May 18 / Bologna / Sudden storm /
at Quebec /
Dec 1 or 2 / Fireball / Leipsig /
fall of lumps ice, some weighing
[Second page) Boston and in
BA60.
1/2 pound / An Reg '22-87.
[First page, reverse side) Pa. /
Dec. 3 / Weimar / Fireball I: BA 60.
May 20 / Ragusa ./ Fireball /
[Second page, front side) In the BA60.
Dec 4 / Gorlitz / Fireball / BA 60.

.........iI 143

forests outside seem to them. Or the

Sci. (math., astro., etc.) 1-1-298.]
May 21 I Dry fog! Paris I La Sci
"A large mass of fire fell down
homeopathist-but we shall- shovel
four Tous 14158 I See Aug. 1821 I
with a great explosion;
[BCF, p. 409:
data of coal.]
Aug.; 1831.
[Reverse side] possibly electrical." I
BA '60-68.
June I (.+) I See May il. I Cape
It seems acceptable that, upon
'May 23 I Kiel: Denmark ! FireVerde 'Islands / Brownish dust. . July 15 and 17, 1822, and then
balll BA 60.
Aug 13 I Egypt I Asia Minor I
Writer says thinks came from
upon a later date, unknown seeds
great q I BA 54-140.
.'
May 31 I q / France I BA '54-138.
fell from the sky to this earth. If
[Revers'C side] an African desert
Aug 13-16 I 10 p.m. I q. I Aleppo I
~une 3' I Metite 1 8 p.m. I Angers,
[bu]t says that was [des]cribed as
these seeds did come from some
An Reg.'22-151 I Said that in same
France I Small stone (30 ozl fell. 1
other world, there is another mys"like triturated pumice [an]d had a
[Reverse side] latitude as Aleppo,
BA60.
sul[ph]uric smell. I Mag. Nat [H]ist
tery. as well as that of repetition in. 2 rocks had arisen from sea near
June 9 I (F) I Stone fell, Angers,
'8-18.
a local sky of this earth. How could
Cyprus.
France. I Phil Mag 4/8/459 I An
a volume of seeds remain in one
June 16 I (+) I q and phe I Fr I
Aug 16 I Rochelle, France I and
de Chimie 2131/261 III
aggregation;
how
could
the'
seeds
4: 15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. I Seve~e
Paris
I Meteor with a serpentine
[Reverse side] 2127 I 130 II 1/15 II
be otherwise than scattered from
shocks at Cherbourg I "Immediately
course I BA '60-68.
1.6/304.
Norway to Patagonia, if they met
after
[BCF, p. 395:
June 9 I Moravia I Fireball I
in space this earth, and if this 'earth
[Reverse .side] the shocks .'a lumiBA60.
be rushing through space at a rate
nous meteor was seen. It seemed Ito
. Aug. 19, 1822-a tremendous deof 19 miles a second? It may. be
June 13 I Christiana, Norway I
rise from the ocean. It was followed
tonation at Melida-others con-'
that the seeds or' 1822 fell again.
Fireball I "A bituminous subby a loud explosion. Torrents of
tinuing sever.1 days.]
According to Kaemtz (Meteorology,
stance fell?" I
rain fell the same day. Said that
p. 465) .yellowish brown corpuscles,
Aug 22 I Bromberg I Fireball I
[Reverse side] BA 60 10-72.
a waterspout passed ove[r]. I
some round, a feW cylindrical, were
BA60.
[Front side] BA '54-138.
[BCF, pp. 74-75:
found upon the ground, June,
Aug 23 I Posen I BA 60 I [FireFall-during a thunderstormJune 17 I Catania, Sicily I Unde
1830, near Griesau, Silesia. Kaemtz
ball]. .
.
. July, 1681, near Cape Cod, upon
termined phe I BA '60-68 I "desays that they were tubercules from
the deck of an English vessel, the
tonating meteor?
Aug 24 I [London Times), 2-e I
roots of a well-known Silesian plantAlbemarle, of "burning,' bitumi[Reverse side] Repeats phe of Ap 10.
Volc/1celand. '
stalk of the plant dries up; heavy
nous mailer" (Edin. New Phil.
Sept 1 I Port Royal I W fto E I
June I Shower of brownish dust,
rain
raises'
these
tubercules
to
the
Jour., 26-86); a fall at Christiania,
grea,t,det met and train I BA 60.
smelling of sulphur,
ground-perSons of a low order of
Norway, June 13, 1822, of bitumi[Reverse side] like triturated pumice. I
Sept 5 I Great q I Asia Minor I
mentality
think
that
the'
things
had
nous maller, listed by Greg as
Tasmanian Journal 13[4?].
[BA] 'II.
fallen from the sky. Upon the night
doubtful; fall of bituminous maller,
June 17 I Leipsig I Fireball I
Sept 7 I 8 p.m. I Fort Royal, Mar-.
of March 24-25, 1852, a great quanin Germany, March 8, 1798, listed
BA60.
tity. of seeds did 'fall from the sky,
tinique I Great met detonating' with
by Greg. Lockyer (The Meteoric
in Prussia, in Heinsberg, Erklenz, . extreme violence. I Arch des Decouv
June 21 I Cliina I q I II! ./ [Heavy I
Hypothesis, p. 24) says that the suband JuIiers, according to M. Schwann, . 1823-183 I
BA 1911].
.
stance that fell at the Cape of Good
[Reverse side] Had been slight q,
of the University of Liege, in a
Hope, Oct. 13, I 838-about five
June 26 I Vole I Iceland I great
August 8, 8 p.m.' I p. 188 II (BA "
communication to the Belgian
cubic feet of it: substance so soft
violence I been Quiet 1/2 year I
60-68).
Academy of Science (La 8elgigue
that it was cUllable with a knifeA. Reg '22111.
Horticole, 2-319).]
Sept. 7 I Spon Comb. i France.
"after being experimented upon, it
summer I Italian fireflies near RedJuly 17 I Host of bUllerflies near
left a residue, which gave out a very
Sept 10 I Karlstadt I Listed as
ding 1 Nature 2-297.
'
Boulogne I July 26, vast swarms of
bituminous smell."
"a strong earthquake I from E to
July II I At dawn, Vesuvi~s beflies I Mag. Nat Hist 7-611.
And this inclusion of Lockyer'sWI BA '541 aerolites mentioned.
gan. 1 SA '54-140.
so far as findable in all books thai
July 19 I Hamburgh I Fireball I
Sept 10 I II :30 p.m. I Carlstadt
July 14 1 Italy I q I I I [Light I
I have read-is, in books, about as
BA60.
(Sweden) I noise-shocks and aeroSA 1911].
close as we can get to our desiderlites found I C.R., 17-622/
June 21 I Great q I China I SA 'II.
July 15 I'Marienwerder. Germany I.
atum-that coal has fallen from the
[Reverse side] Great number of
June 21 I' Metite I Commune of
after storm 1 Unknown lillie round
sky. Dr. Farrington, except with
falling stars.
Clohars-Fouesnon I Metite. I C.R.
seeds in great quantity. Inhabitants
a brief mention, ignores the whole
124-1543.
.
,
Sept 10 I 11:30 p.m. I (q) I strong
tried
subject of the fall of carbonaceous
q felt throughout province of WerJuly 23 I 6 a.m. I Violent Yolc.
[Reverse side] to cook them but no
mailer from the sky. Proctor, in all
./'
meland, Sweden-first it noise like
eruption
in
Sumatra
I
BA
'54-140.
effect after boiling an hour. I Bull
of his books that I have read-is,
cannon I
July 28 I Brunn, Fireball I BA 60.
des Sciences ill 1298.
in books, about as close as we can
[Reverse side) then meteors I aeroget to the admission that carbona- . July 17 I Silesia I after storm I
July 29 I Granada, Spain I q I I I
lites said to have fallen I B Assoc
ceous mailer has b~n found in
[Light I BA 1911].
Great quantity little round seeds.
54/141 I (Ph. Mag 4-8-45).
!YIeteorites "in very minute quan[Reverse side] Then' scientists said
Aug I Poi tiers (?) I frgs I L'lnstitut
Sept. 13 I Epinal, Vosges,' France I
'tities"-or my own suspil;ion is that
they were seeds of the Galium
21410 I .
.
Met-ite. I F I See Oct 7, '21. I
it" is possible to damn something
~purium. I Bull de Sci 1/11298.
[Reverse side] B I Try Country
BA, '77-91.
else only by losing one's own soulGentleman.
Sept 13 I Metite of Baffe (Vosges) I
quasi-soul, of course.
'.
[BCF, pp. 394-395:
Aug 6 I 8: 15 p.m. I Paris I great
7 a.m. I in a violent th. storm. I
Sci. A mer. , 35-120:
serpentine met train I more than 5
Q. J. Roy Inst 14-448.
.
That the substance that fell at the
July 15, 1822-the fall of perhaps
minutes I Arch. des. Decouv.Cape of Good Hope "resembled a
unknown seeds from perhaps an
Sept \3 I (th stone) I Baffe (Vosges)
1822-199.
piece of anthracite ooal more than
unknown world-a great quantity
lin
tremendous storm, excepAug' 6 I Paris I Caen I Southanything else. "
of little round seeds that fell from'
tional thunder and lightning, violent
ampton
I
det
met
I
BA
60-68.
It's a mistake, I think: the rethe sky at Marienwerder, Germany.
rain, stone fell. I Bib. Univ. 22-68 I
Aug 7 I Moravia I Fireball I
semblance is to bituminous coalThey were unknown to the inhabCanton d'Epinal.
BA60.
but it is from the periodicals that
itants, who tried to cook them, but
Sept 18 I q and loud noise Uke
we must get our data. To the writers found that boiling seer:ned to have
Aug 7 I Agra (Kadonah) IN. W.
distant thunder I BA '54/141 I
of books upon meteorites, it would
no effect upon them. Wherever
Prov.. I India I (F).
Dunston, near Newcastle-q. bebe as wicked-by which we mean
they came from, they were brought
Aug 7 I Aerolite I also 1823 I
tween I and 2 a.m. I LT, Sept
departure from the characters' of an
down by a storm, and two days
E Mec 79/383.
24-2-d.
established species-q~i-established,
later, more of them fell, in a storm,
Aug 8 I [London .Times], 2-d I
Oct
8 and 12 I Great vole eruption
of course-to say that coal has
in Silesia. It is said that these corVole I Vesuvius.
.
in Java I L.T., Aug 30, 1883.
fallen from the sky, as would be,to
puscles were identified by some
10
I
Sounds
of
Melida
heard
Aug
13
I
Orenburg
I
Fireball
I
Oct
something in a barnyard, a tempta- .: scientists as seeds of Galium spuragain. III
BA60.
tion that it climb a tree and catclr
ium, but that other scientists dis[Reverse side] A 59 [stamped].
a bird. Domestic things in a barn~ . agreed. Later more of them fell, at
(To be continued)
Aug II I Liege and Coblentz I
yard: and how wild things from
Posen, Mecklenburg. See 8ull. des

Third Q.art.. 1981

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Uttle Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary and Treasurer: Gregory
Arend, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler, and Albena lwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museumsand Director, Paleo-Indian Institute,
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant, National Institute for Rehabilitation.Engineering, Butler, N.J.
(Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott: Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. luck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.l.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other professionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public Interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them. .
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth In documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the SOciety.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. I, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were rehigated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the Issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids" -the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

More evidence needed

about lake's monster,
gathered scientists ~ay

IDoe.o

. '...

.- . . .

Droblem wl.h 'he Mlnsi photo 01 a LIke

. .~ =. thl! absence of a negative. Mansi
'he film hId

.,.,~
~q

._-.

.'

-PB~~

EyeWitnesses Atf,
-.,
nd
To TellAboutS. e Sc;enti/icSem'
.
~t'
m~
h
~-:"NR'LLV
lngs, Hear The .
... SliELsUJINE .. ... .....
...."'" of
Orles
:II! their mou, - A re ... year
lehoQJ r III. rake Sb.

Wou~tbJnIr rIJ..,Ju .wIIul

aa:~.i'!'!'~"

ftI.

'~r':

. '

........

. :..

. . .

.'

eo....i ...:"

~. ,.:. ~-=::.
~~...:::.~.~~.. ~:.'
y.~'-:::~'-:.' .. :-:"

, ' ,

~ ~ ~.

r'

'C

". '.;:::: '.~ -:":":, ~~'.:

' . . ~: .. :"'.:~~~.~ .. ' "

'. ~:.
.

"'~.i"~",:~ ~.

;~.: .. ~~:~ ;'.'~.;~': .::

~_

whc

..

Ch~

a e

namp aDoclc,

Th

.'

\I

1977,
on tbr

_he,.
a l"hp M

aM:lenhstsinn-~.i.-.
...,,'"
.
ue'QQ"te::. 'dCo

"'01

WOOdd~ei~wr:!bUIId~.8Jfta1l

andeJrtendlit' b o'hls camp

feet where
IU e lakubout)S
feel deep. ~: ::Ier is about lowUprtPI pieces
ax.... tor me
Ihey can WIUlsland&re braced so
weather and
.11)' roup
widthpl.ntsf:,~:~ut IO'lnch
Her.. ke1ihedock our.
:" . nd PU~I II up ..'!:";b':;::'

u..e:

r:.::

George Zug, Joseph Zarzynski and Dr.

th. laft. oiIichard Greenwell. Dr.

Roy Mackll. Dr. Philip Reines, of Plansburgh. also was present on the panel of
scientists meeting in Shelburne. vr. (UPI)

. ,..- "-

- mpltlln
's Monster G
..
.. Jl..o1
a I n I ng C--iI!!Jil ~/'
I uy

tit's Saturday ~r: s~ep- dozen oecufTed Ibis year

lin
tific seminar held t::~~~ alone.
majeSI:a.~ ~allY quite.
anSWers to the 400-year_
.rFIT~ADLEGS
said "bu'tlw rl. Mansi
oldqueSII~norwhelhera ~e or "the reo ..... "IS _ Ilh~ghtlh.ta5~tekmrhedd
serpent-like monst
the one that hall
IplS
d
c ~r a
dweolls In Lake Cha e~ recent worldwi
an ...w=s I~.. na:.lo
plain.
m. esl-camefro
,. Ore. . :....
I~~out 2~ P~ple. in. ~ansl of Ne.
Iv

.A

:o~t!~lw~~~:~!~slsioPl'::"~ coIO:~"ph:~lr~

alElle. ow!.":.-::kin,awltharriendwha

~... ,.,
.. at

:a

'14ned ~:. a, fin .

I~ to be .. e oft-reported Lake
~~ lIIdhelld~lbe.b"I' ..:llIe, It ter. Champ, Included

outnu';'berod.

By ROO CLARKE

c~ the lake H Ii ~mpan lheIhareor

'" .: ~"": :~~ : . '

, #tad a te
,slimy and s
like an HI. ,
Mansi

Ch

JIJe

:aID,
ere hi. been. 101 orralkthil
8lld
f1l " ~~:-na~:U1 d:I"~renl ~?ple who
aid'::: CM:mplal:."Uw Champ anLake

. . '. ".~ . :.:. ~~~~ :, '.~ .

'.':~':~'.~",::,;.~.':.' .. ~':'.. :'

.Pur.
Ch

te!r~.!".Y

Saturday to njPlSHELBURNE. VI
:;ftVfln.Q
I -: The belieyeri
a::,l' 'C'L
I

:.:: '::

" '.:

L k

"''ime .
no,;::"

tor

Panelists meet
Hslon considering the

U ht
:

beast S frequent apppar. mr:tnsterin 197

anees, and the curiOus
Shetoldth
showed up at a lakeside Ihe and her ,
Farm For the session vacationing
sponsore~ by the Lake Champlain
Champlain Committee
bans when,
Ever since explo~er luranee ;1
Samuel D. Champlam followed b'
flnt reponed seeing a an~eotab
.~!ranle be~st Frolicking ne,~k.~ "
~Ihelake In.!6~. there ne IlJoo~

..t-:I. l'n/..-.

111

"I

g."n tJlei....
t.:;

...

ArIZ~?..~;,haye

111

Ih....

SREL8;a~i~;:;n;
liOli ~':~(;h=: I~;;:: ~I~h~~ ~::s up and ca~:i~ ra:'~~':::::n~ Cublicity h .
J. Yl On teCh.....
:a.=~ :=te~e:.ed1n ~ lu:::,;);1 .pu~ ::.,elh., Wh~:::!f.:ett many Peaple ~:'7;...e.n .:iio'::: 8i:htrn';.~ -::~t::- "auld I"DJ] S

er

10

lMas 01 skcPIlt' bt
J beheu
sal
gene
M Uu
Vien, Jr. 0"
vl:wetts Bay solid hi\
with aoldi~~~~P .~elar.

it.~';h:Ut.dO"'"
E

;a large

SC.hO:t~t~tisl~~.~.

and ...~n. he said. In'e POintS'

acedl~..~helakeand

lr.e ......

"'06

;'I~"'i"

'''.a/lDl'':biJ., auc,"

.PI<r~
~~'"": Iclrl
:~~
.nd
alJdh.,~~-oqJb
y -'-r."

:"fee-:::r;:;:.,:::~-:s:::,..

.~.z.e~

10 IJO

~/~':::.

I
I

CONSOLIDATED NEWSWIRE REPORT .. AUGUST 30,1981

SHELBURNE, VERMONT - THERE PROBABLY IS SOME TYPE OF LARGE MARINE ANIMAL

LIVING IN LAKE CHAMPLAIN BUT. I PANEL OF DISTINGUISHED .SCIENTISTS CANNOT
AGREE ON WHAT IT IS. A LARGE SERPENT-LIKE CREATURE HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT OF
I
i
.ALMOST 150 SIGHTINGS, SEVERAL qF WHICH WERE DESCRIBED BY WITNESSES AT
A DAY-LONG SCIENTIFIC SEMINAR rESTERDAY O~ THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN MONSTER
PHENOMENON.. ALL SCIENTISTS WlIO ADDRESSE~ THE CONFERENCE AGREED THE
EVIDENCE IN FAVOR OF THE EXISTENCE OF CHAMP, AS THE CREATURE IS KNOWN, IS
OVERWHELMING. BUT THEY SAID IT COULD BE AILARGE SPECIES OF EEL, STURGEON
OR OTHER KNOWN MARINE ANIMAL, OR IT COUL~ BE A DEVIANT OR UNKNOWN
ANIMAL, OR SOME PREHISTORIC MARINE DENIZEN THOUGHT TO BE EXTINCT. THE
I
I
CONSENSUS WAS EXPRESSED BY DR. GEORGE ZUG OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
I
.:
WHO SAID: "I BELIEVE THERE IS A POPULATION OF LARGE ANIMALS OF SOME KIND (IN
LAKE CHA.MP.LAIN.~') .

I i .
I
I

I
I

The story of the Lake Champlain "monster" began almost 375 years ago. Much of the ensuing chronology,
especially the recent sightings and investigations, was summarized in Pursuit No. 54 (Vol.. 14, No.2, Second
Quarter 1981). At the conclusion of the conference an opportunity was provided for nonmembers of SITU to
purchase copies of the issue at the single-copy price. The limited supply was quickly sold out.

-.

~lhew.ler

.r
I. q~llS

........Ol ..

~OqbalJDi~'!'.I'r......

Oil

,
. . te'h
... S

~hJ
en.SltIll.aU__terr..,1onaJ

Does MOll8terDwe'. !-,rd.y~~r~h"'.'I01oa

ro_,.,~-.;;:'.rhfa..-.~~
~ l..a
" on a'h 8CienUtic 'h .. WIDII year. SOII'Ie people IorPt:::'
II ....nrted ,...,,":[SW.
~1otJn~I4I11le.e.,~_j,J.
n lie Champlain? .::f.n;": loL~~: ~~. ~in::n~~~..d:::-.::. t:=t :::. ;",-- Orl '8 ,y,'"
.:~, ':J.:::~":~YOe/::
.
)''A...!:D ~eurnin
.qeJ ceaad heavy wavel in the
e rg--'d '.
.I.. jOp JlJl'
'IJ l..a..-t'alr.".te
I

""'e

q.l\..b

OlJllrtj

0.':1.

- ",-Uj IJ}

me ir Champ eXists" she

~aid. ". kr.owCha~pex_
IstS.
s,een him. aimosl on a first-name b
sis."
a
frt.".OFABRICATJON
Sc~~.~tisls I.t the Uni.

'Science is tlae Pursuit 0/ tJae Unexplained'

Journal of SITU
The
Society for the
Investigation of
The Unexplained

Volume 14
Number 4
Whole 56
Fourth Quarter
1981

Approximate size and configuration of the Sampson County Mystery Animal track. This is
supposedly a left-forefoot print reconstructed from a photograph of the actual track. Note
the lack of claw marks, the rather even spacing of the toes, and the distortion of the pad
to the right, as If the animal had been pushing toward the left when it made this print.
Compare with description of hyena spoors. See pages 149151.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
SITU (pronounced sit' - you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or wUl not study.
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
Membership is for the calendar year, January-December, $12 in the United States. Elsewhere, membership is $12 plus a surcharge necessitated by the additional mailing cost. Amount of surcharge, which varies according to region, will be quoted in response to individual request. Members receive the Society's quarterly
journal Pursuit plus any special SITU publications for the year of membership.
SITU welcomes membership participation. Members should send articles, photographs, newspaper clips,
book reviews and "letters to be editor" to be considered for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson, 66 Bortic
Road, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009 USA. Use this address for Pursuit material only. Other mail, including changes
of address, library orders, postal errors, back issues, renewals, gift memberships and donations, should be sent
to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address at the top of this page. Please allow six or more weeks advance notice of change of address.
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports, newspaper .and magazine clippings, correspondence,
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answered by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff tim~, a fee for research will be
charged. Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped envelope with the inquiry so
that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The legal affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the laws of the State
of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the Scientific Advisory
Board (see inside back cover).
IMPORTANT NOTICES
The Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members.
The Society does not hold any political, religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit
concerning such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion
or ethics, are those of the individual member or author and not those of the Society.
The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications.
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available
for sale, rental, exchange or any use except the foregoing. .
Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues. are tax deductible to the extent permitted by the U.S.
Internal Revenue Code. and in some states as their taxing authorities may permit.
PUBLICATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the issues are numbered respectively from
1 through 4 and constitute a volume. Volume 1 being for 1968 and before, Volume 2 for 1969. and so on. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit. without membership benefits. are available to public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $10 for the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fully protected by international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof may be granted. at the discretion of SITU and the author. upon written request and statement of proposed
use. directed to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address printed at the top of this page.

THE QUARTERtY
JOURNAL OF THE

" , 'e

'

rSUlt

ISOCIETY FOR THE

INVESTIGATION OF
THE

UNEXPLAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents
Page
Symposium

146

The Sampson County Mystery Animal

by Paul B. Thompson

149

A Prehistoric Race of White People May Have

Lived in West Virginia's, Kanawha Valley
152
by Nancy Clark
The Resurrection of Huitzolopochli
by George Agogino

155

Recollections from the Life of a Radiesthesist

by Maria Frauzen
158
Icebergs or "Waters of the Earth"
by Christopher Bird

162

The Tree of Life

by Diane E. ~irth

168

'

The Medusa Cell

by Paul B. Thompson

172

Atlantis: Lost and Found Again (Part IV)

by Jon Douglas Singer

173

Deep-Sky Earthquake Predicting

by Allan J. Grise

l78

Books

180

SITUations

184

Letters

188

The Notes of Charles Fort

Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst

190

Cover: Track of the Sampson County Mystery

Animal, reconstructed by Paul B. Thompson.

The pubUsher askee.:

"What's the most Important article In this Issue'"
"I don't know," repUed the production editor,
"but we've sure got plenty of variety. "
After eyeballing the Contents page and thurn_bing
through the ensuing 47 pages, most readers will
probably agree with that assessment,
The geographical variety ranges from North Carolina to West Virginia, then to Mexico, Germany,
France, elsewhere in Europe, on to the Near East, Far East and India; even to the Lost Atlantis, whereever that may be.
There is topical variety, too, in Chris Bird's innovative consideration of one of civilization's leastunderstood resources: water. Looks-back are paired
with looks-ahead: the Maria Frauzen Recollections
that reveal her exotic but apparently effective practice of medical dowsing in 19th-century Germany;
and Paul Thompson's report on the Medusa cell,
with the positive implications it holds fdr the treatment of malignant disease.
In the mountains of northeastern Mexico, George
Agogino found reason to wonder how any people,
whatever their lack of education, could be so misled
as to resurrect an ancient rite of human sacrifice
only twenty years ago. But in south-central Mexico,
less than two years ago, a reputable businessman
and his son felt wonder of a different sort as they
watched a formation of UFOs overfly their home,
only six blocks from the Sheraton Hotel in down- town Guadalajara, one of Mexico's largest cities.
Preceding all this is a page that bears the title .
Symposium, which formerly headed the section of
our journal reserved for letters to the editor. Origin- '
ally, Symposium was intend,ed to be a forum wherein
,members could discuss, in non-technical terms, their
personal impressions of the Unexplained world,
without putting academic credibility at risk. as an
"unorthodox article" might, or inviting severe' abbreviation, as a lengthy "letter to the editor" could.
Evan Hansen, in his letter on the next page. is the
"first speaker on the program" for our renewed
Symposlum'~ We hope for good attendance. and we
i~vit~ others' to raise ,their hands to ask questions
and,take part in the lively discussi~ns that we hope
,wil~ follow.
'
'
-The editors

Pursuit VoL 14, No_ 4, Whole No. 56, Fourt~ Quart~r 1981. Copy'right 1981 by The SocietY'for the Investigation of the Unexplained. ISSN 0033-4685.
No part of this'periodical may be reproduced without the written,consent of the Society, Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
~ditor; Sabina W. Sanderson and Mart,in"Wiegler, Cons,ulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and Oceanographic Consultant.'
"

11.

'

'.

,.Drift, Rift, and, the ,Remarkable Htim'an Footpl'i~t

Discove~ed
in Cambrian
Rock
.
.
.
.
.'

After I had renewed my membership, a notice was

,received inviting members to submit their personal re,search. I seem always to be involved in a half-dozen
far-out projects, at least half of which may be interesting e~ough to attract others to participation. I'm a farmer, which 'means in the summer I'm often so busy that
, I don't even have time to sit down to eat. But winter
gives me a lot of free time, which I use for whatever
interests me at the time. My greatest pleasure in life is
coilecting material that bugs the self-anointed "experts."
Let me describe a few things I'm involved in, and this is
an' open invitation to all others who may care to join
, nie in studying them.
First, is anyone interested in the study of continental
drift? I became interested in geothermal activity back in
1974 and have spent most of my spare time and money
, on tttis study eve_r since. In my opinion, the local geo, .ogy in this, valley where I live is the most interesting of
, any in AmeI:ica. Anyone who :understands continental
, drift ,is aware of the mid-oceanic rifts that circle the
whole planet. The .biggest one starts under the MideastSyria or Turkey-and I crossing Israel, forms the Red
Sea, continues across the Pacific, and enters land in
Mexico where it splits Baja California away from the
Mexican mwnland. Here conventional geology loses it.
Some say the San Andreas Fault is the extension of it,
but this fault has a right-lateral slip instead of rifting;
which proves it's only a transform fault. The actual
rift .. goes inland, roughly following the Colorado River
until it hits Utah. It passes within ten miles of my farm,
ruilDlng in a line between Newcastle to Lund, and far ther on both north and south. The line is creeping ~l
the time, in some places moving as much as a foot in a
year. I put stakes across a single earth-crack and measured four inches of spread in less than a year.
You may remember, when Carter decided on mobile
deployment of the MX missile, Beryl was selected as the
first choice for the primary operating base~ Naturally,
I didn't want that monstrosity in my backyard, so I
:started raising hell about building it on some of the
. most unstable land in America. I was able to get the
"',. fir,s~ choice' of base sites moved from Beryl to Coyote
Spring, Nevada, while Carter was still President., Last
March, KSL-TV gave my work IS minutes' coverage on
their "Dimension Five" feature. ,I. don't know to what
extent my effort helped to stop MX, but the effort was
considerable.
Anyway, with MX dead (I hope), public interest in
th~ activity along this rift has ended. But the movemerits ..are still going on. So if anyone is interested in
basic research about earth movements along, this rift,
there is an open invitatio~ to come, for a vi.sit and see
wh"t, I've located.
'
,
: This rift keeps our fault lines open enough Cor.-water
to reach the' heat in the interior of the, Earth~ which.
. gives this ,valley some of the best: geothernlal heat' of ., .
. ~y J?l8ce in the c.ountrr. Just, Qe,fore ,Christ~as, Union, '
1

.,
"

Oil put down a test-Well at Newcastle~ The edii~r of the

local newspaper is my closest neighbor, and he, sent im'
attractive girl reporter to interview the drill crew. The
information is confidential so he couldn't. publish it, but
. he told me the results: By 1,000 feet they had 500 de~
grees; by 2,000 the pressure was so high they feared a
blowout, and had to switch their drilling, mud' from
bentonite to barium in the hope tliat the greater weight
of the barium would hold it down. By the time they
quit at 3,000 feet, temperatures were over 600 degrees.
Union Oil now has plans to drill a second test-hole far.. 'ther out in the valley, and if it holds true' (which it: will)
9tey will proceed with a production well. '(Anyone concerned with g~othermal heat is invited to see my \york
on the subject.)
The thing that made me get serious about geology"
,was when I found proof that Noah's flood, actually
. happened. I started farming in 1968, and for 12 y~s
I flood-irrigated out of open ditches. There is no better
way to learn the laws of physics that govern erosion and
deposition of sediment. It was a simple matter to traps':
fer my observations of irrigation ditches to what .. see
around me in the mountains. I have enjoyed just bumming around the mountains ever since I was old enough
to get out from my mother's eyesight.
One day, a friend who was visiting started discussing
whether Noah's flood actually happened. To prove that
it did, we went to look at an irrigation channel I had
located years earlier. He had to admit that 'a ch~nel of
that size could be caused by nothing less than a catastrophic flood, which provoked us' to an attempt to
calculate the rainfall.. As our investigation 'progressed,
we found that this area had turned into desert immediately after the flood ended, thereby preserving about
980/0 of the evidence. The final stage of the flood was
marked by rainfall at a rate of at least 10 inches per
hour.
The channel had rocks constricting it to 200 yards iIi
width, at a point where erosion marks on the rocks
showed a depth of 20-25 feet. It widened at other ,PQints
but there was no means of measuring depth. The slope
is 100 feet to the mile and the area 9rained is approximately 90 square miles. Every drainage channel leading
into this valley is roughly in the same proportion. For
example, one channel that drains an area 8x12 miles is
200 yards wide and carried rocks as big as a: ton a diS-.
tance of SOO yards past the mouth of the channel, into
.
'
the standingwater ofthe lake.
-In a watershed that drains an area of 90 square ,miles, '
the' flow hit a hill of ignimbrite, rock. This rock is. so
br~~tle. that it shatters on impact,. yet it is hard enough
to scratch glass and would. therefore resist, abrasion'.
The flow was strong enough to cut a' hole in' the solid
, ignimbrite to a.' depth, oJ 35 yards, carving a ch~nnel
. . 150 yards wide. I fi~d ~i~ilar. evidence wherever I look.
: The story as l have .reconstructed' it up to this time, is
'simple:. rti~ flood hit at, ihe 'close of tp.e Ice Age. 'The

, Fourth, Quarter
".
.198-1
.

.'

''/

caSt of Human Footprint

With Tril~bites-Said
To Have Been Found
In Cambrian" Rock
By W. J. Meister

"The Cambrian was

the earliest period of
the Paleozoic era and
was "characterized by
rocks formed under
shallowsea condl':
tlons (limestone,
sandstone. shales)
and by Invertebrates
such as trilobites,"
according to one
dictionary,

(Excerpts from a brief report by Melvin .A. Cook .on his examination of the Meister specimen described in Evan
Hansen's letter. Dr. Cook is professor of metallurgy at the University of Utah.)

Early in June 1968 I was introduced to Mr. Meister

by Burton Tew, research scientist, Baccus Works,
Hercules Incorporated. Mr. Meister had with him a
. most remarkable fossil specimen of a human footprint embedded in which were two very distinct trilobites and several smaller, less distinct ones.
The specimen comprised two approximately inchthick slabs displayed in a plaster-of-paris cast. One
slab contained the footprint and its associated trilobites
and the other its mold. The footprint was that of the
right foot of a human wearing a sandal. The rock in
which the print was impressed was obviously natural,
genuine, and characteristic rock ....
While I am by no means an authority on fossils

and footprints, the Meister specimen seems to me

clearly to speak for itself. Even aside from any doubt
as to the identity of the formation in which the discovery was made, it is a serious contradiction of convcmtional geology. That is, the feature' of .this specimen is the intimate simultaneous occurrence of modem
(sandal-shod) men with trilobites. Furthermore, no'
intellectually honest individual examining this specimen
can reasonably deny its genuine appearance.....
.
-Melvin A. Cook
Dr. Cook's complete report together with an article
by Mr. Meister was published in the December 1968
issUe of Creation Research Society Quarterly.

same catastrophe that changed the Pleistocene to the

static rebound, but where the' lake was too shallow ,for
rebound, the 5140 level.still held true. "East Bench'i'is'
modern also caused the flood. The Ice Ages were not
very well defined, but why is there no "west bench"?
colder than the present; but the polar axis shifted about
1,000 miles and' the sudden melting of the ice cap was,
. Nowhere on the western mountains is tbe 5140 terrace
' . ' foundl ~y evidence to date .indicates that .a sudden
the cause of the .flood.
At that time Utah was nearly all under water. Lake _ surge of water'trom the northwest buried the terrace
: line. The few fragments of terrace that d~ remain are
Bonneville is the vestigial remainder. There was an over-:
flow into the Snake River in Idaho that limited .the top
below mountain" peaks s'c:) high that they woul~ have
water level to an elevatio~ of. 5140 feet above .sea level.
protected the spot from sQch a surge.
. 'The lake'-1evel rose to about" 6000 feet for a brie( time
The ."East Bench" in Salt Lake valley is the terrace line
of that.Jevel. It 'was rajsed to about 5200 feet by isobut it 8.90n feU to a 5400:-foot level. Rainfall 9f ab'out

'-.

Fourth Quarter 1981. . .

Pursu't 147

'big to .see. If you can .get a look ai. a' !!atellite photo of .'
10 inche~ pet hour eroded theline and pos~d .the question whether the .6000-foot level was' reac4ed in tWQ '.'
the Nebraska-South Dakota' region, you' will 'see for.
stages .of a single flood, or did an' earlier flood "leave . '.
yourself that the Sandhills are indeed flood ripples. .
remnants at 6000 feet? I have found evidence pointing ..
The Scablands of Washington state were also admitted
to be flood.;caused when satellite -photQs .became 'avail~
both ways. In any case, the rainfall was sufficient to ..
,able. The officiaI"'cxpianation was tha~ .lUdce .dam which.
hold -the lake level at' 5400 feet for an unmistakable
blocked a lake suddenly' ruptured 'and caused the lake to ..'
stand line to form at that elevation.
.
. drain in matter of hours. But the official flgUJ;"es coJi- .
The "extra" 260 feet of water running through the
tradict the official conclusion.' Lake .Missoula 'held 500
.outlet cut it to its present level of 4800 feet. When the
cubic miles of water. Only 150 cu. mi. was available for
fain suddenly quit, the lake level fell, and from that
instant release, the rest being in back of an eddied' narpoint down the water just evaporated. The 4800-foot
rows which would limit the rest to the capacity .0C: the
line, as well as all lower stand lines, are seen equally on
. the east and west.
.
narrows. The water had to cross the Scablands, an area.
100 miles wide and 150 miles long. It then drained into'
There are easily distinguished differences between a
the Columbia River through Wallula Gap .. The gap was
terrac.e formed by deposition and one cut by wave erolarge enough to allow a cubic mile of water to pass in
sion. A deposition terrace is convex in shape; a wave. . cut' terrace is concave. Anyone interested should' dig
about 70 minutes, yet it constricted the flow until 260 cu.
mi. of water had ponded up in back of the gap." How
a hole during a heavy rain, watch it fill, and note how
the deposition terrace forms; 'then, after the rain when
could 260 cu. mi. pond up, if only 1SO was available for
instant release and it hadto cross 150,000 square miles to ...
the wind comes up and makes waves, watch how the
get there? Even a casual examination suggests that at
waves cut a different-shaped line.
least ten times the volume of Lake Missoula would be ..
, The 5140-foot level~ the 5400-foot and 6000-foot levels
required to accomplish the feat. '.
. are all deposition formations. The 4800-foot level and
Isn't it a peculiar coincidence that Lake Bonneville
. all lower levels are wave-cut. Another indicator of the
drained into the Snake River, Lake Missoula cut the sCab- .
. .' ~oOnt of water involved is the siZe of the rock parlands, and Lake Agassiz drained across the' Nebraska'
ticles that are moved by the water. Most texts on floods
S.andhills at the same time? All without a catastrophe'
tell only that more water moves more. sediment in a
~ shorter time; I have read nothing about the most imporlike Noah's floQd? And isn't it curious that photos made
by satellite over the -Mideast and North Africa show flood
tant aspect, namely, that more water moves bigger rocks.
. ripples even bigger than those in Nebraska? Of course,
Silt and sand can be moved by eyen ordinary rainfall,
the Southern Hemisphere was much less affected, and
but 'when you see rocks as big as a fist or a head, you
large land areas show no such marks. This explains why_
may be sure a flash flood hit. So how do you explain
Pleistocene animals survived in Africa I and South Amerrocks as big as a car that are found miles into the valley,
ica a,nd also partly explains the unique animals found in '.
past'the mouth of the nearest canyon? No way can even
Australia.
the biggest flash floods move rocks as big as a car!
. One more item. In 1968' a man. named Bill Meister.
In my part of the state there is an almost invariable
ratio of 1: 10 between the size of the modem channel
was digging trilobite fossils west of Delta, Utah. He broke
open 'a rock and found himself looking at the print ot a
and the old one. If the modem channel is 20 yards wide
human shoe.' The news got on TV; I contacted Bill, and
it will be inside one 200 yards wide. This means that the
had a look myself. . '
.
amount of water that cut the old channel was more
than 100 times the amount in the heaviest flash floods
I ran a shoe-repair shop for eleven years, and if there is
one subject on which I am an authority, it is how a worn
~hat have since occurred ..
shoe looks. This print is absolutely auth~ntic. The wearer
The spectacular scenery of eastern Utah and northern
of that shoe was just as human as anything walking the
,Arizona is the result of the Colorado River being too
Earth today. It cannot be a hoax. One trilobite had been' .,
small to carry the water coming in. The Kaibab Mounstepped on, and it had curled up for protection. just. as
tain formed a dam which was breached to create the
modern bugs do when crushed. The print is of the .right
Grand Canyon. Despite being cut to a depth of one
foot. It measures 10~ inches long, 3 ~ inches wic;l~ at the
mile and a width of five miles, the ~anyon disgorged the
ball of the foot, and 3 inches wide at the heel which is
water across what is now the Navaho Indian Reservation to a width of 100 miles. This wide flow allowed the
~-inch thick and worn down on the outer edge just" a~
. high ground to protrude as islands, forcing all the. water
our own heels tend to wear down. The mud at the toe
appears cracked from the wearer's pushing off to take
'. into channels on lower ground. As erosion cut the chanthe next step.
. nels ever wider, the islands became smaller. The result:
I spent a couple of trips with Bill, digging Jor more,
Monument Valley and all the other mesas and pinnacles
we marvel at.,
.
so I know, within a couple of feet, the exact sp~t where
: The toughest problem in this study is that the good
the print .was found. I made a. 35mm slide to maJ;"k the
spot iIi order to locate it later. Peeling the rock :a laye:r at .
ev.dence is just 'too big to see. The Nebraska Sandhills
- . 'offer a p~rfect example. They .have been known for ~ver
. (Continued o;,'p(1ge 18!)
'. ~ century, but until 1972, when the first satellite photo!,
.William J.. M~S~, Sr. is .d~afting s.upe~isor a~ the B'ccus: Works of
became available, it was -impQssible to .gei fa,r enough'
Hercules Incorporated, Utah. In resPonse to our request he sent"a color
flood
ripples.;
Small
.away from them to.. see that'I .they are
.
.
, .
U:ansparency frQm lwhich .the acconipanying conversion: was made. He
. flQ.Od. ripples that are only inches apart 'are .familiar to
. also sent It copy of the. Creative Resear.ch "Society Quarterly in' which
.
most people,: but wheJ). the ripples are more than five
. Dr:' Melvin. Cook's' report on the Meister..specimen was first' pubJished.
.
'.'
, /.:.
...
'..
'-Editor .
.. ' . .
.' iniles
apart
'from,
c:r:es't
to
crest;
the
similarity.
is
just
too
'
. ,,'
.
.
.

. . Pilrsu't 148'

.\ .

....

"Fourth Quarter 1981:

.. ::

.'

The Sampson County Mystery Anim~l

by Paul B. Thompson
.J

:'OR lWO MONTHS during 1977

r. a rural area in Sampson County,
North Carolina, was 'plagued by an
unseen predator whose savagery in-.
jlicted severe damage to property and
caused the wanton death of numerous
household P.f!ts. The unsolved case of
the Sampson County Mystery Animal
(so. named by the press l ) olfers some
interesting points of comparison with
the monstrous incidents reported this
year from Knox County, Indiana (Pursuit No. 55, Third Quarter 1981,
page, 138) and from Sussex County,
lVew Jersey in 1977 (Pursuit No. 40,
Fall 1977, ~ges 124-127):

-Durham
-Raleigh

","

-~....:
"V

Greenville_
-Goldsboro

.......-...

~.

"
"~
~

:Samp.on~

\ ..~ounty ':
.
~

, ",

,,
,
'
Toward the end of April 1977, res-
.'
,
idents of the Herring Community began
~."I
o
to notice signs of strange nocturnal
goings-on. Pet cats were found mangled
and ripped apart by some powerful
enemy. Porch screens and other outdoor fixtures were being torn apart or
crushed by incredible force. What was
EASTERN (COASTAL)
responsible for these acts of vandalismNORTH CAROLINA
w.hich followed no discernible pattern?
. On May 4, 1977 a large dog was found
in a ditch in the same area, dead. The
as the cu!prit, but none of these ideas
appearance it resembled an oversize
cause of death was obvious: the dog
canine track.
received much support from any evi-.
had been "shredded."l Whatever was
Alarmed by the damage, and the
dence gathered at the scene.
powerful enough to kill a large, healthy
News 9f the attack on th~ Phillips
condition of the cat's remains, and the
animal in such brutal fashion was more
trailer circulated quickly, and on the
threatening presence of the footprint,
than sufficient to spread a chill of anx19th of May The Sampson Independent
the Phillipses and Stricklands summoned
iety throughout the area. Residents
asked the obvious question in a headline:
the authorities: Members of the county
began to keep ears and eyes open at
"Bigfoot on Lo.ose?"~ Because no one
Sheriff's Department and the North
night fQr some clue to the identity of
had actually seen the marauder, the
Carolina Wildlife Service responded.
the nocturnal intruder.
Interviews with the families disclosed
assumption that "It" was someho~
Anxiety changed to outrage and fear
related to Bigfoot and his kind subse~
that they had heard some strange noises
when an unoccupied mobile home was
quentIy affected all further consideration.
during the night.
extensively damaged. Large chunks of
of the Mystery Animal by the media,
"It sounded kinda like something
the sub-flooring were ripped out from
laughing," Mrs. Phillips said. "The
the public, and the local authorities.
beneath a trailer owned by Mrs. Johnsie
noise came from all different areas ...
After the initial publicity had subPhillips, and num~rous pipes and wires
it was a real strange noise."~ Mr. Strickwere dislodged. Mrs. Phillips was not
. sided a bit, a 13-year-old boy claimed
he'd spotted a strange creature while
land, her father, had gone outside .at
in the trailer when the attack took place
on the night of May 17. She was staying
midnight to investigate the disturbance.
riding his motorbike on a wooded path
near Highway 55, some. distance from
"I banged on the side of the trailer
with her father, R:obert Strickland,
the area of the earlier incidents but still
and tried to' get whatever it was to come
) . whose home was only a. few yards disin Sampson County. On t"wo occasions,
out," Strickland. said, "but it wouldn't.
tant from her trailer.
the boy said, he had observed a "large, .
. Not far from the despoiled vehicle
I don't ~now what it was bu.t it. was
dark, hairy" figure standing by. the
the body of a large cat was found; it
sure. raising some kinda rl!ckus. I. don't
edge of the woods near the path. The
had . been thoroughly mangled. The
. know ~hat it is . . .1 could b~ wrong,
.but I tl)ink it's a bear. If ii's a dog, he's
exact dates of:.tl)ese sightings was not
Strick lands and. Phillipses also discov"
noted in the boy's report to the local
ered one (and only one) suspicious foot- . sure a big one."~ First opinions 'of both
Detective Ronnie Alderman and Wildpaper~ which nevertheless decided to
print in soft soil near the trailet: .. The
take his alleged. experience seriously.
life ~l.'oteCtor F~s[er Harrell pointed to
-print measured seven inch~s iri length by
a large, dog,.a
bobcat,
OJ:
possiblya
bear
....
"Bigfoot '.M;Jvirig ~round, ,.'. wal.'ned
five inches at its. widest point. In general
.. -

FOlIl'th Qaal'ter1981

..

.......

Pursuit 149

i .I

'.

'

.-

a headline in die issue: published on .May 20.~ .Nextday, the Samp~pn Count{ ,
Mystery Animal made it olltQ the Asso-'
ciatep Pres's news wires.
As of May 21, the killer'stoll included
fifteen cats torn up, one dog shredded,
assorted porch screens ripped apart,
a tr~i1er home seriously damaged, 'and
a postscript o~ numerous tracks left at
the sites. While citizens argued over the
merits of the Bigfoot theory, the quoted
opinion of' Deputy Sheriff' Thomas
:Tanner was that the Mystery Animal
was either "a small bear or a bobcat."7 .
Foster Harrell, the Wildlife Protector,
reported that several hunters had begun
'making'night patrols with hunting dogs
..in an effort to track down the elusive
creature; unsurprisingly, their efforts .
came to naught.
.
Speculation among those not buying
the bear-or-bobcat theory continued to
focus on the Bigfoot concept. A columnist'and reporter for the Independent,
Johnny Merritt, received and published
-a letter from Ronald Oates, a student at
Lakewood High School, who said he
.was a member of the Oregon-based
Project Bigfoot organization. Oates
described Bigfoot as a scientifically
recognized animal (with purported
migr!iltory routes) and a Latin name,
H{Jmo Nocturnus (?). Aft.er discussing
.the "pro" side of Bigfoot'S existence,
young Oates wisely added: "It is highly
improbable that the animal which is
responsible for the damage mentioned
in yO~Jr (Merritt's) article is a specimen
of ihe Bigfoot race . . . the probable
culprit is a large canine, "x
. Oates also disposed of the Eastern
cougar as a candidate by simply comp~ring' the configuration of cougar,
tracks with the Mystery Animal's prints. '
This coml110risense method (which does
not seem to have been followed in simjlar cases elsewhere) might have shed.
considerable light on the identity of the
Mystery Animal, had it been vigorously
pursued. "
But old-timers in the Herring Community were not impressed by the publicityabout Bigfoot. One of them, "Big
Jim," put the weight 9f his experience
01; the side of "sensible folks."
."I've spent a goo~ part of thirtyseven year's in' the woods and- i know
what I'm talking about," said' Ji.m.
"This ain't nothing but. a dog."~
.
'The activity oJ the Mystery Animal'
taPered off in. late May and was riea~ly
.forgotten when It returned to the scene
of Its ear'lie~ and most destructive visit"
..-of May. 17: On June 7, a Tuesday,
. . the
.'

"now.-familiar tracks'- were' found 'nea( . the supposed "big dog;"came frqm and.
the home of Lum~s Strickland, scarcely . where .it. went"- at the' conclusion of its'
t",OOO yards froinMrs. Phillips' trailer.
two-month terror-ti"jp.
A biirn on. the Stri.ckland property was
-Baving discarded the ordinary, what
fO)Jnd to have been damaged. Two Qneremains is the extraordin~ry. A prom'-" .
. inent feature of the ca~e was' the killiog
by-six boards. nearly eight feet .long had
been ripped off the side of the' structure.
of pets In' the' area where the creature. . .
prowled. It-No evidence' was turned up '.
A storage shed close by was slightly
damaged; numerous scratches were evithat the victims were ever eateh; instead,
dent, and people. who came to look at
the cats and dog slaughtered by _the
Mystery Animal seem to show only.
them agreed that they had to be the
that the creature was' capable of wanton
marks of the Animal's teeth or claws.
'Once again, deputies and Wildlife agents - acts. In other cases, the variety of arii- .
mals killed has ranged from poultry to. .
were called out, but no new explanations
were forthcoming. The conservative
fully grown cattle; seldom are such vicconsensus was that a large dog was to
tims consumed, although t~ey are often
blame. One of the officers, who did not
found mutilated. The thought which
want his name used, asked columnist
comes to mind is that monster-related
killings are done as a distinctive indica~
Merritt "nO! [0 call It Bigfoo[ ... I've
already had enough calls about Biglion of monster activity. The tally of
foot." 10
victims of the Sampson County Mystery~ ..
As June progressed, the Mystery
Animal was precise, its handiwork 'un- ,
Animal disappeared from the news,
mistakable. Yet there was no indication .
having apparently crept back into whatthat a large predatory animal was feedever hole It had emerged from in April.
ing on wildlife or on farm animals any- .
If there were any m'ore incidents, they
where in the area. How could a predator
survive fOr two months without feeding' .
were not reported.
or being fed?
Evaluating the Sampson
Only one person, a 13-year-old boy,
County Case
claimed to have seen a big, dark, hairy
The pivotal question still unanswered
biped. Because of the frequent recur~
about the Mystery Animal is: What
rence of the Animal's activities, I feel
was It? The mundane explanations
inclined to discount the boy's testimony
tendered by the Sheriff's Department
as the result of suggestion. The Mystery
and the Wildlife Service can only be
Animal must have been a smaller cr~dismissed as having fallen way short of
ture than the usually reported 7-foot-plus
the mark. Plainly, it was not a bear.
tall, hairy biped. In Bigfoot cases there
is usually a multiplicity of sightings; I am
The flat, five-toed prints left by the
brown bear are so unlike' the Mystery
convinced no one ever 'saw the ~mpson
Animal's tracks that no comparison is
County creature.
justifiable. (See 'illustrations on next .' .Further evidence not supportive of the
page and reconstruction 01' the SampBigfoot theory was the size' and shape of
sori County track on front .coveL)
the tracks found at most of the Sampspn
County sites. As Project Bigfoot memThe tracks and modus operandi of
the Mystery Animal also eliminate the
ber Oates pointed out, the tracks. were
bobcat as a suspect. Speaking as one
in no w~y consistent with the giant prints
who 'grew up in the country, where my
left by large hairy bipeds.
family kept a small stock of poultry,
What about those .tracks? Four toes
I can say that there is no mistaking the
in an arc over a bro~d, roughly trianravages of a bobcat. Bobcats are noisy,
gular pad the size of a man's palm, .do
distinctive, and usually continue their
resemble large canine-type tracks, ,as
nefarious ways until they are killed or
many people noted.' .
driven off. The country people who
The cries heard by Mrs. Phillips arid
live in Sampson -County also know
the members of her family' may provide
quite a lot about bobcats; such an active
a bit of a hint. -She described the sounds
one could hardly- have ,esc~ped identias "laughing," and speculated, not too
fication and death or banish!11erit. .
seriously.- that' a hyena might be the
. Was it a "big dog"? Here I must
,cause. Hyenas iri North Caroliria?' Forhedge. Although I haj'e never heard of
~eans should. be familiar with the phe-'
a dog, wild. or"'tame:'that" behaved 'like .' nomerion of Out-Qf-Placeness' (or OOP~ .
the' Mystery Animal,-.. made . laughing
ness), whereby things, 'and' beings. be. sounds, or. mutilated cats; su~h. a hypo- '. 'longing in one pla<;e find thems~lves
theticiil canine i.s more improbabl~ than
.inexplical;>ly in another. OOP anima.is .
.impossible. 'One c~n only:wonder'
w~ere.- . lare wel! . known'; -as -followers of the
.
.
...
.

.- Fourth Qaarter'198r
:'

.,

Surrey puma, the Kansas kangaroos;

. Spottetl variety; they are also note9 for.
and other examples can attest. 12
their laughing cry. Hye~a~ have four
The theory that the Mystery Animal
. toes on each foot, but the claws are high
'. was a hyena has some interesting sup- .. up on'the toes and seldom show in footportive data. Of the three species of
prints. Spotted hyenas may be as long.
hyenas (family Hyaenidae), there are
as 6.6 feet (~nclud~iig a 12-inch tail), and
the Striped Hyenas (Hyaena striata),
the brown hyena (H. brunnea); and .the::
Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). HyBelow are the outlines of typical rlghtenas resemble canines, but are more
footprints of four animals, traced from
closely related to civets.
photographs and reduced to approx'The largest hyenas are those of the
Imately equal Ilze for comparllon of
conftguratlon only. Measurements are
a1lotypl~.

Note the 3-lobed appearance of the

coyote track; the large but Irregular
wolf track: and the 5-lobed pad and
widely 'Ip8Ced toes of the bobcat. Puma
tracks are very Ilmllar to the bobcat'I,
but larger.
(Data after Young)

COYOTE

1-1I4"-1-3/S W x I-7IS"

AMERICAN WOLF

3-112"x S-1I2"

\)

DOMESTIC DOG

3-3/4"x4-II2"'
'*Breed not specified; probably
German Shepherd

o 0

3()';36 inches tall at the shoulder. Weights

. o.f the Spotted. hyena' male run from
150 to 175 pounds'- Though commonly
despised as carrion-eaters, hyenas are
highly successful predators, far outranking lions in the number of kills
committed during a season. The hyena's
jaws are extremely powerful and are
used to crush the' large bones of their
prey while feeding. 'Imagine what such
jaws could do to the family cat-or a
large dog! 13
. I would not go so far as to state categQrically that the Sampson Couqty'
Mystery Animal was a Spotted hyena.
Clearly, if a real hyena from the African'
veldt suddenly found itself in the pine
woods of North Carolina, a lot more
destruction could be expected than was
actually produced by the nocturnal
marauder. No, the creature that roamed
the Herring Community in 1977 was
not a true hyena but probably another
of those damnable Fortean monsters
which appear, create'a stir, then fade
away like the Cheshire cat that leaves
only its baffling grin behind to flllstrate
our curiosity.
There are several theories on how and
why monsters and unknown animals
crop up and then va,nish as they do,I4
but theorizing in the absence of facts is
me~ely speculation without substance.
Until more is uncovered about the secrets
of these mystery animals, or until we
can capture one;' we cannot expect to
comprehend their strange antics.

REFERENCES
I. "Mystery Animal Prowls in Area,"
AP dispatch, May 21,1977 ..
~. !'Bigfoot On Loose?" by Johnny
Merritt, The Sampson Independent,
May 19, 1977.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Independent, May 20,1977.
7. AP dispatch, May 21, 1977.
8. "Search Is On for Bigfoot" by Johnny
Merritt, Independent, May 26, 1977.
9. "Bigfoot: 'Nothing But a Big Dog'" by
Johnl1Y Merritt, Independent;
May 30, 1977.
10. "Bigfoot Strikes Again" by Jc;lhnny
Merritt, Independent, June 8, 1977.
11. Compare ~ith John Keel, The Eighth
Tower (Signet, 1975), pp. 86-96; also
John Michell and Robert Rickard,
Phenomena (Pantheon, ) 977),
. pp. 44, 120,124.
.
)'2. Michell and Rickard, p. 124.
13. "Hyena," Encyclopedia . Britannica .

. MicroJiedia/Macropedia.
14. Keel, op. cit., pp. 86-96, for example.
BOBCAT

2"x2-112"

Fourth Quarter

1~81

~
Pursul,151

""""""I"'''''~''''~~-''''''~''''''''I''

~""

,',

'.

A' Pr~hi$toric,.R.ce.:of:.White .~opl~

'May~ ~ave ,Lk;'ed

'.

in West Virginia's'~

~naw'ha

,VaDey.

'.

,... .

by Nancy Clark
Copyright 1981 State of West Virginia
Department or Natural Resources
Reprinted by Permission

AFTER reading an old book by Dr. J. p, Hale, "History

and Mystery of the Kanawha Valley," 1 was intrigued.
,Its first page identified it as "A paper read before the West
...... Virginia Historical and Atiquarian Society (of which Hale
was president) on January 19th, 1897."
I remembered well an article in the March 1981 issue of
Wonderful. West Virginia magazine by Ida Jane Gallagher~ .
which began, "As experts deCiphered ancient stone tablets'
exc;lvated from burial mounds and o~her diggings in .West
Virginia 'and nearby states, an amazing fact that may prompt
rewriting of history books became evident: America had visitors or inhabitants from the Mediterranean Sea region,
. many centuries before Columbus landed on our shores."
(That .story generated a lot of interest, pro and con.) As I
. studied the 18-page reports of tJie 19th century historian,
i. realized the obvious connection. Here was additional evidence that a "lost race of white people"-possibly sunworshippers from the Mediterranean Sea region, perhaps
Syria or Chaldea-lived in the Kanawha Valley of West
Virginia ages before the beginning of recorded history of
the white race in America.
Here is a summary of Hale's report:
,: One Sunday afternoon ill the late 1800s, a 15-year-old
boy, Frank F. McConahay, with three other smaller boys
climbed a high mountain behind Lewiston (present-day
Chelyan), on Cabin Creek, West Virginia, 12 VI miles above
Char:leston, In a nearly inaccessible, dry crevice in a 4O-foot
cliff, which they reached by crawling along a fallen tree,
they discovered a strange wood object concealed beneath a
huge, flat, four-inch-thick stone. The 'stone was a different
color and texture from other rocks in the cave and had
apparently been transported there for the purpose' of covering. the wood object. With difficulty, the boys carried the'
mysterious. article down the face of the cliff and took it
home. (Historian Hale later visited the site and noted that
the 'crevice where the image was found could not be seen
from above or below the cliff or on either side. He found
nothing else of significance in the cavern.)
Examination revealed that the sirange object was a carving
on a. solid block of wood-a st~~ue of a footless human
'. form, prob~bly a woman, standing on a pedestal. and hold- '
'~ing an animal against its' breasts. From the top of the head
. to the ankies, which .rest on the pedestal, the figure stands '.
. three: feet tall .. Th~' pedestal measures eight inches high and.
13 inches in diameter with' a three-to-four-inch hole :bored
through.its center .. Hale thought that perhaps the'hole'had
facilitated hoisting of the 50-pound statue onto a pole. He
thought the wood to be ch~stnut, as (it contained' Ijumc:rous
insect holes. '.. '
.
.
.'
.
The. historian 'could not tell'whether the image was' carved .

.'

This "Great Mound" in South Charleston, West Virginia, yielded a .

6foot, 8inch human skeleton; a smaller skeleton buried beside It .
had full head of reddishbrown hair about two feet long. .

with metal tools, flint or other implements. Its partially'

eroded facial features could still be detected by 'elevations
and depressions. The left ear was intact, but the right' one
had decayed. In general, the right sige was less preserved
than the left. Hale decided that the animal was probably a
buffalo calf, but said it could have been a lamb. Although
he had no scientific means to determine its exact .age, he
was certain that it was carved long before the first known
white settl~rs entered the Kanawha Valley in the I77Os.And
that puzzled him. Neither Indians nor Mound Builders were
known to have carved such images.
Hale remembered that according to local tradition, Indians"
had rePeated to settlers tales that they h~d heard from their:
ancestors about a "race of white or light-skinned. people,
originally from the East," which had dwelled in large numbers a'long, long time ago in the Ohio Valley. Chased by
warring red men; these ancient Caucasians fled westward to.
the falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky, w~ere
a bloody skirmish took place. The several hundred paleface'
survivors sought refuge on an island below the falis. With
tomahawks raised and arrows aimed, the Indians attacked'
again. Wipeout! Not a single white person lived to teU' the
story. The fact that early settlers found a great number of.
human bones on that island lends credibility to this legend
of the "lost tribe" of whites.
.
.
The foregoing story was told to George Rogers .Clark by
an Indian chief, and two army.colonels heard it at Point.
Pleasant from Chief Cornsialk. .
.The historian described' "an ancient' and' unique ':stone .
work" on Armstrong: Mountain, ne~r' Mount Carbon in .
Fayette County, up the river (on the south barik) some 20 .'
miles above the.spot where, the graven' image was found in
Kanawha County;.:,
..'
. '. ..' '. .
.Hale 'wrote,: "On. a well marked natural bench of, a high.
ridge w~ich TI,ms' back' from ~he' Kanawha 'River~ nearly 'at'
r1g~t angles, between' Armstrong an.d. tqup creeks, about
io'oo to I"200feet
built
. .above'
. river:.iever,. was
.
- amughstone
.'
"

...

Pursuit 152

F.~"rth

.;
"

...

,.,'

..

\.

Q_rt....19.1 .

l
,

wall of undressed and unjointed stones; without cement or , ~age was that at a simih;lr stone ~all and burial grounds
about ten' miles downriver at the mouth of Paint Creek
mortar."
.,'
"
(present site of the town or' Pratt), copper implemen~ wer
liale noted that theseven,to-eight-mile wall faced the
found. " - '
" , '
river at the front of a steep mountain, its course formed an
'irregular oval with a cross-wall dividing the enclosure Into
Page's ~eport concluded' "Thafthe Kanawha Vall~y has
two parts.
been densely populated by some' prehistoric race, differing
The wall originally stood six to seven feet high and was
from the Indian in intelligence, manners and 'customs, tliere
'can be little doubt. "
,
,
nearly as wide at its b~e. Because of its age, the stones had
begun to deteriorate and many of them had fallen down.
Hale apparently felt that Page's study of th!! old stone
Within the enclosure, Hale found a small stream and, remwalls gave convincing evidence to substantiate his theory
nants of two round towers, 20 feet high and 20 feet in dithat the carved wood image was created by a "lost race" of
ameter.
white people. He speculated that the statue might relate to
Ancient burial grounds hugged the base of the mountain
primitive astronomers-who were sun, moon and star woralong the river. A pile of stones covered each grave. Hale
shippers and mapped the heavens into constellations representing beasts, monsters and men. One of these was named
observed that "The mode of burial was peculiar and entirely different from that of the white settlers, Indians or
"Auriga," and it depicted a youth carrying a goat in his
arms. Continlling his hypothesis, the historians pointed out
Mound Builders. The bodies were deposited about four feet
underground, horizontal from the hips down, and at an
that the Bushmen and some other African tribes worshipped
angle ,of about 30 degrees from the waist up, and all facing
an image or idol with head and body but no legs; and the
Polynesians carved stone images without feet.
the east.
"This is a significant fact and ,points strongly to the idea
Hale wrote, "In a recent illustrated magazine article on
that they may have been sun-worshippers or descended from
idols and idol worship among savage tribes in various quarsun-worshippers. "
,
ters of the globe, about one-third of the images represented
are without feet."
Hale mentioned a thorough investigation of this prehistoric masonry by a man who visited the site in 1877,
He theorized that perhaps some wandering tribe of primCaptain William N. Page of Ansted~ a civil engineer and
itive sun-worshippers found its way to America and the
president of the Gauley Mountain Coal Company. His
Kanawha Valley long before Columbus-..:even, perhaps"
findings and conclusions were published in the "History of
before the Indians-bringing with them carved religious
the Kanawha Valley" by Virgil A. Lewis, and reprinted in
idols or artifacts. Then, while fleeing the valley in an attempt
the "History of Fayette County."
to escape from warring red men, the paleface sun-worship:.
Page statC"<l that he had talked with Paddy' Huddleston,
pers hid their sacred carved object in the crevice where Frank
an early white settler, Midland Trail tavern-owner and friend
,
McConahay and his pals found it centuries later.
of Daniel Boone. Huddleston,' who lived across the river
In winding up his paper, Hale asked his fellow historia,ns:
from the stone walls, recalled that in the mid-ISOOs, when
"May we not, then, admit at least the possibility that some
he was a boy, some Indian "medicine men" insisted that
adventurous rovers, maybe from the plains of ancient Syria
the red men had not built the walls. The Indians declared
or Chaldea, the home of the old shepherd kings and the,
that their forebears had said long ago that the Kanawha
patriarchs, where devout astronomers studied the heavens,
Valley had been occupied by a "fierce race of white warand grouped the constellations, and the early astrologers
riors," and that the palefaces had eventually been kilied off.
read their life histories in the movement of the planets and
, the twinkling of the stars, may have found their way to ihis
Commenting on this, Page wrote, "Though such legends
,are not always reliable, a careful study of the conditions,
vast continent, all:d that some pious member with artistichabits, of the 'people, and bones found at the foot of the
taste, and versed 'in the traditional lore of' his far-away anmountain, inevitably leads to more than the suspicion of a
cestors, and among others the tradition of Auriga and his
prehistoric race, differing from the North American Indian
goat, carved this crude image that stands before you?"
As I finished reading the book, I wondered: Where is the
in physiognomy, character and habits."
statue now? Has anyone done any further investigation in
Page's opinion, after examining the site, was that the
connection with it and the Mount Carbon stone walls? To
walls were not used as a fortress or to confine game animals.
learn the answers to these questions, I visited the state DeHe thought perhaps they were used to pen domestic animals.
partment of Culture and History in' Charleston. Here is
His examination of skeletons revealed that they averaged
what I found:
5 ' to" in height and that the "cranium was well proportioned
The carved image is intact and on display in the museum
with 'broad and prominent forehead, and facial bones more
of the Science and Culture Center. It has been dubbed "the
nearly resembled the white, than the red race."
,Kanawha Madonna," because of its resemblance to the
Stone, pottery and bobe implements were found in the
Virgin and Child.
'
burial grounds. Page commented that "The stone instruA. representative from the Smithsonian Institution examments consisted of greenstone celts, precisely the same as
,
ined ttJe statue and said that it was "pre-Indian."
those of the Continental stone age, scrapers for dressing
" In '1964 a team of scientists, sponsored by the University"
hides, flint speiu and arrow heads in great abundance in
of New Hampshire, came to Charleston to conduct research
yarious sizes and shapes, and a lot of quoit-shaped: stones, '
in conneCtion with the wooden image.' The' researchers and
which had been marked and evidently used in so-:ne system
'the museum, curat!)r watched as Charleston dentist G. N.
of weights, as R:lany are exact multiples of. others. The arrow
,Casto Jr. drilled into the statue~s,base and obtained samples
'heads were .nearly all qf the w!lr, variety, made to be left in
of the ,wood. These were the'n sent to a laboratory (Isotopes
the wound, and not notched, for, Ii thong, fastening, as was
Inc., Englewood, New Jersey) for analysis. The lab reported
customary among Indians with their points' for game."
'
that the ~ood ~as 300 t? 450 years.'old (in'I964).
Another interestirig, and signiflca'?t fact me~tioiled, by
F~uith

Quarter 1981

Pursu'; 153.

. '.

, One of the' group, noted botanist" and science au~hor" Ivan:

Sanderson, Commented ~hat 'the wotid ~as not .chestnut (as".
l:Iale,~ tho~ght), butla .cOnifer .(evergreen). As the dentist
I

. . drilled, a "beautiful aromatic smell" reached Sanderson's

nostrils, which he thought was cinnamon. Qther obseryers'
noses told t~-em i~.was cedar.,;
,.. .
. When the first known white settlers' arrived in. the Kanawha Valley in the late .)'7008, they. f~und no Indian towns
there." Historians believe that the red men migrated from the
region to the'f1atlands of Ohio about 1650; but before that
time the valley was inhabited successively by four aboriginal.
tribes: Adena Mound Builders, 1000 B.C.-A.D. 200; Armstrong Mound Builders, 200-1000; Buck .Garden Hill People,
1000-1400; and Fort Ancient Village Farmers, 1400-1650.
The research team, after comParing this chronology 'with
the lab. report, concluded that the wood image was carved .
by the Fort Ancient Village Farmers. They considered it an
important historical discovery, saying it was the first evidence
that Indians east of .the Mississippi River did wo~d carving.
One of the group noted that the aborigines Qf thai period
had no metal knives, and the carving must have been an
extremely difficult task.
In its July 1961 issue (No. 13), the West Virginia
olog~t (a publication of the West Virginia ArcheologiCal
'Society Inc., Moundsville) carried a detailed report of major
studies conducted through the years on the Mount Carbon .
stone walls. The three 0O-authors of the article were Joseph
W. Inghram, Sigfus Olafson and Edward V. McMichael,
who personally examined the site along with assistant professor of anthropology James H. Kellar of Indiana UJ:liversity who sPt:nt most of t,he summer of 1958 excavating the
area. McMichael is. with the West Virginia Geological and
EconomiC Survey, Morgantown. The report contained. a
bibliography (along with brief summaries) of principal studies
done on the walls, including an incomplete one by an investigator working under the supervision of the Smithsonian
Instltution who died of a hear: attack while probing the site.
The authors wrote, in part, "The results are here published of a very discouraging season's work, since little in
the way of artifacts or any definite information about the
site was discovered. Artifacts thus far recovered ate' nondefinitive as to constructors, and function is considered.
ceremonial for lack of any other logical explanation."
A 1976 historic properties inventory form on the Mount
Carbon stone walls, prepared by Phil Pitts, research assistant,
West Virginia Antiquities Commission, states, "Time penod:
Pre-historic. Of aboriginal construction. There is very little
known about who built these walls or why. Th~ mo!!t likely
periods of construction are Adena; archaic, or middle
woodland."
' ,
. Although the Kanawha Madonna has been examined and
plausible theories conceived by historians, scientists; rePresentatives of many foreign countries, and religious leaders, .
the true origin and purpose of the mysterious graven image
remain today unproved and unknown.
',
In view of recent surprising translations of ancient stone
tablets, which indicate the presence -of white people from
the Mediterranean 'Sea region here iIi West Virginia long be- .
fore Columbus landed in America, perhaps we should ~gain
examine the findings and the,or.ies Of Dr. Hale and Captain'.
Page.
. . ~ ...

Arclre-

ThiS ariicie. or.iginallyappeared in the July j981 "issue, 0/

magazine. oj whiCh,/'tIancy ,Clark
is mflnaging ediror. P.ursuit thanks Ms. .Clark for m.aking
:the text and .ph~tographs available., to us.. - The et!itor~.
W~nderful :Wesi Virginia

The Kanawha Madorina

Pursu.t 154

Foa~" ;Qu!lrt.' '19.1,

The ReSUreCtion. of
HUITZOLOPOCHLI
by George Agogino
'two decades have passed since an initial reA LMOST
port told how human lives were sacrificed to the Aztec
god Huitzolopochli during 1962-1965 in tbe Sierra Madre
Oriental Mountains of northeast Mexico. Visits to the area
in 1972 and 1973 confirmed th;lt the sacrifices actually took
place. The full details have been withheld until such time as
their revelation could no longer liarm those civilians who
Were innocently involved or the authorities who, I believe,
dealt with the matter fairly and in the best way possible.
What happened in the Sixties could hardly recur in the
Mexico of 1982. No other Itation 'in our hemisphere has
forged ahead as rapidly in extending the equal protection of
law and delivering civilization's necessities to all its people,
including those who live in rural areas. New schools are
everywhere and the literacy rate has continued to climb well
beyond the 8011,10 mark reached in 1977, according to official
sources. To understand what a difference a few years can
make, one need only consider the demographic background
against which the traditional Aztec rite of human sacrifice
to the sun-god was reenacted.
It was popular writer. Bill Starr who first called pub~.c
attention to the clandestine human-sacrifice cult which sprang
up in a remote area of Tamaulipas in 1962 and apparently
flourished undetected for almost three years; A brief version
of Starr's report follows.
In 1962 mixed twins Magdalena and Eleazer Solis, sixteen years of age, left a "spiritualistic center" in Monterrey
to develop their own brand of "religion" among the isolated villages of southern Tamaulipas. Operating in areas of
low literacy, the ambitious twins developed a new cult that
mixed modern-day spiritualism with the ancient practice of
human sacrifice.
The Aztec god Huixocihuatll was the chief deity to be
appeased, and by tradition his special day of May 31 required the ritual of human sacrifice. The "converts" of
Verba Buena and Delgado villages }yere given marijuana,
cocaine, peyote and other drugs to inhibit their natural revulsion and incite a willingness to reenact the 4OO-year-old
ritual in which the chest cavity is opened with a stone knife
and the still-beating heart is ripped from the pulsating body
of the victim.
Magdalena and Eleazer Solis were psychologically unstable and poorly informed as to the na'ture and conduct of
the ritual, but to the uneducated mountain villagers the two
were great spiritual leaders and believed to be in direct contact with ancient .Toltec and Azt~ deities ..
The Solis twins were motivated by a desire for wealth and .
power rather than a lust for blood. Magdalena Solis claimed
to be the living incarnation of a famous local bruja, ,dead
for more than a half-century. Brother Eleazer pronoiJnced.
himself to be the spirit of St; Francis of Assisi. Lest t>loody
hands mar such godly images, neither twin ac.tually engaged
in the ritual killings. The murders w'ere.committecJ by two
.I

Starr'S sPelling, but.probably correctiy l;Iuitzolopochli, "hummingbird

of the lef!."
.

foarth.

Qaa~er

1981

......_r.;;.!1::~
Dr. Agoglno took this ptiotograph to illustrate the primitive state of
transportation stili prevailing in the Sierra Madre Oriental region of
Mexico at the time of his Investigation.

"ordained priests" of the cult-the illiterate Hernandez

brothers, Santos and Cayetano.
The, sacrificial victims were all volunteers, made subservient to the will of their leaders by drugs ,taken during the
initial part of the ceremony and the stimulus of such preliminaries as dancing, singing, and clapping of hands. In'mindless orgy, the cult-followers fought each other for the honor
of giving their hearts to the god Huitzolopochli; for the an~
cient legends held that only living hearts could impart new
life to that Aztec deity.
The less-enthusiastic cult members who preferred to retain their hearts nevertheless had hopes of reward for their
witness: they went looking for gold and other treasure which,
so they thought, lay hidden within the cave where many of
the grisly ceremonies tOok place.
The radical religious cult had been in operation for about
three years before the local civil authorities found them out
and sought, with the military, to destroy the organization
and arrest the leaders. Cayetano Hernandez was killed by
police gunfire, but only after he had decapitated an officer
with his machete. His brother, Santos, was also killed, as
were other cult members who defended their cave fortress
to th~ end. The Solis twins and some forty adults from the
two villages were arrested and iinprisoned in Victoria. 2
In the cave police found a wooden "temple" with a thatch
roof; inside was a natural flat-stone "altar" on which the.
, sacrificial victims gave their lives. Strewn about were the
remains of an even dozen converts, victims of tribute to an
Aztec god who had not been venerated, except in this place,
for more than four centuries. The military burned the temple
. and buried the mutilated human remains outside the cavern ..
With the help of a Sigma Xi grant-in-aid, I attempted to
verify the foregoing account at Verba Buena and Delgado
during the summer of 1972. The first step was an eff<;>rt to
ascertain the actual location of the two villages .. A check of
commercial and official maps failed to locate such towns
within the state of" Tamaulipas., The problem was resolved
, when it became evident that the two places were ranchos or
. haciendas, not t~wns or villages. Establishing location was
further complicated. py the erroneous distances given in the
Starr account. Starr's report said that Verba Buena lay 125
miles' :southwest of Brownsville, Texas: and was 30' miles
"as .the
crow
flies" from
Monterrey,
Mexico.
The actual
'
.
.
I "

. 2 "Mexic~n

cul.t of human sacrifices" by Bill Starr in Strange Fale: 1965,

Edito'rs of Fale magazine, pp. 132-163.
.'

P.rau't 155

! .

"

distances turned' out to be -roughly 209 miles sOl!thwesi, of .

kept:'c;>'ff ihis ~ou~tain. dur!ng much dith~:yea~, arid 'in 'dry
Brownsville and more ~haJ:l' .~o iqiles by crow-fligh~ to the.
weather the rpute is still urisa~e and negoti~b.te. only oy four so.uth 'of Monterrey. The "town'~ was alSo:reported'to, be
' . . .', .
wheel-transmission. vehicles;.. .
, . (~rly cI~e to Villagran, where Police Insp~or AbeliudoCi.
:,We .found .'the ~anchos unimpressiv:e'. They.consist~d of
Gomez fir.st became 'aware of cult activity. Using Villagrari"
fewer than a dozen shacks lying coldrlessly in a rural moun-,
. . as 'a .focal point,' our' small crew visi~ed' the location to .s~k
tain valley .. There was neither school nor church, although
'. further evidence.
' .
.
we were informed that a school had been. "promised" and
....
At the. 9fficial level there was considerabie reluctance to
was in the planning stage.
discuss the incidents. A state officer, Captain Emilo CarLittle information was forthcoming fr~m interviews' with
.ranza; informed me that no more than seven people had
the inhabitants. Apparently none of the '''cult period" 'people
been killed by the cultists; of that number, only "a few~'
remained at either Verba Buena or Delga.do. Almost all of'
h!ld been put to death by having their hearts torn from their
the' adults in residence at the time had been arrested. a'1d
living bodies. He refused to give directions to the "villages,"
the children assigned to foster homes Of orphan'itges; l\:1~my
or: reveal the whereabouts of Inspector Gomez who had deof the adults died in prison; others who received short sen.parted after making his report on the original investigation
tences did not return to their mountain homes' after rel~ase,
of the cult. Captain Carranza pleaded ignorance in response
It may well have bet;n a government decision that ~eparated
'" to most every detailed question, and it soon became obvious
and dispersed the released prisoners over a wide area of
,that little information would be obtained at the official level.
Mexico.
.
Similar official politeness and the same degree of reluctance
Our investigations confirmed to a high degree the initial
report by Bill Starr that ceremonial human sacrifice took
to cooperate was encountered in discussions with General
Hector Portillo Jurado, the military commandant at Victoria.
place in a remote region of northeastern New Mexico .ab.out
twenty years ago. Starr's estimate of roughly a doze~ sacri~ He did confirm that the military had been involved, but ,n
'a'~econdary, supporting role to the civil authorities.
.
ficial victims seems to err on the high side. Our investigation
No information could be obtained about the Solis twins,
through federal and state authorities produced evidence that
oiher than that they were given extended prison terms on
fewer than five victims were dispatched by the removal .of
'March 7, 1966. Manual Corpus Hernandez, of the "priestly"
. hearts from living bodies. The statements of civil a~d mfl-.
tlemandez family, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jesus
itary authorities were supported by informants at Villagran;
Guerro Rubio, another cult leader, received the m~imum
Megan and Megellos who agreed that between seven and
sentence of 16 years. Each was charged with homicide, riot,
thirteen murders had occurred at Yerba Buena and oelgado;
damage to life and property, desecration of corpses, resistthe count included one or more police officers killed, and.
ance to the police, and crimes against the republic. The penmurderS in which the victim was poisoned or stoned to death
without ritual implications.
. ".
alties were moderate considering the degree of criminality ..
.The sentences reflected the government's awareness that the
Our study was complicated by more than one factor ..
. . crimes committed by uneducated mou.ntain people were unFirst was the reluctance of officials to provide any but the .
millicious and largely motivated by ignorance.
,
barest details; what they had uncovered and destroyed, they
~ During the summer of 1973 I made a second trip for furinsisted, was a murder ring, not a religious cult employing
ther investigation of the reported. sacrificial cult, this time in
ceremonial sacrifice,. although they would. not deny. that
the' company oJ Professor Gustav Kocsis, a linguist and
ceremony was involved. Second, it was impossit;le to obtain ..
ethnologist, and Dominique Stevens, a doctoral candidate a~
remembered factual information since both Verba Buena
Southern Methodist University. Qiscovering Rancho Verba
and Delgado had been completely depopulated during SlJP,Bliena was still the primary goal. Interviews with state offipression of the cult's activities, then resettled by migrants
cials at Villagran suggested a general area in which to' look.
from. other areas. The newcomers either kI1ew nothing of
"Try near Pacacho Peak in the vicinity of the Arroyo del
the events. that preceded their arrival, or were afraid to say
anything about them,
Muerto (arroyo of death), about twenty miles northwest of
, . Villagran," we were advised. Other interviews conducted at
Officials were likewise reluctant to discuss the possibility
the small. villages of Megay and Megellos further clarified
of a revival or extension 'of the cult in other localities. The
directions.
police and the miliiary joined in refusal to regard' the cere-' .'
In the course of questioning' everyone who might provide
monies as differing much from those thllt might precede
useful information, we asked a waitress at the Megay Cafe
killings by consensus anywhere at any time. Informants' in
if s}:te knew of any "weird religious cults" that had operated
neighboring villages professed ignorance of any revived cul.tk
nearby. After a moment's pause, she informed us that she
activity and vehemently protested that any mem.bers of. their
knew of ~uch a cult "still operating." We were all ears!
communities, as good Catholics, could' ever be .involv~ -in
'. With. solemn voice and gesture she identified the cult as
or give support to the
activities of any cult that engaged
in' .
.
. I
i'Baptists"-apparentiya Baptist mission in the mountains.
human sacrifice.,
.'
. . .' ' .
However, Inspector Gomez of the Villagran police' was
Here was a classic demonstration of cultural' relativity: in a /
.'strongly Catholic area even'a conservative Bapti.st mission~ry
: quoted by Starr. as saying,' "The'ln'dians are 'always coming
. center
.
. up with. some nt;w kind of religion. It doesn't last long; and
, . could be described as a "\YeirCi '1ult:"
: we don't bother them if they're pCaCeable.'~ ~ess comforting .
. '. '. 'The road to Verba ,B~ena .and Delgado turns west off. . was. his stateme,nt that Mag~~lena and Eleazer Solis; who
Mexican Highway 85 at Megellos and is' little more \hrui ~m . . tJad spent little time in prison because of their yo~th and the
'.' ox-cart trail winding its way Into the Sierra. Madre Orientals.
fact thai they. did :':lot. the~selves,'cari): ..~ut. the.' sacrifices;
The road, if it 'can be' called :that; .is. compietely impassable
might' have "established new centers of the cult to the east
in wet weather, and' during the .rainy: sea~on the tiriy' 'com~
of Mo~terrey". or:... on the .borde.rs 'of Texas on.th~ R'io
Qrande." '.
: ' .. ,.:'
.
..
..
.
'rilU,nities. are trul), isolated. ,Even four-wheel-drive truck~ are

.' Pursu.t iS6

The Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains .

are thinly populated, difflcult-to reach/.t~eir desolation,altogether forbidding.

...

- - -. -.Mexlcall
.......

Arizona
-'.

- "'1IIIt

----._-_:

N.M.

...... ..

M
\

Chihuahua

Photographs by the author

\
\

\.

NuewLaredo

.\

.\

Monterrey~

Verba Buena.
Delgado
.,

Gulf oj Mexico

Victoria.

,/ I
,
L

Pacific Ocean

/ Guadalajara

C
Bay oj Campeche

Mexico City

,-

--..
I

'

Arroyo del Muerto (Arroyo of Death) is the name

of .this desert approach to the Sierra Oriental
~o.untaln rang~ that looms in the background.

Today one can travel far into the' remote mountains and'
valleys and find no end to the ~lectric and .communication .
lines that link rural Mexico'with its cities. It the Solis twins
did try to establish new' "religious .centers;" they could 'nev~
reintroduce the practice of human sacrifice without incllrring
immediate detection and' prosecutiori. However, if human
life was not involved, M.exico's law~ providing freedom .of

' .

'Foarth Qaarter 19.1

.'

religion would afford the same.protec.tion to the Solis t\vins

as to all other c~tizens of the United Mexican States.

Dr. Georg(! Agogino is Director of Anthropology Museums

.and Director.. Paleo-Indian Ins(Uute at Eastern New. Mexico
University.. He haS' ~na member of SITU's Scientific
Adviso;y Boar(l since its inception in /968.
. ~

Pursu't 157

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Re.coDedions &6iD the

.(He' of . IladiMtheSist

...

Condensed Translci,tion of the Memoir:s of

Maria Frauzen, German Medical Dowser and Healer
Who Died in Her Eighties in 1968
FTER a number of failed attempts to have the Frauzen
A
'.
memoirs initially published in Germany, an English
translation was submitted in 1979 to The American Society
'of Dowsers by Therese J. Mueller of St. Paul, Minnesota,
the' translaior. ASD trustee Christopher Bird, author of
The Divining Hand and other works o~ dowsing, edited

and condensed the 50 typewritten pages to suitable length

for publication in The American Dowser, ASD's quarterly
digest. The text was printed in the Dowser of August 1980
(Vol. 20, No.3) and is reprinted by courtesy of Mr. Bird.
The complete manuscript is in (he permanent files ~IT~e
American Society of Dowsers, Inc., at Danville, Vermont.

I. Theory

ienced time and again how, under the hands of the h~aler,
It is not without hesitation that, at the urging of fri~nds,
pain subsided, fever abated and even chronic illnesses began
to heal. After initial nagging doubts, I came to 'the concluI take up my pen to record a few memoirs from my life in
sion that magnetopathy is superior to' other therapies; espe" the world of radiesthesia. Undoubtedly, any good physician,
cially when used for internal problems. Everyone with gifted
practicing healer, or magnetopath would be able to offer
healing hands should learn to use them so that he or: she
a richer choice of interesting experiences. However, I believe
that, from the methods I learned from my late teacher,
can at least help family members in case of need.
. ". '
Matthias Leisen, I gained valuable insights which for openThe term radiesthesia requires definition. Originated ,in
minded readers, might point the way into unknown territory. .
France, it comprises a physiological 'sensibility to Hie emAlas,I am not a physician or even a licensed healer be-'
anations, sometimes called "radiation", of matter: Her:ein .
cause at the time I became interested in healing, Hitler's
the word radiation is used not as if a physical concept was'.
Heilpraktiker. 'Gesetz (1939) forbade any apprenticeship in
an a priori assertion. Hands possessed of a r'adiesthetic
the healing arts. As a human being I nevertheless felt the
sensibility may move involuntarily, or they may invo!untiuily
need, even the duty, to offer my knowledge to my suffering
move a rod or pendulum. Both are signs of the gift. Wh~t, .
fellow men, especially friends and relatives whenever doctors
'made my teacher, Herr Leisen, excel over other good magcould not be reached or when their ministrations failed.
netopaths was his marke~ ability to make radiesthetic. diilgSince m'y help was always given without remuneration,
noses.
,
From the outset, Leisen was a dowser, a user of. the diI was satisfied that I kept within the confines of the law . . .
My goal was never to earn money, for financially I was
vining rod. "In his early y~rs he began to search for water.
secure. Rather, it was the continuing study of hidden interHis interest' in healing was aroused during the First Wor:ld
, twining connections with nature. The Elementen, Lehre War, when he served: as a. stretcher-bearer. Para~lsus,
. (Science of the Elements) by Matthias Leisen was for me
whose writings he studied tirelessly, became his model ~d
a kind of Ariadne's thread leading me safely through an
.
I:
often-dark labyrinth of unelear assertions, premature con Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus. Real name Theophrastus Bom.elusions, superstition and charlatanry that have plagued,
bast us von. Hohenheim, 14~3?-1541. -Alchemist and physician,
b, Einsiedeln, Switzerland; investigated mr.chanics of mining, fllinthe healing arts.
In addition to homeopathy, I learned a combination of
erals. and diseases of miners. in mines of Tirol; propounped own
magn~topathy and radiesthesia from my teacher. Since the
theories of treating diseases;. forced to leave university beq!use ~f.
.two last-mentioned fields are terra incognita to most people,
his defiance of tradition; practiced at various places in. Germ~ny .
doctors" ineluded, I shall give a fe.w explanations to make
and Swit2;erland, finally settling at Salzburg; opposed humoral
theory of disease; taught that diseases are specific entities and can
be cured by specific remedies;. emphasized value .of .obsery~tion'-
understandable what follows.
Magnetopathy, the age-old healing prl!lctice through transand experience; introduced use of therapeutic miner~l baths; and
mission of healing power from one person to another by
of opium, mercury, lead, sulphur, iron, arseniC. and copper s\tlfll:te
;laying-on"of-hands, breathing, stroking and similar treatas medicinal substances. Author of medical and occult works, inments, . is doubtless only one of many good. therapeutic
eluding pie Grosse Wundar/Znei (1530).' .
..
methods. Yet, during the course of many years, I exper. ,-Web~/er'sBiotral?h.ica(Diclionar)'
.

"

"

"

'. ~. I believe that the rediscovery ~f the dowsing faculty is n~t f~r~~itous,' but has '~een v~uchsafed ~o us' by P~o:vidence'
, '. to 'enable u~ to cope<with the difficult and dangerous stage o(~uma~ developme~t which lies,immediately ahea4. For it
gives direct access to 1he' ~li~rs~nsible. world, thus raising our.. level of consciousness.. and extending our awareness ~nd
knowledge. The faculty should'be regarded' al! a speciilland1peculiar sense. halfway between our ordinary p~ysicaJ sense~
which apprenend the materiaI:world, and our to-be-:d~veloped future occult sense .wti~ch .in ..d~e c~urse 'will apprehend .t~e
supersertsible worId directly."
. ,"
-A.uSRI;Y T. WES:t:L~, . M~D.; i'n' Th; P~tt~;'" ~/'Health; :A. Search /or"a
.,

Greater Understanding 0/ the:Li/e Force in Ifealth an.d Disease

'. . (1963: i?evin-Adair .Co., Inc;, Old Greeriwi~h, CT .~70l

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Pur,.."158

F~u~h QuaneI'
.'}"

1.981

guide. Like Paracelsus, he saw in th'e 'humari organism the.

.have convinced me th~t it is often more reli~ble than an'y
'of the others.
.
I
microcosm as a reflectiop of the macroeosm: by using small
tiappenings as clues, he searched for .the powers that cause
... TQ uncover deeper pat~ogenicrelationships is a real
bigger events as well as for elements of which matter is
task of radiesthesia, and this is why it belongs in the theracomposed. With a great num~ of rods, containing Jhe
'peutic arsenal. of any physical or th.erapeutic practitioner.
different chemical elements, he would test a patient's body.
It is highly regrettable tha~; as yet, it is only practiced by
If the rod reacted, he'could .tell which element was "sick';,
laymen. But was not this also the case for Kneipp's healing
i.e., disturbed or too weak in its radiation and therefore the
methods, the Priessnitz process, and Pasteur's vaccinations?
cause of a. given illness. Leisen investigated the relationship
Sooner or later medical radiesthesia also will win out over
between sickness and the "disturbance" .of elements for years
the ignorance and prejudice that infuse official medicine.
and worked on thousands Of patients. He left his insights as
UK. Practice on Water
a precious heritage to his few pupils. In his system he inchided what he called the "poisons" of civilization (kulturI was already in the sixth decade of my life when I met
gij/e): nicotine, caffeine, etc., and many medicinal poisons
Herr Leisen and, for the first time, radiesthesia rose into
like morphine, opium and cocaine. He used special glass
my view. I had come to him as a patient, unaware that this
rods containing each of these substances.
'meeting was to alter my whole future. In fact, :what I saw
Whether this diagnostic system was \luilt on physical fact
. and experienced during my sessions with him I at first vio~
.. or was merely a genial working hypothesis for an ability to
.. lendy resented, feeling that it was a quackery of the' first
sense illness must be decided elsewhere. Possibly the sueorder. Only the fact that, during years of suffering, no
. stance of a given "element" is of no consequence to the
doctor had been able to help me in my affliction, made me
healing process. The form and frequency of its oscillation
put up with the six weeks of his treatment. Too sick to travel
mayor may not be important. Whatever the case, over
home from his house, I remained there and virtually. came
under his s p e l l . '
.
.
many years I watched Leisen make the most surprising diagnoses which often, in a much later stage of the illness, proved
Often to my distress I found myself more sensitive than
correct. Compared with other methods of radiesthesia,
most people. As a child, people called me the "princess' on
Leisen's method presented itself to me 'as the simplest and
the pea." When I. was seventeen, an old nurse whom I had
most reliable. Therefore I tailored my own procedures to
assisted with the care of a very sick patient, told me, "Study
his system which also had the advantage of indicating choice
medicine; there is something in your hands that is helpfi.d to
of medication related to a disturbed element, for only hosick people:" I looked at her in surprise. What could there
meopathic medicine can give real and durable help.
be in one's hands? ...
During long years of work, I reorganized and simplified
I went to my parents and asked them to let me study
Leisen's use of instruments. I learned to do without his
medicine. They wert;. shocked. At the time, women had just
element-containing rods, and to replace them with thoughtbegun to study at universities but restricted themselves to
forms that I believed caused oscillations' of the respective
"feminine" subjects and medicine was decidedly not one of
elements. This i6lea has been subjected to doubt and ridicule I
them. Moreover, our family members had opted for teaching
in Germany; but Mediterranean peoples, generally ahead of
over several generations, and great sacrifices had already
us in radiesthetic practice, accept it. It can best be compared
been' made. by my parents to allow me to study languages
with the phenomenon of "absolute pitch" that compares
abroad. Was all this to be wasted? With a deep sigh, I sura perceived sound swiftly and unconsciously with a mental
rendered to my fate and studied philology'''.
'However, my interest in medicine never died. As a young
sound-picture existing in memory.
Instead of a collection of instruments, I therefore used
teacher I kept a second bed in my room where I would
one universal rod consisting of two plastic knitting needles,
nurse sick girl friends or colleagues back to health.
their ends joined with strong adhesive tape. At times even
Year'!; passed. My hair turned gray. When Herr Leisen
this rod was too cumbersome to take with me, so I began to .
cured me, I became his private secretary. One nne day, he
tFY to get along without it. I noticed that my hands would
startled me, saying: "You, too, have healing powers in
jerk, even if they did not hold the rod. So I began to deyour hands. If you are willing, I can tFain you." At the time
pend solely on the jerking motions, using them even to select
I only laughed. When Herr Leisen retorted that he knew
medications. I would take a sample of a medication in hand
I was able to use a dowsing rod, I decided to verify this, so
and pass it over the body of a sick patient. If my hand
I signed up for the second annual training course given by
the German Society of Dowsers which finished with 'an'
jerked, a healing effect was to be expected from the mediofficial examination. The course was held in September 1938
cation. The stronger the reaction, the more certain was its
in the Oberfalz near the Czechoslovak border. Becau.se it
potential Sl,lccess. If my hand seemed to be repulsed by the
looked as if war would break out in a matter of days, only
body, th'e medication in question would be noxious.
four students signed up for the course. We searched for
Pra:ctice of this simple method over fifteen years allowed
water, probed geologic faults, and traced adits from the
me to perform diverse experiments. For instance, in a streetsurface, all with the help of our dowsing rods. We were
car or at a: lecture, I would watch strangers. If. one of them
also required to trace all the passages in a nearby fluor (spar
appeared to be ill, I would try a diagnosis, without the stranworks) mirte, At night we learned theory ..
ger's having an inkling of what I was doing. All '1 needed'
One of the greatest obstacles for anyone using a dowsi'ng
was undisturbed, strong concentration. Thu~ r kept in train. rod or pendulum is' auto~suggestion. Warning us about this,
ing. Medical examinations occasionally confirmed these
our te.acher told us how he ha.d caught previous students
diagnoses' of mine .and added to my self-confidence . .. : .'
committing errors because of it .. "I searched for a spot
I must state that radiesthesia caimot be expected -to re~
:where the ground was absolutely homogenous and no reacplace aIr the diagnostic methods 'o(orthodox medicine imd
tion of, the divining rod .could be expected," he said. "The
in no way claims to do so. 'My 'own' experiences, .however; ,
.

Fourtb Quart.r1981

"

Pursuit 159 .

track' waS being laid and r~ks were' blasted, " they replietL .
'Yesterday .J paced off. a terrain where' my reactions' to, the " ". "Didn't anotlier' 'spring apPear som~where ..els~?" I asked,.
"Yes; while' cutting across thelr road they struck water,
rod were rather .strange. I have no explanation for this . .'
a small 'rh:'ulet running into th'e 'l~ke about a quartet of an
Would you ladies and gentlemen please assist 'me?" With
great ea:gernes~, 'they went to....work. One reported a mineral
hou~ away from the village."
,
'.
" spring, another an ,ore vein; a third buried gold, a fourth
. No sooner said than done. We found the rivulet and took
. ruins of sunken walls, a fifth a row of graves containing
home a sample of its water. I tested it ~nd' the sampieJrom
.. skeletons, three male and four female, and so on. Only one'
the well with my rod, suCcessively concentrating' on various
elements it might contain. The samples were alike.
.
returned, scratching his head, to say: '1 don't get any reaction
at al!!'" We were profoundly impressed by that lesson.
"Well, we seem to have, if not the submerged spri'ng itseif,
at least a branch of it," I declared.
..
A few days later we stood on a high plateau on which
a monastery had been built. The. teacher indicated a flat
Familiar with my work with Herr Leisen, my hosts asked:
stretch of ground. "Now, this is an areawhere your pre"Could you not also name'the illnesses on which this Water
would have a healing effect?"
,
decessors have made great fools of themselves," he, warned.
We walked over the stretch with our rods at the teady. In
"Certainly," I agreed. "Let's make a list of thein.';
.
the middle of the stretch my rod dipped downward but the
As I wrote down the names of the illnesses; one of my
reaction was weak. Surprised, I consulted a fellow: student.
hosts produced an old book. "With this book, I can check
"You're right," he said. "I had by-passed that spot before
on you," he told me. "It contains a description of the spring
but now I do get a reaction." Not at all sure of Qurselves,
from the year 1803 as well as the illnesses that the water
could cure. They correspond to those you have .listed. What
we told our teacher: "We know there may be nothing to
a proof of Leisen's system!'" he exclaimed.
locate, but' we seem to have found something."
.
The teacher dowsed the spot himself. "You're. correct,"
"Is there also a chemical 'analysis given?"
inquired .
. " he said. "There is a very small Reil$treifen" (strip: of earth
There was, but alas, it differed completely from mine. Yet,
'rays) present that was not here last y.ear. I will check on it."
a considerable number of elements which I had listoo' had'
He went into the monastery for a few moments and came ...
not been discOvered or known in 1803, a time when,metpods
back laughing. "The monks put in a telephone this year and
of q'ualitative analysis were imprecise. It was possible that
'cable was laid where you detected the radiation," he said.
the water contained mere traces of the listed elements: Since
"You see, way'down there you can see it above ground
the data on illnesses corresponded with my list, those '''mere
coming uphill." I beamed with pleasure.
.
traces" of elements could have been the cause 'of healing,' ~s
in homeopathy. As for the salts, which the book did mention' "
Examination day was at hand. Each of us was assigned
but which'l did not find, they pointed to over-specialization
a stretch of terrain on a hillside where we were to find the
as a great danger, ev~ in radiesthesia. A person. who' fo~
" best water vein and mark the right spqt for drilling. We
years has tuned only to the most sensitive react-ions of'the .
were supplied maps upon which to mark our findings and
human organism' may no longer react to coarser radiations
given the whole forenoon to solve the problem. We all sursuch as those emanating from the 'most concentrated subveyed our areas. Mine was part marsh, .part meadow. After'
stances in well water-unless he be as universal a genius as
several hours I detected a potential water supply and marked
Herr Leisen who not only discovered a mineral spring on'
the spot on the map. Would it tum out to be correct, I wonhis 'property but also analyzed its chemical compositi~n
,dered. Exhausted, I sat down on the grass. Suddenly, my eye
correctly before the well was dug. His findings were lateJ:
. fell upon one of those small yellow stakes with whiCh diviners
confirmed by chemical analysis . . .
. ' '.
mark a chosen spot. It was weathered and half-tilted among
..: some bushes, but there it ~as-staring me in the face. It
ID. Treatment
proved to be a sign that my work was well done. In the preNever shall I forget my. first magnetic-treatment patient.
vious year students had worked over the same terrain, and
. I had hiked over the hills to visit an acquaintance who IivrA '.
one of them had left the marker behind.
high up on a slope. A visiting relative of hers was suffering
. That afternoon we were given another problem. A geosudden and painful stomach cramps, with which [she was
'logic fault, known to geologists but not to us students, cut
frequently afflicted. Groaning, the poor woman cowerec;l in
.; through the territory. The river bank had covered all visible
a chair, unable to move, and cried for a doctor, ,or, better',
signs of it with silt and rubble. Following the fault proved
a car to take her ho~e. Neither was' easily available. Th~'
tricky. At one spot it went diagonally underneath a barn.
nearest phone in the village post office was more than half
:After tracking it slowly for two hours, I stood at the edge
an hour. away. . .
. ', . . '. ':. '
of 'a swamp. With a sad look at my shoes, I began to push
I fought a mighty battle within myself. Hundreds of ~iIries
forward when, all of a sudden, our teacher appeared at my
I had personally experienced or, witnesse~ ,m.agrietic treat-.
. . side. "Up to this point you have traced. the fault with preqlents. My teacher had said that there was healing. power in .
. cision," he declared after lookir"g at my map. "You don't
'my hands. Should I .dare?.
Compassion
finally
overca,ne .IllY
have to get your feet wet by going any further .: .. "
'
r
fear~ "May I try to help -you?" I asked the sufferer.
. ....
Finally convinced ,of my ability to use a dowsing rod,
. The patient had never:heard of healing magnetism. "But
I returned to my beloved studies and to Herr L'eisen's' prac"tice. The same year l visited acquaintances. in a small haml~t . ' . yo~ must nQt touch .me~'.' she wailed: "I canno~ staneJ i~.
I get. thc::se pains oft~n, but they 'always disappear in . eight .
on Lake Constanc~ wh~e ~hey ran the Bath }-Jotel, named
hours.'"
"
:
..
'. .
.;'
for:a once weil-known and much-frequented, he~li~g spa.,
png
won't last thari
thiS'time,"'1 tC?ld m,yseif. ~t was.
Its: spring of, therapeutic water, .had li)~g ceased to exist. ,
hot' a dlfficult 'ti:eatment'; After, jqst'a few minutes ,the woman
Only a trickle: ~f water carne. fr9m .its we~~ in 'the garden. . . '.
jumped' happily from tier .chair ~nci. trie~' to: emprac~ me.
. "When did the' spring"stop flowing?" I asked rhyho~ts; .,
, I escaped,. and leaving t.o the re~tive the task of 'explairung
"Years ago; when the La~e' Constance BeltliiJ,e Rail~ay;.

next day I called my 23 beginnets together ,.and said',to them,

rheY

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Fourth
,-,. Quarter 1981

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what had happened, ,I almost flew do~n the hill in my joy,. ." ,w~s' almost' notm'it!. 'The snow' had stopped, ami the docto~
I was able to' help-to really help! " "
,
,would again be a,ble to get through.
,
During those years I hid many occasions to revisit my
"My job is done," I told the forester's wife. "Don't tell
Alsatian homeland. In the Vosges mountains a friend had
the doctor about me. It will save trouble for' both of us.'"
rebuilt an ancient knight's castle and I was a frequent guest.
At noon the d9ctor arrived, a death certificate form in
An. intelligent man with' marty interests, he- was a ,gifted
his pocket.' He ,was totally surpri~ed to find the little patient
'rildiesthesist. We shared many happy hours and days searchsitting up happily in his crib. "Thal1k God," ,he said. "He's
ing and experimenting. His wife kept records of our experi~
on the road to recovery. Lately I have been trying my . harid
ments.'
at homeopathy. Ir'you are willing, I will prescribe bryonia.
You will be able to get some in town."
The caStle stood atop a rocky crest in the midst of a forest
six kilometers from the nearest village. Our only neighbor
That same evening the forester's wife came running;to the
in ,this loneliness was a forester and his family, their home
castle in desperation. "Please come quickly. Our little boy
has had a bad relapse."
only a few minutes away from the castle. Once, during a
winter visit to the castle, we were snowed in for several
, "What did you do?" I asked.
, "Nothing in particular. We gave him the prescribed medweeks. For days at a time we saw no one except the mailrtian who occasionally delivered letters on horseback. We
icine," she answered. I found him feverish and apathe~ic.
He had vomited. His face had a greet:J.ish-yellow pall~>r.
wondered whether the snow would ever stop. '
One evening my host brought news that the forester's
A test with the rod indicated nicotine poisoning!
lO-month-old son had come down with double pneumonia.
"You've been smoking at your child's sickbed," I shouted
A doctor had fought his way through the snow daily by car ..
at the man.
but he gave little hope that the boy would live. If the snow
"I never smoke in'the house," he countered, "just now
continued to ,fall, the doctor would no longer be able to
and then out in the woods.".
.
make visits. So, my host continued, he had mentioned me
"Then show me the bryonia." It was in a small envelope.
to the father and offered 'my assistance which had been
The pharmacist had filled it from a container. (Homeogratefully accepted. '
pathic m~dicines were at that time a rarity in Alsace.)
"I'd better go right away," I said. "Just give me a lantern
I tested the medicine with the rod. It was full of nicoand 'a walking stick. The road is open and I can easily walk
tine.
alone. It's just ten minutes."
"Does the pharmacist smoke?" I asked.
Those were some of the longest minutes of my life. The
"Why, certainly, All day long he has cigars in his mouth."
night was dark and the wind shook snow from the trees
"Then that is the cause. He blew smoke into the medicine.
down and around me. A burst of wind snuffed out my lanWith this bryonia you will send the child to his grave." ,
, "What shall I do?" lamented the mother. "I must give
tern. Thick snowflakes obstructed my vision. The path disappeared into huge snowdrifts. "You'll never get through,"
the child what the doctor prescribed, but you say it will
I told myself. "Better wait for daylight."
harm him."
"And if the child dies this night?" another voice asked
"Now, calm down. If the devil has got into the powder
w.ithin me. "You are unworthy of the power to heal if you
we may be able to drive him out. We will put it on the stove
and then pour it into new papers. Meanwhile I will treat
fail now."
, I fought on through the darkness until I reached the forhim. Give him fresh sheets. These are full of nicotine from
, ester'!! ,house, completely exhausted. A pathetic scene greeted
his' sweat and exhalation."
me. The child's little he;ld was r~d with fever and his, breath
When the doctor returnoo, the little boy was quite lively.
rasped as he lay listlessly in his bed. The mother w,as sobbing.
The forester's wife unwisely mentioned the relapse. But she
The other children were huddled, bewildered and scared, in
did not mention the nicotine. "These homeopathic medicines
a corner.
are no good," said the physician. "I will prescribe so'me"How high is the temperature?" I asked.
thing different."
"104D. I just took it. The doctor said to be prepared for
The next day I departed. When'l returned several months
the loss of our child, our only boy," said the mother through
later my first walk was to the forester's home. "Oh, haa you
her tears.
only stayed around," the woman lamented. "How much
I remembered tlJe advice given for such cases in a Handgrief and worry you would have spared us. My'little boy's
book of Magnetopathy. First, I asked the other children
pleura began to fester and we took him to the. clinic in
'to leave the room. Then I sent for a bowl of tepid water
Strasbourg for surgery. ~hank God, he is now over'the
'with a' generous amount of vinegar in it. Near the warm
hump." Thank Gop, to be sure, but might not the bryonia
oven the mother unwrapped the baby. I dipped my hands
have been better?
'in the vinegar-water and laid them on the feverish little body.
,IV. l'Envoi
With my hands I sucked-there is no other word for it... I come to the end. I have told in all sirriplicity these
the sickness into myself. After two or three minutes I washed
events of my life. Knowing I ,have been truthful protects me
my hands under running, water and began over agai!1. After
with a healthy unconcern for any criticism that comes my
'twenty minutes the temperature waS down to 103 D '
way. Words' like swindler," charlatan, auto-suggestion' and
"Enough for today," I 'said. "Tomorrow' I will return.
, -hysteria have rung' often iri my ears: Oh-s6-c1ever people
Meanwhile do'wh'at the doctor ordered.':But now give me a
,have shown, willingneSs to have me committed for psychiatric
good shot of whiskey, so that can: get rid of all that evil '
care: or brought before the public p'ros~utor. But there are
stuff I sucked into myself." .
'
-alSo ,wise people who have learned that,there are many things
The ~xt day I repeated the procedure ,three 'more ,times.
in heaveri and:,Qn earth about 'which the'schoolnien have'
The fever went down enough so'that I could c~~nge, oV,er ,to
never dreamed~ ,
, nornial treatmen,t., On 'the fourth day the cJtild's temPer~ture
1

' '

Fourth' Q,uarter' 1981

Purst 161

'.
r

Iceberg,
or
'WaterS of' the

Earth'?

by Christopher BW
Chapter 8 of The 'Diving Hand by Christopher Bird (E.P. Dutton, New York)
1979 by Christopher Bird Reprinted 'by permission of the author and the publisher

IN October 1977, 100 scientists and engineers gathered in

I. . landlocked Iowa to discuss a 'bizarre notiQn: Could an

water' for pilotage stations forced to capture rain or import.

water. His impetus came from his fatHer,' Nils~ chief of
iceberg one mile long, 1,000 feet wide and 900 feet thick,
mining in Finland, wild. 'told him with some wonderment
weighing 100 million tons and containing 20 billion gallons
that while salt water never penetrated iron mines.' on the'
ot water, be transported from Antarctica to the Northern
Finnish coast even when they were below sea level, . fresh.
Hemisphere and parked next to the coast of a desert country
., water was always present on the rocky floors' of the sam~
to serve as a mammoth water reservoir?
mines. The Swedish scientist's extensive subsequent bores'
The proposal to solve a shortage of water by moving ice- . convinced him that water, produced by some process deep
bergs halfway arol,lnd the' world was only the most recent in
within the earth for which he could not account, could be
a long history of similar water-transport schemes that date
contacted in hard rock.
back to the beginning of recorded history, among .whiCh
Nordenskiold's theory completely contradicted hydro-.
canals dug into the earth, or aqueducts .set above it, and the
logical doctrine of his, and our own, time which insists that
construction of ever more costly d~ms have been favorite
most of the fresh water available to living things on ea'rth
. choices.
. first rises as vapor from lakes and oceans to form clouds.'
. By the' time the conference began, a feasibility study for
These in turn deliver the same water, conden~ed by'cool air'
displacing a mountairi of ice was already in the works'. Comcurrents into rain, hail, or snow, back to the earth's surface.
the bulk of this precipitation trickles into rivulets, brooks,
missioned by Prince Muhammad al Faisal, nephew of Saudi
Arabia's King Khalid and sponsor of the Iowa meeting, it
streams, and rivers to run back to the sea. Part of it is abenjoined Cicero, a French .engineering firm, to solve the
sorbed by the earth's crust, where it is tapped by countless
problem of towing a gargantuan ice cube 7,500 miles to the
trillions of plants to be reliberated by transpiration, or seeps ..
Saudis' Red Sea port of Jidda,. Some observers at the First
downward as "ground water" to collect in subterrane~ri
International' Conference on Iceberg Utilization estimated.
channels called "aquifers"-Latin for "water-carriers"-'
that tugs towing the berg, able to move no faster than a
from which it can be recovered from natural springs or
nautical snail's pace of half a mile per hour, would take
man-made wells. The whole circulatory process is called the
nearly eight months to reach ~he Bab el Mandeb Strait at
"hydrologic cycle."
.
. the entrance to the Red S e a . .
The Swede's new concept was to lie dormant until it 'was
Then there was the melting problem. Wilford Weeks of
revived by a Bavarian-born mining engineer, Stephan '~iess,
'the U.S. Army's Cold Regions Research Laboratory prowho emigrated to the United States in 1923. Though he has
t.ested that anyone who tried to drag an unprotected iceberg
never held a dowsing rod in his hands, Riess has developed
.' '. from the coldest to the hottest place on earth would end up
a geologic theory about the origin of water which, prove~.
with "nothing but a tow-line." Not disagreeing, Egyptian
by fifty 'years of practice, meshes well with dowsers' own ..
nuclear engineer Abdo Husseiny nevertheless waxed' optideductions.
.
inistic that, if a strong enough version of a plastic bag could
Eager to discover what"California mining had to offer,: he.
be devised to retain their melt, icebergs up to five by ten
traveled to Lassen County near the Oregon border and .
miles in size could make the voyage. UNESCO hydrologists
began working his way down the Sierra Nevada range. For
suggested that plants for the desalinization of sea water
. one mining operation with over 100,000 tons of unprocessed
. made better economic sense."'
.
ore lying aboveground, Riess solved the processing problem
chemically with a special catalyst known, then as now, only
"
Hydrologic Doctrine vs. 'Primary Water
to himself. "News of the money those fellows made raced
like a grass fire through the hills," Riess r~calls, "and I had
. :' No "one at the conference was aware of the fact that over
eighty years ago a Stockholm pr9fessor of mineralogy and
me plenty of consulting work right away."
.
.
Arctic explorer, Adolf Erik Nordenskiold, had written a
. Riess's ability to recover metal from ores attracted the
paper, "About Drilling for Water in Primary Rocks" which
attention of then ex-President Herbert Hoover,'" who owned
concluded that one' could sink wells capable of producing
large mining holdings. Hoover invited the d~rman irrimi-
.w~ter the year round along the northern and southern coasts'
grant to .join a metallurgical processing firm, in which he:
of the Mediterranean, and in the 'whole of Asia Minor, or
worktXt together with the former Presid~nt's two,sons, Allan
"exa~tly 'in those areas of the w9rld from w.ni.ch confer;ence
. arid Berbert, Jr, .
..'
.'
'. .
' .
.' del~gates most concerned. about '. water-supply problems' ..... One day a load. of dynamite.
set 9ff in the. bott9m 9f
hailed.. ' .
" ..
:.
....
. a' deep' min~ at high deva~ion" to breafup .ore-rich ro~k.
'Nordenskiold, whose essay' "Yon hinl"ra nomination for the ' . After the explosiori" Riess was amazed to' 'see water .come
Nobel Prize in physiCs (he,'died 'before 'full 'considera'tiori .. . gtishiIJ8 .out .of nowhere. in suc'h .quil!1titiesthat p~mps. in- .
.was gjven' to the candidat.es), .spent .years dril1iri8~ in r~cky, . stalled' to rem'ove it" at ....a r'at~ 0(25,000 ga1lons a minute.
promontories and .Islimds..ofr"the S~edish coast to bring up.. could" not inal(e' deni"in it. Looking':down into the valley'

was

",

.'

. , '

'"

...

' .

.. "'rsri't 162
".

Vitruvius method for finding

water: "To locate ground water,
lie flat on the ground before
sunrise with the chin on the
ground in order to confine the
search to what can be seen
from that position. Water can
be expected to lie under those
places where vapors arise from
the earth." Reproduced from 1543
edition of Vitruvius'
De Architecture

---below, Riess asked himself how water that had trickled in\<;l
the earth as rain could rise through hard rock into the shafts
and tunnels of a mine nearly at the top of a mountain range.
The temperature and the purity of the water's chemical
analysis suggested to Riess that the water must be of a completely different origin than ordinary ground water. Since
none of the textbooks he had studied' referred to what appeared to be a cQmpletely anomalous phenomenon, Riess
dec.ided to look into it.
.
On trips back to Europe, Riess became aware that many
historic castles were built on high rocky promontories such
as those in the Rhineland, some of them constructed by
Charlemagne's descendants. At the center of their courtyards were huge wells, often as much as eight feet in diam.eter with steps going into the.ground two hundred meters or
more, that had supplied water for centuries.
Similar wells can be found in all p.arts of the .world. Typical is the fortress built on rocky Inner Faroe islet in the
mouth of Scotland's Tweed River where St. Cuthbert isolated himself from A.D. 676-687. When he visited the site in
1952, the National Geographic's John E. M. Nolan nearly
plunged into "a huge stone cistern filled with ice-cold water"
that had supplied the saint and his fellow monks. Even more
awesome is a well at La Ferriere, the stone fortress built by
Emperor .Christophe two thousand feet above the north
Haitian plain in the early l800s and described as "deep and
clear and freezing cold, and fed by an inexhaustible spring."
. In the North American West an important clue to the
mystery disClosed by Riess came when, working late at night .
in a mine shaft, he he.ard a peculiar hissing sound, similar
to that produced by a leakY.air tank, accompanied by trk:k- .
Iin-g water. He tracked the unfamili~r npise dovvn to the b~l~ ..
mill, an enormous cylinder that r.otates arid puiverizes oJ:e .
to mud by .the .tumbling action ~f steei, palls an.d water co~~
tained within it: The wa~er ,trickling but o( the ball mill ...
should normally have been fOl,lnd. abave the mud in the '

Details of Water Available in Various Types of Soils,

According to Vitruvius

Depth at
which _ter
Type 0/
.oil
Clay

may be

aVDilable
Near the
surface
Lower down
the surface

Loose
gravel
Black

Amount
Scanty

Tate
Not good

Remarks

Scanty

Unpleas
ant
Excellent

Muddy

e~rth

Gravel
Coarse
gravel,
common
sand & red
rock
Red rock

Flinty rock
& foot of

Small &
uncertain
More
certain

Unusually
sweet

Copious

Good

Copious

Cold &
wholesome

Available
after
winter
rains

Good

Difficult to
obtain due
to percola
tion

mountains
c~edit: Asit K. Dis,,'.o, HiSl"'1I of .H/ldn>"!IIrI

, .
motionles~ cylinder but, .to his.amazement, Riess saw thai it
. Jay. under newly' formed '~rch of mud through which hissing
bubbles of gas kept rising. 1:I';>lding a match pver one o~ t~e
bu~bies. he cal,lsed, a miili-explosion. What he was obs'erying,
he believed; was virgin water .being liberated from ore-bearil1g
rock ~Y. cryst~l\izati<?n .proc~ withi!1 .the rocks themselyes.

Fourt" Quarter 1981

Pur" 163

.....He ~urmised that' these. proc~ss~s.had 'bee", ~riggered by.t.he

presence of some catalyzing' agent 'among the chemicals.
intrOduced into the .ball mill for recovering refnictQi"Y goI9.. '
" and siiver.,
..
.. . .'
... : .. Riess duplicated the water-producing process in a"Iabora-'
tQry, then turned to perfecting methods of rock analysis. He .
finally came to the conclusion. that, in various rock strata, .
deep in the earth, water was continually manufactured under
proper conditions of temperature and pressure and forced
up in rock fissures where it could be tapped if drilled.
'Classical authors, Riess discovered, tended to support his
view. As far back as 500 B.C. Anaxagoras maintained that
oceans were created both from rivers flowing into them and
f~om what he called "waters of the earth," upon which the
. se.lf-same rivers depended for their own existence. Both
Plato and Aristotle also supported the idea that water was
.formed within the earth as well as in its atmosphere.
In pre-Christian Roman times, Vitruvius, whose Ten
Books on Architecture appeared between 27 and 17 B.C.,
, wa~ the first to state that water was best ,found, not in sanqs,
gravels, and soil but in rocks.
"In the first century of the Christian era Seneca referred
to great underground rivers flowing in the planet, while his
contemporary, Pliny the Elder, championing the idea that.
water flowed in veins, wrote that they "pervaded the whole
earth within and ran in all directions bursting out even pn
the highest ridges."
Like the Chinese before him,. Leonardo da Vinci, in his
long unpublished essay, "Treatise on Water," compared the
eaFth to a living human body. Wrote the Renaissance genius:
" The same cause that moves the humours in every species of animate bodies against the natural law. of gravity

:-

Sriow

al~o propels the w~ter thr~ugh the' v~iQS of. the 'earth
wherein it is enclosed/and distributes it througl1 small ..
. passages .. And as the blood rises from below and .pours
. out through. the broken vei!lS of t~e. forehea!1,' as the.
water rises from the :.Jowest part of the vi"ne to'. !lie.
branches that are cut, so from the. lowest depth Of the .
sea the water rises to the summits of mountains, where, .
finding the veins broken, it pours out and returns 'to
the bottom of the s~a.
This idea did not prevent Leonardo from also. opting for
an early version of the modern hydrologiC cycle a.rid stating'.
that a lot of the earth's .water was the result of rainfall from .
clouds. As Asit K. Biswas notes in his recent Histo.ry of
Hydrology:
Characteristically, Leonar~o reported ~n occasional .
doubt about certain aspects of both theories, but nQthing has been found so far which would indicate that he
had at any time discarded the basic concepts of either
of them. In fact, the chances seem good thai he beIieved both systems operated concurrently.
. . . . ..
No less impressive to Riess were accounts of travelers in
various parts of the Mediterranean littoral and the. Near
East about sources of water that laid the ba~is for a~cient
civilizations. At Cyrene in northeastern Libya. the famous .
Fountain of ApQlIo still gushes from a tunnel hewn into
rock just as it has done since long before the birth...of Christ.
In his book, Digging for Lost African Gods, archaeologist
and explorer Byron Kuhn de Prorok described the enor~
mous spring at Zaghuan, forty-eight miles from the site. of .
the ancient city of Carthage near modern-day Tunis, which ..
flows through a still-standing Roman temple on the slopes
of the Atlas Mountains. Denying the usual claim that North'
Africa became a desert because of severe climatic change, .
de Prorok believed that if sources such as Zaghuan were ..
tapped anew and ancient Roman waterways to channel their
abundance restored, "Algeria and Tunisia could become the .
granary of Europe, as they were for 300 years under Roinan
rule."
.

The Hydrologic cycle

EVAPORATION

TRANSPIRATION

. I

.t

EVAPORATION

I
~'

..

Oceen.

,
",

"

":

.' In ;he. Fertile Crescen't Nelsoh Glueck describes 'the eas.t~rn- '.,
. most source of the River Jordan as' a full-formed stream ..
bursting forth from the base of ari earthqua~e-battered cave":
in a . great iron-reddened limestone cliff, while- its western- .
most sources originate in one spr.ing at the foot of a buttress
of Mount Hermon and in another. whiC;h "pours from the
cliffs in waterfalls."
'.
In the Notional Geographic magazine for December 1951,
an article entitled "The Ghosts of Jericho" recounts that
even in the recent past, thousands of Arab. refugees were
getting their water from the some spring that supplied the
site in neolithiC'. times. Called Ain-es-Sultan or "The Sultan's Spring" in Arabic, it is identical to that "healed" by
Elisha reported in II Kings 2, 19:25.
.
. The Ai~ Figeh Spring, a remarkable source of water,
today supplies the entire population (1.3 million people) of
. Damascu~, Syria, and' is a!so the principal. source of the
Barada Rlv~r. A report on It by the l~ternatlonal Bank for
Reconstruction and Development reads.
The principal emergence of the spring, which has been
enclosed in a structure since Roman times, resembles
an underground river several meters across, which
flows. up and out of the limestone formation of the
mountain. The total flow has averaged 8.63 cubic meters
per second (about 132,000 gpm). The water quality is
very good, its temperature and pH are relatively censtant (near 14 degrees Centigrade and 7.9 respectively),
its. taste and color are excellent, and bacteriological
contamination at the source is practically nonexistent.

as

Straight Answers

. -Monid Eghbal, an American-trai~ed Iranian grad~ate

stud~n.t in geology, asked Rie!!s to elaborate on his metti- .
odology. Eghbal was keenly aware that th~ mining engineer's
ideas did .not fit into any of a 'series of models which gool- .
ogy, perhaps the most specqlative of the natural sciences,
h!!-s developed ov:er decad~to explain what may be' happening in the unseen world below ground.
.
'''When you consider," said Riess, "that so many of the
productive mines in the world have been 'washed out before they could be worked out and a lot of working mines
are pumping out thousands of gallons of water, you"ve got
to ask yourself where the water comes.from. I'm speaking
of really big operations like the Comstock and the Tornbstone."
Historians bear Riess out. Of the famous Comstock silver
lode at Virginia City, Nevada, Grant M. Smith writes:
The Combination shaft intersected the Comstock Lode
at the depth of 3,000 feet and entered a body of lowgrade quartz on the 3,200-foot level, which proved
of no value. The shaft was then sunk to the 3,250-foot
point. The double line of Cornish pumps was l,mable
to handle the water when the shaft began to make connections with adjoining mines, and Superintendent
Regan installed a hydraulic pump to assist,' using water
furnished by the Water Company ~s a plunger. Later,
two additional hydraulic pumps were installed. The'
pumps were then lifting 5,200,000 gallons every twentyfour hours to the Sutro Tunnel level, or 3,600 gallons
a minute. This quantity lifted 3,200 feet would require
a~o~t 3,000 horsepower theoretically, or with pipe
fnctlon and modern pumps and motors about 4,000
horsepower continuous load.
On October 16, 1886, the' Combination pumps ceased
to operate. Within 36 hours after the hydraulic pumps
were stopped the water had risen to the 2,400-foot
level, filling the entire lower workings of the Chollar,
Potosi, Hale & Nureruss, and Savage mines, including .
several miles of crosscuts
.
No less impressive is Otis E. Young's description of the
demise or-the huge silver mine at Tombstone, Arizona:

. , . .
. Rless.s first opportumty to p~ove that water co~ld be
located m ~rystalhne rock came 10 ~934, at Nelson, 10 the
s?utheast tlP.of Nevada, where a mme could be made pr?flt.a~le only If a source of water. could be. fou~d to mill
malhons .of dollars of ~old- and ~1~ver:beaTing ore h~a~ed
up near Its shafts. The Idea of d~a1hng mt.o a mo~ntamslde
for water appeared so outlandish to hiS associates that
Riess; fearing to make them the laughing stock of the mining industry by bringing in a conspicuous drill rig, ordered
a 4 x 8 shaft drilled with arr-compressed jackhammers.
"No geologist would dare recommend drilling for water
. . While dewatering was going on, the related Tombin. places like that today," says Riess. "That is why the
stone Consolidated Mining Company attended to reHoovers were so skeptical. But as we drove down and went
, opening the mines as fast as they were dried out. By
through the upper, softer alluvium into th~ hard rock below,
1905 the project had proved a qualified success. At the
I began to get encouraged. We worked for several weeks
8OO-foot level the pumps were raising 2.3 million galand then, when we got down to 182 feet, boy, we hit it!
lons of water daily, while the output of the reopened
The water rose so fast in that big shaft that the workers
mines went to the refineries at EI Paso in the form of
barely had time to get out of there with their jackhammer
two or three carloads of bulk concentrates a day. Profbefore they drowned. It came in under a lot of pressure and
its were helped along by scavenging both low-grade
surged to within six feet from the surface."
ore and the waste dumps of the earlier period. With
Riess installed a pump in the shaft and, in his words,
a rise in world silver prices that occurred at the same
!'pumped the smithereens out of her, on and off for three
time, the operation showed' a profit for four years.
weeks, ,",alf a day, or a whole day at a time. The water ran
In 1909 it was given out that boiler breakdown had .
down the canyon in a brook. There was no drawdown.
shut down the drainage system and that before repairs
She. maintained her level at six feet from the surface. ,', The
could be effected the entire complex had been drowned
new water renewed the mine's profitability and 4 million
beyond redemption:
dollars' worth of bullion was shipped to the San Francisco
'.
.
Riess told Eghbal that he ma.inly looked for "restricted.
Mint . before World War II exigencies closed 'down operafauhs" or breaks in 't,",e earth's. crust 'wh"ic;h Tarely reach to
tions~ When, mining was resumed in 1,)77,' the locill' press
the earth's surface.. Where these vertical pipes or fissures
reported that Nelson Joi~t Venture~ was pumping. water
. o'r fumaroles did reaeh the surfaCe, great nafural springs
from a good w~1l drilled ()n lea,sed land. Th~ good well was
non~ other tHan that drilled forty-five. years' previously' by . . of.primary water occurred. "You'take the'creek up in Kings
.'
.
:
Stephan Riess. . .
.
':Canyon Nat~onl,ll P8:rk," he ehibora'ted, "why, it' nows at

F~Udh Q~.del'

1981

'.

Pursu.t 16,5

"

'

, , Several thousand gallons a minute ~nd it is above, all dr~inage in any direction. Moose Lake, in the, 'same area;' also "
has no visible watershed and ,that, 'too" flows' at severai
thousand gallons' a minute. Even ,in dry summer months on
Mount Whitney at about 13,00()'f~ there is a sheer granite'
wall 'with a protrusion on 'its face that cups a small lake.
, If that lake water is rain or snow, then all we have to do is,
hang'tanks on the Empire state Building or the Eiffel Tower
, and expect a,con'stant flow of water.
"At no, time is water static," Riess went on. "It is con'stantly changing form. It is either a liquid or gas, or it is
bound ,up in crystalline form in rocks and minerals. The
cycle of gaS to liquid to crystal is repeated over and over.
Oxygen and hydrogen combine under the electrochemical
forces of the earth to form liquid water. Not only is water
, ",' being constantly formed within the earth, but also rocks,
minerals, and oil. What I seek is water in its liquid state."
D,uring a ten-day field trip to look at various water wells
developed by Riess over the last thirty years, all of which
are producing as copiously as when they were first bored,
Eghbal learned that the mining engineer, uses a twofold ,
approach in locating sources of water. First comes a detailed study of surface structure, the main targets of which
are t~e identification of contacts, or places where two kinds
of rock strata adjoin to create natural fissures. Such a contact
zone can be found between overlying layers of sedimentary
rock laid down over millenia by erosion and deposition, and
,underlying basalt, a hard, dense, igneous rock formed, like
granite and other varieties, by crystallization of molten
, material that cO,mes upward from deep within the earth.
"Just like igneous rock," Riess further explained, "the
water I get has to be coming from great depth because it is
free of leach minerals found in water flowing through sedimepts. It comes up through the basalt fissures, some from
5 to 10 and up to 20 to 30 feet wide, that go down into the
earth to provide vertical aqueducts. "
.
T~ demonstrate to Eghbal the kind of thing he looks for
in 'surface structure, Riess indicated a dyke~ a miles-long
ihin protrusion of igneous rock slicing through adjacent'
sedimentary structures. To visualize this, one need only
pOsit an extended strip of, 'metal sheeting forced vertically
into beach sand to create a barrier within it.
"This dyke," Riess told Eghbal, "is made up of gabbro.
'It 'has risen up through sandstone and cuts very plainly
,throu~h this geology. You can see where it actually surfaces
, ' iri some places from which its'direction, or 'strike' as geologists have it, can be traced across country. On this gabbro
contact, a seam of water is flowing down below in a big
fissure maybe five. or six feet wide. The dykes, penetrating
, 'as they do into the lithosphere, the rocky crust of the earth,
go down 'to where the rock becomes fluid. The contacts on
gabbro can run thousands of feet. The dykes are mostly
vertical or with a very slight dip, never much less than 70
degrees."
"Do yo~ always drill, next to a dyke?" asked Eghbal. ,
"No," replied' Riess, "if it's a displacement, I don't.
Y:ou have to figure that' out. You can get misled a ,hundred
, times over if yo~ don't kpow your b~siness:" ,
,, "So in essence you want to know 'if. (here are any dis.
, ,
placement faults that might, h,ave moved the area you're,
,gofl)g ta be,drilling on?" Eghbal asked, ~tting on the essence'
of'the problem. ' "..
, , ,
, "Yes, it might have moved as much as :'500 yards,. :and,
,then ,you'll be 'off-it," RieSs both'!igreed'arid',~~rned.,', ,"

, " PuN' 166

,,' , Riess' 'further' ~xplained to the, Iraniari 'that if the water

came, up ,:to, say,' 150 feet from the surface and struck' a
,iaieral ch,annel, it could travel' h,orizoni~lly, for one hundred
' miles o~ more., ",I ,couldn't give yeiu an accurate prediction
on -that without first-claSs instrumentation and a tfme-consumtng study of the region's geology and possibly by sinking
some core 'holes miles apart which would 'give ,me a 'picture
of the strata below ground," he made dear; "This would
give me an idea of whether the bedrock lay high' or low.
Tlie dip and strike of the bedding plane would be revealed
'very clearly in the cores."
"
' ,
Eghbal broke in: "What would happen if the water ran',
twenty miles in a lateral displacement and 'then hit another
, ' ,
vertical fissure. Would it come up?"
"Yes," replied Riess, "if it's blocked. If it hits'any kind,
of restriction it has to rise just as if it were coming up behind a dam and spilling over, it. You could fi'nd water at
one spot only 500 feet down and, maybe three 'miles away,
it might be down at 5,000 feet. It depends where the base- ' , ,
ment, the bedrock, is."
,
Side by side with his evaluation of structure, Riess focUses
a lot of attention on the composition of rocks. Says,Eghbal:
"What he's looking for is which association of minerals,
including water, they might contain. Think of a cocktail or
ai dinner party. If you know some people will be presen~,
th~n ,you might 'deduce that others will also be iii attend-'
ance. This is where his petrography and crystallography
come in. He doesn't ,care about the size of the~crystals in
the rocks as much as their relative quantity, which giv~s, him
an idea of how the rocks have altered, or metamorphosed,
over long periods of time' and allows {lim to (race, the de- )
position to the time of its origin:
': " '
"I also asked him if the age of a given rocky formation
made any difference and he replied that, if the structure of
the formation permitted an upflow of water, he dtdn't give
a damn if it were Precambrian, or only, half a million years, , '
old.! It's mainly a vertical,' rather than a lateriil, opening'
bet~een two distinctly differentiated formations that he's', '
lookpng for. It's always on a contact between two",walls
withj a space, he says. The space can be filled with imper- "
vious material, sort of like a long cork which you have to
drill: through to get down underneath it. He's drilled as '
muc~ as 1,000 feet but when he finally broke through, h,e,'
got a good well.,"
"
'
"
Eghbai inquired of Riess whether he could predict water
vein~ through seismology, the study of subterranean'structure~ by use of sound waves. "Very likely," was the'reply, "
"beq.use'then I'd have a lot of stratographic information.
But still
I have to depend on past experience which has taken
I
'
years to collect. I have to know what to look for, You can't
I,earn: these techniques in a few weeks 'or even a few' months." ,
AFter listening to- Riess's exposition and looking at, his
well ~ites, Eghbal began to wonder why in' his geology classes
he ti~d never been taught some of the,ideas the mining engin~ was expounding. "Riess's work bro'ught into focus'
some of the very' problems that 1 tried to 'address, to my
' profJssors," explai,ned EgJtbal; "but t\1ey, always shied away'
' fro,m! tltem arid 1 could nc:;ver get any straight answers." "
f" ' "

'

S7
' i " , ,' ."'L'Eim,' ~es Roche,
',
'

. '

' ,Is primary water ptodiJced~in rock and available for ~ap," ping th~re? Notdenskiold'and Riess ,are not the, only ones to'
" provi~~, an' ,~ffirmative' ~iiswer :to this questip!1. Pr<;>fesso~
' C,. LQuis ,{{ervran, 'a . biblo~st and ~ngineer, who' before ~is,'"
,

I
I

"

SEEPAGE

'

FORMATION

_ . - ..

:=:::::::I::1.

MAIN

W~TER

YAeLE

J , '

Ground Water Movement and Perch Water

retirement was a French government expert on nuclear radiation hazards, asserts that most of the wells in his native
Brittany are dug into solid granite.
"Certain 'purists' declare this impossible," wrote Kervran
in a 1977 essay on the origin of water found in crystalline
rock. "They hold that water can only come from a permeable layer impregnated with it. A sponge, as it were, is
needed, they say. This is entirely false and everybody knows
it except overspecialized theorists who, even when confronted
with facts, will not admit to anything that falls outside the;
subject matter they absorbed in school."
During his professional career, Kervran knew of so many
cases in which tunneling operations in mountain rock were
suddenly flooded with water that he did not even bother to
collect data on them. "The incidents were," he noted, "so
banally commonplace as to be known to thousands." The
floods, which in many cases Iiteraily "drowned the construction sites," says Kervran, were generally attributed by
geologi~ts to what they called "contained" or "perched"
water.
Brittany's granite-termed by Kervran "primary, impermeable terrain-has supplied water for all farm animals
'and humans as long as anyone can remember. Like Livingston's wells in the granite under the high Sierras, the wells
in Brittany rarely run dry; even during extended droughts
such as the one which struck the peninsula in 1976. So widespread is the knowledge of wells in granite among the Breton
peasantry that the expression L 'eau des roches or "rock
.
water" has long existed in their vernacular.
Labeling it "constituent water," or that forming part of
a whole, Kervran notes that anyone can find out how much
.of it any rock contains by weighing the rock before and
after heating. In his view constituent water was form~d at
the same time as the rock itself, a lot' of it hundreds of millions of years ago, by penetrating the metamorphosing rock
as steam and becoming imprisoned when the rock was a
precrystalline viscous paste heated to temperatures of an
order. of 800 degrees Centigrade at enormous pressures of
2-3 kilobars. Cooling, the rock shrank and cracked, opening
up fractures leading in all directions ..
On this account Kervran holds that it is difficult to find
a rock even ten meters thick without such a crack or fissure, '
many of which intercommunicate, meeting at various angles
and formi.ng huge crevices or voids. The voids. fill ~ith water
for which the myriad fissures are pathways or what K~rvran
term.s '''drainage pipes." He' has eveQ seen water protruding
from such channels where they are laid bare on. the.faces of'
, cliffs.
' . '
,During.his years as construction foreman building inter- .'
state Highway 88 ,through the Sierra NevaQ~, Livingston,
too, noticed similar openings 'oozing water .. esp~ially ~fter .

Fourth

Quad~.19.1

' .

r?

heav~ equipment had made cuts through rockS.' Echoing

Livingston's idea that -the water in rock is "living water,"
Kervran avers that this water i's generally in motion and
that where ttie flow is more than minimal, it can be easily
'd~tected by dowsers. This explains w~y dowsers are, in his.
words, '''habitually used in rocky regions in Brittany to pin point the exact location where one must dig to contact flowing water. The locations are detected by the dowsers with
great precision."
During the 1976 drought in Brittany, the French Geological and Mining Bureau lent its drilling equipment, used to
prospect for minerals in the Amoricain Mountains, to a
crash program to find new water wells. In 1977, the Ouest
France newspaper with the highest circulation in the French
Republic, reporting on the bureau's work, emphasized in
italic print that its wells in Brittany were "drilled into crystalline and metamorphic terrain which has too long been
erroneously reputed not to be water-bearing. "
"Why can't geologists submit to the evidence?" asks
Kervran. "It is easily possible to find water in so-called'
impermeable rock. If books on geology do not mention this,
it is because all the widely knm'tn observations of this phenomenon have never yet been assembled. No synthesis has
ever been made of the data, and what a shame."
To gather data on water from rock in Brittany, Kervran
traveled in 1977 to the village of Lizio near Ploermel where
a local industry, Katell Roc, was bottling 300 million liters
of particularly pure, almost mineral-free, water that is distributed all over Brittany and has recently become popular
with "health-food" stores burgeoning in the region of Paris.
Greeting Kervran at the KateJI Roc site in a sparsely inhabited countryside were three installations that might have
been taken for secret underground laboratories. Surrounded
by high barbed-wire fencing, each appeared to be a dome of
cement some thirty-five meters in diameter, rising above the
ground to a height of about four meters. Out of the domes
protruded huge ventilation shafts suggesting underground
activity. When the door of one of these installations was
unlocked, the Katell Roc president led Kervran down underground beneath the dome. To his surprise, Kervran fou":d
himself standing on a kind of catwalk and looking into an
enormous round well thirty meters across and nine meters
deep. That the well itself had been dug into solid granite
was clearly revealed by the side walls all the way around its
circumference .
The Katell Roc president told Kervran that the well was
fed by a threadlike fissure only 5-6 millimeters wide, which
had been detected by. a dowser. The huge cisternlike tank
had been dug into the rock to serve as a reservoir which is
p.umped off 'during the day and recovers each night .. even
overflowing to fill an additional tank of 700 cubic meter
capacity.
"Where does water of such purity come from?" asked
Kervran.
"I don't know," replied the Katell Roc.ex'ecutive. "Geol.ogists claim it comes from rain falling on Brittany's central
mountain range more than fifty miles from here." .
"Then water in the wells ail around Lizio shou'ld be of
th~ ~ame' composition as y<?urs,';/reasoned Kervrim.:
.
.. ' . ".yes; it should," the other man "agreed, "but it isn't.
It's of a totally different composition.' The geologistS have
al\Vays told me that ou.r water is rain water. Now',1 wonder
.' if they are .right.",
-' .~.
'

....

!, .

': AN enigmatic
symbol to the
.'
. '.
the ancient world's Tree of '.
,""

ri1~ern

mind~

. . "THE"
'.
.

.'

.'

end of the. scale we see it 'r~preseniing . .'.

tl'iballife.
..
..'.....
.. Bec9use. of the, far-reachi.rig aspect .
of the :free., the Aztecs 'loQked at its
branches' 'as spreading to 'thd foor c'orners of the earth. In this respect" it was
often referred to as a dir~tional tree;
and tribes were associat.ed with various
trees depending on their geographical
location.
'
.
Breaking the symbolism, down even
further, the various part.s of the Tree
were identified with sU'ndry' members.
of the community .. The leader of the
tribe was spoken of as the truhk, the
minor chiefs as branch~s and twigs,
their vassals as leaves, the maidens as
flowers, and the' women as fruit.
.
In another symbolic sepse these tribes'
saw themselves as descendants of the
Tree of Life, thus imbuing it. with 'a
genealogical quality. They belij::ved riot.
only that their ancestors were begotten
of the Tree of Life traditions; they felt
that a highly personal relationship ex- ~
isted between t~e Tree and their first
progenitors. .
Eduard Seier, an authority on Mexican codices, suggested that the eariy ,
inhabitants of this continent..were quite
aware of the Garden of Eden story. hi
his 'jnterpretation of the codex Telleriano Remensis he saw a representation
of the Mexican Eve (lxriextli) as the
first sinner. She is seen in the' codex as
"weeping for her lost happiness, having'
been driven from paradise because. she.
had broken a flower" from thj:: sacred
Tree. I
An interesting Tree of Life ,is drawn
in the Tona/amal/, codex of an "Aztec
calendar. The design has the usual bird
motif at the top of the Tree, b.udding
flowers, and is broken asunder flt the
middle (Fig. 4). The sYl'!lbolism. has .. :

Life is even more mysterious 'when one :'

',
.'. considers the stylized symbols of the
ancient New World. The simiiarity an~ . '.
a~ times identical meaniqgs of the basic
eleinents arj:: unmistakable.
Many scholars choose to believe that
similarities between the Old and New
Worlds are coincidental; however, when
we studY' m9re closely the details of the
'Tree of Life, it is difficult to support
" such' conclusions. Perhaps, upon examination of an old concept with a new
persPective, we may better understand
O.ff~rs
that a diffusion of cultures once took
place between the hemispheres.
. There are several basic elements to
any Tree of Life scenario.The primary
figure would be the Tree of Life. It is
always placed at the center. The bird
element is always at the top, or above,
the Tree. This consists of a bird or a
portion of one, such as a solar disk
'with wings (see Fig. I). Guarding the
Tree of Life are at least two person~ges
by Diane E. Wirth
or priests, 'usuallystanding on either
side and facing the Tree.
.
Examination of the Assyrian 'Tree of
hell-in actuality, uniting the upper
(, Life and pre-Columbian Tree 'of Life
and lower. worlds. The bird element
represents the heavens, while the Tree's
iUustrations, clearly shows coinciding
eiements of design (compare Fig. I with
branches reach upwards tQward celestial spheres. The roots of the Tree
F:ig. 2). The evolution of convention. . . alized patterns among various Indian
press downward toward the lower regions of mother. earth whose womb
tribes of Mesoamerica has not changed
the original symbolic meaning. The
contains the waters of the underworld.
.AzteC's
. Pre-Columbian tribes apparently
Tree of Life is. pure and simple,
I
tend to express themselves in a. richly
whereas the Mayan, at Palenque in
detailed manner-symbols within symChiapas in particular (Fig. 3), are extremely complex; but the elements are
bols. Rarely do. they have just one
meaning per glyph. The Tree of Life
~e saDie: a tree, a bird, and attendants.
The A,ztec people were in awe of the
was supreme in its interpretation, and
symbol of the cross that was carved on . its \lppeal ran the gamut. from high
'banners brought by the Spanish conpriestly esthetic interpretations to the
quistadors, not because it stood for the
people in their daily tasks. At the lower
.I Christian cross, but because it represented their sacred emblem for the Tree
of Life, their white and bearded god of
life, Quetzalcoatl, and the four quarters
of tl;te earth. As we shall see, these
tl;treeaspec~s are interwoven into the
core of the Tree's symbolism-the core
being intricately woven around the
'themeof life itself.
.
" . These early Americans named. their
Tree Tonacaquahuitl, which. means
. "God ot' rains and' of health and tr~e
of.susienance or of life." This conveys
the saine idea .of fertility ~ the Egyp-
'. tian cross, which was the symbol for
liCe and generation. ,':. .
!,
'. The Tree of Life .seems to :'have "a :
.
,'.
. . , .
world-wide' rep~esentation' 'of' cosmiC
'. ":' . . .' .Flg. 1." Assyrian Tree of Life: ilft~"LaYard. M6numents oj.Nlneueh.: '.
'.
. '.
.
' . . ' .. ' :..... ~n!lon~ (1~). ..... :':.
." .J:
hai,,"ony betwee!l heaven~ earth.. and.

TREE

OF

LIFE

Evidence of

. Pre-Columbian
Contact

.......11 168 .
,

.,

..

.,

F~ia~h: Q@.arter 1981

..

. 'r

..

.'

"

".

Fig. 2 Mixtec Tree of Life, aftn the FeJeruary-Mayer Codex,

City Museum, Liverpool.
b~n interpreted to represent .the land
of their forefathers, Tamoanchan, the
cradle of all original tribes. It is described' as a paradise not unlike the
Garden of Eden, from which the first
people were expelled by the gods. The
blood flowing from the break in the
Tree 2 emphasizes that it is indeed the
"Paradise Lost, the foresaken cradleland." J The similarity to the story recorded in Genesis is truly amazing, yet
these codices were made long before
the Spanish arrived with their .Bible.
The information at hand appears to
make sense when we put it alongside
the .theory of diffusion. If the' Tree of

Life' theme were brought to the western

hemisphere by cultures from the Old
World, it follows that all the lore associated with the design of the Tree would
also have been established on this continent. When we uncover the ethnic
roots of the Tree of Life tradition we
find an amazing symmetry, for in most
parts of the ancient world the Tree
flourished in lore and legend.
In Scandinavian mythology Odin is
closely associated with the Tree of Life,
for this is where he' gained his wisdom.
Northern ancient peoples also regarded
the Tree as the original source of life.
The Scandinavian Tree was topped by

a bird, a 'golden cock. Serpents were

also involved' in . th~ imagery, an.d. it
wa~ said ~hat no power on earth could.
destroy the ever-living Tree ... ' . " " (
In Egypt the pharaohs were fed on
"' the fruit of the Tree and drank of the
water of life from the well which it replenished.
Donald Makenzie gives a synopsis of
the Tree's life-sheltering attributes as "
accorded by Gaelic peoples:
The well-known Gaelic legend of
Fraoch resembles closely the Buddhist legend of Paravataksha.
A holly tree grows above a pool
in which there is a dragon-like
monster; this monster attacks anyone who plucks berries from the
tree. In Gac;lic lore the holly berries
renew youth, promote longevity,
and are the source of supernatural
knowledge. The berries contain
the 'life substance' of the treeguardian, whih reposes in the
well.~ ,
In India the Tree represents the universe which gives the gods special gifts
such as eternal life, supreme happiness
and productive power. In this way the
partakers of the fruit remain fresh and
healthy and death has no power over
them.
Among the Chinese a tradition is
preserved concerning a mysterious
garden, where grew a tree, bearing
apples" of immortality, guarded by a
winged serpent, called a dragon. And
so on the story goes.

Fig. 4 Severed Tree of Life,

after the i\ztec Tonalamatl.

FiB 3 The Tl!lblet"of the Cross 'or Tree" of Life, Plilenque, Plate XLI,
.~
". Bureau oj.Am'erlcan Eth~o~ogy, Bul!etin 28. "

Fourth Quarter 198i

The ancient Persians pr"obably had

more representations. of the Tree of -Life than anybody else "on earth. Their'
kings had such trees constructed artificil;llly out of silver to stand beside 'their
thrones. Per~ian rugs almost always
co~tained a inoqified' Tree-of-Life

Pur!'u" 169

mot.if, sometimes stylized. beyond re-,:

modern "health' services?" This is one'
. . .cognition and representing' either' a'
. of history"s most ancient syinbols, '~nd '.
.. flow from a vase (the water' of .life) 'or .
.'. . in esSence it is a :Tree of Life scenario.'
. . The're are the wings or ,"bird element'.' .'
a tree .. .The bran~hes and fruit of the
tree bordering these rugs represent the
at. th~ .-top;: the staff representing the
Garden qf Eden.,
Tree itself; .and the serpents entwined
M~re in Iin'e with Western thought,
denote great' wisct~m, i.e., knowJedge
we. find mention of the Tree of Life in
of life.
'.
Biblical and Apocryphal writings. In
Another notable characteristic of the .
Esdras 11:8-30 we ,read: " . . . They
Tree' of Life is the color ,of its. fruit.
shall have the tree of life for an ointAlthough the fruit has been depicteCI
ment of sweet savour; . . ." Similarly,.
in a variety of forms, ancient writings
are curiously unanimous in describing .
the Bible states (in Revelation 2:7) how
the precious gift of the Tree of Life
the color as white.
"
The Persian Zend A vesta speaks'of
may be obtained: "He that hath an ear,
: let him hear what the Spirit saith unto
the Tree of Life as bearing the white
the churches; to him that overcometh
'Haoma whose sap conferred immortality. In his book, Mexico South, Miguel
, wi\l I give to eat of ~he Tree of Life,
which is in the midst of the paradise' of
Covarrubias likewise describes" a preColumbian Tree of Life in a Garden
\ God."
Once again in the New World we
of EQen setting:
find the tradition of the Tree of Life
. . . a mythical utopia, a sort of
not only in Mesoamerica but also in
earthly paradise symbolized by the'
. North. and South America. Threebleeding Tree of Life, a tree that
branched trees are frequently encounexcreted a white juice, ... 8 ' \... .
tered in old Peruvian work, especially
textiles. A piece of tapestry from PaOne of the ancient scrolls from the
chacamac represents a tree flanked by
Nag Hammadi library found In Egypt
guardians, with fruit falling into the
compares the color of the Tree 'of Life
to that of the sun, yet the fruit was
" hands of kneeling chiefs below. 6
Fig. 5 Symbolic Tree of Life Chart of
arrayed in "traditional white": .'
In North America the Osage Indians
the Osage, after illustration &om Sixth
had a remarkable Tree of Life "chart."
Annual Report oj the Bureau oj EthnolNow the .color of the tree of life is
At the top we see a tree near a river:
ogy, Smithsonian (1888), p. 378.
like the sun, and its branches are
The Tree)s a cedar, called the Tree of
beautiful. Its leaves are like those
. )Life. It has six roots, three on each
on top of the Tree, and a conventipnof the cypress. Its fruit is .like the. .
alized serpent's head terminates each
side. Stars and constellations are under
clusters of white grapes. Its heigh~.
branch. As they weave their sinuous
the scene. The bird element now comes
rises up to heaven. 9
way through many Old World legends,
into view. It is seen hovering over the
The Book oj Mormon, which mem. serpents are often seen entwined about
four upper worlds. The lowest world
bers of the Church of Jesus Christ of
or lying near the Tree.
rests on a' red oak tree. The story of the
Latter-Day Saints claim was w.ritten by ,
And what of the caduceus (Fig. 6)
illustration is the' migration of souls
early inhabitants of the Am~ricas, states
now so widely used to advertise our
from the heavens to the earth-man '.
that the Tree of Life and its fruit' was
now begins his life. 7
exceedingly white (t Nephi 8:11). Per. Starting with the top of the Tree,
haps the ultimate superlative is "crystal
let us analyze the elements of Tree of
white;" the Tree of Life is described as
life illustrations. Most of the Trees
made of crystal, in a hymn of Eridu
a~~ topped by a bird element, or have
written by a poet-member of. an 'early
some sort of bird representation close
culture that once flourished on the
by. Since the bird-creature is noted for
shores of the Persian Gulf; writings
its ability to fly high above humankind .
from ancient Chaldea alsO- report. on
and symbolically close to the heavens, the Tree's crystal fruit. 1O
it is associated with deity. Whether
Complete Tree of Life scenes always
portrayed as a winged disk (Assyria) or
have at least two "guardi~n figures.'" .
as a quetzal bird (Mesoame~ica), the
In Assyrian art they are in the form of
meaning. is identical: it is a sign of a
winged, genii (cherubim), . sometimes
divine presence.
with faCS of eagles. Babylonian, cyl.in- .
Nowadays one of the su'rest ways to
der . seals. 'portray the." &ceoe. with the
stir revulsion is' to "talk or write about
two guarpiah~ a~. repres~nting' .Ad~.m
.. snakes. The ancients had a different
and Eve. We"find' a simlliu: .dePiction
.concept; they looked upon the lowl'y,
" .iii th~. Mayan. codex' TrcrCortes;anus .
ser.pent as a source' and therefo're a
where :the. old go"d.and"g04dess ~re
:. symbol of :gI'eat...wisdom. Th'e famo~s.:
. . ' . , .. '
featured,' perhaps' to represeil~ .man's
'Tree of Life bas~reliet' at I:aienqQe,'
Flg.,6 CaduCeus':."
'. first parent~'; Ii." '. . "
'
,Mexico, has'a compination' seI'pe~~~bird.
I

"

Pu ...uft J70

"

. F~urth Quartei"1911

. . '

,r

Fig. 7 From the Fejeruory-Mayer

Codex, City Museum, Liverpool.

Reproduced by permission from

A Coloring Sook oj Incas, Aztecs &
Mayas. Copyright 1981 by Bellerophon Books, Santa Barbara, CA
93101. Freecatalog available.

Under or near the Tree of Life in

many of its versions there is watera prime requisite of life. Eden was
irrigated by the Waters of Paradise.
In Ezekiel's vision of the temple he
saw the same waters flowing ben~ath
the entrance. According to ancient
Hebrew tradition, the Tree of Life was
planted near the source of the water of
life. In pre-Columbian art water is also
rePresented, but in a different manner.
Typical scenes show a monster's head
below the Tree, which is identified. as
the mother earth. The monster carries
water markings on its body and a torrent of water spews from its mouth.

tree is nour(shed with faith, the roots

one scene. When two symbols express the
will be strong and the tree will bear
same approximate ideas, more often than
not they tend to amalgamate.
fruit for many seasons.
The similarity between Old World
3. Seier, Ibid., p. 105.
and .New World development of the
4. H. R. Ellis Davidson, "Scandinavian
Tree of Life scenario is unmistakable.
Cosmology," Ancient Cosmologies, J. M.
Plumley et aI., George Allen.& Unwin,
(t provides clear evidence of transoceanic voyages in pre-Columbian . Ltd. (1975) p. 179.
5. Donald Alexander Makenzie, Myths oj
times, of commerce and culture moving
Pre-Columbian America, The Gresham
over thousands of ~iles, of. ,artisans
Publishing Co., Ltd.; London.
and traders exchanging' ancient birth6. Max Uhle, "Explorations at Chincha,"
rights for new land and new horizons.
University oj California, Publications in
But there .are scholars 'who do not
American Archaeology and Ethnology,
support the theory of diffusion. In their
view, the trans-oceanic voyages were . Vol. XXI, No.2 (Berkeley, 1924).
7. Sixth Annual Report oj the Bureau oj
"impossible;'" thus, any similarity beEthnology, Smithsonian (1888), pp. 377-381.
tween Old World and New World Tree
8. Miguel Covarrubias, Mexico South,
of Life themes becomes dismissible as
Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y. (1947), p. 115.
"mere coincidence." Do you believe it?
9. The Nag Hammadi Library, James M.
I

In summary, the Tree of Life symbol

a message of mal"!y concepts, of religion, cosmology, myth and tradition.
Because Mesoamerican Tree of Life
Robinson, general editor, Harper and Row
REFERENCES . I .
scenes are more detailed than their
(1'n7), p. 1.69.
'
I. Eduard Seier; The'Tonalamatl.o! the
Oid-World counterparts, we are in
10.. Count Goblet d' AlvieUa, The Migration
Aubin Collection, Berlin.& London (1900),
good position to unravel the intraca"cies
oj Symbols, Archibald Constable & Co:,
p.54.
.
of symbolism and grasp the full mean.
. 2. I don't mean to 'confuse the Tree of . Westminster (1891), pp. 156-158.
ing: Man and the Tree symboliZe each
.
II.
Irene
B.
Woodford,
"The.
'Tr
of
life'
Knowledge, froin whi~h Adam and Eve
other. If a man does not .nourish his
in Ancient America," Bulletin oj the Uniate, With. the Tr~ of Life. It is the passage
tree, the roots will wither and die and .. of history imd of time that often confuses
.Versity ArchaeologiCa~ Society, No.4, March
the branches will be barren. But if the
1953.' Provo, Utah. ,~
th~ .tw.o, and they are usually blended hito
~s

Fo.rtbQ~rt_

1981

. Pursu;t.171

'.

.. ' TheMedasaCeU:
. i..

It prowls in 'th~ efernal dqrkness, using i~ sen- ...

sitive pseudopods to' pull its body through ~he ."
liquid' w.orld it lives in. When)t .encol:lnters .some .
other. living thing, it frequentlY wraps .its tentacleS .
aro~nd the hapless victim, and draws it into itself.

-'

...' '. : 'AF~T~~ms .. :, .' ' .

. .Eosin~~hii-a ty~~ <:if 'white blood cell. '~x~ct furiction~ un- "
known .. 1"he nlime stems' from the Greek, meaning "eosineloving." Eosine. i$ a rose-colored dye used in cell staining.' .
'
Chemically, eosine is CmH~OsBr4:
'. Myeloid Leukemia-ca~Cer of the bone marrow. Biood Cells .
are made in the bone marrow, including Medusas."and other
eosinophils.
.
Pseudopoda-appendages from an orgariism that give it
. mobility and can take hold of other organisms to be con-'
sumed. AmQebae are the best-known possessors of pseu~
dopoda. In Greek, pseudopod means "false' foot."

appendages that they put out only under certain coriditions. . ' .
We know that calcium and magnesium ions'wiil make,them .
get longer and that phosphate . . . will cause them (the p~.f- ,
dopods) to retract."
The mission of the Medusa cells is still a mystery. So' far,'
. they are the only cells in the human body known to have
pseudopods capable of locomotion. It would seem that the
Medusas might be miscroscopic hit-men, their targel$ foreign
organisms and cancer cells, but some evidence points to a
more sinister role. In some cases, the Medusa cells' engulf
normal cells in the bloodstream, including healthy red ones.
Such predatory habits could contribute to serious anemia. .
The big question about these newly recognized organi,sms .
is this: Are they' more numerous in cancer patients because
,
.
th~y are part of the body's defenses ~gainst ~alignancies, or' ,
Photo by Dr, Hanker's Laboratory. courtesy UNC News Bureau,
are they more prolific as a result of cancer, and contribute
Photomicrograph of a Medusa cell. Dr. Jacob S. Hanker
.
to the slow death of leukemia sufferers?
discovered the pseudopod-equipped eosinophil and named
The outlook among the groups at UNe and Duke is geri~.
it after the many-tentacled jellyfish.
erally optimistic. Dr. John Laszlo, of Duke; has called the
Med~sas "extraordinarily interesting," and added, "It looks,
by' Paul B. Thompson
like tl1ey may be much more active than we ever thought."
In' .this area of intensive medical research, a 'discovery such
'rHIS IS NOT the scenario of the latest Hollywood scienceas the Medusa cell has tremendous possibilities .. Besides the
J fiction epic. it is a description of the activities of the
obvious links to' cancer studies, the new eosinophil :could
. Medus'a cell, a newly discovered variety of blood cell in
unlock whole new areas of attack on stubborn c9ndition's
., mammals. The discoverer of this microscopic monster is
such as allergies and parasitical infestations of t!le' blood.
Dr. Jacob S. Hanker of the University of North Carolina' at
Another interesting avenue stems from the fact that eosinoj
Chapel Hill Dental Research Center.
phils are known to increase after exposure to radiation; thus,
Bas!cally, the Medusa. cell is a variety of the eosinophil
the Medusa cell may hold a key to the treatment of radia~ion .
exposure, or conversely, may allow cancer-radiation, ther- , .
. type white blood cell. Eosinophils were first recognized 100 ..
years ago by the Nobel Prize winning biochemist, Dr. Paul
apies to be augmented without increasing radiatiQn;
. These developments lie in the future, if they 'exist .at all.
Ehrlich. The exact function of eosinophils is not known,
although it is believed they form part of the body's deferis'es
Right now, the MediJsa cell presents many mysteries to
against foreign proteins and parasitical organisms. Particular
medical researchers. Why, for exal1)ple, does the Medusa
,types of cancer ,also cause an increase in the number of eoattack and destroy other cells, while normal white,~blood .'.
.sinophils present in the blood.
cells only attack bacteria? Why does the Medusa need such
large pseudopoda, which sometimes extend 'up to ten times
. Dr. Hanker discovered the Medusa cell while conducting
experiments in new staining techniques of blood samples
the diameter of the cell itselfl Dr. Laszlo theorizes that the
taken from inyeloid (bone-marrow) leukemia patients. Aft~r
Medusa may have the capability of crawling out into the
fixing' and staining a blood sample from a patient whose
b9dy tissues to combat parasites aQ~ 'cancer .cells .. Perhaps
leukemia was in. remission; Dr. 'Hanker found that these
. they attract other defensive organisms oricf; they:. locate the .
unusual-looI<ing cells have "feet." Tests on 'rats, and with
d~rigerous mate~i'als..
.
.
. - blood samples 'from healthy humans, ai~o showed the.,presThe doctors are handicapped by tne fact. that they do not .
';, ence pf the strange,. predatory cells'. In a report.appeariIlg in
know' ali the functions of regUlar eosinophils. Siilc~ Eltrlich'~ ,
. the medical. periodical HistOchemi~al-Journal for ~ovel1)bf;r .'
discov~ry, themai.n 'diagnos~iC use of eosin~phils has' been .'
the determination 'of theiuiumber in. blood samples as an' ,
. 1980,.' Dr. Hanker and several' colleagues' .from lINe. and .
, Duke University demonstrated tKat :the Medu.sas w~e not.. ", indication:of c.ertairi types of disease. High levels of"'eosin-:
the result of: chefuical effeCts on nor-mal eosinQphils\. Dr~ , ophils' can',indicate any numbe~ of .condi~ions; fr.o~ 'scarlet
'. ... .. ,', . /Conlinued'onpage i82) .' ' .. ' '.
Hankel' noted "It" could',~~ tha.t all eosinophils.have. th~

.,

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Pu~.uit

1 '12

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Fourth Q~-:t.I', 1.981 '.

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ATIANTI.~: :Lost

and:' ~oaDd Again.

"',

.
. :'

..
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~.

.-,. .

"

The remarkable
adventure of Dr.
Ray Brown and
the mysterious
trophy he brought
up from the depths
must remain forever unverified
since there were
no witnesses.

In 1975 Dr. Ray Brown displayed

(bottom, left) a baD-shaped crystal
he said he brought. up from inside a
sub-sea pyramid discovered while he
was diving in Atlantic waters In 1968,
The encounter was aCcidental, for the

Brown expedition was searching not

for sunken evidence of ancient civilizations but for the sunken cargo of
a shipwre.cked Span~'" galleon.
While circling the pyramid a third
time, he noticed an opening (sketch,
at bottom right); swimming through,
he came inside a temple-like chamber. From a pedestal at center arose
two metallic arms, with palms and
fingers extended (top, left) to cradle
a smail, crystalline sphere. Diver's
instinct told him not to tarry, but before starting upward the swimmer
plucked the crystal from its nest and
took it with him.
According to Dr. Brown, when
the crysfal is held a~ eye-level (top,
right) three shadow-pyramids, and
sometimes a fourth, can be seen inside, arranged In a sequential and
staggered row, perhaps suggesting
in miniature the angle-and-degree
placement of Egypt's Giza pyramids.

(Photos and text excerpts reprinted by

permission &om The Pyramid Guide,
issue of July.August 1975 (Number 18), .
P,O. Box 30305, Santa Barbara, Cali.
fornla 93105, Editor Bill Cox states that
the bi-nionthly newsletter has 55 back
issues available &om nine years of publication; &ee resume and catalog of all
articles is available on written request,)

.:

by Jon ~ouglaS Singer, MA

Copyright

1981 by Jon Douglas Singer

~-------------------------~---------------------------------------------PadlV'--.~------------------------------------------------------------~----

IN Part III our search for the lost Atlantis led us' to the
I. Caribbean and t.o islands in tile Bahamas. where we ex-'
ami ned reports of underwater stone foundations, enClosures
and other structures, and even sU,bmerged "cities." T~ese
off-island sightings were' but" introductory to the' whole .new ..
chapte~ that Dr. R~y Brown contributed, to the' 'annal~ of ;
underwater discovery when '~e encounteJ:e(J an unencrustoo,
,

. 9O-foot-high Egyptian-style pyra!1lid 'under 22 fathoms of

,"Bermuda Triangle" water in 1968; and the crystal artifact
he claims'. to' have removedfromit is just ~ mysterious today as it, was ip 1975 when,Browntold his story after seven
"years of self"imposed secrecy. (See below; also pages 80-81,
Pursuit No. 54, Vol: 14, No. 2,.Second Quarter 1981.)
, The late 60~ and, earlY"7qs were b~sy times for Atlantis

Fourth Quarter 1981

, Pursuit ,73

'

..

. .

inv~tigators. Whiie various 'groups of .divers plumbed the.

This 'diver joined }~.M.R.A. and told"Asher abour.his dive .
:around .the .ruins (,)f four suri~en cities in the Cadiz region';"'"
'crystalline waters off Bimi'ili or A.ndros.lsland~, a California.
historian named MaXine Asher got interested in. the mystery : . near Rota and Zanara- de-los Atunes. 3 He' had seen the four .
sunken cities:during .hiS long. diving career of 26 'years but. .
of Atlantis'. She decided. to organize an ~xpedition. t9 look
for the lost civiliZation, which she concluded ,was located'
hadn't -publicized them for re~ons of his ow':!.' He ~as..aP-:
soritewhere off the coast 'of Spain.' .
..
parentiy a skilled diver whose father. and grandfather' had .
Mrs. Asher wrote in herJ)ook, The Atlantis. C~nSpiracyl
also been divers ..One of the cities, .the one which was seemthat she had become interested in Atlantis while studying
ingly easiest to. reach, was off the coast ~f Zahara de 'los.
'the mysterious Etruscans. The latter were an ancient preAtunes and measured no less than 2 Vz square. miles. The.
Roman civilization that flourished in Italy from about 1000
dimensions of the other cities. aren't given by Dr." Asher, .
B.C. until the Roman conquest of that nation, in 396 B.C.
nor are.their precise locations.
.when the city of Veii was defeated.
A.M.R.A. received advice from Dr. J. MansOn 'Valentine,
. Asher didn't agree with Greek. archeologist A. G. Galan;one of the discoverers of :the Bimini Wall. He couldn't ac~
opelous who believed that Atlantis was the volcanic island
company the expedition, but another veteran searcher for
of Thera that was Partially destroyed by an eruption of
evidence of Atlantis, Dr. Ege.rton Sykes _of England, did
1476 B.C. Asher thought that 'Galanopoulos' juggling of.
join the group. An oceanographer, Bruce Rosendahl;:who
,Plato's dates and geographical descriptions was too co,,",venwas a doctoral student at Scripps Institute, La Jolla, Cali,i~nt and just didn't fit Thera. Instead, Asher thought that i~
forriia, joined up, as did Edgar Cayce's granddaughter,.
was not irrtpossible that the Cretans of Thera and th~ later
Gail Cayce. Asher believed that psychic research .could aid '
Etruscans. whom she felt were distant relatives of the Crearcheological research and she believed in the proptIecies of
tans, were both 'colonies of Atlantis. In fact, Plato himself
Edgar Cayce, the American psychic who had predicted that
said that the Atlantean empire included Tyrrhenia, as the
traces of Atlantis would be found at Bimini in 1968. Atnong
Greeks called the Etruscan land. . '
the dive,rs were Paco's team from Spain and Americans'"
It appears that Dr. Asher's interest in organizing an actual
Bill Farrell, Barry Sears, and John Steele. The psychic con- .
. expedition to search for Atlantis began in the summer of
nection to the expedition was inspired in part by. th~ Edgar .
1971, when she toured Spain, Italy and the Canary Islands.
Cayce readings on Atlantis and by Asher's reading of works'
A~her was' hopeful of success in Spain because many proby parapsychologists Dr. J. N. Einerso~ of the University.
fessors there believed in the reality of Atlantis, unlike their
of Toronto and Dr. M. Martiny of Institute Metaphysique
American colleagues who scoffed at the idea of Ipst conde Paris. Emerson and Martiny believed psychic abilities .
tinents. 2 She found what appeared to be clues to Atlantis
could aid archeologists. A formal press conference was held
~hile interviewing the enigmatic Basques, whose origins are
by A.M.R.A. at the Los Angeles Press Club on Febl11ary 13,
to this day unknown. Also, she found curious inscriptions
1973 and heard Dr. Nava announce that psychic abilities
on the beach at Gibraltar which Prof. Cyrus Gordon (then
would be used by the expedition as a part of its methodolof Boston University and now of New York University)
ogy: Dr. Asher would be in charge of the psychic asl?ect of
said were in an ancient language~ Unfortl,mately, Asher didn't
.the research. 4
say which language the writing )Vas in. Other intriguing
The students arrived in Spain in July 1973. The program,
, . clues consisted of spiral designs found in a cave atop M.ount
as originally conceived by Dr. Asher, should have involved .
Teide on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Asher thought
actual diving as well.as classroom lectures. Bureaucratic and
that the spiral symbol was ultimately from. Atlantis. She'
financial prob~ems presented more stumbling blocks -in the
Compared the ones in Spain to ones in Etruscan ruins in
way of actual research than the organizers had anticipated. .
~~:
.
The situation became even more confused when A.M.R:A:
In September of 1971, Asher's proposal for an anthropofound its proposed diving site loca~ed rigl1t next to the_AmerIQgical course on Atlantis was accepted by Pc:pperdine U~i
ican naval base at Rota. U.S. officials in Spain w.ere not
versity of California which offered six credits to ~nr,?lI~d
much help because of frequent personnel transfers: Spanish
students. During that time, Asher and a colleague, her~for~
officials seemed unable or unwilling to make up their minds
mer history professor, Dr. Julian Nava, founded the Anci~nt
about granting divirig permits and played what amounted:to
Mediterranean Research Association, which several of Nava's
a perplexing shell game ("now you have it, now you don'(") .
fellow professors also joined. Nava was a member of the
on an international" scale. These bureaucratic aberrations are
Los Angeles City Board of Education, and Asher herself
chronicled in Asher's book, The Atlantis Conspiracy.
held a B.A. degree in psychology from U.C.L.A., an M.A.
A sinister note was added to the black -comedy of. errors .
degree from California State University at Northridge '(in
when' charges of theft and bugging by persons unknown
history) and ,a Ph.D. from Walden University. Thus the
were brought to Asher's attention. For example, Paco Casero
'academic qualifications of the two leaders seemed to be
told her riot to talk on the phone during a conversation held
excellent. .
earlier in 1972. 5 Other James Bond-ish episodes occurred ~n
In 1972Dr. Asher met a Spanish scuba diver named Fran1973. A friend of Asher's' was followed ancl her luggage
cisco Salazar Casero, otherwise known as 'Paco or Pantera.
was:lost
or ~tolen; students complainedof being~spied upon,
.
'.
.
".
"..
or' that their rooms, had been broken into and personal items
This-'is the" fourth and last linstallment of Jon 'Singer's . stolen . 6 A summary of the ~sher ~pedit~on's many probl~r:ns
. was publi!!hed in 1973 in Human. Behavior magazine. 7: . . .. ,
'serializ,ed article on Atlantis:' Originally ~chedu.led ~o be
printed in the Third Quarter.1981 issue, theJimil install-. '... Asher :'suspeci:ed that".several groups were 'responsiblec for
ment was.postponed beca~ 0/ space limitations in ,t/.ult' the mysterious .spying' incidents' ~nd' break-ins..""First,. she
issue. The: three' previous' "installments will.be found 'in . thought' .that Ii group of 'academics might. be opposing her
in. order to safeguard "their "traditional.\'i.~s of historr.'Next,.
Pursuit NOs. 52 (Part I),. 53 (Part 11), - and. 54 Piiit. III).
'the' Spa~ish go~ernment. migh.t .be .jnv(,)lv~ becau~e offi(,:ials '..
"

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Pursuit 1.74

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. Fourth ~uai",,,, '1'981

',.. .--,--. . . . . . .- -. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .r-i. . . . . . . . . .r. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .

("

"

felt a need to protect mineral deposits and military installations; and national p,ride would certainly get a boost if it
tur-ped out "that Spaniards were first to "find evidential traces
of Atlantis in Spanish waters. Nationalism in Atlantis research has been a problem elsewhere. 'In Greece, for example,
some archeologists seem to have followed Galanopoulos in
adhering to the idea that Thera is the tnie"site of Atlantis.
Asher believed that other groups interested in following
and harassing" her expedition might have received backing or
encouragement from the Russians, who, she noted, have
studied Atlantis since at least 1916. The "Russian connection" will" be discussed later in this article; but some of the
best works" on Atlantis in English are by Russian writers
such as Zhirov.
" Asher also speculated that one of the film companies
which accompanied the expedition (and left during the redtape foul-up which delayed and almost prevented the diving)
might have eng~ged in skulduggery in order to scoop their
rivals with the first film footage of Atlantean ruins. We
should remember that this was still"the era of Franco.'s paranoid police state, and it is at least conceivable that the sensation of being spied upon was more real than imagined.
At some" point the nonsense had to cease. Finally, the
California archeologist resolved to take matters into her
own hands. Bill Farrell, Barry Sears, Roger Haydock and
Gary Varney were among a group of divers selected. Also
diving were Henry Denny, an anthropologist, and Stewart
. Slavin, of United Press Intermitional. AshJr met with the
divers in a secret ,session. The Spanish government was still
harassing them, having ordered that no boats could be
rented to the expedition. It was determined that a surreptitious dive would be made under cover of darkness on
Monday, July 16, at the wee hour of I :30 a.m.
The choice of site for the dive was somewhat influenced
by Paco Casero's story about having found artifacts off the
coast "of La Calleta, Sancti Petri, and Zahara. He described
the artifacts in lavish terms: there were megalithic stone
bowls (some nine feet across), giant millstones, giant pottery;
and there were roads, columns, even whole temples near the
Zahara de los Atunes site. These claims are impressive, but
as evidence of Atlantis they are also highly questionable.
The Greeks and the Romans were in Cadiz in antiq"uity, and
they had columns and giant pots (amphoras). Paco" could
-have found artifacts from shipwrecks which he misinterpreted" as Atlante~n, and "his roads and temples could have
been submerged when an earthquake depressed the coastline
at a relatively recent time. Asher's book has no photographs
of these artifacts.
After the night's preparations had been completed the
divers loaded their equipment into cars, drove to the beach "
and went to" work. At 3 p.m. th~t day (July 16) Bill Farrell
called to report that they had indeed found an ancient city
underwater at the place Paco had reported, and they too
had found columns, huge square blocks covered with green
scale, amphoras, roads, and walls. Film was taken and pieces
of stone from an andent wall were brought up, as was an"
odd object that Dr. Asher identified as a" giant bead. s Unfortunately, no image came up on the film; it <teveloped" all
b~ank except one frame that showed. the ~j"vers hol~ing a
pieCe of ro~k,
",
.
Worse luck followed the "black Monday." -On Tuesday
and Wednesday a storm prevented further diving". Suddenly
Spanish police swarmed over the beach. Asher now had to
contend with reporters" wanting "film and -interViews, even as "
I

'

"

students' rooms continued to be entered and sea"~ched, and

more "bugging devices were reported-:in use. 9 On Thursday
there was a press conference about the" discovery. The news
that Atlantis had "been found was flashed around the world.
A UPI dispatch of July 29, 1973 rep~jrted a "6,OOO-year-old "
City is 'found off Spain. "10 Ttte report said that Egerton
Sykes, representing the Cadiz expedition, had told a news
conference that roads, walls and columns had been found
off the southwestern coast of Spain. Sykes declared that the
structures were neither Roman nor Phoenician because the
area in which the city had been found had been above water
6,000 years before, but was already submerged in Phoenician
and Roman times. There were remains from Phoenician
and Roman times off the coast of Cadiz, but these were
found much closer to shore and therefore "had to be younger
than the ruins the Asher expedition found in deeper water.
According to Sykes, the drawings and photog~aphs of artifacts found by the divers was evidence of a civilization much
earlier than the Phoenicians'.
Later, William Corliss, from whose sourcebook on archeology 1 derived this account, told about a UPI "'update"
which branded the fantastic story as a hoax. The secol}d
story was printed on August 6, 1973. 11 In The Atlantis Conspiracy~ pages 65-67, Asher described how it seemed that
the time of the press conference was like a lull before the
storm. Bad luck set in again, like bad weather, and some of
the divers as well as Asher and Sykes were interrogated by
a Spanish naval court. They refused to divulge the location
of the sunken city, and the Spanish officials persisted in their
efforts to convince Asher that there was no Atlantis. She
and the others were released after being sUl1Jmoned to reappear in ten days. By then the expedition was breaking up.
Some members ran out of money and went home. Others
went with Asher to Ireland, on a last-ditch effort to salvage
their hopes by finding clues to Atlantis in the Emerald Isle.
Asher thought there was evidence of a" Celtic connection to
Ireland via legends of lost islands such as Hy-brazil and "
recurring spiral designs on megalithic ruins. UltimateIy,
the expedition ended in failure, although Dr. Asher herself
seemed firmly convinced that she had succeeded.

A.M.R.A. s"till exists as a working organization, despite

lts many misfortunes and the search that ended in fiasco.
The political climate in Spain has greatly moderated since
King Juan Carlos repiaced General Franco as head of state.
It is" to be hoped that the dives off Cadiz may one day be
resumed in an atmosphere of international cooperation such
as would promote investigation, not hinder it. The possibilities invite a new try. A member of the 1973 expedition, who
shall remain anonymous for the moment, told me that there
really is-an ancient underwater ruin off Cadiz. Asher's party
could have found the Phoenician Temple of Melkart, as
the Phoenicians called Hercules. Paul McKendrick wrote in
The Iberian Stones Speak I! that the temple is 12 miles from
Cadiz and underwater with the former coastline. Nets pulled
aboard fishing boats operating in the area occasionaily disgorge artifacts of obviously ancient "origin. In s~mmary,
however, the Cadiz investigation is one more chapter in the
Atlantis story that has ended in question marks, and once
again the resolute minority of true believers has had to look
el"sewhere for" confirmation. "" "
" For" "awhile interest in Atlantis ebbed, "or returned to the
Bahamas. John Steele and Gary Varney participated in the
"David" Zink "Poseida expeditions to Bimini. Varney didn't

"

Fourth

Quan~r

1981

."

Pursuit 175

"

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:.:'"

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: find anything co~c1usi~e in' 1973, but as described in Part .;'. :~nd~rwater in 19~:by. French ocea~~l~gists C~Pta~n' ~OUQt
... III of 'this article, the stone artifac( he found near the Bimi"ni'
. ~n~ Lieutemi:nt de F(oberville' as th~y plumbed the ocean
Wall- did look like an animal head.
'. ."
.
'. . :
. ~epths in t~eir bathyscape Archimede. And' the' Giants"
. Th~ hiatus ,in news pf Atlantis resea,rch lasted until Apdl
Causeway on Ireland's coast is indeed famous. 17
.
,1979, although scientists such as Dr. Zirik, Pino Turolla and
.. SYkes suggested thai the' Ampere site was probably not
. , Prof. . Valentine continued to' study the Baham~s, ,and the
'Atlantis but th.e;! home of some contemporaneous -culture,
Bimini Road made appeara'nce on NBC-TV's program, In .
located on what had. been d~yland attached to Africaand
Search Of. '. . '
.
later became part of the African shelf. Accor.ding :to his.
In April 1979 I happened to 'calch a brief item' on
estimate, suomersion occurred aboQt 6,()()()" B.C. Sykes also
'W\>\BC-TV's Eye'witness News which rela:yed a report
cited another Soviet scientist for work done at the 'Ampere
. frol)1 the Russian newspaper Izvestia, thal Spviet scientists
site: Dr. Marcello Vasconelos of the USSR Fishery Research
had 'photographed sunken staircases and walls some 275
Institute.
.
miles off the Portuguese coast. A month later, The New
In a subsequent analysis Sykes noted thatthere ~eemed io
York Times gave a lengthy account of the Russians'
be some confusion about" the ruins' precise location. He .felt .
discovery, and credited the find to an oceanologist,
that the spot was most likely near a triangle formed by the'
Vladimir Marakuyev. His expedition was engaged in a
Azores islands of Santa Maria. and S1. Miguel with the For- ..
S"lUdy of oceanclogical m.atters un.related to Atlantis, and
migas Rocks, all. in the easternmost part of the Azores: It is
came upon the !"uins quite unexpectedly. The expedition.
where Sykes thought that Falias, the legendary city" of Iris:h
: had completed its assignment two years before, and the arsage, was located. 18 Apparently the Russians' disclosures did
tkle did n("'1 say \yhy the photographs and knowledge of
not jibe with Sykes' view of what Atlantis' ruins might look
their existence tiad been so long withheld.D
like; his conception was adduced from a combination of
Marakuyev's ship, Moskovsky Universitet, was over the
studies involving the geology of the Azores and references
undersea Ampere Seamount, a dormant volcano. The subin ancient Greek or Celtic legends .
.merged camera photographed the mysterious stone structures
In the final issue of New World Antiquityl9 Sykes. printed
at a depth of 200 feet. The pictures revealed a short wall,
a fulsome account of the discovery and what the Russians
31/2 to 4 feet long, made up Of 8 stones, 4 squarish and 4 of
themselves told and showed their own people. An associate'
.rQunded shape. Marakuyev's colleague, Andrei Aksyonov,
of Sykes named Eliot translated .an article by M. 'Barinov: .
s/lowed photographs to unnamed "specialists" who agreed
printed in 1979 in the Soviet magazine Znane-Sila. The conthat the wall was a typical, ancient inan-made structure, not
troversial photos were also published in that magazine but .
a natural formation. Unidentified Danish experts scoffed at
were not reprinted in New World Antiquity.
j
'.

the photographs and said they showed natural phenomena.

Barinov's story has a few differences from the accounts
Aksyonov explained that Marakuyev was suffering from.
published in the Western press: Marakuyev's ship was called
a heart ailmeIit and couldn't personally show the photoAcademician Petrovsky, not Kurchatov and not Moskovsky
graphs. Nor had Marakuyev made any plans to return to
Ufliversitet, and ~he date of the exploratory voyage by' the .
the Ampere Seamount; instead, Dr. Aksyonov was making
ship of whatever name was January 1974, not 1977 as The .
preparations for his c;>wn e~amination of the site.
New York Times had reported.
.
An article about the Russian discovery in the Boston
Barinov said the first photograph shows stone blocks :oil
Herald-Americanl4 gave a number of details that did not
the upper edge of a wall whose facing resembles the s~aIl9wapPe;!ar in the Times story. The Boston paper reported the
tail style of the Kremlin. The. blocks in the wall are' about
de'pth of the alleged ruins as 300 to 600 feet, not 200 as the
1.5 meters high and a lillie more than that in length. Another:
Times article stated. The name of the ship was Kurchatov,
photograph shows the same wall from a different,angle and
not Moskovsy Un;vers;tet. According to the Times, only
depicts both sides of the wall, viewed diagonally. Seaweed
twc;> photographs were taken at the site; but the Heraldis clearly visible. A third photograph shows a structure at a
American said. there were eight, and went on to state that the
different location and was taken at the peak of Mt: Ampere.
. ... ruins .were located on a submerged archipelago-a very large
There are five broken steps covered with sponges. When',
archipelago having the shape of a horseshoe. The Bosten
developed, these photographs were compared with others fn
, paper also asserted that Aksyonov had already made his
the archives of -the Institute of Oceanography and were found'
. voyage to the Ampere site; the Times said only that Aksyto be unique. There was no resemblance to underWater for onov was planning to use a minisub in his examination of
mations in American oceanological texts, either. .' \.
the;! r u i n s . .
The Ampere site interests Atlantis researchers because it
Yet another account of the Seamount discovery, printed
is on the submerged archipelago known as' the Podkova
in Fare magazine,I5 apparently combined information from
Archipelago (Podkova means "horseshoe~' in Russian).
a Russian periodical called Light with a Chicago Tribune
In 1964 the Russian Atlantis expert N. Zhirqv wro~e that
story. The Fate article said the name of the vessel from
the podkova site was an ideal hunting-grou~d for- lost-con- .
, whiCh the photographs were' taken was Academician Kurtinent stalkers. 20 Zhirov even named the' P'odkova Archi'chatov, and the photographs showed not just a few stones
pelago.~ritea; after the' lost Red Island' of Erithea.wJ:tich
.. but" a whole city~ with wha(appeared. to be tl)e' remains 'of .'
Hercules' .visited on one of his .quests .. Barinov also quoted
... houses, defensive walis; and a gi~nt staircase.. Thus cine
American oceanographers a.' Hii.en (correction: .Heezen-
more piece was added to tl)e complication of confusion:.' '.
J,S.) and M. Tarp who .wrote.in.The Atlantic Floor that tJ:te .
'. Eg~rton Sykes, the British Atlantis'. rese~rcher., p~biished' .' northern' half.~f the""archipeh;lgo was still po~rly ~xpJored ..
some articles. on the controver~ial S~mount ruins. Sykes .. ,' ..Other i~ter.es~l~g observations: the mouritains are;! .geOl~cally .
theorized that the staircase was not a natural formation be~ .., . y6ung.a!1d. datc: froll) rilid"Teitiary times to th~ contemporary
cause stair'cases do'not oCcur".in nature\16 How~ver', therear~ ":" period, an epocli.which embraces the Pla:tonlc'dating of the
natural unClerw'ater staircase-formations ..: One was',: found
:' Atla~t~an civiliiation; and the PQdk~va Archipelago is Con~' .

. Pursu.' i,76

'. Foard. Quane

,. .
'... 19i-l
~:'

nected to. the isl~nds. of Madeira, Porto Sant.'? and Dezerta,.

and the submerged GettysbiJrg Bank which was found op:ly
IOOyears ago. .
The Russian discovery seemed to cliJjch the question of
whether or not Atlantis existed, but grave doubts lingered.
The Christian Science Monitor suggested that the. whole
"discovery':' was a fraud. intended to conceal tl;te activfty of
Russian spy ships such as the two submarines sighted neiu
Terceira in the Azores in 1979. 21 Azores officials were skeptical of the Russian discovery and felt that the ships were
really spying onU.S. military installations in their islands.
, .In the April 1980 issue of Fate magazine Jerome Clark
: noted that Aksyenov had changed his story about the sunken
walls and staircases, now said that he had only been talking
with tongue in cheek, now insisting that the formations
were natural, not man-made. 22
.
I will stick w:ith the original story about the Ampere Seamount ruins until more evidence of their natural origin is .
obtained. The descriptions of the photographs seem to indicate man-made structures, but we need independent confirmation of the site's natural or artificial origin.
.
At the moment it appears that our search for Atlantis has
failed, but perhaps we're on the verge of success. Lots
more looking lies ahead. Mt. Ampere can be added to the
list of sites of sunken cities. We should look at the almost- .
unexplored sites off the coast of Yucatan. Perhaps we cail
get another, better look at Paco Casero's enigmatic sun
ken cities off the coast of Zahara, near Cadiz. We must nOl
forget the various locations of enigmatic stone equestrian
statues.
, An age-old mystery may be racing toward conclusion.
Then folklore will become history and humankind's past
will be enricheq-or, an old myth will have been preserved
like a stubborn ghost that refused exorcism.

Addenda
New data on Bimini. On Saturday, June 28, 1980, the
television program "In Search Of ... " (formerly on NBC
and later on CBS) broadcast a film about the Bimini Wall.
A geologist from the U.S. Geological Survey dove over the
site with a three-man team and found that the rocks were
beachrock after taking 18 core samples. However, Leonard
Nimoy, the narrator, pointed out right-angle turns and gaps
in the formation which showed it to be unlike other Bahamian beachrock formations, and more man-made than natural.
The program did not mention Proctor's Roa'dway, which is
beyond doubt man-made. Also of interest was the carving
of a fish found on dry land in North Bimini. This artifact .
may be Atlantean; or it may be Lucayan Arawak Indian
work. Other artifacts were shown, among them a series of
straight lines carved in the sand which pointed in the direction of a well (referred to in Part I of this series). It was
noted that. Ray Brown's crystal sphere from the underwater
pyramid seemed to repel metal, as if possessed of "antigravity" properties.
The sunken cities near Yucatan. Beyond Reality magazine had an article by, Bryce Bond. "Bryce Bond Intervi.ews
Ivan Sanderson," in its "UFO Special Report No.2, 1979."
On page 48, Sanderson was .quoted, as saying that, as he
flew over the coast of Yucatan
he saw. causeways
and whole
.
,
.
"
towns under about 30 to 100 .feet of water; they were as .
much as "10 to IS' l11il~s off the coast and easily seen: He'
thought the builders were the people of Manoa, the legendary
.
lost city of the Amazo.n. ,..

The location of Robson's Island. A detailed discussion of

. the Jesriiond case cim be found in a magazine called 1980
UFO A'1nilai" (Gambi Publications, Brooklyn, N.Y.). In
his article "Atlantis Rises!" William L: Moore specified
the exact location of the mysterious volcanic island from an'
account published in the New Orleans Daily Picayune. Co- .
or.dinates were Latitude 31 030' North, Longitude 24 0 West.
Noting that Captain Robson's hometown was Jarrow, in
Durham County, England, Moore wondered wh~ther some
of the Jesmond's artifacts. might be found listed as "Egyptian
relics" in some" nearby antique dealer's shop.
I
A Greek researcher doesn't care for Thera. Not all the
Greek researchers on Atlantis accept the Thera theory. T~e
headline on a New York Times article published in the summer of 1979 intoned: "Greek Backs Plato Theory on Where
to Find Atlantis. "2J The Greek gentleman was author
Vasilios Paschos, and the occasion was a press conference
in Athens at which he discussed his book, The Atlanteans,
Mr. Daniken, Not the Gods. In this work, apparently not
yet published in English, Paschos wrote that the Atlanteans, not ancient astronauts, founded civilizations from
South America to the Middle East. Crete wasn't Atlantis;
but Crete, Thera and the Bahamian ruins were colonies
of Atlantis, Paschos said Atlantis Wl'lS indeed located in the
Atlantic, but the Times noted that drillings by the
oceanogral,hy ship Glomar Challenger had failed to find
such a continent.
REFERENCES
I, 1976 revised edition, Ancient Mediterranean Research Association, Los Angeles, pp. 2-3,
2, Ibid" pp. 6-7,
3, Ibid., p, 22.
4, Ibid" p, 25.
5, Ibid" p, 16.
6, Ibid" p. 56,
7, "AtlantiS-Anyone?" by Eleanor links Hoover, Nov" 1973,
p.lO:
8, Asher, op, cil., p, 60,
9, Ibid"~ p, 62.
10. "6(XX)..Year-Old City is Off Spain," New York Times; July 29,
1973, Reprinted in William Corliss' Strange Artifacts, Vol. MI,
Glen Arm, Maryland, 1974, p. MI-246,
II. Ibid,
'
12, New York, Funk & Wagnalls, 1969, p. 30,
13, "Soviet Scientist Says Ocean Site May be Atlantis," New York
Times, Mon., May 21, 1979, P'. A14, Article courtesy of Miss L.
Rhinehardt.
14, Tues., April 3, 1979, "Scientist Says He Found 'Lost' Continent." Arti~le courtesy of Andrew E. Rothovius, NEARA.
IS, August, 1979, "The Ruins of Atlantis" in "I See by the Papers"
column by Curtis Fuller, pp. 7-8.
.
16, Sykes, E., "Russian Discoveries on the Ampere Seam,ount,"
New World Antiquity, May/June, 1979, pp. 62-63,
17. Berlitz, Charles, Mysteries from forgotten Worlds, New York,
.
Dell, 1973, p, 99.
18, Sykes, E" "The Russians and the Atlantis Question," New
World Antiquity, July/August, 1979, pp. 66-67,
19.. Nov.lDee., 1979, "Russian Under'Sea Discoveries on Atlantis,"
pp.114-,21.
.
20.. Ibid.; p. 117,
,2( "Soviet Splashing in i\tlantic Siirs Up Concern in Azores" by
Jimmy Burns, TueS". Nov: 6, 1979, p. 9, Articlecourtesy of Dr,
'
.. .
' ,
David Zink:,
, 22~ "Have Remains of Atlaritis Been Photographed?',' by Jerome
Clark, p. 88,
.
.
23. Wed.: Aug. 29, 1979; p. A4,

~.

, I

Foarth Qaart!U 1981.

'.

Pursuit 177

Deep-SkY Earthquakie~ctin9
,
,
"

, As a Fortean astrologer' living' ott th~, San {Andreas fault':,

. line, I have taken a 'look' at ,the positions of th~ heaveqly,
bodies when earthquakes hit; it 'wolild be ni~, ~o be able to'
'
,predict the Big One!
Afte,r spending enormous globs of tjme agonizing over
the thousand-or-so possible angular relationships between
the Sun, Moon, and planets, I have discovered that solar
eclipses and nodes of the Moon play' an important part in
, the earthquake-forecasting business.
" ,
'
, In nict, positions of these eclipses and nodes are key fac,tors,in determining earthquake seasons~ and I use the word
"seasons" advisedly because there are distinct spans' of time
during which we are likely to experience earthquakes. There
is, in astrological parlance, "earthquake weather" caused
by factors in the Deep Sky. Earthquak~ may not be caused
by forces below the ground at all, as the recent rash of sky-'
quakes might suggest to inquiring minds.
,
, " All the talk about earthquake seasons may seem to 'be
an easy target because of a fashionable twentieth-century
bias against astrology, but let me caution the residents of
academe that my findings in this article teeter on the very
brink of being kosher astrophysics. One should also bear in '
,mind that the geophysicists know absolutely nothing about
what~ver it is that causes earthquakes, and are in no position to kibitz any halfway-sane theory.
,
But they will agree that "stress" is central to all theories
about earthquake causation. Conventional thinking (a contradiction in terms) is that the molten metal core of the Earth
cools and shrinks, pushing tectonic plates around, crunching them into each other and creating stresses that are only
'
relieved by earthquakes.
Too bad we have no certain knowledge the Earth's molten core exists. We assume the planet has a molten core because volcanoes spew molten rock. Neither do we know for
sure that tectonic plates exist; we simply put pins in' a map
where earthquakes occur, then pencil in the rest of the tectonic plate the way we think it should look; it's like making
a connect-the-dots puzzle. This system is silly. All it really
says is: earthquakes happen where earthquakes hap~n.
(I c~m see Charles Fort smiling.)
"
, Now, about seismic activity and these solar eclipses and
nodes of the Moon: Solar eclipses happen when the Moon
is between us and the Sun; they are new moons that bioi

by ABaft,d.

..

... .

Grise
."

./

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fliP

sorth

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"

Earthquake 1 NIj?W Madrid

--

L,~ar

"

\,

,~\", "~'
~,
,', Pluto,~$' ---L :'-,~ '7' Saturn
'

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"...

out the'light of the Sun; times' when sol~r and lunar forces '
are concentrated on the surface of the Earth:
The ~Qnar ~odes' mark the places in ihe orbit of the Moon,
when it crosses the ecliptic. The ~liptic, as, y'ot;. maY:'~!lOW,\
is merely the path the Sun ,and planets follow as they go
across the sky. Let the Sun draw a line as it moves 'through
the sky, and that imaginary line is the ecliptic. BeCause the
axis of the Earth is inclined 23 0, the Moon gets to cross the
ecliptic twice during a lunar, month, so there ~re two lunar
nodes~
,
' '",
Lunar nodes and solar eclipses are closely related in that'
they both have to do with times when the Moon is ~ither
directly between us and the Sun" or between us and other
fixed stars on the galactic plane-just where it should pe to
set ,up stresses in terrestrial fault-lines. So there's no questio'n',
that the points of an eclipse and the nodes mark the place
(celestial longitude) ,of events that set up stresses in' the teCtonics of our planet.
, '
But, do earthquakes happen at the moment of a solar "
eclipse, or when the Moon crosses the ecliptic? No. Big
quakes happen after eclipses of the Sun. Eclipses,' 'se~ the '
stage," and so do the lunar nodes. They do this by forming .'
geometrical patterns-angles-with planets and the Sun.',
, Wh~n the Sun and planets form certain aspects to eclipse
points and nodes, there will be quakes, big quakes., Mother
Earth takes a real pounding when the planets conjoin, '~ex~
tile, squ~re, or oppose these theoretical points. Slow-moving,
massive outer planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus" Nep':"
tune and Pluto make contact with nodes or eclipse points to ,
"set the stage" while faster-moviltg Mars does the triggering. '
Out of several-hundred earthquake charts, I have selected ,
a dozen of the meanest and nastiest-all with Richters greater
than 8. In charts erected for these big quakes, "the stars"
are square, sextile or in opposition to each other; all from
the wrong signs, and are otherwise misbehaving badly. I will"
spare you .the astrologese.
'
TJ'!,e first of the twelve earthquakes is the New Madrid,
Missouri, earthquake. Actually, there were three temblors "
which occurred on December 16, 1811, and on January 13 '
and February 7 of 1812.' During all three quakes, Neptune
was square (90 0 from) the nodes. For the December quake"
the Sun was square to a total solar eclipse; for the January
quake it was sextile (60 0 from) that same eclipse poi?t; and

'\,

.".

'

,Barth9u~ke 2' Chiirle~ton '. " 'Ear,thcjU~ke: 5 Sari Frap.ciscd

Pursu't 178
"

'/

for the third earthquake, the Sun 'was semi-square (45 0 from)
that very saine solar eclipse point. '
,
Just a wor(,i about these 45 0 ,60 0 and' 90 0 'angles. These
angular relationships are the cornerstones of cla~sical astrology and for over 6,000 years have beeri valid, aria they continue to be valid in sky studies of earthquakes. Esoteric
astrologers say these angles have something to do with "the
laws of crystallization." In every-day language, that means
if there are no aspects formed between planets, nothing gets
done.
,[ Cannot even begin to explain what is meant by "the
laws of crystallization" except by pointing to a large, sixsided quartz crystal that sits on my desk. Snowflakes and
honeycombs are also six-sided, and there are cubic and tetrahedral crystals, so'l am slightly confused. If you have a nononsense handle on the laws of crystallization, please drop
me a line.
Back to earthquakes. The second mega-quake on my list
trashed olit Charleston, South Carolina, at 9:51 p.m. on
August 31, 1886. Pluto was 90 0 from the nodes, and Saturn
was 120 0 from the solar eclipse that occurred earlier that
year, on March 5.
One of the heaviest quakes ever to occur on this planet
hit Alaska-all of it-on September 10, IS99, when Pluto
was conjoining a solar eclipse point, and Neptune was right
on the descending lunar node. Mars was square to another
solar eclipse point. Other astrological yummies too numerous to mention here made my hair stand on end.
The No.4 big earthquake in thineries of twelve clobbered
Colombia on January 31, 1906. This Richter - 8.6 crystallized
when Uranus wa~ semi-square (45 D) from the nodes and Saturn was opposing two rather recent solar eclipses at the
same moment.
The fifth temblor is almost synonymous with the word
"earthquake." The great San Francisco earthquake and fire
happened in the pre-dawn hours of April IS, 1906, and nobody knows for sure, what the Richter strength of this quake
was, because it broke the seismograph! Pluto again was 6Q 0
from the nodes, with Jupiter square to two recent solar
eclipses; and the balance of our heavenly ho~t were throwing' evil aspects at each other, guaranteeing a memorable
event.
The next quake was an S.6, and it did a job on Chile.
Mars was right on the nodes; Saturn was 45 0 from them at
the same time; and Jupiter was 120 0 from a recent eclipse
of the Sun. This August 17, 1906, earthquake was the third
r

i~ that year to exce~ Richte;-S. For'end-of-the-world buffs,

1906 was a real fun year.',
"
Earthquake No. 7 on my list was an 8.6er which reduced
Tien Shan, China, and vicinity to rubble. On the day it happened, January 3, 1911, Jupiter was inching its way o,ver a
solar~lipse point, while the nodes were transiting a pr:evious eclipse-point in Taurus. The Sun was also 60 0 from
that same Taurus solar eclipse.
, , The eighth boffo-shaker of my hit parade almost eras~
Kansu, China, on December 16, 1920. It was a Richter-8.5
that went off, with the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn all at 45 0
from the' lunar nodes; and Mars was squaring a recent solar
eclipse which happened in the dreaded sign Scorpio.
,A bri:!1 3side: Since I've mentioned Taurus and Scorpio,
it's time to say that these two signs of the Zodiac are hot
earthquake signs. Once Newton was chatting with Kepler,
and said any new, moons "that take place in the early degrees of Taurus, and especially with the Pleiades (29 0 Tau, 'rus) will produce earthquakes." Scorpio also figures strongly
in big quakes, as the charts of superquakes will testify,
Now; as for earthquake No.9: it was an 8.5, a'n~ it rearranged much of the real estate in Japan on March t! 1933.
At that time, Mars was right on the nodes as the nodes went
traipsing across a recent eclipse of the Sun, which i!jelf was
opposing two earlier eclipse-points. As if that were"not sufficient evil unto the day, the Sun was in opposition to the
wh.ole shebang at that moment. And, of course, Pluto figured in this mess, a fateful 45 0 from the node crossing the
eclipse-point.
The tenth super-shaker put the fear of God in all of Asia,
it ~as that strong; the Richter-8.6 happened on August 15,
1950. Pluto, yet another time, was 45 0 from the nodes, and
Mars was directly opposite a point which marked an earlier
eclipse of the Sun. These, along with other testy aspects, were certain to bend Mother Earth out of shape that day. '
The next terrible temblor was 'an 8.6 that made land rise
and fall in Alaska~ most notably in the Prince William Sound
area. The ocean floor rose 55 feet i'n places over a line hundreds of miles long. Air photos showed changes in harbors,
among other large areas jarred from below. The press called
the quake the "Good Friday Earthquake" since the seismic
slam occurred two days before Easter in 1964, on March 28"
Pluto was 45 0 from an eclipse, and Jupiter was exactly
square to another total solar eclipse. Uranus got into the act
(Continued on page /83)
Illustrations by the aut"or

T',"
I

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Earthquake 11 "Good

Fourth Quarter 1981, ~

~riday"

:,

, Krakatoa Eruption

Nt St Helen,S Eruption

Pursuit 179

.,
-i

MANUKE MONSTERS ON TRIAL, Marjorie Halpin &

Michael M. Ames, editors (University oj British Columtii<i
Press, Vancouvet, B.C., Canadci, 1980, 336 pp., illus.,
biblio., $24.95)
Reviewed by George W. Earley

..

..

..

..

it was my expect"ation from the sym~osium ',so ildvance pub-,

liciW that a concerted effort would be made to truly ex:
amine the evidence. I looked for ari open dialogue, no': only
on the possibility of the existence of the Sasquatch, but ot'
the mind-set within the scientific establishment that ma.kes
searching for such mystery monsters so difficult that,it in~~;t
he the amateurs who do it while the professionals sit home .
denigrating those in the field.' 1
Why was Krantz's paper riot included? Or that ,of Dr.
Coon? Did they cttal\enge too hard this ingrained reluctance
to search for something new. rather than research t\:le old
'
and tried ~nd true?
I admit to being angry-not so.much atthis book; wHich
is bui a flawed mirror of the symposium, but at" ihe un'willingness of the academic community to truly come to
grips with the issue. I did not expect the symposium :to endorse the existence of the Sasquatch, but I do nOI think it
unreasonable of me to have expected a more oren-minded'
., .
assessment of. the issue.
.

. This is a partial record of papers presented at the firstever symposium held by The Establishment on the subject
of the Sasquatch. I say "partial" because the sympo~jum
organizer, Professor Halpin, admits early on that she has
not included all the papers that were presented. She also
doesn't "tell us what was omitted or why. It could be "merely" economics ... the book is already pretty costly ... or
(he said, muttering darkly) it could be that The Establishment was disturbed by the topics of certain' papers and chose
.', not" to give them permanence nor the imprimatur of univer- '
sity press publication. Whatever the reason, we are the losers.
. Thanks to Barbara Wasson's privately published Sasqll,(,Ztch
Apparitions (P.O. Box 5551, Bend, Oregon 97701,.$6.9S.
ppd.), I learned the titles/authors of four papers not inc1uded in the Halpin-Ames work. There could be others,
CELESTIAL PASSENGERS: UFOs and Spqte Travel
but the ones Wasson identified are: "Why There Has To Be
by. Margaret Sachs and Ernest Jahn (Penguin BookS,
A Sasquatch" by Dr. Carleton Coon, who was before ,his:
New York, 1977,220 pp., illust., $2.95 paperback)
retirement one of the giants of physical anthroPQlogy; "'Sas. Refiewed by Kim L. Neidigh
quatch Believers vs. Skeptics" by Dr. Grover Krantz, one of
the few physical anthropologist~ actively engaged ill. ~asFrom the beginning, the field of ufology has been inunquatch research including field hunts; "Credibility .of Sasdated with introductory texts which attempt to expla,in and
quatch Witnesses" by Barbara Wasson; and "Theoretical
justify the subject to the general public. Except for the works .
: Importance of Higher Sensory Development Toward AvoidofF-rank .Edwards and John G. Fuller, however, the general.
ance Behavior in the Sasquatch. Phenomenon" by Jam~s R. .
pubiic reads few books on UFOs and the researchers who
Butler. That theSe four people (and who knows how many..
do read them have no need for additional rehash o'f the
others) were present and read papers to the symposium is
classic cases.
,
Ilot noted in the Halpin-Ames book in any way.
.
Two introductory booRs on space and UFOs that "everythe book gets worse, not better, the further one digs into .
one" ,should read are John Macvey'slnterstellar. Travel and
lain Nicolson's 'The Road to the Stars. Although not as
it. Of the 21 papers, only six deal with actual investig;uions
and to get to them you have to first slog through 236 of the:
comprehensive as these two, Celestial Passengers is, in some
book's 300 pages of symposium papers. The first t,wo secways, better than most other '~survey" books. Many of ~he
incidents dealt with are those personally studied by NICAP's. .
tions-"Monsters in the Forests of the Mind" and "Man1
like Monsters of the Native New World"-are less concerned:
New York investigator Ernest Jahn and are, therefore, not
.
with the possible existence oUhe Sasquatch than of telling.
treated elsewhere. The more famous cases are recounted in \.
a manner that sustain's the reader's interest at a high level-:- ..
. us about all the strange and fanciful creatures of Amerindian folklore.
esptciaIly the chapter which deals with the 1952 Washington~ .
. I quite agree that there is a lot of interesting material
D.C. sightings.
.
To their credit, the authors cover much more than UFOs ..
buried in folklore. I also agree that in some instances .it is.;
,likely that "night monsters" are less a reflection of reality
There is an excellent section on the mystery of tektites~ Also
discussed are the space program, with important coverage
.than of fears conjured up in the human ,mind as a. way of .
of spinoffs, colonies in space, and the search for extraterres-:
explaining events that would otherwise be inexplicable. But
trial intelligence.
. .
if one is to judge it by this book, the symposium was so :.
weighted on that aspect of the question as to allow scarcely
The book does have a few problems. The organization is, .
any reasonable evidence. arguing for tl"\e existence of a hurather:disjointed, one subject movirig into another wi.th .little
manoid creature not yet put into the zoos, museums and.
transiti.on; and there isneither.bibliography nor index: And,
.textbooks of the world.. It is almost l;I.S though the'sympoinevitably over the. course:of four years since pu~ljeation, .
sium, like the Condon. UFO study, reached; a conClusion
the .information abo~t the space sl'luttle. has become ou~- .
before, it began and 'then went
to t~Hor ev.ery,thing as" .. ~ated.; .
.."..
. ,. .
..
'. . ~ '.' .'.
much as possible to fi"t that conclusion .. ." .
.
. . . . . By itself, Celes(ial Passengers suffers from a number of .
'. I don't . regret .buying my copy Of Maniike MonsterS
~.
deficiencies: By reading ihis boo.k. in cpnju.nction with the '
Trial. There is much.in i.t or" i"nterest to me and, I suspect,- ... Macvey an~ NiColson l;>ooks cittid.ab~ve,; the student of ..
.. ) to many oth~r' SITU members. Bu~ (and :he~e perhaps, t~~: ......elementary u.folOgy wi,(gain im excellent i:lnd.erstan4iil~ of ."
: falllt is mi.ne and
to '~riie
in rebuttal)
... space." exploration. f~ndanientals and related subjects.
.
. so I invite Dr. Halpin
.
.,
. .
.

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Books
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PROJECT IDENTIRCATION by Harley D. Rutledge,

Ph.D. (Prentice-Hall, Inc.; Englewood Clfffs, N.J., 1981,
. 265 pp., iIIust.,.$10.95)
.
Reviewed by Robert Barrow
Not to appear trite, but there is bad and good news to
relate. The bad is that Prentice-Hall, currently responsible
for publication of several stimulating books on UFOs, will
soon end its craving for such '!Vriting. "While P-H will con-.
tinu~ to publish books that are already under contr:act,"
senior editor Tam Mossmanexplains, "we're restricting our
future lists to books of self-help, self-improvement, and
guides for ambitious professionals on how to improve their
on-the-job efficiency." Which,' she succinctly advises, "kind' .
of leaves out UFOs."
The good. news is the book at hand, one that is consistent
with other UFO-related offerings from P-H. Project identification shows, not annchair scientists who claim to be working on the UFO mystery, but science actually at work on
direct observations of the phenomenon as it occurs.
Well-read UFO researchers will .realize that this book is
not just some hastily written rip-off. It could be said as a
matter of fact that the book was eight years in getting published. The year of its conception was 1973, a time when
UFOs made frequent visits to areas .around Piedmont, Missouri and bizarre yet credible UFO reports mUltiplied. According to UPI, hundreds of sightings had come to light
since February, 1973; a number of them were made by highly
impressive witnesses and written up in Missouri newspapers.
By May, amidst continuing, apparently intense, UFO
activity, a handful of scientists from a couple of Missouri
universities had become sufficiently concerned to organize
an investigation they dubbed "Project Identification." T.his
was no mere study group. The scientists, some' of whom
had themselves observed UFOs, initiated for their project
the use of advanced instrumentation such as electromagnetic
and color-spectrum analyzers, ultrasound detectors, telephoto
cameras, telescopes, etc.
Project Identification was headed by Dr. Harley Rutledge,
chief of Southeast Missouri State University's department
. of physics, the book's author. .In the best scientific tradition,
he tells the Missouri UFO story .step by step, carefully examining pieces of the puzzle until he comes up with some
ultimately irresistible conclusions. Foremost among th~se is
that UFOs are real and intelligently manipulated, and, that
"their game is to gradually create acceptance by repeated
appearances ... More people will 'believe in UFOs.'"
Particularly important to keep in mind is that Dr. Rutledge, for one, started out as a UFO skeptic and ended up
a firm believer in UFO existence and in the screaming need
for' further investigation.
.
As this review was in p.reparation, the reviewer heard
rumors of. some vague "rumblings'" among certain UFO
researc.hers about the book. Whether these individuals object
to. something about the project's lJlethods, or are merely ~
jealous that they never have performed and never will per- .
form as 'scientifically as the book describes, is unknown ..'
We do know that. Dr. 'Rutledge .and. his' assQciates al,"e
awaiting the resumption of UFO activity' in southeastern
Missour.i whc;re, once agaln, elaborate state-of-the-art instru- .
mentation will
confront
state-of-the-phenomenon
UFOs.'
.
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THE CASE FOR UFE AFTER OEA TH. ~y Elizabeth

MCAdams . and Raymond Bayless (Neison~Hal1. 1981.
153 pp., .$'14.95)
Reviewed by Sabina W. Sanderson
The publisher's blurb is correct in stating that this bpok
"contains no trace of the sensationalism that mars many
previous works in the field" but wrong in assigning it the
status of a "major reference work." It is nothing of the
Sort.
This is a slim book, literally and figuratively. Its I S3 pages
are set in quite large type and, while it covers a wide range
of subjects, it does so in a rather superficial way. It is not:
always objective (e.g. the chapter on Raudive t~pe recordings, one of Bayless's pet theories), and can hardly be called
exhaustive. The treatment of animal hauntings gives three:
eXamples in a chapter that is only three pages long.
.
There is good material listed in the contents but little actual
dis~ussion of the cases reported and almost no consideration
of alternative explanations. There is, in fact, almost naive
acceptance of each type of phenomenon as evidence of life
after death. Too many questions are left hanging in mid-air,'
for want of alternative explanations one should expect to.
find mentioned at least, and better, discussed. Moreover,
there are some puzzling omissions. .
.
Why, among all the reports on the work of a number of .
mediums, botti vocal and physical, is nothing said about
Eileen Garrett? Whet-her the omission was deliberate or
accidental is questionable. But it is my recollection that Eileen
G..arrett was not convinced that there is life after death; and
this leaves me with the unhappy thought that the authors.
may have suppressed some common-knowledge evidence because it got in the way of their theory.
.
Lack of balance in this bo.ok is further illustrated in the
treatment accorded Hereward Carrington. Every time he is
first mentioned in a chapter, he is identified as the very good
and greatly admired friend of Raymond Bayless (the coauthor) and as one of the greatest investigators of. all time.
Four tjmes in a book of this length is three times too many
and smacks of name-dropping. Carrington \,Vas indeed a very
fine investigator, but one doubts that he would have been
impressed by all these "honorable mentions."
The final chapter, "Weighing the Evidence qf ,Survival
After Death," is only two and a half pages long and boils
down to "Yes, Virginia, there is a super-ESP hypothesis
concerning all this, but we think our idea is better." .
At .most, this book is a one-sided introduction to a many- .
faceted subject. Included are ref~rences, a very brief bibliograph);.(many works listed in the references are not included),
and an.jndex. .

MISSINQ TIME by {Judd Hopkins' (Richard Marek PubIishers, New.York, 1'981, iIIus~., 258 pp.)
I
'. . Reviewed by Robert Barrow
Time is basicaii 'the only i'ngredi~nt missing from Missing
Time, foi' author Hopkins nl:!-s written one of the bes~ UFO.
books of 1981, fresh !ind exciting in its approach.
.'
Often working in conjunction with noted l!FO investigator:
Ted BlOecher, New YQrk artist Budd Hopkins has extensively'
studied nineteen l!FO apduction c.ases since 1976; sev~n of

P~r.ui' 18i

Qu.rte..1981
:

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..8oGks
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them are presented here in considerable d~pth, frequently

: The investigator atte~~ts to ~ake so~e sense of the ,UFO .
remarkable for, their similarities and "c1earpatteTlls" evi- ..
mystery's intensely bizarre n~ture in' .a gripping chapter 'end~nc~ in witness descriptions. . .
\
.
titled. '~Speculations Both Griin. and Hopeful." Addressing
Missing's successive pages of transcripts;' gleaned from
himself to the U.S. government's.lack pf affirm~t.ive public
tape-recorded hypnosis sessions with alleged abductees, offer
comment on UFOs; Hopkins effectively summarizes, "The
fascinating reading; witnesses, in rt:Iore instances than might
government might not know. anything more aboQt the UFO'- make either author or reader .comfortable, tell of ex perphenomenon than you or I-they would simply have' better
ie~cing repeated encounters with their captors (e.g., childpictures." Especially intriguing is his speculation on repeat.
hood and adult incidents). It must be emphasized that all
abductions involving physical exams: "One inescapable
'. hypnosis sessions included were ~arefully. condQcted by pro~
inference to be ~rawn froIl). ,this pattern is that it very long fessional psychiatrists and psychologists. Especially noteterm, in-depth study is being made of a relatively I~rge sam'. worthy is the work performed by Dr. Aphrodite Clamar,
ple
humans, and that this study may involve mechanical
implants of some sort."
.
.
who al~o wrote a most appropriate afterword for the book.
The author wisely makes use of the opinions of famous
Hopkins's individual explorations of abductees" lives bescientists when stressing the various points he sets .forth:
fore, during and after their UFO encounters represent everything 'that 1980's shallow Direct Encounters (by I.M. & A.L.
"Dr. Robert lastrow once said something to the eJfect that
any extraterrestrials who have th~ technology to travel 'from .
, Gansberg, Walker & Co., New York) did not. Further, the
author refrains from re-re-recounting classic abduction cases,
thclf planet to Earth must be vastly ahead of us scientifically
and intellectually; their behavior, then, would be'somewhat
': except in instances where he wishes to make valid compar~
incomprehensible . . . if we understand everything (UFO
isons between these well-publicized reports and his own
original investigations.
.
occupants) are doing, then 'they' are probably not extraterrestrial in origin."
, . .Among the more unusual, and romanticized (if one can
Whatever prejudices readers may have 1lbout UFO abduc term anything about customarily terrifying UFO abductions
tions, it remains obvious that our best evidence is the testiromantic) accounts is one that involves a 38-year-old abducmony of. the UFO abductee. Witness Steven Kilburn, about
tee designated by the fictitious name, Virginia Horton. Ms.
Horton recalls both a childhood and a teenage encounter
who~ much has been written, apparently developed good
insight into. his problem of being unable to remember .(Qr
with UFO entities and, particularly, a kindly grandfatherwas made to forget?) his abduction until he underwent hyplike occupant-perhaps the leader of the group-who imnosis. "What frightens me," he cautions, "and what really
.' parts tidbits of apparently extraterrestrial knowledge to the
frightens me is that because I didn't remember' this before
then-six-year-old, while asking 'her questions. At one point,
. an instrument is placed in Virginia's nostril, breaking through
I underwent hypnosis, and now remember it, this coulci have
happened ... to a lot of people. And I don't mean ten or
nasal tissue and causing blood to drip on her clothing. Later,
twenty, I mean thousands ... "
.'
.when Virginia rejoins her family, the bloody garb is at once
." rr anything happened to me," Kilburf\ tells an NBC-TV
noticed; but the child had somehow been made to forget
reporter during production of a' documentary, "it could
her abduction experience and, until the hypnosis sessions
years later, does not-realize the blood's origin. During one
happen to you-let me put it ,that. way."
of her incidents with the entity, she states under hypnosis:
,1 He kept talking about diversity, which was something he
The Medusa Cell
was' very interested in. Diversity. About how important bio- .
'logical diversity is." One could wonder, as the author does,
(Continued from page 172)
whether blood samples and other phy~ical examination profever to gonorrhea and Hansen's disease (leprosy)'; Low
cedures described by UFO abductees have something to do
cQunt of eosinophils can be the result of hard labor ,adrenal
with extraterrestrial interest in life-forms scattered throughhyperactivity or even. result from eleCtric-shock treatment.
out the universe.
It .has been over a year now since Dr. Han!cer spied the
. To Missing's credit, the book is not a blanket advertise- .
Med.usa cells after employing a new staining technique. The
ment for hypnosis as a way of getting absolute truth. The
researchers at the Cancer Center at Duke and the. microauthor warns that the reader "must carefully separate 'obbiologists of UNC are still probing the mysteries of the eojective' memory from after-the-fact interpretation." At best,
sinophils in general, with special attention to the Medusa
hypnosis helps abductees recall what they believed happened.
cell. ,Whether or not the multi-footed monster is a blessing'
": Yet, when we note the variety of similarities among cases
or a ,curse should be decided soon.
.. ,
, described, it is evident that hypnosis remains an important
. SOURCEs'
research tool.
Platt,
W.
-R.
Color
Atlas'~nd
Textbook '0/ Hemr,ztologj. Pl:lila. Hopkins writ.es 'about his work in .1l dear and interesting
delphia, J, B. Lippincott, '1979 .. (Jeneral information' on' eos,iri. ~tyle; aVQiding stuffy cOl)structions,. and ~e. makes soine
ophils;)'
.
..
. .
good points about what he has learned. during five years of
. "UNC-CH Researcher Discovers' Previously Unknown Blood
UFO investigations: ."It was.once.generally thQught that, if
Cell" 'by David Williamson, UNC NeWs Bureau release; 'November .
" a 'persQn reporting a UFO' encounter had'a prior interest in
24,1980..
_ ' . .
..t~e. subject, that person's i'epo~ shoul~. be.. a~t~maticallx '.' . Hlmke~;' Jllcob; Laszlo, john, et. al. ..A 'Rapid ~eport .. '."
dIscounted ..... I~deed; a partlcu,lar kmd. of mtense a~~
HiS(Och'emiqll Jo",rnal,- Novemb~r" 1.980. (Very. technical, but' hils
. iilward curiosity about the UFO phenomenon might be' mati:
.. a .page ~ull of color p~~tos of ~edusa C~IIS in a~~ion.): .... ~
vated by a forgotten but real abduction experience. "
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Fourth. Qua....'.r1981
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Deep';Sky Earthquake Predicting

(Continued from page 179)
with a sextile (60"0) to a node the san:-ae time the Sun was
square to the nodes.
.
. .
The last and most recent Richter + S woke up the. folks
in Ecuador in the wee hours of August IS, 19S0. Pluto was
60 from the nodes, Mars was sextile a solar eclipse,. and
Uranus was also squaring the nodes.
.
We have run out of five-star monster earthquakes, so
now it's time for questions.
.
If big quakes happen only when certain planets m~ke a
. definite geometrical aspect to the place of a recent total;
annular or partial solar eclipse, why and how does an eclipse .
that happened recently-months earlier-exist in order to be.
aspected? Is there a slower form of time in celestial realms?
Or does time not exist at all in the lofty 'places where suns
and planets play? Does the eclipse weaken our gravity field? .
And what about nodes; why do these sO<alled theo~ical
points figure so strongly in earthquakes of note?
Volcano enthusiasts will be pleased to hear that Krakatoa
blew (August 27, ISS3) when Uranus was 45 to the n~des,.
when Mars was squaring two solar eclipses at the same ,time.
Mount St. Helens went sky-high on l\:1ay IS, 1980, when
Uranus and the Sun were in precise SQuare to both the nodes
and a recent solar eclipse. Mars was opposite the total solar
eclipse-point of February 1979-whose umbral shadow fell
on St. Helens. And having the shadow of a total eclips~ fall
on you is no laughing matter among astrologers, as myriad
disaster charts will testify. Earthquakes and volcanoe~ are
closely related, and it comes as no suprise that eruption
charts of volcanoes have the'same star-stuff as wh<?pper
earthquakes.
Do solar eclipses poke holes or over-stress the Earth's
gravity field; allowing tectonic plates to be ce.n~riftigally
flung out, resulting in an earthquake? Do transltmg Mars
and Pluto add insult to injury by making illicit angles to
those already weakened celestial longitudes?
Before dismissing these questions and my data as blithering idiocy, the soothsayers -of science should take time o~t
to think a bit. Nobody knows what causes earthquakes. PaIr
that absence of wisdom with our general lack of knowledge
regarding gravity, light and time, and it is clear we are still
in an early learning stage and should not dismiss hard, data
out of hand.
But before you readers out there in SITU-land congratulate yourselves for having the common sense not to li~e on
an active fault-line as does the author, let me tell you about
the Great Crack in the Earth's crust that runs from Washington state all the way across the vast prairieland of midAmerica to the foothills of Appalachia-some 1700 miles.
Geophysicists discovered this thing while leafing through
a pile of satellite photos. The "crack" is so big and so wide
it is likely many of PursUit's readers. live near it, or are in
\posiiion to feel it when it wakes up, as it did back in.lS11
in New Madrid. If you'd like to learn more about thIS 90- .
mile-wide crack, refer to the front page of the Los Angeles
Times of December 17, 19S1, or ~ait for the fault-line to
jiggle. When it happens, I'll bet Pluto or Uranus will be
SQuare to the .Iunar nodes, and Mars will be 90 0 ~way, molesting the etheric remnant of some recent"solar ec.lipse; .
.~.

Symposium

(Con~inued from page 148)

a time is so slow that we didn't reach the proper depth, .

so we didn't find a continuing trail. A digging crew from
. the University of Utah butchered the site. I could have
. done a better job with dynamite. Fortunately, they too
failed to dig deep enough to reach the .proper layer. Be. cause so many people knew the location, and I had no resources for proper excavation, we photographed the proper
layer, then carefully buried it under rubble to protect it
from casual digging. Anyone willing to conduct pr.oper
excavation will be taken to the site on request.
To find in a mid-Cambrian trilobite bed the print of a
shoe apparently worn by a human is something that scares
the hell out of almost every shade of opinion. It scares
the evolutionists because, at the time, trilobites were. supposed to be the highest life form on Earth. It scares the
churches ~uaUy, because Adam was supposedly the first
man but ihe last thing created by God before the sabbath. But the damned thing is still there-and that which
is ... is! Of course, those of us who believe that all life
was brought here from other planets have no difficulty
with it. This is just the footprint of someone checking up
on the trilobites to see how they are doing!
Von Daniken put this in one of his books, but true-toform, he got all the facts mixed up. Too bad tha! guys like
him have to make such fools of themselves. It gIves a bad
nallie to those of us who are more interested in finding
facts than in selling books.
.
. Enough for now. If there is anyone out there who may
be interested in anything mentioned above, have them
contact me and let's see how far we can take the research.
-Evan Hansen

FRED MALLERY PACKARD

One of SITU's earliest members, Fred M. Packard, suffered a heart
attack at age 68 and died at his home in Fairfax, Virginia, December .5,
1981.
Often described by newswriters as a "parks specialist," Mr. Packard
_ . wis a working environmentalist. long before that ~ord got i?to the political vocabularY. After graduaung from Harvard In 1936 With a degree
in biology, he became a park ranger at Rocky.Mountain National Par~
in Colorado. He received his master's degree In zoology from the UnI
versity of Colorado in 1941. He served in the Navy in World War II,
and afterward as executive secretary of the National Parks Association
until 1958, when he became the first executive director of the Fairfax
County Park Authority. In 1962 he joined the Bureau of Land Manage-.
ment of the U.S. Interior Department. After two years he returned to
the National Park Service as an interIJlltional specialist. He advised
governments around the world, including Utose of Japan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, on park administration an4 wildlife protection.
After. retiring in 1968 he continued -Ilis park work through the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
Recently he was called upon to counsel governments in Latin America
on parks..
..
.
.. Fred Packard is survived by his Wife, J~n,.rormer chairman of the
Fairf~ County Board of. SuperVisor~, and by their dau~hter, Jean.
We share their sorrow for having lost acolleague who gave so much of
~elf to help inake the UJ.1explained world more apparent, and thus
..
more \lXplicable, to. all. whose lives touched his.
..
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Fourth-Quarter 1981

.!

Pursuit 183

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.'SlTUations

. In ..this sectio~. moStly cOj1tempor;uy' c~rious' and ~n~xplained events are rep(;rt~~:
Members ~re ~tged to send in newsclippings and reports they deem responsible .
. Please' be' sure to include the sa'urce of reference (name of. newspaper or p'eriodical),
city of publication, date of- issue in which the article appeared, and your' "first initial
and last name (or membership number only if you' prefer to be credited in that way.)
J

In India's Rustless Pillar There's a Hint of Damascus Steel'

. ' One of the most-publicizea wonders of the
Fortean 'world, this 23-foot-high pillar in
. ,Delhi, India, has probably set some kind of
reeord for h'aving its picture taken. The shaft
is not especially beautiful and it isn't notably
large. It's old, but not nearly as ancient as lots
of other monuments around the world that
hark back to civilization's cradle days.
.
What reason, then, for all the attention paid
to the Delhi Pillar?
The shaft was forged from wrought-iron'
some 1600 years ago, and the part that sticks up
above tht ground luis never rusted. "Something" has made its surface uniquely resistant
to the oxidation (rusting) that begins as soon
as orange spots appear on any ordinary piece
of wrought-iron to signal the presence of
moisture. Everybody knows about the unhappy result of prolonged oxidation -of iron
, and most steels (don't look now, but underneatl! your car . . .). But nobody knows for
sure why the Rustless Pillar of Delhi has.
I stayed rustless.
I
There have been guesses, of course. The
.sages 'of SITU printed the photo at right along
with a page-length commentary in the October
1971 issue of Pursuit (Vol. 4, No.4). Noting
that the Delhi Rustless Pillar had been "reported 'on almost ad nauseam by British mil-

~:~y e:~~y PI~~~c~~~:n.el. d~~int~eth:dilt~~~

said was: ". . . that palt of the .Pillar which is :.

below ground is covered by a rust layer more
than I cm thick, with corrosion pits up' to
10 cm (4' in.) deep." His conclusion:. climate,
rather than the composition of the iron, isthe
primary cause of the good preservation of the .
Pillar aboveground.
The "oxide film," described somewhat derisively in the 1971 Pursuit piece, also fared
better in the 1972 follow-up:' "Immediately
above the surrounding platform," Wranlen
plained, "the surface of the pillar is very
rough, apparently due to defects in the (orgewelding, which seems to have been made worse
by corrosion, resulting in deep pits .. A 'band of
the circumference of the Pillar at a height between I and I.S meters above the stone platform is very bright, as if polished. The latter .
is due to the custom of visitors to stand with
their backs toward the pillar, trying to claSp
their hands around it 'for luck.'
"The whole Pillar is covered by an oxide
film of metallic lustre' but varying colour'
(black-blue-brown). According to magrietic ..
measurements, the oxide film on the bright,
polished section is less than SO millimicrons,
and higher-up, thinner again. Jt should also be
noticed that if the oxi!le film is scraped off on
some spot, the exposed iron starts to rust as

..
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ex"

:~.'.'_. '::':'~.
~

~s~~~e~~~rW~i::,:~::e~~r~ ~o;~~~~-~~:~.,

.' ....... : ....

. .:: .. "" .: . :.: '. . ; .:.' .: :; ..:..........>.,:
. went on to extract some 20th-century pro~
verted to a darker oxide. After few years the
newly formed oxide cannot be distingUished
nouncements from an article published under
The Rlistless Pfl1a.r at Deihl
from the main oxide of the Pillar. This shows
the title "Superstitious Myths Help to Stop
that the good state of preservation of the Pillar
Iron Rusting" in the British New Scientist and
Science Journal issue dated June 10, 1971.
shoulders for so many years had deposited on
.is due to' a protective film of corrosion proG. Wranlen, a scientist affiliated with the
the iron an "oxide" that, according to the
ducts, fo,med also in present-day Delhi clima,te,
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm,
paraphrase, was just the thing to keep the
and not to some inherent slag or oxide coatin.
had written a lengthy report on the Pillar,
column rust-resistant forever,
or some surface. treatment carried out during
At this point our editorial predecessors bethe early history of the Pillar, as has ocCasionand the New Scientist article was a paraphrase;
what it sUlgested evidently caused tongues to
came exasperated. "Oxide" could. be' ferric.
ally been suggested. Such a coating would
wag at Pursuit headquarters, but only into
oxide, they growled, and that is the sciencecertainly have beCn damaged 'and -made in-
textbook name for plain, everyday rust. Moreeffective, at least locally, in the course of .the
editorial cheek's. The rustless condition of the
over~ several generations of IS-foot-tall supages."
Pillar, according to the paraphrase, could be
pliants would have been required to spread a .
The Wranlen quotation was :followed by a
due to the "clean and dry air" of (Old) Delhi;
coating over anything that projected that far
summary compiled 'by J .. C. Hudson that'
or the composition of the iron was such as to
"encou~age a .protective oxide layer to form
above the ground. With more than a shade of
established a "rusting rate" of 1 .ro~ carbon
suspicion, the editorsconceded that "Wranlen
steel exposed to the .hot, dry, rural dimate of .
on the metal," What's more, the article not!=d,
the pilla~ imparts a traditional blessing .which
may be correCt. . . . We would still like to.
Khartoum, Egypt, and put the' comparaljle
is available only to those. visitors who contact
know more about it' and will report further.'
rustihg rate for .F:.rodingham;. EngJand, .at 100.
it in a special way, as do the tourists in Ireland
when Wranlen's (original) .paper. becomes
. "The .upshot of all this is that one' should'
available:"
. not become too excited about the 'non:rusting
who'risk severe lumbar injury for the. sake of
planti~ a solid kiss on the,face of t.he Blarn~ .." .:
. . : '~'.. ."!
, . .... .
Pillar'....t Delhi,.;' 'the e!litoi"s. suggeste~, still
Stone. Invoking the powers. of the Delhi Pillar'. '. The further .report wa~' not. long forth. ap~rilig a' bit shei:pi.sh for having believed
was simpler and free of risk; all one bad to'do
. coming. Pur~it. for April 1972 (Vol. :5; No, 2)
.too much in 'a bad paraphrase because it 'was
was' back up against the shaft. mid
to. clasp' .. ' contaiite~' a page 'of excerpted, data from the',
published in a joufnaf they resp~, "How.-Wranlen paper. His cr~bility' waS now .re. ever/' they continued; "sonie oth~ interesting .
hands'behind it. And indeed, 'such rubbing and
.. buffing .by thQusands.of b~i:ki and arms and : stored, at I~.as~ in par~. ,What WraitIen reallx' Points have cropp up 'en route.' 'Wrangleri
..
.'
.'.
'. .
' .
.
\
..

try

Pursu't :-184

.'

Mi~get

technology, could.'it not have included a como'

ponent of rust-resistance, even 1600 years ago?

Pyramid in 'Thailand' .

During a tour of military duty in southeast Asia, SITU member Terry Colvin took this
photograph of a pyramid he found in a temple complex in southern Thailand. That was in
1973. Since then he has been stationed variously in Naples, Italy, at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and now at Fort Clayton, Republic of Panama, where he stopped long enough to be
able to answer our request for all available information about this aging structure in an unexpected place. His letter:
Many documents and records were deI snapped a shot of this small pyramid
while climbing a trail to a Buddhist site of
stroyed in Ayutthaya, which makes any reworship. Perhaps a temple and/or monconstruction of Thai. history a patchwork
effort. You must excuse my straying a bit.
astery? I estimate the height as 20 feet plus
or minus S feet. My wife estimates the. age
I've read a few books on Thai/Siam hisat between 100 and 300 years, because of
tory, especially up to 1937, the year when
the similar-type construction in this area
the military dictatorship began and absolute
about the time of the Burmese-Thai wars.
monarchy ended.
The pyramid is located in southeastern
The last in the series ended with the sacking
and burning of the old capital at Ayutthaya
Thail~nd near the city of Chanthaburi. It
(spelled variously) in 1767. An interim capis close to the Kamphucean-Thailand borital was begun at Thonburi, which did
der and shows the influence of the much
cross the Chao Phya River toward the vilolder Khmer and Mon civilizations.
-Terry W. Colvin
lage of Bankok (K!'Ilng Tep . . . City of
Angels, etc.).

(the paraphraser even misspelled his name)

points out that very old iron, deriving from
Antiquity or the Middle Ages, in some cases
has obviously rusted much less quickly than
the best of modern steel but that this is, in
fact, a case of 'survival of the fittest' ...
"Perhaps even more interesting is information received from Ralph IZzard who spent
some time in India and often visited the Pillar
at Delhi-it was a favorite picnic spot." Mr.
Izzard, mindful of an inscription on the Pillar
that ~uggests it was fabricated not in Delhi but
in Bihar and moved to Delhi in 1052, had this
to say (in 1972):
. . . The' whole of southern Bihar is one
vast forest peopled by. bow' and arrowed
aboriginal tribes. In 1963 I spent some
months happily with them, filming and
hunting! The trageOY is that beneath the
forest is one solid mass of iron ore. Thus,
at Jamshedpur-, on the' forest . fringe,
stands t!1e colos,s"al Ta~a Iron 'and Steel
Works . . . . Research scientists at Tata's
have don~ much 'work 'cOncerning the

Fourth Quarter 1981

I~ the cours~ of experiments at Stanford

University during the late 1970s it was determined that' ultrahigh carbon steels could be
made both superformable (i.e. superplastic) at
warm temperatures and strong and ductile at
room temperatures .. After a time, the experimenters began to' note the similarity of their
steel to the legendary Damascus "weap0ll$
steel" which as long ago as the time of Alexander the Great (c. 323 B.C.) had been the
favored metal for sword 'and dagger blades
so sharp that they could "cut a gauze handkerchief in half in mid-air."
What is the connection between Damascus
steel, produced for centuries by a supposedly
"secret" process, and the possibly rust-resistant steel that aboriginals may have produced
in India 1600 years ago? A provocative clue
looms up from the pages of any text on the
history of metallurgy. Says one: "Damascus
steels or Damascus blades are so called not because Damascus was their place of origin; but
because Europeans first encountered them in
Damascus. The steel wa~ made in India . . ."
Now for the report of the Stanford experimenters, Drs. Jeffrey Wadsworth and Oleg D.
Sherby. It reveals that ancestors of the "benighted natives" of India had a technology of
steel-making so advanced that modern science
has come abreast of it only in this decade.
A summary of the Wadsworth-Sherby report
will be published in our next issue.
-The (1 ?82) editors

~
Victim's Dream Nabs Killer

Rafael Gonzalez, 54, owned a fish and'

poultry market in Miami. Six days before he
was fatally shot in a December 1981 holdup,
he told his employees that he'd had a dream
in which he saw himself killed during a robbery by Roberto Alvarez, a former worker in
the store. The dream helped investigators find
his killer. Said Sergeant Richard Napoli of the
Miami police, "It's spooky, but I'll take help
from anywhere; anytime. "
Gonzalez' body was discovered when a cusRustless Pillar. . . . As I recall [their retomer noticed blood seeping out from under
ports) definitely state that the Pillar was
a locked door and called police. Gonzales had
made in Bihar and as proof of the fact
been. shot in the face, head and arm, ~nd
it is pointed out that in some parts the
$100 to $300 was missing from a metal cashaboriginals made not only. their own iron
\'
box.
but aIso their own steel out of clay forges.
One of the 'store employees told detectives
Steelmaking has died out in Bihar but it
about Gonzalez' dream and how it h8d picstill definitely continues in Orissa, the
tured Alvarez as the killer. Alvarez was interwilder province to the south, where I have
viewed at home and agreed to go to the policeactually seen it being done by aboriginals
station to be fingerprinted and photographed.
in the clay forges in the depths of the
Within hours,' crime laboratory technicians
forests. The Tata boys know all about
matched his prints with those found on the
this, too. \
metal cash-box. They also 'found a 'witness
"Benighted natives. indeed'" .was the signwho identified Alvarez from the' police photo
off comment t!1at followed Mr. Izzard's letter
as the man he saw leave the market about the
as the editors ended their effort to explain why
tin:te of the murder.
the Delhi Pillar was able to survive 16 cenAlvarez, confrQnted with the evidence, made
turies of exP9Sure to weather 'without m,!ch of . . .a full confession' and was charged with firstit rusting. ~eft unanswerec! were a couple of .
degree
murder and armed robbery.
. . \
questions raised by implication in the last lines .
SOURCE: UF'I' dispatcl! in The Ne.w York
of the letter:
. .'
. .
. '.
..
and The Cleveland Press, 12126/8J.
(I) Just. how much did India's earlier aborCREDIT. D. Whitcomb; W.. Cermak .
. iginals know about making iron and steel? .
(2) If theirs' was indeed. an "advan.ced"
~

Times

Pursuit 185

' .

UF,Os.ln Formation Sighted Over' Gua~alajara, M~co".

. In Apdl1980
.
TJie following report is an U!lusual example of ~tness-concurrence. .

. by .. tran,lator who verified t~e transcript by llsteniq to the'tape while

~ilI members of one family and a guest viewed. the phenomenon thtough . - translating. The sk~ches. are clQSC tracings. of the rough, ball:pen origbinoculars and a telescope, and agreed on most details of what they saw. _ . inals, reduced about one-fourth but not o~herwise altered.,_
....., .

Visited four months later by Helen Dunn, the father and son recorded
. . Guadalajara, where the sighting. occUrred; is located in 'sciuth:-eentrai
th~r oral testimony at her requekt. The son made the f~hand sketches.' : . Mexico and is its third-largest city with a reported population of more
. At SITU headquarters the taped testimony, in Spanish, was written
th'u 1.8million. (See map, page 15.7.)"
..
verbatim in Spanish by a bi-Iiniual secretary and later put into English

o o./'
~. r I ~'~ '\
I

\,

I
... ., ,

000
.

'0

0
00

0
0

Tllklng turns at a telescope aDd binoculars,

members of the Miranda famUy and Francisco Flores, their guest, were able to keep . ,~
the UFOs In view for 4-5 minutes as the 100200 objects of slmUar shape "convoyed" a
single, larger, drum-shaped craft northeastw~ above the Miranda home on a sunny,
. the Miranda Ions; he had been' probing the
cIoudleu afternoon In'AprU 1980. The flight
sky with his teleacope, trying to spot Jupiter.
wu detected by 21-year-old luis, eldest of
The UFOs that Interrupted his search were

000

ac:attered at first but Ulembled Into a .tight

formation as he watched. luis' sketch .hows
(at 'tit) a UFO that peeled of[ the vanguard;
disappeared for an lnalant, then reappeared,
at the head of the formation (top. center):
The drum-Uke "main UFO" reOected black,
orange, yeUow, gray and silver tlnta; 'all of
the "escort craft" were of a silvery c;olo~,
suggestive of aluminum or slml~r mate.rial:

asked my brother' for a .pair of binoculars. He

a lot, and headed toward the northeast. They
brought them to me and I pointed them to- were there for five to ten minutes, at around
4:30.
.
ward the object and I saw that it wasn't Jupiter. It looked round and shone like a small sun
but with a light green and blue. .Af~er I focus[LUIS'S FATHEJI,] My name is Mario Miranda.
ed the telescope I noticed that three other . I am the head of a family consisting of seven
objects were coming fast. They joined the first
children, my wife, and myself. We live in the
object and stood there awhile, then one !leaded
.city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, which is the
north, and the other ",ent in a differe~t direc-. second capital.of MexicO. On this day wehad .
tion. Then I went and spoke to my father who
visiting us a Mr. Francisco Fiores, the son of
w~ entertaining a guest. Theywou!dn't pay': our very good friends Jose Flores and liis wife,' '.
attention'to me, but I kept insisting.forhim to . Maria. They were not here-only their' son,
.come and look. Then he saw it, .and my brqwho .. works for' the Mexican ,airline .. in 'Los
therand everybOdy else. saw the.ship that came
Angeles; California..'
.' . , .
While we
sitting in the living room, my
back, C8l1le back .with a. lQt mc:;re objeCts.. ..
[LUIS MIRANDA] That day, I was.
looking
in .. They wert ..a'lot:"more.
than a , hundi'ed-anci
son Luis, lO'years'. old, came
.. in, very excited,:
'
'
- . 1R"" .
.
the sky '~~r the. planet Jupiter. It w~ aroilnd
they were coming .ili a~-!!ig formation. The "ig . and asked us to go: o~tside and look throl!gh
five in the afternoon: I saw so~ething like a.
. one in.the middle had an ora~e color, sh~ped. ,his t~esco~ 'at something .that was ~ery 'instar, but" of a. dirf~t coior and shape. 1-' like.a triangle,' strange but pretty.. They were
teresting. I .t~l~. him to. wait; ~ut.:he said, '.

[HELEN DuNN) On a lovely day in late July

I was visiting with the Miranda family who
'I:lave a home in Guadalajara. Sr. Mario Mir8nda is a reputable businessman in Guadalajarll' We got into a conversation about UFOs
. and they told me about a sighting of UFOs
over Guadalajara that was so fantastic that
I thought I'd like to have it on tape to take
back withme to the U.S. fpr interested parties,
.. and so, first J. will introduce Mario's lO-yearold son, Luis, a studenf who. was the' first to
see the sighting above his hoine' on an April .
day iii 198().....:.aitd he will tell you, in Spanish,
what he saw.
.

were

.~

,'.

'.' :~Qurth .Qi;aarter 1981'

Perils of the Demoh Sea ..

There is a wedge-shaPed stretch of Pacific

Ocean about 100 miles off Japan's east coast

which sailors caD the Demon Sea-with good
reason.' Ten larie ships have vanished from the
area during the IaiIt two years, all withou,t a
trace. Then, in March 1981, the 4O,OOO-ton
freighter MarcoM Trtlder just barely made
passage into the port of Tokyo with a 33-foot
section of her bows missing, after cruising in
the Demon Sea.
Her huD was photographed from dockside,
, to show the foredeck hanging limply over a
hole so big as to make any seafarer wonder
what savage force had struck so hard yet left
the ship and crew alive to tell the tale. As the
photos were sent by wire and satellite to maritime interests and media throughout the world,
an epidemic of speculation broke out. What
could have cut away so much prow from so
big a ship? "Collision with a derelict during
conditions of low visibility," was one guess.
Others said, quite'seriously, "Only a huge, unknown type of marine animal could have done
it." Still others even went along with what the
sailors on the ship had told the board of inquiry convened \Jy the Japanese Maritime
Safety Agency: evil spirits had cast their spell
and caused not only great damage to the
Trtlder but also the disappearance of the ten
ships which had vanished without a trace in
the Demon Sea.
"Please come now, because there are a lot of
flying saucers." When he said this, my visitor
became interested and we went immediately to
, the back yard. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon-4:30 to 5:00-1 can't pinpoint the time.
Instead of tlie telescope, I preferred to look
through binoculars which are not very powerful, but with the naked eye you couldn't see
anything in the sky. With the binoculars I saw
some objects arranged in the shape of a rhomboid, shining like polished aluminum. It was
interesting that when I looked, they were like
six deep, like in a big parade-formation, very
impressive. From my ropgh count I would say
there were about 200-100 in the front and 100
in the back-and in between was a ship shaped
like ,an African drum. I could see its sides
clearly because the sky was very clear. You
could see the rhomboids' orange, blacks, and
silver, in very harmonious combinations, all
in perfect formation, not changing course at
all. I gave the binoculars to my guest. He
looked, and he said, ". . . and people stiD say
they don't exist!"
We all decided not to tell anybody about
them because we thought that if we told any'
body, they'd think we were crazy.
This formation went off like a big parade;
towards the northeast from Guadalajara: I
couldn't tell who they were, where they came
from, or what they were looking for. With,
these questions in our minds, we were left
very impressed. . '
,
My son, Luis, always,wants to be watching'.
the sky. He loves astrono~y, even though he
is only twenty years old, 'll!1d he's forever trying to find flying objects in the sky-or starsand he tries to look at the sun with filters on,
his telescope.. It's not !l great piece of eq'uip'
ment but it,does the job.'

The maritime ligency hired 'scientists to

make a careful examination of the Trader's
hull; inside and o~tside., Agency 'officiais
listened again and again to the taped testimony
of" the captain as he t~ld how crewmen had
discovered a hairline crack, in the bows only
seconds b~fore the huge section of reinforced
steel was carried away "like a piece of tisSue
paper."
After months of study, the board published its conclusion: "We are now sure that
those ships were sunk, and Marcona Trader
damaged, by huge waves, probably more than
100 feet high and moving at an incredible
speed; that simply sliced through them like a
knife through butter."
But the officials had no ready answer to the
obvious next question: Why do the huge waves
seem to form only in a wedge-shaped section
of ocean estimated to be 1,600 miles long and
1,000 miles wide at base? A staff meteorologist
advanced an interesting theory, but emphasized it was only a personal opinion. He said,
"It could be that these waves, result from a
sudden coDision between the powerful, warm
Black Current that snakes northward along the
Japanese Pacific coast, and ice-laden winds
whipping southward from Siberia;"
In the hope of obtaining an accurate database for further study of the phenomenon,
the Japanese government plans to anchor a 40ton robot in the heart of the area by 1983.
That afternoon, he was telling me, he was
looking for a star when' he says he saw a round
object-an object I didn't see because I was
with my guest inside the house. The object
stopped right above his head, and while he
was looking, two other round objects came into sight, and quickly the three left as if they'
had just finished talking to one another. One
went north, the second went south, ,and the
third went toward the northeast. But the first
one, that looked as if it had left, came back
with the entire formation, the one I, saw. I repeat, and I may be exaggerating, but there
were so many that I dare to think there were
at least 200 objects of this silver color and
rectangular shape.
This was the greatest experience we ever
h&c:!. However, I think not too many people
would have noticed what we saw. At that
time of the afternoon nobody really looks up
at the sky because of the brightness of the
sun. Even if they did, nothing would be visible
to the naked eye;
That is all I have to say at this time. I want
, to make' it 'clear that the house we live in, in
Guadalajara, has an area of 1600 square
meters and a back yard with an area of 500
square meters that gives plenty of room for
observations. In this observation, all of my
children participatect. I think it is also important 'to point out that my home is located in
a central part of the city, only six blocks from
the Sheraton Hotel. Which leads me to' think
that' other people may have s~n what we'did,
but just like us, are keeping it to thein~elves.
"SOURCE: Witnesses' direct voice-transcrip'~
, tion ,translated from Spa':riish: by Mauricio
RivaUeneira. CREDIT: Heleti Qunn.

And a ',6,o6o..ton helicopter-C!lrrying rescue

ship of speciaUy reinforced construction is
being built to be placed on patrol, the better
to assure the survival of sailors who brave the
Demon Sea.
SOURCE: Tokyo dispatch in Sunday Express
(London), 12/13/81. C~DIT: D. Mace.

Bigfoot in 'Thumb'?
Cindy Barone says it's not the torn-down
fences nor the barn doors that have been
ripped off their hinges, nor is it the highpitched screaming her family often hears at
night. "It's the unknown that scares us," she
said. "If I knew what it was, I'd deal with it
somehow."
The Barone farm is located in Michigan's
"Thumb," properly called the Upper Peninsula. Mrs. Barone, 33, said her first encounter
with the "unknown" came last September
when her neighbor's ba~n door was ripped off
its hinges. "I've had fences torn down and
grain barrels dumped over and eaten," she
said. Her dogs have raced off into the dark,
chasing after a presumed intruder, and the
farm animals have been spooked by an unseen
predator m!lny times. Then came that Friday
night in mid-November:
Tina Barone, 13, ,and her sister, Roxanne,
12, went to the barn to do chores.
"Roxanne was scared to go into the barn
because she'd heard noises before," said
Tina. "I said I would go first, so I reached
for the light. I felt fur. It felt thick and
dirty. At first I thought it was a goat or
something, so I took my glove orf and I
touched it again. It didn't look like anything.
It was tall with red eyes and big and black
and furry and stood on two legs. It had a
deep growl."
After telling Roxanne to run back to the
house, Tina turned and began to walk slowly
from the barn, but "it started walking out
behind me and I started running." The creature never tried to harm her, Tina said.
The girls' cousin, David, 18, got his shotgun. "It was some kind of animal," said
David, "but I can't describe what. It was
about 6 feet 6, or 7 feet li. I dicln't shoot to
kill. I just shot in the air to scare it, away. It
was standing on two feet and had real long
arms-bctween a bear and an ape, that's
what I think. I've never seen a Bigfoot, so
I have no idea if it was one of those."
Mrs. Barone said the family is frustrated
by the unwillingness of many people, including the local sheriff, to take her story serious
y. A spokeswoman in the sheriff's office,
suggested that what Tina felt was a, raccoon
or similar small friendly' animal. But Tina,
who is sure "it" was no ,ordinary barnyard
animal, says that from ~ow on she will carry
a camera when doing barn chores, "in case
I see him again, because no one believes us."
.SOURCE: The netroit News, 11/22/81; UPI
dispatch in the ChiCtlgo Tribune, 11123/81.
CREDIT: W. Kingsley; S. Guadagnoli;
N. Paulsen. :

~.

Fo.....h Quai1er 1981"

Pursu't 187
'\

:!.

','

'" ','Letters',:'

"

,I==========================~====~============~==========~============~=

'Astrology'v. Astronomy

,I

= 'Wilson v.'VeUkovsky?

'.

an

veioCity. ~i1soii.'s ,concern ahout

8/lOOJo;discreparcy was
quite 'misdirected.
, '
. '" " '
,
,
'
,
Wilson's'attempt to\hovV that the' Giza Pyramids encOde
detailed astronomical data, though ,ambitious, is 'not as ,accurate' as he needs to inake his case. It is flawed by his incomplete grasp of the necessary physical relationship~ a:n~ ,
inept explanations of the discrepancies he acknowledges.
It is insulting to a great scholar, as VelikovskY was; to' pr~
sent Wilson's pyramido'ogy as a self-prQClaimed refutatioQ..
:
-C. Leroy Ellenberger
Senior Editor and Ex~utive Secretary
",
KRONOS
Glassboro State College, Glassboro; NJ 08028"

The revi~w of Edgar Wilson's book, ME'VS: 'Creator of

,the Pyramids (PUrsuit No. 54, p. 87), is quite revealing. Since
Wilson believes the Giza Pyramids were built under the di" :rection of extraterrestrials, he was quite deceptive in omitting
" , this information from his article on the stability. of the solar
, system in the Fall 1980 issue (Pursuit No! 52, p. 151), In
describing Wilson's background, in the review, accu~acy
, would have been better served had he' also been identified as
an astrologer.
'I The plethora of astronomical relationships that Wilson
identifies in the Giza Pyramid complex is quite impressive.
However, without any evidence that the relationships were
intended, their existence by sheer coincidence and subsequent
* * *
selection by Ii determined number-cruncher cannot be ex'Perceptual
Effects'
-Continued
cluded. Independent evidence that Earth has been visited by
"alien beings is far from persuasive. In the April 1981 Physics
I am the E.C. in the Macer-Story article on "Some "Pe~- '
'Today, Frank J. Tipler argues convincingly that we are alone
ceptual Effects of UFO Contact," (Pursuit No. 55, Third
'in the galaxy.
Quarter 1981), and I object to the non-us,e of m'y name and
The possibility t\:1at Wilson's work is 'merely a numerologthe use of my initials only. My reasons are not for my own
, ica1 exercise gains ci-edence from the following considerations:
glorification, but for more important reasons.
, There has been so much fraud and deception surrounding
1) The ability to measure the speed of light accurately
implies a high degree of technological competence which is
UFO phenomena, and so much changing of names ~o "proinconsistent with the discrepancies that Wilson has to explain
tect the innocent," that it has left the subject of UFOs under
away. For example, his model predicts a radius for Venus
a dar.k cloud of suspicion. Most 'people mistrust most articles,
"of 6105' km compared with the measured 6056 km. The
myself included, and using'initials or ch,anging names ,gives
one the feeling that the person may be afraid of being' ex49 ,km difference is ascribed to the cloud height, which to, . day is 65 km. The 16 km difference, explainable by a warmposed as a fraud. Anonymity has been a product of the,
ing and expansion of Venus's atmosphere, is not consistent
19505 and ,19605, as well as with the national tabloids. It
'with the stability Wilson seeks to prove.
should remain a "has been."
','

2) Considering the pivotal importance played by the well

Someone has to start taking a more rounded and responsible approach toward the people doing continued, res,earch '
, in the Temple of Chephren, it is a strange omission that
of the objects themselves, not of other people's reports. '
Wilson never, in his article or book, shows its precise IqcaOnly then will readers be more confident that wllat they'
lion. The location of' the well indicated on his diagrams
read is true and not just,wild fantasy.
,
does not coincide with the location shown in M. A. Murray's
In my case, I had already been nationally ~ritten ahout
Egyptian Temples. The loca~ion indicated by Wilson is close,
Omni
'by Harry Lebelson, in the September 1981 issue
but east and south of the true location. A good extra-terres, ,,"
tri8J surveyor should be b e t t e r . '
magazine's '''uFO Update," (under the title) "A Pine Bush
Adventure." Dates of release of articles are ,sometimes dif, 3) Wilson is ambiguous regarding how planetary velocities
ficult to predict, but there was enough of a time difference,
'are' represented in the Giza model. The distance from ~!te
betwec;n the release of Omni's article, and my full ,name, '
well to the center of a pyarmid when referring to a map iql'
,
with the Pursuit issue.
'plies a horizontal distance. Yet, page 37 of his book shows
[n regard to the Wanaque photographs, [ think ,it ,might'
the distance to be from the pyramid's ape?( 'to the well. Nohave been more meaningful if it had been clarified that I had,
where does Wilson indicate that the floor or-the Temple ,of
previously taken an extensive number of photographs 'of
Chephren is about 40 meters below the base of the ,Great
metallic objects while ,doing a scientific field stti~y in i98Q, '
Pyramid. If he thinks the difference between the leg and the
in Pine Bush, New York, with Harry Lebelsori, over a fou,r- '
hypotenuse is negligible, he is mistaken: For the Great Pyr,,' "
month period of time.'
amid, the difference is 26 m, or 4OJo compared with the horWhen we shot the first set of Wanaque 'photographs",
izontal 640 m distance.
two of which you published, al~hougti we were fpc,used, on
, 4)- In his book, Wilson explains an 8JIO% discrepancy
an object, over ice, [: always had' my doubts as to' what the
for the escape :velocity from the M;oon as, the increment
~ actual, photographs represented. The. house light' and, road' ,
"needed to escape the Earth's gravity at ,the lunar'orbit. This,
, I traffic seemed suspicious in the pictures, 'though ,not in our
handwavi,ng reveals his poor grasp of elementary astronomy.
actual viewing 'of the object. the "effects" on; this ,set of
" With the escape, velocity from. the Moon being '1,47,5 mi/sec
and the escape velocity from the Earth at the 'lunar', orbit , Wanaque,pictures was ';ilso'totaliy'differ~nt'froin wha~ had.
, appeared' in the Pjne Bush pictures, and [' was, ncit, prepared
beiog'O.895,mi/sec, the escaPe velocity.froiD the Earth-Moon',
to 'accept .. this difference" without substantial', causes. We
,
'''
' ,": j ,"
'syslein is simply
'were shooting the, sam~, obj~ts; why,itot photograplt t~em ,
,
! , '(1.475 2 + 0.895 2,)'1""
"
' ,
, ihe same wa~?, '
"
'
or 1:725 mi/sec which is 17OJo highc:r than the-lulian~sca~

or

'Purst lS8

, " Foarth Quarter,'Hl1

,

The succeeding months of photographic' study jus~' rein- . .' .How to, T~e Great Pictures on a Saturday Night
forced my belief that the wobbly' lights in the photos were . .
"'re would l.ike to offer our professional analysis of the
vibrations from camera movem.ent because the edge of the
alleged high-noon space ship which an "unsophisticated
. mountains were also fuzzy. This' doesn't mean we didn"t see
.Arab': took a 'ph~tograph of, pu'bli~hed on page 45 of your
the fraft, as Harry 'seems to think; this just' rheans that in
First Quarter 1981 issue (Pursuit No. 53).
these photos, we didn't register the ship on film, probably
What follows is predominantly the opinion of Donald C.
because we were too far from it, and it was too dimly lit.
Grunzweig,
senior darkroom technician of DCG PhotoA few weeks later, I did take an outstanding color photo
graphic
Laboratory
Inc., here at Pompano Beach, Florida.
of the triangle ~raft's effects over Wanaque. This photo is
Briefly,
it
is
technically
impossible within the laws 'of
no comparison to 'the other Wanaque photos and the same
physics (the nature of light) and the chemistry of the art of
~ffec~s that showed up on the film in Pine Bush, showed lip
photography for this picture to have been taken during the.
In this one particular photograph. I wish you had published
daytime
as suggesied. It was shot at night.
this'one picture instead of the others.
If
it
had
indeed been a flying craft, this photograph would
If you had mentioned my Pine Bush work as a' prelude to
have to have been made by using an extremely expensive,
Wanaque, the last two italicized paragraphs would not" have
long, sophisticated lens. The subject would have to have'
been written as such.
been
quite a distance away. The proportions of the compo
'Pine Bush occurred between my California saucers and
sition
are easily interpreted' into fact by a trained eye. Yet,
~ur brief encounter at Wanaque Reservoir. Harry and I
it
was
stated that this shot was but a mere Polaroid.
hterally saw hundreds of metallic objects in Pine Bush, over
Mr.
Grunzweig deals in every type of photography from
more than a four-month period. It has put us in an unparmedical
to aerial. People come to his custom lab because he
alleled authoritative position to know that what we appear
specializes
in the unusual and the difficult. He is himself
to be watching is what it appears to be-someone else's
. creative in artistic photographic, expression, and he has on
spac:;:eships. We just happen to disagree on. whether UFOs
his staff a photographer who creates art images exactly like
are interspace/parallel time (some people say inter-dimenthe
Qne you printed, only his are' .in color. His name is
sional), or whether they are interplanetary. (They are interDouglas Petersen and he does these abstracts purely for
-Ellen B. Crystall
planetary.)
pleasure. He simply waves the camera wildly whilst the
shutter
is left open, expanding bands of light and causing
. The substitution of initials for names is a long-established
long trails while he's focused on city street lights, neon signs,
policy among publishers of specialized periodicals in many
and the like.
fields of scientific investigation. It is a good policy, we think,
In the picture you published, as in Petersen's pictures the
because it guards the confidentiality thqt witnesses expect in
.light source is immobile; it is the camera which is mo:ing,
return for their testimony (and which many insist upon), yet
considerably. Try it. and, you'll see. There is absolutely no
leaves open the opportunity for the witness to disclose iden"sophistication" involved. It's a. fun thing to do on a Saturtity at some future time, should he or she wish to do so.
day
night. It is interesting to learn that someone else has
Ms. Crystall's initiative in requesting this disclosure is 'much
.thought to 'fool around with their camera in the same way
appreciated.. .For all 14 years of Pursuit's existence we have
and with the same result.
.
.
tried to "tak.e that "responsible approach toward the people
!\'Ir.
Grunzweig
further
notes
that
if
this
had
been
a
space,
.
doing continued research of the objects themselves" of which
ship with such an intense light source as the one seen in the
her letter speaks. Whether we have succeeded, or to what
upper left-hand corner, the photographer would have been
~tent, con best be determined by our readers.-The editors
.blinded, were it "near his house." In reality, Mr. Petersen
*
suggests the light might have been a fluorescent bulb.
The Sound Doctrine of Audial Meaning
We think perhaps some "unsophisticated Arab" is pulling
Mi~hael Sanders' leg. Or else he is pulling yours. Or both.
There is a significant oversight inherent in T.B. Pawlicki's
Or some combination thereof. If we can be of further assistarticle, "Sooner or Lat.er You Too May Have ESP," whi~h
ance,
please contact us. It was quite by chance that we saw
appeared in the Summer 1980 (No. 51) issue of Pursuit
this picture while reading a friend's copy of Pursuit for the
(Vol. 13, No.3, p. 101).
first time. We enjoyed reading every article and are glad
The electromagnetic signals that a radio picks up have, in
you're around doing a good job. We are interested in helpand Of themselves, no audial meaning. Audial meaning
ing, utilizing our expertise in an area far more relevant than
comes only when these signals are translated into audial
our daily fare of advertising agency needs' (for example,
signals in and by the radio's speaker and not before that
"Put this $44,000 limousine on another planet and make
point. At that point electrical signals are converted into
everything
bluer"). If anyone wishes to see copies of Mr.
mechanical pulsations (i.e., sound waves), and only the latter
Petersen's light abstractions, we'll provide direct contact
have audjal meaning. The only way you can hear music
with Doug Petersen.,
from a radio is to hear sound waves (which constitute the J
-Frances D. Grunzweig, Director
music). If one could "hear" the radio waves which ulti'mately
. DCG Photographic Laboratory 'Inc.
produce the music of a radio .. at best he would "hear"only .
5283 North Dixie Highway
.
aJ:) ESP version of "static."
Pompano Beach, FL 33064,
If, on the other.. hand, Pawlicki is claiming (or also claiming) t.hat via ESP .one can hear sound waves (whiCh have no
.~The photograph sent by Mr. San4ers was.in fact'a color print.
electrical ~r magnetic qualities w~atsoever), this contention
;To reproduce i,t in color would have been prohibitively expensive,
would represent one of the most extreme and far-fetched
~ut good retenti~n of contrast in the va~ious areas was achieved by
careful rep,roduGtion.. As Ms. Grunzweig's leiter indicates, the
'notions that has' ever. ,visited 'the field of ESP.-',.
issue here is not color but. subject' matter, location and time. -Ed .
..,....NeilM. Lorber

Fourth QlI:arter 19$1; j.'

"

Pursuif 189.
"

ABBREVIATIONS
ab
ac to
A. J. Sci
(AI)
An de Chimie
Annals of Phil
An Reg
An. Sci Disc
Arch. des. Decouv.
B
BA

'about
according 10
American Journal oj Science
[?Almanac?)
Annales de Chimie
Annals oj Philosophy
Annual Register
Annals oj Scientific Discovery
Archives des Decouvertes
[?)

Report oj the British Association Jor the

Advancement oj Science
'bet
between
Bib. Univ.
Bibliographie Universelle
Bu II des Sciences
Bulletin des Sciences
Connecticut
Conn.
cor.
correspondent
CR.
Comptes Rendus '
(CUI)
illustrated
The Book oj the Damned, page 58
D58
det met
detonating meteor
Edin J. Sci
Edinburgh J(Jurnal oj Science
Edin New Ph. J.
Edinburgh' New Philosophical Journal
E Mech
English Mechanic
Eng.
England
EtoW
East to West
exl. heal
extreme heat
(F)
Fletcher's List
.' Finleys Rept.
Finley's Report
Fr
France
frgs
frogs
ft.
fect
Gents Mag
Gentleman's Magazine
h.
hours
(Hunl
Hungary
Inf conjunction
Inferior conjunction
Intro 10 Met
Introollction to MeieorololU'
(It)
Iialy
Jour Asiatic Soc Bengal Journal oj the Asiatic Society oj Bengal
La Sci Pour Tous
La Science Pour Tous
. L'lnslitut
[?)
Uv Agc
Living Age
LT
London Time!?
. Mag Nat Hist
Magazine oj Nf!tural History
mag of moon
magnitude of moon
Mag of Sci
Magazine oj Science

. \
magnellc stor-m
Maine
Meteor
morning
.manuscript
Northeast
New Monthly Magazine
N.o More
Numbers
Northwesl Provinces
New York Sun
Opposition Mars
page.
(P)
[?)
Pennsylvania
Pa.
phenomena
phe
Philosophical Magazine
Phil Mag
Philosophical Transactions
Phil Trans
earthquake
Q
Q. J. Roy Inst
Quarterly Journal oj the Royallnsti(ute
Q-phe'
Quake anI! phenomena
ref.
reference
Report oj the British Association Jor
Rept B.A.
the Advancemenl oj Science
.
I I I [Reverse side)
probably not related
Scientific American
ScAm.
Scientific Gazette [?)
Sci. Gazelle
Smithsonian Inst Repl. Annual Report oj the Smithsonian Institut~on
S. Op.
Science Opinion [?)
Spontaneous Combustion
Spon Comb.
stationary
stat
southwest
s.w.
Tasmanian Journal oj Science
Tasmanian Jourpal
(Ihunderstone)
(lh stone)
th. storm
thunderstorm
Trans Bombay Geog
Transactions oj the Bombay
Soc
Geographical Society
Trans Merc.
Transit Mercury
Va.
Virginia
vol.
. volume
Vole
Volqmo
Vules
Yulcans
Wernerian Nat Hist
Transactions oj the Wernerian
. Soc Trans
Natural History Society
W.lndies
West Indies
.WtoE
West to East
mag storm
Me
Mel
morn
MS.
NE
New Monthly Mag.
N.M.
Nos.
N. W. Provo
NY Sun
OP. Mars
p.

1822

[Reverse side) L.T., Nov 15-3-el I

Oct 18 I Water in wells around
Vesuvius disappears. I 20th, about
18-2-e 1.22-2-c.
2-p.m., violent"eruption: I An Reg
'about Oct 22 I (It) I Sound I Rum'22-213.
.
.
blings I Verona I See 1816 .
Oct ~
I 25[th}, 'ashes ceased .. I
Oct 22 I Vesuvius ierrific I' A.J.S.
BA 54. "
.
"6/385. I "Ashes "at _ first recJdish
'Oct 16 I from Sir- John Herschel's
.
pct 20 to' 28th "; V~uvius I A: R'eg .. brown; then more white.
MS.' Journal I Sky overcast-great
Oct
I Two "Vulcs" i Pasiorf[- I
light like moon breaking through' . Oct" .22-i4 I Vesuvius'! Oc~ ?3~
An. Sci Disc 1860/41i.
(london) I rio record of meteqr at . great explosion I 'Q. J. Roy Inst
16-182 I. . .
. "
. . iBCF-, p. 395:
. iime. Y Rept B.A. 1870-87.
.
Continued Jrom Pursuit No. 55,
Vol. 14, No. J, Third Qu'!rter
. 1981, page 144.

ii'

23

Oct 23, 1822":":two unk~own dark

. bodies crosSing the' sun; observed
. by Pastdr.H (An. Sci. Disc.;, 1860411.) .
.
.

Oct '27./ Berleburg I' BA".60 .;

. iFireball).'
. "
.Oct 28';' "or 22,!d?'" II Brighton,
.. England I Fireball I.BA 60.. . .
Nov. 4 I.Trans Merc. / S. Op. I. .
. '. Nov 4 ;. .Chili . / Copiapo, Chili,

. Fo~rth Quarter. '1981

Piars." i90
.

Dec I I Grenada, West Indies I

Our own earliest datum is Webb's
q./11 [Light, I BA 1911) ..
observation, ,of May 22, 1823. I know
of only one astronomer who has
Dec 21 j Brunn I Fireball I BA 60.
Dec. I Eruption of vole Eyafalle I . supposed that these observations
cOuld relat~ to a Venusian satellite, '
Jokel, Iceland I
pronouncedly visible sometimes,
[Reverse side) Q. J. Roy Inst 16-396.
and then for many years being inDec 31 I Volc I Api, Java. I N.M. I
visible: something else will have to
C.R.70-878.
be thought of. If these observations
and others that we shall have, be
1823
I B I q. I Chile I Le Moniteo, accepted, they relate to unknown
bulks that have, from outer space,
p. 411, ~31, 571.
gone to Venus, and have' been in
Jan 10 I Mureia and Alicante, temporary suspension near' the
Spain I q. 1111
planet, even though the shade of
[Medium I BA 1911).
Sir Isaac Newton would curdle at
Jan II I Augsburg I Fireball I
the suggestion. If, acceptably, from
BA60.
outer space, something could go to
the planet Venus, one is not especially ,
Jan 24 I England I Fireball I
startled with the idea that some'BA60.
thing could sail from the planet
Jan. 26 I Gosport I BA '60 I
Venus-visit this earth, conceivably.)
Fireball.
May
30 I Waters of Lake Erie
Feb-March I qs I I I [Light I
suddenly rose 9 feet. I BA '54.
BA 1911) I Formosa,
Feb. 16 lIst snowstorm recorded June 12 I 8 p.m. I Metite I Angers,
France I taken up immediatelyin Mobile, Alabama I NY Sun,
"not particularly warm" I
1892, Jan 21-6-7.
[Reverse side) Quar Jour Roy Inst
Feb 24-25 I q and storm I night I
14-447.
Violent storm near Hanover, and
June 19 I 9:30 p.m. I Tornado I
[Reverse side) q, and a crevice a foot
Morgan, Ohio I Finleys Rept.
wide opened in the ground.
June 22-July 18 I Vole I lcela~d I
Mar 5 I Italy and Sicily I great q. I
C.R.51-68.
'[BA) 'II.
March 6 I q and Sounds I Santa June 22 I Loud sounds, southern
Nov 19 I Fireball I 2/3 moon I
Lucia de' Milazzo, Sicily I Concus- Iceland. On 26th, violent eruption
sion and 4 terrific crashes supposed of Kotlogian. Ashes cpvered ships
BA60.
90 mile's at sea. I
be subterranean. I See 1816.
Nov. 19 I q-phe I q. I Chile. I
March 14-15 I 'Calabria, Abruzzo, [Reverse side) Q. J. Roy Inst 16-396.
A. J: Sci 30-110 I 10:30 p.m, I
Tuscany; at Bologna and through
Dried up wells and brooks renewed,
June 26-July 23 I Eruption of Katla,
, .. Meleors Qr blazing stars and nakes
the whole chain of the Appenines I
'
Iceland I
Red snow I (P) I Mag of Sci 4-274 I
of
[Reverse side) SmithsoniaJ.1 Inst Rept,
[Reverse side) See March 13, 1813.
[Reverse side) fire are said to have
1885-510.
been seen in heavens; one very vivid
Ap. 2 I Manheim I Fireball 'July 23 I Blairgowrie I Watermeteor shot from the southwest
BA60.
spout I LT, Aug 8-2-d.
toward the southeast." I Had been Ap. 6 I Berlin I Fireball I B~ 60.
July 24 and 25 I Two remarkable
many slight shocks' in preceding
spots on sun, by Pastorff I (N,M.) I
I
Potsdam
I
Fireball,
I
Ap.
9
month
':R 49/811.
BA60.
[Second page) at Valparaiso. Then
July I In a heavy tho storm, a ball
May 2 I Embleton I Fireball I
q's every day.
of, heavy material-ab. 7 inches in
BA60.
Nov 19 I (Chili) I Valparaiso I
circumference,
May 7 I Panama I q. '/ III I
met 2/3 size of moon I burst I
[Reverse side) and weighing 8
[Heavy
I
BA
1911).
train of fire I BA '60-68.
ounces-fell at Coddenham, in SufI
Wurtemberg
I
yellow
dust
I
May
8
Nov. 19 I 10:15 p.m. I Great q I'
folk, I New Monthly Mag. 9-383.
Archives des D~oi.tvertes 18241223.
Chili I Nov 21-281 BA '54-144.
July 30 I Leipzig I Fireball I
13
I
Yellow
dust
called
'!sulMay
Nov. 22 I Valparaiso I 10 a.m. I
BA60.
phur" I C~ailsheim I Bull. des'
3 loud explosions,
1/1/301.
Aug 7.f q I Ragussa I See Aug 20. ,
Sciences
[Reverse side) after each of which
Aug 7 I Aerolite I also 1822 I
May 22 lin Nature, .41195, T. W,
the earth trembled. ,I other q's I
E. Mec 79/383.
Webb writes that he saw a small
BA 54.
Aug, 7 I See Sept, 1826. I NobleNov. 24 I Vesuvius renews with luminous body near Venus.
borough, Maine I Metite I (F) I
[BCF, p. 395:
, violence. I BA 54.
[Reverse side) or Oct II?
Nov 22 I Ves. eruption began,
An unknown, shining thing-it
Aug 9 I Singen. I N.E. to S.W, I
2 p.m. I vioh:nt to 25th I BA '54.
was seen, by Webb, May 22, 1823,' Fire!Jalll BA 60.
Nov 25 I 3 and 5 a.m. I Wurtemnear the planet Venus (Nature,
Aug 12 I Tubingen I Fireball I
burg I q and sounds I B As
14-195).
,BA60. '
54/144.
'
More unknowns, in the year
Aug 19 I Munich I Fireball I
Nov 26 I Valparaiso I tremendous
1823-see, Compte.!' Rendus, 49-811
BA60.
rainstorm-never before known to
and Webb's Celestial Objects, p. 43.)
occur at this season I BA 54-144.
Aug 20 I Ragusa I Fireball I

[BCF, p. 400:.'
BA60.'
Nov. 28 I Aerolite? I,See Nov, 2~,
1809. '
Unknown 'objects have been seen ,1-.ug 20 I q and met I at Ragussa I
~nd q there on 7th I BA 54.
near Venus. There were ,more than
Nov. 30 I (F) 'I Metite at' Futtehthirty such observations in ,the eigh- Aug 20 I Ragussa I Met and q, and
pore i shortly before sunset I Jour
teenth cent!Jry', not relating to so sea retired nearly a mile from toast. 'I
Asiatic Soc J;Jengal 30.1130 I
[R~se side) Edin, N. P, J. 53/245. 'j many different periods, however.' a~d Turkish Bos~ia I B.A., '54.

plmost desl-royed. I BA '54-142.

Nov II I Freiberg I BA
I
[Fireball).
Nov. 12 I Potsdam I Fireball I
BA60.
Nov. 15 I Apenrade I Fireball I
'SA 60.
Nov 19 I q-deluge I 10:30 I Time
of shock, the sky was cloudless,
moon. and stars shining brilliantly.
Weather continued clear. Evening
of 27th, tremendous rainstorm. I
Q. Jour Roy. Inst., 17-45 I Rain
had never fallen before in month
o[ November.
[Revese side) Shocks continued at
least to end of Sept., 1923 I?).
Nov 19 I (+) I Chili I (+) I q I
Writer in Q J Roy Inst 17-38 says
that some persons said that they
had seen
[Reverse side) an unusual light in
the horizon to the southward, but
that he had seen nothing.
[Second page) This writer was at
Concon, 15 miles NE of Valparaiso.
He says that at Valdivia, 39 50' S,
[Reverse side) 2 voleanoes burst out
. ,suddenly with great noise, iIIumi, nating the heavens, and then as
sudt!enly sUbsided. (This sky phe?)
On 27th, tremendous fall of rain in
a place where rain had never before
fallen.
'

60

Fourth 'Quarter 1981

Aug 20 I q phe I dark I at Ragussa I

L.T., Oct. 21-2-b I "On the ,20th
, the air became
',
[Reverse side) suddenly dark, A fiery
meteor appeared over the city, and
fell into the sea, followed by an
earthquake, that overthrew many
houses. The sea retired nearly a mile
from the shore.
[Front side) Felt strongly in Turkish
Bosnia, There it was reported that
a yolea,no had broken loose.
Aug' 23 I Report 54/153 I That
Aug 23, 1823, this time a mass of
rock was moved from its place and
rolled away, but that on, all other
occasions no such distinct earthquake phe.
[Reverse side) 9 occurrences of the
sound listed for Oct and Nov, 1824,
"unaccompan[ied) by any shock."
Aug ~5 I Asia Minor I q. I II I
[Medium I BA 1911).
ab: Aug 25 I th stone I Cor sends
stone to editor of A J. Sci (7-56),
saying that people of Stamford,
Conn.,
[Reverse side) thought it had fallen
from a thunder cloud. It was 'a
composition of sulphur in granite.
People named hill on which said
fallen "Brimstone Hill."
Aug 26 I At Dreux, France. Whirlwind called waterspout, Blackish
vapor and names in the middle of it,
[Reverse side) Hailstones size of
fists fell. I A. J. Sci 10/184.
Aug 29/l T, 2-c, from Nottingham
Review I Spook-bed post I For
5 or 6 weeks in a house in Warsop. '
[Reverse side) A sound like quacking of a duck, beginning at 3 p.m.
and continuing until morning. When
the occupants were in bed, [he sound
seemed to come from one of the bed
posts.
Sept 9 I See Sept 26. I In Silesia I
1:30 p.m. I Sound like 'thunder I
like whirlwind phe I BA 54/153.
Sept 13 I [london Times), 2-c I
Vole in Iceland.
Sept 16 I Genoa I whirl like Aug
26 I Same ref.
Oct 3 I Konigsberg I Fireball I
BA60.
Oct 10 I (I) leiter from M. Flauguergues, to Baron Zach.-ttia[t),
he had not seen any
[Reverse side) spots on the sun for
the preceding 16 months. I Edin
J. Sci 1-~71.
Oct. 10 I 10 h I Venus I Inf conjunction I (A I).
Oct. II I Aug 7 (1) II Nobleboro I
,Metite fell among sheep. I A. J.
Sci 7-171 I
,
[Reverse side) Analysis I 9/400 II
W) = Aug 7.
Oct 19 I -16 h I Mercury I Inr
conjunction (?) I (A I).
(A I).,

Oct 23 I Sh!lrply defined circular

spot, by Biela I Webb, Celestial
Objects. p ..43.
'
,Oct 23 I' S'light shocks and ext.

Pursuit 191

'.

when, accordi!lg' to prediction, it, Feb '4 / Shock~' / Sardinia 1 and a

should have been invisible. For sOme "noise'like that '0(3 storm" 1 BA,
'
'more instances of extreme vagaries :54":
of these ,satellites, see Monthly [1824 Feb II] / B'/lrkutsk 1 slight,
Notices, 43427, and Jour. B. A, A., 'shock / Feb II,:' 1824 1 3 severe
14-27: obServations by Noble, Turner, shocks, March Ii 1 SA Rept '54/!24.
White, .Holmes, Freeman, 'Good[BCF" p. 395:
.
acre, Ellis, and Molesworth. In perUpon Feb. II, 1824, a slight shock
iodical astronomical publications, was ,felt at Irkutsk, Siberia (Rept.
there is no more easily' findable B. A., 1854-124). Upon February 18,
material for heresy than such ob- or, according to other accounts, upon
servations. We shall have' other May 14, a slOne that weighed five
instances. They abound in the pounds, fell from the sky at Irkutsk,
English Mechanic, for instance. (Rept. B. ,A., 1860-70). Three severe
But, in spite of a host of such ob- shocks at Irklllsk. March 8, 1824
servations, Prof. Young (The Sun,
(Rept. B. A .. 1854-124).]
p. 35) says that the time occupied
Feb 18 / or, other accounts, May
by light coming from these satellites
14-stone weighing 5 pounds fell
is doubtful by "only a fraction of
a second." h is of course anot her at Irkutsk,: Siberia. / Rept. B. Assoc
18601701 :See 1829.
instance of the astronomers who
Feb: 21 /: Greece / [Io]nian island
know very lillie of astronomy.)
of [S)anta' Maura 1 q. 1 I / [light 1
Dec 13 / Belley (Ain) I Firehall !
BA 1911].
BA60.
Feb 26 1 [London Times], 3-b 1 q 1
Dec 13 or 16/ Belley (Ain), France /
Bergen, Norway.
Shock said by some persons occurred
March I 1 Berlin / 'Fireball 1 BA 60, .
at I a.m. At
[Reverse side) 3 a.m., an explosion.
[BCF, p. 395 1 See Feb. II, 1824.]
and ac to one person. the heavens
March 24 1 Op Mars / Annals of
appeared on fire. / listed with q's /
Phil 23/107 1 ac to Francis Baily.
B Assoc 54/154.
April 10 1 Very severe shocks,
Dec. 13 1 3 a.m. ! Bellay (Ain) /
Jamaica, preceded by a violent
q, an~ sky as iF on lire / CR. 17-622.
wind. ! BA 54.
Ap. 17 i Linlithgowshire / Fire1824
ball! BA 60.
/ Meleda / See Humboldt. / Cosmos
Ap. 20 / abo 3 a.m. 1 "Terrible" q 1
1-205.
St Thomas, W. Indies 1 BA 54.
/ Jubilee of Leo XII i Poitiers /
[BCF, p. 395 ! See Feb. II, 1824.]
Cross 200 ft. high over a church!
from last of May to last of Aug. 1
2 hours / Sun, 1882, March 7-1-3.
No sunspots were observed by
Jan 1-10 / One large spot on sun /
Flaugergues. ! Edin J. Sci 211,72.
Sci. Gazelle 140.
JU,ne 23 / Q in Persia .. and renewal
Jan 1 q's / Philippines / II [medium)
of vole in Java which began on 9th. 1
BA'II.
BA 54.
Jan 6-7 / night / Bohemi!l ! The first
June 25 1 5:30 a.m. 1 Shiraz /
of many shocks. On Jan I, a sound
great q ! An Reg '24-72.
like thunder. / BA 54-155.
July! D-84 / fish 1 Meerut. India 1
Jan 13 / Bohemia / q-wells in sevliv Agc 52/186;
[BCF, p. 359:
eral places which for years been dry
"n the Annals of Philosophy,
[Reverse side] suddenly filled with
23-29, Col. BeauFoy writes that, upwater. / BA 54.
[BCF ..,.86:
on Dec. 7, 1823. he looked for the
Jan 15 / q-stat above / (Cut) /
Apart from our three factors of
emergence of Jupiter's third satellite.
Boves, Piedmont / 3 shocks 1
indication, an extraordinary obserai the time set down in the National
12:20! 12:30/2 a.m. / A meteoric 'vation is the fall of living things
Almf!nac: for twO hours he looked.
[Reverse side] slOne fell on rhis day
without injury to them. The devotees
and did not see the satellite emerge.
at Arenazzo, [n]ear Ferrara (Chladni).
of SI. Isaac explain that they fall
In. Monthly Notices, 44-8, an astron/ B Assoc '54/156 / (F).
upon thick grass and so survive: blll
omer writes that, upon the night of
Jan 13 or Feb. 6 / (It) i Renazzo,
Sir James Emerson Tennant, in his
Oct. 15, 1883, one of the satellites
Bologna, hal[y] / Metite 1 B.A. '60.
Historv of Ceylon, tells of a fall of
of Jupiter was forty-six minutes late.
fishes' upon gravel,' by which they
Jan 19 I bet II a.m. and noon. /
A paper was read at the meeting of
wer.e seemingly uninjured. SomeQ. Ionian Islands. followed by
the British Astronomical Associathing eise apart from our three
heavy rain which lasted several days.!
tion, Feb. 8, 1907, upon a satellite
main inrerests is a phenomenon that
BA 54.
thai was twenty minutes late. In
looks like what one might call an
toward end of Jan. / Many stones
Telescopic Work, p. 191, W. F.
alternating series of falls of fishes,
. Denning: writes that, upon the night
near Arenazzo, Bologna ! An de
whate'ver the significance may be: .
'. of Sept. 12, 1889. he and two other
Chimie 2/31/261.
Meerut, India, July, 1824' (Living
astronomers could not see satellite
Jan' 22 / [london Times], 2-c !
,Age, 52-186); Fifeshire, Scotland,
IV at all. See the Observatory,
27-3-e / Feb 5-3c / Comet.
,summer,lof 1824 (Wernericin Nat. ,
9-237-sat~lIite IV disappeared 15
Jan 30 / "Terrible shocks" ! Phil- :Hist. Soc. Trims.,' 55:75): Moradminutes before' calculated 'time;
ippines /,BA 54.
abad; India,' July, 1826 (Living Age,
about a minute later it re-appeared;
,
[BCF,
p. 395:
52-186): Ross-shire,"Scoillmd, '1828,
. disappeared again; re-appeared nine'
February, 1824-t1!e sounds of "CLiving Age, 52-186); I'vi"oradapad,"
minutes later,. For Todd',s- observa
Melida.] ,
I"
Indil!-; July '20; L829 (Lin. Soc.
. tions see the Obserl'atory,' 2-227":'"
Feb 3 / W!lterford 1 Lightning , Trans.,. 16-764); 'Perthshire, Scotsix tifTIes, between Jl,llie 9, an~
land .(Livi';g:Age,' 52-186),; Argrl~~
reduces a girl to a.shes .. , "
July'2, 1878, a satellite was visible

heat, at Mi~schrift, Siberia. !

"BA 54.
. Oct 27 1 Polt[ergeist] stones" 1
[London Times],- 3-b 1 = MondayL.T: I. A ghost at Pimlico.:...for2
weeks reports that a.gho~t, in vari. ous forms, had been seen: Night of
21st, s.ho\vers of "stones, brickbats
and missiles~' broke almost everv
.
pane of glass at Nos.
[Reversc .side] 4, 5, 6, 7 Elizabeth
place, Queen Street. Some of the
stones' weighed at least seven pounds.
Origin could not be discovered.
Night of 22nd, about the some hour,
and 23rd, "same time precisely,
more showers, breaking furniture.
[Second page) Said that constables
and watchmen ~ere on guard
[Reverse side] but that the "diabolical offender" could not be discovered. 1 So definite story or"
stones but no' definite story of
ghost seen.
Nov 17 / China 1 q 1 III 1
[Heavy 1 BA 19(1).
Nov 21 1 Freiberg, etc. 1 loud
'sound and q 1 BA 54/153.
Nov' 24 / Stockholm and other
pl.aces in Sweden-"a dull sound
that seemed to come down from
[Reverse side) the atmosphere-then
a violent tcmpest. Shock not fe!t in
mines.
Nov' 26 /. Shock I Calculla /
BA 54.
Nov. 27 1 .l\erolite? ! See Nov.
29,1809.
, Nov 30 1 3:10 p.m. / Martinique'l
q and sea waves / Heat had been
[Reverse side] suffocating. Abundant
rain followed q and lasted Hi days. /
BA 54.
Nov 30 1 Q and great rain .at MilT.tinique / C.R. 16-1292 / See Nov 30,
. '24.
Dec 6 / Aix 1 Fireball / BA 60.

**

shire, Scotland, 183(); March 9, 1830

(Recreative Science, 3-3~9); Fenidpoor, India, Feb. 19, 1830 (Jour.
Asiatic Soc. of 8enga.l, 2-650):
A psycho-tropism that arises heredisregarding serial sig'nificance-or
mechanical, unintelligent, repulsive,"
reflex-is that the tishes of India
did not fall from ihe sky; that they
were found upon. the ground after
torrential. rains. because streams'
had overflowed and haCi then
receded.]
ab July 1 / Herrings.1 Shalhinday,
Bleachfield, Eng. 1 Phil Mag 641.152.
July I~ or 14 1 Tidal Wave 1 Coast
of Devonshire. Had been fine weather
but "the atmosphere seeined to be
charged with ele'ctric mailer." '1
Gents Mag, Aug., 18241
[Reve~se side] But from the south
and west a "continued peal of th!lnder was heard, which lasted for
many hours." Then a huge tida,l
wave rushed up the river Dart.
'July 18 / departments of Fran[ce],
Eastern "Pyrenees, Ande, Tarn, etc. 1 :
Lightning in th'e sky and flashes like '
lightning all
[Reverse side] day at Carcassone. 1
No thunder heard. / At abo 10:20,
a q or shock. 1 See Feb 24. 1
B Assoc 54/160 1
[Front side) ([F]eb ,[2]4 see).
July 18 / France-Ea~tern Pyrenees 1
ab 10:20 p.m. / At Mont-Louis,'
where weather had been clear:"
a violent storm immediately after
the q. / BA 54 1 '
[Reverse side] At Perpignan air
seemed filled with burning yapors.
At Carcassone a blast of wind as if
from an explosion. During the day,
all points of horizon illuminated by
lightning but no thunder.
July 29 1 Eruption 1 Canary Islands / '
la~ted into Oct or Nov / BA 54.
Aug II or 1,2 1 Tuscany, Italy 1
Fireball / BA 60.
Aug II and 12 / Qs and dry fog in
Tuscany / CR. 17-622.
'
Aug 11-12 ! (Cut) / night / Alps,- .
a traveller reported a 3-minute globe . '
of fire. !
[Reverse side] Arago, Oeuvres XI/'
573.
Aug 12 / Romagna, Italy / q. 1 I 1
[light! BA 1911].
Aug 13 ! On 12th, a fireball. 1 Next
morning, "a mist of pec~liar char-,
acter". Then early morn shm;ks. I.
Tuscany /
[Reverse side) BA 54/161.
Aug 13 / Dust from:a black cloud
over Buenos Aires and
[Reverse sid,e) 40 leagues away discharged again. 1 Thom[p)son, Intro
to Met-p. 1.58.
'
Aug 18 1 At Harderwyck, in Guelderland. News from' Brussels;' in
leeds Mercury, Sept 1r.
,[Rever.se side] A ,tremendous noise,
so great rOOple thought roofs coming
'down",am!,q.:
'

(To iHl continued)

":'

'

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA ':Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, $f:!cretary and Treasurer; Gregory
Arend, Steven N. Mayne, Robert C. Warth, Nancy L. Warth, Martin Wiegler; and Albena Zwerver, Trustees.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, PaleO-Indian Institute,
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation ofthe Brain Injured, Morton, Pa.
.,
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
.
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University. Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
.
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(PhySical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (~sychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant, National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering. Butler. N.J.
(Mental Sciences)
.
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
.
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew l,lniversity,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, botanist and geologist Ivan T.. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
'''ith a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other professionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the SOciety for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the SOciety.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. I, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "hom one place to another and even through solids"-the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was botn,
began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.
...
..and thus ..Pursuit
'; ::
:

Printed in U.S.A.
;.:

-::~.,

ISSN 0033-4685

Agoglno, George, 155

Atlantis: Lost and Found Again, Part II,
Part Ill, 79; Part IV, 173
Averbuck, Philip, 104

23;

Batls, Olga, 11
Bearden, Thomas E., 107
Berger, Ernst, 2
Berlitz, Charles, 6
Bird, Christopher, 162
Bord, Janet & Colin, 54
Brazilian Flap, The, 100
Burch, Thgmas B., 59

~--------------~
of
. I Ching Notebook, 123
. Icebergs or "Waters the Earth"?,
Ice Falls and the Leldenfrost Effect,
Individual and the UFO, The. 5
Letters.

162
56

43, 93. 188

Mace~-Story, Eugenia, 98
Medusa Cell, The, 172
Memos & Miscellany. 42, 127
Mlssissauga Blob. The, 29
More Evidence Needed [about Lake
Champlain Monster], Pursuit No. 55,
back cover
Mystery Light at Watersmeet, Pursuit
No. 54. back cover

"Champ" [of Lake Champlaln]A Personal Update, 51

"Champ" [of Lake Champlain] and
the 1977 Mansi Photograph, 50
Chatelain, Maurice. 6
China Features, 64
Clark, Nancy, 152
Congo Water-Dragon, The, 104
Dark Side of the UFO, The, 2
Deep-Sky Earthquake Predicting,

Index
1981

Neidigh, Kim L..

178

Odd Luminosities (UFOs) and Other

Fortean Events Before Earthquakes:
The New Madrid Test. 69

Eads, Morgan D., 56

Eden, Daniel, 10
Editorials, I, 49, 97, 145
Electra, Who Came From Another Planet,
Speaks to Woman [Magazine], 11
Elusive Powys Beast, The, 54

Pabst. Carl J. (See "Fort, Charles, The

Notes or)
Persinger, Michael A., 69
Prehistoric Race of White People May
Have Lived In West Virginia's
Kanawha Valley, A, 152

Fort, Charles, The Notes of, Deciphered

by Carl J. Pabst, 46, 142, 190
Frauzen, Marla, 158

Recollections fr~m the Life of a

Radlesthesist, 158
Regular Rapping and Other Mysteries.
The. 129
Report on the Press. 38
Resurrection of Hultzolopochli, The. 155

Grise, Allan J., 178

Holland, Harold, 129

Ancient Stones Speak, The, David D.

link, 39
Case for Life After Death, The, Elizabeth
McAdams and Raymond Bayless, 181
Casebook of a UFO Researcher, Raymond
E. Fowler, 41
Celestial Passengers: UFOs and Space
Travel, Margaret Sachs and Ernest
Jahn, 180
Etherean Invasion, The, John
De Herrera, 86
Excalibur Briefing, The, Thomas
E. Bearden, 134
Dernlers Dragons d'Afrlque, Les, (Africa's
Last Dragons), Bernard
Heuvelmans, 134

Books
Reviewed
Manlike Monsters on Trial, MarjOrie Halpin
& Michael M. Ames. eds., 180
MEVS: Creator of the Pyramids,
Edgar D. Wilson, 87
Missing Time, Budd Hopkins, 181
Mythical Creatures of the U.S.A. and
Canada, Walker D. Wyman, 87
No Witness, Gerald A. Hausman, 136
Perpetual Motion: The History of
an ObseSSion. Arthur W. J. G.
Ord-Hume, 86

Sailing In a Glowing Sea, 66

Sampson County Mystery Animal, 149
Sanderson, Ivan T., 13
Sanderson, Sabina W., 33, 123
Scientists Find Nearly Perfect Remains
of ''Zhuantang Ape-Man" Killed In
1957, 65
Singer, Jon Douglas, 23, 79, 173
SITUations, 35,89, 137, 184
Some Curiosities of Animal Behaviour
with Regard to Time, 33
Some Perceptual Effects of UFO
Contact, 98
Sorrell, Roderlc, 123
Space Scientist Maurice Chatelain Affirms
His Faith in the UFO Phenomenon (Interview with Charles Berlitz), 6
Sweet Inftuences of Pleiades, 63
Symposium, 146
Teleportation and Relativistic
Rest-Mass?, 10
Tesla's Secret and the Soviet Tesla
Weapons, 107
Thompson, Paul B., 149, 172
Tree of Life, The, 168
Was It Collective PK?, 133
Whalen, Dwight, 29
Why the Government Should Fund UFO
Studies, 59
Wilson, Fred, SO
Wirth, Diane E., 63, 168
Wood, Charles E., 67
Wudewasa or Hairy Primitives of
Ancient Europe, The, 13
larzynskl, Joseph E.,

51

Project Identification, Harley D.

Rutledge, 181
Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic
Realm, Charles P. Tart, 86
Psychic Nexus, Berthold Eric Schwarz, 88
Right Brain, The: A New Understanding
of the Unconscious Mind and Its
Creative Powers, Thomas R.
Blakeslee, 39
Saga America, Barry Fell. 41
Stones of Atlantis; The, David link. 39
To Stretch a Plank: A Survey of Psychokinesis, Diana Robinson, 135
UFOs and the limits of Science,
Ronald D. Story with Richard
Greenwell. 134

"Science;' tJae Pursuit 0/ tJae Unexplained'

Volume 15
Number 1
Whole 57

Journal of SITU
The
Society for the
Investigation of
The Unexplained

First Quarter
1982

WORLD ENERGY WEB-4th DENSITY LEVEL

(See 'The Planetary Grid', Page 6)

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
SITU (pronounced sit' - you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting. data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
SOciety studi.es unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or will not study.
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
Membership is for the calendar year, January-December, $12 in the United States. Elsewhere, membership is $12 plus a surcharge necessitated by the additional mailing cost. Amount of surcharge, which varies
according to region, will be quoted in response to individual request. Members receive the Society's quarterly
journal Pursuit plus any special SITU publications fot the year of membership.
SITU welcomes membership participation. Members should send articles, photographs, newspaper
clips, book reviews and "letters to the editors" to be considered for publication in Pursuit to Fred Wilson,
66 Bortic Road, P.O. Box 134, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009 USA. Use this address for Pursuit material only.
Other mail, including changes of address, library orders, postal errors, back issue requests, renewals, giftmemberships and donations should be sent to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address at the top of
this page. Please allow six or more weeks advance notice of change of address.
OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION
SITU has reference files which include original reports, newspaper and magazine clippings, correspondence,
audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answered by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff tim~, a fee for research will be
charged. Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped envelope with the inquiry so
that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The legal affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the laws of the State
of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists deSignated the Scientific Advisory
Board (see inside back cover).
IMPORTANT NOTICES

).

The Society is unable to offer and will not render any services to non-members.
The Society does not hold any political, religious, corporate or social views. Opinions expressed in Pursuit
concerning such matters, and any aspect of human medicine or psychology, the social sciences or law, religion
or ethics, are those of the individual member or author and not those of the Society.
The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications,
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available
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Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are tax deductible to the extent permitted by the U.S.
Internal Revenue Code, and in some states as their taxing authorities may permit.
PUBLICATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the issues are numbered respectively from
1 through 4 and constitute a volume, Volume 1 being for 1968 and before, Volume 2 for 1969, and so on. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit, without membership benefits, are available to public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $10 for the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fully protected by international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof may be granted, at the discretion of SrnJ and the author, upon written request and statement of proposed
use, directed to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address printed at the top of this page.

THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE

rsuit@

SOCIETY FOR THE

INVESTIGATION OF

THE

UNEXPlAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents
Page
The Cox-Richards PK Experiments
by Prof. Walter H. Uphoff ................ '.2
The Planetary Grid: Cornerstone of
Science and Evolution
by John T. Sinkiewicz : ........... '........ 6
Vermont's UFO Invasion
by Susan Gr~en .... ~ ................. ~ .. 16
The Politics ,of Water
by Christopher Bird ..................... 19
The Chinese Comiection: Evidence
of Trans-Pacific Voyages
in Pre-Columbian Times
by Diane E. Wirth ....................... 23
The Origins of Lemuria (Part I)
by Jon Douglas Singer ................... 29
Giza's Pyramids Do Not Show Evidence
for the Stability of the Solar System
fince c. 2700 B.C.
by Thomas McCreery .................... 35
Ancient Letters from Iberia
by Ida Jane Gallagher ................... 39
The Vampire as Reality
by Kim L. Neidigh ...................... 42
I

Letters ..................................... 44

SITUations . .......................... '...... 46

Memos & Miscellany ........' ................ 48
Front and back cover drawings by John Sinkiewicz
illUstrate his concept oj the "World Energy Web"
at progressive density levels. See his article, page 6.
Above: Portrait of Charles Fort (c. 1920) courtesy of Aaron
Sussman. Tracing oj Granby, Colorado sculpture courtesy oj
Donal B. Buchanan.

The two gentlemen pictured above join with the author of

our cover story in demonstrating, each in his own way, the
importance of a good data base to the process of de-mystifying
"things unexplained."
Charles Fort created one of the first and most comprehensive data bases in history. He noted on more than 40,000 slips
of paper, occurrences of phenomena all over the world as
reported In major, periodicals published more than 100 years
ago. The small fractidn of his notes thus far published has
provided the raw material for some highly Significant studies
of recurring pbenomena.
The gentleman on the left has something else to tell us. The
letters carved on his belly are highlighted In this tracing from
the page 28 photograph of an Important artifact. Only years
after: this object WilS discovered did, scholars recognize the
language as ancient Iberian script, and no one yet knows what
,it all says; other artifacts bearing the same script have yet to
be found in the minimum quantity necessary to allow study and
comparison to proceed. Meanwhile, Its grimacing presence reminds us of what happens when we don't have a data base:
nothing.
Pages 6 to 15 demonstrate how strong a structure of logic
can be built on a good data base. John Sinkiewlcz drew on expertise he acquired lA/hlle working for one of the giant U.S.
computer manufacturers, but the data base for, and the resultant study of the Planetary G;ld and what it means, are his
own doing. Whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, you'l doubtless share our admiration for the disciplined
method he follows.
Other important aata bases have been gathering over long
periods of time. Perhaps we should get started classifying and
comparing and interpreting them with the new tools now available, so that bits and pieces of data can be connected to support whole, new structures of useful information. In the next
issue, a well-known advocate of computer-assisteCi investigation
will preview some of the exciting possibilities. - The editors

Pursuit Vol. IS, No. I, Whole No. 57, First Quarter 1982. Copyright 1982 by The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained. ISSN 0033-4685.
No part of this periodical m,ay be reproduced without the written consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
Editor; Sabina W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and Oceanographic Consultant.

The Cox-Richards PK Experiments

by Prof. Walter H. Uphoff
,

OLLA, Missouri is, an average American community ,

which, until recently, had little basis for attracting
international attention. Now, a series of psychokinetic
events which have occurred there and which have been
recorded on movie film, under controlled conditions, will
cause parapsychologists-although perhaps not all-and
others to examine the limitations of the scientific community's view of reality. What we report here, we are confident, will someday be regarded as one of the most significant breakthroughs for psychic research in this century'.
We have witnessed the PK feats of Geller, M. Kiyota, H.
Yamashita, Mike Edwards and others; the sketches of
deceased persons done by Coral Ploge, the British psychic
artist, so characteristic that relatives and friends in her audiences can iden~ify them; we have observed Kiyota, the
Veillaux family, Ted Serios and Willi Schwanholz produce
astonishing unexplainable effects on film; we have witnessed, filmed and experienced psychic surgery in the Philippines; experienced mental medi~mship at its best with Eoa
Twigg in London; seen genuine and fraudulent material:'
iza~ions; acquired at least sixty tapes of the impressive
"direct voice" sittings recorded by S. G. Woods and Betty
Grecne with Leslie Flint, London; spent many hours with
Dr. 'Konstantin Raudive in the early 1970s, and f9llowed
the EVP experiments of others in Germany, England and
, the U.S.
All of these are significant phenomena which undergird
the view that life is ongoing-a view held by many through
the centuries (largely on faith alone), and questioned or rejected by others because it conflicted with the materialistic
paradigms promulgated by most of science and academia
during the last century or so. Now science and religion are
being confronted with so much evidence for dimensions of
reality behind the five senses' that eventually their view of
, life and the universe will be expanded. We cannot change
the facts. We can only explore, or refuse to explore, the psi.
phenomena reported from al,l corners of the world.
With no intention of detracting from the excellent
evidential material produced by the psychics I have mentioned, and that of-many others, the experiinents at Rolla
provide still more evidence of the paranormal. It should be
'added, as Prof. Walter Frank of Bonn University states,
that the prefix "para" is becoming obsolete as these events
move more and more toward the center of the stage.
The Cox-Richards PK experiments can easily be dismissed only by those who refuse to see or are afraid to look.
The evidence now on reels of movie fIlm should eventually
lead to a redefinition and a broadening of concepts of
'physics, biology and other natural sciences, as well as
wider views of life and the doctrines of religion. This, I
realize, is a broad statement, but I begin with the preinise
that neither I, nor anyone else, can alter the facts . .We can
only examine them or refuse to look at them. Only to the
extent that we can be intellectually free and uninhibited in
seeking the truth-whatever that may be-can progress be
made toward understanding what life is all about.
I ask you to excuse the length of this' prelude to the
story, but I thought it only fair to let the reader know

'-

Pursu"2

about my experiences and approach so that they may be

taken into account in evaluating thiS report on the CoxRichards experiments.
Rolla, located about 100 miles southwest of St. Louis, is
where Dr: John Thomas Richards and his wife, Elaine, are
the' central figures in PK experiments which have created
'excitement, controversy and disbelief. During the 1960s
an4 early 1970s, Prof. John G. Neihardt, literary critic,
psychic and poet~in-residence at' the University of Missouri, and his wife Mona, a talented sculptress, invited students to their home at Skyrim Farm for study and experimentation in psychic phenomena. Neihardt's interest had
beep sparked by his acquaintance with and study of the
fam,ous American Indian medicine man, Black Elk, and by
MO,na Neihardt's research in parap~ychology. Between
1961 and.1973, when Dr. Neihardt died, more than a dozen
persons had witnessed levitation and other phenomena at
Skyrim, and several of the participants developed or
enhanced their psychic sensitivities. The group called itself
the Society for Research into Rapport and Telekinesis
(SORRAT). Dr. Richards has written an account of these
experiments in a recently published book, SORRA T: A
History of the Neihardt PK Experiments. -The Richards,
who' were longtime participants in the experiments, now
live in Rolla and apparently serve as the "lightning rod"
(antenna) which attracts or enhances the energies which
have produced'incredible phenomena on movie film and
on paper.
,
William Edward .Cox, a longtime associate of the late
Dr. Joseph B. Rhine, moved to Rolla in 1977 so that he
could set up and monitor experiments which would demonstrate, even to honest critics, that PK phenomena, are
real. The focus of the PK activity has been a "miniature
laboratory" (mini-lab) designed at the suggestion of Dr.
Rhine, which is an inverted aquarium fastened to a base
with metal bands whi~h can be locked and sealed to prevent entry by anyone but Cox who had the key to the locks.
The photographs show the mini-lab that was constructed
by Cox and Steve Calvin. Microswitches installed inside
the mini-lab turn on lights and activate the 8mm movie
camera whenever any movement occurs behind the glass.
The .following are some of the activities recorded on 29
reels of film during the course of the experiments:
':""Balloons inflating and deflating and pushing objects
I which were in the way;
,
-Leather, plastic and paper rings linking (interpenetration Qf matter) and scparating, often repeating' this activity
several times in succession;
,
-Spontaneous' but controlled burning of paper;
-Pens entering the locked mini-la~ and writing answers
t9 questions in several styles of "hand" writing;
-Zener cards flying out of a sealed packet, quickly sorting into symbol stacks and re-entering the packet without
breaking the seal;
Scarecrow Press, 52 Liberty Street, P.O. Box 656, Metuchen, New
. .

Jersey 08840.

'When we i'nvestigate phenomena.

the first thing we try to do is learn
all we can about the integrity and
the competence of ~he experimenters. If the evidence is positive. we
proceed; if there is any serious
question. we drop the case and let
someone else investigate it if they
want to.' -Walter Uphoff
Front and side views (below) of the 'mini-lab' In which
the Cox-Richards experiments were conducted. and
(at left) the movie camera used to record the events.

-A pinwheel spinning rapidly inside the mini-lab while

other light objects such as paper and balloons remain motionless, with no known way of producing a breeze inside
. the mini-lab.
Some relevant details will help the reader understand
how these events occurred and were filmed. The site of the
experiments was a: smali storage room in the basement of
the Richards' home. A collection of small objects (changed
from time to time) was placed inside, and the mini-lab was
then locked up and set on a small table. Focused on the
mini-lab was an old-fashioned 8mm movie camera which
had to be wound by hand and would run 30 to 40 seconds
after a winding. Thus, when a PK. event activated the
lights, the movement was so fast that only part of the activity was caught on film. For example, the first film segment we saw was of a pen standing upright and writing
very fast. The paper inside the mini-lab bore the message
"Glorious 4th." This took place on July 4, 1979, the anniversary of U.S. Independence. The film which recorded
the activity caught only" ... ious 4th" on nine frames, or
for about 6/10 of a second, which Cox estimated was at
least three times as fast as he could have written the same
phrase.
.
Although many PK events were experienced at Skyrim
Farm by the SORRAT group, it was not until Cox designed the mini-lab that the evidence could be recorded for
others to see and examine. Cox and Richards designated us
First Quarter 1982

at the New Frontiers Center to get the films copyrighted

and make them available to those television producers who
would agree to present the story objectively rather than
slightingly or in a negative manner. The 29 reels of film
containing paranormal effects were obtained between
January 1979 and September 1981. Dr. Richards has
stored the original films in safekeeping, for ~he record and
for serious investigators to examine. Dl,lplicate prints of
the films in super-8mm and. some in l6mm have been
made. Brazilian television has presented the experiments;
Austrian television has the films under review. A Dutch
TV producer has expressed interest, and a U.S. TV net~
work i~ considering the films for a future program.
Although the Richards seem to be the most effective
psychiC force or channel for these manifestations, the
phenomena have occurred in three other places in Rolla;
and since September 1981 Dr. Peter Phillips, a physicist at
Washington University, St. Louis, has installed equipment
more elaborate than that at Rolla, including a 16mm
camera. He has duplicated some of the PK effect~ despite
more malfunctioning of the equipment than had been expected.
Julian Isaacs, a research parapsychologist at the University of Aston, Birmingham, England, who visited Cox and
A non-profit foundation established to explore and disseminate evidence
related to the broad dimensions of holistic health, psychic phenomena
and survival of death.

Purs.'t 3

. This Is a photocopy of the first "direct writing" &om the mlnllab experiments as viewed on film bV Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff
in October 1980 at the home of William E. Cox. Cox ran the
8mm film-clip showing a pen rising erect and writing rapldlv
":Glorlous 4th" and failing over. The writing occurred on' the
'. 4th of Julv, ,1979. The film caught "Ious 4th" on 9 &ames. Cox
calculated that It was done within 6/10 second, or less than
1/3 the time It would take to write the same message freehand.

Richards at Rolla,' has also constructed mini-labs at his

university and obtained severely bent metal, writing, and
other effects inside them, which adds further support for
the genuineness of the phenomenon.
Someone who had many thousands of dollars might be
able to simulate soine, but not all, of the effects on these
films. It should be noted that Cox and Richards had very
limited resources and equipment. It would be impossible to
simulate by normal means, the paranormal effect of- balloons inflating and deflating inside a locked mini-lab. According to Cox, taking apart and again closing, locking
and sealing the mini-lab even once takes about 15 minutes.
To simulate that effect on film would require a camera
which could take single-frame pictures, and the mini-lab
would have to be opened and closed 16 times for one second of film, or 960 times per minute, or 80 hours, 'to produce just one minute of film that would show the balloon
inflating or deflating. How could one inflate or deflate a
balloon by exactly the right amount so that each succeeding frame would show so gradual and consistent an increase or decrease in size that it would not be detected
when individual frames of the film were examined? Then,
. to suspend 'the balloon in precisely the same position so
that the films would not appear "jerky" would be as difficult, if not impossible. There is more than half an hour of
paranormal effects on about 100 minutes of film. It would
require not 80 but several thousand hours to replicate even
a portion of the effects by normal means. Who would have
the patience and motivation to undertake,such a wholesale
attempt at deception?
.
. When we investigate phenomena, the first thing we try
to do is learn all we can about the integrity and the competence of the experimenters. If the evidence is positive, we
proceed; if there is any serious question, we drop the' case
and let someone else investigate .it if they want to. .
In one of the early films, a steel bar which was 'originally
. propped up against the back wall inside the mini-lab, can
be seen to exit through the glass and.drop in front of the
mini-lab-all in the blink of an .eye. The next photo, which
I took with my camera while viewing some of t~e movie
film, shows a balloon suspended in midair inside the minilab:
.

Pursu',4

The next photo shows a misshapen plastic thermometer

. which was paranormally melted by' heat (?). Beside it is a
small package. This was a sealed packet of Zener cards
which vanished from inside the mini-lab and arrived in
Valley City, North Dakota, about a.thousand miles away ..
When the packet was returned to Cox, in addition to the
U.S. postage stamps, there was also on it a 30-pfennig German stamp:

The physical effects shown on the film are very impressive, bl;lt equally challenging is the content of me~sages re-

first Quarter 1982

ceived by "direct writing." Pens can be seen standing on

end and moving rapidly, the message in some instances
reflecting wit and humor on the part of the communicating
entities; in other examples expressing a deep concern about
the future of mankind because they see us embarked on a
course leading to nuclear war and annihilation.
James McClenon, Hyattsville, Maryland, who recently
completed his Ph.D: thesis "Deviant Science: the Case of
Parapsychology," spent weeks at the Richards' home, investigating the experimental design and sleeping in the
basement. He apparently has "established excellent rapport
with the communicating entities; he has gotten more direct
writing than anyone else. Following are excerpts from
some of the many pages of writing in varieties of styles that
McClenon has r"eceived:
"

When asked about pain, heartbreak, suffering, misery and

depression, the communicators wrote:
" "HELP OTHERS
Of necessity, if you live in a body and are subject to
the chances, frailties and wearing out of the carcass
you must lug about, you will often suffer. So long
as you care deeply, you will experience joy and grief.
That goes with being human. If you concentrate on
helping others you will be too busy for the petty concerns of the self to whine down your finer self. Realize that we" on our side of the change you consider
death are also human/sentient and often feel just as
you do, morally and psychologically. Pity abides.
Try to do all you can and then you feel no guilt for
omissive harms."

An entity identifying "itself as "J ohn King," a pirate who

lived during the 17th century, wrote:

Asked why it was difficult to produce psi effects when

someone was watching, this answer came:

"

.,.,.-

Ji
o h . "fl htJtAf.r.
~oIIOW~

MY

In October 1981 "John King" wrote:

"'near Jim. It is hard not to follow political processes when much of our energy must go to averting war.
We have not had the energy available of late-and
you know what happened in Cairo. [The assassination of Sadat]"
This message came at a time when there was not much activity in the mini-lab in Rolla.
Earlier in 1981 (June 3) McClenon and three friends had
written a note which began:
"Dear Spirit Friends, . . . Why didn't you make
raps for us here in Hyattsville, Maryland? ...
They replied:
"Dear 'Flesh-friends'
It takes "time"-as you think of duration-to 'build
a psi circle. you,may not get any PK activity for a
long while. As we wrote to you c/o George Hansen,
persevere! By the way, what difference does it make
to you whether your friends, or acquaintances, or
any "body" else for that [matter] . . . have their
skins on or not. You are "spirits" too, you know."
First Quarter 1982

"Psi is curious; there is

"a whole melding of constructs when physical
, and non-physical factors
are mixed like tripe in a
pail. It does seem very
hard for us to use PSI
when the alpha state
and the beta state predominate in your mind.
"The energy is inhibited- "
but exactly how I am
uncertain. I will put a
higher level to quiz about
what precisely happens
and then try to tell you."

It is inevitable that
people draw different
conclusions and interpret
differently the phenomena occurring in the
mini-labs of Cox and Richards and Professors Phillips and
Isaacs. Based on our familiarity with the experimenters
and the films, we think the most plausible explanation is
that entities from other times and other dimensions are
demon"strating their continued existence and showing a
continuing concern" about what happens to us and to
Planet Earth. Dr. Richards ,also holds that viewpoint. Mr.
Cox, until now, has chosen to speak of the active force as
"the Agency" rather than "entity"-ieaving open the possibility that PK effects could be caused by the energy of a
living or a dead person. Others seek to attribute the energy
to the "subconscious" of the individuals involved.
In any case, the evidence on film and the messages in
writing should initiate an i~portant and lively dialogue
among those in the field of parapsychology and other sci~
entific fields as well.

Prof. Uphoff's article was written for the March 1982

issue of Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Parapsychologie (Journal of Parapsychology) based in Hamburg, West Germany. Pursuit's editors express thanks to Prof. Uphoff
for his courtesy in providing the English translation and
the accompanying illustrations.
Pursu',5

THE PLANETARY GRID

Cornerstone of Science and Evolution
by John T. Sinldewicz
Much has been written about the possibility of there being.
a World Grid. or Web. Many writers on this subject have
gone to great lengths to show their particular theory and
supporting data jor such a grid's existence. Usually one
theory would show how their particular scheme for a grid
was the correct one. while al/ other claims for different
theories were incomplete.
This article wilt. I believe. provide the necessary data to
(1) show that there is in fact a World Grid, and (2) show
how most other theories about the subject will fit rather
nicely into the actual grid.

THE ACTUAL basic grid structure, I believe, was first

~ uncovered by Ivan T. Sanderson and his Society for

the Investigation of The Unexplained, back in the 1960s.
The Sanderson findings were followed by those of a group
of Russians who, working as a team of multi-disciplined
scientists, proposed a world-grid system that formed a spherical icosa-dodecahedron. (Fig. 1) "[heir research was writtenup in the United States by Christophe~ Bird, and has since
become known as the Russian Grid.
The problem in trying to validate any grid is one of correct positioning on the Earth, and also predicting' the locations qf ancient structures situated within the grid matrix.
Captain Bruce L. Cathie of Auckland, New Zealand, realized this need, and in his books on a world grid has tried to
satisfy that need. But the problem is one of accuracy; if the
grid does exist, it must be a highly accurate structure with
very predictable junction locations: One cannot use maps,
for instance, to plot locations or alignments, due to ttie inevitable distortions in making both large- and small-scale
maps. All that can result from such efforts are near approximations (usually with a few miles of radius for. an error
factor). Actually, .the most sophisticated computer-plotting
available provides an accuracy of one one-quarter mile of
radius; that is, at best. The problem of military target-plotting by computer is ~l.Uch different than world-grid plotting.
In target-plotting, all of the major irregularities of the .
Earth must be taken into account since the task is to locate
places on a rather irregular surface. But, in plotting the world
grid, the irregularities of surface are disregarded. The grid,
being a non-physical thing, can take its form through mountains or above planes. The grid itself is the master pattern
(or mold) for the Earth, and is a perfect sphere about the
center of the Earth. All grid junctions can be mathematically
projected to surface locations on a straight line from the
grid junction to the Earth's center. Where this line contacts
the Earth's surface, that is the grid junction (or power point)
for that energy. The mathematics for this job is, of course,
spherical trigonometry.
. The other problem of world-grid localion is that of determining the exact match of the grid's north and south poles
to the Earth's geographic north and south poles. This prob-
lem is not easy to solve. One first has to s~udy the many
ancient struc~ures to find how they might fit into a grid

".",.'t 6

system. For example: a pyramid structure might be meaningful to us, but of minor significance to the grid structure.
In this study, one must also ignore all seemingly ideal Earth
coordinates. Man's longitude/latitude grid has nothing to
do with a world energy grid. But, if the searcher is diligent,
match-ups can be found. Again, we have a small ac.curacy
problem. The location, longitude/latitude, of a given struc. ture is typically rounded-off in publications describing that
structure, resulting in small initial errors of a few seconds.
A match-up halfway around the world can thus be "ofr'
one or more miles, leQ-ving only a hint of the possibilities
there."In ord,et to eliminate this problem, I choose to carry
- all of my angles to four decimal parts of a second of arc:
(000' OO.qooo").
The spherical icosa-dodecahedron form (Fig. 1) is a basic
structure for the Earth grid which, in itself, is ever the same
throughout the life of the planet. The grid portion of this
basic form does change in density, at certain periods of Earth
life ..
As for the north and south poles of the basic form, they.
are naturally coincident with the axial poles of the planet,
that is, ifall is in proper harmony. In the case of Earth, for
the past several thousand years, harmony h~ not prevailed.
Discord resulted a.nd caused a significant misalignment of
the grid's north and south poles with the parth's axial poles.
The effect of this misalignment is manifold, but the most
significant effect, for the race .of mankind, was that of drastically shortening the natural life-span of humans. The foreshortened condition became so severe that supplementary
measures had to be implemented to attenuate the effect of
polar misalignmerit. It is because .of this artificial reattunement that the life-span of man is plus seventy years ins~ead
of thirty-five to forty years without. it. I will return to this
matter later on, to explain the corrective measures in greater
detail.

In the Beginning

W~s

Energy

In the beginning, prior to there being a physical planet'

Earth, there was a globe of energy. This globe of energy
had a structure to it. The structure was in the form of a
spherical icosa-hedron (Fig. 2): twenty equal-angle triangles
joined together by twelve junctions. This energy structure
caused the spherical form to act much like a soap-bubble,
except that it was an energy bubble. The energy bubble
moved through many regions of space that consist of large
densities of matter. This matter, or space dust, accumulated
upon the bubbl~ and a solid shape began to build. After
sufficiein material structure accumulated, the next stage in
planet .Earth's development commenced. Another energy
structure was superimposed upon the original icosa~hedron
structure. It took the form of a spherical dodeca-hedron
(Fig. 3). The function of the new energy structure was to
develop twelv~ different. parts of the new material globe:
(Continued on p!,ge 10)

First Quarter 1982

mustratlons by the author

The spherical icosa-dodecahedron form is a basic

structure for the Earth grid
which, in itself, is ever the
same throughout the life
of the planet.'

In the beginning, prior to

there being a physical
planet Earth, there was a
globe of energy. This globe
of energy was in the form
of a spherical' icosahedron: twenty equal-angle
triangles joined together
by twelve junctions.'

.... "

",. ..---

-----~-::..-:..----"......"

,
,-

"

"
1

".

.. \

....... _

....

\
\

,
/"- - - .
/

Another energy structure

was .superimposed upon
the original icosa-hedron
structure. It took the form
of a spherical dodecahedron.'

I I

I I
I \

,
I

',

~--"....
................
..................

........ .......

Ag.3

Ftnt Quad_ 1982

"

"

. . . - ----=...:... .~~~~ -.-.......... ... -

"

'"

- ' .",.

.,-' -"

---

Pursu',7

WORLD ENE~GY WEB

lst DENSITY LEVEL

WORLD ENERGY WEB

2nd DENSITY LEVEL

Pursu't.

First Q ..arter 1982

WORLD ENERGY WEB

3rd DENSITY LEVEL

WORLD ENERGY WEB

4th DENSITY LEVEL

Flnt Qaarter 1982

Pur.uit 9

twelve "islands~' were for~ed along the lines of the dodecaheckon structure (twelve pentagons). At this pOint, there
was. no interlinking of ~he icosa-hedron/dodeca-hedron
structural forms. The linking took place in the next stage of
the planet's development.
The new development was the result of the energy spectrum of the planet being tuned to a higher energy density.
A new attunement, resulting in each side of the twenty basic
triangles (icosa-hedron) being divided in half (Fig. 4), as one
might divide a tight wire. in half and tie down its middle
pprtion, thus doubling the frequency. of the original length.
This halfway' juncture was the crossing point of the two
bIWc structures (icosa-idodeca-hedron), also resulting in the
.development of secondary lines of force. The secondary
pattern of force, when inter-connected to the midpoint of .
each triangle side, formed a second sma1le~ triangle inside
each of the tWenty icosa-hedron triangles. The three stages
of planetary development just outlined, (I) the basic icosahedron,.(2) the added dodeca-hedron, (3) the dividing of the.
icosa-hedron triangles, all go into making up the 1st Density
or basic life stage of planet Earth's development.
It was after this 1st Density stage had run its course but
prior to the next (2nd Density) level of Earth growth, that
Earth went through its first major adjustment, including a
total .shift in .axial pple positions, ~fter which a whole new
pf conditions exist~ for the d~eloping life of the planet.
The 2nd Density period also changed the energy level and
the former grid pattern. Now, instead of there being three
energy nodes from comer to comer on each icosa-hedral
triangle, there would be five energy nodes (Fig. S), viz., two
.n;Kles ~dc;d.,r~i$ increas; .in pbptet energy density pro-

vided the proper conditions ,for the development of prehuman life (th~ animal and vegetable kingdoms).
Likewise, when 2nd Density had run its course, but again
prior to the full activation of the next (3rd) Density, the
Earth again went through a major adjustment, again includiitg a total axial pole-shift with the accompanying landmass changes. This period, incidentally, coincided with the
removal of most of the huge, prehistoric animals from the
surface of the planet. The new 3rd Density likewise resulted
in an energy densification of the master planetary grid. This
,time, the number' of energy nodes from comer to comer in
the triangle structure increased from five to seven (Fig. 6).
Within the period of 3rd Density activity, mankind was
introduced to this planet. The 3rd Density period, which is
just now ending, saw man progress throiJgh all the stages of
his'development, up to the present day.

Entering Upon the 4th

De~sity

Tliere is. today a new Densiiy upon us: Earth is 'at the
border of passing into its 4th Density stage. Like the other
two major transitions of the planet, this transition win result in a total axial pole-shift, with, of course, the accompanying land-mass upheavals. Likewise, the Earth's energy
web will increase its energy density from seven energy nodes
per unit to nine nOdes per unit (Fig. 7) .
Actually, the 3rd Density energy grid has passed into inactivity. That is to say, the energynode pattern of the 3rd
Density web is no longer being activ~ted. But, like all highenergy systems of Earth, there still exists a residual-decay
~ri~ when energy is still detectable within 3rd Density

Flnt Q_ut_ 19a2

alignments. This means that the new 4ih Density Earth grid
has been activated; ana the new grid system will continue to
increase its energy level for the duration, of the Earth's 4th
Density period. Future Densities can be projected, but with
little usefulness, for 'the duration of a Density's reign is
lengthy indeed.
Now that we have seen something of the purpose, use
and history of the Earth energy grid, we can examine some
of the detailed specifics of the grid structure.
If we take anyone of the twelve triangle junction nodes
and make a flattened layout, with that node as the ,center,
we see a pentagon with five radial arms, making five equalangle triangles joined together (Fig. 8). Looking at the actual
numbers that go Into forming this shape within the grid" we
find that all radial arms (5) and each enclosing base are
exactly the same dimension, i.e., 63 26' 05.8159 H (in spherical trigonometry all values are given in angles). The three
included angles (corners) of each triangle are 72. If. we
draw an imaginary line from the center of our diagram
straight down to a point exactly halfway along the base of
one of the, triangles, this height (Fig. 9) would be 58 16' ,
57.0922 H. Thus we have established all of the basic 'angles
for the grid. You will also notice that to go 180 from grid
north pole to grid south pole, two heights plus one side are
required (58 16' 57.0922 x 2 + 6326'05.8159 H = 180).
To superimpose the dodeca-hedral portion of the grid onto
our diagram, we would draw a dashed line up from the midway point in the base of a triangle, a ~istance of 20 54'
18.5668 H We would then connect a dashed line of the same
length from each side of each triangle. The result within a
triangle would look like a "Y" (Fig. 4). The result for the

First Quane.. 1982

whole diagram would be a smaller pentagon with a radiating

arm going from each of the five points- to the base of each
'triangle. The now-completed diagram, when repeated and
interlaced, forms the two polyhedrals (icosa-dodeca-hedron)
which constitute the basic ~'Russian" grid (Fig. 10), the true
basic grid.
We must improve our basic grid by adding the supplementary energy lines of the 1st Density form. To do this,
we siqtply interconnect the center point of each triangle's
side with a line 36 long; the result is four smaller triangles
within each of th~ original, larger ones (Fig. 4). At this
point we have recreated all three stages of the 1st Density
Earth grid. (Note: The equator of our grid consists of ten of
these 36 mid-point lines in succession.)
The next step is to divide each half of each large triangle's
sitle into half again, then connect these points with interior
lines-all of which results in sixteen smaller triangles within
each larger triangle (Fig. 5). This is the basic grid diagram
for the 2nd Density (basic because in each case all of the
smaller triangles are similarly divided, producing even smaUer
triangles).
There does not seem to be any limit to the dividing process, at least on this side of the atomic structure, perhaps
even to,the matrix of sub-atomic particles. We are now, and
have been' for some while, at the juncture point of the 3rd
and 4th Densities. This structure might give, clues to help
explain some of the confusion in the atomic physics of our
times.
To continue with the 3rd Density, we now divide our
basic triangle into six equal lengths per side. Again, connect the points into criss-cross patterns which result in thirty-

Para.I,11

Fig.

to

'The now-completed diagram. when repeated and interlaced. forms the two polyhedraJs (icosa-dodeca-hedron)
which constitute the "Russian" grid. the true basic grid:
six smaller basic triangles (Fig. 5). These are once again
divided and re-divided on and on (Fig. II l. This diagram is
the structure which provided the pattern for the location of
almost all of the ancient structures. Almost, because some
could be so old as to have been built "upon the 2nd Density
grid. We will now be able to locate all mysterious structures,
circles, holy mountains, etc., within the pattern of this 3rd
Density grid system. We can even locate some hidden structures (pyramids, etc.) through the. proper study of this grid
pattern: For example: such places as Findhor:n, in Scotland,
have strong power-points on both the old 3rd" Density grid
and the new 4th DensifY grid.
'
This new grid/old grid situation is one which has given
such researchers as Bruce" Cathy great difficulty. He and
others have put together arguments for a grid theory that
predicates both new and old mysterious places being located
on the same theoretical grid. As a matter of fact, very few
ancient structures are located on both the old (3rd Density)
grid and the new (4th Density) grid. Those that ani, of which
'one is the Great Pyramid of Cheops, in Egypt, result from
their initial location being on one of the never-changing
junctions of th.e basic grid struc~ure, i.e., the mid-point on
each basic triangle side, the twelve master "node points, or
the twenty" dodeca-hedron junctions. \
" To give some idea of the true density effect of the griddifference between the 3rd Density grid and the 4th Density
grid, let us compare the dividing of each grid sevenfold, the
3rd Density being divided by six each time. This would be:
1st division = 10 34' 20.9693"
2nd division = 1 45' 43.4949"
3rd division = 0 0 17' 37.2491"
4th division = 0 0 02'" 56.2082"
5th division = 0 0 00' 29.368"
6th division = 0 00 ' 04.8947"
7th division = 0" 00 ' 00.8158 "
The last division means that a junction node will be located
at every 81.58 nautical feet along all basic triangle sides. The
spacing is somewhat different for the interior portions,. due
to the differing sizes and angles.

PD ....1'12

If we continue our comparison for the 4th Density grid,

which has nine nodes per basic triangle" side. thus having
eight equal parts (Fig. 7):
1st division = 7 0 55' 45.727"
2nd division == 0 0 59' 28.2159"
4th division = 0 00' 55.7534""
5th division = 0 00' 06.9692"
6th division = 0 0 00' 00.8711 "
7th division = 0 00' 00.1089"
The last division means that a junction node will be located
every 10.89 nautical feet along all sides of the basic triangles.
Thus, by only changing the grid density from seven nodes
(six spaces) per 'side to nine nodes (eight spaces) per side. we "
have increased the grid's energy density at only this shallow"
level, almost eightfold. The po~ential impact of such enormous energy increases can have on our physical planet and
life forms can hardly be imagined.
In this situation, all forms of energy and matter within
this planet must absorb and "balance the new energy level.
Included, of course, are all non-physical environs within the
influence of the planet Earth.
If we were to carry .this comparison down to the atomic
level, the increase would be hundreds fold. To illustrate further, we will look at the 11 th division comparisons for each
grid density. For the 3rd Density grid, the 11th division =
0 0 00' 00.00063" or a" node junctute at every 0.063 nautical
" feet. By comparison, the 4th Density grid's 1"1 th division =
0 0 00' 00.000027" or a node juncture at every 0.0027 nautical feet, which is greater than a twenty-threefold increase
in the'energy d"ensity". I think the point is made as'to the"
kinds of transition that lie ahead (or are already here) for all
that resides within the sphere called Earth.
Returning once again to the question of the proper positioning of the World Grid relative to man's longitud~/Iati~
tude grid, the obvious once again became understandable
after years of research; the obvious being that the Great
Pyramid of Giza was located on an important junCture of
the basic grid. Realization that this never-changing juncture"
is mid-way between two corners of a basic triangle solved

F....t Quart... 1982

BASIC GRID
or 0"02"'56.20819 I DIV-0017 '37.249 I SEG

only the north-south portion of the grid-location problem

(assuming that the ~act surveyed position Qf the Great Pyramid was published and available). The question of the
grid's easterly or westerly: slant was still to be answered,
especially since the pyramid location to the northern triangle
node was either short of geographic north, or beyond geo~
graphic north, depending on whether the side-angle-length
or center-height-Iength was used in the calculation, i.e.,
63 '26' 05.8159" or 58 16' 57.0922". Finally, through
much trial and error, it was determined that the Great Pyramid aligned precisely north and south with the two grid
axial poles. This particular alignment satisfied the necessity
of locating certain chosen edifices on the high-energy grid
juncture: places like Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida,
which also had to be on a direct energy line from a large
Egypt-type pyramid. (This alignment even provided for
spotting the original site chosen for Coral Castle.)
The results of this positioning give the true grid north as
88 15' 46.7663" N - 29 58' 50.2195" E, based on the
Great Pyramid location 29 58' 51" N - 31 09' 00" E wifh
a north-south alignment of 0 02' 30" west of north. The
exact location for each of the sixty-two non-changing junctions of the basic grid are shown in Fig. 12.
We can now go into the details of the special energy stabilizers needed for Earth. As can be seen from the above

Flnt Quart... 1982

data, there is a difference of "some I 44' 13.2337" or approximately 104 v.. nautical miles between the Earth axial
poles and the grid axial poles. This is quite a difference when
one realizes that the proper functioning of the planet requires
a perfect overlap of these two poles to achieve harmonic
balance. The consequences of an inharmonic alignment are
manyfold, but the one we are dealing with here is the resulting foreshortened life-span "of the human species. In an
attempt to offset this effect and provide us with a more
favorable (learning) life span, those entities whom we refer to
as extraterrestrials, formed six large Giza-type pyramids at
specific points on the World Energy Grid. These six energy
synthesizer/amplifiers cause 8; re-flow of intensified energies
between them and the" grid north pole. This energy was then
blended with the natural inflow of cosmic energies for that
point, all of which resulted in a higher energy level circulating throughout the planet. The exact location of each of the
balancing pyramids (though no longer in effect due to the
new grid infusions):
"
(1) the 'Pyramid of Giza, as given
"(2) 30 11' 51.4428" N - 27.34' 47.2794" W
(3) 30 IO' 33.3989" N - 87 30' 01.8512" W
(4) 28 18' 06.0463" N - 148 48' 35.079" W
(5) 30 14' 21.3726" N - 149 51 ' 44.373" E
(6) 30 15' 33.574" N - 89 53' 58.6197" E
It is interesting to note that if you take points I, 3, 5, and

PUrsuit ,13

o.

Fig. 12

If1
52
N3
N4
N5
N6
SI
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

..
..;
-

n -

8815'46.7663'.. - 2958; 50.2195;1

2508'04.9188'" .:. 421 '03.8556''W
2703' 18.6613"N - 750 59'11.0812''W
2818'06.0436'" - 1480 48'35.079''W
27 0 07'26.9478''N - 1380 20'20.216 itl
25010'35.8488''N - ~6039' 54.4286"1
88015'46.7663"S - 150001'09.799''W
27 007'26.9478"S - 41039'39.7843''W
25010'35.8488"S - 113 0 20'05.572''W
25008'04.9188"S - 17538'56.144'1
27 003'18.6613"S - 10400'48.918"1
28018'06.0463"S - 3111'24.921'1
580 48'.53.3758"N - 13628'02.986'1
52005'21.0073"N - 10101'40.412"1
5653' 01. 933"N -; 6532' 55.649'1
500 53'09.5399"N - 3107'35.1586"1
560 50'35.0337"N - 3017'54.0924''W
51 0 37'49.3245"N - 39005'38.3754''W
580 44'42.7052"N - 74005'40.0732''W
530 59'35.8669''N - 111 023'46.795''W
60 0 01'08.9054"N - t48 045'59.82.3''W
.5402'13.6744'" - 17349'01.024"1
33008'.17.5182''N - 17432'.10.906'1
33005'42.3903''N - 112009'25.005''W
3107' 55. 7334''N - 3949' 45. 4538''W
2958' 51"N
- . 31 09' OO''!
31 0 12'01.4234''N - 10209'24.18'1
451 '52. 2504"S - 11820'08.689'1
628'48. 7204"S
46014'12.3885''!
0
5 47'14.4624"S - 250 56'40.5856''W
30 44'48.1646"S '- 97 0 54'49.9989''W

connect them in a triangle pattern, then do the same With

points 2, 4, 6, you win have the ancient" symbol called the
Seal of Solomon (Fig. 13).
Residents of the Gulf Coast area will be especially interested in the location ~f balance pyramid (3): just off the

......."1.

20 2i 22 23
24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31
32 33 34
35 36 ~
3738 39 40 41 42
43 44 4S 46 47 48
49 50 -

310'40.0644"8 - 1690 46'12.698''W

1002'59.5279"N -. 157009'31.277"E
1 0 39'45.9741"N- 166050'09.324'~1 0 38'25.6401"N - 1300 49'13.638''W
059'29.2654"8 -940 48'58.6443''W
0002 '09. 9289"8 -. 580 49'45.0437''W
102'59.5279"8 - 22 0 50'28.7225''W
139'45.9742'.'8 - 1309'50.6766"1
138'25.6401"8 -.4910'46.3623"1
059'29.2654"8
8511'01.356"1
00g2'09.9289"N - 12110'14.956"1
10 14~12.979"S - 13928'33.182''
12011'38.912"S - 6723'08.1291"1
1214'12.417"8
5001'52 . 8242''W
1018'19.684"8
77008'18.0602~'W
904'32.4504"8 - 148 0 50'05.798''W
3107'55.733"8 - 1400 10'14.546"1
2958'51"8
- 1480 51'00''W
31 0 12'01.423"S - 77 0 50'35.8201''W
3308'17 .518"S - 50 27'49.0937''W
33 005'42.39"S . - 67050'34~9946"1
52 001'17.0186"S - 141 8 16'54.823"1
58 0 44'42.705"S - 105054'19.924"1
53 0 59'35.867"S - 6836'13.2056"1
60001'08.9054"S - 2843'40.214"1
54002'13.6755"S
6010'58.9748''W
580 48'53.3758"S - 430 31'57.017''W
520 05'21.0073"S - 78058'19.59''W .
5653'01.9331"8
1140 27'04.353''W
500 53'09.5399"S - 1480 52'24.843''W
5650'35.0337"8 - 17642'05.894"1

Mississippi delta, in the Gulf .of Mexico. Satellite readings

show that a center of very high energy exists in that area,
although the satellite c0l,11d not accurately plot it.
The statement that an Earth axial pole-shift was.a natural
part of the cl"!ange from 3rd Density to 4th Density needs

First Quarter 19B2

<.+)
WORLD ENERGY WEB
3rd DENSITY LEVEL

Fig. 13

further clarification. The natural situation for a planet and

its grid is to be in unison, the grid poles with the planet's
axial poles (the magnetic poles being effects of certain grid
relationships also). Therefore, if an axial pole-shift is to
take place, the two axial poles which result from this shift
will be two of the energy grid's master nodes (Nl through
N6 and SI through S6) that lie 180 0 apart.
Several published articles refer to the coming axial shift.
A number of these, plus my own evaluations, state that the
shift will be about 45 o. There is also belief that when the
shift is completed (fixed), all that was frigid will be tropic
and all that is tropic will be frigid. This seems reasonable in
light of past findings on the subject, but such statements
should not be taken as more than an approximation of the
resulting conditions. With all of the above taken into consideration, the new axial poles look to end up at node N4
for the north pole and S6 for the south pole. This arrangement comes the closest to satisfying all expected conditions:
There is, of course, much more that could be written
about the World Energy Grid, but I will leave it to each
reader to discover for himself or herself what kind of relationships are the most meaningful. AU of the data necessary
to construct any or all portions of The Grid are spelled out
above. Just remember one basic rule: the closer that a junction is to the basic grid breakdown, the more potent is its
available energy.
Readers who are kno~ledgeable in the science of astron-'

Flat Quartel' 1982

omy will find that many. interesting relationship,s can be

developed between the position of the stars (not planets)
and grid junctures. Not only do the grid junttures relate to
the energies feeding the planet as a whole, but certain (if not
all) junction points are tied into a,nd matched with a particular star. In such case, the star's relative position with the
celestial sphere is in the same exact position of that grid
juncture in Earth coordinates. For.example, the Great Pyramid, with Earth coordinates 29 0 58' 5 i" N - 31 0 09' 00" E
. is harmonically linked to the star having relative position in
the celestial sphere of right ascension 2 hrs. 4 min. 36 sec.
and declination of 29 0 58' 51". Only the starI grid relationships of the old 3rd Density grid can be related in this way
since, with the new pole locations and alignments, we cannot calculate the new 4th Density grid ~elationships. In starl
grid calculations, do not forget to include the Earth axial
grid misalignment in your mathematical models.
For the benefit of those who have not yet surmised as
much, I note that the so-called Bermuda Triangle is position
N3, and the Devil's Triangle is N5. Each of these twelve
master nodes represent the same kind of energy; they are
highly energized in a kind of flashing-light sequence.
Finally, it takes only a little imagination to develop almost
any form of geometric arrangement, i.e., squares, diamonds,
etc., out of the actual grid(s), simply by tying certain grid
junction nodes together in the desired form.
.~

Pu,...1,15

VERMONTS UFO
INVASION

\{"

CANADA

Lake Meph"'\,::m:::lIg:,:o'=--_---...,

E. Richford
Enosburg

.. Joy Peak

Falls~

by Sasan Green
On a recent frosty March day, Cedric Morse could not
help waking up around 4:30 a.m.
Although he has been retired since January, Morse has
rooster like instincts from a lifetime of working the same
East Richford mountain farm where he was born and
raised. He invariably rises and shines before the sun.
On this particular morning, however, Morse found that
he was not the only thing shining in the predawn gloom of
West Jay Road. As Morse looked down the hill, he saw
three station.ry lights, spaced three or four feet apart,
about 200 yards from the house. Although they did not
cast beams like headlights and seemed unusually bright,
Morse assumed the lights belonged to automobiles.
Thinking it odd for anyone else to be up and about in such
a secluded area at such an extraordinary hour, Morse
jumped in his car to check out the situation.
The spot where he had seen the lights was just b~yond a
slight ridge in the road, but when he reached the ridge,
'
there was nothing in sight.
"What bugs me is that there were no tracks anywhere
except mine," Morse reflected with a bemused smile.
"There was an icy shale over everything that morning but
my tracks were the only ones to be seen."
Did such an eerie early morning experience make him a
sudden believer in the existence of Unidentified Flying
Objects? After all, he is not alone in claims of UFO
sightings; there has been a flurry of sightings in Richford
and other towns around Vermont.
"I've believed in tl1em for almost 20 years," Morse
declared' emphaticalIy. "But they told us not to say
anything about it."
They?
Morse recalled the day-Sept. 26, 1962-that he and his
.wife, Doris, got an excited phone call from their
neighbors, Phyllis and Robert .Waterhouse, reporting that
something .awfully strange was hovering over their
milkshed.
. It was late afternoon, some time after 5. The Morses
drove the short distance down the road to the Waterhouse
farm, looked up and there. were "two big, rounded,
metallic, domelike objects in tpe sky."
Morse sa~d the objects were moving east to west .
. Moments later, another pair was spotted coming out of the
south in a northeasterly direction. "They looked like
shallow oatmeal dishes," Morse said. "Bottom side up."
The Morses walked over to the Waterhouses who were
standing in front of their gray barn and, with assorted
young children gawking upward, stood and watched the
UFOs for several minutes.
Phyllis Waterhouse remembersl the sightings this way:
"My son Mark, who was 4 or 5 years old then, was out
playing in the barnyard and he saw this object hovering.
He hollered for me and then I called my husband, who was.
inside the barn. What I saw was a dull, gray thing, shaped
like a football.

o
eMONTPEUER
eBARRE

w
Braintree
Randolph center
South Royalton.
Barnard.

Norwich.

...~
H
.~

eRUTLAND

cJ
SPRINGFIELD e

E
W

P
S
H
I
R
E

Geographical
features are shown
in ltollcs, prindpal
dties in SMALL

o
R
K

H
A
M

CAprrAL LETrERS,
e BENNINGTON
BRAlTLEBORO e

Vernon.

and locations of
UFO slghtlngs
In this regul~ type.

MASSACHUSETTS

"It just kind of hung there over the comer of the

milkhouse, then moved silently away at an awful speed .
But the whole time there was no noise."
Her husband, Robert, saw the object, which by that
time seemed "about 2,000 feet away, hovering over our
meadow." He thin~s he saw "a little vapor coming from it'
as it moved out. It moved with a speed you wouldn't
believe, but no sound."
While the Morses tried to chase the UFOs along the .
mountain road, somebody thought to call the U.S. Border
Patrol's Richfordoffice. By the time an officer arrived, the
objects were gone.
.
A short time later the Morses and the Waterhouses
were interviewed by someone they identified as a
government investigator, although no one bothered to ask
what branch of government the investigator represented.
. "He told us not to say anything to anyone, " Morse said.
"That it would stir up a panic."
"We had young kids in school tlten," Doris Morse
added. "We were afraid they'd get teased. So, at the
time, we didn't care to talk about these things either."
That" reluctance never prevented the Morses from
feeling sure they had had a close encounter, in the days
before the term was a movie title or a: household word.

F....t Qaarter 1982

"They can't make you believe you didn't see what you saw
in broad daylight," Morse insisted..
,
The sheer numbers of Vermonters who are seeing what
they see these days is a bit astounding. In both the
Richford and Windsor areas, in particular, dozens of
citizens have witnessed strange lights and/or objects in
the skies for several weeks now, bolstering more sporadic
reports of encounters close and distant over the years.
The National UFO. Reporting Center in Seattle,
Washington, a clearing house for information on sightings
since 1973, confirmed that the current rush of UFOs over
Yankee territory is unrivaled.
"Based on information we are getting," said center
director Robert Gribble, "it's very quiet around the
country now, except the Vermont-New Hampshire area."
The sightings are occurring predominantly in Richford
and Windsor and, curiously, a great number of the reports
are from police and firemen.
"Why a policeman sees these things," suggested
Richford Police Chief Homer Combs, now a veteran UFO
witness, "is because we're always looking for the unusual.
This is the job of a policeman. You tHe less notice of
ordinary things."
.
In November, Combs, as well as others in. town, saw
"two huge, real big, orange-colored lights" moving across
the same Jay Peak valley that is overlooked by the Morse
property. Combs was patrolling Richford's Golf Course
Road at the time-approximately 7:30 p.m.-and had an
unobstructed view of the entire Richford-East Richford
area.
In early March, a St. Albans nurse, who wishes to
remain anonymous, was visiting her mother in East
Richford. At dusk, they went out on the porch to
investigate the cause of a loud roar over the house. It was
"black, like cast iron, the size of a normal plane but with a
bug-shaped body, flying at treetop level." It had wings
that pointed upward and many blinking red lights all over
the wings and bottom, and was heading toward the town
of East Richford.
. Many people who spot UFOs are normally publicity-shy,
but Combs said tha.t, during the early part of March, it
seemed as if he was getting almost daily reports from
townspeople. "They are all over "the place.." he claimed.
More than 100 miles southeast of Richford, the town of
Windsor,.on the Connecticut River, has been busy with
UFOs this .winter. Police Sgt. Richard Polland, officers
William Hines, Dave LaPlante and Ronald Walker; Fire
Chief Bruce Steams, firefighters Raymond Seeley, Ralph
Burnham and Dave Kibling are among the growing
legions of Windsor County people who have seen.
inexplicable things in th~ .starry skies of southern
Vermont.
.
A year ago, two women working at Vermont Public
Radio-Lynda Kingsbury and Lucy Slothower-had an
early evening experience with something flashing yellow,
blue, red and white lights, about 3,000 feet in the air
directly over the supermarket they had just left in toe
center of Windsor.
But not until the 1982 season have the generally
triangular-shaped objects begun making frequent appearances there.
It started Feb. 2, with Polland, a 14-year veteran of the
town's police force. Polland sighted what he thought was a
UFO from his hilltop house about 6 p.m. and called the
First Quarter 1982

department to tell fellow officers to gaze heavenward. By

the time h~ reached the center of town, Polland observed
"that there wasn't one, there were two ofthese things, not
even 1,000 feet in the air."
As the police watched from a parking lot, Stearns and
some of his men observed the objects as they stood in front
of the fire station. Both groups report they saw red and
blue lights, seemingly in a triangular pattern when viewed .
. through high-powered binoculars, moving southeast, then
suddenly turning and speeding off toward Mount
Ascutney, just southwest of the town center. There was no
noise.
Just then, two jets, with flashing lights and much noise,
came over Windsor from the northwest, apparently in
pursuit of the objects. As the planes got closer to the
UFOs, Steams and Polland recalled, the lights on the
UFOs disappeared. "They just vanished," Polland
claimed.
Callsbya reporter to virtually every Air Force base and
Air National Guard outpost in New England produced no
account of any military planes intercepting UFOs near
Windsor that night.
Two weeks ago there was another sighting. March 22,
firefighters Burnham and Kibling, along with police Sgt.
Gordon Gillen, looked up about 11:30 p.m. to see red,
blue, green and white lights in a triangular pattern. They
watched the objecf hovering on the western horizon from
the parking lot of the Grand Union supermarket which
provides a comprehensive vista of eastern and western
skylines. .
When Gillen flashed the blue lights of his police car, the
UFOs lights became brighter, according to Burnham, who
then flashed the red light of his Fire Department vehicle.
"The UFO lights got brighter again," he said incredulously. "It seemed to be answering' us. "
An attempt at communication with a UFO was less
successful for John and Sue Pritt a few years ago. The
Enosburg Fans residents were driving home late one night
when they saw some unusual lights at about treetop level
that seemed to be follo~ing their car.
Suspecting it was a small airplane in trouble, the Pritts
.stopped the car. The.object stopped directly in front of and
over them.
In the belief that it was actually a helicopter, John-an
electrical engineer and ham radio operator-began
blinking the car headlights in Morse code, spelling out:
"Where are you?"
"Suddenly, there was a loud roar," remembered Sue
Pritt. "Al.1d the thing zipped out of sight. "
Another highway encounter took place a year ago on
U.S. 7, just north of Vergennes. John and Denise laCroix
were heading back to Burlington about 10 p.m. on a
Sunday when they saw lights "kind of hopping around
strangely" off to their right. They could not see much, but
moments later a large, domed object appeared directly
over the road.
The LaCroixes both described it as being as big as' an
airplane. "It had square windows or something all around
the bottom," Mrs. LaCroix said, "and one larger window
in the center. There was.a bright white light that seemed
to be flashing in sequence from window to window all
around the bottom and one steady white light coming from
the central window."
The craft hovered over the road at treetop level, no more
Pur.u~t

17

than a football field's length from the LaCro~ car. Even

Victor' and Rita Salls said they and their son, Douglas,
with the windows rolled down, the couple could hear no
were sitting at. the dinner table in their Randolph Center
noise from the UFO, even when, a minute or two later, it
home when a bright greenish-yellow light streaked across
sped away with a velocity that astounded them.
their line of vision as they looked out.
.
A Vermont Transit bus had been traveling th~ same
, As the family watched in amazement, the object
road just in front of them.
swooped down from above treetop level and seemed to
"When this thing appeared," LaCroix said, "the bus
crash by the town's water tower in the center of town,
brake lights came on. We had to step on. our brakes.We
about a mile from the Salls house.
followed the bus into town and ran over to the driver. I
"There was nO'noise that we could hear and suddenly
started to say: 'Excuse me, but just past Vergennes ...'
;'fIe saw no more light," Salls said. "It burned out or
. and he cut me off: 'Yeah, I know what you mean. I saw it , whatever."
,
.
too.' " The driver then .described the same object the
When state troopers che~ed the spot where the Salls
LaCroixes had seen.
. believed the object had landed, there was no evidence of
"He told us that at first he thought it was a plaJ.1e, until
anything unusual, according. to Bethel dispatcher Phil
he noticed the lights chasing each other at the bottom,"
Colby.
Mrs. LaCroix said. "He said he didn't want to mention it
About the same time, Pamela and Deborah Camer and
to anyone to protect his reputation, but advised us to .call
their brother Rick were driving into South Royalton on
the airport to find out if they had anything flying in the
Vermont 14 when "a big, greenish, very bright round light
vicinity of Vergennes that night. They didn't."
with a yellowish tail" came into view, moving northeast,
The LaCroixes cannot remember the exact date or the
according to Rick Carrier. It appeared to crash behind
bus. driver's name. A Vermont Transit spokesman said
Happy Hollow Hill but when the young people drove
th~t, without a date, the company could not pinpoint which
around the hill to investigate, they found nothing
driver had that route.
.
untoward.
The bus driver may have feared for his reputation, but
Nancy Hl,lnt of West Braintree was driving home along
Paul Hodes, a New Hampshire assistant attorney general
Thresher Road around 9 p.m. She said she witnessed a
green, basketball-shaped light cruising at a 20-degree
.of the ~riminal division, does not.
angle with the earth." It, too, seemed to hit gfound in the
The way Hodes tells it, he was driving on Interstate 91
near the Norwich exit in late January when he spied a
nearby woods.
:
"vaguely triangular-shaped object" with red and white
Priscilla Oakland tells a similar story. She said she was
lights on the eastern horizon. Hodes s!lid he pulled his car
sitting in a living room chair in her. home: in Barnard
over to the side of the road and opened his windows,
. looking out the window. Suddenly, a greenis~-white light
hoping to hear what a UFO sounds like. He heard only
on what appeared to be an "oblong object" whizzed" past
silence.
her line of vision, moving due north, paral~el with the
"The whole affair seemed to be moving north at a
ground at slightly higher than treetop level. "It was going
right over our. hayfield," Mrs. Oakland said.! "I jumped
stately pace," he said of his not-so-close encounter.
out of my chair. It seemed to be making a straight line for
Much the same thing occurred several weeks later on
the same road. Al Semple, a foreman with the New
the Randolph Center water tower, which we can see from
Barnard, 20 miles away, on a clear day."
England Power Co. of New Hampshire; was driving near
Windsor February 19 when, he said, he saw two sets of
"I've never seen anything like it in my life," swore
Lorraine Alexander 9f Vernon, about 85 miles southeast
lights on the eastern horizon. He and his two-man c~w
of Randolph. "I saw "it fly by my window, a great, big, red
stopped and watched. It was an overcast night and the
cloud ceiling was about 1,500 feet, Semple said. The
!Jail of fire. It was too big to be a falling star. It was moving
northwest over the atomic plant (Vermont Yankee) and)
intensity of the lights kept changing and then one
expected to see a big crash, but nothing else happened."
object-which through binoculars appeared to have
windows-proceeded southwest and the other northeast.
When Semple started to tum on the utility truck's
Can people in five towns-one at least 85 miles from the
spotlight one of his crew members blurted, "Put that out.
others-have each seen the same thing appearing to crash
They might see us." Sp Semple did not try to signal the
almost in their back yards? Can flying triangles participate
in a light show with police and firemen?
. ,..
strange aircraft.
"I was thinking friendly thoughts, 1"11 tell you, "
Are people of the Green Mountain State undergoing
Semple recalled, laughing.
.
some sort of mass, hallucinogenic psychosis? Are they
Semple has since heard several reports of sightings by .
seeing Russian spy ships or secret American military
other power company personnel, over power stations or
technology? Northern lights? Southern Comfort?
high-power lines in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Or are we indeed not alone? Could it be that Vermonters
His theory is that the Windsor UFOs were not really over
are getting together with extraterrestrial flatlanders, so to
...
speak? .
Vermont, but rather just across the river where his
In the words of Windsor Police Sgt. Richard Polland:
company maintains a "llS-KV line."
"They're there, whatever they are. You figure it out."
One of the most recent series of UFO reports-taking
place on the same night that Windsor police and
firefighters were entertaining possible intergalactic .
visitors-is somewhat of a departure from the rest. In five
Thisarticle originally appeared in the April 4, 19(12 issue
Vermont towns, families called state police just after 9
0/ Vermonter, Sunday magazine 0/ The Burlington Free
p.m. to say they had seen something flying through the air
Press, Burlington, Vt., and is reprinted by permission.
'and' possibly crashing to the earth nearby.

Pursu',18

Flnt Quart... 1982

The Politics of Water

by Christopher Bird

Chapter 9 of The DilJinlng Hand by Christopher Bird (E. P. Dutton, New York)

1979 by Christopher Bird Reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher

Our Fourth Quarter 1981 issue (Pursuit No. 56) excerpted Chapter 8 of SITU member Chris
Dird's book The Divining Hand which recounted the amazing achievements of engineer Stephan
Reiss: he found "new water" where no one else could. to satisfy the ever-growing, ever-thirsty
population of the U.S. West. Reiss' story continues in the following Chapter 9 from Dird's ,book.

Three Wells Worth a Million

EISS decided that what he had accomplished at Nelson, Nevada, could be duplicated almost anywhere.
To test his theory at his own expense, he purchased a barren plot half the size of a football field in Black Canyon,
an arid rocky cleft in the Susana Knolls above Simi Valley
between Ventura and Los Angeles, where all signs indicated to him an excellent chance of tapping "primary
water," as he called it.
'
When pumped, the very first well he put down caused
a brook to cascade down the hill and inundate the railroad track in the valley below. Two more wells combined
with the first to produce 3,000 gpm of water, enouglJ to
supply the daily needs of lO,OOO people. Visiting neighbors.. stared open-mouthed at his lush garden, complete
with pool and an aviary filled with macaws, cockatoos,
and other tropical p~rrots, ,one of which, whenever Reiss
started up his pump, would shriek: "Oh, boy, water,
water, water!" Reiss was glad to allow some of his neighbors, in dire straights for water, to. pipe it free of charge
from his copious supply.
'News of the mining engirieer's success spread throughout Ventura County and elicited increasing demands for
his knowledge. The owner of the new Sin~loa Ranch was
able to subdivide his property after Reiss found him a
source of water big enough for a housing development.
When Hans Wiihelm Rohl, a'multimillionaire contractor who had helped to build the, strategic Alaska Highway, acquired the S,ooo-acre Rancho Dos Vientos at the
western end of Portrero Valley, Reiss multiplied its worth
from $100,000 to $Soo,OOO by bringing in two wells abundant enough to create a small lake.
Two wells drilled during an extended drought on a
wilting lemon orchard owned by San Francisco dentist,
Dr. John C. Campbell, produced what their owner called the "best, sweetest water in the whole valley." Another citrus operation owned by the chief pathologist at
the Santa Monica Hospital was saved when Reiss bored
him two wells each producing more than 400 gallons per
minute.
None of Reiss's wells was as appreciated as the one
sunk for Candido Ivaro near Camarillo. A worker on the
ranch of a descendant of one of the ori6inal holders of a
California land grant issued by the Spanish king-for
whom the town of Camarillo is named today-Ivaro had
been given twenty-six acres of land by his boss for years
of faithful service.' On his new holding, Ivaro spent hi~
savings-and five years of his life-to establish a nursery
of 30,000 lemon seedlings. Just as they were about ready
for grafting and sale, they began dying from lack of water. The two wells on his proper~y, drilled to 224 and 473
feet, had gone dry.
When, in 19S5, Reiss's wife Thelma heard of Ivaro's

Ftnt Quarter 1982

plight at a garden club meeting, she asked her husband

to see if he could help the nurseryman, who was rumored
to be so depressed at his potential ruin that he was on the
verge of suicide. In the middie of Ivilro's small holding,
less than fifty yardsJrom one of the dry wells, Reiss drilled to 234 feet to produce SSO gpm, an amount limited
only by the capacity of the pump. By coincidence, the
d.ay f<:>i!.:>wing the first pumping of the well fell on Cinco
de Mayo, the popular festival commemorating the Mexi~an victory over superior French forces at Puebla in
1862.

"I never knew there were so many Mexicans in the

county until then," remembers Reiss. "They all heard
over the grapevine about Ivaro's new well and swarmed
to his property, for a celebration. By that time, water
was filling up huge depressions on his land with kids
frolicking and swimming in it. There were cases of Mexican beer, baskets of tacos, and bowls of guacamole,
laughter and guitar-playing and singing."
Ivaro was ecstatic. "The pump goes night and day,"
he later told friends and neighbors, "and the' water always stays at about eighty-five feet in the pipe. Around
here, in ~uly and August, when everyone is pumping,
the wells always drop. But not mine. It's always the
same."
,
Reiss's activities in the dry region west of Los Angeles
began to irritate hydrogeologic experts at the California
Water Resources Division (WRD) who were receiving reports and queries about Reiss's method for water location that were as welcome to them as Willey's queries on
dowsing had been to the. U.S. Geological Survey. To
this was added public confusion stemming from a basic
question: If water was available locally in the amounts
suggested by Reiss's work, why were southern California
politicians insisting that future supplies were only developable through more systems such as those that had already been engineered to transport water from faraway
Lake Crowley high aQove Bishop on the east side of the
Sierra Nevada, and from the equally distant reservoir impounded behind Parker Dam on the Colorado River?
Fanning the flames of the controversy wa's a two-part
article in the 19S3 issue of Fortnight, a southern California magazine: '!Revolution in Water Seeking: Steve Reiss
Has a New Idea of How to Look for Water and 69 Wells
to Support His Theory." If results mean anything to
scientists, challenged the magazine, Reiss's theories of
water's orfgin ought to be investigated. It added that
though 'they had been borne out in practice, they had all
the deadweight of hydrologic dogma against them.
Fortnight diagnosed what really was at issue: the money being made in the vast water transport schemes so irresistible to California's financial and political leadership.
Greed was blocking methods for locating w~lls which,
Pursuit 19

if generally adopted and used on a large scale, would

amount to the discovery of a new continent.
The article so aroused the ire of WRD officials that
they at once initiated an investigation of the -wells
brought in by Reiss. That it relied more on hearsay than
on solid fact-finding was evidenced by its admission that
WRD agents addressed questions to persons "living in or
having knowledge of" the water situation in areas where
Reiss had developed wells-rather than to those property
owners who were amply profiting from the wells' output.
Thus, the report characterized the wells sunk for Dr.
Campbell as only "apparently satisfactory according
to a.neighbor," though "no production data were available." The same wells continue to irrigate lemon groves
today.
.
.
The WRD report characterized Reiss's own wells at
Simi as being placed "to pump rain and runoff water underlying the hillside." He was only mining water which
had been collecting for past centuries, they added, and
ultimately his wells would run dry. When he read the report to his friends, Reiss laughed wryly and told them: "I
have pumped 100 million cubic feet of water from those
wells, a volume equal to' the hilI itself. If this is contained
water, there is now 100 million cubic feet of void under
that hill, and I don't know what's holding it up." .
If the WRD experts had taken the trouble. to ask, Reiss
could have furnished them with a tape-recording of the
water flowing under~round made by lowering' a microphone down one of the well shafts to a point some 200
feet below the earth's surface. The water rushing through
rock sounded to most ears like 'a b,ubbling cauldron accompanied by distant kettledrums and reminded one
minister of the church of the passage of Genesis that referred to "subterranean waters bursting' forth upon the
earth."
The question of productivity was finally settled, not by
the biased report of the government investigators, but by'
Clint Murchison, Texas oil and gas tycoon who, attracted
by press' accounts of the Reiss wells; offered to buy them.
Before the sale wa,s completed, Murchison sent his own
engineers from Texas to the Black Canyon site where
over a period of eighteen months they tested the wells to
prove their worth as an endurable water supply for "large
housing tracts Murchison wished to develop in Simi Val-.
ley. Murchison was obviously satisfied with the tests. In
September 1955, the Ventura County Star-Free Press reported that he had agreed to purchase the three wells for
one million dollars in a deal that made the small plot of
land into which they had been drilled one of the most
expensive pieces of real estate in California.

From Lakesideto E'nat

When he learned of the transaction, Burton Arnds, president of Sparklett's Drinking Water, a firm supplying
fresh water in five-gallon bottles all over southern California, decided to take action. Arnds had put a lot of
money into a plant at Lakeside in San Diego County
where 'at the advice of WRD specialists he"had drill.ed
three wells, each of which initially supplied 100 gpm.
Within six months; the bottler was dismayed to observe
that his water supply was not only becoming progressively more mineralized-or, in folk parlance, "harder"
-but was in fact beginning to run out. The water officials told him the water table below the valley was getting
hrauit 20

lower and that continued pumping might exhaust his

wells. "After driving all the way to Simi to have a look at
what Murchison had purchased, Arnds offered Reiss a
contract to find him a well that could save his Lakeside
'bQttling plant from disaster. Reiss's careful study' of the
surface geology of the surrounding region and petrographic analysis of v.arious rock types, lc~d him to begin
drilling, not in a brand new spot, but at the bottom of a .
4OO-foot well that had gone dry.
When the diamond-core drfll bit twisted 'down some
500 feet lower, it encountered a large crevice in the rock
and \yater burst up out of the hole to spray the drillers
before settling back to twenty feet below the surface of
. the ground. Finished in 1955, the same well continues, in
1979, to furnish 300 gpm of. high-grade water. In case of
emergency Reiss located another equally productive well
not fifty yards from the first. The second well has never
been used.
"With two babies like these," Reiss told visitors to the
Sparklett's Lakeside plant in 1977, "we' could supply all
water needs for a large community. The one you see
pumping is a sample of thousands we could drill in the
United States and other countries, to provide water at
much lower cost than normal."
Arnds's good fortune, far from serving. to inspire
WRD officials to investigate Reiss's methods, goaded
- them into enlisting the aid of.academic geologists in their
efforrto discredit him. First to attack was Dr. Ulysses S.
Grant, IV, professor at the University of California at
Los Angeles. who asked publicly why, if Reiss's methods
were so good, he had not published something about
them in a scientific journal. Next came University of
CaliforIlia ground water geologist, Dr. John F. Mann,
Jr., who warned his television audience that Reiss's ideas
about a source of what he now called "primary water"
were delusional.
.
The altercation came to the attention of Kimmis Hendrick, Chief of the Pacific News Bureau of the Christian
Science Monitor, who investigated its background. He
found that Mann had recommended a well site on a large
.farm newly purchased in the Anza Valley. by specialty
crop farmer Harry Pursche, who had already fruitlessly
expended $40,000 to drill for irrigation water. Called in
as a consultant, Mann told Pursche that his only chance
was to probe a sand fill where "water might have col~
lected." Five hundred and ninety-three feet and another
$12,000. later, Pursche had only 4 gallons per minute,
wholly insufficient for his needs.
Told of the farmer's plight by Hendrick, Reiss had
Pursche bulldoze. road up a 35.O-foot-high granite hillock and clear Ii flat space for a water-drilling rig. News
of this undertaking spread through the valley and attracted the attention of .state geologists working in the area
who informed their home office in Sacramento about
the development. The next day six members of the WRD
arrived at the Pursche spread to warn its owner that his
new attempt to locate irrigation. water would only add a
preposterous sequel to his lengthy saga of hard luck. One
of them personally guaranteed to drink every drop of
water that came ou~ of the hard rock underlying Reiss's
site.
'
Reiss's answer was to predict be/ore any drilling commenced that he would strike water at 300-310 feet in a
volume ranging from 300-1,000 gpm. The first water

F....t Quarter 1982

came in at 302 feet. The following morning the drill stem

would not turn. Something in the hole was blocking its
normal rotation. A bailer put down the well to retrieve
whatever might, be causing the blockage dredged up fistfuls of steel ball bearings. WitJtin two days, three large
bucketfuls of bearings had been removed. In an effort to
prove the well worthless, someone had' thrown them
down the hole under cover of night to prevent further
drjlling.
When the well was finally finished' and cased, a 500gallon capacity pump was loWered into the hole. Powered
by one of Pursche's tractors, it pumped steadily for sixty
hours. Neighbors for miles around who had gathered at
the well were no less dumbfounded by the find than Prof~ssor Man~ who nevertheless continued to insist that
Reiss had "just been lucky." In spite of this belittlement, the WRD had no choice but to report that "initial
production of the well compares very favorably with the
best previous wells in ~he a~ea. For limited periods it has
pumped as much as 1,030 gallons per minute, and it has
pumped an estimated 400 gpm 'nearly continuously' for
over thirty days."
By 1958 Reiss's exploits came to the attention of the
Israeli government, which invited the mining e'ngineer
to find water for the new city of Eilat on the Red Sea's
Gulf of Aqaba. After a flight to Tet' Aviv, he met with
then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his advisors
who urged him to go ahead with his search as soon as
possible. Less enthusiastic were a group of leading israeli geologists who, like'their American counterparts, vigorously opposed Reiss's theory of water development.
"Only after a protracted session during which I explained
it," Reiss later said, "qid they ~gree that my, proposal.
had merit." This was confirmed by Israel's chief water
geologist who is occupied with water' research in arid
zones. "I am fully aware of the limitations of our orthodox methods in geohydrological prospecting and am
much impressed by th~ glimpse I got of the new methods
offered by Mr. Reiss, recognizing the unfathomed possibilities' which may be opening up before us while applying these methods. I decided, encouraged by my superiors, to cooperate with Mr. Reiss's research for primary
waters in our arid zones."
High in the mountainous country along the Israel-Jordan border, Reiss located a well about a mile and a half
,from Eilat itself. "The site chosen," wrote Meir Ben-Dov
in the Jerusalem Post, ''1s where a five-meter-wide cleft,
running vertically through the mountain, is crossed at
right angles by a similar cleft, hardly twenty centimeters
across. The bowels of the earth in erupting have filled
these clefts with an igneous intrusion of a soft, soapyfeeling, mottled brown rock called gabbro. The drill
slowly worked its way downward, alternately in igneous
intrusion and again in granite as the cleft in the rock
snaked its way downward."
During the work, problems linked to cave-ins and the
jamming of drill pieces beyond the Israeli drilling team's
experience were finally solved when Reiss's associate,
James Scott, who had worked with him on many wells
over the years, was sent to Israel to supervise operations.
On May 29, 1959, the Jerusalem Post estimated that
the amount of water struck in the Reiss-located well was
enough to supply a city of more than tOO,OOO'persons including industry, air-conditioning, parks, gardens, and a
F....t Quart... 1982

dozen outlying villages. Analysis of the water, stated the

newspaper, revealed that the Eilatis, used to drinking water with 3,000 parts per million of dissolved mineral salts,
now had a supply with only 116 that amount. For his
work in Israel, Ben-Gurion presented Reiss with a medal
and his wife with a silver-bound copy of the Talmud in
English.
, The astounding find was not lost on Arab leaders. Invited to Cairo by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Reiss became the only exception to a rigid years-long stricture
prohibiting Americans who had visited Israel from setting
foot in Arab lands. Along the Nile he located several water wells in rock for prominent Egyptians before flying
on to'the Sudan where a revolution disrupted his planned
exploration.
On a homeward-bound visit to Cyprus, Reiss was interviewed in Nicosia by an English-language newspaper reporter investigating new approaches to finding water.
The reporter had read a long letter written by Henry
Gross, a dowser living in Maine who achieved fame
when, working over 'a map of Bermuda on his kitchen
table in Portland, he accurately dowsed fresh water in
the British Island colony which ever since its settlement
had depended on captured rain or imports for its needs.
Gross's confirmed predictions had so impressed the celebrated American historical novelist, Kenneth Roberts,
that he wrote riot 'one, but three books on Gross's dowsing finds that are now dowsing classics.
'

The Purest of Waters

In his ietter Gross maintained that his dowsing rod,indicated no less than fourteen "primary domes" of fresh
water, in the hills and mountains of Cyprus. Without
telling Reiss about the dowser's report, the investigative
journalist asked the mining engineer what he thought of
the possibility of finding badly needed supplies of water on the island. Reiss replied: "I am convinced that
abundant supplies of water are available to the people of
Cyprus, right below their feet arid flowing in deep-seated
solid rock fissures that could be scientifically located.
Man has overlooked 'primary water' that has never been
seen on the face of the earth. Even more importantly, it
cannot be contaminated by nuclear fallout or surface pollution as can reservoirs abovegrouvd."
To test his theory, Reiss sank a' series of deep wells in
the desert country stretching from far up the Owens River Valley all the way to the Salton Sea out of which water
exploded in geysers that shot into the air sometimes higher than the towers of the drill rigs. One of them was drilled on a plot of land he himself had purcha~ed for a song.
When it produced plentiful water, he resold at a $139,000
profit. Near an anomalous hemisphere-shaped hillock on
. the, otherwise flat desert southeast of the hamlet of
Randsburg he sunk two wells which, together with a third
drilled a few miles distant, "today supply all the water for
California City, as the settlement pioneered by the developers was christened.
'
Reiss's findings were supplemented by a quarter-of-amillion-dollar study which concluded that water travelling in the fault system under the desert had nothing in
common with any water in "alluvium sedimentary aquifers," i. e., the water t~ble. The chief coordinator of the
*Henry Gross and His Dowsing Rod, 1951; The Seventh Sense. 1953;
Water Unlimited. 1957; all Doubleday & Company. Garden City. N.V .

Pursu,t 21

study, Olindo Romulus Angelillo, a registered civil engi. \leer, told the Christian Science Monitor that more than a
million acre-feet flowed under the desert. "A million
acre~feet," the Monitor commented, "is a staggering
amount of water. It is enough to meet the. annual needs
of five million people. It is three times as much as the
Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District gets from the
Owens River, which for nearly half a century has been
the city's main source of water supply. It is twice as
much as the eighty-three cities in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area draw annually from the Colorado River. It is
more than half as much as southern California hopes to
get someday from the Feather River."
The Feather River Project to which the newspaper referred was at the time provoking one of the most acerbic
debates in California history. It proposed to dam the river at a junction with Olle of its forks near Oroville, some
sixty miles north of Sacramento and channel part of the
impounded water hundreds of miles to the arid southland. The projected transportation system was to be the
biggest water supply scheme ever undertaken in human
history. Estimated in 1959 to cost at-least $14 billion, it
has since proved to be many billions more expensive.
Every man, woman, and child in California, and unborn generations as well, were to be saddled with water
taxes to payoff bonds financing the scheme. The announcement that a huge supply of water might be tappable under the Mojave seemed to pose a threat to California's Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, who had
. politically committed himself to the project and to the
groups supporting it-bonding companies, banks, construction firms, materials suppliers, and others-who
stood to make sizable profits.

450 Miles or 450 Feet?

Back home in California Reiss was approached by a
group of developers contemplating the establishment of a
brand new city in the Mojave Desert to provide the public with an option of li~ing in a noncongested arc~a. What
they badly needed was a supply of water. This was all
Reiss needed to prove another theory he had developedthat a supply of water ran under the Mojave large
enough to supply the needs of all of southern California.
He kn~w that the agricultural empire in California's Central Valley had been brought into being by water flowing
in a dozen or more rivers down the west slopes of the
Sier.ra Nevada. On the eastern- side of the divide, however, hardly any surface water flow could be observed,
in spite of the fact that a massive 50 million acre-feet of
water had been estimated by the U.S. Forest Servic~, the ..
Bureau of Land Management, and other government
agencies to collect there in winter as in the snow pack.
In the O",ens River Valley along the road to Lone Pine
and Big Pine east of Sequoia National Park, Reiss discovered that if he walked three or four miles up into
dozens of bone-dry deep gash canyons, he would encounter streams full of fish, which disappeared into the earth.
He came to the conclusion that !l large part of the snowmelt flowed only part way down the eastern side of the
Sierra before disappearing into the crushed and fractured rocky system. If this were so, an enormous river network should be flowing underground to exit into the
ocean.
As the Monitor summed up the enormous implications:
Parsuit 22

"The find could change the whole character of the western quest for water. It conceivably could make pointless
the longstanding fight bet'.veen the western states over the
water of the Colorado River. It could make equally
pointless the divisive .bickering between northern and
southern California over the destiny of the Feather Riv-.
er."
In the midst of a heated campaign to put across to the
California public the urgent need to vote for the Feather
River Project, Reiss contracted with the San Bernadin,o
Municipal Water District (SBMWD) to drill. wells sufficient to supply the needs of huge. San Bernadino County
in perpetuo for a ~um infinitesimally smaller than that to
be levied against the district as its share of the Feather
River Project. Reiss's first well for the SBMWD, brought
in a Yucaipa, delivered 900 gpm in 600 feet of solid granite. A movie of the well pumping water was screened by
excited county officials to prove that county residents did
not necessarily have to bear the yoke of an expensive
bond issue. When the well was on the point of being accepted by the SBMWP, Reiss -was summoned to a private
meeting with its manager who shamefacedly told him that
he had been asked by Governor Brown to shut down the
well. Flabbergasted, Reiss. asked why. "Because," ad.mitted the SBMWD manager, "he felt that if you could- .
n't be stopped from running around the country bringing in maverick water. wells, the whole bonding issue was
in jeopardy."
Having no choice but to defend himself against political skulduggery; Reiss went to court to collect some
$200,000 in costs that he had personaHy incurred in the .
SBMWD drilling. The court accepted evidence from State
Water Division engineers who, as Reiss puts it, "had just
left school," that the well he had put down would not
produce the water claimed for it. Reiss lost his case both
in the lower and the appeals courts but finally won when
the decision was reversed in the Supreme Court of California. Not wishing to add to the tax burden of ordinary
citizens, he declined to s.ue for the full $7 million amount
of his contract.
Angry and hurt, Reiss carried his case to the public by
testifying before a Select Committee on National Water
Resources of the United States Senate in Los Angeles in
October 1959. He began by pointing out that conventionill solutions t9 an ever-increasing need for pure water
differed but little from ancient methods of transporting
water on mule back or through such aqueduct systems as
those built in classical Roinan times. Prophetically, Reiss
told the committeemen that not only were safe areas for
dam building fast running out in the United States, but
that dams represented no Iong-term solution because, in
the end, silt collecting behind them' would eventually
create mudlfats for beavers and waterfalls, if the dams
themselves did not burst beforehand.
As an alternative, Reiss proposed serious study of water flowing in rock fissure~. "Why should huge sums be
spent to build pipe lines over great distances when Mother Nature has created her own pipe lines?" he asked
the committee. "It is certainly far more economical to
pump w.ater vertically up 450 feet than to. pump it and
transport it hiterally for 450 miles!"
..
. To counter the force of Reiss's arguments, the Califor-.
nia Director of Water Resources rushed into print with
(Continued on page 34)

F"t Quart.-.. 1982

The Chinese
Connection
EVIDENCE OF TRANSPACI.FIC
VOYAGES IN
PRECOLUMBIAN TIMES
by DiaDe E . Wirth

I' .'-

Olmec terra-cotta head with Chinese

features. After photograph from Ancient
Egyptians and Chinese in America by
R. A. Jalrazbhoy, Rowman &
Littlefield (1974).

CCORDING TO ancient records, Chinese Buddhist monks visited the land of Fusang in the year
A
458 of our era. Fusang was described as being 20,000 Ii, or' about 6,500 miles from China, and
the breadth of'the strange land was said to be 10,000 Ii, or approximately 3,250 miles. The records
.
also mention a wide sea beyond the land-mass. 2
Is this an historical account of Chinese travelers who reached America a thousand years before
Columbus? Let us examine the account, along with other possible Eastern-Western similarities, to see
what eviBence we.gather....

The narrative states that, during the reign of China's

Emperor Yung Yuan, a Buddhist monk named Hui Shen
returned from a strange land in 499 A.D. Hui Shen is said
to have arrived in .Fusang in 458 A.D. in company with
other 'Buddhist monks; however, the recordsshow that only Hui Shen returned to China. As part of their priestly
duties, the monks taught principles of Buddhism to the
natives through the use of religious books..and images. Hui
Shen wrote up their mission as a success in his report.]
It may have been because the' monks were so impressed
by the many uses of the fusang tree that they named the.
land Fusang .. Fusang trees had leaves resembling bamboo
shoots; the red, pear-shaped fruit was edible; and the bark
was used to make cloth and paper. Scholars have searched
long and hard for the fusang tree to help identify the location of the land called Fusang, for no such tree grew in or
around China. In recent times, two lines of thought have
developed, and both lead to the American continent.
In her book Pale Ink, Henriette Mertz theori~es that the
pear-shaped, red fruit of the fusang must be corn. Her
reasoning: the fruit of .the fusang was said to last a year
without spoilage, and the husk growing over an ear of corn .
. and the green stalks in a cornfield bear close resemblance
to young bamboo. As for the color red, Mertz notes that
wild corn comes naturally in a variety of colors, including
red. 4
Deng Tuo, a contemporary Chinese historian, takes a
F....t Qner 1982

different view. He identifies the fusang tree as the cactuslike century plant of Mexico.5 This agave was used by the
Indians for hundreds of years for paper, food, drink and
clothing.
Hui Shen's account of the enigmatic land across the sea
draws many parallels with pre-Columbian cultures, such as
the customs and traditions of the people, .portions of
religious beliefs" types.of food and clothing, procedures of
government and conduct of the military, construction of
living quarters, 'and layout of villages.
George F. Carter, a professor of geography at Texas
A&M University, has studied the: theory of diffusion (i.e.,
transoceanic voyages). He notes that both the American
variety of peanut and the American hibiscus reached China
before' the' time of Christ. 6 Thus we are given a nice bit of
Iiying evidence that the Chinese not only crossed to
America but also returned home, much as the account of .
Fusang relate~.
~

A Difference of 9,000 Years

Do scientists today readily accept ancient voyages to the
Americas from the East? In the words of Betty J. Meggers
of the Smithsonian Institution, "Aside from cultural
evolution, no theory has provoked more violent dissension
among anthropologists than trans-Pacific contact.' '7
Wherein does the principal controversy lie?

Purs.',23

Fig. 1
(left) Weight anchor,
Palos Verdes
(center) line weight,
Patton Escarpment
(right) Boomhoist
counterweight,
Palos Verdes

From "Stone Anchors: Asiatic Shipwrecks 011 the California Coast" by Larry Pierson and James
Moriarty, Anthropological Journal a/Canada, Vol. 18, No.3, 1980.

Thomas Jefferson was among the first to put forward

the Bering Strait concept, suggesting that man arrived in
North America by way of Asia, across a "land-bridge"
. which connected the two continents about 10,000 years
ago. From Jefferson's times onward, even to the present:
this theory has enjoyed wide acceptance despite the scarcity of supporting evidence. A large-scale migration from
Asia 10,000 years ago would not account for the numerous
cultural similarities between the Far East and the New
World that by proof date to about 1,000 years ago .. The
artifacts suggest the influence of a rather small number of
Asians-way below any number that could have produced
the large populace which existed.
.
If man didn't come' solely over the Bering landbridge,
where else could he have come from? Archeologists are
looking in many directions for answers. A great deal,of information has been published which seems to connect land
masses across the Atlantic with early AmeriCa, and lands
to the west (i.e., the Far East) are not being overlooked;
but a number of problems remain. For example:
Blood types of the American Indian do not correspond
to the Mongoloid but seem to bear.a closer relationship to
European and Near Eastern types. Among Asians, blood
types A and B are most common; among American Indians, type 0 predominates. Except for the Eskimos,
blood group B is virtually nonexistent among American Indians. B Also bothersome: ''' ... a rare gene in the so-called
Diego blood-group series is found almost exclusively
among Asians and American Indians and is almost entirely
absent among Europeans and Africans. "9
Since it may be years before science gets around to a
comprehensive study of the blood-chemistry relationship
between. ancestral races, let us turn now to the tangible
evidence of a China Connection. There is much to examine, many questions to be answered, and 'some new
questions are likely to be raised.
James Robert Moriarty, an archeologist at the University of San Diego, has been investigating recently discovered
Chinese-type stone cylinders and circular stone anchors
found off. the oast of California (Fig. 1). After analyzing
an accumulation of manganese on a donut-shaped stone
from southern California, Dr. Moriarty claimed it was
about 3,000 years old and of Asiatic origin.w He believes
that the 3mm-thick coating of managanese and. other
physical evidence indicates an' artifact of great antiquity
which, in his opinion, strongly supports the hypothesis
that Asiatic vessels reached the Americas' in pre ...
Columbian times. II
. Stone anchors, such as those researched by the San
Diego scientist, were once used in China and were referred
Pursuit

24

to as "stone pillars" dropped into 'Yater. From a descrip-.

tion in Records oj Buddhist Countries-, written by a mon~
named Faxian (A.D. 317-420), the objects used at this early date appear similar to those 'found off the California
coast.12 Besides the stone weights that prompted Dr.
Moriarty'S investigation, eight readily identifiable
objects-various types of anchors and ballasts made of
feldspathic sandstone-have been brought up by divers
from the vicinity of Palos Verdes, California. Geologists
who have examined the stone say that it could not have
come from North 'America; they note, however, a close
match to samples taken' from quarries near the southern
.
coast of China.13
Some historians speculate that if and when a transPacific link is finally put in place, the eastern end will be
tied to a location in South America, perhaps along the
coast of P~ru; they discount the pqssibility that primitive
seafarers could have made passage through the stormtossed nor~hern reaches of the Pacific. However, the artifactual evidence presently located combi~es with some
knowledge of early navigational practices to suggest that
the route taken by ancient mariners' was the Kuro Shiwo,
the name given by the Japanese to their "Black Current".
which flows eastward from their islands, passes along the
south shores of the Aleutians, and finally reaches the
coasts of America. Many junks have been known to head
into. the Pacific, to be propelled by fitful currents or blown
helplessly across the ocean, to end up as splintered wrecks
on American' shores. 14 Prof. Carter strengthens this view:
"As experts in. primitive watercraft tell us, the problem is
not navigation, but survival; anyone adrift at sea is bound
to hit a continent. "I'
Gordon F. Ekholm, curator of Mexican archeology at.'
the American Museum of Natural History, has noted in his
work on the subject that Chinese' literary accounis contain
more than one example of extensive shipping, around
A.D. 400. 16 Another expert, Walter Krickeberg, has determined from ancient writings that the ships, with crews of
. at least 200, were larger than those used by Columbus a
thousand years later. 17

Visual Aids for Ancient Mariners

Chinese sailors were as skilled as any primitive seafarers
in estimating position, course and direction from careful'
study of the stars by night. Another navigational aid, the
magnetic compass, was known in principle to the Chinese
from very early times, and it is possible that compass bearings might have helped more than one ship set course
toward the strange land to the east, as long ago as the 1st
century ...
First Quartel' 1982

We don't know h~w the Chinese got here, or whether it

was by planned voyage or accident, but the evidence accumulated thus far suggests that the tale of the Buddhist.
monk, Hui Shen, may one day be accepted as an historical
account of accurate perception and much truth. Meanwhile, our investigation will be advanced' by a look for
evidence of early Chinese presence in America. We need to
know what kind of impression, if any, it made on preColumbian ,civilization in this hemisphere.
An age-old argument against the diffusion theory is the
lack of prominent too}s, art styles and archeological forms
brought to the New World by Old World people. Agreement that certain artifacts originated in a distant region
, does not satisfy a thirst for specifics, and these are seldom
easy to come by. Such things as wheeled vehicles (Fig. 2)
are not necessarily evidence of Chinese contact. Small
wheeled objects were also anciently used in Europe, the
Near East, India and Japan, as well as China. What we
have to look for, in order to be specific, are those artistic
styles peculiar to China that are also found in the cultures
of pre-Columbian America.
Dr. Ekholm and others say there is evidence of several
trips from Asia to America:
'
-During the Shang dynasty (16th century B.C. to 1027
B.C.), which corresponds to the early portion of the Olmec
culture in Mexico and the' Chavin culture in South
America, and
-During the Mesoamerican "classic period" which correponds to the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 24).18
,If Buddhist monks crossed the Pacific to America as the
Fusang epic relates, we could count yet another successful
voyage. And Henriette Mertz suggests that an even earlier
trip was completed about 2250 B.C. She cites an account

of that expedition which was compiled for the Emperor

Sun by Yu, his minister of public works. A monumental
history, it bore the title "Shan hai Jing," (translated as
, "Classic of Mountains and Seas") and described lands
which Mertz believes could only be portions of western
North America. 19 Using the Ekholm and Mertz time-'
'guidelines, we are led to our first clues to similarity between Chinese and American early cultures. The locale is
the southern portion of the state of Veracruz and the state
of Tabasco, along the Gulf Coast of Mexico, where the
Olmec civilization flourished for many centuries before the
dawn of the Christian era.

Testimony of Jade, Cats, and Pottery

An unexplained aspect of Olmec society is the way it
managed to arrive on the scene with an integrated culture
by 1200 B.C. The OImecs seem to have skipped the usual
developmental stages between early food-gathering and
'organized village life. How any peoples could have arrived
anywhere in the New World with ways and means so far in
advance of their time can be understood only in the light of
the diffusion theory. The use of jade objects among the,
early Olmecs is a beginning argument in pleading the Case
of the China Connection.
C. Balser, in his extensive 'study of jade, concludes that
t~ere are ,significant parallels in technique between Olmec
and Chinese jade-carving: cutting with wooden slats, perforating with pressure drills, and polishing with
abrasives. 20 In both cultures, east and west, jade was considered to be a most precious mineral, superior to gold. A
custom common to both cultures decreed the placing of a
piece of jade in the mouth of the deceased, symbolizing the
quitclaim of mother earth, fertility, and life.

Fig. 2 Miniature wheeled vehicles

China, attributable to the Han Dynasty

Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico

Reprinted from "Transpacific Contacts" by Gordon F. Ekholm, Prehistoric Man In the

New World, by permission of the University of Chicago Press for Rice University (1964)

First Que.rtel' 1982

Pursuit 25

-,

.
'0
I

Southern Mexico
was the home of
the Olmecs

Pacific Ocean
As long ago as the middle and late 1800s, scholars were
saying that jade found iri Mexico and dated to preColumbian times, was imported Asiatic jade. 21 On view 8,t
a meeting of the American Antiquarian Society was a collection of tools and ornaments brought from Costa Rica.
Members learned that the jadeite and chloromelanite
from which the objects were fashioned were minerals
found mostly 'in Asia. In his report on chemical testing of
the items, a Harvard. professor declared them to be "unquestionably Chinese jade. "22
Another interesting link between the Olmecs and the
.Chinese was their association with the feline; in the case of
t~e Olmecs, it was the jaguar, whereas the tiger reigned
supreme in ancient China. The feline became the symbol of
an obsessive cult, memorialized with equal fervor on both
sides of the Pacific. The two cultures stylized the subject
almost to the point of confusion, yet continuity of design
was always manifest.2J Parallel treatment of the fetine
design is clearly seen in a comparison of artifacts from
Chinese and American cultures of about the same' period
(F~g. 3).
Fig. 3 Jaguar designs

Chavln de Huantar. Peru

China

From In Quest o/the White God by Pierre Honore.

,G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York (1964)
.

A talent for pottery making enriched the two cultures; ~

and each attained a high level of similar craftsmanship.
Dr. Ekholm believes this demanding craft could not have
become so well-developed in America without influence

from Asia. He cites evidence that the skills which produced'

the cord-making pottery of northwestern North America
and the early pottery, of Ecuador came from the same
Asiatic s~urce.24 Similarity of style and design is also apparent in tripod vessels from. both China and Guatemala
(Fig. 4).
.
Many more parallels have been found in two-dimensional patterns, especially those on bas-relief panels. Some
Mesoamerican panels which portray human figures
holding the stem of a lotus plant are quite like those portrayed. in southern India; they lack any semblance of con- .
nection to China. Other examples reflect a likeness so close
as to deny the possibility of coincidence (Fig. 5). For example, the panel from the Chou dynasty in China and the
panel from Veracruz, Mexico, feature interlacec;l bands
. with double outlines, and both portray dragon-like
masks.2s Some scholars question such evidence and call attention to the dating problem: the Chou dynasty ended in '
256 B.C. and the Tajin style at Veracruz did not develop
until ab9ut six centuries later. But' Dr. Ekholm rebuts with
a reminder that transplanted arts and crafts may need
much time to flower in a new homeland. He urges special
caution in cases where most of the evidence, along with the
race that produced it, has long since disappeared. Of the
dating problem he writes:
There are various possible explanations. Contacts
could have ~ccurred closer to the time of the full development of the style in Asia, and it could have been
maintained in wood-carving for hundreds of years before it appeared in stone in Veracruz.... 26
Most remains of the past have come downto us as stone,
mineral and clay objects. Such things as cloth, wood and
other materials that deteriorate with time were also of
primary importance. Since absent. artifacts have no standing in the courts of academic or public opinion, the most
'we can say about the panel designs is that they offer
reasonable but inconclusive evidence in favor of the'
~hinese Connection.
Favorable evidence may also be adduced from a comparison of the batons and celts used to denote rank and
position of officers in the two governments, the one in the
land of the Olmecs, the othedn ancient China. The celts
are identical in style27 and the batons are close look-alikes.
Sovereigns of the Shang dynasty used jade batons while
receiving officials, and batons were carried as symbols of
authority by Chinese feudal lords. Olmec illustrations
show dignitaries holding batons in an apparent ceremony
of greeting foreigners. 28

What about evidence of similar racial characteristics?

We do not know which blood type was predom~nant
among the Olmecs because they are long gone as a race;
but we do have terra-cotta portraits and bas-reliefs which
are authenticated by location and dating. These tell us that
, the Olmec people were a diversified conglomerate of many
races, including Caucasian, Mongoloid, Semitic, Negroid,
and what Alexander von Wuthenau has called the "real
Chinese.' '29 Extensive study of pre-Columbian terra-cotta
pottery' was the basis for von Wuthenau's reference' to
Chinese influence, and in the facial lines of a terra-cotta
head at the Museum 'of Diego Rivera in Mexico City (see
frontispiece) is noteworthy evidence that at least one
Olmec had Chinese features.
Ancient celts were chisel-like batons,

Flnt Qaaner1982.

Fig. 4 Cylindrical tripod vessels

from Asia and America
Han Dynasty, China, bronze

Tikal, Guatemala

Reprinted from ''Transpacific Contacts" by Gordon

F. Ekholm, Prehistoric Man in the New World, by
permission of t~e University 0(- Chicago Press

On Earth as It Was in Heaven

The unseen cosmos was of great importance to most ancient civilizations. To the mind's eye of Mesoamerica it
brought visions of "reality." Structures were planned and .
laid out toward the cardinal directions, with emphasis on
the north-south axis. We find an identical practice among
the Shang, in China. Both cultures envisioned four seas in
the four directions, four colors, fOlir deities, and four
elements; the map of the heavens was divided into four
.
parts, each assigned a c!lrdinal point. 3D
Since cosmology was a vital part of both Mesoamerica
and ancient Chinese philosophy, it comes as no surprise
that the Maya and other pre-Columbians had calendars
comparable to those of the Far East; both used a pattern- of
cyclical repetition and worked through two periods of different length. Several coinciding figures of the zodiac are
also worth noting:
China

Mexico

Red bird

Vulture

White tiger (but

in early times, dog)

Dog

Black warrior on
a tortoise

Death's head

Green dragon

Crocodile

Four cosmic beings

Masks of four
regents31

Flnt Qaarta 1982

. Fig. 5 Jaguar panel designs

China,
Chou Dynuty

EI Tajin.
Veracruz,
Mexico

From Mexico South by Miguel Covarrubiu,

Alfred A. Knopf (1964)

These calendrical calculations were recorded in frescos

and stone, and in codices (Le., books). The Chinese .and
the Aztec-Mayan people were papermakers. Both cultures
bound their writings into codex form with the pages folded
fan-like between board covers. The writing went from
right to left and from top to bottom. The two systems are
identical; the Chinese continue to write from right to left,
from top to bottom, and in a circuit opposite the course of
the sun. Aztec-Mayan scribes used the same codell( format,
similar paper, and brush.32

Pursu,,27

Fig. 7 Granite Inscribed sculpture,

. Granby, Colorado

- -

-------------

100 years ago and is just now approacl'ting adolescence.

One day we shall have the answers to our questions, and all
.
the links of the China Connection will. be in place.
FOOTNOTES
. I. Brought to light by Joseph de Guines, 18th-centurY French Orient-

From "Ancient Chinese Sojourns In the Beautiful COJ:ltlnent"

by Cyclon!! Covey, The Wake Forest Magazine, ~arch 1972.

Assuming that more than one voyage brought ancient

Chinese to American shores, we might expect that some of
them, or their progeny, would sooner or later trek to the
interior and establish inland settlements; such has' been the
pattern of migration in every age. Are there any clues to
the penetration by Chinese of areas considerably distant
from Pacific shores?
In 1920, a most remarkable artifact (Fig. 6) was unearthed from a depth of six feet at a location eight miles
. northeast of Granby, Colorado, by William L. Chalmers, a
rancher. Fourteen inches high and weighing 66 pounds, the
hard-granite object contains a Chinese inscription in a style
older than the Shang oracle bone script of IOOO B.C. and
before. 33 A retired CIA cryptanalyst, Donal B. Buchanan,
has attempted an interpretation of the script. In a
preliminary report, he gives this reading: By the mountain
pass [or at the mountain pass] I arrived 10 days ago (safe
and sound?) Buchanan has yet to identify a character in
~he upper left corner of the inscription.
Cryptanalysis, however, is always difficult and in the
case of ancient or "lost" languages may prove impossible
unless enough samples are. available to determine "frequency" and find the pattern in. which letters, words or
symbolic forms are used repetitively to convey similar
meaning. Buchanan hopes to better his translation, but he
may have to wait until more stone messages are unearth~~
before he will know exactly what was written, and perhaps
also gain a clue to the identity of. the writer.
The weight of evidence comes down in favor of the Chinese Connection. To what extent the Asiatics influenced
the culture of early America has yet to be determined. Not
only must history accept the actual physical presence of the
Chinese; it must also acknowledge that many ideas in
cosmology, religion and government were shared through
a commop symbolism. We see it in the feline, the jade, the
four directions, and elsewhere. As time progresses, so does
our knowledge. New-World archeology was in its infancy

Pursu',28

alist in his Chinese Voyages to the American Coost, based on his studies
of the Liang Shu, or the History 0/ the Liang Dynasty, written by Vao
Silian (A.D. 557-637):
2. John Fryer, "The Buddhist Discovery of America a ThousandYears
Before Columbus," Harper's Monthly Magazme, 103: 251258, (1901).
3. Ibid.
4. Henriette Mertz, Pale Ink, The Swallow Press, Inc;, Chicago (1953)
pp.55-56.
.
5. Fang Zhongpu, "Did CNnese Buddhists Reach America 1,000 Years
Before Columbus?", China Reconstructs, August 1980! p. 65.
6. George F. Carter, "Invention, Diffusion, and Racism," Anthropologica/Journal o/Canada, Vol. 19, No. I, 1981, p. 10.
7. Betty J. Meggers, "The Transpacific Origin of Mesoamerican
. Civilization: A Preliminary Review of the Evidence and Its Theoretical
Implications," American Anthropologist, Vol. 77:1, March 1975, p. I.
8. Francois Eustache, "North American Genesis," Frontiers 0/ Science,
Vol. III, No. 3 (March-April 1981), Center for UFO Studies,
Washington, D.C., p. 19.
9. Walter Karp, "How Did Hliman Races Originate?", Mysteries 0/ the
Past, by Lionel Casson, et aI., American Heritage Publishing Co., New
York (1977), p. 219.'
.
10. I:ang Zhongpu, op. Cil. ,p. 66.
II. Larry J. Pierson and James R. Moriarty, "Stone Anchors: Asiatic
Shipwrecks Off the California Coast," Anthropological journal oj
Canada, Vol. 18, No.3 (1980).
12. Fang Zhongpu, op. cil.
13. Jay Mathews, "Goodbye, Columbus," The Washington Post, Monday, October 12, 1981, pp. AI, A20.
14. James Wickersham, Whence Came the Indians?, Tacoma,
Washington (1899), pp. 6,7.
.
IS. George F. Carter, "On Pre.Columbian Discoveries of America,"
Anthropological Journal a/Canada, Vol. 19.."0.2 (1981), p. IS .
16. Gordon F. Ekholm, "Transpacific Contacts," Prehistoric Man in the
New World, Univ. of Chicago Press for Rice University (1964), p.507.
17. Pierre Honore, In Quest 0/ the While God, G. P. Putnam's Sons,
New York (1964), p. 112.
18. Ekholm, ibid.. , p. 504.
19. Mertz; ibid., pp. 1,8,151-159.
20. C. Balser, "Metal and Jade in Lower Central America," XXXVII
Congresso Internacional de Americanislas, Buenos Aires, IV, p. '61.
21. Wickersham, ibid., 'p. 26.
22. J. Butler, "Roman Coin Found in Oshkosh," American Anti'
quarian, 8:372 (1886).
.
23. R. A. Jairazbhoy, Ancient Egyptians and Chinese in America~
Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa, New Jersey (1974), p. 108.
24. Ekholm, ibid., pp. 495,496.
25. Gordon F. Ekholm, "Is American Indian Culture Asiatic?", Natural
History (October 1950), p. 345.26. Ekholm, ibid., "Transpacific Contacts," pp. 498,499.
27. Jairazbhoy', ibid., pp. 106,107.
28. Meggers, ibid., pp. 12,13.
. 29. Alexander von Wuthenau, The Art 0/ TerraCOlla POllery in Pre
Columbian Central and South America, Crown Publishers, New York
(1965); p. 49.
30. Wickersham, ibid., p. 18,20.
. 31. Frances Gibson, The Seafarers: Pre-Columbian Voyages to America,
Dorrance & Co., Philadelphia (1974),
72.
32. Wickersham, ibid., p. 14.
33. Cyclone Covey, "Ancient Chinese Sojourns in the 'Beautiful Continent'," The' Wake Forest Magazine, March 1972, p. I O. ~

p:

F....t Quarter 1982

The Origins of Lemaria

by JOD Douglas Singer, MA.
Copyright

1981 by Jon Douglas Singer

Put I
J EMURIA was first named by nineteenth-ceniurY scientists
L who were studying ancient life-forms and geological
structures in South Africa, Madagascar, the Seychelle Islands, southern India, and Southeast Asia. In the 1860s,
William Blandford wrote that Permian rock formations
which existed in those areas from 180 million years ago
were the remains of a sunken land-bridge. A German biologist, Ernst Haeckel, believed that the land-bridge was the
route followed by lemurs, those primitive mammals which
now live in South Africa, the Seychelles, and Madagascar ..
Phillip Sclater, a British zoologist, suggested that this Iandbridge should be called Lemuria, after the lemurs. Earlier
scientists named the submerged land Gondwana, after a
primitive tribe, t~e Gonds of southern India. I The land of
Gondwana contained rock formations which appeared to be
traces of the ancient land-bridge. There were, of COtlrse, no
human inhabitants in archaic Gondwana hundreds of millions of years ago. 2
Another nineteenth-century scholar, Louis J acolliot, a
Frenchman, proposed that the huge area had been inhabited
in its later stages, during the time of the earliest human cultures. Jacolliot thought that the lost land's people had developed into an advanced civilization which then spread
across the ancient world. He called this civilization Rutas,
a name he attributed to ancient Hindu texts. A perusal of
the Hindu Vishnu Purana and other old sacred books of
India failed to reveal the precise source of the name Rutas.
Moreover, doubt about the origin of the name melted to
insignificance in the heat of the controversy that followed
the Frenchman's pronouncement. J
Jacolliot's theory was expanded upon and popularized by
the theosophists, a religious group founded by HelenaP.
Blavatsky, a Russian noblewoman and mystic of the 1880s.
In her book, The Secret Doctrine,4 Blavatsky cited as one of
her sources a fabulously ancient text known as The Stanzas
of DZ)lan. But that text .was torpedoed by critics such as
William Coleman and L. Sprague DeCamp who charged it
was a forgery compiled from the H. H. Wilson translation
of the Vishnu Purana plus Alexander Winchell's World Life
geological study, and Blavatsky's own imagination. s DeCamp.
said that the theosophical account of creation was derived
from the Hymn of Creation in the Hindu holy book, the
Rig-Veda.
.
Nevertheless, Blavatsky and her followers expanded the
original concept of Lemuria from an already large land-'
bridge to a fantastic supercontinent that girdled almost the
entire southern hemisphere. Blavatsky's Lemuria became a
world-ruling empire, complete with dinosaur-herding giants
and mighty cities. 6
Blavatsky was not entirely original, as the example of
Jacolliot's Rutas demonstrates. A Portuguese navigator,
Pedro de Quiros; had suggested that the Pacific Islands
were the remnants of a sunken, inhabited continent whose

F....t Quarter 1982.

survivors were the ancestors of ihe present South Sea Islanders, the Polynesians, Micronesians, and Melanesians. In the
first half of 'the nineteenth century, French writers and explorers Dumont d'Urville and Moerenhout evolved a similar
idea, as did Alfred Wallace in 1865 and Thomas Huxley
shortly afterward. In 1923, J. MacMillan Brown, in his book
The Riddle of the Pacific, proposed that the Polynesians

were heirs of a lost continent. 7

The concept of a mid-Pacific continent called Lemuria
was further developed in 1931 when two books on the subject were published almost simultaneously. Both were so
popular' that they remain in print today and form the basis
of many widely held notions about the lost civilization. The
two fifty-year-old works are Colonel James Churchward's
The Lost Continent of Mus and Wishar S. Cerve's Lemuria:
The Lost Continent of the Pacijic. 9 Churchward's later book,
The Children of Mu, developed the theory of world-spanning
Lemurian colonies which bore a resemblance to the British
Empire of the nineteenth century. 10
Early theories of Lemuria suggested that the vanished
civilization was the source of several ancient Oriental, Middle Eastern, and Meso-American cultures. The old "deluge
legends" of the Polynesians, 'Melanesians, and Micronesians
of the Pacific were compared to American Indian legends
which were cited as evidence of Lemuria's existence. Churchward even derived Atlantis from Mu, as had Blavatsky.
To these books should be added one by Lewis Spence,
the Scottish journalist and mythologist, II and a work by the
British historian Egerton Sykes, a foremost scholar and
. supporter of the Atlantis legend. 12 These writers suggested
that there had not been one large Lemuria, but an array of
"mini-Lemurias." They used the same evidence as the earlier
authors: a series' of ancient legends from the Pacific Ocean
peopl~, archeological evidence such as the ruins on Easter
Island, and geological evidence such as Pacific Ocean f1oorfeatures that could resembl~ sunken islands.

. Geological Evidence
What geological evidence is there for Lemuria? Lewis
Spence, for. one, cited 'sunken islands as clues to the probable
existence of a former continent. Tuanaki, south of the Cook
Islands in Polynesia, sank in 1836. Reefs around the Sala-yGomez Rock, 300 miles east of Easter Island, are supposed
to be the site of another sunken island. Il Tuanaki was an
inhabited island whose people were known to the Mangaians, the Polynesians from the island of Mangaia. Sala-yGomez was supposedly the remnant of an inhabited sunken
land, a kingdom calIed Motu Motiro Hiva. 14 Another sunken
island was recently revealed in a news report in The New
York Times issue of November 19, 1980, page A19. An undersea vol~ano, which had been above water in the 1950s
and subsequently submerged, was erupting once more; the

Pursu't 29

volcano, situated about 219 miles south of Tokyo, was'being

studied by Japanese scientists.
Sunken islands are legion due to the fact that the Pacific
'is one of the most violently volcanic areas in the world. But
sunken continents are harder to find; continents rest atop
granite' bases while islands rest atop basalt bases. Most of
the Pacific islands are of volcanic origin, having risen straight
from the ocean floor, and lack evidence of granite baseS.
Certain geologists have claimed discovery of at least two
sunken continents, although they date to many millions of
years ago, long before the time of man. One example is
Pacifica, so-named'I:>Y Dr. Amos Nur of Stanford University
and Dr. Zvi Ben-Avraham of the Weizman Institute of
Science in Israel. IS They suggested that Pacifica broke into
large fragments which gradually drifted away and after millions of years, collided with Alaska, eastern Siberia, California, and the western coast of South America.
Another lost continent was located by' a team of scientists
from the United States Geological Survey research facility
at Menlo Park, California~ Dr. David L. Jones and his colle.agu~ argued that there wasn't much evidence for Pacifica
but there was evidence for several continental "blocks. "16
Other scientists, Dr. Augustin K. Armstrong, for example,
explored the Wrangell mountain range of southern Alaska
and hypothesized that the mountains were the remains of a
continent called Wrangellia. From Vancouver Island it extended over the Queen Charlotte Islands off the west coast
of Canada and included southern Alaska from Chichagof
Island to the Wrangell range. Wrangellia supposedly existed
in the Triassic period, 220 million years ago. Remnants of
fossil plants and animals taken from dry-land portions of
. Wrangellia were found to be of tropical origin. 17
Part of Wrangellia did not sink but joined what is now
North America. It left traces in Hell's Canyon in the states
of Washington, Idaho and Oregon. Wrangellia broke up in
a dramatic manner, after volcanic el1,1ptions. It is interesting
to note that Mt. St. Helens .is right in the heart of this area.
Russian scientists also found an extremely ancient "lost
continent" in the far .western Pacific. Supposedly, it extended
from Australia across the waters of southeast Asia to Africa.
Oceanographers aboard' the SoViet .ship Vityaz reported
finding traces of the sunken land mass in 1961 but gave no
estimate of its age. 18
The New York Times announced on March 19, 1979
(Section D, 'page 11) that sunken islands, many millions
of years old, had been found by the famous oceanography
ship Glomar Chalienger. Scientists aboard her were studying
the Emperor Seamounts, a chain of underwater volcanos
north of the Hawaiian Islands. The volcanic islands are now
a mile below the ocean surface and sank about 60 million
years ago, as did other sunken land found 100 miles east of
the Japanese home-island of Honshu.
While there is evidence for sunken islands, there seems to
be no evidence for recently submerged' inhabited continents
in the mid-Pacific. From a strictly geologic point of view,
then, continental Lemuria is but '~ myth.

Archeological Evidence
Turning to archeology, what'does it tell us about a lost
civilization called Lemuria, or Mu? The name Lemuria is of
modern origin; the alternative name, Mu, is derived from
. old legends and was first mentioned in modem literature by
the French scholar Brasseur de Bourbourg. In 1864 he undertook translation of Mayan books by using the writings of

the notorious Spanish missionary, Archbishop Landa. This

brutal proselyte had burned thousands of Mayan books as
"works of the Devil," but later changed his mind and compiled a Mayan alphabet. This provided the key to Mayan
writing, or so de Bourbourg thought. Perhaps in the hope
of becoming a second Champollion, de Bourbourg published
his "translation" which alleged the sinking of a land called
Mu. The name was derived from the symbols for M and U
in the Mayan book, Troano Codex. Writer L. Sprague DeCamp argued that' de Bourbourg's traIiSlation was erroneous;
and the Troan.o Codex was denigrated as a text on astrology.
A few years ago, without much publicity, Prof. Floyd
Lounsbury of Yale University and his colleagues achieved
a breakthrough by actually deciphering Mayan writing. Prior
to that time, only numbers and a few words could be read,
but now sentences and genealogies.as well as lengthy inscriptions on monuments. could be deciphered. Ancient
Mayan is an archaic form that partially survives, even today,
in the speech of Mayan Indians in Yucatan and elsewhere
in Central America. There are no similar traces of ancient
Egyptian, Hebrew, Old Norse, or other Old World language~ which, in the view of nineteenth-century theorists,
might have influenced Mayan: 19
While evidence for Mu may be lacking among the Mayans, legends of lost cpntinents and a prehistoric tribe called
"the Mu" seem to abound among the Polynesians, those
native inhabitants of the central and eastern Pacific. Lewis
Spence mentions the Mu 20 as a supernatural tribe of Hawaiian legend; they lived on a supposedly mythical island called
Kueh~lani that floated and moved about at night. Alongside the Mu lived another, more famous tribe, the Menehune
d~arfs. The Menehunes are now regarded as the leprechauns
. of Hawaii, pixie figures of fun; but, in ancient times they
were held in awe; They were reputed to have built stonelihed fish ponds ,and Mayan-style flat-topped pyramids of
lava or coral. I have myself walked atop one of these pyramids which stands outside Kailua, a suburb of Honolulu. 21
Another Hawaiian myth tells about the Kena~u and the
Kenawa, also dwarf tribes. They were pygmy people who
had come from a lost continent called Kahiki.
Irs fascinating as the ruins and legends' of Hawaii are, they
do not stand up as evidence in favor or Lemuria. The Hawaiian Islands weren't settled until about the twelfth century
A.O.ll Thus their ruins are too recent to be claimed for
Lemuria. .
From Hawaii we move on to Easter Island, whose giant
statues, so greatly admired by. tourists, have been cited as
eviderice for Mu by writers Spence, Churchward, and ScottElliot. It was Scott.;.Elliot who described a Lemurian city 30
miles out to sea from the present shoreline of Easter Island;
but its ruiilS have never been found by divers. Thor Heyerdal
searched for sunken roads and sunken cities off the coast of
~aster Island and found none: 23 He .also learned that the
ruins there were not much older than A.D. 380. 24 Still on
the shelf for want of evidence is the puzzling legend which
asserts .that Easter Island was settled by a king named Hotu
Matua who' came there from a sunken island called Marae
Ronga. 2S
Other Pacific peoples have old legends ~d strange ruins
which have been cited as evidence for Mu. Most famous of
these is Nan Matol (also spelled Nan Madol), a huge complex of stone ruins set on a cluster of islets off the coast of
Ponape. The jungle-clad island of Ponape lies within the vast
. series of archipelagos to the west of Polynesia that we call

Flnt Q. .l'ter 1982

Micronesia. (The people of Micronesia are not from the

same race as the Polynesians.) It was once thought that
Nan Matol was a ruined city of Mu, as writers Churchward
and Egerton Sykes suggested. Nan Matol was indeed the
religious and political capital of a mighty kingdom, but the
realm was not Lemurian. It was built by several dynasties
over a long period of time, the dynasties having originated
on Ponape or on other islands of Micronesia. DeCamp
wrote that the Micronesian archipelago became inhabited
c. 1500' B.C., much earlier than Polynesia. However, the
ruins at Nan Matol do not date much before A.D. 1400.26
We have surveyed only a few of the sites and legends of
the central Pacific islands where Mu was supposedly situated.
For each major example used as "proof" by pro-Lemurian
writers, orthodox archeologists and oceanographers counter
that there is no evidence for Lemuria. We are left only with
legends, two more of which should be mentioned. The first
is from Norse mythology.
Norse sagas tell us that "in the beginning" there was a
great land in the south of the world called Muspelheim.
It was a hot, tropical country where the giant Muspel ruled.
The name Muspel is obscure, but it implied doom or destruction. Was Mu~pelheim the Norse recollection of MU'?27
The Polynesians believed that a legendary race of blondhaired white people once inhabited their isles. 28 The tribe's
deeds were recounted by the Maori of New Zealand; and
the Maori had a sunken island of their own which they
called Mataaho.29
Where else may we look for evidence of a lost Pacificisland civilization'? Clues on the edge of the Pacific are tantalizing. One was found in the French colony of New Caledonia in Melanesia,' a group of islands northwest of New
Zealand. The Melanesians are a different .ethnic group from
the Polynesians; they are darker and almost "twin brothers"
of the black Africans.
.
The clue in question consists of hundred of peculiar tumuli (mounds) discovered by French archeologists on New
Caledonia in the district of Paita and on the nearby Isle of
Pines. The tumlill have been dated by the carbon-14 method
to between 5120 and 10,950 B.C. The mounds have cylinders buried in them. The cylinders are upright, formed of
cement and range from 40 to 75 inches in diameter. In height
they vary from 40 to 100 inches. The mounds are 8 to 9
feet high and 300 feet in diameter. 30
Historian Andrew Rochovius didn't believe that these
mounds were Lemurian, although he noted that they were
3,000 years older than the time during which man is supposed to have migrated to Melanesia from Indonesia. UFO
fanciers have conjectured that the mounds were landingpads for ancient astronautical "scout crafts," so classified
because the upright cylinders were seen as too small and
light to support the weight of a full-size space vehicle. No
human remains or artifacts were found inside the mounds
when they were methodically excavated by L. Chevalier of
the Museum of New Caledonia in Moumea. A less vivid but
more likely explanation is that the mounds are remnants of
construction by members of an unidentified ancient. civilization. Whether Mu can be linked to New Caledonia remains
to be seen, but the mounds provide primary evidence that
an advanced culture of some kind was flourishing in the
Pacific area at the time of Mu's supposed existence. No less
than 400 of the mysterious mounds have been found on the
Isle of Pines; and in New Caledonia 17 were counted.

Flnt Q..arte.. 1982

One of. history's most significant underwater discoveries

was made in 1966 and came about quite by accident. It produced strong evidence for Mu which even the most orthodox
oceanographers have found difficult to discredit. The New
York Times of April 17, 1966 reported that during a routine
exploration of the Milne-Edward Trench (an underwater
canyon near Callao, Peru), a long-hidden secret 'Yas startlingly revealed to scientists aboard the Anton Bruun.
Dr. Robert J. Menzies of Duke University, an oceanographer of impeccable reputation, headed a team that was
searching for specimens of a nickel-size mollusk called neopilina and believed to be 350 million years 0Id.3) One of
their camera-sweeps found the mollusk they'd been looking
for; anottrer found something they hadn't been looking for:
a row of upright pillars, half buried in the bottom muck at
6,000 feet subsurface. Clearly visible on one of the pillars
. was a peculiar symbol, or hieroglyph.
According to oceanographer Gardiner Soole,32 the. site is
20 miles from the little island of Hormigas de Afuera. The
columns were first detected by sonar. The sonar readings
suggested the presence of objects which shouldn't have been
there. When the cameras were lowered to investigate, the
columns appeared as if by magic. One of the photographs
showed columns standing upright, reaching a height of four
feet above the ocean floor. Other film showed jointed rocks
and pillars that had fallen.
Soole was aware that an ancient Inca ruin lay near Callao,
but he firmly asserted that no trace of sunken cities was
known or suspected in the region at that time. He theorized
that the land either subsided slowly, or else it sank violently
when earthquakes struck or volcanic eruptions took place.
Obviously, he was as perplexed as anyone would be by the
extraordinary nature of the discovery. Perhaps a mini-sub
may one day explore this mysterious city, .but to date there
have been no reports of plans for a follow-up expedition.
An alternative theory concerning the origin of the pillars
was proposed by author Charles Berlitz. 33 He suggested that
the columns may have been ballast or cargo from a sunken
Spanish galleon. However, some of the photographs taken
by the Menzies expeditiQn tend to invalidate that suggestion;
they show what appear to be the. ruins of buildings adjacent
to the pillars.

Mu, Japan, and China

It is possible that China a,nd Japan may hold significant
clues to the lost civilization of Mu. Churchward was one of
. the early advocates who. thought SO.34 Before dismissing the
idea as utterly fantastic, we ought to review some facts that
may provide the basis of evidence in favor of a "Lemurian
connection" with the Orient.
.
There is geological evidence that large areas of land sank
near Japan as recently as 10,000 B.C. This is precisely the
time' in which Lemuria supposedly existed. Pleistocene fauna
(e.g., mammoths) reached Japan by means of the landbridges. 35 China and Japan were certainly joined during
Stone-Age times. Although reports are lacking of sunken
cities in Japanese waters, there is an abundance of poems
.and legends of underwater palaces and cities of the Dragon
Kings. Japanese mythology tells of fabulous islands such as
Onogorojima, where mankind was created, and Horaisan,
a paradise located far to the east in the Pacific.36
Chinese folklore and mythology tell similar tales of sunken
islands, and there is at least one story about a city destroyed
by a deluge: Accordin~ to Major W. Perceval'Yeus' English

Purau't 31

translation, the five Isles of the. Blest were situated far to

the east of China. These "islands" were thousands of miles
in width and were actually continents. White people called
ku-she lived there and flew on dragons.l' We are reminded
of Churchward's accounts of white Lemurians who flew
vimanas or airships. 3~ The paradisical islands boasted beautiful terraces and tall towers. In "the beginning," the isles
drifted, so the inhabitants begged the gods to secure them,
lest they drift to the west, which in Chinese symbolism was
the land of t~e barbarians. The Supreme Ruler of the Universe anchored the islands on giant turtles which bore the
weight of the enormous archipelago by rotating in shifts
every 60,000 years. (Could ti}e old Chinese sages have had
the modern theory of continental drift in their foresight?)
When a giant from the Lung-po country fished up some of
the turtles, two of the islands drifted off to the nort~ and
were lost. The Lung-po giants were punished by "shrinking":
the gods shrank both the giants and their land.39
From Taiwan comes another legend of island-disappearance. On an island called Maurigasma, King Peiroun was
warned by the gods Awun and Infoniwoo that his island
was going to be destroyed. The king fled and the island
sank. (The names Peiroun and Maurigasma may well be of
aboriginal rather than Chinese.origin.)40
I have found only one Chinese tale about a sunken city.
In ancient times a wandering Buddhist saint or arhat visited
the city of Holaolakia. He asked for food and a night's
lodging. His plea was ignored by all except one man who
gave him food; and only the compassionate giver was spared
when the angry gods destroyed the city.41 .
There is an unsurprising dearth of archeological reports
and news stories about sunken cities in the Far East. The
"keep ofr' signs have been up along the shores of the Olient
for many centuries; exclusion or severe restriction of nonnationals seems ~o be the one policy' that all governments in
that part of the world have ever shared. Whether the coastal
waters of China or Japan, or Siberia or Korea, have been
. seriously explored in recent times for ruins of sunken cities,
and whether exploration turned up any evidence of lost
civilization, is not known. Only a few pyramids found in
the interior of China suggest that-an ancient indigenous culture probably existed there ..
The first description by a western observer of pyramids
in China was written in 1902 by Francis Nichols. He found .
them while traveling in Shensi, a province of the north~est.
At a site near Sian, ancient capital of the Chinese Empire,
a "whole group" of pyramids of packed clay was located
between the city and the Wei Ho River.42 The pyramids
were four-sided; they averaged 80 feet in height, and each
base was 300 feet long: The structures had been sited on a
north-south line on each side of the road from Sian to San
Yuan. The Sianese thought that emperors were buried inside, but Chinese emperors' tombs were usually marked by
inscriptions and were oval in shape.
The story of the Chinese pyramids was revived in 1947.
A mysterious stone structure was discovered in that year by
Colonel Maurice Sheahan who was at that time Far Eastern
director for Trans World Airlines. He was flying over the
Tsing-Iing Mountains 40 miles west of Sian. As he glanced
out a window he saw, to his amazement, a tremendous pyramid standing up from the floor of a remote valley. Sheahan
described it as 1,000 feet tall. Its width was 1,500 feet at the
base. Such an immense structure easily dwarfed the Great
Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, which is "only" 470 feet high by

P.rs.it32

Shensi, among the most

remote of China's provinces, was one of the
least accessible to
Western visitors when
Francis Nichols discovered pyramids there
in 1902. Eighty years
later It Is still a "forbidden land" because of
distance (Sian Is more
than 700 miles west of
Shanghai on the coast),
mountainous terrain,
and severetravel restrictions.
I

765 feet at base. Near the titanic pyramid was a smaller one,
and at the end of the valley where the. Lung-Hai Railroad
runs, smaller burial mounds were visible from the tracks.
. .Two days after Sheahan reported his find to the New
York Times, the Associated Press distributed a story debunking the pyramid. However, Pursuit's editors suggested
that the Chinese government had "planted" the denial in an
effort to discourage foreign visitors.
.
Some theorists have linked the pyramids in Shensi to the
Hsia Dynasty, the first dynasty of the Chinese Empire. Few
archeological remains of the Hsia have been found. The
Hsia were formerly regarded as almost mythical, but are
now accepted as historically demonstrable. Chinese traditional chronology dates them to 2205-1766 B.C.; modern
scholars put the dates abitlater, 1944-1525 B.C.
Until we solve the mystery of the Chinese pyramids we
cannot be sure if they are Chinese at all, or if they might be
the remains of an as-yet-unknown earlier civilization, perhaps even a "Lemurian" civilization. Without excavation or
study of the enigmatic pyramids, we can only wonder about
them.
Let us summarize the results of our Quest for Lemuria thus
far. There is almost no geological evidence for large sunken
lands in the traditional location of Mu-the Central Pacific.
Instead, we have some legends, the archeological discoveries
of the cylinders of New Caledonia, and the Menzies photos
of the remarkable sunken city on the eastern rim of the
. Pacific.
...
There is one other .place to which we should turn if our
search .for Lemuria is to prove fruitful. The west coast of
America from. Alaska to South America is replete with .evidence of sunken islands, legends of sunken lands, and even
cryptic reports. of ruined cities in remote wilderness are~.s- on
dry .land-ruined cities of civilizations which are, at the
mo~ent, apparently unknown to archeologists. There are
even a few reports of sunken cities, and some of them have
been linked to the legend of Mu. Finally, there is the Bering
Land-bridge-I,OOO miles wide from north to south. It was
a warm, fertile land when ancient tribes began their migration to America. Was it also Lemuria?
. Jon Singer's inquiry into the origins of Lemuria is in. three
parts. T/.Ie second part will be published in the ~ext issue.
. REFERENCES
1. DeCamp, 1.:. Sprague and Catherine C. D~Camp, Ancient
Ruins and Archaeology, New York. Doubleday & Company. Inc.,
1964, pp. 227-8.
2. Tarling, Don and Maureen. Continental Drift, Garden City.
New York, Anchor Books, 1975. revised edition, pp. 74-84.

Flnt Q rter 1982

The only known photograph of a Chinese pyramid is reprinted from Vol. 6, No.4 of Pursuit for October 1973.

3. DeCamp, L. Sprague, Lost Continents; New York, Ballantine

Books, 1975, p. 61.
4. DeCamp, L. Sprague, Ancient Ruins and Archeology, op. cit.,
pp. 228-231.
5. Ibid., p. 231.
6. The Story oj Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria, London, The
Theosophical Publishing House, 1962.
7. Kondratov, Alexander, The Riddles oj Three Oceans, trans.
from the Russian by Leonard Stokalitsky, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1974, pp. 25-7. A copy is available in the Bobst Library of
New York University.
8. Churchward, James, New York, Ives \yashburn, Publisher,
1963 edition.
9. Cerve, Wisnar, San Jose, California, AMORC Press, 1971
edition.
10. Churchward, James, New York, Ives Washburn, Publisher,
1962 edition.
II. Spence, Lewis, The Problem oj Lemuria, London, Rider &
Company, 1932.
12. Sykes, Egerton, Lemuria Reconsidered, London, Markham
House Press LTD., 1968. Markham House Press has since moved
to Brighton, England:
13. Spence, op. cit., p. 23.
14. Ibid, p. 59.
15. DeCamp, L. Sprague, Ancient Ruins and Archaeology, op.
cit., p. 16.
.
16. Sullivan, Walter, "Land Mass Fragment Linked to Alien
Rock," N. Y. Times, Tues., March 7, 1978.
17. Ibid.
18. DeCamp, Ancient Ruins and Archaeology, op. cit., pp. 7-10.
19. 'Personal communication, Prof. Floyd Lounsbury. At about
the same time, a Belgian scholar claimed that he also had deciphered Mayan writing. His name is Antoon Vollemaere. See
Fate magazine, Dec., 1974, p. 18, "Cracking the Mayan Code,"
by Curtis Fuller.
20. Spence, Lewis, op. cit., p. 55:
21. Larousse Encyclopedia oj Ancient and Medieval History,
ed. Marcel Dunan, New York, 'Harper & Row, 1963, p. 397.
22. Scott-Elliot, op. cit., p. 101.
23. Heyerdahl, Thor, Aku-Aku, New York, Pocket Books, Inc.,
1963, p. 173. A frogman explored the coast where ancient roadways reach the shore. The roadways did Dot go down to Mu but

First Quartel!' :n. !\')a~

were ancient harbor works that led to now-vanished docks. Such

roadways were c'alled apapa by the natives; the word means "to
unload."
24. Ibid., p. 354.
25. Spence, Lewis, op. cit., p. 23.
26. DeCamp, op. cit., pp. 234-6.
27. Munch, Peter,' Norse Mythology, New York,' -AMS Press
reprint edition, 1970, pp. 1-2.
Spence, Lewis, op. cit., pp. 80-2. On page 75 is a Melanesian
legend of a blond people called Matang who lived in the Gilbert
Islands.
29. Ibid., p. 50.
30. Fate magazine.
31. N. Y. Times, April 17, 1966; "Evidence of Sunken City Found,"
article 'donated by Ms. Gail Cayce-Schwartzer of the Edgar Cayce
Foundation.
32. Soole, Gardiner, New York Rand McNally & Company,
1968, pp. 62-5.
33. Berlitz, Charles, New York Dell Publishing Co., Inc., pp. 97-8.
34. Churchwa~d, The Children oj Mu, op. cit., p. 171.
35. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1959 edition, Vol. 12, p. 900.
36. Herbert, Jean, Shinto, Stein and Day, publishers, New York,
p. 444. A few accounts of fabulous underwater dragon palaces
and dragon cities are to be found in Folk/ales oj Japan, ed. Keigo
Seki, .trans. Robert J. Adams, Chicago,. University of Chicago
Press, 1963. Unfortunately, the folktales are in a childish style and
there is hardly alloY detailed discussion of the legends. This is a
shortcoming of many similar books on folklore. Nevertheless,
there are tales about the underwater kingdoms of Neinya, Neriya,
Nira, and Ryugu: The last-mentioned place is said to be of Chinese
origin and means "dragon palace."
37. "The Chinese Isles of the B'lest," Folk-Lore, London, 19181919, Vol. 29-30, p. 40.
38. The Children oj Mu, op. cit., pp. 187-189.
39. Yetis, op. cit.
40. Sykes, Egerton, Everyman:SO Dictionary oj Non-Classical Mythology, New York, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1965, p. 168.
41. Gaster, Theodore, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Tes(ament, New York, Harper & Row, .1%9, p. 157.
42. See Pursuit, issues for October 1973 (Vol. 6, No.4), pp. 93-95
and January 1974 (Vol. 7, No. I), pp. 20-1.
~

Pursuit 33

The Politics of Water

(Continued from page 22)
an Information Bulletin labeling the whole Mojave Desert" study worthless and attacking Reiss' ideas about
primary water as unfounded. The newest reprise on the
earlier 1954 report on the Reiss wells sarcastically referred to the "purported documentary evidence" in the
quarter-of-a-million dollar study and its "specious and
utterly speculative" arguments. Reiss himself was termed
a "purported scientist, geologist, geochemist, and philosopher," an epithet that could just as easily have characterized many of the WRD's own staffers.
The WRD's stultified approach toward an idea that
merited at least a portion of its investigatory time was exemplified in the bulletin by its statement that the ~oncept
of .. primary water" was not even listed in .. any standard
glossary of geological or hydrological nomenclature. '.'
The same could have been said for the word "blitzkrieg," which became acceptable to French generals, who
could not find it in any of their standard military glossaries, only when they were overwhelmed by the reality the
word represented.
.
.
The bulletin was sent to thirty-thre~ California State
Offices including those dealing with agriculture, water
pollution, architecture, public 'Works, mining, soil conservation, beaches and parks,' veterans' 'affairs, public
utilities, farm and home purchases, public health, natural resources, small craft harbors, and fish and game.
More ominously, copies were received by. the State Director of Finance, the State Board of Registration for Civil
and Professional Engineers, the State Attorney General,
and the Assistant Chief of the State Bureau of Criminal
Identification and Investigation-the clear implication
being that Reiss was not only a maverick and a possible'
crackpot but a potential criminal meriting prosecution.
The dissemination did not stop with state officialdom. .
Copies were sent to eleven federal officials in California, .
to water authorities in sixteen western states, and to
twenty-eight "requ~sters" of information ranging from
professors, . engineers, consulting geologists, and. newspaper editors 'to bankers, investment companies, and
lawyers.
The vitriolic bu.lletin also attacked 'a remarkable book,
New Water for a' Thirsty World. d~ic~ted to Stephan'
Reiss by its author, Michael Salzman, then a -professor at
. the University of California's School of Commerce who
had served as engineer with the U.S: Navy's Hydrographic Office and became Director of the Los Angeles City
Housing Authority ..
During five years of research into Reiss's theory of primary water, Salzman, first to translate Nordenskiol.4's:
essay into English, came across evidence for rock-pro-'
duced water in connection with one of the strangest episodes ever to appear in the annals of c'onstruction .engineering. It took place in the middle, of Manhattan
when, in 1955, the engineering firm of Psaty and Fur. man, under contract to New York City's Department of
Public Works, began the excavation for the fo~ndation
of an addition to the Harlem Hospital at the mtersection of Fifth Avenue and 136ih Street.
While removing a layer of hard rock only twelve feet
below ground on Saint Valentine's day, workers were

Pur,.t 34

suddenly confronted with an enormous outrush of water,

seemingly from nowhere, which rapidly began to fill the
vast hole being opened in Gotham's body. Pumps hurried to the site labored at the rate of 2,200 gpm for an
entire year to keep the working area free of water. Particularly p~zzling to engineers was the fact that during
cold winter months the water maintained a constant temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit and was so 'pure that
hospital chemists certified it could be drunk without
chlorination or any other chemical treatment. A billion
and a quarter gallons were pumped out. of the hole day
and night until twelve stories of structural steel had been
erected and several lower floors decked with concrete
slabs to provlde enough weight to hold down the foundation of- the new building against hydrostatic pressure.
In June, the Engineering New~-Record ran a~tory that
ended with the baffling note that neither the. origin nor
the constant elevated temperature of water could be explained. Of the article's' readers, only Salzman respond~
ed to' the cha.llenging enigma by offering an explanation
based on Reiss's theory of water made in rocks. When it
printed Salzman's conclusions, the journal editorialized
: that, despite the efforts of many agencies, the source of
water flowing under the Harlem Hospital had never been
determined. No hydrologist, it added, had come up with
any thoughts as to its origin.
Nor has there been any comment about the anomaly in
geologic or hydrologic literature in the succeeding twentythree' years. [i.e., to 1979 when this was published.-Ed.}
. In.a foreword to the Salzman book, Aldous Huxley,
the Engiish philosopher and writer who had only recently finished his ground-breaking study of psychedelic'
drugs, The Doors to Perception. about which he was
lectl,1ring at the Menninger Clinic in Kansas, pointedly
commented: "It remains to be seen whether those who
are now regarded as experts in the field of hydrology and
the politicians, whom they advise wiII also agree that a
good case has been made and that large-scale experimentation is in order. Since then, eighteen years have witnessed no such experimentation, large-scale 'or small, on
the part of hydrologic officials, state or federal.
Huxley's unequivocal recommendation seemed, at
least, indirectly, to have won the partial sympathy of a
professional hydrologist~ William C. Ackerman, vicepresident of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)
and chief of the Illinois Water Survey Division. In an address to his colleagues at a 'regional meeting of the AGU
in Moscow, Idaho, in October 1960, Ackerman expressed his disappointmeni that, for years, papers on hydrology submitted to the AGU's Transactions had been so recondite that most of them had been refused for publication. AGU officials 'had told Ackerman that, in a world
expanding into space, hydrologic contributions evidenced
ail outworn parochialism in outlook and urged him to
persuade his associates to look beyond the hydrologic
cycle of the earth-which seemed to be their sole. concern.
The heart of the problem, concluded Ackerman~ was
that hydrology had been riding for too long on the coattails of a few of its greatest exponents, whose work had
been performed a quarter of a century previous, with
nothing of consequence having been added in the interim.
II

. Flnt Qaal'ter 1982

Ina
previous
issue of this
journal (Pursuit
No. 52, Fall 1980,
Vol. 13, N~. 4, pp. 151-154)
Edgar D. R. Wdson presented

Evidence fol' the Stabiutp of the

So.... 8y8tem slace c. 2700 B.C.
Such evidence, he asserted, "is found in a
group of pyramids known as the Giza group."
Th9mas McCreery, author of the following article,
sees the Giza Pyramids in a different perspective. His
point-by-point rebuttal of arguments which he says are based
on "pyramidology," comes to a conclusion the opposite of Wilson's:

Giza'. Pyramids DO NOT Show

Evidence for the StabUity of the
Solar System. since c. 2700 B.C.
I:DGAR WILSON'S article is a trenchant, ingenious
addition to the annals of pyramidology. Like those of
previous enthusiasts, his theses depend implicitly on the unproven premise that the Ancient Egyptians had recourse to
the most sophisticated scientific knowledge; and that instead
of recording this knowledge in writing, for reasons known
only to themselves, they incorporated it onto the structure
of the Pyramids. It is the task of the pyramidologist to decipher the structural dimensions in order to account for
such diverse, yet entertaining, hypotheses. However, there
is one important. problem to be resolved before such speculations caD. be taken seriously: The contention that the
Ancient Egyptiaits did possess advanced knowledge i~ altogether at variance with mainstream tttought, which admits .
simply to the view that any such arguments are lacking in
foundation. ..
I propose to evaluate Wilson's ideas primarily on this
point. The most authoritative sources have bc;en investigated as to the exact nature of the achievements of the Ancient Egyptians in science and astronomy.2 Since Wilson
regards himself as a custodian of scientific authority (witness his attempt to discredit Velikovsky), he can hanUy
complain if orthodoxy vitiates his hypotheses by rejecting
his claim that the Ancient Egyptians were scientifically advanced.
I have also subjected the more salient features of his detailed scenario to detailed review. To comply with space
restrictions, I have limited my analysis to evaluating the
proposals relating the base areas to the volumes or masses
of the planets Earth, Venus and Mercury; and the association of the Queen's Chamber with the Moon.

L::-

First Q rte.. 1982

The reader should bear in mind, however, that all this is

relatively unimportant in comparison to the debate on the
existence. of. an Ancient Egyptian scientific culture. Such is
the wealth of competing ideas, each generally characterized
by remarkable manipulations of dimensions or ancient units
of measure (real or imagined) and scientific data, that al-.
most any kind of theory, no matter how abstruse or unbelievable, can be conjured out of the Pyramids.
A necessary prerequisite for development of scientific
erudition is mathematical skill. Few documents have survived to guide our efforts to det~mine the limits of Ancient
. Egyptian mathematical knowledge. Of only sixteen written
before 1()()() B.C., the Rhind and Moscow Papyri overshadow the others by virtue of their length and completeness. The evidence from these two positively precludes any
awareness of advanced mathematics, though they demonstrate the existence of considerable numerical skm. It could
be argued that other documents containing the adv~nced
knowledge claimed for the Pyramids may be lost or lie ~n
discovered, and that the available papyri are little better
than elementary sources. This argument is explicitly refuted
by the opening paragraph of the Rhind Papyrus:
Rules for enquiring intO nature, and for knowing all
that exists; (every) mystery . . . every secret. Behold
this role was written in Year 33, Month 4 of the inundation season . . . (under the majesty of the Kings of
Upper) and Lower Egypt Aauserre, endowed with life,
in the likeness of a writing of antiquity made in the
time of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Namare.
It was the scribe Ahmose who wrote this copy,J

Pursull35

This papyrus is a most important document. Sarton notes

that Ahmose "was actually writing a treatise that is a systematic account of available knowledge in his field. To be
sure, his treatise is not by any means as systematic as one
written today, but as much method as it contains is tremendously impressive."4 The manuscript gives a comprehensive
insight into Ancient Egyptian arithmetical computations:
With the exception of 2/3, they used only fractions with
numerator I, i.e., 112, 1/3, 1/4, etc.; it was possible to
multiply or divide directly by only 2, 10, 1/2, or 2/3. Other
multiplications or divisions were performed by identical
operations of repeated doublings. On the positive side, they
used the decimal system for aU powers of 10 up to a million, but lacked a zero symbol. In spite of theSe formidable
obstacles, they could perform (as the Rhind Papyrus shows),
complex numerical calculations to determine the apportioning of material or goods, for example:
Divide 100 loaves among 5 men in such a way that 1/7"
of the sum of the largest shares shall be equal to the
sum of the' smallest 2. (Rhind Papyrus, Problem 40)
. The. Ancient Egyptians were also familiar with simple
geometrical forms and progressions-the corner obviously
deduced from considerations of the diagonal of a square.
Successful derivation of square root was also accomplished,
but whether by method or by trial and error is unclear.
According to the Moscow 'Papyrus, their formula for the
volume of a truncated pyramid was derived from arithmetic
rather than geometry. Sarton notes:
It is typical of Egyptian precocity and of the limitations
of their genius that that solution was found 'by them as
early as the nineteenth century, if not earlier, and that
they never found anything better though they continued to work for three or more millenia.'
Though its precepts were primitve, Ancient .Egyptian
mathematics was a stalwart discipline when compared to the
Ancient Egyptians' sketchy astronomy as we know it. Perhaps their failure to produce the appropriate mathematical
tools led to an attitude of indifference toward accurate
astronomical measurements, for none has appeared in the
vast record of inscriptions and papyri left from all periods
of Egyptian history.6 Ancient Egyptian astronomy consisted
of using the heavenly motions as rough measures of time,
probablY' to secure some regularity of schedule for the temple services.7 The earliest scheme, graven on coffin lids of
c. 2000 B.C. relates the rising of groups of stars to the passage of the nighttime hours. The results thus obtained were
so unreliable as to suggest there had to be a better way, and
one was found. Based upon star-transits," ~he revised method
could have led to an accurate definition of sidereal time had
it not been so crudely applied; the transits were observed
with reference to the head, shoulders and ears of a sitting
man!S
For daytime' measurements, the Ancient Egyptians i~.:
tially employed shadow clocks; 'these were later replaced by
water clocks and sundials-which also proved grossly inac- .
curate for chronological purposes.9 They believed, wrongly,
that the level of water in their water clocks (called clepsydra
because of the truncated conical shape) sank equal amounts
in constant time. The ahgJe of slope in their clepsydra was
110; if the angle had been reduced to 103 0, the water clock
would hav~ approXimated very closely the required shape,
and another demonstration of scientific shortfall would
have been obviated.lo
.
.
PursllBot 316

A similar Paucity of sophistication is apparent in the

limited range of astronomical instruments available to the
Ancient Egyptians. Their most sophisticated tool was the
merkhet, a very simple sighting device. 11
Wilson's particular claims that the Ancient Egyptians had
access to precise data on the speed of light and the orbital
elements of Earth, Venus, Mercury and the Moon have no
basis in reality because there is no conCeivable method by
which they could have arrived at a sensible value for the
s~ of light, given that they understood it to move with
finite velocity. That sophisticated mechanical and electrical
equipment is prerequisite to accurate determination is evident in the failures of Galileo, Roemer and Bradley.l2 Even
Foucault,1J who improved on the first mechanical experiments of Fizeau, was in error by over 5%, and the first
precise value was obtained only in this century by the supremely gifted experimental physicist Michelson,14 after
decades of work.
.
There is a serious lack of independent evidence to support Wilson's speculations that Ancient Egypt possessed a
superlative scientific genius, and much historical testimony
to reinforce traditional opinion that the Ancient Egyptians,
though gifted in many respects, were quite limited in their
scientific knowledge. It isn't easy, but it is possible, to soar
beyond that conclusion into the mists of exotic speculation.
A choice of two hypotheses will expedite the trip:
The Pyramids were the product of some highly advanced ancient culture of whose achievements no trace has
I
been left except the Giza Pyramids, or
b) The Giza complex was constructed by a von Danikentype extraterrestrial intelligence which left the monuments
as a superb puzzle for future pyramidologists to interpret.
It is surprising that Wilson failed to see pyramidology as .
a futile exercise unless this supposed "ancient wisdom" can
be accounted for. Even John Taylor, considered to be the
first "scientific" pyramid theorist, was aware of the problem; he sought a solution through recourse to Divine Intervention:
It is probable that t6 some human beings (the Pyramid
Builders) in the earliest ages of society, a degree of intellectual power was given by the Creator.. which raised
them far above the level of those succeeding inhabitants of the earth .. ,
It does seem much easier for academia, Wilson's arguments
notwithstanding, to accommodate Velikovsky's theories
than fanciful pyramidology implicitly based on advanced
ancient cultures, either indigenous or divinely inspired, or
on any von Daniken nonsense.
Apart from the problem of the "vanished master race,!'
two other associations offered by Wilson do not have substance even in the context of pyramidology. Before examining these associations it may be useful to recall the context.
Following is a short review of pyramidology, gleaned chiefly
from Peter Tompkins' Secrets of the Great Pyramids. Although his aim is misguided, Tompkins does give a comprehensive survey of pyr~idology until the mid-1950s.

a)

From Jop.n Taylor onward, the Giza Pyramids have

attracted many enthusiasts who, by' assigning arbitrary
values to ancient units of measure (the cubit has manifested itself in a remarkable variety of lengths depending
on the whim of the particular investigator), or by creating
ficititious units such 'as the pyramid-inch, have demonstrated to their own satisfaction at least, exact analogies

First Quarter 1982

between the internal and external dimensions of the Pyramids and certain geophysical and astronomical data that
pertain to the Earth. A divine message has also been perceived in the Great Pyramid: Robert Menzies claimed. that
the passage system, as a chronological representation of
prophecy, was built on a scale of one pyramid-inch per
year. Ironically, the man whose theories appear to be the
very embodiment of pyramidology was one who set out
initially to destroy Menzies' ideas. Originally an agnostic,
David Davidson was converted to Menzies' views and became convinced that the Great Pyramid was "an expression of the truth in structural form," and that it established "the Bible as the inspired word of God. "16
Although Davidson wrote encyclopedically on the subject, his books are now forgotten and generally inaccessible. By sheer chance I came across his magnum OpUS,17 in
which Davidson with considerable ingenuity purports
to show. that Cheops' Pyramid incorporates a calendric
scheme denoting .the solar, sidereal, and anomalistic
years, the rate of the precession of the equinoxes, and
the distance between the Earth /ilnd the Sun. Given the
sidereal year, the rate at which the Earth was falling
toward the Sun was deduced; the specific gravities of
the Earth, Moon and Sun, the solar parallax and the
speed of light could then be derived. Davidson also
claims that the ancients even had prior knowledge
.of Einstein's special and general theories of relativity! .
If one is inclined' to view pyramidology as others view
astrology or von Danikenism, and accept it as a serious
discipline (though it be regarded 'Objectively as misplaced
erudition), then Davidson employs consistent methods of
arriving at his conclusions: he uses units of measure which
are much less arbitrary than Wilson's units; ana he sees a
physical meaning in virtually every ,dimension. In contrast, Wilson uses only those particular measures that fit
his particular theory; other standards seem equally important but are ignored; and his treatment of source material
is certainly ambiguous.
.
In considering the Claim that the base areas of the three
Giza Pyramids represent the volumes of the masses of the
planets Earth, Venus and Mercury, we find little textual
evidence to uphold Wilson's theory that the original dimensions of Mycerinu~'s Pyramid were exactly half the
final values. Wilson turns to Edwards and Petrie for support; but the former states that "Internally, at least one
and probably two changes of plan are apparent. . . . The
only reason for this change in plan seems to have been a
decision to enlarge the superstrllcture of the PYJ;'amid. "18
Petrie states: "From all these details it seems plain that
the first pyramid was begun as no larger than some of the
small pyramids on the same hill ... the builders for some
reason determined on enlarging the pyramid before it was
cased,"19 and, "the pyramid has certainly been ~ltered
from its first design, and also, perhaps, on the outside. "20
The only help for Wilson's idea is Petrie's conjecture that
the Mycerinus pyra'mid was designed to be 200 Royal
Cubits long,21 and if that be the case, "The first design of
the pyramid, before its expansion, appears to have been a
base of 100 cubits, like some of the small pyramids. "22 So
if the design of the original had been to linear half-sizes, it
would have conformed to a standard length, based on geometrical as well as arithmetical considerations, with no
astronomical considerations in mind. It should be emphasized that many of the other features of the Giza com-

Flnt Quartel' 1982

plex were designed compatibly with the Royal Cubit-thus

adding to the evidence that their architects and engineers
followed only the earthly guidelines usual to thei~ times.
The theory about the use of the Queen's Chamber fails
on a number of separate counts. One would suppose, given
the importance attributed to it, that the chamber would
have been planned in great detail, would have been finished to very high standards of workmanship and accuracy, and that no important dimensions would be redundant; each dimension should be expected to replicate
some important lunar parameter. Wilson's hypotheses on
all these matters are unacceptable; a much simpler, more
reasonable proposition regarding the size of the Queen's
Chamber can be postulated.
Edwards notes "many indications that work on theQueen's Chamber was abandoned before it had been completed. "23 Evidence for this comes from various excavations. Shafts running out of the chamber have no outlet to
the outer surface of the Pyramid:
These apertures were not cut at the time when the
chamber was built-an omission which can only be
explained on the hypothesis that the chamber was
, never finished . . . the absence of such an outlet provides further evidence of an alteration in the original
plan. 24
The workmanship of the chamber is much inferior to
. many other c~mponents of the Giza complex. Petrie notes:
The general floor is' hopelessly irregular, consisting
plainly of rough core masonry, and furthermore it has
. been built' over with similar rough masonry, which
,was afterwards stripped down to insert the chamber
walls .... All around the chamber and the lower part
of the passage leading to it, is a footing of fine stone.,
at the rough floor level; this projects 1 to 4 inches
from the base of the walls, apparently as if intended
as a support for flooring boards, which have never
been introduced.2s
This alteration in plan, the concomitant roughly ,finished floor, and the fact that the Ancient Egyptians, as
Edwards notes, seem to have abandoned the Queen's
Chamber in favor of constructing the Grand Gallery and
King's Chamber, strongly suggests that, for one reason or
another, they lost interest in finishing the Queen's
Chamber. 26 This decision, which took place before either
Chephren's or Mycerinus's Pyramids were built, is patently inexplicable in terms of Wilson's ideas.
Given the vast amount of work required to construct
these two pyramids, the importance of the Queen's Chamber, and the relatively small effort required to finalize it,
why did the builders stop? The termination of the Queen's
Chamber, and the subsequent constructions of the other
two pyramiqs make nonsense of Wilson's claim that they
were constructed as models of astronomical bodies. Although the reas~n for the disuse of the Queen"s Chamber
is unknown (perhaps in -the context of Wilson's theories
the Moon's orbit changed abruptly), the chamber seems
to have been constructed according to geometrical considerations. Petrie's generally accepted work shows that
the unit of measure used by the Ancient Egyptians in constructing the Giza complex was the Royal Cubit (20.62
imperial inches).27 This unit is seen in the design of the base
of Cheops's Pyramid, the King's Chamber therein, the
chambers of Chephren's Pyramid, and many of the

Pursuit 37

features of Mycerinus's Pyramid. 28 Apart from Wilson's

conjecture, there is nothing to suggest that the Ancient
Egyptians used a measure of 21.8 cm. Had they wished to
show the sidereal and synodic lunar months incorporated
in the design of the Queen's Chamber, and given the vast
space they could utilize within the confines of Cheops's
Pyramid, it is strange that they did not use the Royal Cubit
(52.35 cm) or half a cubit (26.175 em). The choice of a unit
of 21.8 cm is arbitrary, though chara~eristic of the freeform thinking that seems to prevail among many earnest
devotees of pyramidology. Also to be noted is the impression given by Wilson that the Queen's Chamber is cuboid
in shape. He fails to mention that the stated height (245
in.) refers to that of its ridge; the equally important height
of the chamber's walls (184.47 in.) is ignored.
.
An ~Iternative to Wilson's hypothesis concerning the
design of the Queen's Chamber holds that the chamber
was constructed so the squares of the dimen~ions of the .
chamber were in round numbers of square cubits:
A beautiful corollary of this theory is that the squares
of the diagonals, both superfici~ and cubit, will necessarily be also in round numbers of square units (i.e.
cubits).

Since the Queen's Chamber centers between the north

and south sides of the pyramid, its exact placement
evidences the same fondness for geometrical symmetry
that the Ancient Egyptians eisewhere displayed; in all
,respects, the alternative hypothesis affords a more satisfac- .
tory explanation of the design of the Queen's Chamber
than Wilson's explanation.
One. final point: In claiming that the Ancient Egyptians
understood stellar aberration, Wilson strongly implies that
they had access to telescopes; if not, how would observers
viewing a zenithal star know enough to tilt the telescope
slightly so that. the starlight would pass centrally through
the tube, the angle of tilt being equal to the stellar aberra.tion? No evidence has ever been produced to show th~t the
Ancient Egyptians were familiar with simple convex or
concave lenses, let alone telescopes, so that idea seems
highly implausible.
Wilson concludes that Harlow Shapley's initial decision
to censor Velikovsky is now vindicated by this latest piece
of pyramid "interpretation." Surely that raging
astronomical'lion would be most uneasy if Velikovsky's
massive assaults on authority are now opposed only by
specious pyramidology.
.

REFERENCES .
I. Pursuit No. 52, Vol. 13, No.4, Fall 19SO, pp. 151-154.
2. Among sources examined are George Sarten's A History qf Science,
Oxford University Press, London, 1953; Ancient and Medieval Science,
ed. Rene Taton, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, especially chapters
on Egypt by Gustave Lefebvre and Jean Vercoutter;. The Place of
Astronomy in the Ancient World, ed. F. R. Hudson, Oxford University
Press, London, 1974, especially R. A. Parker's article on "Ancient Egyptian Astronomy"; Otto Neugebaur's A History of Ancient Mathema~ical
Astronomy, Springer-Verlag, Berl}n, 1975, especially Part Two, Book
III-"Egypt"; Flinders Petrie, Wisdom of the Egyptians, Quartich, London,194O.
. .
3. T. Eric Peet, The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, Liverpool University
Press, 1923, p. 33.
4. Sarton,op. cit, p. 37.
5. Ibid., p. 40.
6. Netigebaur, op. cit., p. 560; Parker, op. cit., p. 51.
7. Vercoutter, op. cit., p. 42.
8. Parker,op. cit., p. 58; Neugebaur, op. cit., p. 561.
9. T. R. Sioley, Journal of Egypt Arclllleology, 1931) No. 17, pp..
166-178.
10. Ibid., p. 175.
II. The merkhet was the rib of a palm leaf, split at its widest point.
12. For history of attempts to determine the speed of light, see Eric M.

Rogers, Physics for the Inquiring Mind, Princeton University Press,

1960, pp. 476-478.
13. Weidner & Sells, Elementary Classical Physics, Allen & Bacon,
Boslon, 1965, p. 40.
14. Ibid., p. 1041.
15. Peter Tompkins, ~rets of the Great Pyramid, Penguin, ~ondon,
1978, p. 75.
16. Ibid., p. 108.
17. David Davidson and Henry Aldersmith, The Great Pyramid: Its
Divine Message, Williams and norgate, London, 1924.
18. I. E.- S. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, Penguin, London, p. 161.
19. Flinders Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples 0/ Gizah, Field and Tuer,
London, 1883, p. 120.
.
20. Ibid., pp. 153-154.
21. Ibid., p. 204.

22. Ibid.
23. Edwards; op. cit., p. 123.

24. Ibid.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.

See note 19, p. 67 ..

Edwards, Qp. cit., pp. 123-124.
Ibid., p. 2.56. .
See note 19, pp. 178-207.
Ibid., p. 191.

30. Royal Cubit is 20.62 inches in length; squared, it is 425.18 in.2 Petrie gives th:e following dimensions for the Queen's Chamber:
Width: 205.85 in., so 205.85 2. = 42374.22 dividro by 425.18 == 99.66 (100)
. Length: 226.47 in., so 226.47 2 ;" 51288.66 divided by 425.18 = 120.63 (120)
Wall Height: 184.47 in., so 184.472 = 34029.18 divided by 425.18 = SO.03 (80)
Ridge Height: 245.10 in., so 245.102 = 60074.01" divided by 425.18 = 141.29 (140)
By the same process the diameter squared of the length. and wall height gives:
The diameter of the length-wall height is 292 in.
The diameter of the width-wall height.is 276.4 in.
The diametc:r of the length-width is 306 in.
The diameter of the length-width and wall height is 357 in.
so 2922 = 85264 divided by 425.18 = 200.54 (200)
276.42 = 76397 divided by 425.18 179.68 (180)
3062 = 93636 divided by 425.18 = 220.226 (220)
3572 = 127449 divided by 425.18 = 299.75 (300)
The figures in parentheses refer to the theoretical values the Ancient Egyptians were aiming for. The slight discrepancies involved are, as Petrie notes (see
note 19, p. 129), covered by the variations in each of the diinensions. Petrie has given his estimate of the mean dimension in each case. The exception to this
is the ridge height, although difficulties with construction or changes in deSign may account for the small discrepancy. ~

Punult38

..F....t QuaneI' 1982

.-1'\

ICELAND

'"

Atlantic Ocean

AFRICA

Andent Letters
From Iberia
. South Iberian .scripts were used in the first millenium B.C. in the area we know as
Spain and Portugal. The scripts were brought to the Iberian peninsula by Semitic
Phoenicians in the course of their trade, which flourished for hundreds of years
and ranged throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. How far beyond? Undoubtedly, these enterprising sailors passed through the Strait of Gibraltar many times,
turning north for frequent visits to the coasts of Britain; also south, to do business
along the Atlantic shores of Africa. And in letters which experts agree are South
Iberian script, evidence is chiseJed instone that ancient mariners crossed 3,500 or
more mUes of ocean to teach American shores at least. once, and that a subsequent overland trek westward took them as far as the Ohio River, even beyond it.

------------------------byldadaneGaDagher-----------------------AS EXPERTS

decipher~

in Moundsville, West Virginia, in 1838, is a prime example

ancient scripts on stone tablets
of widespread confusion surrounding the purpose and au.n excavated from burial mounds and other diggings in
thenticity of inScribed burial tablets. (Fig. J) Through the
West Virginia and nearby states, an amazing fact that may
prompt rewriting of history books beCame evident: America
had visitors or inJJabitants from the Mediterranean Sea region, many centuries before Columbus landed 9n our .shores.
For more than 100 years, translation of crude messages
~eled on tablets associated with Adena burial mounds' of
West Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee baffled historians. Their
ancient characters don't look much I~e the ABCs, and the
word belong to vocabularies of nearly forgotten foreign
languages which require translation into modern English.
Further complicating matters, scripts often read from right
to left or from top to bottom.
No wonder Adena mound tablets confused the experts.
For years, these messages were ei\her disregarded or called
a hoax. But recent innovations in epigraphy, the translation
of ancient scripts, spurred renewed interest and investigation
of these old inscriptions. At last, epigraphers achieved a,
breakthrough in decoding the mysterious old writings. Their't7; u
task could have rattled the brains of James Bond, the CIA'~ . Sketch b!I Dr. CljIde Keeler
or anyone undertaking the decipherment. Fortunately, some '. ~- .
Fig. 1 The Grave Creek Tablet
Americans successfully tackled the job. The results? AmazDiscovered In 1838 In Moundsville, West Virginia, this burial tablet
ing implications for American history.
Is a 1 'IIx2lnch grayish sandstone rock. After years of study, experts
agree that-the letterforms of the Inscription are South iberian.
The. controversial Grave Creek Mound tablet, unearthed

F....t Qaan. 1982

PUNu.,39

years, experts pondered the Grave Creek tablet. Several

antiquarians received copies of its obscure message for decipherment soon after it was discovered. Danish antiquarian
Professor Rafn determined that its inscription was not Runic,
"but Iberian, even though Iberian script was considered undecipherable until recently: Rafn's findings rejected former
speculations that the tablet was incised by Norsemen.
Frenchman Maurice Schwab offered the first translation
in 1857: "The chief of emigration who reached these pla~
(or this island) has fixed these statues forever." Later, a
Moundsville osteopath~s version appeared in "a newspaper.
It read: "United States of Egypt, built by states of Western
Union."
Amused by attempts to decipher the tabl~, Andy Price,
publisher of the Pocahontas Times in Marlington, West
Virginia, added his tongue-in-cheek version in 1928: "Bil
Stumps Stone Oct 14 1838." This practical joke perpetuated
the myth that" the stone was a hoax and had been inserted
in the mound to fool excavators. Incredibly, even national"
museum authorities took Price seriously", accepting his version for many years after he published it.
Abelard Tomlinson, whose family owned the mound and
had, until 1838, resisted its opening, led the excavation team.
Tomlinson's testimony that he found the tablet in the upper'
vault of the mOl,lDd attests to its authenticity: "I removed it
with my own hands, as I supposed from its ancient bed,
believing it to be a genuine antiquity. . . . I was carefully
removing the dirt, which was mostly of decayed timber,
when it took my attention.'''
Not considered an American Indian artifact, this tablet's
meaning remained a puzzle until 1975, when America's
foremost epigrapher, Dr. Barry Fell, offered a translation
of the South Iberian script that reads from right to left. The"
language is Semitic: "Tumulus in honor of Tadach . . .
This tile engraved . . . (The) queen caused to be inscribed"."
Fell's Iberian decipherments were veri"fied by prominent
Iberian epigraphers. Script can be dated by style, by comparison with European data and by associated artifacts.
South Iberian script was used in Spain and Portugal in the
first millenium B.C., when Mediterranean Sea merchants
.. ~ .. J : / I

t~ ....

:."

I,'"

: ~:..

,
! "

"',

"

.. ,. .:' ...

,'

Fig. 2 The Braxton County (W. Va.) Tablet

According to trllnslator Bllrry Fell, the South Iberian script on this
3x3112lnch burial tablet Identifies the deceased liS "Teth" and Teth's
brother as author of the Inscription ..
~ketch by Dr" Clyde Keeler

Pursuit 40

visited the Iberian Peninsul~ regularly. These cross-cultural"

contacts resulted in a variety of spoken langUages and scripts.
Two other funeral tablets incised with the same South
Iberian script have also been found in West Virginia. The
Braxton County tablet, reportedly found in a stream bed,
was translated by Fell. It reads: .tTumuhis in honor of Teth
.. ". This tile is engraved . . . (His) brother caused to be
inscribed. " (Fig. 2)
"An additional tablet, reported in the Moundsville Daily
Echo on July 17, '1956, was discovered by Robert Dunnell "
in Ohio County and is called the Ohio County stone. Epigrapher Donal Buchanan deciphered its South -Iberian script.
The language is Semitic: "This was set up for Lydia, wife
... Jacob engraved it."
The Bat Creek stone story illustrates the type of confusion that has accompanied interpretation of ancient tablets.
In 1885, the Smithsonian Institution conducted excavation
of Bat Creek Mound in Louden County, Tennessee. Prof.
Cyrus Thomas, in the original excavation report, identified
the inscription on this stone as "beyond question lettel's of
the Cherokee Indian alphabet." Although Cherokee scholars refuted it, this assertion endured for 70 years. Smithsonian experts corrected the error after Dr. Joseph Mahan
and Dr. Henriette Mertz independently discoyered, to everyone's amazement, that when the tablet was turned upside
down from the way it had been published in the report,
Old Hebrew script was clearly recognizable.
"
Several epigraphers translated the Bat Creek stone inscription. Hebrew scholar Dr. Robert R. Stieglitz offers the
most convincing decipherment. He compares the characters
on the tablet to ancient Hebrew" script imprinted on Jewish
coins minted during the rebellions against the Romans.
(The Jewish War, 66-73 A.D.; Bar-Kokhba's Revolt, 132135 A.D.) By this timetable, Stieglitz dates the Bat Creek
stone at about ioo A.p. The Smithsonian conCurs on the
basis of radiocarbon-dating of wood and bone material
found in the unrifled mound. Stieglitz's translation: "2 ..
A comet for the Jews ... I" He believes that the numeral
2 refers to two important skeletons set apart from seven"
others in the grave. He interprets the numeral I as the date
of burial, y~ I of the Messianic Era. "Comet" may refer
to a firebrand leader or perhaps to Halley's Comet, which
"hung over Jerusalem like a flaming sword" in 69 A:D.
A second Hebrew tablet, the Decalogue tablet, was unearthed from a small mound near Newark, Ohio, in 1860.
When a huge rock stack was torn down to repair Buckeye
Lake reservoir, 12 to 15 small earthen burial mounds arranged in a circle were uncovered. The Decalogue tablet
contains an abbreviated form of the 'ren Commandments,
copied almost entirely from Exodus 20 .
The Rev. J. W. McCarthy originally translated this Hebrew tablet in 1861 and recently, his decipherment was confirmed by FeU and Hebrew scholars Ernest Bloom and Jon
Polansky. For years, the Decalogue tablet was regarded as a
hoax, because its alphabet and language were unknow"n to
most American linguists. Fortunately, Dana C. Savage, Jr.,
who 'pu~ed' over the inscription for several" years, brought
it to Fell's attention.
This tablet (Fig. 3) is shaped like a doorway or arch,
with a figure identified as Moses carved in considerable
detail on its front side. Hebrew letters inscribed around the
"archway and on the back read from right to left. According
to the Bloom-Polansky trims~tion, the message begins thus:

First Quarter 1982

Fig.3 The Decalogue Tablet

This drawing is close to actual

size of the tablet unearthed
near Newark, Ohio in 1860.
The inscription in Hebrew
sets forth in abbreviated
form the Ten Commandments
as recorded in Exodus 20.

Drawing by Hilary Grimm

"I am YHWH your God. You will not have other gods
before me."
These inscribed burial-mound tablets and several more
that have been reported must be considered national treasures. Their ancient scripts have shattered the myth that
Columbus discovered America. Evidently, Mediterranean
Sea people reached the interior of America by the' first millenium B.C., and left their messages carved on stone tablets
foul)d in the Adena burial mounds, as well as on rocks.
The ancient visitors from the Mediterranean must also
have been our first colonists, merging their culture with

First Qaarter 1982

that of American Indians. A nussing link in American history is fast becoming apparent, as epigraphers and archeologists find the answers to questions about our very ancient,
pre-Columbian past.
..
~
Copyright 1981 State of West Virginia
Department of Natural Resources
Reprinted by permission

This article originally appeotid in the March /98/ issue of

Wonderful West Virginia magazine under the title "Stone
Tablets Found in Mounds Reveal Startling Old Scripts. I I

. Purs.." 41

The Vampire as Re~6ty

by ~ L Neidigh.
nESPITE all our science and technology, or perhaps because of it, modern
U
man remains fascinated by tales of the supernatural. In films and popular
literature, ancient tombs disgorge living mummies, and werewolves stalk the
shadows. On silent night-wings, vampires seek their' human prey.
At the beginning of the 18th century
The vampire, especially, holds a keen
attraction for the modern psyche. Ala peasant farmer died in Kisilova,
though most of the well-known vampire
near Graditz, now in Yugoslavia.
stories come from earlier times, reports
Three days after the funeral he came
issuing in our own century suggest that
to his son in the night and asked for
food. He ate and departed. Within a
vampires may still w~lk among us.
As recently as 1912 a Hungarian
few days the son was found dead in
bed. Others came down with a mysfarmer turned' back to the late Middle
Ages for a prescription to insure final
terious illness and died. The Tribunal
of Belgrade sent agents to investigate.
passage of a suspected member of the
The t-ody of the farmer was exhumed
"living dead." The corpse was disand . was found with eyes open and
interred, the mouth stuffed with garlic,
lungs breathing. It was staked and
and a stake driven through the heart.
burned.
And, according to the London Mirror
of November 9, 1967, a blonde woman
Dean Augustin Calmet, in his Dissertation on Vampires, mentions a
"with sharp, pointed teeth, wearing a
vampire who preyed upon his own kin.
mini-skirt and black' stockings,". atA soldier, quartered with a family on
tack.ed several people at night ~ear
Manaus, Brazil, and the next day a
the Hungarian border, was slightly
Portrait of V1ad IV
surprised when a stranger joined them
child was found dead with two small
punctures near the jugular vein.
.
at dinner, but family members seemed
Studies in classic vampirism abound
dition of the remains; moreover, there
frightened beyond reason at the man's
in literature of the 14th through 18th
was blood flowing from a vein in the
appearance. When his host died the
centuries. Henry More, a scholar who
leg. Such evidenc~ convinced the ex- .next day, the soldier was told that the
dinnertime "stranger" was the man's
lived in the 1600s, recorded the case' of
aminers that Cuntius was responsible
a Silesian vampire:
for all the strange crimes of the past father who had passed away ten years
before. The soldier related the tale to
As Johannes Cuntius lay dying from
several months. The body was dishis superiors and a Count (Ie Cabreras
the'kick of a horse, a black cat jumped
membered and burned, and forthwith,
the terror ceased.
.
upon his pillow and scratched his face.
was appointed to take appropriate
From the moment of death and all
action. The father's grave was opened,
Dracula, of course, was the most
through the funeral violent storms
and "the body that was brought up was
famous of all vampires. His name apswept over the countryside. As the fmal
found to be fresh and whole. So the
pears on a list of "history's most evil
Count had the corpse decapitated and
characters" according to a poll taken
shovelfuls of earth were tamped down
reburied ..
over his grave, the rains ceased and the
early in 1981. Caligula, Adolph Hitler
The traditional way to terminate a
stormclouds sped away. . . . But this
and Idi Amin also are named. Unlike
was only a prologue.
.
this trio, however, Dracula seems to \vampire's bloody career was to exhume
the body' and drive a stake through the
Soon after the burial, Johannes was
have lacked any political motivation;
heart. Most times the method seemed
he murdered for pleasure.
seen walking about at night. Mud~
to work. But a vampire in Bohemia remore upsetting to the commmunity,
Bram Stoker's Dracula was based
ceived the stake without effect and
however, were simultaneous reports of
on the Wallachian Prince Vlad IV, a
went about thankiOg his captors, say15th century nobleman who ruled what
milk turning to blood, of elderly people
ing they'd been "very good to give him
is today the couiitry of Rumania. Bestbeing strangled, and of children disa stake with which to defend himself
appearing, apparently kidnapped .. The
known as' Vlad the I~paler or Dracula
against the dogs." Hi~ ravaging ways
turmoil continued for six monttts.
("son of the devil"), this bloodthirsty
Finally, the exasperated authorities
monarch was responsible for the 'ago- . continued for awhile, until the authorities had his body taken outside the
nizing deaths of hundreds. His favorite
decided to find out wl'iether the' grave
village, a new stake put in, and the
of Johannes Cuntiu5 was really his last
meap,s of exeeutiot:J. was impalement
remains cremated.
resting place or-what else? An exand he frequently dined amidst the
To connoisseurs of the macabre, the
humation order was issued, and sure
bodies of his victims. From time to
enough, what the gravediggers brought
name of Elizabeth B8thory is almost as
time he would drink their blood 'and
well known as that of Count Dracula.
up was a. corpse, and it had tp be the
bathe in it. After ohis. death in 1477
Born in 1560 into a family which inthere were reports that he had risen
mortal coil of the late Johannes Cuncluded numerous satanists and perverts,
tius~ But what made identification so ~ from the dead-and went in quest of
Elizabeth gained fame for her beauty
certain was the remarkably fresh conmore blood.

Pura."

42

Firat Quarter 1982

Vlad dining among his victims

lilustrations are from 15th century manuscripts.

as she grew into girlhood; quite in the

vampire tradition, her long, black hair
was a dramatic feature. At the age of
fifteen she was wed to Count Ferencz
Nadasdy. All too soon the Count vyent
off to war, unaware that the forces of
evil were about to terrorize his castle
home in the Carpathians.
Elizabeth sought instruction in the
arts of black magic and was tutored by
a wizard named Thorke. One day a
strange visitor came to the castle. His
pale skin and pointed teeth were accented by the black clothing he wore.
After spending considerable time with
. each other in the castle, Elizabeth and
,her visitor eloped. She soon returnedalone.
Now her career as a creature of
utter wickedness sank to its bloodiest
'depth. She tortured the servants and
delighted in experiments with knives
and branding irons calculated to inflict
the most pain. Her husband, back
from the wars, warned her not to continue these practices, but she persisted,
and when the Count died, she felt free
of all inhibitions.
Elizabeth was getting along in years;
her mirror reflected the image of a
woman who "had been" beautiful.
She wondered whether bathing in the
blood of a young virgin might be an
effective way to counteract the ravages

F..... Quarter 1982

of age. So she had one of the young

housemaids murdered and the. blood
drained into a vat. Elizabeth disrobed
and stepped in; as she bathed, she felt
the warmth of youth course through
her body and the glow of new life re;
vitalize her moribund skin.
The euphoria of the bloody bath
was of short duration. In order to prolong the sensation and perpetuate its
benefits Elizabeth decided that only
,,~ew blOOd" would do, and that posed
a problem of supply. At first, selected
young maidens w.ere lured to the castie
with promises of employment. Later
candidates for the vat were simply
abducted. Finally, one of the victims
managed to escape. After hearing the
account of her ordeal, the authorities
sent soldiers who broke into the castle
and arrested everyone. Elizabeth's
accomplices confessed to the slaying of
forty girls and were executed. Elizabeth was examined, found insane and
sentenced to confinement for life. She
was walled up in her own room and
died in 1614. There is no report she
ever returned from the dead.
In .. the vampire literature are stories
of attacks on cattle and sheep. These
attacks on animals provide a 'background from which to view the contemporary rash of animal mutilations,

where lack of blood is a suspicious

characteristic.
Something was killing and draining
sheep of their blood near Badminton,
England, in 1905. In December 1977
a six-month-old calf was discovered
near the Blue Spring High School in
Missouri. A precision instrument had
been used to cut off the right ear and
tail and remove the liver; there was no
blood, but swollen neck veins indicated
the liver had been removed through
the jugular. Another six-month-old
calf was found by its owner with the
penis missing and blood drained, on
January 29, 1979 at Duran, New Mexico. Since the classic case of "Snippy".
the horse in 1967 there have been huge
numbers of similar cases of animal
mutilation and, despite many theories,
no .one yet knows precisely how the
blood and organs are removed, or why.
Is some malevolent force sustaining its
vampiric existence-:-at the ranchers'
expense?
What are we to make of such strange
stories, whether they be of present
time or recounted from olden days?
Do the dead ever come back to life?
Many authorities have tried to explain
away all vampires as being homicidal
psychotics with a thirst for blood. But
neither maniacs nor premature burials
can account for reports of long-dead
individuals "rising from the- grave" or
of depredations being committed in
accordance with vampire tradition.
Which is the more likely: Have many
otherwise sensible men been long deluded, or do genuine vampires still
exist?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Duplantier, Gene, The Night Mutilators,
Ontario, Canada: SS & S Publications,
1979.
Glut, Donald F., True Vampires of History,
New York: H. C. Publishers, Inc., 1971.
Hurwood, Bernhardt J., The Monstrous
Undead, New .York: Lancer Books, 1969.
Keel, John A., Strange Creatures from
Time and Space, Greenwich, Conn.:
Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1970.
Summers, Montagu, The Vampire: His
Kith and Kin, New Hyde Park, New
York: University Books, 196Q.
Summers, Montagu, The Vampire in Europe, N!!w Hyde Park, New York:
University Books, 1968.
Wolf, Leonard, A Dream of Dracula,
New Yoi"k: Popular Library, 1972.
Wolf, Leonard, Monsters, San Francisco:
Straight Arrow Books, 1974.

Pursuit 43

Letters
The Lost Continent of Mu(ror)

Tom Bearden Further Explains

I recently acquired a paperback book entitled Mu Revealed by Tony Earll (Paperback Library, 1970). In this

work, the author claims knowledge of the discovery of some

scrolls found in Mexico which describe life on the supposed
lost continent of Mu (called "Muror" in this case). I have
not heard anything heretofore about"such a discovery, and
. would like to hear from anyone who might know anything
about these reputed scrolls.
The book, which I found in a used-book store, draws
heavily on some dubious sources, such as Churchward,
Le Plongeon; and Paul Schliemann. While this does not
necessarily mean the new material in the 'book is equally
dubious, it leads to wonder at its authenticity. Mr. Earll
makes a reference which appeared in Pursuit back in the
Spring 1980 issue (No. 50, page 78). He links the Egyptian
Book of the Dead's mention of a place called "Antes" to
his theory about Mu. In the PurSuit reference, Jon Douglas
Singer links. the same name to Atlantis.
I hope by bringing this apparently little-known book to
"the attention of the readers of Pursuit, some light may be
shed on the truth (or falsity) of its remarkable claims.
Paul B. Th~mpson

Fair Play is the Name of the Game
Edgar D. R. Wilson's "Evidence for the Stability of the
Solar System Since c. 2700 B.C." (Pursuit No. 54, Vol. 14;
No.2, Second Quarter 1981) is based upon rather remarkable assumptions. Weare asked to believe that the an,cient
Egyptians knew with accuracy the velocity of light as well as
the radii of Mercury, Venus, and the."Earth. In modern
times, measuring these quantities has been made possible by
optical instruments with precision-ground lenses and mirrors. As far as I know, there is no accepted evidence that
.. the ancient Egyptians possessed such devices.
Wilson considers it possible to support Shapley's decision
"to prevent by all possible means the spread of Velikovsky's
ideas until such time as admissible evidence on the subject
might be presented." It is good for Wilson that the editors
of Pursuit have a more liberal attitude, proven by the publication of his article.
Ragnar Forshufvud
,.;

..

.The Fairly Uncomplicated Wudewasa

Concerning the article which appeared on page 13 of the
First Quarter 1981 issue of Pursuit (No. 53, Vol. .14, No.
1), "The Wudewasa or Hairy Primitives of Ancient
Europe," be advised that there should be no question at all
regarding the origin of the name Wudewasa which is a fairly uncomplicated Indo-Germanic term;
Wudewasa, or Woldwasan, combines the word for
forest (Wold) and the word for being (Wasan) in AngloSaxon. In German this would be Waldwesen. Related
terms for Wasan occur in other languages; for exa~ple,
Wezen (Dutch), Vasen (Swedish) and Wesen (German). As
a part of the verb "to be" it is also related to the current,
English, singular past tense of "to be," i.e., was.
Hillyer Senning

Pursuit 44

Several correspondents have written about the difficul- .

ties involved in understanding my view of Nikola Tesla's
work (Pursuit No. 55, Third Quarter 1981, pp. 107-121).
Some of the comments point out that Tesla only used a
"simple" extension to electromagnetics; others question
precisely how I view that a fundamental constant of nature
can be varied.
I agree that Tesla used only a relatively "small" extension
of our present electromagnetics-but even that extension
seems to have yielded such remarkably different results
that our present scientists have great difficulty comprehending it. Indeed, the addition of an extra dimension to
the electrostatic potential is a simple but very profound
change to all electromagnetics. And it means that, for the
general case, everything has to be re-done, for what we
have now is, a special case where the electrically induced
variation of timeflow rate-change is negligible.
The question. as to what variable(s) and fundamental
constants can be changed by electrically changing the rate
of flow of time is the fundamental issue, and one which I
deliberately passed over lightly in my "Tesla paper."
First, it appears that in present theory a change in the
rate of flow of time is only envisioned and accept~d due
to relativistic velocity. /However, in the Tesla paper, my
:reference 81 (Bloch & Crater, "Lorentz-invariant potentials and the nonrelativistic limit," American Journal of
Physics, 49(1), Janl;lary' 1981, pp. 67-75) clearly establishes that a time flowrate change can be accomplished by
electrostatic potential alone, even though the velocity is
nonrelativistic. I regard this as a fundamental statement
affecting all of present physics theory. Indeed~ one might
even argue that this reference establishes half my thesis!
The other half of the thesis, of course, appears reasonably established by reference 1 (Whittaker, E. T., Proc.
London Math. Soc. 1, 367 (1903). This reference establishes that any vector field can be replaced \>y two scalar
fields. It follows that any vector wave can be replaced by
two "coupled" scalar waves-the .coupling merely being
the staiement of the pairing of the two scalar waves. Thus
it' can be argued that these two papers, ta\cen together,
concretely establish the entire basic thesis of the Tesla.
paper.
.
In an electrical change of time flow rate, for example,
I personally hypothesize that a variation has occurred in
almost every fundamental constant of nature, as well as
in the so-called "curvature of spacetime." Changes, I believe, occur in the speed of light in vacuum, in the magnitude of the gravitational constar,.t, in the magnitudes of
space parameters, etc.
.
In my view, the reason is that vacuum (spacetime) is
identically charged (virtual-particle flux through a fourdimensional framework of reference, coming from and
returning t9 higher "dimensions" outside the Minkowski
4-0 frame). In other words, "I don't recognize "emptiness" as.such, at all. The charge flux I'm visualizing is
clo~e to Farraday's idea of "electric flux," except that it
has more dimensions than Farraday was thinking in terms
of, and the vacuum/spacetime is identically this charge

.Fir.~ Quarter 1982

flux, not emptiness or void. The charge flux, I believe, is

a nested flux of virtual particles-generally the very same
one already famIliar to particle physics, but with the idea
of "emptiness" removed. Indeed, it can be argued that
the very structure of the presently accepted concept of
nested levels of virtual particulate flux has eliminated any
possibility of "total emptiness." Emptiness at anyone
level merely consists of the absence of that level of flux,
but contains the continued presence of subordinate levels
of flux. In other words, particle physics already includes
a sophisticated "ether" that is pure nested levels of nested
charged particle flux in the virtual state. And that "ether"
is precisely what I regard the vacuum and spacetime to be:
NOT "to be composed of," but identically to be.
This isn't too novel an idea. With a simple diagram
and necessary assumptions, one can argue (see Bearden,
The Excalibur Briefing, 1980, pp. 233-235) that the present
"nested levels of virtual state flux" on a particle identically constitute rotated frames in higher dimensions! At
least they can be modeled in that fashion. This, of course,
makes for hidden variables and a nested set of "j\1mp"
thresholds between orthogonally rotated frames, .in addftion
to the presently recognized quantum 'threshold between
the first level of virtual state and the observable state.
This identification of nested virtual levels with higher
dimensional, orthogonally rotated spaces appears to be
something which has not previously been noticed, and i,t
crudely unites relativity and quantum mechanics in a'
manner not previously attempted. Obviously, even this
approximation may be very limited.
At any rate, my CQncept of electrostatic potential (ESP)
is that it isa true "point" function in an infinite-dimensioned space or spacetime, that is the same as the vacuum
and an infinitely nested structure of virtual state. In this
view, the ESP can affect the various levels of virtual state
(i.e., the higher dimensional, rotated frames) directly,
and in so doing affect higher dimensional objects and fiel~s
directly. This opens up the direct possibility of communication between orthogonal worlds ("parallel" universes),
travel back and forth in time, direct engineering of the
virtual' state and virtual interactions, etc. Transmutation
of elements; for example, can be done directly. This part,
at least, is already an experimentally proven fact. Kervran's
fundamental work already establishes that living systems
can accomplish transmutation without using the kinds of
extreme energies now necessary to do it in particle physics.
But note again how I regard a fundamental constant to
vary with the electrically varied flowrate of time. From a
quantum-by-quantum detection standpoint, in the laboratory frame we can only attain an enduring constant value
of something by attaining it in repeated detections/ observations. If we leave alone the basic charge flux constituency of laboratory frame vacuu'm/spacetime, then our
repetitious laboratory frame measurements/detections
used to establish a fundamental constant of nature remain unchanged. However, if we change the laboratory
frame's very vacuum/charge/spacetime itself, then we
squeeze. or stretch the most fundamental measurement/
observation conditions-the very background or matrix
of each observation itself. In that fashion, our follow-on
measurements/detections to re-exami.ne a "fundamental
constant" will themselves be changed-and thus the observed value of 'the constant is changed. In other words,
fundamental constants themselves are conditional to a

Flnt Quarter 1982

relatively unchanging spacetime/vacuum/charge in the

laboratory frame.
Maxwell himself envisioned a "mediUl:n" or ether, and
Graham & Lahoz, "Observation of static electromagnetic
momentum in vacuo," Nature, May 15, 1980, pp. 154-:155,
may have gone a long way to concretely establish a Maxwellian ether. In addition, some further evidence of the
Tesla potential may be that the speed of light in vacuum
experimentally appears to be different on or near the
surface of the earth (and thus' in an increased "charged
flux" activity) than it is in 'space away from. earth (e.g.,
'Belyaev, B. N., "On Random Fluctuations of the Velocity
of Light in Vacuum," Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii. Fizika No. 11, November 1980, pp. 37-42; there is
a translation by Plenum Publishing Corp. which I have
misplaced). In addition, R. M. Santilli, "Partons and
Gravitation: Some Puzzling Questions," A nnals of Physics, Vol. 83, No.1, March 1974, pp. 108-157, seems to
have proved that one of the cornerstone assumptions of
physics-that electric field and gravitational fields are
separate things-is false. One is therefore left with only
two alternatives: either they are t!)tally the same thing, or
they are partially the same thing. My comment is that, at
any rate, some direct interconnection/interaction between
the two fields must 'be possible, and my view of Tesla's
use of electrostatic potential is consistent with that, as
indeed would se~m to be the variation of the speed of
light in vacuo between proximity to greatly increased charge
flux (on earth) and nonproximity to increased charge
(in space).
I hope this letter at least more fully indicates the direction I have taken on Tesla's work, and answers some of
the penetrating questions correspondents have asked.
Tom Bearden

Collective PK in Tennessee

Sabina Sanderson's article on "collective PK" (Pursuit

No. 55, Third Quarter 1981, p. 133) reminds me of a similar incident I read about years ago.
. A preacher named Gregory, who also owned a county
newspaper in Lafayette, Tennessee, wrote a serial describing his family tree. It was an odd genealogy narrated
at great length, but he had no difficulty getting it printed
since he owned the paper.
According to the Rev. Mr. Gregory, one of his distant
forebears, who lived ca. mid-19th century, met his end
via the bolt-from-the-blue route, just as did Sabina's victim.
It seems that this chap cursed God, then dared the Deity
to strike him down. Lightning out of a clear sky executed
him instantaneously and before several witnesses.
If the onlookers' mental projections induced the PK
bolt that slew Sabina's victim, similar feelings on the part
of onlookers at the Tennessee knockout might have invited
the same result. Rural Tennesseeans of that era were generally ultra-fundamentalists. They would have been quite
as upset as any devout natives of the Caribbean, to hear
one of their own defy God.
Harold Holland
Letters from members to Pursuit's editors are always welcome and
should be addressed to: Fred Wilson, 66 Bortic Road. P.O. Box 134,
Cedar Grove, NJ 07009. Letters are subject to abridgement to assure
fair sharing of the' limited space available.

Pursuit 45

SI'.'Uations .
In this section mosdy contemporary curious and unexplained eventS are reported.
Members are urged to send in newsclippings and reports they deem responsible.
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper or periodical).
city of publication. date of issue in which the article appeared, and your first initial
and last name (or membership number only if you prefer to be credited in that. way.)

How Old? How Real?

Petrified Five-Month Fetus
Discover~d in "Argentina
Last fall, research editor Charles Berlitz received a letter from Argentina in which the writer,
Ricardo Liendro, said he had made a remarkable discovery while exploring a valley several miles
south of his home in Salta, largest city in Argentina's mountainous. northerly province of the same
name. The object discovered, Sr. Liendro wrote, was a petrified human fetus about five monthS of
age, found encased in solid rock of undetermined age.
A gynecologist's repon which accompanied the letter authenticated the object as a petrified
human fetus but added nothing to the few details given in the letter about the circumstimces of the
discovery. Also unexplained was the lapse of at least 15 years between the time of discovery and the
time of disclosure. .
Mr. Berlitz heard nothing further from Sr. Liendro up to the time this'issue went to press. At his
suggestion, excerpts from the letter are printed below with the gynecologist's report adjacent so that
available information may be shared with readers rather than withheld pending further investigation
which, though necessary, is not feasible in Argentina at this time.

. (Leiter and report translated from Spanish by Mauricio Rivadeneira)

Dear Mr. Berlitz, .
Your name as a writer and investigator of
international caliber is well-known to me. I
wanted to let you know about a finding of great
anthropological value which is as follows:
In one of my explorations in the vl!llel' of ,
Calchaqui, Salta province, near a snow-covered
mountain that peaks to 6,000 meters, I found a
strange-looking stone of an oval shape. When
thrown on .the ground it split in half and revealed whai doctors later confirmed to be a
human fetus at about the five-month stage,
petrified but in as perfect condition as it would
.be if newly aborted.
In 19691 traveled to the U.S.A. for the purpose of submitting this anthropological object
to the complete study I felt sure would be possible in a nation so technologically advanced.
though begun; the study was never concluded .
because the institute ["Instituto de las Fuerzas
Armadas"] where the study commenced decided that to continue would involve making
two longitudinal cuts to the mass of the fetus. I
was opposed to this because I felt the operation
was unnecessary and would destroy the shape of
the whole. At this point the professors decided
to end the study. However, the institute did estimate the object to be about 500,000 years old.
(Other geologists have estimated ages up to Jive
million years, the petrification being so perfect
and compact.)
To the naked eye the object makes a spectacular sight because 50% of the small body protrudes out of the stone, the dorsal part indicating that inside the stone is also the complete placenta. I won't say more because I trust that
sometime you will see this anthrop'ological
piece.
Enclosed you will find the complete scientific
study made by Dr. Julio F. Temer of Buenos

r..ra.,,46
.J

Aires, a prominent gynecolog\st who has practiced his specialty for more than 25 years.
The object is in question on ~wo points: Is it
anthropoid or humanoid; and, is ,t older than
the estimate given in this country as 40,000
years, when mankind first appeared in
America?
It had been my plan to travel to Mexico,
where the most important anthropological
museum is located; also tQ France, Germany,
England, etc., to exhibit the object and have it
funher studied. In Argentina we do not have
the scientific tools .
Now I am trying to answer the questions in
the book I am actually writing, but because of
my bad health (hean trouble) and my economic
situation, I haven't been able to finish it.

(The leiter concludes with a paragraph asking

for investigation of the petrified fetus, and over
the signatut.:! of Ricardo Liendro is a statement
that he has ."been in mining and archeology for
25 years.")
.
ANATOMIC STUDY OF THE OBJECT
IDENTIRED AS 'PETRIFIED FETUS'
performed In .. 1967: by Dr. Julio F.
Temer, .gynecoioliist; member of the
Argentinian Scientific Society.. Ecology Society of Argentina, the Scientific Society of North Argentina, and
former chief of descriptive anatomll for
the Office of the Director General of
Anthropological and Biological Investl
gations in the ProvinCe of Salta.
Upon visual examination, the object mentioned appears without any doubt to be the petrified remains of a human fetus at approx"
imately four to five months of age.
The petrified cavity reveals the following: an

area about 6cm long and rounded, wit~ the

characteristics of a cephalic area (Le., head of
the fetus) being very noticeable in the lower
pan, a depression representing the neck, and
immediately under it, the left shoulder. Under
this is a rectangular surface, following which we
find a rounded part that wou.1d be the left buttock, and at its end another round part, the
left knee; still proceeding in a Downward direction, passing along the leg on the same side to
the last part, the foot on that side is discerned.
The position of the petrified fetus is the crouch,
. typically maintained by the human fetus.
Noticeable is a disc with the characteristics !)f
the uterus, with a circular border and two faces,
one visible on the exterior and the other adhered
to the abdomen, on the inside. Also noticeable
are a great number of protrusions and cavities
with the characteristic appearance of veins and
arteries of the uterus leading to the umbilical
cord. Located between the stomach and the
uterus is an array of pieces that seem to be parts
of the placenta.
It is interesting to note that the ovoid shape
of the cavity is characteristic of the human cavi- .
ty that contains a live fetus. Given the well-preserved shape and details above described, it is
possible the petrificatior. occurred while the
fetus was still inside the matrix.
(Signed)Julio F. Temer
M.1. 3902175
M.C.M. No. 222

.~
What Color is Your Ice?
Fortunately for A. C. Hinson, the chunk of
ice that fell from the sky didn't hit t:is home.
The solid piece weighed about 30 pounds, Hinson guessed, and if it had struck the roof it
wouldn't have stopped until it landed on the second floor-or someone's head.
After recovering from the shock of disaster
narrowly averted. Hinson ran. to the slope
where he heard the chunk hit, about 200. yards
north of his home in-Tecumseh, Oklahoma. Heretrieved several fragments and put them in his
freezer. Then he got on the phone.
The next day, Dr. Peter Rat and another
meteorologist arrived from the National Severe
Storms ..,aboratory at Norman, where Dr. Ray
is chief of meteorological research. After inspecting the fragments, he told Hinson: "I can
say fairly confidently that it's not a hailstone."
Less confidently, he said that it might have
fallen fr!)m an airplane, or "it's possible" it fell .
from outer space.
"Saturn's rings are purportedly ice, and it's
possible there are chunks of ice in outer space,
too," he said. "But that's a very improbable

First Quarter 1982

A New Twist in the 'Rustless Iron' Story

Psychic's Map Finds Lost Boy

While we were drajtin8 the promised/urther report on the rustless iron and "Damascus" steel 0/
ancient India, member James Loretta was writing to tell us something we should have known, or at
least suspected: Jly 1979 the Russians apparently succeeded in re-creating ruslless iron under
laboratory conditions alter discovering that particles 0/ iron clinging to moon-dust brought back by
Luna 16 remained rustless a/ler nine years' exposure to Earth's atmosphere. His report:
In its issue of November 17. 1979, the Philadelphia Inquirer printed a UP I-Tass release from
Moscow entitled "Soviets duplicate non-rust iron." The article immediately flashed in my mind a
connection with India's rust less pillar which I had known about for some years.
Upon seeing the article on page 184 of Pursuit No. 56 (Vol. 14, No.4) I thought you'd be interested in reading the Inquirer article since I have not (and never have) seen previous mention of the
Soviet connection. Enclosed is a photocopy of the article. I find the connection thought-provoking.
I'd be interested in hearing what you or other SITU members think.
-James F. Loretta
TASS, MOSCOW, VIA UPI
Moon dust doesn't rust, and this has led Soviet scientists to an equally remarkable discovery.
Pure, non-oxidized forms of iro,) and other materials I.'Irought back from the moon more than nine
years ago by the unmanned Luna 16 spacecraft have remained in that non-rustless state on Earth.
In trying to find out why, Soviet scientists have managed to duplicate in laboratories the unique
corrosion-resistant properti"S they found in the moon-dust.
"The formation of these unusua) forms of elementary substances is connected with the action of
the solar wind" on the moon, said Valery Barsukov, one of the scientists who helped to duplicate the
properties of moon-dust. The solar wind-a stream of high-energy particles from the sun-does not
penetrate Earth's atmosphere but does strike the surface of the airless moon.
After Luna 16 returned to Earth with its soil samples from the Sea of Fertility, Soviet scientists
discovered non-oxidized iron in the loose dust and rock on the moon's surface. "We expected to find
on the moon substances of a low degree of oxidation, but the fact that the iron has not oxidized (on
Earth) ... since the Luna 16 expedition surpassed all the expectations," Barsukov said.
(UPI editors added their own comment to the Tass release):
Barsukov did not explain why the corrosion-resistance has persisted long after the moon-dust was
exposed to Earth's atmosphere. Neither did he give any details of the laboratory techniques involved
in recreating the process on Earth.
ihanks to Mr. Loretta, and thanks to any SITU members who can help us learn more than these
bare details about the Russian re-creation 0/ rustless iron. We'll write more when we find out
more. -The editors.

Shortly after breakfast on a September

morning Justin Stahly, age 2-112, wandered
away from his Iowa farm home with only his
dog, Sandy, for company. The dog soon
returned, but Justin didn't.
Not too upset when she first noticed his
absence, the boy's mother called inside and
outside the house and looked in the barn and
woodshed. Then panic took hold and she
raced to the back field to get her husband.
Together they called again and again, and
kept on walking and looking until they realized
they were getting nowhere.
They telephoned the sheriff. He briefed his
deputies on the disappearance. They spread
the word, and by noontime a small" army of
volunteer searchers was deployed all over the
Stahly propeny. On horseback and on foot the
men combed corn and soybean fields, probed
wells and cisterns, and even took apan some
of the farm machinery. When darkness forced
suspension of the day's fruitless efforts, the
volunteers started to plan a more intensive
search on the morrow, fearing that the survival
time for a 2-1I2-year-old child deprived of
food and water wouldn't be very long even if
he were spared injury or escaped illness.
The volunteers set up a fund (eventually it
totaled $16,000 in donations from 6,000 individuals). Some of the money went for the
rental of two airplanes and a helicopter specially equipped with heat sensors, to reinforce
an enlarged battalion of ground-searchers that
resumed work at dawn on the second day of
the disappearance. All that day the quest
continued, without a sign being found of
Justin Stahly or any clue uncovered as to his
whereabouts or condition ..
At dusk the aircraft returned to base and the
volunteers straggled back to the Stahly house
where they grouped around the front porch.
Jeff Stahly. Justin's father, wanted them all to
hear what he had to say:
"You've done everything that can possibly
be done, but I'm afraid it's too late for my
son." He thanked them, and the search was
called off.
One of the listeners was a farmer from the
next township named George DeGroot. He
had been searching alone. He decided to make
a last try. He vaulted a fence from which the
others had turned away, having reasoned that
no 2-112-year-old could climb over it or crawl
under it. DeGroot. had just begun to look
along the far side of the fence-line when he
heard a whimper. "It was very distant," he
recalled later. "I shouted a couple of times.
It got more real, like a boy's voice crying.
I started running."
Within minutes, Justin was on his way to a
hospital. Doctors examined him alid found his
condition good; he had suffered only a few insect bites and scratches. A nursing supervisor
said he was alert, and "he's proved it by eating a popsicle non-stop." "He's not much dehydrated, and he is in good, good shape," the
father added.

UFO? Don't Bet On It!

thing. It's more possible than being a hailstone,
though."
Mark Weaver, a spokesman for the Federal
Aviation Administration, said the ice probably
is what is known as "blue ice" from an airliner.
Sometimes water treated with a slightly blue
chemical will leak from an airplane lavatory
and will form ice on the fuselage, Weaver said.
When the ice grows to a certain size, it will fall
off. "We've had three or four cas..s like that,"
he said. However, he noted that a 30-pound
piece of ice is quite large to be "blue ice."

There was no doubt about the kind of "heavenly" ice that fell one week later and punched
an IS-inch hole in the roof of a store in southwest St. Louis, Missouri. The ice was blue, the
air seemed almost blue with the stench, and a
partner in the tile business that owned the store
was very blue after he climbed up on the roof,
noted that about $ 1000 would be needed to
repair the damage, and called the FAA at
Lambert St. Louis airport only to be told that
none of the seven or eight transports on the
ground showed any signs of a leaking toilet
valve.
The tile man, "Gib" Maxson, Jr., got more
snickers than sympathy from his customers and
neighbors, but after awhile he admitted "it's
. pretty comical when you come right down to it.
I was reminded that a bird dropped something
on me when I was 10. It's all a matter of scale, I
guess."
SOURCES: BoslOll HenzldAfUI'ictln. 3116/82; .St. Lou;'
Globe-IhmDCrlll, 31:24/82.

CREDITS: L. Coleman, P. Nolte.

On a calm winter night something bright and

blue raced through the sky and exploded in a
blaze of light about a mile offshore near the
Golden Nugget Hotel Casino in Atlantic City,
New Jersey. The Coast Guard received a
number of calls from witnesses who said that
something had crashed int') the ocean, but a
search of several hours by three boats and two
helicopters yielded no sign of wreckage.
A visitor from a. nearby suburb said he was
driving his car with three passengers aboard at
about 7 p.m. when they saw a bluish-green
streak of light pass over the hotel in a
downward path. "It didn't look like a plane,"
the driver reported~ "At first we thought it was
a falling star, but I've seen falliI18 stars before
and they're always white/' he added.
A woman in another suburb said she was
standing outside her home at 6:35 p.m. when
she saw "this beautiful sight in the sky. It was a
silvery green ball with a long tail, heading out
toward the ocean. I Called my husband and told
him I thought I hadjust s~en a phenomenon."
Fromher home on an island 15 miles north of
Atlantic City another woman reported seeing a
light in the sky between 6:30 and 6:45 p.m. She
described it as "very bright, shaped like the
fuselage of an airplane, blue in front with little
red flames in the baek", like something I've
: J.:-: ,
p.
never seen."
At Bader Field, Atlantic City's airport, controllers said there were no incoming or outgoing
aircraft in the area at the time.
SOURCE: TIw Press, Atlantic City: NJ 1/13/82
CREDIT: Member 112!J84.

In the hospital lobby, reporters turned their

questioning to George DeGroot. What led hirp
to look on the other side of a fence that none
of the others thought Justin could get across?

".7

Pur

Pointing to a pocket of his jacket, DeGroot

replied that a map drawn by a psychic had
guided him to the site. Asked to identify the
psychic, he" declined, and with a smile as relaxed as any in the room, he turned and left
to get his car.
SOURCE: AP dispatch in 71w Tenne.man (Nashville). 917/81.
CREDIT: H. Holland.

~
Killer Ravens Mutilate Cattle
Farmers is northwest Ontario are losing cattle
to a bizarre syndrome. Killer ravens are swooping down on the ill-fated cows and plucking out
their eyes, causing death soon afterward.
Cattle farmer George Wall first began finding
dead cows that had apparently bled to death
after their eyes had been ripped out five years
ago. Since then, he estimates he has lost 40 head
worth about $10,000.
He isn't the only one. Other farmers in the
area have had similar losses, and one of them
was witness to a recellt calf-killing by ravens.
Wall began to have suspicions about the
deaths, which included cattle of all ages, but it
was not until last spring that he found them
confirmed in a sudden and savage way. He said
he was watching a six-month-old calf in the
barnyard when a large black raven flew over the
fence and landed on the calf's head. "All of a
sudden, down went the beak, out came the eye,
and the animal went down Iik" it had been hit
with a sledgehammer," said Wall.

He examined the animal, then clI.lled a

veterinarian and the district agricldtural representative. "I told them what I'd seen, and when
I did, they said, "Don't tell such far-fetched
stories." Unable to convince anyone that his
problem was real, Wall wait.::d for another attack. It came three weeks later, and the next day
it happened again. After two attacks in a row,
Wall called the Ministry of Natural Resources
and called back the vet and the agricultural representative. "This time, I didn't ask them.
I told them to get out here quick, and when I
showed them what had happened, they agreed
I was right." Wall explained that the ravens go
for the eyes first and after the animal goes"
down, they often begin picking at the rectum ..
When it came to a bull in Wall's herd, the
birds used It different tactic. The big animal
died after the ravens swooped down on his back
in a succession of "sorties" during which they
pecked at and pulled away innumerable small
tufts of hair with their beaks. Eventually, holes
appeared in the skin and, although Wall applied
medication daily to stop the bleeding, the
repeated attacks left the animal in such weakened condition that he could no longer take
nourishment.
Wall "tried everything" to drive the
predators away-shooting, hanging a few dead
ravens around the barnyard in a scarecrow pattern, standing guard at times of day when previous attacks occurred, but nothing worked. He
thinks the birds go for the eyes and rectum
because other regular food sources, like mice,

Memos at Miscellany

are hard to come by in win~er.

Dr. David Millar, the veterinarian who was
called to investigate the killings, doesn't agree.
He says the ravens are selectiv~ and their attacks
are not prompted by hunger because the cows'
carcasses are untouched; noting that the cattle
bleed from the eye cavities after the ravens
strike, he doubts the bleeding is sufficient to
cause death. Wall says that some of the dead
cows from his herd "absolutely bled dry," but
Millar says the animals he examined did not. "I
believe it must have something to do with the
severing of the optic nerve. The animal drops
instantly and it is not aware of anything after
that. For all intents and purposts it is dead."
Another theory developed locally holds that
the killing habit could have started wit.. birds
scavenging large animal carcasses, developing a
taste for the eyes and learning to recognize them
as a nutritious source of food.
Several other farmers within a six-mile radius
of Wall's farm have complained of similar attacks upon their herds, probably by the same
ravens. But there must be more than one flock
of the black brigands, for about. !he same time
an attack was in progress in the sector of the
Wall farm, another vet was called to a farm
more than 100 miles distant, to hear the owner
of a young calf describe its death in the same'
terms used by Wall.
SOURCE: The Calgary HfNtIld. Albena, Canada. ]/14/82.
CREDIT: v. Markotic.

pre-convention "dowsing school" beginning September 14. For

details, write: American Society of Dowsers,. Danville, VT 05828.

. New Organization
Coming Events
June 'J:1 - July 3: The 1982 "Rainbow Experience." Schedule of events
at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pa., includes lectures and
workshops focused on "Creative Synthesis-a week-long experience in learning how to balance your interior and exterior knowledge with practical application to your daily life." For details,
write: Life Spectrums, P.O. Box 373, Harrisburg, PA 17018.

In the process of formation since February, the Int,ernational Society

.of Cryptozoology intends "to serve as a focal point for the investigation,
analysis, publication, and discussion of all matters related to animals of
unexpected form or size, or unexpected occurrence in time or space,"
according to the announcement brochure. For a copy, write: J. Richard
Greenwell, Sec.~Treas., P.O. Box 43070, Tucson, AZ 85733.

Corrections

July 22 - 25: U.S. Psychotronics Association Confeience (1982) at the

Green Center building, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO.
Physics, UFOs, crystals, radionics are among the major fields to
be covered in presentations by and discussions with Tom Bearden,
Robert Beutlich, Riley Crabb, Daniel Fry, T. Galen and Sarah
Hieronymous, Andreja Puharich, Leo Sprinkle,. Marcel Vogel,
others. For details, write: Robert Beutlich, 3459 W. Montrose Ave.,
Chicago, IL 60618.

In Pursuit No. 56, Fourth Quarter 1981:

Page 177, left column, last sentence: "He thought the builders were
the people of Manoa, the legendary lost city of the Amazon." The pronoun [He] is incorrect and should be changed to [Bond]; it was interviewer Bryce Bond's conjecture, not Ivan Sanderson's, that the sunken
cities near Yucatan were built by Manoans.
Page 181, left column, first paragraph, ninth line: Change [she] to [he).
Reviewer Robert Barrow joins Pursuit's editors in apologies to Mr. Tam
Mossman, senior editor at Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Back cover: Overlooked in indexing was a book which received a very
favorable review iii PUrsuit No. 53, First Quarter 1981. Add, under
"Books Reviewed," [On a Slide of Light, Greta Woodrew, .42].

August 10 - 21: Guided tour of "Megaliths and Mysteries of Ancient

Britain" includes Avebury, Silbury Hill, Stonehenge, Glastonbury;
Findhorn, and the Orkney Islands.
August 21 - 31: Guided tour of "Megaliths and Mysteries of Ancient
Egypt" includes temples at Komombo, Edfu, and Esna, as well as
more famous ones at Karnak, and Hathor's at Denderah; the Cairo
Museum, Sphinx, and the Giza Pyramids.
The tours are consecutive in order to allow those who plan to take both,
to leave directly from Britain for Egypt. Those taking the Egypt.
tour only will depart U.S. August 20. For details, write: Holistic
Life Travels, 1627 Tenth Ave., San Francisco, CA 94122.

September 15 - 19: The American Society of Dowsers' 22nd Annual

Conference, at Danville, Vermont. "In our workshops for 1982 we
intend to present many new faces and facets of dowsing, while
continuing to stress the importance of basic dowsing skills," says
the Dowsers' announcement; it calls special attention to a two-day

Pura.lt 48'

Sometimes It Happens ...

If you ever receive a copy of Pursuit with pages duplicated or left out,
or. groups of pages assembled in other than numeriCal order, please
write immediately to SITU, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739, and
give volume, number and whole number fo identify the affected issue,
and your name and addr~ss as it usually appears on the envelope in
which you receive the journal. We will send a good copy to replace your
bad one, at no charge. This type of bindery error is infrequent and never
affects more than a few copies in any printing; but SITU has no way of
knowing the nature or extent of the error unless notified by the individual
member who receives an improperly bound copy. Prompt notification
also helps u~ t9 minimize such errors in th~ future.

.F....t Quarter 1982.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary
and Treasurer; 'Trustees: Gregory Arend, Donald DeLue, pro. tem., Steven N. Mayne,
Nancy L. Warth, Robert C. Warth, Martin Wiegler, Albena Zwerver.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, Paleo-Indian Institute.
Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato. Director. The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured. Morton, Pa.
(Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Res"earch Center, Northwestern University.
(Astronomy)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark, N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta,
Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.
(Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Department of Psychology, Environmental Psychophysiological Laboratory,
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College 6f Agriculture, Utah State University.
(Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant. National Institute tor Rehabilitation Engineering. Butler. N.J.
(Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew UniverSity,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)

ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other profeSSionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetiC, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the Society.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. 1, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids" - the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
"Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

Pursuit
WORLD ENERGY WEB

3rd DENSiTY LEVEL

(See 'The Planetary Grid', Page 6)
I

-Science ill tile Pursuit 0/ tile Ilnesplained'

URNED into tall grass and the ground beneath, a huge circle

with the letter H precisely centered inside was found in 1971 in a

meadow near Mulhouse, France, following a rumored UFO sighting.
SEE '"THE SEARCH FOR ANCIENT AQUANAUfS." PAGE 57.

Journal of srru
The
Society for the
Investigation of
The Unexplained

Volume 15
Number 2
Whole 58
Second Quarter

1982

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver. NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
.

j.

SITU (pronounced sft' - you) is a: Lati'o word ,meaning "'place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF 1\IE UNEXPlAINED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplain~ds~ promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things~~of a tangible nature 'that orthodox science, for
one reason or another. does not or wiD not study.
'
You don't have to be a professional or: even an amateur ,sci~ntist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
, I
Membership is for the calendar year, January-De~ember: in the United States, $12 for one year; $23 for
two years; $33 for three years. Membership in other countries is subject to surcharge, to cover higher cost
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THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE

-t
}~STlGATION
UI

SOCIETY FOR THE

OF

UNEXPlAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

In the curt jargon of industrial classification,
Pursuit is a "no ad" publication, and in narrow
sense, the designation is correct: Leaf :through
all 58 issues of Pursuit since we started publishing
in 1967 and you'l Rnd nary a single page that
even looks like an advertisement.
But wait a minute. Does that mean that Pursuit
doesn't contain advertising? No indeed.
What you find in this issue and in every issue is
page after page of advertising that's as truth-seeking
as any you'l ever encounter-ads not for the sale
of goods or the use of services, but rather to promote the spread of ideas about anomalies, their
perception, consideration and discussion.
To say as much makes no claim that what we
do is in any way "more worthy" than the megalithic marketing effort that goes on hourly across
the 1V tube or daily in the pages of newspapers
. and magazines. In microcosm we use the same
devices -words, pictures, disbibution-to focus
tho~ght, but it is tha~ special kind of thought we
proudly call Fortean.
.
The letters you write to SITU, the newsclips you
send in, and the books you read and review offer
proof of an insatiable curiosity, admirable in itself
but all the more so for the great joy and satisfaction that is to be found in the exercise of
reason and from the discipline of fair-mindedness.
A better-seasoned definition of what we try to
do and should be doing is admirably stated by
Stuart Greenwood in the opening paragraphs of
his article "Ancient Space Flight: Search for Evidence" beginning on page 53.
In the spirit of the Greenwood definition, Tom
Bearden tak~s the confusion out of computer chitchat as he sets up an understandable and highly
useful system for storage and retrieval of unorthodox energy science. Readers need not feel put'down ,by his reference to a "data base." That's
Just another way of saying "if it's worth storing,
any information should be well-classified to enable
easy access and retrieval from storage," whether
in neat card-cataloging directing you to bookstacks in a library, or by keywords that access
.
. the information onto a CRT screen.
In the middle of it all are SITUations. Enjoyl
- The editors

Contents
Page
Morag of Morar
by Sydney Wignall ....................... 50
Enigmagrams
~y George W. Earley, Kim L. Neidigh ..... 52
Ancient Space Flight: Search for Evidence
53
by Stuart W. Greenwood............
The Search for Ancient Aquanauts
by Harry Lebelson ...................... 57
Causality and Synchronicity
as Natural Principles
l,y Delwin D. Cahoon ................... 62
ESPionage: Have 'Mind Control' Techniques
Supplanted. the Cloak and Dagger?
by E. Macer-Story ....................... 64
Parapsychology in China ...................... 67
The Origins of Lemuria (Part II)
.
by Jon Douglas Singer ............ : ...... 68
!

SITUations:

"Abominable Flowman"-Grandma Power

-Mummy's Dirty Lungs-Bigfoot Breakthrough-Continental
Crac~up-Big Cats Still Surviving?-Baby's EvolutionarY,Tail

71

Proposed Data Base

for Unorthodox Energy Science
by Thomas E. Bearden................... 75

Books ........ '............ '.' ............ ,', . 78

Symposium: John White Answers His Critics
. with a Pole Shift Update: . ,;.:'-,:'
..~............... 84
.
Letters .....................................
86
.
.
.
The Notes of Charles Fort
Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst ................. 94
~

"

Cover photograph courtesy 0/ Harry Lebelson

..I

Pursuit V91. IS, No.2, Whole No. S8, Second Quarter 1982. Copyright 1982 by The Society (or the Investigation of The Unexplained. ISSN 0033468S.

No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written ~onsent of the Society. Robert C, Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
Editor; Sabi~a W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consu.lting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Research Editor and Oceanographic Consultant.

"Purs.'" 50,

, SeCo~d"Q.art_ '1982

,wake and our wake was washing

against it. After only a matter. of
Syd Wignall Rtted floats
seconds the creature submerged
to a standard 'mlcrollte airplane (right), then learned
without any disturbance of the
to fly It. The tiny craft was
loch surface before our photoIncapable of lifting a suited
grapher, John Evans, was able to
diver along with his heavy un
get a camera out of his bag.
derwater camera; yet ita low
That . sighting completely
speed: maneuverability and
fuel efftclency enabled Wignall
changed my life. I had been
to search the Scottish lochs In
planning an expedition to search
a truly "new age"way.
for a shipwreck of historical
interest 800 miles north of the
Arctic circle. All' thoughts of
Then came more problems.
The drag of the floats was such
underwater archaeology went out
that, the plane, could not lift a
of the porthole and I decided
there and' then to devote what
pilot clad in diving gear and
loaded with cameras. We had to
years I had left to a quest to
use the microlites for reconnaisidentify and record on film a
sance only. My plans for ,dropcreature hitherto, believed' to
ping into the water would have to
have been extinct for 65,000,000
be postponed until 1982. Surface
years.
observations both in the daytime
Why should I, a newcomer to
and at night (the latter from iand
the field of "monster spotting",
using infra-red NATO nightsight
believe that I could have any
telescope) revealed a number of
better chance of success than
those who had been seeking
wakes without boats at their
heads. Scuba diving in Loch,
"Nessie" for more than 25,
Morar confirmed that a subyears? The difference was that
merged diver could be seen from
my first sighting fitted perfectly
the air when he was 4-to-5
into my hypothesis. The luck
element was also .there, for the
meters beneath the surface.
chances of the creature surfacing
I found that 'encouraging,
close to our boat instead of, say,
'bearing in mind, that an' air to
surface sighting of a completely
eight miles away at the other end
of the "loch must have been
submerged loch creature might
several million to one.
produce acceptable photographic
The combination of wh'at might
results.
be a working hypothesis and the
We found the task of disremarkable underwater visibility
mantling the aircraft every night
(to 'avoid damage due to storms)
in Loch Morar suggested to me
that the place to be was not in a
and re-rigging in the mornings a '
boat, on the side of the loch, or
pain in the neck, so observation
swimming around underwater.
of six further lochs, Ness, Oich,
LOchy, Quoich, Shiel and Arkaig
No, the best place of all would be
up in the. air, flying, whenever
waited until Gerry:Breen arrived
my theory hinted that the creain his conventional aircraft, an
Aerospatiale Rallye 110. Meantures would be swimming just
while we flew and observed and,
subsurface. Kitted up, I could
dived. Due to torrential rain, the
land on the water and jump in for
underwater visibility in' Loch
the eyeball-to-eyeball cine and
still photography necessary to
Morar deteriorated until it reached a still acceptable, 12-to-13
identify and record a possible
/ Jl!.eters.
'
'
surviving dinosaur.
One sunny day, while expediThe ideal instrument would be
tion member "Chip" Smith and I
a helicopter, but with hire
were sorting out gear, we saw
charges up to 200 pounds an
two wakes moving to the East in
hour, such a platform was out of
mid-loch. Observation with binomy reach. The best bet would be
culars showed an occasional
the new breed of light aircraft
hump at the head of each wake,
called microlites but fitted with
but only IQomentarily. A cine and
floats.

S~co~d,Quarter

1982

American Aerolile5. Inc.

still record was taken but it

showed only the wakes and, as
the range was about threequarters of a mile, would not be
acceptable to science.
Breel) flew up from Oxford to
Skye where I met him, and from
then 'on we took, off every
morning when the (appalling
September) weather permitted,
and flew over to the mainland
and covered all of the seven
"monster" lochs of my itinerary.
Famous Loch Ness I quickly
discounted, 'for there were too
many red herrings. Flying at
1500 feet (best altitude for observation) we would espy a
possibl~ "Nessie" and drop
down to 200 feet only to confirm a
floating, partially filled "bin ,
bag." There were dinghies,
, canoes, pleasure boats and
MFVs.
Oiche and Lochy were similar,
so I switched to Morar, Arkaig,
Shiel and Quoich. Arkaig and
Quoich at;e 'eery and fascinating,
with apparently clear water.
Apart from one dinghy carrying
anglers on AJ;'kaig, both lochs
were deserted. Sheil proved to be
a pig of a, loch. We never did
overtly the Northern end due to
excessive
wind
turbulence,
which at times scared me to
death: I thought in my ignorance
that the wings were going to be
pulled off.
Meanwhile, Chip Smith saw a
loch creature at a range of about
a mile, from dry land. He
watched a single dark h,ump for
about ten minutes, after which it
sank straight down. One aerially
observed wake looked like a
running torpedo . .It ral1 for about
a thousand yards, with no boat at
(~ont;nued

on page 56)

, Pursu',51

EnigDlagraDis
most of its vast collection is stored away,
and only
B
of its estimated 78 million objects
on display at, anyone time, the SmithsQnian InECAUSE

31170

stitution in Washington, D.C. has been called "the

nation's attic."
While not admitting they've ever lost anything"
Smithsonian officials recently began the most complete
inventory in the museum's history. By next year they
hope to have a computerized record that will tell exactly what they have, what its condition is, and where in
the 12-building complex it is to be found. There's little
doubt, that the cellar-to-attic, building-to-building inventory will turn up objects long forgotten by veteran
Smithsonian workers, and relics whose labels have
come off during years of being shuttled from one
dusty back room to another.
, Cryptozoologists will be watching the search,' too,
hoping it will turn up a: glass container "about the size
of a milk can u in which the only remaining tissue
samples from a mystery monster cast up on the
Florida-coast nearly 90 years ago were last seen.
Sent to the Srqithsonian in 1897 by Dr. DeW~tt
Webb, a Florida physician with a keen interest in ,
natural history, the tissue, samples languis'hed
unexamined until 1962 when Dr. Joseph F. Gennaro,
Jr. persuaded Smithsonian officials to let him take a
few pieces for study. Gennaro's examination showed
conclusively that the tissue was neither that of a giant
squid nor of a 'whale. Prof. Addison Verrill of Yale
idt:ntified the creature as a whale on the basis of tissue
'samples he received from the Smithsonian" but he
never examined the corpse as Webb had done.
Dr. Gennaro opted for a'different identification:
Writirig in the March 1971 issue of Natural.History
magazine, he insisted "The evidence appears uninistakable that the St. Augustine sea monster ~as iii.
sc~ttered

in
locations around the world,
from North America to Australia, are fields of
F
'naturally occurring glass-like objects Called tektites.
OUND

They vary in size from the near-inicroscopic to almost

ten centimeters, and in weight, from less than a gram
, to several kilograms. Tb.eir color ranges from black to
, various shades of brpwn and green. They also come in
a variety of shapes: spherical, teardrop, 'discoidal,
conical, and rod-like.
The mystery about tektites is their brigin, since they
seem to bear no chemical relationship' to the other
rocks where they are found. Several theories have been
proposed:
1. They are formed by volcanic activity. However,
their chemical composition, chiefly silica, is closer to
that of shales and sandstones rather than volcanic
glass. If they are formed on earth, they are sedimentary, not igneous.
,
'2. They are formed 'by r.neteorite impact. Although
this is the view commonly accepted' today, it, too has,
its problems .. The trouble is that there ar:e, no tektites '
found at the known meteori~e-impact craters'.:This has', ,

Pu',..." '52 '

.fact an octopus.
"Accepting Webb's on-site
measurements, he estimated the ,monster would have
spanned nearly 200 feet, tentacle-tip to tentacle-tip,
large enough to overturn most sailing ships ,of the type
used during the 15th and 16th centuries woen reports
of such destruction by sea monsters were legion.
An octopus that large would dwarf the giant squid
Architeuthis, a monster that attained'iengths up to 75 ,
feet and whose existence had been established some
years earlier by the same Prof. Verrill who refused to
accept Webb's specimens as coming from a giant 0ctopus. Verrill had initially accepted the creature as a
giant octopus; he named it Octopus giganteus but later
withdrew the identification and substituted the ,whale
,identity to which he clung thereafter.
Despite Verrill's di~avowal, the' Smithsonian's
tissue container was labeled Octopus giganteus Verrill,
'said Dr. Gennaro. Even so, the existence of the giant
oc'topus has still not been accepted by the scientific
community. Additional tests might speed acceptance,
,but Gennaro isn't too hopeful. "The Smithsonian jar
was lost during a move," he noted in his article. "The
samples I had taleen are'all that's left " . ;"
,
"I don't think (the jar) is really lost,'~ Dr. George
Zug, chairman of the Smithsonian's Department of
Vertebrate Zoology told me some, weeks before the offidal announcement' of the $7 million inventory
project. "It's "just misplaced; someday it'll turn up."
Unanswered is the question of having the mystery
tissue re-examined when it does turn up. If further
examination di~closes that the tissue is from an octopus, its name should be changed to Octopus giganteus Webb.'
-George W. Earley
Editors' note: Quite as interesting as the Lost Monster of the Smithsonian is the Hudson River Monster that Charles Fort caught up
with when it wps headed jor the Smithsonian in 1891, See page 96.

led to the suggestions that the tektites may be a, product

of impacts on the surface of the moon; the fragments
escaped the inoon's weak gravity and were captured by
the earth's ~trong gravity. The difficulty with this explanation is that the balance of the gases trapped within the t~ktites-oxygen, nitrogen, and.argon-is identical to that of the earth's .atmosphere. Thus, they
could only have been formed on earth.
No single theory 'has been able to explain all the
'data. So I now propose a new theory which I believe
covers all the known facts:
-Sometime, in the remote past, one or more huge
meteorites (such as the one which created Meteor Crater
in Arizona) struck the earth, throwing tons of ' molten
rock 'into the atmosphere. The molten materiaI,sQUdified .
at a consiqerabfe height and eventually .fell to earth,',
far distant from its point of origin. ~in!ilar pheriomena, '
are known to occur dur:ing volcanic er.uptions'. ' " ,
This theory explains why \ there are. no tekt~tes 'at
,the i~pact site, 'wliy the trapped 'gases are iden~ical t~'
the'earth's atmosphere, and whY',the chemic,al comp,-'
, osition:Qn~ktites is not.ign~o,~~.
''':':''~im'i.~ Neidigh' , -:

, ' ".,,, S,,~~'d Quari~ 1982'

ANCIENT

SPACE

FL.IGHT:

by Stuart w. Gre.nwood
1982 by Stuart W. Greenwood

HUMANKIND is disting~ished "from other terrestrial life by its intellectual pursuits. We

are only truly alive when we investigate the unexplained. That search is unending, because
nothing is ever explain.ed to the extent that no further inquiry is required. Science concentrates (necessarily) on manageable problems in order to make recognizable progress. It is
urifortunate that many of the best minds in science avoid more difficult questions, opening
the door to the speculations and assertions of less-disciplined thinkers. The reactions of
such scientists to these speculations all too often create a hostile environment that discourages further study. The honest inquirer (the author, by implication, cleari~ includes himself
in this category) tries to steer an objective course through 'the minefield"":"respecting the disciplinary tradition of establishment science while showing appreciation of the imagination
and energy of speculative thinkers.
The most important question facing our species is that of origins. What is nature, and
why? Who (What) is responsible for it? From a scientific viewpoint, this area is a quicksand, and the author is unwilling to walk in it. The second most important question. concerns our place in a vast and complex cosmos. Is the intelligence in which we take such
pride a unique flowering on the planet Earth, or has it also developed elsewhere? An aspect
. of the latter question is whether such alien intelligence has interacted with our species in
the past.
We have come, then, to the hypothesis (or considered guess) of the visits to our planet
in early times of a.stronauts from other worlds-the Ancient Astronauts. A major opportunity exists for scientists in a wide range of specializations to exercise their talents in a
search for evidence. It need hardly be emphasized that the desired concentration of effort
is slow in ma~erializing.
The author is an aerospace engineer, belonging to a profession that would be most
deeply concerned with any convincing evidence of ancient space flight. The dilemma presented by the search is obvious: any apparent evidence that was recognizable would reflect
our present (and early) competence and technology, while apparent evidence of advanced.
technology might be unrecognizable. It is to be expected, however, that in one respect at
least fundamental considerations in regard to the desirability of conserving energy might
apply to all.space mis~ions. This is admittedly clutching at a straw, but what else is available at-this stage?
The key to the approach adopted by this writer for
some years is the spin of the Earth about its axis. We are
familiar with the fact that the Sun rises in the east and
sets in the west. That is our terrestrial perspective. The
solar system perspective is that the Earth rotates from
west to east about its axis. To gain benefit from this
rotation, our own spacecraft take off al,1d land toward
the east. The truly significant direction from an
astronautical viewpoint is thus the west-east direction.
Dr. Greenwood is engineering manager of the l,/niversity
. Research Foundation affiliated with the University of
Mary/and..

Second,Quarter .1982

.s
E

A
R

C
H
FOR

E
V
I

D
E
N

C
E

We are conditioned to looking at maps with a prime

north-south orientation: Who knows what revelations
await those who take the trouble to rotate their maps
through a right angle? .
The author fancies he has resolved the persistent
and powerful imagery of the Feathered Serpent of Central American cultures in this manner-it is the view from
an overflying spacecraft, of Florida and the southeastern
u.s. as observed in the west-east direction. Another.
revelation is the Asian Dragon that can be observed from
space in the west-east direction.
The Asian Dragon's head is shown separated from ad-

Pursu',53

- jacent land masses in Fig. by selecting the view of the

Earth below as seen from a spacecraft overflying the area
at an altitude_ of 565. miles and traveling toward the east.
E

Fig. 1. The Chinese Dragon. China Is at the top of the

picture and India Is below _ Lhua, ancient capital of Tibet,
is at the center_

The limiting circle is the cutoff at the horizon at a distance

of 200(>" miles. We have here -the treatment of a relationship between mythology and reality that is the reverse of
the customary approach. Instead of beginning with
mythology -and seeking a real interpretation, we _have
started wi-th a recognizable situation and discovered an
explanation for a myth. The Asian Dragon is not a flying
creature or a flying machine invested with. living characteristics; it is an association of a terrestrial land area with
the conditions under which it was observed-from an
overflying spacecraft. Anyway, that- is the ball -being
thrown ~y this writer_ Does anyone want to catch it?
and astronomers (and archeoastronomers, of course) have enjoyed themselves immensely for
some time disputing whether ancient sites and monumenments may have been oriented in relation to the heavens.
it is clearly time for a further stone to be thrown into this
particular pond to watch how the ripples spread. Is it
possible that such alignments could have been determined
in some instances by observation of the direction taken
by overflying spacecraft?
We now introduce a series of assumptions to get this_
tI:ting off the ground (at least the choice of words seems
appropriate). Suppose there were spacecraft in early
times; suppose they were launched toward the east; and
suppose some of the flights departed Earth for objectives
- - -within the solar-system. A look at Fig. 2 serves to set the
scene. The Earth spins on its axis froin west to east, the
-axis _being tilted at an angle to the ecliptic plane, the
plane of the orbit -of the Earth- around the ~un. All the
phlnets lie fairly close to the ecliptil; plane, so it typifies
the plane of tran~fer for an in~erplanetaty jounieY-.

The simplest -case to consider is the launch of -a

satellite from a point on the Tropics. When the launch
site momentarily touclles the ecliptic plane, conditions
are ideal for launch into a parking -orbit preliminary to
entering an interplanetary orbit. Such a parking orbit is
illustrated in Fig. 2 for launch from a site on the Tropic
~f Cancer. The motion of the satellite after launch is controlled by the Earth's gravitational pull. Following the
-ea~terly launch at A, the craft first swings down toward
the_ Equator, crossing local parallels of latitude at
progressively increasing angles. Ori crossing the Equator
at B the angle made with the local parallel of latitude
reaches a maximum. The orbit then continues as far
south as the Tropic of Capricorn which it touches facing
toward the east. The .p.ath traced on the other side of theEarth coincides with that shown in the diagram except
that now it approaches any given point from south of
west rather than from north of west.
To make things more interesting, the vehicle path is
substantially fixed relative to the Earth while the latter
spins -beneath it. On completion of one revolution, the
satellite returns to A in the diagram to find that the
l,lUnch site has moved off toward the east. To illustrate
this effect, a satellite just above the. atmosphere ~ith an
orbital duration of .J V2 hours would have .to circle the
Earth 16 times before it again overflew the launch site.
What are the implications of the above for observing
the direction of approach of the spacecraft from a point
on the ground? First, it is obvious that such observations could only be made between latitudes corresponding to the latitude of the launch site; the satellite .would
not be visible from higher latitudes. Second, lhe angle of
approach would increase as the latitude diminished. _Third,
. the direction of approach would as likely be from south
of west as from north of west.
If the -departur~ rather than the approach were being
observed, the direction would as likely be north of east as

ARCHEOLQGlSTS

"

'

. Fig. 2. _ Arrow shows ftlght path fOr satellite launched

to~ard the eut ata poln.t A -on the Tropic of Caneer when
_the launch pOint touches the ecliptic plan!!.

.S~... QUarter i982

Pur,S4

"

"
I

./'

.',

ANGLE

ANGLE

(Degrees)

(Degrees)
30~--~--~~------~------~

30~----~~~------~------~

20r--------+~~----;_~----~

20~-------+~~.---~~~----1

10~-------+--------~~----~

10~-------+------~~~----~

10

20
30
LATITUDE (Degrees)

10

20
30
LATITUDE (Degrees)

Fig. 3. Angle at which satellite path crosses parallel .of

Fig. 4. Angle at which satelllt~ path crosses parallel of
latitude for easterly launch. allolDlngjor Earth's rotation.
latitude for easterly launch. GlJlJumlng non-rotating Earth.
Figs. 3 & 4-Upper curve: launch from latitude of 30 degrees-Lower curve: Launch from latitude of 231f2 degrees (Tropic).

south of east. Before we look at specifics, let us set out

the expected consequences of the above considerations to
form a basis for judging the hypothesis: that orientation
of ancient sites may have been significantly influenced by
observation of overflying spacecraft:
1) Such sites will be located primarily in the lower
latitudes.
2) The orientation Qf a site to the west-east direction
is likely to be at a higher angle the closer the site is to the
Equator.
3) The orientation is as likely to be south of west as
north of west (for an approach orientation) or north of.
east as south of east (for a departure direction).
Every site and every monu~ent is oriented somehow,
and item (1) above is really unhelpful in that we are
obliged to concentrate on sites in the lower altitudes
anyway by the nature of the hypothesis. We are effectively left only with the remaining two criteria. Unfortunately for the hypothesis, a review of Central American
site and monument orientations indicates that angles to
the west-east direction show a general tendency to
decrease toward the Equator, and there is a predominance of north of west rather than. south of west orientations. Could anything be less encouraging'?

OF COURSE, it might. be better to forget tite whole thing

at this point, and content ourselves with the knowledge
that a good idea was pursued and resulted in a negative
solution (that's progress of a kind, so we are told). It
wouldn't be all that fun, however, and if you've ever
been gripped by a hypothesis you must know that it is
reluctant to reiease its hold. Suppose, then, that perhaps
some monuments or sites (a minority, even) were oriented
for the reasons given, while the rest were oriented for
.
other reasons. After all, why not'?
The author almost overheated his pocket calculator
working (;mt the angle at which a satellite launched
toward the east would cross a given parallel of latitude.
Second Quarter 1982

The reader can check the results shown in Fig. 3 for a

"non-rotating" Earth, and the more accurate results
allowing for th~ Earth's rotation in Fig. 4, simply by
using the equations given in any textbook on celestial
. mechanics.
The advantage of using the results shown in Fig. 3 is
that, for launch latitudes up to 30 degrees, you can
reproduce the curves for any given launch latitude with
sufficient accuracy by drawing an arc of a circle centered
at the origin of the diagram. The correction for: the
Earth's rotation incorporated in Fig. 4 is seen to be" to increase slightly the angle of the satellite crossing at lower
latitudes. For a preliminary investigation, Fig. 3 gives a
ballpark result to whicH you can then make a small
modification along the lines of Fig. 4. Anyway, satellites,
. like other spacecraft, can have their orbits modified after
launch, so why not admit right away that we're on soft
ground (and anticipate the skeptics, who should find lots
to get their teeth into here) ..

To

TAKE A FLING at this particular adventure, you're

going to need some good source data-always a sound
requirement for any investigation, and particularly when
you're playing around with the Ancient Astronaut hypothesis and the eyes of the scientific establishment are
upon you, waiting to pop. An introductory list of
references is given at the end of this contribution, and
should provide a foundation for pursuing this line of
thought. The subject can be approached from either of
two directions, and we shall attempt both. In either case,
we need data on site latitude and site orientation, the latter being with respect to true (not magnetic) directions. It
is really amazing how often the distinction is not made
on maps; discovering which is intended can be a timeconsuming exercise.
The first treatment of the present approach
be to
take a given sit~ and apply the hypothesis of orientation
to overflying spacecraft. to determine ti).e latitude of the

will

P ......'55

.'.

corresponding easterly launch. Consider the impressive

temples on the Great Plaza in Tikal, in what is now
Guatemala.

T~mple

II

Temple I

~
True W
Fig. 5. Orientation of the main teJIlples at the Great Plaza, nkal.

As shown in Fig. 5, Temple I is oriented north ofwest

and faces Temple II,. oriented south of east. The orientations are 10!h degrees to the west-east direction. Temple I is oriented to the approach, and Temple II to the
departure, of an overflying spacecraft (one prays that this
. will not be quoted out of context). The "following exercise
is left to the reader: Take a sheet of graph paper, 'mark
the latitude of Tikal (17 degrees) on the horizontal axis as
in Fig. 3, move vertically upward to an angle of 1O!h
degrees corresponding to the orientation angle, mark this
point on the paper, take a compass and draw the circle
arc centered on the origin through this point, and the
value of latitude at which it crosses the horizontal axis is
the launch latitude. The answer is about 20 degrees. One
can now have fun looking at all potential launch sites on
latitudes 20 degrees north and. 20 d~rees south to see if
~nything potentially interesting mateJ;'ializes. You can see
the boundless possibilities of this form of investigation.
The second treatment will be to take a given launch
latitude and match it with the latitude of a selected site to
see whethe~ it gives an orientation existing at the site.
Suppose we consider launch from a point on one of the
Tropics at a latitude of 23!h degrees (this ~ngle varies a
little historically, but we have yet to worry about such
. refinements while our hypothesis has still some way to
go). Now consider the extensive markings and drawings

Morag of Morar

on the Nazca Plain in present-day Peru. The represen- ,

tative' latitude of these markings may. be taken as IS
degree~ south.
This one seemed important enough to ine that I used
the equations of celestial mechanics to compute the
corresponding orientation .angle. directly. It came to 19.4
( degrees, and the value can be checked on Fig. 4 as it includes the curve for a launch from one of the Tropics ..
Read off .15 degrees latitude on the horizontal scale, then
move vertically upwards to the lower curve. The orientation angl~ ca~ then be read. off the vertical scale at the
left as about 19\.1 degrees. .
.
On a portion of the photogrammetric survey ~f the
Naz~a area conducted by the Peruvian government (taken.
from Archaeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian America
edited by Anthony F. Aveni), the orientation angle developed above of 19.4 degrees was superimposed on
the survey to indicate a spacecraft approach from sou~h
of west. The correspondence with the lines and sym::bolism in this region of the Nazca Plain is striking. I
suppose the f~igate bird just has to be flying off at right
angles to just about everything else to put a damper on
the whole thing ..
It is worth recalling that the ori~ntation data derived
for a launch from one of the Tropics can also be applied
to a craft launched elsewhere but whose orbit has been
modified to lie in the ecliptic plane for departure on an
interplanetary journey.
. .
All this is heady stuff, and calls for m~ch dedication
and patience with uncertain expectatio.ns ~s to where it
might lead. The writer will settle for his resolution of the
myths of the Winged Serpent of Central America and the
Asian Dragon. When you come to think o'f it, that's
quite an accomplishment in itself.
REFERENCES
I. Aveni, Anthony F. ed., Archaeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian
America, University of Texas Press, 1975,
2. Hawkins, Gerald S., Beyond Stonehenge, Harper and Row, 1973.
3. Hardoy, Jorge E., Pre-Columbian Cities, Walker and Company,
1973.
4. Andrews, Georg~ F., Maya Cities: Placemaking and Urbanization,
University of Oklahoma Press, 1975.
5. Hawkes, Jacquetta, ed., Atlas of Ancient Archaeology, McGraw Hill
Book Company, 1974.

(Continued from page 5/)

its head. It was filmed, as were conventional boat wakes, to show the
contrast.
In late September, overflying
Morar, we saw something very strange
.. lying on the loch bed in about three
meters of water in an area we had
covered a few days before and which
on the earlier occasion showed nothing
un\1sua1.. The "thing" appeared to be
about six meters in length and had
what could be fins or paddles, but
not the four I expected to see. (I was
befog subjective and not obj~tive,.,
hoping to see a plesiosaur.) , .
;. A cine-record was mad~ .fronj

face chop that distorted the resulting

heights of between 500 and 200 feet.
photographic image, which appeared
A low pass at SO feet nearly put us
to be of an object 7 to 8 meters long,
into the water when we hit a "sink"
moViing to the northwest at possibly
area. Climbing away, I took several
one or two knots .. It 'appeared to
still monochrome photographs.
Then I saw about 30 meters away
.have a neck and a tail but only two
fins could be seen, and these were on
from the "thing," another "thing."
either side just forward of amidships.
Only this time, Thing No. 2 was
I managed only one dive in the
most definitely moving slowly, abput
area after that, and in one bay .1
a meter under the surface. 1 managed
one 35mm still frame of it, then it . came across a log which did ~ot ap: .
. descended into deeper water, . out
pear to relate either to Thing ~o. 1
\ or Thing No.2. What had 1 seen? .
of sight.
.
I very much doubt if No: 1 was an .
A polarizing filter had almost com-
pletely eliminated surface glare. It .. animate :object .. Its shape wasn't .
could . not, cauntef8ct the small sur(Continued on pilge 63) .
. . .

.a ",

..

SecoDd, Quarter 1982

(,

.'

The, Search for Ancient Aqaanaats

by Ha..." LebelsoB
of another world may lie
hidden among the myths of our
A
earliest civilizations. A number of
GLIMPSE

scientists and authors have been exploring these myths in detail.

Although the investigations give little
credence to ancient myths as proof of
ETI contact, they confirm such tales
as the Sumerian legend of the' Oannes.
These fish-like beings, resembling
men, visited the ancient cultures from
span of I,S()()
time to time over
years.
Berossus, a priest who lived in the
city of Babylon during the reign of
Alexander the Great, preserved for
posterity accounts of early Babylonia
(Sumeria) and the visitations of the

Daie Russell's
.'Dlno~aurold'

SecoRd Quarter 1982

Oannes. In his documents, Berossus

recalls that "There made its appearance from the Persian' Gulf dQrins an 'early time in Babylonian
history, ~n a'nim,l endowed with
reason, called 'Oannes'... The
histoI:ian, went on to describe the
animal as fish-like: "The whole body
was like that of a fish, with a fish head
and the feet of a man joined to a fish
tail. Its voice, too, and language were
articulate and human." This being,
the priest claimed, was amphibious:
"It conversed with men in the daytime; when the sun set, it . would
plunge into the sea and remain there
for the. night."
.Berossus tells how the population at
that time was primitive and, until the
Oannes came, lived like beasts of the
field. The Oannes were descr-ibed 'as
teachers who gave, the people insight
into letters, the sciences and art.
Referring to cuneiform and pictographic records compiled several
thousand years before his time,
Berossus -describes how the Oannes
taught the people to found temples
and codify laws; they taught the principles of geometrical' knowledge and
"everything to humanize mankind,"
as Berossus put It.
Carl Sagan seems in agreement with
this ancient documentation: ". support the contention that a major
cultural change did take place with the
advent of tl)e Oannes," says the Cornell astronomer.
Existing records show that in addition to the Oannes, Berossus chronicled the appearance of a succession of
sea creatures over the course of
severa. generations. Sagan goes on to
say in his book Intelligent Life in the
Univer.se, that "these beings were interested in instructing mankind. Each
knew the mission and accomplishments of his predecessors. When a
great inundation threatens the' survival of this knowledge, steps are
taken to insure its preservation.
Thereby, the access of Berossus to
antediluvian records is formally explained."
.
As far back as 1966, concepts regarding the existence of amphibious
beings with high intelligence were
being considered' by some serious

.,

...

. Composite Model
'Aquanaut'

scholars. In their book Intelligence

in the Universe, Roger 'MacGowan
and Frederick Ordway state that humans, being land animals, tend to
think in terms of land animals when
considering intelligence. '" A liquid en-.
vilionment," claim the authors, "pro. vides more buoyancy and support
for animal bodies than does atmospheric gas. For this reason, a marine
environment may be expected to develop many species that are larger
than most land-animal, species."
They propose that if larger bodies
can support larger brains, one might
expect to find superior intelligence
among larger marine animals. MacGowan and Ordway are tempted to

Pursu"57

assume that because of the potential

however. were carried out among the . ended feudal development, leaving the
best elements of civilization in its
for larger size, the great variety of . Dogon people between 1946 and 1950
wake for us to possess," says Temple.
life, the stable environment of the
when four major informants. (prie~ts
According to the legend. the Nommo
of. the DQgon) were interviewed.
oceans and the competition among
. "The Dogon legacy imparted to
will once again come to earth and
species, most intelligent extrasolar
study the progress made by mankind.
Griaule and Dieterlen is primarily
life may be marine as opposed to landThese native beliefs were among those .
oral. though there are many related
dwelling.
recorded by Griaule and Dieterlen
physical objects which constitute im. Why should these creatures have
along with other astronomical and
. come from the sea? Dr. Dale Russell, . portant physical evidence, .. states
scientific theories. Some of the inforTemple. He notes that the Dogon had
curator of fossil vertebrates at the Na:
mation reveal~d a native perception of
a system of 11.616 written ideogramtional Museum of Canada, Ottawa,
the earth and the solar system so admatic signs to express concepts and
offers some observations about the
vanced as to defy explanation. The
things, which they used with immense
evolution of non-human intelligence.
Dogon knew that the earth turns on its
"Perhaps high intelligence may be a
subtlety and complexity. The Dogon
axis,' revolves around the sun,' has a
natural result wherever life evolves in
did not; however. use written char- .
calendar year of 12 months; and that
the universe, and maybe man's
acters to represent sounds or to form
365 days go ~o make up one calendar
general body form is no accident," he
sentences.
The Dogon's most 'secret religious'
year.
speculates. Russell goes so far as to
tradition was their knowledge of the
suggest that man could have evolved
In addition to their scholarly artiSirius star system. It consisted of
I from'
a species of dinosaur, had
-cleo "A Sudanese Sirius System,'" anSirius A, presently the brightest star in
dinosaurs not become extinct.
thropologists Griaule and Dieterlen
the sky; Sirius B, a white .dwarf and
produced a book-length. publication.
I
If, in "fact, these creatures did
the tiniest form of visible star' in the .. "The Pale Fox," published in Paris in
i evolve as fish-like beings, perhaps
universe; and the possible presence of
they found our planet hospitable,
1965. Their joint findings do not draw
a Sirius C (its existence has yet to be
since 90 percent of it is covered by
any- definitive conclusions of extraterproven). The anthropologists. in
ocean.
restrial, contact with the Dogon but
Robert Temple, author of The Sirrecording the Dogon beliefs. make
merely suggest the possibility. In Le
clear that the bright star of Sirius A is
Renard Pale (The Pale Fox), they
ius Mystery. supports the theory that
earth may have been visited by innot as important to the Dogon as the
discuss in detail Dogon belief and
tiny Sirius B: this star. named
teliigent beings from the stars. though
knowledge as it relates to astronomy.
Digitaria by the tribes, is claimed to be
he can't say for sure whether we were
and the Sirius system. The Dogon also
the home of the ,amp1)ibious beings
recounted to 'the anthropologists
visited by survivors of an aquatic
called "Nommos.
specialized data regarding the nature
planet whose sun went supernova. He
Temple points out how the Dogon
of the planets in our solar system and
does confirm that he has found cercompared the heavenly motions
tain startling myths in the ancients'
the coming to earth of the Nommos.
within our Milky Way to the circulaTemple, in The Sirius Mystery, conview of the universe.
.. In The Sirius Mystery. he explor~s' tion of the blood. The planets and
firms the accuracy' of that informatheir companion bodies were contion: "Of the moon, they say iUs dry
the origin of the Legend of the Nomsidered the blood; ]iow they traveled
mos-those intelligent amphibious
and dead. they know Saturn has a ring
around each other was symbolically
creatures allegedly come from the
around it and that the planets are stars
that turn around something ... ' He
thought to be the circulation. The
Sirius star system to set up society
African tribesmen likened both the
adds that the descriptions given these
here on earth. This ancient myth had
been handed down orally from
star system of Sirius and our own
scholars as to the Nommos' descent to
generation to generation among
eartb were reminiscent of a large obsolar system to a cosmic placenta. pur
solar system is referred to' as 'Ogo's
ject with a thunderous exhaust leaving
members of the Dogon tribe in Mali.
in its wake a whirlwind of dust and
West Africa. In his book, Temple
placenta' , the word Ogo meaning
dirt. "The violence of the impact
"the fox" or impure earth. Sirius and
credits responsibility for the preservaits companion stars are referred to as
roughened the ground as it skidded
tion and recent resurrection of the tale
to two French anthropologists, Mar'Nommo's placenta'. Nommo being
along." the Dogon noted as they
cel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen.
the collective name: for those amlikened the noise to ,"the echoing of
In an article published in the French
four large stone blocks being struck
'phibious creatures who set up society
anthropological journal,' Journal de
with stones by our children. ". The ark
on earih and who thus became the
traditionaJ equ-ivalents .of the
la Societe des Africanistes in 1950 enor object landed on the earth northSumerian/Babylonian . Oannes. The
east of Dogon country. in the directitled "A Sudanese Sirius System"
landing of the Nommo on our earth is
tion o(Egypt and the Middle East.
(referring to the French Sudan area of
called 'the day of the fish', and the
The tribesmen also spoke of the
'that time), the anthropologists replanet they came from in the Sirius
Sigui ceremony: Identified by the
ported on four Sudanese tribes which
system is known as t~e (pure) earth of
Kanaga sign, in the fOrln of our letter
had information about the Sirius star
the day of the fish. '.. not (our) imsystem so. specific that it seemed imH, the sixty-year ritual celebrated
pure earth.
possible for any primitive tribe to
the re-creation of the world by th.e
, "Their religious beli.efs tell how
know. The tribes were the Dogon in
.
"
Ogo represents man in all his cosmic
Harry Lebelson is, well kn,own . to
,Bandiagara. the Bambara and the
impurity, and how Nommo came to . Pursuit rec,ders for his frequent conBozo in Segou. and the Mirianka.in
to' OMNI magazine. : ,
earth, crushed t~e fox (Ogo-inan): and
~outiala. The main' inv~stigations,
. triblitions
.
,
'

',i

hr.,.It 58

.Secon~' Q-'l!Irier
. r

1982 .

Dogon god Amma, and the instruction of that world by Nommo, his
son. Robert Temple implies that the
. knowledge of such a cycle attests to a
continuing tradition of observation by
a priesthood with astronomical inclinations. He then details the influence and importance of the Sirius
star system to Egyptian culture as
evidenced by the Egyptian calendar
with its "star clocks" or risings of the
stars by which the months, weeks .and
days were counted. The main focus of
attention, Sirius, formed the basis of
this calendar, with the last star of the
constellation Orion rising above the
horizon one hour before Sirius.
Orion also became significant in
Egyptian mythology and religion; it
was the companion of both Sirius and
the constellation of the Great Dog of
which Sirius was a part. "If Orion was
the companion of Sirius," Temple
, UFO 'Imprint' at Mulhouse-Rledlshelm, France, 1971
reasons, "it could then be considered
interchangeable with Osiris, a known
. companion of Isis, and chief Egyptian
me, though. There's still a lot about
holy emanations coming from Sirius
ancient history that we don't know."
god." This information was ascertainand Orion which v~vify gods, men,
Interestingly, certain patterns assoed through Profs. Otto' Neugebauer
cattle and creeping things, and are a
and Richard Parker, co-authors of
pouring-out of the seed of the .soul.
ciated with the Oannes and Nommos
Egyptian Astronomical Texts, who
Temple says the Dogon express the
mythology persist in contemporary
identified the star Sirius with the
saqle thing in almost precisely the
reports and in the media:
famous goddess Isis. Temple consame terms: "To them the seed which
~ In 1971, on a grassy field at
tinues: "We know that the 'companenergizes the world pours forth from
Mulhouse-Riedisheim, France, a large
ion of Sirius' is in reality Sirius B;
the Sirius system."
circular imprint with the letter. H intherefore, it is conceivable that OsirisScholar Zecharia Sitchin, like
side it was found burned into the grass
as-Orion, 'the companion of Sirius',
Robert Temple, attempts to go
shortly after a rumored UFO sighting.
is a stand-in for the invisible true- . beyond unanswered speculation to
(See photo above.)
companion Sirius B."
show that the earth has been visited by
Professor Wallis Budge, an Egyp~ It was during the evening of Ocadvanced beings from another planet.
tologist, tells us in The Sirius Mystery
tober 17, 1973 that Early Patterson,
In his book The 12th Plane; he atthat the oldest and simplest form of . tempts to decipher clues left by ana Vietnam vet residing in Eupora,
the name Osiris is a hieroglyph of a
Mississippi, claimed an encounter
cient Sumerian texts, the Bible,. and
throne and an eye, the eye positioned
with a UFO. At the intersection of
Mesopotamian legends. His analysis
Highway 82 and Grady Crossing the
either above or below the throne or
of thes~ documents and the ultimate
seat. This interpretation by the Egypwitness observed an object lying
conclusion of his book suggest that
tians views Sirius B or Osiris as revolvacross the highway obstructing traffic
the earth was settled by the 'Nefilim'
ing around Isis or Sirius A. The Bozo
in all d.irections. Patterson's
or eagle-men, anthropomorphic betribe in Mali, one of the four interautomobile, with its electrical system
ings wearing uniforms, who brought
viewed by anthropologists Gi"iaule
dead, came "to a stop less than 300 feet
civilization i.o the planet in the area
and Dieterlen, related that Sirius B
from the object, described as resemknown to us as ancient Mesopotamia.
was known to them as the eye star;
bling a coffee cup and saucer, or
Sitchin uses these sources to show how
they also described Sirius A as seated.
saucer with a bubble top. From the
the beings came to earth from a planet.
What they said parallels the findings
as yet undiscovered. While Sitchin,
bubble a fish-like creature emerged.
of Professor Budge and, according to
Early Patterson described the creature
with over 30 years of scholarship
Robert Temple, seems to indicate that
as having the head of a catfish, with a
behind him, advocates visitation to
"the Sumerians from whom the
large suction-type mouth breathing
earth by astronauts from another
Dogon inherited their information
air. Its arms tapered down to accomplanet, Sagan and Temple cautiously
about Sirius, and the ancient Egypmodate two fins instead of hands. The
present their information in an attians, derived their primeval gods
being's tight greenish-blue skin
mosphere of reserved skepticism.
from some common but exceedingly
covered Ii human-like torso with two
"A lot of people who will enancient source which could not have
thusiastically receive my researches
.legs ending in webbed feet. Patterson
been the result of borrowing."
was not the only Witness.; six people in
with open arms are the sort of people
Professor Budge refers also to anthe automobile directly behind him
one least wants to be classed with,"
cient Egyptian texts which speak of
also glimpseq the ph\~nomenon. The
states Temple. "That doesn't bother
'.

Secoad Qaarter 1982

Purs,,'t 59

creature was in view for approximatelyfive minutes before retreating inside

the object and leaving the area. [Later

On December IS, 1974 at 12:30

p.m., Jorma Viita, a shipyard worker,
walking in an open field near his home
in 9dense, Denmark, spotted and

~ On April 14, 1976, in a remote

area visited by law officers who were
investigating a rash of cattle mutilations in north-central Montana,
'stones were found bearing strange inscriptions. These stones, .along. \vith
smaller rocks, landscapeda pit 61 feet
in circumference. The pit was believed
to have been used as a ceremonial site
bycultists. The largest. stone shib bore
the inscription "ISIS! FAVOR USI
.

Purau.; 60

the same evening, witness Patterson

was interviewed by Jack King, manager of radio station WROB, West

Point, . Mississippi. A verbatim

transcript of the broadcast is printed
in adjacent columns. -Ed.]

photographed an unidentified flying

object at a distance.of 350 meters. The
object bore a mark or symbol on its
underside similar to the letter H with a

vertical line through the crossbar. On

a previous occasion, Viita
photographed two similar objects
with identical markings.

MOTHER OF MOON, LOVER. OF GOODNESS." Beneath this inscription was

gress of mankind. Theirmission was

supposedly to be accomplished by obtaining specimeris of our animal life,
and also human beings.

a drawing of the ancient symbol of

Isis, the throne or seat. Adding to this
biZarre find was the report, at that
time, by an Idaho forest ranger of two
strange hooded figures dressed in
black robes, seen in a heavily forested
area carrying a bag. The ranger noted
that the hoods of both robes were
pointed and had a partial opening. He
was unable to get a look at their faces;
as they walked, they continually looked straight ahead, never once turning
their heads.
The Cascade County sheriff's office
in Great Falls, Montana, received
numerous letters and suggestions as to
the possible cause of .the cattle mutilations. One such letter, from a Macomb, Illinois, psychic, proposed a
scenario similar to that presented by
Robert Temple and hinted at by Carl
Sagan in their respective books. The
psychic claimed to be in touch with
beings from a UFO who claimed responsibility for the cattle mutilation~.
He described them as purplish-black,
smooth-skinned, fish-like beings.
Their mouths were like suction cups,
the cheeks smooth but bony. Dressed
. in rubbery suits, they wore cloth-like
. capes over their heads and shoulders.
. Their gait was deliberate, head and
shoulders moving simultaneously as if
devoid of neck; They were tiere, the
psychit asserted, to monitor ttie. p~o~

..

This provocative sampling 'of

events, .along with others, stands as an
outpost on the borderland of science.
Even today, as anthropologists con. tinue to discover possible new explanations for man's early acquisition
of knowledge and development, much
skepticism prevails.
More than 20 years ago British
marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy
proposed that man might be descended from an aquatic ape. Since that
time, others have elaborated on Hardy's ideas. In a recent article about
Alister Hardy in Science Digest
magazine, author Lyall Watson suggests that there is plenty. of room for
,an alternative explanation of evolution. He notes: "The. fossils that
decorate our family tree are so scarce
that there are still more scientists than
specimens." He also points out that
all the physical evidence we have for
human evolution can still be placed,
with room to spare, inside a single
I
coffin I
Even if it is proventhat man is not
descended from an aquatic ape', .he
m~y very well have, been helped along"
the. evolutionary road by aquatiC be~
ings .from the stars.' .. . .. '. U
., .

,.

S.~Dd .Quarter 1982

lat.nt with Eadp R. P.tt....oa,

CharchlD Ddve, Eupor., ....., Octobe.. 17, 1973. lat.nt.....: ".ck
Klag, ........., Radio StatIoa WROB,
Wat Pomt, ..... ladd. .t took place
oa Hlgh.av 82 at G..adv Cmlag,
41/2 mU_
of Eupo..a,

where this thing was oil the object, I'd guess he was
about 6 feet 3 inches taU. It had two feet that looked like
frog feet. It had a body that looked like a human being
but from its waist up it looked like a catfish ..
Do you me.n it looked like a catflsb because of the shape
of its moutb?
He looked like a catfish from his waist up and had a
mouth as wide as a catfish. His mouth continued to open
and close, open and close, open and close.
Did tbe creature have two ~rms, two lep?
Mr. P.ttenon, would you tell, me .bout wb.t you ....w
L~ me tell you s~methin'. You may think I'm lying
..
but whatever that thing was. it was a catfish from the
earUer .this evening?
I've seen something, something I've never seen before.
waist up and behind ~s back was something I cant
describe.
.
Whatever the thing was, it was shaped like a saucer and a
i
coffee cup. The coffee cup leveled off with the saucer,
Old It .ppear th.t be wu c.rrylng something on bis
b.ck?
..
that's the way it was built. This thing, I'm saying, it had
one eye and it glowed, it came out of the top. There was
No. it was. I don't know what it was. When he hopped over the side of the object. I saw what looked like
another object right above the bottom one. It. was about
IS to 20 feet high. Several people seen this. Just before
two feathers on his back which opened and closed as he
moved.
.
this thing touched the ground, I had my headlights on
when all of a sudden my lights went out and my car went
Could you describe tbe creature's .ppearance once again?
Have you ever seen a flying squirrel? Well, he has
dead.
.
I seen something tonite and believe me, so help me
something between his feet, like webbing. This creature
had the same thing on his two feet. They looked like:
God, I don't ever want to see again as long as I live. I
seen something tonite that looked so real and I tried to .
flippers. He had two arms like a human, with two hands
tell the law but they laughed at me. I got proof that I
that looked like fish or seal fins, which flopped as he
wasn't the only person who seen what I've seen tonite.
moved.
Mr. P.ttenon, .bout wbat time did this occur?
Wben tbe creature stepped over the side of the craft, bow
did be bold onto tbe object?
It was about 7:30 tonight.
There was a bar around the whole object near the
So it took place .t 7:30 on Highw.y 82. On whicb side of
lights which he held onto.
Eupora is tb.t?
How high up was tbe otber object. whicb stayed in the
At Grady Crossing.
Wbere is that in relation to Eupora?
.air?
.
, It's just west of Eupora.
It was, I guess, about 60 feet up.
About bow far is Grady Crossing from Eupora?
How close were you to tbe object?
I was no more than 100 yards away from it. There was
It's about 4~ miles west of Eupora.
Wben this object came down~ did it come down on tbe
a car only 3 or 4 feet behind mine ai the time this took
place. That's why I say I've got proof of what I've seen.
center of tbe higbway itself?
It landed almost dead center on the highway..It was
There were seven other witnesses who saw-what I saw.
even hanging a little over the edge of the highway.
Do all these witnesses live in your immedi.tearea?
They all live in the area around Eupora, Miss.
Did it flU up tbe wbole higbway?
Were there any c.n on tbe other side of this object that
It filled up the highway from one side to the other and
witnessed tbe event?
.
was hanging off the shoulder on both sides.
One car at the top of the hill on the other side must
Was it on legs of any sort or did it bover above tbe
. have seen one of the objects. When he came over the hill,
ground or sit on tbe ground?
This is goirig to sound funny, but the thing sat like a
he made a U-turn and went in the opposite direction,
saucer set on a table and it had glowing lights formed like
Wbat did tbe craft appear to be made of?
I'm going to be frank with you. It appeared to have a
a tri~gle which looked like legs on. the bottom of the
thing. The whole tbing was setting about 2 or 3 feet off
funny look. It looked like a honeycomb effect with a
the ground.
.
spider web going all through it. It had aU sharp-cut corMr. PaUenon, could you deseribe the sbape of this obners like a beehive effect aU over. It had glowing lights,
, the kind that when you look at them, you can't get your
,
Ject apin?
The top of the thing was like a cup or a bubble and
mind off loqking at them. There were also individual
. lights flashing a greenish blue. greenish blue, greenish
the bottom was like a round saucer. Three mfferent parts
blue..
.
of the'object were glowing. It had ab~ut 8 lights on it as
far as I could see. Little bluish green lights which were
Were tbere other Uabts In addition to tbose on tbe craft?
The creature. from where I was. appeared to have one
flashing on and off.
big eye in the center of its head which glowed like a"
From wb.t part of the object did the cre.ture come out
flashlight.
.
of?
The thing came out of the b.ubble part on the top. It
Old tbe creature appe.r to be wearing clotbes or
uniform?
just opened up and he came o~t.
No, it just had greenish skin which was very tight on
Wben be came out of the object, did be come to tbe
its body.
.
.
ground?
Wben the objects left, did tbey take off at great speed?
No, he just came out from the top and observed over
.. the side while another object hovered above it and shined
They took off just like a Huey helicopter. The reason
I know this is because I was a Huey helicopter pilot in
a light down on the bottom object. There were 3 little an~
Vietnam. "It also made a peculiar sound that went whee-o,
tennas with little balls attached to each one,. like on a
.satellite, on the .top of the bubble where he came out of.
whee-o, whee-,o as it took off. Thats the whole story as
Can you desCrIbe the appe.rance of the creature?
. far as what I've seen. even though I know, that no one
will believe me.
Going according to my height, "m 5 feet 8 inches and

._t

M.... .

Pursu',61

Second Quarta 1982

\.

Caus~lity and
Natur~1

'

Synchronicity as
Principles

by DelMa D. Cahooa, Ph.D.

causality~

or
refers to an invariant
sequence of events in which A has been observed to
C
precede B. As David Hume explains this relationship in no
USE AND EFFECf,

way implies a compulsive force of A upon B, simply.that

an, A.-B sequence has occurred with regularity. Cause and
effect statements (natural laws) are generalizations based
upon past experience and not necessarily-true eternally.
Any natural law, no matter how well documented, could
'.
conceivably fail at any time.
Some coincidental events, not analyzable in terms of
causality, seem to be meaningfully related. The Principle I
,of Synchronicity, popularized. by Carl Jung,l involves
events so startingly coincidental that to dismiss them as
merely accidentally related seems inadequate. Examples
are available to most people through personal experience:
dreaming of a loved one at the time of death,. a run of
similar numbers from various sources, and letters that cross .
in the mail, are familiar. In none of these instances would
. we suggest that the concept of cause and effect applies.
Dreaming of a person could .not cause his death in any conceivable manner. On the other hand the two events may be
so closely related in meaning that we are compelled to
believe that something other than chance is operating.
Jung assigned a role to synchronicity equivalent in i~por
tance to causality. However, it should be noted that syn- chronicity and causality are interpreted as complementary
. polar concepts rather than competing principles. Syn. chronicity is viewed as an acausal principle in which
simultaneity and meaningfulness are the essential
characteristics. In order to obtain a full picture of reality
we must be able to explain the coincidental but meaningful
event in a manner that causality cannot. For Jung, the
material universe is structured around the physical dimension of indestructible energy versus space-time, while the
psychological dimens~on is structured in that same universe
around the opposite poles of causality and synchronicity.]
The usual criticism leveled against Jung.is that the events
seen as meaningfully connected are actually chance-related
but perceived as meaningful by the observer. In the present
article the existence of an acausal but meaningful relationship among evc:nts is accepted as axiomatic.
The object of this paper is to offer an analysis of
causality and synchronicity in which the concepts are viewed as orthogonal rather thari IlS opposites. In so doing a
simple pictorial or imaginal model is used, appropriate to
the fundamental nature of the principles being considered.
The closer that one approaches basic cosmological issues
the .more mythical explanations necessarily become. As an
illustration, one can not mathemize the concept of "first
cause," ,one can only tell stories about it. In the present instance we have a story about causality and synchronicity.
.

..

Dr. Cahoon;s professor of psychology. at Augusta:

College. Augusta. Georgia. .
.

PurS.', 62

Fig. 1. Dot at center represents the primordial point from

which the "bIg bang" originated. Unes represent the uniform expansion of the universe away from. that point In space-time.
Since the differentiation of matter and energy is duplicated
along each line, similar events on adjacent lines are synchronistic although not causl!lly related (81----~) Causality is
represented by successive events along the same line of expan-
slon (AI -----. 8 1).

Let us accept that the. universe began from a single exploding point (the "Big Bang" theory). In one cataclysmic
microsecond a chain of events was. established which con- .
tinues i!l an !J!lalterable sequence of cause and effect.
Because no counterforces exist in any "direction" the expansion is uniform with respect to the origin and a
spherical universe is created. The fact that astronomy does
. O(~t provide d~rect evidence of a spherical universe is of no
consequence because of our restricted view. We have no
wa'y whatsoever of knowing how large the universe actually is or what "form" best describes it.
Since we have assumed that the eJ!:plosion occurred
from a single point, it would seem that from.the standpoint
of matter the origin must have been homogeneous or even
nonmaterial. Any differentiation of substance took place
after the explosion began rather than in the central point.
Given a homogeneous begi~ning an~ un,iform expansion,
the differentiation of matter and energy must also be
uniform with respect to the center as the ball-universe expands . .
In Fig. 1 the expanding spherical universe has been
more simply schemati~ed as a two-dimensionai d~agram.
Lines representing vectors of expansion or causation are
seen td radiate outward from the primordial point.
Causality is then seen as a basic principle describing a successi9n <;>f events occurririg in temporai order, along the'
radiating: line,S of f~rCe tA~ B)~ ,As. noted above,
since ~he di~fereiJ.tiation of matter occ~~ uniformly il!- all
S.~Dd

Qlaut... 1982

dimensions from the center, and since the center is homogenous, it is reasonable to assume that all of the vectors are essentially identical. The implications of this
assumption are quite interesting,. Consider your own existence as an event occurring along the space.,time dimension of a single line of causation. Because there are a very
large number of identical lines, an infinite number in the
sense of differential calculus, it follows that there are a
great many "You's" in the universe. All other events in
our corner of the universe must be similarly replicated at
corresponding space-time loci relative to the origin.
Of course the concept of lilies of force or causal vectors
is an abstraction from a sphere of expansion. Therefore,
we would not actually expect corresponding events to be
neatly arranged along celestial spokes emanating from a
central hub. We would, however, in some inore complex
fashion, anticipate duplicating events as we move' perpen-,
dicularly across the expanding fan of causality. Two such
related but aeausally-connected events'are represented in
Fig. 1 as BI ----B2.
'
The principles of causality and sync~ronicity may then
be seen as operating at right angles to one another in the
space-time matrix created by the expanding universe.
While cause and effect is expressed as a relationship, between events arranged sequentially in time, synchronicity is
a meaningful relationship between noncausally connected
but isomorphic events occurring at the same time but adjacent to one another in a spatial or material dimension. An
interesting derivative from the assumption that causality
derives basically from universal expansion has to do with
an end point of the process. According to some theorists
(Einstein among them) the universe may begin to contract
following maximum dispersion. If this should take place,
and if events are actually inexorably ordered relative to the
beginning, we would expect contraction to follow a path of
exact reversal with respect to expansion not unlike a movie
film run backward. Since the order of events would be
reversed, as the universe shrinks we would observe thecurious (to us) phenomenon of consequences preceding
and thereby "causing" aQtecedents. "If winter comes can
I
fall be far behind?"!
We do not' actually label events as synchronistic unless
their temporal proximity is close enough to elicit feelings
of awe' or amazement. If we expand the time frame even
slightly, however, we will encounter a much wider range of

Morag of Morar

The mechanism(s) by which we symbolize and perceive

happenings in lines of causality adjacent to our own is not
known. Presumably, it involves a 'perceptual' movement
"sideways," which is possible only when we abandon our
typical mode of thought based upon causality. Since sequential reasoning is disrupted by heightened emotion,
psychic experiences are most likely to involve intense feeling~. Progoff4 provides an interesting discussion of this
point based upon his conversations with Jung. If we grant
the possibility, that the universe does not expand in a
perfectly uniform manner,' explanation bc<;omes even
more ,straightforward. Then. we might suggest that a death
dream, for example, may not reflect a concurrent death
which may have already occurred "next to 'us," and we are
sensing this earlier event. The existence of lines of causality
which are not identical nor perfectly isomorphic also provides a possible explanation for such anomalous
phenomena as UFOs" Bigfoot, angels, etc. Although such
observations are often described in terms of "other dimensions" or "parallel universes," somehow opened by the
tiuman psyche, these concepts are usually undefined. The
'present analysis provides at least a hint as to how and
where these other worlds might exist.
REFERENCES
Hume, David, ,Hume's Moral and Political Philosophy (Edited by
Henry D. Aiken), Hafner, 1948.
'
2. Jung, Carl G., Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, In C.
G. Jung and W. Pauli, The Interpretation 0/ Nature and the Psyche,
Pantheon, 19S5. '
3. Jung, Carl G., "On Synchronicity." In C. G. Jung, The Collected
Works, Vol. 8, Princeton University Press, 1969.
4. Progoff, Ira, lung, Synchronic,i1y. and Human Destiny, Dell, 1973.
S. "Cosmological Anomaly: A Trip You Can't Miss." In Science News,
Dec. 22 and 29, 1979" p. 421.

I:

(Continued from page 56)

quite right. No.' 2 was the real thing,

but what it is I cannot say. If a plesiosaur, why not four fins? If a zeuglodon, wasn't the neck too long?
The weather worsened, snow fell
and winds Force 6, 7 and 8 were the
order of the day. We packed up the
microlite and Breen flew back from
Skye to Oxford. What of the future?
The four sightings of my own (disregarding Thing No.1) in March
and September 1981 confirmed for
, me the validity of my hypothesis as
to when and ,why the creatures' surface or swim just subsurface. 'Smith's

SectORd Quart... 1982

meaningful correspondences. For example, if one dreams

of a death that actually takes place some years after the
dream, we would not consider the two events to be synchronistic by definition. However, the strict temporal
restriction that we apply to synchronicity is a product of
our very brief existences. If it were not for this restriction
on the concept, we would encounter many more instances
of synchronicity, for otherwise meaningful relationships
separated in time are commonplace.

sighting of a further creature brought

our 1981 season bag to five.

The bad weather that forced, Syd'

Wignall to abandon his quest last
year only strengthened his resolve to
try again. "When are' you coming to
Scotland?" he asked in a mid-June
letter to Joe Zarzynski, a fellow investigator and the chairman of the
Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation., By'way of introduction since
the two were'yet unacquainted, Wig,nail enclosed a copy of the foregOing

article as originally published in the

British magazine Diver. Zarzynski respo"ded witlJ,.a copy of Pursuit and
outlined his plans for yet another
summer at lochside. Back came Wignall's permission to retell his story to
the readers of "your society's excellent
magazine. ,~
By the time ;you read this, the persistent pair will again be probing the
mysteries of the loch phenomena. We
wish them success and promise to
pass along a report on their research
' -The editors
stint of 1982.
Pursu't 63

induct a person by touching ~nd rubbing the forearms and/or by m!lSsage.

The reason this technique works
(assuming the subject is compliant
an9 has not heard a series of lectures
Con~rol'
on witchcraft and voodoo techniques)
is that sensory mechanisms located in
the hands, forearms and' face are
commonly used to perform i~forma
tion-connected signaling, such as
by E. M.c ...story
typing .this article, smiling, or patting
Copyright 1982 by E. Macer-Story
a pet turtle.
- .
All rights reserved
r.
.
Usually it is not possible to hypHE ESPionage scene is tricky.
with adequate recordin* equipment
notize a person without tacit consent. ,
Just when the would-be investiand start learning enough about mindeven if consent is simply the misgator becomes absolutely sure that. control techniques so as to be able to guided and trusting belief that the
now it's all nailed down-as KGB or
reverse mind-control monitoring,
wolf i~ grandma i~ a fur stoie. or
CIA or UFO or MIB-events are likely
should it occur.
that one's mind is more powerful
to take an unexpected turn, and flip
than the hypnotist's. I was not overContact
the data into a much different conconfident about Grandma. My first
~t~xt. This is part of the natute of
In the spring of 1982 I was telethought was to run. Instead, I told
investigations into the paranormal.
phoned by a lady who claimed to her that I had to get to the post office.
When events are paranormal, they
know .one of my psychic clients and
With this personal objective firmly in
are paranormal. This seems to include
certain individuals connected with
mind, .I was able to blank out all. "
both data, such as pictures, tapes . the Theosophical Society. She told
suggestions that I was personally inand eye-witness accounts, and the
me that she did not have enough
volved with Grandma'S background
process of investigating both sites
money to pay for a psychic reading,
material of pictures and pseudo-theoand people related to the events.
but would I drop by? She wanted to
sophical commentary. But Grandma
meet me. A sucker for elderly ladies
Oddities also occur in investigating
got into her coat and followed me to
with no money, I decided to drop .by
situations wherein ESP and/or mind
the post office-perhaps under the
her Greenwich Village apartment.
control may have been in use .as
impression that I was in a state of
As soon as I was ensconsed in one
advanced techniques of espionage.
naive consent. There she stuck close
of the living room chairs, she started
As in ancient, cautionary tales about
"to my elbow, read the addresses on
to bombard me with pictures and " my mail, and tried to find out all
the sorcerer's apprentice, when the
information about her past, and
forces latent in the unconscious psyche
she could. about my social schedule
about psychic and theatrical activities . for the week. The only event to be
are tapped via deliberate mind conincluding (to my amazement) British
trol, they unleash unexpected ESP
wormed out of me-which she did
rock singers! Some old people get "on.
and PK effects not necessarily related
attend though I skipped it-was the
similar kicks quite regularly, so I did
to the purpose of the espionage.
reading of a play by an obscure
not at first think her behavior un- ' grQup on West 46th street. She put
I have grown increasingly aware,
usual, although it was noticeably
as I am further exposed to media
herself on the group's mailing list
aggressive. Then I began to realize
preconceptions about UFOs, that
and phoned the day following the
that Grandma wanted to touch my
important areas of ambiguity may
event to give me a detailed rundown
shoulders and forearms and kiss me
not make it into print simply b~atise
on how things went and how much
on the cheek. I was also experiencing, I resembled one of the actresses.
there is a natura). desire on the part
a slight alteration of consciousness
of reporters and witnesses to seem
this was to be a constant theme: the
and probably slipping into a mild
tight, sane and coh~rent even when
switch in my roles from writer 'and
alpha state. Could the woman be
events are neither tight, nor sane, nor
thinker to "performer." She contrying to . . . seduce me? After all,
coherent.
tinually told me how beautiful she
this was Greenwich Village! But no,
Recently I was drawn into a series
thought I was, and began to discuss.
there were no moves in that direc of . happenings which I imperfectly
Reichian theories.
tion. Then what on earth could she
understand. But each aspect or" the
I correspond regularly with my penbe up to? As soon as I beCame aware
circumstances which I will narrate
pal Miloz in Poland. He is a keen
that her aggressiveness was deliberate,
has been witnessed by other individstudent of psychic theory. .Since
"I remembered a lecture by hypnotist
uals and/or recorded on tape. In this
Grandma volunteered to introduce
Max Totht on recent research into
. I have been fortunate, for oftentimes
me socially to a Polish film ditector,
the naive investigator, like the absenthypnotic induction by touch. He had
I .began to suspect that someone was
minded professor, is left high and
demon~trated that it was possible to
ope~ing my mail. My last lettc:r from
dry after experiencing strange ESP
Miloz, stamped with the. Polisl} cenbehavior, without a witness to any
As described in 1924 by K. I. Platonov, Consor's number and "passed," offered
unusual interference with his or her . gress of Psychoneurology, Petrograd (now
confIrmation, not consolation: 0. . .
activities. I encourage everyone who
Leningrad)".
.
In 1979 Milo~ had seni me photO- .
is doing serious research into ESP and
tAuthor of 'Pyramid Prophecies, Warner
Books, 1979. See-his page 3.
copies of UFO sightings
the paranormal to equip . the~selves
. r.eported .xia

E.SPionage:

Have 4Mind
Techniques'
Supplanted the Cloak and Dagge.r?

0.0

,.

.'

... SeCORd
.

,"

.Q.iarter: I ~.2

..

Tass in some Polish newspapers.

. I filed them as background material.
After Grandma's. conversation had
reminded me, I looked into the file.
to retrieve the articles. The .photocopies were there, but the tape of the
Polish-English translation was gone.
As if this were not enough to unsettle
me, after I had made phone calls to
several people to report the transation missing, the tape turned" up
again on top of a stack of clippings
in my in/out file.
Under the Wheels .
Now what? I phoned my colleague
Harry Lebelson, with whom I have
often discussed the possibilities of
Espionage; he once copied a magazine article on the ESPionage conditioning of the actress Candy Jones
for me to read. I imparted the rather
incredible suspicion that I had been
contacted by a sixty-five-year-old
female agent who was trying to induct
me into compliance. Others might
have laughed and told me to go get
a few drinks and if that didn't help,
then fly to Poland for a vacation.
But Harry knew that I had never
before voiced such a c1aim':"""neyer
during the four years of our association; and he knew that I'd read
th~ Candy Jones magazine piece only
because he brought it to my attention
and he remembered my skeptical
comments about it.

We agreed on a time to meet at the

downstairs coffee shop in the Port
Authority bus terminal. A few minutes after we had gotten our coffee
and sat down at a wall table amid
a scattering of people, I notiCed that
a male Oriental, of age about 35, was
seated next to Harry at the table to
our right along the wall; he was listening to our conversation.
Having never been in quite that
kind of situation before, except when
I played a waitress in an absurdist
,farce in summer stock-I did not
think to pretend that all was ordinary.
I ,looked at the Orienta! directly and
passed a note to Harry. When Harry
indicated that he was also aware of
the uninvited listener, we kept our
conversation going with generalities
and, unlike the absurdist waitress,
I continued to look directly at the
man while projecting mentally the
idea that I was reve~sing the monitoring situation.
After about ten minutes of this
mutual hyper-awareness, the Oriental
became visibly agitated and left the
coffee shop 'at almost a run. Shortly
afterward, another man-a Caucasian-entered and sat down a few
tables away, and he: also seemed to
be auditing our conversation. We left
the coffee shop.
Who would go to all this trouble?
Within forty-eight hours I had been
monitored by a sixty-five-year-old

EUGENIA MACERSTORY is one of six

Brando Crespi" described by the Enquirer
psychics who "with chilling accuracy, preas a director of The Mobius Group, offered
dicted the March 30, 1981 assassination
the following comments when the newspaper
attempt on President Ronald' Reagan,"
asked him to verify Macer-Story's prediction:
according to the National Enquirer. ifhe
"Although her prediction was made days
mass-circulation tabloid devoted a full'page
before Reagan even was inaugurated, she
was able to pinpoint the weapon, the descripto interviews with the six psychics in its issue
tion of the shooting site, even details of the
of April 21, three weeks after John Hinckley
assailant, including aspects of his family life.
committed his despicable act.
" ... Eugenia Macer-Story of Hoboken,
"The specific points were just deadly
N.J., foresaw the shooting with stunning
accurate. The President was shot with a .22
accuracy in January," the Enquirer said in
handgun just outside the Washington Hilits story over the byline of William Newcott.
'ton, in an area with many brownstone'
buildings. And the shooting did take place
"She immediately filed her prediction with
early in Reagan's term, on the 70th day."
The Mobius Group, a leading parapsychology
The Enquirer emphasized that all six of
research organization," the article said.
"In an exclusive Enquirer interview,
the psychic predictions it quoted were wellsubstantiated, 'noting that four had been
Macer-Story recalled she had felt danger for
aired by radio stations it named in CaliforReagan since a few days before he was
elected," the newspaper continued, quoting:
nia, Colorado, New Hampshire arid Virginia,
.. 'Then, before he was inaugurated, I
at various times from several months to a
few days before the March 30, 1981 shooting.
sensed more details. I saw Reagan walking
A fifth prediction was contained in a letter
out of a Washington hotel, in an area with
brownstone houses. I saw he would be the
to the Enquirer, reportedly signed by the
psychic in the presence of a notary public
target of an assailant who carried a handgun, and the attempt would come early in
and dated November 14, 1980.
None of 'the predictions attributed to the
Reagan's term. I could also clearly see
other psychics was at variance' with Materdetails of the gunman. He was someone with
, intellectual capabilities, the son of a' well- , , Story's prediction, and hers was by far'the
to-do family' ...
most detailed of the six: J

Second Quartel' 1982,

female, a thirty-five-year-old male

Oriental, and a heavy-set bearded
male of about forty whose appearance and demeanor suggested an
Eastern European origin. ,
Subsequent to the events I have
narrated 'there came back to mind
similar incidents which I had all but
forgotten. For example, in 1979, at
the time that Art Gatti's article on
UFO information-suppression was on
,the newsstands, I had phoned Art
and, after a minor blat, I reached not
the author but a person who answered
, the phone in a language which could
have been anyone of a number of
European languages I do not understand. I spoke to this person in English and asked him who he was. After
an interval, an authoritative male
voice told me in perfect English to
hang up the phone and dial again.
I had told Art of this incident, but it
did not seem important at the time.
Decoy Duck?
Was this an organized surveillance?
What would be its purpose? Was I
being monitored because of my ESP
gift and ability to pred'ict terrorist
activities? Grandma asked several
times about my publicly acknowledged prediction of the 1981 presidential assassination attempt; also
whether I predicted other such attempts upon the lives of the wor:ld's
leaders (which I do).
Another reason for all the attention being given me could be that
I was considered intellectually naive;
it is a common mythology among
psychical researchers that psychics
are "left brain" people and therefore
subject to the emotional manipulation
necessary to the conditioning of a
decoy or surrogate for ESPionage
activities. As Grandma had wasted
little time listing herself with the
small theater company I mentioned
to her, so she could have learnedif I had not detected her intentionsexactly what contacts I had and
where key psychics and psychical
researchers were located.
Why It Didn't Work
It was evident from Grandma's
approach that my correspondence
with the Mobius Group (a small,
eccentric research organization based
in Los Angeles) had been monitore~
either by inspection of letters or by
word of mouth. Altho~gh persons

Pursu.t65

.. unfamiliar with' my motivations did

not seen Grandma since, nor will her
.
name be mentioned here.
not realize it,. my letters to the Mobius
Group about aspects of ESP were
The woman who vanished in Germany, an American' citizen and
a deliberate kidding of analyst David
formerly a teacher, is gone; friends
Keith who had expressed an interest
in Germany were told that she was
in "black magick" and other occult
mentally unwed and had committed
systems. It is a tacit policy of pracherself to a private institQtion.
ticing o~cultists not to ~rite down
their actual methods and prOCedures
ESP Weapons Tests?
for research groups. I was honoring
tradition by telling Keith outrageous
In a taped conversation with Louis.
opinions and procedures which, alAcker-a psychotronics theorist who
though poetic in certain ~nstances,
has experienced what he claims is the
are certainly not the' actual modus
thwarting of researcH activities by
operandi of my work. As in a British
agents,-it evolved that he too has
mystery novel, I had heard comical
been contac~ed by Grandma. (When
comments from Grandma which . I asked Grandma about Acker, she
told me he was "crazy as a crane.") .
had to be based on the outrageous
material I had sent to Keith .. It beNo, he i~ not" crazy. Several' of
'came apparent early in the game that
Acker's personal friends have told
use of the material sent to the Mobius
me that he has real-time memory
Group was an attempt to '''gain my' lapses like the proverbial absentconfidence." Grandma showed me
minded professor, but he .is certainly
pictures of places and individuals,
not as crazy as a crane.
all among those mentioned, and .she .
It is worth noting that Acker was
chattered at length about her own
the second husband of psychologist
close relationship with them. It was
Marcia Moore, who wrote about her
an amazingly complete scenario;
experiments with the consciousnessaltering drug, ketaminei Ms. Moore
some of it was laid in California and
some in Egypt. A similar effect could
vanished several years ago, and what
result -if you had just seen an Agatha
is purported to be a fragment of her
Christie mystery and then dropped in
jaw was recently found in the northon an acquaintance who began to rewest area, of the U.S. It is not certain ~here the rest of her remains
late detaUs about her travels and
adventures, and after a few minutes
might be located. At" the time of her
you realized she was simply relating
death, she was, not married to Ackerthe Christie plot back, in slightly
which may be one of the reasons we
altered form. Amusing? Yes. Threathave Louis Acker alive today. What
ening? . No. But 1 was nonetheless
did Ms. Moore discover about the
motivated to phone actress Jackie
psychic research underground1 .
Beech who had been with the uso in
The paper which Acker showed to
West Germany~ to ask if ~he had
me, on the possible use of crystal
experienced any monitoring or gcssip
mechanisms as a means of energyabout monitoring, during her stint
transduction,
makes speculative techwith the touring theater in Europe.
nical sense. It concerns the relationship between the electrical modes we
Grand Opera?
recognize under the blanket label of
"electromagnetism" and non-elecJackie-after initially becoming
trical modes of information-transfer,
agitated and telling me tQ break off
such as may be coded in patternings
communications with Grandma immediately, and not fool around.
related to ESP.
told me that she kl).ew of a mature
The New York Times of June 30,
1982, carried an article about Dr.
woman member of one of the German
Thomas Westerman of Shrewsbury,
opera companies who had mysteriously disappeared after claiming
New Jersey, who has devised a way
to detect consciousness-altering drugs
that certain sections of the book The
in the human body with a machine
Odessa File were true, and that the
which registers electrical changes in, .
trucks marked as containing opera
scenery were being used to transport
the skin. ,
plutonium. Though I doubted the
At the tim~ I did my psychic probe
on the disappearance of \ Marc.ia
plutonium, I began to see a pattern
Moore, her skull fragment had not
linking theatrical settings and Espionyet, been foul).d, bJlt throug~ ESP.
, ag~.1 took ~ackie's advice and have

I perceived that she had been murdered and her body dismembered by
persons involved with clandestine
research into the electrical control of
consciousness.
, Since Ms: Moore was known to be
experimenting with consciousnessaltering substances, it now seems
quite plausible that persons working
with the electrical manipulation of
such changes in consciousness might
have approached her.
Mind Control
After I had told Louis Acker that
I felt his work lJlight be inhibited by
a "spell" (Le., directed hypnotic ESP
at a distance) and had' described via
my own ESP the' location of the suspected attempt to block his research,
he was able to drive me to the exact
spot I had. described. He went on to
tell me about the car failure he had
experienced near a small bridge I had
perceived, while concentrating. Various aspects of this realization were
witnessed by Acker's grown nephew,
William,
, Several American psychotronic
researchers, notably Thomas Bearden
and' Robert Beck, have claimed that
mind-control techniques have been
directed' against their activities by'
agents of a foreign power., It's easy
to giggle over a drink and . call Beck
and Bearden paranoid; easier still to
agree that the reason my ESP took me
to mental bolexing of Acker at the
bridge was because his research was
"interfered with" only by a simple;
chance car-failure. But what about
the people at the Port Authority cof- ,
fee shop who were listening to me
tell Harry Lebelson about Grandma'S
machinations?
Paranoia?
There is no way Grandma could
have thought I held the mythological
beliefs she described unless someone
had passed along the material I wrote
to Dave Keith at the Mobius Group.
'Chances of this mythos occurring
randomly are' slim indeed.
It should be noted that, Grandma
is smart. She has both PSI ability and
acting talent. Having observed her
lifestyle and having heard her teU
about trips "abroad,", I suspect she
was only pretending that she didn't
have enough !}loney to pay for an in-.
itial psychic reading; unde~ a pretext
I was ab~e to "borrow" several hun.

I"

. Second
Q lter 1982
I:
. .
I~'

intelligence agencies. But, in its issue

dred dollars (which I repaid at the
conclusion of the test). She handed
of May 17, 1982, the New York Post
it over as if it were ten bucks kept in
said that personages such as Nelson
her teapot. Is such ready money a
Rockefeller and Richard Nixon were
part of the new-age methodology
aware that anti-Soviet intelligence
agents had been impo~'ted into the
of subversion?
In the article on the conditioning
U.S. by State Department officials
of Candy Jones-which came to my
who intended to use their skills in
intelligence work directed against the
attention before I met Grandma-the
author assumed that the intelligence . Soviet bloc.
.
agency that used Ms. Jones was theCould it be that some of these
people-versed in the use of occult
CIA. In a classic "either/or" mis..
take, many people who have detected
techniques-are now loose within
the "small cults" and "psychic reESPionage have assumed that the
search" monitoring field where they
perpetrators must be U.S. or Soviet
o

are being used, or worse, also being

used to train younger agents?
Do we have dangerous mercenaries
running around using mind-control
techniques without any sane perspective on the assorted countries they
might be representing?
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Special thanks to Harry Lebelson,
both for his canny observations of
intelligence .monitoring-and for
asking me in 1980 to do a psychic
probe on the possible whereabouts of
Marcia Moore.

.Parapsychology in China
Can some people read another person's mind at a
distance? Manipulate objects without touching them in
any way? Sense colors or shapes through their hands
or feet or ears? The possible existence of paranormal
powers was first raised among European scientists
more than a century ago. Over" the past two years the
question. has been hotly debated in China.
On March 11, 1979, the Sichuan Daily published an
article about 12-year-old Tang Yu from Dazhu County, Sichuan Province, who claimed to be able to read
written material with his ears. Soon similar cases were
being reported from other parts of the country, and
scientists, medical experts and educators began to give
their opinions.
The People's Daily, in May 1979, was the first to
criticize the "ears can read" report as ridiculous and
unscientific. It also carried a piece by a distinguished
educator who dismissed the claims as sheer fantasy not
worth refuting. The newspaper followed up. by
carrying a report from the Sichuan Medical College
that Tang Yu was siQlply playing tricks like a magician,
and the issue seemed about to die.
But many people who had seen demonstrations
were not convinced. They preferred to believe what
they saw with their own eyes, anddid not think a boy
so young could fool them so cleverly. People kept uncovering phenomena which they claimed could not be
explained by present-day science, and reports continued to be published.
In August 1980 a forum on parapsychology was
sponsored in Shanghai by the monthly journal Nature.
Participants came from over 20 colleges, medical and
scientific research institutions. Twelve children claimed
to have paranormal powers and gave demonstrations
of "reading" letters or figures with their hands, feet,
ears, noses, and even armpits. A number of observers
took the demonstrations very seriously. A few colleges
and universities established research groups on the
, subject. Some scientists considered that a major
breakthrough had been made, and preparations got
underway to establish a National Society of HJlman
Body Science.
.

"coa. Qaarta 1982

The January 1981 issue of China Reconstructs reported on the debate. It carried an article citing the interest in paranormal phenomena, but also expressing
the skepticism many people still felt about the authenticity of many of the demonstrations.
In May 1981 a second forum on the subject \Vas
held in Chongqing, Sichuan. Province. Some scientists
made presentations linking paranormal powers with
the theoretical basis of traditional Chinese medicine,
and ar'gued that. such powers were no niystery, 6ut
part of .an advanced scientific understanding of the
functions of the human body. Reports were given on
what. were stated to be cases of mind-reading at a
distance, of seeing through solid objects, and of
remote control of another person's actions.
Nevertheless, a number of scientists continued to
express doubts, calling parapsychology a pseudoscience. They pointed out that the evidence of one's
own eyes is not necessarily true without further investigation and analysis, and that some people are
rather gullible and easily duped.
In October 1981 the State Science Commission set
up a special group to study the phenomena. The group
undertook detailed investigations of the claims conduCted under scientific conditions and began to issue
materials, including reports showing t~at many of the
cases were based on deception.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences sponsored a
public hearing in February of this year. The reported
cases were analyzed, and the great majority of them
shown to be unfounded. Credulous belief in paranormal powers was criticized. The day after the hearing, .
February 25, People's Daily summarized the criticisms
made, reviewed the news coverage of the past several
years, and said that in its opinion there was nQ solid
evidence for the existence of paranormal powers.
Nevertheless, the debate goes on in scientific and lay
circles, and experimentation continues regarding what
has become a highly emotional issue.
-From China Reconstructs magazine, June 1982

PUNu,,67

The Origins of'Lemaria

,

Part ..
by JOD Douglas Singer, M.A.
Copyright 1982 by Jon Douglas Singer

'IN PART I, I discussed the traditional location for Lemuria

ruins extended for one kilometer and included 30 walls

placed in par8Ilel rows. There was a broad pavement of '
most geologists and archeologists refute the evidence for
several'hundred square meters. 4
Mu or Lemuria, we must look elsewhere or else, dismiss
Russian writer Alexander Kondratov was unable to
the entire idea of a recently submerged mid-Pacific conexplain why the ruins sank, and he did not,know how old
tinent and its fabulously ancient civilization. The only'
they were. It appears that Lake Titicaca' once connected '
evidence for the latter is the sunken city found' by Dr.
to the ocean, and marine animals are still found in it.'
Robert Menzies, and the cement ~linders buried in an- ,
But it seems most unlikely that the drowned city dates to
cient mounds on New Caledonia Island. The' ruins on
Tertiary times, when Lake Titicaca was an arm of the
Easter Island in Polynesia and Ponape in Micronesia are'
Pacific, 'long before the time of man. It is more likely
ruins of structures built by ancestors of the present-day
that the city sank into Lake Titicaca in relatively recent,
populations and are not the ruins of lost civilizations
albeit pre-Columbian times, during an earthquake.
from Mu.
'
The sunken cities of Bolivia mayor may not be part
Some of the archeological mysteries in South America
of Mu or its colonies. More evidential is another suband Mexico and some in California have been cited as
merged ruin allegedly found off Guayaquil, Ecuador. A
, British writer, Harold T. Wilkins, was in Santa Fe de
evidence for Lemurian colonization of those lands.
Besides ruins, there are ancient legends about lost islands
Bogota in Colombia just before ,World War II. He met
which may reflect traditions of Mu, 'handed down
one Senor Munoz,' a wealthy estate-owner who lived near
" through the ages. 'There is certainly geological evidence
Guayaquil. Munoz, had hired a diver to fish-up artifacts
for widespread submergence of land along the west coast
from an ancient sunken city located off the seashore adof the Americas at the end, pf the last Ice Age when the
jac~nt to Munoz's estate. The diver had come up with
glaciers melted and the sea level rose.
some truly remarkable works of art: statuettes with Egyptian hairstyles and other statuettes with facial features
Lemuria and South America
bearing a strong reseinblance to Aryans, Semites' and
, In South America many ancient civilizations flour- , ' Japanese.' On the statuettes' chests were jewels carved in
stone; other carvings were pornographic.
ished but apparently none were as old as Mu. There is
Besides statuettes, the dive:t: had recovered seals like
Menzies' nameless ruin mentioned earlier. On dry land,
prisms, graven with hieroglyphs, and convex, lenses and '
near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, is the famous ancient city
reflectors made of obsidian. According to Munoz, the
of Tiahuanaco perched high in the Andes. Arthur Pozlenses
indicated a strong possibility that the ancient users
nansky, an Austrian engineer turned archeologist,
were scientifically advanced, especially in astronomy.
calcUlated the age of the city by aligni,ng its buildings
There are no photographs of Munoz'S fantastic arwith various starting positions at different epochs. He
tifacts
and we have only his and author Wilkins' word
, thought that TIahuanaco was built as early as 9000 B.C.,
that
the
city off Guayaquil eyen existed. Wilkins conperhaps earlier. He did not refer to Mu or Lemuria, but
ceded that there was no clue to the lost city's age; he
he did suggest that the city was the source of ancient
sought to establish a link to Rutas, the lost continent first
South American civilization . However, Pomansky':; date
discussed by Jacolliot. Wilkins thought that the Rutas
of 9000 B.C. has been greatly advanced by carbon-14'
tale was taught in the holy schools or goparams of India,
dating ,to A.D. 600. Tiahuanaco is therefore not a colony
'
but he didn't say which goparams.6
of Mu.2
,
"
While it appears that there is no evidence favorable to
the old idea of Lemurian colonists at Tiahuanaco, there
Mu and Mexlc9
is another city nearby which may be extremely ancient. It
The link' between Mu and Mexico is one of the more '
. is a fascinating place because the ruins are under water,
exciting possibilities this 'research has 'suggested. If Mu
in Lake Titicaca. The sunken city was discovered in 19S5.
ever existed, it would be almost impossible to excavate 'as
William Mardof, an ex-Marine turned skin diver,
proof, a 'sunken city thousands of 'feet below the vast
photographed ruins at 9S feet beneath the lake's surface.
wilters of the Pacific Ocean. The discovery of an inBrad Steiger, describing the city, gave no details about
credibly ancient pre-Olmec city in Mexico on dry ,land .the size of the ruins. He speculated that the submerged
would not only revolutionize archeology but would also,
city might 'have been a seaport. Steiger claimed ,that
provide a clear signpost on the road leading to proof for
mas~ive docks 'had been found in the Titicaca region but
Mu. Furthermore, a ruined city on dry land would be
gave no details about their age or the culture to which
somewhat easier to excavatel.'
they might have belonged.]
Ih' 1891 Wiiliam Niven, 'a, mineralogist pf Scottish
Mardor's city, or an adjacent one, was studied by an
, origin, found a ruined' city near Guanajvato, Mexico,' in
expeditio~ organized by the Argent~nian Diving Federa'the state of Guerre~o, in the western part of the c~)Untry. 7
,tion. They found ruins '200 meters from the 18keside. The
j in the middle of the Pacific. I concluded that since

"

'."

'

'

Second' Qia~rter '1.982 '

, ~u",u't68
It

"

The city was called Omitlan and it yielded many interesting remains of a pre-Aztec culture. Guerrero has
remained important to archeologists as a place of study
because some significant Olmec sites belonging to
Mexico's first megalithic civilization have been found
there. The Olmec sites date to tOOO B.C. or a little later.8
After working at Omitlan, Niven found another site
of an even more interesting civilization in the Valley of
Mexico in 1911. Niven excavated the buried city and
nearby sites in the succeeding years. Col. James Churchward heard of Niven's discovery and referred to it in his
books on MU. 9 Indeed, it was while reading Churchward's books that I first learned of Niven. I dismissed
the story as a hoax until 1974, when I found a separate
but tantalizingly brief account of Niven's Valley of
Mexico sites in Who's Who in America, 1918-1919. 10
Churchward said that Niven was attracted to an area
of clay pits between Texcoco and Haluepantla in central
Mexico. The pits were a source of building material for
Mexico City. As Niven studied aQ area 200 miles long
and 10 miles wide, traces of two civilizations were uncovered by the diggers: First, there was a foot of earth.
Next, nine feet of boulders, sand,. anc;l gravel with potsherds. At the bottom of the nine.. foot layer was a
pavement, indicative of an advanced civilization. Under
that was a sterile layer six feet in depth with no artifacts,
only gravel, sand, and small boulders. Beneath that was a
second pavement and ~nderneath, a 14-foot-deep layer of
gravel, sa:n~, and small boulders. Finally, at the great
depth of 31 feet, a city set atop a third pavement was
found, .its ruination explained by Ii heavy cover of
volcanic ash. It appears that Niven had found the Pompeii of ancient Mexico.
Among Niven's significant discoveries in the buried
city was a doorway with a semi-circular lintel-a doorway unlike other ancient Mexican doorways then known.
It had a true arch, and to counter the conventional
wisdom that curved arches were unknown to the builders
of pre-Columbian Mexico was the door which had been
of wood and had petrified in situ ..
Niven dug into a room which was 30 feet square. He
found many artifacts and countless human bones. Also in
the room were the remnants of a goldsmith's shop, with
wall paintings in red, yellow, blue, green, and black. Bits
of gold were found, as were statuettes apparently used as
models, and molds for goldwork and jewelry. The artifacts were unlike those of later Mexican cultures.
Beneath the room was a tomb with hundreds 'of clay
images and dishes. One grisly feature of the to~b was a
male skull-fragment with the hammered-copper ax which
had slain the victim still embedded. Other artifacts were
statuettes with Semitic and Chinese features.
Niven also found hundreds of curious tablets which
Churchward claimed were Lemurian inscriptions. They
were Churchward's second source of information about
Mu.
. Churchward's first-line evidence of Mu, and his ~hief
source, were the so-called Naacal tablets allegedly found
by the colonel in an unnamed Himalayan monastery.
Churchward worked with an anonymous high priest as
his assistant in a famine-relief program in an unidentified
part of India. Churchward w~ studying a wall carving..
one day when the priest, who. was an archeology buff;
told the explorer about ancie'nt tablets in the basement of
I

Sec~nd QuadeI' 1,982

the temple. Chu'rchward claimed that after studying the .

language for over two y.ears, he learned that the tablets
had . been brought to the Himalayas by priests called
Naacals who were originally from Mu.
As far as I know, the Naacal tablets have never been
found and verified by independent investigators. There is
some evidence that Niven's tablets may be real. I have
seen some of Niven's artifacts from Omitlan in the
American Mus~um of Natural History in New York City
through the courtesy of Dr. Gordon Ekholm, an an. thropologist who specializes in Mexican archeology.
Whatever the age of Niven's artifacts, it"seems unlikely
they are Lemurian. An article in the Literary Digest of
July 12, 192411 relates that. Niven found hundreds of
stone tablets at a depth between 10 and 25 feet; there was
"writing" on each side of the five-sided stones. By dating
the age of the lava streams which had buried the stones,
Niven and his colleague, Dr. J. H. Cornyn, concluded
that the tablets were between 10,000 and 7,000 years old.
This was before radiocarbon dating came into use, so we
cannot accept the Niven/Cornyn chronology until someone returns to the site and digs up more tablets. If the
chronology should be verified, it would be powerful
evidence of a civilization that flourished 6,000 years
before the Olmecs who have long held the record as the"
.
oldest known civilization in Mexico.
When I was a student in his course on the occult at
New York University, Vincent Ragone, a well-known
psychic, recommended a book entitled Mu Revealed by
Tony. Earll. Earll claimed that a: modern archeological
l.expedition led by a Prof. Reesdon Hurdlop had not only
rediscovered Niven's ruins but had found new proof of
Mu, such as artifacts and scrolls dating to 22,000 years
ago. 12
Before he excavated the ruins of Niven's buried city,
Hurdlop had supposedly excavated at the ruined city of
Jol1.ore Lama, a medieval site near Singapore. The 1959
edition of the Encyclopedia Brittan"ica mentioned the excavations of Johore Lama but made no mention of Hurdlop. Prof. Hurdlop claimed to be a member of the
Marquina-Jolicoeur Institute in London, but a search
through London telephone books and directories of archeological societies around the world has failed to reveal
any trace of Hurdlop or his institute.
Nonetheless, some people still believed that Hurdlop
had found a ruined city dating to 22,000 years ago. He
reported finding 69 scrolls which, when deciphered by a
Dr. Edward Stitch of Boston, recounted the life-history
of Kland, a Lemurian priest. Many details of Kland's life
and Lemuria's culture, however, did not match Churchward's account of Mu. There was a map showing the
provinces and cities of Mu, d~tails which Churchward did
not include. Churchward's map of Mu shows only one
city, Hiryanapura, on the west coast of the lost continent. Hiryanapura, by the way, is mentioned in Hindu
mythology, in books such as the Vishnu Purana.
Fate magazine ran a detailed expose of Mu Revealed
in its August 1975 issue. Three anthropologists, Robert:
Wi'Cks, R. E. Greengo of the anthropology department at
the University of Washington in Seattle, and Edmund S.
Meltzer of the Near East studies department of the
University of Toronto, all debunked Tony Earll's book.
None could find any trace of Hurdlop or his assistants,
rior "any trace of an article in Scie"ce Digest magazine
Purault69

"

..

"

which supposedly gave the details of the excavations and

the decipherment of the scrolls., Though agreeing that
Niven's finds were real and poorly understood, they concluded that MU,Revealed was probably a hoax. 13
, A final note on Tony Earll can be found in Peter
Tompkins' Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids. Tompkins said that "Tony Earll" is really a pseudonym for
: Canadian occultist Dr., Raymond Buckland who lives in
Weirs Beach, New Hampshire; Reesdon Hurdlop is an
anagram for "Rudolph R~nose"! Tompkins agreed that
Niven's discoveries were real, but he asserted that, the
Churchward account of Mu was probably as fictitious as
Earll's.14 '
'

adequately studied. Some of. these ruins and artifacts

have been linked to Lemuria.
For example, Death Valley has several legends about
lost cities. A book entitled Timeless Earth l7 is a compendium of archeological mys,teries;' it contains an odd,
probably fictitious account of a r:uin found by William
Walker, an adventurous Californian who "conquered"
Nicaragua for a brief time.
In 1850, Walker was in Death Valley and came upon a
vast ruined city that extended for a' mile. In the city's
midst was a rocky knoll about 30 feet high,. On the knoll
was a huge structure, appareatly a palace or temple of
some sort. The stones of which the, building was constructed ,had been affected by a great eruption. The InAn epilogue to the story of Niven's enigmatic tablets
, dians had no legends about the ruins and regarded them
was written in January 1978 by archeologist Vance
. ' with terror.
"
"
Cooper who described soine strange artifacts she found
I had never heard of ruined cities in California, so I
in 1964.15 She was at' that 'time driving between
tried to follow up author Peter Kolosimo's fascinating
Tlall)epantla and Atizapan, Mexico, when she stopped at
account, which was in direct quotes presumably taken
the Ascencio Alvarez ranch for water. In the yard she
from a journal kept by'Walker. Kolosiino didn't cite the
spotted odd granite slabs with petroglyphs, and when
source of the story, so I studied several books about
Senor Alvarez returned home he, was startled t,o find her
Walker's life which were in the Bobst Library collection
carefully scrutinizing them. Cooper explained that she
'at NyU. None of them mentioned the nanieless dead
was an ,archeologist. Alvarez said he was storing the slabs
city., My brother, Hollywood filmwriter Bruce Singer,
for a friend and didn't wish to'sell any, but he allowed
was also doing research on Walker's life in preparation
Dr. Cooper to take photographs of them.
for a movie script, independent of my research. He found
Cooper went on her way, but when she returned the
, no evidence of Walker's ruined city; and I must connext week she was told that the polic~ had taken the slabs
clude, at least for now, that KOlosimo's story' is a
to.the Mexico City Museum. The police, however, denied
fabrication.
,
having the stones, and other archeologists didn't even
Somewhat more gratifying to the researcher is the
know about them. Cooper's colleagues speculated that
Piute . Indian legend about a subterranean city named
they could be fakes, since faking arti.facts is a big
Shin-au-av. In the 1920s an Indian guide IlIlJIled Tom
business in, Mexico. In the April 1978 issue of Fate
Wilso~ claimed that his grandfather had rediscovered the
magazine no fewer than nine letters from readers were
city while exploring caverns whic,h extended sever~, miles.
printed which stated that the artifacts found by Cooper
The old man said the city's inhabitant~ spoke an
were probably identic8l to Niven's tablets. Cooper replied
unknown language and wore leather clothes. Later, a
by denying she had ever heard of Niven or of Church- '
p,rospector named White supposedly fell 'through the
ward.
floor of an abandoned, mine and ,found a tun~el with
mummies clothed in leather; a~ound the mummies were
One other mysterious ruined city deserves at least
.
stacks of gold bars!
passing mention before we turn our attention from
Within the past few years researchers of anomalous
Mexico. Harold Wilkins wrote that he met a William
antiquities have begun scientific examination of the odd,
Taylor of Seattle, Washiniton, in 1945, and that Taylor
rambling stone walls that are to be ,found in the hills
had heard a strange story while working on an
around California's Berkeley campus and farther south,
engineering project in Georgia in 1902. An unnamed exeast of Milipitas. IB
plorer told of tutving seen the ruins of a great city in a
Sibley Morrill wrote that the Berkeley walls are found
remote valley surrounded by nearly unscaleable cliffs. He
in forested or chaparral-covered areas. Only'sections sursaid that sev.eral other expeditions had previously tried
vive, some only 20 feet in length, others extending to 200
, ~o reach the ruined city but had failed because of the
feet., Their height ranges betwee;n two and five feet. Most
remoteness of the regio~ and its hostile, rugged ,nature.
, The 'explorer didn't go all the way down into the valley
are three to four feet high anc;l four feet wide. There' is
evidence that in places the walls' were 'somewhat higher.
but left it when he reached, the cliffs above the city; he
At most sites the walls were probably not used for
saw a large number of stone buildings apparently tumdefense, although Morrill mentions at least two ~alls at
,bled by an earthquake. The explorer's ,comrade went
Vollmer and Grizzly Peaks which could have been forts.
down into the valley to,study the area but he was overA wall at Roundtop Hill is' 100 yards long, and Morrill
come by exhaustion 'and quit the expedition. The name of
thought that was too great a length for a fortificatio~,.:
the expedition's leader and the location of the city are
The rocks used in'its construction were boulders weighing
unknown. The account must be considered folklore until
about 206 pounds; they were not simply piled atop each
further details are reveal~ by more research.16
other but were chipped and fitted intQ place with, great
skill.,
""
,
, 'Nu and the West Coast
, Morrill wrote that Seth Simpson of Oakland, California, found, that the walls in the Oakland Hills cover seven
The western coast of North America also has its share
miles,
of territo~. They do not 'match' modern or old,
of ar~heoiogical mysteries which orUtodox archeologists
.fConti,,~ed ~n 'page 92) ,
haven't been able to' exp~ and which haven't been

, ......',70 ,

."

. t.~.

. . .

,Secoad' Qu....... 1982

','

mostly contemporary curious and unexplained events

'Abominable Flowman'
In Buena Park, Calif., more than
200 frightened residents phoned
police on the night of May 22 to report that an 8-foot-tall, manlike
creature was roaming about in the
city's sewer system. Only one of
about 100 believers who attended a
"monster watch" the next night
succeeded in finding traces of the
supposed humanoid.
Dennis Ruminer and his partner,
Tom Muzila, used divining rods to
track the creature. The rods directed
them to the opening of a roomy
drainage tunnel. Ruminer waded
inside and found a handprint. Continuing his search, he found "sets"
of prints further along in the big
pipe. Complained Ruminer:
"We were looking around the
mouth of the tunnel when someone
shouted, 'There's a track.' There
were lots of people around, and as
we went to look, a kid stepped. on
the track, so we saw only the front
part of it. It was a humanoid foot
with five big toe marks and about
seven inches across the ball of the
foot. Before we got a good, clear
look at it, another kid stepped on
it and completely .obliterated the
track."
Although the search produced
little visible evidence of an "abominable flowman" in the municipal
drainage system, Frank Missanelli,
manager of an apartment building
near the intal'ce, claimed he heard
the creature but did not see it. "It
roared and growled just like the
dinosaurs in, the movies," he said.
Bennie Hinsley, 18, said he and
his brother, Raymond, 16, saw the
beast. "We could see the monster's
shadow in the drainage ditch,"
Bennie said. "We heard the water
splash and then we smelled something awful."
SOURCE: UPI in St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
May 23, 1982. CREDIT: R. Nelke.

Grandma Power
In China, a 67-year-old grandmother wrestled an attacking leopard
down a rocky hillside near Peking,
and five children helped beat it to
death. .
'''Whenever. you .are' cornered,

the only way out is to fight," Qi

Deying told a China Daily correspondent. The newspaper reported
that Mrs. Qi grabbed the leopard
by its ears and jammed its shoulder
against its chin to keep it from
biting her, and she and the animal
rolled' down a hillside, three times
plunging from rocks. The children
came to her aid and beat the ledpard
with branches.
.
In Georgia, U.S.A., a housewife in her late 50s lifted a 1964
Chevrolet Impala four' inches in
order to free her teenage son Tony,
who was knocked out and pinned
to the ground when the bumper jack
slipped from the car he had been
working under. Angela Cavello
. said that prayer gave her the power
to perform "a miracle."
Even as her inspired muscles
were doing the work of a tow-truck,
she was unable to arouse her son.
"I was kicking him, saying 'get out,
get out' ," said Mrs. Cavello.
She managed to hold up the car
long enough.so that neighbors could
right the jack 'and drag out the
unconscious teenager. He was taken
to a hospital and released after examining doctors found no serious
injuries. .

Bigfoot Breakthrough
It was a' Monday, a day when
most folks are back at work and
U.S. Forest Service personnel tend
to relax a bit after a weekend spent
scolding early-season campers, finding lost children and family pets,
stalking poachers, and putting out
small fires in time to keep them
from becoming big ones.
.
But Monday, June 14, was different. The phones kept ririging all
day and well into the night in ranger
stations throughout the Umatilla
National Forest~ a big piece of federal land that sprawls over much of
the southeast corner of Washington
state and many square miles in
Oregon .
The telephoning wasn't about a
forest' fire or other emergency. The
callers wanted to know whether
"that guy in the Sunday papers"
really saw Bigfoot, or was somebody playing games, or trying to
sell something'?
False reports of Sasquatch appearances are nothing new to Wayne
(Continued on next page)

SOURCE: AP in SI. Louis Globe-Democrqt, April 14 and June 30, 1982. CREDIT:
R. Nelke,

Mummy'. Dirty Lang.

. China's most ancient mummy-a
3,OOO-year-old blonde-had lungs
dirtier than those of a modern coal
miner with black lung disease.
The mummy was found in April
1980, in the Sinkiang region at the
site of a long-vanished city called
Lou Lan, famous in its day as a
stop-over for the caravans that
plied the "silk road" between China
and the Middle East.
First estimates placed .the mummy's age at 6,000 years. But carbon
14 dating indicated a true age of
about 3,200 years. The body, in its
shroud of coarse woolen cloth and
goat skin, was taken from a 23-foot
burial mound. The arid Sinkiang
climate had kept her features and
bone structure in a near-Rerfect
state of preservation: the skin .light
(Continued on page 74)

Wayne Long of the U.S. Forest Service

takes photo of one of. many huge tracks
found after a watershed patrolman had
reported encountering a 9foottall
anomalous creature on Umatilla National Forest land, 25 miles southeast
of Walla Walla, Washington, June 9.

SecoDdQuaner19.2 ............~~~..................~...........................

Long, fire-management officer for

the Walla Walla" District of the
USFS. He gets them all the time"mostly from youthful pranksters,
middle-aged inebriates, and elderly
persons whose vision is a bit cloudy"
even on clear days. Such calls are
dealt with routinely and efficiently:
the call is logged, the caUer thanked,
and no worry.
'
But Wayne Long had been wor- "
rying for almost five days-ever
since Thursday, the 9th, when one
of his watershed patrolmen, Paul

Freeman, told him of an "encounter

"with a 9-foot-tall creature," on a
logging road in dense timber. Freeman had said that from a distance
of SO to 75 yards, he and the creature looked at each other briefly,
then both took off in opposite
directions. The animal was reddishbrown and covered with hair, according to Freeman; it walked upright, but hunched over, and its
forepaws hung down low. When
Freeman realized the' creature was

PUnlu~72 . . . .~. . . .~. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .- -

not coming after "him, he stood and

watched it disappear.
What worried Long wasn't the
report so much as it was the public incredulity he'd have to face,
the guffaws he'd hear if the story "
got out that a u.S. Forest Service
employee was still loose after claiming he'd seen Bigfoot when nobody
else had, and no :way to prove the
" brief sighting wasn't just a case of
hallucination or a hoax. "
Shortly after the report was logged in, Long and Freeman climbed
into a truck and took off for the
site, armed with loaded cameras.
When they got there they found

,. "-~/"~f\
- :" .~.:~.

~.

(Right) Wal/ne Long

holds cast of a 14
track, one of 25 found
June 9 and like hundreds more found later' .
as the search went on.

. (Above) "The world's best track," sal/S Jon

BeckJord. "It was found on a different dal/,
a week later, in a different place, very hard
(and Illegal) for anI/one to get'to in the water!
shed area."

:.

Pholos 'So 1982 by Jon Boc:kjord

tracks all over the place, some clear

and deep, others barely discernible,
but all of similar size and shape.Neither pf the two experienced
foresters could identify the prints
"With any species of animal or human
ever known or suspected, either in

the area or within their experience

elsewhere.
The men took pictures and made
casts. The clearest print 'they saved
till last, filling it just to the brim
with well-diluted .plaster of paris to
contrast with the brown of the surroun~ing earth. Thef,l Long knelt
and posed with his .camera I'0int- ..

ing at the print as Freeman clicked

the shutter of his own camera. This
was the photo that was seen around
the world as satellite and wire transmissions buzzed it to the nation's
newsrooms in time for Sunday distribution. (See photo, page 71.).
West coast SITU members tore
up their newspapers and mailed off
(Continued on page 93)

..................................................~=-........~~...... Pur.uit73
r

~\}.trc;;;;

~
...

(Continued
from page 71)

st~
reddish brown, eyelashes and eyebrows still discernible,. internal
organs well-preserved; even the
scalp and the skin on the soles of
the feet had a lively look. She was
apparently ,about 40 years of age
when she died.
Last year the 'body was flown to
Shanghai for further study. An
autopsy was performed, and according to scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Occupational Health,
her lung tissue, though still elastic,
showed the same type of deterioration as is routinely diagnosed in
persons affected by years of exposure to coal dust.
SOURCES: AP in the Courier-Post, Camden, N.J., April 19, 1982 and The Tennesseean, June 18, 1982. CREDITS: C. Michels
and H. Holland.

ContiDeDtal Crackup
Already there;s a crack 1,700
'miles long, extending from Washington state' across the country
through south-central Missouri to
the southern tip of the Appalachians.
. Three times the length of the unpopular San Andreas Fault in California, the recently discovered
crack is 90 miles across and descends
deep into the Earth's crust.
.
No problem, however. Professor
Raymond E. Arvidson, who discovered the crack, says it poses no
danger and wouldn't even be noticed
by someone standing on top of it.
But iCmay help to explain some old
.
mysteries about our planet.
Prof. Arvidson is the director of
NASA's Regional Planetary Image
Facility. He and a research te!lm
combined more than 600,000 gravitational figures with topographical
data to produce a "simulated space
view" of the United States. One
day last fall they were inspecting
the map when they noticed the formation since identified as the rift.
Arvidson says that the discovery
may improve knowledge of how
the' continents were formed and
how continents responded to stress
between plates in the Earth's. crust.
As an examplel he cited the' New
Madrid Fault, a "hot spot" where
-small earthquakes have persisted
ever since the devastating New
Madrid quakes of 170 years ago
which changed the course of the
Mississippi River and were felt as
far away as Qoston. "Arvidson's

crack" intersects with the New

Madrid Fault, and futher investigation may better explain the continuing seismic misbehavior which
has long bothered residents in the
six surrounding states. (Editors'

Gloria Carter. "He ran toward the

house, stopped at the front porch,
crouched down and looked at us.
We saw his bright yellow eyes glow,
and he switched his tail at us."
"He had a long tail, and he loped
into the bushes," said the Carters'
note: A speci~1 report to .SITU on
"Odd Luminosities (UFOs) and older son. "He didn't run like a
fox or deer."
Other Fortean Events Before EarthOther recent sightings have been'
quakes: The New Madrid Test" by
in Bedford and Botetourt counDr. Michael A. Persinger was published in Pursuit No. 54, Second ties. In May, a park ranger said he
saw a mountain lion cross the Blue
Quarter 1981, pp. 68-79.)
As to how the crack was formed, . Ridge Parkway .
Clemson's Dr. Downing and
Prpf. Arvidson speculates that it
"Cougar Joe" Coggin, 'a biologist
may have resulted from the collision
who works for the State of Virof the European and ~orth Amerginia, have been on a search of the
ican land masses. more than 200
mountains and swamps for almost
million years ago-the same cola decade in hopes of finding evilision. that produced the Appalachdence beyond the rash of sightings
ians. Or, it could be a scar burned
since 1970 that prompted the fedinto the Earth's crust as it rotated
eral government to change the status
for millions of years around a staof the Eastern cougar from extinct
tionary "hot spot" deep in the
to endangered species.
mantle of the Earth.
Downing and Coggin believe that
SOURCE: Charles Neale for AP, in' the
a few cougars escaped the pioneer
Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal.
hunters' purge and hid in the wild-.
CREDIT: H. Holland. .
erness, far. from civilization. They
reason that the conservation proBig Cats StiU SurviviDg? grams
of recent years which have
brought the deer population to a
A growing number of sightings
by reliable observ.ers suggest that
record high level, also caused an
increase in the number of mountain
the mountain lion, thought to be
lions and SQ brought them again
extinct in the eastern U.S. for more
than a century, is alive and well in
into contact with people.
"I hope to heck we can find one
Virginia and North Carolina.
The mountain lion or cougar is . soon," said biolo~ist Coggin.
the largest cat on the North AmerSOURCE: John Witt for UPI in The News
ican continent. It averages 160 Ibs.
and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., June 6, 1982.
and measures eight feet from nose
CREDIT: P. Thompson.
to tail. Except for a dwindling populationof 20 cougars known to be
Baby's EvolutioDary Tal"
.
living in the Florida Everglades,
The birth of a child with a tail is
the species was thought by most
a rare glimpse of "the relationconservationists to have been hunted
ship between human beings' and
out of existence. "No cougar ever
their primitive. ancestors," said a
met a man with a gun that didn't
Boston doctor. as he described surtake a shot at it," said Dr. Robert
gery he performed in May on a
Downing' of Clemson U!)iversity,
referring to pioneer days when an . baby born with a slender, tapered,
2-inch-Iong tail.
irrational fear of the big cats led
Dr. Fred D. Ledley said the "weIlsettlers to place a bounty on them.
formed. caudal appendage" he reThe last documented cougar kill in
moved was' located on .the baby's
Virginia was 150 years ago, he
lower back near the end of the spine.
noted while discussing the difficulIt was covered by skin of normal
ties of documenting recent sightings
texture and had a soft, fibrous confor the federal project he heads.
sistency; .it had hair and nerves but
A well-witnessed sighting was reno bone or cartilage.
ported last year by Dale Carter,
Similar cases have been reported
a high school teacher who lives
throughout history, Dr. Ledley
. near P\1rgatory Mountain, Virnoted, but few have been docu-.
ginia. He claims that he, his wife
men ted during the latter part of
and two teenage sons saw a cougar
this century. (.
.
.
near their home "several times."
"He was in front or' a tree-stump' SOURCE: AP in the Courier-Post, Camden,
N.J., M!l:Y 2~, .1982. CREDIT: C .. Michels .
whe.n the car lights .hit. him," said
.

hraul,74

. ,-

..

SeeoDd' Quarter :1982. ,.

l

Proposed Inlor_ation Data Base

For Unorthodox Energy Science
An Automated Information Retrieval System
by Thomas E. BeardeD
I

it appears feasible to produce a "free

A
energy" source by tapping several known and
unlimited sources, such as zero-point energy of vacuum
T PRESENT,

and the Dirac sea of negative energy electrons. While

linear systems are prevented from doing this by the
second law of thermodynamics, it appears that highly
non-linear systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium
are permitted to do so, by means of negentropy permitted
in such systems according to the recent and profound
work of Nobelian I1ya Prigogine. The thermodynamics of
a system far from thermal equilibrium (a "Progogine
system'~) are quite different from the thermodynamics of
the normal "linear" system. Indeed, the Lamb shift constitutes irrefutable proof that zero-point energy can be
"tapped" to yield observable results; the lowly hydrogen
atom has been doing it since the dawn of creation. Even
as simple a device as two .conducting plates can tap the
quantal energy of vacuum by a calculable (and measurable) amount, according to theory and experiments that
are already solidly in the scientific literature.
A rather large body of theory and experiments for
such "unorthodox" aspects of science exist in .the
literature, little known and unexploited. Such unorthodox literature consists of both the "hard-core" and the
"soft-core" literature, with an especially rich lode
existing in the latter. However, this information is often
obscure. and even fleeting. Presently only a few Western
researchers are cognizant of this information and its
potential significance. Because the area is "unorthodox,"
it is not presently a "field" per se. Also, much of the information is fleeting-some is even proprietary. There is
nOl}e of. the conventionalscientific support; there is no
funding, either for researchers themselves or for journals
and normal collation, abstracting, and library functions.
Consequently, potentially very valuable and very rich
s.cientific kno~ledge is allowed to lie fallow, and even to
di~ppear. Sorely needed scientific inventions and innovations-such as cheap, nearly free energy sources-are not being developed, even though they are quite
possible..
The few researchers now in the area have accumulated
personal libraries of this extremely important material
and information, at very substantial personal sacrifice in
terms of time and funds. In my own case, e.g., it has
taken some 16 years and over $100,000 of my own personal funds to acquire my dBta base. And much of it is
still not collated and digested, abstracted, and organized.
Further, we cannot hope to enlist many brilliant young
scientists in this area, for they have no data base
a~altable for them to immediately tap.: Instead, -we would
ask tJIem to expend years of effort and thousands of
dollars to reacquire the same data over again! Obviously
SecoRd Quarter 1982

this is unconscionable, and the progress of science in

these unorthodox but extremely important areas is
strongly inhibited. It is Iiterally.true that new and potent
scientific breakthroughs would already have occurred in
large numbers,. had this bottleneck been removed or
aileviated some years ago.
Accordingly, certain steps are proposed to alleviate
the present problems in the field at minimal cost ~d with
maximal positive effect. The steps necessary are:
1) A computerized data base of this data must be
established and organized.
2) The data must be provided-and reviewed-by the
few researchers presently in the field, because orthodox
scientists do not know the material sources or the actual
import of most of the references.
3) The data base must be so designed as to go on inexpensive but powerful microcomputers, so that very
small organizations of 20 or 30 persons can afford a
system. Fortunately, this is now amenabie because of
spectacular advances in microcomputers.
:._
4) A centralized organization-preferably one a1rea~y
experIenced with library functions and computerized data
bases-must assume primary responsibility, both for
organization and funding of the basic central system, and
ongoing personnel support of at least one or two persons.
S) The data base must be made available by the central facility on diskettes, for ready purchaSe at nominal
price by outflung small organizations in the fiC~ld.
6) The central library repository must secure the
neessary copyright r:eleases or permits, etc., to allow this
library-type transmission of the data base.
7) The entry of the data must be in terms of analyzed
information-i.e., "finished intelligence," so to speak. It
is accented that normal technical personnel do not have
the capability of analyzing and commenting on the unorthodox significance or" the references; such commentary
must be provided by one or more of the present researchers in the field, and this commentary/analysis must be
part of the formatted entry of the data. In cases where
differences of views exist, two or more researchers in the
unorthodox science field should make comments, and all
the commentaries should be included.
From 10Dg and often frustrating years of effort in this
area, I have arrived at a small system, capable of meeting
all the above requirements, which I h~ve slowly started to
implement on my own small personal computer. (Note
that- my own computer system-Commodore 2001 32K
RAM ~emory, with a dual floppy disk, on-line IBM
Selectric typewriter, and on-line Epson MX-80Fr printer-is actually inadequate for the job, but one makes do
with what one must.) An appropriate, simple, customized
information retrie.val program _appropriate for small
Purs."75

systems has been designed and is presently being 'coded

by'a personal friend. Wor~proceeds as funds can be obtained.
.
The <!esired system would be .based around one of the
new microcomputers of great power just becoming
available using the Motorola 68000 chip. This chip is
capable of directly addressing malJ.Y megabytes of
memory without segmenting it or using artifici" and
awkward input/output schemes. Hard disks up' to some
30 to 40 megabytes are also becoming ~vailable at a very
. reasonable price. With tWin 8" disks and printer, such'
systems will be retailing "for 'less than $10,000; even with a
inegabyte of RAM memory. With such a system and the'
~stomized software, small research organizations or
groups could afford the purchase. And' the group could
then rapidly expand their data base, do document searches, etc. It is envisioned that each PartiCipating group
would p'rovide quarterly inputs to the central repository
'so t~at the data base could be continually expanded for
'.
.
all subscribers and users.
The intent is to m~ke available to small groups,
universities, col1eges~ and I commercial, and scientific
organizations a simple, powerful, inexpensive system and
data base incorporating the combined research efforts of
the present limited few researchers in the field. It is envisioned that this system wpuld enable rapid, almost explosive growth of this field, and great breakthroughs. of a
most fundamental nature in science itself..
A very rough preliminary budget for an appropriate
. effort' would be:
.
Item
Cost
computer system and
peripherals .... '. . . . . . . .
$10,000
complete software, debug, exercise, modify,
finalize ...... :........
3,000
personnel (to prepare
data base) ~ .......... ,
5,000
disks, supplies, util2,000
ities, etc. ...............
Total ................

Pura",'t 76

$20,000

,
';:.

This would provide one system and six months' work,

tp digest the data base accumulated by one researcher, as
a~ pilot program; Additional Junding would then be.
required to maintain .and r.expand the 'data base, but this
portion of the effort could then be assumed by the cen- .
tral repository. At. that time, of course, facilities woulc;l
be required.
.
. ::
. Users of the system would purchase their own computer system and peripher8J.s, and subscribe to the central
repository system as a standard kind of library function ..
The system is inexpensive,. direct, and extremely useful.

Listed above are .the standard' el~ments of th~ recommended

below and at top of page
opposite Is the application of the procedure. allowing a typical
complex scientific paper with addenda to ~nter computer memory
In orderly fashion, 'subject to almost Instantaneous recall to the
CRT screen upon demand-to"ay, next month, or years hence.

storage-and.retrlev:~.1 procedure:.sh~wn

'. Second. Q~..rt~ 19.~

. \.

.'

(35) Reports the first direct observation of free electromagnetic angular momentum created by
quasistatic and independent electromagnetic fields E and B in the vacuum g~p ofpcylindrical
capacitor. The experiment implies that the vacuum is the seat of something' in motion whenever
static fields are set up with nonvanishing Poynting vector, as Maxwell and Poynting foresaw.
"It is remarkable that no known 'particle' can be identified as the agent of the observed electro
magnetic angular momentum in exchange with the mechanical detector. .. According to these
(Maxwell's equations) and as directly implied by our experimental result, permanent magnets
and electrets can be used to build a flywheel of electromagnetic energy steadily flowing in
circles in the vacuum gap of a capacitor as if Maxwell's medium were endowed with a property
corresponding to superfluidity. The certainly new insight is that the quasi static Maxwell's field
is not merely an unobservable medium of interaction between matter and matter; it has in fact
the mechanical properties postulated by Maxwell, in contradistinction to ~ny 'action at a
distance'theory."
(36) Comment by T. E. Bearden: This experiment essentially establishes the reality of the ether.
Also, in previous experiments (lahoz, D.G. & Graham, G.M., Can. J. Phys. 57,667676 (1979),
Phys. Rev. lett. 42, 11371140 (1979), a large resonant noise due to second harmonics coupled
back as the resonant frequency was obtained. The experimenters do not appear to have
recognized ths possibility that this "noise" was energy being extracted from the vacuum
fluctuations. In their present experiments, detuning from resonance by 1 Hz. was accomplished
to eliminate the second harmonic coupling "noise." Also, this experiment proves the vacuum
medium to be dynamic and detectable. In my view, vacuum, spacetime, charge, and virtual
particle flux density or intensity are identical. I.e., the vacuum is identically charge, or what
Farraday referred to as "electric flux" and presentday particle physicists refer to as "flux of
virtual photons and other virtual particles." I accent that the vacuum is not "filled" with this
charge flux, rather, it is this charge flux.
[37] lahoz, D.G. & Graham, G.M., Can. J. Phys. 57, 667676 (1979), Phys. Rev. lett. 42,11371140
(1979). T.E. Bearden, "Solutions to Tesla's Secrets and the Soviet Tesla Weapons," Tesla
Book Company, 1981.

Proprietary to the United

Press International 1981
Januarv 5, 1981, "Ondav, BC
SECTION: R~glonal NeNs
DISTRIBUTION: New Jersev
LENGTH: 130 words
DATELINE: MONTCLAIR

Edlt~rs' note: Bearden's procedure provides broad access to very complex data through use
of many keywords and other identifiers. When the Information Is simpler, the procedure may
well b~ Simplified. TIme and money often wasted by "computer overkill" can be saved by
le~ng the data Itself help determine how best to store it. At the opposite end of the complexIty scale is this example:
The "Nexls" logo (below) denotes a computer-storage system shared by most of the
country's large newsrooms. Into "Nexls" pour millions of words, every day and night, the
contents of major newspapers and. mainline magazines withlQ hours after broadcast or pub.
IIcatlon, plus the unp'ublished output'of major wire services. Thus, in a newsroom hundreds
of miles from the scene and more than a year after the occurrence, entry of the keyword
'"Train-N.j." is sufficient to (1) retrieve an obscure fatality report from storage, (2) display it
on a CRT screen, and (3) produce the paper printout shown here-all In less than three
minutes, at a cost well-regulated to the subscriber's needs and to the system's need to profit
.
for having provided the service. -

KEYWORD: Train-N.j.
. A "6-year-:-old girl on her way to school was struck and killed by ~ passing
Conrail commuter train "onday as she walked along the tracks near the "ontcla1r
.
railroad station, author.ities sa1d.
The victim's name was withheld pending'notification of relatives, police
said. .
Montelai r detectives said the victilll wiis walking along the tracks between
Grove Street and Claremont Avenue abou.t 8:05 a.m., on her way to "ontclair High
SChool, when she WBS struck by a westbound Boonton Line train from Hoboken. ~
The mishap occurred east of the "ontclair railroad station. A NeN Jersev
Trans i t Corp. spokesJllan sa id the ,accident scene was cleared by 8: Z'Z il.II., but
two e!lstbound. trains on the line were delayed for about 15 lIIinutes:
Second Qaarter 1982

'

Pursu"77

','

Books
,

THE BIGFOOT CASEBOOK by Janet & Colfn Bord

,lStackpo'e Books, Har'rfsburg, Pennsyluanfa, 1982,
~54 pp., index, $10.95}
Reviewed,by Sabina

~.

Sanderson

I'm afraid I don't see the point of this book. Apart

'from a few 'very early reports (some ,of them dubious),
,the first half of The Bigfoot Casebook simply rehashes
material that will be all too familiar to anyone who has
read any of the standard workS such as John Greenis
Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us. ~ Alas, the chapter titles
in Part One are very misleading, having little to do with
the content but en masse suggesting that ,the book will '
provide an increasingly definitive answer to the question
Just what is Bigfoot? It does no such thing. Indeed there
is no real discussion at all, and whenever the authors feel
ab,solutely compelled to mention the fact, that there are
theories about all this, they refer the reader to another of
their books.
Part Two is unabashedly a "Chronological List of
Bigfoot Sightings, 18181980." The book jacket says
there are one thousand of them and there may well be.
I didn't' count them and I certainly don't intend to read
all the entries, which give the basic facts on each sighting.
The Bords have quite deliberately not included reports of
tracks or other evidence of the presence of'Sasquatche$,
and this unfortunately produces a somewhat biased picture. The authors' hope that a chronological listing "may
reveal patterns that will help researchers in determiJ1,ing
the nature of the beast" is almost certainly unwarranted,
if only because most of the entries are of the "Saw Bigfoot crossing the road" variety, which is not very helpful.
Really dedicated Sasquatch researchers may want this
book strictly' as a reference work but I cannot recommend it to anyone else. ,
-Now available in paperback, Hancock House, $12.95.

, Reviewed by Danny Perez
This book, written by two "world-renowned investigat9rs of the paranormal;" is an invaluable survey of the
Bigfoot phenomenon and indispensable reading for the
ardent Bigfooter. "The main aim of this book is to present a round-up of Bigfoot sightings fr(,lm 1800 to the.
present day . . ."
, To date this is the most comprehensive listing of Sasquatch sightings ever published: Part One of the Bigfoot
Casebook explores 'the more interesting sightings and reexamines sorl\e of the "classic" cases. Excluded from the
first section are reports of footprints, odors, and sounds.
Also in Part One are several photographs and illustrations, sixteen of which are new and many contributed by
the'doyen of Bigfootology, Rene Dahinden.
The Bords fail to realize that the so-called "Bigfoot
, tracks" from the Deltox Marsh, .Fremont, Wisconsin
(page 90) are fake. The sam~ individual who investigated
the case, Dr. Bernard' Heuvelmans, later 'fessed up' that
the tracks were indeed fake'.
,.
.
'
In
no
one'
part
of
the
,Casebook
.
. do the 'Bords discuss,
,

Pura.lt 78'

the many theories and speculations about the exfstence of

the "Big 'Hairy Monsters." However, their Alien Ani,mats (Stackpole Books) does discuss the theories and
should be read in conjunction with the Casebook.
Part Two of the Casebook is composed of a chrone-:
logical list (not the customary geographical list) of Bigfoot sjghtings, commencing at 1818 with a reports from
Ellisburg, New York, apd ending with a sighting from
Snohomish County, Washington, ,in 1980, the ,cutoff
date for publications.
In the bibliographical section the Bords have done us
all a favor by listing addresses of the several research
groups now actively investigating the Bigfoot question.
While readiJ~g this book I was struck by two items of
interest: One, the apparent immunity to gunfire (of various calibers) by Bigfeet. Could it be that the Seattle Bigfooter is right-that Sasquatches a~e not composed of
terrestrial biological material but, made of barium, a
heavy and somewhat dense metallic chemical element
which would make these giants practically, bullet-proof?
The other item of interest is that on several occasions
these creatures have been seen to'locomote on all fours.
Author-journalist John Willison Green: "The reference
to all fours may mean that these things are not as exclusively bipedal as man (their fore and hind limbs are more
equally proportioned, for one thing) or those stories may
not be true, to offer a couple of possible explanations. "
,The Bigfoot Casebook is proof' of two things. One,
the ,reports are there both in ,quantity and quality, reported by responsible people. And two, there is a very
consistent picture of what the animals look like.
, "I believe we should examine the full conteXt (italics
mine) within which the creature is seen, rather than continue to dwell almost exclusively on what is seen,.on the
object as a thing in itself," anthroplogist Marjorie M.
Halpin remarks. In' other words, forget what's been seen,
concentrate on where it is being 'seen. This must be the
next step toward solving the Bigfoot mystery, because we
all know that, tracking Bigfoot is no small feet. (Excuse
it, please!)
,
The Bigfoot Co,sebook makes enjoyable reading and is
recommended for both armchair buffs and the so-called
"experts" in the field.

LOCH NESS MONSTER by nm, D',..da'e (Routledge

& Kegan Pau', Boston, Maa., fourth edftion, 1982,
218 pp., $9.50)
Reviewed by Sabina W. Sanderson
This fourth edition of Tim Dinsdale's Loch Ness
Monster provides a splendid updating of that work, first
published in 1961. It is extremely readable and in its own
way as good as a detective-adventure story.
'Basically it is a very engaging account of how tim
Dinsdale became interested in the Beastie, his preferred
name for monsters in Loch ,Ness, and o( his unf1agging
and d9gged search for ~ jncontr~vertible, eVidence of their'
exi$tence. (His film'taken in 1960 proYided ~he fi~t proof
"

'Second

Quart~

1982

but was not spectacular enough to convince the skeptics.)

Into tJUs account he interweaves a very helpful description of Loch Ness and judiciously chosen reports of
sightings, some historicai and some contemporary .. He
also provides an excellent analysis of information gleaned
from (at least) a hundred of these reports and discusses in
considerable detail the various photographs and films
taken over the years. Until the advent of sonar these were'
the best evidence available, and a number of these photos
and stills from films are reproduced along with numerous
drawings. Finally he speculates sensibly on the identity of
theBeastie.
The major addition is aseries of .appendices. The first,
"Chronology of Effort," gives a year-by-year account of
the search at Loch Ness through 1980 (with a preview of
1981). Appendix B deals with. sonar results in largely nontechnical language, and includes a helpful table with footnoted references to scientific papers for those who want
the full technical details. Appendix C provides additional
information on the Shiels photograph and the Smith
film, both taken in 1977.
Appendix D, "A Reappraisal of Results," might better
be called a "ruthless reappraisal" though most of the evidence subjected to Tim Dinsdale's very objective scrutiny
comes through with colors still flying. As he points out,
" . . . mistakes can (and have). been ma~e unwittingly,
which have no dishonour in. them. The fact that mistakes
need to be identified, and isolated from the main body of
evidence is equally important, . , . for they can otherwise prove misleading.... "
I recommend the book most highly-even the price is
commendable. My only ~omplaint is that it has no index.

THE TERROR by Michael D. Albers (Manor Books,

New York, 1979, 168 pp. paperback $2.25)
Reviewed by Ray W. Boeche

tions (one is disappointingly led to believe he will,

however) he spends a great deal of time explaining the
. para physical and ultra-dimensional concepts of UFOlogy
(a la John Keel, whose groundwork in this area is never
mentioned). He accepts the idea that Bigfoot sightings,
UFOs, men-in-black; ghost rockets, etc., etc., could all be
explained in light of these concepts. Unfortunately, 'he
seems to neglect the purpose of his book-cattle mutilations. No indication is clearly given of the relationship he
sees between the mutilations and the other phenomena.
Several disturbing errors were found in the
book-disturbing when considering the sometimes overcritical attitude of the author toward "amateur investiga~ors" arid their lack of scientific method and accuracy in reporting. Many times, for example, Albers
seems unsure how many udders a single cow possesses;
most glaring of all, howeve~, is his reference to Dr. J.
Allen Hynek's notorious "swamp gas" statement. Rather
than placing it in conjunction with the Ann Arbor,
Michigan, sightings, the context in which it belongs, the
author attributes Hynek's remark to the well-known Exeter, New Hampshire, incident. One can only hope that
more critical scientific tho~ght and accurate reporting
went into the other incidents mentioned in the book.
The Terror has its faults, to be sure, but it should give
the reader unfamiiiar with the mutilations story a good
overview of the situation. To the serious researcher, it offers several intriguing individual cases.

HOW TO BUILD A FLYING SAUCER (AND OTHER

PROPOSALS IN SPECULATIVE ENGINEERING) by
T. B. Pawllcld (Prentice-Hail, Inc., EngleUJOOd Clljfs,
N.J., 1981. paperback)
Reviewed by A. E. Weintraub

How to Build a Flying Saucer represents, to quote the

author himself, "the work of a lifetime amateur," but
the scope and coherence of Pawlicki's reasoning comEver since the case of Snippy, the Colorado horse who
mands the respect of professionals and lay persons alike.
was mutilated in 1967, farmers, policemen, veterinarians
Indeed, How to Build ... overturns the notion that only
and researchers have been baffled by the steady stream of
well-funded and academically distinguished persons or
animal mutilations throughout the United States.
groups are capable of major contributions to the world's
Michael D. Albers' book,. The Terror, chronicles in
corpus of knowledge.
general terms the history of cattle mutilations from abOut .
1973 to' the present. It covers the general "wave" of
How to Build . .. is a thought-provoking collection of
mutilations in the south and midwest U.S. and presents
essays (sonie of which have appeared, condensed, in
many interesting individual accounts. Several good exPursuit) written in clear, non-technical language. Drawing
. upon every facet of science, mathematics, philosophy,
amples of various other Fortean phenomena concurrent
with many of the mutilations are also covered-"manand natural phenomena, T. B. Pawlicki has successfully
imal" sightings, strange groups of hooded figures seen in
unified many fundamental concepts which have heretothe mutilation areas, the infamous "phantom helicopfore resisted integration, .and has revealed a more comprehensive view of the immanent Order underlying the
ters," and, of course, the numerous UFO sightings.
.
universe.
.
The three major schools of thought behind the mutilation mystery are all covered-the predator theory, ttle
Curiously, How to Build a Flying Saucer begins with
UFO-alien-surgeon assumption, and the cult hypothesis. A
a discussion of the difficulties associated with the congood portion of the book deals with the cult theory of
struction of ancient megaliths. Pawlicki presents soine of
mutilations in an attempt to show its lack of validity. A
his own novel solutions to the overwhelming engineerdetailed account of the Jerome Clark/Kenneth Bankston
ing problems posed by edifices such as Stonehenge and
. affair, which catapulted the' 'devil cult" theory into promthe Great Pyramids of Egypt and China. But between the
inence, is especially interesting. All three of the theories are
lines it is apparent that the author uses the early sections
dealt with in good fashion, and the impossibility of all of
of the book primarily to set the stage, to clarify definithe evidence fitting anyone theory is soundly demon. tions, and to otherwise prepare the reader for far more
strated.
.
important speculation and -revelation.
After establishing the plausibility of an ancient, worldWhile Albers draws no conclusions
regarding
mutila.
. .the
.
.
Secoad Q~al"l_ .1982

Pursuit 79

".""""""".''''~''''''''''.~.''''''''I~''~''''_.''''-.''

~"

,.

wide power and communications network encompassing

priate), is the message of Sir Fred's latest book. Hoyle,
most :major megalithic sit~s, Pawlicki continues his guided
a .maverick astronomer already viewed with suspicion by
tour toward the very heart of his quest,......the true attributes
his fellows for his unorthodox views (to say nothing of
'-of inatter, energy, space, and time, and, their practical
his science fiction novels) is sure to garner more criticism
implications for Man.
for his conviction that another Ice Age is not only on the'
Taking at first a. bi-directional perspective, How.to
way, but that its advent is much nearer-perhaps even
.' Build . '. . dissects both the microscopic worlds of atomic
within the lifetime of his readers-than the conventional
and quantum theories, and the macroscopic realms of
wisdom currently allows.
earthly and celestial phenomena, and elegantly unites
It is Hoyle's belief, and he makes a compelling case
both in a common geometrodynamic framework indepenfor it, that all that's needed to trigger a new Ice Age is a
dent of scale. titing Einstein, Tesla, Mot:ay, Bohr, Bode, .
substantial reduction in the amoun~ of solar energy reachand many other luminaries, Pawlicki brilliantly demoning Earth's surface. This solar energy is, for the most.
strates that "all material must be stan".ing-wave strucpart, stored in Earth's oceans where it forms a gigantic
tures," and that there exists an infinite. amount of pure
energy engine that powers our global weather systems. If
energy (Zero-Point Energy) available to Man at any point .
we lost that solar-heat input, disaster would follow.
in the universe-itself a great cosmic hologram. Concur- ' :
Ice begets ice; says Hoyle, noting that "turning only
one-tenth 'of 1 percent. of the amount of water normally
rently, the latest research is beginning to verify Pawlicki's'
assertions: See, for example, "Quantum Radiation by
.. present in Earth's atmosphere into fine ice crystals would
Moving Mirrors" in the journal Physical Review D,
have a catastrophic effect on the climate. With most of
the 64 percent of incident solar radiation .that now peneThird Series, Volunie 2S, #10, May IS, 1982~ from page 2S69 to page 2S7S.
.
trates the lower atmosphere being reflected back by the
- high 'atmosphere into space, the temperature of the land
After such far-reaching intellection, Pawlicki turns his
would collapse within weeks and the temperature of the
focus to the practical task of actually building a "flying
ocean within a few years."
saucer. ,,' He shows that, once restrictive attitudes arid
But an outside force is needed' to drop the upper at":
narrow approaches' are swept aside, the goal of gravitymosphere temperature to the - 40 C. needed to create
those fine ice crystals. Neither volcanoes nor micromemanipUlation may be more easily achieved than we had
teorites, Hoyle says, can put enough. particulate matter
imagined. After presenting a concise summary of serious
into the upper atmosphere to trigger such a temperature
put efforts at gravity 'control, Pawlicki reveals his own
theoretical basis for rapid transit. And although How to
drop'. What would do it, I:te says, is a giant stqny meteorite, one that's 300+ meters in diameter. -Its impact would
Build . . . defers a rigorous technical and mathematical
put over SO,OOO million tons of debris into the air, and
development of antigravity, the book makes a materially
enough of it would remain long enough to lower the temsignificant and logically sound case for the feasibility of
perature of the upper .atmosphere sufficiently to generate
gravity-control, elemental transmutation, unbridled freethose fine ice particles. Our upper atmosphere would
energy, and many other advancements which could prove
then become a vast icy shield, 'all too effectively blocking
.
vital to our resource-hungry planet.'
sunlight from reaching Earth's surface.
In summation, Pawlicki lays bare the fabric of Space/
The resulting Ice Age, Hoyle says (and he notes that
Time, demolishes the fallacious time-loop paradox, and
studies of earth's past bear him out) would last SO,oOO
presents a holographic model of the universe which is
years, ending only when Earth took a. hit by a giant iron
nearer to a Grand Unification than anything yet presented
meteorite whose absorptive particles would raise upper
by the professional scientific establishment. For where
atmosphere temperatures enough above .:..40 C. to melt
distinguished scientists have had to ignore "anomalies"
those reflective ice particles. Vast and icy rains would rein order to balance their equations, Pawlicki, like SITU,
sult. One such relatively recent rain, Hoyle believes, may
embraces all phenomena as perfectly. natural; and expands
have not only spawned world-wide flood legends but also
theory and imagination to encompass reality.
caused the sudden extinction of mastodons, woolly mamHow to Build a Flying Saucer is a fascinating expermoths and other shaggy beasts.
ience, well worth reading and re-reading. It c.ontains de~ailed illustrations, an agreeable touch of humor, and is
Given that Hoyle's Ice Age is triggered by a giant mewritten in a warm, personal tone. Pawlicki's real message,
teorite, is there a way to prevent the global disaster he
found between the lines, is critically urgent and ultimately
foresees?
impor~ant: in the end, all matter, energy, space, and time
His solution is an ingenious one, and it is within' reach
is subject to Man's volition; and with such power must
of today's technology. Unfortunately, it requires greater
come equivalent responsibility. Like a chrysalis, Man
cooperation among nations than we presently have. Since
awaits the unfolding of his wings and the rewud of his
we seem unable to unite to eliminate the threat of worldinheritance. .
wide nuclear war, I am not optimistic that we can unite
to prepare to meet the threat of a new Ice Age.
You can help. Read this book. Become fully conver-.
ICE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN CATASTROPHE by
sant with the threat Hoyle perceives. Then talk it up;.
Fred Hoyle (Continuum, New York, 1981,300 pp. with
maybe, just maybe, enough others will hear and believe.'
photos, figures, lllustratfons, technical notes)
Otherwise, pray it doesn't. happen for a hundred years
Reviewed by George W. Earley.
or so. Bythat time, it is to !Je hoped, mankind !lhould .be
The Ice Age is Coming! The Ice Age' is Coming! That,'
well. into sp!ice emigration, th:us' insu~ing the;: survival of..
.'
.,
.
the species. ..'.
. in ~ nutshell (a container: some may think quite appro-

.'.r',

'.

"

80

'\

')',

Secoad Qaarter 1982

, .
\

THE GREAT AIRSHIP MYSTERY by Daniel Cohen

(Dodd, Mead & :Co., New York, 1981, lIIus., 212 pp.,
$9.95)
Reviewed by Robert Barrow,

Did mysterious airships, witnessed by thousands of

observers l fly over numerous areas of the United States in
the 1890s? Unfortunately, neither reader nor author
knows the answer upon completion of this book. In fact,
those who delight in reading books from back to -front
have a real treat in store, for they'will pick up the author's
point of view and the reasons why he presents his material
in the fashion he does far sooner than conventional
readers.
.
Of course, it is understood that the author can only.go
so far with this topic, which relies heayily upon questionably reh~vant newspaper reports of nt~arly century-old
vintage. Cohen attempts, generally, to be open-minded
about the airship controversy, with which most Pursuit
readers are certainly familiar, bu~ airship aficionados, confronted with a few theories that possibly extend beyond
belief, might find portions. of this accumulation a bit
difficult to accept.
Frankly, expecting a routine re-report on airships, I was
almost ready to pass this one up. However, its pages did
reveal a redeeming quality: Cohen's so-so book about airships per se is, on the other hand, an informative indictment of the less respectable aspects of early American
journalism.
Cohen prominently questions, for example, the role
newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst played in
publicity of the airship sightings-and, in particular,
Hearst's puzzling decision to have the phenomenon
ridiculed in his Los Angeles Examiner, while apparently
praising the observations as highly credible in his New
York Journal. Equally as discomforting to the author are
the all-too-frequent instances where an airship story 'ob_
viously worthwhile for follow-up suddenly "disappears
from the record forever."
Also of value, the various incidents and anecdotes
presented effectively remind us that journalism some
90-0dd years ago left a legacy to its modern news-reporting
offspring: The knee-jerk tendency to deal with UFO
(formerly airship?) reports by ridiculing witnesses before
investigations are conducted.
The book also has an interesting section on Thomas
Edison's reaction to the airship stories, maokes a valid point
about "liar's clubs" of the era, and reprints a few sarcastic, but intriguing, poems about the airborne
phenomenon.
By all means, read Airship Mystery if the news media is
your interest. If the airships themselves are your curiosity,
refer to some of the sources Cohen quotes (such as writings
by researchers Loren Gross and Lucius Farish); this title,
. as a reference, is on risky ground-unless one enjoys
reading speculation that progresses from century-old air-
ships to mod~rn UFOs with the anemic and dubious
theories of UFO debunker Philip Klass and others thrown
in for decidediy bad measure.
"Now, for the first time," claims the book jacket,
"UFO expert Daniel Cohen gives the full story of the great
airship mystery and explains how it is rel!lted to the continuing.mystery of the J]FOs t!lday." UFO expert? Full
story? Explains how? Since this. release i~. as ;mport.ant to

Secoad Qa.rter 1982

UFO fip~Ungs as it is wanting about the airships, with little

more than alittle conjecture and glue binding its pages
together; one can easily suggest that-drat-yet another.
dust jacket has led us astray.
WHOLENESS AND THE IMPLICATE ORDER by
David Bohm (Rutledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980)
Revie~e.d by Richard D. Wright
David Bohm, whose theory of. what he calls the "implicate order" of the universe has caused a stir among
physicists, physiologists, and philosophers, accepts
classical sc.ience within its limits, wotks its way through the
physics. of relativity and quantum theory .. and produces a
startling view of the nature of reality.
As early as 1957, in his book Causality and Chance in
Modern Physics, he stated that "scientific research does
not and cannot lead to a knowledge of nature that is completely free from error. Rather it .Ieads and is able to lead
<?nly to .an unending process in which the degree of truth in
our knowledge is continually increasing. " I The book reaffirmed the questing nature of science and was hailed as
"a return to common sense" within the field.
In the generation since that book (now a minor classic),
David Bohm has used that common sense to develop his
theory of the nature of reality. Much talked about for the
last decade, it received its current statement in 1980 in the
book Wholeness and the Implicate Order.
Bohm's theory goes beyond the paradigms of classical
physics, which is the basic p~ysics learned in high school.
Speaking generally, classical physics is built on precep.ts of
order assumed to be permanent. It is a kind of order that'
may be called a "lens-system" order. To understand what
this means, rememQer that our concept of order is based
upon the information perceived by thefive senses and particularly by the sense of sight. This sensory information is
all-pervasive and intense; when it is coupled with the learn. ed, logical, linear sequence of language; it dominates our
thinking. One can understand why this concept of order
developed in science at the same time that the lens was
. developed and became widely used as a scientific tool.
A primary fact about lenses is that they bring details into sharp focus: that is, they objectify. The focus may be on
the minute complexities seen through a'microscope or the
glorious vastness witnessed through a telescope. The use Of
lenses strengthened man's awareness of the parts of an object and relationships between,parts, even those that cannot be seen by the naked eye. Because lens systems allowed
one to break things down into ever finer parts of large
units, the tendency developed in science to think in terms
of analysis and synthesis. This. tendency became so
predominant that the classical approach became an
analytical approach. It created a framework ~or the
development of the "scientific method," and, within it~
the scientific method was shown to be valid. The next step
was then to extrapolate beyond the lens system, using the
well-established scientific conventions of logic and reason.
This view created what can be called a mechanism approach to reality, which is an approach in which the world
is regarded as constituted of separate units outside of each
other, as in the parts of a machine. The world is viewed as
if through a photographic lens, with point-to-point imaging even of things t~at cannot be s~eIi by the naked eye.

Pur,,81

Each part of the picture produced gives clear details of one

particular part of the whole photograph. In a mechanistic
science, one starts from these parts and derives wholes. In
human terms, this means that people are trained to see .
reality as composed of bits and pieces of this and that, each
having ifs own existence and each governed by logical,
mechanistic laws. Anything else-thatis, anything that
cannot be scrutinized in the laboratory or through the le~s
system-is assumed to be illusory.
David Bohm takes a long look at classical physics and
subjects its theories to what he calls the ratio of the structure of tbinking to the facts as observed. If this ratio is not .
balanced, then (1) can it be re-established by. means of adjustments within the theory, or (2) is a. fresh perception of
the whole fact necessary? There comes a time, he feels,
when it is possible, in general contexts, that old orders of
thought may cease' to be relevant, so that they can no
longer coherently be adapted to fit the new facts.
.
If this is true, then there also comes the unenviable task
of developing new orders of thought. These new orders
cannot simply be developed out of thin air, c::ither. What is
necessary is "to assimilate the whole of the fact in physics
into the new theoretical notions of order."2
There is one scientific phenomenon that holds a key
position within Bohm's theory, and that is the
phenomenon of holography. This is the name given to a
non-lens system in which is developed a photographic plate
that contains nothing but raw information in the form of
wavelike interference patterns. When .the image is recreated by means of a coherent light technique, it exists in
three dimensions, also to be' seen from different points of
view. Unlike a regular photographic negative, each region
of the plate has interference patterns relevant to the whole.
structure, and each region of tile structure is relevant to the
whole of the interference pattern on the plate. If you break
a small section of the plate and shine the coherent light
through It, you still get the whole three-dimerisional image.
In terms of David Bohm, each bit of information is "enfolded" within every other bit of information, although
when these bits are unfolded, they create the reality of
every different part of the image. Each part is separate, yet
each part is also enfolded in a holistic manner within every
single segment of the original photographic plate.
If one now takes the 'concept of a holographic plate and
expands it into further dimensions, one begins to approach
Bohm's theory. He suggests that a new order in science
should consider the possibility that physical law should
refer primarily to an order of undivide<i wholeness, as with
a hologram, rather than to an order based upon analysis
of separate parts, as with a lens. This order based on undivided wholeness would have the whole "picture," or
reality, enfolded into a whole order of. differe'nt .
"-pictures," or realities. These realities, which are the ones
observed. through lens systems, would be. "secondary
realities," while the enfolded order behind these would be
. "primary reality." At th~s level, everything is everything
else, and when the light of a higher dimension shines
through any part of this secondary reality in which we normally function, it is possible to tap into the entireuniverse.
The enfolded order is called by Bohm the "implicate
order," while the unfolded, secondary ~eaUty is 'ca,ll~d the
.
"explicate order." . .
. . In opposition to the classical physics appr9ach, a

Pur" 82

science that derives from a theory of implicate order begins

with a concept of the undi'!ided wholeness of the universe
and derives the parts through abstraction from the whole.
As Bohm states,' "We come to a new general physical
description in which 'everything implicates everything' ."3.
This is not just a theory of space, either. He contends further that the structure of primary reality' 'extends over the
whole upiverse and over the whole past, with implications
'for the whole future."4
.
Within this concept, each law of physics is valid, but _
only within a limited context, since it abstracts only certain
aspects of primary reality and indicates them by some appropriate measurements. Behind these theories is a fundamental law. According to Bohm, the relationships
within this fundamental law "are between the enfolded
st~uctures that interweave and interpenetrate each other,
throughout the whole Qf space, rather than between the
abstracted and separated forms. that are manifest to the
sens~s (and to our instruments).'"
An independent theory that dovetails with Bohm's
theory is that the mind itself processes information in a
holographic manner. This concept; developed and investigated by brain physiologist Karl Pribram, proposes
that the sensory input to the brain is transformed into wave
patterns and that the wave patterns then spread
throughout the brain, enfolded within each other. In this
theory, based upon hard data obtained in lab.oratory
studies, consciousness. then becomes an overall, not a
fragmented, eXpe'rience as assumed traditionally. This.
me!lns that the actual structure, function, and activity of
thougJtt is in the implicate order, .and \Ve are back with
David Bohm.
This implicate order of thought is the one that is potentially the most immediate and the most direct. However,
the irony is that in our usual process o(thinking based
upon a lifetime of training we learn to activate memory
patterns that are recurrent, stable, and separable. This
, gives rise to an illusory state, such that the "manifest static
and fragmented content of consciousness is experienced as
the very basis of reality ....6 It is an illusion, but it "proves"
the correctness of a fragmented .view. Unfortunately the
holistic view of the implicate order, even though more im. mediate and direct, is also more t(aIlsitory and subtle. As a
result, it become simply swamped by the intensity of the
s~ondary reality ..
As psychologist Robert Ornstein explains, "We consider that our own personal consciousness is the world,
that an outside 'objective' reality is perfectly represented .
by our experiences.' '7 Even from a traditional psycho- .
logical point of view, however, our personal consciousness
"cannot fully represe~t the external world or even the internal world, but must consist of an extremely small fraction or" the entire 'reality'."8
.
Stepping beyond traditional physics, Dr. Pribram
develops the idea that "if you penetrate through the world
of appearances and objects and IOQk at the universe with a
nonlens system, in this case a holographic system, you arrive at a different view;.a different reality. And that other
reality can explain things that have hitherto remained inexplicable scientifically."9 .
..
. ': . .
When we. realize that everything is enfolded within
everything, we can understand that what" we call "empty
~spa~e" contains an immense backgroun4 of' energy.
$8coDd QaaJter

i 982'

.
EARTH CHANGES AHEAD by Frank Don (Wamer
Destiny Books, New York, 1981, ~72 pp., $2.75)

Reviewed by Kim L. Neidigh

The last few years have seen an apparent increase in the
amount of volcanic and earthquake activity and un-'
predicted bizarre shifts in weather patterns. Does this
signal some upcoming cataclysm? Are we heading for
another ice age? According to Frank Don, we are witnessing the birth of the Aquarian Age foretold by astrologers
, and psychics like Edgar Cayce; from the changes now on,going in the geology and climatology of the Earth, a new
world will evolve-orie where man will live in harmony
,
with nature, so we are told.
But prophecy, at least in the psychiG sense, is not what
this book is about. Most of the text is straightforward information about vulcanism, seismology, climatology, continental doft, arid plate tectonics. For clarity of exposition,
Frank Don' cannot be faulted.
'
Since the time of the Chaldeans and Sumerians, man
has believed that the positions of the planets affected
human affairs. Although the idea has fallen from favor in
recent years, science is beginning to admit that the activities of heavenly bodies may affect the environment and
human life in ways neve'r before perceived and to an extent
that has yet to be measured. The Moon and the Sun create
the tides and may have subtle effects on human
physiology. Sunspot activity increases when Jupiter is

'

'closest to the Sun; and sunspots have profound effects on

the Earth',s atmosphere. The influence of the planets may
also be a factor in the triggering of volcanoes and earthquakes.
Don discusses at length the'dynamics of volcanoes and
earthquakes. He describes the stresses that form them and
reviews major historical occurrences: the Mount Skaptar
eruptions in Iceland in 1783-84, the great Krakatoa explosion of 1883, 'and the recent Mount St. Helens eruptions.
There is ample evidence that such events come in cycles,
and, with the current alignment of all the planets on the
same side ot the Sun, we may expect such geologic
upheavals to increase in number and violence.
The author does not ignore humankind's effect on the
home planet. The general public is probably not aware that
our nuclear tests have caused "earthquakes" miles from
the testing sites. It is feasible that man-made earthquakes
may be the "ultimate weapon."
Besides altering the Earth's crust, we are changing the
air we breathe in 'ways we do not yet understand. The
debate rages as to whether continued pollution of the atmosphere may initiate a new ice age or create a
"greenhouse effect" which could turn the Earth into
another Venus; the evidence assembled to date favors ice
rather than fire. Either way, we seem to be headed for
changes-big ones.
Earth Changes Ahead is illustrated with many charts
and maps, and a comprehensive bibliography is in,cluded.

IF YOU HAVE READ a recently published book about phenomena, and it has not been reviewed in Pursuit, why not write a review and send it In
to be considered for publication? First, however, please write and let us know the title and author of the work you wish to review so that we may
advise you whether the book has been "spoken for" by another reviewer. All book reviews receive the careful consideration of Pursuit's editors.
s

'Astonishingly enough, one cubic centimeter of the matter

is known universe. 1o Matter, as we know it, is nothing
more than a small, "quantized" wavelike excitation on top
of this background, rather like a tiny ripple on a vast sea.
This "sea" of energy is perceived as emptiness or
nothingness; and, in like manner, the vast "unconscious"
background of explicit consciousness may be seen as an
emptiness. It is p.ot, however. The seeming emptiness is
really the tremendously powerful manifestation of primary
reality. Indeed, everything becomes part of this manifestation, including the observer himself. According to Bohm,
each human being is not an independent actuality, but,'
rather, all human beings, as well as nature, are projections
of a single totality. Even so, the theory allows each individual to use his own free will to set his own limits:
If man thinks of the totality as constituted of iridepenent fragments, then that is how his mind wfll tend
to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harinoniously in an overall whole that is un'divided; unbroken, and without a border, then his
mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from
this will flow an orderly action within the whole. II
We have been looking for explanations too long in
places where the light strikes us as much better, in places
that seem reasonable, rational, and logical to classical
physics. Those places, valid though they may be within the
limited context of secondary r"eality, no longer are appropriate for the new' par'adigms. T,he key exists
everywhere, but 'a search for its discovery begins, within

Se~Dd Q~.I'I~r 1982 '

each person's own house. David Bohm's theory offers a

source of illumination for that search.
REFERENCES
, 1. Bohm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics (Pennsylvania
Paperback second edition). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1980, p, 166.
2. Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Rutledge &
Kegan Paul, 1980, p. 143.
'
3. Ibid., p. ISS.
4. Ibid., p. 148.
S. Ibid., p. 18S.
6. Ibid., p. 206. ,
,
7. Ornstein, Robert, The Psychology 0/ Consciousness, New York:
Penguin Books Ltd., 1972, p. 32.
8. Ibid., p. 33.
9. Quoted in an interview with Karl Pribram conducted by Daniel
Goleman for Psychology Today. February, 1979, p. 83.
10. Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, p. 191.
11. Ibid., ~. xi.

This review is excerpted .from an article by Richard D.

Wright published, in the May 1982 issue of The American
Dowser. quarterly digest of The American Society of
Dowsers. The excerpts are'reprinted by permission of Mr.
Wright and ASD.
, Holography, described by ~he reviewer as holding "a
key position within Bohm's theory," was extensively
discussed, with particular reference to its Fortean aspect,
in a 1977 paper by R. Martin Wolf, then managing editor
of Pursuit. Mr. Wolf's paper was read at the First International C~ngress of Paranormal Phenomena in Mexico City
and portions were published in the Winter 1978 issue of
, this journal (Pursuit No. 41", Vol. 11, No.1).
Pursu't83

'

",

SYDIposiuDi
John White Answers His Critics with a.Pole Shift'Up~ate'
.

A recent survey of pole shift theories ,and of my 'book

Pole Shift, written by Robert Schadewald and published
in Fate magazine for October 1981 is by far the most :
useful critique' I have seen, and it is welcome. - His'
scholarship exceeds mine in the area of 19th century
predecessors to those whom I call "contemporary scientifically oriented researchers'; of the p'ole shift question.
The bibliography he sent me, a year ago contained many
titles froIll the 1'800s unknown to me. And' his review of
my book in The Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1980) was fairminded.
However, as I replied to him then, for all that, he
seems to 'miss the point of Pole Shift. He says that he
cannot depend on the theorists, :psychics and prophecies
reported there, and that catastrophic pole shifts probably
will not happen. He also says that I disagree with that.
Not so-or at least, only partly so. There is a saying,
"If you believe, no explanation is necessary; if you don't
believe, no explanation is possible." 1. reject both those
positions in this matter. I am neither a believer nor a
disbeliever in pole shifts. I am simply advocating an '
open-minded investigation into the possibility of a certain
type of Doomsday. To foresee is not the same thing as to
expect. I agree with Schadewald that we cannot depend
on, theorists, psychics and propi!ecies-yet. However, I
see increasing evidence that a pole shift is both possible
and probable, albeit with a very low degree Of probability
at present. The theorists seem to have various pieces of
the puzzle indicating one is possible. Further, the psychic
and prophetic traditions point to various "earth change"
indicators that will precede a pole shift. Among them are:
increasing seismic activity in the form of earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions, erratic weather, climatic change, and
, cultural' instability.
_
'These "signposts" are readily evident in the news
\.
today. However, I am well aware that every generation
has had its predictions of Doomsday-predictions which
obviously were wrong. Moreover, I' have rio desire whatsoever to be an alarmist. Rather" I seek through rigorous
, research to go ,beyond the position of Schadewald,
,reasonable as it is, because there' are important unan, swered questions about pole shifts. 'Answering these
questions could help us to 'take prudent action to avoid,
or at least reduce, loss of lives and property, if research
seems to confirm the predictions. On the other hand, if
the questions are answered so a,s to disprove the pole
shift concept and to refute the predictions,' public fears
can be allayed and attention turned to real problems. But
until we have some really solid answers, Schadewald's
position is no safer than any other-only more op, timistic.
'So in the interest of encouraging responsible research
and dialogue on a subject that is potentially momentous,
I will review the arguments to d~te-and (re)state my own
position.
'
"
' :
'
,
, First, Pole ~hift has gone ~ int,a four, foreign ~ditions', "

j . -

Purst84
i

'

JOHN'WHITE'
,Predictions and Prophecies
of the Ultimate Disaster, ..
(Brit,ish, Japanese, Portuguese and German), and is being
pu~lished in a mass-market paperback edition by Berkley
Books.
"
.
The 'book reviews have been a mixed bag. Opinion
was divided almost uniformly along the "scientific" vs.
"psychic" axis, with the mainline scie~tific journals/reviewers coming down hard on the book and other
jourmlls/reviewers who 'favor (or at least aqmit to) the
, possibility of psychic or paranormal events, giving the
book good marks or at least not rejecting it out of hand. '
For example, SCience 80 implied that I was whipping
up "a mindless hysteria" and deClared that "no amount
of hand-waving can ,reduce the evidence overwhelming
White's thesis" (although none was cited in the review).
New Realities (formerly Psychic) said 'the book is
"uniformly well-documented, and' clearly and logically
presented. . . " a compelling theory that is en~rmously
readable." Publisher's- Weekly remarked, "Hard science
readers won't be able to down the emulsion" but' The
A.R.E. ,Journa! (published by the Edgar Cayce'
orga~ization) saic;l; "Pole Shift exhil;>its careful ,reporting'
of the scientific issues 'in layman's terms~' Earth sCientists.:l
.

:-. .

..,

.'

. "

Se,~oad

..\

L"

Quart... 1912, . ,

will appreciate the efforts to achieve a consensus on controversial topic~, while the general reader will recognize
that he is in responsible hands."
Correspondence seemed to go the sameway. NASA
scientist (and skeptic of the paranormal) James Oberg
wrote to me that he didn't think the axis is going to tip
over, but since many people do, my'book was worth the
effort to read because it was "well done" and allowed
the subject of pole shift to be discussed in a rational way.
On the other hand, John Gribben, co-author of The
Jupiter Effect, although friendly enough by letter to me,
offered a left-handed compliment in a letter to a colleague
friend of mine: "Pole Shift, of course, is brilliant journalism. Note how careful the author is never to' say he
believes the' outrageous ideas, but to present -them for
others to believe or not, depending on their gullibility."
So it goes, and amid it all, I'm left with the feeling
that hardly any of my critics can simply read without an
emotionally conditioned reflex action.
I'll begin reviewing the arguments by quoting my letter to The Skeptical Inquirer in reply' to Schadewald's
review .. As noted above, I acknowledged him to be fairminded and scholarly in the matter, but nevertheless I
thought he had missed the ~entral idea of my book.

My role in Pole Shift is that of a journalist ralSlng

questions,' not a scientist giving answers. I conducted my
invest.igation not as a true believer but as a skeptical (and
curious) inquirer. As my inquiry progressed, sufficient
data appeared to convince me that a case for pole shifts
could be legitim~tely made, despite the weak links that
Schadewald rightly notes. But as I say -in the book,
presenting the case for pole shifts is not the same thing as
prpving the case. Thus I also say that the questions I
raIse need to be answered through rigorous scientific investigation. Such investigation has not been done, despite
the statement of CSICOP member Isaac Asimov in A
Choice of Catastrophes.
. Therefore I call on the scientific community to do so
Without delay and without. preconception or
prejudgment. The pole shift concept appears to offer a
unifying explanation for a wide range of scientific
anomalies and mysteries-an explanation that amounts to
a potential revolution in many -fields of knowledge-and
if the scientific community could be interested in
seriously reexamining an otherwise closed .subject,
perhaps we could then also see whether various predictions and prophecies of a pole shift at the end of this century have any validity. In other words, I am calling-on
both intellectual and humanitarian grounds-for a scientif.ic investigation of a certain claim of the paranormal.

ILETTER TO THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRERI

I don't know how to put it more succinctly or more

clearly than that. I've tried simply to raise questions and
to point to certain unsettled or enigmatic issues in science
because there may be an elegant solution to them all, and
that solution may be what is being offered to the public
in various forms by those predicting a pole shift. For this
I have ,been lavishly damned in print. Now, I'm no
stranger to the arena of media controversy, having been
roasted a number of times by opponents and critics. '1
don't mind it. Yet it never ceases to amaze me that supp.osedly rational, well-educated people can so misconstrue
a straightforward presentation and draw from it the nonexistent basis for irrational, emotional and sometimes ad
. hominem attacks. Not that every opponent or critic does
this, of course, but I've had my share, especially over
Pole Shift.
For example, one Ph.D. in geology read about the
book and, without actually reading it, rushed into print
to label it "pure fiction." His letter to a newspaper
declared, "An event such as John White describes is, of
course, impossible, either in the past 'or in the future. Not
only is there no geologic record of such an event, there
would be a violation of several laws of physics . . . if
such an event did occur."
.
My reply was as follows, and I offer it to help clarify
the issues and to show where I stand regarding pole shifts:

I am aware of the conventional explanations offered

for the topics examined in the book, and try to
acknowledge them. However-and this is the point that
seems to elude Schadewald-I raise the questions because
of those conventional explanations, which simply do not
cover all the facts. For example:
1. The ancien.t maps of AntarCtica. Charles Hapgood
summarizes the subject in his 1979 edition of Maps of the
Ancient Sea Kings by saying, "The maps in this book
show that an ancient advanced culture mapped virtually
the whole earth [~bout 15,000 years ago or more, and]
that its cartographers mapped a mostly deglacial Antarctica . . . . " (p. 239). This research has never been reJuted-only ignored.
2. The frozen mammoths.' Evidence suggests most
strongly that the famed Berezovka mammoth died suddenly of asphyxiation in late sum'mer in a temperate
climate and that ir was frozen by the imposition of temperatures in excess of - 150 0 F. in ten hours or less. Contrary to popular belief, it was no arctic animal because
it lacked the sebaceous oil glands that all cold-adapted
land animals have to lubricate their skin and thereby
prevent death by dehydration. Moreover, thearctic could
not possil,>ly supply enough vege~ation to support vast herds
of these herbivores, which required several hundred
pounds of vegetation daily for each member. Yet their
skeletons litter the tundra by the hundreds of thousands.
, 3. Ice ages. If slow and regular changes in the orbital
geometry of Earth are the cause of ice ages, as conventionally claimed, what explains the following: first, the
extremely rapid appearance and disappearance of continental-sized ice sheets; second, the vast epochs-each
several hundred million years. long, far exceeding the'
alleged periodicity of the ice ages-in which the planet
was free of polar ice sheets; and third, the fact that die
North American ice sheet during the last ice age was centered in Hudson Bay while the north polar area-as
presently located-was virtually ice fr:ee?
4. Anomalous glacial striations. Continental drift
cannot explain all anomalous glaCial striations. Those in
. South Africa show a direction of movement toward, not
away from the South Pole.
'Second Quarter 1982

[LETrER TO A NEWSPAPER AFTER IT PUBLISHED THE

CRITICISM OF A PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGIST WHO
IjADN'T READ POLE SHIFTJ

Science. writer Arthur Clarke once commented, "When

a scientist says something is possible, he is almost certainly. right; when a scientist says something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong. II The "laws"
of science change as new discoveries are made, and when
fact conflicts with theories, it is the theories that must
change-along ,with rigid-minded theorists. Earlier scientists said man could never fly, nor exceed certain
. velocities, \ and th.at continents could never drift, nor
((:ontinued on page 90)
Pur118S

.I

I would like to make some critical comments regarding Tom Bearden's article "Tesla's Secret and the
Soviet Tesla Weapons," published in the Third Quarter
1981 issue of Pursuit.
On page 107 Bearden states: "Now mass is a spatial, 3-dimensional concept." This is not true. He has
confused mass with volume. It is volume that is the 3-D
concept, and things with volume do tend to have mas!!.
Physicists frequently use the concept of mass when
they are dealing with I-D, 2-D, or noD systems. In fact,
they always try to reduce. physical problems to I-D or
2-D problems whenever possible because it simplifies
the calculations.
l:Ie also asserts that charge is a 4-dimensional CODcept. But his conclusion that "mass and charge are thus
of differing dimensionalities" is also incorrect. Charge
and mass are fundamental properties of matter th~t do
not necessarily involve spatial dimensions at all. This
. can be most easily seen in the case of the electron. The
electron is a particle .wlth.both mass and charge, but it
has no spatial extent. As far as the modem laboratory.
can tell, the electron is truly a single point from which
an electric. field emanates. Unlike the proton or neutron, the electron is a particle with no detectable siz~ or
structure (Scientific American magazine, May 1979,
page 69). The electron "is as close to the abstract ~n
cept of a dimensionless point as nature has ever offered
us. AnC?ther point of disagreement: The au~or claims
that "it is the charge of a particle of spatial mass (sic)
that gives it the property of masstime, or existing in
time." This isa very strange statemen~. Num~rous
particles, the neutron for instance, have no electrical
charge, yet they have a mass which persists in time .
..., In general, the author's conception of the nature of
..charge and mass tends to make me suspicious of his
many sweeping conclusions regarding electromagnetic
theory. Other q~estions arise from Bearden's suggestion that the Soviets have developed powerfuf perpetual-motion machines. If the' Soviets really have huge
perpetual-motion devices, I wonder why they are
. spending millions of rubles each year trying to create
aninherently obsolete nuclear fusion reactor. Bearden
apparently hopes to justify perpetual motion by invoking the physicist's concept of "virtual energy." However, as I understand the concept, virtual energy is not
a physically observable energy. It is not freely available
as an infinite source of power for running macroscopic
.machines. The concept of virtual energy is not g~n
erally assumed to allow for any. deviation from the experimentally observed principle of macroscopic mass/
energy conservation. .
Although the idea that the Soviets may be actively
. trying to develop weapons based on some of Tesla's
claims seems possible, Brezhnev's comment on weapons "more frightening than the mind of man had
.. imagined" sh~uld not necessarily cause us to invoke
Tesla weapons ~s the. explanation. For example, the
USSR has pubUcly threatened to devel~p super Hbombs with a yield of 50 to lSOmegatons each. By way
of comparison, the much smaller 20-meg,ton we~pons

p.,rau".86

currently aimed at American targets each carry the

energy equivale~~ of about 1,500 Hiroshima-type
bombs. What rational per!!on is not frightened to imagine these t,hings falling on civilization? (Incidentally,
. for those who are grimly determined to survive WWllI,
I highly recommend Bruce D. Clayton's aftermath book
entitled "Life After Doomsday" published iI;l1980.) .
Tesla ~as a marvelous inventor and perhaps he did
stumble onto some phenomena that are difficult to
interpret with 1980s-style physics. Technology frequently utilizes phenomena that are
beyond con., temporary theory. However, the
physical
interpretations that Bearden has
on Tesla's
mysteries, and Russian secrets, may
premature.
-Daniel Eden
.
As a Fortean researcher and prl:pfessi.on,al
grapher, I was. interested in your two
Pursuit No. 53, First Quarter 1981,
The picture submitted by Erich
ample of lens flare caused by pointing
very near to, a bright source of light.

The five-sided shape is a frequen~y

construction
in modem 35mm cameras. I eQclose clearer example
. of "flare" from one of my own neJl!atltves. (See above.)
As Mr. Krug's. photograph was .made during a
November ,sunset, the source of the
was
probably
..
c.

strong resemblance to what were known as "sun

tracks" some years ago when many folding cameras
fitted with extending bellows were in use. With repeated opening and closing, the bellows became weakened along the folds and sometimes developed pinholes. Then, if the camera was opened' and carried
about in the sun, the image of the sun formed by these
pinholes moved about in a haphazard manner on the
film and these streaks and blobs of varying density
were recorded on the film.
Mr. Sanders says that the original was a Polaroid
picture, and as most of the Polaroid cameras of the
1960s-70s had bellows, I suggest that this might prove
to be a fruitful line of inquiry. As for the '''something
taking off after it landed near his house," I would suggest that unsophisticated Arabs enjoy a leg-pull as
much as the rest of us, and even they are likely to be
familiar with the lore of flying saucers. -Colin Bord

Erich Kng'. photo

the setting sun. Possible because there was no flare
seen on frame 5 because, without the infra-red filter,
the sky background was not dark enough to show up the
pale flare patch.
.
Ground Saucer Watch is incorrect when they state
that the mark was caused by the camera shutter (pursuit
No. 54, Second Quarter 1981,. page 94). The Minolta
SRT 200 is a single lens reflex-type camera which uses
the usual focal plane shutter, i ..e., a flexible roller blind
with a slit across it, which travels rapidly across the
light-sensitive face of the film, thereby exposing .it to
the image formed by the lens. There is no way in which
a focal plane shutter could cause such lens flare to appear. GSW have previously published analyses of
UFO photographs. Perhaps their other reports were
based on a clearer understanding of 'the principles of.
photography than this particular report reveals.
.
The second photograph, taken by the very unsophisticated' Arab," is more intriguing. It bears a

...
The ArabSandersGSW photo

Second Qaaner 19.2.

. In his article "Tesla's Secret and the Soviet Tesla

Weapons" (Pursuit No. SS, Third Quarter 1981), Tom
Bearden points out that fault lines act as natural interferometers, microscopic rock-cracks opened by earth
movements being the cause ... My observations confirm
this, because all the geoelectric forces I have observed
are located along fault lines.
Last fall, I decided it was time to buy a sensitive
meter and start making' some tests. Most of my tests
failed to detect anything, but I finally had a few circuits
that g~ve results. A line of power poles crosses an
. active fault about two miles from my home. Four of
these poles get hit by lightning on a regular basis; one
of them was hit as hard as all the rest combined and
even showed a fresh splinter just before Christmas;
when no lightning could have hit it. My most important
test is iaid out along this fault line, starting near this
pole. Because it's so far from my house, I can't check it
as often as I'd like, and as a result, I miss a lot of
important events. This makes it hard to make enough
observations to detect a pattern. All I can say about this
test at present is tRat it is giving readings, but I can't
report on these un"fil I make enough observations for
some kind of pattern to emerge. 0
I have a few other experiments set up in my house,
so I can take readings whenever convenient. While
these are less conclusive than the one set up over the .
fault line, they are giving more information due to the
easier way to get readings. My house. is a mile from th~
nearest major fault, but only a quarter mile from a
minor one. It seems the activity detected by these tests
is only eddy currents from the fault lines, which
explains the sporadic nature of the results, but this'
must be only a guess until more definite tests can be
made.
We know lightning goes from earth to cloud, not
cloud to earth, so this is proof that the electricity is in
the eartli all the time, and the c~oud only acts as an
electron sink to give it a place to go. So I reasoned that
the best method of detecting it was to use capacitance,
. with the earth as one pole ofthe capacitor. My circuit
on the fault line uses this principle, with' results

.,

Pur.uit.7

hooked a condenser from a car

in. ser~es, as the
diagram shows. By the roof charging
I could 'get a
reading of .001. to .005 Volts on Idisi.chllrging this
ionisell1,
condenser. When storms came in,
voltage rose to former levels,.
.without the use of a capacitor. It
capacitor, just as any. current. would
need it to get a t"eading.
to see what
O.K. Now, the stinker: One day,
would happen, I hooked up my
directiy to the
setting, it
roof. With my meter on the most
putthe needle off the scale.l had to
it on the second
scale to keep the needle on the scale.
gave me .17
V., which] didn't t~e as significant,
I.figured
this was just electrolysis. My steel
posts were
probably a different alloy than my
ground rod,
and the moisture reacting with salts in .the soil were
probably just turning it into a wet
battery. I didn't
do much with this hookup.,because I
I had just .
made a battery. Finally, one day I
a condenser
it. I kept
in, and to my surprise, it wouldn't
repeating this over several weeks,
no matter how I
coimected this, it won't charge a
! Why??? I
can charge them with the roof
the fence isn't
roof is ionised
connected. It will charge them when

confirming the logic of the assumption. Since this

circuit proved valid, my next idea was that a nearby
shed had: wooden walls, which should act. as a
dielectric, and the sheet metal roof should react with
the earth to form a capacitance that could be detected. I
connected to this roof, and a ground rod driven deep in
the earth just outside the front window.
My ground connection proved to have negative
polarity, as expected, but to my surprise, the shed roof
was a much stronger negative, giving a reverse reading
of the. meter. This had to be caused by ions in the air
being stronger than the capacitance with the earth. 1
originally used a fence fora ground connection, which
is barbed wire strung on steel poles set 11/2 feet in the
ground. Since it was winter when I set this up, I finally
made myself warmer by stringing a wire through the
window, so I could get readings without going outside.
Wipter was very stormy, and the roof gave huge
.variations in readings due to the ionic activity
associated with storms ..This screwed up all my tests for
two mo~ths. When I firs~ set up the roof to earth circuit,
using the fence as a ground, my voltage readings ran
between .01 to .05 Volts. Then I nailed down the loose
roof panels, . ~nd the voltage dropped too l~w to
measure dire.ctly-. In order to get any reading at all, 1

METER

.17 V.

FENCE ._____

-----'-....l-----.. .

CAPACITOR WON'T
WITH FENCE CONN

CHARGE
TO ROOF

-.4 -.':4-. ____~---L__--~-------L----------_r~-

GROUND
ROD

,t

-_ .. - --_-..J
-......

METER

.001 TO
.005

FENCE NOT
CONNECTED

GROUND
ROD

,--+ :.-""'--

INTERFEROMETER IS 30 SHEETS OF ALUMINUM

FOIL, 7 X 3 INCHES, CRINKLED ENOUGH TO FILL
A 2INCH BOX WITH UNIFORM CONTACT

.TIMES
p.; MONTH HIS GIVES
"'. A READING.

,I

.. Pur"

8elcqllid Quarta 1:B2

\ '.
...

by storms passing over: It will charge with flashlight

batteries. But hook the fence to the roof and it won't
charge a capacitor. How can a voltage too low to
register be able to charge them, and ionised air charge
them, but a voltage 100 times higher still not charge
them??? Auto ignition condensers are designed for 12
V. so it isn't from exceeding their design. No .matter
how I hook them in the. circuit, it's as if they were solid
insulation. The other half of this mystery is that when
I'm getting a heavy ion reading, they act as conductors,
passing current through, and even giving an ohm
reading.
Next, I set up tomato pots to check the effect on
plant growth. One has a wire directly to the ground rod,
the other pot has a capacitor to reverse the polarity. A
third pot is unconnected to serve as a con~rol. I planted
these on New Year's. day, but being winter, all are slow
growing. The control pot sprouted first, the + pot next,
the - pot last. Soon, the + pot was twice as tall as
the control pot, and th~ - pot was almost dead. I had to
pull out the wire to keep it from dying. On Feb. 11, it
looked like th~ - po.t was lost, so I replanted all pots to
keep the test in. The same day the seeds sprouted from
the secoI;ld planting in the - pot. Two days later, the +
pot sprouted, and suddenly the roof polarity changed to
+, where it had been - all winter. The growth of the

plants reversed. Now it's the - pot that is growing

best, where it almost died before .the roof polarity
changed. I think the air. ions weakened, and the earth
polarity grew enough stronger to overpower the air
ions.
Storms had screwed up these tests all winter, but
the last week of February turned fair and I was able
to get readings without ion interference. Soon a pattern
emerged. I had knqwn from the fi~st that voltage
readings varied between day and night, but a week
without storms gave a pattern. I finally had to assume
the earth moving through space is crossing an electric
, field of some kind. It may be the "ether" of space that
Einstein claimed didn't exist. It may be some other
force. Whatever the cause, it has nothing to. de with the
earth-sun line, but has an associatien with the
earth-galaxy movement. Ifthere is some magnetic field
in space, the earth cuts it as it erbits the sun. I've
drawn a sketch to. shew how my voltage differs by time
ef day; it' sta~s after sun-up and ends just before midnight; the peaks and lows are'positiened accordingly.
. I had assumed the earth is closest to the sun in
winter because the sun is also. meving areund the
center ef the galaxy. However-, the pattern shewn by
the voltage difference.s seems to indicate another path
-Evan Hansen
fer the sun.

DEC. 21

I read John Sinkiewicz's article on the Planetary

Grid, (Pursuit No.. 57)-fantastic! It would appear as
though my ~pceming article abeut "extra-terrestrials"
picked up where his ended. Unreal!
Please forward four journals, Vol. IS, No.. 1. and
enclese bill for same.
-Dr. Joseph L. Intelisano

JULY

Vel. IS. No. I. Whole 57 was a particularly good

number. I enjeyed all the .articles except "The
Planetary Grid." which I call aSo What? You read the
whole thing and when you've finished, you have gotten
little out of it, and about the little there was, you are apt
to ask So What?
However. the rest of the articles I loved and found
them interesting and profitable reading. I especially
liked the Wirth article. "The Chinese Connection," and
read it twice. Gallagher's article was of great interest
and I'd like niore along the same lines. Bird' s article on
water I also liked enermously. So please thank all the
people who helped in the making of this number and
teU them not to work too hard on my account, but I.
would truly like more of the same type ef material.
Thank you for affording me two nights of good
entertainment.,
J k'
I S en IDS
- M rs. M . M'II

,
LOWEST
VOLTAGE

APPARENT MOVEMENT OF EARTH

IN RELATION TO UNIVERSE, BASED
ON VOLTAGE READINGS

Second Qu....er 1982

LETTERS to Pursuit's editors are always welcome.

Please send letters to Fred Wilson, 66 Bortic Road,
P.O. Box 134, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009. letters are
subject to abridgement as necessary to insure fair
sharing of the limited space available.

Purst 89

, . Symposium:

Pole Shift

(Continuedfrom Page 85)

atoms, be split. Those 'scientists also declaimed the

"laws" of nature in.support of their position.
It is interesting to note that [the geologist's] condemnation of my book was made without even reading it. He'
might just as wel~ have said, "My mind's made up; don't
try to confuse me with facts." In plain language, his
position is ignorant and prejudiced.
[He] may be interested to know that several scientists
who have read my book have offered praise for it. A
geologist (Dr. Jeffrey Goodm~n, author of We Are the
Earthquake Generation), an astronomer' (Dr. Gerrit Verschuur, author of Cosmic Catastrophe), 'an archeologist
(Dr. David Zink, aut~or of The Stones of Atlantis) and
an anthropologist (Dr. Roger Wescott', of Drew Univer... sity) all feel I have done a creditable job of researching
the question of pole shifts, pro and con. They also feel
that my findings raise disturbing questions bearing on'the
' '
future of all life on Earth. '
These disturbing questions cannot be avoided by
reasonable, thoughtful people. They can be avoided by
unreasonable, dogmatic people who smugly believe they
have a monopoly on truth. Such people often use ridicule
and suppression to avoid the controversial issues I raise'
in Pole Shift, but sneering authoritarianism resolves
nothing and is most unbecoming in a member of the
scientific community.
'
For those who are willing to hear my presentation
before judging the issue, Pole Shift 'will provide a full
reply to [the geologist's] attack. They will find that scientists ranging from Darwin to Einstein supported the concept of polar shifts, and that the, subject continues to be
e'xamined in scientific literature. As, recently as October
1978, the Journal of Physics had a long article demonstrating that pole shifts could take place without violating
the laws of physics. The article also ,showed that
historical evidence of such shifts is abundant. '
. . . [The geologist] probably will continue to stand by
his original statement that there is absolutely no geologic
record of any such event having happened, but he does
so at the expense of intellectual integrity since he made
up his mind before examining any of the evidence [that I
present]. Moreover, ~e had made up his mind not on the
basis of the geological record" as he asserts, but on the
basis of. interpretation of that record. The pole shift concept offers a new interpretation-an interpretation that
he dismisses out of,hand.
My objective in writing Pole Shift was to engage the
scientific community in rational discourse and to initiat~
a full-scale investigation into the subject because. of its
potential impact on science and society. I continue to
hold these objectives. And I reiterate my position in the
book: In reporting the case for pole shifts, I am acting as
an investigative journalist raising questions, not a
scientist giving answers. I am quite. prepared to accept the
verdict of the scientific community that pole shifts are
"pure fiction," but only after a legitimate hearing rather
than by kangaroo-court trial in the newspapers. If the
final judgment is on [the geologist's] side, so be it. But in
such a case, readers should understand that [the
'.
geologist] would be right for the wrong reasons. Kneejerk reactjons due to prejudice are nev~r sufficient
grounds for intelligentlY,settling a debate.

* * *

, To those who have I~belled me a "tro'e ,belieyer" 10

pole ~hifts (past or future), as a review in Library Journal

". PurIt9.

'

did, I reply (as I did to that journal) "I do not believe

that, and I say so repeatedly throu:l!;h~Jut the book." On
the other hand, obyiously, 1 don't
it totally. Does
as Kirkus Review
that make me a Doomsday
implied? 1 don't see the logic. 1 am
advocating an
open-minded investigation into the
of a certain
same thing as to
type of Doomsday. To foresee is not
expect.
But enough of what may sound
sive complaint. I said this would
re~iews the arguments and oe'vel,oplm~nts
was published. Let's look, first, at
listed in my reply to Schadewald, but
Anomalous glacial striatipns. No
come to me on this subject, and my J.IIV""""VU remains unchanged.
,
Ice ages. A paper by a ~wedish nn'IIC:Il',C:T
mark, (dis,cussed below) offers a
shifts that also accounts for ice ~ges
. (rather than regular) appearance in
It may be the mechanism
Herron, research assistant ,professor
sity of New York at Buffalo, who rI....'..ntllv
results of a ten-year drilling
Greenland. A 7,OOO-fo01 core
sheet revealed climatic data on a vellr.l[)v,ve:ar
back as lO~OOO years ago,
glaciation-the Wisconsin gUllCUlt1()fl-+enOleo.
According to Herron, the data
that the change
on Earth has
between "norinal" and ice age
been suprisingly and,
abrupt. In fact,
climatic change may have been so
at the end of
the last glaciation that Herron says
has no idea what
mechanism might account for such
change.
The froz.en mammoths. This
been a lively topic
among my correspondents. William White of ,England,
an opponent of the flash-freeze
of thinking, has
to my research
written a deeply thoughtful
colleague, Leroy Ellenberger, and
in which he makes
some very'telling points. Among
are the following:
(1) We are unaware of the findings
the new science of
taphonomy" the study of all the
that an animal
goes through from the time it
to die until its
remains are finally embedded in a geological stratum.
This approach demonstrates that
died not .as
but of asphyxia
a result of disastrous temperature
fro~ a
(e.g., drowning in an icy
landslide, etc.). (2) Other studies
that mam- ,
has been claimed,
moth flesh is not s9 well-preserved
but rather that .the flesh had begu to putrefy before
being frozen in permafrost. (3)
sebaceous glands,
arcti'c animals to
which we argue are necessary in
tolerate extreme cold, are mis~ing in mammoths but
present in wooly rhinoceroses. Since rhinoceroses are ofhow can
ten found frozen in company with
separated locations
the two-supposedly living in
accounted for
at the time of a catastrophic pole
being interred together?
I replied to William White that
some powerful arguments, and 1
~espond to his assertions. "I simply
at th'is' ti me, ... I wrote, "as being rnl~rprnf"C1
of the matter" however that ~ay
. die' of the frozen mammoths' ultim)itely proves to be a
,0

'Second Qualt... 1982

pseudo-problem, so be it. I believe that one is entitled to

be wrong in his opinions, but not in his facts." I added,
however, that an eventual disproof of the frozen mammoth argument would not necessarily disprove the more
general thesis of pole shift.
"Even that subject," I wrote, "is not something that I
feel obligated to defend to the death-only to'the truth,
as it may become clear to us. So I thank you for the
vigor with which you pursue this investigation, and look
forward. to a more concerted effort by all concerned to
come to a firm conchi"sion in the matter. Exactly that has
been my purpose all along."
Shortly afterward, Dwardu Cardona, a catastrophist
who defends a sudden freezing of mammoths, sent me a
copy of his response to White's letter, which Ellenberger
had showed him. Cardona's comments, entitled "The
Mammoth Controversy," are scheduled for publication
in Kronos (VII: 3) along. with White's letter. I am
gratefulto the editors for allowing me to quote briefly
from Cardona's article. The excerpts are self-explanatory.
I have omitted the references.
(EXCERPTS FROM DWARDU CARDONA'S ARTICLE)

Despite White's statement to the contrary, .however,

the commencement of putrefaction prior to freezing has
never been satisfactorily proven. Eyeballs are among the
first parts of the body t.o rot after death, yet s.ome of the
mammoths discovered in Siberia had their eyeballs intact.
Dima [a 1978 find] is the only specimeo so far to have
been discovered in an un thawed condition. I might be
wrong but, to my knowledge, it showed no signs of
putrefaction. Yet even if it did it would not much matter, '
for there is nothing in prevalent catastrophic theories
which excludes int~rim, even if minimal, thawing between
catastrophes.
.
The fact remains that, where mammoth carcasses, in
whole or in part, have been discovered, decomposition
has been minimal. They did not decompose away . . . if
climatic conditions have not changed since the mammoths roamed, why is it that only extinct species are ever
.
discovered entombed in ice?
. What I do grant William White is that the direct cause
of the Berezovka mammoth's death was asphyxia before
freezing. That has always been known and admitted by
catastrophists. Suffocation, however, is not necessarily
the result of drowning and/or landslide burial as White
and others would have us believe. Ivan Sanderson, Immanuel Velikovsky, and Charles .Hapgood, have all
described extraordinary, but possible, atmospheric conditions which could have asphyxiated the mammoths Just
prior to freezing. While not necessarily correct in the
details these investigators h!lve supplied, it is Ii fact that,
both in Alaska and Siberia, mammoth remains are
associated with' ,evidence of atmospheric tempests of unprecedented dimensions. And it is this overall picture. not
the hair-splitting issues we have been debating, that is.
the crux of the matter.
The "young but powerful science of taphonomy,"
,upon which White relies, has shown ,that the carcass ~f
. an, African elephant decays in about three weeks, leaving
nothing but the tough skin covering the bones. In temperatures which, according to Farrand, were higher than
the present 9O-J(X)0 F. of the Siberian summer, the
Berezovka mammoth should have likewise decomposed.
The position in which this beast was found clearly indicates ,that 'it could neither have been drowned nor
crushed beneath a slide: Its stance suggests that it was
felled on its h"auq.ches, that i.t attempt~d to regain its feet,
Second Quarter 1982

that it was then somehow asphyxiated, and that it froze

in this animated position. It did not even keel over.

I think Cardona has answered White better than I
could. Ellenberger, however, is preparing his own reply.
The ancient maps of Antarctica. No further data have
come to me on this subject either, and my position remains unchanged here also. As Hapgood told the National Enquirer (January 15, 1980), "All the evidence
shows that there had to exist a very advanced Civilization
that was worldwide [more than 20,000 years ago]. They
mapped the whole world, except for North America,
which at that time had an ice cap over it." And in a 1980
article in Catastrophism and Ancient History he wrote,
"Our best indication of a warm Antarctica is an authentic map [the Oronteus Finaeus map of 1531] showing
Antarctica free of ice ... " So far as I know, his position
remains unchallenged':""'only ignored.
. Other noteworthy events regarding th~ theoretics and.
evidences of a pole shift was the 1980 publication of a
colloquium, "Reversals of the Earth?", in Volume IV of
the S.I.S. Review, a British journal dedicated 'to the investigation of Velikovskian ideas. C. Leroy Ellenberger
and Eric W. Crew commef!,ted on Peter Warlow's
proposed mechanism in his Journal of Physics paper,
raising some objections to certain aspects of it, which
were replied to by Warlow. At the conclusion of the exchange among them, Crew commented, "The paper by
Warlow represents a very important contribution to
astronomy, geology, climatology and ancient history."
Pole shift skeptics may think that a gratuitous remark in
a mutpal congratulation club, but a reading of the
colloquium makes clear that there was rigorous search .
for flaws in the proposed mechanism, and none were
found.
Victor J. Siabinski thinks differently, however, and
has apparently refuted Warlow's mathematical proofs of
the dynamics of polar shifts: Siabinski is a member of the
astrodynamics department at Communications Satellite
Corp. (Comsat) in Washington, D.C. In his paper "A
Dynamical Objection to. th~ Inversion of the Earth on its
Spin Axis," published recently in Journal of Physics A
(September 1981), Slabinski shows that Warlow's computations are flawed by three separate errors, and thus
his analysis is. false. Slabinski~s own computations show
that the inversion of Earth as proposed by Warlow can'not be produced by the gravitational attraction of any
known cosmic body in the solar system making a close
passage to Earth. Using Warlow's corrected computations, he says, an inversion would require "a 417 Earth
mass body passing at two Earth radii." He concludes:
"If such an inversion ever did occur, its mechanism remains unexplained."
A knowledgeable source tells me that Warlow has not
replied to this yet, although a copy of Slabinski's paper
has been in his possession for more than a year.
Another line of scientific support for the pole shift
concept, which Kronos brought to my attention, comes
from Sweden. A theoretical physicist, Stig Flodmark,
has given a number of papers on the subject at scientific
gatherings there. Flodmark is associated with the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the' -tJniversity of
Stockholm. In August 1981 ~e presented a 62-page pap~r;
Pursuit 91

,.

,\

~'The Earth's Rotation," at the European Geophysical

:SQCiety's meeting in Uppsala. He proposed a "doubleiop" model of the' planet in which the solid inner' core is
~eparable from the solid mantle and viscous part of" the
core. Frictional forces normally keep the "tops" rotating"
~n' unison or nearly so, but there isa slight differential
\vhich can explain observed small polar. motions known
'as the annual wobble and the Chandler wobble. The
;tlouble-top model, Flodmark asserts, also can explain
Jlacial ages, magnetic pole reversals, faunal extinctions
and other enigmatic topics in Earth's- history. and
~eology. Most important, Flodmark shows that a pole
is theoretically possible "during one single day" and .
. !shift
I
that "som~ perturbance ofi the smooth rotation of the
{earth could be expected shortly.'"
.
.'
l So where are we in the Earth changes scenario and in .
;the debate about pole shifts? From the scientific perspec:tive, we are far. from resolution. The subject remains
:'strongly in need of thorough examination.' \
.t From the perspective of psychic scenarios covering tl:J.e
:;'next two decades, we are approaching a critij;:al period.
~:According to the' predictions by .many psychic soutces
~and by interpreters of prophetic tradition (certain fun~damentalist Christian ministers are. notable among the
ilatter), the period from 1982 to. 1984 is going to be a time.
" }of major seismic activity around. the world. Some have
. fgone on' record as saying that the "Jupiter effect" .is
gOing to be devastating in 1982. (Even .though John
.Gribben has withdrawn from its thesis, claiming it to

.The Origins of Lemuria

have been thoroughly disproven, the Jupiter effect will

have its 'definitive test in mid-November 1982, when
Earth is on one side of the sun and all the other planets .
, are in a 100 arc on -the other side.) The Cayce readings'
. about earthquakes striking the west coast of America,
which have "set the baseline" in the psychic community
regarding earth changes, also will be put to the test by
'. 1982. I paint out iIi Pole Shift that Cayce's prediction,
even when interpreted in the broadest possible fashion,
will have reached its limit of reliability by the end of
1982; which will in turn bear directly on the accuracy of
his 'pole shift predictions.
My position, therefore,. is this: Schadewald is
'probably right when he predicts that the investigation I
call for will never happen. The: handwriting is on the wall
pretty clearly in that. department. Yet I continue to hope'
for it-on humanitarian grounds since, I'm sorry to.say,
an appeal to intellectual curiosity seems to find little
audience in the scientific community .
As for the psychic predictions, we wont't have to wait
until the year 2000 to see if 'they are true. By the end of
1982 we will have a pretty clear indication of whether
they are essentially correct and on schedule or merely
nlntasies and recycled yersions of Cayce-type pronoun,.
cements.
Will the moment of truth bring pole shifts or position
. shifts'? Stay tuned,
J h 'Wh'
0 n

Ite

(Continuedjrdmpage 70)

" boundary lines, and they wouldn't have been'of much use'
that the walls were built by Spanish friars (or by tlIeir In.dian serfs) between the 16.th and 18th centuries; they
as pens, for they are mostly straight and only a few interseem to resemble the dryston'e walis of Spain. 21
:.sect. A few parallel walls have gaps of ten yards between
.' them. The Milpitas walls 25 miles south of BerkeleY are
. : Viles has two photographs of similar stone walls in
likewise mysterious. They are built on grassy hillsides 'and
Grass Va:lley, northern Oregon, -and in southern Washington state.22 The Oregon wall 'blocks all entrances to
are too low for defense or use as animal pens; they ap pear not to be piles of stones dumped haphazardly by
th~..valiey. beyond; ..
farmers clearing their fields.
.
Archeological enigmas of course aboun~ in. California
The Berkeley walls were known as mysteries as early
and adjacent states. One of the oddest discoveries ever
as 1916 'when Harold French wrote about them. He
made was at Lompoc Rancho, 60 miles northwest of Sa.nfound walls near Baldy Ridge that were 700 feet iri
ta Barbara. In 1833 soldiers 'who were digging a storage
length. He' insisted that there was no evidence of Spanish
pit unearthed a human skeleton 12 feet long: Stone axes,
settlers or later Mexican farmers as their buildet:s. He
carved shells, and PQrphyry blocks covered with inmentioned' a legend of the local Matalane Indians who
decipherable symbols were also found. Was' this one of
said that the walls were the work of an unknown ~'hill
,; people," who supposedly built the walls as forts for
the giant Lemurians that Blavatsky's followers said had
protection from the Matalanes. French suggested that the, .. inhabited Mu'? We will never know, for the .soldiers
hastily reburied their find, and no wonder. The skull
Berkeley walls were Atlantean structures, noting th,at
reportedly had two rows of teeth on the apper and lower
Matalanes sounded much like the name Atlantis." ,
jaws. This could have been a hoax; it also could have
Additional details are given in Jim Brandon's book,
been the discovery of a'human anomaly, complete with
Weird America.20 :He notes that some of the walls are in
artifacts, from a. vanished race. of people unknown to
the Tilden Regional Park .northeast of the University of
modern anthropologists. 23
California campus. Some walls were destroyed during the
The Channel Islands. off California have their share of
. construction' of the park's botanical' gardens, but many
archeological mysteries, too,' which the enthusiast could
, sections remain: Most of the scientists who hav.e
link to Lemuria. L. Taylor' Hansen described some
examined. these 'walls have dismissed them as Indian game
remarkable finds made by Dr. David Banks Rogers,
traps, ignoring the fact that game could easily jump over
curator of the Santa .Barbara Museum' of Prehistoric
them. Another theory holds that th~y were used as
: Man. H;e found,: eviden2e that a' great cat~c1ysni of some
. livestock corrals, ~ut cattle could get over them almost as
. readily as game.
. . .
sort had destroye~ sections of land .W~ich once, extend'ed
100 miles. out'. to .sea but
which is now submerged.
';". " Do~~ ~. Viles, a~ Californi~. histo:rian, ,.s\igge:ste~.:
.
' . '" The

"",..ul' 92

..

...
.

'"

'

. S .coDd Q~a~~r 198.2

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .'1. . . . . . ..
._ l. . . .' . . . . . . . .~. . .,. . . .
1

(Continued
from page 73)
clips to the SITU offices in New
Jersey. Within an hour after the
first newsclip arrived, a letter was
on its way to Jon Beckjord, director of Project Bigfoot in Seattle
and considered the leading fieldinvestigator of Bigfoot reports in
the U.S. Northwest.
Beckjord responded with sharply
detailed photographs of ~asts made
from two different types of tracks:
one found near the reported sighting, the other a "toeprint". track
discovered a week later in a remote
area of the watershed. (See' pages
72-73.) Beckjord enclosed his caption
notes and a clip from the Sunday
Seattle Times of June 13 which
focused on details of the investigation in a news feature written by
William Gough of the Times staff.
Following are excerpts:

"(Wayne) Long said the foot"Wayne Long, almost convinced,

prints were 1 to 1 \1'2 "inches deep
said that though he is skeptical,
and the creature's strides measured
the h'acks left by whatever Freeman
6 to 8 feet between steps.
saw are 'awfully convincing. . . .
"The officials also conducted a
Something made them. I don't
test with a truck to determine how
think a man would make them.
much the creature weighed. They
They just went into the ground too
far. I've worked in the woods a .
placed a metal.plate in the shape of
one of the footprints on the ground
long time and I've never seen tracks
beside a footprint. Then, with the
like this before. I've seen lots" of
back wheels of the truck jacked up,
bear tracks, but nothing like this.'
about 5,000 pounds 'of pressure
. .."Beckjord added: 'It mighi be
from the' weight of the truck was
something really weird, such as an
applied to the plate. It,sank a half. alien, or it might be some type of
inch into the ground.
:.
'.. . robot, since the weight is beyond
"Beckjord seems convinced that
anything that could be biologically
Bigfoot is real. And he figures that
existing. Could it be, therefore,
the creature would have to be heav- . that Bigfoot might be some kind of
ier than 3,100 pounds; to leave' mechanical 'it'?"
footprints as deep as it did-a 2 \1'2*The "Beckjord method" of 'estimating the
ton animal stalking the deep woods
weight of Sasquatches was used to good
of the Northwest. 'This is an ineffect in his investigation. The method was
credible weight,' he acknowledged,
fully described in Beckjord's illustrated
but 'it indicates that whatever.: it . report to SITU, published in the Spring
\:Vas, it washuge.'
'
1980 issue of Pursuit (No. 50, pp. 67-71). .

date of the catastrophic submergence was estimated at

15~7000B.C.~

6. Mysteries of Ancient South America; Citadel Press, Secaucus, N.J.,

1974, p. 9.
.
7. Who's Who in America, Vol. X, 1918-19, Marqu.is &. Company,
Chicago, pp. 2011-i2. Details on Omitlan can be found in an unpublished manuscript by Niven which was lent to me through the courtesy of Dr. Gordon Ekholm, anthropologist, American Museum of
Natural History, New York, N.Y. Who's Who in America, Vol. XVI,
1930-1, p. 1661, gives added details about Niven.
8. Coe, Michael, Prof., America's First Ci\li/i~ation, American
Heritage Putilishing Co., Inc., New York, 1968, pp. 98-100. Beautiful
Olmec cave paintings dating c: 1000 B.C. were found in Juxtlahuaca
cave near Acapulco in the 1930s. They were declared to be Olmec in

The junction of the Klickitat :and Columbia rivers in

the state of Washington is the site of other puzzling ruins
which could be linked to the Lemurian mystery. According to an article published in 1881, Ii mysterious wall
was found by a T. M. Whitcomb. The wall is five feet
high and is a square enclosure filled with earth except for
two squares in the middle. The two square pits are eight
feet deep and 15 feet on a side. The structure is 200 feet
1966.
I
on a side. Evidence for a former superstructure of wood
9. Ives Washburn, New York, 19~3, pp. 228-261.
atop the stonework was found. Clues to the. age of the
10. op. cit.
.
site seem to be lacking, but the remnants of charred '
II. Anonymous, "A Mexican library 7,000 Years Old," Litemry
wood and' discovery of hundreds of stone arrowheads inl)igest, July 12, 1924, reprinted in Corliss, William R., Stf'fJnge Artifacts,
Vol. M-l, The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Md:, 1978, pp. 93-94.
side suggests that the building was attacked and burned,
12. Earll, Tony, Mu Revealed, Warner Paperback LibrarY,.New York.
but who the attackers were and who lost the attempted
'13. "Mu Exposed," a series of letters by anthropologists, appeared in
defense may never be known.2~
.
- Fate magazine, August 1975, pp. '111-115, after I had sent a letter to
We cannot be sure whether the many odd ruins that
editor Mary Margaret Fuller.
have been found along the American west coast are
14. Harper and Row, New York, 1976.
IS. Cooper, Vance, "Artifacts or Hoax'?" Fare, Jan. 1978, pp. 46-49.
remains of Lemurians or of another civilization such as
16. 'Wilkins, Harold, Mysteries of Ancient South America, Citadel
the legendary lost kingdom of Cibola which the Spanish
Press, Secaucus, N.J., 1974, pp. 104-5.
conquistadors so vainly sought. If Lemuria was real, it
17. Kolosimo, Peter,.trans. Paul Stevenson, Bantam Books, New .york,
probably was located elsewhere than along the western
1975, p. 60.
.
coast of the Americas. However, the Lemurians could
18. Morrill, Sibley S., "The Mysterious Walls of the Berkeley and
Oakland Hills," pp. 90-92, Pursuit, October 1972.
have had colonies wherever the artifacts seem to indicate.
19. ibid, p. 92.
My own theory about Lemuria will be' discussed in the.
20. E.P. Dutton, New York, 1978, p. 42.
last part of this report.
21. NEARA Newsletter (now Journal), Summer 1973, p. 33.
REFERENCES

I. Poznansky, Arthur, Prof., Tihuanacu, the Cf'fJdle of American

Man, J. J. Augustin, New York, 19451957 (2 vols.).

2. Lanning, Edward P., Peru Before the Incas, Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967.
3. Steiger, Brad, Atlantis Rising, Dell, New York, 1973, p. 171.
.
4 ..Kondratov, Alexander, The Riddles of Three Oceans,. trans. from
Russian by Leonard Stokalitsky, Progress 'Publishers, Moscow, 1974,
pp.66-7.
.
.
.
5. Wilkins, Harold, Secret Cities of South America, Rider &. Co.,
"London, 1956', p. 13.

SecOnd Quarter 1982

j."

22. ibid., p. 30.

23. Brandon, op. cit., p. 26.
.
24. The Anc.ient Atlantic, Palmer Publications, Amherst, Wis., .1969,
pp.69-74.
.
25. Whitcomb, T. M., "Aboriginal Works at the Mouth of the Kliki~
tat River, Washington Territory," Smithsonian Institution Annual Report. 1881, reprinted on. p. M2-206 of Corliss, William R., Stf'fJng~
Artifacts .vol.. M-l, The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Md., 1976.

'The third and final part of Jon Singer's article

'. !.-emui'ia will appear in the next issue.
.

011

Puniu,,93

~'

The Notes of, Charles Fort

Deciphered by Carl d. Pabst
ABBREVIATIONS

*
**
ab
Acto
A. J. Sci
(A 1)

Amer
An Phil
An Reg
Arcana of Sci.
BA
BCF
Belg.
bet.
Bib. Univ.
Bull. Soc. Beige
de Geol.
(C)
(C)

corr.
C.R.
D-7S
det. met.
disap.
Edin J Sci
Edin New
E.N.E. to W.S.W.
Eng
E. Siberia'
ext. obj.
(F)

F. 'ball
Gent. Magaz
Gt Brit
h
H House
Ind.
Inf. conjunction
(It)

J. F. Inst

For some obscure reason, Fort cut a notch on

the right side of the note.
For some obscure reason, Fort cut a point on
the left side of the note.
about
According to
American Journa[ of Science
[ ? Almanac? ]
, American
Anna[s of Philosophy
Annua[ RegiSter
Arcana of Science
I
Report of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science
The Books of Cluzr[es Fort
Belgium
between
Bib[iographie Universe[[e
Bulletin de' [a Societe Be[gium
de Geologique [ ? ]
[? ]
Cluzos [Fort's working title for New Lands)
correspondent
Comptes Rendus
The Book of the Damned, page 7~
detonating meteor
disappeared
Edinburgh Journa[ of Science
Edinburgh New Phi[osophical Journal
East-Northeast to' West-Southwest
England
Eastern Siberia
extraordinary o~ject
F[etcher's List
Fireball
Gentleman's Magazine
Great Britain
hours
Haunted House
Indiana
Inferior conjunction
Italy
,
Journal of the Franklin

Continued from Pursuit No. 56,

Vol. 14, No.4, Fourth Quarter,
1981, page 192. .

1824
Aug 17 I [London Times). 3-a I
(:omrie.
suinmer I 0-84 I Fish' I Fifeshire.
Scotland I Wernerian Nat Hist Soc
TrllI!s SIS7S.

**
Pur.~~~94

Insti~te

[BCF,p. 86 I See July, 1824.)

Aug 23 I Mendoza. Argentine I
Fir;ball and meteoric dust I ac to
Poggendorff I
[Reverse side) BA 60.

Jour. de St.
Peters bourg
Jour. Roy In~t Gt. Brit
(KBR)
lat
L.B.
Liv. Age
LT
Mag Nat Hist
Metite
mets
MWR
Myst dth
N. England
N.M.
NtoS.
N. W. Africa
Op. Ma~s
p.
phe
Phil Nat. Gazette
P Ladies
~op. Astro.
Pop Sci Rev
Proc. Amer, Phil. Soc.
q

Quar J!;lur Roy Inst '

Rept BA
S.A.,
Sc AqI Sup
Sci. Gazette.
Sumner Co./Tenn.
S'.W. toN.E.
th stone
Ih storm
u, S. Col. ,
V. Cardui
Vienna Museum of
Nat. Hist.
volc eruptions
W.l.
wrms
WtoE

Joumal de St.
Petersbourg
Journal of the Roya[ Institute of Great Britain
library call letters [ ? ]
latitude
Lady Birds
Living Age
Lond!;ln Times
,
Magazine of Natural History
Meteorite
meteors '
Month[y Weather Review
mysterious death
New'England '
No More
North to South
Northwest Africa
Opposition of Mars
page
phenomena
Philadelphia National Gazette
Painted Ladies
Popular Astronomy
Popular Science Review
Proceedings of American Philosophical Society
earthquake
Quarterly Journa[ of the Royal Institute
Report of the British Association for the
'
Advancement of Science
South America
Scientific American Supplement
Scientific Ga1.ette [ ? )
Sumner County, Tennessee
Southwest to Northeast
thunder stone
thunder storm
1Jnited States of Columbia
Vanessa Cardui
Vienna Museum of Natural History
volcanic eruptions
West Indies '
wonris
~est to East

the bog: According to another

cor., the highlands of the moors
had

'

[Second page] opened into two

chasms aild the phe. was the
effect of an earthquake. I This
muddy water was of volume_ so
Sept. 2 I 6 p.m. I In Leeds Mercury. Sept 11. a writer says a bog' great that factories along the
River Aire had to suspend some of
had burst and denies that the
[Reverse side] their processes. I
muddy deluge had come from the
~t. 18th, thilt the river remained,
interior of the earth. He says that
turbid for 10 days-then another
'more water,poured out than
flood of black, boggy water., from
[~everse side] the bog could ,have
contail)ed; so he thinks that a, heavy rains raised river 18 inches.
But th~e flows of
w~ters~ut ,must have fallen lIPon

[Third page] boggy water

never occurred before. Place was 9
iniles from Keighley and 6 from
Colne-known as Crow Hill.
Ground not described as a bog but ,
[Reverse side) as a moor saturated
with '.water so that it trembled
under foot., Water drained from 'it
in "small rivulets. I I The two
"chasms" about the same size
were, each ab 1200 yards circumference and 4 to 6 yards deep.
[Fourth page] Stones of "enor-.
, mous size" were carried by the
'torren~. (This by ihe writer who

denies that water came from inside'

earth.)
Sept. 2 / At Hawonh, near Leeds,
Yorkshire, during tho storm, two
chasms in a moor appeared and
[Reverse side] from it a mixture of
mud and water in a flood from 40
to 70 yards wide. / L.T., Sept.
9-2-e / Clouds copper-colored. At
Leeds the water of river Aire so
discolored by this mud that the
people could not use it.
Sept 3 / (Hun) / [London Times],
2-c / Fires aJld Storms in Hungary.
Sept 13 / St Petersburg / Fireball
in daytime / BA 60.
Sept. 24/ Meleda / 205.
[BCF, p. 395:
September, 1824-the sounds of
Melida.]
Sept / Pyrites / Orenburg, Russ. /

(94).

some days before Sept 16 / Near

Orenburg / Annales de Chimie
30-431///
[Reverse side] 8817.
[September] / Orenburg / Some of
these crystals are in the Vienna
Museum of Nat. Hist. / Sc Am
811343.
[BCF, p. 178:
We now have a commonplace
datum that is familiar in two respects:
Littl~, symmetric objects of
metal that fell at Orenburg,
Russia, September, 1824 (Phi/.
Mag., 4-8-463).
A second fall of these objects,
at Orenburg, Russia, Jan. 25,
1825 (Quar. Jour. Roy. Insl.,
1828-1-447).
I now think of the disk of
Tarbes, but when first I came
upon these data I was impressed
only with recurrence, because the
objects of Orenburg were
described as crystals of pyri tes, or
sulphate of iron. I had no notion
of metallic objects that might
have been shaped or molded by
means other than crystallization,
until I came to Arago's account of
these occurrences (Oeuvres,
11-644). Here the analysis gives
70 per cent. red oxide of iron, and
sulphur and loss by ignition 5 per
cent. It seems to me acceptable
that iron with considerably less
than 5 per cent. sulphur in it is not
iron pyrites-then little, rusty iron
objects, shaped by some other
means, have fallen, four months
apan, at the same place. M.Arago
expresses astonishment at this
phenomenon of recurrence so
familiar to us.)
Sept. 29 / Philippines / q / III /
[Heavy / B~ 1911].
Oct. 14 / Zebrak, Horzowitz,
Bohemia / Metite / (F).
Oct 20 / Sterlitamak, Russia /
iron pyrites in hail / BA 60.
Oct 20 / mets and hail / Nakratchine, Tobolsk / aerolites and .

Secou.. Quarter 1982

hailstones as large as
Dec. 15 / Magdeburg / Fireball / Feb 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22,
[Reverse side] goose eggs / Mag
BA60.
26,28/ Meleda / BA '54.
:
Nat Hist 7-304..
Dec 17 / Neuhaus, Bohemia /
Feb. 10 / (F) / Metite-Nanjemoy,'
Oct. 20 / Moon / 5 a.m. / by Ac to Boguslauski, a resinous
Maryland / A. J. Sci 9-351 / ab
Gruthuisen / On dark part of
substance fell
noon /
moon, an illumination from the
[Reverse side] after a fireball. /
[Reverse side] Concussions 25
Sea of Clouds to lat Copernicus /
BA60.
miles away / was thought an earthsaid be 250 miles [b]y 125 /
quake. / See 1829.
Dec 17 / Resin (?) / Bohemia /
[Reverse side] disap. / six minutes . D-75.
later, a pale light in southern
[BCF, p. 395:
[BCF, p. 74:
extremity [of] the region-then
The last sounds of Melida of
A resinous substance that fell
from 5:30 until daybreak, pulsawhich I have record were heard in
after
a
fireball?
at
Neuhaus,
tions like those of this earth /said
March, 1825 .. If these detonations
Bohemia, Dec. 17, 1824 (Repl.
be auroral /Flammarion, Pop.
did come from the sky. there was
Astro, p. 195 I. Sc Am Sup Brit. Assoc., 1860-70).]
something that, for at least three
7/2712.
Dec 23 At Strasbl!rg "an extra- years, was situated over, or was in
ordinary bellowing sound in the
[BCF, p. 395:
some other .way specially related
air" bet 3 & 4 AM. At 5 a strong
to, this one small part of this
At five o'clock, morning of
quake. BA '54. / [original note earth's surface, subversively to all
Oct. 20, 1824, a light was .seen
missirig / copied from The Forsupposed principles of astronomy
upon the dark part of the moon,
tean, no. 8, p. 16, C. I].
and geodesy. It is said that, to find
by Gruithuisen. It disappeared.
out whether the sounds did come
Six minutes later it appeared again,
1825
from the sky, or not, the Preteur
disappeared again, and then
of Melida went into underground
flashed intermittently, until Jan. 2 / 5 a.m. / Valderno, Italy /
caverns to listen. It is said that
5:30 A.M., when sunrise ended the ext. obj. / (3) / Sci: Gazette.
there the sounds could not be
1825/99 /
observations (Sci. A mer. Sup.,
heard.]
7-2712). And, upon Jan. 22,"1825, [Reverse side] BA 60-70.
again shone out the star-like light Jan 2 / Arezzo / Fireball / W to
March 2 / N. W. Africa / q. / III
of Aristarchus, reported by the E / 2 a.m. / BA 60.
/ [Heavy / BA 1911].
Rev. J. B. Emmett (Annals of
Jan. 2 / ab 5 a.m. / Tuscany /
Philosophy, 28-338).]
March 2-7 / Tremendous q's /
Great fireball and before and after
Algiers / An Reg '25-26.
Oct 26 / Philippines / q / III /
many. mets. /
[Reverse side] 7,000 bodies dug out
[Heavy / BA 1911].
[Reverse side] A. J. Sci 2/33/290.
of wreck of one town-preceding
Nov 13-14 / night / q and fire- Jan 2 / 5 a.m . .; Great abundance
. it all wells had gone dry. / BA 'II.
ball / BA '54-162/ at Mayence.
of meteor[s] / Italy / Ninure
Ap 17 / Slight quakes, Lunroe,
65-199.
Nov. 15 / Maninique / 3:30 p.m.
Norway / but great qs and volc
/ q / preceded by great heat which
Jan 2 / Morning shower of mets
eruptions, Java, Borneo, Celebes /
[Reverse side] ceased after shock, at Tuscany, Italy / Proc. Amer
BA54.
and heavy rain started and fell for Phil. Soc. 13-501.
May
9 / Wirtemberg / sic / /
10 days / BA 54.
Jan 13 / Maninique / q and great
Meteor "with detonation?" /
Nov. 16 / Bonn / Fireball /
heat up to moment of q. / BA 54.
BA '60-100.
BA60.
.
Jan 16/ evening / Oriang, India /
May 12 / Hayden, Wiltshire /
Nov. 27 / Prague / Fireball /
Metite / BA '60.
Metite? / BA, '60.
BA60.
Jan 17 / Bromberg / Fireball /
May 19 / 4 h / Venus / Inf.
Nov. 27 / Aerolite? / See BA60.
conjunction / (A I).
Nov. 29, 1809.
Jan 18, 21 / Iceland / q / 11 /
June 14 / Vole / Goentoes, Java /
Nov. 30 /. 3:30 p.m. / q. / Mar[Medium / BA 1911].
N.M. / C.R. 70-878.
tinique, preceded by great heat
Jan 19/ q - torrents / Violent q /
July 5 / (Fish) / During a violent
which ceased with shock / BA 54.
Ionian Islands / immediately
rainstorm at Kingwood, N.J., a
Nov 30 / Cosenza, Calabria /
afterward a heavy shower of rain /
sunfish
q followed by heavy rain "/ An. Reg 25-8.
(Reverse side] " inches long fell
BA54.
into a backyard. / Niles Weekly
Jan 19/ Sand-600 miles off coast
Nov. 30/ In Antilles / violent q. /
Register, Aug. 27.
of Africa / Gent. Magaz, March,
tremendous sound and torrents of 1825.
July 5 / Spain / "Perhaps hailrain though in dry season /
stones" / BA 60.
Jan
191
Greece
and
Albania
/
q
/
[Reverse side] C.R. 16-1292.
III / [Heavy / BA 1911] /
July 5 / (C) / Torrecilles de leal
Dec 6 / 2 p.m. / Shock / PonsSt Maura, Greece.
Campo, Spain / 2 p.m. / Many
mouth, England / An Reg '24-166.
stones fell-said
Jan 22 / Light near Aristarchus /
Dec 8, etc. / By Parry, in J /
[Reverse side] to have struck near
same as Kater's-by Rev. J. B.
a brilliant meteor / 7:15 p.m.,
2 horses in fields. / Phipson,
Emmett / An Phil 28/338.
Dec. 8 // Dec 9 / bet. 4 and
"Meteors," p. 44.
[BCF,
P
..
395/
See
Oct
20,
1824.]
5 p.m. / another // Dec 12 /
July 25 / at Marseilles / Comet
Jan' 24 / Konigsberg / Fireball /
5 meteors in 114 hour / / Dec 14 /
discovered in Taurus / L T,
BA60..
several // Parry, Journal of a
Aug 9-2-c.
Jan 24 / Oaxaca, Mexico / q. / I /
Third Voyage, p. 72 / (KBR).
July 28 / Cherson, Russia /.
[Light
/
BA
1911].
Dec 10 / Mans, France / Fireball /
Metite / BA '60.
BA60.
Jan 25(?) / Pebbles / Orenburg,
Aug 13 / by M. Hansteen / abo
Russia
/
94.
Dec 10 / [London Times] 1002-c /
II a.m. / ac fiel[d] of his telescope
13-2-e / q. / England.
[BCF, p. 178 / See September,
/a luminous point with a sinuous
1824.]
Dec 10-11 / q / Italy (Cosenza) /
(Reverse side] movem[ent) thought
.
II / [M~um / BA 1911]:
Feb 3 / Nurenburg / Fireball /
not been a meteor-may been
Dec 12 / By Parry, at Port Bowen, BA60.
a bird / Arago, Oeuvres XI/575.
in the Arctic / 5 mets in 114 hour /
Feb 4 / Cassell / Fireball /
Aug 22 / Fireball / seen allover
BA 76-152.
BA60.
Holland / BA 60.
..

Pursu.t95

air," bet 3 and 4 a.m: At 5,

a strong q. / BA 54.
[BCF, pp. 431-432 / S~ 18211/.)

lat~er part of Aug. / ab 11 p.m. /.

Holland / blue light in / LT, Sept
26-2-f.
Sept 10 / Liancourt, France /
Fireball/ 213 moon / N.E. to
S.W. /BA60:
. Sept 17-18 / night f. New comet
, discovered at Amsterdam, in
. Tauras / L.T., Oct 1-2-d.
Sept 20 / Hanover / Fireball /
BA60.
Sept 20 / q. / Trinidad / SA
'11/55.
Sept 20 / Trinidad, W.I. / q. / II"I
[Medium / BA 1911] ..
Sept 20 / Demerara / q and
sudden gust of wind / SA 54.
Sept 24 / Leipzig / Fireball /
BA60.
Setp 26 / 2:20 p.m. / Chile / q. /
A: J. Sci 2112/42O[or 426).
Sept 27 / Honolulu. .I (F).

1826

October / q / Persia / II /
[Medium / SA 1911).
Oct 17 / Prague / Fireball /
SA 60.
Oct 19 / Serlin / Fireball / BA 60.
Oct 22 / Hexter / Fireball /
BA60.
Oct 27 / Italy (Campobasso) / q /
I / [light) / SA 1911].
Nov. / Great met / Ohio / BA 60.
Nov. 3 / L.T., Nov. 30, 1825 /
Thionville, France / In a storm in
the forest of 'Calenhoven, a cloud
of fire that appeared in t[he) forest
and then traversed
[Reverse side] the horizon
from north to south followed by
.
profound dar-kness.
Nov 4 / Halle / Fireball. /
BA54.
N~v 9 / Pils / F. Sail/ [aA) '54.
Nov 14 / Leith / F. ball /
[SA) 54 .
Nov. 22 / A met train near the
comet at Calcutta / BA '50-120 /
EtoW.
Dec. 1 ./ Berlin / F. ball /
[BA] '54.
Dec. 1 / (Ch) / Luminous body,
size moon / Berlin / disap. / no
change place / C-30 + / Arago,

Oeuvres 21S75 / / /
[Reverse side) A 9[1] [stamped).
Dec.5 / q. / China / II [Mc;dium /
BA 1911] .
Dec 10 / Halle / F. ball /
[BA) '54.
Dec 10 / Cosenza, Italy / q. /
II [Medium] / SA '11.
Dec 18 / Frankfort-on-Maln /
F. ball / [BA] '54.
Dec 23 / 5 a.m. / q. / Strasburg,
etc. / "An extraordinary bellowing
sound
[Reverse side] had been hep'd in
the air between 3 and 4 a.m. /.
BA ',54. .
Dec 23 / At Strasburl, "an extra-'
ordinary bellowing sound in tile'

"

Jan 26 /' Albania / I / [Light

quake / BA 1911).
Feb I / In the Basilica[ta}, Italy /
q /ll / [Medium / BA 1911).
Feb 1 / aftern'oon / After almost
unbearable heat at Naples, etc.,
and smoke, several days from
Vesuvius, a q. /
[Reverse side) BA 54.
Feb 1 / Naples / Weather been
cold .and rainy, up to Jan. 29.' On'
first of Feb, .
[Reverse side) almost' unbearable
heat set in and smoke from Vesuvius and q that threw down
houses. / BA 54. '
Feb 1 / It / phe and q1 / See lB05.
Feb 14 / La Manche / F. ball /
[BA] 60.
F~b. 15 / (It) / Lugano, Italy /
det. met. / BA, '60.
Last of Feb or first of March /
Heavy rains and floods in Kansas /
MWR 34-579.
March / Fall of dust ab 600 miles
w. of Cape Verde /
[Reverse side) .Nautical Magazine
1-291.
March, end of / See June. /
, Papilio Cardui / Air at Turin filled
with them. Most numerous on 29th
of March. On
[Rever'se side) leaving Turin they
flew in a mass northward. / Bib.
Univ., Aug, 1827 / A. J. Sci
14-387.
March 31 / N. England / great
met / 7:30 p.m. / A. J. Sci
11/184.
March 31 / 7:30 p.m. / Ap 19 p.m. / New Haven, etc.-great
mets / one' a . delonating /
Am J. Sci 11/373 /
[Reverse side) right date / but
see 1837.
.
.
Ap 1 / Great met. / Vermont, etc.
/ Detonati.ons / abo 9 p.m. /
A. J. Sci 11/184.
Ap. 1 / Saarbruck / grayish
object / (D-275).

**
[BCF, pp. 287-288:
"Most extraordinary and singular phenomenon," North Wales,
Aug. 26, 1894; a disk from which
projected an orange-colored body
that looked like "an elongated
flatfish, '; reported by Admiral
Ommanney (Nature, 50-524); disk
from which projected a hook-like
form, India, about 1838; diagram
of it given; disk about size of the
moon, but brighter than the moon;
visible about twenty minutes; by
G. ' Pettit, . in Prof. Baden.. Powell's Catalogue .(Rept. Bril.
Assoc., 1849); very brilliant hooklike . form, seen in the sky. at

Poland, .Trumbull Co.,, Ohio,

THE HUDSON .RIVER
during the stream of meteors, of
MONSTER OF 1891
1833; visible more than an hour;
(A Fort Notes 'Special')
large luminous body, almost stationary "for a time"; shaped like a
Sept. 13 / [+) Troy / while
square table; Niagara Falls, Nov.
I hunting along Hudson River,
13, 1833 (A mer. Jour. Sci.,
near Albany, Michael Griffa,
1-~5-391): something described as
an Italian stC?rekeeper of
a bright white cloud, at night,
Troy, saw an animal swimNov. 3, 1886, at Hamar,
ming in tlie river. ,Shot it and
Norway: from it were emitted'
brought it to Troy. "It is (ab)
brilliant rays of light: drifted
2 feet long and its back is
across the sky:
"retained
covered with coarse hair. The
throughout its ~riginal form"
.
underside is the
(NatUre, DeC. 16, 1886-158); thing .
[Reverse side] color of human
with an oval nucleus, and stream- .
flesh and the features and
ers with dark bands and lines very
trunk bear a striking resuggestive of structure; New Zeasemblance to a female child.
land, May 4, 1888 (Nature, , . It has a well-developed chest
42-402); luminous objeci, size' of
and breastbone. There are
full mooil, visible an hour and
wings measuring 20 inches
a half, Chili, Nov. 5, 1883
from tip to tip, four legs, two
(Comptes Rendrls, 103-682); bright
fins and 'a tail somewhat reobjeCt near sun, Dec. 21, 1882
sembling a pig's. Several
(Knowledge, 3-13):' light that
doctors have examined i[
looked like a great flame, far out
[2nd page] but are at a loss to
at sea, off Ryook Phyoo,
place it. The monsirosity has
Dec. 2, 1845 (London Roy. Soc.
been placed in alcohol and will
Proc. , 5-627); something like a
be sent to the Smithsonian
giga"ntic trumpet, suspended, verInstitution in Washington.
tical, oscillating gently, visible five
[Reverse side) As it hangs
or six minutes, length estimated at
against the wall at . Griffa' 5,
425 feet, at Oaxaca, Mexico,
with the underside exposed,
July 6, 1874 (Sci. Am. Sup.,
the visitor is impressed with
6-2365); two luminous bodies,
the grotesque' human . feaseemingly united, visible five or six
lures." / Sun 14-3-2. /
minutes, June 3, 1898 (La Nature,
1898-1-127); thing with a tail,
out quick flickering waves of
crossing mopn, transit half a minlight" (Year Book of Facts; 1845ute, Sept.' 26, . 1870 (London
Times, Sept. 30, 1870): object four 278).)
or five times siZe of ~oon, moving
Ap. 5 / 6 a.m. / off coast of
slowly across sky, Nov. I, 1885,
Florida / Waterspout / A. J. Sci
near Adrianople (L 'Astronomie,
14-171.
'1886-309); large body, colored red, . A'p. 7 / [London Times], 3-c /
moving slowly, visible 15 minutes,
Aurora / Cupar.
reported by Coggia, Marseilles,
April
12, 13 / Moon / by Rev.
Aug. I, 1871 (Chem. News,
J. B. Emmett / near Borough24-193); details of this observation,
bridge, Eng / very conspicuous
and similar observation by Guilblack cloud
lemin, and other instances. by
[Reverse side) or cloudy appearde Fonville (Comptes Rendus,
73-297, 755); thing that was large /lnce / Annals of Phil 28/81.
Ap. 14/ 11:20 p.m. / Vermont /
and that was stationary 'twice in
great met / size of sun / A. J. Sci
seven minutes, Oxford, Nov. 19,
11/120.
1847; listed by Lowe (Ree. Sci.,
Ap. 21 / [London Times), 4-b /
1~136); grayish object that 1001!:ed
to be about three and a half feet
q / Tornea / Eng?
leng, rapidly approaching the Ap 29 / [London Times), 3-a /
earth at Saarbruck, April I, 1826; Comet at Palermo.
sound like thunder; object expandMay 4 / Op. Mars / (A 1).
, jng like a sheet (Am. Jour. Sci.,
May 15 / Jamaica / fireball-and
1-26-133; Quar. Jour. Roy. Inst.,
24-488); report by an astronomer, ferruginous mass found?" /
N, S. Drayton, upon an. object SA 67-415.
.duration of which seemed to .him May 17 / Granada, Spain / q. /
extraordinary; duration three-quar- 1/ [light / BA 1911]. .
ters of a minute, Jersey City,
May 17 / Bogota, U.S. Col. /
July 6, 1882 (Sci. Amer., 47-53):
violent q., up'receded by longobject like a comet, but with continued drought, and
.
proper motion of 10 degrees an
[Reverse side] immediate[ly)
hour: visible one hour; reported followed by very heavy rain /
by Purine and Glancy' .from' the BA54.
Cordoba Observatory, Argentina,
May 19 / (F) /. at Ekaterlnosloff I
March 14., 1916 (Sci. \)IImer.;
Stones feU.. Principal mas, in
115-493); something Iike:a signal
museum at OdeSsa. / BA '60..
light, reported by Glaisher, Oct. 4,
(To'be continued)
i844;' brisht as Jupiter, Usending

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary
and Treasurer; Trustees: Gregory Arend, Donald DeLue, pro. tem., Steven N. Mayne,
Nancy L. Warth, Robert C. Warth, Martin Wiegler, Albena Zwerver.

Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.
Dr.

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

GeC?rge A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, Paleo-Indian
Institute, Eastern New Mexico University (Archeology)
Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Brain Injured, Morton, Pa. (Mentalogy)
J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern
University (Astronomy)
Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University, Princeton,
New Jersey (Mathematics)
Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark,
New Jersey (General Biology)
Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta, Canada (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of
London, England (PhYSical Anthropology)
Michael A. Persinger, Professor, Department of Psychology, Laurentian University,
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada (Psychology)
Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State
University (Plant PhY"iology)
Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant, National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering, Vero Beach, Florida (Mental Sciences)
Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew
University, Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, D.C. (Geography and Oceanography)
.
Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
.
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT

Zoologist, biolOgist, botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other profesSionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the SOCiety.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. I, No. 4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids" -the attack on the f!\med
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

Prehistoric Nuclear Weaponry?

In the presence of the immense terror that I spread, like that of Anna, who holds his head high?
I am the master. The steep mountains of the earth are shaken violently from their peaks to their
foundations . . . . In my right hand I hold my disc of fire. In my left hand I hold my disc that
slays. I hold the raised weapon of my divinity, the fifty-spoked solar wheel. I hold the potent
breaker of mountains, the solar wheel which cannot be deflected. I hold the mighty weapon
which slays like a sword whole circles of warriors. I hold the fish with seven blades that makes
the mountains bow. I hold the flaming blade of battle that devastates the rebel country. I hold
the great sword which lays low the ranks of heroes, the sword of my divinity. I hold the deadly
lance which is the hero's joy. I hold the noose which catches men and the bow that shoots lightning. I hold the hammer which smashes the houses of the rebel country, and the shield. I hold
the lightning in battle, the weapon with fifty points. I hold the ... seven-headed like an enormous seven-headed snake. Like the attack of a great sea-serpent ... devastating in the shock of
battle, I hold the seven-headed weapon whose power extends across the sky as well as across the
earth. I hold the weapon that shines like the sun, like the god burning in the east. I hold the
creator of heaven and earth, the god of fire who has no equal. I hold in my right hand the potency of the weapon which spreads panic terror through the land, the proJectile of marble and
gold ... which works by the power of the life-giving god in his miracles. I hold the weapon like
. . . which destroys the rebel land, the weapon with 6fty points.

The original oj the above text appears In "Cune(form Inscriptions oj Western Asia" by Sir Henry
Rawlinson, published In London In 1866, reference number II, 19. SITU member George AndreUIS
translated It into English from the French translation which appeared In "La Mogle chez les Chaldeens" by Francois Lenormant, pUblished by Maisonneuve, Paris, in 1874.

,..

'Science is the Pursuit 0/ the Unexplained'

6

The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull:

.,

Ancient History or Modern Mystery?

See Strange Stories Locked in Quartz, Contents page, and
George Agogino's article, page 98.
Journal of SITU
The
Society for the
Investigation of
The Unexplained

Volume 15
Number 3
Whole 59
Third Quarter
1982

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
SITU (pronounced sit' - you) is a Latin word meaning "place." SITU is also an acronym referring
to THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPlAJNED.
SITU exists for the purpose of collecting data on unexplaineds, promoting proper investigation
of individual reports and general subjects, and reporting significant data to its members. The
Society studies unexplained events and "things" of a tangible nature that orthodox science, for
one reason or another, does not or will not study.
You don't have to be a professional or even an amateur scientist to join SITU.

MEMBERSHIP
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.
SITU welcomes members' participation. Articles, photographs, newspaper clips, book reviews and other
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audio tapes, films, photographs, drawings and maps, and actual specimens. Reasonable research requests will
be answered by mail but, because of the steadily increasing demands upon staff time, a fee for research will be
charged. Members requesting information should enclose an addressed, stamped e~velope with the inquiry so
that they may be advised of the charge in advance.
The legal affairs of the Society are managed by a Board of Trustees in accordance with the laws of the State
of New Jersey. The Society is counselled by a panel of prominent scientists designated the Scientific Advisory
Board (see inside back cover).
IMPORTANT NOTICES
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The Society's membership list is restricted to mailing the journal Pursuit and special SITU publications,
and as necessary to the administration of SITU's internal affairs. Names and addresses on this list are not available
for sale, rental, exchange or any use except the foregoing.
Contributions to SITU, but not membership dues, are tax deductible to the extent permitted by the U.S.
Internal Revenue Code, and in some states as their taxing authorities may permit.
PUBUCATIONS
The Society's journal Pursuit is published quarterly. In each year the issues are numbered respectively from
1 through 4 and constitute a volume, Volume 1 being for 1968 and before, Volume 2 for 1969, and so on. Reduced-rate subscriptions to Pursuit, without membership benefits, are available to public libraries and the libraries of colleges and universities at $10 for the calendar year.
The contents of Pursuit is fully protected by international copyright. Permission to reprint articles or portions
thereof may be granted, at the discretion of SITIJ and the author, upon written request and statement of proposed
use, directed to SITU/PURSUIT at the post office box address printed at the top of this page.

THE QUARTERLY
JOURNAL OF THE

J-t
.

ISOCIETY FOR THE

INVESTIGATION OF

. THE

UNEXPLAINED

'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

Contents

Strange Stories
Locked in Quartz

Page
The Crystal Skull: Fine Fake or Authentic Artifact?
by George A. Agogino

98

The Endless Procession

by John A. Keel

99

. Tracking the Yeti in the Snowfields of the Himalayas.

by Edward W. Cronin, Jr.
.The Tuscarora Mountain T-Birds
by Carl Larsen
Parting the Curtains of Prehistory for a Look at the Nether World
by Michael Baran
How Much Do You Know About UFOs? (A Quiz)
by Thomas B. Burch
.

From an unknown quarry at an

undetermined ancient time, a single
chunk of quartz crystal was unearthed
by workers of an unidentified race.
Shaped and polished by arcane processes which may have taken years to
complete, it finally had the size and
weight, the contours and configuration of a smali" human tiead. The
features given it were those of a human skull-the teeth full and flat,
not pointed; the lower .jaw made.
movable; the eye sockets deeply concaved to gather,. from within, both
random and directed light, to project
it frontward.
In a dimly lit cave or temple, its
eyes glowing with radiance mirrored'
upward through a hollow pedestal,
its jaws delicately pivoted to swing in
the slightest draft, the Crystal Skull
. appeared' quite able' to speak and to
see; once it had attained such phenomenal abilities, who would deny
that it could also bless and curse,
recount the past, foretell the future,
and do' whatever other biddings its
masters might contrive to inspire fear
and thereby encourage tile compliance
of a slavish constituency?
Its alleged' discovery or re-discovery
in J927 transformed the Crystal Skull
from talisman to art object. Its resurrection after many years only added
to the aura of its legendary powers.
Frank Dorland, an amateur archeologist, spent six years examining and
testing the Crystal Skull and found
that it still possessed incredible properties, both physical and psychical.
He reported:
"The first time I kept the skull in
my house overnight, my wife and I

100
106
~.

108
III

Theatrical Ghosts
by Frances Mary Moore

114

TI-Je Origins of Le~uria (Part Ill)

by Jon Qouglas Singer

117

A Treatise on Anti-Gravity and Light

by' Dr. Joseph L. In'telisano

119

Discovery of the Second Law of Gravitation

by Craig Gunnufson

120

Obesity and the Enterprise

by J. N. Williamson

122

Notes and Quotations on Thinking

by Richard L. Clark

126

High Hopes for a New-Age Pyramid

by' Fred Wilson

131

Further Notes on the Transformist Myth

by Dr. Silvano Lortnzoni

132

Darwinian Transformism: A Reaffirmation

by Neil M. Lorber

133

SITUations

- 135

Symposium

138

Letl:!rs

139

90\..lks
Ti"~ Notes of Charles Fort-Deciphered by Carl J.

140
P~bst

142

Cover: Artist's image oj the Crystal Skull by Michael Kyte

Pursuit Vol. IS, No.3, Whole No. 59, Third Quarter 1982. Copyright 1982 by The Society for the Investigation of The Unexplained. ISSN 0033-4685.
No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the Society. Robert C. Warth, Publisher; Frederick S. Wilson, Production
Editor; Sabina W. Sanderson and Martin Wiegler, Consulting Editors; Charles Berlitz, Resear~h Editor and Oceanographic Consultant.
o

were awakened by unusual noises, as

if a large jungle cat were prowling
through the house. This was accompanied by the sound of chimes and
bells. The next morn'ing, we found
our possessions strewn all about the
house, yet all the doors and windows
were still closed and locked from the
inside.
.
. by .G~orge A~ AgOgiDO
"The supernatural properties of
.. '
the skull are puzzling, but are very \
DESIRE to possess,the .wQrks
much in existence and are demonof art created by his.toric and/pr
strable to any sensitive person. The
prehistoric man is noni 'new one, but
s'kull exhibits and transmits to allof.
the number and variety:of'people eri. the five senses of the human brain;
g~ged.in collecting is :surely~growing.
it changes visibly in both coJOr. and
Artifacts are a "~ash: crop".':which
suppliers har~est, and thus. destroy
transparency, it exhibits its o~n" unmistakable odor when it cares..to~
archeolQgical sites of-all kinds to.
meet tlte demand. If the demand is
plants thoughts in viewers' minds,
makes .people thirsty, and impres~es
great enough ~d "the price is right,"
audible sounds on their ears. When a .; a spurious 'craft gUild; may develop,
sensitive person places his hands near
as cleyer counterfeitersmake and sell
th~ skull, distinct vibrations and
'fraudul'ent lartifacts. ':These .range
from Pale(}.-Indiap points to 'antique
energy are felt. plus the sensations of
either heat or cold, depending where . guns .and, .furniture. Of. all 'central
the hands are held.
. . and southern Mexican pottery sold in
"In all probabili~y. the skull was ; :huge volu~e ,to tourists as b~ing of
first carved' and put to religious use, ,.prehistoric manufactur.e, it has been
estimated thatless than five percent '
eittter by the people of Atlantis or by
tl:te. ancient Egyptians or Chinese., . 'is authentic .. I.n sales of Classic and .
early.post-Classic Anasazi,:,Mimbres transported to a Mayan ruin by otl1er
Later it was used by the Babylonian
priests .in religious' temples on the .: and Casas ,Grande pottery of the
aboriginal
Hill of Skulls, perJ'taps around the
:southwesi, Uni~ed States. fakes are
. The skull
... '
.
by Frank
year 1000 B.C. The Phoenicians
also commo~.
, an expert on rethen brought the skull from Babylon
While supplying collectors with
ligious items,
is the subject of a
to Central America where it was used .' ! genuine artifacts distorts 'any' inforbook 'by
Garvin. Since its
first :by ,the Mayans and then by the
mation ,which' might be left behind
discovery 55
ago, the skull has
Aztecs. Perhaps the skull spent some . and; at worst; destroys the total site,
reposed in
at the Bank of
time: at .Atlantis before being trans~', . salting, sites' with fakes ..or . implying
America in
fornia or at the Hyde
American' Indian in
pOl't~d to:Central.America.~'
!statementsithat they are:from.a parMuseum of
ticular period .or area also skews the
New York City.
, ,O'her speculations of many years,
agO' :center~ on' the skull's. "lost'~ . cultural picture. If it is. not possible
.' Its owner and discoverer, Anna
period. Writing in the JunelJuly 1969
.(hOw could it ever be?) -to checJc.each
LeGuillon Mitchell-Hedges, . is the
issue of Psychic magazine, J. J. Lamb
'allegedly aut~entic piece.in t.he hands
adopted daughter of adventurertheorized "that it might have resided
of collectors which is, reported to
archeologist Frederick MitchellilJ t.h~. LqndolJ 'temple of the Knights I have 'been found at site ~'x," the freHedges, an Atlantis enthusiast who
r~mpl~r prior to their fight with the
quency 'Ofl a' partiCular item or the -" was obsessed with his belief that
Atlantis was located off the coast of
Catholics just before the Holy Wars.
range of its 'occurrence may be badly
Descriptions of the inner sanctum of
misrepresented, thus complicating.the
Middle America. He spent years
working in British Honduras (now
the Knights Templar mention a head,
already difficult endeavor ofi describing the cultural provenience.
Belize) to find proof of its existence.
which is sometimes referred to as 'a
~rystal head with eyes that glow like
The Crystal Skull is im object of
His autobiography Danger Is My Ally
jewels.'"
beauty, surrounded by intrigue and
reports many of his flamboyant and
. On the cover, artist Michael Kyte
posi~g many questions. It. is a .single, i
often reckless adventures.
exotIC e~ample ~f a posslbly.lmporIn 1926-27, Mitchell-Hedges and
has pictured the kind of history the
t~nt. artIfact whIch could .. be of. re~l.
AnJ.ta worked at ~ub~ntu~, a ClassicCrystal Skull might reveal if we truly
knew' itk language.
.
~Ig!llficance! to Mayan~ archeol~gy 'I~: - period. Maya~ rum ID .Behze; 'On her
It Is,of,M~~an manufact~re,: or' to: , ' sevent~enth: blrthdaY,'1D 1~27. Anna
And in adjacent columns, George
Agogino chronicles the evidence, exother abongmal cultures -' If, It .'were
round the Crystal Skull whIle removpertly examines it, and after arguing
..
109 rock .from an overturned altar.
Dr. AgQgino, Professor of AnthroThe mandible was found three months
both sides of the questions, enters. a
plea of "no contest." .
pology . at Eastern New 'Mexico
(Continued on page 125)
What do you think?
University, is a member of SITU's
*Garvin, Richard, The Crystal Skull (Double-The editors
Scientific Advisory Board.
d~y, New York, 1973).
.

Yh'e:,;.Crystal Skull;

"Fine Fake or

Aut.hentic Artifact?

THE

Pur

't 98

Third Quarter 1982

Th'e Eiidless Procession

by d~ha A. Keel
preserved by oral tradition. When a succession of witnesses had reported essentially the same thing, often in
the same geographical location, generation after generation, the existence of the god or demon became an
established fact. Even the most hard-nosed skeptic regarded the cumulative testimony as empirical.
The gods of ancient India and Egypt undoubtedly
found life in this fashion, just as Ashtar and his cronies
fr~m outer space are now becoming. a part of our modern
culture; ..

J,une evening in A.D. 1430, four peasants

O
in the villa:ge of Jaen, Spain, witnessed a remark-.
able procession. From four separate locations they watched
N A WARM

an estimated 500 people parade.along dusty roads, led by

a tall, beautiful woman in a wh~te robe carrying an infant
in her arms. She wore a glowing ~antle ablaze with iri~
descent colors casting so much light it nearly blinded .'the
witnesses. The procession was headed by seven youngsters dressed in White and bearing 'white .crosses, .t:,ol.1o.wed.
by twenty priests marching in two rows, all chan~ing in..
an unintelligible: tongue. Hundreds of people swarmed
..... ' -The Propagandists
behind them with the inevitable hordes of barking dogs .
b~inging up .the rear.
!All .of the manifestations of the past have served one
The procession wound its way through the deserted
primary i purpose. They have advanced belief in some
theological or philosophical concept, and supported one
streets to San Ildefonso church where the glowing lady
of the .many frames of reference employed to hide the
ascended a silvery throne. Suddenly, at the stroke of midnight, the entire :mob vanished inexplicably, leaving the
real nature of the phenomenon from us. They engage in
four amazed peasants standing alone in the darkness. . what we .now call psychological warfare, and they have
There was not a !lingle footprint or trace of the procession .
: always exploited our eagerness to believe. The modern
UFO scene is a sociological minefield because it has proin the dirt along ~heir route.
ducedi a worldwide propaganda movement of willing
When they reported their strange experience, the four
evangelists advocating the existence of people from another
witnesses were subjected to weeks of questioning and
.investigation by civil and religious authorities. They had
planet" who altruistically intend to save us from ourselves.
all appareqtly se~n the same identical things and .their
The leading extraterrestrial proselytizers have not had
report led to the origin of a sacred cult that flourished in
direct .experience with the phenomenon themselves. Most
Spain for several centuries.
have not even.seen a 'funny light bobbing across the sky.
Nevertheless, they are convinced that there's someone out
According to ~he extensive records of the event, Qne
there and .they happily spend all their. time lecturing,
of the witnesses had heard a voice on June 7th and 8th
which whispered:' "Do not sleep and you will see good
appearing on radio and television, and making movies
advancing ,their ideas of the great benign invasion from
things." The procession appeared at 11 :30 p. m. on the
the cosmos. There are obviously many grave dangers' in
10th of June.
. . I
this kind of blind belief.
.
. Our studies of the UFO percipients and contactees are
Ghostly parades were not restricted to the fifteenth
century. In my own investigations I have heard many.
teaching us .that these encounters are more hallucinatory
bizarre tales from sincere witnesses describing gatherings..
than real, that some complex hypnotic process is involved,
of strange bein'gs on beaches and hilltops. There have
and that the r.eal phenomenon is hiding behinda carefully
engineered smoke screen of propaganda. Those funny
been mysterious convoys of automobiles lacing thrpugh
lights and their hypnotic waves of energy are part of
small towns in the wee hours, their drivers pale and seemingly entranced. In one case on Long Island, two witnesses
something that is related to this planet, and to us. But
reportedly saw "hundreds of dogs, all sizes and breeds"
"that something may 'be far beyond our meager powers of
blocking roads and converging on a field where UFOs
comprehension. Ther~ are forces that can distort our
reality and warp our fields of space aQd time. When we
had pr~viously been seen. Oddest of all, phantom' police
cars and men in police uniforms have appeared in remote
are caught up in these forces we struggle to fin" an
places, diverted traffic, and then vanished. Ivan Sanderson
acceptable explanation for them, and then the manifesand his wife were once detoured by a mystery man in a .
tations begin to conform to that explanation and so renaval uniform on a back road during one of their invesinforce it. Every few centuries, however, we abandon ~he
tigative sorties.
. old explanations and come up with new ones. Then the
In a simpler age the testimony of a solitary witness.' phenomenon obligingly tailors itself to those new beliefs.
was sufficient to launch a legend. The thousands of reThis .factor alone indicates that part of the phenomenon,
at least, is directly related to the humall psyche, and these
ligious miracles, so carefully investigated by r~ligious
authorities through the ages, were usually witnessed bYI ... ! ' events are! in .part the work of the individual and collecone or two people, most often small children.: It. is prob~'
li.vC! uhct:>Dsciousness. .
I
able that a large part of all mythology and folklore has
i. Unfortunately, another part .of the phenomenon. seems
(Continued on page 110)
a basis in fact; that a .few witnesses actuall~ saw (or
thought they saw) the gods or monsters. In the days beThe editors express their t~anks to John Keel for allowing
fore the printed and elec~ronic media, such inCidents were
Pursuit to pre-publish this chapter which he plans to
Source: Nuestro Senora de la Capilla, Madre, Patrona y Reina de Jaen
include in the contents of a forthcoming book.
by Vincente Montuno ~orente. published in Madrid in 1950.
.
I

Tblnl
. QalUtel'
. 1982

PUNu 99

,:;..... .lrackin9 the Yeti.

:

...

In: th'e Snowfields

~'Of the Hinial'ayas
.

1
1. . ";

'i.. ..

.::,
"

. ,

Copyright 1979 by Edward W. Cronin,

bY Edward w. Croilla, dr.

.,

',' ~

':) !oj, ,es! We have many kinds of wild animalS in these

!.o~~.. r;h~"'e a.~ bears. and ,!,usk deer. and yeti.. and
.}JJzn'das; and' leopards. and civets. and monkeys.', and
man,. many more..
."
-Arun villager
['.~' ,',

~"

'.

('.'

I- W:7IT~i '-'NONCHALANCE and' an almost' 'sta~ge~ing glib,,~ ness, a Lumdumsa villager answered my question
about the kinds of animals to be found in the local

\~~r~~~s; !r~~ ,part. of an i?terYie~ that we gave to ex-

pc;nenced'hunters to determme the extent' of their 'kIiow~t~.eJ ~bouf the; wildlife. Most such' exercises were duly
i~formative, enjoyable, and, after awhile,' actually boring
i.n . ~heir: repetitfon. But here, suddenly, without prompti~g ~f. any kind and with an unbearable confidence, this
ma~. iricluded the yeti as' just, one more species to be
fo~nd in' the Kasuwa! The yeti, that, mysterious, unknown. and monsterlike creature of radioactive excitement for all Westerners, was mundanely' relegated to the
status of a panda or a leopard-neither more nor less
interesting.
"
'j

r 'r .-: .

~:

'Por 'fouryears. Edward W.. Cronin, Jr., was chief scien-'

,tist iJf the Anm Valley Wildlife Expedition. This excerpt
from his book The Arun (Houghton Mifflin Company,
BOston. 1979) was printed in the December 1979 issue of
Defenders Magazine' of Defenders of WildIlfe' and is
reprinted here by permission of the author and the
publishers of Defenders.

Jr,

. Truth is a hard thing to com,e by in people. no matter

what their background, and there are few statistical techniques for weeding out the unintentional elaboration, the
~hite lie, or the unsaid thing. I came to put much faith in
the answer this hunter gave, as much because of the context of the question, as because of his unflinching expression. Often, if I asked directly about the yeti-sometimes as soon as I would mention it-the hunters would
either becpme cautious and unresponsive, or launch into
an obviously corrupt and grotesque tide in which the yeti "
had, if not supernatural powers, then at least the' intelligence and abilities_of man. In one story I remember,
the yeti used fire to cook his food and spoke a dialect of
Tibetan popular in the northern regions of the valley.
Some villagers 'have heard of the foreigner's
fascinatio~ for the yeti, and they are quick to take advantage, trying to please their way toward a few extra rupees
by demonstrating to the sahib their widespread
knowledge of yeti lore. But they do the same with many
other wild, animals, and hill people love the tall tale.
Lubricated with chang (beer) and warmed by a campfire
. at the end of th~ day, village hunters can tell delightful
storic:s about :bears that could travel great distances instantaneously, or hold' a threatening grudge toward a
specific individual and come out 9f the night, as if a
.ransparent spirit, to seek a murderous revenge. All
people fictionalize their wildlife, and there are certain
truths, about both animals and men, that can be explained only by such a license. Still, Kipling's Bagheera
does not mean that black leopards are any less real.

,'r"

.......,' I I .

Third Quarter 1982

Reports of the yeti have come out of the Hhllalayas

for almost two centuries. There is an eighteenth Icentury
drawing of the yeti in a Chinese manuscript on Tibetan
wildlife. The first West~rner to have published an account of the yeti was apparently B. H. Hodgson in (832.
Since then, over forty mountaineers, naturalists, and explorers, including such reputable genth~men as N. A.
Tombazi, Sir John Hunt, W. H. Tilman, Sir C. K.
Howard-Bury, and Dr. :Norman Dryhrenfurth: 'have
reported sighting the yeti or its footprints.
Several expeditions have been made to the Himalayas
specifically to look for, the yeti, as, for example, the
London Daily Mail Expedition in 1954, or the several
Slick-Johnson Expe~itions duripg the early 1960s. The
World Book Encyclopedia Expedition of 1960-61, led by"
the renowned Sir Edmund Hillary, included a team of.:
zoologists from a prominent American museum who
searched for evidence in the Everest region. All have
come back with evidence of one kind or another, and the
evidence has always been highly controversial.
The recent reports include a well-documented sighting
of footprints by a Polish expedition in 1974. In the sUqlmer of that same year, Lhakpa Sherpa, a young girl from
the Khumbu Valley, was attacked by a yeti while tending
a herd of yak and zhum. According to the official report
filed by the Nepalese police who investigated the incident,
the gir-l. was sitting on a big rock near a stream when she
heard what she took to be coughing. She looked around
and saw a huge black-and-reddish-brown, mpnkeylike
creature with large eyes and projecting cheekbones. The
creature grabbed her and carried her to a nearby
tributary of the stream; ~he was released, shocked but
essentially unhurt. The yeti remained in the area for thirty minutes or so, during wh.ich time, in an irrational
demonic rage, it killed two of 'her. yaks with punches, and
broke the neck of a third.
The primary question concerning 'such reports has
always been tlie reliability of the witnesses. Accusations
buzz like flies around the decomposing heap of the
evidence. The natives, after all, are not to be trusted because of their limited knowledge of zoology. Among the
foreigners, perhaps some were excellent mountain climbers, but how qualified were they to examine spoor or interpret visual sightings? Were they tired or in some way
affected by the high altitudes? Did the powers of
suggestion from a lengthy history of yeti lore convert
otherwise explainable circumstances into co'nfirmed ,yeti
reports? Are the reports. outright hoaxes, perpetrated for
publicity or fame?
None of these accusations appealS valid, given the
personalities and accomplishments of the witnesses. Local
villagers require no great scientific training to describe
the appearance of an animal. Many of the Westerners are
respected public figures with illustrious careers who
would have nothing to gain from further pu\:5licity. Many ,
are competent naturalists and rriountaineers familiar witli
the wildlife and field conditions in the Himalayas.
Typically, their own first reaction to their discoveries has
been to explain them in terms of exotic fauna, altitude
sickness, or atmospheric aberrations; and it is only after
discounting such possibilities that many witnesses are
willing to suffer the abuse and doubt that accompany the
'
, reports of a yeti.
Third Quarter 1982

On opposite page. the author ~tudies prints found next to tent.

He tried to follow the trail (above) from camp. but steep moun
tainsides ended the search soon after it began.

'Certainly sO!lle of the reports are ques~ionable, being,

too, vagu!= and.having too few details to make :any concret~, decisions. aut there is also the ines~apable logic thai'
even' if. alp.h~' fepor-ts are, inaccurat~ except Qne; ',hat one,
constftutes proof iliat the yeti does exist.
'
"
By now,' the reporte~ cases of yeti sightings 'or spoor
number! jn .' the ihousands; yet each year new reports:
receive conspicuous m~ntion in the popular pres~. There'
seems no end to the yeti lore, nor to its universal appeal.
For a hypothetical creature of ifs and may~es, the' yeti
holds a disproportionate, part of the publi~ attention'.
Everywhere, it touches a ,sensitive nerve, as if there were
something, there we, were trying to remem.ber~, or f!3rget.
If, for a moment, we put aside the, Question of" its
zoolog~cal ~~lity, the yeti as a phenomenon ~~ke$ ~,q~
triguing statement about man; ,
, , " ,,' ,~', ...
Obviously, the interest, in part, has io do with the'
very mystery and" controv~rsy surrounding Jhe y~ti. J,t
captures 'the imagination in a way that only a manlike
form can do. The immediate sensation that' it creates is ,_
welcome counterpoint to t~e grim reality of 'war, fam,ine,
and politics ~ tha~' normally ccin~umes, ou~ I z:n.edi~: )fJB:SN
tabloids trea~ it as a F:ranke...stein mqnster.!~n~r~tC:':t:ll}.e
Abominable Snowman. Movies make it into a' vivid
nightmare, something to frighten the audience and
enhance box-office receipts. While the instituti~ns' they
work for maintain 'a dignified silence, inside the
mausoleums the scientists endlessly argue the pros and
cons for its existence.
'
:.
In' part, also, the interest has to do with the creature
itself. If there really is an unknown anthropoid of .the
yeti's description alive today, it must be a close relative
from our distant and forgotten past. Man's tore~ost J~.,
teres! 'is man, and the yeti would lle the most. significant.
zoological' and anthropological discovery of the, century,
'offering comparativ\e insights into our 'own development,
'behavior, and prehistoric' society. It would not be just
an'other fossil ape, but a living, breathing creature that
we 'COUld study in the flesh. '
Pureult lei

, The greatest part of the fascination, however, has to

do with what the yeti represents emotionally. The yeti is
the ultimate ancestral myth. In today's science-oriented
society, people who depreciate myths are guilty of a k~nd
of scientific superstition themselves-the belief that
sCience can explain the universe. We have gone from a
mythological explanation of the world that was comprehensible to all, to a scientific explanation of'the world
phrased in' terms of quantum mechanics and the theory.
of relativity, that is comprehensible only to the most
isolated specialist.
Myths are the public dreams. They are the display
panels, of the human psyche and represent the vehicles of
communication between our collective conscious and unconscious. The gnawing interest in the yeti might be that
it touches on one of the most sensitive aspects of man's
involvement with the universe: What makes hin;J unique?
What separates man from the animals around hirp? What
is ,man? The yeti, half man, half ape, raises this elen'l.~ntal
question in a more than allegorical way, while science has
only confused the distinction; and the layman has been
left in a vacuum of nonsense definitions about tool-using
and social communication. ..
. . . i _. :
Possibly the yeti holds the answ~r for. that distinction
and will set to rest, once and for ai', our agony of selfevaluation. Indeed, the yeti might be so serviceable to our .
emotions and science that we should hope that it does
exist.
_ Prior to the expedition's entering' the field, Jeff McNeely and I had made as thorough' as possible an.
examination of the evidence for the yeti's existence. The
literature was extensive, scattered in both the most obscure and .most prominent scientific journals, and it included 'several books wholly devoted to the suqject. It

became an absorbing pastime for us, something to occupy evening hours when we were too tired to study more
exacting subjects. We were not at all serious about actually finding it, and although we mentioned the
possibility to several sponsors" we fully recognized its r~1
unlikelihood. Oddly enough, sponsors often wanted -to
talk more about the "yeti than our scientific or conservation goals. Having not yet traveled in the Himalayas,
or come to know the people, it was a subject that one
could be 'playfully seriou~ about. 'From the narrow streets
of civilization, it seemed altogether too incredible. too
fantastic. and too much fun to be ignored.
Based on the .various eyewitness reports, a detailed'
description of the yeti can be constructed. Its body is.'
stocky, apelike in shape, with a distinctly human quality
toi~; in.contrast to that of a bear. It stands five and one
half to six .feet .tall and is 'covered with 'short, coarse hair,
reddish-brown to black in color, sometimes with' whi"te
patches on the chest. The hair is longest o~ th~ shoulders.
The face is robust, the teeth are quite large, though fangs
are not present, and the mouth is wide. The shape of the
head is conical, 'with a pointed crown. The arms are long,
reaching almost to the knees. The shoulders are heavy
and hunched. There is no tail.
One of the most remarkable aspects of these descriptions by. the various eyewitnesses is their consistency;
each one describes essentially the same creature. Those
reports that can be considered reliable do not' depict
strange colors, unusualgrowths of hair, fangs" extraor": .
dil')ary proportions, or any of the likely elaborations that
one would normally as.sociate with a monster story.

Man'

Dlffetences In size and configuration are shown by these

drawings In scale of typical footprints made by the
Himalayan black bear (hlndpaw), a large man, and the
mountain gorilla.
Fourth drawing
Himalayan Black Bear
I shows' ..the Irreg ular arrangement
I
of larger an~
smaller toes and
the broad, round
ileel which most
sources say are
: characteristic of
: the yeti.

lllullr.tlons
<ounny 01

~mln"
masazl ....

Third Quarter 1982 .

Pursal,102
~

___ _________________

____

____________r.____

""_'''''!''''''I''''''~.''

Rather, the reports show an undmny zoological expertise

in their portrayal of a creature that is exactly what', a
scientist would expect.
The behavior described in the visual sightings is even
more familiar to the scientist. Recent field studies in
Africa by George Schaller, Jane Goodall, Dian Fosey,
and Vernon Reynolds have built a substantial body of.
data on the natural behavior of wild apes. Local villagers
and Western observers could not possibly anticipate these
findings, but they describe the yeti's behavior with details
that are easily recognized as' displacement' conflicts,
aggressive posturing, and social interactions ,as we 'now'
know them to be typical of wild apes. The reports seem
too good, too accurate, not to be true.
. .' , ' )'''1' .
Although the sightings must be' taken on faith, .the
photographs of yeti footprints contribute concrete.,data.:'
The most noteworthy discovery of footprints,)vas made,;'
by Eric Shipton and Michael Ward during, ,the 1951",
British Mount Everest Reconnaissance. The prints were
made on a thin la:yer 'of crystalline snow lying 'on 'firm '
ice, indicating that little erosion. or melting had occurred.
The photographs are exceptionally ,clear and sharp, thus
enabling definitive comparisons to be made.' ,{'
",.
The yeti's foot is large, some twelve and a half inches' ,
long by seven and a half inches wide, 'with the heel neatly
as broad as the forepart. A conspicuous humanlike arch "
is absent. The 'great toe, or hallux, is quite large,. with the.
second . toe the longest and relatively thin, .while the
remaining three toes are short, stubby and united toward.

their base. The hallux is separated from the second toe in

an' opposable manner that is more like the thumb on a
human hand 'than the big toe on a human foot, and
suggests a more primitive condition than that of modern
man. These photographs have since become the "type'
.
specimens" of yeti prints.
Possible identifica,tion of the yeti footprints as those
of a known creature ranges from bears, snow leopards,
wolves, eagles, and langur monkeys, to the barefoot
man. Shipton's yeti prints are too large, the hallux is too
opposable, and the heel is too broad for us to accept a
human foot as its author. The prints are also too large to
be that of any known species of monkey; the entire
musculature is different, and the width/length ratio of,
for example, a langur foot is on the order of 25 percent,
while the yeti print is more than 60 percent, making even
a giant 'mon~ey foot too narrow to be considered'.
Hypotheses' that entertain the possibilities of snow
leopards, or wolves (which have nearly round prints) and
eagles' (which have four narrow toes arranged in a
palmate 'structure) are really more the property of the
sensational press than a serious investigation.
Bears, because of their size, habits and habitat, are the
most .likely candidates. Several 'forms of bear are known
to inhabit the higher Himalayas, including the "blue
bear" (Ursus arctos pruinosis), the "red bear" (Ursus ar-

'Y~ti'

Mountain ,Gorilla

Thll'd Quartel' 1982

Pursuit 103

CUM isabellianus), and the Himalay~n "black bear"

(Selanarctos thibetanus). During the expedition's stay in
th~ Arun Valley, we encountered numerous bear prints
which the local villagers would occasionally identify as
yeti prints. But the prints of all three forms of bear invariably showed the equally sized, symmetrical
arrangement of toes typical of the .group. In contrast,
Shipton's yeti prints show distinctively larger and smaller
toes, arranged in a characteristic asymmetrical" pattern.
Further,: bear prints typically have a narrow; drawn-out
heel, while Shipton's photograph shows with exceptional
clarity a broad, rounded heel. t;
. Shipton's photograph is in fact so detailed that the
movements of the foot can be ascertained. Like the
hominid foot, the prints have the deepest impression
along the outer side of the back of the heel, where the
foot first touches the ground; the' next deepest impressions are along the inner side of the hallux, which is
used to propel the foot forward. Such details are known
from criminological studies a.nd strongly ,suggest that,
like man, the yeti uses bipedal progression, that is, walks
on two rather than four feet. Shipton himself commented
that the series of yeti prints he discovered appeared to be
'
.
made by a creature walking bipedally.
Bipedalism in the yeti seems to have: .aroused the
greatest controversy and is a source of disbelief a~ong
skeptics. It is. often thought by the uninforme!i. that
bipedalism is unique to man among the primates, but in
fact it is by no means rare among apes. Gibbons, the
most arboreal of the apes, consistently walk upright when
on th~ ground. Adriaan Kortlandt found that the chimpanzees he was studying walked bipedally.for 10 ~o 15 .
percent of the distance they covered. George Schaller has
shown that gorillas occasionally revert to bipedal
progression for short distances when traveling through
wet vegetation, apparently to keep their hands dry.
Bipedalism is not even a recent adaptation. of the apes.
According' to David Pilbeam and Elwyn Simons, '!The
Miocene apes and their Oligocene ances'tors probably
~ho~ed a high degree of trunk erectness and, doubtless
spent much 'time walking or running bipedally .either. in
trees' or on the ground." A particular bit of damning
evidence against the skeptics has been 'discovered by Sydney Britton of the University of Virginia, who found that
captive chimpanzees he was. studying walked bipedally
when there was snow on the ground, probably to keep
their hands from getting cold. In careful analysis, it not
only seems possible, but altogether likely that an ape
would use .bipedal progression when traversing the high
snows o( the Himalayas.
. Another point of serious controversy between the advocates and the skeptics has been the supposed yeti
scalps. Several monasteries in the Khumbu Valley are
. known to keep what are purported to be yeti scalps. The
expedition that was sponsored by the World Book Encyclopedia managed to borrow one from the Khumjung
monastery. It was taken directly to museums in Paris,
London and Chicago, where zoologists examined it
carefully, comparing it to the skins of knownJIiip.alayan
animals. The verdict of the experts: a fake made from the
skin of a serow (goat antelope).
. This judgment was a terrible disappointment to many.
believers in the yeti. They realized' that .photographs a'nd
even the most detailed reports might never establish

't 104

Pur

anything .. Only a solid, incontestable piece of evidence,

such as teeth, bones or skin, would resolve the question.
That the first piece of "hard" evidence examined at a
museum should turn out to be a fake was a shattering
blow to many.
.
. But the verdict was not unanimous. Dr. John Hill at
the British Museum' pointed out that the hairs from the.
KI:tumjung scalp had a simian quality despite their grass
resemblance to serow hairs. Comparing the granules of
pigment in the hair; he detected a symmetrical arrange. ment quite different from normal serow pigIDents. In addition, ectoparasites from the scalp were also strangely
different. According to Hill, the mite ectoparasites
recovered from the scalp were unusual in respect to their
sculpting of the cuticle, the arrangement and conspicuousness of hairs, and the size of limbs,. Such ectoparasites are normally very host-specific, and it would
be highly unusual to find non-serow mites on a serow
skin. Either the serow population in the Khlimjung area
had unique ectoparasites, or the scalp was not serow.
Also, the very identity of the scalp was in question. In
their excitement .in getting the scalp out of Nepal to
where it could be tested, the scientists from ,the expedition failed to mention:some important qualifications.
The scalp was known to be at least several hundred years
old, and none of the 'Sherpas alive at th!= time could,
realistically, vouch for its authenticity. In fact, several of
the Sherpas had insisted from the beginning 'that the
Khumjung scalp was a fake, made in imitation of the real
yeti scalps. found at other monasteries to enhance ,the
reputation of the Khumjun'g monastery. Such a scalp was
considered a powerful talisman by the' villagers, and a
, necessary item for the religious ceremonies and spiritual
powers of any monastery.
In reviewing' yeti, literature, it becomes increasingly
obvious that the biases of the scientists involved, rather
than any inductiv.e logic, determine the interpretation of
.the data. Responsible authorities operating with the same
evidence reach completely different conclusions. One
notable scientist who visited the H'imalayas stated flatly
that, bas~d on his discovery ,that known animal tracks.
can be melted by the sun into facsimiles of yeti foot. prints, "the yeti does not exist." Not only is it a doubtful
accomplishment to recognize that snow melts; it is also a
serious insult to logic, ideally the tool-in-trade of the
scientist, to assert that an unknown thing does not exist.
Comparison of the evidence for the existence of the
yeti with the accepted scientific ideas reveals the even
deeper dilemma of the fin~ distinction between empirical
evidence and fact. Fossilized material is a ,significant part
of modern scientific dogma, used in supportive argument
for everythi1Jg from systematic evolution to the ecology
of 'dinosaurs. But fossil r~ords are the rock molds left
after bone material dissolves and, in that sense, are
analogous to the snow and mud molds left'by the yeti's
feet. By studying a few fragments of fossilized bones,
paleontologists are able i6 construct a specific account of
,an extinct creature's general. morphology, 'ecology ana
I?ehavior. These accounts are highly theoretical constructions, yet we still rely on them. The yeti, by comparison,
has been seen,' for lengthy periods, on, numerous occasions, in n1any different areas, by dozens of people.
What is it that makes us so reluctant to credit the reports
of the yeti? 'Even at this late date, we seem hindered by a

nird Q..arte~ 1982

Author's photo of one of the

prints which Sherpas on the
Cronin expedition Identified
as yeti prints. "Each of the .10.
15 clearest Impressions was
about 9 Inches long by 4'A
Inches wide. The length of
the stride was less than 12 In
ches along the trail between
two tents. Indicating that the
nocturnal vlldtor had walked
slowly and cautiously while
" In the camp area.

conservatism and parochialism that do disservice to the

potential of science.
'
Any creature existing today must have had ancestors,
and it may be that the antecedents of the yeti can be
found among the known fossil forms. Numerous '"
possibilities are mentioned in the literature, including
Oreopithecus, Austra/opithecus robustus, and Homo
erectus, but one in particular, "Gigantopithecus, seems
especially likely. Remains of Oigantopilhecus have been
found in the foothills of the Himalayas, riot far from
where many of the modern sightings of the yeti have oc
curred. Other remains have been found in Kwangsi
province of southern China, in~icating an extensive range
throughout South Asia. The dating of this material is as
early ~s nine million years ago, and as recent as 500,000
years ago, or middle Pleistocene age, which would make
it a contemporary of Homo erectus.
GigantopithecUs's size and 5hape are what make "it
such a likely candidate, for it closely resembled the
description of the yeti as"given by eyewitnesses. Based on
the remains discovered so far, it was a large ape, and undoubtedly had the large jaw and teeth mentioned in yeti
descriptions but, also like the yeti, lacked conspicuous
fangs or elongated canines. Also, the large mandible of
Gigantopithecus meant extensive jaw muscles. In apes,
this is often associated with a tall sagittal crest, which is
required as an attachment point for these muscles, and
Third Quartel' 1982

would exactly duplicate the pointed head so consistently

mentioned in the sightings of the yeti, and observed in
the scalp. In contrast, man has a relatively weak jaw, few
jaw muscles, and thus, their attachment is confined to the
side of the head; there is no sagittal crest, but rather the
round smooth surface that "marks the human skull.
There are ecological reasons to support GigantopithecUs. It probably came in contact with evolving
man in India, and there would h"ave been strong competitive pressure between them. A basic principle of
population biology, the Competitive Exclusion Principle,
states that whenever two allied forms have a similar
range, niche, behavior and ecology, one will invariably
gain a selective. advantage over the other and soon
displace it: The less-successful form either becomes extinct or is forced to migrate.
During the middle Pleistocene age, man had already
learned about fire and had an extensive use of stone,
bone and wooden tools .. Giganlopithecus was found in
association with a mixed habitat-forests, open areas and
areas" transitional between the two-indicating sufficient
behavioral flexibility to invade new habitats, such as
those of t!'le higher mountains. While man would have
been a powerful, almost o"vel-whelming competitor
against such allied forms as Gigantopilhecus, Giganlopithecus would have ha~ available to it a mountain range
(Continued on page 128)
Pursuit 105

The Tuscarora Mountain

. T-Birds
T through Pennsylvania - folklore
for more than a hundred years, and
HUNDERBIRDS

HAVE

SOARED

there is some recent evidence for ihe

possibility that the legendary big birds
have not yet flown the coop.
Although rural rumor (e.g.; "Hey,
my cousin knows a guy who had a
friend who saw one!") ~il northcentral Pennsylvania would place the
Thunderl:iird population equal to that
of the American Cow, few eyewitness,

reports have surfaced since the 19691970 flap of sightings in the mountainous region around Jersey Shore,
Pennsylvania. But on Aligust 8, 198J,
a pair of giant birds nearly collided
with an automobile on Tuscarora
Mountain, 25 miles from Harrisburg,
the state capital. .
The occupant~ of the car, Leverne
and Darlene Alford, contacted me the
following day through a mutual
friend. I interviewed them, and they
supplied the accompanying sketches
and, later, a Jetter confirming some
of the details of their sighting.
The Alfords seemed to be san~,
middle-class, responsible people, both
in their early thirties. Leverne works
as a counselor at a youth development
'center, and Darlene is a housewife and
former counselor at the same agency.
Their close encounter-they came
within two yards of a collision-with
a pair of unidentifiable and oversized flying creatures left them un, derstandably curious. Few birds of
flight leave one with the impression
that they were "awesome" or "overwhelming."
For some basic background and/or
speculation on Thunderbirds, see
Pursuit, Vol. 5, No;. 2; Vol. 8, No.2;
Pursait 106

by Carl Larsen

those of us who delight in possibilities

but remain skeptical. (See Jung, see
Fort; see the St. Louis Cardinals
going en mass from first to third in
the last World Series.) Estimated birddimensions increased with time, then
began to shrink with the advent of
handy, measurable environmental
yardsticks like roads, and shadows
thereon.
From interviews with witnesses in
three separate cases, we can narrow

Strictly speaking, birds like

these could not exist in north~
central Pennsylvania or else-.
. where on this planet in this
day and age. But the witnesseS
do not doubt what t~ey saw,
and their answer to the skeptics
is a smile and just two words:
''They're here!"
,

and Vol. 9, No.2. As noted therein,

the late Robert R. Lyman gathered
dozens of published sightings dating
back as far asI845. His pair of books,
Forbidden Land and Amazing Indeed, cover a multitude of Pennsyfvania anomalies and are still available
from The Potter ~nterpdse,. Coudersport, Pa. Other references are published in the Corliss Sourcebook eittitled Strange Life.
Legends of the Pacific Northwest
Amerindians tell of Thunderbirds
plucking whales from the sea and
depositing s~arred carcasses in the
treetops. Sliding- across the ages from
totem to Tuscarora is easy enough for

the T-bird wingspan to somewhere betweeit15 and 25 feet. That exceeds the
Andean Condor by at least half, and
the lack of distinctive coloration
(wingtip, ruffle) seems to rule out
t.his largest existing cruising predator.
So keeping- in mind what has, to date,
ornithological credibility, let's consider the incredible. .
.
Tuscarora Mountain winds discretely around the bottom of the
Allegheny Plateau, a 200-square-mile
'wrinkle stretching from Harrisburg to
'. Lake' Ontario. A century ago, timber
from. this vast Black Forest region
turned north-central ,Pennsylvania
into the lumber capital of the world ..
MillioQs of yards of. trimmed trees
toppled . yearly and clattered down
sluices into the Susquehanna River,
to be gathered and bound at the lqcks.
Eventually, the industry moved on to
more accessible woodlands: Left were
three million square acres of forest
that even now are sparsely populated
and have enough room between the
bordering mountains to provide a
sanCtuary for even the shyest of
feathered friends.
On August 8, 1981, Leverne and
Darlene Alford left their home in
_Carlisle, Pa. Their destination was
Lock Haven, 75 miles to the north,
. where they would visit the home of
a well-respected local lawyer (the
"mutual friend" who brought about
our contact).
I

Third Quarter 1982

The most direct route was via State

pressions of eyes or feet on the two
Highway 74 which winds over Blue
beasties.
,
Mountain and Limestone Ridge 'be- , The sincerity of the two reporters
fore it crosses Tuscarora Mountain. , was as convincing as all other aspects
of the unusual sighting. They had,
An early morning fog had drif~ed into
the, valleys but it began to clear as
and haye, nothing to prove or ,gain
the Alfords ascended and neared the
from it. Discussions with other birdtown of Ickesburg.
I I
sighters, although based, on encounAt approximately 9:30 a.m. they
ters that had taken place in the 1969approached- a large pile of rocks by 70 fhlp, only'confirmed or added defthe side of the road, known locally as
inition to the Alfords' story.
a favorite nesting place for rattlesnakes. Leverne suddenly veered the
car as he took sight of two giant birds
scrambling for safety, urged on by,
the threatening noisy approach of'
a steel-clad monster. Like 'planes on
the ~eck of some nightmarish aircraft
carrier, the birds rumbled down the

'and why so many of the scientifically

sanctified manage to locate tidier
corners of the dusty universe in which
to ply their trade.
Another survivor of the decade-old
flap is Anna Mincer, ~who earned the
monicker "Bird Lady" by publiCly
admitting that she saw what she saw.
In a telephone interview, she recalled
her first Thunderbird sighting.
She and her late husband were in
their b~,ck yard, which reaches down
to the bank of the Susquehanna River.
It was ,a morning in 1969, and she
c;learly remembers the shadow that
passed overhead and caused her to

'--------------,---------------------

..

----~-~

--------------------------~~/

/-;.//'

"fAIL

highway in front of' the car, gaining

speed for a takeoff. Six feet before
the point of collision, the nearer bird
In the spring of 1910, Susan Dolan
began to pull away.
During an interview the following . was driving the family Jeep along a
wooded stretch of Clinton County
day, Leverne estimated that the birds
road. The time was shortly after midstood three feet from tail to beak,
and that their wingspan covered the day, and the sun was peaking. From
entire IS-foot width of the highway, the trees to her left, a "thing" arose
lane. But it wasn't size that impressed 'and seemed to hover over the moving
vehicle before disappearing over the
him the most.
treetops. She was startled. The thing,
"They didn't seem to have any feathers," he said. "They looked like
had caused considerable swaying and
they were covered with skin. I imcommotion among the trees.
mediately thought of those prehistoric
Mrs. Dolan, a graduate of the University of Michigan and an outdoors
birds.'"
,
,
"They were both about the same
enthusiast, ,~tated: "It was huge. It
blotted out the sun. The shadow covsize," he recalled, "with long necks
ered the road from side to side." The
curved in an S-shape. They were dark
gray in color, with rounded beaks."
paved portion of the road, as meaAs the strange birds rose and flew
sured, is 25 feet wide.
directly above the highway, the AI"My husband and I have hiked all
through these mountains, and I have
fo~ds followed for half a mile and
identified birds from robins to eagles;
Darlene was able to observe them in
But we've never, seen anything like
full-flight configuration from the
this," she said.
passenger side of the car.' She later
drew the "bottom view" sketch and
Familiar with the local Thunderinked-in Leverne's penciled profile.
bird tradition, Mrs. Dolan related
The birds were in view for about fifthe story to her family when she got
home-with predictable results.
teen minutes before they hact gained
, Which is one reason why more exenough altitude to disappear from
traordinary events are not reported,
sight. The Alfords retained no im-

Thin! Quarter 1982

~
.-/"'/'

glance up, then exclaim to her husband: "Look at that airplane!"

"Hell, that ain't no airplane,"
he replied. Whatever it was in the
sky, it was the size of an airplane
but as soundless as a cloud.
"It was mammoth. Very dark colored, ,nearly black. And it flew low
enough for us to see that the claws
were as big as my husband's handand he was a big man.;' Anna paused.
"It seemed to soar along on the air
currents. Then it would circle, and
move back toward the mountains. "
They, saw what looked like the same
bird later that day, and ,on several
occasions the following year.
Awesome? Huge? Mammoth? Perhaps the Black' Forest of Pennsylvania harbors a Loch Nessian nest of
Pteranodons. Out of circulation a
mere 65 million years, those leathery
winged prototypes of the hang glider
had a counterbalancing crest on the
head that matches the Alford sketch,
and were of comparable size.
Whatever the cause, whatever the
nature of th~se oddities, all eyewitnesses agreed: On separate occasions, they saw something remarkably
large. They saW'something that flies in
the manner of a bird. They saw something they could not identify.

Pursu"107

Parting the Cartalns of

Prehl~tory fo~a Look at
The.Nether World
bv Mlcha.t Bara. '
s
to suppose that, modern science has
Iimportant
remained unaware of. the existence of a unique, critically ,
energy s o u r c e ?
.
IT REASONABLE

I believe that ancient men were allie to, harness an ex.tremely powerful source of energy naturally available
near the densely gravitomagnetic earth core. In deriving
postulations about cor:e-energy fields and their possible
unusual effects on physical and biologic systems, my
key premise is that hypergravitomagnetic fields are capable of inducing a nuclear hyper-resonance in the atoms
of a target system. If it is possible to derive fabulously
strong and qualitatively unique energy fields fr9m such a
source, it seems reasopable to speculate that. certain
anomalous effects on physical and biologic systems which
have been reported frorq time to time, could be related to
it. Ordinary magnetism' acts by influencing the spatial
orientation and state of resonance of an object's nuclear
sub-particles. It seems possible that a gravitomagnetic.
field arising directly from the earth's core could induce
such an abnormally high degree of resonance or reverberation in a target's atoms that prop" ties like solidity,
visibility, and gravitation might be altered. .
If one considers the corf region's position and structure, a potentially high energy level may indeed emanate
from what science believes is a dense and massive concentration of molten iron-although no probe has ever gone
deep enough tQ test th~ hypothesis. Nearthe core, dense
matter would exist in all directions, boosting the ambient
gravity field leyels very high; away from the core, at
points near the surface, the atmosphere-with little mass
effect-would reduce the gravitomagneticenergy ambience to a fraction .of that present internally. A dynamic
electromagnetic and hypergravity ambience available in
very cJeep I'egions. c~uld well be .capable of exerting
unusual effects, on surface objects coming under its influence. (Such Ii field 'exerts its effects similarly to other
forms of energy via minuscule quantum particles, called
gravitons by physicists who believe them to be close
cousins to photons, electrons and other minute packets of
energy.) An abundance of ancient sources link th~ .socalled "secret force" to deep-earth. regiOl~s.
A companion concept proposes that extensive open
regions exist in the "middle earth," the deep-crustal
layer. A system of natural recesses close to. the earth-core
.

. A native of Boston,' Michael Baran earned his undergraduate and docioral degrees at Boston University in the
1960s. His. first book, At/antis Reconsidered, was
published last year and is reviewed in th~ Books section
of this issue. His' second book, Insights Into Prehistory,
came out this year and is scheduled for review in a sl:lbsequent issue of Pursuit.

Pursu" 108

would be an area where any unusual properties the

hypergravitomagnetic fields might possess could be duly
, noted by ancients who may well have been aware of those
regions.,A likely locale for extensive open regions would
be in the polar areas, subcontinental water seepages
having produced confluences that flow toward the nearer
pole under direction of a magnetie factor such as high
iron-content picked up in deep strata near the core. Underground rivers, through vast eons, could have carved
, out a system of interconnected canyons, deep beneath th~
land masses and culminating in a large concavity-a kind
of Grand Canyon__ in the subpolar regions. Beyond the
concavity, the nether water flows would re-enter the surface system. (It is relevant to note that icebergs are composed of fresh water.)
Travelers in the polar regions have not often reported
entering any such sequestered areas, but compass directions at the ends of the earth tend to confusion: when
(;me "reaches the pole" (zero degrees latitude), the pole is
thought of as a point rather than as the rim of a concavity, so the traveler immediately veers away from true
north or true south. Nevertheless, some modern eyewitness accounts describe a transition zone in the region of
the North Pole where the climate becomes milder and
strange things are noticed, such as volcanic dust, and an
~nusuill kind of red pollen, sometimes in very large quantities. 1 These accounts tell of a water source within the
earth, contiguous with the ocean at the surface.
In the internal region, -it is said, day and ~ight and
sunlight as we know it do not exist, and twilight is "eternal." IIIumination of. twilight quality could derive' from
magmatic pockets contiguous with the molten core; or it
might arise from a process analogous to the aurora
borealis. According to one esoteric tradition, the regiQn is
known .to its inhabitants as "Lu," while other sources
identify it as "Upper Eden." Somewhere "further on"
are verdant- lands, said to be situated on both sides of an
immense river. Homer's Odyssey tells of such a place as
it recounts Odysseus's journey .to the great river Okanos
and the farther realms of Hadel' and Persephoneia,
Odys~eus having gained access through the North Pole
passage.
The strongest evidence from modern sources for the
existence of such a world comes from the Navy's polar
expeditions under Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the 1940s
and 1950s, although much of the information he ob- .
tained was classified and still remains in the realm of
conjecture. In the .aftermath of his Antarctic polar flight
of 1929, Byrd stated: "I'd like to see that lapd beyond
the poles. Ii is the center of the Great Unknown." He
was describing a land. containing green forests and large
animals. DetaiJs of his lat~r flights for the Navy are
nlrcl Quarter 1982

unavailable, but according to rumor, each polar conc.avity was penetrated to distances of well over 'a
thousand miles.
,
Edgar Cayce, referring to life in ancient Atlantis, spoke
of the "use of the elevator in buildings in the earth, "2
which sounds like some sort of deep excavational activity. Relating this to a mysterious energy source, Cayce
said: "There was the creating of ... radial activity from
... the sun that was turned upon the crystals into the
pits . . . connections with the internal influences of theearth." (Was this crystal technology turned into space
flight?) Cayce again: metal machines traveled "through
the air and under the water;" they were guided by
"remote control" and motivated by "radioactive forces.") ,
A Mandan Sioux legend make~ a connectiop between
Atlantean core activities and the Great Flood: "The' world
was once a great tortoiset borne on the waters, and . . ..
one day, in digging the soil, a tribe of white men who
had made holes in the earth at great depths digging for
badgers, at length pierced the shell of the tortoise; it
sank, drowning all the men except for one," who saved
himself in a boat, later sending out a dove to find out
when the waters began to ebb. 4 Could ancient men have
been so over-zealous in tapping core energy as to account
for the worldwide cataclysms of ancient lore?
.
The Methuselan theme recurs frequently in ancient
sources. Widespread and ingenuous folk traditions infer
that a rejuvenative entity exists; it is almost always connected with a past residence in the "underworld." The
Lipan Apache tribe preserves a legend which describes in
great detail their "group-therapy" sessions on how to
deal with aging and death following "emergence. '" Even
today, the reclusive Seri Indians of Mexico are said to
visit the cave of a "mountain god" to obtain a
rejuvenative elixir. "If you visit the holy cave, you never
get old like other men," say the Seri.6
Could core-fields possess a salutary biologic effect?
Any such biotrophism might-be related somehow to the
known action of magnetic fields, in this instance possibly
inducing a stimulation of nuclear resonan.ce in the
organism. Is it reasonable to extrapolate a beneficial outcome? Suppose, if you will, that the first organic
molecules to acquire the essence of life, billions of years
ago, received the stimulus from I a high electromagnetic
energy ambience; that is to say, the life-initiating
chemical reaction was stimulated electrically: Would not
a\l descendant living systems (inCludhig modern man's)
encountering similar field conditions, undergQ re.exposure to eptimal conditions for basic Ii.fe processes?
This hypermagnetic milieu would be the natural one for
all living systems, but constant exposure to a different
milieu (as on the earth's surface) might be expected to
further thj: deteriorative processes of aging and death. .
In a variant interpretation of our theoretic model, \\,e
may come to a. better understanding of the aquatic monster phenomenon. There is a pervasive association in ar-.
chaic sources between such a creature and the "underworld." Plato, in hi~ Timaeu$ and Crilias dialogue~
about life in Atlantis, related that there were many
elephants and other large beasts; then, as if in passing, he
refers to "the largest and I most voracious of them."
"Sun" here might be a way (in the ancient lexicon) of referring to the
earth's molten core,

t"Tortoise" is an old Indian allegorical term for "island."

Thlnl Quarter 1982

What was Plato talking about? A beast larger than an

elephant? Clearly, Plato was saying that a highly
unusual animal lived in Atlantis, and it could well have,
been one ot those "wild voracious animals" which Edgar
Cayce described as causing the Atlanteans no end of
trouble. If we assume that certain Atlanteans were conducting deep-earth excav.ations, could they have breached
the nether passages, thus allowing strange subterranean
animals to reach the surface? According to Cayce, the
anrmal "invasions" became so serious that ways of
, "disposing of them" were necessary to protect the people
against ".being disposed of themselves. "7
Many .experts believe that Loch Ness and similar
bodies of water where small-headed, long-necked, hugebodied animals have been seen on occasion, are too small
to support populations of such creatures, yet there is no
satisfactory .theory to explain their origin. What evidence
could we cite to favor a nether assodation? ,
Lipan Apache legends associate a huge and dangerous
monster with their past residence in the underworld. The
ancient Lipans called him "Big Owl.;' The Seri, too, tell
of a monstrous creature theycall "Big Snake." He lives
in a cave in their sacred mountain. A drawing of Big
Snake shpws an animal with a large oval body, a long
neck, and no head-merely a small, bulbous swelling at
the end of the n'eck. In plesiosaur configuration, it closely
resembles usual descriptions of theLoch Ness monster.
Some arcfulic sources blame the final prehistoric
cataclysm, the Gr.eat Deluge, on attempted genocide by
the Atlanteans: hi hopes of destroying an enemy country
ill Asia .by rerrac.ting a gigantic magnetic beam through
the earth's core, they brought on the Flood. R Perhaps the
.earth'~ polarity was thereby reversed, and also the direction of flow of the nether water-courses. Such a sequela
c,ou"Id oc~ui compatibly with the laws of physics, i.e., a
strong electromagnetic force striking between the poles of
a magnet will reverse the polarity. Enormous amounts of
water in the subterranean region could have been attract- ed magneiically to the point of core-repolarization-to a
point directly beneath Atlantis. A 'Delaware Indian
legend tells about .men in the water being "devoured by
the many monst;rs there. "9 Why "'many monsters"?
Could-a great chasm have opened between the nether
waterways and the surface to trigger the Flood? Perhaps
the subterranean recesses afforded protection for the
dinosaur-like creatures ~y shield,ing them from changes
that would have caused their rapid extinction on the surface; with light ;;lnd warmth available in the vicinity of
magmatic pockets, aquatic saurians might have outlived
more than one primordial catastrophe.
The UFO phenomenon, too, may possibly be linked to
the antediluvian age. In A lIantis Reconsidered I quoted
an andent Egyptian reference to the god Horus which
seems to b; related to a UFO sighting. 'o James Churchward, in his 1934 book Sacred Symbols of Mu, published
drawings which he said were taken from original Lemur-'
i~ tablets; the objects depicted are not unlike the vehicular
type of UFO most: often described by witnesses in our
.. .
,
own times.!1
If UFOs originated in Mu and Atlantis, how are we to
account for their current operations when there is no
evidence of bases-at least; none visible on the surface?
A longtime speculation puts the home of the UFO near
or at the poles, travelers to those regions having made
Pursuit 109

quite similar reports of unidentified objects rising and

descending there. The role the middle-earth could play in
this scenario is already evident; indeed, it may have been
a refuge of last resort for survivors of the great prehistoric cataclysms. Stations on the surface might not
have been necessary for flights in the surface. A cohtrol
base located, say a mile or so underground, might finp
the interposed layer of earth to have a negligible effect on
the po.werful, core-derived field-beam emitted fro'm the
base's crystal.
How might a control beacon work to motivate a
UFO? We know that electroinagnetic waves have the
same velocity as light and other energy waves. Assuming
that the source of the station's control beacon is metallic
(i.e., the earth core), its force would be projected accord'. ing to the beacon's wavelength (magnetic frequency).
Variations in frequency patterns 'from station to station
might be achieved by using crystal-faceting techniques
and varying the metallic composition of the crystals. If a
metallic object like a UFO (which may contain smaller
crystals varying in faceting and composition to conform
with crystals of certain stations) should lock itself into a
. certain stati~)O's beacon by adjusting its own crystals, the
UFO might become a part of the beacon itself. Being
strongly magnetized to a variable degree by the beacon
through crystal adjustment, the UFO might then act as a
partial energy quantum. As a following beacon inagnetized the space particles in its path, a UFO in a state of
variable magnetization and quantization might be able'
to travel at almost any desired velocity. For the adjust"
ment of two different crystals to come into phase with
each other in respect to wavelength frequency, metallic
composition would be important. (Dowsers belieye that
a rod "loaded" with a metal such as gold can "piJlI selectively" toward a gold deposit. A more familiar example
of "selective attraction" is the common magnet, w.hich is
selective for iron.)

the Endless Procession

(Continued from page 99) ..
to be operating outside or beyond the human. race, manipulating us constantly. That's the part we should. worry
about.
The gods of the ancients.are returning, says Erich
von Daniken. But actually they have been there all along.
While many millions of people have been having casual
sightings of strange things in the sky and on the ground,
other millions have literally been abducted by the phenomenon and subjected to a brainwashing process. They
emerge from the experience with total amnesia, or with
a vague dreamlike theory of what happened. But their
. lives. change suddenly and remarkably. Their I.Q. is
elevated. Their character~ and personalities are altered.
In several well-documented cases, their chronic ailments
have suddenly been cured. They divorce their wives,
abandon their families, even change their names and
move into new and better jobs. The process is more sopI:tisticated now than it was in the time of the caveman
because we are more sophisticated ourselves . We have
changed slowly, and improved slowly, over those thousands of years.
In other ages these experiences were regarded as supernatural and mystical. Today we try to fit them into a

. Thus could a UFO pilot, by adjusting his crystals, be

enabled to switch instantaneously from one station
beacon to' another, to execute the scarcely believable
near-reverse turn that so amazesthe many who have witnessed it. That var:ying magnetic frequencies could play
such a strong role is reasonable if one accepts the
hypothesis that core-reflective control beacons possess
enormous intensity.
.
Until science undertakes a serious investigation ."(with
such .funding and technology as can only' be imagined),
the validity of the core as an historic and/or contemporaneous force-field must remain in the realm of speculation. The foregoing model suggests some of the
valuable insights which might be obtained by diverting a
portion of interdisciplinary attention .from the outside to
the Inside ~f the globe 'we live upon.,Although it is difficult to guess when such a diversion might take place, do
not doubt that the great depths wiil someday be plumbed.
The. human mind has its own limitless force . Jield, called
curiosity.
. REFERENCES
I . .i3ernard, Raymond: The Hollow Earth (Bell Publishing Company,
N.Y., 1979).
2. Cayce, Edgar Evans: EdRar Cayce 01/ Atlantis (Paperback Library,
1969). p. 62. .
.
3. Ibid.
4. Donnelly, Ignatius: A tlantis: The Antediluvian World (Gramercy
.
Publishing Co., N. Y., 1949 edition). p. 95.
5. Opler, Morris E.: Myths and Legendr of the Lipan Apa('hi! Indians
(.1.1. Augustin, N.Y., 1940), P, 3.
6. Coolidge, Dane and Mary R.: The Last of the Seris (Rio Grande
Press, Glorieta, New Me1<ico, 1971), p. 94."

7. Cayce, op. cit., p. 60.

.
.8. Montgomery, Ruth: The World Before (Coward, McCann, and
Geoghegan. N. Y., 1976), p. 95.
9. Donnel!y, op. cit., p. 91.
.
10. Baran, Michael: Atlantis Reconsidered (Exposition Press,
~mith~own, N.Y., 1981), p.60.

II. Churchward, James: Sacred Symbols of Mu (Ives-Washburn. N. Y.,

I 934).

technological framework. Some view the contact stories

with "alarm, fearing that an alien race is trying to take
us over. One group of ufologists is, in fact, convinced
that some of these brainwashed humans have managed to
attain top jobs in government and industry, and that the
affairs of the world are now being controlled by extraterrestrial aliens.
However, the phenomenon does not really seem interested In our mundane, day-by-day affairs except where
they may influence the mysterious long-range plan. Darwin
was partly right, perhaps, when he speculated about a
process of evolution. But he did not see it as a completely
controlled process. He lacked the historical perspective
needed to view the development of man as a series of rungs
on a long ladder of enlightenment. The phenomenon was
completely hidden from view in his day, accepted as the
exclusive province of religion.
The flaw in. the ancient astronauts theory is the absence
of motive. They arrived quietly;. gave us some guidance,
and then went away just" as quietly. Were we just the
recipients of a,n exercise in benevolence? Or were they
already making plans for us?
If. we really are biochemical robots constructed by
some Tinker Toy addict in ancient times, we were undoubtedly meant to serve some purpose. An Adam and
(Continued on page 144) .
I

Pursuit 110

Third Quarter 1982

How Much Do You Know

" About UFOs?
50 Questions To Test Your Knowledge
Compiled by Thomas B. Burch
ushered in the Modern Era of UFOs" when a private pilot
reported seeing nine disc-shaped objects flying in formation near Mt.
Rainier, Washington. This year marks the 35th anniversary of that historymaking UFO report. Do you know the name of the pilot whose sighting made
"flying saucers" a household word? How much" do you know about the people,
places and events that form the basis "for this continuing topic of scientific
controversy? Take this test and check your knowledge. How much do you
know about UFOs? "

UNE 24, 1947

True or False
(Circle T for True, F for False)
1. A 1978 Gallup Poll found that
58070 of the American population
th~ught that UFOs are "real."
Tor F
2. It is frequently reported that
animals react to the presence of
UFOs before human witne~ses do.
TorF
3. In 1977 the "Washington Whis~
pers" column of U.S. News and"
World Report said there would be
"unsettling disclosures about UFOs
by the Government before the end
of the year."
Tor F
4. In Aurora, Texas, on April 17,
1897 a UFO reportedly struck a
windmill and exploded, killing the
UFO pilot. Recent investigations
have proven this case to be a hoax.
Tor F
5. On December 5, 1945 five Navy
torpedo bombe.rs disappeared while
flying over the Bermuda Triangle.
The final radio transmission of this
doomed flight allegedly inclu.ded
the warning: Don't come after me...
They look like they are from outer
space." No plausible explanation
for this disappearance has ever
been offered.
T or F
6. One state in the U.S. has never
experienced any reported UFO
sightin~s."
T or F
7. There are no disagreements
among UFO researchers about the
value of hypnotic time-regression
procedures in the investigation of
UFO reports.
T or F
Thil'd Quanei' 1982

8. In his book Flying Saucers:

A Modern Myth of Things Seen in
the Skies Sigmund Freud defined
man's "Collective Unconscious"
which he attributed as the cause of
~any UFO sightings.
"T or F
9. The term "flying saucer" was
used by pilot Kenneth Arnold to
describe nine unusual air vehicles
he observed while "flying near Mt.
Rainier in Washington state. T or F
10. French mathematician and
engineer Aime Michel is known" for
his theory of orthoteny which holds
that UFO sightings occurring on
the same day are frequently arranged
along a straight line.
T or F
11. Walter Andrus is the founder
and director of the Aerial Phenomenon
Research
Organization
CAPRO).
T or F
12. On the basis of data compiled
since 1947, the UFO appears to be
a global phenomenon.
Tor F
13. Law enforcement officials "rarely
report UFO sightings.
T or F
14. Dr. Michael 'Persinger of Laurentian University, Canada, has
theorized that many UFO reports
are the product of "piezoelectric
discharge. ..
T or F
15. Cornell University space scientist
Carl Sagan, who wrote the book
Communications with Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence, objects to the
U.S. government funding of UFO
studies.
T or F

Multiple Choice
(Only one of the four suggested
answers is correct. Check your
preferencel)
I. The "invisible college" is a term
used to describe scientists who are
privately engaged in UFO research
yet are reluctant to admit their
interest to their scientific peers.
The UFO researcher who coined
this term is:
J. Allen Hynek
Stanton Friedman
Jacques Vallee
Gray Barker

2. In 1959 a famous UFO sighting

took place at Papua, New Guinea.
The name 9f the primary witness
was William B. "Gill. What was
Mr. Gill's occupation?
Photographer
Pilot
Archeologist
Missionary
3. He previously served as the
chier"investigator for the Center for
UFO Studies and wrote The UFO
Handbook.
Allan Hendry
Stanton Friedman
Sherman Larsen
James Harder "
4. On October IS, 1957, a farmer
reported being" abducted by extraterrestrials. He also claimed that he
had been sexually" seduced by a
female member of the UFO crew.
Name"this farmer.
Paul Trent
Antonio Villas Boas
Billy Ray Taylor
Calvin Parker
5"." On July 24, 1948 one of th~
earliest reports involving a commercial airliner's encounter with a
UFO was filed by the pilot and
co-pilot of an Eastern Airlines DC-3.
Name the pilot and co-pilot.
Chiles & Whitted
Cummings & McGregor
Mantell & Keenan
Valentich & Jefferson
6. He was selected as scientific
director of the Scientific Study of

Tom Burch is the coordinator of public information representatives for the

Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) based in Evanston, lllinois. He compiled
this questionnaire at the request of Pursuit's editors.
Purs.it I I I

UFOs conducted by the University

of Colorado between 1966 and. 1968.
Thornton Page
Berthold Schwarz
. Edward Condon
Carl Sagan
7. One of the following books was
not writlen by ufologist Jacques
Vallee:
Passport to Magonia
. Flying SaucersSerious Business
Messengers oj Deception
A natomy of a Phenomenon
8. The first major UFO wave in rep~>rted history took place in:
1745
1896
/'
1917
1947

9. The Andreasson A//air, written

by Raymond Fowler, documents
what event in UFO history?
Cattle mutilation case
UFO overflight of .
a SAC base (Strategic
Air Command)
UFO abduction case
Classic radar/visual case
10. In 1975, Stanford University
astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock
polled members of the American
Astron.omical Society to determine whether the members considered UFOs worthy of scientific
study. Of members responding to
the poll, what percentage of the
. AAs felt that UFOs certainly or
probably deserve scientific study?
13070
33070
5~070

73070
11.. In 1977 an agency was organized
under the auspices of the French'
government for the study of UFOs.
The agency was named:
.BUFORA
MARCEN
VELON
GEPAN
12. The name of the first director
of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial' Phenomena:
(NICAP)?
'
Richard Hall
Townsend Brown
Donald Keyhoe
James Lorenzen

Pursui,112

13. Headquarters for the USAF

Project Blue Book was?
Wright-Patterson AFB
Ohio
Lackland AFB, Texas
Edwards AFB, Ca:lifornia
Andrews AFB
Washington, DC
14. June 24, 1982 marked the 35th
anniversary of what 'majolQ event in
UFO history?
.
.
Betty and Barney Hill
abduction case
UFOs over
Washington. DC
Kenneth Arnold sighting
Lonnie .Zamora/Socorro,
New Mexico case
15. A series of UFO study reports
issued by Projects Grudge and
Blue Book were, in fact, prepared .
by a civilian organization. Name
the organization:
General Electric
Battelie Memorial fnstitute
Hughes Aircraft ,Corp.
NICAP
I

16. Name the former newspaper

reporter and amateur.. naturalist,
b9rn in the 1800s, who' colle~ted
some of the earliest documented
UFO sightings:
Ivan Sanderson
Charles Fort
Samuel Clemens
William Randolph Hearst
17. In September 1980 a prestigious
organization spo.nsored a. symposium on unidentified flying objects
which allowed a panel of proponents' and skeptics to debate
their views on the UFO phenom-.
enon. Name the organizati"on:
Smithsonian Institution
Stanford Research Institute
Massachus~t'is Institute
of Technology
United Nations
General Assembly
18. The -most frequently. reported
UFO sightings are:
,
Nocturnal lights
Daylight discs
Radar/visual cases
Physical trace cases
19. In the early 1950s a motion
picture depicted a UFO landing in
Washington, D,C. Name this landmark science-fiction rilm.
.

They Came from

Outer Space'
This Is/and Earth
The Day the Earth
Stood Still
Earth VS. the Flying
Saucers
20. In 1973 two men reported being
taken aboard a UFO while fishing
near Pascagoula, Miss. One of the
men was named Calvin Parker .
What was the other man's name?
Fred Valentich
Barney Hill
Travis Walton
Charles Hickson:
21. The "Physical Trace Catalog"
compiled. for the Center for UFO
Studies contains more than 1000
cases of physical evidence associated
with UFO landing sites. Name the
compiler.
Lucius Farish
Ted Phillips
Jim Moseley
William Spaulding
22. The Delphos, Kansas and
Socorro. New Mexico, UFO reports are two of the most completely:
documented and thoroughly researched reports in. UFO history.
Both reports involved:
multiple witnesses
abduction
physical evidence
police department witnesses
23. The McMinnville, Oregon, Great
'Falls, Montana and Tremonton,
Utah UFO reports all had what in
common?
.
photographic evidence
radar/visual Qbservation
p~ysical trace evidence
cattle mutilations
24. Ocala, Florida and Lakenheath,
England were the sites of w~at type
of UFO report?
nocturnal lights
daylight discs
close encounters of the
third kind
radar/visual sightings
.25. Which one of. -the following
"UFO projects" was not funded
by a Government agency?
Project Grudge
Project Magnet
Project Starlight
Project Sign

Third Quarter 1982

26. In 1948 a National Guard pilot

was kilied while pursuing a "skyhook" balloon which he thought
was a UFO. The name of the unfortunate pilot was:
Gary Powers
Fred Valentich
William Fortenberry
Thomas Mantell
27. A classiC UFO photo report
was made when Mr. and Mrs. Paul
Trent took two photographs of a
UFO which flew over their farm on
May II, 1950. The Trent farm was
located in: .
Hillsdale, Michigan
Lubbock, Texas
McMinnville, Oregon
Exeter, New Hampshire
28. The first case of abduction by
UFO dates to September 1961
when Betty and Barney Hill were
allegedly taken aboard a UFO and
subjected to a physical examination
at the hands of the UFO ''crew."
The technique used to corroborate
their abduction claim was:
sod~um pentothal
hypnotic regression
psychological stress
evaluator
polygraph macbJne

29. Who was the author of The

UFO 'Experi~nce: A Scientific Inquiry?
J. Allen Hynek
Donald Keyhoe
John Keel
. Frank Scully
30. The author of UFOs Identified
and UFOs Explained was: .
Carl Sagan
Robert Sheaffer
Philip Klass
James Oberg
31. The primary cause of most
. UFO sighting reports?
satefIite re-entry
false radar returns
astronomical phenomena
hallucinations
32. In 1979 a member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
won an essay contest sponsored by
Cutty Sark. The winning essay,
entitled "The Failure of UFOlogy,"
was submitted by:
Carl Sagan
Robert Sheaffer
Philip Klass
James Oberg

33. What publication offered one

million dollars "for positive proof
that UFOs come from outer .space
and are not natural phenomena"?
Newsweek magazine
National Enquirer
OMNI magazine
Skeptical Inquirer magazine
34. While piloting his aircraft on the
night of October 18, 1973 Capt.
Lawrence Coyne reported an encounter with a cigar-shaped UFO
over Mansfield, Ohio. What type
of aircraft was Capt. Coyne flying?
Goodyear blimp
Army helicopter
Boeing 747
F-4 Phantom
35. In two separate incidents on
September 19, 1976 American-built
F-4 jets lost communication while
chasing a brilliant UFO. The skychase took place over:
Iran
West Germany
Israel
South Korea

Answers to the quiz will be published in the next issue of Pursuit .

.SITUational Sidelights on the UFO Phenomenon

Report Cites Evidence
Some UFOs Are
Russian-Made
A UFO subcommittee of the Washington- .'
based Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal reponed in
June on its study of "somc?-of the most striking
unidentified flying objects of the last two
years"-giant luminous objects passing over
South America and the Soviet Union. The slUdy
presents what it calls "conclusive evidence"
that these UFOs are part of a Soviet early warning satellite network that keeps tabs on U.S.
rocket launches. According to the study:
-the sightings reported from the Soviet
Union and South America match known Soviet
launches, including one of the most widely
discussed of recent sightings, that of a UFO appearing first over central Russia and, about an
hour later, over South America, where it was
photographed near the moon in the western
sky.
-the Soviet rockets traclted in the study were
all launched from Plesetsk, the secret spaceport
located about 12S miles north of Archangel.
The rockets follow an orbit which brings them
over Argentina, Brazil and some othe~ parts of
South America, about one hour after launch-

Third Quarter 1982

ing. Observers see sunlight glinting on the

hardware and rocket flashes; under certain light
conditions, excess fuel dumped by a rocket
sometimes appears to be a "glowing cloud."
-the virtual coincidence of the UFO inclination (62.8 0, at the 'equator) and the inclination of
a rocket's first orbit from Plesetsk (about 62.7
north latitude) further identifies the UFO
sightings with Soviet satellite launchings
because the inclination'of a rocket's initial orbit
is the same as the latitude of the launch site
when the satellite is launched to the east.
-a UFO was seen over central Russia when
the early warning satellite known as Kosmos
1188 was launched, and observers reported a
UFO over South America about one hour later.

We Regret ..
a production error in Stuart
Greenwood's -article in the previous
issue, "Ancient Space Flight: Search for
Evidence." Please turn to page SS in
Pursuit No. S8 (Vol. 15, No.2, Second
Quarter 1982) and note the third line in
the fourth paragraph, left column: The
word "altitudes" is incorrect; it should
read latitudes.

A UFO similarly reported on October 31, 1981,

was likewise identified with the early warning
satellite Kosmos 1317.
The study was made for the UFO subcommittee of CSICP by Philip Klass, senior avionics
editor of Aviation Week and Space
Technology; Robert Sheaffer; and NASA's
James Oberg, author of Red Star in Orbit, a recent critical assessment of the Soviet space program since Sputnik.
SOURCE: Robert C. Cowen for Globe-Democrat
Christian Science Monitor News Service, SI.
Louis Globe-Democrat., 6/9/82.
CREDIT: R. Nelke.

~
'Sorry, Sir . . . er, General!'
Gen. William C. Westmoreland, former commander of U.S. troops in Southeast Asia, was
not kidnapped, was not taken aboard a UFO
last August, and has never had a Close Encounter of the Third Kjnd, or any other kind,
with aliens from outer space.
But MPs at Fort Bliss thought all this, and
perhaps more, had befalleh the general when
they were alerted by a military all-points'
bulletin and failed to find him at home or in any
(Continued on page 137)

Pursu't 113

of
ItheCovent
Garden there are some of
most celebrated theatres of the

Theatrical

world~the Theatre Royal, the Adelphi, 'the Lyceum and the long-gone
Royalty to name a few-all rich in
fascinating
fantasy and providing
wealth of tales. Of these the most
famous and pi olific in its spectral
mythology is undoubtedly the Theatre
, Royal, Drury Lane, wh,ose chie~ ghost
has been seen by many, from an imperturbable char-woman to the whole
cast of The Four Musketeers. ,
"The Man in Grey" appears only
, in the daytime and is quite content to
take a seat and watch rehearsals, or
to stroll unhurriedly from one side of
the Upper Circle to the other, melting
into the wall and vanishing promptly
at 6 o'clock; so harmless is he that
plal'\.s' to exorcise him wer,e unanimously rejected by everyone connected
with the theatre. Descriptions of '~The
,Man in Grey'" are consistent: young,
of medium height, strongly handsome and obviously of "breeding,"
garbed in the clothes of the early
18th century-long grey cloak, riding
boots, powdered hair or wig and a
tricorn hat which he sometimes carries and-so clearly does he manifest
himself-even the end of his sword
has been seen beneath the cloak.
For many years his identity, remained a mystery, for his quiet courtliness suggested no Thespian leanings,
but just over 100 years ago a gruesome discovery was made during
alterations to the building. Although
the theatre had been almost entirely
rebuilt in 1796 and bl;ldly damaged
by fire in 1809, parts of the original
thick walls remained and wQrkmen
in the 1850s engaged on the Russell
, Street side of the Upper Circle discovered. amongst the stonework,
a tiny, bricked-up room or closet.
Within was a find worthy of the stage
below-the cobwebbed skeleton of a
man with a dagger lodged between
his ribs and crumbling fragments of
corded cloth that could ,have once
been a cloak. Speculation immediately
forged a link and it is now thought
that "The Man in Grey" was a young
gallant who lost his heart to a showgirl and was murdered by her actor
lover, who feared to lose her to, a
wealthy and generous rival. The specter seems to bear the theatre no ilIwill, appearing only before or during
successful productions such as Glamorous Nights, The Dancing Years,

Ghosts

N AND AROUND THE FRINGES

Pursu"114

by Frances Mary Moore

Reprinted by kind permission of
BRITISH H,ERITAGE, P.O: Box 8200,
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17105.

Oklahoma!, Carousel;' South Pacific

and The King and I-and contemptuously ignoring Noel Coward's Pacific
1860 which failed dismally.
, Other ghosts of the TJteatre Royal
,are easier to identify. Stanley Lupino
and his wife saw the face of the'longdead but well-remembered Dan Leno
reflected beside Stanley's in the mirror
of the dressing-room-a room Leno
was known to favor. Several members 'of the audience present at a 1948
performante of Oklahoma!' were'
astonished to see King(Charles II and
his courtiers passing down the gang-way, mounting the stage and mingling
with the cast-po~sibly to check that
the theatre still deserved the royal
charter bestowed upon it after the
Restoration. On another occasion,
two sisters, perturbed that their
brother apparently, could not' see the
strangely-dressed playgoer seated
further along the row (and even more
. agitated when the fellow simply disappeared) later identified him from
a photograph as Charles Kean, the
19th century actor-manager. '
There is 'a theory that another ghost,
one with a long, white-painted clown
face reportedly' glimpsed behind
people in one of the boxes is that of
Joe Grimaldi as, for, reasons bestknown to himself, he insisted on decai)itation before buria~ and so should

.,~ ~\'>--:;3~~;;;!cti%: 1
of

i!

Theatre Royal In London's Drury Lane

appear "detached." However, Grimalc:i'~. name has also been 'uggested

for a benign invisible preS(:,lce with
very strong vieWs on how certain parts
should be played and at icast two
young actresses attribute some measure of their success to his unseen
hand. Betty Joe Jones, upset at not
getting the "feel" df a particular
scene whilst playing "Ado Annie" in
Oklahoma!, one night felt a tug at
her skirt and gentle hands leading, her
downstage" turning her body to a
ne\, ,position. To her 'delight, the
lal~ghter welled up imm'ediately and
rr~m ,then on she played th e scene as
guided, to the ,audience's ev~r-growing
approval. Similarly, Doreen Duke,
inexperienced and almost too nervous to' sing at her audition for The
King and I, felt a kindly pressure on
her shoulders which 'calmed herand led to her getting the part.
Generally, the ghostly population
of the Theatre Royal appears affable
and happy to set a seal of approval
on performances, but there is' one
exception who stalks distractedly
across what used to be the pit, his
tall, thin, hatchet-faced figure reflecting bitterness and angu;sh. He is
believed to be the tortured spirit of
th~ fiery Irishman Charles Macklin
who, in 1735, killed another actoreither Arnold Woodruffe or 1:homas
Hallam-by driving a stick into his
eye during a quarrel over a wig in the
Green Room. Perhaps it was he whp
disturbed Harry Secombe in his
dressing-room by rattling coat hangers
in a cupboard and banging on walls
during the run of The Four Musketeers.
'
But the ghosts of this, fine old
theatre are', more loved than feared,
and their stories are woven deep into
the tapestry of its history.
If Drury Lane <;an boast the greatest
number of specters, then the Adelphi
in the Strand can lay claim to the
most restless, for their ghos't has
been known to wander into Maiden
Lane at the rear of the theatre' and
even into'the Covent Garden underground station nearby. There is no
argument as to his .identity or' even
the manner of his death' on December 16, 1897-an event a mummer
called Lane curiously dreamt in accurate and, gory detail the previous
night: He "saw" the much-loved
Victorian actor William Terriss, bleeding to death inside the back door of
the theatre, surrounded by shocked
Third Quarter 1982 '

Garden station, opened the door in

and horrified members of the comtime to sl"e a tall man, dressed almost
pany. On relating his premonitIOn
identically to that seen by the electrithe next day, he was treated to laughcian but thistime wearing a Homburg,
ter and ridicule, but that evening, as
drift down a spiral stairc~se and
Terriss turned the key in the lock of
the Maiden Lane entrance, another
vanish at the bottom. Since that time
acceptance of his visits has become
adOi. Richard Archer Princejust. part of the job for the station
urstable enough to be known as
staff on the night shift. Some claim
"The Mad Archer"-plunged a
to have seen Terriss up to forty
knife into his back. The stricken man
tinies, arid one unfortunate' West
fell into the passage and died with his
head in the .lap of his leading lady,
Indian porter fainted at his first exJessie Milward, playing out the mumper~ence.. Eventually, a four-page
report was sent to the London Transmer's dream in awful finality.
Terriss's ghost has been .seen by a
port Executive divisional headquarters; they took the matter seriously
variety of people in a variety of places,
and sent along a spiritualist named
and strange noises have been heard
in Terrisl!'s favorite dressing-room., Enc Davey. A seance was held which
Some thirty years after his murder . revealed the leiters Ter ... c'Jnnected
with a murder close hy, and Davey
a stroller was surprised when a handsome figure swept past him and dismade a pSYl.:hic sketch of the ghost
which bore a strong resemblance to
appeared into thin air as he reached
photographs of the dead actor.
the door through which the actor had
To vary this history of male apparmade his last fatal entrance. A theatre
itions are the stories of three ladies
electrician late one night watched
who, at one time and another, haunh:d
with incredulity as' a grey-suited,
the old Royalty Theatre that once
white-gloved and. wing-collared apstood in Dean Street. Sadly, since its
parition passed through a whole row
demolition in 1955 and the subsequent
of seats and into a wall. More rr.construction of an office block on
cently, one Christmas Eve in the
the site, nothing more has been seen
1950s, a traveling inspector of the
underground, making up the daily
of the three.
log in the mess room of Covent
The first legend apparently dates

from the days when a large house

stood on the theatre site, for the
ghost of a young and beautiful lady
dressed in the fashion of the Queen
Anne period was seen drifting down
the staircase into the vestibule where
she dematerialized with a scream.
A.t that particular place, a skeleton
had been found=-in the original
cellars 01 the house-presumably the
lady's as a result (\f her murder.
But hers was not the only body
sxreted on the premises. Walls of
~ he original house were incorporated
iDtu the theatre, so it i:. not known
for how long the almost-mummified
body of a young gypsy girl had been
entombed, although it is more likely
that she would have been drawn to
the later theatre than the earlier
hOL:se, however attractive. The gruesome find was made by workmen
when carrying out alterations, this
time in a hollow wall and, strangely,
the body was completely encased in
plaster of Paris. Her ghost, however, was not affected by the white
of the imprisoning plaster, for when
the theatre orchestra played she would
be seen dressed in green and scarlet,
rattling her tambourine, Perhaps the
musk attracted her spirit, the strains
of the .. iolin calling her to search for

- :: ~..

.t-.

"3-~';>"

- .

,"

.t,. ...

:..;.

:.:.~.. :p.:'.\ '

~

p~;:',;
.....
::;.

Thealre Museum. London

Third Quarter 1982

Pursuit 115

, her Rorr:any fiddler lover

or
fled, the woman moved her arm and
by an unseen hand. She told her'
'mu';'derer!
the folds of her flowing dress covered
friends she still didn't believe in .the
'Far less disquieting, was the third
the face which they never saw again
supernatural but "wasn',ttaking any
gllost, who fitted perfectly into the
completely, although they abandoned
'chances. "
.
Royalty Theatre with it;; tall mirrors,'
all interest in the play. The head's
Perhaps in honor of his longstandcustodian seemed unaware of its
its gilt and its crushed-strawberry
ing connection with the th~atre, Mr'.
presence as she chatted with her neigh,drapes, In 1840, the Royalty was built
Booth is one of those who has actually
and decorated to her specifications,
bor and moved freely in her seat, and
seen fhe ap,pl;lrition. One night,
and it seems that she remai'ned resfor the mOrhent the incident seemed
having opened the iron door onto
ident long after her own death until
closed.
the gallery at the top of the circular
the ,theatre's final razing, gently
But some years later the husband,
"phantom staircase"-as it has long
an art dealer, was invited to an old
pottering around in the hours of daybeen known-he saw 'a figure standing
hall in Yorkshire to value, the pictures..
light, 'disturbing nobody. She' was
against the wall opposite. Since the
often seen in her ringlets, silk dress
ghost'S face was,partly shadowed by , Towards the end of the day his host
and bonnet-a typical little old Vica large brimmed hat and the' chin 'produced two portraits that had lain
forgotten in the attic and the dealer
torian lady-watching rehearsals
sunk on the chest in an attitude of
suddenly found himself gazing at the
from a box, or bustling along intent
deep thought, comparison with the
.face he had once' seen, white and
upon some long-forgotten errand.
pictur~ of Bourchier. in the foyer
dead, nestling amongst soft skirts at
Another much-loved ghost wanders
proved difficult, but the old-fashioned
.the . Lyceum. Astonished, he related
still at large, through the Garrick . hat and the enveloping opera cloak
the story to. the landowner and his
Theatre in Charin!Z Cross Road, so
were of the right period. After a few:
freely that e',"en the box office is
family, whp gleefully revealed that
seconds, the ghost vanished.
, Quite recently the Garrick has exthe cavalier, an ancestor, had indeed
honored by the occasional visit when,
perienced a completely unique form
been beheaded in the early days of
in answer to his tap on the door, he::
is always p('liiteiy invited in; and as
of haunting, one which has proved
the Commonwealth and, mQreover,
most frustrating for the' actors and
with "The Man in Grey" at Drury,
had owned the ground upon which
has been given wide publicity by the
the theatre. now stood. One, wonders
Lalle, offers of exorcism have been
BBC. During the run of a play called
how often he exercised his penchant
firmly and immediately turned down
for ladies' laps, and if the said ladies
by all the staff.
Death Trap, leading .actor William
ever realized what they nursed during
Franklin and other members of the
For many years he was assumed to
their evening's entertainment.
cast found thejr lines being said ~ecbe the shade of the founder of the
Theatre ghosts thus appear to fall
theatre and leading actor, of his . onds before ihey reached them. At
into, two categories-the horribly
first, suspicion fell on some practical
time, David Garrick, whp died in
j(,ker in the audience, but as the days
murdered, tied forever to the site of
1779, but clearer sightings of the
'the ,crime, or the successful actor or
passed and the irritating interference
figure indicate costume of a later
manager reluctant to leave the life he
continued, careful watch was kept
date. He is now believed to be the
loved.
until human agency simply had to be
'ghost of actor-manager, Arthur
The theatrical world must stand
ruled out; .it was unlikely that any
Bo'urchier, a theory that has been
alone in earning such devotion and
individual CQuid know each part so
strengthened by the discovery of an
loyalty, even after'death, from its
well, manage to utter the lines before
old postcard showing Bourchier and
devotees. Should ever the theatres
the actor every time, and repeat the
his "dfe, celebrated actress Violet
lose their phantom visitors~ there are
trick over a number of performances,
Vanbo'rough, which has now 'been
many who would be sad to miss the
yet not be discovered. The voice was
enlarged to hang in the foyer.
cold spot in the foyer, the unexplained
Theatre "linkman" Freddie BrJoth,
eventually traced to the corner that
once housed the old prompt box and
step on the stair, the gentle tap on
who has worked there for more tha
the shoulder.
the phenomenon was marked down
25' yea:-s, is ;t gi'C'at authority or. the
Perhaps the last tale should be of
as another of Bourchiell's ghostly
ghost and ha!> experienced. many of
a humble, unidentified, though cherhigh-jinks. ,
his little jokes. Once, standing alone
ished ghost of the St. James's Thein the Dress Circle, he was almost
A more gruesome, but somehow
atre-possibly a dresser or cloakappealing, specter was noted at the
knocked off his feet by a thump ill
Wellington Street Lyceum-now for' room attendant-who helps people
the back. His stumble forward and
on with their coats and removes bits
many years a famous dance hall. In
involuntary swing-around to remonof dust with a ghostly brush. Should
the late 1880s a couple occupying a
strate with the invisible attacker was
,he ever honor' you with his ministra-'
box were idly passing the intermiswitnessed by another member of the
tion,. try thanking him-y~u might be
sion time, gazing at the rest of the
staff who then confided that 'the
rewarded with a far-off, disembodied
audience,
when
both
happened
to
.,"same
thing
had
happened
to
her
a
I '.'
,
..
,
"G'night, Sir!"
notice a woman in the stalls below
few- days' before. Many people have
with a strange burden on her lap.
felt a tap on the shoulder when in
FURTHER READING
Realization of what the awful "thing"
Haunted Houses, by Joseph Braddock (Lon. : the circle, and one ushe~ette,' a scoffer
don, 1956)
was dawned on the man and wife
at ghost tales, tried sleeping in the
The Lost Theatres of London, by Raymond
independently and i.mmedia'tely-the
. same, area during the period between
Mander and Joe Mitcheson (London, 1968)
palely dead head of ~ cavalier, with
the matinee and the evening showI've Seen a' Ghost: True Stories from ,Show
mustache, pointed beard and long,
but tore downstairs half an hour later
. Business, edited by Richard Davies (Lon~
dort, 1979)
wavy hair. As they watched, horrihaving been roughly shaken awake

..

Pu...." 116

Thlrcl Quarter 1982

The Origins pi Lemuria"

by .JOD Dougla. SIDgel', M.A.
Copyright 1982 by Jon Douglas

The Bering
Landbridge

Part III

IN PREVIOUS ChAPTERS we o:eviewed the evidence"for and

j against the presence of ancient Lemurian-type civiliZ8"~

tions 'llong the western coasts of northern South America,"

Mexico, and southern North America. Looking now at
'Alaska and the Bering Landbridge, we find evidence of
large, recently submerged land-masses that were populated
by Stone Age tribes. First~ however, we should examine
the few Indian legends that seem to offer clues to Lemuria
or to some other ancient, now-vanished, inhabited" region
which might reaso"nably be cailed a "1\)st continent. I I

Indian Legends of Mu
Many Indian tribes of the U.S. West have tales of great '
floods, but few are as interesting as one that is told by certain Hokan-Siouan tribes of California. I Their ancestors
They
once lived on Elam, an island in the western ocean.
.

Sin~er"

Was.It

Lemuria?

worshipped a deity whose name was Mu, and they fought

a war against a trihe called Rock Giants' whose chief was
Keb Muti. This Elam was probably not the historical kingdom of Elam which once existed in what is now western
Iran; the Middle East kingdom perished in 640 B.C. when
King A.shurbanipal of Assyria conquered it with fire and
sword." (No doubt someone has speculated that a small
number of the Elamites e~caped, sailed down the Mesopotamian rivets, and crossed the Pacific to America where
they settled in California and intermarried with Indians!)
Another legend tells of the land of Taluga, whicq sank
near the Cortes Bank off
southern California
about 1000
.
1""
I
years ago. 2
.
. ' A third. legend comes from the' Cana'dian provinCe' of
British Columbia. The Okanagan Indians have a saga surprisingly like "that of the Hokan-Siouan tribes. They say
that in the distant past there was an island in the middle of
the ocean named Samah-lumi-whoolah, which means
"White Man's Island." By cpincidence, or maybe not by
I.

"

Thlnl Quarter 1982

Pursu't 117

coincidence, the Norsemen also had 'a Whiteman's Land

near their Vinland! ... But, [0 return to the Indian'legend,
the Okanagans relate that the island was ruled by a white
queen with supernatural powers. Her name was Scomalt.
,As time went on, two tribes of supernat1,lral giants, known
as Tamahknowis, warred against each other until the enraged queen split the isle in half. One portion sank, and
only one man and a woman escaped by canoe to, America.
En route, the sun burned their skins to a reddish brown'
and that is how the Indians got their present skin color. 3

The Bering Landbridge

It seems, therefore, that there may be some truth to
the tales of Lemuria, and the mysterior;s land of Mu may
be more than a mere figment of occultists' imaginations.
What, after all, inspired the Indian legends? They do not
resemble the story of Noah and do not seem to have been
influenced by missionaries in post-Columbian, times. It
seems more likely that the inspiration for the legends was
the actual submergence of the Bering Landbridge.
How did the notion of the Bering Landbridge originate? The migration of primitive Indians from Siberia via
the Bering Strait was suggested as early as 1637" and again
in 1648. 4 By the 1960s the idea had been accepted as fact,
and geological studies confirmed the existence of sunken
land between Siberia and Alaska. What was it like, this
landbridge that archeologists and geologists call Beringia?
Hansjurgen Muller-Beck suggested that a drop in the
sea level to at least 4Q meters below present depth would
have created dry land at least twict: during the last part
of the Pleistocene epoch. The landbridge was fonned between 28,000 and 10,000 years ago. Artifacts and skeletal
fragments from timh periods have been recovered on the
American mainland, and similar types' of remains have
been found in Siberia. s
'
'
Oregon anthropologist Don Dumond wrote that Beringia had wide grassy plains from which big animals took
their sustenance-animals like the wooly mammoth and
the long-horned bison (the bos primogenius or aurochs).
As the animals migrated, they were followed by bands of
Cro-Magnon-type hunters. 6 William Haag added other
arumals to the list: various types of rodents, camels, musk
oxen, moose, elk, mountain sheep and goats, - wolves,
bears, foxes, and the horse. Horses died out at the end or
the Pleistocene and didn't reappear until the time of the
Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors who brought their
own.7 Presumably, saber-toothed tigers and the restless
ancestors of the mountain lion also cros,~ed,over to America via Beringia. This warm plain with its herds of beasts
reminds one of Churchward's description of Mu. Did he
get his impressions from t.lle ant~J.opologists' findings?
How big was Beringia? Jennings suggested that it was
1000 miles wide, in a north-south direction. 8 Dumond said
that it was 1500 kilometefs from north to south, about the
same width as Jennings' estimate. 9
, Now that we have an idea of what Beringia looked like,
we can trace the migrations of the Stone Age tribes across
it. So far, orthodox archeologists have found 'only primitive stone tools and campsites not worthy of being called
architectural remains. It seems clear that the "lost continent" of Beringia was probably not civilized, as we are
accustomed to the use of that term; nor have any inves-

Pursuit 118

tigations lent credence to the 'occultists' visions of "golden

cities" rising in ancient times in the distant northwest.
In 1944 Frederick Johnson found 15 campsites betwe,en
Alaska and north\yestern Canada. Douglas Leechman
found similar sites in the same area in 1945; they dated
to perhaps 9000 years ago. 10 Mull~r-Beck reported in 1966
that the so-called Folsom and Lano people were generally
believed to be the oldest known tribes; their famous stone
spearheads, were found in the southwestern U.S. and in
northern Mexico, and dated to about 12,000 years ago.
Another ancient Stone Age culture" called Toldense, developc:d in South ~ America. II In the mid-1960s, Canadian
archeologists found a caribou bone which carbon-14 dating
ascribed to a period 25,000 to 32,000 years ago. 12
Later excavations in the 1970s led to even more dramatic discoveries, which turned back the chronology of the
migrations to yet. older times. California scientists Dr.
Jeffrey Bada and Roy Schroeder of the University of California and Dr. George Carter of Texas A.&M. University
developed racemization, a new method of dating bones.
By analyzing the changes in the amino acids in remains of
animal tissue, the new technique enabled scientists to measure remains older than 40,000 years and raised by many
thousands of years the limit, long imposed by the carbon-14
~f'thod. For Stone Age archeology, there was a new beginning. J3 Bada, Schroeder and Carter 'found that skulls
unearthed at La Jolla,and Del Mar, California in the 1920s
and 1930s dated as far back as, 44,000-48,000 years. Thus
we come to the'time period of the earlier ice-free corridor
or 1;:lDdbridge whfch existed 'more than 40,000 years ago. '
By September 1975, scientists attending the Pacific
Science Conference in Vancouver, B.C., were ready to.
admi~ that ancient people had reached Beringia as early as
30,000 years ago, while California claimed evidenc~ of
population dating back 50,000 and 65,000 years. 14 Another
site, called the "Old Crow," in the Yukon region, was
dated to 3(j,UOO years, and some experts suggested that
Early Man could have r'ea~hed Beringia and America as far
back as 70,000 years before present time. However, the
Beringia sites are about half the age of the California sites,
thus oddly contradicting the supposition that Man arrived
in Alaska first. For example, ,one of the oldest known animal ,remains from Alaska's Yukon region was recently
found hy University of Washington geologist Lee Porter;
t~e bison limb bone he discovered at the bottom of a gold
mine dated to 29,700 years. ls
Meanwhiie, Russian archeologists were advancing their
investigations in the frozen wilderness of Siberia. They
found that the Dyuktai people had worked-stone tools
similar to the Folsom and Lano types of paleolithic tools
exc!wated ,in America. 16 One group of Dyuktai artifacts
was dated between 35,000 and 30,000 years. 17 Soviet discoveriesnear the Ulalipke River in Gorny Altai have made
it possible to trace evidence of a culture dating between
150,000 and 100,000 years ago! Soviet scie'ntists aiso recovered ancient tools that bore stylistic resemblances to
"Paleo-Indian" cultures and which dated back 14,00010,000 years. T)::tese objects were unearthed in Kamchatka;
unsurprisingly, they resembl"ed artifactual tools of the
Aleuts and Eskimos. 18
'
It is probable that some of these ancient cultures were
quite sophisticated; even if they didn't have cities or knowledge of metallurgy. For "example, the Aleut people have
(Continued on page 123) ,
Third 9u~er 1982

A Treatise 00
Aoti-Gra~ity and Light
I

by 01'. Joseph L. Intelisano

1982 by Dr, Joseph L. Intelisano
All rights reserved

Pyramids
of the Giza plateau in Egypt, contemporary Homo sapiens has stood in awe
of these massive structures, becoming
ever more perplel;ted as to what functions
they served. Views have ranged from
burial sites of royalty to storage of grains.
These views are acceptable to an immature mind, but as the longitudinal and
latitudinal positions are studied, we see
a rather unique comparison between these
Pyramids, Stonehenge in England,' the
recently discovered Pyramids in the Gulf
of Mexico, and those in Mexico, Central
and South America. More important are
the pyramids in the Tibetan Mountains
north of India, yet to be rediscovered.
These Pyramids are even greater in mass
than those of Egypt and as certain
metaphysical schools insist, were placed
there by the Lords of the Third Root Race
(of our seven great races or \lges). It
should be noted that we are considered the
fifth sub-root race of the fifth or aryan
Race. There are supposedly seven great
ages, each age embracing one great race
with seven sub-races. Theoretically, we
are to complete our evolution, in about
three billion years, more or less.
It is not pl!!-usible that mankind at some
earlier dawn traveled over our globe and
built these massive megalithic structures
haphazardly and for such' miniscule purposes as aforementioned.
The ancient religious texts, as is now
somewhat common knowledge, spoke of
great gods and lords traveling in the skies
in their flying machines or "birds." These
folklore stories are still told today by the
American Indian and other more nomadic
, peoples. Relatively recent texts speak of
the pre-Biblical seven Babylonian Tablets
of Creation and boldly assert that these
gods, and lords were indeed physical;
whereas other metaphysical texts, such as
Oasphe, state that these individual beings
were of the ctheric or fifth-dimensional
world, a world just beyond our ability to
see, since it is a portion of the invisible
electro-magnetic spectrum or . light
spectrum.
Although the above theories are in all
probability true, we still don't know
whetherthey are factual. Also, in all prob-

INCE THE DISCOVERY of the

Third Quarter 1982

ability one or 'both o(the above groups,

the etheric lords and lords or gods who
were . astronau~s from another planet,
erected these m.egaliths ages ago, not just
five thousand or so years ago. In fact. both
of the above groups may be one and the
same-masters of time and extradimensional, travel and therefore, by
definition, lords of interstellar, travel.
Again, the question is for what purpose
were these Pyramids and other megaliths
built?
Let us view the definition of Pyramid
first. In the ancient Semitic tongue, the
word pyramid means "temple of light. ..
As noted above, there are two viewpoints
,as to who built these structures. Since
"temple of light" is used, we will observe
th~t the etheric lords exist beyond our normal vision. or in the fifth dimension where
a portion ofthe light spectrum is not visible to us. It is known by science that these
etheric or light-worlds exist, but due to
the fine energies being dealt with. it is
difficult to experiment in these areas. One
subject which is now being investigated
is Kirlian electrophotography. This is the
photqgraphing of the human aura or aura
(invisible energy fields) of all objects via
the introduction ofa high D.C. current into the object ~eing photographed and then
onto a film. This object may be a leaf, 'a
mouse's tail. a coin, or a human fingerpad. My research in this area has produced som~ interesting results. The
science is growing in some important
diagnostic areas, as b~th Soviet and
American researches indicate.
This aura or light energy' field is in fact
our etheric body; it identifies man as more
than merely a physical entity. The arcane
schools hold to the concept that the
physical body is actually the other thirddimeqsional manifestation of a higher
, archetype form. The etheric body is actually pre-formed prior to our physical
conception and the physical body simply
grows into the pre-formed or preprogrammed etheric archetype. The
etheric or "light" body'as it is sometimes
referred to, is the energy field of light and
is fifth-dimensional. It is of a substance

which not only holds the physical body

together via certain acupuncture meridians; but more important, it acts as a
shell of an egg around the yolk and
albumin of the inner egg-our physical
bodies. In other words, the etheric body
gives form to the physical and unites it to
the spiritual or higher-dimensional world.
During the death process this etheric
shell b~aks down first, so as to permit the
exiling of the various layers of the soul,
or soul-complex. This complex is divided from below-upward into the following
levels of consciousness and dimensional
worlds: (1) Astral or emotional;
(2) Mental; (3) Buddhic or intuitive level;
(4) Atmic; (5) Monad ("division spark");
(6) Divine level' or omniconsciousness.
This does not negate the fact that spirit
or fine energy also permeates these levels
or worlds. It is by capturing these energy
fields that speed-of-light and extradimensional travel is accomplished. as
well as, actual manipulation of the
geometric matrices of matter which is the
basis of the two modes of travel.
The physical brain, depending upon its
ability and the past experiences of the
soul-cotr.plex during prior incarnations.
receives data or past experiences and/or
. data (flashbacks) for synthesis via the
, etheric body which thus acts as a reversed
electrical rectifier by changing (so to
speak) the D.C. current ofthe etheric and
higher spiritual worlds into A.C: (alternating) energy 'pulses or brain waves
which are then picked up as thoughts or
may be recorded on a graph, as in electroencephalography. (The physical brain
acts as a di:polar electiical field.)
Upon death of the physical shell we
then ascend to the level of consciousness
out of which we are usually functioning
on the physical level. Stated another way,
'these higher worlds are very similar to our
third-dimensional world (fourth-dimensional if time is to be included), but less
dense physically than our world. They are
in essence etheric or fifth-dimensional.
Even at this etheric-astral level we see
more matter and less thought-form. The
higher we travel in these worlds,the less
dense the matter becomes and the greater
the ,thought forms and fine energy; at the .

Pursuit 119

highest levels, we note pure thought-force

via light, too fine to measure physically. .
Thus we find the Old Testament view of .
God as a God of Light (energy intelligently directed). It must be understood
that the energy or light is still second to
the intelligence behind it as the prime
mover.
The Pyramids are Temples of Light and
were . built to function as hannonic
resonatorSof light and etheric forces based upon geometric location and inherent
structure of the quarti. stone or magnetic
stone used. Their purpose, then. was to
act as resonaters for extra-dimensional
travel via manipulation of light, etheric
forces and thus on the geometric matrix
of matter itself-to manipulate the latter.
for travel or to travel through it. When
light-speed is. mastered. then .time, (a
function of light and inversely related to
consciousness). shall also be mastered.
- This then reverberates a familiar ring
from Genesis. chapter three. verses 22
through 24, the story 'of Adam'and Eve.
In action prior to the above verses, Adam
and Eve erred by eating of the fruits of
the .famed Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil; and the "error" has been
discovered:
Verse 22: Then the 'L~rd God said.
"Behold. the man has become like one
of us, knowing good and evil; and now,
lest he stretch out his hand and take also
from th~ Tree of Life and eat and live
forever ... ..
23 Therefore the Lord God sent him
out. from the Garden of Eden. to culti vate '
the ground from which he was taken.
24 So he drove the man out; and at
the East of the Garden of Eden he stationed the Cherubim and the Flaming Sword
which turned every direction, to guard the
way to the Tree of Life',
.
In verse 22: " ... become like one of
us." the use of the plural without question denotes more than one "god" involved. Hence. the strong probability of one
or I!lore etheric lord being involved in the
genetic synthesis of man from the original
or prototype is asserted.
The real fear of these overlords was not
the fa:c~ that Adam andlor Eve had the
knowledge of good and evil but that they
might somehow take also from the Tree
of Eternal Life, and eat and live forever.
Man was not to become immortal, for he
had 'gained know ledge of the physical by
knowing good and evil. In other words;
his consciousness -had grown to a point of
individuality or true separateness frorri his
~reator(s). Man was seen as falling from

Pursu',120

Discovery of the, Second.

Law of Gravitation
by Craig GaDDafsoD
1981 by Craig Gunnufson
All rights reSer~ed

Newton's head and

has heard the story in .which an apple felf on'
A
dramatized the discovery of the Universal
Law of Gravitation, which is:
LMOST EVERYONE

Any two bodies attract each other with a force proportional to

the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the
'square of the distance' between them..
.
.
F =,GMm/r 2 .
I believe I have made a basic discovery which could be called the
Second Universal Law 'of Gravitation. It came about as an outgrowth
~ of my Ether Displacement Theory. The Second Law of Universal Grav"' itation states:
Matter absorbs and re-radiates energy from the medium (ether)
which is responsible for the phenomenon known as gravitation.
The rate of energy being radiated is proportional to the sq~are
of the mass.
dE/dt = kM2 = power,
k = 7.2 x 10- 30 erg/gm2 sec
Therefore, an intrinsic property of matter is that it absorbs' energy
from the ether.
;'.'".' .
The rate of acceleration of a falling object, which acquires kinetic
energy, is a measure of energy-flow via conduction through the ether:
For example,. under Newton's law of gravitation, if one of the masses
in question were doubled, it would follow that force and therefo~e the
rate of acceleration would also double. Since the kinetic energy is. proportional to the second power of the velocity, we would also ,expect the
energy-flow via conduction to be proportional to the second power 'of
the mass times soine constant.
.
The sola'r energy output is not less than 3.89' x '1033 erg/sec. If we
assume that fusion and the gravitational mechanism are the only methods
of energy productipn, then the ether must supply 2.8 x 1033 erg/sec
since the neutrino measurements account for only 270/'0 of the Sun's
energy. Then 10k" was calculated to be 7.2 x 10-" erg/gm2 sec and
I
values were calculated for the. planets: .
P red'IC ted M'm.
Celestial Body
Earth
Jupiter
Saturn
Neptune
. Uranus

Mass (M) gms

1027
1.88.x 1030
5.60 X 1029
1.00 X 1029
8.60 X 10 21
5.97

Energy Output
Erg/Sec (dE/dt)
2.6 x' 1022
2.5 X 1027
2.3 X 1026
7.2 X 1024
5.3 X 1020

. There is much disagreement among geophysicists as to the Earth's

total rate of energy dissipation. Values of heat-quantities measured are
Froin laboratory work it is' known that nuclear fusion reaclions give off neulrinos. It
has been generally accepted that the Sun's energy is the result of fusi~n, bUI. over the
last ten years, counts of neutrinos emitted by'the Sun have been less than expected. In
Science, Jan. 1976 issue" J. N. Bahcall and R. Davis, Jr. [3) reporle~ finding only 1.S
SNU (Solar Neutrino Units). Under the standard solar model, 5.S were expected. If these
figures are correct, Ihen only 27% of the Sun's energy may be produced by fusio~.

Third

in the order of magnitude of 10 20 erg/sec. [1] However, Williams and

von Herzen pointed out in 1974 that much more heat could be lost due
to hydrothermal circulation of sea water. Some estimates place this
heat-loss at 100 times greater than continental heat-loss. Therefore, at
the present time, the total energy re'eased by the Earth is highly speculative. My calculation of 2.6 x 1022 erg/sec is within the range of
possibilities.
,
From the data received by the probes sent to Jupiter, there is an
outer layer of atmosphere that is quite cold, but under this colder layer
is a much hotter layer, arounQ 400 C.[2] Because the outer layer acts
as insulation, we would expect only some portion of the energy radiated
by the inner layer to escape the planet. Using the Stefan-Bo~tzmann'
Law, it is possible to calculate the upper limit of the rate of energy lost
through radiation:
E = kT' (5.7' x 10"') (713 Ok)' = 1.47 x 107 erg/cm2:sec'
Et = E (area) = (1.47 x 107) (6.48 x 1020) = 9.5 x Ion erg/sec
Since some portion of this amount is able to escape through the outer
layer, my figure of 2.5 x 1027 erg/sec is within probable range.
Newton himself recognized that bodies were attracted to each other,
but the actu;d mechanism remained a mystery to him: In the ni~eteenth
century, Lesage theorized that a medium of hyperfine particles could
account for the inverse square law discovered by Newton. Lesage's
theory also showed that gravity 'was a push, not a, pull or attraction.
Since then, others have come up independently with similar theories. '
However, Lesagian theory has had its critics, Richard Feyman and
Willy Lay among the most notable in recent times. 111 a 1979 essay,
"The Case for a Lesagian Theory of Gravitation," John Kizert presented some of the arguments made by these critics. [2] One argument:
"

'

That the friction generated by the impacts of these ultramundane

particles upon masses such as the Earth would, of necessity,
make the Earth white-hot within a short period of time.
In this statement the critics are right qualitatively, but not quantitatively.
My calculations show that the Earth does not have sufficient mass to
become white-hot, but the Sun does.
With this new law of gravitation we can calculate the rate of energy
radiation of celestial bodies. These rates confirm the idea that space, or
the ether, has usable energy. Much research is presently ongoing for
the purpose of tapping this energy. W~i1e c,9nfirmation further,legitimizes an important area of research, 'a further i'ncrease ,in "respectability" would attract more' capital. If adequate funding, were to be
forthcoming, the ether technology now present would become further
developed and many applications discovered. With our planet on the
verge of destruction, such an investment might prove to be our best
security.
REFERENCES
[1) Sc1ater, Review Geophys. Spoce Physics, vol. 18, p,' 269-311.
[21 Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 16, p. 254, 1979.
(3) Bahcall, J. N. and Davis, R., Jr., Science, vol. 9, p. 264, Jan. 23, 1976.

t In the Association for Pushing Gravity Research,

1979 Mutual Aid edition.

In a letter granting permission for this article to be reprinted in Pursuit

the author wrote: "I' am not the first to suggest that stars derive their
energy from the ether, but I am the first to show. a 'mathematical relationship between mass and the rate of energy being radiated from
any given celestial body and the connection with gravity." ,

1982

the etheric to the physical level, or as has

also been said, falling from the grace of
God.
Verse 23 ".-.-. from which he was
taken." This sentence indicates Man was
not created directly or instantaneously
from the soil of the earth as such, but was
sent out of the spiritual-etheric levels
(Garden of Eden) and onto the soil from
which he was taken. This would indicate
that Man was already a genetic physical
model or prototype and was simply returned to'the earth-plane.
'
Verse 24: " . .. at the' ,East of the
Garden of Eden: .. " This tells us that the
portal of entry (time-light travel or extradimensional travel) was to the west of
Man's re-entry into the physical level. '
... ,and the Flaming Sword which turned every'direction, to guard the Way to
the Tree of Life." This "Flaming
Sword" would be some type of force-field
guarding the portal of exchange between
"our" physical and "their'.' etheric
worlds.
To review the above: Man was created
etherically or in the fifth dimension; has
an etheric or fifth-dimensional body called the etheric body; and became physical
as he exited the portal from the Garden
of Eden or etheric world to the west of
a force field and onto the physical .
plane-earth. As the molecular vibration
, or resonance of the etheric body slowed
down, Adam and/or Eve became more
physical, in a sequence which the creation of all matter seem$' to follow,
however variously it is described.
The question, What portal? is answered
by a careful review of Genesis. It tells us
the position of the Garden of Eden: in
Babylonia near the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers. This is the eastern boundary and
also the location of the "Flaming
Sword;" all important, however, is the
western boundary. The western boundary
i's the Pyramids, and they are piezoelectric-paramagnetic resonators, built to harmonically vibrate and manipulate light
ant;! etheric waves. Thus they are portals
for extra-dimensional travel via the controlled manipuiation of light (electromagnetic spectrum) and etheric waves at
all levels. As instruments for traveling
beyond light speed, they are by logic
also the instruments to time-travel and the
manipulators of geometric matrices wben
~ci:iva,ted. When mastery of light-speed is'
accomplished for interstellar travel, then
time too is mastered for time-travel, via
geometric form or matrices. (Dr. In-

telisano's article will be concluded in the

next jssue.)
Pursu't 121

Obesity and the

Ent~rprise
by d. N. WiUiamson
Friday, June 11, 1982, at
I p.m., my wife Mary and I
O
in a small movie theater
were
N

sea~ed

on the outskirts of Indianapolis, ',Indiana, waiting to see "Star Trek II:

.The Revenge of Khan." It was ~he
first. showing on the first day of.,the
movie's local run~ and Mary was
humoring this fifty-year-old, iwohundred-pound Trekkie to whom she
is married, by taking the afternoon
off. These facts are relevant to understanding an experience which" I feel
certain, Charles Fort would have
greatly relished.
We had arrived at the theater
about forty minutes .before the one
o'clock showing and were in our
seats at approximately 12:30, by
which time the pla\;e was already
half filled. My impatient somnolence
was interrupted when I caught sight
of a boy in his late teens laboriously
proceeding down our aisle. No easy
job, I though.t, seeing as how his
weight was probably in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds.
Now, I'd like it to be noted that
neither M.ary nor' I are weight con-.
scious joggers, although I am certain
she wouldn't appreciate the recitation of precise statistics; they do
not, however, add up to anything
like three hundred pounds, not even
close to two hundred, either.
.
Also pertinent is the fact that
neither of us is rude individual by'
nature. We are not so unkind as to
point out people who are merely
overweight, and we never laughed at
or otherwise ridiculed any of the
, "persons describe~t in this article.
But the three-hundred-pound teenager headed a virtual parade of inor.dinately obese people of both sexes
who came to sec a film about the
Unexplained which, however, did
nothing to unravel the mystery of
their simultaneous presence under
one roof, at the first show on the
first day of a local screening. .
Before the movie began, I noticed
two ladies who, I'd estimate, were in
their early thirties, seated in a section other than that occupied by the
obese. lad-and their weight surely

Pursuit 122

added to something like seven hundred pounds.

Then another teenage boy came
down the aisle. He made the earlier
arrival (ook relatively like the Thin
Man. The second boy took a seat
a few rows in front of the first; they
did not converse. Moments later ..
there arrived in this small (capacity
about two hund.red) movie house:
-a woman who, in her forties,
appeared to match thf! preceding
ladies, pound for pound;
-a young mari of about twenty.five who I'd say gave the scale a hard'
.tip a,round the four-hundred-pound
mark; and finally, .
'-a young miss, almost petite' by
comparison, at perhaps not more
than three hundred twenty-five.
"It is to the film-maker's credit that
his product engaged my attention.
I was bug-eyed. All these people at
"stage right" in front of us, I couldn't
beli.eve. Only the pair of ladies who
came early appeared to know each
other:. All, however, were on our side
of the theater, prompting me to sug~
.gest to my wife-giddily, I confessthat" if two more came, the building
would surely fall on its side.
When "Star Trek" ended andas we
dried our eyes over the plight of poor
. Mr. Spoclc and followed the crowd toward the doors, we saw a number of
. similarly. well-endowed persons standing in a roped-off area, awaiting the
next show. Finally we were in the
lobby and about clear of the crowd
when another sight so startled me that
I forgot all those parental precepts to
mind good manners. I caught Mary's
arm and nodded my dazed head in the
direction of the outer doors.
On his way in, with ticket in hand,
was the most immense young man
I have seen this side of a country carnival. He was of such girth that he'd
been obliged to' slit his trousers at the
, sides to "accommodate his legs. As he
waddled past, wheezing, Mary and I
glanced back-not, I must admit,
without an uncanny chill at the back
o(our necks":""and we agreed thjl~ his
weight was well within the range of
five hundred to six hundred pounds!

. While my bewildered spouse visited

the ladies room, I asked the theater
manager if he knew of the presence
in town of'a carnival or circus. He
said no. I inquired if Weight Watchers
or sQme other group of obesity victims had purchased block or discount
tickets; 'ag~n, the reply was negative.
Baffled, I approached the pretty girl
behind' the' concession stand and repeated the question.
Her reply fass:inated me: "I'm
relieved that somebody else noticed,"
she said, with a noticeable shudder .
"I've worked here almost two years
and I've never seen anything like it!"
"Am I crazy," I asked, "or didn't
the smallest of those people weigh at
least three hundred pounds?"
H~r honey-blonde curls shimmered
when she nodded. '.'1'<1 guess threefifty." She paused before turning to
wait on another customer. "And the
last gentleman probably weighed like'
_seven hundred."
Having been a professional astrologer before turning novelist, I checked
the horoscope for the day and found it
singularly uninstructive. The Sun was
in.Gemini, of c01,lrse, the moon nearly
trining it in Aquarius., Both zodiacal
signs tend to slenderness, not obesity.
Only Venus in Taurus that day shed
'a,ny light. Many natives of Taurus are
overweight, and Venus, loosely said
to govern "other people," transiting
a twelfth house, could be read a~ a
motivator for bulky Taureans to feel
fenced-in a,nd wish to get out and
away. Still, -the reading didn't satisfy,
if only because those newspaper horoscopes are mucp too' general to appeal
to the serious student of the world's
oldest organized discipline.
What explanation remains? Are
Trekkies obese? Are' those who are
mammoth disposed to attend the first
show on the first day of any movie?
Was it-Scott Rogo, pardon the reference-mere coincidence?
Or did my wife Mary and I inadvertently visit neither Captain Kirk and ,
Mr. Spock nor the Enterprise
but the Twil~gh~ Zone?

Third Quarter 1982

The Origins of Lemuria

(Continued jrom page 118)
been living on the Aleutian Islands since the time of Beringia, 9000 years ago. According to Curtis Fuller, the Aleut
culture inherited an astonishing variety of achievement:
from excellerit kayaks to advanced medical practices; from
acupuncture to gynecology; from anatomy to autopsy. The
ancient Aleuts knew no writing, but they made.good maps
to guide their hunting and fishing. Concern for some sort
of "hereafter" was expressed in the mummification of
their dead.19
We know that Beringia was a place-in ancient millenia
a land-link of subcontinental size. We have examined the
s.ketchy available.evidence and have found some basis for
believing that Beringia was inhabited. One big question
remains, and it is the most difficult to answer:

Was Beringia
Civilized?
.

So far, only one ancient city has been found in Alaska.

In 1939-40; archeologists Froelich Rainey and Magnus
Marks uncovered a true city of some 600 ruined houses'
of which 23 were excavated in two seasons of digging. The
population was estimated to have been as high as 4000. It
was further estimated that possibly 200 or more houses lay
buried beneath the sand. The city had five avenues and
perhaps four rows of houses.
The Rainey-Marks city, located atlpiutaI< on the shore
of the Arctic Ocean, is unique in AlaskaR antiquity. Unable to explain why. the city had come and gone or what
had happened to its people, Rainey theorized that the inhabitants had emigrated from northernmost Japan (lpiutak art resembles the aboriginal art of Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido), or from the region of the Amur
River in Siberia (the Ipiutak flint artifacts were much like
the artifacts of northern Asia). However, it appears that
Ipiutak is "too recent" to provide evidence for Lemurians
in Alaska. Perhaps awaiting discovery are other cities like
it,20 and there is at least the possibility that the Ipiutak
population might have evolved from m~re~primitive Stone
Age "Beringians."
,
An intriguing story is recounted by Alexander Badlam
in his book Wonders oj Alaska. 21 During the Alaskan Gold
Rush a Californian named James O'Dell was panning for
gold near Mt. St. Elias. Suddenly he caught sight of an
"ancient city" which he thOUght was actually a reflection
of submerged ruins. O'DeWs site hasn't been rediscovered
by archeologists, and perhaps the story is best regarded
as a contribution to "tourist lore."
More elaborate and .bizarre is Badlam's saga about the
George Kershon discovery'in the Yukon. In the summer of
1888, Kershon was a member of an exploring party. Aftef
an argument, he lef~ his partners and took passage with two
Indians in their canoe. They paddled down the Yukon and
came to an unmapped fork where they had to decide which
of two river-branches they should follow. The branch they
chose brought them after a long journey to a wild region
of many cliffs; eventually this gave way to a well-wooded
plateau with such rich vegetation and easy'access to water
as would invite the regular attendance of every kind of
wild creature from miles around. For Kershort, .however,
the most remarkable feature of the wilderness paradise

Third Quarter 1982

was a ruined city, submerged beneath a thick layer of ice.

Buildings and streets were clearly visible but Kershon did
not investigate much. <;If the site because, he said, the Indians grew fearful of the place and wanted to leave without
delay. No more details about this remarkable find have
been added during the almost one hundred years since the
story came out. If it is not just another tall tale contrived
for tourist consumption, it could be a clue to a long-gone
ancient civilization.
The Hoonah Indians, a branch of the great Tlingit
tribe, have a legend about Klemshawshiki, in translation
"The City on the Sand at the Base (f tho: Mountains."
It was located near Bartlett Bay and tjlf! Beardsley Islands.
The Gorner Glacier and oiher glacie!:> sent an icy avalanche rolling down the mountains to smother the city;
ice broke in massive chunks from the parent mass and
'tumbled into the water to create great tidal waves. After
. the sacrifice of two slaves, the god Sitth-too-Yekh at length
. relented, the waters subsided, and Ii remnant of the population was saved. Was Klemshawshiki the capital city of
Beringia-Lemuria? We can only wonder; its ruins haven't
been found.22
No account of legends of lost cities in Alaska would be
complete without a summary of the bizarre appearances of
the so-called Mirage City or Phantom City. The supposed
mirage is of a great metropolis, ancient or medieval or
oriental in its splendid array of spires and domes, and it
n:curs from time to time near the Muir Glacier in southern
Alaska. Vincent Gaddis's Invisible Horizons first drew my
attention to this perplexing mystery. L. R. French of ChiCago supposedly photographed the "city in the sky" near
Mt. Fairweather in 1889. He reportedly saw well-defined
streets, trees, tall spires rising over large buildings, and
structures like mosques or cathedrals. He compared it to
an ancient European city.
.
\
.
A pioneer named WilIoug\1by was another early eyewitness. He tried to substantiate his sighting with a photograph of the Phantom City, as the newspapers of 1887
dubbed the spectral metropolis, but Willoughby's claims
'were received with much skepticism and one writer denounced the photograph as fraudulent. 23 An account Qf
the Mirage City was published by C. W. Thornton who
said the mirage was "genuine" and that it depicted a large
city, but he gave no details.24
"
During the 1920s Charles Fort collected a large number
of "mirage city" reports from allover the world. In one
of his books on unexplained phenomena he noted that a
man named Taber had photographed the Phantom City of
Alaska; it was described as very exotic, complete with a
coliseum. 2' Fort noted that some critics questioned the
cluthenticity of Taber's film.
What is, or was, this extraordinary Phantom City or
Mirage City? Newspaper stories speculated that it was a
mirage of Toronto, Montreal, or even Peking. But there
were many reservations about most of the eyewitness ac-~
counts; they were generally insufficient to substan~iate
resemblance to any of those places. 26 Another popular
theory held that the phenomenon was a mirage of Bristol,
England. Alexander Badlam thought that the mirage was
caused by reflections from spire-like pinnacles of ice on
the Muir Glacier or other adjacent glaciers. 27 That explanation would probably be acceptable to most scientists,
but the resemblance to Bristol is another matter. Although

Pursuit 123

mirages can be "projected" over open ~ea .. for a f~w miles,

it is hard to believe that the detailed mirage of a city could
be transmitted Lhousands of sky-miles around the. earth'
and years before the dawn (,f .~Iectronic technology.
Many other explanations aboui.d: In 1897, for example, it was suggested that the spectral 'lision might be
a reflection from another worlti on the "other s:de" of the
North Pole. 28 Occultists have asserted that the mirage was
a photograph, imprinted in some way upon the local atmosphere. This, they say, would produce the so-called
Akashic Image-a vision of the pas( which recurs or which
is seen once but never again. An historic example of such
an image is the first battle of the English Civil War in
1642, reenacted in the sky long after .it had talren place on
the ground. 29 Perhaps the Phantom City i~ an Akashic
Image of a long-destroyed city of anbr:nt Beringia.'
The latest geological discoveries tell us that several great
subsidences of land occl!:"red as the sea level rose sporadically toward the end of Pleistocene times. Muller-Beck
said that Beringia vanished 10,000 years ago. 30 Hopkins
summarized reports. of several sinkings of land: One rise
in sea level took place tretween 20,000 and 18,000 years
ago; another happened 14,000 years ago. The laiil great
rise in sea level was contemporaneous with the melting of
the last great glaciers, a mere 10,000 years ago. 31
. There is also the possibility that. the disappearance of
Beringia Was violent and sudden, quite the opposite of
the gradual subsidence traced in many sources. William
Corliss' Unknown Earth was recently reviewed in the periodical NEARA Journal and evidence was adduced for a
catastrophic flood of the type which supposedly destroyed
"Mu. "32 C. Warren Hunt, a scientisi, presented evidence
in 1977 which suggested that an enormous tide swept over
the Rocky Mountains and into the Great Basin between
11,500 and 10,000 years ago. Hunt ,opined that a cosmic
body could hav~ caused such a deluge. Perhaps this is the
Great Flood of countless legends; a common bond of circumstance seems to tie many of these flood narratives
together, to form a consensus explanation for the disappearance of Beringia-an1i "Mu.,"

Thus ends our quest for the lost Lemuria. We have

found .almost no evidence for a recently sunken island or
continent in the mid-Pacific that might have been the home
of either a primitive or a highly developed ancient civiliza'tion. There is, however, incontrovertible evidence for the
Bering Landbridge.
Land of a thousand-mile width did connect the continents of Asia and America and bound two hemispheres
together at their northern extremity. Anthropological evi~
dence' of migrations across the landbridge, over a lengthy
. span of millenia, is quite compatible with a more recent
theory 'which holds that the less-primitive and later immigrants of nearer pre-Columbian times came to America
in boats. The American "melting POt" is older than we
know; it was being filled with a vast variety of ethnic ingredients long before history began to be written, and who
can say which areas or what people contributed, and how
much or little, to the ultimate conglomeration?
If we believe that great legends grow slowly, and only
where small seeds of truth were planted, we should not
abjure the possibility that there we{e ancient cities in that
far-northern la!!-d that sank beneath the sea.
Pursuit 124

REFERE~CES

1.. Wherry, Joseph, Indian Masks and Myths of the West, New York.
Funk and Wagnalls. 1969, pp. 72-3.

2. Pepper. Brad, and Pepper. Choral, Lost Legends of the West. New
York. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1970, pp. ix et seq. The Cortes Bank
is 120 miles west of San Diego. It is 12 miles wide and 35 miles long
.
under 14 to 30 feet of water. "
3. Clark, Ella .. Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest. University
of California. Los Angeles.
.
.
4. Tilo!llas Gage in 1648 was one of the first English scholars to suggest that the ancestors of the Indians crossed over the area which later
became known as the Bering Strait region. See Willey. Gordon. and
Sabloff. Jeremy, A History of American Archaeology. San Francisco.
W. H. Freeman and Company. 1974, pp. 25-6. A Spanish writer, Fray
Jose de Acosta, suggested a similar idea in 1590, and by the eighteenth
century, many 'American historians had accepted the theory of migra.
'tions from Siberia through the Bering Strait region.'
5. They are described further along in this report.
'.
6. "1 ne Archaeology of Alaska and the Peopling of America," by
Dumond, in Science, August 29, 1980, pp. 984-991.
7. "The Bering Strait Land Bri~ge," Scientific American, Vol. 206.
1962. pp. 112-123.
"
8. Jer,nings. Jesse, Prehistoric North America. New York, McGrawHill, 1974, p. 48.
.
9. Dumond, op. cit . p. 984.
.
.
10. MncGowan, Kenneth. and Hester, Joseph. Early Man in the New
World, Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company. 1962, p. 21.
I L Muller-Beck, Hansjurgen. "Paleohunters in America: Origins and
Diffusion,' Science. May 27, 1966. p. 1204.
12. Dumond, op. cit., p. 985.
13. "Origins of Humans on Coast Revised." UPI, New York Times
May IS, 1975, p. 9.
14. Sullivan, Walter', "Settlements of Most Major Land Areas Around
Pacific Put at 30,000 Years Old." New York Times. Sept. 3. 1975, p. 34.
IS. "'Golden' Discovery: Oldest. Bering Man?", Science News .of.
.
May 12, 1979. p. 311.
16. Sullivan, op. cit.
17. Scientific Siberia, an anonymous pamphlet published by the USSR
Academy of Sciences, Siberian branch. This was distributed at an exhibit
called "Scientific Siberia," at the Chicago Mus~um of science and
.
Industry during the summer of 1976. .
18. ibid; see also the Walter Sullivan article mentioned in reference 14.
19. Fuller, Curtis, "I See by the Papers" column in. Fate. pp. 7-12.
20. Rainey, Froelich G., "Mystery People of .the Arctic .... Natural
History, Vol. 46. 141, reprinted on pp. 234-5 of Ancient Man: A Hand
book of Puuling Artifacts by William Corliss, Glen Arm, Maryland,
,
published in 1~78 bi' the Sourcebook Project.
21. Badlam, Alexander, Wonders of Alaska, third edition. 1891.
privately published.
,
22. Scidmore, Eliza, Appleton'S Guide-Book to Alaska and the Northwest Coast, New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1893, p. 98.
23. Ne~ York. Ace Books. 1965, p. 39. Newspapers of the 1890s and
1900..1)1 refer to the Phantom'City as the Silent City.
..
24. Scidmore, op. cit., p. 106.
.
25. New Lands, New York, Ace. B09ks, 1973, pp. 176-9.
26. ibid.
27. ibid.
28. ibid.
29. Ellwood, Gracia Fay, Psychic Visits to the Past. New York, Signet
Sooks, 1971, pp. 19-27. This battle took place on Sunday. October 23.
1642, at Edge Hill, England. The Royalist army of King Charles I was
defeated by the soldiers of Parliament in the first major battle of the
IEnglish Civil War. In the darkness of Christmas Eve. 1642; and alain
on New Year's Eve, villagers at Keinton near the battlefield saw and
heard a re-enactment of the. battle in the sky' above the battlefield. Not
only were apparitions of the slain seen, but visions of soldiers and commanders still living at the time were also seen.
30. MullerBeck, op. cit., p. 1193.
31. Hopkins, David, et aI., The Bering Land Bridge. Stanford. California, Stanford University Press, 1967, pp. 462-5.
.
'.
32. NEARA Journal. Summer 1980, p. 23, Hunt. C. Warren, "Cata- ..
strophic Termination of the Last Wisconsin Ice Advance," in Bulletin
of Canadian Petroleum' Geology. 1977, Vol. 25, pp. 45~!; reprinted
in Unknown Earth by William Corliss, The Sourcebook Project, Glen
Arm, Maryland, 1980. p. 68.

Third Quart_ 1982

In April 1973, this'

photo-portrait of
the Crystal Skull
made the cover of
a mainline magazine,
popular in its time but
no longer published~

(Continued from page 98)

later, some 25 feet away. So far as
we are aware, no other crystal skulls
have been found in the Maya area,
although smaller examples are reported from the Mixtec-Aztec area of
central Mexico, from the post-Classic
period.
,
The Mitchell-Hedges skull and
mandible weigh 11 pounds 7 ounces;
dimensions are 5 inches high, 5 inches
wide, and 7 inches long. The skull
was carved from a single quartz crystal
of unusuillly large size. At some later
time, the mandible was apparently
removed and altered. Perforations
were made on each side, so that tiny
weights could be inserted, to allow
the mandible to swing freely.
The crystal is by no means clear.
There are many flaws and intrusions,
and these differentially distribute any
light played upon the skull. Interestingly, the eye sockets seem to act as
a focal point for releasing collected
light.
One of the first questions raised
about the Crystal Skull's validity was
the apparent absence of large crystals
of suitable composition in the Mayan
area. While adequately large crystals
have been found in several places in
central Mexico and Baja California,
their compositipn and impurities do
not match those of the MitchellHedges skull. In the early 1970s, ~e
found a very large deposit of crystals
near Nacori Chico, Sonora-a town
deep in the foothills of the n'orthern
Sierra Madre Occidental. Here again,
the sufficiently large crystals were
laced with tourmaline intrusions,
notably miss~ng from the MitchellHedges skull. To date, the crystal

Thlnl Quarter 1982

construction most nearly Uke that of

the skull in question comes from a
quartz deposit in Calavaras County,
California.
.
,Several crystal skulls known to
have come from central Mexico all
belong to the Mixtec-Aztec period
(A.D. 1200 to 1500). Many were
taken to Europe by French and Spanish soldiers or diplomats ~fter tours
of. occupation duty in Mexico. Today,
, such skulls may be seen in the Christy
collection of the British Museum; the
Musee de I'Homme, Palais de Chaillot in Paris; and in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York City.
The largest and best, in our opinion,
is in the British Museum, and appears
to be of authentic prehistoric manufacture; slightly smaller and lighter
than the Mitchell-Hedges skull, its
material matches crystal specimens
recorded from the Mixtec-Aztec culture area.
"\
The British specimen, however,
lacks the sophistication, accuracy of
detail and esthetic qualities of the
itchell-Hedges skull. lis lower jaw
is not separated; the teeth in both the '
mandible and maxilla are crudely
shaped and differentiated by inden- .
tations which were probably made by
the abrasion of quartz on quartz.
The'late Dr. George C. Kennedy,
a longtime friend and Distinguished
Professor of Physics at the Institute
of Geophysics at UCLA, was also a '
collector of artifacts on a worldwide
scale. He had a serious and lasting
interest in Mayan archeology and
conducted research in thermoluminescence in order to be able to tell
the real from the fake items in his
extensive pottery collection. During

this period of intense research in

techniques to distinguish genuine
artifacts from recent copies, we discussed the Mitchell-Hedges skull at
length and we agreed that it belonged
to the post-Classic or early historic
period. (It is true that mosaic, death
masks of jade are known from this
period in Mayan archeology athough
crystal skulls are not.)
If the Lubaantun ruin was abandoned 'around A.D. 800, some 400
years before crystal skulls are known
in the Mixtec-Aztec area, the Crystal
Skull must have been introduced
after. the ruin was abandoned. It
appears to be both out of known
range and too early a context.
If the skull was introduced after
the ruin was abandoned, who left it
there? We see three possible explanations:
I) Pr~-Columbian Indians brought
the skull from central Mexico to the
already abandoned city of Lubaantun
in post-Classic times and buried it
under the altar, an example of religious practices;
2) An unknown person planted the
skull at this location to encourage
Frederick Mitchell-Hedges in his
excavation of the site';. or
3) The excavator himself may have
placed it there, in order to bring' joy
to an adopted daughter-the actual
discoverer of the object-on her
birthday.
In The Crystal Skull, Richard Garvin quotes a significant statement
from the first edition, of Frederick
Mitchell-Hedges' autobiography:'
"How the skull came into my possession I have reason for not revealing." (This does not appear in the
later editions.) There is also a strange
request that upon his death tlie skull
be buried with him. If the Crystal
Skull were, in fact, a sensational and
legitimate archeological find from
Lubaantun, it would properly belong
in' the permanent collection of a
museum-not hidden forever with
the body of Frederick Mitchell-Hedges.
In 1959, when he died of a stroke,his wishes in the matter were disregarded, and the crystal becam'e the
property of his adopted daughter,
Anna Mitchell-Hedges, a lady now in
her 70s.
,
Whatever the truth of 'its origin,
the Crystal Skull is still an outstanding
work of art.
C>o

Pur.,,'t 125

Notes and Quotations on Thinking

by

Ri~hard

L. CIBrk. Ph.D.

Thinking requires care in application and an open attitude of judgment.

Edward de Bono made several valuable contributions to the knowledge of human thought processes. Two
. inherent limitations of the data processing. (thinking) in humans is the sequence or step method used and the
self-organizing storage of mental data by the brain system: .
There are two aspects of this inherent limitation in the handling of "information by a self-organizing: .
memory surface. The first aspect is the necessity. to proceed by steps which can only reflect experience, which may be first- or second-hand. Abstractions or combinations of separate experiences
are possible but ,they remain experience-dominated. The collection of newl information is also
experience-dominated since new infor~ation is only selected if it fits in with existing patterns-relevance is all-important. ...
.
The second aspect of the inherent limitation of a self-organizing memory surface is the way the
organization of information is cumulative. Past information controls what happens to new informa- .
tion. Patterns are created, become established, and grow ever more rigid. . .. Once again education
reinforces these tendencies by means of the. "labeling" device which freezes established patterns and
divisions. I
Arrogance in thinking does prevent the emergence of new ideas, to paraphrase de Bono:
I

The third basic principle of lateral thinking is the realization that vertical thinking by its very nature is
not only ineffective in generating new ideas but also positively inhibiting. There is an extreme type of
temperament which compulsively seeks for tight control of what goes on in-the mind; everyihing has
to be logically analyzed and synthesized .... This is an extreme typ.e of mind, but there are a great
number of minds which show this inclination to lesser degrees. 2
Dr. James L. Adams, director of the design division of the Stanford School of Engineering, teaches thinking .
as op.posed to reacting:
Cultural blocks are acquired by exposure to a given set of cultural patterns .... Some examples of
cultural blocks are:
.
..
.
1. Fantasy and reflection are a waste of time, lazy, even crazy.
2. Playfulness is for children only.
3. Problem-solving is a serious business and humor is out of place.
4. Reason, logic, numbers, utility, and practicality are good, feeling, intuition, qualitative
judgments, and pleasure are bad.
5. Tradition is preferable to change.
6. Any problem can be solved by sc'ientific thinking and lots of money.]
Returning to the work of de Bono on why human thinking "locks up" in most people, he checks out dominant ideas and crucial factors:
. .
.
Everyone is confident that they know wha~ they are talking about, reading about or writing about, :
but if you ask them to pick out ~he domin~nt idea, tl}ere is diffic;ulty in doing so. It is difficult to con- :
vert a v~gue awareness into a d~finite statement .... Unless one can pick out the dominant idea, one is :
Dr. Clark is a systems engineer resident in soutllern California .

.'Pure' Science vs. 'Applied'Sciet:tce

William E. Spicer, professor of engineering at Stan/ord University, hod this to say about the problem in a recent interview
. with the university news service: .
One of the real problems we face today is the schism between pilre

Pur.uit 126

science and applied science. The end result is that there is one group of
people who think of themselves as pure scientists, with little contact
with the applied world. On the applied side, I can give you many examples of hundreds of millions of dollars which are lost by groups
laking empirical approaches-Edisonian approaches ..... rather than trying
10 understand scientifically whal is going on, and building from there.

Third QUarter 1982

going to be dominated by it .... The dominant idea r~sides.not in the situation itself but in the way it is
looked at. ... A crucial factor is some element of the situation which must always be included no matter how one looks at the situation .... Like a dominant idea, a crucial factor can immobilize a situation and make it impossible to shift a point a view. 4
This leads into the area of concepts, divisions, and polarizations .as covered. by.de Bono:
,

'.

A limited and coherent attention-span arises directly from the mechanics of .the self-maximizing
memory surface that is mind. This limited attention-span means that one only reacts to a bit of the
total environment .... Separation into units; selection of units, and combination of units in different
ways together provide a very powerful information-processing system .... When a unit"is obtained by
dividing up the total sit~ation or by putting together other units, it is convenient to "fix" that unit by
giving it a separate nanie .... The name establishes it as a pattern in its own right instead of just being
part of another pattern .... The named assemblies of units (which are called concepts) are even more
restricting because they impose a rigid way of looking at a situation .... The dangers of the polarizing
tendency may now be summarized: Once established, the categories become permanent. New information is altered. so that it fits ari established category. Once it has done so there is no indication that
it is any different from anything else under that category .... The fewer .the categories the greater the
degree of shift.s
Oakley worked outthe theory ofman's thought-evolution and development based on a generic meaning of
Man the Tool-Maker. His balance point was between tradition and invention in social groupings:
Human culture. in all its diversity is tl:te outcome of this capacity for conceptual thinki~g, but the
leading factors in its developme~t are tradition coupled with invention .... Imagination, observation,
deduction, and speculation ultimately led to art, science and religion, but at first these were scarcely
.
separable from 'each other. 6
Immanuel Velikovsky wrote the most controversial beok of this century-Worlds In Collision. His com.
ments on thinking and reality vs. "law" are interesting: .
If, occasionally, historical evidence does not square with formulated laws, it should be remembered
that a law is but a deduction from experience and experiment, and therefore laws must conform with
historical facts, not facts with laws. 7

. And finally, let us look at the reception ofanything that is

ne~,

controversial, or different:

NIH ... is a technological slang acronym for Not Invented Here. The very existence of such a phrase
in the jargon of technology attests to its ubiquity. The NIH reaction is as common as the gravel of the
road and strikes all men with equal fc;>rce. 8

Of primary importQnce is to be able to think about thinking.

REFERENCES.------------------------------------I. de Bono, Edward, The Mechanism of Mind, New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1969, p. 240
2. de Bono, Edward, New Think, New York: Basic Books, 1967,
pp. 129-130
3. Adams, James L., Conceptual Blockbusting, San Francisco:
The Portable Stanford Series, 1974, p.;l1 . .
4. de Bono, Edward, Lateral Thinking, New York: Harper and
Row, 1970, pp. 124-127

In order to do what I call scientific engineering, you have to have a

big backlog of basic knowledge that you can draw on to guide you. You
can't do it without the knowledge being available .. I! wasn't available in
Edison's time. There are lots of areas in which it is not available today.
I! is disturbing that very little premium is placed on gathering basic
knowledge in areas of critical basic need, as opposed to areas where it

Third

Quart~

1982

5. Ibid, pp. 208-214

6. Oakley, Kenneth P., Man the Tool-Maker, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1949, pp. 81-91
7. Velikovsky, Immanuel, Worlds in Collision, London: Abacus
Books, 1950; pp. 8-9
8. Kuecken, John A .., C.-eativity, Invention, and Progress, New
York: Bobbs-Merril Co., 1969, p. 115

is not c1~r whether there will ever be a practical need.

This is an area in which one has to tread very lightly, because you
don't want to destroy the ability of science to find new, unexpected
things. On the other hand, our scientific establishment is getting rather
large to ju~tifY, and is in financial difficulties because of this. ~

Pursuit 127

Evidence for the Yeti

(Continued from page 105)
well known for its ability to isolate populations. of
animals in its steep valleys where they would be proteCted
from outside competition. There is no valid reason to believe that the Himalayas could not harbor a population
of relict apes as they do harbor populations of other ..
relict species.
: .
Gigantopithecus was originally discovered by G. H.
R. von Koenigswald when he encountered unusually large
anthropoid teeth'in a collection of "dragon bones" in a
Chinese pharma.cy in Hong Kong.' On . examining the
material, he explained that '.'despite its large size, Gigan-
topithecus has more 'man-like' teeth than' any living an~
thropoid ape." Other researchers interpr~ted the 'teeth to
mean a truly phenomenal size for Gigantoplthecus, a
weight up to 600 pounds and a hlight of possibly nine
feet when standing erect. Koenigswald felt that "we had
best suspend judgment on the whole matter (size) until
the missing limb bones themselves have been discovered.
In any case, Gigantopithecus, whose teeth are larger than
those of the gorilla, is likely to have had a larger cranial
capacity a~ well."
Since cranial capacity is often correlated with intelligence in the early stages of man's development, it
seems likely that Gigantopithecus might have been an exceptionally intelligent ape: Koenigswald felt that Gigan,topithecus probably had a cranial capacity corresponding
to that of early man. Consequently, although there.is still
much disagreement, Gigantopithecus is usually placed
somewhere between the pongids (or ape forms) and the
homids (or human forms). First hailed a~ the missing.
link, the yeti is doubtfully a living form representing a
transition between ape and man, but if.it i.s a Gigantopithecus descendant, it probably does constitute an.
evolutionary offshoot that still possesses characteristics
common to such a form.
How would Giganiopithecus have fitted into the
Himalayas? It is a valuable question in that it helps
dispose of two common misconceptions about the yeti:
1) that the yeti is a resident of the harsh climate of ' the
perennial snows; and 2) that it seems. unlikely that a large
pr.imate could hide from the numerous investigators for
such a long time.
My experience in the Himalayas sugge~ts to me that a
yeti-Gigantopithecus would not inhabit the snowlands. It
would favor the dense vegetation of the steep valleys in
the middle-altitude zone. The yeti is encountered in the
snows because, like the mountaineers who discover its
tracks, it uses the snowy passes as routes, from one valley
to the next. The topography of the Himalayas forces any
. animal traveling across its country tf> use the limited
number of gaps, ridges and passes as roads from one
area to ~he next.
. A 'creat*e like "Gigantopithecus could easily survive in.
the lush forests of the valleys. The succession of
veg'etational zones on the steep slopes providesa diversity
and abundance of plants, and a complex; small-mammal
fauna including rats, mice, voles, moles, and pikas, that"
would offer a large omnivore a more than ample supply
of food. Numerous large mammals already enjoy the rich
conditions and maintain sizable. populations. In" the

Pursuit 128

mountains of Africa, gorillas are known to inhabit areas

at altitudes of up to 12;800 feet. A large primate would .
do equally well in the Himalayas.
The yeti would have little trouble escaping detection in
these dense forests. In many places, the vegetation
presents a nearly impenetrable wall. The thick, compacted undergrowth of bamboo, rubis and rhododendron
'greatly constricts one's ability to hear, see and move, so
-that a large mammal could easily hide nearby and remain
unnoticed. Even the irregular topography contributes
places to hide. In the best monster traa.ition, the yeti
could disappear among tM numer~us gullies, canyons,
cliffs, rock shelters and varied slopes. The slopes fold
back and forth upon themselves to in!=lude a prodigious
amount of land.
.
In addition, these forests are seldom visited by people.
The mountaineers hurr"y to and from their icy p'eaks and
keep on the main trails to facilitate transport of supplies.
The villagers are primarily agriculturists and pastoralists
who have little purpose in exploring the forests; those
villagers who regularly hunt are also the ones with stories
about the yeti, but" they are a small minority. Surprisingly
fe~ naturalists have spent any length of time anywhere in
.the HimalayasJ and even they usually keep to the trails.
As in mountain country throughout the world, the trails .
follow the natural signposts of the topography, the ridges
and streambeds. The vast area of slope is virtually
isolated.
Further, .the ability of large mammals to escape
documentation by science is infamous. The kouprey
(Bos sauveli), a large wild bison, was not discovered by
Western science until 1936, when the first specimen was
identified inside the Paris zoo. This animal favors the
open woodland and savanna areas of Cambodia, where
the terrain and vegetation leave him highly visible. Other
creatures, such as the mountain gorilla, pygmy hippopotamus, and giant panda, were all known from
village reports and yet remained unknown to science. for
years:
.
Finally, adding to the difficulty of discovery, the yeti
is probably noctornal. Like many other lar-ge mammals
that suffer from man's disturbance of the wilderness, th~ ..
yeti has probably developed the habit of hiding and
sleeping during the day, and c6nfining its traveling and
feeding to the hours of darkness. Many elephant
populations of South Asia have adopted the same
strategy. .
.
Thus, the sum total of evidence demonstrates that
although. by no rfleans do the traditional zoological data
required for naming a new species exist; th~re is no zoological, paleontological or ecological reason to suppose
that an unkno~n anthropoid does not exist in the Himalayas. In fact, a significant body of data suggests there
does.
..
,
In December 1972, Howard (Emery) and I decided to
rp.ake our first research trip to the high altitudes. Choosing Kongmaa Laa mountain as a site, we wanted to use
this trip to investigate the winter conditions of the eco-system. We joked about the yeti before we left, warning
our compatriots that'they should join us, for it w01,lld be
the first expedition trek to "yeti country," the alpine
ridges north of the Kasu~a. Jim and Karen (Foster) deelined, saying they were busy at base, but Jeff said he
would accompany us at least part way.

Third Quarter 1982

We left base camp in the Kasuwa Khola on December 14. The first days were a slow trek through the upper,
':1 .,
temperate forest. Later we encountered heavier snows
which made traveling difficult, and Jeff and our porters
: ~ '::
. .
turned back. On the 17th, accompanied by two Sherpa
:':'.
....
assistants, Howard and 1 emerged on a high alpine ridge
.
.
connecting to Kongmaa Laa. The weather was beautiful,..
with a clear sky and warm sun. The icy summit of Maka..:. ':.'
=;:"-: :',:
lu dominated the horizon to the northwest. In the late
:~:~ ': .::,'
~ ......
afternoon, we discovered a depression in the ridge at
~.::':.. '; :.
about 12,000 feet-a flat place with firm snow which
. ,. ' .
seemed suitable for a camp.
:
i,; :'
The area' was small, less than half an acre, a clear
:
snowfield unmarked by animal prints. The slopes on the
r'
side of the ridge were precipitous, falling several thou",
.
sand feet to the Barun River on the north and to' the Kasuwa River on the south. We made camp, pitched two
light tents, had dinner around an open fire, and retired
,
just after dark. The evening was calm.
Shortly before dawn the next morning, Howard left
our tent and the next moment called excitedly. There,
beside the trail we had made to our tents, was a new set
of footprints. While we were sleeping, a creature had
approached our camp and walked directly between our
tents. The Sherpas identified the tracks, without question, as yeti prints. We, without question, were stunne,d.
We immediately made a full photographic record of
the prints before the sun touched them. Like the conditions Shipton had encountered, the surface consisteCi of
crystalline snow, excellent for displaying the priJits. These
conditions were localized to our camp area and were the
results of the effects produced on the depression by the
sun and winds of earlier days., The prhlts were clearest in
, Reconstructed yeti print, drawn to show all known characterlstks
the middle of the depression, directly beside our' trail,
where some ten to fifteen prints, both left and right ,feet,
climbing farther down, and I returned to the top of the
revealed the details of the toes and general morphology
ridge.
of the creature's foot. Some of the right footprints were
From our camp, the' tracks continued out onto the
actually on our previous trail, making them difficult to
south slope, but here the increased exposure to the sun
interpret. Other prints of the right foot were distinct. ,
The prints measured approximately nine inches long
had melted most of the snow, and there were bare patches of rock and alpine scrub which made following the
by four and three quarters inches wide. The stride, or
distance between individual. prints, 'was surprisingly short,
trail extremely difficult. We walked farther up the ridge
~oward Kongmaa Laa to get a view of the trail from
often less than one foot, and it appeared that .the creature
above, ,and discovered what appeared to be the prints of
had used a slow, cautious walk along this section. The
the same creature coming back onto the top of the ridge.
prints showed a short, broad, opposable hallux, an assymmetrical arrangement of the toes, and a wide rounded ' , \The prints crossed back and forth several times. Here,
the ridge was covered with low bushes, which enabled
heel. These features were present in all the prints made
deeper snow to accumulate, and ag~in, the prints were
on firm snow. Most impressive, their close resemblance
confused punch holes. The trail then went back down
to Shipton's prints was unmistakable.
We then proceeded to explore the rest of'the trail left,
onto the south slope, and we attempted to follow but lost
by the creature. By the,direction of the toes,on the clear
the prints on the bare rock and scrub. The slope was extremely steep, and searching for the prints was arduous
footprints, I determined that the creature had come up
and dangerous. 'We realized that whatever creature had
the north slope. I investigated these prints first, following
~ade them was far stronger than any of us.
the trail back down the slope. Because the north slope
received less sun, it was covered with very deep snow;,
We considered the possibility of a hoax perpetrated by,
,our Sherpas, but discounted it, realizing that the Sherpas
and the tracks consisted of large punch holes in the snow
~ere not capable of. making the full trail of prints we'
revealing little detail. I descended several hundred yards,
but the heavy snow made walking impossible, and I was
" could see from the top of the ridge. They would not have
forced to cling to the slope ,with my hands. The creature
had the time. We also doubtctd'their ability to make
must have been exceptionally strong to ascend this slope
prints which were so consistent with each other and that
. with these conditions prevailing. From a vantage point I
so closely matched the yeti footprints we were familiar
with from photographs.
could look back down the trail which continued toward
the bottom of the valley in 'a dir~ction generally perpenWe sent word with one of the Sherpas down to the
other members of the expedition; and Jeff came up to the
dicular to the slope; but there seemed little advantage in
'~.

,,:

"

.....

:'"

~ ~

"

"

: ~

~,'

;,

~.,

~.

~:'

Third Quarter 1982

Pursu't 129

ridge later with plaster of paris so that we could make

casts of the prints.
.
. During the next three days, we kept a careful watch
for die possible reappearance of" the creature. We made
a new. camp farther up the ridge, and spent days examini.ng other snowfi~lds. At night,. taking advantag!= of a
bright moon that clearly illuminated the surrounding
slopes, we watched from the front of our tent for possible nocturnal activity. There were no further signs.
Upon reflection, there are several aspects of this incident which contribute valuable information to the controversy about the yeti:
.
1. The circumstances eliminate the hypothesis that all
yeti prints are a function of melting by the sun or'winQ
erosion. We know that the prints were made during the
night of the 17th, or very early on the morning of the
18th. We photographed them before the sun touched.
them. We knew wind had not affected them, since a compari~on of our own. footprints made on the tnorning of
the 18th with our footprints made on the 17th showed
Iiule, .if any, distortion.
'
2. The prints are not referrable to any known fauna
of the area. During the expedition, we devoted special
efforts to examining all large" mammal prints made in
snow; we noted possible variations produced by different
snow conditions, terrain,. and activites of the animal (i.e.,
running, walking,. etc.); a photographic record was made
whenever possible. From' comparisons of these photo. graphs with the photographs of our yeti prints, we feel
we can eliminate whh' assurance the possibility that the
yeti prints were made by any known normal animal of
the eastern Himalayas.
3. The prints support the hypothesis that the various
yeti reports refer to one species. The prints are very similar to those photographed by Shipton, differing orily'in
being smaller, with a shorter hallux, which probably indicates an immature male or a female. Sexual dimorphism,
i.e., a difference in size between the sexes, is known from
Gigantopithecus and many other primates, and could
easily account for stories from vjllagers about different
species of yeti.
4. The print~ support the hypothesis that the yeti isan
anthropoid. Dr, George Schaller, who spent a year in the
mountains of Africa studying -a free-ranging population
of gorillas, commented after examining the plaster casts
of the prints made on the 18th day that they "demonstrate a close resemblance to those made by the mountain
gorilla. "
.
5. The arrangement of the prints supports the hypothesis that the yeti uses bipedal progression. The prints
demonstrated a left-right-Ieft-right pattern, with no overlapping and no indication that more than t~o appendages
.
were used in making a lengthy series of prints. :
6, The weight of the creature that made the prints was
less than or equal to the weight of an average man. My
footprints (I weighed approximately 185 pounds, including winter clothes and boots) were slightly deeper, thus
.suggesting that the creature weighed about 165 pounds.
7. The circumstances support the hypothesis that the
yeti is nocturnal.
8. The creature displayed some inquisitiveness, since
it made a detour along the ridge in order to enter Qur
camp and pass between the tents'. From car~fi.d exam,

Pursuit 130

inatfon of the terrain, it appeared likely that the creature

approached our camp by' following a natural spur up the
ridge to cross from the Barun to the Kasuwa Khola at
a point which would enable it to avoid the heavier snows
f~rther up the ridge. Although it is possible that the creature saw our camp during the first hour of darkness when
the campfire was burning, it seems more probable that,
given the angle of the slope, it did not know our camp
was there until it was almost upon it. The point at which
it reached the top of the ridge was some 20 to 30 yards
east of the camp, but rather than turn back or cross the
ridge at that point, it turned west to walk along the ridge'
;toward our camp, finally passing between the tents. It is
possibly significant that the creature appeared to be an
immature one, from the size of its feet.
9. The presence of its tracks supports. the hypothesis
that the creature. inhabits the forested regions, using the
snowy passes only to cross from one valley to the next.
The tracks came from the heavily forested valley of the
Barun and, instead of going in the direction of the higher
snowfields, crossed the' ridge' and continued toward the
forests of the Kasuwa and Iswa Kholas,
10. The tracks of the creature suggest that the yeti is
exceptionally strong and well-adapted to traveling across
Himalayan terrain. At several points along its track, it
walked directly along the branches and limos of the rhododendron bushes, using the displacement ability of the
vegetation to support its weight above the deepest snows.
I have seen, in their tracks, .that both' snow leopards and
J>ears frequently use this technique .
i 1. The prints lend credibility to 'the theory concerning the yeti. Their resemblance to the numerous footprints previously reported, some of them decades ago and
more than a hundred miles from Kongmaa Laa, suggest
a uniforinity of data strongly' indicating the existence of
an unknown creature in the Himalayas.
Based on this experience, I believe that there is a creature. alive today in the Himalayas which is creating a
valid zoological mystery. I do not want to mince words
or argue definitions, but I' am not saying that I believe in
the Abominable Snowman. I am saying that there is a
real and unresolved enigma concerning a creature that
walked by my tent one night. It is possi~ly a known spe.cies in a deformed or abnormal condition, although the
evidence points toward a new form of bipedal primate.
Or perhaps an old form-a form that man once knew
and competed with, and afterward forced it to seek refugein the seclusion of the Himalayas.
. Even though I am' intrigued with the yeti, both for its
scientific importance and for what it says about our own
interests and biases, I would be deeply saddened to 'have
it discovered. If it were to be found and captured, confined and studied, we might well slay our nightmares .. But
the mystery. and imagination it evokes would also be
sl~in. If the yeti is an old f9rm that we have driven into
the mountains, now we would' gain another possession,
another ragged exhibit; in the concrete world of the zo. ological park, another Latin name to enter on our scientific ledgers. But whatabout the wild creature that now
roams free of man in the fores~s of the Himalayas?' Every
time man asserts his mastery over nature, he gains something in knowledge, but loses something in spirit.
~.

Third Quarter 1982

High Hopes for

A New-Age Pyramid
by Fred Wilson.
"

at Gurnee, Illinois is due for

T
completion in 1984. Already the gleaming tip and
massive truncated sides give it dominance over an area
HE GOLDEN PYRAMID"

north of Chicago where rolling meadows and clumps of

woodland are yet untouched by urban sprawl.
When finished, the pyramid will indeed be goldennot just the tip as it is now, but the entire 9,500 square
feet of exterior sheathed in 23-carat gold leaf, "applied by "
hand in 3-inch strips of 67-foot length at an estimated "
cost of $500,000. A one-ninth scale model of the Great"
Pyramid of Khufu at Giza in "Egypt, the Gurnee pyramid
stands. 59 feet high and has" a base measurement of 65
feet. Plans made five years ago called for the first side to
be precisely faced toward true north; a survey after framing found all sides in perfect alignment along both axes,
north-south and east-west.
If this replication of ancient pyramid" design enables"
builder James Onan to address the mystical forces which
many think are uniquely possessed by the pyramid form,
one of his two hopes for the venture will be realized. He "
is unsure whether "pyramid power" can really cause razor
blades to stay sharp, food .to stay preserved for months,
aggression to be reduced, and pain, to be alleviated. But
he is quite certain" that Egypt's Great Pyramid, built ca.
2800 B.C., was originally covered, with gold, stolen long
ago, and that only gold may sufficiently amplify the biophysical energy which pyramids are supposed to gather
and store, and even transmit, as some enthusiasts believe.
Onan is also very sure of the need for "various protective measures to keep the gold coat his pyramid will
wear from being ripped off, as he thinks Khufu's was.
Just after construction "began, a moat-like lake was dug
around the property, to a depth of 30 feet in some places;
and two businesslike guard dogs are pictured patrolling

Third Quarter 1982

Nancy Paulsen for SITU

SITU member Nancy Paulsen visited the Gurnee area this past
summer and made these comments on the photos she too';:
"If you look closely, you can see the line where the gold leaf
ends on the tip of the pyramid. . . . From" the highways it
doesn't seem so huge, but compared to the size of the truck
shown next to it in the pictures, the pyramidhouse must be
vast . . . . Truly. I admire this man who had the initiative to
build a house like this. Just think, i~stead of merely wondering
what happens inside a pyramid, this lucky man will actually
get to Ond o~t."
"

behind a fence in front of the pyramid in newsphotos

recently published.
As for the interior, it will have 17,000 square feet of
floor area in six stories. The first floor will be open to
invited members of the public who wish to study pyramid
power in an aura-conditioned setting; for large groups of
students there will be a sizable meeting room with a pyramidal fireplace. The fi~e stories above the first will be
the new home of th~ Onan family-James and his wife
Linda, and their five children, four boys and a girl of
ages from 10 through 20. The second floor has been allocated to dining use and includes a large, open-style kitchen.
"Floors three through five will contain bedrooms, and the
remaining space, on the sixth level just below the peak of
the pyramid, will be used for storage.
The second of Onan.'s hopes for his pyramid-house is
that it will be "the most energy-efficient home in the U.S."
Only 50,000 BTUs should be needed to heat it, 'he told a
reporter, hopefully.
Asked to estimate the cost of it all, Onan mentioned
$1 million; but the reporter," who works for Dodge Constr.uction News, thought a better estimate would be in the
neighborhood of $2.5 million.

~
Pursuit 131

Dialogue on How We Came To Be

Pursuit's editors welcome the following articles by two veteran SITU memben
as evidential contributions to scientific understanding of the "creation process," i.e.,
how we and other earthlings came to be.
'.
Dr. Lorenzoni's references are to his previous article, "The Transformist Myth," in
' .
Pursuit for Spring .1978 (Vol. 11, No.2).
Dr. Lorber's references are to his previous article, "Transformism Reconsidered:
Darwin in Perspective," in Pursuit for Fall 191fO. (Vol. 13, No.4).
Below, Lorenzoni presents a rebu\tal with paragraphic references to Lorber's
"Darwin in Perspective" article. Followi.ng, on the opposite page, is Lorber's "Reaffirmation/' in response to the Lorenzoni rebuttal.
.

Further Notes 00 the

Traosformist Myth
by Dr. Silvaao Loreazoai
an invitation from the editors of Pursuit to .
A
do a "follow-up," I am happy to write these notes
w.hich are intended to complement and,to a certain exCCEPTING

tent, answer what was expounded by Dr. Lorber in his

article published in the Fall 1980 issue, pages 155-6 ..But
first, I want to extend my thanks to Dr. Lorber for what
he has written .. Constructive and competent criticism of
the kind Dr. Lorber offers is exactly what is needed to
push ahead with any jree scientific inquiry.
I shall now attempt to answer Dr. Lorber in paragraphs numbered to reference the paragraphs of his article, which see.
LORBER PARAGRAPH 3: As for the ideas that the word
"evolution" carries implicitly a connotation of "betterment" (and that it should therefore, perhaps, be avoided
in favor of "d('velopment"), and that the adherents of
darwinian transformism often intend to do nothing else
but brainwash the generl:ll public into the "darwinian
religion," I those remain my opinions; I simply differ with
.
Dr. Lorber.
PARAGRAPH 4: In Dr. Lorber's vi~, for darwinism to
function, it is not necessary that mutants appear which
are substantially 'different from the old population, owing
to the cumulative effect that small variations would have
over geological aeons. This. way of seeing things, which
necessarily assumes that the small variations envisaged
are all in the same direction and oriented to the same
goal~ could possibly comfort some sort of tdeological
(or finalistic) tnlnsformist theory or- proposed mechanism,2 but certainly not darwinism.
. The core of darwinlsm is that each mutation implies
some sort of utility3 for the mutant in order to work favorably for natural selection. Take, for example, the case
of the develQpment of the eye, in small steps from originally blind organisms. The first step presumably would be
the formation of soft spots in the skin, bones 0.1' carapace

of such organisms, which because of-their blindness would

be more vulnerable to predators and parasites, aQd therefore destined to destruction and disappearance according
to "naturaI-selection" ("harmful mutations soon remove
themselves from the picture"), orbe over.whelmed by the
fitter, older population. This point (".cumulative effect")
is well made in Sermonti & Fondi's bpok DfJpo Darwin:
..
cr;tica al/'evoluz;onismo. 4
PARAGRAPH 6: What Dr. Lorber says about dominant
and recessive genes is, I think, entirely ~orrect, but, in my
opinion, is beside the ,point here.
.
PARAGRAPH 7: " .. until a mor.e realistic and scientific evolutionary mechanism is identified ... we c~n do
no les9 than lean in the darwinian direction . . .,; From
this I dissent. Once a theory has objectively been proven
to be unten~ble (as I believe to be the case with darwinism),
I do not think one is justified in' clinging to it merely !:>ecause no alternative has been offered; one should just
accept the fact 'that the phenomenon at hand does not yet
have a satisfactory explanation. However, th~ fact that
I offer no alternative to the darwiiliiui mechanism does not
mean that others have not done so; Sernionti & Fondi
give a long list of authors who have,5 althougli their work
has been systematically ignored by the. academic press
and never brought to the attention of the p.ublic at hirge.
(How often the "conspir.acY of silence" attends these
circumstances!) The same two authors mention in their
book that a slightly modified form of lamarckism is at
least as likely to be as reasonable as darwinism-but to
mention Lamarck is now tantamount to blasphemy in
academic circles.
.
PARAGRAPH 8: There appears to be no "infinite wealth
of scientific evidence'~ in favor of darwinism. It is not
unlikely that the semantic confusion I attempted to dispel
in my article "The Transformist Myth" is still creeping
around and in between evolution, transjorm;sm, and
darwinism.
That
no rival theory except that . of . divine
l
' .
.

~~~~~~~~aaa~aaaa~~aaa~~a~a~a~a~~~~~~~~~~~~a~~~~~~~~~aa~~~~~~~a~~~~

Pursuit 132

..... Third Quarter 1982

presence really exists, is simply not true; many, many

authors have presented such alternative theories, but their
work has been ignored or boycotted. And I would like to
insist upon due consideration of an argument made in my
previous article and which is discussed at great length by
Sermonti & Fondi, namely, the total lack of remains of
intermediate forms (the famous "missing Iinks"-quite
appropriately called so) in the fossil record.
PARAGRAPH 9: . "Imbedded in the 'secrets' of evolutionary process are not only the explanation of the origin
of life . . . II In my opinion, this is entirely right; but again
the fossil record does not comfort the point of view of a
gradual inorganic/organic-living crossover (i.e., "chemical evolution").
SEQUEL TO DR. LORBER'S PARAGRAPH 9: My colleague
goes into a little philosophizing about "the divine presence." While it is not quite clear to me "in what direction
he is trying to lead, I shall recall that I had mentioned, in
"The Transformist Myth," those "subtler forces which ....
pervade the entire Universe." 'I was referring to the non-'
physical facet of things (call it what you will-according
to individual religious and/or metaphysical opinions or
convictions or knowledge). It should be noted that at least
two authors have faced the problem of evolution, biogenesis and speciation, and have tried to include this
specific "facet of things."6 That I know of no others
does not necessarily mean that there are no others. The
"conspiracy of silence" so often encountered by nondarwinist transformists has been even more insidious for
them.
I must again thank Dr. Lorber and the editors of this
journal for the opportunity to amplify what I have pre-

viously published, and to perhaps clarify a few points

which, in my previous article, may have seemed slightly
.obscure.
REFERENCES
1. See: Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (Gambit Inc., Boston,
Mass., 1971). This book is an extremely thorough and excellent criticism
of darwinism from a semantic and juridical point of view. It does noi
attack it, however, from a strictly biological. palaeontological or genetic angle.
2. As envisaged. for example, by Piero Leonardi (L 'evolu:lione dei
viventi, Morcelliana, Brescia, Italy, 1950).
3. When one looks at darwinism from a broader point of view than
the strictly biological, one realizes that it is nothinR else but the Irans. positic;m to biology of the doctrine of profit as expounded by the English
economists of the Industrial Revolution, Smith and Ricardo. Probably
Darwin himself did not realize that he was engaging in such a transposition since he lived in an atmosphere so saturated with their economistic ideas. .
.
4. Giuseppe Sermonti & Roberto Fondi, Dopo Darwin: critica
all'evolulionismo (Rusconi, Milan, Italy, 1980). Having read this super
lative book, co-authored by an internationally famous geneticist and a
well-known palaeonto!ogist, I must unconditionally recommend it to
.
anyone honestly interested in evolutionary problems.
5. A partial list of authors who accept transform ism but deny darwinism, and therefore propose alternative transformist schemes, fneludes: A. H. Clark, O. H. Schindewolf, G. Colosi, D. Rosa, W. Hennig,
l. Croizat, l. S. Berg, R.Goldschmidt, A. C. Seward, J. C. Willis,
and W. Thompson D'Arcy.
6. (i) Edgar Dacque: well-known palaeontologist and author of
many books, written ca. 1920-1940, all of them now exceedingly difficult to find because they have not been republished since World War 11.
Dacque has not only been systematically ignored by the scientific establishment, but actively boycotted. After some four years of searching,
I managed to procure a copy of what is possibly one of the more representative of his works, Urwelt," Sage und Menschheit (Oldenburg,
'Berlin/Munchen, 1928). (ii) Rene Quinton, "Les poles, foyers d'origine,"
in Revue de metaphysique et de morale, No. I, 1933.
.

Darwinian Transformism:
A Reaffirmation
by Neil M. Lorber. Ph.D.
brief comrpents are in response to the
T
adjacent notes of my honored and es.teemed colleague, Dr. Silvano Lorenzoni. I believe my comments
HE FOLLOWING

appropriately clarify and enhance what I e~rlier stated in

"Transformism Reconsidered: Darwin in Perspective"
(Pursuit, FaI11980).
.
In the second point that Dr. Lorenzoni makes, he
appears to recognize the occurrence of small biological
variations over time and to question only their significance, i.e., their capacity to provide for an adequate
mechanism for the operation of (Darwinian) evolution.
Contrary to Dr. Lorenzoni's apparent belief, the core of.
Darwinism is not that each mutation must carry some
sort" of utility; it is, 'rather, that those mutations that don't,
simply tend to drop out of the picture (since they therefore do not .enhance prospects for survival), whereas those
mutations that do (which the non-useful mutations must
compete against for the same life space-or "evolutionary niche") tend to survive and muliiply more rapidly
due to the very reason of their relative superiority. Eva-

ThlnfQaarter 1982

lution is a matter of waiting for the right thing to happen

to come along-but the wait may be one of unrushed
aeons. Natural selection does the rest: the fittest are more
likely to survive and thus to produce progeny-"carbon
copies" of themselves-and thereby to insure their biological continuity. The unfit are more likely to fail in this
effort. This, then, is the other half of the Darwinian
evolutionary mechimism.
More specifically, the oversight (in my view) in Dr.
Lorenzoni's line of reasoning is his apparep.tly not recognizing that even a single favorable mutation occurring in
. but a single individual member of a species potentially
has the capacity (at least if the mutation is dominant) to
ultimately become the trait characteristic of the entire
population-a capacity which it will, eventually, most
\i.kely fulfill (due to its relative superiority over its non. mutated rival genes). Thus; ultimately, countless numbers
of this same mutation-perhaps, in time, the entire species-will be ready and waiting for the next favorable
mutation to happen to come along and further .improve

Pursuit 133

====================================================== ===========~
I

individual fitness and survivability. That even the next

one thousand mutations in members of the species may
be unfavorable does not negate this genetic preparatory
state. The first mutation is "firmly in place." (In any _
event, such unfavorable mutation's will likely be weeded
out of the picture by the process of natural selection.)
Sooner or later, another "right" mutation-i.e., another
favorable mutation-will happen to come along and, in
time, it too, if dominant, will become the trait character. istic of the species at large.
Dr. Lorenzoni's mention of the structural development of the eye represents a valid criticism of Darwinian
transformism; I have never personally come acro~s a sat~'
is factory explanation of it 'in traditional (i.e., Darwinian)
evolutionary terms. However, I was not blind to this and'
similar weaknesses in Darwinian' theory' whim I wrote
"Transformism Reconsidered: Darwin in Perspective"
and believe that I need now merely refer to my emphasis
then of the fact that the best' explanation of a phenomenon need not necesSarily be a perfect, comprehensive
explanation, and that the overwhelming wealth of collected scientific data-though not all of it-is strongly in
support of the Danyinian viewpoint. (Indeed, Darwinian
"theory," it should be noted, is as close to repreSenting
established fact as a theory can ever hope to get in this '
wo~ld.)

, currently exists because proponents of s~ch theories have

launched widespread media campaigns in which the theo-,
ties are' unjustifiably purported to represent scientific
alternatives to Darwinism and in which it is claimed that
the theories should therefore ,be taught side-by-side with
Darwinism as part of the scientific curriculum of the
public schools. The notion of divine creation and/or
divine intervention, for example, constitutes religion and
not science and, accordingly, does not belong in the science classroom. Unfortunately, the lay public is, easy,
unwary prey to the failure for such a distinction to be
made.
: ' Subjects such as the matter at issue cannot riglitly be
approached without ,some serious reference to, and consideration of, the larger framework of certain recognized
,evaluative standards. These standards are, namely, widely
acknowledged, time-tested criteria for the evaluation and
compara,tive assessment of any theory. Inasmuch as these
, standards of assessment have universal applicability, they
should be of wide-ranging, general Fortean interest. It
should be emphasized, however, that the standards represent theoretical id~als and that, accordingly, no O1~e
theory can be expected to score very high on all the criteria.
Indeed, such a( theory will never be found. It is, in fact,
the rare, outstanding theory that even scores well on the
majority of the criteria enumerated on the foliowing list.

\ The key, essential requirement for a,ny serious scientific

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD THEORY
challenge to Darwinian transformism would be the idenI.
Provides
causal ,explanations.
tification of a scientific non-Darwinian evolutionary
2. Provides pre,cise, specific descriptions.
mechanism. To be scientific, such a mechanism 'would
have to (1) have or yield observable, quantitative, measur~
3. Provides accurate descriptions, with point-to-point
able aspects, (2) operate in the domain of physical reality,
"fit" (correspondence) with objective reality; is consistent
, and (3) be reasonably in keeping with widely established
with (explains) the available, existing facts.
scientific facts and generally accepted scientific data.
4. Organizes, orders, systematizes the relevant data;
(I wanted to emphasize this point-but admittedly failedc~nsolidates, synthesizes, and cla~ifies the dat,a.
in my, original article.' Moreover, to be scientifiCally
S. Is clear, unambiguous, comprehensible.
creditable, an alternative theory must be not only based
,6.
Implies a method for collecting data; is testable,
,on such a mechanism but must, explain its workings in
leads
to (stimulates) research; generates hypotheses which
detail and precisely. ,(By these standards, there is, as yet,
can
be
tested for their tenability through empirical reno credible scientific aiternative to the Darwinian/Neo'search;
is
amenable to methods of experimental control:
Darwinian concept of evolution.) Such a mechanism is'
7. '~Survives" empirical'testing; yields accurate, reliable
not offered in Internal Factors in Evolution (by Lancelot
predictions.
Law Whyte), in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo- .
8. Is concise, parsimonious; manifests "economy of
Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (edited by Moor- '
means" (simplicity) as' by being based upon a minimum
head and Kaplan), or in the various publications of such. ,
number of terms.
.
organizations as the Institute for Creation Research. Nor
is it offered in Pierre P. Grasse's L 'Evolution du Vivant' '
9. ,Is internally consistent: is self-integrated (homogenor in the work of Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de " eous~; is not self-cont{adiction in its individual aspects.
Chardin (who similarly fails to explicate an alternative '
10. Is externally consistent: is consistent with (integrates) ,
-scientifically operational mechanism by which evolution
. established, recognized knowledge and theory (e.g., achas occurred). Nor is it offered in the work of French '
c~mmodates prevailing extant theories and systems);
philosopher Henri Bergson-or in Lamarck's work either...
il1troduces a minimal number of new terms.
I have not yet read Sermonti & Fondi or Dr. LorenII. Is sufficient: has breadth 'and comprehensiveness;
zoni's other references, but I doubt very much if they
systematically describes and "defines" all of the 'available
provide such a mechanism. Th~ories of ~volution that do
empirical data; speaks to and explains all aspects of all
not provide one are still theories of evolution, bUt they
the
objective facts.
are not scientific theories. Rather, they merely represent
12.
Is generalizable, i.e., is not li~ited in its applicability
, essentially philosophical, metaphysical, spiritual, inystical,
to
a
narrow, specific domain.
or religious positions and perspectives-or just plain un13. Is relevant; proy-ides needed, useful insights.
scientific speculation or fancy. Much public confusion

~
======~==========~===================~================ ============
Pursuft 134

Third

Q.a"'. 1982

HO~

In this section, mostly contemporary curious and unexplained events

.
are rep~rted. Members are urged to send in newsclippings and reports they
~,~~
deem responsible. Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of news) "":J'
. ~~Pet or periodical), city of publication, date of issue in which article appeared, and your
first Imtlal and last name (or membership number only, if you prefer to be credited in that way).
~, , , . . .

The Good News

If you are struck by lightning, shot by an
enraged spouse, or lose your pulse for as long as
30 minutes in childbirth, you may yet live and
be not much worse for the experience.
In Lee's Summit, Missouri, a mail carrier
was knocked "half the length of a basketball
court" by a bolt of lightning. Emma
Wooldridge was making her rounds during a
thunderstorm and had just opened a mailbox
when she was struck.
"Tl!ere was a tremendously loud boom and.a
ball of fire," she said from her bed at the
hospital. Allhough she wasn't burned, she admitted to feeling "kind. of numb. I can't believe.
I could go through that and survive. ". Her main
complaints were a stiff neck and "prickly feelings" in her shoulder, hands and toes.
In Tarpon Springs, Florida, Jane Comenzo
got into an argument with her husband, Edward, and locked him out of the house. Determined to get back in, Edward picked up a heavy
statue in the yard and sent it hurtling through a
pair of glass doors; whereupon Jane took aim
with a .22-caliber handgun at a range of IS feet
and fired one round at his midsection.
In between the bullet and much of Edward
Comenzo was his bell buckle, and that was
enough to stop the bullet. "She couldn't do it
again in a thousand tries," a sheriff's deputy
declared. "I've seen a lot of people shot, but
this was just amazing."
The bullet splintered and the buckle was
mangled, but Comenzo suffered only cuts and
bruises from the force of the buckle gouging his
skin. "It was just a common, ordinary bell
buckle, maybe one inch and a half or two inches
square," the deputy noted as Jane Comenzo
was led away to fa<:e a charge of aggravated battery.
Doctors at Hahnemann University Hospital
in Philadelphia believe that a patient fro'm their
city is the first woman to "come back to life"
after her baby was delivered by Caesarean section and she was given up for dead.
.
The unidentified woman, eight months pregnant, was admitted t!J the hospital because she
was coughing up a small amount of blood.
About 30 minutes into her examination, the
woman paled, began coughing up massive
amounts of blood, and lost all vital signs. Half
an hour of advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation produced no signs\of life.
"We felt 'the situation was one ~here we
-probably weren't going to _ salvage the
mother," and further CPR attempts were mainly for the baby's sake, said the physicia~ in
charge. At that point, an obstetriciQ,n was called
in to perform a Caesarean section. In less than
four minutes, the doctors lifted a baby girl from'
the mother'S womb, and for the first time in
over half an hour, her pulse came back. By the
time the baby was two weeks old both she and
the mother were able to leave the hospital.
"Our big concern, which was brain damage
or some neurological impairment, has not been

Third Quarter 1982

borne out," said one doctor. "The mother is

quite active.-she rides a bicycle." As he explai.ned it, the problem was the baby's p'ressure
agamst vessels that carry blood to the mother's
heart: Once the baby was removed, the blood
returned. However, the obstetrician who performed the Caesarean was less exuberant. He
said the woman was "moribund" but "obviously not dead" when he operated. "Of
course, we can't reverse death. It was dramatic,
but it wasn't reincarnation."
SOURCES: AP, ~sbury Park Press, 10/10/82;
. UPI, Schenectady Gazette (New York), 912/82;
CREDITS: Member 11432; J. Zarzynski.
}

~
The Bad News

In a word, nightmare adds a time componeOl

to a Middle English noun, mara-the generic
~erm for a mythicalspecter which sat on a sleep
mg person's chest and rendered him or her incapable of crying out.
!n more complicated times, nightmares have
come to be regarded as either "bad dreams" or
premonitions of impending disaster.
Nowadays, if you don't have the wisdom to tell
the difference, better play it safe, the experts
say: assume you have been warned and try to
avert the danger. .
Marcos Gonzales, owner of a retail candy
busin~ss in Manila, Philippines, dreamt about a
beautiful .woman coming into his store during
the night. He awoke, got dressed and rushed
downtown to find Menchie Tazanas, a sumpt~o.us 23-year-old dancer, ransacking the cash
register. He had her arrested, but since she
hadn't actually taken anything, the police could
charge heronly with attempted burglary.
Not s!J clearly did the Ha~veys, of Mesquite, Texas, comprehend the signals broadcast
by. !heir youngest daughter, seven-year-old
Allcta, .who for five nights, Saturday through
Wednesday, awakened screaming from fearful
ni.ghtmar~s. "She.came to me every night," said
Tma, her eldest sister, age 12. "Sometimes she
dreamt I had died, and sometimes that she had.
It was something different every night."
A~out 1 a.m. Thursday, as the family lay
sleepmg, an extension cord to a room airc~nditioner short-circuited. A! smolClering fire
fdled the ~all and bedroomsi with smoke for
several .mmutes before' firemen arrived and
quickly ex!inguished the smail blaze. Rodney
Harvey, hiS son, Rodney -Jrl; and his wife
L~u~~, escaped, as did Tina,l the 12-year-old:
AliCia s body was found in a closet and the
body.of the Harveys' third daughter: II-yearold RI~a, was on the floor wh~n firemen found
them: With no burns or other injuries apparent,
offiCials concluded that the sisters - died of
smoke inhalation.
SOURCES: USA Today, 10/15/82; UPI, St.
Louis Post-DisfJfltch, 9/19/82.
CREDITS: D. Whitcomb; R. Nelke.

Poltergeist Power
You don't much believe in ghosts-or
pollergeists, as their noisy and sometimes
d.:structive cousins are called? You would if you
worked for ViclOr Couch who runs a furniture
factory in Thomasville,' North Carolina, or if
you were a neighbor of Catherine and Charles
Durden, harassed out of their home in
Bournemouth, England, in late summer, 1981.
Mr. Couch had to suspend the night shift at
his furniture plant after production slipped 30
percent and a dozen workers quit, claiming they
were bothered by a visible ghost. The workers
had been hearing large objects fall, only 10 find
nothing amiss when they investigated. At other
times, employees would find their tools moved
or stacks of lumber shuffled about.
"When the first people quit, we wouldn't admit we had a problem," Couch said. "But we
kn~w they were telling the, truth because my
partners and I had seen him, too." The 6-foottall figure appears only at night, looks to be
about SO years old, and always shows up neatly
dressed in a checked work shirt and khaki
pants. "He has never spoken to anybody and he
has never hurt anybody," Couch asserted.
Since he couldn't coax his night-shift people
b~ck to work, Couch was half hoping the ghost
might stay on: "He could be the very best
.'watchdog' I ever had-he doesn't need a gun
to scare somebody off."
Of a different character and in no way comparable to Mr. Couch's nightshift ghost was
the poltergeist that -d~ove the Burden family
from their home in Bournemouth, the old-time
resort city on England's south coast.
Bizarre events began one Friday morning
shortly after Mr. Burden left for work. His wife
reported that a heater suddenly flew across the
floor, dishes were flying about the house, and a
television was overturned-all by someone she
never saw or by some force she didn't comprehend. Police and social workers came. They'
said they witnessed some of the phenomena but
could offer no natural explanation.
The Burdens wondered whether the presence
of their adopted son, Bradley, had anything to
do with the ghastly.rampage. He is eight years
old and mentally retarded. Mr. Burden had
been told that "the spirit is attracted to a little
boy. It picks on young children, particularly if
he's a weaker boy."
Late in the day a retired priest performed a
rite of exorcisin and mediums held seances on
Saturday, but the strange events continued.
F~nally, the family moved out Saturday
OIght-and, according to the neighbors, quiet
returned.
"l never believed in ghosts before," said Mr.
Burden at the hotel where he sought solitude.
"But after the scenes we had, I'm convinced
there is a rotten spirit about. He's a real rotter,
a vile spirit ... I have no crockery left."
SOURCES: Nashllille Tennessean, 10/31/82;
Monitor, Concord, N.H., 8120/81.
CREDITS: H. Holland, K. Moak.

Pursu't 135

Methemoglobinemia
Yes, the word does have 17 letters, and it
represents a disease you and most people are
unlikely to get. But if you should meet a person
with skin "as blue as Lake Louise on a cool
day," methemoglobinemia is a' name to
remember.
'
Fewer than 500 cases of the genetic illness
have been reported worldwide. II is caused by
an enzyme deficiency that reduces the oxygencarrying capacity of the red blood cells .. Health
workers in Appal.l!chia encounter the most U.S.
cases, perhaps because the transmission of
genetic disease is facilitated by the inbreeding
still prevalent there. The mountain people
sometimes identify themselves as "blue
people. "
.
I
_
The malady seems unconnected with other
health problems and is easily controlled; but it
can be embarrassing. One member of a blue
family told his doctor: "We don't go to town.
People think we look funny." A TV director
was also embarrassed. In the. 1970s he sent a
film crew to Troublesome Creek,.Kentucky, to
make a documentary on the disease. After
spending several days in the region, and lots of
money, the crew packed up and left. Reporting
to his boss, the director explained the difficulty:
i'They couldn't find anyone blue enough," he
said.
SOURCE,
CREDIT:

Parade,

10/17/82.

near Darien, lIIinois, found a body that

authorities identified as that of 21-year-old Lorraine Borowski, missing since May IS from the
family home in Elmhurst. Investigators found
her clothing near the decomposed remains, and
the identification was deemed positive after
comparison with her dental.charts. .
When interviewed, Lorraine'S mother said
that family members had searchedthe cemetery
last summer after a psychic told them the missing daughter would be found "within 18 miles
in a shack in a cemetery."
"What bothers me is that we were there ....
If we had stayed longer, we might have found
her," Mrs. Borowski said, through her tears.
She also mentioned that the psychic whose
perception had proved partially catrect was one
of several persons purporting to be psychics
who had called the family during the months
following Lorraine's disappearance; some of
the callers had refused to reveal their identity.
So far, the police have not disclosed any
evidence in the case beyond a statement from
other employees at the Elmhurst real estate office where J,.orraine worked, that she left the
. building on May 15 at the usual quitting time ..
SOURCES: Times Union, Albany, N. Y., 10/3/82;
Chicago Tribune, 10/12182 ..
CRED.ITS: J. larzynski, S. Gu.dagnoli.

~~
Follow-Ups

H. Holland.

Bigfoot. After carefullY.examining casts of

the footprints found in early JUl).e in Umatilla
National Forest, Washington (Pursuit No. 58,
pp. 71 et seq.), Prof. Grover Krantz of the an. thropology department at Washington State
While the psyc ic.gift itself ranks high on the
University said they appear to be authentic. and
list of Unexplain s, the performance of those
are "the best evidence yet" that Sasquatch exwho claim to ha e the gift is often seen as less
ists. He told a mee~irig of the International
than admirable. evertheless, some increase in
Society of Cryptozoology i~ Vancouver, B.C.,
the use of psychi s and their perceptions as adthat the intricate paitern of skin ridges visible
juncts to crimi al investigation is becoming
on the prints "would be almost impossible for
noticeable. Whe her the psychics" legitimacy
the best hieroglyphics expert to fake." ' .
and accuracy wil likewise improve is a question
"Gelling prints of. a Sasquatch is nothing
now before the I w-enforcement professionals. _
new,'~ he continued, "we've got thousands of
The need for im rovement is apparent in these
cases of Sasquatch sightings' and plaster casts of
t~o re~-ent repor s:
.
prints. But this set has dermal ridges and that's
Missing since April 20 from his home in
.
what sets them apart."
Johnstown, New York, 23-year-old Paul Sekel
Dracula. In the July 1982 issue of Diagnosis;
was last seen ab ut 3 a.m. that day by a friend
a professional magazine, Dr. Thomas
who told investig tors that Paul was riding with
McDevitt, an allergi~t, reported his behavioral
two other men i a car with New Jersey license
evaluation of Dracula, the 15th century
plates.
Hungarian count who seemed to enjoy eating
Five months passed without any word from
most when the view was best of victims impaled
Paul "\0 his parents, Leo and VirgInia ~kel,: or
or being impaled in his presence (Pursuit No.
any but negative replies to their frequent
57, p. 43). Dr. McOevitt'~ diagnosis, at a
telephone calls asking police whether they'd
distance of 500 years,:suggested that Dracula'S
"heard anything."
savage behavior may have stemmed from an
In late September, the parents were visited by
allergic addiction to high-protein foods, inDorothy Allison, described in the report as a
cluding blood, fhe Son of Satan's favorite
"nationally known psychic." She told them she
perceived their son had been murdered, tha\ \ beverage.' "Many people who are allergic to
substa!lces also develop an addiction to them,
.more than one person was involved in the disapand when they are deprived of thQse substances,
pearanee, and that his body was in a thickly
they can react in a bizarre or greatly agitated
wooded area with a tan, yellow, or gold car
manner," the doctor wrote. "It~s not an easy
nearby.
thing to understand," he added. "B!lt.it's like
. The next Saturday, about 130 volunteers' and
smoking. You don't feel good when you smoke,
members of the National Guard turned.
to
but you feel worse if you don't."
help the Sekels look for their sQn. T~ey search'Champ.~ So far,the year has been good, if
ed near the Fulton County Airport; an atea that
not great, for the Lake Champlain phenomenon
Leo Sekel said closely matched the psychic's
known as Champ (Pursuit No. 54 et seq.).
description of the spot where Paul's remains
Legislation to assure the well-being of all
would be found. Thorough as it was, the search
anomalous creatures residing in lake waters
was in vain; no body was found.
contiguous to Vermont and New York was
In the same month, children playing in an
adopted by the gove,rning bodies of both states,
undeveloped area of Clarendon Hills Cemetery

out"

P.rs.,,136

much to 'the satisfaction of SITU member Joe

Zarzynski who has been lobbying' for yearno
. get s!lch laws on ihe books. Otherwise, larzynski noted, Champ seems to be keeping a low
profile; he was seen only six times during the
"sighting season," the period from late'spring
to Columbus Day. Sightings in the 1981 season
totaled 21.
Cheasle.' Chesapeake Bay, however, was th~
scene of much livelier action provided by
Chessie, a large, lOomalous water-creature that
bears some resemblance to the Loch Ness
phenomenon. Robert Frew videotaped, for
three minutes, his sighting of a snakelike,
30-foot undulating body of about 10 inches'
girth, with Ii small bead, as it appeared in threeto five-foot water just off his property at Love
Point, Maryland, May 31. The tape's soundtrack clearly recorded 'the voices of Frew and
his wife, Karen, as they shouted warning to
nearby swimmers that a big creature was approaching. 'But it dived, then appeared beyond
them, Frew said. He noted that "there would
have been mass panic if they'd seen it at eyelevel."
.
Less clear than the sound was the graphic
portion 'of the tape. A Baltimore-based investigative group, the Enigma'Project, called in
a video engineer who examined it and gave
assurance that no "studio effects" had been/
added. Frew next took his tape to the Smithsonian Institution where it came under the
scrutiny of a number of scientists, including
George lug, chairman' of the institution'S
department of vertebrate zoology. In a
preliminary opinion; the group agreed that the
tape pictured a genuine water-creature of some
kind but was not sufficiently clear to allow
detailed identification.' Dr. lug suggested, and
the Frews consented, to send the tape to the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. California,
whe~e it will,be enhanced by computer and further studied. The publicity given the Frew tape
caused a number of other persons to recall their
own sightings of Chessie and express a variety
of opinions about the phenomenon.
'Nessie.' Thert's little new from the shores of
Loch Ness, other than to report the defl!-mation
of Nessie by a Scottish engineer who insisted, in
a magazine article, that what'is seen in the loch
is neither monster nor creature but jus.t .an old
pine log that occasionally floats on the surface.
Robert P. Craig described a sequenee that
begins whe'n water pressure crushed the soft
outer cells of a waterlogged pine trunk lying on
the. loch floor where it would partly fill with
gas; the gas would' buoy the log to the surface
from tim~ to time; there it would !Rake a brief
appearance to display great lumps of resin that
look much like a monstrous snoui-and the.log
would sink again as gas was expelled.
SOURCES: AP, Tulsa World, Okla., 10124/82;
UPI, News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C.',
6125/82; County Courier, Enosburg Falls, Vt.,
10/14/82; Morning News, Wilmington, Del., . '.
7112182; TheSun. Baltimore, Md., 7118/82.
CREDITS: F. Roales, P. Thompson, J. larzynski, H.Hollander, D. Whitcomb.

~
Kick Those Ills Away!
.

Magnetic shoes are now being recommended

by Chinese doctors as a cure for high blood
pressure, nervous exhaustion, insomnia and
dizziness. Of 30 patients throughout China who
volunteered in the recent testing of the new

Third Quarter 1982

shoes made in Peking, about 300 reportedly got

better in various degrees, with 85 of them showing "impressive recoveries."
The shoes look like ordinary cloth ones worn
by many Chinese. But the soles have either two
or four magnets about a third of an inch in
diameter. "These magnetic discs touch 'specific
points on the soles,'" said Yuan Zhonghua,
head of a national research group. "There are
points all over our body that are sensitive to
electricity. At the sole of the foot, there are a
number of such points. When stimulated by a
magnetic field like that of the discs, they act on
the nervous system, relieving pain and soothing
the body."

Twelve hospitals in Peking, Shanghai,

Hangzhou and Canton have used the shoes
which are produced by the Peking March 8
Shoe Factory.
An outstanding recovery was experienced by
Lu Ving, 56, an army, officer who suffered from
high blood pressure, nervous exhaustion and
several related symptoms including dizziness,
restless sleep and ringing in the, ears . .After
wearing the magnetic shoes for two weeks, the
symptoms vanished; after another two weeks
his blood pressure returned to normal.
SOURCE: UPI, Nashville Tennessean, 9/16/82.
CREDIT: H. Holland.

'~f
VolcaniC Effects
Nineteen eighty-two may go down in history
the Year of the Volcanic ,Clouds. Huge gasclouds orbiting the earth have been observed
over many regions with such regularity as to
suggest they were on some kind of schedule:
In February, NASA ordered U.S. spy planes
to probe an II-mile-high cloud that covered
large parts of North America, the Atlantic, and
Europe.
About March I, scientists doing a routine
weather scan in Hawaii discovered a massive
cloud orbiting the earth and tracked it for five
weeks. They auributed it to an "unidentified
volcano."
One week later, University of Wyoming
scientists tried but failed to link the cloud-effect
their Hawaiian colleagues had noticed with one
they discovered at a much higher level. In their
opinion, the first cloud resulted from an eruption of Mt. Pagan in the northern Mariana
Islands.
On April 4, EI Chicon volcano erupted in
Mexico and sent 'up a mass of sulfurous gas
which covered the earth in a uniform thick band
from an altitude of 10 to 18 miles, "c1early,the
biggest thing to happen in the northern
hemisphere since 1912," as a NASA scientist
described it. (Volcanic clouds have long been
known to reduce the sunlight on earth as much
as 10 percent. In 1912, Mt. Katemai in Alaska
erupted and a year later was blamed for giving
the coldest summer on record to Vienna,
Budapest and all of western Europe.)
Also in April, the 7,155-foot Galunggung
volcano 110 miles southwest of Jakarta, Java,
became active and erupted a dozen times over
several weeks; on May 18, a severe eruption injured 'eight people and drove thousands from
their homes.
In June, a British Airways 747'Boeing jetliner
with 155 tourists on board from Perth,
Australia, new over Galunggung at an altitude
of 37,000 feet when the volcano shot up an
eight-mile-high plume of hot ash. "I looked out
a~

We 'Recommend
Arcturus Book Service as a source for
UFO literature and other Fortean
material which they have available at fair
prices, with good packaging and prompt
service.
SITU receives numerous requests
every year for new and old books about
UFOs and other phenomena. In the past,
we have recommended a dozen or so
works by our founder, Ivan T. Sanderson, and others who have upheld his
standards of quality in research and
writing. These are included in Arcturus'
listings along with others in, which you
may be interested. Write to:
Arcturus Book Service
263 N', Ballston Avenue
Scotia, NY 12302
We are not affiliated with this
organization in any way but are pleased
to call it to the attention of our members
as a good place to obtain research
material and books that respond well to
one's interest in the Unexplained.
-Bob Wa,rth

to see the near engine on my side apparently on

fire and the two engines on the other side to be
burning, too," said a passenger. Then, all four
engines went dead and the plane plunged almost
25,000 feet in 12 heart-pounding minut!:s. At
12,500 feet the pilot succeeded in starting the
engines and landed the jumbo jet at Halim airport, Jakarta. "I:he Vulcanology Institute in
Bandung said the eruption that brought the
plane to the threshold of tragedy was one of
Galunggung's fiercest; it covered the streets
with an inch of ash and dust.
The c1oud-and-volcano reports' were duly
tabulated, considered and. evaluated, For once,
weather scientists in the Government seemed to
almost agree.
'
Murray Mitchell, speaking for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) said: "Preliminary, limited data has
produced calculations that global temperatures
could drop an average Qf. half a degree
Fahrenheit next year."
Brian Toon, of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), thinks the
temperature drop could reach a full degree. If
he is right, 'we're in for two years of cooler
weather.
SOURCES: The Wall Street .Journal, 215/82; The
Morning News, ,Wilmington, Del., 313,
3/12182; Chicago Tribune, 4123/82; StarLedger, Newark, N.J., 6/12182.
CREDITS: F. Wilson, H. Hollander, S.
GuadaltDoli, M. Wiegler

Army'Retrieves Lost

Gen~ral

into the police station to complain that she had

been traveling with Westmoreland when'their
car was disabled and they were robbed. Later,
, the woman toid officers that she was a five-star
general and that 'Westmoreland had been
"taken away in a nying saucer."
. When the general ,was located, the alert
cancelled and the woman committed for
psychiatric observation, the Monahan police
said their action was "precautionary." Ed
Starns, spokesman at Fon Bliss, agreed: "It
was ju.:! an odd coincidence that he could not be
reached immediately when this kidnap report
came to us. We had [0 go through the motions
to physically locate the general after the report
came to our auention."
Least affected by all'the motions was the
general himself. Westmoreland expressed surprise at having led an extensive military
maneuver he kneW nothing about until his real
captors told him.
SOURCE: lIPI, SI. Louis Post-Dispatch,
8/19/82.
CREDIT: R. Nelke.

Did Dust Destroy Dinosaurs?

His forecast that we may be in for years of
cooler weather as a result of sulfurous gas
clouds throw!! up by volcanic eruptions (see adjacent columns) is based on one of two theories
held by NASA atmospheric scientist Brian
Too",. His other theory also involves clouds,
but dust clouds in ancient times rather ihan the
volcanic variety of the present.
According to Toon, a giant asteroid or comet
crashed to earth 65 million years ago. For
perhaps two months, the planet was wrapped in
a cloud of dust so thick that the sun was
obscured and temperatures over land,
everywhere fell below zero. Within six months,
the landscape was liuered with carcasses;
species after species became extinct; plants stopped growing; and dinosaurs and many lesser'
creatures couldn't find enough food and died. '
The extinction of the giant reptiles launched
the age of mammals; they survived because they
were small enough to burrow underground for
warmth and "could probably stumble across
enough food. But, if you're a big guy like a
dinosaur, you've got to find a' lot of food,'~
Toon said, adding that cold and the inability to
find food probably killed off any creature that
weighed more t,han 75 pounds.
Addressing a meeting of the American
GeoJ)hysical Union in late 1981, Toon said that
his theory was based, in part, on a 1980 study
by a team of scie/llists led by Walter Alvarez of
the University of California's Lawrence
'Berkeley Laboratory. The study advanced the
idea of a dust-producing collision and presented
geologic evidence that a thin layer of debr:is was
deposited around the earth about, 65 million
years ago.
SOURCE: AP in Asbury Park Press, 12127/81.
CREDIT: Member 11432.
'

(Continued from page '} JJ)

of the places he frequents on the huge m1litary
post north of EI Paso, Texas, where he has been
living in retirement since the U.S. disengagement in Vietnam.
The bulletin was issued following a report tq
police in the town of Monahan, 200 miles distant from the base. A distraught woman ,had com~

Skulls & Bones

Paleontologists may count the past summer
as one of their most productive in many years.
In Ethiopia, scientists from the University
of California recovered bones which they dated

Pursul,137

Third Quarter 1982

as 400,000 years older than the famous "Lucy"

skeleton found in 1974 and thought to be from
the oldest human ancestor of man-an ape-like
homonid that walked on two feet, had a small
brain and lived four million years ago. Tim D.
White, chief paleontologist on the expedition,
said the bones found in July came from an area
45 miles south of the site where Lucy was uncovered. He said tlte area was "littered with
fossils . Elephant jaws are sticking out of the.
hillsides. You can't even walk without stepping
on fossils. They include the full range of
African fauna over six million years."
In the Wyoming Badlands of the U.S., 35
fossilized foot bones have been recovered in the
last four years which belonged to Cantius
trigonodus, a primate that walked the earth
more than 50 million years ago. The bones
make an important revelation, according to
Robert T. Bakker, a paleontologist at Johns
Hopkins University who compared them with
older fossils previously found. The new remains
are dl.itinguished by an opposing big toe equip
ped with a nail rather than a claw.
"The evolutionary advent of the grasping
toe, according to a long-standing theory, was
the key event which initiated the most important evolutionary trends leading to higher
primates," he said." "Our findi.ngs lend important new support for that theory ...
Bakker said the grasping toe enabled
primates to move more quickly than other

animals across small branches, allowing them to

escape predators, rCduc~ng the<. need for high
birth rates and extending their developmental
period.
.
In the Samburu Hills of n~rthern Kenya,
Japanese scientists have found an eight-millionyear-old jawbone that may fill-in a critical time. gap which has long bothered paleontologists
trying io trace evolution from ape to man. The
disc.overy was described by Richard Lea\,(ey,
director of the Kenya museums and son of the
pioneer anthropologists Louis and Mary
. Leakey. He said the bones were .the same size as
those of a female gorilla and that the creature
theY belonged to was probably 18 to 20 years
old when it died .. Hidemi Ishida,. whose team
from Osaka University, Japan, worked side by
side with Kenyan scientists, said the creature appeared to have had many human characteristics
~. well as those of an ape.
SOURCES: New York Times News Service in St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, 6/2/82; UPI in PostDispatch, 6/n/82; Reuters in Chicago
Tribune, 9/6/82.
.
CREDITS: R. Nelke, N. Paulsen.

I- have in my files about I 1,000 articles on "spook

lights. " These lights are numerous all over the continental
U.S. and in Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, Africa, Australia,
Europe and South America. I have a theQry ~1;>out. what
they are and what causes them, and I know when to look
for them.
..
The Inca Indians in South America believed the'lights
were beacons, attracting them to locations where g~ld and
~i1ver might be found, and they had huge amounts of both
metals as proof. They called silver, "Teardrops of. the
Moon," and gold; "Teardrops of the Sun." In a similar
association, a white light indicated the presence'df silver
and a yellow light showed where gold might be found.
Each time I come across another spook-light story, I go
through my files in search of a "treasure connection" and
I usually find one.
. .
What got me started on the subject was an article I read
. about Edgar C!lyce, in which he said (while in a trance)
that all metals have an aura, the aura' of silver being white
and that olf gold, ye1.low. .
.
.
. .
Spook lights have varied characteristics. For example,
the Simcoe Lights near. Toronto, Ontario, emit a sound
like water poured oil a hot stove; the lights. in HawaH,
however, seem to be accompanied by music.
One of the oldest and best-known spook lights is outside Maco, North Carolina. It has been observed since the
early 1800s. Observers say it moves always in the .same
way: down the railroad tracks toward Maco and onto a
trestle over Hood's Creek, where it stops. (I have a
photograph of the light as it moves toward the camera,
also a letter from the photographer descripiQg the acti~n.)
Over these tracks, it is said, the remaining cash assets of .
the Confederate States were moved at the end of the Civil
wiu. The shipment, consisting of gold and silver coins,
was valued between $400,000 and $500,000 at the time, but

Pursuit 138

'Human Monkey' Found

Also from Kenya comes the report of .a
"monkey man'; of our own times, perhaps
more closely related than our readers are to the
ancient fossils described above. The wild man
acts like a monkey but looks like' a man, says
Dr. Paul Maundu, district healt~ officer of
Homa Bay on the shores of Lake Victoria.
The man was found in M~lrch of this yc:ar by
gatherers of charcoal wood in therugged Lambwe Valley Forest, 175 miles northwest of
. Nairobi. He was brought to a h9spital, given
the nickname John, and assigned to quariers in
the hospital yard where he now spends most of .
his time.
Dr. Maundu describes the creature as
"almost certainly human," but "his behavior is
just like that of a monkey-even the way he eats
bananas. He eats them whole, skins and all."
John does not sleep in Ii bed but.prefer~.to squat
like a monkey. According to Dr."Maun'c:lu, the
man displays "nibbling, silly behavior with fast
movements" similar to a monkey's. Hi::cannot
speak.any knownlanguage but uses distinguishable utterances to ask for food and water. He
shuns vegetables and prefers his meat served
raw.
..
.
SOURCE: St. Louis
CREDIT: R. Nlilki:.

Post-Dispatch, 5/6/82:
'
.

~.
it never reached its intended destination. instead, the
money was dumped froni flatcar into Ii riyer which was
th~n in flood condition, according to reports. ~ould this
treasur~ still lie under the trestle that carries the tracks over
Hood's Creek? The light says so!
. .
. A somewhat similar tale is told about an area just south
of Temple, Texas, where the Leon, Lampaso~ and Salado
River!\ merge to form the Little. River. The Karl
. Steinheimer treasure, consisting of ten mule-loads of gold
and silver, was buried somewhere nearby. A brass spike
driven into an oak tree may point ~oward th~ exac~ spot,
but a light that moves across ~he' area is a more dramatic
indJcator; it.is ~~out the size of a basketball, and it moves,
..
.
stops, and disappears.
In my investigation of thephcmomenon, I ha.ve come to
the conclusion that the lights are conti-oiled by phase~ of
the moon. From the full moon to the new moon, energy is
stored in the metal, either as statjc electricity or as positJve
.or negative ions, or in some other form. Release begi,l,ls. on
.the first day of the new moon; "the lfght grows stronger on
the second and third day, weaker on the third and "fo~rth
day. On the sixth day it is strongest, and that is the last
phase until it gets "charged" again. The lights are best
seen on the third and sixth day of the new moon,. up to one
hour before the moon sets.
Stories which tie ghost lights to buried treasure are' so
numerous as to suggest that there may be some truth "in
them. If only someone would find a treasure where a light
indicated it might be found, we would' have something to
go on.
I would like very much to hear from anyone who has
had. experience with ghost lights; spook lights" will-o-thewisps and the like.
-Er~est aellam
949 Scottsville Mumford Roa~
Scottsville, NY 14546

Third Quaner 1982 .

.,

.Letters
i can identify the nat~ of the "petrified fetus"
mentioned in the SITUations column in Panalt No. 57,.
First Quarter 1982. Dr. Temer's cautious statement
.that the petrification seems to have occurred within.
woman's uterus is correct. Beverly Halstead and Jennifer MideJleton describe this bizarre. result in their
1972 book on bone anomalies-"Bare Bones: An
Exploration in Art and Science," as follows:

Assuming that these craft have an exotic type of

propulsion, their configuration seems tQ be ideal to
produce the flight patterns described by witnesses: the
abrupt turns of 90 degrees or less, the sudden reversals
and the incredibly rapid acceleration.
The disc configuration offers the least amount of
resistance to air or water, no matter in which direction
the vehicle moves. So I'm puzzled whenever people
snick~r about "flying saucers," as if they had some
personal preference for a different shape.
Has anyone done any aerodynamic studies of a discshaped aircraft? I have never come across such a study.
If one were to be made, it could produce some worth.... while benefits-for ufology, perhaps for the future of
aerospace travel, and perchance also for those of us
who are tired of listening to snickers about "saucers."
-Willia~ Kingsley

. What Ricardo Liendro found was probably the last .; Mr. Kingsley and other readers who share his interest in disc-shaped configuration and elotic
of an elderly woman who died in the Cal.
. means of propulsion for spacecraft will be as dischaqui valley. When her body returned to the elements,
the little petrified embryo was left behind as a biolog-.' . .. apppif!te,d ;as ..we. were to receive the following
recent .Ireport which originated with the "Daily
ical memorial to her demise.
M &d ..
. . :..... 1; I
organ . s
relegraph" in London and has been reprinted as
a feature in a number of U.S. papers:
resti~g-place

A note Qf comme~t: Pursuit Vol. IS, No. 2 is a

natural by-prodpct of th.e growing awareness of the importance of the Unexplained in our culture today. The
idea'S, ideals and commentaries are compiled and ex-
pressed with emQtion and logic.
The thoughts given in Pursuit are the behind-thescenes force for unity and consistency of creation.
"Andent Space Flight" and "The Search for Ancient
Astronauts" are in tune with Vol. 15, No.1, in which
"The Planetary Grid" and the article about the Giza
pyra.mids."are enlightening.
-L,inda Sawicki
I read "Tom Bearden Further Explains" in tl"!e First
Quarter 1982 Pursuit with considerable interest. I found
direct parallels between Bearden's comments and the
'views of Tarthang Talku in his book Time, Space and
Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality (Dharma Publishing Co., 1977). Tal~u's boo'-' gives numerous mental
experimen,s to experience time and space with new
perspectives.
.
According to:Talku, "space" is coming to be understood in a more positive way, as an active structuring
medium rather than an abstract void. Talku views
objects, their states and their interrelationships as
somehow being a function of "time" itself. This parallels' Bearden's view that "ether" is the same as
vacuum and spacetime.
-Thomas P. Betourn~y

I am sure. the readers of Pursuit have noted how

replete much of the UFO literature is with references
tI? the shape of these .objects: the disc, lenticular or
two-saucers-joined-at-the-rim shape.

nlrd Qaan_ 1982

BRITISH RAIL GIVES UP

ON FLyiNG SAUCERS
,

. British Rail, beleaguered by more earthly p'roblems,

has abandoned a bizarre project to build the world's
first flying saucer.
A patent for the disc~shaped, nuclear-powered
spacecraft was taken out ~ine years ago, but the idea
has been quietly shelved in the struggle to sustain
Britain's nationalized rail transit system.
The saucer was designed by the British Rail rese~rch and. development staff, which visualized a
saucer-shaped vehicle capable of carrying 22 passeng~rs into space at speeds far in excess of existing aircraft. But British Rail could not afford the development
costs, which would have run into billions of dollars.
Specifications and drawings. for the patent, No.
1310990, now lie gathering dust in the Patent Office in
London. No prototype of the spacecraft was built and
not even a scale model exists. .
.
Plans show a disc-shaped vehicle about 120 feet in
diameter, powered by a nuclear reactor and a series of
laser beams. It would have been propelled by highly
charged particles of energy deflected around and below
the craft by an array of electro-magnets.
Its capacity for acceleratiol"! and sustained high
speeds would have been ~o great that it was hoped
artificial gravity would be created inside the spaceship
to eliminate the problems of weightlessness for the
passengers.
LETTERS'to the editors are always welcome. Please
send ~ Fred Wilson, 66 Bortle Road, P.O. Box 134,
Cedar Grove, NJ 07009. Letters are subject to abridge.
ment as neces..ry to Insure falr sharing of the limited
space aval1able.

Pursu"139

Books
ATLANTIS RECONSIDERED by Michael Baran
(Exposition Press, Inc., Smithtown, New York, 1981)
Reviewed by Jon Douglas Singer, M.A.
The author believes that Atlantis had an advanced
civilization which utilized powerful crystals, called '.'firestones" by Edgar Cayce. The firestones were used as
construction tools, weapons and as engines for those
elusive craft we now call UFOs. Baran has apparently
accepted, at least partially, Dr. Raymond Bernard's th~ry
of Atlantean survivorS hiding in vast caves under the
earth, especially in the polar regions. Aircraft, which .we
mistake for spaceships, issue forth from these caves on .
patrol. Baran suggests that UFO activity in 'the Bermuda.
Tri!\ngle may also be linked to patrols by Atlantean descendants ~ho may have a base in that area. The author
has. even invented a new term, intraterreslrials, to describe
the subterranean Atlantean refugees. Although he quotes
extensively from Plato's original a~counts of Atlantis,
there is no direct evidence in that account (tlie first mentions .Atlantis by name), which supports modern theories
about Atlantean aircraft and spacecraft.
Baran thinks that ancient astronaut sightings may
have been derived from reports of Atlantean aircraft or
spacecraft. There is again no direct. evidence in Plato's
tale of Atlantis for such a theory. Other sightiilgs of UFOs
in the early times took place, but two cases cited by Baran
have been denounced by:Fate magazine, one of its writers
<;laiming a hoax and the other saying that witnesses were
_ victims of a misperception caused by unusual weather.
The first case, 'cited by Baran on pages 71-73, is t~e
famous LeRoy, Kansas, Cownapping of 1897 when a
giant "airship" lowered a rope and hoisted a cow aboard
so that the humanoid occupants could have a steak dinner.
Jerome Clark,. in Fate magazine, issue of February 1977,
claimed that the aerial-rustling case was a hoax perpetrated
by the local Liars' Club whose members entertained each.
other by telling wild stories at meetings.
The second case which Baran says offers evidence of
abduction by Atlanteans, is the case of the British regiment which supposedly turned into a fleet of UFOs that
looked like loaves of bread! In 1915, a British regiment
engaged in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey, apparently.
marched right into a bread-shaped cloud bank. The soldiers did not emerge from the other side of the clouds,
and legend has it that the warriors are now bivouacked
somewhere in space or quartered on a base in the Bermuda Triangle. Melvin Hartis, in Fate magazine dated
January 1982, has debunked this version of the incident,
although the debunking claim was probably published
too late for Baran to mention it in his book. Harris said
that the clouds 'Were really an out-of-season mist, and
that the regiment was decimated by Turkish attacks.
Aside from the inconclusive and dubious evidence of
UFO connections with the Atlantis mystery, there are
some minor factual errors. The first is on page 67, where
Atlantologist Egerton Sykes' {!lst name is erroneously.
spelled Sikes (that may be a typographical error). The
second error is an historical one: On page 61, Baran says

Pursuit 140

. that the Sumerians were Aryans. Although it is known

that they ha.d trade co~nections with the pre-Aryans of
the Indus Valley civilization, it is certain that the Sumerians were not Aryans. Their precise ethnic relations with
oth~r: peoples ~uch as the Egyptians or. the Semi~es are
unknown, and the Sumerians seem tq have been a unique
lioguistic group. But there is no direct evidence that they
came from outer space, Atlantis, Lemuria, or elsewhere.
The Sumerian civilization eVQlved sometime between
6000-4000 B.C.; the Aryan civiliz~tion did not. evolve
until around 2000 B.C. The peop'le of..tl)~.Indus.valley
~c~yil!zation were not Aryans but .Meluhhans and were
conquered by the Aryans. .
There is no biographical data on ~aran, but ~~ se~ms
to have some knowledge of the latest research on magnetic fields. He infers, via the' Cayce readings, that the
Atlanteans had developed the ~cience of electromagnetism
to. high level and used it to power their machines.: On
page 5, he discusses Cayce readings on Atlantean proficiency .in electrical science; he suggests that phenomena
of the Bermuda Triangle type have been caused by the
Atlanteans' power sources submerged under the sea. in
the Bahamas and vicinity. There is.no direct evidence that
the phenomena which take place there are caused. by Atlantean machines or structures. The ruins found. in the
Bahamas appear to be real structures and not just beachrock formations, but it is unlikely that -they ar:e responsible
for plane and ship disappearance~. There is nothing in
Pl~to which suggests that the Atlanteans had electromagnetic knowledge or capability, except perhaps for the
"Thunderbolts of Zeus" and the flying chariot of ~he
sun-god Helios!
. .
. In my opinion, AtlaQtis did exist, probably not in the
center of the Atlantic, but perhaps somewhere on riowsubmerged portions of the continental shelVes of western
Europe or eastern North America. I do not think that it
had a supercivilization; its people were probably more
like the barbarians in those Robert E. Howard fictional
"Conan" stores. Atlanteans. may have had cities," as my
arti'cles for Pursuit ~ave suggested, bu~ there .is no direct
evidence for Atlantean aircraft or spacecr~ft. The "flXing
ships" of Hindu and Ir:ish legends are not Atlant?an,
whatever ~lse they may be. .
.
Baran makes only one direct reference -to the sub.merged ruins found by Dr. J. Manson Valentine in 1~68,
and makes no ref~rence tp the large numbers of s!n:tilar
sunken ruins found since then by Valentine and his .cplleagues, Dr. David Zink and Pino Turolla, for example.
Baran admits that there is not much evidence for Atlantis near the Azores, radioactivity studies of the MidAtlantic Ridge having indicated that there have been no
islands in that area for at least 72,000 years. However, he
appears to have not known about the Ampere Seamount
which was .indeed dry. land 12;000 years ago and, as I
noted in my Pursuit articles, there are fascinating reports
which date back to World War II of sunken ruins in that
area. Oddly enough, Baran does not mention the numerous reports of sunken cities featured in Charles Berlitz's
.
books to which he refers extensively~

Tlalrd Q rter. 1982

THE PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF THE

ACCIDENT AT 'THREE MILE ISLAND by Larry Arnold "
(Parasclence Internatfonai, 1025 Miller Lane, Harrls- '
burg, PA 17110, ,1980)
Reviewed by E. Macer-Story
Larry Arnold's book is an interesting compilation of
premonitions of disaster associated with the near-catastrophe at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor site near
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979.
It is difficult to proceed along the conventional lines
usually open to the reviewer:, examination, quotation and
assessment. The book is not put together in a professional
manner; it is greatly overburdened by' numerous lists
which have not been coordinated in useful fashion to aid
the reader's comprehension. His reason for writing 'the
book, however, is entirely laudable, Few will disagree
with his contention that clusterings of premonitions as to
impending disasters should be heeded before the fact by
governments and officials who have responsibility for the
public well-being.
Arnold's plea advances from the personal experience
of having written a fictional newspaper story describing
a meltdown in detail, 'months before the near-meltdown
at Three Mile Isiand; it 'must, have been frustrating for
the author to discover that his publicly documented premonition was treated as mere annoyance by several official agencies.
'
As one who has also made accurate predictions-and
who has fictionalized events before the fact as Arnold
did-I share some of his frustration. Apparently, most
citizens' and the officials who represent them just won't
listen to these inspirations until tragedy occurs. Perhaps
we should institute a new malady and call it the "Cas, sandra Complex." Cassandra, you remember, was the
prophetess who failed to warn Agamemnon convincingly
that he would be muraered by his wife. Cassandra was
right, ,but nobody was interested.
However, when we attempt to deal with the ability of
a psychic, or psychics in general, to alter the future by
prediction, we find ,ourselves on very sticky ground. If
the psychic "predicts" a disaster and gives warning, anc~
the disaster doesn't occur, the prediction is more likely to
be faulted for "inaccuracy" and for having caused needless alarm than to be recognized as having forecast the
event in such timely detail as to enable steps to be taken
for its prevention.
In my practice as a psychic, I know when events can
be changed. When there is contingency, I am aware' of a
"vacuum" around the images-an absence of ordinary
emotion. However, when it seems fairly certain that a
tragic event will occur, I feel a flux of emotion surrounding the prediction; I suppose this is not my emotion, but
the emotion of the people who will suffer in the tragedy.
As is readily apparent to common sense, if a tragedy can
be averted, the emotion of reaction to it may thus be .
absent from the psychic prediction of the possibility.
Although Arnold's emphasis on the emotional nature
of the correct premonitions regarding Three Mile Island
is understandable, it strikes me that he should pay equal
attention to non-emotional premonitions if he hopes to
contribute much to the prevention of tragedy. One of
parapsychology's sacred precepts is that accuracy of ESP
impressions is always e~otional. I disagree.

Third Quarter 1982

I am seated at my desk in an absolutely calm and nonemotional state. It is my perception that Larry Arnold's
career has been interfered with by persons who find his
statements on the current scientific ignorance of the energystate of the atom to be dangerous, in a "practical" sense;
but I think the situation can be altered.
However, it can be altered only by a shift of emphasis
from consideration of prophecy to what Arnold has to
say about energy. The predictions in his book are true
and documented; yet within the paradigms of modern
physics, "it's impossible." This can only mean that practical physics is somewhere "wrong."
. Let us bope that Arnold will look about himself with
increased awareness. He has presented modern physics
with an ultimatum, and th~re may be people around who
don't much like the idea.

UFO REPORTS INVOLVING VEHICLE INTERFERENCE by Mark Rodeghier (Center for UFO Studies,
P.O. Box 1402, Evanston, IL 60204, 1981, 144 pp.,
"'us., $9.6~ incl. postage and handling)
Reviewed by Robert Barrow
During the fifties and sixties, pioneer UFO research
organizations attempted to keep their members abreast of
cases in which a UFO seemed to' affect the electrical and/
or mechanical function of a nearby motor vehicle. These
incidents became known as electromagnetic, or simply
EM, cases, and their value has been discussed in numerous publications over the years. The current entry by
Mark Rodeghier bears the subtitle "A Catalogue and
Data Analysis. "
.
.
Wh,i1e UFo-related EM events have involved vehicles on
land and water, aircraft, TVS and radios, and power-generation (e.g., "blackouts"), etc., this statistical ,study
is confined to a random survey of 441 cases which includes only land (primarily) or water vehicles.
Pages 1-75 provide brief descriptions, in chronological
order, of electromagnetic-interference incidents covering
the years 1944 to 1979 (there is om: case from 1909).
Selected mainly from a variety of published UFO sources,
the cases are representative of EM events internationally,
and even casual readers will find this chapter of interest.
The 'author explains, ho.wever, ..hat "the central purpose
in doing this study, nevertheless, was not to compile a
catalogue. . . . Rather, I wished to form a statistical
description of th~ characteristics of EM events, one .that
would serve future investigators as a basis for' further
study. "
Following th~ lengthy section of case summaries, the
author begins 'to virtually "hammer away" at thinking
minds with apparently computer-derived data; the flow
of numbers, percentages and, hence, relationships, is
intense as he lists. and qiscusses unusual EM characteristics,
witness-involvement (age, sex, etc.), weather conditions,
duration of events, etc., among the 441 documented cases.
The author goes on to discuss the presumed physics
behind the EM effects as he examines patterns and summarizes his findings-or, we should say, his fe-elings. He
takes great care to caution the reader that, at this point in
UFO-EM investigation, it is more appropriate to suggest
than to prove or attempt to prove much of anything.
An appendix,: reference and source list complete this
truly scientific display.
o

Pursu',141

,' .. ;;

I It

,,' >'

The Notes of Charles Fort

~~

For some obscure reason, Fort cut a notch on

the right side' of the note ..
For some obscure reason, Fort cut a point on
the left side of the note.
about
According to
American Journal 01 Science
[ ? Almanac? I

ab
Ac to
A. J.Sci
(A 1)

~merican

Amer
An Phil
An Reg
Arcana of Sci.
BA

Annals 01 Philosophy
Annual Register
Arcana 01 Science
Report 01 Ihe British 'AsSociation lor the
Advancemenl 01 Science
The Books 01 Charles Fori
BelgiuM'
between
Bibliographie Universelle
Bulletin de la Sociele Belgium
de Geologique [ ?] .
:

.. .

BCF
Belg.
be!.
Bib. Univ.
Bull. Soc. Beige
deGeol.

(C)
(C)

[ ?']

corr.
C.R.
0-75
det. met.
disap.
Edin J Sci
Edin New
E.N.E. toW.S.W.

Eng
E. Siberia
ext.obj.
(F).

F. ball
Gent. Maliaz
Gt Brit
h

H H~use :
hid.'
.'
Int'. conjunction

(It)

J. F. Inst

Chaos [Fort's working titie for New Lands]

correspondent
Comples Rendus
.
The Book 01 the Damn~, page. 75
detomi.ting meteor
disappeared'
Edinburgh Journal 01 Science
Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal
East-Northeast to West-Southwest
England
Eastern Siberia .
extraordina~ object
Fletcher's List
Fireball
Gentleman's Magadne
Great Britain .
I
hours
Haunted House
Indiana
Inferior conjunction
Italy
Journal 01 the (franklin Ins~itute

Continued Irom Pursuit No. 58,

Vol. /5, No.2, Second Quaner
1982, page 96.

1826
MaY. 24/ 1:20 p.m; / q. at Trente
I [H]ad been cloudless. After the
q., clouds
[Reverse side] gradually collected.
I BA 54.
June / Huge column of Vanessa in
Switzerland. lin March, in
[Reverse side] Piedmont, flying

Pursu't 142

,:.

from N to S. I Mag. Nat. Hist

7-6.10.
Ju~e I P Ladies / See Junes Qf
1827, 1828.
June 8 or 10/ See March,las!. '. :
June 10, period of;1 Large sunspot
I Niles Weekly Register,iJune 17,'
June 17 - or'May 17 I -'-U.S.
Columbia I q preceded by long
continued drought I immediately
foliowed by
.
[Reverse side] "a very heavy rain"
I BA '54 I Shock on Dec. 8,

;". ~.: ';~,

:,', r

i, '
~

*
**

,r

.~ ',t.i
"

'

"1 ,

Dedphered by C~ J. Palist

ABBREVIATIONS

.', ..'

" ,

....

,'!:4

._ - ;,

Jour. de St.
. JourllQ{de St.
.. '. J.. . .. ' .
Petersbourg
Petersbourg
,', . ; ....,::
~:.
Jour. Roy Inst Gt. Brit Journal 01 the RoyallnstltJite.:ol Greal Britain
, (KBR)',
library call letters [ ? ]
lat
latitude
L.B.
Lady Birds .
~.. - 'Z", ;~, ~;~: H.' '~"
,....' ~
Age
Living Age.
LT.
London Times
. .
Mag Nat Hist
. . M,agru.ineol Natural Hisl06.
Meteorite
Metite
"
'I:
mets
meteors
MWR
Monlh!y' W.ea/~r Review
mysteripus death
.
Myst dth
N. England
New England
No More ..
N.M.
N,to,!!! ..
. North.to:S~th . ,
Northwest Africa, ", .
N. W. Africa
Op. Mars .
I OpJ)9Sition of Mars. '

Li,,:

.~

p.::"

page

phe
Phil Nat. Gazette
P Ladies
Pop. Astro.
Pop Sci Rev
Proc. Amer Phil. Soc;
q
.

phenomena
Phillldelphia Na~io~1 Gazette
Painted Ladies ,
Popular ASlronomy
Popular Science'Review
.'
Proceedings 01 American Phi/~"ic;tlI.Socie'Y
'. earthquake'
.'
.
'.'
.
.

Qua~ Jour Roy Inst

Quarterly Journal olllw.Royallns~itufe;

Reporl oj the British Association jor.t"!
. Advancement, 01 Science
.
South America
Scientific American Supplement
sCienl;ji~ Gaz.e.I;~.p] .
.
Sumner C~unty, Tennessee
Southwest to Northeast
thuni:ler stone

Rept BA
.
S.A.
Sc:AmSup
Sci. Gazette.
Sumner Co., Tenn.
S.W. toN.E.
th stone
th storm

thunder. stor~

United States of Columbia

u. s. Col.
Vanessa Cardui
V. Cardui
Vienna Museum of
Vienna Museum of NaturaI'His~~~
Nat. H'ist. .'
';,
'v~l~ eruptions.'
, voicarjic eruptions
.
.
I
. : Wes~ Indies
W.I.
wrms
worms
West' to ~ast
WtoE

.'

'

immediately followed by rai~. I

[Front side] See June 3, 1827.

[BCF, p. 861. See July, 1824]

about I Fish / Loch Le~n, ScotJune 17 I "Im!llense 'sunspot land 1 J. F. lost 4/43.
,"1 ' '.
coming on the sun / according to
.
a corr. I Edin J. Sci 5-245. I
July or August I (mirage) I ac to
1 Juni 17' I U.S. Columbia' hj.l M. Perrey / Image .of Langres on
1II I [Heavy I BA 1911].
clouds in sky I CR'I2I768.
.
s~mmer I Piedmont I swa:rril of V. Juiy 21 I Heidelberg,l. F. ball I
Cardui, like 1879/ Nature 20-255.
[BA] 60.
'
,
July / 0"84 I Moradabad,lndia./ . July 29 I Florida. I F. ball /
fish. I Liv. Age 521186.
BA60.
July 31 I Another Stark Vulcan /

!t*

, Tlalnl Quner 1911

(Aude) I Great heat in the' ~orn~

Phil. Soc. of Manchester Memoirs,
Feb 9 I 7 p.m. I "A tremendous
ing. At noon, massing clouds in . 2-9-146, says that, about 1827- explosion was heard. Listed as a
like a great deal found in Lyell's q. I Roper, List of Earthquakes,
the west. Then a thick black Cloud
.'
suspended over a field. Cr!ic~ling Principles and Darwin's Origin, this p.32.
account is from hearsay-someand hissing and air rushing'toward
Feb 16 I Mhow (Azamgarh,
. thing fell from the sky, near N. W. Provs), India I (F).
the cloud. A loud
Allport, England. It fell luminously,
(Reverse side] detonation and an
Feb-March I Hupeh (Yunyang),
enormous column of fire traversed
with a loud report, and scattered
China I small q's I BA 'II.
From Sept. 6 to Nov. I, 1831, an the field-throwing' down walls
in
a
field.
A
fragment
that
was
unknown luminous object was seen
Feb 16 I (London Times), 3-b I q I
seen by Dr. Smith, is described by
every cloudless night, at Geneva, and trees and picking up and
him as having "the appearance of Alicont I Eng?
by Dr. Wartmann and his assis- killing sheep. A strong sulphurous
Feb. 23 I March 21 I Dec 3 1/ q's
a piece of common wood chartants (Comptes Rendus, 2-307). It odor. Nothing said it burning
in Holland where q's rarel Quar
coal." Nevertheless, the reassured
was reported from nowhere else. anything.
.
Jour Roy Inst 271202.
feeling of the. faithful, upon reading
What all the other astronomers Sept I I 20 sunspots. Had been
this, is burdened with data of March 25 I ab 2 p.m. I Supposed
-.
were doing, September-October, . many in August.
differences: the substance was so q-but explosionl of a ship off
1831, is. one of the mysteries that (Reverse side] But after Sept I,
uncommonly heavy that it seemed coast of Lancashire. I An Reg
we shall not solve. An unknown, none till 23, when another 'outas if it had iron in il; also there
1827/59.
(London
Times],
luminous object that was seen, burst.. I
was "a sprinkling of sulphur."
from May II to May 14, 1835, by' Oct 6-3-d.
March 28 I [london Times), 3-c I
This material is said, by Prof.
Cacciatore, the Sicilian aSlrQ'!ome;r . Sept I See Aug 7, 1823. I WaterSubterranean fire I Arrington,
Baden-Powell, to be "totally
(A mer. Jour. Sci., 31-158). Two ville, Maine I night I great det met
Dorset.
unlike
that
of
any
other
meteorite."
unknowns that, according to' I' a stone picked up I "probably
March 29 I (Gent's Mag,G-reg,
in
his
catalogue
(Rept.
8ril.
Pastorff, crossed the sun, Nov. I, not really meteoric" I BA 60-72.
Assoc., 1860-73), calls it "a more Ap., 1827, .p. 360, 396, 638) I
1836, and Feb. 16, 1837 (An. Sci. . Sept 41 Halle I F ball I (BA] 60
. than doubtful substance"-but 'Smoke from the. cliffs opposite
Disc., 1860-410)-De Vico's un-'
_:
_'.
Weymouth. Apertures, or craters,
again, against reassurance, that is
known, July 12, 1837 (Observatory, Sept. 7 I Sea brilliantly lumm~us
formed. Said had been smoke at
not doubt of authenticity, Greg
2-424)-observation by De Cuppis, Gulf St. ~awrence I. Jour. Roy
intervals for three years. I Holsays that it is like compact charOct. 2, 1839 (C. R., 83-314)-by Inst Gt. Brit 1-194.
worth Cliff.
coal, with particles of sulphur and
Scott and Wray, last of June, 1847; Sept 13 I Bordeaux I Daybreak I
[Reverse side] But it was a slaty
iron pyrites embedded.
by Schmidt, Oct. 11, 1847 (C.-R., Met I BA '60.
limestone that the people burned
Reassurance
rises
again:
'83-623)-two dark bodies that Sept 18 I Most tremendous q in
for a substitute coal.
Prof. Baden-Powell says: "It
were seen, Feb. '5, 1849, by Brown; 50 years in Cuba_ I Arcana of
contains also charcoal, which
of Deal (Rec. Sci., 1-138)-object Sci. 1828-131.
April I Manna-grain I Persia j
might perhaps be acquired from
watched by Sidebotham, half -an Sept 28 Iinnsbruck, in the Tyrol I
Ap 11 I Ischia, Italy I I I q I
among
which
it"fell."
hour, March 12, '1849, crossing the '1 :30 a.m. I q .and sound like
[Light"'. BA 1911).
This
is a common reflex with the
sun.(C. R., 83-622)-and' an object thun-der I
Ap 17 I Austria I q. I I I
exclusionists: that substances not
'that was watched, four nights in (Reverse side) BA 54.
[Lightl BA 1911).
"truly meteoric" did not fall
I
October, 1850, by James Ferguson,
of the Washington Observatory_ ' OCt 6 I (London Times), 3-d
from the sky, but were picked up
May 9 I Drake Co.; Tenn.,
Sun Spots.
.
by "truly meteoric" things, of
Metite I (F).
Mr. Hind believed this object to be
course only on their surfaces, by
a Trans-Neptunian planet, and Oct 26 I Leece, Italy I q I. I I
May 9 I Nothing in Phil Nat.
impact with this earth.
calculated for it a period of 1,600 (Ligh! I BA 1911).
Gazette.
Rhythm of reassurances and
years.. Mr. Hind was a great Oct 29 / India I Nepal.l KatMay 9 I 4 p.m. I Sounds like
their declines:
.,
.
.
asironomer, and he miscalculaiect ' mandu I Patun I q I 11 I
cannon fire in aerolite I Drakes
According to Dr. Smith, this
magnificently: this floating island . (Medium I BA 1911).
Creek, Sumner Co., Tenn. I
substance was not merely coated
of space was not seen again: Nov. 10 I (London Times), I
A. J. Sci 18-3781
with
charcoal;
his
analysis
gives
(Smithson. Miscell. Cols., 20-2q),) 2.f / Aurora.
(Reverse side] Immediately picked
43.59 per cent carbon.]
up. Was cold. I See May 8, '1829.
Aug 3 I 'Frankenstein I F_ ball I Nov 18 I Passage of comet across
S.W. to N.E. I BA 60.
sun I Flammarion, Pop Astro,
I J. Frank Inst 4/49 I Shells fell,
May 9 I .. Another shower of
early in 1827, at Monastereen,
.
Aug 3 I Leipzig. I f. ball. I 'p. 521.
stones" I ae to Amer papers at
Kildare.
Nashville, Tenn_ I
Dec I I (In Arctic) I Comet that
E.N.E. to W.S.W. I BA 60. . [Reverse side] Gent's Mag, July,
Aug 8 I (London Times), 3-f I
had been indistinct 2 nights before,
(BCF, p'. 381: .
p.78.
.
~ame brilliant in west. I Franklin,
L.B. at Brighton I "A great fall
Clerke, The System of the SlaTS,
at Brighton
.
"Narrative of a Second Journey,
May 20 I Geneva I 6 inches of rain
p. 295-a nebula that changed
p. 295 I It formed a trapezium
(Reverse side] and in the sea." I
in 3 hours I Q. J. Roy Inst 25-232.
position abruptly, between the
;.
with .l\lpha Aguilae, Alpha Lyrile,
N.M.
May 22 lor' Aug 221 1/ Somer
years 1833 and 1835, and then
August I tli stone I Large stone Alpha .Coronoa Bofj:alis.
changed no more. According to
Co I Metite very similar to that of
fell on Mt. Galapean (Lot-etDec,23 I 15 h I Venus I Inr.
Sir John Herschel, a star was
Utrecht I See June 2-1843.
.
Garonne), ac to Quetelet, in th conjunction I (A-I)..
central in this nebula, when obMay 30 I Lima, Peru I 11 I
storm. I Rept BA 1860-71 I (See Dec 2(; I Dark Day I Glasgow I
served in 1827, and in 1833, but, in
[Medium quake I BA 1911).
August, 1835, the star was upon summer I Hay-silex object I Pop
Sept 5, '14.)
LT, 1827, Jan. 514/b.
the eastern side of the nebula.]
Aug 8 I Odensee IF. ball I
Dec ~ I I Dammerung I Fireball I
Sci Rev 6/475.
(BA] 60.
BA 60.
. Jan 2 I Montague (Orne) I q I
June /. Eruption of Albay, in the
Arcana. of Sci 18281155.
Aug '11 . I Halle I Fireball I
1827
Philippines, at least to middle of
BA60.
Jan 9-10 / Hurricane I Ireland I
Feb, 1828. I BA 54.
ab I Light of Cornwall I GentleAug 18 I q I I (Light] / Jamaica I
16th, hurricane and "noises in the
June 3 I Martinique I UnpreceBA'l1.
mans Mag 142/part 2/637 I For
air like explosions of artillery I
dented drought of 66 days. Upon
18 I F' b II I BA 60 I . I!lvaders and H House; see .. ~agill!ll!tHist 8-25., .
A. ug
July 21, a violent shock. Others in
Ire a
.
\ Oct, 1834.
Jan 11.1 (London Times], 3-a I q I
England.
,
Oct and Nov.
Jan last I Myst dth I Times 18271
. h' I t C
Crawford I Lead Hills.
(Reverse side) Then a slight q and
A!lg 26 I Flery w Ir. a
ar- Feb 5/3/e.
.
rain. I BA '54 / See June 17,
Jan 16 I (London Times], 2-e I
cassonne I Flammanon, The
Atmosphere,
about I Charcoal I England I
Hurricane I Eng II 23-4-b. I
1826.
(Reverse side] page ~87, says 14 . (28).
Belg. and Teneriffe.
. June 8 or 10 I See 1826. / Great
sheep asphyxiated by it.
migration of painted ladies in
Jan 16 I China'/ q. I III I
(BCF, pp. 73-74:
Aug 26 I Fiery Wind / Carcassone
Dr. Angus Smith, in the Lit.and [Heavy I BA 1911].
Switzerland. I A. J. Sci 14/3891
See 1820, Feb. / black spot
crossing the sun I 'c.~. 83/623.
(BCF, pp. 412-413:
Things that crossed the sun,
July 31, 1826, and May 26, 1828see Comptes Rendus, 83-623, and
Webb's Celestial Objects, p. 40.

Thlnl QuaneI' 1982

Pursuit 143

a.-

. . . .I . . . .I. . . . . . . . . . . ._,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .~_. . . . . . . . .W . .II_. . . . . . . .

(Reverse side) Stream lasted

detonation and fall of stones /
2 hours.
Q J. R. Inst 25232.
June Ii I Tehuucan, Mexico I II I
Oct 9 / Jour des Deb, 18th, tells of
iinedium quake / BA 1911).
other great rains, especially on
11th, and
.'
'
June 25 / perforation. / Italy I
(Reverse side) floods. Rhone,
Edin New 26/107.
highest since 1801.
June 29 I Ab 20 leagues E of the
Azores, Capt. Le Sauvage traversed
Oct 9 I Mag of Nat Hist- 1384 /
(Reverse side) a space 3 oieagues in
Joyeuse (Ardec;he) / 29 inches 'of"
width covered, with volcanic
water fell in 2 hours. In 11 days,
stones, sugar canes, straws, and
36 inches fell.
pieces of wood. He supposed they
Oct 9 I At Joyeuse (de l'Ardeche),
were the debris of a volcanic
fell 29
.
eruption.
[Reverse side) inches of rain. In
(Front side) Nothing volcanic'
eleven days in Oct' there fell here
mentioned I BA '54-June 1236 inches of water, or about double,
violent shock, Tehuacan, Mexicothe quantity for the whole year at
finds nothing looking a year
Paris. I .
back-Milne I BA '11 gives this
[Front, side) Arcana of Sci
(Reverse side) medium rating. I
1829-201.:
See ab March, 1905. I
(Front side) Arcana of Science
Oct 17 / wrms / Jour. de St.
, J829-174.
Petersbourg, Nov 14, copied in
July 5 I 6 a.m. / and Aug 9,
Edin J. Sci '9:154 / At town of
at night II Shock at New Albany"
Pokroff, in Russia~ "a prodigious
Ind. I National Gazette (p-hilaquantity' of worms of a black,
,
delphia), July 23 I
color, . ringed and in length three(Reverse side) Aug 9-Gazette of
quarters :of a verschok". "They.
25th I on 9th, 2 / 10 p.m., and
had on each side three feet, by
I a.m. of 10th.
means of ,which they appeared to
crawl very 'fast upon'
.
Aug 7 I New Albany, Indiana. I II
[Reverse: sidel the snow. Body
(light quake I BA 1911).
from head one-third down looked
Aug 8 I qs and vole eruption, in
like black .velvet. In a vessel filled
Kamtschatka I BA 54. ,
with snow several lived nine days,
Aug 22 I or May 22? II "Somer
although tlie thermometer 8 degrees
Co., U.S.A. I stonefall I ac to
below zero. Those carried to a
. Wolf. I BA 67-416.
warm ~lace soon died. I D92.
Aug 28 I Aurora I N.Y., etc. I '
(BCF, p. 96:' '
A. J. Sci 14-91.
Immense number of black in:
Aug 30 I At Kuld-Schu, stones
sects in a snowstorm, in 1827, at
fell, ac to Baumhauer. Doubtful,
o
Pakroff, Russja. (Sc:ientific Amerac to Greg. I BA 60.
ican, 3~-193.)
Aug. / China I Stonefalll BA 60;
. Oct il-23 / Caucasia / I I (Light
Aug and, Sept I Auroras I Gt Brit
quake lBA 1911). '
I Am J. Sci. 14/95, 108.
Oct 31. i Along coast of Kent,
Sept I -Aug = 15/199 II
extremely' high tide. Banks of
A(ur'ora?) / France I A.J .S.
.Thames
'
14/107.
(Reverse side) flooded, and many
Sept. I A ! Denmark I A.J.S;
sheep drowned. I Gent.'s .Mag,
14/107.
Nov, p. 457.
Sept. 25 I Ext. aurora I London I
Nov 15 I Frankfort I F. ball I
Quar Jour Roy Inst 24/385 I
[BA) '60.
Arcana Sci 1828/150.
Nov
16 /, U.S. Columbi[a) /
Sept 2S 'I early evening I at Portland" Maine I Streamers of light , Violent q.-great destruction,
from 81\ points of horizon, i ' detonations, "Occurring at intervals of thirty seconds
focussing at zenith.
[Reverse side) with wonderful
(Reverse side) Fewer streamers in
regularity. Gases discharged and
north, where sky blood red. I
masses of mud. I BA 54.
National ,Gazette (Philadelphia),
Nov 16 / q. I Bogota I and extraOct. 3.
ordinary rains / Mag. Nat. Hlst
Sept. 25 I II p.m. I Great aurora I
6-300.
London / Gent's Mag, Oct, p. 354.
Nov 16 I 6 p.m. I Great q I
before Sept 26 I Great q I
U.S. Columbia II 17 I 9 a.m.' I
Lahore I BA 'II.
severe shocks I E. Siberia 1/1
Sept 27 I (London Times), 3-c /
BA54/
28-3-b / Aurora.
[Reverse side) Almost exactly
Oct 5 I (F) / stonefall I Bialistock,
same time.
'
Russian Poland I Greg asks :if
Nov.
18
/
U.S.
Columbia
/
date = Oct 8. I
eruption
of
volcano
of
Parace.
I
(Reverse side) BA 60.
BA54.
Oct 8 / right date II Belostok,
(To be cO;/linl!ed)
Russia I bet 9 and 10 a.m. I 'great

PUNul,144

,The Endless Procession

(Continued from page 110)
Eve c'ould not fulfill that purpose. It has taken a 've~
long time, and required the careful conditioning of bil
lions of people. Now the nature 'of that conditioning is
slowly being' revealed to us, perhaps as a first step toward revealing the entire master plan. The final revelation
may not come in our generation, howev~r, or even in the
next dozen generations. The phenomenon' is in no hurry.,
We were first controlled directly by our manufacturers.
,We called them. gods and worshipped them. Before they
departed they set' up a system of rule based on "godkings" ... human beings who had been processed and
given hereditary powers not possessed by the general
population. The planet was divided, up among about
tllirty of these god-kings and their system remained ill,
effect for thousands of years, surviving well into the
modern Industriid Age. But the mode of control gradually
became diluted ,and -polluted by human greed, politics,
and religion. Finally it collapsed altogether. The legendary
'conflict between the serpent people and the rulers of the,
biochemical robots has 'continued, however, and the situation is now so desperate that both sides seem willing to
expose their modus operandi to us through overt action
, in the framework of the UFO phenomenon.
In other ages, we accepted this conflict as a battle for
men's souls. Now it is 'becoming apparent that there is
more at stake. We, the biochemical robots, are the prize!
The serpent people-the anti-human forces-are imitating
the UFO phenomenon through hallucinations and distortions of reality to confuse us, while the gods are trying
to reveal, more of themselves and their purposes to us.
Millions of people are now able to see beyond the visible
's~ectrum and to sense, the presence of these forces, and
our two very different worlds are beginning to. overlap. '
The 'future will bring a series of sm~1l climaxes, explosions of sudden insights and information, and a gradual
strengthening of the, comrilUnication channels between us
and "them:" As our awareness increases we may become
inore and more subservient to these forces, sliding back
to our ancient condition when we were enslaved by them.
The process of change is already underway. The UFO
phe'nonienon is rapidly becoming a new. religion....:....a religion based on the premise that we at:e inferior to some
advanced race from another world, a race that is coming
to save us' from ourselves. The basic theme of UFO contact has been anarchism and the promise of a marvelous
'new socio-religious system. it has almost been an election
campaign. The promises have been dazzling but there
has been no attempt to fulfill them. The ancient gods,
arid their'successors, the' god-kings, lied to us and manipulattid us, and'there's no indication that the tactics"of the,
modern Ufonauts are any diferent.
" If we are biochemic~.l robots helplessly controlled by
, forces that can scramble our brains, destroy our memories,
and use us in any way they see fit, then we are caught up
in a poker game being played with marked cards. Someone seems to be trying to tip us off about the marked
deck, but we are like the inveterate gambler 'who, when
informed that the game is crooked, s.hrugs and says,
':"Well, it's the only game' in town." ~
Third Quarter 198a

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Mail: SITU/PURSUIT, P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739 USA Telephone: (201) 842-5229
GOVERNING BOARD
Robert C. Warth, President; Gregory Arend, Vice-President; Nancy L. Warth, Secretary
and Treasurer; Trustees: Gregory Arend, Donald DeLue, pro. tem., Steven N. Mayne,
Nancy L. Warth, Robert C. Warth, Martin Wiegler, Albena Zwerver.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. George A. Agogino, Director of Anthropology Museums and Director, Paleo-Indian
Institute, Eastern New Mexico University (Archeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato, Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Bl'ain Injured, Morton, Pa. (Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, Northwestern
University (Astronomy)
Dr. Martin Kruskal, Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University, Princeton,
New Jersey (Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell, Professor of Biology, Rutgers the State University, Newark,
New Jersey (General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic, Professor of Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Alberta, Canada (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier, Unit of Primate Biology, Queen Elizabeth College, University of
London, England (Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger, Professor, Department of Psychology, Laurentian University,
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada (PsycholoRY)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury, Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture, Utah State
University (Plant Physiology)
- . Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, Consultant, National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering, Vero Beach, Florida (Mental Sciences)
-,. Dr. Roger W. Wescott, Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Drew
University, Madison, N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight, Chief Geographer, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, D.C. (Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck, Professor and Chairman, Department of Botany, Drew University,
Madison, N.J. (Botany)
ORIGINS OF SITU/PURSUIT
Zoologist, biologist. botanist and geologist Ivan T. Sanderson, F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., in association
with a number of other distinguished authors, established in 1965 a "foundation" for the exposition and
research of the paranormal-those "disquieting mysteries of the natural world" to which they had devoted
much of their investigative lifetimes.
As a means of persuading other professionals, and non-professionals having interests similar to their
own, to enlist in an uncommon cause, the steering group decided to publish a newsletter. The first issue
came out in May 1967. The response, though not overwhelming, was sufficient to reassure the founding
fathers that public interest in the what, why and where of their work would indeed survive them.
Newsletter No.2, dated March 1968, announced new plans for the Sanderson foundation: a structure
larger than its architects had first envisioned was to be built upon it, the whole to be called the Society for
the Investigation of The Unexplained, as set forth in documents filed with the New Jersey Secretary of
State. The choice of name was prophetic, for Dr. Sanderson titled one of the last of his two-dozen books
"Investigating the Unexplained," published in 1972 and dedicated to the SOCiety.
Another publication was issued in June 1968, but "newsletter" was now a subtitle; above it the name
Pursuit was displayed for the first time. Vol. 1, No.4 in September 1968 ("incorporating the fourth Society
newsletter") noted that "the abbreviation SITU has now been formally adopted as the designation of our
Society." Issue number 4 moreover introduced the Scientific Advisory Board, listing the names and affiliations
of the advisors. Administrative matters no longer dominated the contents; these were relegated to the last
four of the twenty pages. Most of the issue was given over to investigative reporting on phenomena such as
"a great armadillo (6 feet long, 3 feet high) said to have been captured in Argentina" -the instant transportation of solid objects "from one place to another and even through solids" -the attack on the famed
University of Colorado UFO Project headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon-and some updated information
about "ringing rocks" and "stone spheres."
Thus SITU was born, and thus Pursuit began to chronicle our Investigation of The Unexplained.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISSN 0033-4685

Understanding the Unexplained

I am standing in front of a gas range. Standing alongside of each
other on the range are two pans so much alike that one may be mistaken
for the other. Both are half full of water. I notice that steam is being
emitted continuously from the one pan, but not from the other. I am
surprised at this, even if I have never seen either a gas range or a pan
before~ But if I now notice a luminous something of bluish color under
the first pan but not under the other, I cease to be astonished, even if
I have never before seen a gas flame. For I can only say that this bluish
something will cause the emission of the steam, or at least, possibly it
may do so. If, however, I notice the bluish something in neither case,
and if I observe that the one continuously emits steam whilst the other
does not, then I shall remain astonished and dissatisfied until I have discovered some circumstance to which I can attribute the different behavior
of the two pans.
-Albert Einstein